The Lost Garden Read Free Page A

imagination.
    The young woman lay awake for all of the night, her stomach twisting with excitement, her toes curling, waiting until it was time to get up, dressed and spend the day doing her chores before she and the Doherty men left for the night train at dusk.
    The family spent the day leaving the house in good order for her mother – doing the heavy work that needed to be done before they left. The men dug out the vegetable field, stacked the turf in neat piles by the back door and cleared out the chimney, while Aileen swept and scrubbed the stone floors, washed and hung out the sheets to dry – jobs done willingly because she knew the repetitive boredom of this household drudgery would soon be behind her.
    Now that this reality was upon her, Aileen suddenly had a pang of fear. This house and the patch of land that ran down to the road were all she knew. What would happen to her vegetable patch while she was away? Would her mother remember to keep the herbs trimmed back? Would she bother to plant out the carrots to be ready for the end of summer when they got back? Aileen put childish worries about her precious garden out of her mind and looked around the cottage. Although she knew she would be back in a few months, she was anxious that she had never eaten a meal, or lit a fire, or swept a floor in any place other than this house. It was all so familiar; she knew every inch, every detail. The long wooden table with a dip in the centre where it had been scrubbed down by generations ofDoherty women; the dresser against the corner wall with the good blue and white china jug and teapot they were never allowed to touch; the picture of the Sacred Heart above the fire mantel – his forlorn face streaked with turf dust – and the pot oven where Aileen had burned her first loaf of bread aged ten. On the hook by the fire was the grey and green pinafore her mother had ingeniously made for her from an old woollen blanket three years ago. She loved that pinafore and wore it doing all her chores. Aileen washed it every month, scrubbing it extra hard on the washboard and using a cupful of the expensive soapsuds her mother had hidden under the sink, instead of the cheaper bar of carbolic they used for everything else. The wool was thin and soft as silk now, and Aileen had planned to bring it with her, but last night, her father had said it would be too bulky to carry: ‘We must travel light, Aileen, and besides, picking potatoes is warm work – you’ll be roasted alive in that thing.’
    Aileen resigned herself to leaving her apron behind, even though she sensed her mother wanted her to bring it to Scotland – perhaps as a talisman. The fact that Aileen was going meant that her mother would be left alone on the island for three long months. Aileen felt guilty about that, especially as she felt, more and more with each passing year, less inclined towards her mother’s company.
    Their neighbour John Joe was waiting outside to bring them down to the bridge to meet the rest of the squad. From there they would walk to the station to catch the overnight train to Dublin Port, then the boat the following morning.
    With the sun low in the sky and the air cooled, the moment had come to leave. Her father was calling for her to get into the cart, her brothers complaining John Joe’s horse was getting antsy (John Joe was too quiet a man to complain for himself), but Aileen had begun to feel giddy and faint. She had not eatena spoonful of food all day – despite her mother putting the last of the sugar on her oatmeal for her – and her excitement had turned into a kind of sickness.
    ‘Did you pack your rosary?’ Aileen’s mother was fussing over her, but the young islander was too excited to care. ‘Here they are.’ Anne picked her pink glass beads up from the dresser where they were always left and put them round her daughter’s neck, tucking them inside her geansaí and buttoning up her coat for her. ‘There now, child,’ she said,