Charlie was older now, but he still told horrible jokes and pulled pranks on his friends. He laughed too loud, embarrassing Nora, as if the sound was coming out of her mouth instead of his. She knew why he had chosen her, when there were more outgoing girls, prettier girls. She had wanted him for the same reason.
Nora had never been a romantic like her sister, her head full of fantasies. The one thing she and Charlie had in common was practicality. They wanted the same sort of life. She could tolerate his quirks, endure his manner for the sake of getting to see her father, her gran, her sister and brother, her best friend every day. Their farms stood side by side. Joining the land would be good for both families. A husband didn’t matter that much, compared to all the rest. Most of the married couples she knew hardly seemed to interact, especially after the children came.
The Flynns and the Raffertys had helped each other down through the years, the friendship between them stretching back to the town’s founding and solidified in 1888, when the pub owners and shopkeepers boycotted the local landlord, Moroney, refusing to serve his people. The shopkeepers were thrown in jail, including Miles and Henry Rafferty, Charlie’s great-grandfather and his brother, who ran the butcher shop in town but were needed home on the farm at the weekend. The pair was imprisoned for the better part of two years. It was John Flynn, Nora’s great-grandfather, who vowed to help keep the farm alive in their absence, going over each day with his three brothers after working their own land.
Years later, Henry Rafferty went to America. Once established, he began bringing relatives over from home. Now, as most young people in the town headed to Liverpool or London, the Rafferty children went to Boston. Charlie’s sister Kitty and three of his brothers had been there for years.
Charlie had no intention of joining them. He thought America was crowded, hectic, morally corrupt. Kitty had run off and married a Protestant from California, a man she barely knew. The episode caused Charlie and the rest of them no end of heartache. They get there and they think it’s a dream, he said. They get there and they just run wild.
Until a year ago, the only Rafferty children left in Ireland were Charlie and his oldest brother, Peter, who spent most afternoons on a bar stool inside Friel’s. It was Charlie who did the work, devoting himself to the family land like it was his birthright. More than once, his father had said, “Someday this will be yours.”
Nora turned nineteen, twenty. Then Charlie proposed down on the beach, on bended knee and all. A pointless gesture. They both knew they couldn’t be married until the land was passed to him. Nora waited. She did what she could to help her father, but she knew he couldn’t go on with three grown children in the house much longer.
She gave him most of what she made at the factory, but it wasn’t enough. She hung back at the dinner table, going to bed hungry some nights, though she didn’t let anyone see. Once a year, her father shot a pig, or her brother, Martin, did it. Theresa would cover her ears to block out the animal’s scream. Dinner was always a single rasher cut down for each of them, the salt rubbed off, the rest fried in a pan and served with brown bread and turnip. As a year wore on, the rashers got smaller and smaller to make them last.
One Sunday morning after Mass, Nora found Charlie waiting for her in the churchyard. From the look on his face, she thought someone must have died. She knew her gran was inside, hoping to get her face seen by the visiting monsignor. Who then? His father. Her father.
“Who?” she asked.
“My father said last night that he’s getting tired,” Charlie said slowly, precisely. “He’s ready to hand down the farm.”
“Charlie, that’s grand.”
She pictured herself and Oona hanging curtains in his mother’s sunny kitchen. Herself and Oona drinking tea in the garden.
“He’s decided Peter will get it. He says Peter is the oldest and that’s how his own father did it.”
“But Peter will—”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. He looked like he would cry if Nora went on, so she stayed silent, even as her head filled with questions.
His father had told him he should go to America.
That was it, she thought. He had come to break it off with her.
But Charlie said he had worked out a plan. He would go ahead to Boston and get them situated. When he was ready, he would send for Nora.
“We’ll be back before long,” he said. “With enough money to buy a farm of our own, bigger than our two fathers’ farms combined.”
She was stunned that he wanted the two of them to carry on. She didn’t know what to say.
Nora had never given much thought to America. Only when she was seven, and Oona received a talking doll for Christmas from her aunt in Chicago. It was the first talking doll anyone in town had ever seen. Nora wished then that she had an aunt in America. She had even lied and told Oona that she did.
Her strongest urge was to tell Charlie they should end it. She knew people who had lost a boyfriend, a girlfriend when someone went away. Charlie had to go, and that was that. Nora went with her family more than she did with him. She loved them more, owed them more. But Charlie wanted to stay together. He was one to get used to things. His brothers had married their first sweethearts and he would do the same.
At home that evening, she told her father what Charlie had said. Nora assumed he would tell her she was needed here. She thought he would forbid her to leave.
But instead he said, “You’ll have to go with him. You’re engaged to be married.”
Nora thought of Theresa. She couldn’t let her sister end up the woman of the house, working in the factory, waiting on the men for the rest of her life. Their father didn’t have a clue how to raise her. And for all her flirting, Theresa didn’t know a thing. Nora had protected her as best she could.
She recalled how Father Boyle came to lecture to the first-year class at the convent school each year. He liked to lean over a girl from behind while she was seated at her desk, doing the reading. He’d hover there, looking left and right, howling at anyone who dared to lift her eyes from the page. They all stared down, though they knew just what was happening. The girl he singled out could feel his breath in her ear. Ever so lightly, he’d place a hand on her shoulder and run it down, down into her dress, making no sound, cupping her breast, his cold and clammy skin against hers, soft and warm. He’d leave his hand there for an agonizing moment before drawing it away, shouting, “Now. Girls. What have we learned?”
He always chose the prettiest girl. In Nora’s year, it had been poor Oona. Oona never told a soul besides her. She said her mother would have blamed her. You didn’t question a priest. Whatever he did was justified by God, by his position. Nora knew her own father wouldn’t believe such a thing was even possible.
When Theresa had to go into his class, Nora couldn’t stomach the thought of what he would do to her. She made a bodice out of cloth and feathers, a pillow, to the thickness of a slice of bread. It clung tight to Theresa’s chest, bound to her skin from waist to collar. When Father Boyle tried his old trick, he found that there was no way into her. She wore a soft suit of armor beneath her clothes.
—
“I could never go to Boston without my sister,” Nora told Charlie before he left.
It seemed to her like a barrier he could not overcome. But he said he would save enough for both their passages. He told Nora she could come first, and in time they would bring Theresa.
Nora told him she would wait until they could travel together. It came to her then, a reason to go. In America, Theresa might become a teacher, as she was meant to. A woman their mother would be proud of.
Charlie’s mother thought they should be married before he went away. She said it wasn’t proper for a girl to cross an ocean based on only a promise. But Nora said there wasn’t enough time. Charlie’s father’s cousin in Boston, Mrs. Quinlan, said she’d never had anyone but family come to stay. As it was, her guest rooms were always full. But she agreed to take Nora and There
sa in for a short while, as long as Nora and Charlie were married soon after they reunited.
While they were apart, Charlie wrote her letters, and she did the same. The letters took a week to arrive. The conversation was disjointed. He told her about the city, about the job he’d gotten, painting houses with his cousins. He said it was easy work most days, compared to what they had to do on the farm. Sometimes, holding a thin blue envelope in her hand, Nora imagined it contained a message telling her that he had found someone else, that she wouldn’t be going after all.
It took eleven months for him to save the money and make the arrangements. He wrote then and told her to prepare. He said the timing was good. Another relative had just moved out. There was an empty room in the house for Nora and Theresa. Mrs. Quinlan had helped Charlie secure jobs for them both in a dressmaker’s shop.
Charlie promised it wouldn’t be forever. He said Nora would like Boston, for as long as they were there.
I’ll never get used to how different it is. You turn a knob on the kitchen sink and hot water flows right out. There’s no carrying water from the pump, or boiling it in the kettle to clean the clothes. That’s just one of a million little miracles that everyone here takes for granted. You won’t believe it, Nora. I can’t wait for you to see.
—
The town of Cobh was busy and bustling. Brightly colored shops and houses were crowded into the hillside, a grey cathedral looming over all.
They sat on a bench by the pier for hours, watching the fishing boats and the ships passing by. Nora felt exhausted already and the real journey hadn’t yet begun. Six days at sea, and on the other side of it, a world she couldn’t imagine, a man she could barely recall. She hadn’t seen Charlie’s face in a year.
As night fell, she saw Theresa smile at a young brown-haired man passing by with his friends.
“You girls on the eight o’clock?” he asked.
“Yes,” Theresa said. “You too?”
“Come have something to eat at the Commodore while you wait.”
Theresa opened her mouth to reply, and Nora said quickly, “No thank you.”
“But I’m hungry,” Theresa said as they watched him go.
Nora took Oona’s sweet cake from her bag and handed it to her sister.
“There.”
When it was finally time, they lined up to board a tender that would take them to meet the ship. Nora’s heartbeat seemed like it might rip a hole in her dress at the sight of the thing, floating in the distance, massive, lit up against a black sky and sea.
Once, a circus had come to Miltown Malbay. Everyone gasped as an elephant ambled down the Flag Road. Nora thought then that it was the most extraordinary thing she would see in her life, but she had been mistaken.
3
THEIR CABIN WAS BELOW the waterline, four narrow bunks with a private toilet. Nora had brought a light yellow blanket from home, crocheted by her grandmother. She spread it out on one of the bottom bunks first thing. The sight of it made her feel better.
At first, they thought they might have the room to themselves. But before long, a lady and a little boy entered, lugging a trunk covered in stickers in a language Nora couldn’t read. German, she thought. They smelled like they hadn’t bathed in days. They didn’t say a word.
Theresa widened her eyes.
The woman opened the trunk and began to place items of clothing directly on top of Nora’s blanket.
Her chest tightened. She didn’t know what to say. She looked to her sister.
“Excuse me,” Theresa said. “That bunk belongs to her.” She pointed at Nora.
The woman looked confused. Nora thought perhaps she didn’t speak English. Theresa said it again, gesturing toward the blanket. The woman took the items back and placed them on the bed opposite.
“Sorry about that,” Nora said.
She showed no reaction.
—
The woman who did not speak snored louder than seemed humanly possible. The little boy slept right through it, but for the entire first night, Nora and Theresa were kept awake by the sound. Theresa kept throwing the top half of her body down over the rails into Nora’s bunk, sighing audibly, daring to shoosh the woman every hour or so, though it made no difference.
Nora lay there, worrying about what was to come. She had been so busy that she hadn’t had much time to think. She knew it was an indulgence. When she stepped off this ship, she would have to accept her life as it was. She imagined them sinking to the bottom of the sea, all her worries for nothing.
She wondered where the woman and the boy were headed, who would meet them on the other side. Were they leaving a husband and father behind or going toward one?
She thought of her mother, wondered if she hadn’t died, what she would advise Nora to do now. But if she hadn’t died, this moment might never have come. Nora might have ended up more her own girl. She might have gone off to Dublin like some of them did, become a nurse, met a man whom she hadn’t known every second of her life.
Most of all, she thought of Charlie. Every hour, she felt a heavier sense of dread, that much closer to him.
—
When the sun rose, Theresa said she would go mad if she couldn’t get out and take a walk before breakfast.
“Come with me, the air will do us good,” she said.
But Nora couldn’t move. Her body ached.
“What’s wrong?” Theresa said.
She couldn’t explain it. Charlie had warned her that she might feel ill if the ship passed through a storm. But this wasn’t that. The waters were calm.
“I’ll be better in a few hours,” she said. “I just need sleep. You go on without me.”
But it seemed like a permanent state. She imagined the ship docking in New York, with her unable to get off. Maybe she could ride all the way back to Ireland, her sister safely chaperoned to her new American life.
All morning, the room was silent. The woman sat in her bunk writing letters, as her child tried to make his plastic soldiers stand up straight on the floor. Each time a wave rocked the ship, they toppled, and he began all over again.
Theresa didn’t return until early afternoon, throwing the door open, giving them all a start. She was flanked by four other girls. They piled into the tight quarters, as if, having found one another, they could not bear to be separated for even a minute. The German woman looked up as Theresa introduced them by name like they were all one—Anna-and-Madeleine-and-Helen-and-Abigail, she said.
She rooted around in her suitcase at the foot of the bed, and Nora pulled the sheet to her chin.
“Anna heard a rumor that Jean Simmons is in first class!” Theresa said. She looked like a child whose birthday cake had just been carried in on a platter, even though Nora didn’t think Theresa had particularly strong feelings about Jean Simmons, one way or the other.
“We’re going to find her and refuse to leave her alone until we get an autograph,” one of the girls said.
Another, a tall blonde in glasses, came right over and pressed the back of her hand to Nora’s forehead as if they’d known each other all their lives.
“Theresa said you were sick. Do you have a fever?” she said. “Maybe you need the nurse.”
“No,” Nora said. “I’m all right. I just want to lie here a little longer.”
“Well, I can see why. On account of it being so luxurious and all,” the girl said with a smile.
“Abigail’s going to be a teacher in New York,” Theresa said, gesturing toward the blonde.
“Ninth grade math,” Abigail said. “Saint Hugo of the Hills High School. I know it sounds like it belongs in the countryside, but my cousin assures me it’s just a big ugly building in Queens. She’s held the position until now, but she got a new job and she put me up for her old one. She’s been trying to get me to come over for ages.”
“You’ve already had your teacher training?” Nora said.
“Yes,” she said. “In Dublin.”
Nora wondered why sh
e would want to leave home when she could get a good teaching job in Ireland.
The other girls were all going different places. Anna said she was bound for Cleveland, where her brother and his wife were. Madeleine would take a train from New York to Virginia. Helen was going to Philadelphia to live with a great-aunt she’d never met.
“In her day, you could take the boat straight there,” she said.
“A friend of my mother’s flew over in forty-four,” Anna said. “The plane landed in Nova Scotia and they gave everyone breakfast while they refueled. Then they were straight on to New York. Now that is the way to arrive in America.”
They all talked as much as her sister did. How did girls like this always find one another? It was so easy for Theresa to make friends. Nora never felt comfortable around new people. She couldn’t think of what to say. Even at sea, they were themselves.
She wished the girls would stay for a while. Sit on the bed and tell her stories. But a minute later, they were gone.
—
They came back to fetch her for dinner, but she said she couldn’t eat.
Madeleine said there would be a dance tonight, and Nora ought to try to come.
“I don’t think I can,” she said.
“I’ve never been to a dance anywhere but home,” Theresa said, twirling in place. “In our town, they still stop the dances for Lent. It’s as backward a place as can be. I heard they’ve had dances during Lent in Galway for years.”
Nora gave her a look. Theresa was talking too much. She was showing off.
“That’s how it is where I grew up too,” Abigail said. She turned to Nora. “We’ll bring you back some soup. Are you sure you’re all right?”
“She’ll feel better tomorrow,” Theresa said, and stroked Nora’s head like she was a cherished pet.
Saints for All Occasions Page 3
