September Starlings (52 page)

I walked to the door. ‘Then get a man. Father’s dead now, so it will be legal this time. You’d enough of them while he was alive, so why are you alone now?’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Because there’s too much money at stake. I don’t want any man to hitch his wagon to my star.’

Someone knocked at the door through which we had entered. The second door opened, and a ghostly face peeped through a small gap. ‘Shall I get that, Mrs McNally?’ Mother’s personal assistant looked frightened to death and I empathized with her, remembered my own fears.

‘No, Susan.’ Susan disappeared. ‘Come in.’ This order was directed towards the corridor.

The burly guard stepped into the office, came to an abrupt halt when he saw me. ‘Oh,’ he said, his voice rather high-pitched. He cleared his throat, descended an octave or so. ‘I thought … I saw this young woman in the grounds and—’

‘No matter,’ she snapped. ‘Go back to your post.’

He marched out in double-quick time. I watched my mother as she took some pills from her bag, counted them into her hand before swallowing them with a sip of water. ‘I really do need you to come home.’

‘No.’

The tea arrived, but I did not stay. As the nylon-aproned woman placed the tray on a side table, I left the office and fled down the passage. I shouldn’t have come, would never come again. The woman who had birthed me had no concept of proper human behaviour. It was plain that she thought I’d come for cash, probably hush money. The sign on her face needed no neon lighting, no help to send its message. ‘
I don’t know this shabby young woman
,’ it had read, ‘
But if she cleans up her act and comes to live with me as a servant, then she will be my daughter
.’

I did not run far, just as far as the farmhouse. I stood on the front lawn, a stretch of perfect emerald grass where no weed would dare to show its face. The sheet of green was striped like a football pitch, had been carefully tended by another of her lackeys. Around its edges there were shrubs, dwarf conifers, rose-bushes that had been cut back for the winter.

But it was the house that held my attention. Gone were those lovely sash windows, gone were the cornerstones that had framed the delightfully flawed panes of glass. Mother had opted in a big way for light, had torn the once-proud house to shreds. Picture windows, six of them. They sat in the warm stone walls, huge blind eyes with lids that hung tired and expressionless, wood-framed transoms extended on metal catches to let in a little air, to let out a lot of smoke. She had murderded Ravenscroft, had done
a face-lift in reverse, and the old house had not survived the anaesthetic.

Houses matter to me. That isn’t to say that I’m particular about where I live, but I think places have souls. There’s often one house in a terraced row, just a single dwelling where the architect’s original plan still shows. A good solid door with the panels intact, no sheet of hardboard covering the pattern. Window frames cared for, painted with love and a good brand of gloss. Intact, treasured, respected. This farmhouse had been extended, had lost its character. The main part of the building had been altered to tone in with the new, so the guts had been torn out and discarded like offal in an abattoir.

I walked down the hill towards Auntie Maisie’s shop, my insides twisting with an anger that went beyond mere rage. My mother had snuffed out my father’s life, had tried to diminish mine, was continuing to leave a trail of rubble in her wake. That poor house, that lovely, ruined place. And all those crippled, active people thrown out of work, probably because they didn’t fit in with the colour scheme.

‘You look a bit fetched-up,’ said my aunt after her usual fussy greeting. ‘A bit on the upset side. Have you been up yonder?’

I nodded.

‘She’s doing well, isn’t she? They’re saying she’ll be a millionaire come 1970. See, sit yourself down and I’ll make us a bite. Freddie?’

He appeared at the back window, his face wreathed in smiles as soon as he saw me. Once inside, he took off his thick gloves and warmed his hands on my face. ‘I’ve been tending my vegetables,’ he said.

‘Aye, well you can tend the shop for a bit, Freddie. I want to make Laura a cuppa.’

We settled at the big square table in the room behind the shop. They had given up the house next door, were letting it to a newly married couple. ‘We can manage this road while there’s only two of us. Right.’ She stirred the
tea, banged the brown lid home, poured the liquid into a pair of china mugs. ‘What’s up with you? Did she come out of the wrong side of the bed again?’

‘There’s only one side to Mother, Auntie Maisie. You should know that after all these years.’

‘Aye, happen I should. Has she offered you no help?’

‘Just money.’

She poured the milk, took a tea towel off a plate of newly baked cakes. ‘Would you sooner have a butty, love?’

I shook my head, sipped the tea. ‘I couldn’t eat a thing.’

‘You should take the money. Your dad would have wanted you to be comfortable.’ She paused, waited for an answer, gave up after a few seconds. ‘I hear that nun’s finished up at your house. What’s it like living with her?’

‘Crazy.’ I forced a smile, didn’t want my aunt worried. ‘She’s gone all eccentric, looks like something from a desert island, flowery prints and wooden necklaces. To top the lot, she’s very big at the family planning clinic in town. She’s a feather in their caps, because she left the convent when the church found out about her faith in birth control. And she’s a noisy beggar. I think I’m getting the benefit of her being cooped up in a convent for so many years. She lets off steam and I get scalded.’

The warm-hearted woman reached out a work-reddened hand and placed it on top of mine. ‘Never think you’ve got nobody, lass. There’s me and our Anne and your Uncle Freddie. Then there’s your kiddies and Sister Wotsername-as-was and Miss Armitage – that old teacher of yours – she’s asking after you. Bit of a scandal there, something to do with a man, but I speak as I find, and she’s a good soul. Plenty of us care for you, Laura.’

‘Thank you.’

She patted my arm, picked up a cake, took a healthy bite and chattered on in spite of her full mouth. ‘She’ll be the loser at the finish, will our Liza. She’s turned that many folk away from her, she’ll be lonely at the end.’

I travelled home on the bus, a box of toffees and tinned
food on my lap. Auntie Maisie was right. I was a rich woman, because so many folk cared about me, needed me. Most of all, I was wealthy after being loved by Frank. The love of a good man is beyond price. I smiled to myself, sucked a Nuttall’s Minto, looked forward to going home.

‘So I’ve to go home immediately if not sooner.’

I could not take my eyes off her. She was wearing a dirndl-type skirt that looked as if it might have started life as kitchen curtains, three rows of striped glass beads, some twenty-odd bracelets of metals so base that they left her wrists green, and a very strange coat that she’d probably pounced on at the nearly new shop. ‘Where did you get that coat? No, don’t tell me, Confetti-Goretti, it sticks out a mile. You got it as a bargain at that blinking second-hand shop. Well, you’ve surpassed yourself this time. That’s a loose woman’s coat.’

She glanced down at herself. ‘You see, I’ve never gone in for a tight fit, as I can’t seem to wear clothes tidily, so the more room the merrier and—’

‘The term “loose” is applicable to the wearer, not to the size of the garment.’

‘Oh.’ I could tell by her face that she was greatly disappointed. It was one of those dreadful garments with shaggy fur all round the edges, then braided fasteners that were supposed to attach themselves to fancy toggles. Except that Confetti wore the coat open, so the effect was not quite as cheap as usual. ‘Well, isn’t that a turn-up for the book now, Laura? Me in a streetwoman’s coat.’

‘You need high boots with it,’ I said. ‘In purple or burgundy, boots that cover your knees. Then a very short skirt that shows your knickers every time you bend over. For the skirt, you could try black leather or very open crochet.’

She tore off the coat and tossed it aside. ‘Then I’ll stick to the sheepskin, even though it is adrift on two seams.’ She dropped into a chair, kicked off the blue clogs. ‘Mammy has forgiven us all. She’s had a vision and we’re
all summoned, have to get there immediately if not sooner.’

‘Really?’

She nodded mournfully. ‘She’s seen the light. And as she found the light very attractive, she’s decided to go into it rather earlier than originally planned.’

‘Light?’ I asked.

‘Heaven. She’s arranging her death.’

‘Oh.’ It was difficult to choose many words at this point.

‘This incandescent glow hung over the cowshed at midnight, she says. So she’s forgiven me for being a failed nun, and she’s even extended the hand of motherhood to Eugene, despite the fact that he had to get married after indulging in sex and unconsecrated communion wine.’ The bangles rattled as she smoothed down her fast-growing hair. ‘He probably drank the wine before enjoying the sex, but who’s to know the real truth of it? So I’m off in the morning.’

I thought about it, decided that I wasn’t pleased. ‘I’ll miss you.’

‘I’ll be back. My mammy may have seen a vision over the cowshed, but it would be more to do with cough medicine than the hereafter.’

Confetti has never thought along the same lines as an ordinary person. In those days, the route she took was always tortuous, always exciting. If she had been a driver – and we must thank the Almighty for great mercies because she never touched a car – then Confetti would have chosen to drive on the B roads. Her arrival might have been tardy, but she would have seen some interesting sights along the way. Her head was positively bursting with information, and she would spill it out in great quantities, with the result that one needed to home in on a certain wavelength in order to extract the pertinent points. I was tuned in and I was going to miss her. ‘What has cough medicine got to do with lights over the shippon?’

‘She’s an addict. Mammy had a terrible cough for years, was thought to be consumptive. Then Fidelma O’Flaherty
came across from her farm and gave my mother one of her brews. Now, it’s a well-known fact that Kevin and Fidelma O’Flaherty brewed all kinds of stuff that should never have seen the light of day and that—’

‘Or a light over a cowshed at midnight?’

‘Exactly. In fact, there’d been some terrible explosions over at O’Flaherty’s farm, and Kevin lost a pig and a finger, and that was a terrible shame and the cause of great concern all round. The finger wasn’t too important, as it was on his left hand and he is a right-handed person, but the pig was a creature of notable stock. Anyway, aside from all the aforementioned, we began to notice that Mammy had improved something wonderful when she started on this cough cure. She still had the cough, but she was beautifully happy until the bottle was empty. The upshot was that she bought a job lot of the stuff, so that’ll be the light over the shed.’

‘I see.’ She was better than radio, heaps better than television. My children would grieve for her, because she was the most motherly woman I had ever known. ‘You’ve got to come back.’

‘Oh yes. I’ve got to come back and put my dowry to good use.’

I gazed into the electric fire, watched the fan as it circled over imitation coals. It wasn’t going to be easy without Confetti. She was one of those people who bring joy and energy into the most mundane situation, and she had lightened my mood considerably over the past weeks. Strangely, there was still no fear in me. It had died with Frank, though the sadness remained alive and kicking.

‘Will he come for you?’ She often bit into my thoughts like that, frequently answered questions before I asked them.

‘He’s had a letter from Anne,’ I said. ‘She warned him that any further contact would merit prison because of the injunction.’ I chewed over the thought for a second. ‘I’ve not seen the last of him.’

‘Then what’ll you do while I’m away?’

‘Bake, look after the boys, watch the telly.’

‘But what if—?’

‘Don’t think about it. I’ve survived without you before, so I can do it again.’

She gathered up her new coat, made a bundle of it. ‘I’ll stick it in the yard afterwards. Will I make the cocoa?’

‘Please.’

It was the humming I would miss most, I thought as she banged about in the kitchen. She was always la-la-ing or whistling or tapping a rhythm with her feet. At this moment, she was ruining a bit of Bach as she slammed down the pan, upset a cup, sent the lid of the cocoa tin clattering across the stone floor. I would have bet a tidy sum that the convent was safer without her, that plates and statues lasted longer without Sister Maria Goretti. There would be peace, that was sure. And silence. An awful, boring silence.

He came about a week after Confetti had left, a crooked old man with a flat cap and a suit that had seen better days. The headgear was pulled so low that it almost met a striped scarf, leaving little of the face visible. I studied him, knew him, didn’t know him, remembered that this unrecognizable person was a good man long before he removed his packaging.

‘She’s gone?’ he asked.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘The one who’s been staying with you.’

I poked my head into the street, looked left and right as if I expected to find the answer written on the cobbles. ‘Yes,’ I answered uncertainly.

‘Don’t you remember me?’

I hesitated, fished about at the back of my mind. ‘I’m sure I’ll … remember in a minute,’ I said lamely. ‘Would you like to come in?’

He removed the cap. ‘Laura?’

Immediately, I remembered the hair, or rather the lack of it. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. Come in, Mr Thompson.
Where’ve you been all this time? I never got to Frank’s funeral, you know. Well, of course you’ll know, because you would have noticed my absence.’ I was wittering and babbling like a nervous child who has just arrived at a new school.

He settled into the collapsing sofa, placed his cap on the melamine coffee table. ‘Are you managing for money?’

Yes, this was definitely my Frank’s father. ‘I bake. There’s a chap who comes and picks up the stuff, then it’s sold at Tattersall’s. Would you like some tea or coffee? Or shall we go upstairs and have a peep at the boys?’