The Ballymara Road

by Nadine Dorries

  Daisy was halfway out of the lodge doorway when Maggie pulled her back inside.

  ‘Not yet,’ she hissed. ‘They slowed right down, once they were on the road, and all nuns have eyes in the back of their heads. I don’t trust them not to see.’

  Daisy threw her arms round Maggie, her eyes full of tears.

  ‘Maggie, will I ever see you and Frank again? I can’t bear it if I don’t.’

  ‘Aye, Daisy, ye will. I don’t know where or when but I do know this, things are changing. I can feel it. This business of locking away for their entire lives girls who have done no wrong, it cannot carry on. The world is moving on and Ireland will be called to account for its sins one day. The biggest of them all will be this, as God is my judge. I know I’m right. God willing, we will meet again, soon enough.’

  Daisy sobbed, scared. Caught up in the excitement of the adventure, she had been anticipating this moment with impatience. Now that it was here, she was loath to leave the safety, the company and the comfort provided by Maggie and Frank.

  Frank was on the drive, talking though the open window to Jack.

  ‘I’ve cleared a space, in amongst the tools in the back, Frank, and put some rags on the floor. ’Twas a bit dirty, like, but is all right now,’ said Jack.

  ‘Bless you,’ Frank replied. ‘There will be a place in heaven waiting for you, Jack.’

  ‘Aye, well, I hope so.’ Jack laughed. ‘That was a close call,’ he said, nodding towards the nuns’ car.

  ‘Don’t leave her until ye knows the police are listening to her, will ye now, and would ye drop me a line to let me know all was well? There’s a good man.’

  ‘I will write ye a line on Sunday after mass and before the pub, and post it on the Monday. But, ye and yer missus, have no fear now, I will do all ye have asked.’

  Frank looked round to see where Maggie and Daisy were. Looking up at the house, he caught sight of the bishop opening the door of his own car.

  ‘Maggie,’ he hissed. ‘Get a move on.’

  In a second, Daisy was by his side, pulling at his sleeve. .

  ‘Go on now, in the back,’ he croaked. ‘Maggie, sort her.’

  Frank pushed Daisy gently towards Maggie as she began to break down. He bent again to Jack’s window.

  ‘Don’t let her come back. She will be upset but, sure, she will come to her senses quick enough. And don’t stop for the bishop. He will be on yer tail now all the way to Dublin, unless ye can shake him off.’

  Frank and Jack heard Maggie slam the rear doors of the van.

  Frank looked up and she winked. He banged the palm of his hand twice on the van roof and, within seconds, the van, with Daisy safely stowed in the back, moved away down the road.

  Ten seconds later, they raised their hand in farewell to the speeding bishop.

  Frank put his arm round Maggie’s shoulders and, for the first time in twenty-four hours, they both heaved a sigh of relief.

  Frank noticed the tears in Maggie’s eyes. ‘Come on now, away inside.’

  ‘Do you know, Frank, I reckon we could do that again one day if we needed to. We should try and help these girls more.’

  ‘Let’s hope so, love,’ said Frank. ‘Let’s hope so.’

  6

  SEAN SHUFFLED FORWARD on the back seat of Henry’s newly imported red Bentley so as to narrow the distance between himself and his sister, Mary. She had shrunk so far down into the passenger seat, it was as though Sean and Henry were the only two people travelling in the car. Sean linked his fingers tightly together, his knuckles shining white through his now all-American tan, while his thumbs rolled over and over. The Bentley was an unusual sight on the streets of Chicago. Henry could have had any American-made car he chose, but that was too easy and did not confer the one-upmanship over the British which he subconsciously sought.

  Sean had no idea what to do or say and so, his voice laden with concern, he said the obvious. Being a father himself, he could sympathize to some extent with the pain felt now by his sister and her husband.

  He gently laid a hand on Mary’s shoulder and said, ‘Come on now, Mary, don’t cry.’

  ‘I’m not, Sean, I’m not crying. I’m fine, really I am,’ his sister responded brightly, as she lied through her hankie. ‘I’m just being silly, aren’t I, Henry?’ She looked sideways to her husband for support as she laid her hand on top of Sean’s with a reassuring pat.

  Henry didn’t reply. His eyes were fixed straight on the road ahead, his facial muscles unyielding and set. The only visible movement was a vein in the side of his broad red neck, beating wildly. Henry never lied.

  Sean looked directly into the rear-view mirror. For a fleeting second, his eyes met with Henry’s, who quickly averted his gaze, but it was too late. Sean had noticed. The usual, ever-present twinkle of mischief and happiness in Henry’s bright blue eyes had been replaced with a deep, desperate sadness, and Sean had seen it.

  Sean leaned back and stared out of the side window. Once again, his hands in his lap, he continued rolling his thumbs. It was a habit he had acquired during his boxing days in Liverpool whilst he sat in the back of the arena, waiting to dive through the ropes and into the ring. It had helped him when he was anxious and his nerves had got the better of him, listening to the roar of the crowd, counting down, chanting, yelling for the blood of the poor bloke in the ring. He would rock gently, back and forth. Over and over his thumbs had rolled.

  And now here he was, in the back of his brother-in-law’s car, having offered to accompany Henry and his sister to the doctor’s office to provide some family support. Here he was in a situation so grave that he had no idea what to say or do. Everyone had known that something was wrong with Mary and Henry’s little boy.

  Alice, who called herself Sean’s wife, even though they weren’t married, had mentioned it to him many times.

  ‘There is something wrong with that little Dillon,’ she said. ‘Look at his face, he’s as white as a sheet and he hardly wants his bottle. Mary keeps making excuses, but I’ve seen enough babies born on the four streets to know something is wrong. He’s too slow to put on weight.’

  Alice had left her own son, Joseph, behind in Liverpool. She hadn’t seen him since the day she and Sean had set sail from Liverpool, to join Mary in America.

  Sean had ten daughters by his real and only wife, Brigid, a strict Catholic who would see hell freeze over before she granted Sean a divorce. He had neither seen nor heard from his daughters since the day he had left England, and likely never would until they were adults and could meet him on their own terms, free from their mother’s bitter anger.

  The concern over his nephew had made him think more about his daughters and the pain in his gut was like nothing he had experienced in the boxing ring. It gnawed at his insides at times, making it impossible for him to eat.

  Only yesterday, he had confided in his mother.

  ‘I can’t eat that, Mammy,’ he had said, when she had placed his breakfast in front of him. They were the only two people in Mary’s kitchen, which was as big as the school hall on the four streets, where Sean’s daughters sat for assembly each morning.

  Mrs McGuire leaned across the dining bar.

  ‘That pain ye feel, the pain in yer gut, that’s putting ye off breakfast for the first time in yer entire life, it’s called guilt, so it is. Guilt and grief. I suppose I should be glad because, to me, ’tis a sign that at least I reared ye to have a conscience.’

  Sean had worried that it must be hard for Alice, having left her own son, to live in a house with a baby boy, especially one as angelic as Dillon, Mary and Henry’s little son.

  Dillon was everything his parents had prayed for throughout the long barren years. Not a day went by when his parents had missed the four o’clock Angelus mass. Wherever they were, at the end of Henry’s working day, they gave thanks to the Lord for the miracle that was Dillon.

  Mary’s happiness was infectious. She was often to be seen dancing around, holding her son.
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br />   ‘I prayed for a little lad and the angels sent me you,’ she would sing as she swung him round and round. He spent his life being kissed and cuddled, and only because Mrs McGuire intervened did he now sleep in his own room, instead of tucked into his mother’s arms.

  The all-Irish team, of Henry and his two brothers, ran a large and successful construction company. They had finally persuaded Sean to take up his rightful place as a member of the family firm, making all four of them wealthy.

  Sean had taken the plunge only six months ago. The delay had been a matter of frustration to everyone, Sean having been held back by his wife Brigid, who had no intention of emigrating to America. Always pregnant with another child, she had clung to Liverpool, using guilt and family to hold Sean back for too long. But then Sean had fallen in love with Jerry’s wife, Alice, and she, just like Sean, wanted to seize with both hands every opportunity their new country had to offer.

  Proud and strong, Henry had arrived in Chicago with his beautiful wife Mary fifteen years earlier. The only luggage he had brought with him that was of any use was his canvas bag of tools and the telephone number of someone in the city who was ‘taking on’ men. Today, Henry employed the sons and grandsons of the man who had given him his first day’s work in the land of the free.

  The strength of the Moynihan business was that it was built on the labour of people from back home in Ireland. Henry was a generous employer and looked after his workforce. Henry’s two brothers regarded everyone who worked for them as extended family, and those who had been with Henry since the early days repaid his kindness with toil and respect.

  Sean was about to be made a partner in the business. He found it hard to wind his head round that one, but Alice managed to do it for him. Henry had deposited fifty thousand US dollars in a bank account, as Sean’s first down payment, telling him to find a plot of land where they could build a house of their own.

  ‘Ye can’t be living with me and Mary forever,’ Henry had said. ‘It takes a while, but ye and Alice, ye know what’s what now. And I’ll tell ye this, divorce, ’tis not the big deal over here that it is back home. Time you got that sorted and ye and Alice began having children of yer own. We each need a little lad to leave this business to.’

  Alice had recoiled in horror. As soon as she and Sean were alone, she tackled him.

  ‘Sean, we have enough children between us. Henry doesn’t expect us to have any more, does he?’

  ‘Well, sure he does and I don’t think it’s such a bad idea. Brigid could produce only girls. Ye already have a little lad so we know ye can do it. ’Twould be grand to be able to hand on what Henry has built up, and which I will be a part of, to an heir one day.’

  ‘Hand it over to your daughters,’ Alice had said with genuine amazement. Sean had thought she was joking.

  ‘A lad would have to be born into a business like this, Alice, to understand how it works. You aren’t born knowing how to price up the cost of building a shopping mall. It takes experience.’

  ‘Really?’ Alice had retorted. ‘Well, seems to me that counts you out then, as the only experience you have is unloading hulls and beating the brains out of men.’

  Sean had stared at her in a state of confusion. He and Brigid had never argued, not once in all the years they had been married. With Alice, arguments were coming thick and fast and Sean had no idea what to do.

  Moynihan’s was a name to be seen all across Chicago. It hung on banners at every new roadside and from every bridge, parking lot or school where construction was taking place.

  Mary and Henry lived in a large house, drove fancy cars and could have most things money would buy, but in the years before Dillon had arrived, Mary complained loudly and often.

  ‘This money, the house, everything, it all tastes like a brack loaf I forgot to put the sugar in, with no little ones to share it with.’

  They had desperately wanted children, especially a son, to make all the hard work and sacrifice worth it. Now that the prayed-for son had arrived, Henry dreamed about eventually handing over his business, and Mary researched the education they would provide him with. They would give everything they had, heart, soul and dollars, into helping their boy achieve whatever he wanted. In turn he would give to them all the kudos and respectability money could not buy. He would have a university education and letters after his name. Dillon would make the sacrifice of leaving Ireland for America worthwhile. Their own flesh and blood could live the American dream.

  It made no difference to Mary and Henry that Dillon was adopted. From the moment they heard that the baby boy they had both dreamt of each and every night was available for just three thousand dollars, they slept hardly a wink until he was safely in Mary’s arms.

  ‘Tell me if I become too besotted with our little boy and neglect you, Henry,’ Mary had said, when they finally took to their bed.

  And she meant it, although both of them knew that becoming besotted was unavoidable, given the gorgeous bundle of joy, which had become their very own. And he had been born an Irish Catholic too.

  What was not to love?

  ‘She has that baby on a pedestal and he’s only been home for five minutes,’ Henry had soon complained to his brother, Eddie, although both knew Henry was only joking. ‘She leaps out of bed for his feed at two o’clock in the morning and everyone has told her not to. She’s a rich woman now and living in a wealthy country. We have maids coming out of our ears, she could have as many nurses as she wants, but no, they can wash and iron my clothes, so they can, but they can’t touch our little lad.’

  ‘All women are the same with their first,’ Eddie had replied. ‘It’ll wear off in a few weeks and, sure, definitely by the second, I would say so.’

  Henry had roared with laughter. They had waited fifteen years for Dillon. By the time the second child came along, he would be old enough to be a grandfather.

  Henry hadn’t realized quite how upside down his world would become in the space of a week. To cap it all, he heard the Moynihan business had been awarded a contract worth millions of dollars.

  ‘Merciful God,’ he had said to Mary, ‘someone is looking down on us all right. We have enough money to do anything we want and a baby on the way, Mary. How much better can life be, eh?’

  ‘I want my mother to live with us, Henry,’ Mary had replied.

  Even Henry couldn’t have predicted that so much good could turn so sour so fast. Henry felt his elation deflate faster than a pierced balloon.

  ‘I want to share our first boy with her. Every woman needs her mother by her side, with a new baby. After all, she’s had plenty of her own and helped Brigid raise all of hers in Liverpool.’

  Henry didn’t argue. He and his Mary were so blessed and happy, nothing could cloud their horizon for long, not even Mrs McGuire arriving to live with them in Chicago.

  ‘When ye speak to yer mammy, tell her to bring Sean out here. Now that I have that contract, Jesus, we need family, people we can trust, more than ever before. Will ye do that, Mary?’

  Neither Mary nor Henry were prepared for Mrs McGuire’s telephone call with news from Liverpool.

  It would appear there was something that could cloud any horizon, if only for a little while.

  When Sean and Alice had run away, they had decided to do so by boat, rather than by aeroplane, both realizing the furore they left behind would need time to settle down before they faced Mary and Sean. They also wanted to have days and nights alone together, something they had never known, to spend time getting to know each other better and to become a real couple, before they landed and began their new life.

  They had no idea whether anyone would even meet them when they disembarked, whether Mary would ever forgive Sean for committing such a despicable sin. Walking out on his children and his wife for another woman and a fresh start was a scandal few families could tolerate. Mary and Henry might decide they would not associate with nor acknowledge Sean and Alice. The thought haunted Sean during every day of the crossing.<
br />
  As they stood on deck while the boat sailed into New York, watching the bands playing and the streamers flying, the first person Sean laid eyes on at the customs hall was his sister Mary with Dillon in her arms. Standing beside them were Henry and their mother, Mrs McGuire.

  ‘My sister has a baby?’ said Sean.

  ‘Oh no, your mother has arrived here before us,’ said Alice, with more than a hint of despair in her voice. ‘She must have flown.’

  This was the last thing Alice would have wished for and Mrs McGuire was the very last person she would have wanted to greet her in New York.

  Sean was equally amazed. As they slowly walked towards his waiting family, his mother chose to dispense with welcoming pleasantries.

  ‘Well, ye is a dark horse all right, Alice, I will give ye that. Never a clue did I have and that’s for sure.’

  ‘Mammy,’ said Sean, pleading.

  ‘Never you Mammy me, Sean. Ye could have handled things better than ye did. Whilst ye have been cruising, leading the life of Riley, I had to help Brigid and the girls. I was there when she opened yer cowardly letter. Can ye imagine what that was like for me? It was the worst night of me life and I hadn’t even a notion of what ye were up to. Ye lied to me and yer kids and everyone else, running off in the night like a pair of thieves, leaving yer children to face the worst Christmas of their lives. The shame was awful, awful, it was. Can ye imagine what Brigid, yer poor wife, went through? And without so much as a word of warning, not a fecking notion did I have.’

  Mrs McGuire lifted her handbag and smacked a stunned Sean, straight across the side of his face, and then, just for good measure, smacked him again across the other side.

  ‘An’ that one was from Brigid,’ she yelled before she stormed away.

  Sean stood with his head down, as an equally stunned and shaking Alice linked her arm through his.

  ‘We are here now, Mrs McGuire.’ Alice sounded bolder than she felt, as she spoke to the retreating back of Sean’s mother. ‘And even if Mary and Henry don’t want us, this is where Sean and I are making our life.’