A Keeper(27)

‘I’m so sorry. I was going to tell you. We weren’t trying to trick you. We just thought it was the best way to do things. We …’ His litany of apologies and explanations washed over her and all she really heard was the word ‘we’ repeated over and over again. It made her feel sick to think of them working as a team, the two of them plotting and planning what to say to her. Even worse was the thought of Edward sitting still while his mother read Patricia’s letters aloud to him. Private! It was all meant to be special and intimate and now she felt so exposed. All she wanted to do was go home and end this nightmare. Why had she come back? If only she had kept to her resolve to finish things she would have been spared all this. She pushed herself lower into her seat. ‘Mammy can explain things. Mammy will tell you how it happened.’

Patricia groaned.

Mrs Foley was standing in wait in front of the house, her shadow stretched across the grass like a thin giant. Had she already heard that something had happened in the pub?

‘What is it? Is everything all right?’ She had taken Patricia’s other arm in a firm grip and helped her indoors with Edward.

‘She knows,’ was all Edward said.

‘Knows what?’

‘The letters, Mammy. She knows about the letters.’

Mrs Foley said nothing more.

The three of them weaved their way like drunks into the house and through the hall to the brightly lit heat of the kitchen. Patricia sank down in a chair and stared at her clenched hands on her lap. She was aware of Edward and his mother standing apart and staring at her. The lid of a simmering pot rattled in anticipation.

Predictably it was Mrs Foley that broke the silence.

‘Will you have some food?’

An indignant Patricia glared at her. How dare this woman think that a plate of dinner was going to help her overlook this betrayal? The expression on Mrs Foley’s face suggested she was taken aback by the red swollen eyes and running nose of the young woman sitting at her table. She took a step forward.

‘Edward meant no harm. It was my fault. I’m not going to be around forever and I just wanted to see him settled. He is very fond of you, Patricia.’

She shook her head. ‘No. He can’t.’ Her voice was a high-pitched rasp. ‘If he cared he wouldn’t have lied to me.’ She threw an accusatory glance towards Edward but he had his gaze firmly fixed on the far corner of the room.

‘No, no, Patricia,’ Mrs Foley said in a soothing voice. ‘Edward meant everything in those letters. Those were his feelings.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I was just trying to help. He’s not a stupid boy. It was just that, well, school wasn’t for him.’ Her hands made a strange calming gesture as if she was patting an imaginary dog.

‘But, you read my letters! Out loud, the two of you sat there. Those letters were meant for him, just him.’ She jabbed a finger in Edward’s direction. ‘I feel sick. I want to go home. I just want to be at home.’ The thought of being in her own bed in Buncarragh hugging a pillow made her begin to sob once more. A long thin thread of snot left her top lip and slowly descended onto her lap. She could hear Mrs Foley moving around the room.

‘We’ll put the kettle on. A hot-water bottle. A cup of tea. A good night’s sleep. You’ve had a bit of a shock, that’s all. Teddy, will you make yourself useful and get down the cups?’

Patricia heard his thick-soled shoes moving across the lino. She couldn’t bear to look at him. What a useless lump of a man he was! Patricia had never considered herself a violent woman but she wanted to do him physical harm. She wanted to hurt him, make him feel something. How could he have managed to never learn to read and write? She wondered if there was something wrong with him. She stole a glance at his broad back, his coarse hands holding the delicate china cups. How had she ever thought he was handsome or sensitive? He was Frankenstein’s monster. He turned and she saw his big gormless face. Patricia buried her face in her hands, a hot knot of fury and regret.

The morning sun crept past the curtains and gave the small bedroom a golden glow. Patricia tried to remember coming upstairs or going to bed but couldn’t. She wondered what more had been said. It was only when she thought of getting up that she realised that she couldn’t. Her legs were almost like dead weights and she became light-headed if her head left the pillow. A quiet whimper escaped her lips. This was no time to be ill. She longed to go home but even she had to accept that the trip was very unlikely to happen today. A light tapping at the door.

‘Come in.’

The door cracked open and Mrs Foley’s foot pushed it further ajar so that she could come in balancing a tray with a small pot of tea and a rack of toast.

‘I brought you up a little breakfast there. I didn’t think you’d want to come downstairs just yet.’

What did that mean? Had something else happened last night? Rather than asking any questions, Patricia just said, ‘Thank you.’

The older woman looked drawn and had applied some rouge and lipstick which gave her the appearance of an elderly ventriloquist’s dummy.

‘I’ll just pop it down there.’ The tray was wedged into the side of the mattress, pinning Patricia against the wall. ‘Did you manage to get some sleep?’

‘I did. I don’t feel very well,’ she blurted out like a child.

‘Well, have a bit of toast. That might settle you.’ Mrs Foley placed her chilled bony hand on her forehead. ‘No temperature. That’s something.’ She turned and closed the door quietly behind her.