Chapter 37
The three of us gathered in Granny Annie’s room, Johnny and me cross-legged on the bed, Granny Annie on the chair which we pulled to the side of the bed, the tray between us all.
As we ate the lunch and drank our tea, Granny Annie chatted about this and that, the usual news about life back in Boston, and then questioned Johnny about his most recent horticulture job at Oprah’s.
I wondered when she might tell us about being from Sandycove and why she’d never mentioned it before, but in typical Granny Annie fashion, it was as though nothing was strange or wrong about the three of us being in a hotel in Ireland.
‘I’ve always loved Oprah,’ Granny Annie was saying, as though this was all a normal chat. ‘She transcended so much. Remarkable, really. Just got on with it.’
Johnny glanced at me, with an I-told-you-so expression.
‘It’s her resilience,’ he said. ‘It’s very impressive.
I have zero resilience. I was watching Annie the other day and was floored by it.
Sobbing. The scenes in the orphanage. Their raggedy jumpers.
The dog. Annie’s perfect perm. Anyway, Oprah is also about openness, isn’t she? And feeling the feels.’
‘Feeling the feels?’ Granny Annie laughed. ‘You’ve been in California too long.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘I’ve just been reading a few books, that’s all, and we have to talk about things.
And anyway, living with Mike forces me to talk.
You feel unburdened. Lighter. Like I could take off.
And…’ He gave me another pointed look. ‘It’s talking about things that helps build resilience.
I mean, we have Kerry-Anne here who won’t talk about Caitlin.
And you, Granny, didn’t say a word about Ireland.
Like, what’s with all the secrecy? Have you all taken a vow of silence like a Carmelite nun?
Did I not get the family memo? I tell everyone everything. ’
Granny Annie was looking at him with the usual expression she used on Johnny: an amused, indulgent one.
‘But why did you never tell us this?’ I asked.
‘Yeah, why? You never spoke of your life in Ireland,’ said Johnny. ‘I mean, we knew you were Irish, but you didn’t tell us any of this? And why did you run away?’
‘Run away?’ She was still smiling. ‘I hardly—’
‘Granny…’ he warned.
She sighed and replaced her cup onto its saucer on the tray. ‘It’s a long time ago now…’ She paused for a moment while we sat, barely breathing, waiting for her to speak. ‘There had been an accident,’ she said. ‘Someone died. Someone I’d been close to. And so, I left…’
She looked at Johnny, as though that should suffice, but he raised his eyebrows and gazed back at her.
‘It was my best friend. Lolly.’
I gasped. ‘Lolly was your best friend?’
‘Who’s Lolly?’ asked Johnny.
Granny Annie nodded at me. ‘Yes, my best friend since before we could remember. She was only nineteen when she died. Went through school and everything together. Joined at the hip, everyone used to say.’ She looked at me. ‘Like you and Caitlin.’
I didn’t say anything but all I could feel was something building inside me, something I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge was there but had been hanging around for some time now, from the first moment Caitlin had told me she’d found a lump.
I’d spent the last week thinking about her and talking about her, and my grief, or whatever it was, was like a jewel which I kept wrapped up and would bring out when I felt safe.
And here, I’d unwrapped it all so much more than I ever had, but I wasn’t ready to keep it unwrapped and for it to be on display permanently.
What would happen to me? I couldn’t risk it, so I pushed down the feeling and concentrated on Granny Annie.
‘I was going out with Eddie.’ She smiled for a moment.
‘Young love, I suppose. It was all very innocent, but we had talked about marriage and having our own family one day. Lolly was going out with one of the boys we knew. He wasn’t part of our gang because he went to this posh boarding school and her mother and his family hated each other.
But for some reason, my beautiful, generous, fun-loving Lolly loved him.
And then… Oh my word, it was terrible. I remember the evening she came over to my house.
I’ll bring you to see it later. But oh, poor Lolly, she told me she was pregnant and I wasn’t to tell a soul.
Not a soul. And of course I wouldn’t because, in those days, to be pregnant and so young meant terrible things, you were either cast out or you were sent away to have the baby, which was usually taken away from you or…
I don’t know… But your options were limited.
And of course I was shocked but, more than that, worried for her.
“What are you going to do?” I whispered.
We were in our garden, down at the bottom, by the pear trees.
My father grew the most beautiful pears, the sweetest and juiciest things you’ve ever tasted.
Anyway, poor Lolly looked absolutely terrified, her beautiful face was white.
“Marry him,” she said. “He’ll have to marry me.
Us.” And so that was what she was going to do, and it had to be done as soon as possible, there was no time to waste.
We’d finished our school certificate exams and everything depended on those but we both had jobs for the summer in the laundry, while we waited for our results.
But Lolly told me she wasn’t going to go to the laundry the next day, she was going to go into town, into Dublin, and then catch the bus to Kildare and get herself to the boarding school where he was during the term time.
And she would tell him and they would marry and the whole situation could be saved.
And that’s what she did. And I remember being in work the following day, wrestling with this big load from a hotel in town, my heart was in my mouth, thinking about poor Lolly, all on her own.
You see, he didn’t love her, not really.
Not enough to stand up to his parents who didn’t approve of her.
They wanted him to marry someone from a far more respectable family, not the daughter of Mrs DeCourcey who was an outspoken firebrand.
But Lolly loved him and was determined to go and talk to him, and she was so certain that it would be all okay.
Of course, I had wanted to go with her, but she wouldn’t hear of it and somehow convinced me that she would be more invisible travelling on her own, than two of us together. ’
‘Poor Lolly,’ said Johnny.
Granny Annie nodded, her face drawn. ‘Poor Lolly,’ she repeated.
‘Over the years, I have thought of her so often, on the bus on her own, getting off at Clane, I think it was, and then hitching a lift to the school. I waited all day, barely spoke to anyone, I told my mother, your great-grandmother…’ She smiled at us both briefly.
‘That I wasn’t feeling well and I stayed in my room pretending to revise.
But there was no news, no sign or word. And I convinced myself that perhaps no news is good news, you know?
That they were both happy and all was well and perhaps she had even called her mother and told her the news.
And so I went to see Mrs DeCourcey. They lived in a large house on the corner, just on Chestnut Lane… ’
‘I know it,’ I said.
‘Well… it took me ages to summon up the courage to knock on the door and then I did and… well, Lolly hadn’t come home and her mother hadn’t heard anything and she was looking at me as I was gabbling away, trying to act normal as though everything was fine and I think I must have pretended that I’d forgotten that Lolly had told me she was going to the pictures with some of our gang, Mary and Matty…
anyway…’ She stopped again, her eyes fixed on nothing.
‘I could tell her mother knew what was going on, I could just tell that she had worked it all out, just from the look in her eye, the tone of her voice, the way she closed the door on me, leaving me standing there. And of course I couldn’t sleep.
It was May and I slept in the chair beside my bedroom window which I left open and I remember the sounds from outside, every crack or creak, and I’d jerk up, looking out into the dark for Lolly but I found her at home, looking wrecked.
Tired out. Destroyed. He’d refused to marry her and had been horrible, saying it wasn’t his baby and calling her the most dreadful names.
She was devastated. I’d never seen someone give up on life like that before.
I didn’t know it at the time, I thought she’d be okay.
She had so much to live for. But a week later…
’ She stopped again. ‘A week later we had the regatta…’
‘Poor Lolly,’ said Johnny, again, tears in his eyes. ‘The poor girl…’
‘We were in my boat…’ she continued. ‘And I always sailed with Lolly. The double sculls category and she just didn’t want to do it.
She felt so ill and she looked dreadful and she wouldn’t talk about it to anyone.
Not her mother, not me. And then on the morning of the regatta, she told me she was going to do it and I was so pleased.
I remember thinking that she’d got her strength back and then we would talk about the baby and decide what to do and I would be there for her, whatever she wanted and needed.
I would run away with her, if that’s what was going to happen.
I was resolved. I would look after her. She was my best friend, after all.
And, well…’ Granny Annie stopped speaking.
‘Go on, Granny,’ said Johnny, gently.
She shook her head. ‘I can’t. I just can’t.’