The Ludlow Ladies Society Read online

  The small office was cold, the light coming in the window watery grey, dancing in a pattern across the surface of the white table. Words swept past her in a whispered blur. She caught Ed’s name.

  “Did you talk to your husband this morning, Mrs Carter?”

  When she did not answer, the detective gently touched her shoulder, pointing to a chair for her to sit down on.

  “No, he was just about to get up when I was going out the door. I called goodbye.”

  “Sit down, Mrs Carter.”

  “I want to know what is going on. Why are you asking me about my husband?”

  The short detective moved away to answer a call. The other man pulled out a tubular chair for her.

  “We came across Ed’s car. Was he going to take a trip today?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Connie, Ed’s car has been in an accident.” The word seemed elongated on his tongue, tripping towards her, whipping her across the face.

  “There is some mistake. I left my husband and daughter at home.”

  “You have a daughter?”

  “Molly. Is Molly okay?”

  Connie jumped up, barging past the detective to the door. Panic coursed through her, pain gushing up her body.

  “Molly, where is she?” She was shouting, angry, afraid.

  The tall detective reached out and put his arms on her shoulders. “Didn’t you drop her at kindergarten?”

  She flopped down, her voice a whisper, her throat tight. “She isn’t in today, she has a dental check-up later. My God, what if he left her on her own? She’s only five, anything could happen.”

  The short one left the room, and she heard him talk quickly into his phone. She saw her students gathering up their belongings to leave the studio, casting anxious glances towards the office as they went.

  Her stomach felt sick, a pain was seeping up her arm, a chill creeping through her. She thought she was screaming, roaring at the tall detective, but it was only in her head. His lips were moving, but she did not hear his voice. He reached out and pushed her gently back in the chair.

  Time ticked on. She waited. The detective in the room stayed silent. A woman walked in and left a glass of water on a table beside Connie, who braced herself for bad news when she saw the woman’s sympathetic smile.

  The short detective came back into the room, his face grey, his eyes blank, his fingers twiddling his phone, as if he was trying to pump up some courage. She took his face in and her body crumpled like a puppet, the strings cut. Tears coursed down her face, wetting her neck. Her head thumped.

  “I must go to Molly. Where is she?”

  The short detective put his hands out to stop her. She thought he shouted, but later realised he had not.

  “Connie, is there family we can ring for you?”

  “Ed, Molly . . .”

  He put his two hands on her shoulders. “It is bad news, Connie. We found Molly in the house. She is dead, Connie.”

  The grey walls of the room spun around her, the light overhead flashing down spears of silver. In the corner, a discarded gym bag half open. The tall detective walked to the window and looked out, running his fingers through his hair. The short detective stood close, tapping her shoulder as if to comfort her. If he was talking, she could not hear him.

  She could only hear Molly:

  “Mommy. Mommy. Mommy.”

  She wanted to run to her, but could not; she stretched, but could not reach her. Molly was not there.

  “Where was Molly?”

  An older detective, his shirt barely tucked into his waistband, came into the room. He took her by the hand, winding her into a tight hug, and she leaned against him, this man in an ill-fitting suit.

  “Let’s get you away somewhere more private, before the TV crews start crowding round,” he whispered. She let him lead her out of the room and the building. The security guard, wiping tears from his face, looked away as she approached. One of her students grabbed her hand and muttered something. Others looked at her, their eyes reflecting the pain in her heart, and she was glad she was being taken away.

  Outside, the sun dazzled against the glass building, mocking her as she was guided on both sides to the police car. Reaching out, she grabbed the older detective by the collar.

  “Why Molly? Who would do that to Molly?”

  She sat in the rear, her head flung back. The car was pulling away when she shouted she did not have her travel mug. The driver braked hard. The older detective listened carefully to her garbled words before quickly getting out of the car and running across to the office building. Five minutes later, he emerged, gripping the travel mug, his thumb keeping the sticker in place as he marched quickly past a film crew setting up at the entrance.

  The mug was still warm. She sat, tracing the childish writing. ‘Love you Mommy.’ Connie slowly pulled the note with the little shaky writing down her cheek, as if the innocence of that final expression of love could comfort her. If she died now, it could only be a good thing.

  Opening her eyes, the sun was still shining around Ludlow Hall. A chaffinch flitted between the fuchsia bushes at the front. Deliberately, she turned away back down the avenue, not exactly sure any more where she was going.

  Date: March 24, 2013

  Subject: THE LUDLOW LADIES’ SOCIETY

  *****SPECIAL NOTICE*****

  Ludlow ladies,

  It is very important there is a full house for the next meeting of the Ludlow Ladies’ Society.

  I have, with great difficulty, managed to wrestle an invitation from the Rosdaniel Festival Committee for the Ludlow Ladies’ Society to exhibit in the Town Hall as part of the upcoming festival.

  Ladies, I am not supposed to reveal this to anyone, so please keep it under your hats. The first and second prizes at the Rosdaniel Festival exhibition will be included in a special event and exhibition in Glendalough to be visited by none other than the First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama.

  Ladies, I can say with certainty we want to be there, to have the great Michelle Obama throw her eye over our patchwork.

  We are in luck too, ladies: Mr Davoren is not on the panel of judges. He is, however, an exhibitor and I am sure hoping to go to Glendalough.

  Now is our time to kill two birds with one stone: crush Davoren and his dreams, and bring glory to the Ludlow Ladies’ Society.

  Ladies, we can do it. The first step is to attend the Tuesday meeting at Hetty Gorman’s house. This is our IN, ladies, and not even Davoren can get in our way if we win a prize.

  In other news, we note the new owner of Ludlow Hall is to take up residence. We in the Ludlow Ladies’ Society wish the new owner well and think back with pride on our association with Ludlow Hall.

  Kathryn Rodgers,

  Chairwoman

  7

  When Hetty Gorman heard the knock, she thought it was Connie. Beaming her hostess smile, she swung back the front door. She tried to hide her disappointment when she saw Eve Brannigan.

  “Eve, it is awfully early for you, are you all right?”

  “I thought I would introduce myself to the woman who owns Ludlow Hall. Is she about?”

  “She left early, did not even have breakfast. I think she has gone out to Ludlow.”

  “Never mind. It was just an idea.”

  Hetty stepped out to put her hand on Eve’s arm. “Come in, have a cuppa.”

  “I am run off my feet, Hetty. I had better get back to the sewing machine.” Turning on her heel, she mumbled a quick goodbye, hurrying towards the gate.

  “Don’t forget the Ludlow Ladies’ Society. We have to decide what we are going to do for the Rosdaniel Festival.”

  Eve waved to indicate she had heard and scurried on towards the cemetery. It had been months since she had visited. Arnold had been dead four years, but she still had not put his name on the plaque of the Brannigan family tomb. Maybe one day, when she resented his leaving less, maybe one day she would be strong enough to read his name without c
ursing him for leaving her on her own. Maybe one day, too, she would acknowledge the death of baby James. Just three days old, his was the smallest coffin in the family crypt.

  She stopped outside the Brannigan tomb. When she was a child she used to go to the local cemetery and peer in the lattice fretwork on the tomb doors. Now she stood back, never wanting to see the tiny coffin again.

  James, the boy who could have saved Ludlow Hall, the boy who could have breathed life into the place, the boy with the thatch of black hair. Shutting her eyes, she could still smell him, hear the little catches of his throat, feel his perfect fingers, the little nails pulling at her.

  Eight months after their marriage, she became pregnant. Arnold was a happy man.

  “I have done my bit now for Ludlow,” he said, and she was annoyed, telling him a baby was much more than an heir. “It is vital for Ludlow, that is the truth of it,” he said, kissing her on the top of her head.

  When he was born, James was limp like a doll. He fed, but he did not do it with any of the hungry gusto expected of a newborn. After a day he was taken from her, hooked up to a machine. She was not allowed in to him.

  “Germs, you will only bring in germs,” the ward sister said, and Eve did not argue. Arnold stayed at home in Ludlow Hall, waiting for news.

  Eve felt the anger course through her now as she remembered watching his little body twitch and tremble and later become so still, before life finally ebbed away, a nurse standing waiting to record the time of death.

  Eve walked across to the chapel to sit down. She did not believe in prayer: it had not helped her stop the life flowing from her son, it had not, in the absence of recovery, brought him an easy death.

  She did not know as they unhooked the machine and sent his body to the mortuary that her life was also ending, though in hindsight, when Arnold refused to speak to her when she got back to Ludlow, that was the first sign. When they buried James, they did it quietly, with only Michael there to witness their grief. It was Michael who had walked beside her and tried to comfort her. Arnold walked ahead, carrying the coffin down the stone path to the crypt.

  Eve thought she heard the priest in the little room to the side of the altar. She got up, quickly darting from the chapel, before he had a chance to call out to her.

  Arnold was a polite husband, but never a lover after James died and while he treated Eve with respect, lavishing nice things on her, there was no doubt but he blamed her for the death of their little boy.

  Even that last weekend away, when he brought her to The Shelbourne, she felt an unease in Arnold that she put down still to the death of James. They had last stayed in Dublin together towards the end of her pregnancy. He had brought her on a buying trip. They ordered the best of everything from Switzers and Brown Thomas on Grafton Street. Arnold insisted they buy enough clothes for both a boy and a girl. He laughed when she queried the prices and told her to hang the expense. After James passed away she could not bear the sight of his little clothes, never worn, so the fine outfits were sent to the children in the town most in need. For years to come in Rosdaniel, it seemed the poorest were often the best dressed. The only clothes she kept were those in her hospital case, because she never had the heart to unpack it.

  Briskly, she walked out of the cemetery, turning right for the Ballyheigue Road. There was one spot where she could view Ludlow from the road without having to set a foot on the avenue. Her head down, she marched on like a woman on a mission, past the gate of Ludlow Hall, along by the boundary wall, where the stone shelf was still inset to hold the milk cans for the creamery. Where the bend swept off towards Ballyheigue, she climbed up on the embankment, pushing the briars out of her way, causing a blackbird, startled, to flit noisily past and dip across to the other side of the road. Pushing against the narrow branches of the hazel trees, they creaked as she leaned forward to view the Hall from across two fields. It stood now as she knew it would, its top windows glinting with gold as the glass flashed in the piercing morning light. Silently, she stood and took in the quiet buzz about the place, workmen busy with hammers to the side of the house. She had done this once before, just months after she had been evicted, crying as she watched the windows being boarded up, nails being hammered in, the house entombed.

  Now at least the Hall had a chance to come alive once again, for the flowers to be tended and maybe for animals to graze the fields. It would no longer have the Brannigan name, but she did not care about that. She prayed the new owner would come to love it, as she still did.

  She always felt she loved Ludlow more than anyone else. For Arnold, the burden of a certain inheritance weighed heavily on his shoulders and he preferred to slope off to Dublin and, later, the United States, whenever he could, rather than take part in what he regarded as the dull monotony of life at Ludlow Hall. He never did get over the fact that he had been forced to take over at Ludlow when he was living a high life in London. That was where she met him. She wondered, if they had stayed there, how life would have turned out. But then she would not know Ludlow Hall, and she loved the old place. Standing for a moment longer, she took the house in. It needed a new life, a new energy, and she felt a surge of excitement this might happen.

  Climbing down the embankment, watchful she might slip, she thought of Arnold, how he, at various times over the years, had threatened to higher the wall, so that nosey parkers could not be eyeing life at Ludlow. She told him not to be so daft, what sort of a sad fool would bother to climb up to peek at the house anyway. She smiled to think of it now. The last time he had brought it up was as they drove off to The Shelbourne the weekend before he died.

  “Don’t you think we have bigger things to be worrying about?” she said. He laughed, promising that, for the weekend, they were not going to think of Ludlow once.

  Fumbling down the last bit of the slope, Eve was afraid she would slip. If she had known they were her last few days with Arnold, she would have preferred Ludlow above anywhere else. Instead, unbeknownst to her, he picked the Shelbourne hotel, where they sat in lavish surroundings among people who talked in high-pitched voices, when they should have stayed in the comfortable familiarity of Ludlow Hall.

  Afterwards, she was angry too that Arnold had given her false hope, telling her it would soon be all over. He insisted he had come across some money in an old account and was determined they enjoy it. They stayed in a suite on the top floor, overlooking St Stephen’s Green, and ordered room service, with Arnold choosing the most expensive whiskey. He was trying to put a distance between himself and their troubles, but who could blame him, she had thought. He might have been chattier and more attentive than usual, but there was nothing to indicate what was to come, that their lives would change so utterly.

  Only weeks after he was buried, the credit card bill arrived and she understood then why her husband had been so generous. A strange last gift to her, she thought, as she informed the credit card company that Mr Arnold Brannigan was dead.

  Eve wandered slowly home, making sure to be on the opposite side of the road to Ludlow Hall. As she passed the Hall gateway, she saw a woman in a strange car turn in and she surmised it must be the new owner, so she scurried along. In the town, she crossed over rather than pass Michael Conway’s shop, as she wanted to make it home without talking to anybody, not even him.

  Once inside her own door, she let her body slump. Falling into the armchair by the window, she wept hard tears for the lovely home she had lost and the little boy who had died without feeling the love of a mother’s touch. James Brannigan was so loved, but he died without ever knowing it. She hated all the stupid rules in the hospital that prevented her holding her baby, whispering in his ear. She climbed the stairs to the bedroom and pulled out an old leather case with Arnold’s initials printed in gold on the top.

  Unbuckling the straps, silverfish darted about as she smartly lifted the case onto the bed and unclicked the clasps. The sweet baby smell drifted towards her, and tears surged again as she reached in for his little yel
low blanket. Although not sure whether it was a boy or a girl, Arnold, in his excitement, had insisted on buying clothes for both. Yet these first clothes were yellow. There was going to be plenty of time later to get specific clothes. They did not know then that they would never get a chance to celebrate the birth of their son.

  Dipping her head into the blanket, she let her tears moisten the soft wool. She caressed bootees she had knitted sitting by the drawing room fire at Ludlow Hall, never worn, ribbons for laces still tied in two bows. Abruptly, she stuffed the bootees back in the case and shut it. Pushing the case off the bed to the floor, she kicked it under as she pulled her hand across her eyes, cancelling the tears.

  What had she left of James? Only baby clothes she was almost afraid to touch. In the wardrobe hung dresses and fine clothes of a past life at Ludlow Hall. Opening the wardrobe door, she pulled out a selection, the hangers creaking as she examined the fabric. They were taking up too much room. She should throw them out. Yet while her life at Ludlow Hall was over, she was reluctant to let go of the expensive dresses and jackets. It would be a pity to just throw them in the bin.

  Kathryn Rodgers had a cousin in the States who had stitched a memory quilt to remember the good times. Maybe she could do the same, if there were enough different colours: a quilt to capture the good moments of Ludlow Hall. If the other ladies were up to it, maybe they could do the same, stitch memory quilts to remember lost loved ones.

  Shaking her shoulders, she made her way downstairs and into her little sewing place, where she picked up the skirt she was making for Teresa Rafferty, the teacher from Arklow. Deftly, she threaded a needle and began to tack big stitches down the side seam, before moving to the machine to sew a long straight line.

  8

  Connie let the workmen pile all the old hoarding to the side of the house and waited for them to pack up and leave, before even thinking of entering the building.