Chapter 24
24
How odd , Vi thought as she walked to the gatehouse, that Jack reminds Granny of my father, who I never knew. There must be more to it than she told me. Is it his sense of humour, his love of the ocean, or simply the way he speaks and moves? Or that my father was the same age as Jack when he died? Or was it just a meeting of minds – perhaps Sylvia and Jack were somehow kindred spirits despite the age gap? It wasn’t the physical appearance, as Fred had had reddish hair and green eyes and Jack had dark hair and eyes. It had to be in their similar personalities, which intrigued Vi and made her feel a little sad that she couldn’t figure it out because she hadn’t known her father at all. To Sylvia, losing her only son would have been the worse tragedy. Maybe making friends with Jack gave her some little bit of comfort. This made Vi’s feelings for Jack even stronger and the fear of losing him a lot worse. She knew Sylvia was right and that she should let things settle down a bit before they met again. Otherwise there was a danger that she would overreact again and push him away. For good.
Lost in thought, Vi gave a start as her phone rang. She pulled it out of her pocket and peered at the caller ID and saw that it was Leo.
‘Hi, Leo,’ Vi said. ‘How are you?’
‘Only slightly hung-over and a little tired. But it was a great party, don’t you think?’
‘Oh yes, a lot of fun,’ Vi said. ‘Thank you for inviting me. I really enjoyed it.’
‘You survived the trip back on the bus, then?’
‘It was a little rough,’ Vi replied, remembering how she had wept nearly all the way. ‘But I’m fine now. I’m going to have a little nap in a moment, though.’
‘Good idea. I haven’t even got out of bed, actually,’ Leo confessed. ‘I’ve been lying here watching an old Kathleen O’Sullivan movie on my iPad. Just to get the feel of her hair and makeup and all that nineteen fifties stuff.’
‘She was great, wasn’t she?’ Vi said.
‘Fabulous,’ Leo replied. ‘But hey, I called you to find out if you’re going to Dublin on Tuesday? We were supposed to go to the nursing home, remember? Is that still on?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Vi said, pulling herself back to the present. ‘I’m going to call the dance studio tomorrow to see if that guy, Finbarr, can put me in touch with Filomena’s family, so I can find out which nursing home she’s in. I’m catching the morning train from Tralee on Tuesday morning. And then we’ll go and see her before we catch the flight to London on Thursday.’
‘Sounds like a good plan,’ Leo said. ‘I’m actually getting a lift with one of my cousin’s friends who’s driving up to Dublin tomorrow. And he offered me a bed in his place, so I’m sorted for a place to stay. It’s in an area called Donnybrook, near the centre, he said.’
‘Not too far from where I’m staying,’ Vi said.
‘So give me a call when I arrive and we can go for a pint somewhere.’
‘That would be nice. I’ll get in touch when I’ve found out where Fidelma is.’ Vi said goodbye and pocketed her phone. She thought about what her grandmother had said about her romantic life. Even if things didn’t work out with Jack, Sylvia was right that Vi had spent too long avoiding love. She wanted a partner: someone to spend long evenings walking on the beach with, someone to go over lines with her and plan a family with. She thought of her nieces and nephews. Perhaps that was at the heart of her comments about Rose and Lily last year. Was she jealous of the wonderful families they’d built?
Leo was a wonderful man, but even with Jack out of the picture, she knew he wasn’t for her. She thought of the kiss they shared on New Year’s Eve. Perhaps she should make sure he understood how she felt about him next time they met.
Jack’s beautiful bright eyes came to Vi’s mind. Love can’t be planned. It has no rhyme or reason and it can strike like a bolt of lightning and then you either accept it and let it sweep you away, or try to move on and forget it had ever happened. Either way, it breaks your heart in the end , Vi thought as she walked down the path, the breeze from the sea soothing her frayed nerves.
Two days later, Vi and Leo stood outside a Victorian redbrick house in a leafy suburb of Dublin. It was surrounded by a garden that would be lovely in the spring and summer, but now seemed a little drab in the early January light. Drops from the bare tree branches fell onto their hair and shoulders and the air smelled of damp earth. Vi shivered, anxious to get inside before the next shower. It hadn’t been difficult to find the home as Finbarr at the dance studio had managed to get the name of it from Fidelma’s daughter.
Vi turned to Leo before she pressed the button on the intercom. ‘So, here we go,’ she said. ‘Wish me luck.’
‘Good luck,’ Leo said, patting her shoulder. ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you to visit the old lady?’
‘Yes, I am,’ Vi replied. ‘I was told Fidelma is a little frail and gets confused if there are too many people visiting at the same time. She knows I’m coming and sounded happy to see me, a member of staff told me when I phoned. There is a cafeteria on the ground floor, they said, where you can wait for me.’
Leo nodded. ‘Okay. That seems like a good plan.’
‘I’m glad you came with me, though,’ Vi said to reassure him. She’d also been glad that he’d given friendship vibes ever since he arrived. There didn’t seem to be anything romantic between them any more. ‘It’s good to know you’re nearby and that I can share whatever I learn straight away with someone I trust.’
‘Whatever it is will stay between us,’ Leo said.
‘I know. But we’d better go in.’ Vi pressed the button, said her name and who she was visiting when prompted by a tinny voice and then the entrance door opened. They stepped inside and Leo disappeared through a door marked CAFETERIA. Then Vi walked to the desk in the reception area and rang the bell.
A nurse appeared within seconds, smiling at Vi. ‘Hello, can I help you?’
‘My name is Violet Fleury and I’m here to visit Fidelma Sheridan,’ Vi said.
‘Oh yes, of course,’ the nurse said. ‘She’s expecting you.’ She pointed at a door. ‘It’s through there and down the corridor. Then the second door on the right. Her name is on it.’
Vi felt increasingly nervous as she walked down the corridor. Here was the moment she had been waiting for since before Christmas. What was Kathleen’s real identity? Did Fidelma know? Is it right for me to dig into this? Vi asked herself as she reached the door with Fidelma’s name on it. Would it be better to leave well enough alone and just follow the script? No , she answered herself, the truth has to come out, or at least be found so that I can play the real Kathleen and not some glossy image of who the public thought her to be: the feisty Irish colleen. In any case, it would be nice to meet the woman who had known Kathleen when they were both young and hopeful.
Vi took a deep breath and knocked on the door. After several minutes, a soft, melodious voice called: ‘Come in.’
Vi slowly opened the door and peered in. A tiny woman with a shock of white curly hair sat on an armchair by the window. She smiled at Vi. ‘Hello, are you Violet?’
‘Yes,’ Vi said and walked into the room that was bright and welcoming with walls covered in framed prints of flowers and beautiful landscapes. The room smelled faintly of lavender. ‘Hello, Fidelma. Thank you for agreeing to see me.’
‘Why wouldn’t I?’ Fidelma asked. ‘I like having visitors as long as they speak softly and have happy faces.’ She looked at Vi for a moment. ‘Yes. You have a happy face, even if your eyes are a little sad. But you also look very like Kathleen, the way I remember her. The red hair, the green eyes, the freckles… Very similar, as if you were sisters. Except…’ Fidelma paused and leaned forward, staring at Vi. ‘You don’t dye your hair, do you?’
Vi flicked her hair back from her face. ‘Not, this is my real colour.’
Fidelma sat back. ‘Thought so.’ She gestured at a chair beside her. ‘But please sit down so we can chat properly. Do you want a cup of tea? I could ring the bell and ask someone to get you whatever you want.’
‘I’m fine, thank you,’ Vi said, smiling at Fidelma’s ladylike manners. ‘Unless you want some tea yourself?’
Fidelma shook her head. ‘No, dear. I don’t want anything right now. I just had lunch and it was delicious. Thank goodness my daughters got me into this home which is expensive but well worth the money. They sold my house in order to pay the fees, but I really didn’t mind. I was a little homesick at first, but now I’m content to stay here, where there are people to look after me. Things were getting difficult in my big house, you see. Dusty and draughty and full of leaking pipes and a roof that needed repairs. Who wants that in their old age? Not me, that’s for sure. I don’t miss that old pile one little bit.’ She smiled mischievously as Vi sat down on the chair. ‘But don’t tell my daughters how happy I am. I like to make them feel just a tiny bit guilty. Keeps them on their toes and gets them to visit me often.’
‘I won’t tell,’ Vi promised, trying not to giggle. Fidelma was so endearing with that glint of humour in her pale blue eyes.
Fidelma nodded and patted Vi’s knee. ‘Good girl.’ She sat back and looked at Vi for a moment. ‘So,’ she continued. ‘You have come here to talk about Kathleen?’
‘Yes,’ Vi said. ‘I’d like to know as much about her as you can tell me. Whatever you remember.’
‘No problem,’ Fidelma said. ‘I remember things that happened a long time ago better than what I had for dinner last night. And my year at the dance school was probably the most wonderful time in my life. Except for getting married and having my daughters, of course. But that had to do with my adult life. When I was young…’ She paused for a moment, her eyes wistful. ‘I was so excited to start lessons at the school. I had been practising ballet at a little dance school in our neighbourhood and had just started on pointe shoes. The dance studio was very well known and only for students who showed promise. My parents had scraped together enough money for a year’s tuition. They hoped I’d become a ballerina like Anna Pavlova.’ She laughed. ‘My mother had these dreams for me, you see. And then I ruined them by getting married and becoming a housewife. I don’t think she ever really forgave me.’
‘I’m sure she did,’ Vi remarked, getting impatient. She wished Fidelma would get back to her memories of Kathleen without any more distractions. ‘So you met Kathleen at the dance school?’ she asked, hoping to get Fidelma back on track.
Fidelma smiled. ‘Oh yes. We met the very first day. Kathleen was in the more advanced class then, I was in the junior class. But we started to chat in the changing room that first day. She was so kind to me. Made me feel more confident. She said she was envious of my slim frame. Kathleen was quite statuesque and not really built for classical ballet. But she was very good at it all the same. I used to love watching her practise. She was so graceful.’
Vi nodded. ‘Yes. I’ve seen her movies and that lovely gracefulness was part of her beauty.’
‘Exactly,’ Fidelma agreed. ‘But she was also very kind and very ambitious. I do remember that Christmas show where the talent scout noticed her. It changed her whole life, really. She had wanted to go on the stage, maybe get a part in a play at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. That’s what she was working towards. But then Hollywood came calling and she was whisked away to a life she wasn’t really prepared for.’
‘I can imagine,’ Vi said, trying to envisage what it had been like to get an offer like that when Kathleen was still so young.
‘She was only nineteen,’ Fidelma said as if reading Vi’s thoughts. ‘It was in nineteen forty-eight, just after the war. I was a little younger and I thought it was like a fairy tale. But when she left, I missed her terribly. We had become close friends during my first year at the school.’
‘How lovely,’ Vi said, shifting on her chair feeling more and more impatient. How could she get Fidelma to reveal what Vi really wanted to know? ‘So then,’ she started, ‘when she left, you must have been upset.’
Fidelma nodded. ‘Yes. I missed her terribly. And of course, she missed me. She said I was her only true friend in whom she could confide her deepest thoughts and secrets.’
‘What kind of secrets?’ Vi asked, feeling she was getting closer to the point.
‘Who she really was,’ Fidelma said. ‘You see, she wasn’t… Oh I don’t know how to explain it.’ Fidelma stopped, looking emotional. ‘I haven’t spoken to anyone about this,’ she said. ‘It feels like a betrayal in a way.’
Vi touched Fidelma’s hand. ‘Well, you know, I’m going to play Kathleen in a movie about her life and it’s going to be especially about the love story between her and Don. But I’ve been feeling off about it from the very beginning. I’ve read the letters she wrote to you; she was independent, full of ambition, and depth. Her story is much more than just a romance. I want to show who she really was.’
Fidelma nodded. ‘I see what you mean.’
Vi continued. ‘I’m sure she protected herself because the truth would affect her career. But that’s not at risk now. If she was battling with something, if she had this amazing career despite some incredible hardships, I think that’s a part of her story we should tell. She wasn’t just a beautiful woman. There was much more to her than that.’
‘You’re right. She was so much more than Don and their love story. And I appreciate that you don’t want her to be like a cardboard cut-out. That’s understandable. It means you’re a real actress, not just a pretty face either.’
‘I hope so,’ Vi said softly.
Fidelma sat up. Vi’s heart was beginning to beat faster while she waited with bated breath to learn the secret Kathleen had hidden from the world.
As Fidelma began to speak, Vi’s eyes widened and her breath caught in her throat. This was incredible and more startling than she had expected. She knew then that the movie would have to be a lot more than a mere account of a love story. It had to depict a woman carrying a secret she was terrified to reveal. If it didn’t, Vi couldn’t play the part.