A Nest of Singing Birds Read online

  Bridie’s house was in St Francis Xavier’s parish, and there was a simple wedding ceremony at the side altar of the magnificent church. Everyone rejoiced in the evident happiness of Bridie and Jack and the two little boys, and afterwards at Julia’s house Carrie warmly congratulated the groom. ‘You’re a lucky man, Jack,’ she said. ‘You’ve a jewel in Bridie.’

  ‘An uncut diamond,’ Fred guffawed, but was quelled by a look from Carrie. Jack was oblivious.

  ‘I know,’ he said, smiling fondly at his wife. ‘I’ll do my best to make her happy.’

  Fred raised his glass. ‘We’ll drink to that,’ he said heartily. ‘A long life and a happy one for you both.’

  Chapter Eight

  Tony and Stephen often made dates with girls, and Tony sometimes made a foursome with a friend from work and two girls, but they were always casual dates, usually invitations to the cinema. Neither Tony nor Stephen had ever brought a girl to visit their mother, which was regarded as a sign of serious courtship.

  One night as they were all having their meal Maureen said casually, ‘Do you know a girl named Bernadette Brady, Tony?’

  ‘Yes, I went to the pictures with her last week. Do you know her?’

  ‘I do now,’ Maureen said, smiling. ‘She came into the shop today and told me she knew you.’

  ‘You’d better watch yourself, Tony,’ Stephen said with a grin, and their mother said sharply, ‘She sounds rather bold.’

  ‘Just because she went into the shop?’ Tony said. ‘She probably wanted some wool.’

  ‘I think you’re all daft,’ Terry said. ‘Girls are useless. They don’t even understand football.’

  ‘I know more about football than you,’ Eileen told him, ‘And you needn’t worry about girls. Who’d have you?’

  All the Fitzgerald boys were Everton supporters and the talk soon turned to the team’s prospects for the FA Cup.

  Later Maureen said to Tony, ‘I’m sorry I mentioned Bernadette at the table when they were all there. I just didn’t stop to think.’

  ‘That’s all right, Mo,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing secret. She’s only a friend.’

  ‘Does she know that?’ Maureen said, half joking and half in earnest. Obviously it was not the impression that Bernadette had given, but Tony only laughed so she said no more.

  * * *

  In March Everton won the Football Association Cup and brought it home in triumph to Liverpool. All the Fitzgerald boys went to join the crowds welcoming the footballers home, and Eileen and Anne went with them to share in the excitement. They found a good vantage point, with Tony, Stephen and Terry forming a guard round the girls in case they were crushed.

  Anne shouted and cheered as loudly as anyone and thoroughly enjoyed the occasion. She was unaware that her future husband was among the crowds lining the streets.

  She still shared a desk with Kathleen O’Neill and on Monday morning told her about the excitement when the coach appeared, with the manager holding the Cup high, and the jokes made by the crowd. She felt that she had been tactless when she saw Kathleen’s sad face, and said impulsively, ‘Why don’t you ask your mam if you can come out with us sometimes?’

  But Kathleen shook her head. ‘She wouldn’t let me,’ she said.

  There was no time to say more, but later as she walked around the playground with Anne, Kathleen told her more of her strange home life than she had ever done before.

  It was as though Anne’s suggestion had opened a door in Kathleen’s mind, and she poured out all the bitterness that had been building up behind it.

  ‘Remember that doll I won in Miss Lawson’s class?’ she said. ‘I loved it. I’d never had a doll before, but one night I said I wanted to play with her instead of listening to Mammy reading and she went mad. She said the stories were the history of my family and that I should want to listen to them more than anything. Then she said I loved the doll more than her and she snatched it off me and threw it in the fire.’

  Anne was horrified. ‘What happened? Was it burnt?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes. I tried to snatch it out but she pushed me away and held it down with the poker.’

  ‘Was Cormac there?’ Anne asked, and when Kathleen nodded, said indignantly, ‘Why didn’t he try to help you? If there were two of you—’

  ‘Help me?’ Kathleen exclaimed bitterly. ‘Not him. He said I shouldn’t vex Mammy. Well, he’s finding out for himself now.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Anne asked.

  ‘He found a rabbit in the back yard. He didn’t know where it came from but the back gate was open for the binmen. He made a hutch for it and called it Binny.’

  ‘Did – did your mother mind?’ Anne said.

  ‘She didn’t say so then. Maybe she remembered how I’d carried on about the doll. She let him build the hutch, then she opened it one night and let Binny run away.’

  ‘Oh, Kathleen, are you sure?’ Anne said. ‘After all, it had run away before, hadn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but the hutch was open and the back gate shut and bolted. It couldn’t have got out unless she’d opened the gate then shut and bolted it again. She didn’t realise that Cormac would know she’d let Binny out – or maybe she wanted him to know.’

  Anne was silent, horrified and not knowing what to say, but the whistle for the end of playtime put an end to Kathleen’s revelations. She never spoke so freely to Anne again but sometimes made a scornful remark about her brother.

  She was still met at the school gates by her mother and unemployed brother, and walked away submissively with them, but in the classroom she had become a different girl.

  She had been made a class monitor, and had proved to be good at swimming and netball. Her mother had sent a note asking for Kathleen to be excused swimming and games as she was too delicate, but the headmistress had replied firmly that the school doctor had passed her as perfectly fit. Swimming costumes were provided by the school so Mrs O’Neill could do nothing.

  ‘Cormac was excused swimming and games,’ Kathleen told Anne. ‘But he didn’t want to do them anyway.’ She glanced at Anne’s expressive face and said defensively, ‘It’s only because Mammy loves us so much, and wants to keep us safe.’

  Anne said nothing.

  Tony was nearly twenty-one years old when he finished his apprenticeship and was ready to become a tradesman. Many firms sacked young men when they became eligible for tradesman’s wages, but Tony was fairly confident that he would be kept on at Benson’s Engineering.

  His birthday was on the last Saturday in July and shortly before that he was told that his job was safe.

  ‘We’ll have a party,’ his father said when Tony told his parents his news. They were in the kitchen and Pat slapped his hand down on his order book which lay on the table. ‘We’ve got plenty to celebrate with the way the business has picked up as well.’

  ‘And best of all, our Joe should be home then too,’ Julia said with delight.

  Tony felt the familiar bitterness rising in him and said unsmilingly, ‘Yes. All right.’ He turned and went upstairs immediately, and Pat said angrily, ‘What’s he got that gob on for? There’s no pleasing that fellow.’

  ‘God knows,’ Julia said. ‘I thought he was getting over these moods.’

  ‘I tell you what, Julia,’ her husband said, ‘if I’d tried any moods with my da, he’d have damn soon knocked them out of me. We’ve been too soft with that fellow.’

  Tony had regretted his surly words and jealousy as soon as he reached his room. He turned and came downstairs to put things right.

  His parents were still standing in the kitchen and as Tony reached the kitchen door, his father turned and picked up the photograph of Patrick from the dresser. They were too intent to see Tony and he stood frozen with shock as his father said loudly, ‘Here’s the one who’d have been a proper eldest son to me. No moods out of him. I could have talked to him about me worries too.’

  ‘Don’t Pat, don’t,’ Julia said, bursting into tears.
/>   He put his arm around her. ‘I’m sorry, girl. It never gets better.’ His voice was thick with emotion. ‘Why, Julia? Why did we have to lose him? What did we do wrong?’

  She said nothing but wept bitterly, and Tony turned, still unnoticed, and rushed upstairs again. He dived into the bathroom and sat on the edge of the bath, shaking with shock.

  All the feelings of bitterness and jealousy that he had tried to suppress for so long burst over him in a despairing flood. He sat crouched with tears rolling between the fingers covering his face.

  He had been right: his mother and father had never loved him. They wished he had died and Patrick had lived. He felt worse than he had ever done in his life. Before he had suspected but not really believed: now he had heard it in his father’s own words.

  He had no idea how long he had been there when he was roused by a banging on the door, and Eileen’s voice calling cheerfully, ‘Come out, come out, whoever you are. Are you making your Will?’

  Tony jumped to his feet. ‘Just a minute,’ he called, sluicing cold water over his face and opening the door with the towel still held to it.

  ‘I thought you’d died in here,’ Eileen said breezily, darting past him into the bathroom, and he was able to slip up to his attic bedroom.

  He examined his face in the mirror, looking at his blotchy skin with disgust. Whingeing like a girl, he thought. Terry came leaping up the stairs two at a time, shouting, ‘Tea’s ready, Tony. Aye, it’s great about your job, isn’t it? Good place, Benson’s.’

  He mumbled something in reply then waited until Terry came out of his bedroom and went down with him. He felt strange and lightheaded but the family sitting round the table seemed to notice nothing different.

  There was a chorus of congratulation about his job, then they all began to talk about the party. Tony glanced furtively at his parents. His mother looked paler than usual but composed as she served the huge steak and kidney pie. His father showed no sign of his earlier distress.

  Presently Julia said mildly, ‘You’ll have to go and see Aunt Carrie, Tony, and tell her your news.’ Before he could speak Eileen announced that she was going out in a foursome with Theresa later.

  ‘What’s your feller like?’ Stephen asked.

  ‘I don’t know yet. He’s one of Theresa’s, really. I get the ones she throws back. The crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table,’ said Eileen.

  ‘That was a real crumb you were with outside the Futurist,’ Stephen told her.

  ‘He wasn’t one of Theresa’s,’ Eileen said indignantly. ‘He was one of my own.’

  ‘“A poor thing but mine own”,’ Anne quoted.

  ‘Anne’s courting now,’ Eileen said. ‘She gave the milkboy a Fairy Whisper that said “will you be mine?”’

  ‘I didn’t!’ Anne exclaimed. ‘It was a mint imperial that Billy Bolten gave me.’

  ‘Billy Bolten now,’ Eileen teased her. ‘You’re going to be like Theresa.’

  ‘Billy’s about a hundred and he’s got a wooden leg,’ Anne retorted.

  ‘Sounds like one of Eileen’s,’ Stephen said, but their father said loudly, ‘That’s enough now. Don’t be putting ideas in the child’s head.’ He smiled fondly at Anne. ‘There’s many a long year yet before any sprig comes to take you away from us, queen.’

  ‘The years are flying,’ Julia said with a sigh. ‘And that’s another thing, Anne. It was all right when you were only a baby saying Billy – he thought it was funny – but you should show more respect now. I hope you don’t call him Billy to his face?’

  ‘I don’t call him anything,’ Anne said. ‘Do you know, he landed off his ship at an island one time. They’d put in for water and he was walking about and talking to some people he met on the beach and was surprised because the captain thought it was uninhabited. A bit later on a priest came off this little hill and he told Billy it was a leper colony.’

  ‘It’s a wonder he didn’t realise just by looking at them,’ Stephen said.

  ‘He said natives are often mutilated because of accidents or tribal customs,’ Anne observed.

  ‘The priest was a brave man. Was he English?’ Maureen asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Billy didn’t say, but he could talk to him – properly, I mean, not just sign language like with the natives. Billy’s had a very interesting life.’

  Tony had barely spoken and the meal was nearly finished. His mother said again that he should go to see Aunt Carrie.

  ‘I will, Mum,’ he said, surprised to find that he sounded normal and that no one had noticed any difference in him.

  ‘I think you’d better tell Aunt Minnie as well,’ Julia said, but Tony made no promises. Minnie’s words of so long ago had started all this, he felt, and he had no desire to see her.

  As soon as the meal was over he washed then changed his collar and went to see the Andersons. Carrie and Fred were delighted at his news. ‘I knew you’d be kept on,’ she declared. ‘You’ve a knack for that sort of thing, and you’re hard-working and trustworthy.’

  Tony smiled. ‘I’ll come to you if I want a reference,’ he told her. He had always felt close to Carrie, who was his godmother, and stayed to talk to her even after Fred had gone out to his shed to finish a job and Shaun had gone to see a boxing match.

  Carmel was playing at a friend’s house and Theresa only looked in briefly before she went to meet Eileen and their escorts. Tony was alone with Carrie, and suddenly it seemed the right moment to ask her something which he had long wanted to know.

  ‘What happened when Patrick died, Aunt Carrie?’ he said. ‘I’ve never liked to ask Mum or Dad.’

  ‘He was only ill for forty-eight hours,’ Carrie said. ‘I was laid up myself at that time with sciatica but I believe it just started with a cold. Your mother kept him in bed and gave him blackcurrant drinks because his throat was sore, but then suddenly he got worse. Maureen and you went to Grandma Houlihan and they got the doctor for Patrick.’

  ‘What was wrong with him?’ Tony asked.

  ‘They never really found out, but a lot of children died the same way at that time. Forty-eight-hour fever, it was called.’

  ‘Dad seemed to think they did something wrong,’ Tony said in a low voice.

  ‘People always think that if they lose someone, especially a child,’ Carrie said. ‘They think they should have called the doctor sooner or something, but with Patrick I don’t think it would have made any difference. Your mum had kept him in bed and dosed him, and the doctor couldn’t have done any more.’

  ‘So you don’t think medicine could have saved him?’ Tony said.

  ‘No, even if the doctor had been called right away, and you don’t call one every time a child has a cold,’ Carrie said.

  Tony was silent for a few minutes, wondering if he could ask what he really wanted to know. Finally he said gruffly, ‘Aunt Minnie said Mum didn’t start to get over it until she had Joe.’

  ‘Your mum’s never got over it, love, and neither has your dad although I think it hits women harder than men,’ Carrie told him. ‘It’s a terrible thing for a mother. It’s like losing part of herself. I know women who’ve lost three or four, but it hits them as hard every time. They never get over it, and they get a look about them. I thank God I’ve never had to face it.’

  ‘But Aunt Minnie said Mum started to get over it when Joe was born,’ Tony persisted.

  ‘Aye, well, that was two years after and the first shock had worn off, then she had a bad time with Joe and that made her pull herself together, I suppose. She had her hands full with three of you to look after, one a new baby,’ Carrie said.

  She glanced at Tony who was sitting with his head bent, staring down at his clasped hands. ‘What else did Minnie say?’ she asked. ‘It wouldn’t be her if she didn’t have a bit more to say.’

  Tony hesitated then he said in a low voice, ‘She said I was no consolation to Mum because I looked more like Dad, but when Joe was born he was like Patrick and that’s why he helped her to
get over it, and he’s still her favourite.’

  Carrie drew in her breath with a hiss. ‘The bad bitch! She probably knew you could hear her and that’s why she said it,’ she said angrily. ‘I hope you weren’t daft enough to take any notice of her?’

  ‘It seemed feasible,’ he said with a wry smile.

  ‘It was nonsense, Tony. Your mum doesn’t have any favourites. She loves you all for different reasons, the same way as I do mine,’ his aunt insisted. ‘Just think. She often goes to Benediction with Maureen and she goes to the pictures with her because your dad’s not keen on them. Do you think she loves Anne, for instance, any less because she’s so close with Maureen?’

  Tony thought for a moment then lay back in the chair and smiled wholeheartedly at Carrie. ‘I think I am daft, Aunt Carrie,’ he said. ‘Or at least I have been.’

  ‘You should have known better than to take notice of Minnie,’ she said forthrightly. ‘If she lived in one of these places abroad she’d have had her tongue cut out by now. Do you ever see anything of Brendan these days?’

  ‘I haven’t seen him for months,’ Tony said, glad now to change the subject. He had definitely decided not to go to see Minnie, and soon said he must be off.

  ‘I’m made up about your job,’ Carrie declared. ‘You’ve got a place for life there, Tony.’

  ‘I hope so,’ he said. ‘Dad’s talking about having a party to celebrate, and for my twenty-first.’

  ‘That’s great. I just feel like a good party,’ Carrie said. She had walked to the door with him and suddenly he turned and gave her a hug. ‘Thanks, Aunt Carrie,’ he said. They both knew it was for the questions spoken and unspoken that she had answered for him.

  Tony walked home with a light step, and as soon as he went in said cheerfully, ‘They were made up about the job. I told Aunt Carrie about the party. Is that all right?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Pat said, with a surprised glance at Julia and she asked Tony if he had been to see Minnie.

  ‘I couldn’t be bothered tonight, Mum,’ he said. ‘Anyway, she’d only say something to take the shine off it. Aunt Carrie’s so different.’