Music from Home

by Geraldine O'Neill

  Just at that point a car came up the avenue and they both turned to look. When Diana recognised Father O’Donnell’s car her heart started to race, knowing that any minute she was going to come face to face with Leo’s father-in-law and brother-in-law. She wasn’t sure whether to walk quickly back into the house now or stay and greet them. When they saw the priest trying to manoeuvre his car into a tight space at the corner, Jane said she’d better move the car to give them more room, and that she would see Diana at the funeral.

  By that time, Diana felt it would look rude if she just walked in, so she waved Jane off then stood just at the gate. She watched as the back door of the car opened and a tall, sandy-haired young man, who she estimated to be around thirty, with a strong nose in a dark suit, got out and went to open the passenger door. A few moments later a slightly shorter, stockier grey-haired man in his mid-sixties emerged, and then the priest, dressed in his dark soutane and carrying his prayer book.

  It struck Diana that Maria did not look at all like her Irish relatives, apart perhaps from her eyes , which although dark, were not quite as dark as Leo’s were.

  “Ah, Diana!” Father O’Donnell said, coming towards her. “This is Mr Patrick Donovan and his son, Jude. Diana was a close friend of Leo and Maria.”

  The two men came forward, the younger man first. “Very nice to meet you, Diana,” Jude Donovan said, coming to shake her hand. His father did the same and she noticed he was limping slightly. When they both smiled at her, she could see a strong resemblance between them, and thought they were both surprisingly good-looking men. She saw no reaction other than friendliness on their faces.

  The priest gathered them together, and then said in a quiet tone. “I’ve explained the situation to Patrick and Jude, and they agree that it’s best if we tackle things one step at a time. We want her to get to know them a little better before broaching the subject of her going to Ireland. I think it best if I go in ahead and speak to Maria in the dining room and get her prepared to meet them.” He turned to Diana. “If you wait outside here for a couple of minutes until I have her safely in the dining room, then you might bring her grandfather and Jude into the kitchen for a cup of tea.”

  “Thank you, Father,” Patrick Donovan said. “We appreciate the help you’re giving us.”

  Father O’Donnell clapped him on the shoulder. “She’s a good girl, and we need to do the best we can for her.”

  They watched as the priest went into the house and then Jude Donovan looked at Diana and said, “It’s a lovely street, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” she said.

  He glanced at his father then he said, “Do you know Maria well?”

  “Yes, I think so. I only got to know her and Leo this year, but we all got on very well.”

  “It’s a terrible situation,” Patrick Donovan said, “terrible altogether. The last thing you expect to hear about a fit and healthy young man.”

  Diana swallowed hard and nodded.

  “According to Father O’Donnell he was helping some poor harmless créatúr when it happened.”

  “Yes,” she said. “That’s what happened. He died because of a bang to the head.” She was surprised she could say it so easily when a few days ago she could hardly bear to think of what had happened.

  “Shocking, shocking . . .”

  “Leo was obviously a very decent man,” Jude said, “and Father O’Donnell said he was held in high regard by everybody who met him.”

  “Yes,” she said. She suddenly felt she had to give the very best account she could of Leo. She had to make sure they understood the kind, generous man he was, because she had no idea how his wife had painted him to her family. “Hundreds of people have called to the house to pay their respects. People from when he first came to England when he was a young man, people from the places he worked in, members of the local Catholic Church where Father O’Donnell works, customers from the restaurant and of course all the Italian community.”

  “That tells you the measure of the man.” Jude looked over at his father. “We’re just very sorry we never got to know him.”

  Patrick Donovan nodded his head. “What can we say? It’s not the way we wanted it . . . it’s just the way things have turned out.” He looked at Diana now. “How has Maria taken it?”

  “I think it’s gradually sinking in.” She looked now and saw Father O’Donnell at the door, gesturing to them to come into the house. He pointed at his chest then the dining room, then he pointed to Diana and then at the sitting room. Diana looked at Maria’s grandfather and said, “I think it’s safe for us to go into the house now.”

  Diana brought them into the crowded sitting room. They seemed oblivious to the other mourners as they went straight to the corner where the coffin was. They bowed their heads in prayer, Patrick taking his black rosary beads from his pocket and threading them through his fingers. She waited a few minutes by the door to the kitchen until they had said their prayers and then they came over to her.

  “He looks well,” Jude Donovan said in a quiet and respectful voice. “He’s hardly changed since I last saw him all those years ago.”

  Diana saw a look of wretchedness cross Patrick Donovan’s face, but he just bent his head and said nothing, and Diana knew that for a moment he was reliving his own daughter’s funeral. She then brought them into the kitchen and introduced them to Bernice, Franco and Mrs Lowry. Whether any of them had been introduced on that previous occasion by Leo, she could not tell, for no one said anything, and she supposed it would be difficult for the Donovans to remember after all that time. After shaking hands with them, Diana noticed that Mrs Lowry said nothing, instead turning to the teapot and cups to sort drinks. It occurred to her that the housekeeper of course knew Anna Donovan well and, even though she had read Leo’s letter, she probably still had mixed feelings about meeting the family after all those years.

  Bernice offered them food but both men thanked her and said tea alone would be fine. Diana moved to the sink to help Mrs Lowry with washing up while Franco talked quietly to the men as they drank their tea. From the small snatches of conversation she overheard and the way both Irishmen reacted to him, Diana could detect no awkwardness about his nationality or anything that he said. When she went over to offer them refills and they thanked her warmly, she again could only detect a pleasant friendliness about them that seemed genuine.

  Twenty minutes had passed since they came into the house and there was no sign of Father O’Donnell. Diana felt the knot of anxiety in her stomach tighten, and she could see the others glancing at the clock.

  “What time did you say the Rosary would be?” Patrick Donovan asked.

  “Eight o’clock,” Franco said.

  Everyone then looked up at the clock to see that it was just after half past seven.

  Father O’Donnell, looking very serious, came into the kitchen and closed the door behind him.

  “I think I’ve made a little bit of headway,” he said, “although it wasn’t easy at first. But, after a good discussion with her, I’m delighted to say that Maria is willing to meet Patrick and Jude.” He joined his hands together and closed his eyes for a few moments as though in prayer.

  “How is she, Father?” Jude asked, his forehead furrowed.

  “Given all that girl has gone through,” the priest said, “she is better than could be expected.” He looked over at Diana. “Maybe you and Franco would come into the dining room with us?”

  Diana’s heart was pounding as they all made their way through the mourners in the sitting room out into the hallway and across to the dining room. Maria was sitting at the far end of the table, with her elbows leaning on it and her hands clasped together over her face.

  As soon as the door was closed everyone sat down – the Donovans at the opposite end of the table from Maria – and Father O’Donnell started off. “I don’t know if you remember your grandfather, Maria, but this is him – Patrick Donovan – and this is your Uncle Jude.”

  Maria lifte
d her head and looked over at them and Diana saw the red rims under her eyes.

  “They understand it’s very difficult for you meeting them like this,” the priest continued, “and they just want you to know that they have come here tonight with the utmost respect for you and your father.”

  Jude Donovan’s eyes flickered anxiously from the priest to Maria. “The last thing we want, Maria,” he said quietly, “is to make you feel in any way uncomfortable. We’re very grateful that Father O’Donnell was good enough to contact us and tell us about . . . tell us what had happened and, if you feel okay about it, we would like to stay for the Rosary tonight and come back for the funeral.”

  Maria’s head drooped and her hair came down to cover her face, and instinctively Diana moved from her place to put her arm around her. She wanted to tell her that it would be all right and that her grandfather and uncle seemed like very nice people, but instead she kept quiet for fear of it looking as though Maria had no say in the matter.

  “Maria . . .” her grandfather drew a weary-sounding breath, “we know that it’s very hard for you, but there have been misunderstandings about the past, and if you’ll give us the chance we would like to make up for that. What’s past is past, but you’re our family and this might be the time for us to get to know each other in the way we should have a long time ago.”

  Maria suddenly sat up straight in her chair, her body stiff. “Where is my grandmother? Why didn’t she come with you?”

  Jude leaned forward now. “She’s back at home with my younger brother, Ambrose. He’s not in the best of health . . . and she doesn’t like us all to be gone from him at the same time.”

  There was a strained silence, then Father O’Donnell looked at his watch. “I think maybe now if we all go inside for the Rosary, and you can chat between yourselves later.”

  Everyone rose apart from Maria.

  Jude spoke quietly to his father and then leaned over to Diana and said, “If it’s okay, I’d like a quiet word with Maria on my own.”

  Chapter 32

  The sun glinting through the curtains woke Maria early the following morning and her first thoughts were of her father lying in the room below and then, one by one, all the events of the previous day fell back into place. She wondered if Stella had slept at all knowing she had her doctor’s appointment this morning, and she wondered what would happen to her after that.

  She then thought of Paul and his exam results. After hearing Stella’s mother say that the A-level results had come out a few days ago, she had asked if he had received his when he rang her the night before. He then told her he had got the results the day he and Tony had come out to the house but he hadn’t wanted to start talking about something like that when he knew there were much more serious things going on. He then said he had got three A-levels which he was astounded by – two B’s in English and History and a C in Maths. She said it was fantastic news and congratulated him, and asked if it the grades were enough for the college in Northumberland he had applied to.

  He told her that it was, and he was sure he had a place on a year-long course in Horse Breeding and Training which would help in his proposed stable-management career. The course, he said, started mid-September, so he had a few weeks to sort out all the things he needed and maybe go up for a visit beforehand to see the college accommodation where he would be living.

  “I thought,” he said, “that if you feel up to it, I could get the car one day after the funeral, and maybe we could take a drive up to Northumberland for the day. I thought it might do you good to get away – a run out in the country to get a bit of fresh air?”

  Maria thanked him and said she would see how she felt and this morning, as she lay there, she still could not think that far ahead or imagine enjoying a day out. Apart from gearing herself up for the funeral tomorrow, she had the complication of her uncle and grandfather to think about.

  During the years since her mother had gone, she had built up a picture of a cold, heartless family who had rejected both her mother and her father, and had made little effort with her. But the two men who had sat with her in the dining room had not fitted into that picture at all. And the brief talk she’d had with her uncle had forced her to rethink everything she had believed. He said that hopefully one day they would get the chance to sit and talk properly about all that had happened between his parents and his sister and Leo.

  She had looked at him, her face white with tension. “Why couldn’t you have said this when my dad was alive? Why couldn’t it all have been sorted out years ago?”

  Jude Donovan had looked back at her with sorrow in his eyes. “I have no answer to that. I cannot answer for those involved but, for what it’s worth, I agree wholeheartedly with you. I was only young when it all happened and didn’t understand anything about it. But what I do believe is that no family should have been shattered the way ours was. And it should have been fixed up long ago. Time just added to all the damage.”

  “It’s too late to do anything about it now,” she said. “What’s done is done.”

  “I fully understood how you feel,” Jude replied. “But I think for the people that are left it would never be too late to get to know you.” He went on to tell her that he and his father would be up in the Elizabethan Hotel all day the following day and they hoped she might come up and join them for lunch or a sandwich or whatever she felt like.

  When her grandfather and uncle had gone, Maria had sat on her own trying to make sense of this latest bombshell that had dropped amongst the debris that used to be her life. She was also disconcerted by the striking resemblance that Jude Donovan bore to her mother, not just by the shape of his face but in his accent, mannerisms and even in the way he held his head to the side when he was listening. Although he was a number of years younger, and had that stronger but not unattractive nose, there was no denying that they were brother and sister.

  He had immediately presented as a pleasant and polite man and she had instantly sensed he had that same warmth and innate decency and consideration for other people as her father had, and he had also shown himself to be a good listener. She also thought that something about the way his eyes crinkled so easily as he talked indicated that, under less serious circumstances, his face was a smiling one and he would have a good sense of humour.

  She had not yet formed an opinion of her grandfather. He was a much quieter and, she felt, a shyer sort of man. But he had been equally nice to her, and his face and eyes had been very sad-looking when he said how sorry he was about her father and the long estrangement between them and how he wished with all his heart it hadn’t happened.

  Now, as she thought about it her eyes filled up, thinking of the terrible waste of time during all those years when they maybe could have been like a normal family, going on holidays to Ireland in the summer in the same way as she did to Italy. She manoeuvred her spare pillow into her arms and held it in a tight hug, wishing she had someone there to put their arms around her and tell her that everything was all right, even though she knew that nothing would ever be right again. She wished Paul was there to hug and hold her or even Diana, who she could hear downstairs already. And then she almost smiled to herself when she wished she had a little dog like old Mrs Flynn’s Poppy, who she could cuddle like a baby.

  She eventually moved from her bed and was just slipping on her dressing-gown to go to the bathroom when she heard hushed voices outside the bedroom. She carefully opened the door just a crack and listened for a few moments, and then she realised it was Franco and Bernice.

  “I warned you, Franco,” she heard Bernice say in an angry whisper, “I warned you not to let that woman anywhere near us again.”

  Maria shrank back from the door, her hand over her mouth. In all the years she’d known them, she’d never heard them argue before. She’d thought they were one of the happiest couple she knew.

  “Ah, Bernice, you can’t keep going on like this about her,” she heard Franco saying. “You’ve being going on about it
since last night. You have to understand that I had nothing to do with her being here – it was Vincent who brought her in the car with the other waitresses. I haven’t seen her since she left the restaurant last year. I have nothing whatsoever to do with that woman. Who comes to the house to pay their respects to Leo has nothing to do with me.”

  “You should have warned Vincent not to bring her – he knew about the row I had with her after that Christmas party. And Leo wasn’t keen on her anyway – he wouldn’t have had someone like her in his house.”

  “Shh…. you’ll waken Maria!”

  Maria moved over to the bed and climbed back in, so she could pretend to be asleep just in case Bernice came in to wake her. The sound of them arguing shocked her and made her feel very uncomfortable.

  “To think I let that woman baby-sit our children,” Bernice said, “and all the time she had her eye on my husband!”

  “Nothing happened,” Franco said. “She was drunk and acting stupid – I told you that and Leo told you that.”

  “It didn’t look like nothing when she was all over you, and when I tackled her she didn’t deny it. She acted as though any man would fall for her, the bloody trollop!”

  “Bernice!” Franco’s voice rose an octave above the heated whisper. “You should know I am not interested in any other women. Why would I be when I have you? You are the love of my life and I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.”

  There was a pause during which Maria felt a wave of relief wash over her.

  “You say that, Franco,” Bernice said now, “but you did kiss her that night. I caught you both when I came to drive you home. You can’t deny it.”

  “It was only a stupid Christmas party kiss,” Franco said, “under the mistletoe. Everyone was kissing.”

  “She better not turn up at the funeral,” Bernice said.

  “But Bernice, the church is a public place – you can’t stop people coming into the church.”