City of Hope (17 page)

I paid Matt a few dollars each week and made up a bed for him in the drawing room on the ground floor. Living in a house with three women, he wanted for nothing in the way of food and comfort and within a few days he had relaxed in our company. It seemed that Matt was a warm and funny man, and I was touched by his constant expressions of gratitude and appreciation for all we did for him. Here was a man in his mid-forties, a few years older than me, who had been treated badly at the hands of the two most important women in his life—the people from whom he had the right to expect loyalty and love—yet he afforded the women in our house the greatest of respect. He was not afraid to lift a cup, bring his own plate to the sink or make his own bed. After a hard day's work, Bridie would chide him for offering to help and insist that he sit still while she fussed about him. Matt would blush with pleasure at being treated like a king, and sometimes, leaning back in his chair, full of meat and potatoes, he would pat his stomach and light a cigarette and I would get a glimpse of the self-satisfied Irish farmer he was born to be.

With Matt's help, and my smart accounting and careful shopping, the house was transformed on less than a hundred dollars.

Matt fixed up what meager furnishings had been left to us with a sturdy, deft hand and a craftsman's finish. He was a quiet soul, personable, but cautious—he followed every instruction I gave him, but also took the initiative as if it were his own house, mending the roof and restoring the tiles on the walls of the porch. In those two months I incurred my greatest expenses through the materials he bought, doing justice to his craftsmanship by replacing rotten mahogany panels on the walls of the old dining room, cracked tiles in the hallway. He worked from early in the morning and often, in those early days, late into the night after dinner—sanding and hammering and French polishing everything in the house. When he was stripped to the waist, I noticed that his torso was softer and broader than John's had been, his muscled arms marbled with the veins and sinews of an older man. I was comforted by Matt's age. Perhaps he reminded me somewhat of dear Paud, or perhaps it was just that he was so different from John, in both appearance and manner, that I felt safe sharing my home with him.

We added to Matt's restored furnishings entirely with second-hand goods from the many house clearances and charity shops in our area. Mr. Williams tipped me off about upcoming house evictions, and I purchased the finest curtains, sheets, blankets and a generous stock of crockery and accoutrements for the kitchen, for little more than the price of a month's grocery shopping. I was saddened to know that I was playing even a small part in profiting from people's misery, but justified it with the fact that I was helping others in the process. While not entirely inured to it, as time passed I came to adopt a practical attitude to the poverty that was all around.

We worked hard, all six of us. As agreed, Bridie took on the role of housekeeper, preparing all of our meals with a commitment to both comfort and frugality. Despite my protestations she insisted on running the kitchen on a shoestring: “Simple food is better for the digestion in any case, and as long as I have my flour and potatoes, we'll none of us be wanting.” When I offered to bring more luxury ingredients in, I would get the sharp end of her tongue: “It was far from coffee and chocolate that
you
were reared!” Like the others, it hurt her pride to be living off my charity. She was anxious to do her part, and if she was charmless in its execution, I could see past it to the kind heart underneath.

So we bought large sacks of flour, rice, pasta, sugar and potatoes, and crates of unmarked tins from the dime store. Bridie made her own delicious bread every day, and created miracles out of canned sausages and peas.

Maureen kept the house clean, working assiduously each day from room to room, week to week, wiping and polishing every surface, sweeping and mopping every floor, ironing and starching every sheet, until the grime of the old house gave way to the glowing spotlessness of the new. Flora, whom we had enrolled back into the local school, helped her mother with the cleaning and set fires for the evening when she came home. Jake, who—much to his mother's despair—had refused to return to his schooling, set about proving his worth to the new elder man in the house, and turned out to be a diligent and willing worker.

At first Jake regarded Matt with suspicion, having cast himself as his mother's (and to a lesser extent my own) keeper. However, it was clear that with his quiet, professional manner, Matt was not a personal threat to any of us. He gained Jake's trust through guiding him in his work, and soon despite (or perhaps because of) Jake's fondness for his lost father, Matt was rarely seen without the surly teenager hovering close behind him, waiting for his next instruction. Matt had farming in his blood, as did I, so between us we dug and planted a vegetable patch in the back garden and commissioned Jake to care for it, and before long the two of them were conspiring to build a chicken pen in the garden.

“No!” Bridie exclaimed, when the subject of keeping hens was mooted. “I'll not have those filthy creatures near the house. We'll buy eggs from the shop, like normal people. I draw the line, Ellie—I draw the line at saving money on eggs!”

I promised Bridie that I would spare her the hardship of ever having to pluck and gut a chicken—her parents had farmed poultry in Ireland, and she had been killing and plucking hens as soon as she could walk, which explained her reluctance to get involved with them again. So Matt and Jake bought four fine Rhode Island Whites from the Saturday market, with plans—once Bridie was calmed—to invest in a cockerel to breed them for meat.

Before the summer was rounded, the house was running with happy efficiency, and there were no problems to speak of. I still had some of the money I had brought with me from Ireland, and everybody was contributing and playing their part. There were curtains on every window, to keep out the blistering August sun, and the garden was bearing sweet tomatoes and plump, crisp lettuces—with the onions already picked and hanging in the porch to dry. We bathed in baths freshly enameled by Matt, using water from the tank that he had welded back into working order. We ate the best of Bridie's food, slept each night in crisp, starched sheets, and each morning put our bare feet down on soft, clean rugs.

On one such morning I woke and realized that the house, and therefore the mission that had been driving me for the past few months, was complete.

With that knowledge, the buried dread made its return.

I drew back the curtains and the searing light of New York ganged in on me. Outside my window white apple blossom branches, weighed down with burgeoning fruit, wilted in the sun, and three fat cats sat shading themselves in a neighbor's porch. The house opposite was still empty, bleak and wasteful as this one had been. Now it was filled with people and life, but they weren't my people and this wasn't my life.

I had lost my life with John's death. I had a longing for home, but I didn't want to go back to Ireland. I wanted to see Maidy, but I wasn't ready to face what I had done in leaving her alone, as I had. My escape was not complete, as I had hoped it might be. I was still running, but I had not been watching where I was going; my feet had got caught in the rushes of an invisible bog and I was stuck.

I had to get them moving again. I needed something else to do.

I dressed myself, then went downstairs, made myself coffee and sat in the shade of the dining room, smoking.

Matt had restored and polished the mahogany panels on the wall, and I had picked up a rather old-fashioned and ugly dining set of Victorian furniture in a garage sale. The floor was bare wood, with no rugs or side tables or ornaments to create the illusion of home, and the room had something of the sparse, institutional atmosphere of a convent.

Sitting there alone in the dense, smoke-filled air, with the daily sounds of Bridie and Maureen going about their chores muffled by the heavy wood, it seemed to me as if I was in a waiting room of some kind. Even though this house, this situation of living with strangers, was of my own making, I felt estranged from it; estranged from myself.

In the bareness of the room and its silence I heard God tapping at an empty corner of my mind; the ancient, white-bearded patriarch of my childhood whispering, offering me his comfort. I had not spoken to God or paid Him any heed since John died. He was, for all the years I had placed my trust in Him, a cold, cruel being who had taken my husband to his icy heart and caused the misery and hardship I saw all around me. I tried to ignore Him, as if He didn't exist, but I could feel Him there despite myself. My faith that He existed was too strong to ignore, but I felt angry that He had let me down, and I would fight Him nonetheless—if not with the justified rage that had chased me to America, then with my indifference toward Him from here on in.

I extinguished my cigarette, and resigned myself to busying myself for the day, when there was a knock on the door.

Mr. Williams had a letter in his hand.

“The postman gave me this as I was coming in,” he said, handing it over.

It was from Katherine. A large, heavy package—accounts from the business in Ireland. I set it aside.

He stood in the hallway, shuffling awkwardly until I offered him coffee.

“You've made a fine job of the house, Mrs. Hogan,” he said, “you've really fixed it up.”

“Matt has been wonderful,” I said. Then, seeing Bridie bristling in the background, I added, “And Bridie and Maureen, of course. We've all worked very hard.”

“I can see that,” he said.

He twisted the handle of the cup in its saucer and his face was set, as if he had something to say.

“Is everything all right,” I asked, “with the house? No complications have arisen?”

The house had long since been mine, so I knew there wouldn't be, but he had never made a social call like this before. Aside from his tipping his hat at me as we passed in the street, I hadn't seen the man in months.

“Oh yes, yes, sure,” he said, “no problems there at all.”

“Good,” I said, but he continued twirling the cup and I grew impatient with this way men had of not saying straight out what was on their minds.

“Is there something I can help you with?” I finally asked.

“Well, yes,” he answered, “I have a favor to ask. Well, it is more than a favor, more a task—something of a mission? I don't know quite what I am asking of you . . .”

I had to coax it out of him. A few days previously he had had to evict a young pregnant girl from a room where she was living alone, in a tenement building in the North Bronx. The father had disappeared. “I kept her there for as long as I could, even paid off the landlord myself for the first few weeks, but she is so young, and was living in such desperate circumstances. . . . Well, to tell you the truth, Ellie, it played on me so bad that I have been letting her sleep in my office at night. During the day I have to put her out to walk the streets. If my wife finds out—well, I don't need to tell you how it looks.”

I knew at once what he was asking. Bridie, who had been stirring porridge on the stove behind him, listening to every word and sucking her teeth in disapproval, now widened her eyes in furious warning and shook her head wildly.

“She can stay here,” I said. “Bring her up as soon as it suits.”

Bridie tackled me before I had closed the door on him.

“Another mouth to feed, Ellie,
two
soon enough—have you lost your mind? You can't go taking in every waif and stray in New York, woman! You don't know anything about this girl. She is clearly of ill repute—and
not
of wholesome character! If that man, who has surely seen the world, took her in, in that state, Lord knows how she repaid his kindness! You might be thinking you are acting with a kind heart, Ellie, but so help me, you haven't thought this through. You're a reckless fool!”

That much was true. It was neither a kind heart nor measured moral thinking that had made me jump at Mr. Williams's request, but the hollow fear of standing still in the presence of my own heart.

I left Bridie to her complaints and went to prepare the empty bedroom in the attic of the house.

As I gathered clean sheets and blankets from the press on the first-floor landing, I felt the knot inside me loosen and knew I was running again.

C
HAPTER
N
INETEEN

Dear Ellie,

Thank you for your last letter. Although it was brief, I was glad to hear that you are well and glad to learn also that the sum of $3,000 was successfully transferred to your account there. I trust this finds you in good health and still enjoying your break. It seems you may have moved to a more domestic setting than The Plaza, but I have no wish to pry.

I have purposely left you alone until now, because I know you will be in touch when the time is right and, frankly, I have been so busy with the businesses that, with there being no great problems to speak of, I have been just been “getting on with it.” However, as you will see from the enclosed accounts, an amount of cash has amassed that I am uncertain what to do with.

I have been placing all monies from the typing pool and school directly into the bank and drawing all salaries and everyday expenses from it, as per usual. The country shop is ticking along, with Veronica as shopgirl, and I have appointed her mother Mary to oversee its running, with a small wage. Mary has proven herself to be a competent manager and, while her literacy levels are basic, she is slowly getting the hang of the books and, despite the additional expense of her salary, it has turned a small profit every month since you have been gone! This may be down to the fact that she has started to sell her own freshly baked bread there, which has proven very popular. I have also taken the liberty of commissioning Mary to keep an eye on your home for as long as you are gone, feeding the poultry and taking as many eggs as she needs for herself. She was also most useful in finding a neighbor to take over the farm end of things. The Morans are paying a small rent for the land and cattle, but given that their taking it over was more suited to our needs than theirs, I could hardly charge them more. However, they pay cash—and are always on time—so there can be no complaint.