Christmas Wish (18 page)

‘I take it our friend Reuben Fitts has no interest in the girl.’

Winnie shook her head a little too abruptly. ‘No. He does not.’

‘It’s dusty under here. I’m going to sneeze,’ whispered Anna Marie Brodie, her hand clamped over her nose.

‘Don’t you dare!’ her sister hissed back.

‘I can’t help it.’

‘Try and concentrate on our future. We’ve done enough work on the farm. I would never have left school if I’d thought that all I would do was pluck and draw chickens, and salt bacon for the next two years.’

‘I’m scared,’ said Anna Marie, wishing she hadn’t been talked into this hare-brained scheme in the first place. She had been quite content to work on the farm. Venetia, however, was headstrong, wild and persuasive.

‘I’m going to sneeze again,’ she murmured.

Venetia clamped her hand over her sister’s mouth, but the sneeze came out anyway – just as somebody entered the cabin.

First they saw a pair of polished black shoes.

‘Out from there, whoever you are,’ shouted an angry male voice.

They crawled out to find themselves looking up at the
enormous belly of Chief Steward Kevin McCall. Once they were standing, they found themselves looking over the big belly to the red beard that hid the lower half of his face.

It was his job to accompany Mrs Brennan, the housekeeper, to check cabins and state rooms for cleanliness before passengers for the ‘Northern Star’ arrived for the trans-Atlantic voyage.

He’d eaten too much liver and onions at lunchtime and could still taste the onions. As a consequence the wind in his stomach was causing him pain, and in consequence of that he wanted to let wind – from either end. As a man of some status on board, he couldn’t possibly do that in front of Mrs Brennan. He’d hoped to get the inspection finished in record time. Finding two stowaways served to make his stomach lurch and his temper short.

‘Mrs Brennan. Will you please send for the police?’

Mrs Brennan obeyed immediately, out of the door so fast it was as though there were a mutilated corpse in the cabin rather than two young girls robbed of their dream.

Small piggy eyes formed the focus point of a glowering expression.

‘Turn out your pockets!’

His voice was like thunder.

Anna Marie obeyed immediately, but not so Venetia. Her dream was in tatters.

‘We got nothing in our pockets,’ she said defiantly.

The piggy eyes almost vanished above ballooning cheeks as he fought to hold back his wind.

Seeing that the contents of their pockets came to no more than a handkerchief in one and a few pennies in the other, he turned his attention to their suitcases.

‘What’s in the case?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Open it.’

Venetia frowned. ‘Are you the sort of man who likes to see young women’s underwear?’

‘Open it!’

Venetia shook her head. ‘No,’ she declared hotly. ‘You’re not a policeman. You’ve no right looking in my case. Anyways, we wanted passage to America. We want a job. We can clean the cabins, look after the guests. Can clean them better than the cleaners you’ve got now. They’ve left fluff under the bed. That’s why Anna Marie sneezed.’

Kevin McCall growled and sucked on his beard. It felt as though his guts were about to explode.

‘I’ve no time for this,’ he snapped.

They were locked in a crew cabin to await the arrival of the police.

Venetia sat on her suitcase, her arms entwined around her knees.

Anna Marie was pacing up and down, her blue eyes looking extra large in her paler than pale face.

‘They’ll put us in prison.’

‘Don’t be stupid. All we did was hide in a cabin.’

‘That man thought we took something. We might never go home again.’

‘We took nothing, you silly goose,’ Venetia smiled as a wicked thought occurred to her. ‘Mind you, depending whether they still send thieves overseas, we could say that we did. Perhaps we’ll get to America that way.’

The crew cabin they’d been locked in, though built for six, was far smaller than the least of the passenger cabins. Two police constables arrived and filled the room.

Venetia stood up and gave them as fierce a look as they gave her.

Anna Marie crumpled onto the lower bunk of a two-bunk arrangement, her knuckles white with tension.

‘So we’ll be asking you a few questions,’ said one of the policemen.

First they were asked their names. Venetia saw no harm in telling them this, so didn’t throw her sister any of her more threatening looks.

After that, they went through the same questions as Mr McCall who stood out in the corridor behind them.

What were they doing there?

Had they taken anything?

Did they know it was a criminal offence to board a boat without first buying a ticket?

Venetia explained in no uncertain terms that they wanted to get to America and were willing to work their passage. They were not thieves and had not taken anything not belonging to them.

‘Right.’ Both of the policemen turned and began talking with Mr McCall where he stood out in the corridor.

The most senior of the policemen, in age if not in rank, suggested to Mr McCall that, seeing as nothing had been taken, the girls be released.

‘Unless you happen to want more willing hands for the crossing to New York and want to take them on?’

‘Certainly not! I will not give these girls a job on principle. They stole aboard without permission. Besides, I doubt they’re old enough. Cabin stewardesses must be at least eighteen years of age, though we prefer them older. It makes for less trouble. Young girls are trouble!’

‘The cabin was unoccupied you say.’

‘It was.’

‘And nothing was missing?’

‘Not as far as I can tell, but I know their type. I demand you arrest them.’

‘For what?’

‘Trespass.’

The senior policeman, a man with a reddish face and greying hair, eyed the two girls over his shoulder.

‘Hardly worth bothering. Mr McCall, this is not the first case of its type we’ve been called out to, and it won’t be the last. It’s a regular occurrence. The others were let off with a warning. I think the same warning applies here.’

‘I suppose it will make no difference if I insist?’

‘None whatsoever,’ said the first policeman.

‘Then that’s settled, Mr McCall,’ said the second. ‘We’ll take them with us and make sure they get home safely. Wherever home happens to be.’

The police station had been built to resemble a castle, though it had never been such. It was a mere fifty years old, built of grey stone with small windows, which only served to add to its look of invulnerability.

‘So,’ said the sergeant who had brought them in and given them cups of tea, ‘where exactly are you from?’

Anna Marie opened her mouth to answer, but closed it again when Venetia kicked her ankle.

‘Here,’ said Venetia resolutely. ‘From right here.’

She fixed her eyes on a silver button on his tunic hoping the lie would be believed.

However, the sergeant was a local man and knew a country accent when he heard one.

‘No, I don’t think so,’ he said softly. ‘Now just so’s we get this right and you don’t fall into further trouble, tell me the truth of where you’re from and things will go well for you. I might even get you a couple of ginger biscuits to go with that tea. You must be starving.’

‘Dunavon!’ Anna Marie’s eyes were full of tears and neither she nor Venetia had had anything to eat since the night before.

Venetia glared at her sister. ‘I told you to say nothing.’

The police sergeant sighed and shook his head. ‘What you did was a pretty desperate thing, but you must have had good reason to do it. How about you tell me what that reason was?’

Tears were spilling silently from Anna Marie’s eyes and between dabbing at them, she was twisting her handkerchief like she would strangle a rabbit.

‘Our mother died, our family was split up and we’ve left school, but my sister here didn’t want to work on the farm. She doesn’t like the smell of chickens; she thought it would be a good idea to go to America and seek our fortunes. It was her that persuaded me to go with her.’

‘Traitor,’ Venetia hissed.

Anna Marie hissed back. ‘It’s true. You’re the one who wanted to leave.’

Sergeant Beverley controlled the urge to smile. He’d been telling the truth about them not being the first girls wanting to stowaway to America. They were young and foolhardy, but he had to admire their pluck.

‘I would have gone meself when I was younger. Yes, indeed I would. But my mother was widowed and loved me. You can’t just leave those that love you, now can you?’

Anna Marie blew her nose then looked to her sister. Wasn’t she always the one with an answer for everything?

Venetia was staring at the floor, both hands cradling a white china cup.

‘Your grandparents must be very worried.’

Venetia frowned. ‘But we’ve only been away just over a day. How could they know?’

‘Well, somebody told them. Someone who knew where you were.’

The two sisters exchanged a brief glance. Anna Marie’s expression was one of puzzlement but also of relief.

Her sister was far from relieved; in fact she was dismayed
and disbelieving. On reflection she accepted that her first suspicion was right. There was only one person who knew where they’d gone. Patrick Casey!

The Garda informed them that arrangements had been made for them to go home.

‘In style,’ he added. ‘In a motor car no less. And guess who you’re travelling with? Father Anthony, off to take up his appointment as parish priest in your home town. How lucky for you is that?’

They were told to get themselves ready to travel, use the lavatory and take doorsteps of bread and cheese each, with the police station’s compliments.

Father Anthony was waiting for them, sitting in the police station reception area, the green wall behind him almost as dark as his black priest’s robe.

He was sitting with his elbows resting on his knees reading what looked like a prayer book.

Shoving his prayer book in the hidden pocket of his robe, his youthful face visibly hardened as he got to his feet.

‘Ah. The runaways. Shame on you both. The pair of you need horsewhipping. I dare say your grandfather might very well oblige.’

His words coming as they did after the kinder tones of the police sergeant startled Anna Marie and made Venetia wary.

He towered over them, the top half of his body similar in shape to a wedge of cheese, his hips so shallow that at first glance he seemed to have room for only one leg.

Bony cheekbones half hid his eyes so it seemed he was looking at them from over a window ledge. His hair was black and curly. The black moustache looked as though it had been stuck on as an afterthought and plastered in place with wax.

‘I’ll make sure they get home safely,’ he assured the
constabulary in clipped, superior tones. ‘Though it isn’t quite the way I intended introducing myself to the community – returning errant young girls to a farmyard!’

The car was a small Ford with spindly wheels and a boxy, compact look about it.

Riding in Patrick’s father’s old lorry was about the nearest either girl had ever got to riding in a motor car. But a lorry wasn’t a motor car. It was like comparing a donkey cart to a carriage.

‘Hold still,’ the priest ordered.

He sniffed each of them in turn like a dog checking for rats.

At last he seemed satisfied. ‘You seem clean enough and don’t smell of the farmyard you came from, but wipe your shoes before getting in my car. I don’t want you to get it dirty.’

Anna Marie was a picture of submissive humility. Venetia looked as though she wanted to hit him over the head with a large hammer. Her eyes flashed at him.

‘We only live on a farm, Father. We live in a house, not with the pigs.’

‘I don’t care,’ barked Father Anthony, his dark eyes glowing like black coals beneath equally black bushy eyebrows. He turned his back on her, brusquely opening the doors, his movements sharp and premeditated.

‘Get in!’

Even Venetia jumped at his command. Those eyes stayed with her, like she’d always imagined the devil’s eyes would look. Hopefully she would never get to find out.

‘Now,’ he said once they were all in the car, the two girls in the back seat, huddled over their luggage, the priest behind the wheel of the motor car pulling on a pair of tan kid gloves, ‘you will treat this car with the utmost respect. This car belongs to the O’Donnell family, big landowners. They have bought me this vehicle out of the kindness of their hearts and their regard
for Mother Church. I promised I would take good care of it. I cannot have it sullied by filthy hands making sweaty marks upon the leather seats. And try not to breathe on the windows. Now I would thank you to stay silent and reflect upon your wickedness.’

Even though they were in dire circumstances, even though it didn’t bear to think about the welcome they would get when they got home, Venetia was not submissive like her sister.

‘How would you know if we were wicked? You don’t know us,’ she said, her dark eyes blazing, her hair tossing around her face like a black cloud before a storm.

‘Women are wicked. From the time Eve seduced Adam, it has been an incontrovertible fact.’

‘We haven’t been seducing Adam,’ Venetia replied hotly. ‘We just wanted to go to America.’

‘Well, you’re not going to America,’ he stated as he turned the steering wheel, his black eyes seeming to dart everywhere in case some errant sinner – or a tinker in a donkey cart – dared to bar his way. ‘Has it not occurred to you that your thoughtless actions worried your family?’

Anna Marie, already regretting following her sister’s suggestion, hung her head and began to cry.

The priest was unsympathetic. ‘Mop up those tears. You do have a handkerchief I suppose.’

Anna Marie got out the screwed-up mess that was her handkerchief and began dabbing at her eyes.

Tight lipped and boiling with rebellion, Venetia sat stiff and upright staring straight at the back of the priest’s head. The priest had a pink boil at the base of his neck, which she stared at, willing it to burst and seep pus into his white starched collar.