Chapter 1
Carmel dusted the mantelpiece with the ridiculous-looking purple feather duster the twins gave her for Christmas. She came to the photo, just as she did every day. She didn’t dare lift the large silver frame, dusting around it so carefully, afraid she would drop it. Bill and Gretta beamed out at her as they had done every day of her seventeen-year marriage. Her husband was dressed in his best suit standing proudly beside the now deceased Gretta looking so young and innocent in floor-length white lace. The veil on her head looked old-fashioned now, but it was all the go back when she and Bill got married. They looked so in love, so full of hope. She frequently caught him staring at it as he shoveled his dinner wordlessly down his throat every evening after milking. The pain of his grief was still there in his eyes. The initial agony had dulled to an empty unfillable void, but Carmel knew that Bill missed his first wife every single day. She was no substitute, and never would be.
She tried so hard in the early years, making nice dinners, keeping the house spotless, she even tried to ‘spice things up in the bedroom’, following to the letter the instructions in Cosmo, but nothing worked. She would take to her grave the look of perplexed horror on his face the night in the first year of their marriage, when he came upstairs to find the bed scattered with rose petals, candles burning everywhere, and Carmel reclining, in what she hoped was a provocative way, in a new cream silk nightie. He just stood there for a second, looking appalled, and then muttered something about a sick calf in the shed that he needed to check on. By the time he got wordlessly into bed beside her an hour later, she was in flannel pyjamas buttoned to the neck and all traces of flowers and candles gone. It was never mentioned again. She burned with shame whenever she thought of it, another failure. That side of the marriage never existed. She had been dreading it, and in the first nights she was relieved when he put out the light and simply fell asleep, but as time went on she knew they should be doing something. The years passed and apart from that one incident, the subject was never raised again.
She fleetingly played with the idea of asking him, once or twice, if she was doing something wrong. She wondered why on earth he wanted to marry her in the first place, but she never had the courage to speak up. He didn’t confide in her about anything, he never had, it would only embarrass them both. She didn’t think it was because of the age difference, even though she was only forty to his fifty-four, it was more that they were totally incompatible. She loved people and chatting and Bill was so quiet, he rarely spoke, and when he did his words were economical, delivering information only.
‘The spuds are going to be ready in around ten days so I’ll have some sent up,’ had been this morning’s only communication.
‘Do you think it will be a good crop this year?’ she asked, trying to extend the only conversation with another human apart from Julia that she would have all day.
Bill made a sound which she took to mean ‘I don’t know’, and left for the farm. No ‘have a nice day dear’ or ‘What do you plan to do today, Carmel?’ or even ‘Thanks’ for the creamy porridge, grilled rasher and home baked soda bread he had eaten for breakfast.
The Bill she woke beside every morning bore very little resemblance to the man in the wedding photo. Certainly, three decades had passed, his dark curly hair was grey now, and the lean young farmhand had become a paunchy middle-aged farmer. But it wasn’t just the time that had changed him. People in the town had said to her that the day Gretta died a bit of Bill died as well. She’d had to listen to how charming he was as a young man, how chatty and genial. It was hard to believe they were not in some way blaming her for the transformation.
She had no idea what he was like before but for the seventeen long years that she knew him he was undoubtedly the most monosyllabic man in Ireland. Julia was the worst for reminiscing about the old Bill. She exclaimed, as often as she could, as loudly as she could, to as many people as she could, how Bill was so much happier before. The before, of course, referred to ‘before Carmel’.
As feelings of bitter hatred for her sister-in-law threatened to rise up within her, Carmel tried to think good thoughts.
‘Challenging interpersonal relationships are a great opportunity to practice your mindfulness,’ she quoted her self-help CD through gritted teeth. Bill never saw her Wayne Dyer or Deepak Chopra books and CDs, she kept them out of sight. Not that he’d say anything, but he’d get that look, the one that spoke volumes, the one that said, ‘Gretta wouldn’t be sucked in by all that nonsense.’
The look of disappointment on Bill’s face was such a regular feature of her life. So, she kept her interest in mindfulness and gratitude and trying to live her best life, to herself. At night she listened to Dr Wayne Dyer’s lovely deep voice podcast about drawing positive energy to you, as Bill snored rhythmically beside her. If he saw her, listening on her headphones, he never once asked what she was listening to. In a way she was glad, it was her thing. Louise Hay, Dr Dyer, and so many others made her feel less alone. She had the internet on her phone and she was in lots of Facebook groups. One in particular she really enjoyed, set up to discuss the teachings of Dr Dyer. It was based in the UK, and the people on it were so nice and they talked so much about positivity and love and service to mankind, she felt good being around them, even if it was only virtually. They were her only friends and her name on there was CarmelIreland. She’d log in most mornings and instantly someone in the group would send her a smiley face or a wink, or a ‘good morning CarmelIreland!’ post.
Whatever about Bill, he didn’t care what she did, she could never let Julia see what she was up to. She’d have her committed to the county home as a nutcase, or bring her down to the priest to be exorcised. As far as Julia was concerned, there was only one place for faith or spirituality and that was up at mass every Sunday morning, anything else was heresy.
She tried so hard with Julia. Well, at the start she did anyway. Growing up in the children’s home, Carmel always thought of sisters, and by association sisters-in-law, as lovely, benevolent forces for good in a person’s life. She devoured novels where sisters and brothers and cousins solved mysteries or went on adventures, and longed, more than anything, for a family herself, one of her very own. When she married Bill, a handsome if quiet widower with nine-year-old twins, Sinead and Niamh, she thought she was getting just that, but from the very first day when Bill brought her to this house, meeting her step-children and sister-in-law, Carmel knew something was very wrong. It was not like any book she’d ever read. The children were not timid exactly, more standoffish, like they didn’t want her there, and Julia was openly hostile.
Carmel was not a welcome addition to the sad little household of Bill Sheehan and his lost-looking girls.
Julia talked constantly about Gretta, about how nice she was, how kind, how funny, how well- dressed, and when she really wanted to put the boot in, how much Bill and the twins adored her. Carmel knew perfectly well that her husband didn’t love her, he probably didn’t even like her very much, and while she had sadly come to accept that fact, it wasn’t nice to have her nose rubbed in it almost daily when Julia found a reason to ‘pop in’.
Chapter 2
Carmel started as the clock struck the hour. She tried to breathe, berating herself for her jumpiness. Nothing bad was going to happen. Julia was at work; as principal of the local National school she never left before four pm, so the chances of her ‘popping’ in before then were zero.
She glanced around the familiar house. Even if anyone did call, nothing was amiss. Everything was exactly as it should be, exactly as it was since the day Bill and Greta first decorated it. Carmel remembered the first time she saw Bill’s house, surrounded by a little flower bed and a neatly clipped lawn. She remembered her heart soaring as Bill pointed it out to her on the drive up the hill out of the town of Birr. She would never forget the sensation of relief and sheer joy, a home of her very own at long last. It was short lived happiness but she still remembered that feeling, like everything was going to be ok. In the beginning, she imagined adding her own little touches, but very early on Bill said he wanted nothing changed, and he meant nothing at all. The same yellow and orange flowery curtains hung in the windows, the same Tupperware, the same brown patterned crockery, it was like a time warp, stuck in the eighties. She cleaned it, cooked in it, she even did the garden, but it was Bill and Gretta’s house, not Bill and Carmel’s.
Julia pointed that fact out frequently.
Carmel sighed, thinking of her witchy sister in law. She was all pointy and thin, exactly like a witch in a story, and her dark hair was pulled back into a severe bun. She was terrifying in every way. Carmel’s heart went out to the little kids who had to have her as headmistress.
Julia claimed she never had time for marriage, and then when poor Gretta passed away so young, she knew that Bill and the twins needed her. She spun this story so often to anyone who’d listen, Carmel could almost recite it by heart. Subtext, they still need her, as his new wife turned out to be such a disappointment.
The twins’ graduation photo stood proudly beside their parent’s wedding one. Sinead and Niamh were identical and even after all these years Carmel regularly let herself down by calling Sinead Niamh or vice versa. Only their mother and Bill could tell them apart; another jibe from Julia. They were nice enough girls, Carmel tried to be fair, but they missed Gretta and they didn’t want a new mother, that much was very clear. She’d lost count of the number of times she tried to engage the girls in activities or outings so that they could get to know each other, as all the parenting books she bought insisted was vital. Each time she tried though, her offers were rebuffed, and Julia swept in, suggesting something much more appropriate, as if Carmel wanted to take them to a lap dancing club or to a rave.
She gave up eventually, another failure. They were both up in Dublin now, Sinead working as Administration Manager in Dublin Airport, while Niamh was expecting her first child, a honeymoon baby after the wedding of the century.
Carmel’s cheeks blazed at the memory of Bill’s speech the day Niamh married Cillian, about how proud Gretta would have been, how lucky they were to have her for the years that they had, how tragic was her loss for the whole family. He never referred to Carmel, or even looked in her direction. Sinead, the chief bridesmaid, wiped her eye, not wanting to smudge her carefully applied make-up, while Niamh’s new husband squeezed his bride’s hand reassuringly.
Bill raised a toast, ‘To Gretta’ he said, his voice choked with emotion. At least the guests had the good grace to look mortified, some throwing her a pitying glance. Carmel got no mention in any other speeches either, even though she made the cake and the flower girl dresses. The bride and bridesmaid and their Auntie Julia went to New York wedding gown shopping. It never occurred to them to ask Carmel. She remembered how foolish she felt because she’d got a passport specially, having never left Ireland before she didn’t have one, but she used the special service in the Post Office so everyone in Birr knew she got a passport, thanks to Betty Big-Mouth the postmistress, so further embarrassment ensued when she wasn’t asked to go on the big trip.
Ronan Collins came on the radio. He was her favourite DJ and she loved his programme, he played all the songs she loved, and not the really old stuff that Bill liked, but songs from the seventies and eighties. Sometimes she talked back to Ronan when he spoke, if Bill heard her he’d be horrified. He’d think she was bonkers as well as unlovable, but it was nice to have someone to talk to, even if he was on the radio and had no idea that Carmel Sheehan existed quietly in the town of Birr, Co Offaly.
She used to dream that one day she’d hear Ronan’s voice say, ‘And now I have a request here for Carmel whose birthday it is today from her loving husband Bill and her daughters Sinead and Niamh’, but she never dreamed of that anymore. She even thought once about sending in a text to the show on her birthday to wish herself a happy birthday, but she stopped herself. That really would be barking mad.
She finished dusting and checked the fire surround for any specks of ash. It was set with paper and sticks with the coal strategically placed on top ‘for maximum chance of combustion’. She smiled at the phrase, Sister Kevin used to say that, when they were lighting fires in Trinity House, the children’s home where Carmel grew up.
She wondered how things were there now. In the seventeen years since she left, there must have been a lot of changes. The older nuns probably died or retired, just as well, she thought. They were of a different time. There were so many rules and regulations now about children in state care. It was necessary of course, awful things happened to kids over the years in homes just like Trinity House, but she hated hearing stories of how horrific things were for people in institutions. She switched off when such tales came on the radio, not because she didn’t care, but because she wanted to say that not everywhere was like that.
Julia popped in last week and more or less asked her straight out if she was abused.
‘I’m so tired of all this whining on the radio, these so-called victims,’ the witch announced as she made herself at home. ‘I mean, look at you for example, were you abused? Your mother, the misfortunate wretch had you in a home for fallen women, and you ended up in an orphanage and nothing happened to you did it?’
Carmel was mortified, she mumbled an agreement and gave Julia her cup of tea.
Trinity House was good, not as good as a home and a family of your own of course, but good enough. The nuns who ran it were kind and they did their best. The day she left there to get married she was happy and sad at the same time, she was leaving the only home she ever knew. She remembered Sister Margaret saying,
‘Your mother would have been proud of you Carmel,’ as she walked with the nuns to the chapel down the street from Trinity House in the beige skirt and jacket she had found in a charity shop and altered herself to fit.
Sister Margaret was just being nice, nobody had the faintest clue who her mother was, and whether or not she would have been proud of her daughter on her wedding day was a mystery, but it made Carmel feel a bit happier anyway. The wedding was nice, the mass said by Father Tobin and he was so kind and funny, and afterwards the nuns put on a nice spread in a room off the community hall. Nobody was there from Bill’s side, Julia stayed in Birr to mind the girls, and the witnesses were Sister Kevin and the sacristan, Mr. O’Neill. She remembered poor Sister Margaret and Sister Bonaventure trying to keep the conversation going over tea and sandwiches, they even made a little wedding cake, but Bill agreed with everything they said and contributed little else. After an hour, he put Carmel’s small suitcase in the boot of his car and off they drove to Birr, to begin their married life. Not a word passed between them on the journey. She knew from the few meetings they had before the wedding he wasn’t what you’d call chatty, but she supposed it must have been hard for him to remarry and he would need time to adjust. She had been so wrong though, he never did adjust.
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