nell's story

8/7/2019 Nell's Story

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Nell’s Story

Molly hated having an unbalanced dinner party. She didn’t necessarily aim tohave the same number of men as women, or to have an even number of guests (although

the table looked prettier if symmetrically set), but she did feel that the company should be

a mix of bright personalities who, even if they were strangers to each other, would getalong well.

Tonight she was not so sure. She was hosting a pre-wedding dinner for her

daughter and her future in-laws, the McFaddens, lovely people. Paula and Tony had met

at college, dated for five years, and announced their engagement the previous year. Nowthe wedding was just a month away, and Molly had gloried in all the preparations for her

first family wedding, and her only daughter.

Seven people would sit down to dinner. Tony and his parents, Paula and hers, and

Aunt Nell, at Paula’s specific request.

“Mum”, she had insisted, “You can’t leave her out, she’d be so hurt!”

And Molly hadn’t the heart to argue. Her sister was ten years older than her, anda spinster. The age-gap meant that they didn’t know each other well growing up. They

both attended a boarding school at secondary level, so Nell was away from home from

the time that Molly was two.

Nell clearly hadn’t paid much attention to the deportment and grooming classes atthat inestimable establishment. Where Molly was sophisticated and slim, well groomed,

and immaculate in her presentation of herself, her home and her family, Nell was the

opposite. She was dowdy, a mouse, old-fashioned. After school, she had drifted into thecivil service, from which she had only recently retired. Her only delight seemed to be in

Paula, her niece and god-daughter. Molly hated to admit it, but Nell embarrassed her.

Still, Paula loved her, and it was her party.

It all began smoothly enough, really. Nell did her usual trick of opting out of theconversation, smiling occasionally to show she was grateful to have been invited. Molly

was glad she didn’t come out with her random bursts of hippy-chick philosophy. At

some point in the sixties, Nell had worn kaftans and flowers, hugged trees, saved whales

and probably smoked pot. Molly would never have believed it of her timid older sister except that she still wore the kaftans.

And then the conversation took one of those extraordinary turns….

Tony started it. With several glasses of wine consumed, he offered a toast withanother to his lovely fiancé. “This is the decision of which I am most proud, and of which I anticipate the least regrets in the future.”

The four parents smiled and laughed teasingly. Martin followed up the cheesy

bonhomie by seconding the toast. “I’ll have you know, Tony, that in marrying my

daughter, you are acquiring the one thing in my life of which I am most proud.”

“Please”, said Paula, “I think I shall be sick.”



“She’s not a possession, to be acquired, Martin”, said Molly, gently reproving.

Paula had been fingering her wineglass. “So, Tony”, she asked, laying a hand on

his knee and demanding his full attention, “Which decisions do you figure you WILL

regret?”

“That god-awful wallpaper”, he replied promptly. “I can’t think why I let youtalk me into it.”

“Well, you may as well know now as later”, said Martin, “once you let a wife into

your life, that’s it. Your decision-making will never be the same again. You just repeat“Yes, dear, I think you’re quite right”, when prompted for your input. Any other

response will be regretted sooner or later.”

“But seriously”, said Paula. “You must have some regrets. I’m curious, though –

I’ve never heard you express regrets about anything.”

“I don’t believe in it”, he replied, honestly. “I’ve made mistakes, sure, and I’ll probably make lots more of them, but what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, or that’s

my philosophy.”Molly looked nervously across at Nell. Please, she thought, no inane remarks

about life and rose gardens.

“What about you, Brendan?”, Paula continued, warming to her theme. “Anyregrets? Or does Tony get his sangfroid from you?”

Mr McFadden took the question more seriously, considering for a moment.

“Well… I’ve often regretted that I never did my Ph.D. I know I wanted to – and I

probably would have turned into an academic and never left the university if I did! I cansee myself as a nutty old professor – I think I would have liked that.”

“Why didn’t you?”, asked his wife, interested.

“I fell for the dirty lure of money”, he replied. “I was placed third in my year, and

got head-hunted into a rather nice industry post.”

“So it all turned out for the best?”

“Hmm…. I guess I’m richer than I would have been. Still….”

“What about you, Mum?”, Paula continued, turning to Molly.

Molly would normally have hated a game like this. But Brian had shown her how

to keep to the safe paths.

“Gosh… I don’t know. I didn’t go to college, but I didn’t really want to. I used

to play piano in school, and apparently I was quite good at it. I suppose I’m sorry I gaveit up.”

Paula laughed. “Well, that’s hardly your greatest regret, if you’re not even SURE

you’re sorry!”

Molly squirmed a little. “Oh, in that case, I’ll use Tony’s line, and say I don’t

“do” regrets.”



Paula leaned closer to her. “You’re cheating, Mum. I’ll come back to you.” She

made an exaggeration of inspecting the remaining players, all looking a little nervous –

except Nell.

“What about you, Aunt Nell? What’s your biggest regret?”

Aunt Nell didn’t respond immediately, and for a fleeting moment Mollywondered if she was going deaf.

Then she spoke. “You know, I haven’t had as much wine as the rest of you – I’m

not sure I should play.”

“Oh, its better if you’re sober”, gushed Paula, and Molly realized that Paula had probably had a little too much herself. “You’re more likely to make sense, and not avoid

the truth, like all these other dodgers.”

“Regrets are painful, Paula. That’s the truth.”

But Paula was not to be denied. “But life is painful! Look at us – we’re all

family (or we’re going to be family, in a few week’s time) and we sit here and make

conversation and have a nice polite time, and all the while, we never get to know eachother! I’m getting married soon, and I want to know about everyone’s desires, fulfilled

and unfulfilled. I want to know you, ALL of you, better than I do now! Who’s to saywhat we’re really like? We spend most of our time covering up and turning the best side

out. Wouldn’t it be tragic if we went through all our lives, never knowing each other?”

The table fell silent, with most of the guests searching for a path back to a lighter

topic. Molly reeled. Who’d have thought it would be Paula, and not Nell, who wouldupset the delicate conversational balance?

“So!”, Paula insisted, triumphing in having everyone’s attention. “Tell me.”

Nell looked at her younger sister for a moment. “You know, you’re right, Paula.

Sometimes we don’t even know those who are our closest kin.”

Molly met her eyes then, frightened. Oh God, she thought. Here it comes. I’mthe closest kin that Nell has left.

“That’s my greatest regret”, Nell was saying. “I never knew my daughter.”

Molly nearly dropped her wineglass, sure she was hearing things. “Your…

daughter…?”

“Oh, you wouldn’t have known”, Nell continued easily (with…dear God, was that

a slightly patronizing tone?). “You were very young at the time.”

“You had a daughter….?”Paula’s eyes were popping. “Auntie Nellie….!”, she squealed, in quite an

approving tone. “Go on, you’re joking!”

“No… I’m not. She was born in 1961, on the 3rd of April, when I was twenty. I

called her Amy.” She paused. “Imagine, she’ll be forty-two this year.”

“She’s alive? Where is she?”



“I don’t know, dear. She was taken away from me when she was three weeks old.

But she’s out there somewhere. Your cousin.”

The McFaddens were as intrigued by Nell’s confession as by Molly’s reaction.

“You didn’t know, did you?”, Brendan asked Molly. She shook her head, still in shock.

“Nell… you never told me… when… who?”“It was a long time ago. And it wasn’t… very proper at the time. Of course,

things have changed now. I was sent away to have the baby – the official story was that I

was visiting my grandmother, who was supposed to be ill, except she wasn’t. I went to aconvent and worked in the laundries for a while. It wasn’t very nice. But a few years

later they set me up with a job in the civil service, and that was the end of it.”

“Did you ever try to contact her?”

“Yes, just after her eighteenth birthday, in ’79. I never forgot her birthday. The

adoption agency contacted her to say that I wanted to meet, and they forwarded a letter Ihad written. But unfortunately she didn’t want to meet me. She sent back a reply to say

she wanted me to know that she was happy, but she thought it was better not to disturbthings.”

Molly looked at her older sister as though she had never seen her before, feelingher world and perspective shift all around her. Rewinding back the years – she was nine

when her sister was sent away. She must have been so used to Nell being at boarding

school that she didn’t even remember noting that she was gone. And then the civilservice – how had her hippy, rebellious sister ended up there? Molly hadn’t even

wondered before. And Paula – all that love that Nell had lavished on her. It wasn’t just

that she was childless…. It was that she had lost a child.

Molly forgot to be embarrassed. It was certainly a bombshell to have dropped, but one that was received, even by the McFaddens, with a warm sympathy.

“Who was the father?”, Paula asked, intrepid as ever.

“Oh”, said Nell, a sudden light coming into her eye. “Oh, he was a gorgeous

man. He was tall and blonde and had the broadest shoulders… He was an American,

over on holidays, with his parents. He was only eighteen, so his parents decided I had ledhim astray. But I’ll tell you – he taught me some things no innocent could have known! I

was a good Catholic girl ‘til I met him.”

Mrs McFadden drew in a slightly shocked laugh.

“I didn’t find out I was pregnant until after he went home. I wrote to him, andwould you believe he offered to marry me? But his parents wouldn’t have any of it…

and, at the end of the day, I guess I was too far away, and too easily forgotten. That’s

all.”

Silence fell again, and Molly shook herself slightly. “I’m still waiting for you totell me you’re making it all up.”



“No.” Nell frowned, then smiled. “I still have his letters. You can see them, if

you like.”

The sisters’ eyes met, Nell’s candid, Molly’s a mix of shock and sadness. Nell

offered an olive branch - an invitation - and Molly was fully conscious of this. All thoseyears of her self-righteousness and assured superiority. Dismissing her sister as a mouse

– an uninteresting person who had failed to attract a husband and have children, associety required. All those judgments she had made in complete and total ignorance.She took a breath.

“What can I say? I seem to have a brand new regret. Nell….you’re my sister,

and the only one I’ve got, and I can’t believe I didn’t know this. I never knew about your

love affair, or your baby, or all those anniversaries you kept on the 3rd of April. I can’timagine what it was like for you to receive that letter from her. Paula was born that year,

and I never even noticed what was happening in your life. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for

you.”

The attention around the table now turned back to Nell, to see how she would

receive this. She sat there, newly dressed in a cloak of tragedy that she had worn quietlyfor forty years. She smiled comfortably, relaxing back into her chair. “Well… you made

me the godmother”, she said, glancing over at Paula. “That made all the difference.”

nell's story

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