Lynne Pemberton – Marilyn’s Child (страница 10)
‘To be sure, it’ll be for me to decide when I wear the underwear, and who sees it. It’s costing me four weeks’ wages and I don’t have to tell either of you how hard I work on Saturdays for that old miser Sheehan.’
I can’t resist saying, ‘Not half as hard as Bridget for the oul’ bitch Mary O’Shea. Jesus, Bridget slaves in that shop from seven in the morning ’til gone seven at night, sometimes eight by the time she’s cashed up. Honest to God, she’s as mean a woman as ever lived. Wouldn’t give you the drippings off her nose, and that’s no lie. The oul’ bugger scrimps on everything: her clothes are darned to death, she’s cobbled her shoes so many times she’s two inches taller, and still she cuts up newspaper for the lavvie when the shelves are stacked full of toilet roll. Gives Bridget strict instructions when she makes her a sandwich to cut the bread wafer-thin.’ I form a tiny space with my thumb and forefinger. ‘She’s got an old press in the back shop (full of rubbish, so she says), and keeps the key on a chain around her neck like a bloody gaoler. Bridget reckons it’s stuffed with money, says that she’s forever moaning about bank charges, and how when her pa was alive and running the store he never believed in banks, said all bank managers were daylight robbers – worse than the feckin’ English.
‘Apparently he’d fought for a free Ireland.’ I imitate Mary O’Shea’s thin voice: “‘If it wasn’t for good men like me da, you, Bridget Costello and Kate O’Sullivan, would be working for some Englishman. A Protestant heathen, not God-fearing and generous like me. Yer should be grateful, thankin’ the Lord and me every day of yer life to be living in a free country, after eight hundred years of the English.”
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’ll not be thanking the likes of Mary O’Shea, or the good Lord for living in this wet hole of a place, nor will I be blaming the English for all of Ireland’s problems.’
Sally, a finger to her lips, had said, ‘Hush, Kate, you’ll get me in no end of trouble talking like that.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Me da’s an IRA man, believes in the cause, hates the English. You know how it is …’
Distracted by a noise in the yard outside the toilet I forget about Sally’s dad and Lizzy’s underwear. It’s Mother Peter talking to Paddy Fitzpatrick, the man who owns the farm shop a couple of miles from the orphanage. With the flat of my ear pressed against the door I strain to hear what they are saying.
‘It’s very sorry I am, Paddy, to hear of your troubles, but like I was telling you last week my hands are tied, there’s naught I can do.’
‘What about the three girls due to leave?’
‘Bridget Costello, Mary Shanley and Kate O’Sullivan come of age this year. Kate’s the first, sixteen in a few weeks’ time. She’s an artist, got a grand future ahead of her, paints like her hands were touched by something sent from heaven. And Mary, sure, she’s a lovely child, going to enter a religious order. Bridget Costello, well, I’m not too sure about that one, forever talking about going across the water to that pagan country England. Sure that would be the death of her.’
A metallic sound drowns out all other noise, and I realize Paddy is closing the van doors. Then he’s speaking again.
‘Aye, she’s a grand lass, Kate, a sight for sore eyes. I remember coming up here when she first came to the orphanage. If me memory serves me well we had a fearful thunderstorm that night. Mother Superior, God rest her soul, had asked for a delivery of potatoes and cabbage. I was near out of cabbage, so brought some beets instead. She was grateful, said she liked beets. I says they were good for her, and the kids, no rumbling bellies if you fill ’em up with beetroot soup and potato pancakes. That same night as I’m pulling out of the gates who should I see but Father Sean Devlin – almost knocked him down. You remember Father Devlin, don’t you, Mother Peter?’
There was no reply. I assume she must’ve nodded, because I heard Paddy’s voice again: ‘He was in a fearful hurry, sweating like a pig, his cheeks bright red and all puffed out, like. He was carrying something in his arms, a little bundle. At first I wasn’t sure what it was, then it moved, and I could see it was a baby wrapped up real tight in a blanket. In fact it was the blanket that attracted my attention. I’d never seen anything like it: bright red and yellow zig-zags – Mexican, I think. I wound the window down and doffed me cap, as you do, but the priest just looked at me like he didn’t know me from Adam, and him usually so chatty and friendly like, and me a God-fearing man who hasn’t missed church since me communion. So I asks him if everything is all right, like, since he seems sort of agitated. Not stopping, he mumbles something about a baby having come a long way, and getting her into the warm. I don’t drive off straight away; I watch the priest in the rear-view mirror, running up to the front of the house, and I wonder why he’s so worked up, and why he’s carrying a baby. Aye, I remember the day well. How could I forget? The same day me missus went into labour. Eight hours later our Molly was born. Now she’s gone and got herself pregnant, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, and her not yet sixteen. If I wasn’t such a God-fearing man meself, and for the love of God I love me daughter – our Moll has always been the apple of me eye – I’d send her far away up north to have the baby. The father, Sean, is naught but a lad himself. He’s gone missing, can’t lay salt to his tail, last seen boarding a boat headed for England. If I could lay me hands on the young bugger right now, I’d tan his hide so hard he wouldn’t be able to walk for a month at the very least. But soon as he was able, I’d make him walk up the aisle with our Molly.’
‘Now, now, Mr Fitzpatrick, calm yourself. Sean O’Halloran was an altar boy, I seem to recall. The son of Tom O’Halloran … A good man, Tom. The lad’s no more than a slip of a thing, no bigger than an ounce of copper. In saying that, I’m not condoning what young Sean has done, not fer a minute. Sure, the young pup needs a good hiding and to be made to do the right thing by Molly …’ She sighed. ‘But if it’s God’s will, so be it.’
‘It’s all well and good you saying that, Mother, but I’ve got ten mouths to feed at home. I can’t afford another one. I thought you might be able to help out for a while. At least the baby would be near so as our Molly could see it from time to time. Just a few months would do, maybe stretch it to a year until our Moll gets on her feet, gets a job and a place of her own, like, then she can have the baby back. The orphanage is always needing more veggies: I’ll see to it that you get them at the right price.’
‘Mother Virgilus says your prices are too high now, Mr Fitz.’
‘My prices, like I keep telling her, haven’t altered in nigh on five years, and if she was to go and buy the same stuff down at the supermarket she’d be paying twice what I charge. So if you could have a word with her, I’d be mighty grateful.’
A jackdaw crowed, drowning out the nun’s reply.
Then I heard Paddy’s voice again. ‘A good woman, so yer are, Mother Peter. I knew you’d try and help. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours, so to speak.’ Paddy chuckled. The nun said nothing, so Paddy went on, ‘Good day to you, Mother Peter.’
‘God be with you, Mr Fitz,’ she says.
I hear the gravel crunch under his feet, the clunk of the van door, then the engine starting up. Without making a sound, I wait until the van rumbles past the lavatory then count out five minutes in my head before slowly opening the door to step outside.
The yard is empty. A quick peek in the scullery window reveals nothing. As I walk from the yard around the east wing to the front of the house Mr Fitzpatrick’s words are running around my head: ‘a baby having come a long way.’ I’d always been led to believe that I’d been left on the steps of the village church, less than three miles away. Well, surely that couldn’t, even in the wildest imagination, be described as a long way. It sets off bells in my head, the ones that ring whenever I think about who my parents were, and if, as in my recurring dream, they are still alive. I suppose I’m like the rest of the girls, the same as orphans everywhere: we all want to know where we’ve come from, who we are. Mrs Molloy, after seeing a film on TV, had told Lizzy I was like a young film star. Lizzy had said it was one of the star’s first films and she thought it was called
I cling to the thought, the idea, the dream. It explains why I feel different. If I’d been born in America to a film star who couldn’t keep me for some reason it would make perfect sense. When we were about eight or nine, Bridget had stolen a telephone book from a box in the village, and we’d spent days picking out the O’Sullivans and Costellos, making a list of the numbers, imagining that one of them might be related and intending to ring them all when we had the money. But of course we never did.