The Ballroom Café (23 page)

She only told people she was pregnant after Michael died. After the birth, she agonised that her frenetic painting and constant maudlin thoughts had killed her baby. She hated herself for all her grieving, which meant her baby had not possessed the will to live. She blamed herself, locking the door to this room and to her heart. She did not allow herself to snatch any future happiness; she never thought she deserved it enough. Sitting in this freezing, dirty room, Ella knew that not only had she lost this baby but her life too had been taken away, by the person who had decided another was to mother him.

She imagined she should feel angry, but there was only a lonely numbness, like a thick fog on her brain.

‘Do you think I should bring a coffee up to Ella?’

‘She is not in her room; I saw her go in the small room opposite.’

‘Would you rather go?’

Iris, her elbows deep in the sink, washing up, laughed out loud. ‘I am not into all this emotional stuff. I will keep things going here.’

Debbie poured a coffee and walked across the landing, knocking lightly on the door. ‘It’s me, Debbie. Can I come in?’

Ella rose from the chair, the mobile phone falling out of her lap. ‘Hold on. I am coming,’ she called out, scrabbling for the phone among the old newspapers on the ground, scattering big black spiders and earwigs as she did. She opened the door carefully, in case some of the old paint fell on Debbie. ‘You don’t want to be coming in here; it is cold and musty. Do you think we can get down to the kitchen without meeting any customers?’

Debbie walked across the landing and looked down the hall. ‘The coast is clear.’

Ella hurried downstairs, followed by Debbie. In the big kitchen, she sat beside the old Aga, even though it was not on.

‘Drink the coffee,’ Debbie said, pushing a little table towards her and setting a place.

‘You are good to look after me.’

Debbie sat opposite her, her face troubled. ‘I have caused a lot of unnecessary trouble.’

‘For God’s sake, girl, you are the last one who should apologise; if you had not been so dogged in seeking assistance, I would have gone to my grave thinking my baby had died.’ Ella cupped her hands around the warmth of the coffee cup. ‘He is alive. I feel it, but I can’t understand why I never could feel it before.’ She sat, the warmth of the coffee cup radiating from her hands up her arms, and she smiled to think he was alive. ‘You would be about the same age. Isn’t that something?’ she said, but Debbie knew she did not expect an answer.

They sat quietly, the kitchen clock ticking away the seconds. In the back yard they could hear the old hen clucking, the geese flocking about searching for slugs among the dug-up beds under the window. Every now and again there was a din from the hall as a group on the way in and out of the café met up.

‘Who would have thought the café could be so busy?’ Ella said, and Debbie nodded.

‘What time did the officer say he would call?’

‘When they open it up. I wonder will he ring if he finds remains in there? It is nearly noon now.’

‘Muriel said they opened two graves yesterday and there was nothing but old newspapers and cloths.’

‘She does not really think I am shopping, does she?’

Debbie smiled. ‘I think she did. Maybe she’s on the way to Gorey as we speak.’

‘More like telling all and sundry I am off gallivanting as my little one’s grave is dug up.’

‘Do you want me to stay with you when you take the call?’

Ella leaned over and patted Debbie on the arm. ‘Please, please do; I don’t want to be on my own.’

They sat together waiting, neither needing to talk further.

Roberta paced up and down in the small library. From here, she could see the pear trees had been pruned and tightly fastened onto the stone wall with steel wire. A stone seat forgotten for decades underneath the briars and nettles had been uncovered last week, after Iris attacked the patch with a slash hook. Roberta reached in behind the world atlas and took down her sherry glass and bottle. Not bothering with the glass, she took a slow swig of sherry from the bottle.

The night Ella had been rushed to County General Hospital, Roberta had woken up to her moaning on the landing. She rang for the ambulance, but when it came she let her sister travel alone. She stayed up through the night, but no word of the birth filtered through. When she rang they would not tell her, so she called Gerry O’Hare. Consuelo came to her in the hospital waiting room.

‘Are you here about Ella?’

‘How is she?’

‘Very tough birth, we will keep her in a few days.’

‘And the baby?’

‘Died.’

Consuelo took off her headdress to flatten her hair, thick, dull black hair held back with heavy grips.

‘The baby is dead?’

Consuelo went to the mirror over the fireplace to fix back her veil. ‘Isn’t she better off? Sure, she will never get another husband with a baby in tow.’

‘How is she?’

‘She does not know yet. Best that she sleeps it off.’

Consuelo turned around and took Roberta’s two hands. ‘You go on home. We will look after everything, bury the mite.’

‘The cost?’

Consuelo laughed, as if the very thought was a joke. ‘Not at all, dear. It is the least we can do. We all know you two have been through your fair share of tragedy in the past while.’

Roberta, who had been reaching into her handbag to gather a small contribution, stiffened.

‘Don’t even think of it, Roberta O’Callaghan; we went to school together, we are friends.’

‘You will look after Ella?’

‘Like she is my own family.’

Consuelo swept out of the room, and soon after, Roberta got a nurse to send word to Gerry O’Hare. As she waited at the window of the waiting room, watching for his car, a tall, well-dressed lady came in. She sat down, tapping her heels against the tiles in an absentminded sort of way. She smiled at Roberta but did not say anything until a man in a raincoat came in.

‘How long will it be? Have they said?’

‘Not long, just another bit of paperwork and we should be there,’ he said, smiling indulgently at his nervous companion.

‘I would have preferred to be in the delivery room,’ she snapped, and he sat down and put his arm around her shoulders.

They were still there waiting when Roberta saw Gerry O’Hare’s car swing in to the front of the hospital and she walked out to meet him.

She did not cry until she got home, a newly opened bottle of sherry on the kitchen table. She wanted to see his child; she wanted it to be a boy and see him grow up to be like his father. She could not talk to Ella, she accepted that, but she knew her sister would never risk the confusion it would cause for the child, to ban him talking to her. She had planned to be a very indulgent aunt and there was nothing Ella could do about it.

She had loved Michael Hannigan; she still did. She met him first, though Ella would no doubt dispute that. It was at the dance in Gorey. He asked her out on the floor and she liked the way he moved. He didn’t talk much, but when the band called the slow waltz, he pulled her close. They talked. He wasn’t thinking of being a soldier then but was going to join in the family fishmonger business. She remembered she had given great attention to her appearance the next week, but he wasn’t there, or the week after. She went to the fish shop in Gorey, but there was no sign. Her head and her heart were sore from thinking of him.

Ella, meanwhile, headed into Dublin city on a Friday night for the dances and sometimes stayed over. She was very coy about who she met, but one Saturday evening she came off the train, her face pink with excitement.

‘I have met the man I am going to marry,’ she announced, and they had to rush home to tidy up the house, because he intended to drive down and visit the next day.

Ella was in a dither, up since early, baking. When the Morris Minor pulled up the avenue, she whipped off the apron and reapplied her lipstick before running around to the front of the house. Roberta followed, happy for her sister.

‘This is some pile. Is it all yours?’ Michael Hannigan said as he jumped from the car and grabbed Ella in a tight hug.

‘Don’t be taken in by the looks of the place. It is a money pit,’ she said, pushing him away so she could introduce her sister.

Sitting in her father’s old leather chair, Roberta fancied she could hear his voice, see the twinkle in his eye when he complimented the sisters for being so lovely.

‘I am a very lucky man to be in such company,’ he said, making both women giggle.

Thinking back, he had a brass neck, but at the time she was taken by his bravado, the way he made both of them feel so good. Ella had no notion that behind her back he blew Roberta kisses, making her blush, and once he rubbed up against her as she fed the hens.

They had many Sundays like that, and in the summer they went for picnics by the lake. Sometimes he persuaded Roberta to get in the water and they played like schoolchildren. She heard Ella steal away with him to the old icehouse when they thought she was asleep, and yet she believed he loved her, because he said so. Once he persuaded her to get a train in to Dublin for the day; they walked around hand in hand. He brought her to a grotty guesthouse, where he made love to her on an iron bed with a patchwork quilt. She told him she loved him beyond anything.

As they lay entwined on the lumpy mattress, he told her he was going to marry Ella.

‘I am in the Army now and it makes sense for me to have a wife. I am too old for you, Roberta; me and Ella, we fit nicely together.’

‘You only want the big house. There is only five years between us,’ she said, getting out of the bed and pulling on her clothes.

‘I won’t deny it. I love you, Roberta, but I am going to marry Ella.’

‘Do you love her?’

‘I think I love both of you. Nothing needs to change, you know.’

She whacked him over the head with the handbag that only contained her train ticket and her lipstick. ‘She loves you, everything about you. You are a bastard and I am a slut.’

She ran from the guesthouse. She had no idea where she was. Holding her handbag tight under her arm, she walked as if she knew her way until she saw an old lady waiting at a bus stop and got directions.

‘Watch yourself, love; they would rob you blind around here,’ the woman said, pointing her in the direction of the railway station.

When she got back to Roscarbury Hall, Ella bounced out of the house. ‘Roberta, Roberta,’ she shouted, so that her younger sister, afraid she had been found out, stopped in her tracks.

‘Are you all right?’ Ella asked, but before Roberta could answer she blabbed on, filling the space between them with words.

‘Michael rang me up and proposed. He said he has a few days off and he wants me to go to Dublin to pick the ring.’

Roberta gasped, Ella taking her reaction as astonishment.

‘I know, I can hardly believe it myself. I will be Mrs Michael Hannigan.’

She took off across the grass, skipping, and Roberta thought she had never seen her so happy.

‘You will be bridesmaid, of course. Will you wear pink? It will go so well with your colouring.’

Ella skipped off again, jumping over the bed of dahlias.

‘Do you think we can have a drinks reception here at the hall? Wouldn’t it be marvellous? Are you all right?’ Ella walked over and put her arm around her sister. ‘There are plenty of nice fellahs out there, Roberta; you will meet one soon enough. You have a few years before you get to my stage. Where were you, anyway?’

Roberta turned and looked at her sister. ‘I was in Gorey meeting up with a few girls.’

It was the first of many lies. It was not long before Michael Hannigan persuaded her there was nothing wrong with them continuing to meet. She went to Dublin twice a week, even the day before the wedding. After that, they met down at the icehouse.

Sometimes he grabbed her on the stairs and kissed her, or came up behind her and pushed against her, and she enjoyed the excitement. When Ella became pregnant with Carrie, she was ill for a lot of her confinement. Unwittingly, she threw the pair together as she asked her sister to look after Michael.

Roberta smiled, remembering lazy days with picnics, lying on a check rug down by the jetty, Ella at home, her feet up in bed, dozing over a book. They sang and smoked; at times they went in to the icehouse and he made love to her.

The birth of Carrie brought a new guilt to Michael Hannigan and he suggested they take a break from each other, so that he could concentrate on being a good father and husband. She agreed, because at that stage she would have agreed to anything he said.

Believing it would be like other times he tried to resist her, she acquiesced, thinking it would last just days or weeks. But Michael Hannigan had tired of the delights of the two sisters and often chose to spend his evenings off in the city, where he leaned against the bar, his tall bearing and twinkling eyes a draw to any woman. Ella, caught up in her young daughter, was too preoccupied to wonder what her husband got up to, but Roberta was deeply upset. When he did come home, she spent her time trying to cajole him back into her arms.

‘When I am at Roscarbury, Ella has first call,’ he said, pushing her away.

She thought of him now and wondered what she had ever found so exciting; he had grown peevish over the two years of his marriage and resented his wife pushing them together. Slugging sherry from the bottle, she tried not to remember the day at the harbour as the pram slipped away, Carrie squealing in delight.

Ella jumped up when the phone rang, making it fall off her lap to the floor. She snatched it, but her hands were trembling so much she could not press the button.

‘Ella, is that you?’

Her hands shaking, she pressed it to her ear. ‘Yes Martin.’

‘It is like all the others: only rags, no remains.’

She felt the room spin around her: her baby was crying, she heard it; she could smell strong starch. ‘Are you sure, Martin?’

‘The pathologist is here and there are no human remains.’