by Anita Notaro
‘Well, that describes your . . . her, from what Sister Jarlath told me.’ Julia glanced around.
‘What was her name, my birth mother’s?’
‘She was known as . . . Kitten, I understand.’ Julia’s face was a picture. ‘I couldn’t believe it myself.’ She looked to each of us for confirmation that we couldn’t either. ‘But apparently that’s what was on her birth certificate.’
‘Kitten?’ Emily and I said in unison, then looked at each other and burst out laughing.
‘Ridiculous, I totally agree.’ Julia misinterpreted our laughter.
‘I think it’s fabulous,’ I had to admit. ‘I’d love to have been called Kitten instead of Louisa.’
‘This was more than thirty years ago,’ Julia said dryly. ‘There were no Peacheses or Britneys around then.’
‘My God, Kitten and Sophie.’ Emily tried the two together. ‘I bet that made people smile when they were introduced to us.’ She was already turning them into a pair in her head.
‘I don’t think you were introduced to anyone except customs officials and the nuns.’ Julia wasn’t having any of it. ‘And then us. From that day on it was Julia and Emily,’ she said matter-of-factly, in an attempt to claim back her daughter.
‘And we were a great team, weren’t we, Mum? Still are.’ I could have kissed her for her sensitivity. ‘I was so lucky you chose me.’
‘Well, we always tried to make you feel special.’ Julia softened. ‘So why can’t we just leave it at that?’
‘Did you meet her?’
‘No, that only happened if the mother wanted it. We just collected you after she’d signed the papers.’
I saw Emily gulp. ‘And did she stay in touch?’
‘No. I sent photos, via Sister Jarlath, at Christmas and on your birthday. But after a couple of years I gave up.’
‘I see.’ Emily tried to put on a brave face.
‘That wouldn’t be unusual, from what I know,’ I told her. ‘If Kitten . . .’ it made me smile again ‘. . . was under pressure from her family, then the photos might not even have reached her. People went to great lengths in those days to keep things like that hidden, even within families. They weren’t talked about, not like now.’
‘I know that,’ Emily conceded. ‘Just one last thing.’ She looked at her mother. ‘I don’t necessarily want to do anything about it . . . but I’m just wondering . . . do you have the name of the home, or hospital, where I was born?’
Julia was silent for at least a minute. ‘I have a file, with bits and pieces, but it’s been years . . .’ Emily and I both knew, I think, that Julia could have recited by heart every detail of what was in that file if she’d wanted.
‘Grand so, it’s just in case . . .’ Emily let it hang.
‘Well, I hope that’ll be the end of it,’ Julia sniffed. ‘What good is there in raking up the past, upsetting people?’ I suspect she meant herself more than anyone.
‘Well, Julia, I think you’ve been amazing, telling Emily all this. It takes courage.’ I smiled. ‘Although I’m sure you feel secure in the love you and your daughter have shared all these years.’
‘And so you should.’ Emily’s eyes were damp. ‘You’ve been the best mother anyone could have wished for.’
‘Well, I tried, that’s for sure.’ Julia dropped her facade for a split second and hugged her daughter, and that was the end of it . . . but only for now, I reckoned.
Next I headed for Ashford, to see what chaos Bartholomew was inflicting on poor Denis.
The dog tried very hard to tell me himself as I pulled up at the end of the lane. He tore down to meet me, barking his annoyance, but not at me, I think, because he screeched to a halt in a way that would have done me proud if I’d managed it on my bike, sending muck flying everywhere. Then he wagged his tail at a rate of knots, as if to say, ‘Come on in and sort this out.’
‘Hello, Barty boy.’ I rubbed his stomach and tickled his ear and gave him a treat.
‘Woof, woof. Woof woof woof,’ was what I heard, but I suspect it roughly translated as, ‘You’re not going to believe what he’s done. Be prepared for trouble.’
‘OK, fella, what’s up?’ I asked, grabbing my bag from the box on the back. ‘Come on, show me what the problem is, there’s a good boy.’
He kept sprinting off, barking wildly, then tearing back and looking at me as if to say, ‘What’s keeping you? There’s major aggro going on here.’
Denis was waiting in the yard. He looked a bit frailer, I noticed, or maybe it was just that the harsh winter light lent a grey tinge to his face.
‘Dinny, how are you?’
‘I’m grand, Lulu, which is more than can be said for himself.’ He indicated the dog. ‘He hasn’t stopped barking since all this happened.’
‘What exactly has happened?’ I asked as we reached the kitchen. ‘You were very vague on the phone yest—’ Even if the hysterical barking beside me hadn’t reached a crescendo I could see what the problem was. Tucked up on the armchair – Bartholomew’s armchair – was Pete, the dog from next door that I’d met on my last visit.
‘OK, I can see what’s causing the rumpus all right.’ I dumped my coat and dealt with Bart first, going towards him with a determined look, using a command to stop him in his tracks, then physically forcing him to back off, until his tail glued itself to his anus and he disappeared under the table, where he sat, with a face on him that would sour milk, eyes darting between me and Dinny.
‘Thank God you could come. I’m too old for this.’ Dinny sighed. ‘Cup of tea to warm your bones, Lulu? It’s a right cold one we have today.’
‘Lovely, the chill does seem to have gotten to me.’ I stood close to the fire, but it had only recently been stacked with turf, so there was no warm glow just yet. ‘So, what’s the story?’
‘The story is that Pete was being sent to the pound. The neighbours decided he was too expensive and too much trouble, even though they only ever fed him scraps, from what I could see, and he was tied up most of the time.’ Dinny scratched his head. ‘So I said to leave him with me for a day or two and let me think about it. Some of those shelter places have too many dogs, and a good few of them get put down, from what I hear.’
‘Well, I know there are some dodgy operators out there, like in any other sector, but mostly the people who work in these places deserve a medal. It’s just that funds are so tight and, unfortunately, people abandon and mistreat animals every day and they’re left to pick up the pieces.’
‘I understand that, but our neighbours are odd – they don’t get on well with anyone around here except me, and that’s only because I make a real effort. In fact, you could say I force myself on them, so I do.’ He laughed. ‘I was afraid they’d just take the dog and stray him, to be honest, drive to the middle of the forest and let him out of the car.’
‘Surely not?’ But I knew it happened all the time.
‘Ah, you’re probably right, but I couldn’t take the chance, I’ve known Pete all his life.’ He poured what looked like tar into a mug, milked and sugared it without asking and left it beside me. ‘That dog has had a tough life, I’ve seen it.’ Dinny shook his head. ‘And I’d say he has the scars to prove it. Not that the neighbours’d be cruel, mind. It’s just neglect. Dogs like him aren’t really useful any more around a farm. Sure you hardly ever see a sheepdog, even. Cats chase mice, hens give you eggs, all dogs do is alert you to trouble and, as they get older and their hearing goes, sure not even that.’
‘But they’re great companions, aren’t they?’
‘Aye, you and I know that.’ He sat down heavily. I’d whooshed the dog off the chair without any bother; he was just chancing his arm. Having been kept outside and tied up for so long, he went straight for maximum comfort, I reckoned.
‘So what are you going to do with him? Do you really need another dog?’ He had enough on his plate with Bartholomew, and I couldn’t shift the earlier feeling I’d had that he was slowing down a bit.
‘I was hoping you’d take him,’ he said, adopting the same pleading look his dog had given me minutes earlier.
19
‘ARE YOU JOKING? I CAN BARELY LOOK AFTER MYSELF.’ I LAUGHED nervously. Pete was now looking at me adoringly – or at least that was how I saw it. That face, as well as Bart’s pleading ‘Take him away’ look, and Dinny’s ‘You know you want to’ penetrating stare were all combining to gang up on me. Who said animals didn’t understand what was going on?
‘You told me the first time I met you, that day when Bartholomew destroyed your couch, that you wanted to get a dog.’ Dinny tried to look as if he was doing me a favour.
‘Maybe. But a pup – not the dirtiest, scrawniest-looking mongrel I’ve ever seen.’
‘Shush, he’s sensitive about his weight.’ Dinny laughed heartily. ‘Like all us men.’ He patted his belly. ‘Sure look, have a think about it while you drink your tea, there’s a good girl. And there’s a glossy red mane under all the dirt, that I know for sure.’
‘No pressure then, eh?’ I gave him what I hoped was a filthy look. ‘So that’s what you brought me all the way down here for?’
‘Not at all, sure if I’m to keep him I need your help with yer man there, he’s acting as if I’m about to put him in a concentration camp.’ We both looked under the table, where Bart got full marks for the most dejected face I’d seen in a long time.
‘Yes, well, he’s good, I’ll give him that. I should ask my friend Maddy if she could get him a part in her soap on TV. Anyway’ – I changed the subject – ‘Father Vincent said to tell you he knows your friends and is in touch on a regular basis. Joan is very well and Catherine is just about to start college studying medicine.’
I was surprised that he looked so thrown by the news. ‘She’s going to be a doctor?’ he asked in disbelief.
‘Apparently. That’s good, isn’t it? They’ve obviously done well for themselves.’
‘Aye, they have surely.’ He stared into the fire. ‘And without any help from me.’
I saw his face was ashen. ‘Dinny, do you want to tell me what this is really about?’ Here we go again, I thought. ‘It’s just that I sense they’re important to you, but you seem to be fighting it for some reason. Am I right?’ I went to boil the kettle to top up the teapot so that I could actually drink the stuff, and while I was there I emptied out the impossibly strong, sweet brew he’d poured into my cup earlier. But really I was just trying to give him a bit of space.
Just as I thought he wasn’t going to tell me, he said quietly, ‘Catherine is my daughter.’ As I looked at him, I saw tears trickle down his face, and suddenly I was plunged into another parent/child story that wasn’t straightforward, just like my own.
‘But Dinny, that’s wonderful, you must be so proud?’ I decided to ignore the story for the moment and try to give him a reason to tell me. ‘That’s every father’s dream surely – to have a son or daughter a doctor? Isn’t it like having a priest or nun in the family was in the old days in Ireland?’ I topped us both up, and sat opposite him and played with Pete in an effort to give him more time. The stupid mutt obviously knew he should try and make an impression, because he flattened himself to the floor, head down, ears cocked, with a little black fruit gum for a nose and the saddest conker-brown eyes I’d ever seen.
‘His nose is a bit like a Westie’s,’ I told Dinny. ‘But his shape is all wrong.’
‘Aye, he’s a cross all right, but there’s more Collie in him than anything else.’ He held out his hand, and the dog moved with such speed you knew he was desperate for affection. He only stayed with Dinny for a couple of seconds, in spite of the pleasure he so clearly craved. Instead he came back over to my feet and plonked himself down with a sigh, looking up at me as if to say, ‘I’d be no trouble at all, honestly.’
Feck it, I knew where he was going to live from now on, and it wasn’t going to be Ashford.
‘Would you like me to leave you alone, Dinny, and call to see you later in the week?’
It was as if he hadn’t heard me. ‘I’m glad I know,’ he said. ‘And I’m delighted it was yourself who brought me the news.’
‘Did it come as a shock?’
‘Aye, it did, to be honest. I haven’t seen them since Catherine was four or thereabouts.’ He looked as if he’d aged ten years in the same number of minutes. ‘Myself and Joan were stepping out together for about two years when she discovered she was expecting. Needless to say we were floored. I was a bit of a lad, even though I’d turned forty – can you believe that? And it was still a bit of a scandal around these parts, especially where my parents were concerned. Joan was nearly twenty years younger than me, and my mother didn’t like her one bit, that’s the truth. So Joan went off to Cork and had the child, and then came back and stayed at home for about a year with her parents.’ He got up and stoked the fire, and I suspected this was all very painful for him. So did Barty, it seemed, because he slithered out from under the table, hoping no one would notice, and planted himself down between Dinny’s legs as the old man sat heavily back into his chair.
‘I don’t mind admitting this to you, Lulu; I was an awful coward at the time. I should have gone straight out and married the girl, and that’s a fact. But I didn’t, and eventually she couldn’t take the gossiping and sniggering behind her back, and she upped and left and went to live in London.’
‘So what did you do then?’
‘I did what most Irishmen in rural Ireland did in those circumstances, I continued on as if nothing had happened. And for a while the drink helped me forget. Wasn’t that terrible of me altogether?’ he asked, without looking in my direction.
‘I’m sure you did your best, Dinny. They were different times, don’t be too hard on yourself.’
‘Aye, but that’s no excuse. Anyway, my mother took a heart attack a couple of years later and was dead within a week. That gave me a quare shock I can tell you. So when the funeral was over I got in touch with Joan’s family and found out where she was and told me father I was going to sort this out once and for all.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Nothing much, you know what men are like. “Do what you have to but don’t bring any shame on your mother’s memory,” was all I think he said. But I was fierce determined.’ He stamped his foot hard to illustrate his point and nearly had a brain-damaged dog on his hands. ‘So off I went, tracked them down and, to cut a long story short, she sent me packing. Refused to have anything to do with me so she did, and can you blame her?’
‘What did you do then?’
‘I hung around for a few days, bought flowers, all the usual stuff, but she was having none of it. I doorstepped her one day and begged her to give me another chance. That’s when I saw the child, a gorgeous little thing with a mass of curls and my mother’s piercing blue eyes. D’ya know what, Lulu? I was fierce sorry that we’d been so stupid as a family, depriving ourselves of this lovely little girl for the sake of what people might think.’ He smiled. ‘I can still see her to this day; she was holding her mother’s hand and skipping along, without a care in the world. Anyway, Joan told me in no uncertain terms that I’d let them both down and that she didn’t need me any more. So, feeling desperately sorry for myself, I headed for a local pub, drank myself senseless and took off for home with my tail between my legs.’ He sat back in his chair. ‘So that’s the story until now, and d’ya know something? It’s the only thing in my life that I regret to this very day.’
‘No contact whatsoever?’
‘Oh, I sent the odd big cheque. I wasn’t short of money, even in those days. But they were never cashed. She was a proud girl, that’s for sure, and I hurt her badly when I refused to stand beside her in times of trouble.’
‘So why now?’ I wondered.
‘Ah, lots of reasons, but mainly just selfishness, if I’m honest. I’m old, I’ve no one left really – and to think you’ve just told me I have a daughter who’s going to be a doctor. Wouldn’t I be the right pr
oud father now at mass on a Sunday if I hadn’t been so stupid way back then?’
‘I’m sorry.’ I meant it. He was a lovely man who’d made one mistake. ‘But maybe now is the time to try again to fix it.’
‘Sure look, Joan is still a young woman. And still good-lookin’ too, I’d bet any money. She was a stunner, that’s for sure.’ He smiled, remembering. ‘She probably married a millionaire. And now she’s raised a lovely young girl, from what you told me. Sure why the hell would she want to have anything to do with me?’
‘Well, you’ll never know until you try, surely?’
‘I’m frightened, Lulu, and that’s the long and the short of it. What if she laughed in my face?’
‘Is it not worth the risk?’ I asked.
‘Aye, I suppose it is. But I need to think about it.’
‘Look, would it help if I phoned Father Vincent again?’ I couldn’t believe I was pushing my way into another complicated family. ‘Could I ask his advice, in confidence?’
‘Would you do that for me?’
‘I would, if it helps. But, sooner or later, it’s going to come down to you, Dinny. You can’t hide behind me for ever.’
‘I know that. But maybe if you just found out a bit more. Tell him anything you like, just to give me a leg up, so to speak.’
‘OK, will do. And I’ll call you as soon as I’ve news. Now, I’d better head.’ I drained my cold cup and stood up.
‘So, are you going to give this poor wee fella a chance?’ he asked quietly.
‘That “poor wee fella”, as you call him, would buy and sell both of us, I suspect.’
‘Tell you what, give it a try for a week. And if you don’t want him, I’ll take him back. Deal?’ he held out his hand.
‘No way. I need time.’
‘Sure what have you got to lose?’
‘I’m on a bike, Denis Cassidy. I cannot have a mutt as a pillion passenger.’
‘Tell you what, you only live in Bray, I’ll drive up behind you.’
