House of Memories (12 page)

“I will,” Kate said without hesitation.

“Do you think that’s a good idea, Kate?” Fr Tim asked uncertainly.

“I’ll help her,” Sarah told him, “but first I’ll run up to the cottage and bring down Jack’s good good suit.”

They all knew about Jack’s good good suit. He had his good suit for Sunday mass and other events, but his good good suit, as he called it, was for Christmas and weddings and other big occasions. This was an occasion for his good good suit.

As they left the room, Danny said, “I’ll do the cows with you, Shiner,” and they went out to the yard. The doctor followed them, having told Kate that he would man the dispensary. Martha and Sarah went into the kitchen, and Fr Tim, Peter and Nora sat on the wide doorstep. They sat silently while Toby and Bran lay in front of them with alert ears, waiting for any unexpected movement.

“Wouldn’t you wonder how much they know?” she said. “Toby is never down here. The cottage is his place; he must be all mixed up.”

“Like us,” Peter said grimly.

“I hate death,” she burst out angrily. “Why does it have to happen to Jack just now when we are all so happy?”

“There is no right time for death,” Fr Tim said quietly.

“But if you are very old and can’t do anything, it would be
all right then,” she protested.

“Maybe it’s easier to go before that starts,” Fr Tim told her.

“I wish I was like Toby, not knowing what is going on,” she cried plaintively.

“Maybe he does,” Peter said. “He had only Jack. Bran had all of us, but Toby was Jack’s, and even though he liked us all, Jack was his master.”

“It’s like Dad all over again, isn’t it?” she continued, trying to make sense of things in her head.

“But we’re older,” Peter said, “and whether that makes it harder or easier I don’t know, but when Dad died we had Jack. He always seemed to make everything all right, didn’t he?”

“When Jack was there, I always thought that nothing very bad could ever happen to us.”

Peter and herself talked and cried for a long time. After a while she noticed that Fr Tim was saying nothing, and she was suddenly irritated by his silence.

“You’re used to death,” she accused him.

“One never gets used to it,” he told her.

“But it’s other people’s deaths you deal with,” she stormed. “No one like Dad or Jack ever died for you.”

“My mother died when I was sixteen,” he told her quietly.

“Oh, I didn’t know,” she gulped. “That was awful.”

“Awful,” he agreed gently. “I thought that we’d never get over it, but there was no other way only to keep staggering on, and eventually we got all right somehow.”

“I suppose that’s how it was for us after Dad, but only for Jack we would have been worse,” Peter said.

“I suppose there is always someone to walk with us,” Fr Tim told them, “or maybe sometimes a few people. You will have
Kate and …”

“Kate will be gutted herself,” Peter interrupted.

“That doesn’t matter,” Fr Tim said. “Sometimes people feeling bad together help each other.”

The door behind them opened, and Kate said in a strained voice, “You can come in now. Jack is laid out.”

Nora felt her legs go stiff; she didn’t want to go in. It wouldn’t be Jack in there any more. He would be changed into a corpse. She remembered when she saw Dad laid out. Her eyes were just level with the high white bed, and she could only see up Dad’s nose. It was like a black tunnel. Jack had lifted her up and talked about Dad and then taken her out into the calf house. He had given her what Peter called “Jack’s cure” and it had burned her throat but for a little while had melted the lump of ice in her belly. Now there was no Jack to make it easier.

She looked at Kate, who had a frozen look on her face. Kate was no longer Kate but a nurse who was somehow apart from them. Then Nana Agnes appeared from somewhere and held out her hand. “Come on, lovey,” she said. “We’ll go in together.”

Nana Agnes was small and comforting with her soft grey hair caught in a knot on top of her head. Nora always found it strange that she was Mom and Uncle Mark’s mother because they were so tall and Nana was so tiny. But for a small person Nana was somehow all-encompassing, and now it was she who took charge, and taking Nora and Peter by the hand as if they were small children, she led them to the side of Jack’s bed.

“You know something,” she whispered, “he looks a bit like he did when we were going to school together. He was a handsome little boy.”

Nora had to smile through her tears at the concept of Jack being a handsome little boy, but Nana was right because, unexplainably, he had got younger in death, as if he had gone back down the road to his youth.

“’Tis true,” Peter said. “He looks so young. How’s that?”

“Sometimes happens,” Nana told them, “and, of course, he had no long sickness and died easy.”

“I suppose,” Peter whispered, “if he was given a choice, this would be it.”

“But he wasn’t given a choice,” Nora protested as the tears ran down her face. “Jack wouldn’t have wanted to leave us … he wouldn’t … he wouldn’t …” and she shook with uncontrollable sobs and suddenly they were all crying.

After a while, when the sound of sobbing abated, Fr Tim suggested quietly, “Will we say the rosary?” They knelt around Jack’s bed and all joined in the rosary. Nora buried her face in the starched lace bedspread, and the smell of lavender and mothballs drifted up her nose. She had never particularly liked the rosary, but now it was oddly soothing, and as the monotonous rhythm of the “Hail Mary, Holy Mary” wound around the bed, a strange stillness came into the room.

When they were finished, there was absolute silence, and into it came the sudden barking from outside. Toby was looking for Jack. With that Mom got to her feet and said firmly, “Down to the kitchen everyone and we’ll have something to eat.”

She already had the table set and went around filling bowls with warm porridge. How can she expect us to eat that? Nora thought. Sometimes it was hard to understand Mom. As if reading her thoughts, Mom pronounced, “Jack always said, when you’re upset sit down and eat.” They gathered around
the table, and somehow, even though at first it tasted like sand, Nora forced the porridge down.

Nana Agnes had stayed in the parlour, and when Nora had finished she went back up to her. They sat quietly together in the silent room. Mom had the heavy cream drapes on the windows half drawn, and the four lighted candles around Jack cast soft shadows over the bed. It would be easy to believe that he was just sleeping. Gradually people began to filter in and shake her hand and kiss Nana; they sat around the room and chatted in low voices. They told stories about Jack, and as he lay there in the midst of them, his life’s story was retold around him. Nora found it strangely comforting. Jack was still part of them.

Then Rosie came and they went down into the kitchen. Mom put soup in front of them, and Nora wondered how on earth Mom could get round to doing all this, but then she saw that Rosie’s mother and Ellen Shine had taken over in the kitchen. People were sitting around eating sandwiches and drinking tea. Some of the men had black glasses of porter and little tumblers of whiskey, and Fr Burke’s prissy housekeeper was sipping sherry.

The day wore on slowly. At times Nora thought that she was in a dream world and that all of this could not be happening, but then she looked at Jack in the high bed in his good good suit and it told the real story. Late in the evening all the talking and people began to stifle her, and she slipped out the back door and over to the calf house, where she sank into a pile of straw. Within minutes Bran and Toby found her, and she wrapped her arms around them and, in the semi-darkness, cried quietly. All their lives were changed. She was glad of the
warmth and comfort of the dogs as they all curled up together in the straw.

When Nora awoke it was dark, but moonlight was pouring in the open door. As soon as she moved Bran started to lick her face. “Bran, what time is it?” she demanded in confusion as she straightened herself up and dusted the sops of straw from her skirt. Toby rubbed himself against her legs. When she came out, Peter and Shiner were sitting on the calves’ trough in the corner of the yard.

“Hello, Sleeping Beauty,” Peter said quietly out of the darkness.

“Why didn’t you call me?” she demanded. “What time is it?”

“Kate said to let you sleep because there is a long night ahead and you would probably want to stay up.”

“Of course,” she agreed, stretching her stiff limbs.

She went over and sat with the two lads on the edge of the trough.

In the moonlight the tall trees cast dark shadows across the yard, and when the moon disappeared behind a cloud, the lights from the house sent yellow beams over the low hedge. The yard was a different place tonight.

“It’s hard to believe that this is happening,” she whispered.

“I feel as if I’m the cause of it,” Shiner fretted.

“But why?” she asked in surprise.

“He was over with Danny and Shiner last night and went up the ladder to see the roof. Shiner says that he got some kind of a turn up there but was all right after and insisted on going home alone, even though they wanted to go with him,” Peter told her.

“Jack hated being fussed over,” she said.

“But last night was different,” Shiner said desperately. “It was more serious than we thought.”

“Stop it, Shiner,” she said sharply. “When Dad died, I spent months blaming myself because I was so wrapped up in going to town to buy him a new pipe for his birthday that I never watched the road with him.”

“But you were only a small girl then,” Shiner protested.

“Makes no difference, maybe made it worse, because I could understand nothing then.”

They sat silently, wrapped in their own thoughts while the two dogs settled themselves down on the yard beside them. The thought of Danny floated into her mind; if Shiner was feeling guilty, he must be more so.

“Where’s Danny?” she asked.

“He went over to milk his cows,” Shiner said. “I went with him this morning when we had ours done, and he came back to do ours this evening, but he insisted that I stay here, that I was needed here, though I’m not sure that I’m much use here either.”

“Shiner,” she told him, “it’s a comfort to just have you here.”

“Thanks, Nor,” he said gratefully.

“I’d hate it if Danny was feeling guilty like you,” she told him, “because Jack would hate that too.”

They stayed for a long time while further down the yard people went in and out to the wake, but gradually the stream of people thinned out, and eventually there was nobody there but themselves. We should get up and go in, she thought, but there was a reluctance in her to go back into the house. Out here, even though the pain was throbbing away inside her rib cage, there was comfort in just sitting here with Peter and Shiner,
whom she knew were hurting in the same way. Eventually it was Shiner who made the move.

“As Jack used to say, ‘This will never keep white stockings on the Missus’,” he said, getting off the edge of the trough. “Come on, you two.”

So they went back into the house where a pale-faced Kate was tidying up and Sarah Jones was washing ware.

“You had a little sleep,” Kate said with a strained smile.

“I couldn’t believe that I fell asleep,” she confessed.

“You needed that,” Sarah told her.

Nora took a tea towel from the rail over the Aga and started to dry the big stack of ware beside Sarah. She threw a tea towel to Peter, and the two of them dried the cups and saucers and Shiner stowed them away. It could be a normal day, she thought, but smiled when she thought that the two boys would never be doing this if it was an ordinary day. It would have amused Jack to see them now.

“What are you smiling at?” Peter asked in surprise.

“I was thinking that Jack would have been amused to see the two of you now,” she told them.

“I’m not so sure that you got that right,” Shiner told her. “Jack knew that we are domesticated at heart.”

“Jack knew a lot of things,” she told him, “but he didn’t know that.”

“Now that’s better,” Kate said, looking around the kitchen. “We’re a bit straightened out anyway.”

“Where’s Mom?” she asked.

“She’s gone for a bit of a lie down,” Sarah told her, “and your mother is gone home for a while,” she told Shiner.

“Who’s above in the parlour?” Nora asked.

“Your grandmother and Uncle Mark and David,” Kate told her.

“I’ll go up to them,” she said.

The night dragged on slowly, and they moved between the parlour and the kitchen, making tea and relighting the candles around Jack. They retold stories of the childhood that Jack had shared with them, and occasionally Nana Agnes shook holy water around the deathbed, and when crying threatened to take over from talking, she led them in the rosary. Finally the grey streaks of dawn filtered into the room, and Nora went out to the front garden. She needed fresh air and reprieve from the presence of death. Over the grove a golden glow was rising and the birds were beginning to twitter. As she watched, the gold turned crimson and the treetops fired red. Slowly the birds’ twitter swelled into a crescendo. She remembered Jack’s
east-facing
bedroom windows and how he kept them open to hear the dawn chorus. He loved to watch the sunrise. She wondered where was he now, and was he watching the sunrise?

Late that evening, the house, the garden and the yard filled up with people, and Fr Tim gave out the rosary. Afterwards, everybody filed out of the parlour, the coffin was brought in, and only herself, Peter, Mom, Kate and Nana Agnes remained. It was goodbye time. Memories of Dad were flooding back, and she was eight again and he was being taken away. A stony-faced Mom stepped forward and put her hand on Jack’s. There was absolute silence in the parlour. Nora felt as if something was going to break inside in her. Then Nana Agnes bent forward to kiss Jack on the forehead, and Kate laid her head on his chest and sobbed. Blinded by tears, Peter stumbled forward and grasped Jack’s hand, and then there was no one left only herself
and she could not move. She felt Nana Agnes arms around her gently edging her forward, and she was seeing Jack’s face shimmering though a sea of tears.