‘Come,’ Honoria said, reaching out her hand. ‘Let’s find you some breakfast. Then it’s dressed and off to school.’
Teddy got to her feet and slipped her hand into Honoria’s. The two of them reached the top of the stairs just as Archie was escaping Agatha’s histrionics in his study. Teddy reached out, as if to wave in greeting, but Archie didn’t see her. He closed the door behind him. It only stood closed a moment before Agatha emerged, the air around her so thick with urgency that for a moment Honoria thought she’d been attacked. She stepped forward as Agatha flung the door open and ran outside. Teddy grabbed the edge of Honoria’s cardigan, keeping her there with her, and Honoria hugged the child to her ample hip, patting her in comfort, as Agatha cried, ‘Archie! Archie!’
Honoria waited inside, politely pretending none of this was happening. She heard the car drive away, but Agatha didn’t return. So she shepherded Teddy downstairs and into the kitchen. Then she went back into the front hall. Styles boasted great windows at the front and back of the house. Through the former, Honoria could see Agatha standing in her dressing gown and slippers, her hair moving in the slight wind, the dust around her settling in the flat morning light. Honoria had never seen a person stand so still and yet emanate so kinetic a sense of disarray.
‘Agatha?’ Honoria said, stepping outside. The two women were intimate enough to put aside the formality of employee and grand lady. Honoria reached out and touched her shoulder. ‘Agatha, are you all right?’
Agatha stood as if she couldn’t hear, looking after the long-gone car in disbelief. When Honoria spoke again, she didn’t answer. Honoria didn’t feel right going back into the house, leaving her alone, but it felt so odd, the two of them. One fully clothed and ready for the day, one still as a statue, dressed as an invalid with a long road to recovery.
The spell didn’t last too long. Agatha roused herself and headed into Archie’s study, where she sat down to write a letter to her husband. It may have been a plea. It may have been a declaration of war. Nobody would ever know, except for Archie, who read it once then threw it in the fire.
I wonder now if Agatha had a plan. A writer, after all, she would have carefully considered every line of prose she wrote and every possibility to spring from her next movement. When I picture her at her desk, I don’t see a woman in a fugue state or on the verge of amnesia. I see the kind of determination you only recognize if you’ve felt it yourself. Determination borne of desperation transformed into purpose. Soon afterwards, when I learned of her disappearance, I wasn’t the least surprised. I understood.
I had disappeared once, too.
Here Lies Sister Mary
PERHAPS YOU’RE FINDING it difficult to feel kindly towards a homewrecker like me. But I don’t require your affection. I only ask you to see me on a wintry day in Ireland, riding in a borrowed milk wagon. I was nineteen years old.
A sorrowful Irishman – old by my standards at the time – held the reins of two shaggy horses who pulled the cart. My coat wasn’t warm enough for the damp chill. If Finbarr had driven me instead of his father, I could have cuddled beside him for extra warmth. But Finbarr never would have driven me where we were headed. Mr Mahoney, though, was not entirely without kindness. Every now and then he would let one hand go of the reins and pat my shoulder. It may have made him feel better but it did nothing for me. Empty milk bottles clanged as we rode over rutted dirt roads. If the bottles had been full, I expect the milk would have frozen by the time we reached the convent. It was a long road to Sunday’s Corner from Ballycotton.
‘I won’t be here long,’ I said, allowing my father’s brogue into the rhythm of my words, as if anything could endear me to Mr Mahoney. ‘Finbarr will come for me as soon as he recovers.’
‘If he recovers.’ His eyes were grim and looking anywhere but at me. Which would be worse? I wondered. His only son dying? Or recovering and claiming me and the shame I’d brought? As far as Mr Mahoney was concerned the best outcome would be Finbarr getting well, then forgetting he’d ever laid eyes on me. For now what he wanted was me safely locked and stored away so he could get home and see his son alive at least one more time.
‘He will recover,’ I said, fierce with believing the impossible as only the very young can be. Beneath my coat the dress I wore held a faint spattering of blood from Finbarr’s coughing.
‘You sound like an Irish girl,’ he said. ‘Not a bad idea to keep that up. The English aren’t so popular these days, around here.’
I nodded but I only understand his words in retrospect. If he had said Sinn Fein aloud, it would have meant nothing to me. I wouldn’t have been able to say what IRA stood for. My Ireland was the ocean, the shore birds, the sheep. Green hills and Finbarr. Nothing to do with any government, its or my own.
‘You’re a lucky girl,’ Mr Mahoney said. ‘Not so long ago the only place for you would have been the workhouse. But these nuns look out for mothers and babies.’
I thought it would be better if the workhouse was the only place for me. Surely Mr Mahoney would never have the heart to deliver me to a place meant for criminals, so he’d have to let me stay with his family. As it was, I’d spent my last penny on the journey to his door. I suppose I went along with him voluntarily, but that doesn’t seem the right word when you’ve nowhere else to go.
Finally we arrived at the convent in Sunday’s Corner. Mr Mahoney jumped from the wagon and offered a broad, calloused hand to help me down. The convent was beautiful. With red bricks and turrets it loomed and rambled, looking like a cross between a university and a castle, both places I never expected to see inside. On the grass out front stood a statue of a winged angel, hands clenched at her side rather than raised in prayer. Over the convent’s door, in a vaulted nook where a window should have been, stood another statue made of plaster – a nun wearing a blue-and-white habit, her palms at her sides, face out, as if offering sanctuary to all who entered.
My parents had never been religious. ‘Sunday’s for resting,’ my father used to say, explaining why he didn’t go to Mass. My mother was Protestant. I’d mostly only been to church with my Aunt Rosie and Uncle Jack.
‘That must be the Virgin Mary,’ I murmured.
Mr Mahoney let out a joyless chuff of a laugh, a sound that derided how little I knew about everything in the world. I’d come to Ireland hoping to live in his modest, dirt-floored house. Mr Mahoney had deep circles under his faded eyes but I could tell they’d once been just like Finbarr’s. I looked at him, willing him to see me and change his mind.