Through Streets Broad and Narrow (Ivy Rose Series Book 1) Page 3

  “This is it.” Ann Marie stopped before the third table from her office. “Are you ready?” She waited for Ivy’s nod before pulling the sheet away from the rigid form.

  “Ah, Da!” Ivy stroked her fingers through her father’s mane of rich auburn hair. Someone had washed it recently and it felt like silk under her fingers. “Da, look what you’ve done to yourself! Yeh auld eejit!” Ivy’s tears dropped onto the waxen features.

  Ann Marie stood with her arm around the sobbing woman’s shoulders. She was shocked and appalled by this man’s appearance. He was young, his heavily muscled chest and full-featured face showing no sign of the starvation that was written so clearly on his daughter’s face.

  Ann Marie promised herself she’d pull the sheet back later just to check but it appeared to her the man was taller than average with all the hallmarks of a rich life written into his skin and bone. She was honest enough to admit that if she’d seen this man on the street she’d have turned around to get a second look.

  “Da, what am I going to do without you?” Ivy pressed her trembling lips against the ice-cold skin. There was no reaction. Her da didn’t open his laughing blue eyes and grin at her. He was really dead – not here – gone away without her. She should be used to it by now – all of her family left her behind one way and another.

  “Would you like some time alone with your father?” Ann Marie was familiar with the crippling grief the death of a loved one brought.

  “No, thank you.” Ivy pulled her shoulders back and straightened. “This is his body but me da is not here. He always told me the body we wear is just an old overall, nothing special. He was religious me da, never doubt it, and he always said that when we died we left our old worn-out overall behind and went on to a better place.” Ivy wiped her shaking hands over her tear-stained cheeks. “His overall is not that old but he’s left it here anyway.”

  “Come away then, Ivy.” Ann Marie slowly covered Éamonn Murphy’s handsome face. “I have the makings of tea in my office. I’ll make us a fresh pot and we’ll talk.”

  “I’ll be grateful for any advice you can offer.” Ivy was so tired, so emotionally bankrupt she didn’t seem to be capable of making a decision for herself. It was seldom anyone offered her help. She’d listen to what this woman had to say.

  She sat silently, grieving, while the tea was being made.

  “Believe it or not, Ivy, there are several options open to you,” Ann Marie said as she poured the tea.

  “I’m glad you think so.”

  Ann Marie sipped her tea with a grateful sigh. “If I understand correctly, in order for you personally to survive you need to find money for food and rent, urgently.” She waited for Ivy’s nod. “A big send-off for your father is out of the question. I don’t for a moment mean to be disrespectful to the deceased but wouldn’t you agree that by taking the last of your food and all of your money your father has already had his big splash?”

  “I hadn’t thought of it like that!” Ivy laughed. Her da would be tickled pink to think he’d danced at his own wake.

  “I know of a way your father can earn a few pounds.” Ann Marie grinned, delighted to have some way of helping Ivy.

  “Would yeh go way!” Ivy gasped. “Me da never earned a pound in his life!”

  Chapter 3

  The two women locked eyes and without a word spoken began to laugh like idiots. They laughed until tears rolled down their faces.

  “Thank you!” Ivy smiled through her tears. “I thought I’d never laugh again in me life.”

  “I must say I didn’t think today would hold a great deal of laughter for me either,” Ann Marie admitted. “However, time is passing and we need to talk seriously.”

  “Tell me what you meant?” Ivy couldn’t imagine how her da would earn more in death than he ever had in life.

  “Before I go into detail . . .” Ann Marie was stalling. She wasn’t sure how Ivy would react to her proposition, “could we first discuss all of your options?”

  “It surprises me to hear I have options.” Ivy’s voice broke.

  “Oh, yes, my dear.” Ann Marie beamed. “With my help you do indeed have options.” She pushed up her sleeves and leant forward across her desk. “Now, let us think about your situation.”

  “Me da is dead.” Ivy almost snapped. She couldn’t seem to think much past that horrible fact.

  “Yes, indeed he is. However, you’ve given me to understand that every decision from this point and indeed every problem entailed rests firmly on your shoulders. Would you agree?”

  “It usually does.” Ivy sighed.

  “Right, what do you want to do with your father’s remains?”

  “His remains,” Ivy sobbed. “Is that what he is now – ‘remains’?”

  “I’m not trying to distress you but we need to make some decisions and I’m afraid time is against us.” Ann Marie glanced at her wristwatch, sighing. It was almost time for her to return to the place she called home. She would willingly invite Ivy to join her but she wouldn’t dream of subjecting the young woman to her aunt’s censure and snobbery. “You need to answer my question.”

  “I’d like to give me da a send-off that would make the angels weep but that’s impossible. Once again it’s a case of ‘Want must be my master’ – that’s nothing new to me.” Ivy bit back a sob. She was holding this woman back and she knew it. “I’m sorry, I know I’m stupid but I don’t understand my options.”

  “Ivy, you are far from stupid!” Ann Marie said, horrified to hear this woman denigrate herself. “You are perhaps uneducated, through no fault of your own, but you are far from stupid.” She slapped both hands on the desk, disgusted at her own shilly-shallying. “Right, your options.” She had been thinking hard about this and now put her thoughts into words. “You are currently penniless. Your father is dead due to an accident of his own making.” She was being deliberately harsh. “We must discuss the matter of the disposal of his remains – his old overalls if you will. A burial of any nature is an expensive undertaking. There is no getting away from that unfortunate fact, I’m afraid.”

  “What about the money you mentioned?” Ivy couldn’t understand how this woman thought her da could earn money in his present state: dead.

  “Your father is . . .” Ann Marie gulped. She could hardly call the man Ivy obviously loved a fine specimen. How on earth could she voice her thoughts delicately?

  “Dead.”

  “Undoubtedly.” Ann Marie sighed. “Ivy, this is a teaching hospital. The surgeons have a need, that is to say, they use . . . Oh, for goodness sake!” She slapped the desk in frustration. “What I’m trying to say is that you could sell your father’s body – his old overalls – to the College of Surgeons.”

  “Mother of Jesus, you want me to become a grave-robber!” Ivy yelled, horrified.

  “Your father doesn’t have a grave, that’s the problem.” Ann Marie knew this would be difficult but she was determined to persevere. “Ivy, your main problem leads on to all others. You have no money – a grave site and coffin is expensive. You could have your father buried in a pauper’s grave . . . ?”

  “Never.”

  “Right, I thought that and understand but your delicacy of feeling will cripple you.” Ann Marie thought of her own parents’ gravesite and understood Ivy’s reluctance. “There is a cart that travels from hospital to hospital in the city – it removes the dead in the dark of night.”

  “No.”

  “I agree because even then you need to pay the drivers. I doubt they can read but you must show them a death certificate and the colour of your money before they’ll agree to take the body.” Ann Marie shuddered at the thought of that grisly cart.

  “I thought you said I have options,” Ivy muttered.

  “I did and you do but you’re not listening. As I said, you can sell your father’s body to the College of Surgeons.” She held up her hand when Ivy opened her mouth. “There are rich people who offer their own bodies and those of their chil
dren to the college.”

  “What, rich people sell their dead childer?” Ivy was horrified. She’d known the rich were different, but selling their dead childer – that was evil.

  “Ivy, the surgeons study the dead to help the living. It’s a wonderful gesture. Your father would help young doctors understand so much about the human body.”

  “What would I tell people?” Ivy felt sick to her stomach but it struck her that her da would be killing himself laughing at all this, wherever he was now.

  “Why do you need to tell them anything?”

  “Me da is kind of hard to miss.” Ivy gave Ann Marie a look of disgust. “I’ll have to tell people something and I couldn’t lie about something like that to save me life.”

  “I don’t suggest you lie,” Ann Marie said softly. “You tell the truth, just not all of the truth. Your father is dead, drowned, there is no body for burial. He wouldn’t be the first person lost in the Liffey or indeed overboard at sea.”

  “I don’t know what to do,” Ivy dropped her aching head into her hands. She pushed at her shawl, suddenly feeling smothered by its weight. She was mortified when the wooden comb she used to hold up her hair got caught in the shawl and came off too, her hair tumbled down her back.

  “My goodness, how long is your hair?” Ann Marie gasped.

  Ivy’s hair belonged in a fairy story, all blue-black curls that trailed down almost to the floor.

  “I don’t know.” Ivy shrugged, her hair the last thing on her mind. “Me da wouldn’t let me cut it.”

  “You could sell it,” Ann Marie whispered. The money Ivy could receive for the sale of her hair wouldn’t pay for a fancy funeral but it increased her options.

  “In the name of God, woman, who’d be mad enough to pay good money for the hair on someone’s head?” Ivy shouted. “How many mad people with money do you know?”

  “Quite a few.” Ann Marie smiled. “There’s a shop on Parliament Street – Iverson’s – they pay good money for healthy clean hair. You should be able to demand a good price for that magnificent head of hair.”

  “Me head’s aching. I can’t think.” She gathered her hair and with a quick experienced twist of her wrists, knotted the hair before pushing in the comb to hold it in place.

  “Let me make a suggestion,” Ann Marie offered. “We can do nothing today. While not officially a holiday, few people actually work today if they can manage it. Let me loan you some money.”

  “No!” Ivy shouted. “Thank you but I couldn’t take your charity!”

  “I’m not offering charity,” Ann Marie said. “Take the loan, Ivy, buy yourself something to eat. Buy yourself some time to think. I’m sure any money I loan you is safe.”

  “You’re a lovely woman but you’re not the full shillin’.”

  Ann Marie stood and pulled a file cabinet open. She took out her leather handbag and, with a shy smile at Ivy, opened it to take out her matching purse. “Take the loan I’m offering. No, don’t refuse. I know my money is safe with you.”

  “I could do a runner.”

  “I don’t think so.” Ann Marie held a coin in her hand. “Take this money, go home, think about your options. We’ll meet tomorrow and discuss your situation some more.”

  Ivy held out her hand, her pride almost crippling her. She couldn’t see how she could survive the day penniless on top of everything else. If she could believe this woman, the money she was offering now was only a loan and she would pay her back.

  “A half crown!” Ivy shouted, trying to force Ann Marie to take the coin back. “Jaysus, there’s men don’t earn that much in a week!”

  “Take the money. Believe me, your hair alone is worth more than that. I know.” Ann Marie had never appreciated the life she led more. “Let us both go home and after a night’s sleep we will both feel refreshed and able to think more clearly.”

  “I don’t know how to thank you.” Ivy had never been treated with such kindness in her life.

  “No need to, my dear.” Ann Marie wanted to suggest that Ivy should visit the multi-denominational chapel in the grounds but as she was dressed now she’d be chased away from the premises. “Would you like to spend some time with your father before you leave?” This at least she could offer. She waited for Ivy’s nod of acceptance before crossing to hold open her office door.

  Ann Marie held her office doorknob in a white knuckled fist while she watched Ivy almost visibly pull herself up from her bootstraps. With a stiff nod the woman walked out of the office. Before closing the office door Ann Marie watched Ivy walk alone to the sheet-covered slab holding the remains of her beloved da.

  Ivy pulled the white sheet back, still expecting her da to explode from the table laughing and shouting ‘Boo!’ She’d never seen him so still. “I’ve never seen yeh so peaceful neither,” Ivy whispered, staring down at his handsome face. The priest preached pride was a grievous sin. Ivy didn’t care – she’d always been proud of her three handsome brothers and her tall laughing prince of a da.

  “This is probably the last time in me life I’ll see yeh, Da. How am I supposed to do that? I love yeh, yeh auld eejit. We never say things like that to each other, do we? I do love yeh though, for all the times I screamed and shouted at yeh. Oh, yeh made me so mad at times!”

  Ivy fought the sobs shaking her body. She couldn’t allow them to escape. In this great big room the sound would show her up as a cry baby. Her da would be disgusted with her.

  “Da, do you know what I’m going to do with your body?” she whispered. “Where yeh are now, do you know what I’ll have to do? Do yeh mind, Da?” Ivy could almost see him rubbing his hands together, his broad shoulders shaking with delight – ‘Take the money, daughter, it’ll be a few bob for your auld da to treat his mates.’

  “I’m not treating your mates!” Ivy snapped aloud, the words echoing around the room. She hunched her shoulders, giving a quick glance behind her at the woman sitting behind the long glass window of the nearby office. The woman was staring at something on her desk, more of those important papers maybe.

  “Yeh treated yer mates to everything in the feckin’ place on New Year’s Eve, Da.”

  Ivy patted the waxen cheek. She felt bristles under her fingers and felt her knees give. With massive effort she remained on her feet, remembering all the times her da used to rub those bristles against the skin of her face and neck. He’d chase her screaming around the room until she was almost sick laughing. Her da always told her it was as easy to laugh as cry.

  “I don’t feel like laughing now, Da,” she choked. “If I don’t do what this woman is suggesting I’ll end up in the poorhouse. I won’t do that, Da. I’m not going in there and I’m not selling me body neither. God, Da, you’d love the joke. I’m selling your body instead!”

  Ivy wanted to crawl on top of her father’s body and just drift away with him but she couldn’t do that. She had to survive as best she could.

  “I love yeh, Da.” Ivy took the sheet in her white knuckled hands. “I’ll never forget yeh. I’ll try and make yeh proud of me so keep an eye on me, will yeh?”

  Shaking with silent sobs Ivy replaced the sheet over her father’s face. She straightened her shoulders and turned to walk away.

  With a lump in her throat, Ann Marie Gannon watched Ivy say goodbye to her only relative. The sheer strength of character the raggedly dressed woman displayed impressed and shamed her. Ann Marie gave generously to charity and thought herself a fine Christian woman. Meeting with this woman had changed that.

  “Ivy!” Ann Marie came out of her office and stopped her leaving with a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Tomorrow is another day and unfortunately your problems will be waiting for you. My advice, for what it’s worth, is to get some rest, get something to eat, and think about the options I’ve mentioned.”

  Ann Marie would have liked to make Ivy understand the effect this meeting had had on her but this was not about her. Ivy was in the kind of straits Ann Marie had difficulty understanding. She was d
etermined to help in any way she could.

  “Will you agree to meet me somewhere tomorrow?” she asked.

  “I’ll have to come back here anyway, won’t I?” Ivy nodded in the direction of her father’s body.

  “Yes, you will, my dear. I’m afraid that’s unavoidable.” Ann Marie had so much she wanted to say to Ivy but not here and not now. “But I want to see and speak to you before you come in here again.”

  They discussed places they could meet. Ann Marie was surprised to discover Ivy lived not far from her own home in Merrion Square. They quickly agreed on a time to meet the next morning outside the park on Merrion Square.

  Ivy would have agreed to anything. She just wanted to get away from this house of death. She needed to breathe fresh air. She needed to be alone. She knew the place where this woman wanted to meet her tomorrow. It wasn’t that far from The Lane.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said.

  Ann Marie watched Ivy walk through the double doors of the morgue. Then she walked over to the still figure of Éamonn Murphy and for the first time in her life visually examined and talked aloud to the dead.

  “Just as I thought!” Ann Marie nodded her head in great satisfaction. “You really are a most impressive figure of a man, Éamonn Murphy.” She felt the colour burn her cheeks. If anyone caught her examining the naked figure of a man she’d be the talk of the College. For once in her life she didn’t care.