‘There’s an old woman at the door who says she’s Auntie Kay from Canada.’ Rita shook Fred to waken him from his evening sleep beside the fire. ‘She has the wrong farm. You’d better talk to her, maybe you’d know who she’s looking for. It must be Conrans.’ Rita handed Fred the receiver. ‘You phone them.’ Fred began to dial and stopped short.
‘It couldn’t be! My father once told me of a sister of his that went to
Canada who was in touch a couple of times and they never heard from her again. He said she was probably long since dead.’
Rita had answered a ring at the back door. It was dusk and she was just in time to see the lights of a taxi leave through the yard gate. Standing there beside a large suitcase was a woman that Rita judged to be in her eighties. Medium height and stooped, she was well dressed, but somewhat dishevelled.
‘I’ve come home,’ she said. Rita looked at her blankly. ‘I’m Auntie Kay.’ Rita wondered which of the neighbours she was looking for.
‘You have the wrong house.’
‘No I haven’t. This is it; it’s changed, but this is it. I was born in this house. I left for Canada over sixty years ago and never got home until now.’
It was starting to rain.
‘Will you stand into the porch and wait a moment please. I’ll get my husband.’
Rita pushed back boots and wellingtons with her foot to make room and dragged the old lady’s case into the porch. ‘I won’t be a minute.’
Fred went down to the kitchen and found the old woman sitting at the table.
‘You must be Ned’s son, you have a great look of him.’ Fred pulled out a chair and sat down.
‘My father was Edward Staunton, who are you?’
‘I’m his sister Kathleen. I’ve come home to die.’
It didn’t take Fred long to confirm the old woman’s identity, and when he was in no doubt that she was his aunt, he put out his hand and shook it warmly. He called Rita from the sitting room.
‘Rita, come and meet my Auntie Kathleen.’ Rita covered her surprise with a smile, feeling guilty that she had left the old woman standing in the porch. She shook her hand and said:
‘I’m delighted to meet you. Sixty years is a long time.’
After they had finally settled Auntie Kay into the spare bedroom, they went to their own room and before they went to sleep, they had skipped through a hundred questions about her; past, present and future.
Next morning Rita brought up a cup of tea to Auntie Kay in her room. In bed the old woman looked even older than she had done the night before.
‘I hope you slept well; you were tired after your journey. Stay there and I’ll bring up your breakfast. ’
‘I can’t stand meals in bed.’
Fred had milked, he’d been back for his breakfast and gone again, the children had gone to school and there was still no sign of Auntie Kay. At about ten o’clock she arrived down to the kitchen. Rita enquired:
‘What would you like?’
‘I never have more than coffee and a bagel.’
‘We have no bagels, but I’ll make toast.’
Rita didn’t like to ask too many questions, but on every topic that came up Auntie Kay soon declaimed with great authority, closing down any hope of real conversation.
‘Would you like to come to the village with me, I need a few messages?’
‘Yes, I’ll come to the village.’
In the shops Auntie Kay would ask the name of whoever was behind the counter and tell them that they must be related to so and so, long since dead, or inform them that their families weren’t from around here. On the way home she went on about how everything had changed so much and showed surprise at every manifestation of modernity.
At dinner, midday, she made it plain that she was used to only a snack at this time of day and in Canada she had dinner in the evening. Fred, though circumspect, was less reluctant than Rita to ask Auntie Kay questions, but elicited little hard information about either her past or her plans. The little bit of information she did give was riddled with inconsistencies so that Fred and Rita were unsure if she was laundering the truth, but they suspected that at least part of it was caused by the onset of senility. The only piece of unequivocal information she did give reiterated what she had said the night she arrived:
‘I’ve come home to die.’
When the two girls came in from school, they were excited to meet their great-aunt from Canada. She looked at them in a detached way and said:
‘Since you have no brother to take over the farm, one of you will have to marry a farmer.’ She took out her purse and gave each of them some Canadian coins.
As the days passed Fred and Rita were able to piece together a little about Auntie Kay. She had worked all her life in the same office. She had never been married and was heavily involved in her local parish. She had lived in an apartment that she had left in the hands of an estate agent to be sold, and she wanted to be buried with her own people.
After ten days there was no mention of Auntie Kay’s plans. Fred and Rita speculated that when she sold her flat she would buy something in the area, however they were afraid that she couldn’t survive living on her own; she never offered to help in the kitchen, she was forgetful and worst of all Rita had had to put a plastic under-sheet on her bed.
One evening in the sitting room, after the girls had gone to their room, Fred took the bull by the horns:
‘Auntie Kay, where do you hope to find accommodation? You’ll have to go to the town to find something to suit you.’
‘I’m fine where I am. This is my home and the room is comfortable.’
If the old woman had had a sense of humour Fred and Rita would have thought she was joking, but it was obvious that she was not. They were stunned into silence. They looked at each other and Rita who had taken the brunt of her intrusion into the family mouthed to Fred: ‘Go on.’ Fred needed no encouragement.
‘You can’t stay here; we have the girls to rear and a farm to run.’
‘This is my home; I was born in this house. I know it’s a long time but I’ve returned at last.’
Not another word was spoken. When they were in their bedroom, Rita and Fred still couldn’t quite take it in.
Next day Fred went to see the parish priest who was able to find for him the name and telephone number of Auntie Kay’s parish in Canada. That evening Fred phoned.
‘Father Forde?’
‘Yes.’ Fred explained who he was.
‘I hope she arrived safely. We miss her already in the parish.’
‘Would you be kind enough to contact the estate agent and tell him to take her apartment off the market and I’ll phone you again? ’
‘I will; has she changed her mind? She always talked so warmly about her old home; in fact I could describe it to you she told me about it so often, and she was determined to spend her last days there, bless her.’
‘Thank you for your help, Father. I’ll phone you again in a few days.’
Things didn’t improve, but Fred and Rita wanted to leave time for ‘you can’t stay here’ to sink in. They lost no opportunity to make references from time to time to the implications of it, but the old woman behaved as though Fred had never said it. One evening in the sitting room Fred broached the subject again.
‘Auntie Kay, you remember I told you it wasn’t possible for you to stay here, well we’ll help you to find something suitable in town.’
‘I’m not living in any town. I was born and brought up in the country that’s where I want to end my days. I lived in the city long enough.’
‘You won’t find suitable accommodation in the country, what about the village?’
‘The village is somewhere you go to shop and come home again. I’m fine where I am.’
Fred and Rita thought as much; she had refused to listen, but they had wanted to give her every opportunity to make some alternative arrangement. There was nothing else for it now but to put their contingency plan into operation. Rita went to the travel agent in town the following morning and booked a flight to Toronto a week hence. That evening when they were together Fred told Auntie Kay what they had done. There was no response.
‘Did you hear me Auntie Kay? Your flight is 4.30 pm next Wednesday. We’ll drive you to the airport and I’ve spoken to Father Forde. He’ll meet you off the plane in Toronto.’
‘By the way’ the old woman said, ‘did I tell you about your brother? The one your father had with Mary Cleary of the cottage that I brought to Canada as a baby and reared as my own son.’
Fred was dumbfounded, but he was immediately suspicious that she had brought this up in this circumstance.
‘No you didn’t,’ he said, ‘and I don’t want to know.’ Nothing was going to stop them putting her on that plane.
A few days later when she didn’t appear for breakfast, Rita went up to her room.
‘I’m not well,’ she said, ‘I had a bad night.’ Rita ignored the comment as the childish strategy she knew it to be, and helped her to dress.
In the kitchen the following day Rita said to the old woman:
‘I’ll help you to pack tomorrow. I have your clean laundry ready.’
During the day Auntie Kay was quieter than usual, but she made no reference to her departure for Toronto and she made no further reference to a brother. That evening she only picked at her food and she sat on in the sitting room longer than usual. When she eventually went to bed Fred said to Rita:
‘She’s hoping we’ll feel sorry for her. It’s clear she’s used to getting her own way. I’ve arranged for Paddy to do the evening milking on Wednesday so we can both go to the airport. I wouldn’t put it past her to employ some other last ditch tactic in order not to go. We won’t know ourselves when we get things back to normal, and the children certainly won’t miss her.’
When Auntie Kay was not down again at her usual time for breakfast in the morning, Rita went upstairs. She knocked on her door. There was no reply.
‘The old soldier again,’ Rita thought to herself. She knocked again. There was no response. She turned the handle, pushed open the door slowly and saw the old woman on the floor beside the bed. Rita called her name: ‘Auntie Kay,’ ‘Auntie Kay.’ She shook her, but she didn’t move. She took her wrist. It was cold and there was no pulse.
As Rita arrived down to the kitchen the phone rang.
A man’s voice with a Canadian accent said:
‘Hello, I’ve been talking to Father Forde. Can I speak to my mother please? I want to tell her that her apartment’s been sold and she can’t come back to Toronto.’