Chapter 57
CHAPTER 57
Halloween 1970
Bernie
In the weeks since Maura’s appearance on The Late Late Show she’s become somewhat of a reluctant celebrity. People stop her on the street. Some want to shake her hand and tell her how much they admire her.
“You’ve a lovely speaking voice. And a great face for television. Has anyone ever told you you’re a dead ringer for Doris Day? What a great singer she is. Beautiful voice. Just beautiful.”
Others want to share their disgust.
“You don’t speak for me. Or my daughters. I only hope the Lord can forgive you.”
One woman even spat on her shoe. Maura didn’t flinch. I said if it was me I’d have taken my shoe off and thrown it at her. Maura laughed and said I wouldn’t have. But I damn well would have. People are disgusting. None more so than those who don’t support us.
Maura and I are in town today. My girls are with us. People don’t tend to approach Maura as often when the children are by our sides. Maura never says as much, but I can tell it’s a relief for her.
“So,” Maura says, with an enthusiastic clap of her hands. She bends in the middle so she’s level height with Marie and Elizabeth. “Let’s get some costumes, eh?”
We duck in and out of shops on Henry Street and avoid the cold October rain as best we can. We fetch black sacks, face paint, and colorful ribbon. Back at the flat, I cut head and arm holes in the sacks and pull them over the girls’ heads. I tie thick ribbon around their waists. Red for Marie. Blue for Elizabeth. Yellow for Alice. Then Maura carefully paints each of their faces bright green. Alice cries when paint gets in her eyes, and Maura washes it all off and starts over. Maura offered to buy cloth witches’ hats in Switzers but I declined and Elizabeth is still sulking. Maura seemed as disappointed as my daughters about the hats, but I couldn’t let her spend money she doesn’t have anymore. I often worry about how she’s getting by financially without Dr. Davenport.
“Nuala pays her way,” Maura said, almost insulted when I dared to broach the subject.
I have no doubt Nuala contributes, but it can’t be much. Certainly not enough to keep a household running. I haven’t mentioned money since. Instead, Dan sends over some chops when he can and I often turn up on her doorstep with a meat loaf or a stew.
“I had leftovers,” I say, but I know she sees straight through me.
My girls wait impatiently for night to fall.
“Is it trick-or-treat time?” Elizabeth asks at the first hint of dusk.
I glance at Maura. She’s as giddy as the children.
“Yes,” I say, passing each of the children an empty plastic bag. Their faces light up as they hope to return with bags full of fruit, monkey nuts, and lollipops. “It’s time to go.”
“Have you got them?” Maura asks.
I fetch a plastic bag for myself. This one is already full and heavy and I sling it over my shoulder like a rucksack.
“How many flyers are in there?” Maura asks.
I shrug. “Last count ninety-four. But the girls made more since. They’ve been working on them all week.”
“Their fingers must be ready to fall off,” Maura says with sympathy. “But imagine the story they’ll have to tell when they’re older.”
“If it works out.”
“It’ll work out. It has to.”
Maura, my girls, and I leave and make our way to the nearby flats. Our teeth chatter from the cold, but the children seem oblivious to the call of winter in the air. They knock on door after door and chirp, “Trick or treat,” as sweet as pie.
“Oh my, what do we have here? Three little witches. How nice.”
The girls hold their plastic bags open wide and sweetly say, “Thank you,” when a treat is placed inside.
“I no like apple,” Alice tells a middle-aged lady at the door. I balk when I recognize the woman as Mrs. Dunne, Father Walsh’s housekeeper. I had no idea this was her home or I would never have knocked on the door. I take a step back, out of Mrs. Dunne’s view, and crumple the flyer in my hand, stuffing my clenched fist into my pocket. Alice reaches into her bag, retrieves the offending fruit, and passes it back to the stunned lady.
When the door closes, Marie bends down and slides a flyer under the door just as she has done for every house previous.
“No, no, no! Not this house,” I call out, but it’s too late. The flyer is on the far side of Mrs. Dunne’s door and we can’t retrieve it.
Marie’s bottom lip begins to quiver and I dot a quick kiss on the top of her head. “Let’s try the next house.” I flick my hands to usher the children ahead as briskly as I can. “Hurry, hurry. Maybe they will have oranges.”
Marie’s smile returns as she takes Alice by the hand and warns her to mind her manners next time. I pull my scarf tighter around my face and cross my fingers that Mrs. Dunne didn’t recognize the girls as mine. We are making our way to the next flat when the door reopens.
“Hello, hello,” Mrs. Dunne hollers. “Little miss, I found a banana for you.”
Alice loves bananas, but they are a rare occurrence in our house, priced outside our budget. She turns, ready to hurry back, when Mrs. Dunne bends and picks up the flyer. My heart skips. I hear Maura gasp.
“What do we have here?” Mrs. Dunne says, straightening up again to read the flyer. “Oh no. Oh my. Oh no.”
Alice is next to Mrs. Dunne again. She’s standing looking up at the round lady with her bag open wide like a newborn bird with a waiting beak.
“Where’s your ma?” Mrs. Dunne asks.
I press myself into the neighbor’s door arch, almost falling over my own feet. Maura steps in front of me, trying her best to hide me in her shadow, but it’s hopeless. Mrs. Dunne has already seen me.
“Mrs. McCarthy, is that you?”
I step out from behind Maura and pull my scarf down to reveal a smile so wide my face hurts.
“Ah, Mrs. Dunne, how nice to see you. Lovely evening, isn’t it?”
Mrs. Dunne wraps one side of her cardigan over the other, emphasizing how cold she is. “Is this yours?” she asks, holding the flyer above her head.
“Oh, eh.”
“We maked that,” Alice says proudly. “Ma and me. And Marie and ’lizabeth. We maked lots and lots.”
Mrs. Dunne’s face is a picture. Sitting somewhere between disgust and a need to throw up.
“Disappointing. Very disappointing. Does your husband know what you’re up to?”
I should say no. I should tell her I’ve gone rogue and my poor Dan can’t control me. Although the lie is on the tip of my tongue, I just can’t seem to push it out.
“And what matter if he does?” I say, jamming my hands on my hips.
“Right, well,” Mrs. Dunne says, pulling herself as tall as she can, which brings her just shy of my paltry height. “Consider yourself boycotted. I’ll be in to McCarthy’s first thing in the morning to settle my tab.”
“Ah now, Mrs. Dunne, surely it’s not that serious. Dan’s meat is the finest in Dublin.”
“I wouldn’t step foot in the place again for all the tea in China,” she says, painfully serious. “And I’ll be telling everyone I know with a shred of decency to do the same. That’ll teach you.”
Mrs. Dunne attempts to close the door, but not before Alice snatches the banana from one hand and the flyer from the other.
“Thank you. Bye-bye,” my toddler says as she waddles her way back to me, oblivious. “Look, Ma, a nanna.”
I scoop my daughter into my arms and choke back tears.
“Maybe I should hand out the rest of these on my own,” Maura says. “The risk is too great for you.”
Alice snuggles into me. Her frosty button nose brushes my neck. I hold her a bit tighter, soothed by the warmth of her little body. I can’t hold the tears back any longer. Silently, they trickle down my cheeks.
“I want to help,” I say. “But the shop.”
“I know. I know,” Maura says.
I unsling the bag from my shoulder and pass it to Maura. My girls return to knocking on doors as Maura walks in the opposite direction, bending and sliding flyer after flyer under every door.
When the cold burrows its way through my shoes and into the tips of my toes and the girls’ fingers are red and raw, I say, “It’s time to go home.”
Elizabeth grumbles and Alice climbs into my arms again. Marie walks alongside me and says, “Is Maura bad?”
I stop in my tracks and Elizabeth, busy peering into her bag of treats, crashes into my heels.
“Why would you say that?” I ask my eldest daughter, as Elizabeth steadies herself.
Marie shrugs and for a moment she looks as if she might cry. As if she has said something terribly wrong and I am going to scold her.
“It’s all right,” I say. “You can tell me.”
Alice is wriggling and sliding down my hip. I shift her back into place, all the while searching Marie’s face for a clue about where this question has come from.
“Sister Sloan said all girls should do God’s work and become mas when they grow up. But Maura’s a grown-up and she doesn’t have any babies. And I heard her tell you she never, ever, ever wants babies. So, she’s bad, right? Because she’s not doing God’s work.”
“Oh, Marie, sweetheart, no. That’s not it at all. Oh no, no, no.”
Marie balls her hand into a fist and rubs her eye as she begins to sob. “But I like Maura. I think she’s the best. I don’t want her to go to hell with all the other bad people.”
An instant headache pinches. I think of Sister Sloan and of the timber ruler she carries in her dress pocket next to her rosary beads. I know she uses it to whack children who are naughty, or make spelling mistakes, or are late for school.
I want to tell my daughter that Sister Sloan is a judgmental aul biddy with too high an opinion of herself. But instead I say, “Well, Sister Sloan won’t ever be having babies, and she’s not bad, right?”
Marie sucks air through a thin gap between her teeth and then she turns her hand over to show me a pink line across her palm. A shape, the perfect outline of Sister Sloan’s wooden ruler.
“She is kind of bad,” Marie says, trying not to tear up.
I take Marie’s hand in mine and kiss it several times until finally my daughter smiles. I have to agree that, yes, indeed, a woman who hits little girls is bad. Just as a society that hits women down time after time is bad too.
“Sister Sloan is a bully,” I say. “And you are right, Marie. Bullies are bad. They are all very, very bad.”
Marie’s teary eyes brighten.
“But there are people who stand up to bullies. Great people. People who do their best to make the bullying stop. People like Maura.”
“Do you stand up to bullies, Ma?”
My heart sinks.
“I want to, sweetheart. I really, really want to.”
Marie flings her arms around my waist and whispers, “I love you.”
I stroke her head and say, “I love you too. I would change the world for you if I could.”