The Grace Girls (69 page)

‘Hello, Mona,’ Claire said, stepping to the bottom of the table to bar her sister-in-law’s way. ‘I’m delighted to see you, because I had intended to drop over to see Lily while I was here.’ She paused. ‘I take it you won’t mind?’

Mona came to a standstill in front of the taller, slimmer Claire – her gaze fixed somewhere around the chest area, refusing to meet her eye. ‘She’ll be getting ready for bed now, so it’s not a good time.’

‘I have a couple of little things in the car for her,’ Claire said, standing solidly, ‘and it won’t take me a minute. It’s a while since I saw her, and I told Pat I don’t want things to start back the way they were. I don’t want this barrier back down again that was there for the last two years.’

Mona’s face turned an angry red. ‘Well, that’s just the way things are . . .’

‘Well,’ Claire said, in a firm, unwavering voice. ‘It’s not the way that the rest of us want it in the Grace family. From what Fintan and Pat and Sophie told me a few weeks ago, they want to have peace and harmony in the family as well. I also know that Heather and Kirsty and little Lily are delighted that most of us are back being friends again.’ She paused. ‘From where I’m standing, it seems that you’re the only one, Mona, who is happy to keep this bitterness going on – and I want to know why.’

There was a creaking of floorboards in the hall as Kirsty came to stand at the door, having obviously heard the visitors arrive.

‘This is neither the time nor the place,’ Mona blustered. ‘And I don’t have to give you any reasons for anything.’

‘Oh, but you do,’ Claire told her, ‘because this affects me directly. What you’re doing is ostracising me from my whole family and I won’t have it.’

Heather moved out from the table and went towards the door. She gave her sister a small comforting pat on the arm as she passed her by then she went straight upstairs. Her father should be here, she decided. He should know his sister was here for the first time in years and that there was a very serious row brewing. Her mother couldn’t go for him as she was trapped at the sink, and in any case she wouldn’t want to leave the situation in case it got very serious.

‘Nobody
ostracised
you,’ Mona said, deliberately mimicking Claire’s use of the big word. ‘You ostracised yourself when you took up with Andy McPherson. You knew perfectly well what that would mean in our family.’

‘No,’ Claire said in a low voice, ‘I did not. It was my business and Andy’s what happened when we got married – it has nothing to do with you or anybody else.’

‘And what about the Catholic Church?’ Mona said, her eyes moving up to meet Claire’s for the first time. ‘Did you not think you marrying somebody that wasn’t a Catholic had anything to do with the Church?’

‘That’s my business,’ Claire said, a steely, unflinching look in her eyes. ‘And I don’t think you’re a fit person to be quoting the Church to me, Mona Grace.’

‘What?’ Mona said, astounded. ‘What the hell are you sayin’ now?’

‘I’m saying that people in glass houses shouldn’t be throwing stones,’ Claire said. ‘Or if you want me to quote the Bible, I’m saying “let he who is without sin, cast the first stone”.’ She bent her head down to Mona’s level now, her dark bobbed hair swinging as she did. ‘You cannot afford to throw stones, Mona – and if you don’t stop this nastiness and bitterness, I’m going to land a very big stone down on you, and I don’t care who hears it!’

Mona’s face went chalk white. ‘You’re talkin’ complete rubbish . . .’

Claire turned to the doorway. ‘Go into the sitting-room please, Kirsty. I don’t want anyone other than your mother to hear this.’ As soon as Kirsty had gone, she whirled back to Mona. ‘Galway,’ she stated, ‘when you were a young girl helping out in the priest’s house . . .’ She paused, waiting for the penny to drop.

‘Rubbish . . .’ Mona said, her hand coming down on the table to steady herself. ‘You’re talking absolute rubbish. You know nothing about me when I was growing up in Galway . . .’

Claire gave a big sigh. ‘I hoped you wouldn’t make me do this, Mona . . .’ She shook her head. ‘Do you remember when me and you were over in Ballygrace with the children about five years ago? Do you remember the woman we met outside the church – the woman from your parish in Galway? The one you cut short and tried to ignore?’

Mona’s face blanched, and her mouth opened and shut like a fish without a word coming out.

‘Well,’ Claire continued in an even voice, ‘I met her again the following day up at the shop in Ballygrace, and
she asked me if you were as friendly with the priests in Scotland as you were in Galway. And then she was delighted to tell me all about the newly ordained priest that had to be moved to another parish because –’

‘We’ve heard enough,’ Fintan’s voice came from the door. ‘I don’t think we need it spelling out, Claire . . .’ He walked over to put an arm around his shocked wife’s shoulders.

Mona lifted her apron skirt up to her face. ‘You’re cruel!’ she said to Claire in a shocked, horrified tone. ‘Pure cruel – there was no need for that!’ Her voice took on a hysterical note. ‘Bringin’ all this up after what me and Pat have gone through wi’ Lily!’

‘I could have brought this up five years ago and I didn’t,’ Claire stated. ‘I could have brought it up two and a half years ago when the family turned against me – and I didn’t.’ She paused. ‘You forced me to bring this up, Mona. I asked you to be friends the nice way and you wouldn’t have it. What I’m trying to tell you now is that I had the power to hurt you and cause mayhem in your family by telling Pat and I didn’t. I chose to keep my mouth closed and my nose out of other people’s business.’

Mona collapsed into a chair now, sobbing her heart out. ‘I was only a young girl . . .’

‘I’m aware of that,’ Claire said in a softer voice, ‘and I had no intentions of ever telling you or anybody else what that woman said.’ She looked around the room. ‘There’s only me and Sophie and Fintan that heard this tonight, and I’m quite sure it’s not going to go any further.’

‘There won’t be a word from me,’ Fintan said.

‘Nor me,’ Sophie added in a whisper.

Mona’s shoulders shook.

‘I’m truly sorry for upsetting you,’ Claire said, ‘and I don’t ever want to have to do it again. But,’ she paused, taking a deep breath, ‘you will never know the number of nights I lay in bed breaking my heart crying because I couldn’t see my own brothers and their children. Just as recently as last month, I cried the whole night after I visited Lily. I cried that hard that I got sick and Andy nearly had to call the doctor.’

‘We’re all sorry for that now,’ Fintan said, his voice thick and hoarse. ‘God knows, I’m sorry for all the heartbreak that’s been caused . . . and I certainly don’t want to see anything else like this happening.’

Claire went to put a hand on Mona’s shoulder but stopped herself. ‘I’ll go in and see the girls for a couple of minutes and then I’ll head back to Glasgow.’

Both girls were sitting shocked and silent by the fire.

‘Is everything OK?’ Heather asked, her heart thumping in her chest. As she had passed by the kitchen door with her father, she could hear the raised and angry voices and she knew something monumental was happening.

‘I hope so . . .’ Claire said, sinking down into the sofa. ‘I certainly hope so.’ She gave a little smile. ‘I’m absolutely drained . . .’

A short while later Fintan appeared with a tiny glassful of brandy for his sister. ‘Drink it up,’ he told her, ‘it’ll do you good.’ He turned to the doorway, where a white-faced Mona stood, clutching a good-sized glass of the medicinal alcohol. ‘Come in, Mona,’ he said quietly.

Without being asked, the two girls got to their feet and went out of the room, leaving the two women alone.

When Fintan came back to join his wife and two daughters, he closed the kitchen door firmly behind him. ‘I think maybe we need to have a few words ourselves,’ he said quietly.

All four sat down at the table, Heather glancing over anxiously at her mother and sister.

‘I think we’ve seen and heard enough tonight to give us all a bit of a shake-up.’ His throat felt dry again and he swallowed hard. ‘I was thinking when I was upstairs that maybe I’ve let this business with you and the fellow get a wee bit out of hand, Kirsty.’

Kirsty’s heart started racing. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that maybe I jumped the gun a bit . . . that maybe I didn’t give Larry Delaney a chance.’ He glanced over at Sophie, as though checking with her that he was saying all the right things. The things she had told him upstairs – and the things he now knew were true. Sophie nodded so he continued. ‘I think we should maybe start again . . . you going back to your singing . . . and maybe going out the odd night to the pictures or the dancing with him.’

‘Are you sure?’ Kirsty gasped, looking from her father to her mother. ‘Can I really see him again – like a proper boyfriend?’

Fintan pursed his lips together and nodded. ‘Just take it slow, mind.’

A huge, relieved smile spread across her face. ‘And it’s OK for him to come and pick me up for rehearsals and when I’m out singing like before?’

‘Yes,’ Fintan said. He was smiling back at her and nodding, but there was a hint of moisture at the corner of his eyes.

Twenty minutes later Mona and Claire came back out from the sitting-room together.

‘I’m just going next door for a few minutes,’ Claire said, popping her head through the kitchen door, ‘to give Lily her presents.’ She moved back to let Mona look in.

‘I’ll see you in the morning,’ Mona said to Sophie in a quiet, calm voice. ‘I’d better get round or that wee devil, Lily, will be playin’ them all up.’

When the front door closed behind them, a huge communal sigh reverberated around the kitchen table.

Chapter 69

About a quarter of an hour later, Claire came back into Fintan and Sophie’s house. ‘Just to let you know that everything is more or less sorted out between me and Mona,’ she told all four Graces, as she leaned on the back of the couch in the sitting-room. She looked across at Kirsty. ‘I’m sorry for asking you to leave the kitchen earlier . . . but I had to say something private to Mona, something I didn’t want too many people to hear. I hope you didn’t mind or feel offended.’

‘Not a bit,’ Kirsty said, beaming at her. She didn’t mind anything at the moment. The whole world was suddenly a wonderful place and she was only counting the minutes until Claire left and she could rush up to the phone box to call Larry and tell him the great news.

‘I didn’t want to sit and listen to Mona ranting on anyway. I hear enough of it day in and day out.’

Claire looked over at her brother and his wife. ‘I’m sure you didn’t need all of this either . . .’

‘You did the right thing,’ Sophie told her. ‘And I’m just delighted it’s all worked out for you.’

‘Well,’ Claire said, giving a little weary sigh, ‘I’m not going to get too elated about it, because I know Mona from old, and I know she’s not the sort to change her colours. I’m not imagining that we’re ever going to be the best of friends, but as long as she doesn’t get in the way of me and Andy being friends with everybody else.’

‘And I’m delighted that we all can get things on to a more normal footing,’ Fintan said.

‘We can have the odd visit out to each other at the weekends and that kind of thing.’

‘Lovely,’ Claire agreed. She looked over at Heather now. ‘I’m hoping we’ll see more of you out in Glasgow,’ she said, smiling meaningfully. Heather had told her all about Paul Ballantyne asking to meet up with her some time soon in the city.

‘Oh thanks, Claire . . . I’ll definitely be back out soon,’ Heather said, feeling herself blush.

‘And me and Larry will take a run out some evening or weekend,’ Kirsty added, excited at the thought of all the things that lay ahead.

Claire looked at her watch. ‘Right,’ she said, ‘I’d better get heading home now before the frost gets too thick.’

She gave them all a hug and a kiss. ‘It was lovely seeing you all, and being back in your house again.’

Sophie and Fintan walked her out to the car.

‘Keep an eye on Mona over the next few days,’ Claire said to them as she got in the car. ‘She’s her own worst enemy, but I would hate to think I hurt her badly. I would
never have done it if she hadn’t forced me into a corner . . .’

‘She’ll be fine,’ Sophie reassured her. ‘And it might not do her any harm to have a taste of her own medicine.’

Fintan leaned in through the car window. ‘The door is open to you and Andy at any time,’ he reminded his sister.

The engine revved up and Claire blew them both a kiss as the car pulled away.

‘If you like,’ Heather said, when the girls were on their own, ‘I’ll walk up to the phone box with you and then we ‘OK,’ Kirsty said, getting to her feet. ‘It’s a bit of a nuisance not being able to go anywhere on our own, but I suppose it’s the sensible thing.’

‘You know I’m really sorry about not sticking up for you over Larry, don’t you?’ Heather said.

Kirsty shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter . . .’

‘But it
does
matter,’ Heather insisted. She stood up now and went over and put her arms around her sister. ‘It was just the timing . . . all the trouble with Gerry and then Liz losing the baby.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m really sorry, I shouldn’t have been so horrible and I’ll never do it again. I think I was a wee bit depressed or something, especially when I think back to the day I fainted at work. I wasn’t myself at all.’