The Moon Over Kilmore Quay: a heartwarming and emotional family drama perfect for summer 2021

by Carmel Harrington

  ‘Was the boat journey awful for you?’ I asked.

  ‘Boring. Grey. Wet. But it suited my mood. I spent most of the passage lying in bed, reading, trying not to cry as I thought about my mam and dad at home. My last image of them was pierced into my brain, and I kept hitting play on it, over and over. Her wringing her apron, a blue one, in her hand. Him in his work boots, crying. I’d never seen my dad cry before.’

  Joe reached over and held his wife’s hand as her eyes filled with tears. She looked at me and said, ‘I never saw my dad again. He died before I got home ten years later.’

  The room quietened as the depth of her loss filled us all.

  ‘The impact of bereavement, on those who leave and those who are left behind, is hard to understand, unless you’ve been through it,’ Ryan said. ‘There’s an emptiness that can never be filled. No matter how many cups of Barry’s tea you pour into it.’

  ‘You always had a way with words. That’s why I’m glad you’ve decided to follow your dream to be an author.’

  ‘Yeah, you’d make a crap cop, in fairness,’ Mike agreed.

  ‘I believe you’ve helped him make that decision,’ Peggy said to me. ‘Thank you.’

  I flushed again, amazed that I’d had such an impact.

  ‘Now where were we? That’s right, I got the subway to Brooklyn. Got off at 15th Street as Colm told me to do, in his letter. But I got horribly lost when I stepped out onto the street. I ended up at the entrance to the park, and Colm hadn’t mentioned that. I walked back up the street towards the subway again and couldn’t work out whether to go right or left. I thought to myself, what would my dad do? I could hear his voice in my head saying, You’ve got a voice, you’ve got two good feet, now go find someone and ask them for directions. And that’s when I saw Farrell’s pub opposite. It had an Irish shamrock in the window. So I went in.’

  Joe jumped in again, their double act perfectly in sync. ‘What Peggy didn’t know was that Farrell’s was a male-only pub back then. For decades women weren’t allowed in the bar, unless they were chaperoned. Women sat at a table at the back, and their date would order a drink for them.’

  I made a loud tutting noise to let him know how much this annoyed me.

  ‘I know, I know. But it was a different time, Lucy. Anyhow, back to the story: Peggy walked up to the bar, and asked for a glass of water.’

  ‘I had very little money and, to be honest, I didn’t understand the currency. But I was thirsty and tired.’

  ‘I looked up and saw Peggy standing there, pretty as a picture in a green woollen coat with a brown hat perched precariously over her red curls. She had two big, battered brown suitcases, one in each hand – they were almost the size of her. Lacey, a Donegal man, pissed as a fart, shouted at her to get out. He was outraged at her audacity, asking for a drink. I shouted at him to hold his whisht. I could tell she was fresh off the boat. We’d all been there at some point.’

  Peggy continued, ‘Farrell himself was behind the bar and, without a word, he poured a glass of water into one of his styrofoam containers. I could feel the whole pub’s eyes on me as I drank it. But as strange as it might sound, this pub comforted me. It looked like home with its hammered tin roof and Guinness on tap. Then this handsome man sitting at the bar asked me, with great kindness, if I was lost. I couldn’t believe it when I heard his voice. He was a Wexford man. You can’t mistake the accent. The first person to speak to me in New York and it was someone from home. I never felt so relieved in my life. I told him I was looking for my cousin Colm Long and then he started to laugh.’

  ‘I said to her, you’re Colm’s little cousin Peggy!’ Joe said.

  ‘I was gobsmacked.’ Both were now wearing matching smiles. ‘And then I found out that it was Joe who lent Colm the money for my boat fare.’

  ‘I walked Peggy to her boarding house, of course. And stayed with her until Colm got home that evening. When I went home that night I knew that I’d marry Peggy one day. As sure as I was standing, I knew it.’

  ‘You got a bargain, Joe O’Connor. A bride for the price of a boat fare,’ Peggy replied.

  ‘I sure did, my love. I’d gladly pay it every day for the rest of my life. And it would still be a bargain,’ Joe agreed.

  I turned to Ryan and said, ‘You couldn’t write that!’

  ‘I did as it happens,’ Ryan said, ‘The only thing I’ve had published was a short story about how these two met. The Irish Echo paid me twenty dollars for that story. Mam and Dad have the story framed and hung on their kitchen wall!’

  ‘Tell Lucy about Shirley MacLaine,’ Mike said.

  ‘I love that movie Steel Magnolias,’ I said.

  ‘Well, would you believe that I’ve met her! It must have been mid-Seventies, because the kids were small and we had left them with a sitter. It was my birthday, I was sitting at the table for the women, Joe was at the bar, ordering a drink for us both, when in walks Shirley MacLaine.’

  ‘She was a beauty,’ Joe said. ‘Very glamorous. And she had something about her. A steel in her that made you think that you couldn’t or shouldn’t mess with Shirley.’

  ‘What was she doing in Farrell’s?’ I asked, trying to work out why any Hollywood actress would stop by a small Irish pub in Brooklyn.

  ‘She had a friend from the neighbourhood. Well, she decided she wanted to order her own drink, so she sashayed her way up to the bar and placed her order!’

  ‘Everyone was in a tizzy. The whole place scandalized and delighted all at once,’ Peggy said.

  ‘The bartenders were a bit star-struck. But they served her. Shirley became the first unchaperoned woman to take the honour of being served at the bar. Or so the story goes,’ Joe said.

  ‘Well, sorry, Shirley, but I got there first! OK, it was only water, but I was still served unchaperoned over a decade before!’

  ‘Go Peggy!’ I shouted and everyone cheered along. ‘I love hearing stories like this,’ I whispered to Ryan. ‘Your family are really, really great. Thanks for inviting me.’

  He looked at me so intently, I felt warm inside, as if a milestone had been passed for us. ‘I knew they’d love you as much as I do.’

  ‘Your parents were meant to be, weren’t they?’ I said.

  ‘We’re meant to be too, Lucy Mernagh,’ Ryan whispered to me. ‘Like Dad said, I know that as sure as I’m standing here.’

  ‘Sitting,’ I said, breathless with emotion.

  ‘That too,’ he replied, and even though everyone was watching us, he kissed me.

  21

  BEA

  May 2000

  Innisfree, Prospect Avenue, Brooklyn, New York

  I was eight years old when I noticed that when Dad bought a new shirt, it meant a new woman was on the scene. They never lasted though. He’d ditch his shirts and go back to his tee-and-jeans combo. Gran complained regularly that she never got to meet any of his girlfriends. Dad would say, when someone is special enough to bring home, I’ll bring her. Every now and then, even though the dates never made it as far as Innisfree, I’d get to meet them. Dad would take me to the park by the swings, or maybe to the cinema. And then he’d feign surprise that he bumped into his ‘friend’. I never minded those dates, because usually they meant I was spoiled with treats. Both Dad and his date had a vested interest in my approval. I milked the situation, with extra cream and sprinkles on top too. And even though I knew nothing about romantic love, I could tell that the woman was always way more into Dad than he was into her. And if I’m honest, that’s how I liked it. I was Dad’s most important person. I didn’t want that to change for anyone.

  I was nine when Corinne Dryden changed from being my teacher to my potential stepmom. It started when our class did a series of bring-your-parent-to-school days. I was so proud to bring Dad in. The only kid in school who had a parent who was an author. And he’d become a New York Times bestseller with his fourth book by that stage, so he was a little bit famous too. Ms Dryden was so impressed with his talk that she asked
him to help out with the school’s creative writing group. She was worried that St. Joseph’s was too heavily invested in its football and basketball teams and there wasn’t enough emphasis on the children who lived in their imaginations. Dad had been asked to do talks like this before and he would always say no, he was too busy. But he didn’t hesitate to say yes when Ms Dryden asked. I noticed a change in him almost immediately. He took to whistling as he moved around the house. Sometimes at dinner he had this goofy look on his face. He dropped her name into conversation whenever he could. We’d be eating toast for breakfast and he’d say, ‘Corinne said we should try this bakery on the corner of 51st and 4th.’ I’d relay everything he said to Katrina and Stephanie and we’d analyse the comments.

  ‘They are having the sex,’ Katrina said. We’d gasped at this, because back then we weren’t really sure what sex was, but we knew it involved nakedness and kissing. The thought of my dad being naked with anyone made me want to vomit. About a month after the talks began, he sat me down to tell me that they had started to date. It shouldn’t have been a shock or a surprise. But it was. And I didn’t like it. I felt a shadow of foreboding, and even though I knew there was no reason to feel so threatened, I did. Self-absorbed as I was, I think I knew that this was different to any other relationship he’d had.

  Then one day, I came home from Stephanie’s where I’d spent the day watching Full House episodes back to back, and I found Corinne in our kitchen chatting to Gran and Grandad. Dad was clearly delighted with himself, standing beside Corinne with the same goofy expression. To my shame, I’d shouted, ‘What’s she doing here?’ Then I ran to Katrina’s house next door to complain.

  Dad was patient and kind, telling me he understood that I needed time to get used to the transition of Ms Dryden being not just my teacher, but also his special friend. He was adamant that I had to get used to it all the same. He told me that he was in love with her. All of a sudden, she was in Innisfree every single day.

  Things began to change far too quickly for my liking. She began to stay overnight at weekends. And that brought change. I didn’t like change. She suggested that we switch our normal Saturday-morning pancake breakfasts to egg-white omelettes. And to my horror, Gran agreed with her. I’d begun to watch Law & Order with Dad by this stage too. But whenever Corinne was with us, we seemed to watch a lot of the TLC channel.

  I hated to admit it, but it wasn’t all bad. Corinne was fun. Like one Friday afternoon she suggested we try to make a chain of Lego that ran all the way around Innisfree. We clicked in pieces, one by one, for hours. We didn’t stop for dinner; Gran gave us burgers that we ate cross-legged beside the stairway. When we ran out of Lego before we reached my bedroom, Corinne ran next door to the Petrovics’s and persuaded them to give her their box of Lego. I think that was one of the most fun nights I’d ever had as a kid. Grandad got his camera out to take a photograph of me putting in the last piece. And I called Corinne to get in the photo too, alongside Dad and me.

  I’m not sure when I got used to our new normal, but one day it didn’t bother me to see Corinne sitting at the kitchen table. And I began to look forward to watching TLC with her. And there were other benefits too. I now had an inside track to solving algebra problems. The O’Connor brain did not do well with hypotheses, Grandad always said. Corinne helped me, but never made it seem like it was work. And then she talked Dad down on more than one occasion when he was too overprotective, letting me take some steps of independence, tentatively. Katrina, Stephanie and I wanted to get the subway to the Rockefeller Center to see The Today Show being filmed. We’d heard that NSYNC were due to be there. Dad said no; he always said no. Gran was no use, throwing holy water at me whenever I asked to go anywhere outside of Brooklyn. But Corinne stepped in and suggested that it was time to give me some freedom. And she talked Dad around. NSYNC never did turn up but we three did end up on TV, in the background of several shots. Things were good and I thought we could continue in this vein. But life wasn’t like that. Life moved on and demanded that we all move with it.

  The problems began the night Corinne joined us in Mario’s, for our annual anniversary dinner for Mom. And maybe if Dad had spoken to me about it, rather than springing her on me, I would have taken it better. But instead, one minute it was Dad and me, the next she was slipping in beside Dad in our booth. And it wasn’t only me who was surprised. I could see Mario was taken aback too. The meals in Mario’s were supposed to be for the two of us. We never asked Gran or Grandad. Uncle Mike once hinted he’d like to come, but Dad knocked that on the head immediately. For the first time that I’d sat in our booth, I felt awkward and uncomfortable. When Mario took our order, Corinne said meatloaf gave her indigestion. Dad shushed me when I protested her choice of a green salad with grilled chicken. I mean, that was completely against the whole ethos of our evening. My surprise changed to hurt then. He could see it, but avoided eye contact with me. Then when it came to dessert, she skipped our usual sundaes too. She said she wanted coffee and somehow her tone made Dad and me feel guilty. My shock and hurt then stepped aside to make way for outrage. It flew over me like a tsunami and drowned out every other emotion. If Dad noticed, he decided not to do anything about it. Instead he held her hand, on the night that was supposed to be in honour of my mom. I had to get up to go to the restroom to stop myself from throwing cola over the two of them. As I passed him, Mario pulled me to one side.

  ‘It’s good to see your dad happy, no?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s not good?’

  ‘I’m mortified for him. Look!’ I pointed towards them, where they were nose to nose, giggling like a couple of teenagers.

  ‘Give him a break, Bella Bea. He’s been on his own for so long. Can you let him off this once?’

  I shrugged. I wasn’t sure I could, so I wasn’t going to promise anything.

  ‘It’s tough being a parent. You’ll find that out one day. But isn’t it true that your dad has always done everything in his power to put you first?’

  Reluctantly I agreed. Even though I didn’t feel like being nice about Dad right then.

  ‘Maybe you can put him first now?’ Mario urged. ‘Please.’

  And because he looked so earnest and asked so nicely, I agreed to try. But that was before I knew what was coming my way when I got back to our booth.

  Corinne said, ‘Shall we tell her?’

  Dad replied, ‘You tell her.’

  To which Corinne said, in true comedy gold, ‘No, you tell her.’

  I knew instinctively that whatever they wanted to tell me wouldn’t be good news for me, so I kept my mouth shut. Once they stopped giggling, Dad announced that he’d proposed to Corinne. She held up her hand that now was bejewelled with a large solitaire diamond.

  I was twelve years old and I had never been so devastated by a single piece of news in my life. Corinne reassured me that nothing would change for a while. But the plan was that Dad and I would leave Innisfree and move into her house when they got married. I watched Dad watching me. I refused to say a word. And when Mario brought our sundaes over, I told him I felt sick. It wasn’t a lie. The evening lay in tatters on the Formica tabletop between us. I could see hurt in both Dad and Corinne’s face. They wanted a blessing I could not give. I vowed there and then that I’d never leave Gran and Grandad. Dad could do what he wanted, but I would not go with him. He didn’t care that, if we moved, I’d never see Stephanie or Katrina.

  ‘Nothing will change,’ Dad said in an effort to reassure me. But that was a lie and they both knew it. Dad was oblivious to my sadness, caught up in his love for Corinne. As the days went on, I resented every single smile or moment he shared with her. I began to feel like an intruder in my own home. When Corinne tried to help me with my homework, I brushed her away. The maths tutoring that I once enjoyed now felt like it was laced with condescension. Dad and I fought almost every day. If he said white, I said black. If Corinne tried to side with me, I’d tell her she wasn’t my mother. Then whe
n Dad told me that I was acting like a child, I replied, ‘yes, I am a child.’ Sometimes I ignored them. I spent nearly a week not uttering a word to either of them. Corinne accused me of being passive-aggressive, which I suppose I was. But throwing grenades at her became sport to me.

  It all came to an ugly head a few months after their engagement. The tension had been building up for a long time and it was inevitable that something would give. The proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back was in her reorganization of our sitting room. She moved the furniture around, ‘to improve the feng shui’. Gran and Grandad thought it looked great and were full of compliments about her knack for making a room look good. She’d gone shopping with Gran and they’d bought a new throw to cover the stains on Dad’s lazy-boy chair that had seen better days. And new cushion covers now replaced those that had been in the room as long as I could remember. The thing was, Dad had said to me once that Mom used to prop me against one of those big pink cushions and she’d play with me, tickling me or massaging me. Now the pink cushion was green.

  ‘That was Mom’s favourite cushion!’ I yelled.

  Corinne had looked stricken at this and turned to Dad, ‘You should have told me. I’d never have changed the cover if I’d known!’

  ‘Your mom didn’t have a favourite cushion,’ Dad said.

  ‘She didn’t, love,’ Grandad added.

  ‘Yes she did,’ I shouted.

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t remember. Can we get the cover back?’ Dad asked.

  ‘I gave them to the charity shop on Windsor Square,’ Gran said. ‘Joe, go down and see if you can get it back.’

  My grandad stood up and promised me he’d find the cover, even if he had to knock on everyone’s door. I wanted to crawl into a ball and cry. Not for me, but for my poor mom who’d died and had lost everything, including her one true love. I looked from one to the other and saw the worry and love on their faces. And I felt my anger begin to slip away, until I noticed something else. The biggest act of treason. The framed photograph of my mom was gone.