The Mermaids Singing (12 page)

The priest shifted slightly forward. “In what way?” he said.

“Well, she tried to attack me, in the water, and I got away but
she drowned. I didn't know she was drowning, I thought she was still coming after me.”

“I see.” The priest paused. Grace held her breath. What would be the penance for murder? She could be saying Hail Marys for years. “It doesn't sound like you're responsible for this woman's death. It was a tragic accident,” the priest said.

Grace exhaled, relieved. She was beginning to see the benefit of confession. She could leave all her mistakes in that little box, and the priest could dispose of them for her. Like shedding her clothes and entering the water.

“Have you any other sins?” the priest said.

“Um,” Grace said. She tried to remember what she was supposed to think of as sins. Dishonoring her mother was a good one, but mostly she avoided Clíona and she didn't think that counted. She had used to say “impure thoughts”—a phrase the nuns had taught her that had seemed to cover just about anything.

“What age are you?” the priest asked when her pause grew too long.

“Fifteen,” Grace said.

“Have you respect for the body God gave you?” he said.

“Yes,” Grace said proudly, thinking of swimming.

The priest made a rusty sound in his throat. “What I mean is, are you still a virgin?”

Grace blushed. She hadn't thought to mention that, though now that he had, she knew she was in trouble. She considered lying, but lying to a priest was probably a bigger sin than sex.

“No, Father.” She thought she heard him sigh.

“Did someone force you?” he said.

“Of course not.”

“How many boys have you let do this to you?”

“Oh, just one, Father.”

“You shouldn't give in to the temptations of the flesh,” the priest said. “I'll ask you to sever all relations with this boy and meditate on your soul.”

Grace hadn't expected this. Penance had never been something she couldn't kneel down and rattle off.

“I can't do that, Father. I love him.”

The priest made a disgusted noise in his throat. “Your love for God should take precedence.” The comforting tone he'd had for her murder confession was gone. He spoke quickly, spitting the words. “Any relations with a man are a sin unless you are married in the eyes of God. I cannot grant you absolution, unless you cease such behavior. I suggest you go home and think it over.” He made the sign of the cross and closed the screen quickly.

Grace sat in the dark closet until she felt she could no longer breathe. Then she left the church, the eyes of all who were kneeling for penance accusing her.

 

That night, Clíona moved out of the attic, and Grace wrote “tog room” on a sheet of notebook paper and slipped it under Michael's door. She went out to the swimmers' cabin, the sandy ground beneath her feet foreign and unsteady. She curled up on the daybed and waited for Michael.

The words of the priest echoed in her head. She'd heard of people being refused absolution; the children had been warned of it in Catechism school. Grace had thought it only happened to truly evil people, but apparently it was easier to be damned than she'd ever imagined. If she died tonight, she'd go straight to Hell.

She dozed, on and off, dreamed of Mrs. Willoughby with pits where her eyes were, seaweed strangling her neck. Occasionally, Grace would wake with a start, believing she'd heard the latch on the door, but there was no one. Finally she slept soundly and rose at dawn with a thought that froze her:
He never came
.

It's still my belief that if I'd gotten Grace home earlier, when she was still the wee child, she'd be living in Ireland today. Even if she'd moved back to the States later in life, it would have been as an Irish woman choosing to emigrate as I did. But I stayed in America too long; Grace became an American girl. I got stuck there, you know that sort of way. I couldn't come home until I'd made some money, and then I had the child and In is Murúch was not the place for single mothers at that time. (Sure, now it's different. Barbara, the girl who works in Marcus's shop behind the pub, is expecting, and she with no husband and, I suspect, no notion of who the father is. In my day children were taken away from such girls, raised in orphanages like criminals or exported to the States for adoption. Which is why my relations, Marcus included, believe I was widowed. I wasn't going to risk the wrath of this small Catholic community.) And of
course, once Mrs. Willoughby fell ill, I couldn't just up and leave those children. They needed me, much as I needed them. There were no jobs for me to return to in Ireland so secure as that one.

For a short while I thought I might marry in America, when your man Jacob Alper was courting me. He was a Jewish man, not the sort you'd meet on my island. My father would've died from the shock of it had he known, but it never came to the point I had to tell him. If he'd been willing to listen I could have told him how much the Jews are like the Irish. Sure, you'd have thought we'd come from the same family when Jacob and I got chatting. But my father was an old one, and not much interested in expanding his world.

Jacob was the closest I ever came to my childish ideal of love. Not that I don't love Marcus; he's my husband, and never a rough word has passed between us. But Jacob was passionate. I still blush when I think of the things I let that man do, things I'd never tell anyone about, especially Grace, who used to ask. My first experience with sex had been disastrous, and my life with Marcus has been more business than pleasure. Jacob stirred something up in me, sinful as it was. I dream of him occasionally, even now, and I wake up terrified that I might have talked in my sleep. But Marcus could keep snoring through a war, God love him.

I can remember lying naked in Jacob's apartment, with nothing to hide me because we'd kicked off the bedclothes, and I didn't care one bit. We would spend most of our dates there, making love more times in succession than I thought possible, until the hour came for him to drive me home.

I was not shy with Jacob, not even in the beginning. I was a different woman altogether. He wanted to look at every inch of me, and I let him and explored his body as well. I'm ashamed to say I can barely remember him clothed. But I can still see the smooth protrusions of his hips and the line of soft hair that ran up his stomach and bloomed into ringlets across his chest. He used to like me to lie with my arms above my head, while he kissed me on every spot he
could find. More than once, when I gave up and grabbed hold of him in the process, he'd whisper to me that I was sexy. And it's the only time I ever was—sexy, I mean—to myself as well as someone else.

I gave up my guilt for a time then. I'd a daughter after all, and no chance of having another, nor any reason to pretend I was pure. When it was over, I was in part relieved to go to Confession and leave it behind me. I fell under the power of lust like most do, but I got out of it, sure. Not that I regret it, I can't somehow. But it can cloud your mind, all that passion, just the same as it lightens your body. Just look what happened to my namesake, Clíodhna. Drowned in the sea of her own desire. Sure, it's only a myth, but sometimes myths have more truth in them than life.

Marcus came into the picture when Jacob and I had been together just over ten months. When Marcus wrote to me that first time, just after Mrs. Willoughby's accident, it was to ask permission to call during his trip to Boston. I'd known him as a boy; his father owned the hotel, and all the island girls considered Marcus a good catch. I had taken no notice of him at the time, as I'd had my nursing aspirations. Brigid O'Connor was the lucky one snatched him up, and she'd five children by him before she died. Her oldest, Mary Louise, was minding them as best she could, but I'd had it in a letter from my father that Marcus intended to remarry once his year's mourning was up. I hadn't thought your man had looked twice at me, but he admits now he fancied me as a girl. Says I was too stuckup to notice him, which may be the truth. I had a high opinion of myself before I got out in the world.

So along comes Marcus with flowers, and sweets from Ireland, and a gift of Aran gloves for Grace. He stayed in Boston for a month, calling every other evening, before he asked for my hand. I made my decision quick and didn't look back. I broke it off with Jacob, who fought me a bit, but gave up when he saw how determined I was. I know what that daughter of mine thought, sure. Thought I settled for Marcus she did, for the security of the hotel and all.

It wasn't that so. Marcus is a lovely man, not a burden I saddled myself with. And simply enough, I wanted to return home. I'd no future in Boston; Michael was off to university and the girls were half grown. Jacob, passionate as he was, was a writer and not a family man. He loved me, sure, but was not ready for a commitment. You make decisions in life, I tried to tell Grace, you make compromises. I'd not loads of opportunities knocking at my door, no college education, and a rebellious teenager by my side. Marcus gave me my home back. He got a mother for his children and a partner in the hotel. There are marriages based on less—and they aren't as happy as ours.

Grace refused to see it from my position. (I wonder if she'd be so superior now. Sure, I haven't seen her in twelve years, but I'd be surprised if she spent much of that time without some man at her side. She'd have been with someone, if not for money and security, then surely for some other benefit.) She'd gone a little off her head after Mrs. Willoughby's death, and my announcing our move to Ireland didn't help the situation. Ill with pneumonia then, she'd kept the black mood long after she was healthy again, which made me suspect there was more to Mrs. Willoughby's accident than the others thought. Not that Grace was responsible, of course, but she knew more than she was saying. I found her clothing by the dock that day, though I never mentioned it, and neither did she. I don't know that I'd want to have the whole story, truth be told. Grace had a mysterious side to her that I was better off staying away from.

I'm not as dim as she thought, either. I knew something was going on with her and Michael, but it stopped after the accident, that was clear enough. I never asked how far it went, and I didn't find out until it was too late. I blame myself in a way, so wrapped up in Jacob I was, I didn't see the signs early enough. But sure, I couldn't have stopped her. If there's one thing I know about children, having one of my own and five steps, it's you can't teach them to avoid your mistakes. The harder you try the more they take after
you. I try not to think about what I'd have saved Grace, had I known that fact a wee bit earlier.

Grace's behavior when she found out we were leaving for Ireland was desperate. Even I didn't know she could take things so far. With Michael avoiding her as he was, she learned quick enough that he wasn't going to be her knight in shining armor. What possessed her to go to Jacob I don't know, but I suppose he was her only choice, barring Mr. Willoughby, who I admit would have been even worse.

Grace disappeared when I was packing for our trip home. I was frantic. I'd the police looking for her, and Michael riding around in his father's car half the night. Not a word for two days, until Jacob rang to say I should come pick her up. I was the confused one, but I'd Michael give me a lift over there.

Jacob let me into his flat, and there was my daughter, pissed to Heaven and collapsed on your man's bed—the same bed I'd been sneaking off to. God, that was hard to take. Jacob brought me into the kitchen and whispered what had happened.

The girl had tried to tempt him. He gave me no details but assured me she had been determined.

“I'd watch her, Clee,” he said. “For a fifteen-year-old she knows what she's doing.”

“You didn't—” I started, but he backed away.

“I'm not a pervert, for Christ's sake. That's one messed up girl you've got. She doesn't want to go to Ireland and she'll risk prostituting herself to avoid it.”

“We're going all the same,” I said.

“You won't change your mind?” he said. I don't think I broke the man's heart, but I remember that moment and how he looked at me and touched me, right on that spot below my earlobe that he knew was my weak place, and I still believe he loved me. Love may be enough for a less practical-minded woman than myself, but I'd made my decision. Seduction wasn't going to change it.

“Will you help me get the girl down to the car?” I said. He was polite enough after that, and it was the last I saw of him. I had it
from Maeve that he became quite the popular author in the States later on.

Michael was the abashed-looking one on that lift home, but I'll say he didn't do right by her in the end; never even said good-bye, to my knowledge. He was just a boy, and Grace should have known better than to think he'd take care of her. And she couldn't see the guilt he felt after his mother's death, how he punished himself and Grace because of it. I felt sorry for her, though, understanding the betrayal of men myself, and so I never wrote to Michael. It was a shame, seeing as I once loved him like my own son.

It hurt me sure, it did, that Grace despised Ireland. Here I was, home to the place I'd longed after for seventeen years, longed after for my daughter's sake as well, and she couldn't get away quick enough. Maybe I was too hard on her, expected too much. I could have let her stay with my sister in Boston, though Maeve would have needed convincing, as Grace was a handful. But I truly believed it was best for her to come with me, sure every girl needs her mother. I didn't want my daughter farmed out so she never knew her true home. Of course, now I see she was farmed out to the Willoughbys' along with me. I didn't give her a proper home until she was too far gone to recognize it.

I try not to waste time crying over things I can't change. If we all knew then what we know now, the world'd be a perfect place.

 

God in heaven, I'll never forget the look of my child's face on that airplane. Like a prisoner being taken to the lockup, she was. I was nervous enough, flying for the first time, and there was poor Marcus bending himself backward trying to cheer us both up, though Grace was fierce rude to him. If I'd known how much worse she'd get, I'd have cherished that plane trip as a bonding family moment.

Once we got to Inis Murúch, I'd my hands full. Marcus's youngest, Tommy, was still in nappies, and Stephanie wasn't school-age yet. The twins, Conor and Marc Jr., were going on twelve and prone
to dangerous mischief if I didn't keep my eye on them. There was the hotel to organize, while Marcus ran the pub. Mary Louise was a great help to me, she was, and we got on grand, so much so that Grace might have been jealous had she minded me at all. It was summer when we arrived and Grace was rarely inside. Spent her time swimming, naked at night, which started the gossip, but I forced her to wear togs in the day. She made no attempt to be friendly to the island girls, not even Mary Louise, who could have been like her older sister. Grace moped on her own and wrote letters to Michael, but she never got any post back. I gave her the space to work it out, thinking that once school started up she'd snap out of her mood. I watched her closely though, looking for signs of the drinking that had led her to Jacob's bed. She never took it up seriously. A great relief, because I know the taste for drink is an easy thing for an Irish child to learn.

Grace shared her bedroom with Mary Louise and Stephanie in the beginning, the twins in the loft room and Tommy with Marcus and myself. We'd one toilet for the lot of us, and it was a job to get Grace to learn to hurry her washing. She'd been spoiled with her own toilet at the Willoughbys'.

The night Grace was ill, I thought first she was stubborn and taking her time as she usually did. Stephanie was whining outside the toilet with her legs crossed, and Mary Louise was banging on the door.

“What's the trouble now?” I said, when I'd come up after the noise. I knocked on the door and called to Grace. “There's the rest of the family needing the facilities, your highness.”

“Leave me alone,” came her muffled voice from the door crack. I knew something wasn't right. I sent Mary Louise and Stephanie to use the hotel toilet, and tried to get Grace to let me in.

“Fuck off, Mom,” she yelled in response. She was crying, I could hear the gulps and sniffles, and she was flushing the bowl every other minute.

“Grace, stop this now. Let me in. Are you ill?”

She cursed so furiously, I backed away from the door and went downstairs. Marcus was in from the pub, Mary Louise had got him.

“What's wrong with the girl?” he said.

I asked him to take the children to my cousin Maggie's for the night. He did so, leaving me to handle it. He's happy enough to let me deal with crises, Marcus is. Grace was always beyond his understanding, though he was kind to her.

I waited in the hallway outside the toilet until half-twelve, when Grace finally opened the door. She'd a bundle of towels and the bath mat with her, and she shuffled to the stairs before she saw me watching. Her face was streaked with dirty tears, her eyes swollen and veiny.

“What is it, Grace? What's happened?” I put my hand on her arm but she backed away. The towels were soaked in dark, clotted blood.

“Jesus Christ in Heaven,” I whispered, crossing myself. “What have you done?” At first I thought she'd hurt herself, slit her wrists like. She started crying again.