Kay returned from Chicago to find the For Sale sign in the front garden. At first she was convinced there had to be a mistake and even when she was accosted by a group of people claiming to have been sent by some estate agent, she still thought so.
‘Surely you must mean next door,’ she told them with a puzzled frown. ‘That’s empty as far as I know.’
To her relief they thanked her and obediently trooped up Mrs. Halpin’s overgrown path. Sleepily, Kay trod a similar vegetation belt to her own front door, too tired to question the significance of so many people with the same wrong address. Falling into bed, she slept straight away.
It was only when the doorbell had woken her twice in the next hour that Kay was forced to take the house hunters seriously. The third time she stumbled down to the door she was amazed to find Miss Curran on the step. Her aunt’s old lodger had called to say that she had found Peg Kinnane wandering the city streets in a neglected state and taken her to the nuns in Portland Row who were now looking after her. It was a relief to know that Peg was safe. Kay had been very concerned about her while she was away. She thanked Miss Curran and promised to pass on the information to Molly.
As she bid her goodbye, another line of house hunters was advancing up the path. There was no doubt now in Kay’s mind that the house was for sale. She turned them away as politely as she could and went to ring her cousin. When she continually got the engaged signal, she gave up in disgust. One of the children had probably left the phone off the hook.
Despite her tiredness, Kay decided to get on a bus and go up to Kilshaughlin. It was the only way of finding out what was going on. She made herself a cup of strong coffee, took a tepid shower and felt sufficiently awake to dress and leave the house.
Ninety minutes later, she was walking up Winifred’s broad driveway. From around the side of the house came the sound of high-pitched strident voices and a strange rhythmical thumping noise as though a soft-booted giant was playing hop-scotch on the flowerbeds. Kay peered curiously through a gap in the hedge and saw a gang of teenage girls jumping all over a huge inflated rubber castle. Of course, she thought, it’s Mary’s birthday.
‘Auntie Kay! Sam shouted delightedly at the sight of her. ‘We weren’t expecting you. Mummy, Mummy, look who’s here,’ he called back to his mother who appeared frowning behind him.
‘Oh it’s you, Kay,’ Winifred said grumpily. ‘You might have rung.’ ‘I did but I couldn’t get through.’
‘Hello, dear,’ Molly inclined her cheek for a kiss. ‘Did you say you were coming?’
‘No, I just decided on the spur of the moment.’ As Kay bent to kiss her, she was shocked at her aunt’s appearance. Since she had last seen her, Molly had let her hair go white. Strangely, the snowy locks invested her with a classical simplicity that was in some ways more youthful than the corrugated lavender waves. But all the same she looked very old and frail. Trying not to show her dismay, Kay turned to Sam and gave him the parcel she carried.
‘For me, Auntie Kay,’ he cried excitedly. ‘But it’s not my birthday.’ Eagerly, he ripped off the covering.
To Winifred’s annoyance it was the bear that had caused all the upset the previous summer.
‘Thanks... Oh thanks.’ Sam hugged Pendy close.
‘I thought you might like to have him for keeps,’ Kay told him. A sudden impulse yielded to on leaving home, she only hoped she would not live to regret her generosity. She sat beside her aunt and held her hand in a comforting clasp. From certain remarks Molly let fall she was clearly unaware that her house was for sale. As soon as she could, Kay got her cousin on her own.
‘Why wasn’t I told about the house?’ she tackled her at the earliest opportunity. ‘Whatever do you mean?’ Winifred busied herself making tea.
‘You’re surely not going to deny it’s for sale,’ Kay said indignantly. ‘Not when there’s a sign in the garden and I was woken up I don’t know how many times this morning with people wanting to see over it.’
‘It was all decided very recently.’ ‘And whose decision was it?’
‘There’s no conspiracy if that’s what you’re implying.’ Winifred’s thin features flushed angrily as she plonked a mug before Kay. ‘Surely it must be clear even to you, Kay, that Mother isn’t able to look after herself anymore. She needs care and special nursing. Cahal and I have decided it’s best she come and live with us.’
‘But she’s talking about going home next month.’
‘Naturally she wants to go back,’ Winifred snapped. ‘Don’t be so dense, Kay. Mother has no idea how sick she is. If we sell the house, she’ll have to stay. We’re only doing it for her own good.’
‘But surely there are other alternatives?’
Kay sipped the hot strong liquid feeling dehydrated as she always did after Atlantic flights. Tiredness was beginning to catch up with her too and she had an unreal floating feeling as if her top half was separating from the rest of her body. More than ever she was glad to be sitting down.
‘I mean Molly loves her independence. It doesn’t seem right not to give her any option.’
Winifred’s lips tightened. ‘I’ll thank you not to interfere, Kay. Everything is settled. The house is being sold and that’s that!’
Kay returned the glare. ‘I suppose if I hadn’t bumped into those people today,’ she said bitterly, ‘I would have known nothing about any of this until the new owners moved in.’ For the first time she felt like the interloper Winifred had always striven to make of her.
‘Why should you have been told?’ Winifred asked coldly. ‘It’s really none of your business. It’s a family matter between Mother and myself.’ She smiled thinly. ‘Just because she took you in and gave you a home years ago, when no one else wanted you, doesn’t give you any rights, you know.’
Kay’s green eyes blazed. Typical of Winifred to rub in her orphaned state. ‘You’ve always resented me,’ she exploded. ‘From the first moment Molly ‘took me in’ as you so charmingly put it, you’ve never lost a chance of reminding me. Never!’
‘Really, Kay, how you exaggerate,’ Winifred gave a tolerant laugh. ‘I suppose it never occurs to you what an awful prickly little brat you were in those days.’
Kay flushed hotly. She had been only ten, for God’s sake. A desperately muddled, frightened ten year old, who had just lost the two people closest to her in the world. It wouldn’t have been so bad if she had already met her aunt but Kay had never set eyes on Molly before and believed she was only coming to stay for a few days. But whether Molly had intended all along keeping her and for the sake of the bereft miserable child that she had been, compassionately kept her own counsel, Kay never knew. The days had stretched to weeks and they in turn, became years. It was only when she grew up that Kay realised there had been no place else for her to go.
Winifred began pointedly clearing the table. ‘Anyway, Kay,’ she said, ‘don’t tell me you’ll be all that sorry when the house is sold. You’re never there as it is. Now you can go into a flat with your friend Fidelma... or whatever and you’ll be better off than you ever were in Carrick Road.
Kay was stunned. Even while dispossessing her of a home it was amazing how Winifred could make it appear as if she was doing her a favour.
‘After all, it can’t mean all that much to you,’ Winifred was unable to restrain her spite. ‘It’s not as if it were ever really your home like it was mine.’
The colour ebbed from Kay’s face leaving it pale and pinched. She stared at her cousin with eyes gone suddenly huge, then jumped to her feet and ran from the room. She stopped only to hug her aunt goodbye before setting off down the driveway at a run, her eyes blinded by tears.
It was all over, that part of her life, over and done with! An agonizing sob tore her throat. Molly wasn’t coming back and the only home she ever remembered was being sold. As Winifred pointed out she was a charity case and had no rights in the matter. It seemed to her that everyone she had ever loved, she had lost. Once again she was without a family, without anyone to care what happened her.
She crossed the square and headed for the bus terminus. Thank God she was going back to Spain next week, she thought. She couldn’t wait to be with Sally in that friendly sunny land again. Once there, she told herself bitterly, she would be in no hurry to return. And if she never again in life set eyes on Winifred Hynes it would be all she would ever ask for.