It Was Only Ever You (23 page)

The streets of Harlem were alive with needy families and if Donnie and Marisa Jones had not been such kind good people, he would not have bothered making the calls he did.

He took Donnie into his office and made a call to Father Moran, who was based in the parish adjacent to Harlem, that took in parts of Hell’s Kitchen. He worked the ‘poor Irish’ shift, which was tough, but not as tough as Harlem. ‘Poor Irish’ were better than political Irish. But they were still white. And Catholic. The men maintained the veneer of professional friendship, but they were in fierce spiritual competition with one another.

‘One of my congregation just took in a girl from Ireland, straight off the plane...’

‘An aeroplane? Not the boat?’

‘I know. Stole the money from her parents to get here and now she’s stuck here with this family who can barely feed themselves. She doesn’t know a soul. Straight out of a convent. I wouldn’t call except that this family have enough troubles...’

Wiggins was getting the upper hand.

Never let it be said that the Irish didn’t look after their own. A convent-educated Irish girl taking charity from poor black Christians in Harlem? He never heard of such a thing!

‘Where is she from?’

‘Ireland.’

Moran signed loudly. Now it was his turn to show Wiggins what Christianity was all about – Irish Catholic style.

‘Where in Ireland? Have you a county? A town even?’

Wiggins conferred with Donnie.

‘Oxford? Near a place called Mea-yowh?’

‘Foxford, County Mayo. Give me the family’s address. I’ll get on to the Connaughtman’s Association. I can’t promise to have her out of there by tonight, but certainly we will get someone to collect her first thing in the morning. Of course, we’ll remunerate the family for their trouble.’

When Marisa returned with the groceries, Rose helped her unpack and prepare a chicken and rice supper. After they had eaten Rose offered to look after the children again while Marisa went to visit her sister. Being with the children meant she did not have to explain herself, or stress about Donnie coming home with news. The children forced her simply to be in the moment with them, drawing or playing.

After she had put them both to bed, Rose went to her purse and took out three dollar bills. She tucked them in behind the wooden crucifix on the mantelpiece and said a silent, but heartfelt prayer that she would find Patrick.

At that very moment, across Harlem, Father Moran got on the phone to Tom Brogan.

A
VA
STARTED
to ‘show’ early on in her pregnancy, partly because she quickly started to gain weight. She was happy to give up work in her father’s office and concentrate on making the perfect home for her and Patrick and the new baby. Although her pregnancy was unexpected, she quickly became very excited at the idea of becoming a mother. An only child herself, it felt as if very soon her family would be complete. Although her parents offered to buy her a home, they decided that they would stay in Ava’s small apartment which they were managing to pay for themselves. It was not pride so much as the feeling that, in some way, she had still let her parents down. She had a husband, and soon she would have a child. In a way, that was all her parents had ever wanted for her. Perhaps, also, it was all she had ever hoped for herself. And yet when she was with her parents she felt as if her relationship still fell under the shadow of the circumstances in which it had started.

The nursery was little more than a box room, a large cupboard. She and Patrick had chosen the paint together in a hardware store around the corner from the house. For weeks, now, the paint pot had been sitting at the door waiting for Patrick to get a day off. Since the opportunity to sing had opened out for him at work, he had been working nearly all the time. Ava missed having him around, and with the baby coming, and the ongoing awkwardness with her parents, sometimes she felt lonely.

However, she knew how important Patrick’s singing career was to him so she said nothing. Ava went ahead and picked out fabric for curtains and a quilt, a sky-blue cotton with small ducklings on it. She understood that men were not interested in such things, but nonetheless she wanted there to be a sense of occasion and excitement about the baby’s coming. Perhaps because its conception had been unplanned it was all the more important to make plans now.

On this particular day, Patrick promised he would stay at home and paint the room.

He told Gerry that on no account would he come in early for rehearsals. He and the wife were going to spend the day together decorating the nursery and, later in the afternoon, go to the hardware store and buy wood and other materials for him to make a crib. In the evening, he had promised Ava that he would take her out to their local bistro for a spaghetti dinner.

The day before, he had come into the bedroom and found her trying on a dress for the occasion. She was struggling to get her arms into it. ‘I’m getting so fat,’ she complained. ‘I have nothing to wear.’

As he attempted to zip it up, Patrick did experience a moment of alarm at how much bigger she had got in just a few weeks since the wedding. However, he had the good sense not to comment upon it, and reassured her as he helped tug her arms free.

‘It doesn’t matter what you wear, after all. It’s only Tony’s and they won’t mind if you don’t look fancy.’

She smiled. Patrick thought she looked a bit sad. Ava didn’t always seem as happy as a new bride and pregnant mother should be. He worried that it was his fault. He worked long hours and while he wished he could spend more time with Ava, the truth was, when he was up on stage singing, even just in rehearsals, he was happier than anywhere else. Sometimes he stayed behind after rehearsals to practise on his own. He would put on a record player to the side of the stage and sing along to Elvis, mimicking his microphone holds, hip movements and practising his own passionate crooning face, which Gerry had told him ‘sent the women crazy!’ Some afternoons he became so lost in the music that the hours just slipped by him and he would forget to go home before his evening shift began. He worried, sometimes, that he was a bad husband. Although Ava never nagged him or criticized the amount of time he spent at work, Patrick often sensed that she was disappointed in him. This should have made him come home more but he reasoned that the harder he worked the quicker he would become a big star, and once that happened everything would be all right. They would have enough money to buy a nice house in the suburbs near her parents. Then she would be happy with her baby and her nice kitchen and all the things she was used to. In the meantime, he had to try and keep her sweet in the best way that he could. By telling her that he loved her and that everything would be all right.

‘I still love you, darling, and besides, you’ll lose the weight after you’ve had the baby.’

Ava wondered sometimes how Patrick could say such hurtful things without even knowing it.

The next day, Ava woke late. Patrick had already been to the bakery and she could smell fresh coffee brewing on the stove. She smiled to herself. Life was perfect after all. She tugged on her robe, went out to the kitchen and pulled him back to bed, laughing.

After they had made love, Ava realized it had been over two weeks since they had woken up together, and she wanted to lie on in bed, but Patrick was determined to get working on the nursery.

They both dressed in their working clothes, without even showering. While Patrick began preparing the bedroom for painting, Ava set up her sewing machine on the kitchen table and got to work on the curtains and coverlet.

She put on the radio. There was a repeat of a Jack Benny comedy show,
The Drive-In Movie
. She had listened to the bespectacled comedian every week, as a child, with her father. The comedian even reminded her slightly of him. She turned up the radio and said to Patrick, ‘Listen to this – you’ll love it! He’s hilarious!’

Patrick pretended to listen. He was struggling to cover the carpet with the old sheet, having already spattered it with yellow paint. In truth, he was not a delicate house painter. The only painting he had ever done was in the cottage in Foxford, which was roughly whitewashed, inside and out. This room had skirting boards and picture rails and a carpet, which all had to be avoided. Angelo, the building superintendent, had offered to do the job for them for a small fee and he wished he had taken him up on it. Ava would be furious about the carpet, as any right-minded woman would be.

‘Listen to this bit...’ Patrick heard Ava call through from the kitchen.

‘Oh, boss, you’re not counting Tuesday night, are you?’

‘Why not?’

‘That’s when I had my appendix taken out.’

‘What’s the difference, you didn’t get home till three in the morning!’

As he anxiously dabbed at the fallen paint spots on the carpet, Patrick laughed as loud as he could, but it sounded fake.

Ava could tell he wasn’t enjoying the show, and why should he? Patrick was Irish, after all. There was no reason why he should ‘get’ American humour. She turned the dial to music radio and Perry Como’s voice came booming out.

She could feel Patrick’s mood lighten through the half-opened door.

‘You know,’ he called out, ‘I’m thinking of working “Catch A Falling Star” into Friday’s set.’

‘I think you should,’ Ava shouted back. ‘It’s a great song and you would do a great job of it.’

‘Will I sing it now for you?’ he said, appearing at the door.

He had paint all over his face. Such a cheeky, handsome face. Ava laughed.

‘Instead of painting?’

‘As well as. I’ve nearly finished...’

‘Let me see...’ She got up but he stood in front of the door and closed it.

‘Later,’ he said, holding the brush up to his mouth like a microphone.

As he sang the first notes, the phone rang. Ava went over to it, laughing.

It was Gerry from the Emerald.

Her heart sank.

Patrick took the phone.

‘You know I’m having a day off, Gerry – there is not a hope of me coming in today.’ Then, winking across, he added, ‘I have important business here with my wife—’ Before he finished the sentence Gerry interrupted him. Patrick’s face lit up, his eyes glittering with excitement. ‘Sure, sure,’ he said, before putting the phone down.

‘I’m really sorry, Ava,’ he said. She could tell from his tone that he wasn’t sorry at all. ‘It’s just that this is a really big one. Something amazing has happened.’

Ava looked at him. She was angry but hid it. What could it possibly be that was more important than this? She couldn’t say it out loud because whatever it was he clearly thought it was more important.

‘Iggy Morrow called. He’s on his way in and he wants to see me.’

‘What about?’ said Ava.

‘I’ve no idea,’ Patrick said. ‘But he’s the big boss man, and when he wants to see you...’

‘If you want to see Mr Morrow, my father can just call him up.’

She was making him feel stupid. Her father was a big boss man too. It was her way of showing him her family were important. More important than him. Well, Ava didn’t work there. She didn’t know how elusive Iggy Morrow was, what kind of an important man he was. Her father might be important but he wasn’t a music mogul. If Morrow wanted to see him, right now, then that’s where he needed to be.

He didn’t need to explain himself to anyone. He didn’t need to explain himself to a wife who thought she was better than he was.

Patrick walked past her into the shower without saying anything.

Ava’s anger melted away into a small pocket of despair at having upset him.

While Patrick washed and put on his good suit, Ava had a quiet, petulant cry in the kitchen as she finished hemming the curtains.

When he came out, Patrick came over and stood in front of her looking contrite.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I have to go. I’ll call in to Angelo and send him up to finish the painting.’ He kissed her on the top of her head and added, ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

After he had gone, Ava turned off the radio and walked into the half-painted room. In the empty flat a terrible feeling of loneliness opened up inside her. She tried to remember that she was not alone, there was a baby growing inside her, but she could not get a sense of it.

After a few moments, Angelo called to the door. He was a swarthy Italian workman in his mid-forties who lived in the basement apartment with his wife and four children. Although he was about the same age as her own father, he always had a slight twinkle in his eye.

‘How is my favourite Irish lady?’ he said. ‘Your husband, the big singing star, has left me to paint the baby’s room.’

‘Thank you, Angelo,’ she said smiling.

She gave him coffee, and made him a sandwich for lunch so he wouldn’t trouble his wife, who was still nursing their youngest.

As they sat at the table, she noticed a change in his attitude towards her. Normally she could rely upon Angelo to be openly flirtatious, offering up some lascivious remark with a wink and a smile. Today, his voice was flat and his warm eyes indifferent. Perhaps he had had a row with Maria, or lost a night’s sleep with the baby. However, Ava read his dispassion as a personal slight. That was how it was when you were pregnant: even the most kind and good-humoured of men weren’t interested in you any more.

‘Maria says you must call down and she will tell you everything you need to know about babies,’ Angelo said. ‘How long have you got left?’

She didn’t want to tell him she was not yet four months along. She felt so big and dowdy already.

‘Soon,’ she said. The birth was months away and she felt like a fool making such a fuss about having the nursery painted so early.

When Angelo had gone, Ava hung up the curtains and stood for a moment in the yellow room. Patrick had promised to make a crib, but she was beginning to wonder if it would ever happen. Everything was set up for their perfect life together and yet she felt as if there was something missing. She was lonely, and, in truth, also a little bored. Perhaps she should have stayed on at work? Although working while you were pregnant was widely thought to be unseemly. She should have enough here to keep her busy if Patrick was coming home every evening for dinner. But without a husband to look after, what was a wife to do? In Yonkers Ava had been involved in the church, with her mother, fundraising for poor families back home in Ireland. Since moving to Manhattan, she had been attending St Patrick’s cathedral every Sunday. However, the cathedral was a large institution in itself, with an established committee, and it felt somewhat intimidating to start a relationship with them, especially in her current condition. She could get involved in the Catholic Connaught Woman’s Association. As Tom Brogan’s daughter she could pick and choose the district and role she wanted to play, but Ava was slightly afraid of the gossip that might ensue. The Brogans were mid-level Irish royalty and she had no doubts that her break-up with Dermot had spread through the grapevine already. Her marriage to Patrick had been very fast, and it would take only one smart Irish biddy to add up the weeks until the baby came for them to be dining out on her family’s disgrace for years. It was better for her to keep a low profile, at least until after the baby came and things had settled with her parents.