The Nanny At Number 43

by Nicola Cassidy

  “Arrah, maybe,” she said. Her mind was too addled to be thinking about holidays.

  “It would do you good, Winnie, give you a break. You deserve it after everything.”

  She didn’t deserve anything. She couldn’t see past Mr. Thomas’s face.

  “The writing, Mick. It was my handwriting. You should have seen it. I’m starting to wonder now, did I do it? Did I write that letter? Did I do something stupid and I just can’t remember?”

  “Ah, Winnie.”

  “I’m serious. Mam went the same. Doing mad things. We’d find the iron in the coal shed and things went missing all the time.”

  “Will ya stop!”

  “I’m just saying. I feel like I’ve been going mad anyway, losing things. And now this. I’m just wondering could I have done it and I don’t even remember?”

  “Will you listen to yourself?”

  Her eyes filled with tears again.

  He turned to her and grabbed her hand.

  “We’ll get this sorted,” he said. “I promise. You’re not going mad. I am witness to that. Although the way you’re talking, I’m beginning to doubt you a bit now.”

  He smiled at her.

  She leaned into him, the carriage slowing as the road narrowed even more. Green hills in different shades spread out before them, bare of animals, still to be let out into the spring. He was her greatest comfort, a husband she’d never thought she’d have.

  She hadn’t expected to spend her twenties and most of her thirties tethered to the cottage she grew up in, a slave to a woman who lost a little more of her function every day. The others had helped of course, but as the years progressed and as their mother eventually lost who she was, her person, her dignity, it fell to her to be there, to feed, clothe and wash her, to mind her mother like a baby, to cradle her head when the shadows scared her, or when she woke from a dream where everything had been good again, back into a world where her body and mind were as fluid as water.

  And so the years passed. Her good years, the years when she could have got married and felt her own belly swell with a baby. But she couldn’t leave her mother, she couldn’t commit herself to any man that might take her away from that cottage and the wisp of a woman stuck in the bed.

  Mick had been a surprise. A gentle giant, appearing just when she thought the rest of her life would be spent, alone, in the cottage, working out her days for others, no one to come home to in the evenings.

  “Here we are,” said the jarvey as the cab pulled into the parking bay.

  They got out and made their way into the graveyard, blessing themselves as they entered.

  Looming ahead was a round tower, dark flat stones built high into the sky. At the top was a glass-panelled viewing platform, glinting in the sun. They stood for a minute to admire it, the tallest structure for miles to see.

  They walked through the gravestones, stopping to read some of the names, wondering if they had ancient family buried out here.

  At the High Cross they traced their fingers on the stone, feeling the stories cut there by craftsmen a thousand years before.

  “Such skill,” said Mick, feeling the tiny stone carvings.

  “Hard to believe it’s so old,” said Mrs. McHugh, imagining the monastery and what it must have been like. Now, stones had fallen all around, walls toppled, the old church in ruins.

  “Will we climb the tower? Are you able for it?”

  “Are you calling me an aul’ one?” she said.

  They climbed the small ladder and entered the door of the round tower, which was high above the ground. Inside the tower smelt dank, a faint whiff of urine in the air.

  They took their time, climbing the ladders from floor to floor, their way lit by thin slits in the stonework. They stopped to catch their breath, to hold on to each other, remarking and laughing at how their age was catching up on them.

  Mick clutched at his stomach.

  “I don’t know whether I’ve a stitch or I’m just too old for this, but the stomach’s not great today,” he said.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, concerned.

  “I’ll be grand,” he said.

  When they got to the top, they looked out across the land, back towards Drogheda, to the sea, where the whole coastline could be traced.

  “Well, you would have spotted the Vikings coming anyway,” said Mick.

  It was here that Mick had asked her to marry him.

  “Do you remember?” he said.

  “I do.”

  “Happiest moment of my life.”

  “What about the wedding day?”

  “Ah, that too.”

  He kissed her gently and she held on to him tight.

  “Right,” she said. “No more talk of Number 43. For the rest of the day. I’ll forget about it. Until tomorrow.”

  “That’s the spirit,” he said.

  They were slower coming down, Mrs. McHugh terrified as she backed her ample behind down the ladder. Mick went first, in case she lost her footing.

  They took their picnic on a wooden table, offering the cabbie some of their sandwiches. He waved them away and showed them his own in a tin.

  Mick tucked into his mustard and cheese sandwiches and smiled.

  They could do more spontaneous outings like this now, she supposed. It might suit them after all.

  But she couldn’t eat her own sandwiches, the tinned beef she’d spread on the bread sticking in her throat. She forced a few mouthfuls down and hoped they’d mute the pit of worry that moved across her insides.

  When it was time to go, they climbed back into the cab and she opened the bottles of cider.

  Mick slapped her on the thigh when he saw what she’d brought.

  “Good woman, Winnie!” he said, taking a slug.

  So much worry. A knot, settling in her stomach.

  She’d managed to put it aside for the afternoon and evening, as they took their cabbie to the tourism spots: Mellifont after Monasterboice, to admire the work of more monk men from centuries ago and then on to Oldbridge, where they got out and stood at the foot of the Obelisk, the rush of the water and the small weirs under the iron bridge loud. They held hands on the way home, enjoying the greenery and the rolling hills rushing by.

  But when she got home, after she’d unpacked the picnic and put some potatoes on to boil, it had started to creep in.

  The anguish.

  As she got ready for bed, she couldn’t help the tears that fell, tears of anger. How could he have believed that woman over him? After all these years!

  She thought about going to Dublin to the jeweller’s that had written about the ring, to get some sort of explanation. That might solve it, to say she’d been set up, to see what they said in return.

  But she had an awful fear. What if she got arrested? And worse, what if she really was losing her mind and this wasn’t a set-up after all? She’d watched her mother lose a part of herself every day, her faculties slipping one by one. Her greatest fear was that she would go the same. Could it be happening to her already and Mick was protecting her from it?

  She knew she’d have to hide her grief and shock from him. If he saw what it was doing to her, he wouldn’t be able to help himself – he’d go right down to Number 43 and pull Mr. Thomas up by the collar. Preventing him from doing something stupid was an added burden to what she was already feeling.

  In bed, before they turned down the lamp, Mick said, “Maybe we should go to a solicitor? I have a few pound put by – it’d pay for it.”

  “No,” she said. “I’m not wasting money on a solicitor. This is personal between me and Mr. Thomas. I just need to get proof that it wasn’t me who did that, who sent in that ring. I need to prove, somehow, that she was behind it. That woman. I think if I let things lie, mull it over, find a way, then I can call to him, when I know she’s not there, and try and talk to him. I think I can get him to believe me. I still think he’s confused, with all the grief.”

  “Aye,” said Mick. “Maybe. I�
��d still like to go down and knock his head together for him.”

  “Ah, Mick!”

  “It’s not right, Winnie.”

  “I know. But it’ll come right, I’m sure of it.”

  “You’re an optimistic woman.”

  “Aye,” she said. “Optimistic or stupid.”

  He looked at her and smiled, a moment of humour amid their combined upset, before grimacing and rubbing his stomach.

  “Sore again?” she said.

  “Aye, it’s not letting up.”

  “Get some rest,” she said. “That’ll help.”

  With the light gone out, Mick fell into a heavy sleep, his breathing loud in the room.

  She turned over and back again, pulling the covers, unable to sleep with the anxious thoughts in her mind. When she finally drifted off, into a light, fretful sleep, she was awoken, soon after by the sound of Mick vomiting, on the landing.

  She got up and came out to him, to find him hunched over a bowl.

  “Are you all right, love?”

  “Sick as a dog,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I’ve awful pains in my stomach.”

  “Jesus,” she said. “Can I get you anything?”

  “Ah, I didn’t want to waken you,” he said. He stopped, as a wave of nausea crept over him. “Go back to bed,” he said. “I’ll go downstairs. If I need anything, I’ll get you.”

  She padded back to bed and lay down again, wondering if the cider could have caused it. She’d only had a few sups, whereas Mick had polished off the rest of the two bottles. It had been lying in the cupboard for a while – it must have soured his stomach. If he wasn’t better in the morning, she’d go to the chemist’s and get him something to settle it.

  In the morning Mick seemed a bit better, but he’d been up most of the night and he reported that along with the vomiting he’d been running to the lavvy out the back.

  “You poor thing,” she said. She settled him in bed and told him she’d go out and get something from the chemist’s for him. “Could you manage something to eat. Some toast? Or some soup maybe?”

  “Aye, maybe, later,” he said. “I’ll probably sleep for a bit.”

  “Grand,” she said. “I won’t be long.”

  She made her way from the cottage, her shopping basket over her arm. She hoped his stomach was settling and he’d be better by this evening. It was a pity their lovely afternoon had been spoiled by a stomach bug.

  As she walked, she thought about what had happened at Number 43 and how she would take the train to Dublin on Monday. She remembered the name of the jeweller’s and the street. She could ask directions to where it was. Mick could even come with her.

  She headed towards the centre of town, past the hardware stores that were opening up for their Saturday trade and the haberdasheries setting out their lighter shades for the finer weather coming in.

  She had a chat with the chemist, the one on the corner of West Street, who she had come to know well during Mrs. Thomas’s care. He recommended a bottle of Fowler’s Solution to help settle Mick’s stomach and told her to come back if there was no improvement.

  When she came out of the apothecary, she looked across the road to Betty’s door. She could pop in for a few minutes, to let her know what had happened, to talk through her idea of going to Dublin. She’d tell Betty she couldn’t stay long, that Mick wasn’t well and she had to be getting home to him.

  When she got to Betty’s door and turned the handle to open it and go up the stairs like she always did, the girl came down and told her that the old woman wasn’t well at all, that she had a fever and the doctor had been called.

  “Goodness, do you think it’s serious?” asked Mrs. McHugh.

  “She’s very weak,” the girl said. “It’s not like her.”

  “My Mick is sick at home in bed too. Is she vomiting?”

  “No, but she's sweating and her forehead is very hot.”

  Mrs. McHugh stood at the doorway, wondering whether she should go up the stairs.

  “She’s sleeping,” said the girl. “I’ll tell her you called.”

  “Tell her I wish her well and that I’m thinking of her.”

  “I will,” said the girl.

  Poor Betty, thought Mrs. McHugh as the girl closed the door. She’d never known her to be sick beyond a few coughs and sniffles over the years.

  As she turned to walk away, she couldn’t help but look over at Number 43. She wondered what was going on in the household, whether Anna Genevieve was sleeping, whether Ethel had the lunch on.

  She should have been in there, right now, making a shopping list, overseeing Ethel wash the floors, getting lunch ready herself.

  She saw the curtain upstairs twitch and she turned her head away quickly, not wanting to see the woman.

  If only she’d gone to Mr. Thomas sooner. If only she’d put her worries to him, all the niggly signs that the nanny was up to something, maybe she wouldn’t be where she was now, walking home instead of to work, her job gone, that woman responsible.

  Why had she done it? What harm had she ever done to her?

  She couldn’t get her head around it. It was most peculiar, that woman’s thirst for trouble and torment.

  Chapter 18

  Betty

  I couldn’t remember ever feeling so unwell. I’d been sick in the past, coughs and colds, sniffles and sneezes. I had a strong constitution though and I prided myself on always being well. I put it down to the great big spoon of cod liver oil I swallowed every day right after breakfast.

  But I hadn’t eaten breakfast in three days. My head was aching, my heartbeat pulsing in my temples and then the fever came. It washed over me in waves, soaking the bedsheets, sweat pouring from my skin. And then I was gone into a fretful sleep where I didn’t know where I was or even when it was.

  Jimmy was there. Lovely Jimmy. I missed his hands and the great big swaddling hugs he used to give me. I felt him hold me again, and it felt so good to hear his voice, to feel him. But in the fever he turned from lovely Jimmy into devil Jimmy, his head twisting and turning like a kaleidoscope. I told myself that I was hallucinating, not to believe that he’d turned like that, but things weren’t making sense and then Jimmy was gone and I reached out for him, trying to grab at him, to find him again.

  I was back downstairs behind the counter like the old days. Weighing out sugar. Wrapping up butter. Talking to a stream of customers who came at me like lightning. I could hear my voice gabbling, roaring, and I realised in my dream that I was shouting out loud.

  I felt someone touch me on the forehead, felt a cool wet cloth there and it felt good. But I couldn’t lift my hands to touch it, I was motionless, immobile. And then I was back in the shop, behind the bar this time, listening to black sailors sing shanties and roar ‘the high sea, the high sea!’

  And then there he was. His little body, his red skin, slowly turning white before me. I watched his tiny toes and the colour drain from them, and I followed it up to his tummy and then to his face.

  I watched him go again, watched him pass, lying on the bed in front of me.

  And as the roar came out of me, as the sob of grief and disbelief and shock that my baby had stopped breathing right before my eyes, echoed round the room, I saw her.

  Standing there.

  Mad Maggie.

  What was she doing, here in my fever dream, reliving the moment I’d lost my boy?

  I prayed for the fever to take me, away out of this room, out of this bed, gone from her and her staring eyes and the lifeless body of my newborn son.

  The doctor was called. I knew it was him by his big rough hands. The girl was there too, I heard her say she was shockin’ worried.

  “Should we move her to the infirmary?”

  By Jesus no, I thought. Whatever yis do, don’t move me there. Move me there and I’m a goner.

  I heard the doctor mumbling but then I couldn’t hear any more and I didn’t know what he said about the infirmary.

  I was tired. T
he most tired I could remember and all I did was lie in that bed day in, day out. The fever wasn’t letting up. It would rage and ease again and come back just when they all thought it might be going.

  I saw some quare things over those few days. All my memories jumbled up and coming out as if they were real again. I saw people I hadn’t seen in years. I saw my mother. I saw friends I played with when I was a gersha.

  Jimmy was there, through it all. I could feel him, sense his presence.

  “Hold on,” I told him. “I’m not ready for you yet.”

  But I was so tired, so shattered when I woke that I felt that maybe I was ready for him. I knew, when I went, that I would hold my son again. Who wouldn’t want to leave this cripple bed for that?

  I lay there in the morning light, a glow around the curtains, blinking.

  I was still alive.

  I felt as though I’d been through a storm, battered, bruised, every inch of my skin sore, but I was alive.

  I was weak though. The girl, her face pale, worried, bless her, brought me watery porridge but I couldn’t get it to go down.

  “Bring me my pipe,” I told her, my voice hoarse.

  She did as she was told, muttering that it would hardly do me any good, but as soon as it was lit, as soon as I smelt the embers singe and burn, I began to feel better.

  I slouched up in the bed, the pipe in my hand, smoke curling round my head again. Jesus, I loved that pipe. A few sucks on that and I really was feeling like myself again.

  “Would you like a cup of tea?” she asked.

  “Oh, I would,” I said. “I’d love a cup of tea.”

  And after I drank that, I told her to make me another one and this time to take the bottle of whiskey kept in the cupboard beside the sink and pour a good measure of it into the cup.

  I winked at her. She threw her eyes up to heaven, but with the tea, the pipe and the shot of the God liquid, I was nearly right as rain again.

  “What day is it, girl, is it near Wednesday yet?”

  “It is Wednesday,” she said.