Grace buttoned up her cardigan to shut out the cold draught from under the window. Outside, a family were walking up the driveway, one girl, one boy skipping ahead, stopping only when their mother called out to them. The melody of the children’s chatter weaved its way to the second floor, luring the women on the ward to crowd at the windows.
They gathered and watched, the little girl bending low to pick up a small stone. Nobody said anything out loud, but each of the women nursed a sense of loss in their hearts, a deep longing for a life not lived.
An attendant barked at the group to get away from the window, before stopping herself to glance at the family walking towards reception. “Making a holy show of yourselves, standing watching those innocent creatures.”
“Are they coming up or will I go down?” Bertha asked
“What would they be doing visiting anyone on this ward? Never you mind what they are up to.” She held her hands wide to cover the span of the window. “Sure, it is like trying to herd sheep,” she laughed.
Grace picked the chair at the end of the corridor, where she could view the far fields, shining green after two full days of sunshine following a long spell of rain.
Vikram had gone back to India and she did not blame him. How could he have found her here? She did not even know the address of the place herself until Mandy had told her. How could he come back? Did he know about her tragedy? A dull pain creaked through her body, making her bend over so nobody would see the tears plop down her face.
“Whoever put us in here has a lot to answer for.” Mandy was standing looking at Grace.
“It is my fault, every bit of it.”
“Never ever think that. Otherwise you will end up here forever.” She gripped Grace’s shoulder, shaking her hard. “My girl is five now.” Mandy outlined the figure of a girl in the condensation on the window glass. “I wish I could buy her a dress with flowers so pretty the butterflies will queue up to land on her. We will run by the sea and paddle and laugh.”
“Wouldn’t it still be too cold to get in?”
“I didn’t think of that.” Mandy, upset that a flaw in her plans had been highlighted, drifted up the ward to the nurses’ station to tell the nice nurse from Aughrim about her daughter.
Grace could not get Violet out of her head, and the marriage of convenience she had so quickly engineered and executed for her. The justification she had grandly put forward was that Grace’s mother had behaved in such a way that no right-thinking man would look at the daughter. Grace knew well what her mother had done: Violet had told her often enough.
“Your mother ran off with a Pakistani and then had the audacity to come back and marry your father when she knew she was already pregnant. How you were not born dark, I will never know. All I know is it was a mercy. Things could have stayed that way but for your mother taking up with that oily Pakistani again. Once that happened, nothing could stop our family catapulting into a shameful tragedy, which unfortunately became everybody’s business.”
Grace was weary of being reminded of the night her life changed utterly. She had been four years of age. When she fell asleep in their small red-brick terrace house in the Liberties, her mother was getting ready for a friend to come over while her husband worked the night shift at the Guinness brewery. Grace heard nothing. She was gently woken up by a Garda in the middle of the night. Her head covered, she was transferred to a patrol car and brought to Aunt Violet’s. It was several days before she was told a version of the truth: both her mother and father were dead. It was many years before she knew the full story.
“Your mother brought untold shame on all of us by continuing to carry on with that Pakistani who ran the shop off Meath Street. Your poor father was sent home early from work because he was feeling poorly and he walked in on them. The man snapped. He had had enough, and who could blame him?”
Violet held back nothing.
“Your mother had reignited the affair. Your poor father should never have taken her back in the first place. That was his fatal mistake. Unfortunately, Bert stabbed Aileen and the shopkeeper. The Pakistani managed to make it out onto the road for help, but by the time anybody was brave enough to look inside the house your mother was dead and your father had stabbed himself in the heart and was dying. You slept through it all.”
Grace remembered everybody was busy at Violet’s, huddling and whispering, and it remained that way until after the funerals. Violet, whose husband had died in a freak accident a year before, when he slipped and fell in the canal, was glad of the company. But as the years went by, Violet worried about the future of the young girl with such a troubled history.
She got her niece a job in Clerys department store serving at the jewellery counter. Grace wore smart dresses and began to talk about training to be a secretary. When Violet suggested it might be time to settle down, Grace laughed and asked if she was serious.
“Why would I bring up the subject if I was not deadly serious? To be frank, it is necessary that you start paying your way, young woman. My George left me with a very small amount of money and it is nearly all gone.”
“We could sell the house and move to something smaller.”
Violet snorted loudly again. “You would not ask me to leave my home, would you?”
Grace did not say anything, so Violet continued.
“I had a visit from Martin Moran, an eminent senior counsel who expects to be appointed as a judge of the High Court before this government goes out of power. He must get married. If he is to progress in his legal career, he needs a wife. I suggested you. Thankfully you have your mother’s good looks and that is sufficient for Martin Moran to consider you. You also have good enough manners, which I have vouched for.”
“I surely have a say in this.”
Violet, who always had her walking stick by her side, swished it high to emphasise her point. “My dear, it is simply business. If we have to carry on another month, we will go under. Martin says after the marriage I can live at his house in Parnell Square and can rent out this old house, so I may have some income. He is a kind, good man with excellent prospects, and quite willing to overlook your past. I can’t see you doing better. You won’t have to work another day in your life.”
“I am not taking part in this charade. You can’t make me.”
Violet pulled herself up to standing. “Girl, you owe me. Do you think I wanted to take you in, that I wanted a brat around my house, to feed and educate you? It is payback time and I need you to do this.”
“You are asking me to marry a man I have not even met.”
“You are overreacting. I am asking you to marry a perfectly nice and wealthy man who is about to become a judge.”
“I am not doing it.”
Violet sat down. “I suppose you are going to give me some nonsense about love and all that.”
Grace walked out of the room before Violet could say more, but her aunt followed her.
“I am the only family you have got. This is as good as it gets and you will take this offer,” she shouted after her as Grace rushed upstairs, too angry to even cry.
After about an hour, she heard Violet’s step on the stairs. She knocked lightly on the door before walking in. “Grace, I am doing this for your own good. Surely you know all marriages end up being marriages of convenience. The only difference for you is that it will be that from the start and you will have financial security for life. It is a good thing I am doing.”
“You are asking me to marry a man I don’t even know.”
“You can get to know him. He is coming for Sunday lunch and I expect you to show off your impeccable manners.”
The next day Violet had the Clerys ladies’ fashions department send out a selection of dresses. She picked a gold colour, a smart dress with a full skirt, a bodice leading to a Peter Pan collar where a small ribbon was tied in a bow. She told Grace to wear a white cardigan with the sleeveless dress. Violet said it was sophisticated-looking.
Martin Moran arrived promptly at one and shook hands politely. Grace noticed his height and how straight he sat at the table, his long slim fingers and his gentle voice. When he asked if she cared to go for a walk by the canal, she agreed.
“You know why I am here?” he asked as they were walking.
“I know Aunt Violet has a plan for me.”
“Is that such a bad thing? She has looked after you all your life.”
Grace did not answer.
“I could give you a good life. You would never want for anything and I would not ask anything else of you, only to be my wife.”
“I have a job I like.”
“You would never have to work again, Grace. I earn more than enough.”
“But I don’t love you. I don’t even know you.”
“Love complicates everything. If we can have respect for each other, it will do for starters.”
“I need time to think about it.”
He picked up a stone and skimmed it across the glassy water in the canal.
“You know, it is also a financial arrangement that your Aunt Violet badly needs, so I would advise you not to take too long.”
They walked back along the canal path, neither feeling the need to have any further conversation.
Mandy came over and tapped her on the shoulder, so that Grace jumped.
“You are far away. Nurse Gilmartin says she might be able to arrange for us to stroll in the gardens tomorrow.”
“It would be nice to get some fresh air.”
“I told her if there is any work that needs doing, we will do it. What were you dreaming about? Your young man?”
Grace did not answer and Mandy prattled on.
“Best to remember the good things only. It makes the here and now better.”
Grace walked over to the window. “Had you a name for your girl?”
Mandy turned away. “They made sure she was taken from me the minute she was born. I only heard her cry. I will never forget that cry.”
Grace made to put a hand on her shoulders, but Mandy shrugged her away.
“We had better get in the queue for the dining hall,” she snapped.
Bertha ran over, her face full of excitement. “My Barry has come and brought the girls. I can go home today. Look, I am wearing my best dress.” She twirled in front of them in her faded nightgown, a pink cardigan buttoned over it. On her face she had patted some powder and she had slicked lipstick across her lips. “Don’t I look nice?”
“You look lovely,” Grace said.
“Mad as a hatter, that one. She is lucky,” Mandy mumbled, and Grace nodded in agreement.