Forty-eight years ago…
The sun began to empty its rays across the bay earlier each morning now. Finally, it seemed Ballycove was drifting towards the summer months. May had been clement, and it looked as if June could surge, blazing into summer with long hot days reminding them all how lucky they really were to have the Irish Sea wash cool spray onto the doorstep of their little village. It was confirmed when day tourists from Dublin arrived, half-baked already from the twenty-minute train journey south to escape the dusty city. Tess Cuffe listened to their voices, sing-songing across the little village streets and cast like stray nets, fragments of sentences, on the sea breeze. With a bit of luck, she would be one of them, one day. She imagined herself, joining a tribe and returning for short holidays with worldly eyes to find a picturesque village. And, even as a youngster, Tess could see that Ballycove was quaint, but she was ready to leave it behind. She was already tired of its narrow streets and blinkered people. She craved the anonymity of the city, where you weren’t known as the headmaster’s daughter, or just the girl who sang in church each week, the second sister who was nothing like her mother.
Her parents, Harold and Maureen Cuffe, lived in Ballycove all their lives. Quietly, perhaps a little oddly, their cottage set apart, just enough to let the neighbours know that they were somehow better than the rest. Harold was a man who had an education; it would surely be marked on his headstone, one day: Harold Cuffe, B.A. National Teacher and Headmaster. It was unlikely there’d be room for much more, sadly missed, and pray for his soul would have to be taken as agreed. Maureen, well, unless she died first, it would be on the toss of a coin as to whether she would even get a mention, beyond being the wife of Harold Cuffe. It was good enough in life; she might have to settle for the same in death as well.
Tess could think of nothing worse than being like her mother. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her. Maureen was kind, giving and stoic in her faith in Harold, but it seemed to Tess that she had no passion and so that made her into a diluted version of what she might have otherwise been. Whereas Tess, from the first moment she realised she could sing, had been lost to a different world. Every amateur show in the village, every party, wedding or funeral wake, Tess would make a stand and sing until her father told her that it was time to stop. She was at the front of every choir and knew the words to any song that managed to make it onto the top of the pops or the weekly hymn sheets. If there were words and music, Tess would sing along.
This morning, Tess was first up, waiting for the familiar squeak of the letter box. Nancy still slept soundly in her twin bed, unaware her sister had tiptoed across the threadbare circular rug that bled a colour wheel of faded purples, wines and reds across their tiny bedroom. Sometimes, Tess wondered if Nancy ever dreamed. Tess’s sleep crowded with dreams of lyrics and music and her voice carrying to the rooftops of some unknown city, where even the pigeons craned taller on their roosts to hear her sing. Tess didn’t just dream about singing, she breathed it with every cell in her body, and the letter that she so longed to hold was as dear to her as a king’s pardon. In many ways, she had always felt her life would properly begin once she shook the dust of Ballycove from her awkward schoolgirl shoes.
Tess stood before the mirror for a moment. In the dim light it was hard to make out her reflection, but the sleep was long gone from her eyes and her lips and cheeks were plump from a good night’s rest. She smoothed down her soft chestnut hair, straightened up her blouse so the collar sat high on her neck. She loved this blouse, cobalt blue, it brought out the colour of her eyes, which were dark-ringed with eyelashes long and heavy. She looked back once more at Nancy, perhaps she dreamed of baking cakes, or typing letters or… it was beyond Tess. Nancy was a full year older than Tess and she seemed to have no desire to go anywhere or do anything. The boys in the village would never be good enough for Harold Cuffe’s daughter, so maybe going to Dublin with Tess was the best option for her. It was hardly the most exciting prospect, a secretarial course and then perhaps the chance to gain entry to the civil service for a few years. Was it very bad to feel sorry for your older sister? Perhaps the bonds between them were all the stronger because of this affection that cloaked over Tess when she thought of how differently their futures seemed mapped out before them.
Tess sighed; they were just so different, close as peas in a shell, but poles apart. She waited now for that whisper of envelope as it glided onto the tiled floor her mother fretted over with polish for as long as Tess could remember. Maureen Cuffe was a mouse of a woman, forever playing small to augment her husband’s supremacy. Tess had decided long ago that she would be different, even if her older sister Nancy was happy to fall into that spiritless mould.
It was six days now. Six days since she’d attended the interview in the prestigious College of Music, in Dublin’s’ Trinity College. That was the most exhilarating day of her life. The college itself was as old as any building in the city and hushed with the reverence of a church. It was like nowhere she’d ever been before and yet, it was exactly as she expected. The grandeur intimidated as much as it impressed. The rooms were imposing, tall and echoing so her voice sprang back at her with unexpected vigorous fluency. Even that, just attending for her audition, it tasted like the start of where she was meant to be. She walked through halls lined with heavy oak, beneath the glare of past teachers and students of that selective school. It was all she’d ever wanted and she was too keyed up to care about pretending it didn’t matter. That audition was all she thought of. All her work, her hopes and her future were pinned on just less than eight minutes. She’d sang her best, timed every single note, waited, buttoned up her soul so she could unleash it as her voice ascended to heights she’d only hoped for. The panel, a bunch of stuffy, whiskered men and a woman who hardly greeted her, had been entranced before she finished. She knew it, from the moment she paced into the aria – pens were suspended, words only half written and smiles, fighting against muscles determined not to let them escape, drew half-expressions across otherwise weary faces and now, all she could do was wait.
The cottage was silent this morning, apart from the continuing marking of time; the Swiss carriage clock wore seconds across rooms that no longer paid any heed. Although the village children were on holidays for weeks on end, her father would walk down to the schoolhouse this morning. Sometimes, she wondered what he did there, each day. She suspected he just went because he didn’t know what else to do with his time – her mother talked of his impending retirement with a sense of doom worthy of an undertaker. ‘Not long now,’ she would say when he left the house. Everything about their family was tied up in that school. Even this cottage, ‘the Master’s house’, long ago gifted to the family. Her father would have his ties cut in two years’ time, three if they were lucky. Finding a replacement who’d want to settle in a little village like Ballycove might not be easy. As for her father, a pillar of the community, he would have to find some other way of being proper or drift into old age with only the past to buoy him towards the end.
Then, Tess heard it. A creak that meant she was not alone. She skipped into the little hallway, the sunlight reaching dusty rays down to dance upon the silky blue envelope that lay composed on the floor. Tess picked it up, her parents’ names in flowing font gave nothing away. The stamp, measured into the corner, seemed to wink at her, impish in all that hid within. She rushed into the kitchen, placed it carefully in the centre of the table and went about making as much noise as she could. First, she boiled the kettle and set about emptying the stove that burned in all weather, it worked harder than her mother did, but it seemed to get more care.
‘It’s here,’ Nancy carolled her words so they filled the kitchen, she was still in her night clothes, wakened perhaps by Tess’s soft movements or the early morning birds intent on starting a new day before anyone else. ‘I can’t believe you’ve waited, it’s…’ Nancy inspected the envelope in her hand. ‘Are you nervous?’ Almost identical eyes found each other and Tess realised that this affected Nancy as much as it affected her. If she got a place in Trinity, Nancy would be uprooted too. Nancy was older by just eleven months, it gave her the advantage when it came to being the one her parents credited with having ‘sense and moral fibre.’
‘I…’ Everyone knew it was all she wanted, but the fear of failure drove Tess back from saying the words aloud. ‘No, of course not, as they say, que sera, sera?’ Then she laughed a nervous tickle that stretched into tight silence between them. She couldn’t fool Nancy.
‘Oh, come on. I don’t believe you for a minute; let’s get mamma and father up here.’ Nancy skipped down to the door that led into her parents’ room. ‘Mamma, Tess’s letter has arrived.’ Her voice bubbled with a lighter version of the nerves playing at the back of Tess’s throat. In the kitchen, Nancy came over to Tess now, reached towards her arm and squeezed it because maybe, she could feel the longing too. It had always been that way for them. Tess thought, they knew each other inside out. Of course, the similarities were only on the surface, but a deeper connection skirted about the everyday; a connection that went beyond sisterhood. Their mother believed it came from long before they were born. Nancy said it would be there long after they died – wherever life took them on the way and, somehow, this made Tess feel warm inside.
‘Right,’ her mother said as she took the last hairclip from her lips and slid it into hair that grew greyer with every passing day. She patted back the stray ribs that no longer settled with a comb. By the time her parents arrived in the kitchen, nerves had almost gotten the better of Tess, what if they didn’t want her after all? ‘Let’s see what they have to say.’ She handed the envelope to her husband with a reverence that came as much from respect as expectation.
Tess passed him one of the ivory-handled knives that she’d placed on the table earlier.
‘I dare say, this’ll be the end of having the table set before we all start our day,’ their mother smiled. Tess would not be quite so earnest tomorrow morning if this letter contained the invitation she’d worked so hard to get. Maureen peered across her husband’s shoulder, narrowed her eyes to read the embellished font. ‘Now that you’re going to be a…’ she didn’t get to finish off the sentence. They wanted her in the college of music and as her father read out the letter, Tess and Nancy started to dance around the kitchen – Tess had never been so happy.
*
Tess wound her way up the steep little road to Aunt Beatrice’s house as soon as it was respectable to call. Beatrice lived in a little cottage; on a ledge that overhung the Irish Sea. Strictly speaking, Aunt Beatrice wasn’t her aunt at all. She was a cousin of her mother’s. No one was entirely sure how they were related, but as with many connections in the village, they were wrought with time and affection as much as any blood ties. Tess loved this cottage. She’d come here for years, marking out the hours before she had to return to the austerity of her father’s overbearing appropriateness. Aunt Beatrice said she was far too old to think about what was proper any more. Tess wasn’t sure when Aunt Beatrice had become old, it was something that had stealthily overtaken them at some point. Tess could imagine her being very young and vibrant, a darker-haired version of herself. There was no picturing her in that middle ground between youth and old age, making that steady journey to this point through mildly greying hair and soft discrepancy between what was and what would be. Perhaps she’d always been young, until once when they’d looked away for a moment too long and time had stolen its place without any word of warning. ‘You get to a stage in life, when really, you have to take your happiness as it is. I’d be a very disappointed old lady now if I waited for everything to come along in the packaging that I’d wished for.’ Beatrice spoke of her love affairs with the honesty of one who cared little for the po-faced propriety of her peers and less for the double standards of the Sunday pulpit. She was thrilled with the news of the letter.
‘I will miss you of course, but oh, Tess, think of all that lies ahead of you. I’m so pleased for you.’
‘I will miss you too, and our little heart-to-hearts,’ Tess looked around the cottage, feeling nostalgic already for its cosy homeliness.
‘Ach, go on with you,’ Beatrice smiled and Tess knew that for all that she’d enjoyed Beatrice’s unfailing love and support over the years, soon the time would come when Beatrice would no longer be here. This little cottage would be half a world without her, but it was the most important connection she had with Ballycove. Tess put the thought from her mind quickly.
‘I will come and visit, as often as I can,’ Tess said then, touching Beatrice’s feathery-skinned hand.
‘You’ve always been a good girl, Tess, but I’m happy to see you go and chase your dreams. I’ll always be here, long after you think I’m gone, looking out over the water, perhaps dancing on the waves with some handsome young officer that I’ve kept a secret all these years.’ Beatrice smiled now and reached for the dresser at her back. ‘Come on, we should have some cake while you tell me all about your plans until you finally go.’
There was very little to tell. She would have to find a place to live, but Beatrice said that perhaps she could help there. ‘And Nancy. How’s Nancy with all of this good news?’
‘Well, she’s thrilled, of course she is,’ Tess said, but she found the uncertainty in her words that excitement had concealed before.
‘She won’t want to leave Maureen,’ Beatrice whispered.
‘We can’t stay home forever, though Mum wouldn’t want that.’
‘No, it’s not what your mother wants; it’s what Nancy feels she needs. She’s afraid to leave…’ Beatrice shook her head. The words silently tacked between them. Nancy wanted nothing more than a husband to look after her and a house to mind. The idea of holding her own in the city was probably as much to be endured as enjoyed. ‘Of course, you must both go to Dublin, your mother wants that more than anything, I think.’
‘It’s only for a year, but maybe…’ Tess smiled, she didn’t need to fill in any blanks. They both hoped that Nancy would find some kind of work that might put her in the way of a nice young man. Tess on the other hand wanted adventure. She wanted to leave behind the little village where respectability pinned you into holes that smothered. She wanted to sing and feel her voice soar high and far as the seagulls threading stitches across the vista of her world. Nancy wanted to be here, not here in this cottage – this was Tess’s refuge. She wanted to be here, in Ballycove, with someone who would keep her safe, make her feel matchless, assure the world edged out into the perimeters of her life. Nancy wanted to be taken care of, to live a life that didn’t punish her for being less. She wanted everything their mother had and none of it. ‘Nancy doesn’t have to come, you know.’ The words were defensive, but the truth was, Tess was looking forward to it being just the two of them.
‘She doesn’t get to choose, she feels your happiness depends upon her.’ Beatrice spoke softly. It wasn’t a reprimand, just a reminder that Nancy was giving up a year to go and live in Dublin, just to pacify their father. It was out of the question, as far as he was concerned, that Tess would live in the city on her own, or worse, with strangers. ‘She has no interest in pursuing any secretarial work, we both know that,’ Beatrice said. ‘But you’re right, it’s exactly what she needs the most.’
‘It will be good for her – you see that too.’ Tess shook her head. ‘She might find that there’s more to life than Ballycove and living like my mother for the rest of her days.’ Tess fidgeted with a ball of wool that lay unravelled across the table between them. She offered to roll it up, but still it lay, unfurled lazily on the lacy cloth that soaked up the midday sun searing through the little windows.
‘Hmm. Well, don’t forget, it’s just a year – you’ll be taking care of her probably more than she’ll be taking care of you.’ Beatrice smiled across her half-moon glasses and they both knew that whatever her parents believed, it had always been that way. Nancy would always need minding. She was similar to their mother: pliant, self-deprecating, the people-pleaser of the pair. Tess only hoped that didn’t mean she took after her father. Tess could see no happiness for someone as proud as Harold Cuffe, he was far too tied up with the importance of being right to understand the meaning of being loved.
Tess did not answer. Instead, she looked out onto the glassy black water below, biting and shifting glints upon unending waves. It seemed to Tess that the waves below them could not mark out the time quickly enough to enter this new world that beckoned so forcefully.