Promised Land (23 page)

She flung herself on top of him kissing him wildly, so relieved to be out of the hospital. The elderly man and woman in the car parked beside them glared at them. She felt raw and emotional and longed to be in his arms, far from this awful place.

‘Where to, madame?’ he joked, reading her mind.

‘Home. Mac, please just take me home.’

Wexford 1957

Chapter Twenty-eight

ELLA RETURNED TO
Kilgarvan for Christmas, glad to be with her aunt and uncle and cousins for the usual Christmas festivities. Uncle Jack had cut down an enormous fir tree and Slaney and Marianne had festooned it with coloured glass baubles and red ribbons. Holly branches laden with berries decorated the hall and the mantelpiece. The Christmas candle burned in the window as Aunt Nance fussed around them all as usual, treating them as if they were a group of twelve-year-old girls. Teresa and Finbarr had gone to his parents for Christmas dinner but had called in with gifts for them all. Connie was expecting again and was the size of a house. Aunt Nance was sure it was twins this time. There were twins on Jack’s side of the family after all. Brian and Anna announced their engagement and were building a house on an acre of land that Uncle Jack had given them. Ella had never seen her cousin look so happy and content. The wedding
would
be in August, and she and Mac were invited.

‘It’s a good match,’ declared her aunt ‘Anna’s a grand girl and knows what farm living entails and will help Brian run this place when the time comes.’

Mac had gone up North to be with his family and she didn’t expect to see him for at least a week. He’d dropped in to the flat with her Christmas present, a beautiful gold chain that she had put on immediately, and she’d given him a hand-woven tweed sports jacket that she’d ordered through the shop. They’d gone for a Christmas drink to Davy Byrne’s, joining a crowd of his friends from the bank and Kitty and Tom, the pub so crowded they could barely move. She missed him already and the holiday week had barely begun.

‘Ella, I’ve invited Liam and the children to join us for Christmas dinner,’ Aunt Nance told her on Christmas Eve. ‘I couldn’t have your poor brother and those dotes on their own in the house with Carmel still away in the sanatorium.’

Ella sighed. Her aunt was good and kind and would always welcome those who needed a place on Christmas Day. It wasn’t her place to object and make a scene or fuss about how awkward it might be.

Kitty and she had visited Carmel only two weeks before, and she knew how much Carmel longed to be home for Christmas. She was in a women’s ward now and seemed brighter and livelier
somehow
, planning what the girls would wear and the presents.

Liam arrived up at Rathmullen after they’d returned from midday Mass, the smell of the ham and turkey filling the house. Ella had greeted him along with everybody else, shocked at how much her brother had aged and upset by the barely disguised pain in his eyes.

The little girls were beautiful, each different from the other, one like Liam, one like Carmel. They both wore dresses with smock stitching, one in berry red, one in rich ivy green, with warm woollen tights. Her cousins were mad about them and scooped them up for tickles and hugs. Ella stared at them, filled with regret that she had not seen more of her little nieces. Mary came over shyly and introduced herself, Sally following on and insisting on a ‘kissee’.

Liam lifted her up into Ella’s arms. ‘Sally, this is your Auntie Ella.’

The plump arms went around her neck, and she couldn’t resist burying her face in the soft curling fair hair and baby skin.

‘She’s so beautiful Liam, they both are. You and Carmel are lucky.’

‘Lucky! I wouldn’t call myself lucky,’ he said gently, his eyes meeting hers.

‘I’m sorry, Liam, about Carmel, I truly am.’

‘I believe you went to visit her. Thank you for that, Ella. I appreciate it.’

They stood there in the midst of the rest of the family, too proud to say too much to each other, Sally putting her arms out for her daddy.

Santa had come that morning to Fintra and Mary told them exactly what everybody had in their stocking. There were more presents under the tree and the little girls tore at the wrapping paper, squealing with excitement at the dolls she’d bought them and the colouring books and jigsaws that Kitty had purchased in Pim’s.

Uncle Jack said grace and they all crowded around the two tables that had been pushed together as Aunt Nance served the dinner. Ella ate so much she thought that she’d burst, and laughed to see Kitty’s face, guessing that she’d stolen an extra glass or two of sherry in the kitchen while she was helping her mother. Thankfully Liam was the far end of the table sandwiched between her uncle and Slaney, so she was able to avoid getting into deeper conversation with him. The minute the pudding was served and the meal was over Liam had made his excuses to leave as he was driving up to see Carmel and bringing the girls with him. They hadn’t seen their mother for months and Carmel would be in a state waiting for them.

Ella watched as he wrapped them in their coats, buttoning them up well, checking each had her mittens and tucking hair in under
knitted
caps, before leaving the house. Aunt Nance had followed them out to the hall and had a gift ready-wrapped for Carmel, and a pudding in a bowl for herself and the patients to share.

While Liam was thanking her Ella showed the girls the wooden crib that Uncle Jack had carved when he was a young boy. Mary had picked up a little sheep, cradling it in her hand. It had been a favourite of Ella’s too when she was a small girl, and she said nothing when Mary slipped it into her pocket, not wanting to give it back. She was sure Uncle Jack would understand her little niece borrowing it.

‘Take care, Liam, and give Carmel all our love, and tell her we’re all praying for her.’ Aunt Nance clutched him to her large chest and hugged him tightly. Ella, more reserved, kissed him lightly on the cheek. He had made absolutely no mention of her visiting home or seeing the girls again and she in turn had not asked.

The rest of the Christmas Day continued with Marianne organizing charades from the Hollywood movies, everyone guessing the wrong answers, and shouting out of turn, and Slaney getting everyone to tell spooky Christmas ghost stories before they went to bed.

Tom surprised Kitty by arriving down unexpectedly on Stephen’s Day. Uncle Jack and Aunt Nance made a great fuss of him and Slaney
declared
‘He was a fine thing!’ Ella wished that Mac wasn’t so far away and could be here with the Kavanaghs too. On the way back, the next day, Tom had stopped off in Oldcastle so the three of them could visit Carmel.

‘The girls are beautiful, Carmel. They’re a credit to you and Liam,’ Ella said sincerely, glad to see her sister-in-law looking much brighter and noticing the little sheep perched on the side of her locker.

‘They were as cute as kittens on Christmas Day in their dresses. We’re all mad out about them Carmel, you know that!’ confided Kitty, sitting down near her.

Carmel sat up in the bed, coughing slightly. ‘Tell your mother thanks for inviting them and Liam to your place for Christmas dinner. Your mother is a good kind woman, Kitty.’

‘We all know that, Mammy’s the best. Anyways you can tell her yourself next week when she comes to visit you, Carmel.’

‘When will you be going home?’ Tom asked politely from the far end of the bed.

‘After the cold spell. The doctors say I’m much improving and they’ll let me home real soon.’

Ella dozed in the back of the car as Kitty and Tom chatted, glad to see that the up and down and on and off stage of their relationship seemed to be calming down, with Kitty finally content to be a one-man woman.

The flat was icy when they got back to Merrion Square. Gretta was away in Cork and Lesley the nurse who was sharing the room with her must be on duty.

‘Light the fire Ella, before we fecking freeze,’ bossed Kitty. ‘We’re back in Dublin now!’

Dublin 1958

Chapter Twenty-nine

MAC TOLD HER
in January that he’d been transferred. The bank was sending him to work in their branch up in Ballymena and he’d be moving back up North in less than two weeks’ time. Ella couldn’t take it in or believe it. She couldn’t even begin to imagine her life without him.

‘They can’t just do that Mac! They can’t! What about us?’

‘There’ll still be us!’ he laughed, rubbing the tops of her arms. I’ll come down at weekends to Dublin and you’ll come up North some weekends to me.’

‘I have to work on Saturdays in the shop, Mac, you know that.’

‘It will sort out, Ella. I know it will. Bank staff are always being transferred and everyone survives it. Things will be a bit more difficult for a while, that’s all.’

‘Could you not just tell them you want to stay in Dublin?’ she argued.

‘Are you mad, Ella? This is a promotion! The bank is my career, so for the moment I go where they tell me, like it or not. Anyway, Ballymena is a good town, my father says there are all kinds of new business developments there and lots of house-building, so maybe I’ll be able to afford to rent or buy a house there with my increase in salary.’

Even with an increase in salary, she didn’t like it, not one little bit. She feared what might happen if Mac was not around; she did not want him to go and leave her. Promotion or not, Mac shouldn’t have accepted the bank’s offer without talking to her about the consequences for their relationship.

Terri’s baby was born at the end of January. Terri looked exhausted and pale in Holles Street Hospital when they went to visit her. Bill, choked with emotion, held his newborn son in the crook of his arm for them all to see, proud of his wife and baby as he gave them a blow by blow account of their hospital dash.

Ella was filled with envy seeing the two of them with their child, wondering what lay ahead for herself and Mac.

Mac made the move back up North, Frank being good enough to tell him he could sleep on the couch in the old flat whenever he was in Dublin. For the first month he was back down religiously, going out to dinner with her and taking her
dancing
and making up for not seeing her during the week. Her body ached for him and Kitty and Tom went off to watch a rugby match in the rain in order to give them a chance to truly be together, Ella crying and clinging to him when the time came for him to leave.

‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder,’ Gretta consoled her, ‘and Mac will realize just how much he misses you too!’

February brought ice and sleet and hail, and although Mac phoned her, the weather was too bad to travel. He had an awful cold and fever by the sound of it and she comforted herself with the thought of him sitting at a fire with a hot drink on his own reading the papers.

At Easter she managed to persuade Leo to give her a few days off from the shop and was thrilled with the thought of spending them with Mac. She got the train to Belfast and the two of them nearly made a disgrace of themselves at the station. Mac kept telling her how much he missed her and loved her, and she tried to console herself that even though he had to work during the day at least they had the evenings together. She was bored hanging around Ballymena waiting for him and walked all over the town getting to know it. Mac was already part of the community; there, people stopped to say hello to him in the street and greet him while she felt a total outsider.

‘You’ll get to know them Ella, just give them time.’

He was staying in a digs around the corner from the bank and she had to stay in a small local hotel close by. After work he drove her out by a building site where he told her he had paid a deposit down on a three-bedroom home with a garage that was being built.

‘It should be ready in the autumn,’ he proudly declared. Ella felt annoyed that he hadn’t even discussed the purchase with her.

‘Why didn’t you tell me about the house, Mac?’ she demanded.

‘I wanted to surprise you, anyway it’s a good investment. Paying money out for digs is a waste and I’ll likely be working here for the next few years, so a place of my own will be great.’

She tried to make the most of her time with him but felt awkward and shy with his new colleagues who left her out of their conversations and talked incessantly about the bank’s treasure hunt and social club. She herself was conscious of the fact that here in the North with Mac she just didn’t fit in. People were polite and civil to her but she was still an outsider.

She noticed Mac missed the next two weekends and when he did come down was apologetic but insisted on bringing Frank and his girlfriend to dinner with them.

She slept in one Sunday missing the Belfast train, and rolled over in the bed asking herself how in God’s name she had not woken when the alarm clock had gone off, imagining Mac waiting
at
the station for her. He had been decidedly cool when she did phone and told her he was going sailing in Bangor the next weekend. She had absolutely no intention of returning to his home town and didn’t know what to say or do about his sailing plans for the summer.

Gretta had tried to talk to her about him but she wasn’t interested in what the other girl thought of their situation, as she was the one who had to deal with it. She had to accept that the stretches between their visits were getting longer and that the old closeness between them seemed to be disappearing. Mac was still the essence of good manners but she suspected he might be seeing someone else.

‘Mac, you’ll be down for my cousin Brian’s wedding in the beginning of August.’ She could tell immediately that he had totally forgotten about it. ‘All my cousins and family will be there, Mac, they’re all dying to meet you and it’s about time you saw Rathmullen and Kilgarvan, the places that I grew up.’

‘I’m sorry, Ella. I can’t make it to the wedding.’

‘Can’t make it, Mac?’

‘I’m sailing that weekend in the Bangor Cup.’

‘Feck the bloody Bangor Cup! You told me that you’d come with me to Brian’s wedding Mac, you know you did!’

‘I’m sorry, Ella! I can’t.’