Ninemile House Read online

  “Oh, don’t you worry. She’ll get used to it.” James picked up one of the pillows from the bed, punched it in the middle and tossed it back down in disgust. “I daresay she’ll think she’s died and gone to heaven. Or at least to a five-star hotel.”

  “I want her to be happy, James.” Beseeching him to understand, Derry turned her hands palm upwards. “You’ve no idea how important it is to me in so many ways. It’s exciting and frightening all at once. I’ve hardly slept a wink since finding out that Theresa isn’t dead. And the guilt of discovering where she’s spent the last thirty years is, rightly or wrongly, eating me up. And that’s why I want to make it all up to her. Have to try and make it up to her.”

  James strode over to the window where he stood ram-rod straight, emanating hostility, gazing out unseeingly at a fishing trawler that was traversing the waves, a clatter of screaming seagulls following eagerly in its wake. “Oh, change the record, Derry! When will it sink in that it’s not actually your place to wave the magic wand? You were a child, for God’s sake. What happened to your sister was beyond your control. You had no say in the matter. So take off the sack cloth and ashes, will you? It’s really most unbecoming.”

  The pleading expression on Derry’s face gave way to one of steely determination, her dark eyes hardening to pinpoints of granite. “Maybe, you’re right, James,” she conceded. “What happened wasn’t my fault. I was, as you so rightly point out, only a child. But, by God, I have a say now. And, like it or lump it, I have a responsibility to Theresa. There’s a debt owing to her, a colossal debt, and I’m the only one in a position to start paying it off.” Sighing, she went to stand behind him, her arms reaching round and encircling his waist, her head resting affectionately against his broad back. “And I need you, James. I need you to help me and stop arguing with me. This is hard for all of us, I know, but please, please don’t let it drive a wedge between us!”

  Twisting round, he tilted her chin upwards, dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose, his deep-blue eyes searching the depths of her own, seeing reflected in them the great love she bore for him. “It won’t. Nothing ever will. You know how much I love you.”

  Relieved, Derry melted into his arms. “And I love you too, you know that. And I promise Theresa will be no trouble. It won’t change anything between us. I won’t let it. You’ll see.”

  “I know.” Rushing over and hiding their faces in her skirt, the twins giggled as James kissed her again. “And all I’m asking, Derry, is that you wait a few more weeks. Just until after the elections. Okay?”

  The blood suddenly pounding in her head, Derry jerked violently away, almost toppling the children whose giggles disintegrated immediately into a high-pitched injured wailing. “No, it’s not bloody okay! So you’re back on that old track again. Well, I might have guessed your transition into Mr Nice Guy was all an act. You just don’t give up, do you, James? Honestly, I don’t know what’s got into you lately. You want it all your own way. Every time.” Shepherding the children before her, she turned on her heel and strode awkwardly over to the doorway. “But not this time.” She threw an angry glance over her shoulder. “Theresa’s coming back with me just as soon as it can be arranged.” She delivered her coup de grace. “And as for the press – let them publish and be damned!”

  CHAPTER 7

  The days passed, on the one hand with agonising slowness, and on the other almost in a flash and before Theresa knew it, her sister had arrived to take her home.

  “All set?” Sr Peter, asked coming into the bedroom, where she was finishing packing the few items she possessed into an old cardboard suitcase one of the nuns had dug up for her somewhere. Old-fashioned, battered and stained, with the brown coating worn off it in places and a broken lock, she had to resort to securing it with a bit of twine.

  “Yes, Sr Peter,” Gabby nodded, then sat down on the bed, head bent, her hands held loosely in her lap, a pathetic, almost defeated-looking figure in an old tweed coat that was at least two sizes too big and that had last been in vogue some twenty years before. With her face devoid of any make-up and her hair scraped back in bun, she didn’t look all that different from the fifteen-year-old girl who had been brought to the nuns thirty years before and every bit as vulnerable and frightened.

  “You’ll be all right.” Awkwardly, the nun reached out and patted her shoulder, a gesture of reassurance that was entirely alien to her. “And if things don’t work out, you’ll always have a bed here with us.”

  “And why wouldn’t things work out?” Striding into the bedroom, Angie took up an aggressive position on the other side of the nun. “Of course things will work out. Sure look at the lovely home you’re going to? The lovely family? In no time at all you’ll have forgotten this dump and everyone in it. And fair play to you, why wouldn’t you? Just give me the chance and I’d do the same.” Defiant, she engaged the nun in eye-to-eye combat. “Count your blessings, Gabby, that’s what I say. It’s time you had some life for yourself. Time you took back some of what was taken away from you. Robbed from you.” Suddenly her voice broke and turning away she went to stand by the window. “I will miss you, though. But I’m happy for you. As God is my witness I mean that, Gabby. I’m happy for you.”

  Too full to answer, Gabby merely nodded. Now that the time had come for her to leave Ninemilehouse, the full terror of her situation hit her. The awful stomach-clenching fear of the unknown. At least in the convent she knew what to expect. Despite all the deprivations there was a certain comfort in the routine, in having no expectations of anything better, a seamless melding of one day into the next with nothing to distinguish one from the other. No high points, no low points. Just a sameness. A safeness.

  ***

  Derry remained outside in the car, nervously nibbling on her expensively manicured thumbnail. Suddenly the buoyancy that had carried her through the past few days seemed to drain completely away and, like her sister, she too found herself assailed by horrible stomach-clenching doubts. What if James was right? What if the whole thing turned out to be an unmitigated disaster?

  “She’s not a cat or a dog, you know,” he’d roared at her during their latest quarrel last night. “If she doesn’t suit, you can’t just take her back. I’m asking you one last time, Derry, for all our sakes, think this thing through properly. This is no fairy story where you can just come along and cast a happy-ever-after spell. This is Pandora’s Box territory. Open the lid and you never know what might fly out.”

  As the echoes of the memory faded away, Derry found it difficult to breathe all of a sudden and feeling unbearably confined, claustrophobic almost, climbed out of the car, walked round the front and leaning back against the bonnet, let her eyes play absentmindedly over the grim grey façade of the convent. No, she told herself sternly. She mustn’t allow James to influence her. He was, after all, a master manipulator, used to getting what he wanted, which is what made him such a good politician. But Theresa was not on his manifesto. She wouldn’t win him any votes. On the contrary, quite unwittingly of course, she’d managed to lose him the support of his number one voter, helpmeet and best friend. His wife, Derry! But it was only a temporary glitch. Once things settled down and he saw that really Theresa was no threat to him or their family in any way, he’d come round and they could go back to living their charmed lives amongst Dublin’s elite. Naturally there would have to be a period of adjustment on all sides, but in the heel of the hunt it would all be okay. “It will,” she told a plump marmalade cat who had appeared from nowhere and engaged himself in busily investigating her ankles. “Won’t it, Mr Pussycat?” With a disdainful look that begged to differ, the cat disappeared almost as quickly as it had arrived and despite her brave words, Derry found herself almost wishing she could just disappear too. Too late. Just as the thought was born, the main convent doors opened opposite and a painfully thin, almost childlike, figure, dressed in a coat that was way too large for her and carrying a battered old suit case stood framed in the opening. For a moment t
he two women froze, their eyes, mirror images of each other’s, meeting for the first time in thirty years across a twenty foot divide of gravelled driveway. Then, Theresa seemed to stumble forward a bit, almost as if she had been pushed from behind, and with that Derry found herself galvanised into action.

  “Oh, Theresa, Theresa,” she cried covering the distance between them in seconds, tears suddenly streaming down her face, moved at the deepest level in a way she hadn’t even allowed herself to think about. “Come here, let me look at you. Oh, God, it’s so good to see you.” Wrapping her sister tightly in her arms, her gaze roamed over the older woman’s features, searching them for traces of her own while, completely unused to displays of affection, Gabby stood stiff as a board, unable, despite herself, to smile or respond in any way. Derry, on the other hand, almost as if in compensation for her sister’s silence, found her own mouth running away with her. “But, good heavens you’re so thin. There isn’t a pick on you. We’ll have to feed you up a bit. Get a few curries down your neck. And your hair?” She gave a foolish laugh in which there was a definite underlying note of hysteria. “Well, that’s nothing a bit of colour won’t take care of and, I’ll tell you what, we’ll go shopping in Grafton Street and get you some new clothes and a bit of make-up. Oh yes, Theresa, we’ll make a new woman out of you. You won’t know yourself.” Even as the words tripped over themselves in her haste to get them out, another part of her, her more analytical self stood bystander wondering what on earth she thought she was doing coming out with such inanities. Hair, clothes, make-up! What complete and utter rubbish! After thirty years, was that the best she could come up with?

  At last Theresa spoke, gently extricating herself from Derry’s grasp, and her first words were nothing like Derry had imagined. “You’re not to call me Theresa,” she instructed. “I’m Gabby, now. Theresa was bad. Theresa was a bad person.” Her accent was different to Derry’s, a Cork accent, soft, musical, laced with the memories of their early childhood. In the intervening years, Derry’s own had changed out of all recognition, due, in part, to the family moving away from Cork when she was still very young, but also as a result of mixing with Dublin’s high flying professional classes, many of whom had acquired what was generally referred to as a mid-Atlantic accent, a kind of hybrid way of speaking that couldn’t be pinned down to any one county or even any one country for that matter. The mid-Atlantic accent was polished, the intonation crisp and clear, all betraying hints of the provinces and often humble beginnings carefully eradicated.

  “Oh, okay, Gabby, then,” Derry said, a bit taken aback by her sister’s pronouncement that Theresa was a bad girl. What an odd thing to say, almost childish. And then it hit her that really Theresa or Gabby as she preferred to be known was, indeed, to all intents and purposes still a child in many ways. To grow up, one had to have the benefit of experiences and, of course, Theresa’s experiences would have been limited to the same routine day after day, the same few faces, the same rules and regulations. Always being told what to do, what to wear, what to eat, when to sleep, when to pray, even when to bathe. Never having to actually make a decision for herself, even on the most basic level. Where was the room for personal growth in such a regime? Where was the room to grow up? There wasn’t any. Again, James’s words came back to haunt her, the image of his face dark and angry. “This is Pandora’s Box territory. Open the lid and you don’t know what might fly out.” She glanced briefly over her sister’s shoulder to where a motley little huddle of women, flanked by a couple of nuns, had gathered, all avidly taking in the scene. “Look Ther-Gabby, do you mind if we make a move, only this place gives me the heebee jeebies!” It gave her the heebee jeebies and that was only after five minutes. God almighty, what must it have done to poor Theresa? It was a miracle she wasn’t a gibbering wreck. Or maybe she was. Only time would tell.

  Obediently, Gabby took a step towards her, then spun quickly round on her heel, looking for a moment as though she might sprint back inside

  “So that’s it, you’re off, Gabby.” Sr Peter broke away from the small group, reached out as if to touch her arm, let her hand fall away before it made contact. “Well make sure you’re a good girl and keep the faith, won’t you? It won’t always be easy, mind, and sometimes you’ll find yourself tested, but we’ll pray for you, so we will.”

  “We will that.” Sr Mary Francis, a brown paper wrapped package in her hands, came forward too. “And here’s a little something to take with you. A little something to light you on your way, as it were.”

  “It’s a lamp,” Mary the elderly Magadalene told her helpfully, her old face crinkled and kind, her one good eye beaming innocent pleasure. “A Sacred Heart lamp.”

  “A Sacred Heart lamp,” Clare, peeping out from behind her elderly companion’s back echoed. “A Sacred Heart lamp.” With a shy smile, she retreated once more.

  “You won’t go far wrong if you pray to the Sacred Heart.” Sr Mary Francis placed the parcel in Gabby’s hands, which had begun to tremble badly. “Oh, Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in thee. Remember that little prayer, Gabby. That’s a powerful prayer, that is. Just remember, if ever you’re in trouble, the Sacred Heart won’t let you down. Say it three times, just to be on the safe side and follow it up with a Hail Mary and a Glory Be. And if you’re still feeling tormented, you can always throw in an Our Father, do you see?”

  “Here, I’ll take that for you?” Derry said, as the trembling became so bad, Gabby looked as though she might drop the parcel on the floor, but she held on tightly, almost as though it were a lifeline. Somewhat discomfited, Derry shrugged. “Fine. I’ll take your case then. But we’ll need to be making a move if we’re going to miss the rush hour traffic.”

  “Go on, so,” Sr Peter make a kind of flapping movement with the voluminous skirt of her habit. “And drive carefully. We don’t want to go adding to the numbers up at the mortuary now, do we?”

  But still, Gabby held back, her eyes roaming anxiously over and beyond the group of women in the corridor. “Where’s Angie? Has anyone seen Angie? I can’t go without saying goodbye to her.”

  “Ah, here she is now,” Sr Mary Francis announced, as a dishevelled and breathless Angie, her hair awry as usual, came clattering down the corridor in shoes that were far too big for her. Men’s shoes, Derry noted with disbelief.

  “I wasn’t going to come.” Bright-eyed with unshed tears, Angie threw her arms around Gabby’s neck, deliberately ignoring the loud and disapproving sniffing of Sr Peter and the warning roll of her eye. “I can’t bear to say goodbye to you. Oh, Lord what’ll I do without you? I’ll go mad, so I will. I’ll go off my bleddy head.”

  “That’s enough of that now.” Physically pulling Angie away, the nun turned her round and gave her a sharp push between the shoulder blades. “Anyways, isn’t it about time you got yourself back to the kitchen? The last time I looked there was a mountain of spuds that needed peeling. So, we’ll have less of the Mary and more of the Martha, if you don’t mind.”

  “Cinderella, don’t you mean?” Derry snapped, annoyed beyond belief by the nun’s autocratic attitude. “Oh, for heaven’s sake! Can’t you just back off and let them say their goodbyes. Besides, if you’re that worried about the potatoes, don’t you have two good hands on you? What’s wrong with peeling them yourself?”

  “I’m very worried about you, Gabby.” Sr Peter steeled herself to ignore Derry, although those who knew her were well aware that she was fit to be tied at being spoken to in such a fashion and that somebody somewhere, very likely, Angie, would suffer for it later. “I’ve got a feeling it won’t be all plain sailing for you, but sure I suppose you can always offer it up for your sins.”

  “Oh, I’ve had enough of this. Come on, let’s go.” Picking up Gabby’s suitcase with one hand, Derry steered her sister towards the door with the other. “Look, you can always write to Angie and come and visit her. And, who knows, after you’re settled, maybe she can come and visit us.” The look on Sr Peter’
s face said that hell would freeze over and the bugle sound for Judgment Day before that happened, but nevertheless the idea seemed to console Gabby and with one last wave and tearful smile, she followed Derry out to the car.

  Puzzled, she looked around as Derry opened the boot and stowed the luggage away. “Where’s the driver?”

  “What?” Derry looked around too. “What driver? Oh, you mean who’s going to drive the car. Me. I am. It’s my car.”

  “But you’re a woman.” Plainly shocked, Gabby stepped back a bit from the vehicle, an almost comical expression of horror on her face. “Women don’t drive cars.”