Beatrice Read online

  ‘Thanks, but it’s all right, a friend is coming.’

  ‘Oh.’ Anthony was surprised. He did not know she had any other friends in London.

  ‘I’ll come again tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Do you need anything?’

  ‘Please don’t bother,’ said Sarah. ‘I’ll see you back at the house, at the weekend.’

  ‘Right.’ He backed off and was gone, leaving a small pink envelope on her lap. Her heart sank. So this was it, he was here to finally pay off his family’s debt. Sarah could feel the nurses watching her. As far as they were concerned that was not Mr Quigley. Her face reddened, she felt stiff and self-conscious. She quickly put the envelope into her bedside locker without opening it. What if Joe had turned up?

  He said he’d come back this morning. She shuddered at the thought of the scene. Joe would probably have assumed Anthony was the father. He might even have hit him. And what would Anthony have made of Joe?

  She closed her eyes and tried to push her confused emotions to the back of her mind.

  Sarah drifted into a disturbed sleep. In her dream Beatrice was a grown woman and they were dancing in the open, on land she did not recognize. The ground beneath her feet was heavy, it gripped their ankles like something soft gone hard, like petrified moss. It made their movements laboured. With a great effort they held hands and slowly spun round. Beatrice was her sister, not her child. Her mother was in the dream. Her hair had gone completely grey and its effect softened her face. She smiled. Sarah had no memory of seeing her mother happy. She was pleased – no harsh words, just love. Her mother was so happy that tears streamed down her face, she was sobbing, gut-wrenching sobs, her body heaving, gasping to breathe, baby . . . cry—

  Sarah woke with a start. The baby was wailing. She lifted her up and held her tight. She wished her mother was here, even though she would have been horrified. Her mother could hardly be described as maternal, but still Sarah felt a strong urge to go back to Southampton where everything was familiar and safe. Maybe she should go home.

  ‘How’s it going?’

  Sarah looked up; Joe was standing there holding a bunch of red roses.

  ‘I didn’t hear you.’

  ‘Ah well, they always said I’m light on my feet. That’s why I work on the sites – climb like a monkey, so I do.’

  She smiled, imagining him swinging on the scaffolding.

  ‘You looked very serious. What were you thinking about?’

  ‘My mother. Maybe I should contact her.’

  ‘She doesn’t know about the baby, then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, if she wasn’t there for you when you were pregnant, why bother telling her now? That’s what I say.’

  ‘It’s just that I feel so alone.’

  ‘What about this friend of yours, the one who lent you the house in Clapham? Surely she’ll help you out.’

  Sarah looked at Joe. His blue eyes had a teasing glint. He was always smiling. His hair was black and curly. He looked like a right rogue. But something about him – his frankness, his kindness – made her feel she could trust him although they had only met a couple of days ago and certainly not under ideal circumstances. She watched him as he sat on the end of the bed and took the baby from her. He was so natural. There was not a trace of awkwardness as he rocked the small bundle.

  ‘Joe, my friend is a man.’

  He looked up.

  ‘The father?’

  ‘No. His brother.’ She took a deep breath. Why not tell him?

  So Sarah told Joe about the Voyle household, about Jonathan and finding out she was pregnant, and then how kind Anthony had been. By the time she had finished, Beatrice was asleep. Joe gently got up and put her in the crib. He stayed standing.

  ‘I’d be careful of that Anthony fella,’ he said. ‘I’ll come and get you tomorrow.’

  ‘Are you sure you still want to?’

  ‘I said I would yesterday. I never break me promises.’

  He strode out of the ward with the nurses eyeing him. That was it then. She would always be alone. Who would want her now she had been ruined?

  EITHNE

  My father loves the bog. When I was small the bog appeared dull, flat and lifeless to me. It wasn’t until Daddy let me go with him (I would have been about nine) that I discovered how much there was to it.

  Once a month, on a Saturday we would go down with a trailer to collect turf. My daddy would have already gone down during the week and cut and stacked the peat into neat piles. As we drove along the waves of the bog road, we’d sing a song. He’s a good singer, even sober.

  At the bog we’d drive past a couple of dumps – old washing machines, bags of rubbish, the odd shoe – my father sighing and cursing under his breath at the bastards who’d blight such a beautiful place. Up close the bog was far from flat. It’s surface fell into a series of pools, lawns and hummocks. Daddy would point out the bog moss, its variety of type and shade. He knew the names of all the plants on the bog – white-beaked sedge, bog asphodel, cross-leaved heath, bog cotton; on the hummocks he’d show me the ling heather and bog rosemary. Daddy would have made a great botanist. He loved the birds as well – there seemed to be so many different ones then – and in the winter he brought me down specially to look at the geese from Greenland who roosted on the bogs for a couple of months. I’d ask him about Greenland, but he couldn’t tell me much. He just said it was very cold and Eskimos lived there. It was right on the edge of the world.

  ‘What’s over the edge?’ I’d ask.

  ‘Nothin’,’ he said. ‘Nothin’ but the sea.’

  ‘What’s at the bottom of the sea?’ I asked.

  ‘The seabed. There’d be all manner of things down there: seaweed and rocks and little creatures that crawl along the bottom of the ocean; fish that can swim deep and, of course, there’d also be a few shipwrecks.’

  I was fascinated.

  ‘They say that there’s a lost city at the bottom of the ocean,’ he continued. ‘People live there – like us – and carry on their daily business. The only difference being that they live under the ocean and we live above. Because of that their place is magical.’

  ‘Does it have a name?’

  ‘They call it Atlantis.’

  When I think back to that time I realize how sad and lonely he must have been. Things were bad at home. My mother hardly spoke to him. If they did talk it would quickly escalate into shouting. Beatrice hated Daddy. She made no bones about it. She would taunt him because he was not her real father and therefore not entitled to tell her what to do. She would threaten to tell the whole village. What did she care! Then she’d get smacked, but she would never give in. Beatrice was headstrong all her life. That was the only thing that came between us – Daddy. I could not help it – I loved my father no matter how bad he could be. With me he was different. He was gentle and funny and a person neither my mother nor my sister got to know.

  Sometimes it felt like Daddy and I were on the outside looking in. I can picture the scene: Mammy and Beatrice sitting by the stove, chatting, laughing, drinking tea. Mammy would be brushing Beatrice’s hair, as her child told her tales about school, and teachers and every single thing that happened to her. We were excluded. We both believed we were not good enough. I became Daddy’s consolation and he mine.

  I wish Daddy had come to my degree show, then he would have known how precious our time on the bog had been for me. I was so disappointed he never showed up. Mammy hinted that he’d had too much drink the night before, showing off that he was up to Dublin to see his daughter’s valuable pictures. What was the good of all his bragging if he never came?

  Mammy said that my etchings reminded her of ‘soul music’. She surprised me, coming up with poetry like that. When we came to my series on bogs she said nothing for a long time. Just kept walking up and down, up and down.

  ‘I never realized how much you liked the bog,’ she said, at last. ‘You make it seem so beautiful. Oh, look –’ she pointed suddenly �
�� ‘that’s Bog Lane, isn’t it? Oh, that reminds me of when you girls were very little and used to run down to the raspberry garden with your cousins. And there’s the bog at Glenamona. Your daddy used to take you there . . . it’s a shame, I really should have made him come.’

  BEATRICE

  Bog Lane was not a lane you could walk down straight from the house. Behind Granny’s there’s the field, and then there’s the lane. But she always went by the field because the lane was too mucky. Strange, but better to get wet knees than muddy feet. At the end of the field, she climbed over the gate and got back on to the lane. This small piece of path, up to the bog, was a bit better.

  When Granny was still alive there was a raspberry garden at the end of the field, just before the bog. All the children went there to pick raspberries. The garden didn’t belong to anyone; it was just a no-man’s-land. Beatrice never forgot the euphoria of stuffing herself with raspberries and then the belly-ache.

  In the dark, dank old cottage she lies down to sleep and dreams about the raspberry garden. It is a field of red, a soft downy crimson, before an expanse of black, her father’s bog. After the sweet, lies the bitter. She can almost taste the smell of the acrid spruce, which ring his marshy land, all lined up, smartly planted, so tight you wouldn’t want to squeeze through.

  When she was younger she used to test herself. In the summer evenings, when her shadow was long, she would chase it across Granny’s field and down Bog Lane. She would wave at the overgrown raspberry patch, and then skid to a halt at the end of the lane. In front was the bog. It was so quiet there. The trees would be creaking, a few rooks cawing, that would be all. She’d lean on the fence, but she wouldn’t climb over. She wasn’t afraid. She just didn’t like the place.

  EITHNE

  My father found the pink beret on his bog. It was like someone had left it there as a statement. He had always hated that hat. The first time he saw Beatrice with it on he told her to take it off and throw it away. She just glared at him and did nothing.

  ‘Take it off,’ his voice rose. ‘You look like a clown.’

  ‘Good,’ she replied.

  He tried to take it off. She screamed and scratched him.

  ‘Ye bitch!’ he yelled and slapped her. Beatrice ran out of the house. I stood still.

  ‘What are you looking at?’ he growled.

  I was older then and there were no more trips to collect peat. No more special time with Daddy. He had given up on us all.

  Two weeks after Beatrice disappeared, my father went down to the bog to get some more peat. The beret was lying there, waiting for him by his turf cutter. He carried it back to the house, dragging his heels. When he walked in, my mother was sitting as always at the window. When she turned she saw something pink in his hands, then she registered the beret. Her mind’s eye brought before her her daughter’s pretty face, smiling.

  ‘No!’ she howled. She was a small woman, but the force of her as she threw herself at him knocked him back. ‘No!’ she screamed again into his face. He stood quite still, regaining his balance, his hands hung by his side, the beret dropped to the floor. I picked up Beatrice’s beret. I smelt it. But there was no trace of my sister left.

  Instead, it had a strong smell of earth, decay and death.

  SARAH

  The day Sarah was due to leave the hospital she woke early. Her bed was by the window and the sun was streaming in. Everything seemed golden outside and she couldn’t wait to get home. She looked at her child and felt a tremendous tug inside her. As soon as she got back to Clapham she would write to her mother. Now they had something in common – they had both experienced this.

  The doctor came round and checked her and the baby. Everything was fine. She could leave. She went and got washed. She only had night clothes and things for the baby with her so Joe had brought her a bag of clothes. They were not her own, but they weren’t new either. She felt a bit odd putting them on. The dress was blue, and there was a green cardigan. She changed Beatrice and dressed her, then swaddled her in blankets, and sat on a chair next to the bed. It was nine o’clock.

  She only had to wait half an hour. She heard Joe whistling in the corridor, greeting the nurses as he came into the ward.

  ‘Well, there you are,’ Joe said.

  ‘You came, then?’

  ‘Course I did.’ He grinned at her. ‘Ready, so?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said meekly.

  She got up; still sore, a little stiff. They walked out of the ward like any other young couple with their newborn charge. Out on the street Sarah felt dizzy.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s just so bright, so noisy after the hospital.’

  ‘In ye get,’ he said. He made a space for her and Beatrice in the old van. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  He took off. They didn’t speak for some way. Sarah was busy with Beatrice, fixing her hat, making sure she was safe and tight in her arms. It wasn’t until they were heading up Finchley Road that she realized something was wrong.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

  ‘I want you to come with me,’ said Joe.

  ‘But what about Clapham?’

  ‘Forget Clapham,’ he said. ‘Forget them people using you like you were their property.’

  ‘But Anthony isn’t like that. I said I’d be there.’

  ‘Do you really think he cares? He’s just using you, Sarah. He wants you to be his mistress, I know them sort. He’d never marry you.’

  ‘Joe, please, I want to go home.’ Sarah started to cry. It was all too much.

  Joe took a sharp right. He drove up Hampstead Hill and parked opposite the Heath. He turned off the engine, and sighed.

  ‘Sarah,’ he said, ‘look at me.’

  She wiped the tears from her eyes and looked up at him. He stared back at her with such intensity; his eyes were the deepest blue ever.

  ‘I’m going back to Ireland,’ he said. ‘I’ve had it here. I’m sick of being called a Paddy and working like a slave. Okay, so we make a bit of money, but it’s not worth it. I’m needed at home. Sarah, you should see it. We live in a beautiful place, there’s woods and lakes and bogs all nearby. You’d love it.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she said shakily.

  ‘I’ve enjoyed pretending. I’ve liked the nurses looking at us as if we’re man and wife. Marry me, Sarah! I’ll look after you and Beatrice. It doesn’t matter to me that I’m not the baby’s father. No one will know at home. You’ll be me wife. We could be so happy. You’d never have to worry about anything again.’

  ‘But, Joe, I don’t know if I love you. It’s too soon.’

  ‘Ah, how could you resist me! Sure I’ll grow on you like mould.’

  They laughed.

  ‘So what do you say?’ he said.

  ‘But what about Beth?’

  ‘Beth, who’s Beth? Don’t tell me you’ve another child.’

  ‘My dog.’

  ‘Sure, bring the manky dog. She’s at our place anyways. The more the merrier. Is it a yes? Yes? Yes?’

  Sarah nodded; she did not know what else to do.

  ‘Yee-ha,’ he yelled. ‘Let’s go and get married.’

  ‘Now!’ said Sarah.

  ‘Why not? There’s no time like the present.’ He took a ring out of his pocket. ‘I even have the ring.’

  They drove on to Finchley Register Office.

  ‘We’ll have a proper wedding in the church when we get home,’ he said.

  She felt very strange, very odd indeed. He had assumed she wouldn’t say no. He had booked the registrar, got the ring, he had even arranged for Mikey and his wife Sinead (the owner of the blue dress and green cardigan) to be there and act as witnesses. It was all over in a couple of minutes. Sarah walked out a married woman, still holding Beatrice. The child had slept through the whole event.

  ‘Let’s go and sink a few pints!’ said Mikey.

  Joe put his arm around her. ‘Howya doing, Mrs Kelly?’ He grinned. He l
ooked like the cat who’d got the cream.

  She thought of Anthony and her little house in Clapham. What had she done?

  ‘I can’t go to the pub,’ she said. ‘The baby . . . I need to feed her.’

  ‘You don’t mind if I go, do ye? A man needs to celebrate his wedding day with a few drinks an’ all. Sure, I never even had a stag night.’

  ‘We’ll make up for it now, boyo,’ said Mikey.

  ‘Come on,’ said Sinead. ‘I’ll take you home. We’ll have a nice cup of tea and let them two fellas do their worst.’

  The men carried on into town. Sarah and Sinead walked back to the flat where the three of them lived.

  ‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ Sinead said as they went in the door. ‘You can clean up and feed the baby. Joe’s room is the second on the left.’

  Sarah walked down a narrow, dark corridor.

  She heard whimpering. She opened the door and was greeted by a highly excited Beth.

  ‘Good girl, good girl . . .’

  The dog rolled onto her back. Sarah delicately placed Beatrice on the bed, and then crouched down and rubbed Beth’s belly. She looked around the room. It was hardly neat, but clean all the same. It was very bare – the only trace of personality a postcard from Ireland signed ‘love Mammy and the girls’. She sat on the bed with Beatrice. The child was screaming for milk by now and Sarah’s nipples were leaking and sore.

  ‘Okay, come on, come on.’

  Beatrice latched on and sucked. Beth had calmed down, and was now lying curled up at Sarah’s feet.

  ‘Oh God,’ Sarah whispered. She had opened her bag, looking for a hankie, and saw the pink envelope lying inside. She had forgotten all about it. She picked the envelope out with her free hand. Inside, wrapped in tissue, was a beautiful locket. She opened it; it was empty. There was a card as well. It read:

  This locket should hold two pictures –

  one of Beatrice and, hopefully, one of me.