Christmas Wish (16 page)

‘Do you know I’ve seen little of Ireland, let alone America?’

‘America is bigger. A lot bigger. Come on, Patrick. What do you say?’ Her tone was demanding.

‘What would I get in America that I don’t have here?’ he said, shrugging his shoulders in that nonchalant manner of his, his brandy brown hair falling across his eyes.

Venetia looked as though she might stab him with her eyes alone.

‘Me for a start, Patrick Casey.’

‘Then, don’t go.’

He took his eyes off the road for a moment to look at her. She was well worth looking at and he could honestly say he’d seen a lot more of Venetia Brodie than most people.

‘Are you stupid or something, Patrick, wanting to stay here all your life? I certainly don’t want to stay in this dump. What you want to do is up to you, you’re a free man for all that, but if you loved me as you say you do, you would come. No question about it!’

She badly wanted him to change his mind and come. Having just her sister for company was not enough. Even now Anna Marie was looking at her goggle eyed having heard Venetia mention the words Patrick and love in the same sentence.

The truth of the matter was that without Patrick coming with her, she was having second thoughts. Getting on a ship going to New York was exciting but also daunting. She’d only been on the sea once before when her father had first brought her and Anna Marie over from England. Neither of them had wanted to come. Neither of them had wanted to leave their sister Magda.

Whilst their mother was ill and even after her death, their older sister had done her best to look after them. Only three
years between them, yet it had seemed as though Magda was more like ten years older.

‘Your gran and yer granfer are going to give you hell when they find out you’ve run away,’ warned Patrick.

Anna Marie turned visibly pale. ‘Perhaps we should go back …’

‘Nonsense.’ Venetia was tidying her hair in the lorry’s rear-view mirror, running her fingers through the thick, dark locks. ‘They’re old fashioned,’ she said as she smeared lipstick onto her lips, lipstick she’d kept hidden in the chamber pot beneath the bed during the day and under her pillow at night. Thankfully it was never discovered.

‘The thing is that we’ve left school and should be allowed to do what we want in life. All they want me and Anna Marie to do is help around the farm.’

‘I don’t mind helping,’ said Anna Marie timidly.

Venetia ignored her and carried on with her criticism of the people who’d looked after them for seven years.

‘The animals stink. Especially the chickens with all that poo around their backsides. Even the eggs are tarnished with it.’

‘Venetia, the animals can’t help …’

‘You’re a silly goose, Anna Marie. But it’s not just the animals. It’s being forced to go to mass three times a week. I mean, what’s the point and how do we know God even exists?’

‘It’s about belief …’

‘Belief my ass. If there was a God, he wouldn’t have taken our mother and split up the family!’

Anna Marie sucked in her breath. ‘You shouldn’t say that word, Venetia. It’s rude.’

‘Ass, ass, ass.’

It was obvious from Venetia’s expression that she was enjoying teasing her sister.

‘Good job Granfer can’t hear you,’ said her sister whilst Patrick, who was used to cussing, kept his attention on the road. ‘You know what happened the last time you remarked that God was dead.’

Venetia nodded. ‘Aye. Got me mouth washed out with soap and water for my pains. And confession three times a week. Though I still believe what I said,’ she imparted to her sister. ‘If God cared that much, he wouldn’t have taken our mother or parted us from our sister and brother.’

Anna Marie hissed at her to keep her voice down. ‘And you never mention our father in yer prayers,’ she added.

‘Might already be dead,’ snapped Venetia, wishing her sister would stop reminding her of the past and fix her thoughts on the future.

As the lorry bumped and rattled along the road to Queenstown, Venetia tried to remember what her father looked like. It had been at least two years since his last visit. As usual he’d made all the sweet promises about coming back with presents and taking them off to see Magda, and even Michael if they’d a mind to.

He’d charmed his daughters, but not his parents. His mother had looked at him with a mix of love and rebuke. His father had narrowed his eyes, growled and asked, ‘What have you come back for?’

Later she’d seen them in the barn together, not looking the way father should look at son or son look at father. They were squared up as though about to exchange blows. In the morning Joseph Brodie was gone.

As usual it had hurt badly when he’d failed to keep his promise. Their father was their only link to the past – not that Anna Marie seemed to care so much for him as Venetia did. Venetia, like her mother before her, could forgive him everything.

The blame, Venetia decided, was with her grandparents for shouting at him the time before that when he’d come home
unannounced. They’d called him shiftless, unreliable and self-centred. He’d laughed off their accusations, but she knew, or at least thought she did, that he’d been hurt. He was that kind of man, a bit like Patrick, with his dark hair and blue eyes – Spanish complexion they called it.

All the way, Venetia tried to persuade Patrick to go with them. He’d laughed and been pleasant enough, but wouldn’t budge. He was not going and that was that.

‘Ah, but you’ll change your mind when we get to Queenstown and see the shiny sea,’ she told him.

In response he grinned and shook his head. ‘You’ll make somebody a nagging wife, Venetia Brodie, and that’s for sure.’

‘Yes,’ she said, smiling at him. ‘Worth it though, ’cause I’d make up for the nagging in other ways.’

She saw his grin widen and hope that he’d be the one she’d marry surged in her heart.

The sight of Queenstown with its big houses, busy streets and the smell of the sea fair took Venetia’s breath away.

Anna Marie was also excited, hanging out of the open window, her pale brown hair blowing in tendrils across her face.

‘Will you look at all this now? Have you ever seen such a grand place?’

‘Of course I have,’ snapped her sister. ‘This is grand enough, though not as grand as London.’

‘Oh come on, Venetia. You can’t remember London. We were only little.’

Anna Marie’s laughter was as bright and bubbly as a brook flowing over moss-covered stones and very surprising. Up until now leaving home hadn’t sat well with her but the sight of the sea had.

Out of the corner of her eye Venetia caught Patrick eyeing her sister with interest. It hurt.

‘Queenstown is grand enough, though I wouldn’t mind going to London,’ he said to her. ‘Though only once I’ve had my fill of Ireland.’

The lorry grated to a stop outside the dockyard gates. ‘There’s the dock and all the fine ships. That’s where you’ll find them,’ said Patrick, nodding in the direction of brick buildings and towering cranes. ‘Now come on. Get on yer way. I’ve got a long drive back home and can’t be hanging around here.’

His manner was chirpy, his eyes brilliant and Venetia found herself feeling less enthusiastic about leaving to build a new life.

After springing out of the driver’s side, Patrick passed across the bull-nosed front of the lorry and opened the passenger side door.

Gripping Anna Marie’s trim waist with his huge hands, he swung her down from the cab first.

‘Why, yer light as a feather,’ he said to her.

Anna Marie blushed when he held her a little too close for a little too long.

‘Are you forgetting the girl you said you’d love forever?’ Venetia’s tone was confident, though underneath she was a little piqued that he hadn’t rushed to help her down from the cab.

His wide grin and the twinkle in his eyes was reassuring as he turned back to help her down.

‘As if I could ever forget you.’

The kiss he gave her and the way he hugged her close against his body allayed her fears. Patrick Casey was still hers and hers alone. She wound her arms around him and felt the warmth beneath his coat.

There was nothing in his attentions to Anna Marie. No need to get jealous, she told herself. Anna Marie is scared of going on that boat and he’s just trying to reassure her.

‘You’ve noticed she’s a bit nervous about all this,’ she whispered into his ear.

‘I did,’ he murmured back, his arms still enveloping her.

‘She read about the
Titanic
and all those people drowning.’

‘You’ll be fine,’ he whispered and kissed her again.

Once their lips parted, she glanced over at her sister, thinking that she would be eyeing her jealously. Instead she saw she wasn’t looking their way at all, but stood there, bag clutched with both hands in front of her and staring down at her feet until the two of them had finished.

My, but I’m going to miss him, thought Venetia. She looked up into Patrick’s face, feeling desperate for him to change his mind. ‘Come with me, Patrick. Please.’

He laughed. ‘I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t leave me old dad without somebody to drive the lorry. I’m the only one who can.’

She knew it wasn’t strictly true, that both his father and his younger brother could drive, though his father preferred to drive a horse and his brother was only twelve years old.

Venetia chose to believe him. He was torn between his family and her. She couldn’t blame him for that, could she?

‘When I make my fortune I’ll come back and buy you a bigger and better lorry,’ she told him.

‘I’ll look forward to it.’

Once she knew for certain that they’d finished hugging and kissing, Anna Marie came and stood by her side.

Together they watched Patrick insert the starting handle into the surly beast, turning it again and again before the cranky engine spurted into life.

‘Behave yourself, girls,’ he shouted, then with a wave he was up into the cab and gone.

Venetia brushed a tear from her eye and stood there watching the spluttering, banging old lorry belch out smoke until
there was only smoke left. Both the lorry and Patrick were gone.

‘So now what?’ asked Anna Marie.

Her sister sniffed, straightened and thrust forward her stalwart chin.

‘We get a job on a boat.’

‘What if we can’t?’

‘Then we get on the boat anyway – and hope that nobody sees us.’

Magda followed Winnie into her private rooms. It was not the first time she’d been in here, but it wasn’t as it was before. Tea chests overflowed with items that had filled cupboards or sat inside Winnie’s glass-fronted cabinet.

‘You’re leaving?’

‘I’m not the woman I was.’

‘Your leg’s worse?’

Winnie’s face sagged, the corners of her eyes and lips down-turned, her flesh seemingly too weary to cling to her bones.

‘It’s more than that.’

She gestured to one of the chairs on which were a pile of books. ‘If you’d like to remove those …’

She slumped into a chair, both hands on her walking stick as Magda lifted the books with slim fingers, placing them gently but firmly on top of another pile.

What was it about this girl that made her think of her own dead child? She’d had other girls here as disadvantaged as Magda and not felt so inclined towards them.

‘I take it your aunt’s been up to her old tricks,’ said Winnie.

‘If you mean she’s been drinking and shouting and yelling all around the house, then yes. She won’t let me have my mother’s Bible and tells me such lies about it. First she says it’s locked away in a cupboard that Uncle James made, and quite honestly I hate to destroy anything he made, the poor man. She led him a terrible life. No wonder he stayed at sea. And now he’s dead. Then she tells me she sold the Bible, and then she says she pawned it, and now she says she threw it on the fire.’

Winnie eyed her steadfastly, her grey hair neatly packed into a black net snood, a necklace of mauve beads at her throat.

‘And which do you believe?’

Magda tapped the fingers of one hand on top of the other.

‘I think it’s still there in that cupboard. I think the only way I can get it is if I pay her for it. I don’t know how much she wants, but …’ Her shoulders hunched then fell when she sighed. ‘Knowing my aunt it won’t be for pennies. She’ll take everything I have, that is the little I’ve saved from my wages.’

‘How old are you, child?’

‘Eighteen.’

A feeling like the thrust of a knife pierced Winnie’s heart. Her daughter would have been Magda’s age – had she lived – had Reuben Fitts not insisted she get rid of it and get back to work. On her back. With him taking the biggest cut of the money.

Only the fact that she had nearly died had made him relent and pay her for her troubles – and the fact that his mother had interfered and told him to do the best for her seeing as the experience had left her crippled.

So he’d given her money, set her up to run this place. Not that she’d done too badly, but the time had come to get out.

Whilst she sat there, contemplative and thinking thoughts
she’d never thought to think, Magda’s eyes swept over the disruption.

‘I’m leaving this place,’ Winnie explained. ‘I’m too old and too sick to carry on. It’s time I retired.’

Magda looked at her in alarm. ‘But if you’re not here, how can I stay here?’

‘You can come with me. I’d like that, but only if you’re going to the interview.’

Magda eyed her resolutely. ‘If I can.’

‘Is it really what you want?’

Magda looked down at the floor whilst she thought about it.

‘My mother died because she couldn’t afford a doctor. By the time she got to one, it was too late.’

‘Your mother. Of course. It’s not going to be easy. Most doctors are men, but there are far more women doctors than there used to be. The Great War’s mostly to thank for that. First they were not welcome, then they couldn’t get enough. And once it was over, there was a big gap where men used to be and they began crying out for doctors no matter whether male or female. That’s as I understand it anyways.’

‘Women doctors would be better at helping women.’ Magda looked into the glowing coals in the fireplace. ‘I saw my mother cough up blood. I heard Gertie screaming. Emily said the doctor took a long time coming and then only came when he was paid double the fee. I wouldn’t do that. I
couldn’t
do that.’