The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter. Hazel Gaynor
suddenly aware they’re at the wrong party, all my optimism and courage depart in a hurry.
Fidgeting with my gloves and tugging at the rayon crepe fabric of my dress that clings to my legs, I start to walk. The damp sea air sends my hair springing into childish ringlets beneath my hat. A quick glance in a shop window confirms that I resemble a crumpled sack of potatoes, but I’m too tired to care. I duck and dodge around people on the pavement, trying not to stare at the American women who wear their clothes in a way that makes me feel as dowdy as a nun beside them. As the first spots of rain speckle the tarmac, I run the final few yards to Harriet’s house, stepping in beneath a white wooden porch.
I knock on the door. Wait. Knock again, a little more firmly. Nothing. As I open my purse to check the address, I see movement behind the screen door. It opens with a slow, grating screech, like fingernails running slowly down a blackboard. A tall woman leans against the doorframe, smoke spiraling lazily from a pipe that dangles from her bottom lip. She is dressed in a paint-spattered jersey sweater and navy corduroy trousers tucked roughly into wellington boots. A patterned headscarf frames her angular face. We quickly assess each other, forming judgments and opinions, measuring the actual against the imagined, wondering what this stranger might become to us in the weeks and months ahead.
“Matilda.” It is more announcement than question, a faint hint of surprise carried in the word.
“Yes.” I smile, remembering my manners even though I want to run back to the bus. “Matilda Emmerson. All the way from Ireland.” She doesn’t smile back. “You must be Harriet?” The question in my voice betrays my meager hope that I’m at the wrong house, and will be sent next door to a sweet old lady who will welcome me with a soap-scented kiss and a warm apple pie. The woman in front of me looks like she’s never baked a pie in her life.
She thrusts a nicotine-stained hand toward me. “Harriet Flaherty. Welcome to America.” Her voice is low and gravelly, her accent an odd mix of Irish and American. She wraps her hand tight around my cotton glove, studying me closely as we shake hands like business partners sealing a deal. Her expression is serious, but there’s something about the way she looks at me that makes me feel a little uncomfortable. “Well? Are you coming inside then,” she says, striding back into the house. “Or were you planning to stay in the porch for the rest of the summer?”
I pick up my bag and step inside, the screen door slamming shut behind me.
The cool interior of the house is a welcome relief after the stuffy bus ride. The room is sparsely furnished with a shabby-looking rug, two chairs, and a low coffee table. A sideboard to my left is covered with small boxes and picture frames, all decorated with seashells. A wireless in the corner plays Ella Fitzgerald, accompanied by the click click click of a ceiling fan. A bunch of browned lilies sits in a vase on the table, withered petals scattered apologetically on the floor beneath. The smell of stale flower water mingles with the bitter tang of kelp, reaching into the back of my throat and sending my stomach bucking in familiar lurching waves. I glance upstairs, gauging the distance to the bathroom in case I need to make a run for it.
Harriet perches on a chair arm, rests her pipe on a rusting metal ashtray and stares at me, clearly as surprised to find me standing in her home as I am to be here.
“Nice locket,” she says.
I hadn’t noticed I was fiddling with it. “Oh. This. Thank you. It’s been in the family for decades.”
“Yes. I know.” She motions toward the small traveling bag in my other hand. “Is that all your luggage?”
“The rest is being sent on. From New York,” I explain. “It should be here in a day or two.”
I can hardly remember what I’d packed, it feels like such a long time ago, but seeing how Harriet dresses I already know I’ve brought far too many pretty skirts and blouses. She looks almost masculine in her scruffy work clothes and her hair tucked inside her headscarf. In my neat primrose-colored cotton dress and matching hat and gloves I suspect I am precisely the sort of prim young thing that Harriet Flaherty loathes.
“Suppose you’ll be wanting to freshen up,” she says, standing up. “I’ll show you your room.”
I follow her up a bare wooden staircase, telling her about the awful sea crossing and Mrs. O’Driscoll being so kind, but my attempts at small talk are ignored as she stomps ahead, leaving sandy imprints from the tread of her boots. Halfway along a short landing, she pushes open a scuffed white door. “This is you. The bathroom’s across the landing. The chain sticks so you’ll need to give it a good hard yank.”
I step into the small bedroom and place my bag tentatively on the bed. A wardrobe, a nightstand, and a small chest of drawers are the only furnishings. There are no pictures on the walls. No photographs. Faded calico curtains hang limply at the window. A collection of painted shells on the windowsill lend the only sense of decoration to the room.
“Thank you,” I say. “It’s lovely.”
“Well I’d hardly go that far, but it’s yours for the duration, so you might as well make yourself at home.” Harriet leans against the doorframe. She looks at me again with that same, slightly surprised expression. “Will you be wanting something to eat? I made clam chowder.” I nod, even though the last thing on my mind is food, and I don’t have the faintest idea what clam chowder is. “I’ll leave it on the table downstairs so. Help yourself to anything else you find.”
“Are you going out?” For all that I haven’t especially warmed to Harriet, I don’t want to be on my own in this strange cold house either.
She nods toward the window on the opposite side of the room. The ocean glistens beyond, the outline of a lighthouse just visible through the haze. “Rose Island. Didn’t they tell you I was a light keeper?”
“Yes. My mother mentioned …”
“That’s where I spend most of my time. I told her to explain that you’d have to entertain yourself.”
“Well, she didn’t.”
Harriet walks over to the window and picks up one of the decorated shells. She’s younger than I’d imagined. I’d assumed I would be staying with an elderly relative, like Mrs. O’Driscoll, but Harriet can’t be much older than forty. “Probably just as well she didn’t tell you. You’d most likely never have agreed to come.”
“I wasn’t exactly given any choice.”
The acknowledgment of the real reason I’m here rushes into the room like a storm, hanging in the air between us. I perch on the bed like a bold child.
Harriet turns to face me, arms folded across her chest. “Whose is it then?” she asks. I stiffen at the unexpected question, color running to my cheeks. “What? Did you think we wouldn’t talk about it? Spend our days drinking tea and saying our Hail Marys and pretend you’re a good little Catholic girl?”
I stare at the whitewashed floorboards. “Of course not. I just don’t want to talk about it right now.” I glance up at her. “We’ve only just met.” I try to sound matter-of-fact but the high pitch to my voice betrays my deep discomfort. I kick off my shoes, suddenly tired of everyone poking around in my life as if I were a pincushion. Exhausted from the journey, fed up with feeling nauseous, and missing Mrs. O’Driscoll more than ever, tears well up in my eyes. I bite my lip to stop them. I don’t want Harriet Flaherty to see me cry. I don’t want her to write to my mother to tell her I’m a homesick little fish out of water, just as she expects me to be. “Besides,” I add, “it’s none of your business.”
Harriet blanches at this. “Really? And there was me thinking you’d come to live in my house, which makes it very much my business.” Taking my silence as a refusal to be pressed any further on the matter, she walks out of the room, closing the door with a bang behind her. “I’ll be back at sunrise,” she calls, more as an afterthought than to offer me any reassurance.
After clattering about downstairs, she leaves with a squeak of the screen door, and I’m alone again. Alone with the