My Mother's Children: An Irish family secret and the scars it left behind. Annette Sills (free e books to read online txt) 📖

to there. He had to keep stopping to regain his breath and was wheezing and coughing badly. By the time we got to his front door I was starting to get worried. His face was drained of colour and I was practically holding him up. I contemplated calling an ambulance but he assured me he’d be fine as soon as he got his hands on his inhaler. He kept on apologising and he was still saying sorry as the pair of us fell through his long narrow hallway. Gesturing at me to make my way into the kitchen, he disappeared into a room on the right that looked like a study.

The kitchen was spacious and airy. A glass box structure had been added to what must have once been a very pokey room. Light flooded in from all angles and sliding doors opened out onto a small patio and long garden. I sat down at a mahogany dining table. The room was show-home tidy: the cream marble worktop sparkled, a row of shiny kitchen utensils hung above the Aga like soldiers standing to attention and lemon walls were lined with framed posters of Dempsey’s theatrical successes. There was also a picture of an Italian production of Dario Fo’s “Can’t Pay Won’t Pay” that I guessed had something to do with Stefano.

When Dempsey’s coughing died down, I heard his footsteps in the hall then going up the stairs. I glanced at the clock above the door. If I was going to get my scheduled train I’d have to set off for Euston in twenty minutes.

Dempsey returned a few minutes later with a weak smile and a bit of colour back in his cheeks. I declined his offer of coffee and insisted on keeping my coat on even though the room was toasty. He relaxed into the seat opposite me with a glass of water and I glanced down at my watch. Taking the hint, he launched back into Tess’s story.

“Not long after Tess went into the home, James’ mother Dorothy decided she wanted to keep her grandchild and bring him up herself. The baby had actually been earmarked for adoption to an American couple but Dorothy was determined. There was no stopping her. She was in her early forties at the time and a very fit woman.” Dempsey coughed weakly. “So she paid the nuns a sum of money. And James and I collected him and brought him home to the Lodge when he was few months old.”

I shook my head slowly. “Christ. So the nuns sold her own grandson back to her.”

“For about three times the going rate.”

I moved my chair back, the scraping sound making us both wince.

“So he was raised in full view of everyone in the village but nobody bothered to tell Tess?”

Dempsey looked down at the table and rubbed the tip of his forefinger along the grain of the wood. “Nobody knew where she was, Carmel. She’d cut off all contact after she left the home.”

I folded my arms across my chest.

“I don’t believe that for a minute. Someone, a friend or a cousin must have known she was in Manchester. Someone could easily have found her if they’d looked.”

“People didn’t want to get involved. They were terrified of the priests and the nuns. There was always a conspiracy of silence where they were involved. The villagers didn’t talk.”

“And my grandparents?”

“They chose not to know,” he said, sipping his water. “The child was a bastard in their eyes and they wanted nothing to do with him. Dorothy told James she bumped into my mother one time in the village with the baby. Your grandmother took one look at the pram and crossed over the road.”

“Christ!”

“Oh, our mother was a piece of work, alright. James and I went up to Dublin to study at Trinity shortly after we brought the baby back to the Lodge. Dorothy brought him up for the first three years of his life before the accident. She was driving home from Dublin after James’ graduation ceremony. It was a night of heavy rain and we told her to stay the night in a hotel. But Ronnie wasn’t well at the time and she wanted to get back to him. She was hit by a lorry just outside Mullingar and killed outright.”

“God!”

“She was the loveliest woman. James and I were devastated. We were in a relationship by then and about to move to London. James was desperate to leave Dublin. He said it was claustrophobic and homophobic. He was starting to get acting roles and wanted to try for jobs in the West End. We’d just got back to our lodgings after buying the tickets for the ferry to Holyhead when we got the news about Dorothy. James’ father was in the early stages of dementia and couldn’t look after the child so James and I took him with us to London.”

“What? You and James raised him in London?”

Dempsey’s face clenched, like a door shutting. “It has been known for gay people to bring up children, Carmel.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Yes. James and I brought him up. Well, it was me, mainly. James spent most of his time partying on the Kings Road and Carnaby Street with his actor friends while I was left with all the childcare. I got a job lecturing at King’s College so I was able to fit everything around school hours. Then when your brother was fourteen, James upped and left one day for Los Angeles. He got a part in a TV soap and never came back. He sent birthday cards and money for a few years afterwards but then nothing.”

He turned to the glass door that led out into the garden and cupped his hands under his chin. A black cat stared in from the patio table then it ran away, leaving pawprints on the snow-dusted wrought iron.

“James was the love of my life. He was beautiful and dangerously charming and I was heartbroken. But he