Ellis Island (29 page)

Chapter Forty-Eight

I put in my second order the very next day and it was all sold in advance of it arriving a week later. So then I put in an order twice as large, using the very last of my American dollars. This time I included yarns, knitting needles and some inexpensive but brightly colored cotton fabric and threads. All this, too, sold out within days.

As the months passed, the business flourished. It seemed I had been right in believing there was a need for a shop in the area, but in addition I had the knack of choosing well what my neighbors would and would not buy.

As for John’s surplus farm produce—eggs, milk, turnips, spuds and the like—we sold very little of it, as most of our customers were farmers themselves. So I took the habit of giving some of his fresh produce away as an incentive for the customers who bought our meat. For every chicken sold, I threw in a few turnips alongside it. For a hunk of bacon, there was a half dozen eggs free. The leftover produce was only going to feed the pigs otherwise, and it worked a treat. Within a few weeks we were as busy as the butcher in Kilmoy, and John was buying in pigs for slaughter and trading chickens with the very neighbors who were buying our bacon.

Veronica had come to work for me, but as the shop became busier I found I needed help with the house as well. So I took on her mother, Mary, to help me with my domestic chores. They were good workers, the pair of them, and the shop became a great success in no small part because of the freedom their labor gave me to concentrate on the business side of things.

John kept Vinny Moran on to help him build an additional room to the side of our house, the nursery I wanted before starting a family. With all these employees there were many mouths to feed, and I was so busy that I barely had time to think.

When the shop and nursery were built, my husband was able to return to his true passion—the land. John grew stronger and stronger as every month wore on. He was a hard worker and a talented farmer. He rose with the crow and was happiest with his feet in the clay and his hands covered in muck or wrapped round the warm udder of a cow.

When we were children, John’s propensity toward the land had fascinated and impressed me, but on my return from America, it took a while to get used to the simplicity of his days. At times it irritated me to see how satisfied my husband was with the plain tasks of plowing and milking, when I knew a man with his mind was capable of so much more. How could he happily spend an entire day in the open air, only coming home to perform the basic human tasks of eating and sleeping or making love? Nonetheless, I was pleased by what he produced for our table: creamy milk, fat eggs with orange yolks as thick as butter, an abundance of floury spuds and huge heads of cabbage so solid you could play ball with them. We roasted a chicken every Sunday and there were always two pigs curing in salted barrels at our back door.

For all that I disapproved of my husband farming, I never balked at the smell of the land from him. Often when he came in dirty from the fields I would take him, unwashed, into the bedroom to taste the earth on his bare skin.

Wednesday, as it was market day in Kilmoy, was our quietest day and many of our regular customers would be in town selling their wares, rather than in our shop buying them. By this time my customers knew me well enough that they would price what they needed in town, then come in to me and I would better the price for them. It was on the third Wednesday of every month that I took my delivery from Findlater’s. I looked forward to those days like no other—the sealed boxes delivered in a shiny black wagon to my door, the excitement of unloading crisp packages of brand-new things. Even the everyday, like mop heads and carbolic soap, were elevated by the privilege of never having been used before.

Because my house was so off the beaten track, I got into the habit of providing the deliveryman, Joseph, with a meal. A generous pot of sweet tea, bread and ham and two eggs was his usual preference. If he had been driving by night, he would refuse proper food lest his satisfaction made him fall asleep on the way home, in which case I would give him strong black coffee, cigarettes and cake instead. In return, he did me the favor of collecting parcels for me, from the post office on Harcourt Street, in Dublin.

Sheila regularly sent me her cast-off clothes and other delectable trinkets, such as
Vanity Fair
magazine and chewing gum, and I’d found the post office in Kilmoy far too interested in my American packages. Once or twice I had sensed an air of informed anticipation, a whispering as I walked up the aisle in Mass. While I found it vaguely amusing that my American wardrobe was the source of such entertainment, I preferred to maintain some air of mystery and found that it was just as easy to have Sheila forward my packages to Harcourt Street, where Joseph could pick them up and bring them straight to the shop.

On this day, Joseph did not stop for long and I allowed Veronica to unpack the boxes and put the stock away as I took a rare break. I was feeling unnaturally tired and had slept poorly the night before. I had not bled for almost seven weeks, but was pushing the obvious thought to the back of my mind until more definite signs were upon me. I had been bleeding irregularly since my return to Ireland. Sometimes the blood would come every two weeks, at other times I would wait almost three months before it flooded through me in an angry outpouring, crippling me with pain for days on end. My body seemed to be acting against us starting a family and I did not want to raise anybody’s hopes—not even my own.

I put a blanket at my back and sat in front of the fire, with my feet on a milking stool, and peeled back the brown paper at the top of the parcel where Sheila always slid in newspapers and magazines as extra protection for the clothes beneath.

My fingers drew out a copy of the
New York Times
, and I decided to flick through it quickly, just to delay the sweet treat of
Vanity Fair
magazine, whose social pages I devoured—my efforts sometimes rewarded with a face or a name that I fancied I recognized from one of Isobel’s parties. As my eyes wandered casually down the announcements column, they fell upon something that almost ripped them from their sockets.

I must have let out an involuntary noise, because Veronica stopped unpacking the boxes and looked across at me.

“I’m going into the house for a rest, Veronica—call me if anybody needs me.” Still holding the paper, I ran out the door, dropping most of it as fluttering debris in my rush, but still gripping the page with the news of Charles’s engagement. I slammed the cottage door as if there were an angry mob behind me, then went into our bedroom and sat on our bed. Slowly I unfurled the page again.
“Mr. and Mrs. R.M. Irvington of Westchester County would like to announce the engagement of their son Charles Irvington . . .”

It was still there. And it was certainly Charles. Dolores Vinewood was the girl Isobel had joked about looking like a horse. Charles had even mentioned her to me himself once. He had pointed her out in a society magazine, saying she was some silly rich girl his parents wanted him to marry. We had laughed about it together.

The small printed announcement stripped me of my reason. Even though I was on the other side of the world—even though I had said my good-byes and was married to John, whom I loved—I still felt as if something that belonged to me had been snatched away.

Instinctively, I reached under the bed and pulled out my trunk. Most of my belongings had been unpacked and were in everyday use, but there was one drawer that remained unopened. It was my secret place and contained my most private things. Within the dusky-smelling, felt-lined drawer was my American dream. My typing and shares certificates, a box of matches from a speakeasy we used to frequent, a napkin from Tullio’s, the invitation to Sheila and Alex’s wedding, a corsage from a dinner dance I once attended with workmates—scraps from another life. Evidence to remind me, only me, of how I had lived. Of who I once was and of who I might have been.

I reached in for the largest item—the bottle of Chanel No. 5 that Charles had given me. The stopper was stiff and I had to tug at it, noticing how worn and rough my hands had become. As it came free, the heady scent leaked out of the wide neck and filled the room. I was transported back to that day at the Plaza, when the woman had sprayed it on Sheila’s wrist, then mine; then I thought of the party with Charles. My head became dizzy in a swirl of lost glamour, chiffon capes, dancing in beaded hems, high-heeled shoes, and parties and fun and freedom.

Freedom. As quickly as I allowed myself to be carried back into my other life, my other world—I knew it was gone. Quite suddenly it seemed as if I had capsized and, as I fell back onto my marital bed, the expensive perfume emptied itself in three or four greedy glugs all over the counterpane. I grabbed at the bottle, but only managed to rescue a smear of gold dew in the corners. Holding the ordinary clear glass, the pristine label stained and skewed to one side by my clumsy thumb, I felt as if somebody had died.

“Ellie?” John had come in from his morning’s work and was calling to me from the other room. “Is there any food ready?”

I didn’t gather myself up as I usually would have done. I didn’t want to pretend I was content. I didn’t want to pretend this life was enough for me, not anymore. John was sure to ask about the spilled perfume, and if he did I would tell him its provenance. That it was given to me, as a gift of love, by one of the wealthiest men in all America. That I had been offered every luxury, every benefit of body and spirit, but that I had turned it all down to come back and be with him. I wanted him to know the sacrifices I had made. I wanted him to understand how close he had come to losing me, and to admit he had been wrong to stay at home. I wanted him to know the truth of who I was, even though I knew it would hurt him. If he asked about the perfume, I would tell him how I had kissed Charles and would have—
should
have—stayed in America with him, and that if he, John, wanted to thank somebody for my return it was my dead father—for it was his death alone that had brought me back.

“Ellie?” John was standing at the bedroom door. “Are you all right?”

Every inch of me wanted to scream and my hands tightened around the large glass bottle, willing me to throw it across the room and smash it against the wall. I wanted to break something—something outside of myself.

“What’s that in your hand, and what’s that smell?”

I looked at John’s face, and into his eyes, one last time before I told him. One last time before I showed him the bitterness and regret that had plagued me every day since he had left me standing alone, waiting for him on Ellis Island. His face was full of concern, the tired lines of everyday husbandry. He looked older than his years.

I opened my mouth to berate him, but I lost the words. Snatched from me by the girl who loved him, who couldn’t hurt him.

“What’s the matter, Ellie? You don’t look like yourself at all.”

I gripped the perfume bottle, willing myself to tell him the truth, but instead I said, “Who am I then—when I’m myself?”

John smiled and his face opened, suddenly shedding time and worry like sunshine flooding a gray day.

“Why, you’re my Ellie,” he said. “You’re my only one.”

Epilogue

My mother was recovering from a bad attack of flu and had been staying with us for a few weeks. It was a crisp day, and I had moved her into our bedroom and lit the fire.

A short while before I had said good-bye to Father Mac, who had come back after Sunday Mass to minister communion to my mother. Spring was early that year, and as he left the priest commented cheerily on the banks of daffodils and tulips that I had planted along the edge of our drive, and on the budding roses that were already creeping up the terrace at the side of our front door. Now John was driving the priest back to Kilmoy in our new vehicle—a covered trap, drawn by two lively horses. The shop was doing so well that there was even serious talk of buying a car, but John was anxious not to draw too much attention to our growing wealth and, in any case, the roads were still too rough to chance it.

I was sitting by the small bureau at the end of the double bed, which almost filled the small room. The laburnum directly outside the window was blooming and golden. Blue tits flitted pointlessly from branch to branch, shuddering the delicate yellow petals off their stalks so that they rained down onto the rich, damp grass. A robin came and sat on a twig regarding me directly, his fat breast swelled and red. I touched my stomach and allowed myself to hope that this time the pregnancy would last. It had been ten weeks since I had last bled, the longest time so far. Although we wanted a child to complete our marriage, we were both still young and full of love and hope for the future.

On the desk was the silver pen I had bought on my last trip to Dublin, and some expensive marbled writing paper held down by a crystal paperweight gifted to me by Findlater’s for my loyal custom over the past two years.

By my mother’s elbow, on the bedside cabinet, was a china cup and saucer full of tea, and a small matching plate with two of the imported English biscuits she was so fond of, and a folded napkin to catch the crumbs.

I was reading a copy of
Sketch
magazine, giving some consideration to purchasing a new hat on my next trip up to the city. John had promised we would book into the Shelbourne Hotel for a few days once my mother was better, and had agreed that we might repeat the delights of our last holiday, with an afternoon tea dance in the Gresham Hotel followed by a trip to the cinema. John was a terrible dancer, but it had come to the point that it didn’t matter as long as he indulged my desire to get dressed up and go walking and dancing in the capital city at least twice a year. So, as often as I could persuade him, John would walk me down Grafton Street in a serge suit and trilby hat, carrying an ivory-topped cane, and parade me in my carefully chosen finery; we would both pretend to be the rich lady and gentleman that my land-loving husband feared we were becoming. For all that, he basked in my happiness because he knew that, as long I invited him to walk with me, he could not lose me entirely to my foolish affectations.

“I love that smell,” my mother said.

“What smell?”

“Of scent,” she said, closing her eyes and pushing her head back to drink it in. “It’s coming off the bed.”

I sniffed the air, but couldn’t get it. “There is no smell, Mam.”

“There
is
,” she said firmly. “Perfume. I can smell it quite clearly. It’s always been here, but with the fire lit, it’s stronger. You must have dropped perfume on the bed—then forgotten about it.”

I had forgotten. At once I closed my own eyes and tilted my head back, but the scent of Chanel was gone from me. In that moment, as much as I had regretted dropping the perfume on the bed, I regretted even more that the smell of it had become so commonplace to me that I no longer noticed it was there.

My mother shook her head in wonder and said, “It’s so beautiful.”

In the weeks after the spillage, I had lain awake in bed every night with my head full of memories—my senses tainted with the perfume of my dreams, my head filled with mansions and glamour and all that might have been. Over time the scent had faded into the background, and my shallow disappointment and bitterness had ground itself out of my mind and freed me to create a new life as a country shopkeeper and farmer’s wife—my new life, which belonged to me.

I realized then that America had given me so much more than a trunk full of beautiful things. It had introduced me to a life that was deeper than the fashions and gadgets I was so in thrall to. It had given me hope for a better future and, despite all that I believed differently at the time, I had carried that hope back home with me and used it to build a business and a marriage and new friendships.

My time in New York had given me a new confidence and taught me how to create opportunities for myself, instead of allowing circumstance to shape my life. It had encouraged a fresh demeanor and shaped my ideas, and showed me a way of living that was better and brighter and easier than the one I knew. Yet, ultimately, in its acceptance of me and in what it had offered me, America had challenged me to see who I truly was. I had needed the bobbed hair and the trinkets and the fancy manners so that I could see beyond them. I had needed to experience progress so that I could step back into who I was and appreciate the love that I had found with John and understand that was where my wealth truly lay.

I had come to accept that Ireland was where John belonged, and that I belonged with him in a way that I might never have known had I not been away from him for those three years.

Deep in my heart I still held my dream to return to New York and have a life there with John, but, more important, I came to see beauty in the life we already had.

America had planted the seed of freedom in my heart, but it was the rich soil of home that had enabled it to grow.