A Keeper(58)

Her death had been unbearable. Cruel beyond endurance. It was like having to say goodbye to James all over again. Mary had been the keeper of the past. Losing her meant letting go of any hope of happiness. He still remembered shivering on the rocks on the far side of the paddock while the ambulance took her body away. He slipped back into a state of guilt and sadness like someone returning wearily to an unmade bed. The future, any future, had seemed impossible to imagine as he stared into the starless night.

His mother had changed overnight. This time, however, it wasn’t like when they had lost James. Back then she had disappeared into a dark place barely able to get out of bed. Edward had dropped out of school to look after the farm but there was no one to look after him. He had lived on sandwiches for months, until Mrs Lynch from the Co-op had advised him to call out the doctor. The pills had helped. His mother had left her room, and cleaned and cooked. True, she seemed distracted, almost sleepwalking through her days, but for Edward it was an improvement. When Mary had come on the scene for that couple of years, it was as if he had got his mother back; the woman who made decisions, the woman who took on tasks and completed them, the woman who knew exactly what to do. When Mary had died the change that came over Mrs Foley was different; it was a far more subtle shift. She didn’t retreat into the darkness of her room, but became strangely driven. She couldn’t allow this fresh tragedy to destroy them. She had seen Edward happy and she refused to accept that it was over. Mary could be replaced. A new woman would be found. A wife and mother. Castle House would be a home again. She could make that happen. It was as if she was willing a future for Edward into being.

Her plan had not been presented as a suggestion. It was simply what they were going to do. Giving the new baby away had been the hardest thing, but Edward knew he was in no state to take care of his daughter by himself, and so if that was what his mother said they should do, he didn’t really have a choice.

Mrs Foley had read out the ads from the Journal and between them they had chosen three to reply to. Patricia was the only one that wrote back. She couldn’t have known it as she sat at the kitchen table in Buncarragh, chewing the top of her pen, but she had sealed her own fate. Mrs Foley seemed to relish reading the letters to Teddy, and would often write and rip up two or three replies before she was satisfied and read them aloud for her son’s approval. His mother’s confidence in the plan meant that there was no turning back. He didn’t dare tell her just how excruciating the dates were, but his mother must have guessed. She knew her son and his many limitations, but she also believed that he was a good man and any woman would be lucky to call themselves his wife. The end justified the means.

Elizabeth had begun to cry and the pungent smell that filled the room suggested the reason why. Patricia rolled the changing mat out on the floor, and placed the squirming little girl in the centre of it. Edward knelt on the floor beside her and handed her a clean nappy from the pile that his mother had provided earlier.

‘Can you put some warm water in that?’ Patricia asked, handing him a plastic basin. Edward got to his feet and left the room.

Elizabeth lay on her back impatiently cycling an imaginary bike. Her face was raspberry-red and her cries were becoming more insistent. Patricia could hear the tap running across the landing.

‘I hope I’m doing this right,’ she said, almost to herself.

‘Looks good to me,’ Edward commented, coming back in with the basin.

‘There is some difference between how you fold them. I think for girls you put the pins on the side.’

When Patricia peeled the old nappy off, she and Edward both recoiled in horror from the smell. It was shocking that something so toxic had come out of such a sweet little creature. They laughed and for a moment Patricia was lost in her task, making sure her tiny charge was clean and comfortable. Edward was watching her and the baby, and a contented grin had spread across his face. Catching sight of his expression, Patricia scolded him.

‘Don’t think this is working. Your mother’s loony plan is not going to work. I’m caring for this little one only because I have to. She needs somebody, but I must go, Edward. You know that, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘You need to speak to your mother. You have to talk sense into her. Will you do that for me, Edward? Will you?’

He just nodded his head slowly.

Elizabeth, with her fresh nappy, was back in her knitted dress and booties and gurgling happily. Patricia picked her up and held her out to Edward, who took her gingerly and held her in the crook of his arm. There was something about seeing a father holding his daughter that seemed so perfect. The baby had grabbed hold of one of his fingers and Edward was swinging her arm from side to side.

‘You’re a lucky man.’

Edward didn’t look up from his daughter. ‘I don’t feel it.’

‘That little girl has lost her mother. She has been through so much. I need to leave soon, Edward. Soon.’

The baby turned her tiny head towards Patricia, then smiled and seemed to wave.





NOW


A bank of fog sat plump and solid out at sea, obscuring the horizon. Elizabeth was sitting on the low stone wall in front of Castle House worrying about haemorrhoids. She could hear her mother’s voice. ‘Don’t sit on that cold stone, you’ll give yourself piles.’ Growing up it had seemed to Elizabeth that her mother believed the world was out to get her. ‘Don’t leave the house with that wet hair.’ ‘It’s not an hour since your lunch, you can’t swim yet.’ ‘Stop leaning against the storage heater, you’ll curl your spine.’ She had rolled her eyes and silently mocked her stupid mother for spending her life in a constant state of worry and fear. Now here she was outside this house with its blank windows and sagging gutters, wondering what had happened to her mother here. Why had she fled, leaving her husband behind? She knew so much more about her past than she had a few days before, but the mystery as to what had actually gone on in this house forty-four years ago seemed deeper than ever.