‘Ten past. Don’t worry, there’s plenty time.’
Molly slammed down the phone and jumped to her feet. God, but everything throbbed. Her head. Her stomach. Her arm. Even her feet for no apparent reason.
She had 20 minutes to pull herself together and no idea where to start. Amazingly, she had hung her dress up and, considering what she had been through, it wasn’t in too bad a shape. She grabbed clean underwear from her bag and headed for the bathroom. It would have to be a quick shower — but what do you do with a broken arm in the shower? Shit, she was going to have to wash her hair with one hand.
She wrapped the shower cap and a plastic bag from the rubbish bin around her arm and secured it with a hair elastic, then jumped into the shower and did the best she could.
Holding her broken arm up in the air, she felt the water rush over the rest of her and felt infinitesimally better. Washing her hair with one arm was a struggle — just getting the top off the shampoo required teeth — but she knew that to feel even halfway human she had to get clean.
By the time she had done a patchy job of drying herself off, getting dressed and applying what makeup she could given her handicap, it was already 11.35.
Pulling on her coat (with difficulty), hat and gloves, she raced down the stairs to find Vivienne standing next to the doorman with a face like thunder.
‘So nice of you to show up,’ her aunt said, unable to look at the bloodshot eyes of her only niece. She turned and headed out of the hotel and into a waiting taxi.
‘You’ve got to be fooking joking!’ the cab driver said when Molly tried to get into the car. ‘Get the fook out of my car.’
He got out of his seat and raced around to the opposite side of the car where Molly was attempting to climb in.
‘If you can stay afford to stay at the fooking Merrion Hotel you can afford to pay your taxi fare, you thieving little bitch,’ he said, grabbing at her arm and pulling her.
‘Owww, my arm!’ cried Molly.
‘Yeah, sure, and if you think I’m going to fall for that story a second time you’re more of a knacker than I thought you were. Now get out of the car.’
‘What the hell is going on here?’ Viv was asking from inside the cab.
‘I’ll tell you what is going on,’ the cabby said, pushing Molly out onto the footpath where she nursed her aching wrist, then peering in at Vivienne.
‘Your little darling here ripped me off for 40 fooking quid last night on some trumped-up trip out to Tallaght and I want my money. Broken arm, me arse,’ he said, straightening up and going around to the boot of the car to start unloading Vivienne’s luggage.
‘Look,’ said Molly, nipping behind the car and pulling off her glove to show him her plaster cast. ‘I did break my arm but she doesn’t know, please don’t make me—’
‘Don’t make you what?’ Vivienne said, coming up behind her.
‘The little trollop broke her bleedin’ arm at a nightclub and doesn’t want to tell you about it. Now are you going to pay me or what?’
The cab driver stared angrily at the two of them until Vivienne finally said, icicles dripping off her words, ‘How much does the little trollop owe you, then?’
‘Forty quid, the knacker.’
‘Well, here’s 50,’ said Vivienne, taking a bill out of her wallet and handing it past Molly to the angry driver. ‘Now, please take us to Busaras.’
She turned on her high heels and slipped into the back seat, Molly following her, her face burning.
‘Viv, I am—’
‘Do not speak to me,’ her aunt said. ‘Not now.’
‘But I—’
‘Ah!’ her aunt interrupted, still staring straight ahead, holding up her palm to block out Molly’s protestations.
‘If only—’
‘Ah!’
Can’t you—’
‘Ah! Ah!’
Molly flopped back into her corner and watched the wet Dublin day go by. Her aunt had every right to think she was a blithering idiot. She thought it herself. She should never have had the stupid idea of coming to Ireland. She should have stayed at home. She should have stayed standing up in that bloody dressing room. A pox on all slut shoes, she thought. A pox!
They crossed the river and finally made it to the bus station, where the cabby, silent ever since the 50 quid made its way into his pocket, unceremoniously dumped Vivienne’s luggage on the wrong side of the road and sped off, leaving them choking in a cloud of exhaust.
Without waiting to argue, Molly grabbed at Vivienne’s biggest suitcase and started to wheel it across the road, leaving her aunt with her travel bag and vanity case.
Inside the bus station was a haze of cigarette smoke, sad-eyed mothers with hordes of screaming kids, and down-on-their-luck-looking men.
Shuddering, Vivienne made her way to the ticket window, while Molly, who was finding being vertical something of a struggle, settled with the luggage on a bench seat. Her head throbbed, her arm throbbed and the contents of her stomach were moving around inside her like a Turkish earthquake. The thought of getting on a bus and travelling for miles and miles did nothing for her constitution and she couldn’t even get a bag of crisps from the vending machine because she didn’t have a penny. Somehow, it didn’t seem the right time to ask Vivienne for a loan.
Her aunt brushed the bench next to her with a kid-gloved hand and sat down.
‘Molly,’ she said, ‘for the sake of your mother and our family in general I am going to try very hard to get over the way I feel about you right now, which is,’ she paused, ‘not very positive.’
Molly picked at the plaster of Paris between her thumb and finger, feeling small and ashamed.
‘You have a black eye, a broken arm, the breath of a dragon, the same dress you’ve had on for three days, a black mark against your name as far as all Irish taxi drivers are no doubt concerned, and your boots need a clean.’
Her aunt turned to her.
‘Thanks to you we are travelling to Ballymahoe in a bus, with other people, but we now have a chance to get there without incident and perhaps find your Uncle Tom. So, can I just ask you — and this is not a hugging opportunity — to try and stay out of back-street brawls and emergency rooms until then?’
Molly took in the forced smile on her aunt’s face.
‘I didn’t mean to break my arm,’ she started but her aunt again held up her stopping hand.
‘History!’ she said, shrilly. ‘History! Moving on. Moving forward.’
‘It really wasn’t my—’
‘Onward, Molly. Forward.’
‘Yes,’ Molly finally said, defeated. ‘Yes, of course, I will try.’
Vivienne looked at her watch and then around the bus station, trying to find the right departure gate. Raising her eyebrows at Molly, she stood up and reached for her two small bags, then turned towards gate one, leaving her niece to trail her with the heavy piece of luggage.
The bus driver who was standing outside the coach having a last cigarette before the long haul nearly choked when he saw Vivienne coming towards him. What a customer! She smiled coolly and he admiringly watched her well-toned rear end float up the stairs as though she caught the bus all the time.
Molly, meanwhile, plonked her suitcase down beside the bus and started to get on herself.
‘What do think this is — Concorde?’ shot the driver, stamping on his cigarette butt with his shoe. ‘Load it on yourself, great strapping girl.’
Her broken arm useless, Molly eventually got Vivienne’s suitcase in the undercarriage of the bus by pulling it against her with her good hand and then lifting her knee up under it, nearly putting her back out in the process.
She clambered into the bus, tripping over her long dress in the process, and looking up to see Viv’s dismayed eyes upon her. She smiled, weakly, and delicately made her way down the aisle, sitting behind her aunt so that if anything disgraceful did happen she wouldn’t automatically see it.
Great strapping girl indeed, she t
hought, her brain working on a one-minute delay system. And hadn’t she been a little trollop only minutes before?
The heating had come on in the bus as the driver warmed the engine, then explained to his passengers that because of road works, the journey would probably take an hour longer than it was supposed to.
Vivienne turned around and shot her a grim look but Molly’s eyelids were already fluttering, and as the bus chugged out of the station she observed briefly that the roof looked like a crinkle-cut crisp, and then fell asleep.
Chapter 20
1971
Margaret Mary hoisted the baby on her hip and smiled as the doors of the coach from Cork opened and a host of holy Catholics poured out, the glare from the crucifixes around their necks nearly blinding her.
She waited until they had gathered together in a rosary-bead-clicking clump before she switched the baby to her other hip and gave the audience her most radiant smile.
‘Good afternoon and God bless you,’ she started. ‘Welcome to Ballymahoe, home of holy visitations from the Blessed Virgin Mary for the past two — nearly three — years.’
The crowd of about 30, all women mostly over 60, elbowed and eyeballed one another as the young mother flashed them another smile and shook her blonde curls, while her baby leaned happily into her neck.
‘My name is Margaret Mary Sheehan and I have the greatest pleasure in telling you that it was to me that Our Lady first appeared on May the second, two-and-a-half years ago in 1969.’ The old ladies inspected her even more closely and Margaret Mary let them, looking especially demure for the purpose.
‘Now, why would the Virgin appear to someone who dyes her hair?’ Peg Kennedy whispered to her sister-in-law Theresa Finucane. Peg had wanted to spend the day going to see a film in Bantry and having afternoon tea but old goody-two-shoes here had dragged her along for an extended bout of holiness instead.
‘Be quiet,’ scolded Theresa, ‘and you might find out.’
‘Does it mean she wants us all to dye our hair or just the girls she appears to?’ Peg hassled. ‘Because that shade of blonde would do nothing for your complexion, Theresa, although I myself could probably get away with it.’
Theresa ignored her, which is what she usually did when Peg was riling her, a system that seemed to work for both of them.
‘If you would like to follow me up the valley, I will show you where the Blessed Virgin appeared,’ Margaret Mary with her dyed hair was telling them, ‘and tell you about all the times she has done so since. Now, as it’s quite a warm day, you may want to purchase a nice cold drink from the kiosk on your right, and for those of you who forgot your rosary beads or would like to buy a commemorative prayer book or sunshade, you can purchase those items at the stand right there next to the kiosk.’
Half the busload headed directly for the refreshments and souvenirs but it soon became clear that Theresa Finucane wasn’t going to be one of them.
‘Don’t tell me you’re not even going to get a drink,’ said Peg, rubbing the bunions on her left foot with the bunions on her right.
‘We’re here for devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and nothing else,’ said Theresa.
‘But they might have postcards,’ said Peg. ‘Or at least some helpful information about the hair dye. You know, in case I’m interested.’
‘That’d be just like you, too, Peg Kennedy, to come all this way to a holy place and then talk of nothing about flossying yourself up. I don’t know why I thought you’d appreciate our day out.’
‘Neither do I,’ answered Peg, ‘since I told you I wanted to go to the pictures instead.’
‘Sshh! The girl’s about to say something.’
‘If you’re ready, please follow me,’ Margaret Mary ordered the ladies, some of them now clutching drinks, some prayer books, others Ballymahoe rosary beads or fresh ham sandwiches, and she turned and headed up the valley.
This baby is going to put my bleedin’ back out, she thought to herself. Where was that useless bloody Morgan anyway? He knew what time the bus was due, he knew that the baby always caused problems with the older crowds, and still he hadn’t bothered to turn up, the bollocks. She’d kill him.
She put her domestic concerns behind her and turned around to smile encouragingly at the devout little group behind her. ‘Not far now,’ she called enthusiastically.
Arriving at the spot where Colm Fogarty had once wrestled her to the ground, she turned and waited for her followers to crowd around her. Hiding an involuntary groan, she lowered the heavy baby to the ground and sat him on the warm grass. He grinned up at her, then at the sea of thick stockings and sensible shoes on his level.
His mother surveyed the eager faces in front of her.
‘Is everybody all right now?’ she asked. ‘If you’re too hot or tired, there’ll be somebody arriving any minute now with foldaway chairs and umbrellas.’ And she’d give the somebody a right kick up his arse, too, for not arriving with them earlier.
She stopped and composed herself. This was her favourite part, despite the absence of her husband and the presence of their child. Drawing her hands together in front of her body in a prayerful pose, Margaret Mary adopted her most religious expression.
‘It was here in this exact spot on the second of May 1969,’ she said in a soft voice, but not so soft that the old dears couldn’t hear her, ‘that I felt myself mysteriously drawn, during an afternoon of prayer, to the valley in which we now stand.’
Peg had to stop herself from snorting. Who did this little madam think she was? Mysteriously drawn indeed. Still, the little one was a treasure and so well behaved. Just look at him sitting there on the grass grinning up at everyone.
‘One moment I was kneeling at my bedside offering up a few prayers to Our Lord, as was encouraged in my house after school, and next I felt as though a golden thread of the lightest consistency was winding its way around my body and gently pulling me somewhere.’
She looked around. She had them, all right.
‘As if in a dream, I floated, or at least that’s what it felt like, out of the house and up the street towards the valley. There I met altar boy Colm Fogarty, known in our town at the time as being extremely religious for his age. He too had felt a strong unexplained desire to visit the valley and so we made our way from the road together, saying the rosary aloud as we did.
‘In this spot right here where we stand now, I suddenly felt as though I could walk not a step further and I fell to my knees, my head still bent in prayer, and Colm followed my example.’
‘Where’s this Colm now, then?’ Peg Kennedy piped up, breaking the riveted silence.
Her sister-in-law elbowed her so hard in the ribs that Peg was forced to abandon her question and pretend someone else had asked it.
‘After Colm and I had been saying the rosary for some time,’ continued Margaret Mary, ignoring the interruption — she knew how to handle these old battleaxes, ‘I felt again compelled to raise my eyes and look at the hill opposite me, the hill opposite us now.
‘From the left came a shimmering vision of Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin. I knew it was her right away as I had always been a religious girl with a particular interest in the mother of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour.
‘The vision was so bright it was hard to look at but I didn’t mind the glare or the pain in my eyes because she was so beautiful. She bowed her head in prayer. And as quickly as she had appeared, she disappeared again, leaving me drenched in her holy love and magnificence.’
Peg Kennedy started looking around the crowd to see if she could spot anyone else who dyed their hair, but an awful lot of them were wearing hats.
‘When I came back three days later with our parish priest, Father Cahill, and many of the local villagers, Our Lady appeared to me again.’
She paused, as she knew the crowd liked this bit. Well, once the parish priest was involved it was really a lot holier, wasn’t it?
‘In the two and a half years since then Our Lady has appeared a
total of 123 times.’ There was the usual gasp from the crowd. ‘And I am sure you will all want to join me in a rosary to bid her welcome again today. But first, if there are any questions, please feel free to ask them.’
‘How old’s the little boy?’ Peg asked immediately, moving nimbly away from the pointy elbows of her sister-in-law.
‘How old’s the little boy?’ Margaret Mary looked confused. ‘What little boy?’
‘Your little boy,’ Peg said. ‘The one sitting on the grass right beside you. He is yours, isn’t he?’
‘Oh, him,’ Margaret Mary looked down, as if surprised to find the fat happy baby there.
‘I’m just looking after him until his father comes to pick him up,’ she said, not exactly answering the question. ‘I look after a lot of the village children, you know, as part of my work with the parish.’
Peg eyed her suspiciously.
‘How old is he, then?’
‘He’s just over a year,’ said Margaret Mary, leaning over to pick the baby up off the grass. ‘Do you want to hold him?’
‘Just over a year? What a big lad. And when did this Virgin of yours make her first appearance?’
There was a silence as the crowd tried to work out what Peg Kennedy was getting at. They all stopped their chattering and clicking and looked at Margaret Mary again, and then at the baby, and then at Margaret Mary again.
But she was wise to this line of questioning. This was what happened when Morgan left her with the baby — one old cow always tried to suggest that he was either (a) the new Messiah or (b) the result of her and Colm Fogarty falling down in prayer, one on top of the other, without any knickers. It was always the same and this old so-and-so was definitely of the knickerless school.
‘The Virgin appeared first on the second of May 1969, which is 29 months ago. The baby is 13 months old, just over a year, which means he was conceived 22 months ago, seven months after Our Lady’s first visitation. Is there anything else you would like to know?’
‘Are you married, then?’ Peg pushed, the crowd fidgeting nervously around her.