guilty that he had been too involved in his own affairs and so been neglectful of his sisters, but Joseph wanted to focus on only one thing. ‘Are you sure Norah isn’t going to the States?’
‘Positive sure,’ Tom said. ‘To keep Celia from this man’s clutches she is being sent away whether she likes it or not.’
‘Norah will be upset.’
Tom nodded. ‘She will indeed and angry too, I shouldn’t wonder, but she’ll get over it, people have to cope with disappointment. And then when she is over the worst of it, you can move in and comfort her, like.’
Joseph had a beam plastered across his face and Tom said urgently, ‘It’s important that you keep this to yourself for now. It’s important Norah doesn’t get to know just yet, so keep everything I have told you under your hat, all right?’
‘All right,’ Joseph said happily. ‘I can wait for the main prize.’
They parted company there and Tom had a frown on his face as he watched Joseph staggering home, humming a little ditty to himself, and wished wholeheartedly that he had kept his big mouth shut.
The following day it was afternoon before Norah went into town because once the breakfast dishes were washed Celia was once again locked in the bedroom and it took Norah longer to do the jobs she had always shared with Celia in the past. On the way to town she ruminated on her sister’s plight and decided she wouldn’t have her sister’s life for all the tea in China as she thought of her living her days out in that rural backwater. It was a desperate situation altogether.
She missed her sister’s company and she knew Celia missed hers and sometimes cried in bed, though she muffled the sounds as best she could because of Ellie. Norah would put her arms around her, but there were no words she could say that would make things better so she didn’t try, just held her tight. Celia had always been a bit on the thin side, but Norah was aware now how bony and delicate her sister was becoming and she seemed dispirited and lethargic. Eventually she told her mother that it was detrimental to Celia’s health to leave in her room every day, but knew, even as she spoke, she might as well have saved her breath because she knew her mother would not go against anything their father said.
The walk to town that afternoon seemed longer without Celia to chat to and Norah hurried along, anxious to get the things her mother wanted quickly and get back home again.
Joseph was leaving Paddy McIvor’s pub when he saw Norah. He was not quite sober but nowhere near as drunk as he had been the night before when he was talking with Tom. He dared not go home in that state again for his father had warned him as he helped him to bed that if he came home near paralytic again he would spend the night in the barn. Much of what had happened the previous evening was fuzzy to Joseph when he woke the next morning for a hundred hammers beat inside his head and his mouth was as dry as dust.
As he had milked the cows later, laying his head on the cow’s velvet flanks, the throbbing pain settled to a dull ache and Tom’s words had come back to him and he wanted to sing the news from the rafters. He didn’t do that, remembering what Tom had said about secrecy for now.
When he saw Norah across the Diamond it was as if his thoughts had conjured her up. He sauntered across and she suppressed a sigh as she put the heavy shopping bags on the pavement beside her. She could afford to be gracious with Joseph.
‘Hello Norah.’
‘Joseph,’ Norah said and inclined her head.
Joseph remembered that she knew nothing about the change of plan and suddenly he wanted to hurt her as she had hurt him, to know how it felt, for his heart had splintered into a million pieces the evening Norah had told him she really and truly was going to America and he realised that she had just been playing with him. It had all been for nothing, the endearments she had whispered were meaningless and the love he had for her she had thrown back in his face, and so despite Tom telling him to keep the news to himself he said, ‘Saw Tom last night.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘He was telling me about some trouble with Celia.’
Norah’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. Surely Joseph was lying. ‘Tom wouldn’t tell you anything like that,’ she said.
‘Well he didn’t have to tell me much, did he?’ Joseph said. ‘I mean, we all saw how she was with that hand at Fitzgerald’s place. Anyway, she’s cooked her goose right and proper for Tom was after saying that your father has decided to pack her off to America.’
Norah’s eyes opened wide for that was news to her.
‘America?’ she said in surprise, not yet aware that this sudden decision by her father had any bearing on her plans in any way. ‘Celia will hate that. It’s me that’s always wanted to go to America.’
‘I know,’ Joseph said in a sympathetic tone. ‘Pity then that your plans have been scuppered by your sister.’
‘What do you mean scuppered?’ Norah snapped. ‘It’s all in hand. Mammy has sent for the ticket and everything.’
‘I know,’ Joseph said in the same consoling voice. ‘But when that ticket arrives it will be for your sister, Celia, not you.’
Norah’s cheeks drained of colour as she leapt from Joseph’s side, her eyes in her bleached face looking as though they were on stalks. ‘You’re lying!’ she said accusingly.
‘What would be the purpose of lying to you?’ Joseph said. ‘Tom told me himself. Said it was the only way that they could keep Celia away from that McCadden chap.’
‘It can’t be true. It can’t. They can’t do that,’ Norah cried as bitter tears of disappointment spurted from her face and dribbled down her cheeks and watching her Joseph was smitten with guilt as he realised there was no satisfaction for him in seeing his beloved so distressed. He felt worse than ever for blurting out something he had been warned to keep quiet about and for having done it in the middle of town, where all the people passing could witness Norah’s wretchedness. Suddenly Joseph picked up the two bags of shopping with one hand and with the other guided Norah into an alleyway, away from the gaze of curious shoppers intrigued by the sight of the Mulligan girl crying openly in the street. And Norah continued to cry as the visions and plans she had made for when she got to America flitted across her mind and she groaned.
She refused Joseph’s offer of the loan of his handkerchief and wiped the tears from her face with her hands as heartbreaking sobs racked her body over and over. Joseph stayed helpless beside her, longing to take her in his arms, but she was holding herself so stiff he knew she would reject him. Words too would be futile, so the only sounds were the agonising sobs and the gasps of Norah. And they seemed to pierce Joseph’s very soul. It seemed they had been there hours before Norah eventually wiped her hands across her tear-stained face and said brokenly, ‘You must have had some hand in it. You never liked the idea of me going to America.’
‘No, I didn’t,’ Joseph admitted. ‘But I was learning to accept it for I had no right to keep you here, but how I felt about things would have had no bearing on the decision your father made.’
Norah shook her head from side to side as if she couldn’t quite believe it. ‘I never thought that Daddy was so unfair, so cruel, and Mammy must have been involved too. They knew how much going to America meant to me. I’ve talked of little else for months. And,’ she added fiercely, ‘I’ll never forgive them for this, never ever. And now I’m off to
