Little Girl

Once upon a time there was a little girl who lived in a bungalow. She was the youngest child, with an intelligent older sister, and cute older brother so handsome that he turned heads in the street, invited conversations with strangers. The little girl was what some people would call a surprise baby. To her parents, who had long finished having children, she was not just unplanned but unwanted and that she knew well. At forty‑seven years old and twenty‑two years since she’d had her last baby, her mother was not prepared for the arrival of another child. Her children had grown up and moved away, her daughter Helen to Cork to be a primary school teacher and her son Brian to Boston, where he was a computer analyst. They rarely came home. It was too expensive for Brian, and her mother preferred to go to Cork for holidays. The little girl didn’t know these two strangers she rarely met and who called themselves her brother and sister. They had children older than she; they knew little of who she was or what she wanted. She’d arrived too late, she’d missed the bonding that they had all had together.

Her father was the gillie at Kilsaney Castle grounds, which was across the road from her home. Her mother was the cook. The little girl loved the position her family were in, so close to such grandeur that the children at school considered her to be a part of it too. She loved that they were privy to bits of gossip that nobody else was. They were always the benefactors of great Christmas bonuses, leftover food, fabrics or wallpapers from recent refurbishings or clear‑outs. The grounds were strictly private but the little girl was allowed to play inside its walls. It was an absolute honour for her and there was nothing she wouldn’t do to please the family, such as odd jobs around the house, running from her father Joe to the groundsman, Paddy, with messages from her mother on what to catch that day, what vegetables to choose for dinner.

She loved the days she was allowed to enter the castle. If she was off sick from school her mother couldn’t very well leave her at home. They were good like that, Mr and Mrs Kilsaney. They allowed her mother to bring her child to work, knowing there was nowhere else she could possibly leave her child and there was nobody else who could take care of their three meals a day so well, feeding them so well with money that was lessening by the year. The little girl would remain quiet in the corner of the great big kitchen where she’d watch her mother sweat all day over steaming pots and a roaring Aga. She would be quiet, never giving any trouble, but she’d take it all in. She’d take in her mother’s cooking but also she absorbed the goings‑on in the house.

She noticed how, whenever Mr Kilsaney had a decision to make, he’d disappear into the oak room and stand in the middle with his hands behind his back while he stared at the portraits of his forefathers, who grandly watched over him from their great big oil paintings with elaborate gold framing. He would exit the oak room, chin high, fired into action as though he was a soldier who’d just received a good talking‑to from his sergeant‑major.

She also saw how Mrs Kilsaney, who was so besotted with her nine dogs and ran around the house in a frenzy, trying to catch them, failed to notice much of what went on around her. She paid more attention to her dogs, in particular the mischievous King Charles spaniel named Messy, who remained the only dog who couldn’t be tamed and who took up most of her thoughts and most of her conversation. She didn’t notice her two young boys play‑acting around the halls for her attention, or her husband’s fondness for the none‑too‑attractive chambermaid Magdelene, who revealed a black tooth when she smiled and who spent much time dusting the Kilsaneys’ master bedroom when Mrs Kilsaney was outdoors with the dogs.

The little girl noticed that what made Mrs Kilsaney mad was dead flowers. She would inspect every vase as she passed, almost as though it were an obsession. She would smile with delight when the nun would arrive every third morning with fresh bouquets from her walled garden. Then, as soon as the door closed, she would pick at them, while grumbling, pulling out anything that was less than perfect. The little girl loved Mrs Kilsaney, loved her tweed suits and brown riding boots, which she wore even on days when she wasn’t riding. However, the little girl decided she would never allow so much to go on in her own home without her knowing. She adored the mistress, but she thought her a fool.

She didn’t think much of the husband frolicking in plain sight with the ugly chambermaid, tickling her behind with a feather duster and acting younger than the little girl herself. He thought she was too young to notice him, too young to understand. She didn’t much like him, but he thought her a fool.

She watched everything. She made a pact with herself always to know everything going on in her home.

She loved watching the two boys. They were always up to mischief, always racing around the halls knocking things over, breaking things, making the chambermaid scream, causing a ruckus. It was the older one she watched all of the time. It was always he who initiated the plan. The younger one who was more sensible and went along with it only because he wanted to look out for his older brother. Laurence was the elder, or Laurie, as they called him. He never noticed the little girl, but she was always there on the outskirts, feeling involved without being invited, playing along in her imagination.

The younger boy, Arthur, or Artie, as they called him, noticed her. He didn’t invite her to play, he didn’t do anything of his own accord, he merely followed his brother’s ideas, but if Laurie did something silly he’d look to the little girl and roll his eyes or make a joke for her benefit. She’d rather he didn’t. It was Laurie she wanted to notice her and the more he didn’t see her, the greater her longing grew. Sometimes when he was alone and running, she would deliberately stand in his way. She’d want him at least to look at her or stop, or shout at her, but he never did. He ran around her. If he was searching for Artie in a game of hide‑and‑seek, she’d help him by pointing out his hiding place. He wouldn’t acknowledge her, he’d search somewhere else, then shout to Artie that he was giving up. He wanted nothing from her.

The little girl stayed home from school a lot, just so she could spend time in the castle. Summer holidays were the best, having every day free to herself around the grounds without having to pretend to cough or to have a sore tummy. It was during one of these summers, when the little girl was seven, Artie was eight and Laurie was nine that she was outside in the grounds playing alone as always when her mother called her to the castle. The Kilsaneys were gone out for the day, fox‑hunting with their cousins in Balbriggan. Mrs Kilsaney had called her up to her room to help her pick out her dress, a floor‑length silk olive‑coloured dress, to be worn with pearls and a fur coat. The little girl’s mother was in charge for the day and when she reached the front of the castle she could tell from the look on the boys’ faces that they were in trouble.

‘It’s a beautiful day so play outside and get some fresh air and don’t be getting under my feet,’ her mother said. ‘Rosaleen will play with you too.’

‘I don’t want to play with her,’ Laurie sulked, still not looking at her, but at least she knew that she wasn’t invisible to him, that he could see her after all.

‘Be nice to her, boys. Say hello, Rosaleen.’

The boys were tight‑lipped, but the little girl’s mother barked at them then.

‘Hello, Rosaleen,’ they both mumbled, Laurie looking at the ground, Artie smiling at her shyly.

The little girl had no name before that. When she heard her name pass his lips, it was as though she had been christened.

‘Now off with you,’ her mother said and the boys ran off. Rosaleen followed.

Once they were deep in the woods, they stopped running as Laurie went to study an ant hole.

‘I’m Artie,’ the younger one said.

‘Don’t talk to her,’ Laurie huffed, picking up a stick from the ground and waving it around as though he were in combat.

Laurie ignored them and concentrated on poking the stick in the hole of tree trunk. Suddenly they heard voices and Laurie, ears pricked, followed the sound. He held his hand up and they stalled and they all spied through the trees and saw the groundsman, Paddy, on his knees, sorting through some brambles while beside him, in the wheelbarrow, lay a little girl aged about two, with white‑blonde hair.

‘Who’s that?’ Laurie said, and his voice sent warning signals straight to Rosaleen’s heart but, excited for their first conversation, she replied, with a pounding in her chest, conscious of her voice, wanting it all to be so perfect for him.

‘That’s Jennifer Byrne,’ she said, ever so prim and proper as Mrs Kilsaney spoke. ‘Paddy is her dad.’

‘Let’s ask her to play,’ Laurie said.

‘She’s only a baby,’ Rosaleen protested.

‘She’s funny,’ Laurie asked, watching her lazing about in the wheelbarrow.

From that day on it was the four of them. Laurie, Artie, Rosaleen and Jennifer played together every day. Jennifer because she’d been invited, Rosaleen because they’d been forced. Rosaleen always remembered that. Even when Laurie kissed her in the bushes or when they were boyfriend and girlfriend for a few weeks, she always knew that little Jennifer was his favourite. She always had been. She captivated him. Whatever it was about the things she said and the way that she moved, Laurie was entranced by her, always wanted to be around her.

Jennifer grew even more beautiful year by year though she was completely unaware of her beauty. Her big boobs, her tiny waist, her hips that all of a sudden appeared during one summer. Without a mother in her life since she was three years old, she was quite the tomboy, hanging out of trees, racing both Artie and Laurie, stripping off and diving into the lakes without a care in the world. She always tried to get Rosaleen to join in but never understood why she wouldn’t. Rosaleen on the other hand was biding her time. She knew that the tomboy act would wear off with the boys. They’d lose interest. They’d want to find a real woman some day and she was going to be that woman. She could be like Mrs Kilsaney, she could keep the castle, cook the food, train the dogs, make sure the nun brought her nothing less than perfect flowers. She dreamed of Laurie someday being hers, that they could live together in the castle, looking after the dogs and the flowers while Laurie received inspiration in the oak room from his forefathers on the walls.

When the boys went off to boarding school, Laurie wrote only to Jennifer. Artie wrote to both of them. Rosaleen never let Jennifer know this. She would pretend that she had received a letter too but that it was too personal to read aloud. Jennifer never seemed to mind, having so much confidence in her friendships it made Rosaleen even more jealous. Then when the boys went off to college, Rosaleen’s mother’s MS was deteriorating, her ageing father was ill, they needed money, and Rosaleen’s brother and sister were too far away to help, so Rosaleen’s parents relied on the child they never wanted to look after them. Rosaleen was forced to leave school and take over her mother’s job at the castle, while Jennifer continued to prosper, taking trips to Dublin to visit the boys.

Those were the worst days for Rosaleen. The weeks were long and boring without them. She lived for Laurie to return; she lived in her head, dreaming of all that was past and creating all that could be in the future, while they were off in the city doing exciting things‑Laurie at art college, sending home his glass work, Artie studying horticulture‑Jennifer being offered modelling jobs every time she stepped outside of the door. When they returned home during the breaks, Rosaleen’s life couldn’t be happier except that she yearned for Laurie to look at her as he did Jennifer.

She didn’t know how long their romance had been going on. She could only assume it started in Dublin while she was at home plucking pheasants and gutting fish. She wondered if they were ever going to tell her, if it hadn’t been for that embarrassing day when she brought him to the apple tree to finally tell him how she felt, showed the carving in the tree, ‘Rose Loves Laurie’. She was so sure he would be blown away, that he would see her for who she really was, how she had been keeping the castle going without him, how capable she was. She’d imagined the day for months, for years.

But it hadn’t worked that way. It hadn’t gone exactly as she’d imagined for all those years and for all those months alone in the kitchen in the castle. Life became dark and cold then. Her father passed away, the boys returned from college to attend the funeral, her older sister tried to take her mother away with her to Cork but without her mother, Rosaleen had nothing. She promised to look after her. Jennifer offered her a firm friendship and Rosaleen accepted it while all the time hating her. Hating everything she said, everything she did, hating that Laurie had fallen for her.

The autumn of 1990 Jennifer fell pregnant. Rosaleen’s life fell apart. Jennifer was welcomed in the Kilsaney household with open arms. A delighted Mrs Kilsaney showed her her wardrobes, the wedding dress, the everything that should have been Rosaleen’s. Jennifer and her father were invited to dinner weekly. Rosaleen cooked for them. The humiliation was beyond repair.

The child was born, two weeks early and with not enough time to get to the hospital. Rosaleen had run through the dark night to fetch the old nun. They had a little girl. They called her Tamara, after Jennifer’s mother, who’d passed away when she was a child. The couple weren’t yet married but living in the castle. Rosaleen and Arthur were godparents. The christening was in the castle chapel.

But life in the castle was not easy. The Kilsaneys were finding it difficult to keep the castle going, money wasn’t coming in, they were becoming desperate. All those rooms to keep, to heat, to maintain‑it was all too much. They would meet at dinner to talk about it. Rosaleen, as though hiding in the walls would hear it all.

Perhaps they would open the castle to the public. Every Saturday allow the public to trample through their home, taking photographs of their eighteenth‑century writing desks and the oak room filled with portraits, at their chapel, at their age‑old letters from generations ago between lords and ladies, politicians and rebels, during times of great unrest.

‘No,’ Mrs Kilsaney would cry, ‘I can’t let them visit us as though we’re a zoo. And still how will we afford the place? A few pounds admission fee per adult won’t fix the roof, it won’t pay Paddy’s wages, it won’t pay the heating bills.’

They found a solution, though. Developers Timothy and George Goodwin arrived in Kilsaney in their Bentley on the most beautiful day of the year and they couldn’t believe their eyes when they saw the grounds, the view, the lakes, the deer, the pheasants. It was like a theme park. They saw money everywhere they looked. Timothy Goodwin, a dapper but rude old gentleman in a three‑piece suit, and with a cheque‑book in his inside pocket, fell in love with the property. George Goodwin fell in love with Jennifer Byrne. This was the happiest day of Rosaleen’s life. While serving them during their banquet meal in the great dining room, she couldn’t help but observe how George Goodwin had eyes only for Jennifer, how he had little to say to Laurie and a lot of time to play with the child. Everybody at the table saw this, certainly Laurie. Jennifer was kind to him but she adored Laurie.

The Goodwins returned over and over, to measure, to bring builders, architects, engineers, surveyers. George returned far more often than his father, taking over the project. Rosaleen saw her opportunity to get Laurie back. One night she overheard George offering Jennifer the sun, the moon, and the stars. Everybody fell for Jennifer. It was her fault‑she sent out vibes, caught people in her web, had no idea how many lives she ruined in the process. But while she found George Goodwin a pleasant and kind man, she rejected his advances.

Not so in Rosaleen’s eyes.

Laurie caught her in the scullery crying her eyes out. She wouldn’t tell him at first, she didn’t want to hurt him. It was none of her business, Jennifer was her friend. But he gently coaxed her into telling him what she’d seen. She’d felt bad for causing the hurt that went through his eyes. So bad that she almost took it back right there and then, but then he’d taken her hand and squeezed it, given her a hug and told her what a great friend she’d always been, how he hadn’t always acknowledged that. Well, how could she take it back then?

It was a long night, a long argument. Rosaleen allowed them to fight it out between themselves, their own words then doing more damage than hers ever could. Laurie didn’t tell Jennifer that it was Rosaleen that had told him. She was glad of that. Instead she let Jennifer cry on her shoulder, while she gave half‑hearted advice. Jennifer was sleeping in the gatehouse that night, Laurie didn’t want her anywhere near him. Jennifer came to Rosaleen as she was happily clearing up the kitchen, contented with the latest argument she’d started. She came to Rosaleen with a letter. A letter that Rosaleen read and, though she rarely cried, it made her do so. Jennifer’s wish was for her to pass it on to Laurie. Rosaleen burned it. But the child wandered in, the toddler who looked so like her father that she got a shock. Rosaleen shook out the letter and the fire subsided and she threw it in the bin. She picked up the child and returned her to her bed. Rosaleen went home then.

That was the night of the fire. She can’t be sure if it was the burned letter that caused it, though they say it came from the kitchen, but nobody ever blamed her. The child was saved by Laurie. Then he went back in to fetch some valuables. As far as Jennifer knew, he died in that fire. Laurie didn’t want Jennifer to take him back just because she felt she had to. As far as he was concerned, George Goodwin had her heart and could offer her more. Though it was his own decision, a little probing from Rosaleen helped Laurie to decide that was the best thing. He could offer them nothing. No castle, land that was sold, he’d lost the use of an arm and a leg. He was badly burned, beyond recognition. Ugly as though he’d rotted away. Artie didn’t agree, but he couldn’t talk his brother out of the decision to deceive Jennifer. The brothers never spoke again, not even when living across the road from one another.

For months Jennifer mourned, refusing to leave her house, refusing to live. But there’s only so much of that you can take, particularly when there was a handsome successful gentleman knocking on her door and wanting to rescue her and take her away. Rosaleen once again was at the helm of that decision. She engineered it all so wonderfully. She hadn’t meant to start the fire, hadn’t meant to hurt poor Laurie like that but it had happened and it worked in her favour. Artie moved in with Paddy and they worked the grounds together. Laurie moved into the bungalow where Rosaleen could care both for him and for her mother. He thanked her everyday but still he couldn’t give her what she wanted. He didn’t love her. He relied on her to keep him alive. She realised then that she’d never have him exactly the way she wanted. She’d never become a Kilsaney.

When Paddy died and Artie was living in the gatehouse alone that she turned her attention to him or, returned the attention he had been giving her ever since she’d been a little girl. Rosaleen finally became a Kilsaney, though they never used their titles, and Laurie was still in her life, needing her. Rosaleen had never liked going to town anyway, had hated hearing the locals gossip about things they knew nothing of. The only times she surfaced were for mass and to sell her vegetables. Any shopping would be done in the further town where nobody could question her.

That was seventeen years ago and it was all going well, not perfectly, but it was going well until George Goodwin, valiant until the end, had protected Kilsaney and refused to let it be taken and messed up her plans and that awful little child who looked so like her father, and who should have been hers, had come back into their lives to throw it into turmoil again. It would all have been all right if Jennifer had stopped asking questions, if she had just been able to heal so that she and Tamara could both move on with their lives in Dublin. But she had reverted back to her time when she grieved for Laurie, had taken on the same behaviour. She was confused, she was grieving for the wrong person. Rosaleen just wanted them to get their finances sorted out so that they could leave as soon as possible, but it hadn’t worked that way.

Rosaleen couldn’t cope with losing anything else. She loved Laurie more than anyone in her life, but the lie he had forced her to keep had led to so much unhappiness for so many people. She could see that now. And she was tired. Tired of fighting for her marriage to the wonderful, lovely Arthur who had never agreed with Laurie’s decision and Rosaleen’s agreement to go along with it. Her beautiful kind and soft husband who was torn apart every day by the lie to Jennifer and Tamara, who deserved more. She was tired of keeping the secret, tired of running back and forth, tired of being unable to look anybody in the eye in the village for fear of them knowing what she had done, guessing what was going on in the bungalow and in the workshed, where smoke funnelled out night and day. She wanted everything to go away. She wanted this bungalow, which had always felt like a prison to her, which had become one for Laurie and her mother, to be gone. She was going to release them all. She made sure her mother was safe before she struck the match.

Why, Rosaleen, why? They asked her over and over outside the burning bungalow. Why? They still didn’t know, they still had to ask her. All that she had been through, her silent torture. But that was why. That was always the reason why. From a little girl to a grown woman, she had loved Laurie too much.

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 584