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

by Carmel Harrington

  ‘Tadgh offered to drive, but I wanted to come on my own, so we could chat properly.’ I liked Tadgh, but it was never the same when he was with us. The drive to Wexford was bittersweet. We went from chatting excitedly about our lives, sharing titbits that we’d not mentioned in letters or emails, to crying as each mile brought us closer to a reality we were not prepared for. Ireland looked different somehow. The fields of green were more vibrant and when we drove over the bridge into Wexford Town, I felt a lump the size of a lemon in my throat.

  By the time we got to Kilmore, both Maeve and I were emotionally overwrought.

  ‘I’ll have to double-park. The place is bananas busy,’ Michelle said. ‘I’ll get Tadgh to help me bring your luggage in. He’s here somewhere. You go on in.’

  We looked at Nellie’s pub, a black wreath pinned to its front door. We’d done the same when my grandmother died and, at the time, I’d thought to myself, one day we’ll use this wreath for Mam and Dad. And I’d felt wicked for thinking it. It had never occurred to me it would be this soon.

  But, it’s always too soon to lose someone you love. We couldn’t wait to see Mam, but the walk into our home where Dad was no more felt like our own hellish green mile.

  There were about a dozen neighbours queuing to get into our cottage. Dad was a popular man from the village and it appeared everyone had come out to pay their respects at the wake. As they spotted us, a murmur of sympathy ran down the line.

  ‘Ah, it’s the girls.’

  ‘Lucy and Maeve.’

  ‘God love you, girls.’

  ‘So sorry. He was a good man.’

  We’d hear hundreds of well-intended genuine offers of sympathy over the coming days. At first I didn’t know what to say in response, but I copped on quickly that all that was needed was a nod of thanks or a squeeze of someone’s hand. They moved aside to let us walk into our hall. Mam’s friend, Eileen, was waiting for us, a tea towel in her hand. She had taken control of the kitchen and was co-ordinating tea, coffee, mixed sandwiches and cakes for the many visitors who were calling every hour. She wasn’t a naturally warm person, but she had a good heart. ‘I’m sorry for your loss, girls. Your dad is laid out in the sitting room. Your mam is there with him. Tea will be waiting for you when you’re ready for it. I’d say you both must be wall-falling after the flight. They don’t feed you at all on the planes, do they? Awful muck, from what I’ve been told.’ Then before we could offer any response, she shoved us through the door into the room that we’d always referred to as the ‘good room’, only used for Christmas and special occasions.

  I was disorientated at first because it looked so different. The furniture had been pushed back against the walls. Chairs from the lounge in the pub were lined up in rows around the mahogany coffin that sat in the middle of the room. Maeve gasped, so I gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. A sea of faces, sad and full of compassion, looked up at us. More sympathy was proffered. I searched for Mam, missing her at first because her head was low, as if bowed in prayer. I’d thought about our reunion many times, and how I’d run into her arms. She’d laugh and cry; we both would. And it would be one of those happy moments that we’d never forget as we reconnected with each other. But that was just a dream. Now, in the harsh reality of the good sitting room that was now a funeral parlour, I felt unsure. Should I go to her, kneel, then place my head in her lap and cry? Or go to the open coffin, to see Dad for one last time before we put him in the ground? In the end, Maeve made the decision for me. She crouched down to her hunkers in front of Mam. My legs took root, forgetting how to move. When Mam looked up, it was my turn to gasp. She had always looked young for her years, but now she was all of a sudden an old woman. I stood, awkward on display in this strange setting. And when I should have been thinking of my father, all I could think of was Ryan and how much I missed him. I wished he were there with me, his strong arms around me, ready to catch me if I fell.

  ‘Say goodbye to your dad. He looks so peaceful. Like he’s sleeping.’ Eileen Doyle walked over to me, taking matters into her own capable hands. She pushed me again until I was beside him. I kept my eyes lowered, taking in the shine of the polished wood, the gleam on the brass handles. Mam had chosen well. I would have to tell her that later on. Dad liked dark furniture. Mam loved pine but he could never stand it. I was glad she’d given him what he wanted in this concluding life choice. I ran my hands lightly across its surface and tried to find the strength to look at my lovely daddy.

  I felt the eyes of the mourners on me, watching for a response. Not unkindly or anything, as it’s human nature to rubberneck. Impossible to look away from raw pain, no matter how intrusive it is. I wished I had the nerve to ask Eileen to clear the room. Surely I deserved some privacy in this moment? I turned back to look and Maeve and Mam were still in each other’s arms. It felt like time was stretched; it could have been seconds or minutes.

  ‘It’s OK, love,’ I heard Dad’s voice whisper to me from wherever he was. ‘It’s only a body. I’m up here with your gran.’

  ‘Oh Dad,’ I sobbed as I looked inside the coffin. They had dressed him in his good suit, the one he’d worn to our graduation earlier this year. His shirt looked like it had been taken out of a packet. I remembered Dad saying to Mam that he’d never get the wear out of a new suit when she’d insisted he buy one. In a million years, I’d never have thought this would be the next time he’d put it on. The thought made me want to run from the house and get back on the next flight to New York. I didn’t want to be here. I felt ill-equipped. Even though I was now a young woman, an adult who had lived on her own for years now, I became a child once more.

  Eileen said he looked like he was sleeping. Peaceful.

  I wanted to cry ‘bullshit!’ Dad looked like he was dead. Gone from me. From all of us. We’d never hear his laugh again or listen to him tell one of his tall stories to the punters in the pub, or yell out to everyone that it was time, gentleman and ladies, please, have you no homes to go to.

  I touched his face. It felt waxy and cold. And my fingers left a mark on the make-up that the undertaker had placed on him.

  After a few moments, Maeve and I swapped places. I knelt down to take Mam into my arms. She’d lost weight since we’d left. And her face, once rosy and full, looked gaunt and grey. We didn’t say anything to each other, we just keened in a lament for a special man. Two seats appeared and everyone shuffled down so Maeve and I could sit on either side of Mam. The room fell silent for a while, as friends and family gave us our time to get used to this new normal. Then Ned Doyle, Eileen’s husband and a long-time friend of Dad’s, spoke.

  ‘There isn’t a man in the county who could run a table quiz like Denis Mernagh.’

  A ripple of affirmations ran through the room.

  ‘A fountain of useless information, your dad,’ Ned went on.

  ‘He read so much, that’s why,’ Mam said. And everyone nodded because it was a well-known fact that on a quiet day in the pub you’d find Dad behind the bar, glasses perched low on his nose, a book in hand.

  ‘If he was here now, he’d be telling us all about why wakes were invented. How many times did he tell us that story?’

  ‘Every funeral we were ever at, he’d bring up the pewter tankards,’ Eileen said.

  ‘Aye. He’d say, people used to get lead poisoning from drinking stout in them. The poor old feckers would fall into a catatonic state and everyone thought they were dead, only to get the fright of their lives when they’d rise from the dead! Denis would laugh for ten minutes then, tickled by the image,’ Ned said.

  ‘He’d say, if it wasn’t for a wake, half the country would have been in the ground back then!’ Eileen said, and a ripple of laughter started and stopped just as quick.

  Then Paudie Murphy, another regular from Nellie’s, started to laugh. ‘Sorry,’ he said, holding his hand up. But he had the fit of the giggles and couldn’t stop them.

  ‘What’s so funny, lad? Spit it out!’ Ned said.

  �
��Do you remember the episode of Only Fools and Horses when Rodney and Del dressed up as Batman and Robin for a fancy dress party, which turned out to be a wake?’

  ‘Dad loved that episode,’ Maeve said, smiling. And as people shared stories, it helped to cut the tension a little. We somehow got through the wake. And in turn the funeral the following day. At times it felt like we were the walking dead ourselves, because all three of us were in a trance. We showered, dried and combed our hair, wore our best clothes and stood at the door to greet people who called to pay their respects. But we were not really present, we were just going through the motions. Nellie’s closed but opened on the day of the funeral for a private function, so neighbours and family could say their goodbyes to Dad in the way the Irish do best – with song and story.

  It felt good to be back in the bar. It was and always would be a big part of my life. And it was a comfort to be pulling pints, pouring shots of vodka and gin into ice-filled glasses. Hugh, Dad’s right-hand barman, tried to get me to sit down. But I needed to work. It helped me forget that once this was all over, one fact would never change. I would never see my father again.

  Maeve got pretty drunk as the night progressed. As bad as I’d seen her in a long time. I think it didn’t help that neither of us had eaten more than a bite of an odd sandwich in days. We lost our appetites at the same time as we lost our father. Then things got messy. Maeve made a clumsy pass at one of the Jones lads. I’m not even sure which one. He was only eighteen years old. He seemed happy enough to go along with Maeve on whatever journey she had in mind for them. But his mother wasn’t as pleased. She’d shouted, a little too loudly I felt, that Maeve should pick on someone her own age. Maeve responded by downing another shot of vodka and orange juice. But I’d seen the hurt in her eyes and I knew what she was doing. She was trying to forget in the only way she knew how.

  I didn’t have much time to worry about Maeve, because Mam needed my attention more. We were due to go back to New York two days after the funeral but I couldn’t see how we could leave Mam. Apart from anything else, she would be in no fit state to manage the pub. We’d need to appoint a manager. Dad trusted Hugh and he seemed like the obvious answer to our problem. But getting Mam to agree to that was another matter. She didn’t want to make any changes. And at the same time, she wasn’t fit to be in charge herself. My plan was to sit her down, once the funeral was over and try to make her see the sense in taking on some help.

  It was quiet the day after we buried Dad. Our cottage was cleaner than I’d ever seen it. Eileen and some neighbours had given it a head to toe, as she called it. The fridge was chock-full of meals, all ready to be popped in the oven. The kindness was overwhelming and I knew that I’d spend my life forever grateful.

  Maeve came into our kitchen, red-eyed and a little shamefaced, which put her in a mood. ‘I hate this coffee! Why doesn’t Mam have a filter coffee machine, for goodness’ sake?’

  ‘Because Mam doesn’t drink coffee. Sit down. I’ll make you tea and a bacon sandwich.’

  ‘Did I make a holy show of myself?’

  ‘Not at all,’ I lied. ‘Everyone was locked by then, so nobody noticed.’

  ‘I’m mortified. What was I thinking?’

  ‘You were upset. Give yourself a hall pass.’ I placed her food in front of her. ‘But we need to chat, Sis. Mam isn’t coping.’

  ‘We have to make her eat. She’s a bag of bones,’ Maeve said.

  ‘Maybe now that the funeral is over, she’ll eat. She’s still asleep. But we need to talk about Friday. I don’t think we can go back and leave her. Not yet.’

  Maeve threw her sandwich down and I thought she was going to burst into tears. ‘No way, Lucy. If we don’t go back, we’ll never get away. I am devastated for Mam, I really am. But we can’t stay. We just can’t.’

  ‘I want to get back to Ryan, believe me I do. But how the hell can we leave her in the state she’s in? We can’t go.’

  ‘What about work? They’ll fire us. And then what will we do? We have rent to pay at the end of the month.’

  ‘I know. It’s not ideal. I’ll call Mick in work later today. I’ll have to hope he understands.’

  ‘You might as well put me in the ground beside Dad if you make me stay here any longer. I’m not like you, Lucy. I’m a selfish wagon, I know I am. But I have to go back on Friday. Besides, think about it: if I go back and work lots of overtime, I can take care of the rent. It doesn’t make sense for us both to stay.’

  There was no point arguing with her. When Maeve made her mind up, that was it. So I let her go. Mam’s relief and gratitude that I was staying behind made the pain at not seeing Ryan for a bit longer easier to bear. Maeve told Mam that she’d lose her job if she didn’t go back. And she said she wished she was as lucky as I was, with a forgiving boss who was happy to extend compassionate leave. It frightened me sometimes how easily Maeve could twist the truth to make it suit her. But again, I figured it was kinder this way for Mam.

  29

  LUCY

  October 1992

  Woodside, Brooklyn, Manhattan

  My few days at home had turned into almost a month. We’d phoned each other twice a week. But it wasn’t the same. I missed Ryan’s smell, his touch, his voice. And our phone call last Friday had seemed stilted. He was quiet and it was only when I put the phone down that I realized he’d hardly said a word. Had I babbled on too much about the changes I’d put into place at Nellie’s? I began to fret, worried that every day I stayed away from Woodside was a step away from Ryan. Mam and I had had a lot of heart-to-heart conversations over the previous couple of weeks, late into the night. And when I told her that I loved Ryan, she encouraged me to return to New York. She understood that I had to be with him. She’d a lifetime of love with Dad and she wanted the same for me. It was incredibly generous of her, because if she’d put the guilt on me to stay longer, I’m not sure I would have had the heart to leave.

  And during the transatlantic flight back to New York, I realized with surprise that it wasn’t just Ryan and Maeve that I couldn’t wait to see. I missed New York too. The bustling crowds impatient to continue their day, the coffee-cart guy on the corner of 61st by the subway, who never forgot that I liked two sugars and creamer with my morning coffee, walking and watching both the tourists and locals as they took a bite out of the Big Apple, the fact that the city truly never slept as we piled into a diner for fries and shakes after a late night in Saints and Sinners. New York had got under my skin. I had fallen in love with its charms as so many others had done before me and I acknowledged to myself for the first time that Maeve wasn’t the only one who had no wish to return home to Ireland. I felt the same way.

  As I pushed the airport trolley in front of me, it almost tripped me up, I moved so fast. I scanned the crowd in Arrivals for my boyfriend and my stomach flipped with nervous anticipation. What if he’d gone off me? Out of sight, out of mind.

  But then I saw him. Standing by a potted plant, shuffling on his feet in the way he did when he was nervous. He looked in my direction and called out my name, his face breaking into that gorgeous smile I loved so much. Every doubt disappeared.

  This was Ryan. My Ryan. My love. I left the trolley behind and ran to him.

  ‘I’ve missed you so much,’ I said, reaching up to kiss his face, over and over. I couldn’t get enough of him. I wanted to feel every part of him against me.

  ‘Oh Lucy. You have no idea how hard this has been for me. The longest month of my life! I’m no good without you,’ he sighed into my hair and time stood still as we held each other. ‘Are you OK? You look thin.’

  ‘I’m fine. Or at least I am now.’ I tried to push the thought of my weeping mother from my mind. Would she ever forgive me for leaving her? ‘Where’s Maeve?’

  ‘I wanted to have you all to myself. So she said she would meet us at the apartment. She mentioned something about giving it a clean.’

  ‘Impossible. That one hasn’t done any cleaning in over five
years.’

  He laughed and spun me around in a circle, making me feel like one of those girls I’d watched in romantic comedies throughout my teens.

  ‘I was glad when she said she’d stay put. Don’t be cross at me for not wanting to share you.’

  ‘How could I ever be cross with you?’ I said, kissing him again. ‘Oops, I’d better get that.’ I pointed to my discarded trolley that was causing an obstruction. He ran over and grabbed it and as he pushed it towards the bus terminal, I linked my arm through his. I had a month of missed embraces to make up for.

  As I sat beside Ryan on the bus, it struck me how much had changed since I’d arrived in New York earlier that year. ‘The last time I flew into JFK, it was with Maeve and we hadn’t a clue. We sat on this bus feeling like green eejits from the country. When we spotted our first yellow cab, we squealed. We’d only seen them on TV or in the cinema before. Now I feel like I’m seeing old friends.’

  ‘I love it when you say eejit. Best word in the world, that is. I don’t know why the Americans don’t adopt it as their own.’

  ‘It’s even better when you put fecking in front of it. Satisfying.’

  ‘There’s no real equivalent in American. Idiot or fool, I suppose. I’ve made a decision, Lucy. I shall only say eejit from now on,’ Ryan proceeded to say the word over and over, making me giggle and the couple across the aisle from us stare. We were in giddy form, happiness fizzed up between us like a newly opened bottle of pop.

  ‘How’s the novel going?’

  ‘I’ve only managed to do another five thousand words this month. You’re my muse, Lucy. I write faster when you are around!’

  ‘Well I promise not to leave you again so,’ I said. ‘Tell me all the other news. How’s Mike, and your parents?’

  ‘They can’t wait to see you. They want you to come over for lunch on Sunday. They had Mass said for your dad again at the weekend.’