The Four Streets: The Ballymara Road Part 11

The smile on her face. The dream in her eyes. Dead.

Their little boy had a form of leukaemia, but one that could be cured relatively easily. The chances were high that the bone marrow of a family member would be a successful match.

'In my years of practice I have never known a family match to fail,' Dr Sanjay had said.

It was all very simple. They had to place everyone on the federal donor bank today and then return to the clinic on Monday. They would have to log in their social security numbers and blood type, and once they had done that, the doctor could start work.

'The sooner we find a donor, the less the disruption to your little man's life,' Dr Sanjay had said. 'Dillon is still a baby and this will be nothing more than a correctional process. We just need to give him another blood transfusion in the next few days in order to turn his cheeks pink again. We have all the cards in our hands. I wish every child's case was as straightforward as yours.'

Sean liked Dr Sanjay. He was calm, matter-of-fact. He had said that the little lad had an excellent chance of a complete recovery. They were the best odds.

Dr Sanjay had answered all Mary's questions honestly. Now they had to return home to Mrs McGuire and Dillon. Sean knew that Alice would be back from the hairdresser's and would be helping Mrs McGuire. The frost between the two women had almost completely thawed in their concern over the baby.

Sean knew Alice missed Joseph. It was something none of them ever mentioned.

'That is the strange thing about America,' Sean had said to Henry. 'It is as though your life before you reached these sh.o.r.es had never happened. When you are an Irish immigrant in a country as proud as the USA, the only thing that matters is today and tomorrow; the past is forgotten.'

Sean was right. It was all about now. You were reborn as an American citizen and you began anew.

This filled Sean with hope. Their life would begin in earnest with a son of his own, a little Sean McGuire, and Alice would have to agree.

'Are you OK, Mary?' Sean now enquired again, this time with more confidence. 'Are you not happy with what the doctor said?'

Henry answered, 'Mary is fine, Sean. She just needs a little time to get used to things, that's all. Isn't it, love?'

Sean almost smiled. He loved the way Henry's accent was an absolute mix of American and Irish when he was calm and collected, and yet it was full-on, one hundred per cent Irish, when he was mad or worried, which wasn't very often. He was obviously worried right now.

'I'm sorry, Sean, Henry, I'm sorry.' Mary turned in the pa.s.senger seat and stretched out to take hold of Sean's hand. Her mascara had carved tiny black tracks through her powdery cheeks and the whites of her eyes were bloodshot.

'It won't be a problem, Mary, so don't cry. You just have to do as the doctor said.'

Sean didn't know what he had said wrong but, whatever it was, he had really upset Mary. She began to sob openly. Sean looked to Henry, seeking rea.s.surance, wanting him to say something to halt Mary's distress, but tears were sliding down Henry's cheeks. What the h.e.l.l was going on?

Henry put his foot on the brake and as they slowed down Sean looked out of the window. They were turning into the parking lot for the new mall that was still only half built. Parked outside, he spotted green construction vehicles with the family name, Moynihan.

'I will be five minutes,' Henry said. 'Look after Mary, Sean. I will stay home with you today, love.'

Mary grabbed her husband's hand as he moved to slide out of the car seat. He hesitated a moment with his hand on the door handle and whispered, 'Just hold it together, love, until we get into the house, OK?'

Sean s.h.i.+fted forward and patted Mary's hand. It didn't matter how much he scrabbled around for something useful or comforting to say, he found nothing. So he decided the best thing to do was to say nothing and just let Mary know he was there for her.

Henry, who had been gone for less than five minutes, ran back to the car.

Sean had never seen a man cry before, but now, unashamedly, with no attempt to wipe away his tears or to halt their flow, Henry wept freely.

'Tell me, Mary, what is it, what is wrong?' Sean's voice trembled slightly. He was not sure he really wanted to know the answer. They were almost home, only minutes away from being able to walk in through their own front door and break down in private. Sean thought, with a huge sense of relief, thank G.o.d, Mammy is there. She will know what to do.

Amazingly, Mary appeared to be pulling herself together just as Henry was falling apart. She turned from the front seat to face Sean full on. Picking up his hand, she began to speak.

'Sean, things are not as you think. We have only six months. Six months to find a match for Dillon.'

Mary looked directly at Henry to rea.s.sure herself before she spoke. They were words that could not be taken back once said. He raised no objection.

'We never discussed our baby boy with you because so much was happening when you arrived the upset with Mammy, the new contract to build the flyover. It was all going on and, anyway, you never asked and why would you?

'Little Dillon, he came from a convent in Ireland, near Galway. We don't know who it was who gave birth to him and gave him up for adoption. We don't know who his family is or where we can trace them to find a bone marrow match. We flew straight from here to collect him, it was all so quick, and stopped over in Liverpool on the way back. He flew on a temporary pa.s.sport. They had it all arranged before we even arrived.'

'Six months.'

Mary repeated those awful words as though they were a death sentence. The car journey had eaten up almost an hour of those six months since the doctor had first given them the news.

As they pulled into the drive, Sean saw Mrs McGuire, who been waiting patiently, struggle to open the heavy oak front door. She was more used to a cottage in the village on the outskirts of Galway, where they had all been born, or the Nelson Street two-up, two-down. Little Dillon was in her arms, looking pale and wan, but he still managed a smile for his parents' return.

Sean was struggling to take in everything Mary had said.

Only his thumbs moved, over and over.

As they stepped inside, Mrs McGuire and Alice stood in the hallway, anxiety binding them together in a flimsy companions.h.i.+p born from a joint concern for Dillon's health.

Mary, as ever pragmatic and fighting for the life of her little boy, knew without any discussion what she needed to do.

'Mammy, Alice, I have to travel to Galway with Dillon. Will ye both come with me?'

The three women hugged briefly and silently. They would do whatever it took, no matter how inconvenient or difficult.

The scent from Mary's jacket made Alice feel nauseous. She slowly breathed out a deep sigh of relief. Galway. It was much closer to Joseph, to Liverpool, to Jerry, and to everyone and everything she knew, than Chicago.

For the first time in her life, Alice uttered a silent prayer of thanks and made a decision to withdraw the full fifty thousand dollars in their joint bank account on the day she left.

7.

'YOU LOOK LIKE a nervous wreck,' said Simon to Howard, as they stood inside St Mary's church, waiting for Howard's bride to arrive. 'Stop pacing up and down like a demented dog. You are making me on edge and I'm only the best man.'

Howard took out yet another Emba.s.sy cigarette from his packet and handed one to Simon.

'Here, have one, go on. Me hands are shaking, I've got to have another to calm my nerves,' he whispered.

Standing on the groom's side at the front of the ornate church, now filling with incense, Howard's nervousness was as much to do with the formality of the church ceremony, as the fact that he was about to leave behind his carefree bachelor life and marry a woman who knew how to organize a list to within an inch of her life.

Howard had completed his conversion to the Catholic faith upon the absolute insistence of his bride, Miss Alison Devlin, spinster of the parish, deputy head teacher at the four streets convent school and all-round holder-together of the community during a time of crisis. The latter quality had been tested to the limit recently. The four streets had been through more than their fair share of drama and crisis.

'Howard, we are forty minutes early. Let's go outside and walk round the church for a f.a.g. Your bride will kill you if she can't see you from the door for blue smoke.'

Howard, a local detective inspector, had first met Alison during the investigation into the deaths of the priest, Father James, and Molly Barrett. Howard still felt guilty about Molly. Molly had given him information about who had murdered the priest. But no sooner had she confided in them than she had been murdered herself. The confusing thing was that Molly must have been wrong. She had told them that the priest's murderer was Tommy Doherty. But that couldn't have been the case. They knew Tommy Doherty hadn't murdered Molly. As he was under suspicion, they had watched his every move that night. It wasn't him and it was impossible to believe that there were two random murderers on the rampage in the four streets.

It had all been one extended nightmare. The very worst of it had been the tragic drowning of little Kitty Doherty during her visit to Ireland, and the fact that Daisy Quinn, the Priory housekeeper, had gone missing since the day she had left Alison's care to catch the ferry, down at the Pier Head.

It had all been too much for everyone to take in.

'Will the day ever come when you can see us getting married?' Howard had asked Alison a number of times. It seemed to him as though the dark cloud that had settled over the community would never pa.s.s.

'I would feel better if I could travel to Dublin and look for Daisy myself,' Alison had responded. 'G.o.d alone knows where she is. Her poor family, to have been left standing, waiting for her at the port. They must be desperate and I feel so responsible. I put her on the boat. I even asked two old ladies to look after her. She was so excited about being reunited with her family for Christmas. I just need things to become a little more like normal.'

Howard knew she was right. In order to remove all barriers to his nuptials, as well as its accompanying rights and pleasures, he had arranged for them both to visit Dublin so that Alison herself could speak to the police and Daisy's family.

He had hoped as a result that she might be more reasonable regarding his manly needs. It seemed as though everyone, everywhere, spoke about nothing other than women's liberation and free love. Some women were even burning their bras, what for, Howard wasn't sure, but it seemed to him like a great and generous gesture.

But none of it mattered. Alison was a stickler for propriety and was apparently wholly against joining her sisters on any march that would make it easier for Howard to stay the night.

'We will, Howard, when the time is right and things are happy again,' Alison replied, each and every time he asked. This would be followed by four very disappointing words, which achieved their unambiguous purpose.

'When. We. Are. Married.'

The door of illicit s.e.x slammed with finality. Words of steel held it shut.

Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.

'I would be very happy, if I could go to bed at night and wake up with a wife,' Howard said over and over, but there was little point in complaining.

The nuns, the school and the entire community had become mired in grief. Although not touched by events in quite the same way as his fiancee, Howard realized that to pursue his aim, under such a veil of sorrow, was fruitless.

Daisy's brother had not blamed Alison in any way for his sister's disappearance and had been grateful for the care she had given to the sister of whom he had known nothing until the death of his parents.

The family were still in shock at the news that, after a difficult birth leading to fears that she would be brain damaged, Daisy had been placed in what was in effect a Dublin orphanage, under the care of nuns. As if that were not enough, they had been dismayed to hear that, whilst still a child, she had then been s.h.i.+pped to Liverpool, where she had been pressed into service as a housekeeper to the murdered priest.

Via his own contacts, Howard had arranged for Alison to speak to the police in Dublin. They had then met with Daisy's brother, who was the state solicitor and much respected by the Dublin Gardai.

''Tis is a mystery, so it is,' said the Dublin detective. 'She was seen standing by the boat rails one minute but then, when it came time to disembark, she was nowhere to be seen.'

Alison asked the question that had been preying on everyone's minds since the moment they heard that Daisy had not met up with her family at the agreed rendezvous.

'Could she have drowned?'

'Not impossible,' replied the detective. 'But, if she had, her body would have washed up somewhere by now. The boat had almost docked the last time she was seen on deck. I would say that her drowning was highly unlikely.'

Rea.s.sured that there was a strong likelihood that Daisy was alive and with the knowledge that she would most likely be found at some stage, Alison agree to name the day and to put Howard out of his misery.

Howard and Simon now stood at the back of the church in the graveyard, out of sight, but with a good view of the road so as not to miss Alison's approach. Simon held out his silver cigarette lighter to Howard as they lit up.

The top clicked back into place with a cus.h.i.+oned slickness.

Not for the first time, Howard wondered where Simon got the money from for all his fancy bits. The lighter, the cigarette case packed with Pall Mall cigarettes (which, Howard noticed, Simon bought only on days when he thought he might have to offer a woman a ciggie from his expensive case), his smart suits and the new Ford Capri in which Howard had been grateful to be driven to the church.

'You should be careful smoking those Pall Mall,' said Howard. 'That's the only link to Molly's murder. Just because one was found at the murder scene doesn't make it glamorous to smoke them, you know. What happened to your Woodies? Not good enough now, eh?

Although Simon had the same rank as Howard, his manner was b.u.mptious. He always a.s.sumed authority over his colleague, yet both were on the same pay scale. Howard had commented on it to Alison only the previous week following the wedding rehearsal when Simon, much to their surprise, had presented them both with a solid silver rose bowl.

'Even accounting for the fact that he has no wedding to pay for and obviously no intention to start a family and buy a home, he seems to spend his money lavishly,' said Howard.

'I'm not complaining at his foolishness.' Alison had smiled. ''Tis a beauty of a rose bowl all right.'

Howard knew better than to pry or ask Simon for an explanation. No other officer in the force was as close to Simon as he was. Howard never asked personal questions, which Simon obviously appreciated. To Howard's knowledge, Simon had no girlfriend and had never had one, in all the time they had been in the force together. He lived alone in his Aigburth house and visited his mum every other weekend. At lunchtime he enjoyed a roast beef sandwich and a slice of the home-made fruitcake which he brought back from his visits home. That was about as much as Howard knew, or was ever likely to know.

Howard, who was less secretive and more down to earth altogether, was more of a sausage-roll-and-a-custard-slice-from-Sayers man. Simon was a member of a rather posh golf club on the Wirrall where, at the weekend, he sometimes teamed up with the chief super and his friends. One of the officers from over the water had told Howard that a politician often played a round with them. Simon never spoke of it and Howard dared not ask.

Howard knew the closest he would get to the golf club would be if he were ever asked to caddy and the chances of that were very slim indeed. Now he smoked his cigarette down to the tip in less than a minute.

'Let's have another,' he said to Simon, 'and then we will move back inside.'

As Simon offered his cigarette case to Howard, they both peered over the church wall to watch the bridesmaids arrive.

Nellie Deane alighted from the car first, followed by the younger Doherty girls and then the page-boys, Little Paddy and Harry. They had been prepared and made ready for the day at Alison's house by her sister. Everything had to be perfect and Alison had taken no chances.

'Strange that not long ago we had both those girls' fathers in the cells, questioning them over the priest's murder, and now their kids are Alison's bridesmaids,' said Howard.

Simon did not reply. He squinted into the sunlight as the girls fussed about their lilac chiffon dresses and white satin shoes. He could hear the voice of the now oldest Doherty girl wafting up to them on the warm breeze.

'Will you get off my shoes, Niamh. You have put a stain on the white satin. Oh G.o.d, would you look at that, now.' Angela bent down and rubbed at the shoe like crazy.

'Stop it,' hissed Nellie. 'You are making your white gloves dirty.'

Neither girl had ever been so dressed up in her life. It was making them nervous to the point of nausea.

Alison Devlin had chosen Nellie Deane and the Dohertys for a reason. Not only were they her favourite pupils at the school, but both families had suffered more than most in their lifetimes. Alison had the softest heart.

That could be the only explanation why Little Paddy had been chosen as page-boy.

'Alison, we would have to disinfect the lad before we could put him in a page-boy outfit,' Howard had remonstrated.

'Aye, we will that and won't that give us just a huge sense of satisfaction now,' Alison replied.

Howard was starting to realize that he had as much influence over what happened at his own wedding as he had over the weather. He would have to accept that this was also the beginning of the rest of his life.

'G.o.d, I feel so ashamed,' said Little Paddy, as he tried to pull the ruff down from his throat.

'Don't complain, Paddy,' said Harry. 'Ye have a new pair of shoes for wearing a fancy outfit for the day. Ye won't have to borrow anyone else's for ages now.'

Harry patted his friend on the back. Little Paddy smiled. Sometimes he felt as if Harry was more like what a da should be than his best friend.

Wedding nerves had reached the Priory. This was Father Anthony's first wedding since taking over St Mary's church and he knew the turnout would be huge for the most popular teacher for miles around.