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the priests who contacted you?”
“Father Quaid,” he said.
“Are they sure?” she asked and then quickly put her hand out to stop him replying. “I mean, it all happened today?”
“This morning in Ireland.”
“I can’t believe it,” she said. “No warning.”
“I spoke to Franco Bartocci by telephone earlier and he said to take you home, and I spoke to Mrs. Kehoe and if you give me Tony’s address I will send him word as well and let him know.”
“What will happen?” she asked.
“The funeral will be the day after tomorrow,” he said.
It was the softness in his voice, the guarded way he avoided her eyes, that made her start to cry. And when he produced a large and clean white handkerchief that he clearly had in his pocket prepared for this, she became almost hysterical as she pushed him away.
“Why did I ever come over here?” she asked, but she knew that he could not understand her because she was sobbing so much. She took the handkerchief from him and blew her nose.
“Why did I ever come over here?” she asked again.
“Rose wanted a better life for you,” he replied. “She only did what was good.”
“I won’t ever see her again now.”
“She loved how well you were doing.”
“I’ll never see her again. Isn’t that right?”
“It’s very sad, Eilis. But she’s in heaven now. That’s what we should think about. And she’ll be watching over you. And we’ll all have to pray for your mother and for Rose’s soul, and you know, Eilis, we have to remember that God’s ways are not our ways.”
“I wish I had never come over here.”
As she began to cry again, she kept repeating, “I wish I had never come over here.”
“I have the car parked outside and we can go to the presbytery. You know it will do you good to have a talk with your mother.”
“I haven’t heard her voice since I left,” Eilis said. “It’s just been letters. It’s awful that this is the first time I am going to phone her.”
“I know that, Eilis, and she’ll feel that too. Father Quaid said that he would collect her and drive her up to the Manse. I’d guess she’s in shock.”
“What will I say to her?”
Her mother’s voice was faltering at first; she sounded as though she were talking to herself and Eilis had to interrupt to tell her that she could not hear.
“Can you hear me now?” her mother asked.
“Yes, Mammy, I can. It’s much better now.”
“It’s like she’s asleep and it was the same this morning,” her mother said. “I went in to call her and she was fast asleep and I said I’d leave her. But I knew as I went down the stairs. It wasn’t like her to sleep in like that. I looked at the clock in the kitchen and said I’d give her ten minutes more and then when I went up and touched her she was stone cold.”
“Oh, God, that’s terrible.”
“I whispered an act of contrition into her ear. Then I ran next door.”
The silence on the line was broken only by some faint crackling noises.
“She died in the night in her sleep,” her mother eventually continued. “That’s what Dr. Cudigan said. She had been seeing the doctor without telling anyone and she went for tests without telling anyone. Rose knew, Eily, she knew that it could happen any time because of her heart. She had a bad heart, Dr. Cudigan said, and there was nothing could be done. She went on as normal. She knew that she had a bad heart and she decided to carry on playing golf and doing everything. The doctor said that he told her to take it easy, but, even if she had, it might have been the same. I don’t know what to think, Eily. Maybe she was very brave.”
“She told no one?”
“No one, Eily, no one at all. And she looks very peaceful now. I looked at her before I came out and I thought for a second she was still with us, she’s so like herself. But she’s gone, Eily. Rose has gone and that is the last thing in the world I thought was going to happen.”
“Who’s in the house now?”
“The neighbours are all there and your uncle Michael and they came down from Clonegal, all the Doyles, and they’re there too. And I said when your daddy died that I shouldn’t cry too much because I had you and Rose and the boys and when the boys left