City of Hope (5 page)

“I do not want my hair done, Mrs. Hogan. I have come to speak with you on another matter entirely.”

She looked across at Pauline, whose substantial form was squeezed into a tight flapper dress. Her plump arms strained against the short sleeves, almost at tearing point, and the white, puckered flesh wobbled as she polished, pretending not to listen.

“Alone, if you please.”

Oh God—what had the child done last night?

“Pauline, run over to the shop and get some more tea.” Then, to buy more time, I added, “And see if you can get some scones from Mary—they might not be out of the oven yet, so there'll be a bit of a wait. I'll deal with things here until you get back.”

“Yes, Ma'am,” she said.

“And put your apron on, for goodness' sake, girl.”

I felt bad being stern with her, but I was only trying to protect her somewhat against the tight-lipped old biddy's onslaught.

Pauline tiptoed out the door, all but curtsying to us on her way out. I took a deep breath to launch my defense.

“Mrs. Fitzpatrick,” I started.

But the old woman held her hand up to stop me and said, “I am here with a business proposition.”

The Fitzpatricks owned the only draper's shop in town. It was an outdated, scruffy-looking shop, and although they had made some efforts to smarten it up a year or two ago, dressing a single draper's torso in a red jacket, that jacket was now faded with age and, with obviously dusty shoulders and curling lapels, was more a source of annoyance to their customers than a temptation. I knew, by the erratic opening hours of late, that the couple were struggling to manage the business on their own.

The old lady rubbed the protruding knuckles on her gnarled hands as she talked. Arthritis, by all accounts—her sewing days were surely coming to an end.

My mind began to race as I suspected what was coming.

“Mr. Fitzpatrick and I are not getting any younger and, as you might know, despite our efforts to persuade Thomas to come home and take over the . . .”

I'll buy it!
I wanted to blurt it out immediately, but had to wait for the old woman to go through the whole rigmarole of explaining the whys and wherefores.

“. . . the business, he is doing well—very well—over in England, working as . . .”

She went through all of her five sons, recalling how exceptionally well they were doing in England, their acquisition of wives and children and money, describing their grand houses and their many achievements to me in detail. She then gave me a history of her business (
not
condensed), dating back to her grandparents-in-law insisting on every generation's impeccable reputation as the finest tailors and draper's shop in the Western hemisphere, before—having almost talked herself out of it—she finally, reluctantly, said, “. . . so we have decided to sell the business.”

C
HAPTER
F
OUR

John was furious.

“What do you
mean
you've agreed to buy the Fitzpatricks' shop!”

“They offered it to me, John. The old lady came to see me in the salon, and all but pleaded with me. I couldn't refuse her.”

I shouldn't have blurted my news out the moment I came in the door, especially not after having left things the way they were that morning. I should have kept it to myself for a few days, been more discreet, more wily in my presentation. Passed it through Maidy first perhaps, and got things back onto a pleasant footing with John—baked him a cake.

But that wasn't my way: why should I alter my manner of doing things to please my husband? In any case, it wasn't
our
way to tiptoe around each other, either. I couldn't understand why he was getting so het up.

“I thought you'd be pleased for me. For
us
?”

“Us, Ellie?
Us?
Do we not have enough already? Enough money, enough shops, enough to be doing already, without you running about opening another bloody business? Well, I've had enough, Ellie—
ENOUGH!
”

He banged his hand on the table, his fist clenched, his eyes red and shot through with anger—and something else . . . ?

I jumped with shock as a cup on the table clattered to the floor and smashed on the tiles. I had never seen him this angry before.

“This is our future, John. I am working to secure
our
future. This shop will bring in everything we ever dreamed of . . .”

“All
you
ever dreamed of, Ellie. All I ever dreamed of I already have—you and the farm and—”

“The
farm
! Sure, we'd live on potatoes and air alone, if it was left to you.”

“That's right—I've never been enough for you, always wanting more, more, more. What is it now—a bigger car? To be driving around Kilmoy in a Rolls-Royce? Is that what you want?”

“Oh, don't be so stupid, John.”

“That's it. Stupid John—good for nothing, only driving his wife about here and there . . .”

My fire was up now. If he wanted a fight, I'd give him one all right.

“Well, I can drive myself now surely, John Hogan—sure, I hardly need you at all.”

“For Christ's sake, Ellie, why can't you just leave it alone and be grateful and happy with what we've got?”

“Because, John”—I wanted to wind things up now, for that was enough fighting and it was time to put my foot down—“I am always right—and you know it. The offer is in, the deposit is being transferred tomorrow to secure the sale, and in two months we will be the owners of Fitzpatricks' Drapery, and that is the end of it.”

“No, Ellie, NO!”

Again, the fist on the table—and the legs of it all but bounced off the floor. He looked at me, his face ruddy with rage, his eyes slanted through with something that I did not recognize—something strangely inappropriate. Tiredness? What was wrong with him? He seemed to gather himself slightly and sat down in the chair, as if exhausted by the fight.

“I am going outside to feed the hens,” I said haughtily (although I had not fed them myself in weeks), “and when I come back, we can talk about this properly.”

The air outside was spring-fresh. It was early yet, the sun had held since morning, but a small scatter of rain was interfering with the leaves of the tall sycamore trees over the hen house at the back of our yard. It needed sweeping. That was my job—one of the many household chores I had willingly performed, and with pleasure and gratitude for our soft, simple life in the early days. Now the ground was littered with leaves, and the crisp top ones flittered across with a small breeze, revealing the carpet of mulch beneath them. I had perhaps been careless with our home, especially since the salon had opened—but John had always picked up where I slacked off. It was unlike him to let the yard around our house grow so unkempt—and now losing his temper? Perhaps there was something more wrong than was apparent. Perhaps he was tiring of me? Yet we had made love the night before, although thinking back, his ardor had cooled somewhat in the past few months. He had taken to retiring early to bed, and was more often than not asleep when I got in beside him. Could my marriage be falling apart? The very rock on which my life was built, the one thing in which I held all confidence, the person who had given me grace all my life—could I be losing him?

No. It was too ridiculous a notion. Yet I had been working too hard lately. And John was right, I worried about the businesses and yet never about us. Had he taken that as an invitation to stray? He was, after all, alone in the house all day—and my mind wandered to what options he might take for himself. The scattering of widows and half-witted girls to whom he might have access, and the mere idea of John making good on poor Veronica's crush, amused me so greatly that my spirits lifted.

I walked to the shed and picked up the bucket of hen corn. It was right next to the door and damp, again—it was unlike John to not bother placing it on the high shelf where it was kept dry.

I grabbed a handful of the damp grain and on the way over to the pen I tore up a few sticks of rhubarb from the patch behind the shed. They came too easily at their creamy roots, and I resolved to come back for more later and spend the evening creating a scene of domestic warmth, if not for the benefit of John, then at least for my own pride in front of him. I still had the crystallized ginger in my bag that I had picked up in town for Maidy's jam—although, in my excitement, I had forgotten the woman herself.

In the pen I scattered the damp grain through my fingers and across to the scrappy, hungry birds. I was still wearing my good shoes, but decided I would chance checking for eggs anyway. If my marriage was in jeopardy, it was no use worrying about mud on my buckles. The chickens had been laying very badly lately, according to the number of eggs in the house. John collected them each evening before I came in from work, but we had had none for the past few weeks.

I picked my way across the filthy pen and opened the door of their house. The smell hit me first. There was a dead hen decomposing on the hen-house floor. Rotten eggs were broken all around her—and a good dozen or so were piled up on the seats so that the poor animals would barely have had room to sit down.

Suddenly the sight of this small disarray sent a feeling of panic rushing through me. John had not been attending to his animals. This was not like him at all. He was not himself. There was something badly wrong.

I threw down the bucket and left all as it was, running back to the house in six long strides.

John was slumped on the kitchen table. His arms hung motionless by his sides.

C
HAPTER
F
IVE

I lifted his head—his eyes were glassy, his mouth half open as if waiting for a kiss. I shook him: “John, John, JOHN!”

He let out a long gasp and his eyes turned to me with a look of pure terror.

I didn't want to leave him, but my gut clenched with the certainty that I had to act quickly. Before I had the chance to think anything through, I ran to the car and cursed as my hands shook in the ignition.

“He's breathing. I can't have been gone five minutes . . .”
I talked to myself aloud in the car.
“Doctor Bourke will be at home, get to Doctor Bourke's house—ten minutes—five. Five minutes to the town. Five minutes to get him, and five back again. Fifteen minutes. Nothing much can happen in fifteen minutes. He'll be fine. Put your foot down.”

I kept my eyes on the road ahead and sped as fast as the car would carry me. Blind to the world, hedgerows scraped, the mirrors bashed off on trees, my heart banged against my chest with a kind of elation.

“I can do this.”
I said it over and over again. John had been shot in these very bogs out on maneuvers with his IRA unit. I had thought he was going to die then, and he didn't. This would be the same. I had thought he wouldn't walk again, and he had. I had made that happen. I had brought him back to life. I would do it again.
“Eyes on the road, Ellie, faster, faster.”

I left the engine running, pulling the car clumsily up to the pavement outside Doctor Bourke's house, and banged and banged on the door until his lazy maid answered it, then pushed past the girl and grabbed Doctor Bourke from his tea. The genteel domestic scene of crockery and fresh linens left behind in a flitter of panic, his charming, elegant elderly wife left open-mouthed in the wake of my unseemly shout: “It's John! I think he's dying!”

Even as I said the words, I didn't believe them. It was a ruse to make the old man move faster.

He barely spoke in the car, but I babbled against the doctor's natural reserve. He was being the professional, staying silent until he got the lay of the land.

“I was only gone out of the house five minutes and when I got back he was . . .”

I stalled at describing his condition. When we got home he'd be all right and I'd look like some fool. John was a strong man, he survived the shooting and nothing could be worse than that. I had probably just been unnerved by our fight. I was stressed with the day, that was it—overreacting.

“He was breathing, maybe he just choked on something. I just got a fright, see what you think. I was only gone five minutes.”

When we got back into the house, John was still in the chair as I had left him.

Doctor Bourke went over and put his hands to his neck and shook his head.

“I'm sorry, Ellie.”

What did that mean—he was sorry.

I ran over to John, and took his shoulders and shook them. Why wouldn't he wake up?

“John, John,” I said, “Doctor Bourke is here. JOHN!”

I pulled the chair away from the table, struggling against the weight of him. “For God's sake, help me move him,” I said to the old doctor, “help him to stand up. Do something!” Why wasn't he
doing
something?

I put my face against John's and kissed him and whispered into the bristle of his warm face, “Wake up, John, please wake up now . . .”

Doctor Bourke came up behind me and put his hands gently on my shoulders, coaxing me away.

“He's gone, Ellie.”

“No,” I said, “no!” I shook him off and ripped at John's clothes. I pawed at his strong body beneath his clothes, the sinew and muscle—moving, always moving. He wasn't stiff, he was still warm. I put my head to his chest, to the heart that beat against my back every night as I slept, to see if I could hear his heart. I crept my hand up to it and beat out the rhythm, one-two-three, one-two-three—I could make it start again, I knew I could.

Doctor Bourke put his hands on my shoulder, his long bony fingers gripping me more firmly this time.

“Come away now, Ellie, come away.”

The confident touch of the old man was real as he dragged me back. John did not rise to stop him. Could it be true?