The Grace Girls (21 page)

‘Thanks, Auntie Claire and Uncle Andy!’ Lily said, her gaze flitting from one to the other then falling on her co
usin. ‘Will you open it for me, Heather?’ she said, twistin
g around in the bed to get a good angle from which to watch the present being opened.

The card with Disney characters was passed around for everybody to look at, then Heather carefully took off the ribbon and the pretty outer wrapping and opened the velvet box and held it out for Lily to get a good look at.

‘A locket!’ Lily gasped. Then she noticed the little ticket
in the box. ‘A
real
gold locket!’ She looked at her father wi
th wide, shining eyes. ‘It says it’s eighteen carat gold on it, Daddy – it must have cost a fortune!’ She suddenly gave a giggle. ‘And it’s not even Christmas yet!’

Everybody laughed now and Heather heaved a sigh of grateful relief that Mona hadn’t been there to witness the fuss that was being made of Claire and the expensive gift.

‘All my pals at school will be dead jealous,’ Lily rattled on, as Claire fastened the locket around her thin little neck. ‘They’ll all be wishin’ they caught that polio as well, when they see all the stuff everybody’s gave me!’

There was an awkward pause, which Lily didn’t even notice in her excitement, where Pat found a huge lump coming into his throat. ‘I’m just
goin’ out to see your mammy, darlin’,’ he told her hoarsely, moisture glistening at the side of his eyes. ‘We’ll be back in a few minutes.’

For another ten minutes or so, Heather and her mother and father and Claire and her husband sat chatting and laughing with Lily, and then Claire looked at the delicate watch on her slim wrist.

‘I think,’ she said to Andy, ‘that it’s time we headed off, and let the family have some time on their own with Lily.’

‘Whatever you like now,’ Andy said, giving a quick smile and casting a glance towards the bottom of the ward. There was still no sign of Mona or Pat returning.

Claire stood up and started fastening the buttons on her fur-collared coat. ‘I’ll make sure we don’t take so long to come and see you next time, pet,’ she told Lily. ‘And we might come out to Rowanhill to see you when you get out of hospital.’

‘You and Andy are welcome at our house any time, Claire,’ Fintan said, standing up to see them off.

‘And always remember you and yours are welcome at our house,’ Andy said, his face and tone suddenly serious. He pressed a small white business card into Fintan’s hand. ‘That has the house and my work’s phone number on it. Phone any time you or the girls want to come out to visit us or stay the night.’

The atmosphere in the car on the way home was as frosty as the clear night turned out to be – the three women in the back seat and the two men in the front.

‘The blidey cheek of them!’ Mona muttered several tim
es in a row, obviously expecting some kind of a response, but no one in the car was forthcoming. Eventually,
she could stand the silence no longer and went full steam ahead venting her anger.

‘Turning up at the hospital like Lord and Lady Muck . . .
looking down on the rest of us from a great height. That Claire was always the same, but you’d think she could have found an uppity type amongst her own kind. There’s plenty of teachers and well-educated fellas around that would have suited her – but oh, no! Why she had to put the nail in the coffin by marryin’ that grey-headed oul’ Protestant yoke that’s old enough to be her father, I’ll never know.’ She halted to take a breath. ‘She’s made a holy show of the whole Grace family . . . I’m squirmin’ every time I’m at a meeting of the Catholic Mothers or the Parish Council in case anybody asks me how she is. And then she has the cheek to turn up at the hospital as large as life with that oul’ Church of Scotland relic along with her.’

‘Give it a rest, Mona,’ Fintan said from the front seat, ‘you’ve had your say now.’

Heather was squashed between her hefty aunt and her mother in the back seat, with her hand pressed firmly against her mouth. Never had she seen Mona in such an ag
itated, angry mood – and she dreaded where it was going
to finish. There were often disagreements and atmosphere
s between her mother and aunt, but they had never been as vicious as this one-sided tirade.

Mona made a loud indignant-sounding grunt and then turned sideways in her seat towards Sophie, although she could only see her silhouette outlined in the dark of the car. ‘And ye needn’t sit there in silence. I know fine well that none of you agree with me. You’re obviously all prepared to be walked over – to let yer own standards and the Catholic Church’s standards down as well. Where would we all be if them that defected were welcomed back with open arms? She knew the rules and she deliberately broke them – so now she can pay the price that we would all have to pay.’

‘Maybe some of us don’t feel as strong as you do, Mona,’ Pat said sharply. ‘Maybe some of us couldn’t give a damn what other people do.’

Heather’s stomach churned at the thought of this turning into a full-scale row between husband and wife, and was grateful when the men started a conversation of their own about football.

Mona sucked in her breath, then started off again in a lower tone directed at the females. ‘Men and lads not speakin’ out I can half understand,’ she said in a derisory manner, ‘but us
women
need to stick together. An’ it’s not that I’m pickin’ on Claire Grace here – there’s plenty of others up to the same carry-on these days. Tommy’s wife, Janey, was sayin’ that only the other day, about a niece in her own family that’s gettin’ married outside the Catholic Church, and all the rows it’s caused.’ She tutted loudly now. ‘The Church depends on us mothers to hold the family’s standards together. And there’s no good in being all mealy-mouthed and weak when one of them decides to step outside the fold. We need to stand firm or we’ll have them all doing it.’

Sophie finally spoke up now, unable to take much more. ‘I don’t think any of us could be described as mealy-mouthed,’ she said, leaning forward and looking towards her sister-in-law. ‘And there’s plenty of stories in the Bible where you’re told you should hold out the hand of friendship to people of all creeds and colour. Look at the Good Samaritan and Mary Magdalene.’

‘Well, you’re surely gettin’ all religious, Sophie Grace, quotin’ the blidey Bible!’ Mona said incredulously. ‘And the Good Samaritan and Mary Magdalene . . .’ She paused for breath. ‘Father Finlay says it’s not for us to be reading and translatin’ the Bible – that’s what the priests are there to do, to explain all that in the Gospel on a Sunday. Readin’ the Bible – sure that’s what the oul’ Protestants do, wi’ their Bible-reading classes and the like.’ She gave a sarcastic little laugh. ‘It’s a bad day when ye can’t be proud of your own religion and heritage. When ye think of all the poor souls that starved to death durin’ the famine in Ireland for their faith, and there’s folks nowadays wouldn’t have the guts to even admit they were Catholics if it was any way awkward for them.’

There was a silence, as everyone looked out of the car windows into the white frosty night and hoped Mona had exhausted her grievances and would let the subject drop.

‘Lily looked better tonight,’ Heather said, as the car slowed down and turned into the main street in Rowanhill. ‘She’s moving better and she’s not coughing as much as she was before. D’you think there’s a chance she will get out of hospital for Christmas?’

‘I spoke to the ward sister tonight,’ Mona said, her voice flat and weary. ‘She said there’s a possibility that we might be able to bring her home on Christmas Eve for the night – to be in her own house for Santie coming. They’re not promisin’ anything as they said they’ll need to see how her breathing is between now and then.’

‘I’ll say a wee novena that she does get out,’ Sophie said.

‘Thanks,’ Mona said quietly, with an audible catch in her voice. ‘After what she’s gone through, the wee soul could do with all our prayers.’

Chapter 26

In the last few days leading up to Christmas, there was more than the usual activity going on in the Grace households. Lily, it had been confirmed, was now deemed well enough to have both Christmas Eve and Christmas night at home. This was on the strict understanding that with any signs of breathing difficulties or the slightest deterioration in her condition, she would have to be returned to hospital immediately.

On the Thursday afternoon, Sophie was ensconced in her little sewing-room with a stack of dresses, skirts and trousers that all needed to be hemmed or taken in or let out for the Christmas festivities. On a small table behind her was another pile of curtains and other functional items that would have to wait until the holidays were over.

A rap came on the back door and she heard Fintan’s footsteps as he went to answer it. Hearing Pat and Mona’s voices, Sophie stopped the machine, glad of an excuse to have a break, and came down to hear the latest news on Lily. As she walked along the hallway, she was relieved to hear Mona laughing and chatting, as she had dreaded a cold war between them all over Christmas.

‘Wait until you hear this,’ Mona said, as Sophie came into the kitchen, ‘the big fella here is heading into Wishaw to get us a television set!’ She was still in her dark working jacket and full white apron, obviously having just come from the Chapel house.

‘A television?’ Sophie repeated in a shocked tone, lookin
g from Mona to Pat. ‘When did you decide this?’

‘Yesterday,’ Pat announced.

‘A television – imagine!’

‘I’m on the early shift this week,’ Pat explained, ‘and I’ve been takin’ a run around all the electrical shops after work. I’ve got a good deal wi’ one in Wishaw, and they said I could collect it this afternoon.’ He nodded at his brother. ‘I was just wonderin’ if you wanted to take a run in with me to pick it up.’

‘Grand, I’ve nothin’ much else to do this afternoon,’ Fintan told his brother. ‘I’ve already been up to the school to check the pipes and the boiler are OK.’ He nodded his head. ‘It’ll be interesting to see how they rig the television up, and see how the aerial works and all that kind of thing.’ He glanced out of the window to see if it was likely to rain. It didn’t look too bad; the sky was grey but it looked as though it would hold. ‘I’ll just get my overcoat.’ He went out to the hall to the coat-rack.

‘The television is for Lily, really,’ Mona said now, her face serious. ‘We wouldn’t bother for ourselves. It was her that made us make up our minds.’ She bit her lip, for a moment looking as if she might burst into tears. ‘We’d planned on gettin’ her a new two-wheeler bike. I had it ordered up at the Co-op and everything . . . but she’s not going to be able for that for a long while. So there’s no point in havin’ it rusting out in the shed, and us havin’ to look at it every time we go to get coal.’

Pat cut in now. ‘She’s not going to be fit to do much this Christmas except lie on the couch, so the lads suggested that we all chip in and get a TV for her. Seemingly, they have kids’ programmes and everything on it, and then in the dark evenings the whole family would get a bit of pleasure out of it.’

‘It’s a great idea,’ Sophie said, going over to the sink to top
up the lukewarm kettle. ‘We’re always saying that we’ll see into getting one ourselves, but as usual we’ve never
got organised.’

‘Oh, the radiogram will do us just fine for a while,’ Fintan said, ‘and anyway, we won’t need one now that the rich neighbours will have one. We can go round and look at theirs.’

Everyone laughed, knowing that Fintan was only half-joking. There were very few people in Rowanhill with televisions, and anybody that did usually got a crowd in to look at it over the weekend or if there was a big football match on.

‘Just as long as you bring a few shillings for the box,’ Pat said. ‘We said we’d try one of those slot tellies that you put your money in.’

‘Is that right?’ Sophie asked. She was hugely interested in getting a television herself and had nearly succeeded on s
everal occasions, aided and abetted by the girls. Fintan was the fly in the ointment. ‘And how exactly does it work?’

‘They have the money box attached at the back of the television, so that it can’t be seen . . . to give you a bit of privacy in case there’s anybody around that you wouldn’t like to know your business,’ Pat explained. ‘Then, seemingly, you put a shilling in the box and you can watch it for two hours. The idea with the box is to always keep a few bob handy so that you’re ahead of yourselves.’

‘Well, we’ll have to see about where we’ll keep the money
,’ Mona mused, ‘for it won’t last long in a dish whe
re those lads are around. That Patrick and Declan are forever borrowin’ money out of the two shillings I keep for the electric box, and they never pay it back.’

‘Well, they’ve said they’ll all take turns at putting their shillings in,’ Pat said, in a no-nonsense tone. ‘And if they don’t keep it up, we’ll get a payment book and they can all chip in every Friday for it.’

Mona waved her hand dismissively. ‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. We’ll get the telly and Lily home for Christmas, and we’ll worry about paying for it in the New Year.’

The two brothers headed away on their business into Wishaw, and Mona took her coat off and settled down at the kitchen table for a cup of tea. Sophie moved about in her slow way, pouring water into the teapot then searching ar
ound in the cupboard for a packet of Cadbury’s chocol
ate fingers that she’d hidden from Kirsty the other day. Every time visitors came there wasn’t a single decent chocolate biscuit in the house. They were eaten in jig-time, leaving the plain digestives or custard-creams. Heather wasn’t so bad at the minute, with her trying to cut down on sweet things, but when Kirsty was in the mood, she could eat a packet on her own.