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  James! Not Mr Quinn. Derry resisted the urge to point out that, as James’ wife, she knew exactly how hard he worked and didn’t need reminding by a jumped up little nobody with the hots for the boss. “Fine, you do that,” she said, walking smartly away, her Prada high-heels clicking disapproval against the marble flooring of the government building in Dawson Street, home of the Irish Government. Had she turned around, she would have seen Sinead stick out her tongue, before hastily rearranging her features, open the door to James’s office and walk straight in without knocking.

  Could it possibly be that James was right, Derry wondered, as her car idled in thick traffic on Rathmines Bridge. Should she leave well enough alone? When you came right down to it, after thirty years, it wasn’t as if Theresa would even know her anymore. They’d be nothing more than strangers. Racking her brains, she tried to remember the last time she had seen her sister, but apart from a nebulous, grainy, black and white image that seemed to have imprinted itself on her brain like the negative of a photograph and the distant echo of a merry laugh, which may or may not have been the product of her imagination, she drew a complete blank. There wasn’t even a real photograph to refresh her memory, her mother having confessed to burning the few that existed. In what was obviously a case of out of sight, out of mind, Theresa, it would appear, had been well and truly eradicated from all their lives.

  A horn blared behind her as the traffic started up again and she failed to move. “Oh keep your hair on,” she muttered, knocking the car into gear, only to grind to another halt a moment or two later. In the parallel lane, another driver caught her eye, rolled his eyes and mouthed the words “effin’ traffic”. Giving him a tight smile, she turned her attention back to the road in front, which showed no signs whatsoever of clearing. The stench of the Grand Canal, army-green and turgid, seeped in through the air conditioning vent causing her in her heightened state almost to retch. Theresa would be what now – swiftly she did the mental arithmetic – forty-five? Yes, forty-five, still young enough to make a life, especially these days when a lot of women only started coming into their own in their forties. Some were only just starting on the business of having babies. Hot on the heels of that thought came the reflection that Theresa already had a baby. A girl? A boy? Her niece or nephew. But where? Maybe he or she was married and had a family too. Derry drew in a sharp breath. Somewhere in the universe was possibly a whole branch of the family, close blood relatives that she didn’t even know. That she should know! That her children should know! Unconsciously she frowned in the rear view mirror. And Theresa? What did she look like these days? Would strangers be able to spot a family resemblance? Know the pair of them for sisters? Up ahead the traffic started to creep forward once more, and Derry automatically put the car into first, eased her foot off the brake and prepared to move off. Would they share the same hair and eye colour, the dimple that punctuated the side of Derry’s mouth, the twin vertical grooves between her eyebrows, caused by many years of frowning too intensely? Would they like the same kinds of things? Share that same slightly-off-the-wall sense of humour that not everybody got? Or, only after they had known her a long time, when they would roll their eyes indulgently and tell each other, “Oh, that’s just Derry being Derry.” Her mouth trembled and her vision blurred slightly. Why? And there it was, the sixty-thousand dollar burning question. Why had her parents taken such an appalling step? Why had they abandoned their eldest daughter to such a drastic fate? But would she ever get to ask it? With a mounting sense of panic, Derry willed the traffic to disperse. “Please move,” she begged, drumming impatiently on the steering wheel. “Oh, please.”

  “James! James!” Later that night, Derry shot up in bed, shaking her husband roughly by the shoulder to wake him. “James, for heaven’s sakes, wake up!”

  “What?” Bleary eyed, he struggled up beside her, his breath still lightly scented from the whisky he had consumed earlier that evening. Then with mounting urgency. “Is it the twins? Has something happened to the twins?”

  Derry shook her head. “The grave,” she said, her voice flat in contrast to her eyes, which in the dim light of the bedside cabinet were wild and tearful, almost feverish. “We never visited Theresa’s grave. Now, why on earth did that never strike me before?”

  Groaning, James lay back down, flinging a despairing arm across his eyes. “And why in God’s name did it have to strike you now”, he twisted, glanced quickly at the alarm clock on the bedside table,“ at bloody-three-thirty am?”

  “No, seriously,” Derry’s voice quavered. “Surely, it’s normal to visit the grave of a loved one and particularly in the case of a child, wouldn’t you think the mother, at least, would never be away from the place?” Grabbing a pillow, she squeezed it tightly to her chest. “Oh God, how could I have been so stupid not to have seen what was staring at me straight in the face?”

  Abandoning all thoughts of sleep, James with remarkably good grace, pulled himself upright and draped an arm loosely about her shoulders.

  “Hardly. Besides, you were a child. You had no reason not to believe what your parents told you, especially at that age when we all think our parents are infallible. It’s only as we grow older and more cynical that we discover that, just like us, they too have feet of clay and demons on their shoulders.”

  “And the silence.” Derry appeared not to have heard him. “They never spoke about her. Never mentioned her name. Now, that’s not natural, is it, James? You don’t raise a child, presumably love and care for that child, till she’s fifteen, and then act as if she doesn’t exist – never existed.” With a moan of real anguish, Derry tossed the pillow across the room. “Christ almighty! How could I have been so stupid? So naive? Poor Theresa. Poor, poor Theresa, incarcerated all those years and I never knew.”

  Frustrated, James, pulled her closer, so that his chin was resting on her soft hair. “At the risk of sounding boring, Derry, it’s pointless beating yourself up over this. If you must blame someone, then place the blame firmly where it lies, with your mother and father. Or blame the loser who knocked her up, if you must. Blame the nuns, blame anyone you like, but leave the hair-shirt in the wardrobe, would you? It’s really not your fault.”

  “The bloke who knocked her up!” Grim-faced, Derry nodded. “The bastard who knocked her up, you mean. I’d dearly like to know who he was and what happened to him. You can bet your life he didn’t spend the last thirty years paying for his transgressions.”

  “I doubt it.” James stifled a yawn, peering once more at the luminous hands on the clock, which seemed to be pressing forward at an alarming rate. “But I do know you’re not going to find all the answers tonight.” He dropped a light kiss on her cheek.” So, why don’t you try and get a bit of shut-eye, eh? Time enough to do some more delving tomorrow.”

  She patted his blanketed thighs. “Can’t. My mind’s churning. There’s no way I’ll get a wink tonight. Look, , I’m sorry I woke you. Go back to sleep and I’ll pop down to the kitchen and make myself a warm drink.”

  “Want me to come with you?” The offer was half-hearted and Derry put him out of his misery immediately.

  “No, I’m fine. I won’t be long, promise.”

  On her way down to the kitchen, she checked briefly on the twins, sleeping soundly in their matching Barbie-quilted, single beds. As usual Dilis had her arms flung right back over her head and Dara had kicked the covers onto the floor. Her heart over-flowing with maternal love, Derry stood for a moment watching them and the way the nightlight formed a halo over their soft blond heads. What did Theresa have, she wondered once more. And how had she felt when the child was taken from her? Relieved? Distraught? Adjusting Dara’s quilt, Derry dropped a light kiss on both her daughters’ cheeks, then continued on down to the kitchen where the Rayburn, banked down for the night, emitted a comforting heat. Flicking the switch on the kettle to on, she poured a sachet of instant cappuccino into a garish pink and yellow mug bearing the legend “World’s Best Mother”, and waited
for it to boil. As usual the froth was lumpy and the coffee synthetic-tasting, but, caught up in a mad, crazy, carousel of thoughts, Derry scarcely noticed. No more than she noticed the sudden and frenzied yapping of next door’s little terrier at an imagined intruder, or the clock striking four a.m. on a nearby church spire. Instead her all her thoughts were turned inward and no matter how she juggled them, one question came back to haunt her time and time again. How could she not have known?

  CHAPTER 3

  Ninemile House Convent – Tipperary 1999

  Patting her stomach fondly, Sr Mary Francis pushed back her chair from the table. “Well, Gabby, we’ll make a cook out of you yet. Eh, Sr Peter? We’ll make a cook out of her yet, won’t we?”

  The other nun nodded. “Oh, indeed. The bacon was a bit tough, mind, but all in all you made a great fist of it, Gabby. I’d say one day you’ll make some man a great wife, only it wouldn’t be true. You’re stuck with us, girl, I’m afraid. And us with you.” She cackled at her own joke, pleased when Sr Mary Francis joined in, her many chins wobbling like a big bowl of Rowantrees jelly.

  “Will that be all, Sisters?” Her head slightly dipped, Gabby stood with the kind of patient servility developed over many years. “Is there anything else I can get you?”

  “Not a thing.” Sr Peter picked at her teeth with a fingernail. “I couldn’t eat another bite. Not even manna from heaven and that’s the truth.”

  “Me neither,” Sr Mary Francis agreed. “And now, Sr Peter, will we tell her the good news or what?”

  “Oh, aye, the good news,” Sr Peter beamed, wiping her finger on the front of her habit and leaving a small wet stain behind. “Well, Gabby, we’ve decided to promote you. From now on it’s out of the laundry and into the kitchen full-time with you and, as an added bonus, we’re moving you out of the dormitory and into your own room. So, girl, what do you have to say about that? Cat got your tongue?”

  ***

  “My own room!” Awed, Gabby squeezed her friend’s hand, then quickly dropped it as all form of physical interaction was frowned on by the nuns and warranted severe punishment, though, in truth, it was many years since any punishments, corporal or otherwise, had been meted out. Still the memory acted as a powerful deterrent and if either woman was in danger of forgetting, she only had to look at her own personal collection of scars for the fear to come flooding back. “My very own room! Can you believe that?”

  Angela shook her head in mock despair, wild strands of wiry ginger hair escaping as usual from the confines of an untidy top knot. “Oh, for Pete’s sake, Gabby, get a grip would you! It’s only an ould room, more like a broom-cupboard really, nothing special. For all you know, it might even be haunted by Mary Connors. People always haunt rooms they die in.” Her voice quavering, she held her hands out in front of her and walked slowly towards Gabby. “Whooooo! I’m coming to get you.”

  “Get away, you big eejit!” Laughing, Gabby pushed her away. “Poor Mary Connors. Sure, didn’t you always say she was dying to get out of the place, so she’s hardly going to hang around haunting it, is she?” Excited, she clapped her hands together, gave a little twirl. “I’ve never had a room of my own before. Not since . . . ” but Gabby’s mind shied away from that particular thought, as she had schooled it to do many years before and the brief shadow that flitted across her face cleared just as suddenly. “And the window looks directly across to Slievenamon – the mountain of the women. I’ll be able to watch the cattle and sheep grazing on the side and see the mist coming down like a bridal veil.”

  “Bridal veil, my foot!” Angela scoffed. “It’s no more than a big ant hill? Well, you’re easily pleased, that’s all I can say. Still, I’ll miss you, you know. There’ll be just me and them other two poor ould sinners, Mary and Clare, left in the dorm and sure neither of them has a working brain cell between them.”

  “Ah, they’re all right. Completely harmless,” Gabby said. “Besides, I’ll only be up along the corridor. It’s not as if I’m emigrating or anything. And, as we’re both working as domestics now, we’ll probably see more of each other than ever.”

  “But it won’t be the same as having you there at night,” Angela insisted, then burst out laughing as a thought suddenly struck her. “Emigrating, did you say? After, what is it, twenty, thirty years of being stuck in this purgatory? That’ll be the day.”

  “Thirty years,” Gabby confirmed, and the brightness that had lit her dark eyes grew dim again, like the flame of a candle being snuffed out, and her hand crept into her friend’s for comfort and this time she let it lie.

  CHAPTER 4

  St James’ Hospital – Dublin 1999

  “Why?” Derry demanded. “Why did you and Daddy do it? Theresa is your daughter for God’s sake! You’re supposed to love your children, no matter what they do.” A shiver ripped through her at the thoughts of Dara and Dilis, her own small daughters. She would never abandon them. Never! Could never abandon them, no matter what!

  “Things were different then.” Her mother’s breath was ratchety, dredged up with difficulty from her failing lungs. Even the oxygen tank they connected her to several times a day was having little or no effect. “Life was harder. You wouldn’t understand. People were ruled by the church, by fear, by what other people thought of them. It’s not like now, you know, when anything goes. The parish priest ruled the roost and as for the bishops, well God, himself, was only in the halfpenny place compared to them.”

  “Well, make me, Mammy,” Derry pleaded. “Make me understand.” What she didn’t say was that she needed to understand, if only so she could think of her parents in the same light again, reinstate them to the position of respect and affection they had always occupied in her heart. What she didn’t say was that she was struggling with the guilt of having lived a perfectly normal happy life, never wanting for anything, when all the while her sister, her only sister, was confined in a home for unmarried mothers, a Magdalene home, despised and reviled and at the mercy of a bunch of women who, if recent news stories were anything to go by, were at best deluded and at worst sadists.

  Her mother struggled up in the bed, as Derry reached across and propped a couple of pillows behind her. “Do you think it was easy? Do you think we didn’t wrestle with it? Do you think we didn’t lie awake nights praying for guidance? Praying for a miracle? Praying we could turn the clock back? Theresa was our eldest child, the apple of her father’s eye. It broke his heart, just as it broke mine.” There was a deep sadness in her eyes, a sadness that Derry only just realised had been there for a long long time.

  “Then why?” Though she strove to keep calm, the tension showed in the way her nails bit into the palms of her hands and a small pulse beat visibly at her temple.

  “You know what your father was like, Derry.” Her mother broke off as a sudden fit of coughing shook her fragile body, causing a nurse to peer enquiringly round the door of the cubicle – it couldn’t really be called a room.

  “Everything all right in here? I hope you’re not upsetting your mother.” She bent a stern look on Derry, tapped her wristwatch warningly.

  Her mother waved the woman away. “I’m fine, Brid. Just a tickle in my throat.” She reached for Derry’s hand absently stroking circles on the back of it with her thumb, just like when her daughter was a child and needed comforting. “He was a proud man. Dignified. Tell me, do you recall Innis Or at all?”

  Derry knit her brow. “The stud farm, do you mean, down in Limerick, – no – Cork! Somewhere near Sunday’s Well, isn’t it? Daddy worked there once, I think? Long ago.”

  Faded eyes scrutinised her face. “That’s right, but I didn’t think you’d remember. We left there when you were still very young. You couldn’t have been more than six or seven.”

  “It’s the name I remember more than anything else,” Derry admitted. “It crops up quite often these days, especially since Celtic Maeve won the Grand National over in England recently.” Her brow furrowed, as she sought out old memories. “Daddy was
the head trainer there, wasn’t he?”

  “Indeed he was, and the best horse trainer in the whole of Ireland, some said.” With her free hand, her mother plucked idly at the pink satin ribbon adorning her bed-jacket. “Training was in his blood. That’s where you get your love of horses from.”

  Derry’s face lit up as she thought of Frisco, the five-year old Chestnut she kept stabled at a friend’s stud in Kildare. It was true that she loved horses, everything about them; from the smell – warm, earthy, different to any other animal – the feel of a silky mane over a strong sinewy neck, the power, the sheer grace. The bright-eyed intelligence.