The Belfast Girl on Galway Bay Read online

  ‘Ah, shure great, aren’t you the clever girl I’m thinkin’. And haven’t I got a nice farm of land, and a house, and a shop, forby. I suppose all I need now is a wife to keep me company?’

  The question came out in the form of another joke. He wore a self-satisfied smirk that infuriated me. What was I supposed to say? That no girl could resist what he had to offer? He was making an enormous effort to be pleasant, ‘fishing for compliments’, as my mother would put it. Well, he wasn’t going to get any compliments from me. That was for sure.

  ‘You’ll be wanting a good dowry with a nice place like that,’ I said sarcastically.

  The moment I spoke, I knew I shouldn’t have tried to be sarcastic over the noise of the band, but even so warned, his response took me completely by surprise.

  ‘Oh, never mind the dowry, Elizabeth,’ he said, pressing his hot, damp cheek against mine and shouting in my ear. ‘Never mind that a bit. If I could get a girl I liked I’d never mind the dowry. Didn’t I work three years in a car battery factory in Dagenham to buy the place. And hasn’t the house got running water and both my parents dead.’

  ‘I’m sorry about your parents,’ I said weakly.

  A look of impatience glanced across his face and was then replaced by an indulgent grin.

  ‘Shure you’d have no one to look after. There’d be just the two of us and the wee ones,’ he said, squeezing me affectionately.

  What wee ones? I began to panic. Somewhere in the conversation he thought he’d made me an offer. That was bad enough. But now he actually thought I was interested.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said hastily, as the music stopped at the end of the dance.

  I disentangled myself and looked around anxiously for Bridget and Danny. No sign of them. In desperation I dived towards the line of women, but he was too quick for me. He slid an arm round my waist and held on tight.

  ‘I’m shure you’d like a glass of mineral water. ’Tis very hot in the hall,’ he said. ‘Or perhaps you’d like a breath of fresh air. We could sit in my car or go up and look at the Spectacle Bridge.’

  The mineral water was the lesser of the two evils, so we sat in the gloomy space where I had previously watched other couples. I tried to think of a way out of the situation, but short of making a terrible fuss, I couldn’t see one. I blamed myself for what had happened. I should never have answered his questions in the first place. Pride, Elizabeth, pride, I said to myself. A good observer should remain detached.

  He still had an arm round my waist but he was fully occupied with pouring the contents of a bottle of fizzy lemonade down his throat. I looked at my watch. Half past midnight. An hour and a half to go.

  The next dance was a quickstep. The minute we were back on the floor his determined look returned.

  ‘You’ll come down tomorrow and see round the place, Elizabeth. I’ll send a taxi for you. What time would suit you?’

  ‘I can’t do that,’ I said, shaking my head hard. ‘My boyfriend wouldn’t like it.’

  ‘And where’s your boyfriend tonight?’

  ‘In Belfast.’

  ‘He’s not much use to you there, is he?’ he replied, turning on the indulgent smile he used whenever I said anything he considered irrelevant. ‘Now what time will you come?’

  I shook my head vigorously. ‘I can’t come. I have work to do and then I’m going back to the university.’

  ‘What?’

  It wasn’t surprising he didn’t hear me. The band were now playing ‘She’ll be coming round the mountain’, and the dancers were joining in on ‘when she comes’. I waited.

  ‘Back to the university,’ I shouted, before the downbeat.

  ‘Sure, I’d pay for you to finish your education. Isn’t that reasonable?’

  I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He thought my resistance was just a matter for negotiation. If I was selling myself, he probably thought I was entitled to try for the best price I could get. That nothing in the whole world would induce me to marry him hadn’t entered his consciousness.

  ‘Isn’t that a fair offer?’ he repeated, a touch of self-righteousness penetrating his smile. ‘Ah, Elizabeth, wouldn’t I give you anything you wanted, my darlin’, if you’ll just say the word,’ he began, pressing his sweaty cheek against mine. ‘You can have anythin’ you want. I’d not expect you to work in the shop, or on the farm. You’d be a lady, Elizabeth, that’s what you’d be. Mrs Michael Brady would be a lady.’

  He released me again to observe the effect of this thought that had just struck him. Then he tried to kiss me. The music stopped and I took my chance.

  ‘Mr Brady,’ I said sharply, ‘there seems to be some misunderstanding. It’s time I was going home. Goodnight.’

  I tried to free myself, but his hands locked tight on my wrists. Several couples nearby were looking at us. We were right down the far end of the hall, the worst possible position for my making an exit.

  ‘Ah, now, Elizabeth, don’t go. Don’t go. Sure we’ll leave the house for the moment.’ He was wreathed in smiles again despite my look of fury.

  ‘Blue moon, I saw you standing alone,’ crooned the singer.

  That’s all I need, I thought bitterly. A slow waltz. A plan was shaping in my mind, but I had to be level with the exit close to where the four large gentlemen were standing guard. At this pace, it would take for ever. Around us, couples began to entwine, making small pretence of dancing.

  ‘Elizabeth, I love you.’

  He clutched me to him and breathed hotly in my ear. I ignored him.

  ‘Elizabeth, I love you.’

  This time the statement had an element of interrogation about it. Something was expected of me. For one wild moment, I wondered if the mutual consumption of fizzy lemonade had the same significance in this community as the drinking of chocolate among certain South American tribes.

  ‘Elizabeth, I love you,’ he repeated, loudly.

  The rotating spot which had been giving trouble all evening rattled and stuck. His face turned green.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said urgently. ‘I must go to the ladies.’

  I sped across the floor, dodged between the couples and then the line of unpartnered girls. I felt an enormous sense of relief as I shot out into the entrance corridor and turned towards the cloakroom. I reached for my ticket. Oh, no. Not only had I forgotten there was no pocket in my skirt, but in the fraction of a moment I had paused, a hand gripped my shoulder.

  ‘Shure, I’ll wait for you outside, darlin’.’

  Panting for all he was worth, he escorted me proprietorially to the ladies’ cloakroom. He squeezed me affectionately and settled himself to wait beside the cylinder of Calor gas the cloakroom lady had used to prop open the door so she could watch the comings and goings.

  Tears of rage sprang to my eyes. The four large men had disappeared, Bridget had the ticket for my jacket, and there was no way of getting out of the cloakroom except past Brady and the Calor gas. I went into the lavatory furthest away from the entrance and shut the door behind me.

  The lavatory was smelly and nasty from excessive use. I tried to open the window, but the catch was rusted through. It came off in my hand. I pushed the glass near the edge of the frame. To my surprise, it opened. Cold night air streamed in onto my face and arms. Funny there’s no netting, I thought. All the other windows I had seen were boarded up or netted over. I closed the lavatory seat, climbed up and looked out.

  The explanation was simple. The ballroom appeared to have been built on a rubbish dump. The window looked down on a steep earth slope covered with nettles and strewn with beer cans and empty bottles. No one could get in this way. But could they get out? I thought of Brady waiting by the Calor gas, took off my sandals and dropped them gently out of the narrow window. I watched them roll down the slope into the nettles.

  As I squeezed through after them, the moon came out from behind a cloud. The nettles sparkled after rain. Too late now. It was only a drop of about six feet, but I had to be careful. I
could start an avalanche. I took a deep breath and clumped feet first into the soft earth.

  I landed unevenly, my knees folded under me and I skidded downhill on my bottom. Not far. But it was unnerving to feel myself sliding and not be able to do anything about it. I came to rest on the apex of a pyramid of beer bottles, dislodging a few that clinked their way down the glassy scree, starting other smaller avalanches as they went.

  I could feel the damp of the earth penetrating my skirt, but I was afraid to make any sudden movement. The music from the dance was so remote I had to make an effort to hear what they were playing. A deep silence swept in from the surrounding countryside. Against its calm density, the noise of the cascading bottles seemed outrageous.

  One of my shoes lay nearby. I reached for it and slid a bit further. Slowly, I managed to get to my feet, find my other shoe and work my way across the slippery slope. It was such hard going I hardly noticed the chill night air. I stopped at the rough edge of the car park and put my sandals back on my muddy feet. To my delight, Brendan’s van was only a short distance away.

  I glanced through the windscreen cautiously. There was no one inside. I knew it wasn’t locked. No point locking it, Brendan had joked, she wouldn’t go for anyone but him. I climbed gratefully into the back seat, wrapped myself in a raincoat someone had left behind and huddled up in the corner from which I could see the moon riding high in a clear sky. The raincoat smelt of straw and tractor oil and reminded me of a time, a very long time ago now, when I had lived in the countryside myself.

  I thought of Michael Brady with his self-satisfied grin parked against the wall by the Calor gas cylinder. Waiting for me. I shuddered and drew the raincoat round me more tightly. There are nasty people wherever you go, town or country. But so far, I had been lucky. So many of the people I had met in my early childhood and in my many visits to Uncle Albert had been good people. Kind-hearted, straightforward folk who would make you welcome, as I had been made welcome in Lisara.

  I closed my eyes and let myself remember the country people I had known and the places where I had once been so happy.

  Chapter 6

  Shortly after my unscheduled exit from the Kincora Ballroom, thick cloud swept in from the sea. By two o’clock, when the departing dancers launched themselves towards their parked vehicles, rain was sheeting down. It poured across the unmade car park from the downpipes at each corner of the building, bounced from the roofs of the vehicles themselves and created lakes in every depression of its irregular surface. There were shouts and screams as women in high heels splashed between the expanding waterways and waited for drivers to fumble with keys in the drenching rain.

  Of all this I remained blissfully unaware, asleep in the back of Brendan’s van, till Bridget, her coppery curls dripping, Danny’s jacket pulled round her shoulders, stuck her head round the door and woke me up. Despite the fact that I was the only warm and dry member of the party, Bridget was convinced I’d catch my death of cold. She begged me to call over and see her next morning to reassure her that I was all right.

  The rain cleared in the night but as I turned out of the cottage and crossed the road, brown water gurgled and splashed in the ditches, tumbling its way downhill to join the stream in the valley below. The sky was a clear, cloud-scribbled blue and the road itself already dry in the breeze. The air had that special, fresh feel of early autumn which made me think of frost and red berries and whirling leaves. As I clumped along in my green wellingtons, I felt how marvellous it was to be alive.

  I was so sorry when it was time to leave the road and make for Bridget’s house, a two-storey building of grey stone, roofed with slate, at the end of a long lane. If I hadn’t known that she had three brothers, I could have worked it out from the neat and prosperous look about the whole place. The haggard was full of great stacks of hay, thatched with corn straw and firmly tied down against the winter storms. The pasture that stretched up the mountainside was smooth and green, no sign at all of the dark, spiky rushes which had begun to invade Paddy’s land as soon as his last son left home.

  About a hundred yards from the house their lane was flooded right across, just as Paddy had warned me. It was deep too. Even in the middle, where the centre ridge stood well above the cart-ruts on either side, there were six or seven inches of brown water. I waded gently through, so it wouldn’t slosh over the tops of my boots and soak my socks. Ahead of me, by the gable, a wooden gate opened onto a flagged path which ran across the front of the house. There were some flowers under the windows, marigolds and nasturtiums, neatly barricaded in by a row of whitewashed boulders.

  As I drew nearer, a dog appeared, barking fiercely. He sounded as if he were about to eat me. I smiled to myself as I approached him. At the beginning of the week, I might have been afraid of him, but since then I had learnt two things about the dogs of Lisara: they all looked as if they were offspring of Paddy’s dog, Prince, and like Prince, they were all confidence tricksters.

  ‘Hallo, boy,’ I greeted him.

  He stopped barking, growled menacingly, but waved his tail at the same time. He sniffed my outstretched hand, then my trousers. Satisfied, he began jumping up and down, trying to lick my face.

  ‘Down now. Good dog, down,’ I said, as I balanced myself on the doormat and began taking off my wellingtons.

  ‘Ah shure, don’t bother, Elizabeth. Get down, Barney. Away wi’ ye. He’d destroy your clothes, Elizabeth, he’s the divil for jumping up. He’s young yet. Come on in.’

  Bridget was wearing a short-sleeved green sweater and some tartan trousers. They suited her a lot better than the pink and gold brocade dress she had worn the evening before, but her bare arms were purple with cold and her hands were red and chapped. Even though I still had on my red jacket with its warm synthetic-fur lining, I felt shivery just looking at her.

  ‘Sit down by the fire, till I get you some slippers. Shure you needn’t have bothered.’

  She disappeared and left me sitting in one of the easy chairs by the side of the stove. Opposite me, an old woman sat staring at me. Dressed entirely in black and terribly thin, her yellowed skin was stretched tight over her bones. Where her cheeks should have been, there were two matching depressions, as if someone had poked their fingers into freshly made dough. Her mouth had sunk to a thin line.

  ‘Here, put your feet in these.’

  Bridget held out a pair of high-heeled slippers with a deep pink, hairy decoration on the toes. Luminous, silky fronds waved like the tentacles of a sea anemone around a rhinestone clip.

  ‘Me sister in Boston sent them. Aren’t they great?’

  She laughed as I held out my feet for inspection. The slippers were at least two sizes too small and looked quite ridiculous over a pair of my father’s old winter socks. But it was a kind thought, for the stone floor had just been washed and was still wet.

  The old woman continued to stare at me. I smiled, but there was no response.

  ‘She’s nearly blind now and very deaf got, she doesn’t see you at all,’ said Bridget quietly. ‘’Tis my friend Elizabeth, come to see me, Granny. She’s staying at Mary’s. Mary-at-the-top-of-the-hill.’

  Granny stirred slightly and made a sound. Her eyes moved upwards to where Bridget shouted in her ear. The pupils were tiny and the large, protruding areas of white were bloodshot.

  ‘Yes, Mary. You know Mary?’ Bridget went on, her voice echoing off the stone flags.

  The face crinkled slightly. She nodded sharply as if angry at the idea that she might not know Mary. She fumbled in the folds of the black blanket which enveloped her and slowly extended a tiny arm. It was so thin, I could have encircled it with one finger.

  ‘She thinks yer Mary.’

  I took the outstretched hand. It was cold and lifeless and so fragile I was almost afraid to move it. Her eyes flickered towards me.

  ‘How are you today, Mrs Doherty?’ I shouted in turn, hoping I had said what Mary would have said.

  She smiled and said something. I knew she s
miled because her eyes changed their vacant look. But there was no movement in her face. And I knew she said something, because I heard sounds. But there was no movement of her lips. The hand fell back on the blanket as if it didn’t belong to her any more.

  ‘She says she’s grand, she’s pleased to see you.’

  Bridget put the old woman’s arm back inside the enveloping black folds and lifted her chair nearer to the stove.

  ‘Ye’ll have a wee sleep now, Granny, won’t you?’

  Granny was already asleep, her head dropped forward on her chest, her mouth open. Her thin, white hair curled in wisps over the pink of her scalp. Like a baby’s.

  ‘’Tis a pity of her, isn’t it?’ said Bridget.

  I nodded silently, afraid that if I spoke I might cry. There was something so devastating about that fragile hand in mine and the flicker of memory from a time when she and Mary had been women in their prime.

  ‘Ye’ll drink coffee, Elizabeth, won’t you? I’ve no cake atall to offer ye. Would you eat a biscuit?’ Bridget asked anxiously.

  ‘I’d love coffee, Bridget, but I shouldn’t eat biscuits. I’m sure these trousers are tighter than when I came with all Mary’s good cooking.’

  I wiped my eyes surreptitiously as she pulled out a stool and reached into the top of a cupboard for a box of biscuits. I was grateful when her blurred tartan bottom regained its sharpness.

  ‘Can I give you a hand with the coffee?’

  ‘Not at all. Sit yer ground. I’ll not be a minute. Draw up to the fire and warm yourself. I’m just going to the pump.’

  She parked the box of biscuits on the table and lifted out two enamel buckets from underneath its well-scrubbed surface. Through the small, back window, I watched her hurry down the yard, dodging a line of washing which billowed in the wind. Sheets, towels, shirts and overalls, reached out to envelop her. She seemed not to notice either their dampness or the chill of the morning breeze which had followed the night’s rain.