Skin Deep

by Liz Nugent

  I stumbled out of the office, keeping my head down as the girls at reception called out teasingly, ‘We’ll tell Harry you were looking for him,’ giggling among themselves. I mumbled a goodbye and made my way out of the front door.

  The street was busy and I pulled the hood up on my anorak. I spied Harry across the road. He put his hand up in front of his face and turned away in a gesture that told me not to approach him. I had not intended to. Not yet. I had a decision to make.

  When I got home, Moira wanted to know where I’d been. ‘You can’t keep running off. People will see you.’ She insisted that I stay indoors until further notice. ‘Anybody might guess at your situation if they looked closely enough,’ she said, pointing at my belly. She had spent the morning on the phone to Theresa. They’d found a place for me in a home – a convent in Cork. I was to go the following weekend. ‘Of course, you would have to work to earn your keep. And then, when the baby is born, it can be adopted …’

  ‘Don’t you want the baby?’ I asked her.

  ‘I’m fifty-six years old. It’s too late for me to rear a baby. Anyway, the place you’re going is fine. There will be lots of girls in your … situation, but I’d advise you to keep your distance. You’d only be a bad influence on each other …’

  I stopped listening because I knew exactly what kind of place they were going to send me to and I knew I wasn’t going there. I let her ramble on, let her think that I was in agreement, and then claimed exhaustion. ‘I’m going upstairs to lie down,’ I said.

  She put her hand on my shoulder. ‘We don’t want to send you there, you know? But it’s for the best. At least that way, you could get back to normal, get married one day, have a real family, not with Harry obviously or Peter, but you’re a beautiful girl and there’ll be some other lad …’ She paused. ‘There’s been no word from the Russells. If Peter denied it, we’d have heard from them by now. I blame myself. Alan said we should keep a closer eye on you when you started going out with Harry, but I was so relieved that you were finally making friends. You were always by yourself before you met him. I don’t know what to make of you.’

  I trudged up the stairs and threw myself on the bed. Who did I want to be today? The girl who wasn’t pregnant.

  When Moira went to hang the washing on the line next morning, I rang Mr Russell in Carrowbeg Manor and agreed to his offer. He said he would arrange it for that Friday, two days away. He would drive me to Dublin himself, he said, ‘to make sure you get on the ferry’. I dreaded a four-hour journey in a car with Harry’s dad. The abortion would be easy in comparison.

  ‘What will I do afterwards?’

  ‘Do?’ He sounded surprised. ‘Get a cleaning job, or whatever a scrubber does.’

  I ignored the insult. ‘I’ll need money, to get a flat, to keep me going until I find work.’

  There was a long pause. ‘You will have it. Be at the hotel at five on Friday morning. Don’t be late.’

  I resolved to steal every penny from Moira’s purse before I left. I still had Theresa’s pay-off of forty pounds. I would have to get a job straight away. I wasn’t scared of the abortion. As far as I was concerned, it would be no worse than getting a rotten tooth removed. Uncomfortable, painful even, but it needed to be done. I had no religious hang-ups about it, despite my hypocritical marching for the anti-abortion campaign. It was just something everyone had taken part in. Even after years of weekly Mass, I never believed in a God that would take my father away and abandon me, and I certainly didn’t believe in one that would let Daddy shoot himself.

  I needed the abortion. Then, regardless of what Declan Russell said, I would come back and try to make things right with Harry. I still wanted to be the hotelier’s wife. It would be harder now than ever before because Harry would have to fight his parents, particularly his father, but the love he had for me couldn’t disappear overnight. I had hurt him, but he would get over that. Nobody knew but our close family circles, and that helped. We would move on, and in a few years it would all be forgotten.

  Alan couldn’t stay angry with me for long. He didn’t know what Moira had told me about his family’s relationship with the Russells, but within days his shame of me turned into fury towards them.

  ‘Well, girl, you’ve got yourself into a pickle and no mistake, but I should have put a stop to it from the start. The Russells are bloody hypocrites, sitting up at the top of the church every Sunday, looking down their noses at the rest of us. Those boys persuaded you into it. I know what they’re like. They’re bad stock.’

  ‘And me? Am I bad stock?’

  ‘I’m sorry I said those things about you. You are part of this family and you always will be. We never found out much about your … parents, just that they were islanders and we heard they were … old-fashioned, traditional, you know? You never talk about them.’

  ‘I don’t need to. I remember them. You never knew them, so there’d be no point in talking to you about them.’ I knew more now than I wanted to know. But I refused to think about that. It wasn’t my fault.

  On Thursday evening, I took two phone calls. Moira answered the first one. My old school friend, Gemma. Moira handed me the phone and gestured a finger to her lips.

  ‘Hiya,’ Gemma said. ‘I heard you were back, are you not working in Ballina any more? Why didn’t you ring me?’

  ‘I thought you’d be in college,’ I lied, knowing already that she was home on a break, because Moira had seen her down the town that morning. ‘Oh, yeah, the job didn’t work out, but’ – I was conscious that Moira was standing at the kitchen door – ‘I’m starting a new job in Cork at the weekend.’

  There was a pause on the other end of the phone.

  ‘Oh yeah, doing what? Will I call over to you?’

  ‘No, we’ve visitors at the minute. I’ll ring you tomorrow?’

  ‘Is it true?’

  Oh God.

  ‘Is what true?’

  ‘You’re pregnant. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.’

  I attempted a laugh. ‘No! Where in the name of God did you hear that?’

  ‘My mum plays bridge with Elizabeth Russell’s brother, Harry’s uncle?’

  ‘That’s total nonsense!’

  ‘So you’re still going out with Harry then, and everything’s fine?’

  ‘Yeah, though I’ll be in Cork for the next while.’

  ‘Nine months, you mean?’ She didn’t believe me, but she had the maths wrong.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ll call around tomorrow, around lunchtime, OK?’

  ‘Sure.’ I knew I wouldn’t be there. I pretended that Moira was calling me away in order to shut down the conversation, and hung up.

  Moira stepped out of the kitchen. ‘Does she know?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I answered the phone the second time it rang.

  ‘Delia?’

  ‘Yes?’ There was a slight crackle on the line. It was a second or two before I realized it was Peter, calling from London.

  ‘I … I’m really sorry, OK? I’m sorry.’

  ‘We were stupid.’

  ‘We should have been … look, it’s not the end of the world. Are they sending you to –’

  I hung up. He didn’t ring back.

  That night, I quietly packed my bags. Alan always went to bed early because he was up at six for work, so I waited for Moira to go to bed and then opened the window wide so that the cold would keep me awake for a few hours. I couldn’t risk using my alarm clock and rousing the house. At a quarter to five, I crept downstairs with my suitcase and extracted fifteen pounds from Moira’s handbag. I went to Alan’s coat in the hall and took the wallet out of his pocket. Another ten pounds. When I was returning the wallet, I heard a creak on the stairs behind me. I whirled around to be confronted by Alan in his pyjamas.

  ‘Where are you going, girl?’ He pointed to the suitcase. ‘Running away? My ten pounds isn’t going to get you far.’ He shuffled into the kitchen. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’r />
  I heard him turn on the tap and run the water for a moment. I picked up the case and walked out of the front door, pulling it softly behind me. Once outside, I began to run, though it must have been the pregnancy that made me nauseous, and I had to stop after a few minutes to catch my breath. I looked behind me and through the darkness, I could see a shape about a hundred yards behind me and I knew it was Alan and I thought that running would not be good for his chest. But I kept going, fast and determined. When I got to the hotel there was no sign of Mr Russell, but then I heard an engine idling and saw his car in the laneway beside the hotel. He waved at me furiously, and I ran over and opened the passenger door.

  ‘You didn’t think we’d meet on the street, did you?’ he said by way of greeting. He barely waited for me to close the door before he rolled the car out on to the street. We turned the corner before Alan appeared in the middle of the road in front of us, a look of anger and confusion on his face. He hammered on the bonnet, his coat flying open to reveal the paisley pyjamas.

  ‘Get out of my way!’ Mr Russell shouted.

  ‘Where are you taking her?’ Alan roared back. He came around the side of the car and yanked the passenger door open. ‘Where are you going, with him?’

  ‘I’m taking care of your problem, Alan.’ Mr Russell hissed the words.

  ‘Get out of the car.’ Alan pulled me out and grabbed my suitcase and took me by the arm.

  ‘You stupid bastard!’ bellowed Mr Russell. A door opened on the other side of the street and the pharmacist stuck his head out to see what was causing the commotion.

  Alan pushed me in front of him and we walked up the silent street towards home. Mr Russell threw the car into reverse and went back up the lane.

  ‘Where was he taking you?’

  Alan was incandescent with rage. I was furious too that my plan had been thwarted.

  ‘He was taking me to Dublin. I was to take the ferry to Liverpool to have an abortion.’

  He turned back in the direction of the town and I walked home. Everything was already bad enough without having to witness a public street brawl between Alan and Declan Russell.

  I’m not sure what happened, but Alan came back within half an hour. He didn’t go to work that day. I think he was guarding me, to make sure I didn’t get out of the house, to keep me away from Mr Russell.

  He grilled me on the abortion plan. He was horrified. ‘Holy God, he is the worst, most evil man walking. That’s a little baby you have in there. And he wanted to kill it? The hypocrite! Pillar of the community, my eye!’ He began to tell me the story of the servant girl and Declan, and his own father. Moira told him I already knew.

  ‘You see?’ he said. ‘He doesn’t care about you, or that child inside you.’ He looked to Moira.

  She had been quiet since she’d found out where I’d been planning to go. I thought it was because of the money I’d taken, and since returned, but now she said, ‘Alan, maybe it wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world. At least, then, it would be over.’

  Alan was stunned. He raised his voice. ‘Over? Over? You’re talking about a baby’s life! It’s murder.’

  ‘I don’t see it like that,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Neither do I.’ I was grateful to have an ally. ‘I don’t want a baby, and I don’t want to go to the mother and baby home either. I want it gone. It’s not a baby. It’s just a … a thing in me, making me sick and tired, I don’t want it!’

  ‘Then you should have kept your legs shut. May God forgive you, the pair of you. You are carrying a child, albeit a bastard child –’

  ‘Alan, for goodness’ sake, people don’t think like that any more. I will not have that child ever referred to as a bastard again.’

  ‘The way you’re talking, you don’t want it to be a child. You want it killed. I cannot believe I have lived with such a godless wife for all these years!’

  ‘Just because we weren’t blessed to have our own child, we shouldn’t be forcing Delia to –’

  ‘Forcing? It’s natural. It’s what God intended. We taught her the birds and the bees. She has to live with the consequences of her actions.’

  ‘Even if they destroy her life? Nobody in this town will touch her if we can’t manage this effectively –’

  Moira and Alan were shouting at each other. A sudden thrill ran up my spine. The doorbell rang in the middle of this argument. I’d forgotten Gemma was coming, because I hadn’t planned to be there. Moira and Alan took their argument into the kitchen while Gemma came up to my room. Gemma wasted no time.

  ‘Are you giving it up for adoption?’

  ‘I am not pregnant!’

  She grabbed at my jumper and pulled it up and I clenched my stomach inwards. She wouldn’t be able to tell for sure.

  ‘I don’t mean to be mean, but your stomach used to be flatter, so if you’re not pregnant, you’ve put a few pounds on.’

  ‘I was so miserable in Ballina that I was eating like a horse. I’ll lose it all soon.’

  ‘Then why is Harry going around with a face like a slapped arse? I saw him up the town this morning and he practically ran away to avoid talking to me.’

  ‘He doesn’t want me to take the job in Cork, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  The sound of raised voices rumbled through my bedroom floor. Gemma rolled off the bed and put her ear to the door.

  ‘What are they fighting about? They never fight.’

  ‘Moira doesn’t want me to take the job in Cork either.’

  ‘Right.’ She was still dubious. If Moira won the argument, I could be un-pregnant within the next week, so I was keeping up with the lie.

  Alan went to the parish priest, Father Cummins, who made contact with a monsignor. The next day I was brought before another two old men and treated as the defendant. They called me a Jezebel among other things. I quite liked the name. It sounded exotic. Alan had told Father Cummins about the planned abortion and Mr Russell’s role in it. The monsignor didn’t even look at me. He asked if the Russells could be summoned to the parochial house. Father Cummins went out to make a call to the hotel. The monsignor broke the silence by discussing events in the parish until Declan Russell and his wife showed up. Father Cummins suggested I wait outside, but Alan insisted I stay put to tell the story of Declan Russell’s plans for me in my own words. I lied that I had been forced into going along with it, that I had been bullied. I made it sound like all the Russell men had taken advantage of me.

  The abortion plan was obviously all news to Mrs Russell and she was horrified to discover what her husband had been up to. Alan was determined to blacken the name of the Russell boys. He insisted that the Russells would have to make things right.

  A new plan had formed in my head.

  ‘Harry will have to marry her, and that’s all there is to it,’ said Uncle Alan.

  Mr Russell objected, but the priests had already decided he was the devil and weren’t going to listen to him.

  ‘But Peter is the father,’ I said. ‘Shouldn’t a baby be with its mother and father?’

  They all looked at me for a moment. Mr Russell lost his temper. ‘You must be joking! That boy is doing well in London, he’s the pride of this family –’

  Monsignor Kilcannon interrupted. ‘Declan Russell! You have disgraced your family in the eyes of this church. The idea that you might have procured an abortion and murdered an innocent child to protect your pride is enough to have you excommunicated from the Catholic Church. The girl is right. She must marry the father of the baby, and quickly.’

  ‘What?’ said Mrs Russell. ‘Excommunicated!’

  The prospect of public humiliation was too great for her to bear. Within ten minutes, it was decided that I would go to London and marry Peter Russell as soon as possible. I would become a respectable married woman and live in London with my respectable husband. We would not come home on visits. The baby and I would be out of the way.

  Moira and Alan did not speak to each other for
my final week in Westport. The unified couple were finally divided. Moira was livid that I was to be willingly married off to a man I hardly knew. ‘What about Harry?’ she said.

  ‘He’ll get over it.’

  Alan was thrilled with the outcome. It was all about Alan’s revenge on the Russells for the loss of his father’s good name. A scandal from a previous generation had to be paid for. By me, by Peter, by Harry and by our baby. But everyone paid in the end.

  At that time, I thought about having a husband who was going to be a millionaire, and Oxford University and Brideshead Revisited and London nightclubs and Top of the Pops. I wasn’t welcome on Inishcrann; I wasn’t wanted in Westport. But I could be someone else in London.

  Harry

  I loved her from the first day I spoke to her, when I saw her being teased by a group of third-year lads from school. I’d seen her around and she was so beautiful that it was hard not to stare, but I think she was used to men staring at her and didn’t notice. I’d heard she was an orphan and that made me want to wrap my arms around her and never let go. Within six months, I already knew I was going to marry her, even though we were so young. I knew my parents would probably object, because Delia’s uncle was a postman, and they would want me to marry one of their friends’ children, their friends from the golf club or the tennis club. But when Mum and Dad eventually agreed that she could come to dinner, she charmed them like she charmed me.

  In my future, I saw Delia and I running Carrowbeg Manor together, working side by side until our own children could take over. I guess the first sign that something was changing was when she declared she was going to study medicine that first night in our house when she met Peter. God knows, she was no fool, and she almost always got what she wanted, but she wasn’t book smart. We were alike in that way. But then she started studying like a lunatic. I should have guessed it was all about Peter.

  I could have forgiven her, if they had just given me time, and if it had all been kept secret. But from the moment we found out it was Peter’s baby, I had to get some space away from everyone. Nobody told me what was going to happen. Mum said it was Delia’s idea. She’s just saying that so that I’ll hate Delia. But I’m not stupid. I know now that Delia wanted to sleep with me so that she could persuade me the baby was mine. She wanted to be with me. I simply don’t believe it was Delia’s choice to marry my brother. My mother is lying to protect me, to make me hate Delia.