‘Are you all right?’ asked Lizzie, as I settled beside her in the hot water.
I nodded, a gesture that didn’t say yes so much as I’ll tell you later. I was wearing the knee-length bathing dress I usually took to the beach, with matching shorts underneath. Although Lizzie was in water up to her chin I could tell her outfit was considerably more daring, not least because it was the colour of a ripe tomato. All the women wore caps, our hair completely covered; it was a kind of uniform, no matter how different our bathing costumes were.
Steam settled around me and my brain felt suddenly light. Perhaps I had managed to conjure Finbarr. Lucid living. Or perhaps the very opposite, and I’d imagined his being here. I almost wanted to ask Lizzie for confirmation: Did a black-haired man walk down the road towards us? Did you leave me alone with him? Did you say he didn’t look quite right? Would it be better or worse if it hadn’t really happened at all, me back in Finbarr’s arms?
The natural baths at the Bellefort were beneath the hotel in what felt like steamy caves. Low stone ceilings, so even the smaller of us had to bend our heads until we were neck deep. One needn’t be staying at the hotel to use them, for a small fee, but on this day it was mostly our fellow guests bathing with us. Sitting across from us, immersed up to her chin, was the older of the newlywed brides, Mrs Marston. She observed Lizzie and me cheerily through the steam. We stared frankly back at her, but she wasn’t the sort to examine others. There was something shallow about her gaze. I supposed that if she were asked about Lizzie and me later, she wouldn’t be able to name a single trait – hair colour, eye colour, nothing. Only our sex and approximate age. We existed as an audience for what she had to tell us.
‘How are you two dears?’ Mrs Marston asked, with a warmth that sounded genuine.
‘We’re just fine,’ Lizzie said, with her direct American syllables.
‘We met last night,’ I said, before Lizzie could announce my name. I could tell Mrs Marston had no recollection of this. ‘I’m told congratulations are in order?’
The woman laughed, large brown eyes twinkling. ‘Indeed,’ she said. ‘Six days of married life and counting. It’s bliss, I tell you. Bliss.’
‘How wonderful for you,’ Lizzie said. ‘And where did you two lovebirds meet?’
‘Oh,’ Mrs Marston said. ‘We’ve known each other a long while, Mr Marston and I. Star-crossed, you might say. Pain and drama, ladies. Mark my words. It makes it all the better, when the stars finally align.’
‘I can’t say I agree.’ Lizzie kept her eyes firmly on Mrs Marston. ‘My husband and I had our share of pain and drama. I could have done without all that. Well and truly.’
‘Well, then you know,’ Mrs Marston said, casting off the disagreement.
I thought of Agatha, all of her current pain and drama, and hoped she might one day be happier than she’d ever been, by virtue of the pain I was causing her now. I refused to consider Agatha’s death as a possibility. We were connected, Agatha and I. If anything happened to her, I would feel it in my bones, the same way I had when Colleen died.
Mrs Marston settled more fully in the water, letting it cover her chin, bright eyes sparkling away as if to prove her happiness. Then she lowered her head closer to the water and said, ‘I was rather dismayed to find out this hotel was owned by a coloured person. Don’t know if we would have booked it had we known.’
‘Mrs Leech?’ said Lizzie. ‘She seems perfectly nice to me.’ Her voice was clipped and firm, putting an end to that.
To her credit, or else an inability to broach dissent, Mrs Marston obliged by changing the subject. ‘Do you have any children?’ she asked Lizzie.
‘We had one,’ Lizzie said. ‘He died shortly after he was born.’
‘Oh, my dear,’ Mrs Marston said, all motherly comfort. ‘But you’re young. You’ll have another? And then another, and another. Won’t you?’
‘I hope so.’ Lizzie’s expression was hard to read. ‘But that doesn’t mean I’ll ever forget the first.’
‘Of course not,’ Mrs Marston said. ‘Truth be told I’m hoping it’s not too late for me. To have a child. Stranger things have happened. And that’s all I’ve ever wanted, really. A baby. Well. A baby and Mr Marston.’
I stood and grabbed a hotel dressing gown to cover my bathing dress. ‘I feel a bit light-headed,’ I said. ‘Perhaps I’ll see you at tea.’
Mrs Marston said to Lizzie, as if I had already left, ‘A morose one, your friend. She needs to find a husband, that’s all, isn’t it?’
‘Who says I haven’t found a husband?’ I pulled the belt of my dressing gown tight, my voice too baldly irritated.
‘Now, now,’ Mrs Marston said, as if she were used to being in charge. ‘Keep your head, dear, I was only japing.’ As if to prove it, she let out a merry laugh, trilling through the cavern, reverberating; the least happy sound I could imagine.
Here Lies Sister Mary
ALL OVER THE world girls waited to hear from soldiers they’d never see again, but I was lucky to love a man who kept his promises. Finbarr folded a pound note into the first letter he sent.
He wrote, I thought I’d grown dead inside till I saw you standing there in the square.
He wrote, It wasn’t just Armistice that swept me away.
He wrote, We should have waited for our wedding night, it’s true, but I know in my heart there never will be a more perfect moment. And our wedding night will come, Nan, never you doubt it.
And then his second letter arrived, empty of money. It only said, I love you and I’m afraid I’ve come down with a fever.
I didn’t feel too well myself.
My father received word from Ireland. Uncle Jack survived the war – remaining unscathed in battle. But he came home from the front with influenza and gave it to his wife and child. Aunt Rosie recovered. Uncle Jack did not. Nor did Seamus. It had seemed such a mercy that my sweet cousin was too young to fight in the war. And now he was dead all the same. It seemed the tides of this war would never stop lapping our shores. I wept for my lost second family, my beloved farm standing empty. My mother comforted me, not able to stop herself from pressing her palm against my forehead.
When Emily Hastings got sick, Megs, Louisa and I were forbidden to visit her. ‘It’ll be a miracle if it passes you girls by,’ my mother said at dinner, wiping tears away. ‘Did you know Andrew Pennington died just yesterday? All these young people. Boys who came home safe from the war, only to be killed by the flu.’
The giant and kindly crowd that swept Finbarr and me together had been teeming with invisible sickness. My mother gave up her job at Buttons and Bits and insisted I do the same.
‘No you don’t,’ my father said, when he caught me trying to leave our flat. ‘It’s not safe to be out and about just now.’
‘Megs thinks we already had it last spring,’ I said. All three of us girls had come down with mild fevers and recovered quickly.