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The Girl from Ballymor
Kathleen McGurl
What would you sacrifice for your children?Ballymor, Ireland, 1847As famine grips the country Kitty McCarthy is left widowed and alone. Fighting to keep her two remaining children alive against all odds, Kitty must decide how far she will go to save her family.Present dayArriving in Ballymor, Maria is researching her ancestor, Victorian artist Michael McCarthy – and his beloved mother, the mysterious Kitty who disappeared without a trace.Running from her future, it’s not only answers about the past that Maria hopes to find in Ireland. As her search brings her closer to the truth about Kitty’s fate, Maria must make the biggest decision of her life.


Also available from KATHLEEN McGURL
The Emerald Comb
The Pearl Locket
The Daughters of Red Hill Hall


KATHLEEN MCGURL lives near the sea in Bournemouth, UK, with her husband and elderly tabby cat. She has two sons who are now grown-up and have left home. She began her writing career creating short stories, and sold dozens to women’s magazines in the UK and Australia. Then she got sidetracked onto family history research – which led eventually to writing novels with genealogy themes. She has always been fascinated by the past, and the ways in which the past can influence the present, and enjoys exploring these links in her novels.
When not writing or working at her full-time job in IT, she likes to go out running or swimming, both of which she does rather slowly. She is definitely quicker at writing, even though the cat tries to disrupt the writing process by insisting on sharing Kathleen’s lap with the laptop.
You can find out more at her website:
http://kathleenmcgurl.com (http://kathleenmcgurl.com)/, or follow her on Twitter: @KathMcGurl
For my sons, Fionn and Connor McGurl

Contents
Cover (#u38c869ce-7a49-58ef-9f66-a9082efb6276)
Also by Kathleen McGurl (#u8eb2abb6-a3ae-590c-9c6f-dbc7566b8e40)
Title Page (#u2d989d52-a830-59d7-9db9-ddbbda91cc13)
About the Author (#u3df7510d-45ce-58e4-85ec-7c1c2e5d970b)
Dedication (#u821992b5-eaab-5e19-a085-b04b551af703)
CHAPTER 1: Maria, present day (#ulink_b0da0c88-3ab4-588d-8e96-0eb631c6b492)
CHAPTER 2: Kitty, 1848 (#ulink_480b03ad-62c1-56af-b72c-815461f09ebf)
CHAPTER 3: Maria (#ulink_de2d4067-789a-5b41-a825-611c5751f012)
CHAPTER 4: Kitty (#ulink_f2ea441d-c800-51db-8dad-dd17bce4000a)
CHAPTER 5: Maria (#ulink_7d5980ad-3c4a-5d5c-95ea-546c84bbf4e2)
CHAPTER 6: Kitty (#ulink_11a83980-4cfc-52fa-9210-5f01e8e51461)
CHAPTER 7: Maria (#ulink_46c184e3-f3c1-5c66-a086-165e2b6bb108)
CHAPTER 8: Kitty (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 9: Maria (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 10: Kitty (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 11: Maria (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 12: Kitty (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 13: Maria (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 14: Kitty (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 15: Maria (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 16: Kitty (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 17: Maria (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 18: Kitty (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 19: Maria (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 20: Kitty (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 21: Maria (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 22: Michael 1849–1860 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 23: Maria (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 24: Michael (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 25: Maria (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 26: Kitty, 1849 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 27: Maria (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 28: Michael (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 29: Maria (#litres_trial_promo)
AUTHOR’S NOTE (#litres_trial_promo)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 1 (#ulink_a97533f5-4fdb-5803-a7c5-026a6da5efa1)
Maria, present day (#ulink_a97533f5-4fdb-5803-a7c5-026a6da5efa1)
There was something about Ireland that made it look and feel completely different to England as I drove through it in my hire car, on the way from Dublin airport south-west towards Ballymor. I mean, the motorways were much the same except that the road signs showed place names in Irish as well as English, and the distances were given in kilometres. And the fields and woods either side of the motorway were green and lush, as they would be back home during a rainy summer. But there was something foreign about it all that I could not quite put my finger on.
Perhaps it was to do with the way houses were dotted randomly across the landscape, whereas in England they’d all be grouped into villages, apart from the odd farmhouse. Or was it the ubiquitous whitewash of the cottages, or the colourful shopfronts and lack of chain stores in the small towns I passed through once I’d left the motorway and headed deep into County Cork.
I found myself pondering all this as I drove onwards. Anything to take my mind off the last conversation I’d had with my boyfriend Dan, just before I’d left for the airport that morning. I wanted to blot the memory of his expression of disappointment and hurt from my mind. And there was the other thing I wanted to forget all about as well, during this trip. I’d deal with it all when I went back home. This week was to be purely about me-time.
After all, it wasn’t as though Dan hadn’t had fair warning I would be going on this trip. I’d been talking about the possibility of doing it for ages. I’d originally suggested that he might come along as well, but he’d said no, he couldn’t take that amount of time off from his job. I was disappointed at first that I’d be on my own, but after what had happened I was relieved. It’d be good to have the time and space on my own to get my head straight.
Anyway, it’d be easier to concentrate on my research into my ancestor Michael McCarthy without Dan around.
*
It was late afternoon, the weather overcast but thankfully not raining, when I finally drove into the pretty little town of Ballymor in west Cork. My online research had described it as a typical small town in the south-west of Ireland, nestled amongst bleak moorlands and craggy hills, about ten miles from the coast. I easily found O’Sullivan’s pub and guest house, where I had booked a room for the next ten days. It was the nearest accommodation to Michael McCarthy’s place of birth I’d been able to find. The pub was situated in the middle of town, opposite an old, grey-stone church, just off the central square. Next door was a bookmaker’s, then a gift shop, both with brightly painted shopfronts, then a small branch of Dunnes Stores in a more modern building. There were a couple of parking spaces in front of O’Sullivan’s. One was free so I pulled into it and heaved my luggage out of the boot. The pub had two bow-fronted windows with leaded glass, with a door to the side and an Irish tricolour hanging from a pole mounted between the first floor windows. I looked upwards, wondering if one of those windows would be my room. It was clearly a very old building, with warped windows and a wonky roof line, but it looked welcoming and comfortable – just what I needed right now. Maybe Michael McCarthy would even have drunk a pint or two here, in his time.
Inside, the pub was dark, with low ceilings and a long polished bar set against the back wall. Mismatched wooden tables and chairs were dotted around on a stone-flagged floor. A huge fireplace dominated one wall, but being midsummer it was not lit. I imagined it would be very cosy in here on a winter’s night, perhaps with a few musicians sitting in the corner, playing tin whistle, bodhrán, fiddle and accordion, sipping pints of Guinness between sets. Clichéd west-of-Ireland image I know, but, to be honest, that’s exactly what I was hoping to find. Something a million miles away from my usual life in London with Dan.
Today, the bar was deserted apart from one whiskery old man, wearing a worn black suit over a frayed sweater, who was sitting on a bar stool. He glanced in my direction, looked me up and down and took in my luggage, then without saying a word shuffled off his stool and disappeared through a door beside the bar. A moment later, he reappeared and climbed back onto his bar stool. He nodded at me and took a deep pull of his pint. Guinness, I was pleased to see. A youngish woman of about my own age followed him and came straight over to me, her hand stretched out.
‘Welcome, welcome! You must be Maria McCarthy, here to stay with us, so you are. I’m Aoife, the landlady here. I’m sorry there was no one here when you arrived. Did you have a long journey?’
I smiled. She seemed nice, her curly brown hair bouncing around as she shook my hand, her Iron Maiden t-shirt with its screaming skeletal figure at odds with her friendly, open expression. ‘Yes, pretty long. I flew from London to Dublin and drove from there.’
‘Ah, it’s a tidy way from Dublin, sure it is. You’ll be wanting a cup of tea, now. Or something stronger? What can I get you?’ She bustled behind the bar ready to get whatever drink I requested.
‘Tea, for the moment, please,’ I said.
‘Tea, that’s grand,’ she replied, and went through to the back, presumably the kitchen, to make it.
I sat down at a small table by one of the windows, and put my bags on a chair. The old fellow at the bar watched in silence, taking occasional sips of his pint. I smiled at him, wondering how to start a conversation. I was still pondering this when the door opened and a young man entered. He was tall, sandy haired, wearing an open-necked shirt and jeans.
‘Paulie! How’re ye? Aoife about, is she? I’m parched.’ He clapped a hand on the old man’s shoulder. The old fellow – Paulie, I guessed – raised a bushy eyebrow in my direction and the newcomer turned, seeing me for the first time. He smiled, and approached the table. ‘Hello! Ah, looks like you are a new guest here, staying in O’Sullivans? Is anyone looking after you?’
‘Yes, someone’s fetching me a cup of tea,’ I replied.
‘That’ll be where Aoife’s got herself to, then. Sure and I’ll have to wait for my pint. Declan Murphy,’ he said with a smile, holding out his hand to shake.
I took it. His grasp was firm, and now he was close, I could see he had startlingly blue eyes and a smattering of freckles across his face. ‘Maria McCarthy. Nice to meet you.’ His warmth and geniality reminded me with a pang of Dan, back home in London. My lovely Dan, who I’d left behind.
‘McCarthy – now that’s a local name, but you don’t sound at all local, sure you don’t.’
‘No, I’m visiting from England. But my ancestors were from here. Well, near here, anyway.’
His eyes lit up with interest. ‘Oh, really? Are you researching them?’
At that moment Aoife arrived with my tea, and a selection of cakes, which she put on the table in front of me. ‘Now. You’ll be needing more than tea after your long drive. When you’ve eaten that I’ll show you up to your room. No hurry. There’s never any hurry here, you’ll be discovering that. Declan, what can I get for you?’
‘At last!’ He grinned. ‘Thought you’d never ask. I’ll have a pint of the black stuff, please, and another for Paulie while you’re about it.’
Paulie nodded his thanks. I was beginning to wonder if he was mute, as he’d said not a word since I arrived. Declan came back over to my table. ‘Mind if I join you?’
‘Not at all,’ I replied, through a mouthful of a delicious fruit cake. ‘And feel free to help me out with these cakes.’
‘Thank you,’ he said, taking a small scone. ‘So, where is it your ancestors are from?’
‘A small village, somewhere near here. I couldn’t find it on Google maps. Kildoolin, it’s called.’
‘Ah, Kildoolin.’ He nodded.
‘You know it?’
‘Sure, and it’s not too far away. A pleasant afternoon’s walk.’
‘Can’t I drive there?’ I didn’t mind a walk, but would rather save my energy to walk around the village rather than to it.
He shook his head. ‘There are no roads. None suitable for cars, that is. Just a track, for horse riders or walkers. And a few mountain bikers.’
I was confused. ‘What about the people in the village? How do they come to town?’
Paulie, at the bar, sniggered into his pint. Declan shot a frown in his direction then turned back to me. ‘Pay no mind to old Paulie, there. He’ll soften when he gets to know you. Always a bit shy around strangers. Don’t you know about Kildoolin?’
‘It’s just listed as the place of birth of one of my ancestors, on some censuses. Like I said, I couldn’t find it on Google maps. But one census said “Kildoolin, Ballymor, Ireland” so I thought I should start here.’
‘That was a good plan, all right. Kildoolin’s a deserted village. No one lives there any more. It was abandoned during the famine years, in the 1840s. Everyone either died or moved to the towns, and probably many of them emigrated. It’s just a collection of ruins today. Quite evocative, so it is. As I said, it’s an easy walk up there so you’ll be able to see for yourself. There’s a path leading up from the end of Church Street, just as you leave the town. You can park there or it’d only take five minutes more to walk it from here. It’s signposted –“The Deserted Village”. You can’t miss it.’
A famine village! I felt stupid that I hadn’t realised that. I’d never actually researched Michael McCarthy’s birthplace in detail. He was a Victorian portrait painter, and my great-great-grandfather. I had one of his pictures hanging above my bed back home – our bed, I should say, mine and Dan’s – and I’d come here to research more about him, as well as work out my personal problems along the way. Find my ancestors; find myself. Something like that, anyway. I felt a shiver of anticipation as I imagined walking around the ruins of a village abandoned over a hundred and fifty years ago. Michael and his family must have been among the last inhabitants of it.
‘Thanks, Declan, I’ll definitely go there. Probably tomorrow if the weather allows it.’ I glanced out of the window. It had begun to rain, just a light drizzle, but not the sort of weather you’d want for undertaking a hike across the moors.
‘You might have to put up with a bit of rain if you’re staying here in Ballymor,’ Declan said. ‘Anyway, that’s not proper rain, is it, Paulie?’
The old man shook his head and cleared his throat. ‘Ah no, ’tis a grand soft day,’ he pronounced. His voice was surprisingly soft for such a grizzled old man, with a beautiful west-of-Ireland sing-song lilt.
Soft. Not the adjective I’d use for the rain which was now beginning to run down the window. I was glad I’d brought my luggage in already and only hoped I wouldn’t need to move my car.
‘So, who were your ancestors that lived above in Kildoolin?’ Declan asked, with what looked like genuine interest.
‘My great-great-grandfather was a man called Michael McCarthy. On the UK censuses he gave his place of birth as Kildoolin, though he spent the latter half of his life living in London. He was a Victorian artist, and I’m here to research him.’
‘You must be very interested in genealogy, then?’
I smiled, suddenly feeling shy. ‘Yes, but I’m also interested in art history. I did a degree in it, and my final-year thesis was on the work of Michael McCarthy. Now I’d like to research him a bit more, find out about his life as well as his work, and write a book on him. I know he was born here, had a spell in America where he first became noticed as an artist, then settled in London, although he continued to travel for his work. He mostly took commissions – he painted portraits of the rich for money.’
‘That’s fantastic, so it is, to write a book about him. Are you an artist yourself?’
‘Sort of.’ I told him about my job teaching art at adult education classes. There was something about Declan that made him easy to talk to. He was a good listener, and managed to ask questions that drew me out without him seeming nosy. I liked him instantly.
‘You’re here on your own?’ he asked, at one point.
‘It’ll be easier to get on with the research on my own. Dan would have distracted me, and I’d have spent half the time worrying he was feeling like he was wasting his holiday. So, yes, just me.’
‘Dan’s your partner?’
‘Yes.’ I poured myself another cup of tea, keeping my eyes down.
He frowned slightly, as if my short answer had raised questions in his mind, but seemed to realise I was not going to elaborate on mine and Dan’s relationship. Although he was easy to talk to I didn’t feel I could tell him all my relationship problems within five minutes of meeting him. He took the hint and returned to asking about Michael McCarthy, a safer topic. ‘Your artist ancestor, should I have heard of him?’
‘Not really. He’s quite well known in academic circles, I suppose – if you were studying Victorian art you’d come across him. But he’s not well known to the general public. There are a few of his paintings in museums, and the National Portrait Gallery in London holds several but doesn’t often display them. I had to make special arrangements to see them when I did my degree. And I’ll need to do the same again for the book, I guess. There’s a little bit of a mystery surrounding him, actually.’
Declan raised an eyebrow. ‘Really? Go on.’
I grinned. I loved telling people this story. ‘Many of Michael McCarthy’s portraits are of the same beautiful red-haired woman, in different settings. Some in Ireland, some in England, New York, Paris, all over.’
‘Someone he loved?’
‘They were all entitled “Kitty”. That was his mother’s name. The rumour is that she disappeared, and he spent much of his adult life searching for her but he never found her. Instead, he painted her from memory, wherever he travelled.’
He gazed at me wistfully. ‘That’s a lovely mystery. Are you hoping that maybe you can find out what happened to Kitty while you’re here?’
I nodded. ‘That’s my dream. She was my great-great-great-grandmother. She was stunning – at least, if Michael’s paintings are at all accurate.’
‘He must have really loved his mother to keep searching for her.’
‘Yes, he must have.’ I couldn’t imagine feeling like that about your mother. My own mother and I had very little to do with each other these days. If she went missing I’m not sure I’d spend that long looking for her. I’m not sure she’d want me to.
Declan smiled. ‘I think it’s grand that you’re writing a book. Really interesting. The kind of thing I’d love to do myself if I wasn’t . . . so busy. Well now, if I can help at all in any way while you’re here, you’ve only to ask. I come in here most days, to keep an eye on old Paulie, there. Isn’t that right now, Paulie?’
The old man grunted and raised his pint in Declan’s direction.
‘Ah well, I should leave you now. Your tea’s drunk, cake’s eaten and you’ll be wanting to take your things to your room. So, have a good day tomorrow exploring Kildoolin. There’s an ancient stone circle up there too, not far from the old village, but if you go off the tracks and across the moors watch out for the abandoned copper mines. There are a few mine entrances ought to be better protected than they are. They’re not a danger if you’re sensible, mind, and keep to the paths. So, will I see you in here tomorrow evening, perhaps? There’ll be some music later on, if you like that kind of thing. Aoife prefers heavy metal herself, but she tolerates traditional Irish music in the bar for the sake of the tourists. It’s good craic, anyways. You can tell me how you got on up at the old village.’
‘Sure. I’ll probably have my dinner in here tomorrow evening, catch you then.’ I grinned as Declan raised an imaginary hat to me and took his pint over to the bar to sit beside Paulie.
Aoife came to clear away the tea and cakes. ‘Come on, I’ll show you up, now.’ She led me through the door beside the bar then up a narrow staircase panelled in dark wood. My room was at the top, surprisingly light and spacious after the dark bar and staircase. It had windows front and back, an uneven stripped wood floor, dark oak furniture and bright white bedlinen with lacy trim. Over the bed was a picture of Christ, his arms outstretched, his heart depicted exposed and shining. The room smelt of beeswax polish. The rain had stopped and weak sunshine was shining in at the back window. I put my bags down and smiled. It felt like the kind of room where you could really relax and sort yourself out – just what I needed. It had been a very difficult few days.
‘This is perfect, thanks. What time’s breakfast?’
‘Any time you want it, love. You’re my only guest this week so I can work around you. You’ll fit in nicely, I can see. You’ve already met two of my regulars, Declan and Paulie.’
‘Declan’s nice.’
She chuckled. ‘Yes and he is that, to be sure, but don’t be getting ideas. You’ll not get far with that one.’ She laughed again, and left the room, closing the door behind her.
I spent an hour or so unpacking, sorting out my room, and setting up my laptop on the dressing table. The pub had Wi-Fi and the signal was pretty strong, so I then began some Googling to find out more about Kildoolin. Should have done that before coming over, I suppose, rather than appearing an idiot in front of the locals for not realising it was a derelict famine village! Well anyway, now I knew, and was excited at the prospect of a walk up there tomorrow. The weather forecast online showed a bright day with just a chance of a few showers in the afternoon. If I got up and out early, perhaps I’d be able to avoid them.
It’d be the perfect way to start my holiday and my research. But first, I thought I had better call Dan and let him know I had arrived safely. I took a deep breath before picking up my mobile. It might not be an easy call, given what had happened last night.
He answered straight away.
‘Hi, Dan,’ I said. ‘Just letting you know I got here OK.’
‘That’s good.’ He sounded deflated, and I felt a pang of guilt. What had I done to him?
‘So, um, the pub where I’m staying seems nice.’
‘Great.’
‘You OK?’
He sighed. ‘What do you think, Maria?’
‘I’m sorry.’ I sounded lame, even to myself. I realised there was no point trying to discuss things right now. It was too soon. We – or at least I – needed some time before we could talk. ‘Look, I’ll call you again soon, OK?’
‘OK.’
‘Bye then. Love you.’ I realised he’d already hung up. I did love Dan. I wasn’t just saying that from habit.
I knew I’d hurt him, and I was sorry for it. It’s just . . . there was stuff I needed to think about, stuff to get my head around. Things he didn’t know about. Things I should have told him long before now.
The mind is a funny thing. Something really big and important can be happening in your life, and yet if you don’t want to face it, you can sometimes simply let yourself forget all about it. For a while, at least, until it becomes too big to ignore. I knew I was in denial, but I didn’t care, and wasn’t ready to face it all head on. Not yet, anyway.
Hopefully here in Ireland, immersed in my research into Michael McCarthy and his mother Kitty, I’d find the time and headspace to work it all out, and sort things out with Dan, one way or another.
CHAPTER 2 (#ulink_ac41abf9-b255-59e6-851d-f81cadb9809f)
Kitty, 1848 (#ulink_ac41abf9-b255-59e6-851d-f81cadb9809f)
The potatoes were all gone. There was not a single one left. Kitty climbed down from the storage area set into the rafters of her tiny cottage and sighed. She’d crawled right into the corners, hoping against hope that there might be a few stray potatoes that had rolled right to the back. Anything to allow her to cook a meal of some sort for the children and herself tonight. Anything to hold off starvation for one more day.
She dropped to her knees on the cold stone floor. ‘Please God let there be something today for the children. I’ll be all right going without, sure I will, but young Michael needs to eat if he’s to work, and little Gracie is fading away, Lord bless her soul.’ The prayer was said in a whisper, for fear of waking her daughter who was curled up in a corner of the room. She was thankful Gracie slept, for all the time the child was sleeping she was not feeling the clawing pangs of hunger.
Kitty hauled herself upright again and crossed herself, feeling slightly dizzy. She had not eaten anything that day. The little family was reduced to a single meal each day now. She shook her head sadly, wondering what, if anything, she’d be able to give them this evening. Perhaps if Michael was paid what he was owed today, she could walk to Ballymor with his wages and buy some cornmeal. Or could she knock on doors and see if anyone could spare a potato or two? It was rumoured that Martin O’Shaughnessy still had a good stock. Probably blighted, like those she and the children had been living off these last months, but nevertheless they were just about edible and better than nothing. Could she bring herself to ask him for help? Old Martin wasn’t the friendliest of neighbours. His children had grown and left – two sons to America, a daughter wed in Limerick and another in Dublin. His wife had died of the consumption a couple of years ago, and he’d become a bit of a hermit since then. Kitty had helped nurse Niamh O’Shaughnessy at the end of her life, despite Martin telling her he could cope and she wasn’t needed. Now Martin was fast becoming Kitty’s only neighbour. The village was almost deserted. As the famine entered its third year, people had moved away in search of work and food. Or gone to be with God, like Kitty’s other children. She felt a wave of sadness wash over her as she remembered Little Pat and the three babies she’d lost. For a moment she could barely move or breathe, paralysed by grief, but she pulled herself together. She still had two children living, and they needed her to be strong.
She crossed the floor of her single-room cottage, to the rough straw mattress and pile of blankets that served as a bed for herself and Grace. She sat down and laid a hand on her daughter’s forehead.
‘Well now, Gracie. Have you slept well? Will I get you a sip of water?’
Grace’s huge dark eyes stared up at her, and a sweet smile came to her lips.
‘Bless you, child. Your smile lights up the cottage, so it does.’ Kitty scooped some water from a bucket into a pottery mug, and held it to Grace’s lips. The girl managed a few sips before lying back down on the blankets.
‘Mammy, will Michael catch a rabbit today?’ she asked.
Kitty closed her eyes as she remembered that glorious day, three weeks ago now, when Michael had come home with a rabbit he’d caught in a trap. They’d still had some potatoes then, from the meagre summer crop, and the stew she’d made that night with the rabbit meat had been a feast. There’d been some for the day after as well. But Michael wasn’t the only one in the community setting traps for rabbits, and he’d had no luck since that day. ‘Ah, sure rabbit stew would be lovely, wouldn’t it?’ she said to Grace, who nodded and feebly licked her lips.
It was another hour or more before Michael would be home. He was working in the fields for Mr Waterman today. Digging, hoeing, planting, weeding, tending, reaping and harvesting – all food that they’d see none of. Mr Waterman’s fields were planted with wheat and barley, all destined for export to England. Thomas Waterman, an Englishman, owned most of the land around here, and the villagers rented their cottages and small, private patches for growing potatoes from him, as well as working for him.
At the thought of Waterman, Kitty stopped stroking Grace’s hair and sat still, staring at nothing. There was another avenue, if she could bring herself to ask for charity. Thomas Waterman did not have a reputation for kindness. On the contrary, he was like his father before him – aloof and arrogant, seemingly immune to the poverty and suffering of those who worked for him. As with so many other English landowners in Ireland, he was often absent, and if he was on his Irish estates he’d keep to his big house and close his eyes to the effects of the famine. But he might make an exception for Kitty, if she asked him in the right way. They had history, a shared past. But could she do it? She silently shook her head. No. Not Thomas Waterman. She despised him with every breath of her body. She hadn’t run to him last winter when the famine carried off her three youngest. Neither had she when her boy Pat had succumbed of a fever, made worse she was sure by the hunger, the previous autumn. And she wouldn’t go to him now.
She would try Martin O’Shaughnessy. In her experience, the poor were more generous than the rich.
With a burst of resolve, she stood up from the bed, took her shawl down from its hook and knotted it around her shoulders. ‘Gracie, I’ll be going out for a little while, now. Have yourself another little sleep,’ she said softly, and Grace murmured something in reply.
She pushed open the wooden door of the cottage and went out, remembering the long-gone days when the lean-to pigpen beside the cottage had always housed a pig nursing her piglets, and with a goat tied up beside it providing them with milk each day. When the potato crops first failed in the autumn of 1845, she’d had to sell the goat. She’d had to sell the pig the year before, after her husband Patrick had died in the terrible mining accident. In Thomas Waterman’s copper mine, she thought, pressing her lips together hard.
It was a fine day. Cold, but with no rain or drizzle. If you had the time to stand and stare, there was a grand view from the village across the heather moorlands towards the coast. On a good day you could see a ribbon of silver that was the sea. Kitty had been there once, when she was courting Patrick and old Mother Heaney had looked after Michael, then aged just three, for the day. She had gazed in awe at the vastness of the ocean. ‘Somewhere over there’s America,’ Patrick had said. ‘We’ll go, when I’ve made enough money working in the mines. You, me and Michael. We’ll make our fortune there.’
She’d kissed him deeply then, loving his optimism for the future, loving that he was taking on her child that was not his own and not judging her for it, loving his strong arms and broad shoulders which she’d thought would protect her and her children for ever.
But that was not how things had turned out. She cast aside the memory. There were more important things to think about today – such as how she was going to feed her remaining children.
Martin O’Shaughnessy’s house was at the top end of the village, past a dozen empty cottages, some of which were already falling into ruin. She remembered when the village had been vibrant, buzzing with life, children running up and down in front of the cottages, goats and pigs tied up outside most homes, women hanging washing out to dry, men repairing thatch or hauling sacks of healthy potatoes inside to store in their roof-spaces. Strange to think that was only a couple of years ago, before the blight came, before the repeated failures of the potato crop.
She passed the Brennans’ cottage. When Seamus Brennan had died Mary Brennan and her five young children had gone into the workhouse, there being no one left in the family able to work. Kitty had been luckier, having Michael old enough to earn while she looked after the children. But it was a hard life for a young lad to have to provide for his mother and siblings. Sibling, she corrected herself. Only Gracie left now, of all of them. Her beautiful babies, all gone, buried in a single plot in the Ballymor churchyard. Beyond the Brennans’ cottage was the Delaneys’ old place. Two dead, one gone to Dublin in search of employment, and one seeking his fortune in America. And so it continued up the row of cottages. Everyone gone; either died or emigrated or in the workhouse. No one left. Finally, she reached the end cottage. Smoke curled from its chimney, and a scrawny tethered goat scrambled to its feet as she approached. She smiled and scratched its head. It was a little reminder of how things used to be.
She rapped on Martin’s door. ‘Mr O’Shaughnessy? It’s me, Kitty McCarthy. Are you at home?’
The door opened, and Martin, a grizzled-looking man with the beginnings of a hunchback, came out. ‘Welcome, neighbour. Is it your little girl?’
Kitty was momentarily taken aback, then realised he was assuming someone had died. To be sure, that had been the usual reason for knocking on doors these last two years. ‘No, no. She’s sickly, but still with us, God be praised,’ she replied.
‘Well, that’s something. Such a bonny little thing, she is, with her copper hair and her sunny smile,’ Martin said. He looked at her expectantly.
Kitty suddenly felt uneasy, now that she was here on Martin’s doorstep. How could she ask him for charity? It wasn’t in her nature – she was too proud. But if she didn’t, they’d go hungry tonight, and tomorrow, and the next day. An image of Grace’s big, trusting eyes came to her. She couldn’t fail her little girl, her only remaining daughter. ‘Mr O’Shaughnessy, it pains me so to ask, but I have no choice. Could you see your way to sparing a few potatoes for us? We’re completely running out. It’s not for myself I’m asking, you understand. It’s for the children. For Gracie.’
She stopped talking and stood quietly, watching him, waiting for him to reply. She had a sudden intuition that their fortunes depended on his response. If he turned her away that would be the beginning of the end for all of them. They’d be joining Patrick and the children in the life beyond. ‘Mr O’Shaughnessy, as soon as Michael is paid I can repay you, buy you some corn perhaps.’
But he was shaking his head. ‘No, no. I won’t be taking young Michael’s wages. Wait here.’ He went inside his cottage and reappeared a moment later hauling a bulging sack. ‘Here. Take these. I have enough.’
Kitty couldn’t believe it. He was giving her a whole sack of potatoes! Enough to last, if she was careful, a month or more. She peeked in the top. They didn’t look to be blighted, either. ‘I can’t take so many, Mr O’Shaughnessy. You’ll need them. It’s a long while till the next harvest.’ She tried to push the sack back to him, but he refused.
‘You’ll take it, Kitty McCarthy. Your need is the greater – you and those bairns of yours. I haven’t forgotten your kindness when my Niamh was dying.’ He coughed, a harsh, rasping rattle that came from deep in his chest. ‘I still have enough to last the winter, though I think the good Lord will be wanting my company before next harvest. When I’m gone, you can take all that’s left. For your little colleen.’
‘Ah, thank you, thank you, Mr O’Shaughnessy. God will spare you for your kind heart. If there is anything I can do for you, you must ask me.’
He shook his head. ‘There’s nothing. Maybe I’ll need a spot of nursing at the end, but until then, I’m grand. Away with you, now, back to your little girl who needs you.’
He made a shooing action with his hands, and closed the door.
Kitty offered up a silent prayer of thanks for good neighbours, and resolved to check on him every day. If he was as sick as he thought he was then certainly she would nurse him and make his last days as comfortable as possible. It was the least she could do for him. She hauled the sack back to her own cottage, and stored most of the potatoes, unblighted, fat and white, in the loft space, while little Gracie slept on in the corner.
She kept out three large potatoes, and put them in the pot ready to cook. There’d be a meal awaiting Grace when she woke, and ready for Michael when he returned from work. The sky outside was beginning to darken; he’d be home soon.
*
But Michael did not return until an hour after dark, when Kitty was just beginning to worry about what might have happened to him. He was carrying something wrapped in a piece of sackcloth, which he put down upon the scarred table in the middle of the room.
‘What’s that?’ Kitty asked, her curiosity greater than her wish to tell him of Mr O’Shaughnessy’s kindness.
‘A duck,’ Michael said, with pride.
Kitty looked at him with equal pride. He was tall and strong, too thin of course, but handsome, with his black hair and blue eyes. So unlike her own copper hair and milky freckled skin, which Grace had inherited. ‘Where from?’
‘Waterman’s ornamental pond,’ he replied, with a sideways look at her. ‘So we will eat well tonight.’
He was aware, she knew, that she objected to poaching, even from Thomas Waterman, who had more than enough. ‘Ah, Michael,’ she said, shaking her head but unable to stop the beginnings of a smile at the corners of her mouth. ‘What if you were caught? What if the steward saw you? If you get taken away and locked up for thievery that’ll be the end of us, so it will.’
But Michael wasn’t listening. He’d crossed the room to the pile of straw and blankets, and was kneeling beside Gracie, stroking her hair and whispering. Kitty went closer to hear what he was saying.
‘You’ll eat like a princess tonight, Gracie. Duck breast, fried with a little rosemary and sage, cut into succulent thick slices. And duck broth tomorrow. Meat, Gracie! Meat such as Mr Waterman has every day. And when this duck has gone, I know where I can get more. We’ll have duck every week, so we will. Awake now. We’ll be eating in an hour or less.’
‘There’s potatoes as well. Good ones. Enough for a month,’ Kitty said.
Michael turned to her with wide eyes as she told him how she’d come by the sack of potatoes. ‘He’s a good man and a true friend,’ he said. ‘I’ll take him a leg of this duck, will I, in return?’
‘But he will ask where it came from,’ Kitty said, frowning. She wanted to repay Martin’s kindness but feared what would happen if people heard Michael was poaching from Waterman.
‘Sure, and I’ll make him up a story. He’ll guess the truth but he won’t tell, sure he won’t.’ Michael unwrapped the duck and pulled out his knife. He swiftly removed a leg, including the thigh, and wrapped that in a smaller cloth. ‘I’ll be back in a minute, Mammy. Get that duck and some potatoes in the pot!’
CHAPTER 3 (#ulink_010728aa-cbec-5121-a397-495a393d5ae7)
Maria (#ulink_010728aa-cbec-5121-a397-495a393d5ae7)
I woke up early the next morning, with the sun streaming in through the thin white curtains of my room at O’Sullivan’s. For a moment I wondered where I was, and why Dan was not beside me, and then I remembered with not a little guilt my sudden decision, the early start on my travels and the way I’d left Dan with barely a chance to say goodbye. I sighed. I would put this right – I had to. But I also had to sort myself out, and half the point of this trip was to do just that.
I pulled back the curtain and looked out of the window, across the town square towards the church. The sky was azure, with just a few fluffy white clouds scudding across it. The perfect day for my expedition to the ruins of Kildoolin, and after the long day of travel the thought of a good walk to stretch my legs and clear the cobwebs was very appealing. I glanced at my watch and saw that it was just seven thirty. Aoife had said I could have breakfast at any time, but was this too early to expect a pub landlady to be up and about? I decided to take a leisurely shower, have a cup of tea in my room and generally potter about until eight o’clock which seemed a more reasonable hour.
I shouldn’t have worried. By the time I went downstairs, Aoife was already busy behind the bar, unloading the glass washer, polishing the optics, restocking the beer mats.
‘Good morning! Did you sleep? Will I get you the full Irish breakfast?’
I grinned at the hearty welcome. ‘Slept like a log, and the full breakfast would be lovely, thank you.’
She nodded and went through to the kitchen. While I waited, wondering whether a full Irish breakfast was the same as a full English breakfast, I wandered around the bar, peering at the various pictures on the walls. The pub had been too crowded yesterday evening to be able to look at them. There was a fine miscellany of pictures – black and white photographs of Ballymor; framed newspaper cuttings about the pub, its food and music; signed photos of traditional musicians sitting in the bay window playing their instruments. I recognised one or two of the musicians from last night. They’d started playing around nine o’clock, with no announcement, no microphones. Just a clutch of middle-aged men, who’d pulled instruments out of pockets and cases, and played jigs and reels and ballads and old Dubliners numbers for a couple of hours until Aoife had called time. I’d meant to get an early night, tired after the long drive, but the music had made me smile and tap my foot, and I’d stayed till the end, making an experimental half-pint of Guinness last most of the evening. The music had helped me forget, and that was good.
When breakfast came it was huge, just like a full English including bacon, sausage, fried potatoes, mushrooms, toast and fried tomatoes but with the addition of a huge hunk of black pudding – the real thing from Clonakilty, just up the road, so Aoife informed me. I wouldn’t need lunch, that was for certain. It smelt divine.
With that lot inside me, I went back to my room, stuffed a lightweight fleece, fold-up mac and bottle of water in my small day sack and set off for my walk. First stop was the tourist information office to pick up a map of the town, but they weren’t open till nine o’clock and I wasn’t prepared to wait. Declan had said the path began at the end of Church Street so I found that and followed it out of town. Sure enough, as the last housing estate petered out, there was a rutted track leading off to the left signposted ‘To the Deserted Village’. I turned off on the track, enjoying the exercise, relishing the sun on my back, thinking about Michael, my ancestry, the past, and most definitely not about the future.
The track climbed steadily, weaving its way between fields of ripening wheat which eventually gave way to open moorland, covered with magnificent purple heather. To my right was a range of hills; far over to the left I could just make out the sea, shimmering in the morning sun. There was a light breeze keeping the temperature just right, and I was accompanied by constant birdsong – a skylark was up there somewhere. All in all, it was a pretty perfect day. I was working up a bit of a sweat on the hill, and stopped to admire the scenery and have a swig of water.
Just over the brow of the hill, the remains of the village came into sight. I stopped and took in the view. It was more of a hamlet than a village – a single row of cottages alongside the track, with their backs to the hill and their fronts facing the view over the moors towards the sea. It would have been a beautiful place to live on a day like today, with the sun shining and only a light breeze, but I could imagine life would have been tough here when the weather was bad. Although it rarely snowed here in the south-west of Ireland, it could be pretty stormy at times, and the village was high on the moors and exposed.
I continued walking along the track towards the village. There was a worn-out sign for tourists, showing a plan of the village and with a brief summary of the famine, but it was faded and almost unreadable. The cottages were all ruined – very few had any kind of a roof left and none had doors. I imagined the roofs would have originally been thatched. The walls were made of a greyish stone, like the church in Ballymor. Some walls were more or less intact, and others had long since toppled, leaving mossy piles of rubble.
As I approached I could see the layout of the cottages – they were all tiny, single-roomed, with a fireplace at one end and a door in the middle of the side facing the track, looking across the moors to the sea. Most had two small windows, one on each side of the door. I guessed the windows would not have been glazed but perhaps originally had wooden shutters. The first cottage I reached was one of the more intact ones, although its roof was gone, so I ducked in through the low doorway to have a look inside.
The heather had found its way in, along with a few ash saplings, some gorse and plenty of bracken, and there was a burned-out circle on the ground – evidence that someone had lit a campfire. The cottage was tiny. I tried to imagine a whole family living here – where would their beds have been? Their table and chairs? I wondered what possessions people would have had, before the famine. Maybe Declan would know more. I smiled with pleasure at the idea of sitting in a corner of O’Sullivan’s quizzing him on it. Now that I knew Michael McCarthy’s home had been abandoned during the famine years when he was just a teenager, I realised I’d need to properly research that part of Ireland’s history. I made a mental note to get hold of some books about the famine so I could fully understand what had happened. It had obviously impacted Michael’s life – how could you not be affected by something like that happening around you? And maybe that’s what had become of his mother, Kitty. Perhaps she had been a victim of the famine. But if that was true, why then had he continued to paint her, and why the rumours that he had searched for her all his adult life?
I went out of the first cottage and into the next. This had one collapsed wall and a skull of a sheep in the remains of the fireplace, with a foxglove growing up through it.
The village was an eerie place, even on a glorious summer’s day. To think that once it would have been full of people going about their business – children playing, women cooking, men repairing thatch or tending to vegetable plots – and then the potato crops failed, people starved or moved away, leaving the entire village to crumble. Some walls looked pretty unstable, listing at precarious angles as though the next gust of wind would blow them over.
I pulled out my water bottle and took a long swig from it. It had been a hot, tough walk up here. Without meaning to, I found myself thinking of Dan, the way I’d hurt him, the secrets I was still keeping from him. I knew I wasn’t being fair to him. I walked further up through the village, going in and out of every ruined cottage, in an effort to put it all out of my head, for a little longer anyway. A stream ran down the hillside behind the cottages, and crossed the track between two cottages about halfway along the row. There were slippery stepping stones to enable walkers to cross the stream. I guessed this had been the villagers’ water supply.
There was someone else up here – someone sitting on a tumbledown wall that had once been part of the cottage at the far end of the village. A man, who was staring out across the moors towards the sea. As I approached I realised it was Declan. He hadn’t spotted me – he seemed lost in his thoughts the way I’d been lost in mine a few minutes ago. I coughed a bit and deliberately kicked a few stones to make a bit of noise. It worked.
‘Well, hello there, Maria! You found it, so.’ He stood to greet me, smiling, the sun making his hair look more blond than it had appeared in the pub.
‘Yes, thanks, great directions. We could have walked up together if I’d known you were coming.’ As soon as I said the words I wished I could claw them back. That sounded like a come-on. I racked my brains – had I mentioned Dan last night at all? Declan was lovely, and I certainly felt attracted to him to an extent, but I wasn’t available. I didn’t need any more confusion in my life. Dan was my man, despite everything.
‘Ah, it was a spur of the moment decision this morning. I often come up here, to sit and meditate, and just soak up the glory of God’s creation. On a day like today it was irresistible.’
‘It’s amazing.’ I stood beside him and took in the view. The heather was in full flower, giving the moorlands a deep purple hue. Here and there stunted ash trees grew, their leaves a vibrant green in contrast to the dark heather. There was gorse too – its time for flowering was mostly over but here and there were splashes of bright yellow bloom. The sea on the distant horizon glinted gold and silver as the sun, now high overhead, reflected off it. The air was scented with summer. It was hard to believe that this place had seen tragedy.
‘So, I wonder which cottage your ancestor lived in?’ Declan said, shielding his eyes with a hand across his forehead, as he turned to face me.
I shook my head. ‘No idea, and I don’t see how I could find out. Were all the cottages abandoned at the time of the famine?’
‘I believe so, yes. Not everyone would have died, though. Some probably went abroad, to England or America. Perhaps others went to try to find work in the cities – Limerick or Cork, or even Dublin. Public works schemes had been set up – building roads and suchlike – so people could earn money to buy food to offset the loss of the potato crop. But there weren’t enough places on them, or they were badly managed, or they weren’t running in the areas where the poorest people lived. The people here, like so many across Ireland, depended on their potato crops. They failed several years in a row in the late 1840s, with the blight making the few potatoes that could be salvaged almost inedible. And without the potato crops the people had nothing.’
‘What I don’t understand is, why did they only grow potatoes? Surely if they’d grown other crops and not been so reliant on potatoes, the blight wouldn’t have affected them so badly?’ I felt a bit like a schoolkid on an educational visit, but I’d need to understand this properly for my book.
‘The farm workers only rented a tiny patch of poor land from the big landowners – it’s all they were allowed to have, to grow their own food. You can still see evidence of cultivated land where the Kildoolin inhabitants grew their potatoes – halfway down the track on the right you can just make out lines and ridges in the heather. Potatoes are a high-yield crop; they’ll grow in the poorest soils and are very nutritious. There aren’t many vegetables you can live on if you’re not eating much else, but potatoes you can. On the big farms, plenty of other crops were grown – wheat, barley, maize – and cattle were reared. The great tragedy is that Ireland was producing enough food to feed itself, right through the famine years. But the majority of it was exported, mostly to England, and sold to make money for the English landowners.’
I felt guilty, as if I should apologise on behalf of all English people. ‘Did the landowners not realise what was going on, or how bad it was?’
He gave a small shrug. ‘Some did, some didn’t. Many were absentee landlords who hardly ever set foot on their Irish estates. Others were well aware of what was happening. To be fair, some tried to help by donating food. But some people were too proud to accept charity, preferring to work for their money. And there was the option of workhouses, but those of course were the last resort.’
I shook my head. ‘You’d think if your children were starving you’d do anything to save them.’ As I said it I wondered if that would be true for me – would I do anything to save my child? Was I capable of self-sacrifice? To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t sure. It was presumably something that came with maternal instincts, and I did not believe I had those. I wondered if my own mother had ever considered this question. I could not imagine her sacrificing herself to save me. She’d never really given up anything for me.
Declan was looking at me oddly. ‘Are you all right there, Maria? You look as though you’re fretting about something. If you want to talk . . .’
‘No, it’s all right. I was just thinking about these poor people, what they had to go through. You’re very knowledgeable on it, Declan. Thank you for explaining things; it’s very helpful.’
‘Ah, to be sure we’re all taught about the famine in history lessons in Ireland. It’s one of the big events that defines our nation. That and the 1916 uprising and fight for independence.’
I made a mental note to buy myself a book on the history of Ireland. It’d all be good background information for my biography of Michael McCarthy. From my thesis I knew plenty about his painting techniques, his style and his subjects, and his later life in London, but so little about his early life and the land of his birth.
We sat and chatted a while longer, then walked back to Ballymor together. He pointed out where the potato fields would have been, part-way down the hill, beside the track. I must admit I could not see much evidence, but maybe the heather was kind of growing in rows, following the lines of old potato ridges.
Declan left me in the centre of town. I wanted to start making some notes for my book, and had a long list of questions to research on the internet. Declan had told me about a good bookshop in the town, where I might find some local history books, and the prospect of a light lunch in a coffee shop followed by an hour or so browsing the bookshop felt like a good plan for the rest of the day.
I found a pleasant-looking café which overlooked the town square and ordered a sandwich and a pot of tea, then pulled out my phone. There was a text from Dan, which I opened nervously. Any decision yet? I still love you. xxx
Tears pricked at my eyes as I read the text. I’d been such a rubbish girlfriend to him and felt so guilty. As I ate my lunch, I recalled the events of last Sunday night, two days before I’d left for Ireland and one day before I’d booked my tickets.
Dan had surprised me by taking me out to eat at a swanky restaurant. It wasn’t one we often went to – only on very special occasions. He’d even reserved us one of the best tables – by the window, overlooking the river. At this time of year, it would be light till almost ten o’clock, so we’d be able to watch the sunset over the water as we lingered over our meal.
I’d made an effort and put on a floaty summer dress, some strappy sandals and a bit of make-up. It made a change from my usual jeans and paint-spattered t-shirt combinations that I wore when teaching art.
‘You look gorgeous,’ Dan said, as I came downstairs ready to go out to the restaurant. ‘Really pretty.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, giving him a kiss.
We walked to the restaurant – it was only about twenty minutes away and the evening was warm and still. Dan insisted on holding my hand the whole time. I felt as though we were teenagers on our first date. There was a slight tenseness about him which was unusual. He was normally so easy-going and relaxed. I wondered if he had problems at work. He worked in IT, and I knew he was under pressure to bring forward delivery dates on his current project.
But it wasn’t that at all that was making him tense and preoccupied during our walk to the restaurant. As we were shown to our table, and took our seats each facing the window at an angle, he ordered two glasses of champagne. The waiter brought them, along with the menus, almost immediately.
It wasn’t really what I wanted to drink – I’d have preferred a refreshing glass of sparkling water – but I lifted my glass to clink against his anyway. ‘Champagne, how lovely! Well, cheers then!’
He shook his head gently. ‘Not yet, Maria. There’s something I need to ask you first.’ He put his hand into his pocket and pulled out a small box. Inside was a ring – white gold, diamond and ruby. Delicate, pretty, modern, and perfect. Exactly what I would have picked myself. He knew me so well. ‘Marry me?’ he said.
I was lost for words, and gaped for a moment.
His nervousness made him fill the empty silence. ‘Registry office or church. Or hotel. I honestly don’t mind – whatever you want. All I want is you.’ He smiled and reached for my hand.
I found myself blinking at him while a thousand images raced through my mind – us standing at an altar exchanging vows while my mother, Jackie, watched disapprovingly (she disapproved of everything I did); Dan and I pushing a pram through a park together with another dozen children hanging off our arms; us aged ninety sitting opposite each other with nothing to say, in an old people’s home. Was this my future flashing before me? Was it the future I wanted? I loved Dan, with all my heart, but the whole marriage and children thing felt far too terrifyingly grown-up for me to contemplate. I loved him, no question, but could I agree to all this, right now, just like that?
I must have looked unsure, because his face fell and he removed his hand from mine. ‘You don’t need to answer now, Maria. But don’t say no straight out – think about it, please.’
I nodded mutely. I could promise him to think about it at least. I felt so sorry for him. My reaction surely had not been what he’d have hoped and dreamed for, but it was at least an honest one. Finally, I managed to squeeze some words out. ‘Dan, darling, I love you, you know that. This has been a bit of a shock. We’ve never before talked of getting married. Of course I promise you I’ll think about it.’ I took his hand again, and stroked it with my thumb.
‘I know we’ve never spoken about it,’ he said. ‘But we’ve been together five years now, we’re so good together, and I suppose I always assumed we would marry, like it was some kind of unspoken agreement. Sorry to spring it on you.’
‘I guess I’ve never really thought much about the future. I’m just a bit scared of change, that’s all.’ There was more change going on than he knew about, but now was not the time to tell him. Or maybe it was the right time, and I was just being weak and feeble by not feeling able to do it.
He smiled, with relief that I hadn’t said no, but disappointment that I’d felt unable to say yes. My heart broke for him. What a rubbish girlfriend I was.
‘I love the ring, by the way,’ I said, by way of consolation. ‘You got that right.’
‘It’s yours, whenever you’re ready for it,’ he whispered. He snapped the ring box shut again and put it in his pocket, as though to signal the subject closed, for now.
And indeed it wasn’t mentioned again for the rest of the meal. Our conversation was a little stilted and awkward. I could see I’d upset Dan by not giving him the answer he wanted. But how could I say yes if I felt unsure and unready for such a big step? It was such a huge commitment. I needed time to think about his proposal. I needed space. I needed to get away. There was so much happening and I couldn’t cope with it all. I found myself switching off from his conversation and thinking instead about my planned book on Michael McCarthy.
The very next day I’d made a snap decision to go to Ireland, a trip I’d talked about for ages but not got around to planning. While Dan was at work, I’d booked flights and the room at O’Sullivan’s, but then Dan was out in the evening at a work colleague’s leaving do, and I was in bed by the time he returned, and somehow I didn’t get the chance to tell him about the trip until I was leaving for the airport the next morning. He’d been, understandably I supposed, pretty miffed.
‘You’re running away,’ he’d said, as I finished my hurried packing. ‘Getting as far away from me as you can so you don’t have to answer my question. I thought you loved me, and were happy with me?’
‘I do, and I am,’ I said. ‘But it’s all so sudden. So many changes . . .’
‘Not that big a change really. Just a couple of rings, to symbolise our commitment to each other.’ He pressed his hands to his temples and shook his head, sadly.
But he didn’t yet know the extent of the changes. And still I couldn’t tell him. ‘Dan, I’m so sorry. I just need some time alone. Please, give me that.’
That was when he’d given me that look of deep hurt and disappointment. I’d turned away, zipped up my suitcase and hooked my handbag strap over my shoulder.
‘So. I’ll see you when you get back, I suppose,’ he’d said, as he left for work, not catching my eye.
‘Yes. See you, then.’
And that was it. We’d parted, so much unsaid and unresolved, and now here I was, sitting alone in a coffee shop in a small town in the south-west of Ireland, wiping away a tear that had trickled down the side of my nose, trying to smile reassuringly at the waitress who’d given me a look of concern, and no nearer to being able to give him an answer, or be as honest with him as I ought to be.
CHAPTER 4 (#ulink_7f64eea9-7fab-5316-b831-21c7c2c4614b)
Kitty (#ulink_7f64eea9-7fab-5316-b831-21c7c2c4614b)
The duck stew had lasted three days, and the sack of potatoes from Martin O’Shaughnessy would last a few weeks yet. And Michael had been paid, which meant Kitty had been able to walk to Ballymor and buy flour to make bread and a laying chicken which provided one or sometimes two eggs each day. She and the children had had full bellies for days. Grace had improved, and was able to get up and spend part of the day helping Kitty with chores. They had fended off starvation for a little longer. The weather had been mild too, and despite everything, Kitty was hopeful that this year’s early potatoes might be harvested blight-free. That early harvest was still three months away, however, and it’d be a struggle to find enough food to last until then. She prayed daily that somehow she’d manage, and that the potato harvest would be a good one.
She had baked two loaves of soda bread, and wrapped one in a cloth to take to Martin. He’d been so kind. Giving him small gifts whenever she had something to share was the only way she could repay him.
‘Grace, love, will you take this along to Mr O’Shaughnessy. He’ll like to see your bonny smile. Away with you, girl.’
Grace took the bread and skipped out of the door and up the street. Kitty smiled to see her go. She was a different child to how she’d been a week ago, when Kitty had feared she was near death. She was still horribly thin – they all were – but she had some life and energy in her. It was good to see, and gave Kitty hope for the future. Maybe they were through the worst.
If only her dear Patrick was still here. He’d have been another pair of hands to work. He’d been a trained copper miner, and although the mines were gradually closing, being unprofitable, he’d surely still have been able to get work. That would have brought in money, and perhaps they’d have been able to afford food when the potatoes went bad. Perhaps the little ones, Nuala, Jimmy and tiny Éamonn, might have survived those terrible winters with no food. She sighed as she remembered her beloved husband. Her thoughts began to run on that awful day when she’d heard the news of his accident, but not now, she did not want to dwell on that now. Instead, she forced herself to bring to mind the happy times. Their first meeting.
*
It had been at the Ballymor midsummer fair that Kitty saw Patrick for the first time. She was then nineteen years old, and old Mother Heaney had taken Michael for the afternoon, so that Kitty could go to the fair. If her own mother had been alive, she’d no doubt have helped out with little Michael, but then again, she’d have been mortified at the idea of her daughter having a child out of wedlock. No matter what the origins of that child. But dear old Mother Heaney, who’d brought her up, helped out with Michael and Kitty was eternally grateful for it.
Kitty had longed to go to the fair that year. She had not been since she was fifteen, before Michael was born. The year when she was sixteen she’d been big with Michael; indeed, he was born just two days after it. The following two years she’d wanted to hide away from people, and had kept at home, raising Michael and tending their potato patch. But Mother Heaney had been nagging at her to get out more, meet people, find herself a husband, for she would need someone to provide for her and the bairn in the long term.
And so it was that on the day of the fair, which dawned bright and clear, a hot sun in a glorious blue sky, Kitty left Michael with Mother Heaney and set off along the road to Ballymor. The fair was held in a field on the other side of town and, as she got near, she caught up with crowds of excited people, all heading the same way. As she walked, occasionally skipping with the sheer joy of being alive on such a day, she found herself alongside a tall and well-built young man with sandy hair and a wide smile, who kept looking sideways at her and grinning. She liked the look of him, and couldn’t stop herself from smiling back.
‘Will you be entering the Queen of the Fair competition?’ he asked, blushing to the roots of his hair.
‘No, I will not!’ she replied.
‘Ah, but there you’re wrong. You’d win, for sure, with your beautiful red hair and your lovely smile. I think you should enter. I’ll cheer you on, so I will.’
Now it was Kitty’s turn to blush. ‘Away with you! I’d never win. I’d no more win that than fly to the moon.’ Still, she was flattered that he thought she might, and couldn’t help but smile. She wondered what his name was and where he was from, but was too shy to ask. If he would ask her name, she could ask his in return. But he seemed too shy as well, and they walked in silence until they reached the fair and he was swallowed up in the crowds.
Kitty took her time wandering around the fair, looking at the horses being traded by gypsies, the pens of sheep and cattle on show, the stalls selling pies, hot potatoes and flagons of stout, the sideshows where magicians made handkerchiefs and pennies disappear or fortune-tellers told your future. At the far side of the field, a number of young women were gathered, and a man in a bright red jacket was pinning numbered badges to their dresses. As she watched, he beckoned to her.
‘Ah, now there’s a pretty thing! Come here, bonny colleen, and let me pin a number to you. You’ll stand a good chance of winning the Queen of the Fair, so you will.’
The other girls scowled at her, except for one who smiled and nodded. ‘He’s right, you’re prettier than any of us. There’s a good prize for the winner. You might as well.’
Well why not? Kitty thought. That was three people now who thought she could win. She didn’t so much as own a mirror, but if they all thought she was pretty then perhaps she was. Only one person had praised her looks before, and that was Thomas Waterman and she did not want to think about him.
She stepped forward. ‘All right, I’ll enter. What do I need to do?’
‘Good girl!’ the man in the red jacket said. ‘Let me give you a number and write down your name. You have to walk around the arena, and the girl who gets the loudest cheer and is thought the bonniest by our judge will win the prize. We start in half an hour, so wait here with the others till then.’
It was a nerve-racking half-hour, but Kitty made friends with the girl who’d spoken to her, and the time passed reasonably quickly. She worried no one would cheer for her. The others all seemed to have friends and relatives at the show to support them, but she had no one. But when it was her turn, and she was walking round the fenced-off ring in the centre of the field, a huge cheer went up from people on the left of the arena. Looking over, she saw the sandy-haired boy she’d met on the way to the fair. He was encouraging everyone around him to cheer for her, and it made her smile with delight, her confidence boosted. She resolved to look for him afterwards and thank him. He’d never be interested in her, of course, shackled as she was with a small child.
As she turned at the end of the arena to walk back, she saw a man sitting on horseback, watching the parade. Her stomach lurched. She hadn’t thought for a moment that Thomas Waterman might be here. She’d assumed he’d be in England. Surely he was too high and mighty to attend the fair? He was watching her closely, then he leaned down to say something to the man in the red jacket who stood beside him. Kitty was shaken to the core. It was the first time she’d set eyes on Waterman since that terrible day, nearly four years ago. She hurried through the last of her walk, and ducked underneath the ropes on the opposite side from Waterman. The sandy-haired boy ran round to meet her.
‘You were the prettiest by far, and got the loudest cheer – I made sure of that! You’ll win, wait and see!’
‘Ah, but it depends on what the judge thinks. And I don’t even know who is the judge,’ she replied.
‘’Tis Mr Thomas Waterman, of course,’ the boy said, pointing him out on his huge bay horse. ‘Old William Waterman usually does it, but they say he is sick this year so the duty has fallen to his son.’
Kitty did not turn to look. She felt as though Waterman was still watching her, his eyes burning a hole in her back. If he was the judge she wouldn’t win, that was for sure. And if by some strange twist he did pick her, she would not accept her prize, not if it meant approaching him. She tore the number from her dress and walked away from the arena. It was time she left the fair and went home.
‘Wait! Don’t you want to see if you’ve won?’ the boy called, as he ran to catch up with her.
‘No. I shouldn’t have entered. I want to go home now,’ she said.
‘Let me walk you home,’ he said, falling into step alongside him.
She smiled in response. She still didn’t know his name. ‘I’m Kitty Tooley,’ she blurted out, before she could stop herself.
‘And I’m Patrick McCarthy.’ He grinned at her, his cheeks dimpling deeply.
‘Pleased to meet you, Patrick, and thank you for getting people to cheer for me.’
‘You are welcome. I still think you are the winner. You’re the winner for me, anyways.’
He walked all the way home with her that day, and by the time they reached her home they were firm friends. He’d told her of his job working in the copper mines and his home in the hills above Ballymor, in a small miners’ village called Kildoolin. She knew all about his family – his mother who’d died some years back, his aged father, his older brother in Limerick, his younger brothers who’d moved into the town, his sisters all married and moved away. She’d told him too of her parents, who’d both died when she was a child, and her mother’s aunt, Mother Heaney, who’d brought her up, and whom she still lived with although these days Kitty looked after her rather than the other way around: Ma Heaney being lame after a broken leg set badly some years before.
‘Is it just you and your great-aunt in your cottage?’ he asked.
She took a deep breath. Now was the time she needed to tell him about Michael, and that would mean he would lose interest, leave her to walk the rest of the way alone, and never want to see her again. But she could not lie to him, this kind, sweet boy with his dimpled cheeks and twinkling eyes. ‘There’s Mother Heaney, me and little Michael,’ she said.
‘Michael? Is he your brother, or cousin?’
‘He’s only three. And, well, no he’s not my brother or cousin. He’s my son.’ There. She’d said it. He’d turn tail now, sure he would. She was only too used to being judged harshly for having had a child out of wedlock.
‘What happened to his father?’ he asked, tentatively.
‘Michael doesn’t have a father,’ she replied, the same reply she’d always given to anyone who asked that question.
He nodded, as if that explained everything, and they walked in silence for a time. All the while Kitty expected Patrick to make his excuses and leave. But instead, suddenly and unexpectedly, he said, ‘I’d love to meet your little fellow. Will you let me meet him, some day?’
‘I will, that,’ she had said, grinning broadly.
*
It was a good memory. Kitty smiled as she picked up the water bucket. She then climbed the hill behind her cottage, to a pool in the stream where the villagers fetched water. She could recall every second of that day when she had met her wonderful husband, her saviour and best friend.
But, as she dunked the bucket in the stream to fill it, she sighed sadly. When Patrick was lost she had cursed her bad fortune, railed against God who had punished her so, and for why? She had not thought anything so bad could happen to her again. But then, the year after Patrick’s death was the first winter that the potato crop failed. They had struggled through it, but the crop failed again the next autumn. Eleven-year old Little Pat had collapsed from exhaustion in the fields, and never recovered. She had felt his loss like a limb being torn from her body. It had left a scar that would never heal. In the second winter of the famine – a terribly cold and harsh one, which only added to their suffering – the three babies had died of malnourishment and fever, despite her going without to allow her to fill their plates. One after the other Nuala, Jimmy and Éamonn had weakened and died, each death dealing a blow to her soul, each burial feeling as though she buried another part of her being. There were only Gracie and Michael left. Kitty had wondered, many times, if the children might have survived if she’d taken them and gone into the workhouse. But she would have been separated from them. And she’d heard such terrible stories of what happened to children in workhouses. There would have been no way back for them. People only came out of the workhouse in wooden boxes.
She hauled the bucket out of the stream and set off back down to her cottage. For now, at least, they had food, and she’d saved Gracie from going the way of her brothers and sister.
Grace was back from delivering the bread to Mr O’Shaughnessy, and almost as soon as Kitty entered the cottage she heard Michael’s familiar whistle as he came up the track from Thomas Waterman’s fields.
‘Look!’ he said, excitedly, as soon as he reached her. ‘I saw Mr O’Dowell in town and he’s after giving me a whole book for drawing in, and a box of pencils!’
Kitty smiled to see what Michael was holding out. A week ago she might have cursed, wondering what was the use of paper and pencils when they were starving, but now they had food in their bellies and more food stored in the cottage they could enjoy life a little, for a while. Michael had always been good at drawing, ever since he was a small boy attending the National School down in Ballymor; but since Patrick had died of course there had been no money to spare for non-essential things like artist’s materials.
‘That was kind of Mr O’Dowell,’ she said. Patrick’s old foreman had done what he could, over the years, to help them out a little. Giving Michael drawing materials was a lovely gesture, something the boy would really appreciate. He’d had to grow up so fast after Patrick died, and he’d become the main earner in the family. And the deaths of Little Pat and the babies had hit him hard. It would do him good to have something to do, other than work.
‘I’ve drawn some pictures already,’ Michael said, flipping open the book to show her. He’d sketched James O’Dowell, showing him leaning against the outside wall of O’Sullivan’s, pipe in one hand, pint in the other. It was a good likeness.
Kitty nodded appreciatively, and Michael turned to the following page, which showed a man on horseback, his back straight, his expression haughty. He held a horsewhip in one hand, raised as though he was about to use it.
‘Mr Waterman came to the fields today,’ Michael explained. ‘He stopped near me while I was eating my lunch, and I quickly drew him, so I did.’
Kitty pursed her lips. Again, it was a good likeness, but not a face she wanted to see in her son’s sketchbook. That man had done her family enough damage. Wasn’t it in his mines Patrick had perished?
‘Is it good, Mammy? Would you recognise him?’
‘It’s like him, to be sure,’ she said, then flicked the page to see what was next. But it was the last drawing. She turned back to the one of O’Dowell. ‘You’re a fine artist. Perhaps you should give Mr O’Dowell this picture as a thank you.’
‘Sure, and I’ll do that,’ Michael said. ‘Where’s Gracie? I want to show her. And then I’ll draw a picture of her, before the light fades.’
‘She’s inside,’ Kitty replied. She remained standing outside the cottage while Michael went in. That picture of Thomas Waterman had disturbed her. Michael had captured the essence of the man – his aloofness, his cruelty, his tyrannical nature – as well as his appearance and stance. She hated Thomas Waterman with every inch of her being. She had not set eyes on him for many years – thankfully he spent most of each year in England – but he owned the land, he owned the mines, he owned the cottage she lived in and the ground in which she grew her potatoes. Their lives were entirely dependent on him, and she knew, more than anyone else, that he was not at all a good man.
CHAPTER 5 (#ulink_123efedb-7c59-5340-a9a7-2cb877d03fba)
Maria (#ulink_123efedb-7c59-5340-a9a7-2cb877d03fba)
The next day was overcast and threatened rain, so I decided to drive into Cork city to visit the art galleries and museums there. I hoped I’d find a few Michael McCarthy portraits in one of them, and maybe even a ‘Kitty’. I had a leaflet from Ballymor tourist information office – a Cork city tourist guide with a list of galleries – and, having parked the car not far from the small but beautiful university campus, I set off on foot with my trusty rain-mac to visit as many galleries as possible. Disappointingly most of the galleries were dedicated to modern art so did not detain me long. I mean, it’s nice enough, but not what I was looking for. Mid-morning, in need of refreshment, I ducked into the nearest café and was delighted to find it specialised in chocolate. I wanted to drown in the glorious deep warm aromas. I could have sampled everything on the menu but made do with a hot chocolate and a slice of chocolate brownie. Heaven.
Heading away from the town centre and along a riverside walk, I eventually came to the Cork city museum. Perhaps this would be more likely to have some McCarthy pictures. He was, after all, a local artist. The museum is an impressive Georgian building set in pleasant grounds. I went in, mooched around various displays related to Youghal lace, Irish patriot Michael Collins and a history of copper mining in County Cork, then finally, tucked away in a corner, I found a section devoted to local artists. There, side by side with two other McCarthy portraits and a couple of sketches, was an unmistakable ‘Kitty’. My heart beat faster as I stepped forward to examine it. It wasn’t one I’d seen before in any books, and it was a beauty. The museum had labelled it ‘Unknown Woman by Michael McCarthy’ but, as I gazed at her long copper curls and startling green eyes, I knew it was her – my great-great-great-grandmother. In this portrait she was sitting on what looked like the deck of an ocean liner, with a glass of wine at her side and an open book on her lap. She was wearing a pale pink dress and a grey shawl, and I noticed the shawl was pinned with the same distinctive Celtic knot brooch she was wearing in my own Kitty portrait, back home. The brooch must have been a treasured possession, I thought, though it was hard to imagine that someone who lived in such a poor cottage as the ones I’d seen at Kildoolin yesterday would own anything of value. I stood for a while, staring into her eyes, trying to see beyond them into her mind. ‘What happened to you, Kitty?’ I whispered. ‘Where did you go? Where did you end up?’
I took some notes and a couple of photos of the portrait (I knew I’d have to get permission from the museum and a professional picture of it if I was to include it in my book, but this would do for now), then looked at the other McCarthy works on display. One intrigued me – it was a rough pencil sketch of a haughty-looking man on a horse. Something about the expression of the man made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It was quite unnerving. It was unsigned but the museum label said it was attributed to Michael McCarthy and had hung for many years in Ballymor House. The style was odd – it looked almost amateur, juvenile, as though Michael had not yet refined his technique. I wondered who the man was, and whether Ballymor House still existed and who had lived there. More questions for poor Declan when I next saw him!
*
All in all, it was a pleasant day in Cork city, with the rain holding off for most of the day. I drove back to Ballymor full of chocolate and thoughts about the Kitty portrait and the sketch of the man on the horse.
Back at O’Sullivan’s, I went up to my room to freshen up before dinner and an evening in the bar. I felt like dressing up a little after the last couple of days in my jeans, which were feeling a little tight on me these days, so I put on a loose summer dress and wedge sandals. I fancied wearing my Pandora bracelet to complete the outfit, and rummaged through my toiletries bag for it. Usually I put jewellery for a holiday into the side pocket of my toiletries bag, but it wasn’t there. I upended the bag on the bed and rooted through – a pile of tangled necklaces but no bracelet.
‘Shit. I’m sure I packed it,’ I muttered, and tried my handbag. Perhaps I’d put it in there for some reason. But there was no sign of it. Oh God, I couldn’t lose it – it was my most precious piece of jewellery, the last present my father had ever given me, the Christmas before he’d died of cancer. Dan had bought me a new charm for it every year that we’d been together.
I grabbed my phone and called Dan. I’d promised him we’d talk, but this call wasn’t it. I just needed to know where the bracelet was. Maybe I’d failed to pack it. I had been in a bit of a rush, after all.
‘Dan? Quick call, as I know you’ll be having dinner and I need to go down and order something soon. I can’t find my Pandora bracelet. Can you have a look for me?’
‘Hi, Maria. Sorry, love, I’m not at home at the moment.’
I registered sounds of a busy pub in the background. ‘Where are you?’
‘Crown and Sceptre, with a couple of lads from the office. Drowning my sorrows and all that, ha ha. I’ll look for your bracelet when I get home and will text you. Where’s it likely to be?’
I thought hard. ‘Top drawer in my bedside cabinet, probably. Or the next drawer down. Sorry to be the cause of your sorrows.’ I felt that all-too-familiar band of guilt tightening across my chest. But he didn’t sound as hurt as he’d been during our last phone call. Just businesslike, as though he wanted to get me off the phone as soon as possible. Well, he was on a night out.
‘OK. I’ll have a look. Two Peronis and a Stella please, thanks, mate.’
‘You what?’
‘Sorry, Maria, it’s my round. Just ordering. Cheers, mate, no, that’s the lot. Here’s a twenty. Maria, I’ve got to go, love you. Still waiting for an answer . . .’
‘I know. I love you too.’
‘And that’s why we should marry. What’s to stop us?’ He blew a kiss down the phone and hung up.
*
I’d had Aoife’s Irish stew on the day I arrived and it was so delicious I decided to have it again. My favourite table by the window was free so I sat there, nodding and smiling at the family who occupied a larger table in the corner. I hadn’t seen them before and something about them suggested they were tourists. The parents looked to be around forty, with a frazzled-but-happy-to-be-on-holiday air about them. There was a girl in her mid-teens, with plaited blonde hair, a slightly sullen expression and a surgically attached phone, a boy of about thirteen with gelled black hair wearing an assortment of leather wristbands and another boy of perhaps five with a sweet freckled face and a grubby stuffed elephant toy under one arm. Their food arrived before mine, while I was flicking through the photos I’d taken so far on my phone.
‘Come on, Sammy. You asked for chicken nuggets and now you’ve eaten none of them,’ the mother was saying, in an exasperated tone. Her accent was from the south of England, which confirmed my suspicions they were holidaymakers.
‘I have. I’ve eaten two.’ Sammy had seated his elephant beside his plate and, as he spoke, it fell over, trunk first, onto his plate. The older boy laughed and looked expectantly at his parents for their reaction to this tragedy.
‘What have we said about keeping Nellie off the table at mealtimes?’ the mum said, snatching the offending toy and placing it on the bench seat between her and Sammy.
‘That thing’s disgusting,’ said the teenage girl, wrinkling her nose. ‘I wouldn’t eat his dinner now that smelly toy’s been in it.’
‘That’s enough, Kaz,’ said the father, glaring at her.
But the damage was done. Little Sammy pouted and pushed away his plate decisively. I tried hard not to smirk but even I as a non-parent could see that he would eat no more of his dinner on principle. Perhaps if they bought him cake or ice cream as dessert he’d be tempted, but that was it for the chicken nuggets, chips and beans.
The mother rolled her eyes. ‘For goodness sake, Kaz, now see what you’ve done. Sam, there’ll be no dessert for you and when we go back to the caravan you’ll go straight to bed, no playing, if you don’t eat at least half of what’s on your plate. Come on, it’s what you asked for. It’s perfectly all right. Nellie didn’t make it dirty.’
Sammy picked up his toy and inspected its trunk. ‘Nellie’s dirty though.’ He showed it to his mother. There were beans all over it.
‘Give it here, I’ll lick them off,’ the older boy said, trying to snatch the toy, but Sammy hugged it tightly to him, neatly transferring the beans to the front of his t-shirt.
The mum caught me watching, and gave a wry smile. ‘Kids, eh? Who’d have ’em?’
I chuckled politely in return. Who indeed? I thought. It always looked like a nightmare to me. All parents seemed to have moments like this when they snapped at their kids and wondered why on earth they’d ever had any. Surely if you had a child you should love it unconditionally, no matter how infuriating it was? You shouldn’t be saying to complete strangers, ‘Who’d have ’em?’ especially not in front of them. My mother had done that to me all my life. She’d told me many times she’d never wanted children. She wouldn’t even let me call her ‘Mum’ – I always had to call her by her first name, Jackie. She’d reluctantly attended parents’ evenings at my schools, and spent ages telling my teachers how she’d never intended to have a child and how life would have been so much easier without me. ‘Surely though,’ my Art teacher had said during one of Jackie’s worst anti-Maria rants, ‘now that you’ve got her you’re proud of what she’s achieving?’ Jackie had shaken her head. ‘No, not really. Just daubs of paint, isn’t it, and when she does it at home she makes a mess of her homework desk.’ My teacher had looked at me with sympathy and I’d had to turn my head away before I started blubbing. It was always like that.
I didn’t think this mum was as bad. She was just having a moment, making a joke. No one could be as bad a parent as Jackie. Thankfully, Dad had been a great parent, making up for Jackie as best he could.
‘Why doesn’t she love me?’ I’d asked him a hundred times.
‘She does, in her way, sweetie. She just finds it hard to show it,’ he’d always replied.
My own dinner arrived as I was pondering this, and I ate it in silence, occasionally tuning in to the banter and bickering at the next table. Eventually, Aoife, who was wearing a My Chemical Romance t-shirt today along with heavy black eyeliner, came to clear my plate, and, as she did so, she spoke to the family.
‘Really sorry, but the musicians will be here soon and they always take this table. Would you mind moving for me?’
‘Not at all,’ said the father. ‘Come on, Sammy, bring Nellie. Nathan, Kaz, come on, we need to find another table.’
The pub had filled up while I’d been eating and, as I glanced around, I realised the only spare seats were at my own table. I’d been kind of hoping Declan would come in and join me, but it looked like I’d have the company of this family.
‘Is it OK if we sit here?’ the mother asked.
‘Yes, that’s fine, I’m on my own,’ I replied, and they sat down gratefully, dragging one stool over from their previous table for little Sammy to sit on.
‘Hi. I’m Sharon, this is my husband Dave, Kaz, Nathan and Sam,’ the mum said, smiling, indicating her family. She had an open, likeable face and I warmed to her instantly.
‘Good to meet you. I’m Maria,’ I replied. ‘Are you on holiday here?’
‘Yes, camping just outside town,’ Sharon said. ‘Well, in a static caravan, so hardly camping but enough to manage with three kids.’
‘Where’s the campsite?’ I asked, just for something to say, really. Sammy was making his elephant walk around the table. I snatched up my glass of J2O before it got knocked over by Nellie’s bum.
‘You go out of town on Church Street for about a mile then turn right,’ answered Dave. ‘It’s a good site – in the grounds of an old ruined country house. The laundry and campers’ toilets and showers are built into the old stable block. The house itself is still there but in ruins, thankfully fenced off or the kids would be roaming wild in there no doubt.’
‘Ballymor House?’ I asked, remembering the caption under the sketch in the museum.
Dave shrugged. ‘Don’t know what the house was called but it could have been that, given its location. Campsite’s called “Clear View Campsite”.’
‘Huh.’ Kaz looked up from her texting. ‘There’s no view. The trees are too tall.’
‘I think there’s a view from the pitches at the top of the site, Kaz,’ Sharon said, as Kaz rolled her eyes and returned her attention to her phone.
‘Put that away. It’s very rude when we’re with other people,’ Sharon muttered to her. I wondered whether to say, No, it’s all right, Kaz, I don’t mind, but decided against it. The girl sighed theatrically and slipped her phone into the back pocket of her ripped jeans, then folded her arms across her chest. A moment later, a faint buzz alerted her to an incoming text and, with a defiant glare at her mother, she pulled the phone out again.
‘So, what brings you here, Maria?’ Dave asked. ‘You’re not local, I can tell that much!’
‘Ha, no, I’m not. Though if you go back far enough my family were from around here. That’s what I’m doing, actually – researching my ancestors.’ I didn’t want to tell them about the book just yet. It was too easy to sound arty-farty and pretentious if you started talking about writing books on obscure Victorian artists.
‘Wow, I’ve always wanted to do that,’ Sharon said. ‘Must be great to know the names of all those people who had to exist so that you could exist. I’d never have the time to do the research though, not with this lot consuming all my energy and my job and everything.’
‘Yes, it does take time.’ I took a sip from my glass. Was she really interested or was I in danger of boring her senseless if I said any more about my family history?
‘So did your ancestors live in Ballymor then? In the big house at the campsite?’ Nathan asked. He ran his fingers through his hair to smooth it into place across his forehead.
‘Not in the big house, no. But in the abandoned village. Have you been there?’
Dave answered. ‘Not yet. We only arrived yesterday and the weather didn’t look good enough for a walk today. Little one, there, needs a bit of encouragement. Actually, so do the others.’ Kaz and Nathan both scowled at him for this, while Sammy cuddled Nellie tighter. I saw his hand creep towards his mouth, before he pulled it away and tucked it around the toy. If I had to guess, I’d say he was being trained out of a thumb-sucking habit.
‘It’s worth a visit,’ I said. I turned to Nathan, who’d shown the most interest. ‘You can explore all the cottages, try and imagine what it would have been like to live there.’
‘Cool.’ He shrugged, then tried to look over Kaz’s shoulder at her phone. She punched his arm to stop him, earning herself a telling-off from Dave.
We chatted for a while longer, until the musicians arrived. I told them about Michael McCarthy, but not about my book. I kept looking round to see if Declan was in the bar as I had a number of questions for him, but there was no sign of him all evening, which left me feeling strangely disappointed. Paulie, however, was in his usual place at the end of the bar, steadily working his way through a number of pints of Guinness, and exchanging a few words with other local regulars. It was my third night in the pub and I was beginning to feel quite at home here.
When the musicians had got themselves set up, Sharon leaned over to Dave. ‘We should go before they start. Sam’s looking tired.’
Dave looked disappointed, as did the older kids. ‘Aw. I was hoping to hear a bit of traditional Irish music.’
‘Yeah, me too,’ said Kaz. ‘It’ll probably be crap but I’d like to hear some while we’re here.’
‘Language, Kaz,’ Sharon said, with a frown. ‘Maybe we could stay for one or two tunes, then, but not too late, or Sammy will be overtired. And you know what he’s like then.’
Sam’s hand crept towards his mouth again, and I couldn’t help but think if he curled up against his mum with his thumb in his mouth he’d probably stay happily for the entire musical set.
But, after the first two tunes – ‘The Rose of Tralee’, then ‘The Fields of Athenry’, which Dave clearly recognised as a rugby song, as he hummed along happily to it – Sharon stood and gathered up their belongings. ‘Come on. I’m driving and I’m leaving now. So you either come with me or you’re walking.’
The rest of her family pouted but got up and followed her out, waving at me as they left. I went to sit on a bar stool for the rest of the evening, rather than take up a table by myself when there were people standing. As I perched beside Paulie, he acknowledged me with a slight tilt of his head. I smiled to myself. It was probably as near as I’d get to being accepted in this community by the old fellow. I wondered whether Dan had found my bracelet. Hopefully he’d text me later and say he had it.
CHAPTER 6 (#ulink_db9ec525-e7b0-5fec-b82b-604232abbbf4)
Kitty (#ulink_db9ec525-e7b0-5fec-b82b-604232abbbf4)
The rain was heavy, turning the lane in front of the cottages into a muddy stream. Kitty slipped several times as she picked her way up through the village to Martin O’Shaughnessy’s cottage. She hadn’t much to give him on this occasion – only a sketch Michael had made of the view across the valley, which might cheer him a little. Nothing to eat. She knew Martin still had some potatoes, and if he was unwell she could stay and boil some for him. She could milk the goat as well. Her gift today was her time and her labour.
She pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders in an attempt to keep the worst of the rain off. The sketch was rolled up and tucked into her skirt. Martin was ailing and it was her neighbourly duty to go to him every day.
As she approached the end cottage, she stopped a moment and patted the goat, tied by a frayed rope to a post beside the door and huddled under the eaves out of the rain. It clambered to its feet and nosed around her skirts. ‘I’ve nothing for you today, girl,’ she said. ‘Maybe next time.’
But something was wrong. There was no plume of smoke from Martin’s chimney. He always kept a turf fire alight, but today there was nothing. The cold hand of dread clutched at her heart as she tapped on the door.
‘Mr O’Shaughnessy? Martin? Are you there?’ There was no answer, so she pushed open the wooden door and peered into the gloomy interior of the cottage.
A rasping cough came from the corner, and with relief she saw that the old man was lying there – sick, but alive.
‘Has your fire gone out, Martin? Will I light it for you?’ Kitty didn’t wait for an answer but set about immediately raking out the ashes, laying turf, kindling and a few sticks of wood in the fireplace and lighting it with her own tinderbox and flint.
It wasn’t long before she had the fire going again. Martin had coughed piteously throughout. When she turned back to him, she could see by the firelight that he had weakened considerably since the previous day. ‘Ah, Martin, let me clean you up a little. Have you had anything to eat today?’
‘No, Kitty, and there’s nothing I want to eat. Just a sip of water, if you would . . .’ His voice was weak and rasping.
She fetched him a cup, filled it from his bucket which she’d replenished from the stream the day before, and held it to his lips. He could barely lift his head to sip it. It wouldn’t be long now, she knew. But for once it wasn’t the hunger ending a life. Martin still had potatoes, and the goat.
‘Will I milk the goat? Perhaps a sip of fresh warm milk will perk you up a little. Or a hot drink? The fire’s burning nicely now,’ she said.
‘No, Kitty, nothing more. You’ve done enough for me. Milk the goat if you like, but take the milk for yourself. Now away back to your own home and your children. How’s your young Michael doing, anyway?’
‘Ah, he’s grand. He’s strong, and is getting plenty of work. That reminds me—’ she pulled out the picture Michael had drawn and handed it to Martin ‘—he said to give you this. To cheer you up, like. ’Tis the view from in front of our cottage, across the valley. Look, you can see the hills, dropping away there to the sea.’
Martin peered at the drawing. ‘He’s a talented fella, your Michael. He deserves better than this life. He should get himself to Dublin, find a sponsor, have his pictures shown in a proper gallery. People would pay money for them, so they would.’
Kitty sighed. ‘He should. But how can he? He’s not got the money to get himself to Dublin and set himself up. I’ve no way of helping him.’ And, if he goes, it’s the workhouse for sure, for me and Grace, she thought but didn’t say.
‘Poverty is the tragedy of the Irish,’ Martin said, then succumbed to a coughing fit. Kitty stayed with him, mopping his brow, helping him sip from the cup of water, until he was settled, and drifting off to sleep. She resolved to call in again before nightfall. Poor Martin. She hoped the end would be painless for him.
The rain had stopped when she left Martin’s cottage, and the sun was trying to break its way through the clouds. Good. She needed to walk to Ballymor and see if she could buy a little cornmeal. She had a few pennies left from Michael’s last wages, and they were short of food again.
The walk along the lane, down the hill and into town was pleasant enough as the sun came out, drying her hair and shawl. As she entered the town and passed the church, she decided to go inside and sit for a minute, to pray for Martin O’Shaughnessy. She had no money to spare to light a candle for him. Her silent prayers would have to do.
The church was dark and cool inside. There was a stained glass window, depicting St Michael, at the far end above the altar. She slipped into a pew and smiled, remembering how she had gazed up at that window on the day she’d brought her Michael here to be christened.
*
Finding out she was pregnant had been devastating. She’d been not yet sixteen and terrified. Part of her had wanted to hide it for as long as possible, refuse to acknowledge what was happening to her body. If she ignored it for long enough maybe it would all go away, maybe it wouldn’t be happening to her, maybe things would be as they had been, before. But the more rational part of her realised that she could not hide this, and neither could she handle it alone. If it was God’s will that she should have a child then she would have one, and would do her very best for that child, regardless. She’d steeled herself, and told Mother Heaney about the pregnancy early on, before the old lady suspected anything herself.
‘How did this happen, child? Who is the father?’ Ma Heaney spoke with repressed emotion. Kitty had the impression she wanted to scream and shout, but knew that would not help matters. She told her then how the pregnancy had begun, and Ma Heaney grabbed the mug she’d been drinking from and flung it across the cottage smashing it into the fireplace. Kitty flinched in fear, but the old lady’s rage abated as quickly as it had arisen, and she’d slumped in her chair. ‘I’m not after blaming you, Kitty. That monster! Well, what’s done is done, and I will help you with this child as far as I am able to.’
Kitty had knelt on the cottage floor at her feet and laid her head in Mother Heaney’s lap. ‘Thank you. I’m after thinking I’ll need all the help I can get.’
She’d been sixteen by the time Michael was born. He had torn his way out of her as though he couldn’t stand another minute inside, and had emerged red-faced and shouting, leaving her drained and exhausted, although the labour had been mercifully short. Old Mother Heaney had wrapped him deftly and passed him to her. Kitty gazed into his deep blue eyes and ran a finger across his furrowed forehead.
‘Whisht, there, little man. Hush, now.’
And he had stopped crying and looked back at her with eyes full of suspicion and confusion, an old soul in the youngest of bodies.
‘I’m your mammy, so I am,’ she told him. ‘I hope we’re going to be friends, now.’ The baby regarded her as though making up his mind about this, then turned his face towards her, mouth open.
‘He’s looking to suckle,’ Mother Heaney said, and helped her get him latched on. He sucked at her strongly and greedily, and fell asleep immediately after.
‘I think you and I are going to get along very well,’ she told him, smiling. She hadn’t known how she would feel about this baby, when he finally made an appearance. But, as he suckled, and she felt the warm weight of him in her arms, she knew that she loved this child. He was a part of her and always would be, no matter how he’d been conceived.
‘What are you after naming him?’ Mother Heaney asked.
Kitty had not given any thought to what she’d name her baby. She’d spent the first few months of her pregnancy ignoring the signs, praying it wasn’t happening. And then the latter part had been all about fending off the taunts and jibes of the townsfolk, disgusted at her for having a baby out of wedlock. As if it was her fault! ‘There she goes, the slattern!’ women had called after her, spitting as she passed, while men had looked at her with a disconcerting mixture of disgust and desire written in their eyes. She’d done her best to keep working: looking after Mother Heaney who’d put her foot in a rabbit hole and broken a bone, and tending their potato plot. She’d barely paused to consider the idea of actually holding a baby, her own baby, in her arms, and being required to give him a name.
‘Well, girl? Father John will be asking. He can hardly baptise a baby that has no name, can he?’
‘I’ll decide later,’ she said, ‘but don’t worry, I’ll have a name ready for his baptism.’
‘’Tis Sunday tomorrow. You can take him for baptism then, at the end of Mass.’ Mother Heaney bustled about the cottage, tidying up, putting water on to boil to make tea.
She was a good woman, Kitty thought. What Kitty would have done without her these last few years since her parents died she did not know. Mother Heaney had taken her in, brought her up, shared her cottage and potato plot and been like a parent to her. She was a distant relative – an aunt of her mother’s – but it had been out of kindness that she’d given a home to Kitty. ‘Well, if you call it kindness to let someone share your work and look after you in your old age,’ she’d said with an amused snort, whenever Kitty had thanked her for it.
Kitty spent her first night as a mother curled on her straw mattress, with the baby tucked in beside her. Even as she slept deeply, exhausted from the birth, she felt herself still aware of the warm little body pressed up against her. Once or twice she woke, helped him to latch on, and lay quietly, savouring the delicious scent of his soft head, as he fed. He was only hours old but already she felt the deepest, most profound love for this tiny being that she could ever have imagined. Despite the way he’d come into the world, she knew that she would do anything for him, anything at all.
The next day Kitty rose, washed and dressed, fed the baby and left with him wrapped in a shawl to go to Mass with Mother Heaney. Some of the town women who’d spat at her while she was pregnant came now to look upon the baby. ‘No one can resist a newborn,’ Ma Heaney whispered, ‘not even one that has no father.’ Kitty still had not decided upon a name. On entering the church, she gazed up at the stained glass window above the altar. It depicted St Michael the archangel, defeater of Satan, guardian of the Church, the angel who attended souls at their moment of death, to ease their passage into the next life.
‘Michael,’ she said.
‘What’s that you’re after saying?’ Mother Heaney asked.
‘’Tis what I’ll name the baby,’ Kitty replied.
The old lady nodded her approval, and an hour later, at the end of the service, Father John anointed him with oil of chrism and poured holy water over his head, welcoming him into the Catholic Church. Kitty swelled with pride as she watched. Michael kept his eyes open and fixed upon the priest throughout, as though he understood the seriousness of the occasion. When Father John handed him back to Kitty, her eyes had filled with tears. Michael had been born fatherless, but now he had God as his father. He would live a long, good life, she’d been certain of it. And she’d known then that she would do everything in her power to ensure it.
*
Now, so many years later, with that tiny baby almost a grown man, she left the church feeling calmed and uplifted. Remembering those good times – the early days with Michael when she’d learned what it was to be a mother, the support and love of dear Mother Heaney – had eased her soul. Outside, the clouds had cleared and the sun was fully out. There was beauty and peace to be found, even if there was poverty, starvation and death all around. She resolved to try to hold on to that thought, no matter what happened.
She paid a visit to the churchyard, laying her hand on the simple wooden cross that marked where her children were buried. ‘May God rest your souls,’ she whispered. And may Gracie and Michael never need join you here, she thought.
The food stores were further up the high street, past O’Sullivan’s pub, where a few men were standing outside, enjoying the sunshine as they supped their pints. Time was when Patrick would have been one of them, enjoying a pint once a week after work. She nodded to the men and continued to the grain store. There was a crowd outside it. She joined the edge of the crowd and asked the woman standing next to her what was happening.
‘There’s no corn. ’Tis all down at the docks in Cork still. They’ve not been able to distribute it to the towns where it’s needed. Disgusting state of affairs. What are we to do? How are we to feed our children?’ The woman shook her head sadly. Around her, the crowd was becoming angry. Two men at the front began beating on the doors of the store with sticks.
‘If there’s no corn, why are they hammering on the door? If there’s none to be bought there’s nothing to be done,’ Kitty said to her neighbour.
‘They don’t believe the warehouseman. They think he has sacks out the back that he’s keeping for himself. I’m waiting here to see if they’re right. If they’re not, and I can’t get any, there’s nothing for us to eat today. And me with seven mouths to feed. Where will it all end, I ask you?’
‘Where indeed?’ Kitty replied, wishing she had something to give the woman. At least she only had three mouths to feed now. She felt a rush of pain as she remembered that only a year ago, she’d had seven mouths to feed too. Poor Nuala, Jimmy, Éamonn and Little Pat. All taken at such a young age to sit at Jesus’s feet.
There was no point her staying in town. The crowd might turn violent, and she wanted no part of it. Her earlier tranquil mood had vanished, and now she wanted only to be home, in the cottage with Gracie and Michael. The chicken had laid an egg that morning. She still had a few of the potatoes Martin O’Shaughnessy had given her. And perhaps if he didn’t want his goat’s milk, he’d let her have it. They wouldn’t go hungry tonight. She patted her companion on the arm in a gesture of sympathy and support, and set off back to Kildoolin, her basket as empty as it had been on her way to town.
On the way home, she paused for just a few minutes to gather some sprigs of wild rosemary and golden broom. Some for herself, and some for Martin, to brighten and scent his cottage. If he was now unable to leave his bed and see the beauty of the day for himself, she would bring a tiny piece of it inside to him.
*
That evening, after Michael had returned and they had eaten their meagre meal, Kitty once more walked up the village track to Martin O’Shaughnessy’s cottage. She had a cold cooked potato, wrapped in a piece of muslin, to try to tempt him to eat. If he did not want it she would share it between Grace and Michael. She also carried the little posy she’d picked earlier. The sun was just dipping down behind the hill, but it would be light enough for another hour, for her to make sure he was settled for the night.
She tapped on the door, called out, and went straight in without waiting for an answer. No need for him to struggle to catch his breath to reply. The fire had gone out again, though the ashes were still hot, so she quickly banked it up and got it roaring again. She put the flowers in a mug of water on the table. Then she turned her attention to the bed in the corner, and the rasping, irregular breaths that were coming from it.
‘Well now, Martin, are you feeling any better?’ She knew the answer already, but it was as well to be cheerful. She knew Martin was dying, and he knew it too.
‘No, Kitty, I can’t say that I am,’ he said, his voice barely a whisper, and his words followed by a coughing fit.
‘Hush now, Martin. Don’t speak if it hurts you so.’ She fetched a cloth, wet it and used it to clean the dried spittle from around his mouth. His lips were dry and cracked. She held the cup of water for him to sip from, but he wasn’t able to lift his head. Instead, she found a second cloth, a clean one, wet it and let the water trickle into his mouth from its corner. He sucked at it like a newborn baby. It was better than nothing.
‘Not long now,’ he croaked. ‘Not long.’
‘Should I fetch Father John for you?’ It was a long walk back to Ballymor this late at night, but she’d do it, if Martin wanted it. Or she’d send Michael who’d be much quicker. She cursed herself for not having spoken to Father John about Martin while she was in town earlier, but to fetch the priest to administer the last rites was an admission that death was imminent, and she had not wanted to frighten Martin or hasten his end.
He was shaking his head. ‘No, I’ve no need of Father John.’ He reached out a crabbed hand, and she took it. It was cold and thin, but he squeezed her hand with surprising strength. ‘Sit with me, Kitty. It won’t be long. Sit with me, till the end. I don’t want to go alone.’
Her eyes filled with tears as she nodded. ‘Of course, Martin. I’ll stay, and I’ll do what I can for you.’
He squeezed her hand, and closed his eyes, letting out a rasping sigh.
She settled herself into a chair pulled up beside his bed, keeping her hand in his. It might be a long night. She was thankful she had banked up the fire so much when she first arrived. But if this was all she could do for her kind neighbour then it is what she would do. No one should be alone at the time of their passing.
Kitty watched the light slowly turn to dusk and then dark through the small window. The moon rose, its silvery light slipping into the cottage, caressing everything it touched. She listened to Martin’s laboured breathing, stroked his head and moistened his lips, but otherwise allowed her mind to swim deep into her thoughts.
An hour or so after she’d arrived, Michael tapped on the door and entered.
‘Mammy? We wondered where you were. Grace is in bed. Is there anything I can do? Is Mr O’Shaughnessy . . . is he . . . ?’
‘It won’t be long,’ she whispered. ‘There’s nothing you can do, except – milk the goat. Take the milk back for Gracie. I’ll be staying here.’
He squeezed her shoulder, and she leaned into his arm, drawing strength for the night ahead from his presence. And then he was gone, leaving her once more watching the life slowly leave Martin O’Shaughnessy.
The old man woke once more, and mumbled a few words, gasping between them. She had to lean close, and strain to make them out. ‘Take the . . . goat, Kitty. Don’t let . . . Waterman . . . have it. Look after . . . young Grace . . . and Michael. Write to my sons, tell them . . . And . . . thank you.’
After another hour, or was it two, perhaps three, his breathing became irregular, with long gaps between each one. Each time she wondered whether it would be his last. And then finally, one last breath, a gurgle in his chest, and stillness, apart from a twitching muscle near his eye. A minute later that stopped too. Kitty released her hand from his, placed his hands on his chest, crossed herself, and murmured the Lord’s Prayer.
She sat quietly for a few minutes more. So now there was only herself, Michael and Gracie left in the village. In the morning she would go to Father John, and arrange for Martin’s body to be collected, and buried. She didn’t know whether Martin had any money – if she could find any she would make sure he had a proper burial in the churchyard. If not, he would be put in the mass grave along with the latest famine victims. It was not something she could bear to think on, while she still sat with his mortal remains.
‘Bless you, Martin. May you be at peace now,’ she said, and hauled herself stiffly to her feet. It was time to go.
Outside, the full moon shimmered across the landscape, oblivious to the events inside the cottage. Kitty raised her face to it and breathed in deeply. The air was fresh and clean, damp with the night’s dew but refreshing and cleansing.
The goat had scrambled to its feet as she came out, and now Kitty untied her. ‘Come on, girl. Come on and I’ll see if I have some eggshells and potato scraps for you.’
It walked obediently beside her, down the lane back to her own cottage, as though it knew its master was dead. There would be goat’s milk to drink in the morning, Kitty thought, but immediately chastised herself for thinking of her own family’s fortune, when poor Martin lay dead not a hundred yards away.
CHAPTER 7 (#ulink_a67e8a98-7205-51f7-8ccb-e69ca37ea406)
Maria (#ulink_a67e8a98-7205-51f7-8ccb-e69ca37ea406)
I stayed in the bar till closing time, sipping J2Os and mineral waters, enjoying the music and pondering Dan’s question. We’d been together so long – five years, and had lived together for three. Why upset the status quo? What was marriage anyway, other than a piece of paper that made it ‘official’? We loved each other, we were committed to each other – financially at least, since we had a joint mortgage on the house – what more would being married give us? I was scared of change, I knew that. Dan had spent ages talking me into buying a house with him. We’d originally rented a place together, and I’d liked the fact that if everything went wrong I could move out and give up the tenancy with only a month’s notice. Buying a house was a much bigger commitment. But it had made financial sense, and I had been certain Dan was the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, even if I had never thought about marriage. I was still certain of that, although looking to the future was not something I was very good at. The future looked scary from here.
I was better at thinking about the past. Dan and I had met in a pub, much like this one but in Camden Town. It had been packed to the rafters and there was a live band playing – some kind of alternative rock band, clothed all in black with spiky neon-coloured hair and dragons on their shirts. Aoife would have loved them. I’d been at the bar, trying to buy drinks for myself and two mates who loved this music and had dragged me along, and I was being totally ignored by the bar staff. Probably, I’d thought at the time, because my looks weren’t alternative enough. There was no gel in my hair, no rips in my jeans and no piercings in my nose. The bloke to my left at the bar – mouse-brown floppy hair, matching eyes, lovely smile – was also being ignored. He’d been waiting even longer than me. After a while the two of us began rolling our eyes, sighing with exasperation and then giggling.
‘I guess we’re not the kind of customers they want here,’ he’d said to me. ‘I’m Dan, by the way.’
‘Maria. Nice to meet you,’ I’d said, and instinctively put out my hand for him to shake. The formality of the gesture made us both giggle some more, and by the time we were both eventually served, we’d swapped phone numbers.
He texted me on and off during the evening until, when I could take no more of the thrashing guitars and screaming lyrics, I’d told my mates I was going home with a headache, texted Dan, and we met up outside the pub. He’d walked me home the long way, via the canal towpaths, and we’d had our first kiss at the door of the flat I was renting at the time. I think I’d known even then that this was a relationship that would last. Why then was I unable to say a simple yes to his proposal? Or was it just the other thing, that I hadn’t told him, and that he should know before he had my answer? That he should have known before he asked the question?
O’Sullivan’s band were now playing the Irish national anthem, and everyone in the pub stood up in respectful silence. Even Paulie shuffled off his bar stool and gazed into the middle distance, his eyes misty. I loved the patriotism of the Irish, but playing the national anthem signalled the end of the night, and indeed Aoife turned up the pub lights, the musicians packed up, and the pub slowly emptied of customers. Time for bed. No text from Dan about the bracelet yet.
It was when I was half undressed, pottering around my room in my underwear, that he called me.
‘Hi, Maria. I found the bracelet.’ His voice sounded strangely taut, as though he was trying to control his emotions.
‘Great! Where was it?’ I felt a huge wave of relief. That bracelet was so important to me. So many memories were bound up in it, starting with Dad waltzing me around the sitting room to Marianne Faithfull’s ‘Dreaming My Dreams’ on the Christmas he’d given it to me, while Jackie watched, scowling, jealous of the attention I was getting from him.
‘It was where you said it might be. In the top drawer of your bedside cabinet.’ Dan took a deep breath. ‘Maria, is there something you need to tell me?’
Oh God. I suddenly realised what else I had stuffed into that drawer, underneath shop receipts and packets of painkillers. I didn’t know what to say, how to start the conversation we were clearly just about to have, that we should have had weeks ago. My mind raced, hunting for the right words.
‘Maria, when did you take the test? Is it recent, or what? I mean, are you actually . . . right now . . . or . . .’
I sat down heavily on the bed. This was it. No more denying it. I had to tell him, and it would change everything. ‘Two months ago.’

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