Foreign Affairs (29 page)

Minutes later, the doctor, the priest and William arrived. In a daze, Rachel watched the doctor test Theresa’s non-existent pulse and slowly, sadly shake his head. The priest knelt beside
her to whisper an Act of Contrition in her ear and give her the last rites as the doctor went to Rachel’s side and helped her up from the floor. William was sitting in the armchair with his
head in his hands. ‘She was fine when I left,’ he muttered. ‘She was looking forward to having her tea with Rachel, she had the table all set and everything.’

‘Sit down, Rachel, I’m going to give you a sedative. Your mother didn’t suffer. It was a massive heart attack,’ the doctor said kindly. He sat her down in a chair and
went out to the phone and cancelled the ambulance and called the undertaker.

‘There’s no need for an autopsy, because of her history. I can sign the death certificate,’ he explained to William. ‘Rachel, take these and come and lie down,’ he
said, handing Rachel some tablets and a glass of water.

‘I don’t want to leave my mother,’ she said dully.

‘Rachel, there’s nothing you can do for her now,’ Father Walsh said compassionately. ‘Her soul is gone to God.’

Rachel stood up and went over to her mother and put her arms around her. ‘I’m staying with her, leave me alone,’ she said fiercely. She kissed the top of her mother’s
head and her eyes brimmed with tears. Despite her illness and hard life, Theresa still had soft golden glints in her chestnut hair although it was liberally sprinkled with grey. She smelt of
rosewater. The scent Rachel always associated with her. ‘I’m here,’ she whispered. ‘I’m not going to leave you alone with all these strange men. I know you’d
hate that. I’ll mind you, don’t worry,’ she murmured into her mother’s hair. Gently she rocked Theresa in her arms, crooning softly, whispering endearments.
‘You’re the best mother in the world,’ she spoke very softly. ‘Thank you for all the times you stood up for me against Daddy. I know it was all my fault that you had your
heart attack last year. I’m sorry, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean it.’ She started crying again. Heartbroken sobs wrenched her body. Her father stood up and came over to
her.

‘Stop that crying now, Rachel. It won’t do your mother any good. Go and do what the doctor suggests.’

‘You fuck off,’ she said viciously. William couldn’t believe his ears.

‘
Rachel
,’ he hissed.

‘It’s all right, William, it’s the shock. I’ll handle it,’ Doctor Dunne said hastily.

‘Come and lie down, Rachel,’ he said firmly.

‘No,’ she said.

‘I think perhaps it would be nice to say the Rosary,’ Father Walsh suggested gently.

‘Yes, Father.’ Rachel nodded. ‘Mam would like that.’ They prayed as they waited for the undertaker to arrive. The steady monotonous tone of the priest dulled
Rachel’s panic. Theresa had always said the Rosary. The Rosary was familiar. Doctor Dunne saw the hearse arrive.

‘Rachel,’ he said kindly, ‘say goodbye to your mother for a little while, you can see her again later in the funeral parlour. I want you to go upstairs and choose what you
think Theresa would like to be buried in. Will you do that for me?’ He stared into her eyes, his gaze firm but sympathetic.

‘Yes, Doctor,’ she replied, responding to the authority in his voice. She walked upstairs in a daze. Her mother was dead, she told herself. Theresa was gone. She’d never see
her again. Ever. ‘Oh God, I’m scared.’ She shivered sitting on Theresa’s bed. She picked up her mother’s scarf and buried her face in it. It still smelt of her
mother’s perfume. Rachel could hear the sound of men’s voices downstairs. She had to go back down, she couldn’t leave Theresa on her own with all of them. She hurried out on the
landing and saw Sergeant Roach’s wife coming up the stairs.

‘I have to go down to Mammy, I have to go down. I can’t leave her down there with all of them. What are they going to do to her?’ Her voice was high with hysteria.

‘I’ll be there, I’ll stay with Theresa until they’re finished,’ Mrs Roach soothed. ‘Doctor Dunne said you were going to get the clothes to dress her in.
I’ll come back up in a couple of minutes and we’ll pick them together, there’s a good girl,’ Mrs Roach said comfortingly, giving Rachel a hug.

‘What am I going to do without Mam?’ she whispered. ‘I wish I was dead too.’

‘There, there, there,’ the sergeant’s wife said sadly, patting her head as if she was a child. ‘There, there, there.’

The next few days were a living nightmare. When she saw her mother in her coffin in the funeral parlour that evening Rachel finally realized that Theresa was gone. For ever. Ronan was in a
dreadful state. At least she’d been with her mother when she died. He hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye. Rachel and he cried in each other’s arms as they stood at the foot of
their mother’s coffin. William urged them to control themselves. Such public displays were anathema to him and the more upset his children were, the further he distanced himself from their
grief.

Harry called to pay his respects, shocked by the suddenness of the death. William was not pleased to see him. Harry didn’t want to cause tension so he kept his visit short and told Rachel
he’d see her at the removal of the remains. The neighbours were extremely kind and brought in cakes and bracks and tarts for the callers. All the coming and going to the funeral parlour, and
then to the church the following evening, kept Rachel and Ronan busy. And they had to make tea for all the people who called. She didn’t have time to think. She didn’t want to think. It
was too frightening to think. At night Rachel took the tablets the doctor had given her and fell into a drugged sleep almost immediately. And woke in the mornings feeling heavy-headed, dry-mouthed
and woozy knowing that something awful had happened and trying to remember what it was. Then memory would return and reality would intrude on her drug-induced amnesia. Panic and fear would grip her
and her heart would start its frantic frightened pounding.

She woke the morning of the funeral to hear the rain pelting out of the heavens. She started to cry. There was nothing worse than watching a coffin being lowered into wet sodden ground.

‘You could at least have given her a fine day,’ she said bitterly to the small statue of the Sacred Heart that stood on her chest of drawers. Rachel felt sick to her stomach. The
sickness of dread. The thought of the ordeal ahead made her heart pound. What if she fainted in the church and had to be carried out? What if she got hysterical at the grave and made a scene?

‘You can’t do it. You can’t make a show of yourself. Mam would be mortified and disgusted. You can’t let her down,’ she told her reflection in the mirror. She
looked like death herself. Her eyes, red-rimmed, were sunk into her head. Big dark circles around them. She was as white as a ghost and her cheeks were sunken because she couldn’t eat. Maybe
if she stopped eating she too would die. It was all she wanted. To die and be placed in the grave beside her mother. Her pain and grief would be over. She’d have no more worries. She’d
never have to see her father again. It seemed like a very inviting solution. If she stopped taking the tranquillisers the doctor had prescribed for her and let them pile up for a couple of days she
could take an overdose of them. Going to sleep and never waking up seemed like a very gentle way of committing suicide.

There was no-one she wanted to live for. Not even Harry. Rachel felt terribly guilty about herself and Harry. If she hadn’t delayed to have coffee with him in Bewley’s she could have
got an earlier bus home and been with her mother when she had the heart attack. Maybe if the doctor had come earlier, Theresa could have been saved. It was God’s way of punishing Rachel for
all those lies she’d told about going away for the weekends when she’d been curled up in Harry’s big bed, doing things that were against the sixth commandment. If it wasn’t
for her and her wicked ways Theresa might still be alive. No wonder God hadn’t listened to her prayers. Why should He when she’d been sinning away, Rachel thought miserably, racked with
guilt.

‘Rachel, get up, you’ll be late.’ William knocked on the bedroom door, jerking her back to reality.

‘I’m coming,’ she said flatly.

She didn’t faint in the church. She didn’t have hysterics in the graveyard. She just stood clutching Ronan’s hand tightly as she watched the undertakers lower Theresa’s
shiny coffin into the dark dirty recesses of the earth. At that moment she felt more scared and alone than she’d ever felt before. Rachel knew those feelings would be with her always.

Afterwards, some girls came over to Ronan to offer condolences. A lot of his friends had come from Dublin. His girlfriend, a gentle brown-eyed girl, squeezed Rachel’s hand and said she was
very sorry. William curtly told Ronan that the graveside was neither the time nor the place to be chatting to girls, he was to go home with Rachel and make the tea for the mourners. Ronan was
furious.

As they moved around the kitchen, buttering brack and filling cups with tea, he looked at her and said quietly, ‘I’ve had it with him, Rach. Whether he likes it or not, I’m
going to America for the summer. If you’ve any sense you’ll go and get a job in Dublin and stay with Harry and get out of here before he ruins your life like he ruined Mam’s. If
you come back here in the summer to work in the Tea Rooms, you’ll never be free of him. There’s nothing here for us now. Nothing to keep us. Mam’s gone. She’d want you to go
and be independent. She wanted you to live in college even after her heart attack last year. She was always saying it to me. She told me if anything happened to her, to make sure you left home and
had a life of your own,’ Ronan said grimly.

‘That’s what I’m going to do. And you should do it too. As far as I’m concerned
he
. . .’ he jerked a thumb in the direction of the dining-room, where
William was accepting condolences, ‘can get lost. If he thinks I’m working in that damned fruit farm one more summer, he’s got another think coming.’

‘No, son! I won’t allow it.’ William lowered his reading glasses and raised cold eyes to Ronan. Rachel looked on with apprehension.

‘I’m going, Dad, and that’s the end of it,’ Ronan said firmly.

‘I’ve just told you, Ronan. I will not permit it and I don’t want to hear another word on the matter. I can’t believe that you’re even thinking of such a thing and
your mother only days in her grave.’ William’s tone was frosty. He picked up his paper and continued to read, signalling that that was the end of the conversation. It was a week after
their mother’s funeral. Rachel was getting ready to go back to Dublin to take her exams. Ronan had just told his father that he was going to America to work for the summer holidays. The
response was very much what he’d expected. He looked at Rachel and went upstairs. Rachel could hear him moving around his bedroom.

Twenty minutes later he was downstairs. He had two rucksacks full of clothes and belongings. He ignored his father.

‘Goodbye, Rachel, I’ll see you in Dublin before I go,’ he said. He kissed her cheek. ‘Think about what I said.’ He stood at the back door and turned to address his
father. ‘I’m going to America as soon as my exams are over, Dad, if you don’t like it there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ll write to you. Whether you write back or
not is entirely up to you.’ Rachel watched him leave and envied him his courage.

‘You can’t go back to Rathbarry for the summer. Don’t be daft, Rachel,’ Harry said crossly. Rachel had just taken her last exam and Harry was waiting
for her when it was all over. She couldn’t even remember the questions, she thought in a daze, as she sat in a quiet corner of the Cat & Cage sipping a soda water and lime. Anyway she
didn’t care whether she passed or failed. She didn’t care about anything any more.

‘Are you listening to me, Rachel?’ Harry asked.

‘Yeah.’

‘Look, you’ve got to follow Ronan’s example. Rachel, you’re nineteen, you can’t live at home for ever.’

‘If I’d been at home when I should have been at home, maybe my mother might still be alive,’ Rachel said.

‘For Christ’s sake, Rachel! Will you cut that out!’ Harry exploded. ‘You’re not responsible for your mother’s death. If I hear that once more I’ll blow
a fuse. Stop thinking you’re being punished. You’ve done nothing to be punished for.’

‘I told her lies. She thought I was on field trips. And I wasn’t, I was in bed with you.’

‘Rachel, you’re still a virgin, for God’s sake. All you did was tell a few white lies because your da’s too unreasonable to allow you to live some sort of a life of your
own. That’s no reason to be punished by God. He’s not much of a God if that’s the way you think he behaves. Grow up, Rachel.’

‘Will you leave me alone?’ Rachel snapped. ‘You’re telling me what to do. Ronan’s telling me what to do. My father’s telling me what to do. I wish you’d
all bloody well leave me alone.’ She got up and stalked out of the pub.

Harry raced after her. ‘Where are you going?’ he demanded.

‘I just want to be on my own for a while,’ she said heatedly. ‘I’m going to go and visit my mother’s grave. I need to be near her.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ Harry offered.

‘No, Harry, I want to go on my own. I’ll see you.’

‘But are you going to come back to Dublin or what are you going to do?’ Harry asked.

‘I don’t know. Right now I don’t care,’ Rachel muttered.

‘What about me?’ Harry demanded.

‘God, you’re as bad as my father.’ She turned on him. ‘Doesn’t anyone care about me? Why are men so bloody selfish?’

Harry threw his eyes up to heaven. He didn’t know how to cope with Rachel in this humour.

‘I’ll phone you tomorrow,’ he said evenly.

‘Suit yourself.’ She scowled and walked off towards the bus stop leaving Harry looking after her in dismay.

Harry downed another pint. He felt like getting pissed. Rachel was a changed person and he didn’t know how to deal with her. It was obvious she was still very shocked by
her mother’s death. But why did she have to torture herself? He’d heard that when people were grieving they weren’t thinking straight at all. Rachel was the proof of that. She
wouldn’t kiss him any more these days. She wouldn’t even let him put his arms around her to comfort her. She was in a very deep depression and he couldn’t seem to help her at all.
It was extremely frustrating. Now that Ronan was gone, he was all she had left. Why wouldn’t she lean on him and let him help her? And why was she letting her father dictate to her still?
Couldn’t she see that William was the major problem in her life? Harry scowled. The very thought of that man made him angry. Until Rachel stood up to him, she would never be free.