The Family on Paradise Pier

by Dermot Bolger

  Eva was exhausted but knew that Hazel was not in a forgiving mood. ‘I want to spend time with you now. Once I check how things are with Mrs McGrory.’

  ‘You never bothered checking with the cook before going off with Francis.’

  Eva cajoled Hazel sufficiently for the girl to accompany her to the kitchen where Mrs McGrory’s monosyllabic answers made plain her disapproval at Eva’s absconding.

  No telegram had come, Mrs McGrory said tersely. The cyclist had been Mary’s brother with a message that left the maid even more contrary than usual.

  A dozen tasks required her attention, but Eva decided to risk more opprobrium by sneaking out with Hazel to saddle the pony. She walked alongside the pony until her legs ached. Yet she knew it was still not enough, with Hazel convinced that Eva was holding back some secret she had shared with Francis.

  They stayed out for so long that Eva barely had time to change for dinner. The MacManuses arrived from Kiltimagh in their pony and trap when she was still fixing her hair. Eva allowed Miss Crossan and Hazel to fuss over her appearance before she went out to greet Dermot MacManus, a fifty-year-old bachelor who had been gassed in the Great War and passionately believed in the countryside spirits. The children loved his gentleness and the bonfires he lit to appease the fairies on Midsummer’s Eve. Freddie regarded his beliefs as tommyrot, but enjoyed Dermot’s company as a fellow Mayo Protestant. Eva noticed that Dermot’s maiden aunt, Lottie, looked frailer than usual, though her mind was still sharp. She made sure to sit beside her. Gralton was absent.

  ‘Your Yank has a bad tummy,’ Freddie explained. ‘Sends his apologies. Mary will see to his needs.’

  Eva tried not to show her unease. With Belton gone, Mary was the person she still worried about. Miss MacManus leaned forward. ‘How is your ghost?’ she whispered loudly.

  Freddie laughed. ‘An old wives’ tale, with respect, Miss MacManus.’

  ‘Perhaps, Freddie,’ the old lady replied. ‘But I remember you running upstairs after wetting your trousers as a child when sent down to fetch something there.’

  Freddie laughed dismissively. ‘I disremember that.’

  ‘Loneliness is the worst curse of all,’ the old lady continued, ‘as we discover in time. I don’t know why you never had the cellar blessed. As I told your mother and grandmother his spirit needs someone to reach out and share his loneliness.’

  ‘Bedad you’re the man so, Mr Fitzgerald,’ Mr O’Sullivan risked a joke. ‘Seeing as you’re well able to handle spirits.’

  The Dublin RC faltered, his reference to Freddie’s drinking prowess greeted by stony silence. But Miss MacManus seemed oblivious to the interruption.

  ‘I know loneliness,’ she continued. ‘You might not think so in a big house like mine, but servants are no company and though Dermot does his best he can’t be there all the time. That’s why it’s good to be out with such fine hosts.’ She raised her glass. ‘To Frederick and Eva and the wonderful go they have made of life here.’

  Despite the stress of this day Eva flushed with pleasure at the toast. When Mary served the main course she managed to avoid eating the duck by saying that she had neglected to say goodnight to Hazel. Francis was asleep, but Hazel peeped out from under the blankets, her earlier crankiness forgotten.

  ‘My feet are freezing, Mummy. Why are they always cold in this house?’

  Used to the ritual – and drawing as much comfort from it as the child did – Eva lifted the girl’s bare soles out from under the blankets to nestle them against her stomach. This posture reminded her of the story of a local couple during the famine. Sick of being separated in the workhouse, the husband had carried his dying wife eight miles across frozen tracks back to their cabin. When found dead he was still cradling her bare feet on his stomach to provide warmth. That hunger was etched in the memory of old Mayo people who never spoke of it. And etched in Art’s guilt too because Grandpappy’s father had cleared smallholders off his lands, profiting from other people’s misery. Hunger brought out the extremes in people, which explained why desperate men locked into absolutist positions ruled so much of the world. Philosophy must seem a luxury if starving in a Dublin slum or South Dakota dustbowl. But there had to be room for dissenting thinkers, unnoticed and vital as plankton, who provided no answers but questioned reality.

  Hazel wiggled her toes free. ‘I love you, Mummy.’ She put her feet sleepily under the blankets.

  Eva remembered Mother sitting by her bed in Donegal, the scent of hand cream and the aura of being loved. Would Hazel recall such tender moments or just quarrels and imagined slights? Her absence from the table would become too pronounced if she stayed any longer. She kissed her daughter and promised that tomorrow, when the men were shooting, she would sit with her daughter and play the Moonlight Sonata – which Hazel loved – on the gramophone Mr Clements had purchased. Mrs McGrory would have left by now, walking to the village where she would talk to the Durcans in their shop while waiting for a passing cart headed for Castlebar. Eva checked the kitchens where Brigid was washing the pots. The girl looked uneasy when Eva enquired if Mary had served the pudding.

  ‘She’s in with the Yank, mam. She’s been peculiar all evening…I don’t rightly know what she’s doing.’

  The guests would wonder what was happening. Hurrying down the corridor Eva heard Mary’s voice from Gralton’s room.

  ‘I want the truth from you just once!’

  Eva possessed little to bribe the girl with. Not that bribery entered into it. The maid seemed too fanatical not to seize her chance to turn in a wanted communist.

  ‘I’ve told you the truth,’ Gralton’s voice replied.

  ‘Your sort never tell the truth.’

  ‘You’re mistaken about me,’ Gralton said as Eva opened the door. The maid seemed near tears.

  ‘I’m mistaken about nothing, Mr Fortune!’ she snapped.

  ‘You’re mistaken about everything because you know nothing,’ the man said gently. ‘All your life you’ve been fed lies. I can’t answer your question about what will become of you in New York, except to say that you’ll cry yourself to sleep with homesickness at first, too scared to leave your sisters’ room. But even though they have poverty over there as bad as here, there are opportunities, night classes, a chance to learn. I know you’re afraid, but take this risk when you’re young.’

  Mary turned. ‘My brother told me this afternoon that a registered envelope has come, crammed with dollars, Mrs Fitzgerald. I can go to America now whenever I like.’

  ‘Isn’t that what you want, Mary?’

  The girl wiped her eyes, embarrassed. ‘I thought so, but my sisters talked about sending the money for so long that I half thought it would never happen. You see…the boy I’m walking out with, he’s sweet on me if he’d only say it.’

  ‘Let him follow you if he’s sweet,’ Gralton said. ‘Let him save up or let you send him the fare in time.’

  ‘Michael save?’ Mary laughed bitterly. ‘That fellow couldn’t save his life by passing a pub. Any dollars I’d send home would be drunk with every jackass hanging out of him.’

  ‘Then forget him. Give yourself this chance because you know what will become of you if you stay.’

  ‘What?’ Mary snapped and Eva knew her pride was hurt.

  ‘You know what,’ Gralton replied quietly.

  ‘I want to hear it from you. He’ll stick me with a dozen squawling kids, is it? All of us starved in some cabin while he’s out chasing tinkerwomen and drinking every penny? That’s what you’d like, eh, so we’d fall into your hands? Because who’d be there to loan us the few bob, then come looking for it to be repaid a hundred times over? You know the answer, Mr Fortune, because I see through your fancy clothes. You might fool Mrs Fitzgerald who’s away with the birds but not me.’ Mary glared at Eva. ‘Or maybe you knew all along, Mrs Fitzgerald, and still harboured him under your roof.’

  ‘Knew what?’

  ‘Max Fortune…that’s a Jewman’s name. You’re
harbouring a crooked-nosed moneylender, with me skivvying to serve one of the race who crucified our Saviour.’

  ‘Stop it, Mary.’

  ‘I won’t. You knew because you let him swank out shooting with Mr Devlin, but you have him stuck down here when your own sort, the gentry, came to dine. You’ll burn in hell like all Protestants anyway, but I’ll not risk my soul under the same roof as a Jewman.’

  ‘I said stop it,’ Eva repeated. ‘Go upstairs and serve the pudding!’

  ‘Don’t address me like that! That’s how Mr Belton talked when I tried to warn him he was consorting with a Jew. I thought he’d thank me and give me hope that O’Duffy will save Ireland from Jewboys and communists and I’d have no need to leave. But he just looked down his nose like you all do. Well, damn you and your precious pudding to hell, because I’m taking myself away from this sanctuary for Jews and British spies. And I’ll need no references from your sort where I’m going, mam.’

  The girl threw down her apron before stomping off. Gralton looked at Eva who was shaking. ‘I’m sorry I brought this on you,’ he said.

  ‘How can anyone carry around so much hatred?’

  ‘She’s scared. Scared people lash out.’

  ‘I was convinced she recognised you. Is Fortune a Jewish name?’

  ‘When you’ve only known the bog every new name is suspicious. I know this because no more ignorant gobdaw ever left Leitrim than me. I came home to show people that we could educate ourselves and make a fist of life here. Now here I am urging some girl to leave.’

  ‘You’re in no hurry to follow suit.’

  ‘She’ll come back to visit some day, dolled up with a brood of kids. When I’m put on that boat I’ll never see home again. Art sent no word?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s time I stopped bringing trouble on your head. This room feels like a crypt anyway. I never knew anywhere so cold. I’ll be gone in the morning after putting money in your husband’s palm.’

  ‘How?’

  There was a cough from the doorway. Eva turned to find Brigid there.

  ‘The pudding will be ruined, mam. Mrs McGrory was most particular about when it was to be served.’

  Eva imagined the puzzled diners upstairs. ‘Get a white apron, Brigid, and we’ll serve it together.’

  ‘I never served at table before, mam.’

  ‘You’ll be fine. Mary has left.’

  ‘Good riddance, mam. She’s only a blow-in from where they eat their young in Foxford.’

  Eva helped the girl to carry the tray up to the dining room. ‘It’s help ourselves tonight.’ She tried to sound light-hearted. ‘I’m afraid that Mary has upped and decided to emigrate.’

  ‘To somewhere cold I hope,’ commented Mr Clements who never liked the maid.

  ‘In the middle of a meal with no notice?’ Freddie turned to the two Englishmen, needing to turn the incident into local colour. ‘That’s us Irish, you know, when the blood is up. She has by no chance eloped with Mr Fortune?’

  ‘We have an American guest ill downstairs,’ Eva explained to Miss MacManus as she served her.

  ‘Not too ill I suspect,’ Freddie ventured. ‘I had to dress him down for dangerous shooting, but I thought he’d take it like a man instead of sulking.’

  ‘I suspect he’s tired,’ Eva said.

  ‘From leaping about like a mountain goat.’ Freddie laughed. ‘I never saw a man so at home on the bog. Irish blood in his genes, evolution and so forth.’

  ‘I’d have no truck with evolution,’ Mr O’Sullivan said testily.

  ‘I don’t think Mr Fitzgerald was referring to monkeys in trees,’ the Commander pointed out. ‘Though by the sound of it Mr Belton climbing from a bog hole did resemble a rather large angry black ape.’

  Eva watched Freddie laugh, with his cares momentarily forgotten. The joke engaged the men’s attention, severing any need for more explanations about Mary. Although Eva hated confrontations, the house felt cleansed with her gone. More changes were needed if she were not to simply drift with events.

  Leaving the men to their brandies, she took the old lady into the drawing room where Miss Crossan had already staked a position by the fire. The governess greeted Miss MacManus like a lost friend, enjoying fussing about and making her comfortable. Miss MacManus humoured her, glad of the company of someone closer to her own age to compare aches and pains with. Once Eva sat down she realised how exhausted she felt. Yet she could not rest easy until Gralton was gone. After a while the men came in to gather around the fire. The simile between the mud-caked Belton and an ape had obviously been much elaborated upon over the brandy, with even the Dublin RC laughing now. Dermot MacManus sat beside her, his jacket collar displaying flecks of dandruff.

  ‘Aunt Lottie loves coming here,’ he said. ‘She gets lonely. I do my best but it can’t be like the old days with parties and balls.’

  ‘I’ll call over soon,’ Eva promised.

  ‘I know you will.’ Dermot squeezed her hand. ‘You’re a brick. On her wavelength as people say now.’

  Eva moved around the room, fulfilling her last duties of the evening. Mr Clements sat apart, with his chair positioned under a gas jet. As usual he seemed content to be on the edge of things, half-listening to the conversation while reading a book in French. He looked up and smiled. ‘It’s good to be back,’ he said quietly and Eva knew that he had stopped himself from adding the word home.

  ‘The place doesn’t feel like home without you,’ Eva replied, deliberately using the word.

  He acknowledged the gesture. ‘You’re kind, Mrs Fitzgerald, but the day I joined the navy I left home. I’ve only ever been billeted in quarters since then. One hopes that Mr Belton finds few recruits in Castlebar tonight.’

  ‘I’m just glad to see the back of him.’

  ‘Let’s hope you have.’ Mr Clements lowered his voice. ‘And that your Yank doesn’t become the talk of Mayo.’

  ‘He’s not my Yank,’ Eva whispered. ‘Taking him in was a favour I could not refuse somebody.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know…never having had a brother.’ The Commander noticed Eva’s tense expression. ‘I hope I do not offend. Old sea dogs should mind our own business. But I didn’t wish to see you compromised. That’s why I paid him a visit. I just felt that when he leaves it might be best if he is in a position to pay Freddie.’

  ‘I’m already too much in your debt.’

  The Commander picked up his book. ‘It’s your home, Mrs Fitzgerald, not mine. But some nights this creaking house feels like a battered ship. I would happily go down with it, strapped to the wheel. Still I’d sooner keep it afloat a while longer. Good night.’

  Mrs Crossan would be glad to see Eva gone so that she could swing into her role as fantasy hostess. Freddie followed Eva out into the hall.

  ‘So Mary has left,’ he said, rather intoxicated. ‘Still, you’re a marvel, you’ll find someone else. The barn owl and I shall miss you. Still, one of these nights, eh, with no eyes watching.’

  Naked breast against breast, straw stuck to her back with sweat. An owl flying noiselessly in from the dark with a dying mouse. The whinny of Hazel’s pony below, nostrils arched, smelling their excitement. A scene from a different life, lived by the people they might have been. Would Freddie be excited or shocked if she ventured out to the stables to confront him with her demand for pleasure? She kissed his cheek lightly.

  ‘One of these nights,’ she half-promised.

  In the nursery the children were asleep, with the fire low. Eva lay in her nightdress, listening to distant voices, then the sound of the front door opening and laughter outside as Dermot MacManus helped his aunt into their carriage. Time passed. The two Staffordshire men emerged, conferring in low voices before entering their room. Mr O’Sullivan left, chatting with the Tyrone man. Drink and the companionship of shooting had drawn them into a familiarity that would dissolve once they left Glanmire House. Soon afterwards Miss Crossan’s quick footsteps tripped down the hall, intimida
ted by the remaining presence of the Commander and Freddie. Eva wondered what the two men were discussing, with so much time together and so little in common. But perhaps they felt no need to talk, the Commander absorbed in his book and Freddie staring into the dying fire. What shapes did he see there? Naked breasts and thighs? The wings of an unshootable bird? A boy coiled in distress, too scared to even cry at the death of his father? The taunts of other boys about his club foot? Her thoughts drifted and Eva felt she had been asleep for some time when she woke, convinced of soft footsteps in the hall. They seemed to stop at the nursery door. Eva was certain that whoever stood there had his fingers on the brass door handle. Was it Freddie, come to surprise her on this makeshift bed? Or the Commander, finally unable to face the loneliness of his room? She was wide awake now, but no other sound came.

  Eventually she lay back, convinced that she had imagined the footsteps. Closing her eyes, she imagined her body as a ship sailing to sleep. She thought of the teachings of Meister Eckhart about how the warmth of prayer could become a light into an inner world normally bound in darkness. Eva tried to focus on this thought and imagine a tiny deserted skiff, with just one lantern in the bow, voyaging into the uncharted lagoon of her soul. But the worries of the outer world would not let her go. She looked over at Hazel, peacefully asleep, and could almost hear in her mind the opening chords of the Moonlight Sonata. A charred fragment of log collapsed in the fireplace, with more of a whisper than a thud. The brief spurt of flame lit up the ceiling’s myriad cracks. This room needed painting, she thought. The whole house did, creaking in the wind. Eva turned over on the thin mattress, desperately needing rest but her mind refused to settle.

  With a sigh she rose and stealthily undid the clasp on the wooden shutters. The night was steeped in moonlight beyond the glass. Foxes would be venturing out, with otters breaking cover by the river. A cat paused midway across the lawn, then darted out of sight. Eva was about to close the shutters when a movement near the forest’s edge caught her eye. It looked like a raised arm. She watched with her heart racing and, just when Eva was convinced she had imagined it, a figure knelt up between the distant trees. Somebody was out there again. It wasn’t paranoia. Mr Belton was sly enough to have known all along but gone along with the pretence as he bided his time. He could have led a detachment of Blueshirts to circle the house. They would dispense summary justice on Gralton before notifying the authorities, with disgrace engulfing the Fitzgeralds. Detectives would stomp about the house, taking statements that made her look like a collaborator or a fool. She and Freddie would have no option but to take the boat to England.