Many of my old school friends came as well, the girls more out of curiosity than relief that I had lived. I was never popular with them, and I sensed a not-so-hidden envy at all the attention I was getting. The boys, on the other hand, were openly in awe of what I’d lived through. They shoved one another out of the way so they could get close enough to talk to me.
‘What’s America like? Is it as grand as everybody says?’
‘Will you soon be coming back to the dances, Nora? Sure, we used to have some great craic.’
I smiled and nodded but said little. I suddenly felt the smallness of their world – my old world. Had I really raced out to every dance anxious to impress the boys and make the girls jealous? I sighed. How young and innocent I was then, although I’d not have believed that at the time. Now these fresh-faced, eager boys held no interest for me. I felt a hundred years older than them.
The distractions grew even greater after the local paper printed an article about me. Local Girl Rises From The Dead the headline said. At first, I was embarrassed, but the more attention the article brought, the more I began to enjoy it. Reporters from other newspapers, even one from Dublin, showed up at the door, dying to interview me and take my photograph. For a while the old Nora crept back into me, and I posed and smiled and exaggerated all the details of my story, making myself out to be a selfless heroine. I said I’d tried to help passengers at every turn.
Da kept out of the way, but Ma was delighted with the attention, posing for photographs and telling the reporters all about the shock she’d had when she found out I was dead, and the even bigger shock when she was told I was alive.
‘Sure it put me heart crosswise in my chest,’ she said. ‘Make sure you write that down, now.’
I watched her with curiosity. I’d not realized until now how much Ma and the old Nora were two of a kind.
When all the fuss died down, and me and Ma were left facing each other, she finally started the inquisition.
‘What happened to ye after ye were rescued?’ ‘Where were ye at all?’ ‘Where were ye living all this time?’ ‘Who looked after ye?’ ‘Where did ye get the money to live?’ ‘And who gave you that necklace you’ve been wearing since you came home?’ And, finally, the question I wanted to avoid most of all, ‘Why did ye not go and find Aidan O’Hanlon?’
I started with the hospital. That was easy enough to explain. I said I didn’t know how I got there – crew from the rescue ship must have brought me there. I explained I woke up with no memory of who I was.
Ma pursed her lips at that. ‘I never heard tell of the likes of that,’ she said. ‘If it was another girl that was in it, I’d have said she didn’t want her ma and da to know she was alive. Maybe she’d have wanted to pass herself off as somebody else altogether.’
‘How can you say that, Ma,’ I said, although I knew that she was partly right, I had pretended my memory hadn’t come back because I wanted to stay with Mrs Shaw. I hoped the guilt didn’t show on my face.
I could have made up some wild story about where I was living but Ma would never have believed it, so I’d no choice but to tell her about Mrs Shaw. As I feared, Ma pounced on Mrs Shaw like a cat on a mouse.
‘What kind of a woman would take in a total stranger? Nobody takes in a strange girl for nothing. What kind of things did you have to do in exchange? Was it one of her customers gave you that locket?’
I knew what Ma was getting at and my anger flared.
‘She wasn’t running a brothel, she was a decent woman, and she expected nothing from me. And for your information, it was her gave me this locket as a keepsake.’
‘She must have been a spoiled one then, with a rich husband, and too much time on her hands. Ye must have been amusement for her.’
‘You have her all wrong, Ma!’ I shouted. ‘She was like a mother to me!’
The words were out before I could stop them. I braced myself, waiting for Ma’s anger to explode. But instead of the tirade I expected, her face turned pale.
‘I never thought my daughter would disown me,’ she said as she walked away with her back to me.
I could have run after her and said I didn’t mean it the way she took it. But, again, there was some truth to her words. I had wished that Mrs Shaw was my mother. I left the cottage without speaking to her and climbed up the hill to the circle of white stones. Delia’s stones, I had taken to calling them. I began to understand why Delia had spent so much time up there. She’d wanted to escape Ma’s constant harping, and now I wanted to escape from her too.
A soft rain began to fall as I sat looking out at the misty sea. I wanted to weep, but no tears would come. Since I came home, I’d been wrung dry as a dishtowel. All the life seemed to have gone out of me. I began to wonder had I made a mistake by coming back.
In the days that followed, Ma hardly spoke to me. Instead I was met with heavy sighs and martyred looks. Da took the chance to stay out of the house as long as possible, saying he had to make the most of the light to get jobs done before spring. Likewise, I spent as much time as I could up in my room. The walls started to close in on me, almost suffocating me. I felt like a prisoner as I looked out the tiny window over the green fields and hills.
I knew things couldn’t go on the way they were. Either Ma or I would have to give in – and I knew rightly it wouldn’t be Ma. One morning I went down to the kitchen and stood in front of her.
‘I’m sorry, Ma, for what I said. Mrs Shaw was a kind woman, but no one would ever take your place in my heart.’
I thought I’d feel like a hypocrite saying those words, and that she’d know I was lying. But that wasn’t the case. After all, she’d been a good mother to me up until I left for America. And now I’d come home and said a hurtful thing to her. She didn’t deserve that.
It took her a couple more days to thaw out, but soon she was back to her old self, and the questions started up again. I told myself I should have let the stand-offgo on longer, at least it had given me a bit of peace.
Just when I thought I might go mad, one day in late spring, Dom Donnelly appeared at the cottage door. I nearly fainted at the sight of him.
‘Do you not know me, Nora?’ he said, his blue eyes twinkling.
‘Ah, for God’s sake, Dom, sure you nearly frightened the life out of me. I thought you were a ghost.’
‘No, ’tis me in the flesh.’
I smiled then. ‘’Tis grand to see you, Dom. You’re a sight for sore eyes.’
‘So, are you inviting me in, or are we to talk on your doorstep?’
My hand flew to my mouth. ‘Ah, where’s my manners at all?’
I was about to let him in, when I had second thoughts.
‘Why don’t we take a stroll up the field, Dom,’ I said. ‘That way we can talk without Ma sticking her nose in.’
He grinned. ‘Ah, sure, I know the way of it.’
We walked side by side up the hill towards the white rocks. I gave him a sideways glance. He’d filled out, more like a man now than a boy. And he was more handsome than I remembered. America had changed him too, just like myself. We sat down on the rocks and gazed in silence out at the ocean.
‘It looks so peaceful, now,’ Dom said.
‘Aye, you’d hardly believe how cruel it can be. It can destroy life in a minute.’ I looked over at him. ‘I’m sorry about Maeve.’
He nodded. ‘Our Maeve was never fit for this world. She was like a delicate wee flower beaten and battered by the winds. I pray she’s at peace now.’ He looked at me with sad eyes. ‘They buried her in Nova Scotia,’ he said, ‘but one day I’ll bring her home where she belongs.’
I made a silent sign of the cross.
‘What are you doing back home?’
‘My da died a fortnight ago. Ma needed me to sort out the farm. What about yourself?’
‘I’m so sorry, Dom. God rest his soul.’ I shrugged. ‘’Tis a long story.’
‘Ma thinks I’m home to stay. I’ve no brothers, as you know, so she’s
expecting me to stay and run the farm. But ’tis not the life for me, Nora. You’ve been in America; you understand how it changes you.’
‘Aye, that I do.’
I thought for a minute about how hard I’d tried to copy the toffs’ table manners so as to impress everybody in New York, especially Sinclair. I’d even tried to get rid of my accent and speak more politely. And where had it got me? Landed back in Ireland! Well at least here I didn’t need to pretend I was somebody I wasn’t.
‘I’m looking for a man to manage things, then I’ll be away back to New York. But I can’t leave Ma until that’s sorted out.’
I smiled. ‘Is it a girl you’ve got there?’
He blushed, and I saw a glimpse of the Dom I’d known.
‘Ma said you saw Delia in New York,’ I said.
We both knew that I was fishing for information. Dom knew more than he told Ma, I was sure of that. He nodded but said nothing.
‘Ma said you met her at a dance, and she looked well. But she wasn’t working at the house she was sent to. The owners wrote to Da and said she never showed her face. Did she say where she’d gone?’
Dom shook his head. ‘No.’
I knew he was hiding something, but I decided not to press him. I didn’t want to spoil the moment by getting into an argument. It sounded like he’d be home for a while, so there’d be plenty of time for that conversation, if I ever decided I wanted to know. Besides, what Delia was up to mattered more to Ma than it did to me.
I saw Dom often after that and even though I knew Ma didn’t think he was good enough for me, she said nothing. Maybe she thought that being with Dom would stop me from going back to New York.
All through spring and well into the summer we went for long walks, sometimes returning to the cottage by moonlight. I told him everything that had happened to me, except for the part about Sinclair. That was my secret and it would stay that way. He laughed when I told him Ma thought Mrs Shaw ran a brothel.
‘Aye, sure, your ma would be suspicious of Jesus himself.’
‘She had my head astray with all her questions. I’m still waiting for her to bring up Aidan O’Hanlon. You know, the feller I was supposed to work for. Sure, I didn’t even remember his name, let alone his address. She had it in her head that I was to marry him, and I know she’s mad as a wet hen that it never happened.’
Dom gave me a strange look, then said, ‘And what are your plans?’
I shrugged my shoulders. ‘I don’t know rightly what I’m going to do, Dom. There’s nothing for me in New York. But there’s even less for me in Donegal.’
Before he left to go back to New York, Dom took the notion in his head that I should learn how to swim.
‘You’re a feckin’ eejit, Dom Donnelly, if you think I’m going to set foot in water ever again after what happened.’
‘But what if you decide to go back to America? You’ll have no choice but to face your fear of water again. Look what happened on the Olympic. There you were in first class and you locked yourself in your cabin out of fear. Think of all the craic you missed.’
‘Well, I’ll not be going back there any time soon, if ever,’ I said stubbornly.
In the end, Dom won the argument. He took me to a nearby lake every day and, little by little, I began to get over my fear. If it had been anybody else trying to teach me, I’d have run a mile, but Dom was gentle and patient, I knew I could trust him with my life.
He left in late June. I’d cried when he told me – big, salty tears of despair. We’d become inseparable. What would I do without him now? We rode to Donegal Town together in the pony and cart. On the station platform we stood without speaking. I tried to hold back my tears, but when I looked up at him, his own tears had already escaped. I threw my arms around him and held him tight. He tipped his face down to mine and kissed me gently on the lips.
‘I’ll miss you,’ I whispered.
‘Come to New York, then.’
‘’Tis too soon.’
‘When you’re ready then.’
I waved until he’d disappeared in the clouds of steam from the train’s engine. Even after the train itself had disappeared, I stood there, unwilling to move. I thought what a lovely lad Dom was. He was worth a thousand Sinclair Shaws. Before New York I would never have given Dom the time of day, but now I saw clearly how wrong I had been.
As I shook the reins of the pony and pointed her towards the road back to Kilcross, I tried not to think beyond this minute. I couldn’t begin to picture the future. It was as if time was standing still. As the cottage came into sight the evening sun was slanting over the fields, turning their colours from green to purple to gold, and the beauty of it made me hold my breath. I’d been born in the most beautiful place in the world, but it was not enough to hold me. I realized then that I would soon have to leave again. America had changed me too much, and it was calling me back.
Dom had been in New York for over a month when I got a letter from him. ‘Two letters from America,’ the postman said, ‘and on the same day, so. I’ve never seen the likes of it.’ He held out one. ‘This one’s for yourself, darlin’.’ I snatched it from him before Ma could get her clutches on it and ran up the back field to Delia’s stones to read it. I tore open the envelope and pulled out the flimsy pages. He sounded in good form. The crossing had gone smoothly, and he was back at his old digs in New York. He had a job in the construction business and was learning everything he could. He’d told me his dream was to one day build tall buildings and own them. I smiled. He would do it, too, I knew; he had a good head on his shoulders and the self-confidence to see it through.
‘Come to New York soon’ was how he’d ended the letter, ‘I miss you.’ And he’d signed it ‘Love, Dom.’
My heart skipped a beat. I put the letter in my pocket and gazed out at the sea, picturing us together in New York. Dear, sweet Dom. I would feel safe with him. But a small voice whispered in my ear – is feeling safe all you really want, Nora? I didn’t know the answer.
I was in a dreamy state when I came back into the cottage, but as soon as I caught the look on Ma’s face I was jolted back into reality. She shoved an envelope into my hands, and stood, arms folded.
Sighing, I sat down and studied the return address on the envelope. It was addressed to Da and it was from Delia! What on earth was she writing to Da about? Before I could open it, Ma pointed at it.
‘’Twas sent in February,’ she said.
‘And addressed to Da! Did he read it?’ I said.
‘But it went astray in the post,’ she went on, ignoring my question.
I knew then she had hidden it from Da.
‘It says she was coming back home. But we’ve seen neither hide nor hair of her.’ Ma pursed her lips. ‘Another lie! But more important she says she’s been working for your man O’Hanlon.’ She paused, a look of triumph in her eyes. ‘And here’s the best of it. The chit admits she pretended she was yourself – says she passed herself off as Nora! Well, what d’you think of that!’
I laid the letter down on the table and stood up. A strange feeling had come over me and I shivered as if someone had just walked on my grave.
‘Well now we know what happened to her,’ I said.
Ma exploded.
‘Is that all you have to say?’ she screeched. ‘That slibhin dared pass herself off as you and lied about it into the bargain. She’s set her sights on O’Hanlon, mark my words.’
‘But if she had, why did she say she was coming back home?’
Ma was getting more impatient. ‘She says it’s because O’Hanlon and the child are moving to Texas. Don’t you see she only said that to throw us off the scent. Pure malarkey! We’ve not seen hide nor hair of her in Donegal. I’d say she’s angling to traipse after him to Texas. I’d put nothing past her. It won’t be long before she lures him into marrying her! And after hearing all that, you don’t turn a hair? What in the name of God’s got into you?’
She finally paused for breath. I opened th
e back door and walked out. As the door banged shut, I could hear her crying after me like a banshee. I ran as fast as I could away from the cottage, past the stones and on up the hill until I could run no more. I sank down on the ground, my breath ragged, and lay staring up at the sky.
Ma’s outburst shouldn’t have surprised me. She’d always hated Delia and now Delia had stolen the dream Ma had intended for me. She wanted me to be as angry as she was. She wanted to poison my mind the way she’d done my whole life, putting notions in my head that I thought she was doing out of love, but now I realized she wanted to live out her own dreams through me. Well this time I wasn’t going to take her bait.
When the sun finally set, I got up and walked back to the cottage. A window was open, and I could hear Ma shouting at Da.
‘She needs to go back to America this minute and find that sneak. She needs to step in and take her rightful place. I think she’s in shock at the minute. You just wait, I’ll convince her to go. She’s always listened to me in the past.’
‘Why don’t you just leave it alone, Mary,’ sighed Da.
I pushed my way past them and went up to my room. Ma was right about one thing. I would have to go back to New York. I couldn’t stay here a minute longer with her harping at me day and night.
That night I cried for the first time in a long time. They were tears of self-pity. Why had my whole world turned upside-down? Why had Mrs Shaw died? Why had Sinclair turned out to be a monster? Why was I left with nowhere else to go except back home? And now I was being forced out of here. What had I done to deserve all this? And why was I not even sure who I was any more?
Now that I’d made up my mind to go back to New York, I was faced with the problem of how to get there. I had very little money left from what Ben had given me, certainly not enough for the boat passage – not even in steerage. I thought of writing to Dom to ask for money, but my pride wouldn’t let me. Ma and Da hadn’t that sort of money. I realized at last my only choice was to sell Mrs Shaw’s beautiful locket.
The Titanic Sisters Page 19
