‘Anyway, I was given the charge of placing this coloured baby with an English family. To be honest, I hadn’t a clue where the baby had come from, only that it had arrived in the orphanage in the middle of the night and there was no mother to show for it. But then, at the time, it wasn’t unusual for a baby to be left off, the mother probably hoping that a good home would be found and she could get on with what was left of her own life.’
‘So, how did you…’ Elizabeth wasn’t sure what she wanted to ask first, but she knew Mother Agatha had to get her story finished before she could begin to pick apart the million questions, they both had for her.
‘The problem was, I didn’t realise for many, many years exactly who you were. It was not until old Sister Bernadette was dying that she told me where the baby had come from. You know, by then, Ireland had changed and for some of us, brave enough to go out into the world, we realised that not every orphan was well placed; indeed very many were sent to places you wouldn’t put a dog.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘By then you would have been a young man. I could only pray that I’d done the right thing in leaving you with the family we’d found in England.’
‘Oh, yes, my mum and dad, they really are salt of the earth,’ he said and a feeling of gratefulness welled up in Elizabeth.
‘Sister Bernadette was racked with guilt over her part in it all.’ She looked now at Elizabeth. ‘Of course, she’d panicked and then once she’d brought the child out, there was no changing Dr O’Shea’s mind. He… well, we both know the sort of man he was and there was no going back, was there? I mean you believed your child was buried in the grave of the angels. God knows, you spent enough time up there cleaning it up and putting flowers on it every week.’ She shook her head sadly.
‘It wasn’t wasted time. Those little babies deserved that at the very least,’ Elizabeth whispered.
‘Yes, they did indeed.’ She stopped for a moment. ‘Oh, Elizabeth, I’m so sorry, but by the time I realised, it was too late. I agonised over telling you the truth, but then I felt that there was no telling what knowing after all that time might do to you. It could send a woman mad – I think, if it was me, it might have tipped me over completely.’
‘It’s a lot to take in,’ Elizabeth said, but she reached out to the old nun. ‘But I understand, things were so different then. Everyone was doing what they believed was right. You, Agatha, above any of the nuns in the convent, I know you would have paid a heavy price worrying about the rights and wrongs of it. But it was beyond our reach, back then, we were all so powerless.’ They both began to cry now, but it was as if they were both somehow released – these were not tears of bitterness or sadness, but rather joy beyond which Elizabeth had ever known.
Eventually, rubbing her eyes, the nun turned to Dan. ‘The truth is… if it’s not too politically incorrect to say it, I’d remember you if I was without a single other memory. You see, Dan, you were the only baby we’d ever had at the orphanage who wasn’t as white as new boiled potatoes. Your beautiful golden skin set you apart, so there’s only one person who could be your mother – and that’s Elizabeth O’Shea.’
34
Lucy
The weeks that followed rolled into each other much too quickly. Summer holidays had never slipped so deliciously or slyly by. Lucy snatched hours away from the surgery when she could in July and August, ostensibly so they could spend time together before Niall headed off for Australia, but mostly they just sat at the end of her mother’s bed, talking of things that happened over the years, mainly because they all knew that those hours would never be played over again. Since the charity swim her mother seemed to have lost all of her vitality. Now, she stayed in bed all the time and even drinking the energy smoothies Niall made took so much out of her that they took turns holding the straw to her lips.
The past couple of years, which should have been happy for all of them, had worn them down and now, in the time that was left, it seemed that their relationship had taken on fresh new warmth as if to crash together as much as they could before Lucy was left alone in Ballycove.
‘How will it work? When I go… you’re moving back here full-time, will you…？’ Niall asked one afternoon.
‘I’ll sell the house in Dublin. I have no interest in keeping it on. It’ll be money in the bank now that I’ve bought the practice with my savings, and I’ll be a confirmed country GP.’ Lucy smiled.