After She Left

by Penelope Hanley

  ‘Those bastards!’

  ‘Quite so. Some people offered to help pay the rent but Deirdre’s father and the others refused. They walked back to Dingle and they had to make canoes to fish from after that. The rent collectors tried to get their money by selling the islanders’ boats but nobody would ever buy them because of the way they were got. They just sat in a field and rotted.’

  ‘No! That’s terrible. Thank you so much for telling me!’

  ‘You’re welcome. Now, eat a biscuit, you could use a bit of fattening up.’

  ‘I’m too indignant at the shock of that injustice to eat!’

  ‘You’ll starve to death with that attitude. Injustice is everywhere. I’ve got scrapbooks bulging with evidence just in Sydney alone over the past thirty or forty years. Certain bullying pipsqueaks make money illegally and then they can bribe the police and politicians – it’s the same, decade after decade, but it’s got worse here in the last ten years. You get a few men taking all the power and abusing it, at the expense of everyone else. The Opera House saga is a case in point.’

  Keira ate a biscuit and contemplated. What did the Opera House have to do with anything?

  ‘Alfred, my subject is a woman artist and I’m thinking about the injustice of women being excluded from opportunities and money, like with the Archibald Prize, and men controlling everything, treating society like an old boys’ club.’

  ‘That’s precisely what happened with the Opera House.’

  ‘But that was designed by a man.’

  Alfred nodded. ‘Jorn Utzon. He worked for years on that masterpiece until our current premier appointed an old mate, Willis Hughes, as the Minister for Public Works. He should have been made Minister for Mediocrity. He’s everything that’s wrong with this country. Hughes abused his power and pushed Utzon out. Utzon was, like women are, an outsider to the boys’ club you’re aware of. He was a foreigner. Worse than that, a man of vision and genius, who was making something beautiful for the people and not more money for the cabal of state politicians and their croneys.

  ‘Whether they’re keeping the prizes for their own types or murdering people who get in the way, like Jake Phipps did in the thirties and forties, or it’s greedy landlords squeezing money from poverty-stricken peasants, it’s the same: abuse of power. And that is what I am chronicling in my scrapbooks.’

  ‘But I haven’t read about this in the newspapers,’ said Keira.

  ‘That’s because of Australia’s tough libel laws. You can’t say or write anything detrimental about important people.’

  ‘What if they’re true?’

  ‘Especially if they’re true! Our libel and defamation laws are very strong. We couldn’t have a Watergate discovery here because those journalists who attempted to write about it would be in prison.’

  ‘God!’ said Keira. ‘That’s awful.’

  Alfred smiled and nodded. ‘God might have created the world,’ he said, ‘but it’s clearly the Devil who keeps it going.’

  *

  ‘Mum,’ said Keira over the phone. ‘Alfred Foote, do you know him? I just met him.’

  Maureen heaved a sigh. ‘Yes, I knew him.’

  Keira told Maureen the story about the Blasket Islanders Alfred had told her.

  ‘Why are you so obsessed with your grandmother’s past? I don’t understand it and it’s not healthy.’

  ‘Maybe because you’ve shrouded it in so much mystery.’

  ‘Oh yes, everything’s my fault.’

  ‘Well, what is the big mystery?’

  ‘There’s no mystery. I’m too busy to be raking up the past.’

  ‘Busy? What busy? You never leave the house.’

  ‘Rubbish. I’ve got a hair appointment Tuesday morning at eleven.’

  The conversation not going the way either of them wanted, they wrapped it up.

  Keira pondered over a cup of tea and decided to take the opportunity of Maureen’s hair appointment to do some investigating.

  *

  On Tuesday morning the bus arrived at Clovelly, and Keira walked up the hill from the bus stop, past suburban houses and past the old milkbar where she and her brothers used to buy lollies with the old money: two cobbers for a penny, sixpence worth of musksticks, a chocolate frog for threepence. Or milkshakes in chocolate, vanilla, strawberry or lime for ninepence. Lime was Keira’s favourite. They would buy brightly coloured balls of bubblegum or the Choo-Choo Bars that made their tongues black. It was just a corner shop now, a place to buy bread, milk and newspapers, the booths taken out and the pinball machines gone. Oh no, maybe she did dwell too much in the past.

  Keira had raided the house before. She pretended to have a stomach-ache one Sunday morning, and persuaded her parents to go to Mass without her. She’d slipped into her parents’ bedroom and found the drawer of manila folders inside, labelled with her mother’s spidery hand: Receipts, Kids, House Info, Tax … And then she saw it: Official Info. Sifting through the bits of paper inside, she soon found her parents’ marriage certificate and discovered that she’d been conceived out of wedlock. That was a stunning piece of information but she wanted to focus on the ceremony she’d concocted.

  She’d roped in a girlfriend to act as a witness and sworn on the Bible that she would never marry. She took a burning match and set her parents’ marriage certificate alight with it. Her friend Genevieve gasped as the flame licked at the edge of the stiff paper then went across it like a fire gaining ground across a paddock of dry grass. The flame ate up the black writing, the signatures and the red seal. They stood in shocked silence. It was so definite, so final. The gravity of it struck them dumb for a few moments.

  Keira opened the front gate, shaking her head at the memories. So that was one document she could not get her hands on. This time, she needed Maureen’s birth certificate. She walked up the front path past the inky blue and mauve hydrangeas that always reminded her of the Queen Mother’s hats. A boring flower, she also associated it with the LILACs, those stern old women who used to live next door, the Ladies in League Against Communism, who’d had heaps of hydrangeas in their front yard. She bent and retrieved the key from under the clay pot of red and white petunias, whose subtle perfume wafted up in the clear morning air. When she let herself in, Lady, in a quick dash of woolly curls and wagging tail, hurled herself gently at Keira, barking ecstatically, her paws on Keira’s thighs.

  ‘Lady, hello!’ Keira went into her parents’ bedroom, Lady following at her heels. Click-click-click went the dog’s nails on the lino. Different curtains but the same venetian blinds. Keira pulled them up and caught sight of her reflection in the dressing table mirror: long legs in black tights and black boots, a denim mini skirt with a black jumper and her hair up in a ponytail, which emphasised her giraffe neck. She looked pale as usual. The dog held herself alert and expectant. Keira walked over to the chest of drawers and crouched down to pull the bottom drawer out. Her fingers flipped through the folders, fatter than she remembered and more of them, smelling slightly musty, past the Receipts, Kids, House Info, Letters … Letters?

  Lady lay down, watching. The birth certificate would probably be in Official Info. But first Keira had to look in the Letters folder.

  What she found there made her gasp. Among the early letters from her father, sky blue aerogrammes from friends overseas and postcards from Keira on a Queensland holiday four years ago, there was a bundle of letters in pale green envelopes with ‘Sender: Deirdre Wild’ on the backs. Keira pulled the large rubber-band off. Addresses in Paris, Majorca, San Sebastian and London.

  Why had Maureen said nothing about these? There were addresses on every one. Keira could have been writing to Deirdre and Deirdre could have been telling her everything she needed to know! Why had Maureen kept her in the dark about this? But to confront her would mean confessing how Keira had found the letters.

  There was something odd about the English envelopes: each had an upside-down stamp. The Queen’s head was upside-down. A deliberate politica
l gesture from an Irish-born agitator!

  There was a letter from the year Keira was born:

  My darling Maureen,

  We arrived safely and are happy here. I hope that you and Jim and the baby are still doing well. Please do write and let me know.

  We’re staying with Janet and Paul here in Majorca until we find our own place. Owen is growing stronger in the sunshine. The weather is divine! And we love the sweet, juicy oranges, the olives and almonds, the seafood and local sobrussada sausage and lots of other healthy food that is all so cheap here.

  There are glorious beaches, cliffs and limestone caves and mountains. Chopin, George Sand and Agatha Christie all lived here at one time or another. It is not hard at all to see why this place attracts creative people.

  Joan Miró, the surrealist painter and sculptor, sometimes visits with his young wife Pilar. He is fifty-three and she is twenty – that makes my seven years senior to Owen nothing at all!

  Joan says that painting is like writing poetry, that we choose colours the way a poet chooses words – to get the right shape for what we want to say. We have such stimulating conversations with him and Pilar. His paintings attract me, with their simple, strong, clear colours but I couldn’t be that simple – mine have to have their complications, as you know, just like my life!

  They are calling me to lunch now, my darling. Kisses and hugs to you and Keira. I hope that everything is well with you and let me know. Write soon, my darling girl.

  Lots of love,

  Deirdre (and Owen)

  Keira started unfolding and skimming the contents of a random few more:

  My dearest Maureen … Torremolinos in the south, a small fishing village where we can live cheaply … swimming with no sharks and no undertow … hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me … sketching the Moorish castle here … Owen fishing … to Cadiz next month …

  San Sebastian … accepted for exhibition in June … hope you are coping well with the children … Keira must be four by now … perhaps a visit next Christmas …

  Brittany Paradise – fishing boats, contrasting colours like a Franz Marc painting … money still a problem but we manage …

  There must have been thirty letters. Keira flipped through the rest, looking for the most recent one. Just before last Christmas. She looked at her watch, and took out the bundle of letters. Maureen wouldn’t miss them and she would sneak in and replace them after gleaning the necessary information for her essay.

  Now: Legal, Tax and finally the folder of Official Info. The Birth Certificate must be in there.

  ‘So, what do we have here, Lady?’ The dog lay down beside Keira, her chin on her paws, watching carefully. Keira read: Birth in the District of Sydney in the (‘Colony’ was xxxxx’ed out and ‘State’ inserted) of New South Wales, 1927, Registered by Timothy James Cotter, Registrar-General. She read on:

  When and where born: 21 December 1927, 5 Cumberland Street, the Rocks.

  Name: Maureen Brigid O’Mara.

  Sex: Female

  PARENTS

  Name and surname of father: Unknown (and a line through Profession, trade or occupation; age and birthplace and nothing for When and where married.) Keira sat cross-legged and absently put a hand out to pat Lady.

  Father unknown. She glanced down the page at the rest of the information. Name and maiden name of mother: Céitlin Derdrui O’Mara.

  Age and birthplace: 19 years, Corkaguiney, County Kerry, Ireland. Signature and residence: Céit Derdrui O’Mara, 7 Cumberland Street, the Rocks, Sydney. And under WITNESSES it said Midwife or Medical attendant: Miss Rebecca Finlay. Other witnesses to birth: Mrs Lillian Burnside; and then there was just the Registrar’s signature and the date.

  Father unknown.

  Charles Wild was not Maureen’s biological father and Maureen knew he wasn’t but had led Keira to believe he was. She had been lying.

  *

  The next day, after art school, Keira was sitting in the Forth and Clyde at a wooden bench and table near the window, clinking the ice cubes in her lemon squash and checking out possible candidates. On the phone she had forgotten to describe herself and didn’t know what Seamus Mike looked like, either. The pub was noisy with groups of people chatting and laughing.

  The afternoon’s developing and printing in the darkroom had made Keira thirsty; her drink was half gone by the time an old guy with thick, curly salt-and-pepper hair and dressed in blue walked in by himself and quickly scanned the room. His glance stopped immediately at her. He walked straight over, only pausing to allow a long-haired blond couple wearing identical jeans and orange T-shirts to pass on their way to the bar, and held out his hand.

  ‘Keira,’ and it was not a question, ‘Seamus Mike. How d’you do?’

  ‘Hi, how do you do?’ Keira’s hand was tiny compared to his and his strong, warm grip gave her a good feeling. His grin revealed white teeth contrasting with a tanned, weathered complexion, the deep laugh lines at the corners of his pale blue eyes less like spiderwebs than like shards of shattered glass. What a great face to photograph, thought Keira, a cross between Samuel Beckett and a Viking.

  Keira indicated the opposite bench. ‘Please, sit down.’

  ‘You’ll be wanting another drink first.’ He indicated her drink with a nod of his head. ‘That’s lemon squash is it, in case you want your wits about you to deal with some sort of maniac?’

  ‘I’ll have a Riesling this time, please.’

  ‘Ah, it’s the right impression I’ve made – good!’ His eyes sparkled like Sydney Harbour water on a bright summer’s day and off he went to the bar.

  Seamus came back and put a drink in front of her. He’d got a schooner of beer for himself and poured a foil packet of mixed nuts into a wooden bowl.

  ‘Thank you so much for agreeing to see me, Mr – ’

  Seamus shook his head vigorously. ‘Call me Seamus.’

  Keira smiled. ‘Seamus. When I spoke to your son he said you were house-minding. Are the people who own the house gone for long?’

  ‘It’s a year they’ll be gone. It’s more a boat-minding I’m doing. My old friend Mick Banks and his wife Naomi. They’ve a house down the hill,’ he indicated with his head, ‘near Peacock Park, and a boatshed.’

  She sipped her wine, condensation already forming on the cold glass.

  Seamus paused for a sip of beer. ‘I took up their offer because my wife died ten months ago and I was at a loss …’

  ‘My condolences.’

  His eyes were shiny. ‘She had a good innings. The kids …’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Six: Bernadette, Pierce, Maurice, Thomas – he it was you talked to on the telephone – Carmel and Anne. A change of place and working with boats … It’s been good. Nothing like physical work to ease the ache of a heart. You sleep well at night, too.’

  ‘What work did you do before you retired?’

  ‘Boat building. Not a good living but a good life. It’s a much better life than fishing, I can tell you that.’

  ‘You were a fisherman before?’ Keira nibbled a cashew.

  ‘I was. A lifetime ago, back on the Blaskets.’

  Keira’s heart jumped. ‘The Blaskets?’

  ‘The same. An’ that’s the connection between your grandmother and me. We both emigrated at the same time. It was usual then for the young ones to leave because the island didn’t give a good living anymore. I’d a couple of half brothers and they went to America: the next parish west! It’s there that they have houses so high they scratch the sky, they told us. They came back, though, my brothers, along with some others. The food disagreed with them, they said, and there was too much hard work for not enough gain. That was what first put me in mind of going to Canada or Australia instead.’

  ‘I’d love to hear about the Great Blasket, Seamus, such an amazing place to grow up on.’

  He nodded and looked a little sad. ‘It was there that we came from, but only the birds and beasts do live there now.’


  Keira nodded. ‘The last people left in … 1953, wasn’t it?’

  ‘It was.’

  ‘What was it like living there?’

  ‘It was grand.’ He drank his beer. ‘It was every day cutting the turf and fishing the sea. Hard work, yes, but we’d our own food, our own clothes, we’d the pick o’ the strand and the hunt o’ the hill.’

  ‘Why did people go there in the first place?’

  ‘Because of the famine. And English landlords evicted Irish tenants from their farms because sheep yielded bigger profits than tenants.’ He shook his head.

  Seamus continued. ‘Did y’know that Queen Victoria once wrote a cheque for ten pounds to the Battersea Dogs’ Home and then a five pound cheque for the suffering Irish?’

  He nodded grimly at her appalled expression, his wrinkles deepening, and continued: ‘Island life bred resourcefulness and toughness. Deirdre was as tough as anyone and worked as hard as anyone, but she also had the power to create. Even as a girl her charcoal sketches were a wonder. She’d do them on the back of a calendar or something, of things like a gannet diving for fish, or seals sunning themselves on the rocks, and of people – her dad’s face in the firelight or her brothers on the beach.’

  He paused to drink. ‘’Tis no wonder she settled in Clovelly. She was used to the sea all around her and, like me, she had grown up with the cycles of day and night, birth and death, and season following season. O’Mara means coming from the sea, y’know.’

  Keira didn’t want to treat him like a walking encyclopedia of her topic. She said, ‘Can you tell me about your own family history, Seamus?’

  ‘Oh, if it’s family history you’re after, you don’t know what to believe. I’m seventy-four and I don’t believe half o’ my own history, it’s so remarkable.’ He laughed and she joined him. ‘An’ o’ course it intersects with your grandmother’s.’

  Keira felt a surge of anticipation rising within her.

  ‘Well, now, m’ mother’s people were stonemasons. She’d a brother who’d set up in Tralee, and her sisters were in Dingle, along with their parents. Like Deirdre, I had one foot on the island and one foot on the mainland. That’s because when I was five and m’ mother died, m’ father sent me to live with m’ grandparents in Dingle. I stayed there, going to school every weekday and to Mass every Sunday until I was twelve and m’ father wanted me back. But after that, I still went to Dingle sometimes to visit m’ grandparents.