Homecoming (26 page)

But still, her mother had never had to deal with a series of foreign girls who only stayed for six months before moving on. Geraldine knew she was hard on the girls, which was why they left her employ so quickly, but really, how else did they expect to learn?

If they’d seen the amount of work a maid had to do in Red Oaks, they’d have been happy to tidy up Geraldine’s neat two-bedroomed townhouse in Howth.

In much the same way as the keys lived in the Belleek bowl, people had a place too. In Red Oaks, Mummy had entertained a lot and was very firm on the importance of protocol. Geraldine had grown up with a strong sense of social hierarchy.

Carmel De Vere, her friend from the bridge club, agreed with her.

Carmel had problems with the help too.

‘Veronika completely destroyed my cashmere twin set,’ she wailed.

The two women were sitting in Geraldine’s private room in the hospital the day before Geraldine was due to be discharged to stay with Rae and Will.

They’d already discussed Geraldine’s hip and how marvellous the surgeon had been, and how miraculously well it was healing four days after the surgery. Much consideration had been given to how much the hospitals had deteriorated since the demise of the matrons, and now they were on the familiar territory of domestic matters.

‘Nobody knows how to clean cashmere any more,’ Geraldine said mournfully. ‘Such a pity.’

‘I remember years ago buying Dawn one of those pretty Marks & Spencer’s cashmere cardigans for Christmas,’ Carmel said. ‘She washed it at forty degrees. Silly woman.’

Dawn was Carmel’s daughter-in-law, and the two women had spent many hours discussing her failings. Being hopeless at cooking and wildly amused at herself whenever she cremated a meal had topped the list of faults, until Dawn decided that forty-five was just the age to have a tummy tuck and breast implants. Privately, Geraldine thought Carmel would never recover from the shock.

‘You’re so lucky with Rae,’ Carmel went on, and Geraldine felt a twinge of guilt.

Carmel had met Rae many times and thought she was marvellous. Which she was, certainly in comparison with Dawn. But there was no easiness between Geraldine and Rae.

Geraldine knew in her heart that Rae would not relish having her mother-in-law for a three-week convalescence. But Geraldine was willing to put up with it if it meant she would be with her darling Will.

Besides, it was Rae and Will’s house or a nursing home. She’d never even contemplated staying with her daughter, Leonora. Heavens, no.

It would all be fine, though. Rae would do her best. She wasn’t exactly out of the top drawer of society, but she was kind. Heaven only knew how she’d turned out so well, given her background. Not that Geraldine liked to cast aspersions, but really, the Hennesseys were shocking. It appeared that Rae didn’t have much to do with her family, which was good, Geraldine felt.

As Carmel’s conversation followed a well-worn path about Dawn’s shortcomings, Geraldine put thoughts of Rae out of her mind and focused on Will. Mothers weren’t supposed to have favourites, but they did, didn’t they? Leonora had been too argumentative, too fond of her own way to be an easy child. As an adult, nothing had changed.

But her beloved Will made up for it. He was so like his father, the same kindness and gentleness.

‘I’m sure Will and Rae will spoil you,’ Carmel was saying, ‘and that’s what you need.’

‘Yes,’ said Geraldine contentedly, ‘that’s just what I need.’

The following day, Geraldine sat in the passenger seat of her son’s car and looked at 33 Golden Square without any fondness. She’d never liked the tall, white house. It was shabby somehow, and Rae should have cut down the wisteria years ago before it had taken hold of the porch. But no, Rae wouldn’t listen to reason.

‘Wisteria’s so pretty, it would be a shame to cut it back, like taking it out of its home,’ she’d said, or some such nonsense.

Ludicrous, Geraldine thought. Plants didn’t have homes, they went where they were told.

‘Did you tell the spiders you wouldn’t put them out of their homes too?’ Geraldine had said in response.

When Will and Rae had bought the house, it was a total wreck. Geraldine had advised them not to buy it. The place was infested with cobwebs, and the windows were black with dirt. Only the besotted would buy it.

Twenty-five years later, they were still here and the house had improved – well, it couldn’t have got any worse. The wisteria was still there, sprawling bigger than ever, with woody branches looped around the whole porch. Half the front of the house would have to be cut off if a person were to remove the wisteria now.

Rae did have a good touch with the garden, Geraldine conceded, but it was probably because she was from the country. Geraldine had never been to Rae’s part of the world, but she was sure it was one of those ugly little smallholdings with potatoes growing everywhere and nothing nice in the way of dahlias. Geraldine liked dahlias. They were so reliable.

‘I thought we could have Leonora round tonight for dinner,’ Will said as he helped his mother out of the car.

‘I don’t want any fuss tonight,’ Geraldine said. ‘I want to settle in, get my things around me. It’s hard leaving hospital and not going back to your own home, you know. If you could have moved in with me, I wouldn’t have to do this –’

‘Mum, this is the best way,’ Will said quickly. ‘Rae and I both want to look after you. I’ll phone Leo and tell her you’re too tired.’

‘Yes, do that.’

Geraldine allowed her son to steer her up the garden path as if she were already an invalid. It was soothing, being helped along like this. Will was such a dear boy.

Rae had obviously been waiting because she opened the door before Will could get his key in the lock.

‘Welcome!’ she said, and the scent of cooking wafted out of the open door behind her.

‘Rae, hello.’ Geraldine proffered one cheek for a kiss. ‘Is something burning…?’

Rae laughed easily. ‘Goodness no, not yet, anyway, Geraldine.’ She opened the door to the living room, which she and Will had spent the past three nights organising. It had been transformed into a bedroom, complete with Anton’s bed – the transportation of which downstairs had nearly killed them both. There was a pretty little bedside locker from the spare bedroom, a vase of flowers on the mantelpiece, and a small fern beside the bed. The television was set at the correct angle so Geraldine could sit in bed and watch TV, and Rae had brought the kitchen radio in case her mother-in-law wanted radio too. There was a water jug, a glass, tissues and a box of biscuits on a low table, and extra rugs at the end of the bed in case Geraldine got cold. There had been something soothing about working so hard to get everything ready: it meant there had been no time to think about the letter or Jasmine.

Geraldine took one look at it all and sniffed. ‘It’s hard to be away from your own place,’ she said mournfully.

Rae patted her arm, managed a smile at Will and said blithely: ‘I’ll go and check on dinner.’

‘Mum doesn’t want Leo to come,’ Will said quickly. ‘She’s too tired, I’ll phone her and tell her now.’

Downstairs in the kitchen, Rae stirred a saucepan on the stove and put the kettle on to boil. Normally, Geraldine’s remarks would have made her furious, but not tonight. There were some plusses to being distracted. Compared to the turmoil that was going on in Rae’s mind, her mother-in-law’s mindless nitpicking didn’t register.

Besides, Rae knew in her heart that Geraldine wasn’t a malicious woman. Her problem was a tact bypass and the belief that saying what she thought was always the wisest option.

Since Rae’s plan to have Leonora over so that the Kerrigan family would have each other to talk to had backfired, Rae decided that music would help. In the great living-room revamp, the stereo had been moved into the kitchen, so when she served dinner a couple of hours after Geraldine arrived, Rae put a Vivaldi CD on at a level that was just above background music.

‘Isn’t it relaxing having classical music on during dinner,’ she said loudly, as Geraldine sat down.

There was no way Geraldine would criticise Vivaldi, Rae had decided. Classical music was always acceptable in her mother-in-law’s mind because it was a sign of culture, therefore Geraldine wouldn’t dream of saying to turn it down.

Rae closed her eyes as the joyous violins of ‘Spring’ rippled through the room. What was it about some pieces of music that just ripped into your soul?

But tonight the pure joy of Vivaldi merely highlighted the pain Rae was feeling inside. She hadn’t had a moment’s peace since she’d received the letter about Jasmine. It was like opening up an old wound to find it hadn’t healed at all, was still as raw and agonising as ever.

She’d loved Jasmine with all her heart and giving her up for adoption had been the most devastating moment of Rae’s life. It was a devastation she’d carried alone, and now she simply didn’t know how she was going to tell Will or Anton about it.

Being tall made it easier to hide the baby bump. Rae often wondered, if she’d been short, how it would all have turned out. People would have known earlier, she might not have entertained the fantasy of keeping her baby, a fantasy that broke her heart.

As it was, she went to the charity box of school uniforms and got the biggest, baggiest navy sweater she could find.

The spring of 1969 wasn’t a time for baggy clothes for teenagers. All the other girls in Rathangan wanted to wear fitted, bum-skimming dresses and they adapted the uniform to make it fit this fashion.

There was war every day as girls arriving in school with heavily kohled eyes and skirts turned up to mid-thigh got sent to the headmistress for a lecture, from which they emerged sulkily unpinning their skirts. Rae had been one of them. But not any more. With her voluminous jumper over the long school skirt – carefully held up with safety pins and, later, by a belt – Rae Hennessey looked the image of a diligent pupil.

She worked harder than ever.

‘You don’t come out with us any more,’ Shelley complained to her. ‘You’ve gone all quiet.’

‘Studying,’ Rae said blankly. ‘I need to do well in my exams.’

There was a germ of an idea in her head: if only she could get top marks in her state exams, then she’d get a decent job when she left school and be able to take care of the baby. She would not live at home with her parents with her child, never. She needed a ticket out of there and education was the key.

The baby would be born in September or October, she reckoned inexpertly. She’d leave school after the exams, get a job to earn money, and maybe, maybe it would all work out.

She was weeks away from the big exams in June when her mother confronted her.

Rae was just home from school, exhausted after hauling her heavy bags of school books around. There was no point leaving things in her locker when she was trying to revise at night.

Her father wasn’t home. Instead, her mother was in Paudge’s seat in front of the television, but she got to her feet when Rae came in.

‘You’re up the pole, aren’t you?’ Glory Hennessey folded her arms across her chest and her eyes raked her daughter’s body.

Rae said nothing. What a horrible expression to describe pregnancy.

‘Whose is it? Tell me, whose is it? The little fecker. Your father will kill him.’

‘Why?’ asked Rae.

‘Why do you think? For pawing his daughter, that’s why. For bringing another brat into the world.’

‘As if he cares,’ Rae said.

She rarely said anything caustic to either of her parents, and since the last time when her mother had hit her, Rae had said even less. Now, with her baby inside her, she felt a surge of maternal courage.

‘Don’t talk back, you little slut,’ growled her mother. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself.’

Glory moved forwards with her hand raised to hit out, but anger flared in Rae.

‘If you lay a finger on me, you bitch, I’ll call the guards and press charges,’ she roared, making her mother stop in her tracks. ‘You might think you’re tough, but wait till you go to jail for assaulting your pregnant daughter.’ Rae wished her baby didn’t have to feel her rage but she had to protect them both. ‘They’ll love you in any prison you go to: usually it’s men who hit pregnant women. Think of what they’ll do to you inside.’

It was the first time Rae had ever known her mother speechless. The first and the last time, Rae decided.

It didn’t take her long to pack. There wasn’t much to take with her. She’d have liked to have taken the small cream dressing table she’d painted herself, but who knew where she was going to end up? Instead, she filled some plastic bags with her possessions – they had no suitcase in the house: when had any of them ever been on a holiday? – then stuffed her make-up and few pieces of cheap jewellery into her schoolbag.

There was no sign of her mother when she went downstairs to phone a taxi. Probably gone to the pub to drown her sorrows in Smirnoff.

While she waited for the taxi, Rae searched all her father’s hiding places for his emergency stashes of cash. Paudge was infamous for hiding money when he was drunk or stoned, and then not being able to find it later. Rae had a pretty good idea of all of his hiding places. She found a few pounds stuffed under the seat cushion on his armchair, a few more in an old tea box at the back of the larder, and finally, a twenty-pound note in an empty box of Major cigarettes under his side of the bed.

It wasn’t a fortune, but it was better than nothing. When the taxi arrived, Rae piled her stuff in slowly and climbed in beside it. The driver hadn’t moved to help. This wasn’t the sort of area where taxi men got out to help punters with their luggage: someone might whip the hubcaps off the car while you were out of it.

‘Where to?’ he demanded when a panting Rae had shut the car door.

Rae knew what she must look like: a pale, shapeless girl leaving her decrepit house with a few paltry plastic sacks as luggage. She lifted her chin proudly. She was not going to be ashamed ever again.

‘The unmarried mother’s hostel in Cappagh Street in Limerick,’ she said.

The man looked at her as if sizing her up.