He Is Mine and I Have No Other Read online

  Mother Assumpta tried to pretend once like she was my husband! Sitting me on her lap and her saying things like ‘Where’s the dinner, woman?’ which made me laugh. And her rubbing her hands up me the way men are supposed to. And then didn’t Mother Carmel walk in!

  I have special privileges since. Mother Carmel says I’ve earned them. I sit at a separate table in the refectory, away from the young ones. I get tea and toast every morning in the convent kitchen. And I don’t get beat anymore.

  Mother Felix says I’m awful hard-working. Me and Mary make all of the clothes for the girls. Blue serge dresses and pinafores for the winter, and white calico dresses for the summer. But that’s not why I get special privileges. It’s because I can do embroidery. I make table mats and underwear, and then they sell them outside. Someday I’d like to make a big tablecloth, but that would take an awful long time.

  My mother comes to see me sometimes. The last time she was here she told me that a friend of hers had been to Lourdes with her aunt, who is in a wheelchair. She swore she’d seen my table mats on sale on one of them stalls there, only she couldn’t stop to take a closer look because she was in one of them processions of the Virgin Mary. We were both almost in tears, thinking of my table mats beyond there in Lourdes.

  I’ve been here since I was nine. We were living at my grandparents’. I don’t know where my father was. I never dared ask. Then my grandmother died and my mother had to spend all her time looking after my grandfather. She couldn’t do that and look after us too. She tried for a while but she couldn’t cope. Me and my brothers were better off being sent to get a proper education. I didn’t mind at first because it was easier than doing the work on the farm. I had big abscesses on my hands from that. But then the chilblains were just as bad. I thought I’d die of cold. My feet would hurt so much I’d chew the inside of my mouth off. And I couldn’t stand Mother Carmel beating the little ones. I didn’t mind if it was me, I was used to it. But I couldn’t stand the little ones being beaten. Someday God will give her a good beating before he lets her set foot inside the gates of heaven.

  One of my brothers came to see me when he was grown up and left the school he was sent to. I didn’t even recognise him. He’s working in Dublin now. He says I’d love Clerys. He says it’s jam full of hats and handbags and silk scarves. He says I’d make a fine seamstress. I’ve never heard anyone called that before. I told Mary and she thinks I’m daft.

  My brother gave me a picture of himself and Michael, the other one. You can hardly tell them apart. I showed it to Mary and she blushed bright pink. Maybe she’ll marry one of them and we’ll be sisters-in-law! The gardener’s son winks at me every morning when I walk past him from the refectory to the convent. He does it to make me go red. I try not to look at him but if I don’t he’ll only start whistling at me like I’m a dog and calling me ‘Rua’, and then I go even more red.

  It was poker night at home that night. Gran was first to speak.

  ‘Eighty pence,’ she says.

  ‘I’ll see you,’ Mam says, and throws in her eighty, a hint of a smile on her lips. Dad had folded already. Mary Reilly was undecided still. She hesitated, then:

  ‘Feck it, I’ll see you, and raise you,’ she said, throwing £1.60 into the pot.

  Everyone looked at Paddy to see what he would do.

  ‘Ah, Jesus. You’re an awful woman, Mary,’ says Paddy.

  Their concentration was waning, Mam’s especially. She was the only sober one in the room. The rest of them were all looking a little red in the face with booze. Mary’s eyes were out on sticks.

  ‘Don’t you know what I’m like, Paddy?’

  ‘Only too well,’ he moaned.

  Dad leaned back in his chair, hands folded over his chest, with a look of the cat that got the cream.

  ‘Right, that’s it: I’m folding. Feck you, Mary,’ Paddy said, and everyone laughed except Gran. The expression on her face hadn’t changed from the start of the game.

  ‘I’ll raise it again,’ she said, sliding the coins into the middle of the table, very carefully, with her good hand.

  ‘Ah Christ, Mammy,’ Mam said, ‘that’s me out too.’

  Mary was too drunk to care. Her head swayed from side to side.

  ‘Okay, okay, I’m out too. Show us what you have, Phil.’

  Gran let her guard down and smiled her lopsided smile as she turned over her cards one by one, to reveal two low pairs.

  ‘For Jesus’ sake. I don’t know how you do it, Phil. Fuck me!’ Paddy shouted, and they all laughed.

  ‘Paddy,’ Mary scolded.

  Dad topped up everyone’s glasses. I’d filled big white hunks of bread with ham and coleslaw, and cheese and pickle, and placed them in a basket in the middle of the table along with a plate of sliced, buttered tea-brack Mam had made earlier.

  ‘Ah sure, you’re a great girl, Lani. And what would your Mam do without you,’ Mary said.

  She still talked to me like I was ten years old.

  ‘That’s a fine bit of cake, Deirdre,’ Paddy said to Mam. ‘Did you make that yourself ?’

  ‘I did. And speaking of cake, I have a bun in the oven,’ she said, biting the nail on her index finger.

  I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right. I don’t think anyone was. Even Dad looked a little taken aback.

  ‘Yes, I’m pregnant.’

  ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph,’ Mary screeched. ‘Go ’way! That’s fantastic news, Deirdre. When’s it due?’

  ‘May,’ said Mam.

  ‘Well, by God, Deirdre and Noel, you’re a fine pair,’ Paddy said as he stood up to walk around the table and hug the two of them, one after the other.

  ‘It was an accident, of course,’ Dad said, winking at him.

  ‘Ah, you’re an awful man, Noel Devine,’ Paddy said, slapping him on the back.

  ‘You’re the first we’ve told. We wanted to wait until the three months were up, you know?’ said Mam.

  ‘Oh, of course, Deirdre. Of course,’ Mary said, leaning over and putting her arm around her shoulder.

  ‘And what about you, Lani? Are you delighted to be having a little brother or sister?’

  ‘I am,’ I said, ‘I am,’ and both Mam and Dad turned and looked at me. I was surprised at myself.

  The phone rang. I ran out of the room to get it, glad to escape the limelight.

  It was Leon.

  ‘I got your number in the phone book.’

  ‘Oh. I should have given it to you. I didn’t expect to hear from you again though.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I thought you were annoyed at me.’

  ‘What would I be annoyed at you for?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I can’t stay on long,’ he said.

  I could hear a television on loud in the background, and a man’s voice whinging at Leon to get off the phone.

  ‘I was wondering if you’d like to meet tomorrow evening, maybe? I could come out to the house. It’s that last one on the left just before the cemetery, isn’t it?’ He was almost whispering.

  Of course I knew I couldn’t have him anywhere near the house – Mam and Dad would have a fit – but I couldn’t tell him that.

  ‘That’s right. Yes, that would be nice.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow then. Around six?’

  I must have looked a little flustered when I walked back into the living room. They all looked at me, sandwiches poised, waiting to hear who it was had been calling at that time of night. Paddy and Mary looked a little uneasy. They knew about that night and the guards nearly being called out. They knew everything that went on in our house.

  ‘Who was that, calling at this hour?’ Mam asked.

  ‘Oh, just Mar.’

  ‘The terrible twin,’ Dad joked, and attention again focused on the sandwiches. The baby talk resumed.

  ‘I had piles, you know, Deirdre. Had to sit on a rubber ring for weeks.’

  ‘Jesus, Mary, I don’t want to know,’ my mother
cringed.

  They stayed up later than usual that night, celebrating. I heard Paddy and Mary leave just after two, and still I couldn’t sleep.

  The doorbell rang at ten to six the next evening.

  ‘Who’s that, love? Who is it?’ Gran was asking.

  ‘Oh, I think it’s just someone collecting for the parish,’ I said, making sure to close the living room door behind me so’s she wouldn’t see. ‘I’ve got it,’ I shouted as loud as I could, so neither Mam nor Dad would be roused from whatever it was they were doing.

  ‘Remember me?’

  He had on a grey wool coat. Some of the buttons were broken on it. It was wrapped tightly round him against the cold. His skin was pock-marked, and he’d washed his hair so it frizzed around his temples. His brown eyes looked shyer than they had done before, apologetic almost.

  ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘No. I mean, no, let’s go for a walk instead.’

  ‘It’s cold out here, you know.’

  ‘I know, but I’d prefer to get some air.’ I grabbed my coat from the hallstand and closed the door quietly behind me. ‘Just had to get out of there. Folks are driving me mad. You know how it is.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said, though he looked a little bewildered.

  He was flicking his thumb nervously with his middle finger, over and over again, as if he was skimming stones. I looked back at the house as we got to the top of the driveway and could see Gran standing at the window. She must have hauled herself out of the chair when she heard the front door close. I just had to pray that she wouldn’t say anything.

  ‘I’m going to have a baby brother or sister soon.’

  ‘What age is your mother?’

  Here we were again, talking about mothers.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, I don’t know why I’m telling you . . . She’s forty-four.’

  He pulled a rotten stick from the ditch.

  ‘That means she’ll be drawing a pension when your little brother or sister is only twenty.’

  ‘Suppose so. Do you have brothers or sisters?’

  ‘No, I don’t. I’m an only child.’

  ‘So am I. Not for long, though – it’s boring, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh yes, terrible. I’d say my mother would have had more—’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘No, don’t worry.’

  We were headed for the cemetery, or rather he was leading me there.

  ‘You ever been in that old cottage?’

  ‘No. It looks dangerous.’

  ‘It is,’ he said. ‘I like it. There’re bats, you know. Come on.’

  He took me by the hand and dragged me towards it. I was scared, but happy too that he was holding my hand. I would have liked Mar to see me then, being led into this secret place by my boyfriend. Or at least been able to tell her about it.

  Once we’d clambered in over a broken wall at the back of the house, careful not to get stung or scratched by the nettles and brambles, Leon squeezed my hand even tighter so my fingers hurt. I’d started to sweat even though it was freezing cold. A starling fluttered out one of the windows. It felt as though we were further back from the road than we really were, away from the world. He pushed me, gently at first, against one of the moss-covered walls, holding me by my shoulders, kissing me hard. Then he pushed his whole weight onto me and I squirmed, but he wouldn’t let me go. He was grappling with the buckle on my belt, and I pulled his hand away. I don’t know why. It was what I wanted. But it didn’t feel right there, just up the road from my house and so near the graveyard. Strands of my hair were catching in the rough surface of the wall and being woven into tiny knots and gently torn from my head. I was conscious of insects – dead flies caught in cobwebs sticking in my hair, beetles on the ground crawling near our feet. I could barely see Leon’s face as I pulled it back from mine. His eyes were like pools of light reflected on a watery surface.

  ‘Do you not like me?’ he whispered.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Do I make you sick?’

  ‘What are you on about?’ He was frightening me. ‘You know I like you.’

  ‘Then why will you not kiss me? Why did you push me away?’

  ‘I just wanted to look at you,’ I said, peering into his eyes.

  My own eyes were filling with tears. I wanted to get away, but if I tried to leave then he’d be sure I didn’t like him. And I did. I wasn’t lying when I said I wanted to look at him. I wanted to look in his eyes, see if I could fathom what was going on, if they could explain things. He held my face in his hands, wiping tears away with his thumbs. He kissed my eyelids, then my cheeks, then my lips. My head felt like porcelain.

  There was a rustle in the grass just outside the cottage. We stood stock still, not even daring to blink. More rustling, then a scuttling noise as something came into the cottage, something small enough to squeeze through one of the gaps in the wall.

  It was Blue. She yelped, and clawed at Leon’s legs. He laughed.

  ‘Well, if it isn’t old Blue.’

  ‘You remember her?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Me and Blue are good friends. Aren’t we, pup?’ He patted her head roughly.

  ‘Have you seen me here before, Leon?’

  ‘I told you.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘I’ve been watching you. From your garden. Through your window.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your back garden.’

  His voice had grown more faint even than before.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He didn’t answer.

  ‘You’ve seen me?’

  ‘Yes,’ he whispered.

  ‘I think I better go now.’

  I fumbled my way past him in the dark, through the tall grass and brambles, through the window at the back of the cottage. He didn’t try to stop me. I stung my hand on a nettle. It felt good, in a strange way.

  I was relieved to be outside. He followed behind me, saying nothing. He seemed giddy, his hands fidgeting, his eyes darting in the darkness.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I just need to get back.’

  I loved him then, really loved him, though I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why. Maybe because he’d seen me in my room, seen me undress, seen me naked – and wanted me, desired me. Because he’d waited until dark to walk down our driveway, hidden, probably behind the shed, and watched for the light in my room, and for me sitting at my desk, reading, doing my homework, getting ready for bed . . .

  I panicked then. ‘It was just you, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, just me.’

  I turned to look at him, took his hand in mine, and we walked the few minutes back to my house. I kissed him on the cheek and ran down the driveway, wondering if he’d wait until I was indoors before he crept down to the back of the house to spy on me.

  ‘There you are,’ Mam said as I blustered into the kitchen, Blue behind me. Specks of colour danced in front of my eyes.

  ‘Dinner’ll be ready in five minutes.’

  She stopped what she was doing to look at me.

  ‘You look nice.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, walking quickly to the hall doorway.

  ‘Oh, before I forget, love, would you bring those glasses over to Mary. Go on over now before dinner’s on the table, will you? She’ll be lost without them.’

  She pointed to them on the dining room table. I picked them up and headed out the back door again, wary of bumping into Leon as I turned the corner. But he was nowhere about, that I could see. Blue ran up onto the lawn ahead of me, sniffing furiously. I remembered that Gran had seen Leon, and that I would have to have a word with her after dinner.

  My knickers felt damp.

  Blue ran under my legs as we got to the top of the driveway, hesitated for a second as she saw the headlights of a car approaching, then made a dash for the other side of the road.

  There was a dull thud
and screech of brakes. The driver might have thought it was a badger, except for he saw me. I opened my mouth to scream but nothing came out. Mary appeared at her front door, hands white with flour held up above her head. She came running down their driveway.

  ‘What in God’s name? Are you okay, Lani? Oh Christ,’ she said as she realised it was the dog and not me who’d been run over. She was wearing a pink gingham apron.

  ‘I didn’t see it,’ the driver said. ‘When I did it was too late.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Mary said, bending over Blue.

  I turned my head away. I couldn’t bear to look.

  ‘We’re going to have to carry her into the house.’

  ‘I can’t,’ I said. That’s all I could say – ‘I can’t.’ I wouldn’t. I didn’t want to touch her.

  ‘I’m very sorry,’ the driver said.

  Mary took the dog up in her arms as gently as she could, and we stumbled up to her house like we were both drunk. Paddy was standing at the front door.

  ‘I’ve called Martin,’ he said as we approached. ‘He’ll be here as soon as he can.’

  I heard the car pull off.

  ‘Here, put her in here on the couch. I’ve put some newspaper down.’

  Why had he put papers down? They always let her sit on the couch. Why papers now? I couldn’t fathom it. She wasn’t mucky or bleeding.

  They laid her down. She was very still. Just the slight heaving of her chest. And her eyes. Her eyes were darting frantically from side to side – not looking at me or Mary or Paddy, but at something else.

  ‘Now, I’d better call your mother and father,’ Paddy said.

  ‘I’m supposed to be home for dinner.’

  ‘It’s okay, pet. Here, you sit over here,’ said Mary.

  She pointed to an armchair at the other side of the room.

  ‘Can I get you anything?’

  ‘No thanks. I need to go outside.’

  My cheeks felt all numb, my jaw leaden. I kept having to swallow.

  ‘Okay, love, well you can go out there into the front room if you’d prefer.’

  She held my elbow lightly as we walked out into the hallway, as if I might topple over.