Christmas Wish (28 page)

Just before their lips pressed together, Patrick said, ‘You’re a very clever girl, Venetia, throwing that note into the back of the truck.’

‘I know.’

It was Monday afternoon and Anna Marie was helping to hang out washing that her grandmother had beaten and bashed into whiteness.

The sheets cracked in the breeze and those items that should have shown some colour were almost white. Grandma Brodie prided herself on the whiteness of her washing even if it did mean boiling out the colour in the big old copper that sat above a brazier in the outhouse.

Anna Marie found the smell of fresh laundry enticing and buried her face into a sheet. The sheets fluttered like clouds that might float away in the sky if they weren’t fixed with pegs.

‘Lovely smell,’ she murmured.

‘Will you stop wiping your nose in my washing,’ said her grandmother whilst wrestling with a patchwork quilt that she had high hopes of drying on a breezy day such as this.

‘It’s a lovely day,’ she said on coming out from behind the sheet.

Her grandmother responded that indeed it was. Enough to bring a smile to any face.

Anna Marie’s smile froze on noticing that her grandfather was harnessing the grey pony to the small cart that he’d made himself and dared to call a gig.

She recalled Venetia saying that gig was short for giggle. ‘That’s what it makes you do – giggle,’ she’d remarked – out of earshot of course.

‘Where’s Grandfather off to so early in the afternoon?’

She asked the question casually as though merely curious as to his destination. The truth was that she knew that her sister darted off early from cleaning the priest’s house.

Still determined to control his granddaughters’ lives, Dermot Brodie collected Venetia from the rectory on the days she was cleaning there.

Anna Marie was privy to the truth.

Molly Brodie, three wooden pegs hanging like teeth from the front of her mouth, went back to hanging out her laundry.

‘Into town. He’s off to pay Roger Casey for the wall he built for us. By the time he’s finished there, it’ll be time for him to fetch your sister. She’ll be finished by then and even if she’s not, he can doze while he waits in the gig. It won’t hurt him at his age.’

Anna Marie stood frozen to the spot. The more positive side of her character advised her not to worry. The more instinctive side was curling around inside her like a cat that’s backed into a corner.

Both the positive and negative slugged it out until she found herself breathing deeply as she reassured herself that all would be well.

There’s no reason why it shouldn’t be, she told herself. By the time he meets Roger Casey, joins him in a pot of tea or even something a little stronger, Venetia will be where she should be, waiting for him where she should be waiting.

Besides, he and Mr Casey could talk the hind leg off a donkey whilst slugging back a whiskey. Only after that would he get round to picking Venetia up from the leafy lane a hundred yards along from the entrance to the rectory.

She was reassured, but only for a moment. Everything depended on where Venetia and Patrick happened to be parked. The lorry, her sister had told her, was their little love nest. She’d also told her their favourite place.

All she hoped was that her grandfather wouldn’t see the lorry pulled into a leafy glade just off the road into town. Best if they were parked on the other side of town out of the way. That’s where she hoped they would be; that’s what Venetia had told her.

She bit her lip and felt hugely worried. Venetia didn’t always tell the truth.

‘Kiss me again before I put me knickers back on,’ said Venetia through over-kissed lips. ‘Then I’ll tell you all about what we’ll do when we get to America.’

Patrick’s passion abated at mention of leaving home and he tried his best not to pull a face. Venetia’s charms were the stuff of dreams and although he had a soft spot for her sister, Anna Marie, he gave in easily to temptation. And Venetia was extremely tempting.

Venetia was his downfall. He’d do anything she wanted him to do – especially on the physical front. But this dream she had of going to America – well – that was a different matter.

Suddenly she noticed that he was finding it difficult to meet her eyes.

‘Well? Are you coming with me this time, or not?’

He scratched his head. He always scratched his head when he had a big load of thinking to do.

‘That’s a big decision – going to America. I’m not sure it would suit me. I’ve me father to think about. I’m all he’s got since me mother passed over.’

‘You can’t stay with him forever. You’re not a boy any longer, now are you? You’re a man. The man I want beside me for the rest of my days. And nights.’ She uttered the last two words whilst smiling and tracing circles over his bare chest. ‘Just think of those nights,’ she added seductively.

He was thinking of them. She could tell he was. His lower lip hung loose and his eyes were fixed on her bare breasts rather than on her face. Despite his loose lips he couldn’t say a word.

Venetia cupped his face in her hands and jerked him round to face her.

‘Look into my eyes and promise me we’ll go to America together or I’ll cover myself up right now!’

Leaving go of his face she flipped the edges of her open blouse over her breasts.

‘Oh, don’t do that …’

His fingers barely had chance to brush her bare breasts before the door of the lorry was hauled open and all hell let loose.

Venetia screamed as Patrick was pulled away from her. A pair of strong hands had hooked into his shoulders and pulled him out head first, his shirt hiked up to his chest, his unbuttoned trousers falling down to his ankles as his ass hit the hard road with a thud that made him cry out.

‘Jesus!’

‘Never mind Jesus! ’Tis me, boy, that you’re answering to!’ shouted Dermot Brodie as he yanked the boy to his feet.

Grandfather!

Venetia fought to cover herself up, but the buttons seemed to have acquired a life of their own, the buttonholes not seeming to be in the same places they had been.

Fumbling at her buttons, she thought ominous thoughts; someone must have told him, she decided. Someone must have told her grandfather where she would be at this time of the afternoon – certainly not cleaning the house of that pompous
priest! To her mind there was only one person who could have told on her, who knew one of the places she was likely to be. Anna Marie. It had to be.

Dermot Brodie’s voice was as big as his hands and his movements were swift. Holding fast onto Patrick’s collar, he flung him round then slammed him against the side of the lorry.

‘Ya scum,’ he shouted, slapping the boy on both sides of his face.

Patrick looked as scared as a rabbit facing a gun, clinging on grimly to his trousers, which he’d managed to pull up. Even when Dermot did let go of him, he was too scared to move.

Venetia cowered in the lorry, fighting to make the buttonholes work with the buttons, but her fingers had turned to sausages and the buttons were still at odds with the holes. It was as though they’d had a quarrel and one had no wish to know the other.

‘Sir. I’m sorry. But the devil made me do it. I was tempted and couldn’t resist. Just like Adam I was, sir. Just like Adam when Eve offered him that apple!’

With a sinking feeling, Venetia covered her face with both hands. She murmured Patrick’s name over and over again. How could he deny her like that? How cruel! A startling truth that she’d tried ignoring suddenly came to her; this wasn’t the first time he’d betrayed her.

‘And as for you …’

Her grandfather’s big square shoulders filled the open door. Feeling totally helpless, she cringed beneath his thunderous countenance. There was pure disgust and outright anger, both hinting at a promise of the thrashing to come.

‘Look at you! Half naked and acting the part of the whore. Harlot!’

Venetia’s glossy hair swung around her face as she shook her head emphatically.

‘No! I’m not a harlot! We’re going to get married. We love each other and then, once we’re married, we’re leaving this miserable place and we’re off to America. That’s for sure!’

From what Patrick had just told her grandfather, it didn’t sound that way at all, but she had to hope. She had to dream.

‘Is that so?’ Dermot Brodie growled the words. At the same time his white brows dipped together like a pair of broken crows’ wings. ‘Well, until that happens you’re living under my roof, you’ll stay under my roof and you’ll not go out unless it’s with my say so. And that’s for sure on my part!’

She gasped when he pulled her out by the hair. Her hands flew away from her blouse and to her head in an effort to assuage the pain.

On sight of her breasts, her grandfather swore. ‘Holy Mother, forgive me.’

Suddenly she remembered her knickers. God forbid that he found out she was wearing none.

Neither God nor fate was on her side. Her knickers fell to the ground behind her; her grandfather’s eyes widened when he saw them. For a moment he seemed to curl into himself, like a volcano that’s about to explode.

The slap that landed on her cheek sent her hurtling backwards against the bull-nosed bonnet of the ex-army lorry, her legs buckling beneath her.

With a heavy thud that bruised her bare buttocks, she ended up splayed on the running board, her head spinning and stars dancing in front of her eyes.

A warning finger, stained with the dirt of Ireland and the nicotine of cheap cigarettes, waved in front of her face.

‘I promise that this is the last time you’ll play the Jezebel. Wait till I get you home, my girl. You’ll rue the day you were born.’

Feeling numb and frightened – not that she’d ever admit to the latter, Venetia sat on the side of the bed, which was nearest the window. From here she had a good view of the yard, the stone barns with their slate roofs, the hens scratching in the weeds and the green fields beyond the wooden fences.

The far side of the first field was bordered with stunted thorn trees that provided shelter for birds and the small creatures living around their roots.

The sun was doing its best to peek out from behind a bank of grey cloud. When it did break through, pennies of sunlight dappled the trees, the buildings and the pastures.

Not that Venetia was quite taking it in. Neither did she quite believe that she wouldn’t be seeing the same tired old scene for some time. Not that she was really seeing it or thinking much about it. She had other things on her mind. Her world was about to change and she was scared.

She’d heard her grandfather tell her grandmother that it was sure to rain later. In response her grandmother told Anna Marie to go out and get the washing in.

Anna Marie had told him about the secret place in the wood.

Her sister had protested that she’d done no such thing,
but it was too much to believe that it had happened by pure chance.

‘Oh, Neesh, why do you have to be so?’

‘You’re jealous,’ Venetia had muttered from beneath the bedclothes and refused to speak to her ever again.

The sound of her grandfather’s voice boomed from the kitchen, loud enough to break eardrums if she’d been close by. But she wasn’t close by. She was up in her room waiting for the moment she dreaded and, anyway, even when her grandfather was close at hand, he never spoke to her. The taciturn man who spoke sparingly had not said a word to her since the day he’d found her with Patrick Casey. It was as if she didn’t exist.

She turned her gaze slowly from the window to the battered brown suitcase sitting on the floor at the end of the bed. That same suitcase had been packed with her belongings for the trip to America. But she wasn’t going to America now. Far from it.

Her eyes filled with tears and she swallowed hard. The prospect of leaving the Loskeran Bridge Farm was harder than she’d ever thought possible.

Last night Anna Marie had tried to make it up with her.

‘It wasn’t me. Honest it wasn’t. Granfer just happened by. That’s all.’

Venetia had remained silent, her hands behind her head, staring at the ceiling. She thought she heard snuffles that might have been sobs from the direction of her sister’s bed.

‘I can’t believe you’re going,’ Anna Marie said at last as the old house creaked around them. ‘I’ll miss you. Honestly I will.’

Venetia was unforgiving. ‘Is that so? I thought that was what you wanted. Me out of the way so you could have Patrick to yourself.’

‘That’s not true!’

Venetia could not bring herself to believe her. She was
hurting and somebody had to bear the blame. Her sister was first in line for that.

‘I said nothing.’

Venetia turned on her side, pulled the bedclothes up to her chin and didn’t answer. The future scared her. She was going away. She’d said brave words in front of the family.

‘Well, it’s time I found my own way in the world. St Bernadette’s is as good a place to start as anywhere, I suppose.’

She wasn’t feeling brave. On the contrary she was frightened.

There was no sisterly conversation, conducted in whispers in a darkened room. Only an echoing silence and the knowledge that neither of them was asleep.

Anna Marie had been instructed to stay out of the way today, the most terrible of days.

Venetia had not shown any reaction when told she’d been declared out of control and enrolled with the sisters at St Bernadette’s.

‘There you will learn general housewifery and domestic science with a view to a placement in service with a suitable family in Dublin or Cork – even in London. Distance matters,’ Father Anthony declared, the man responsible for making the suggestion.

Their grandparents regarded him with great respect and remarked how wise he was for one so young. They were also apologetic about Venetia’s behaviour. To think that she’d left the priest’s house to fornicate – for they were sure she had.

Father Anthony had condemned Venetia for her behaviour, but accepted Molly and Dermot’s apologies and their plea for his advice.

The priest prided himself on his social connections, dropping names here and there that sounded grand, though the
Brodies wouldn’t know them at all. They merely accepted their place in life and that he knew better than them.