Daedio pulled the pipe from his mouth, held it in mid air and looked at her as though she’d spoken in a different language. ‘Now what would you be talking like that for? Of course you will! What a notion. Bee has a nature for Tarabeg, she’s not one for staying away in Liverpool for long. As God is my judge, she’ll be back here soon. ’Tis time.’
‘Your father is right, Mary Kate,’ said Nola. ‘I have a great affection for Bee, so I do, but Michael is right on this. Take no notice of Daedio. Bee has made her bed and she’s lying in it. I can’t see her coming back here. God in heaven, what would she be wanting to do that for, with the life she’s been living in Liverpool, graced with all the mod-cons and gadgets I cannot for the life of me even pronounce let alone use.’ Nola slammed the door of the range shut and wiped her face with the towel she kept tucked into her belt.
Mary Kate sighed. She was sad that among these people she loved so much there was so little acceptance of Bee and Captain Bob, even after all these years. ‘No wonder people move away,’ she muttered as she rose and placed the book on the shelf at the side of the fireplace.
She didn’t care what people said; she didn’t care how Bee and Captain Bob lived. Bee was her link to her mother. They were connected by the invisible bonds of family, and however stretched those were, they still pulled at her every day. By whatever means she could, she would get to Liverpool. Daedio and Granny Nola had been her last hope. She had waited for someone to take her side, understand her need and fight her corner, but no one had. It seemed that her position had been decided on, determined long ago in accordance with the acceptable roles open to a woman in Tarabeg. As long as she had a roof over her head and could contribute to placing food on the table, that would be her lot, until someone took a shine to her and offered to marry her, whereupon the cycle would continue.
The light had faded, and Seamus arrived at the door to take her back down to the village. ‘Are you ready, miss? I’ll see you out in the old house – Pete’s getting the horse ready.’
As Mary Kate passed the end of Daedio’s bed, he grabbed her hand. His eyes locked onto hers, and her back prickled with fear. Those eyes bore right into her soul; they were perceptive and wise, and they knew.
‘Seamus, here, take these scones to Pete,’ Nola said. But he was gone. ‘Oh for the patience of all the saints.’ Nola sighed, wrapped the scones in a tea towel and shuffled out of the door after Seamus.
Daedio and Mary Kate were alone.
‘Come here,’ said Daedio, glancing behind him to check that Nola was clear of the cottage.
Mary Kate sat back down next to him, and from under his pillow he pulled out a roll of notes, which she immediately recognised as dollars. There were so many sent from families across the Atlantic, they were taken as currency in the shop and converted by Mrs Doyle in the post office.
‘What’s that?’ she asked, even though she knew.
‘It’s from the money my brother Joe sent, long, long before you were born. See up there…?’ Daedio nodded at his cedar box on the top of the press. ‘That will be yours one day, and all that is in it. And that’s not all, Mary Kate. There is a secret in this family. One day your father will tell you where this money came from, but there is more, and your Great-Granny Annie, she knew what she was doing when she decided to keep it warm. Can you remember that? There is plenty more where this came from, from where Great-Granny Annie kept it warm.’
He pressed the dollars into Mary Kate’s hand and folded her fingers over it. His eyes shifted to the stone above the fireplace, which he’d managed to push just far enough back into place so that anyone looking would be curious enough to look further. He would have given it all to Mary Kate, every dollar, there and then, but that was for Michael to decide.
Joe had left for America to become a builder and had chosen the path of bank robber. Some seventy years ago, a letter from a New York solicitor had informed Daedio that Joe was serving his time in jail; a crate of dollars was delivered to Tarabeg and Daedio had kept the money hidden ever since. It was a long time before Daedio and Annie heard that Joe had died in jail, and during all those years it was as if the money had glowed from beneath the limewashed wall as the two of them sat in front of the fire.
‘You’re going, aren’t you?’ he said. The light had left his eyes, replaced by tears. ‘I’ve seen enough run from Tarabeg, off to Liverpool or America, to know that look when I see it. All my family went, every last one. All my precious grandchildren followed them, except Michael.’
Mary Kate bowed her head and kept her own eyes on her clasped hands.
‘Here, put that in your pocket before that witch of my daughter-in-law comes back in.’
She smiled and did as she was told.
‘Promise me one thing, before ye go,’ he said, and now there were tears in her own eyes. ‘Remember every word of what I have just told you, and come back as soon as you can. This hill, it is yours. If you don’t ever come home—’
Mary Kate made to object, but Daedio raised his hand.
‘Stop. Everyone leaves here with the promises of how quickly they’ll return falling from their lips, and hardly anyone does. Imagine the amount of tears that have fallen on foreign soil. ’Tis one thing to make your fortune, another altogether to be trapped and unable to return. But you aren’t in that position, you have something to return for, more than you can ever earn. For you, ’tis different. Go for the adventure, not for the money.’ He tapped her pocket with his hand. ‘Keep yourself safe and if I am gone before you do return, remember this: your Great-Granny Annie, she is looking over you. She’s standing right next to us now – aren’t you, Annie?’ He looked up to his side and smiled.
Mary Kate stared at where he was smiling but saw nothing.
‘When I’ve passed, and it will be soon, there will be two of us looking out for you. You might think I’m gone, but I won’t be. I won’t rest until I know you are safely returned, back up on this hill.’
Mary Kate took a deep breath. The thought of Daedio dying had never entered her mind and she wasn’t going to let it do so now. ‘Daedio, everyone says that no one dies in Tarabeg – even though Mammy and Annie did.’
‘Come here.’
She leant into his chest and he folded his arms about her.
‘Bad things did happen here – we let our guard down – but you’re right, we are blessed.’ He held her away from him. ‘They say ’tis the purity of the water and the goodness in the hearts, but I will go and join Annie one day. Just you remember everything I told you, and if you can’t get back for the funeral, come and see me in the churchyard. I’ll be waiting for you. And give Bee my best. Tell her I miss her.’
Mary Kate’s head shot up. ‘How did you know?’ she whispered.
‘Mary Kate, come on!’ Seamus shouted from the yard. ‘The horse is ready and growing impatient. His harness is on.’
Daedio smiled. ‘Annie knows everything. She just told me. I said didn’t I, she’s watching over you.’
Mary Kate stood and smoothed down her skirt. Her pulse was racing, her mouth was dry and her eyes were full of questions.
‘No,’ he said, ‘don’t you be worrying, I won’t be breathing a word to anyone. God knows, I have counted the days you have been in school until the holidays came. You light up this place and the thought of you going away is a hard one, but I will bear it. Now run, don’t you forget anything I said. Run, before that mad horse and cart takes off without you.’
*
Hours later, she lay in bed, fully dressed, the covers up to her neck, her heart pounding. She took in the night sounds of the village, isolated them one by one, committed them to memory and packed each one away in her heart. She listened to the rush of the river her da and Tig and Father Jerry poached in, flowing across the seven acres. There was no one poaching tonight, luckily – that would have thwarted her plans, and Declan might have panicked and gone without her. The owl hooted, and she wondered, was it the same owl from when she was a child, when
she used to lie in that same bed listening to her mother and father chatting in the kitchen below, or was it an offspring. It hooted again. ‘I hear you,’ she whispered, ‘I’m coming.’ The cow snorted in the byre below her window, she would be lying on the straw, the dogs sleeping at her side with one ear pricked, alert. A fox scurried across the yard and the dogs emitted a low warning growl.
Then she heard the car.
‘God give me time. Wait for me,’ she prayed, knowing he would. She had already stashed her belongings in the boot of his car, so that he couldn’t panic at the last moment and drive off without her.
She swung her legs out of the bed and laid the letter to her father against her washstand; the ink on the buff envelope dark in the moonlight. She opened the drawer on the nightstand and took out the box her father had given her when her mother died. Opening the lid, she felt the familiar sadness as she peered at the emerald heart pendant her mother had always worn. She wondered whether she should take it, but there was no time to ponder; snapping the lid shut, she returned it to its place and slid the drawer shut. She picked up her brown leather shoes, laces open and dangling, scuffed from scrambling up the hill to Tarabeg Farm.
Out on the landing, she could hear the rumble of her father’s porter-induced snores; another sound to pack away. She looked towards his room and the closed door, and another time, another life, flashed into her head: the door open, candlelight flooding out onto the landing, a broken teapot on the floor, pottery smashed. It wasn’t a snore she’d heard then, but her father’s wails of grief as her mother lay dying on her bed. Now, as then, Mary Kate’s heart froze, every part of her paralysed in terror. The past could not be repaired, could not be forgotten; it was always there and she felt now, as she always had, that in Tarabeg the death of her mother defined her life, her days, her nights, her fears.
She turned and tiptoed along the landing, stopping only at Finn’s room. His door was open, as always, and he lay on his side, facing her, his eyes closed, his thumb in his mouth, his hair shining in the moonlight streaming in through the window. She felt the stab in her heart. Would he ever forgive her? Would he ever adore her again? She tiptoed over and planted a kiss on his head as she stroked his hair. She placed a second note on his pillow. Her mother’s face was in his. The feel of his hair was her father’s. The same colour, the same smell. She filled her nostrils with the memory of Finn as, in the distance, from across the bridge, she heard a car engine ticking over, counting down the moments, waiting.
She took the stairs one at a time, missing the ones that creaked, grabbed some ham from the press, opened the back door and threw it over the byre. The dogs knew it was her and had not let her down; the ham was to distract them. Jacko the donkey let out a snort. He had been part of the family before she had even been born. Bending down, she kissed his nose and rubbed her fingers along the coarse hair between his eyes. ‘It’s just like school – I’ll be back. One day,’ she whispered. Bid, her one-eyed dog (the other eye having been lost in a fight), came over and licked her hand, a thank you for the ham. ‘Thank you for not barking,’ she mumbled as she slipped on her shoes and, crouching, tied the laces. The dogs nuzzled her hair and licked her face, and it was these last private moments with the animals that broke her defences. The tears flowed. ‘Stop,’ she said to herself as she dashed them away with the back of her hand. The dogs, sensing her unhappiness, nuzzled closer, Bid resting his chin on her lap, the bitch licking her face and whimpering.
She rose, smoothed down her skirts and took one last look at the house. In the bedroom window she saw her mother, Sarah, one hand each side of the frame, looking down at her, and a gasp caught in her throat. ‘Mammy!’ She blinked away the tears, but her mammy was gone. It had only been her mind playing tricks.
She lifted the latch, with almost no noise, and fled.
Declan almost jumped out of his skin as she yanked open the car door. He was fearful and anxious. ‘I was counting down in my head – you had twenty-two second left,’ he said.
‘Declan Feenan, you should have been a comedian,’ she said as she wriggled into the seat. ‘You have my life in the boot of your car – everything I own, my money and all. You were going nowhere.’
Despite his nervousness, Declan released the handbrake and eased the car back onto the road from the cutaway at the bottom of the bridge. She was right, he would probably have sat there all night and waited for her. ‘Maybe not, but, God in heaven, this is the scariest thing I have ever done in me life.’ He leant forward and wiped the misted windscreen with the sleeve of his jacket.
‘It was easier than I thought,’ said Mary Kate. ‘Even the dogs behaved, for a bit of rasher.’
Declan pointed into the footwell in front of her seat. ‘There’s a thermos of tea in the bag there, and some sandwiches I made up. It’s a long drive we have. I’m not dropping you at the train in Galway, I’m taking you all the way to Dublin, for the boat. At least that way I’ll know you’re safely away, given as I’m your partner in crime.’
Mary Kate’s mouth fell open. Leaning across the seat, she planted her lips on the side of his cheek and threw her arms around his neck. ‘Declan Feenan, you are a saint of a man.’
He grinned and blushed in the dark, delighted at her response. ‘God, you are a bold woman, so you are. I hope you keep that under control in Liverpool or you’ll be landing yourself in trouble. Did anyone see you?’
‘No.’ Mary Kate swivelled around in her seat and looked back at Tarabeg receding in the moonlight. ‘No one saw me.’ The haunting eyes of Jacko, old and wise, the feel of the dogs’ fur, the smell of Finn and the sight of her mother at the window, those things would not leave her; they would be the memories that would one day pull her back. ‘Not a living human soul,’ she said and she continued to lean on her arms and stare as one familiar landmark after another disappeared from view.
*
Rosie had slept fitfully, waiting for what she had been anticipating and had finally heard. As the latch of the back door dropped, she crept from the bed and padded across the floorboards in her bare feet to their bedroom window. From there she could see up onto the bridge and she caught sight of Declan’s car as it slipped away down the Ballina road. She shivered. It was a warm night and yet, as so often, their room felt inexplicably cold. She looked down at Michael. He was sleeping peacefully, blissfully unaware, and she wondered, should she wake him? He would give chase in their car, which was a considerably bigger and grander model than Declan’s. He would no doubt catch them and bring Mary Kate back.
She turned to the window again and drew the curtain further back with one hand, allowing the moonlight in. ‘Declan, well I never, you dark horse,’ she whispered.
Her breath clouded the glass and she lifted her finger and drew the outline of a heart on the surface. As she did so, she remembered Sarah’s emerald heart and wondered if Mary Kate had taken it with her. She hesitated. One shake of Michael’s shoulder, one word in his ear, that was all it would take. She stood rooted to the spot as the cold ran up her legs and the sound of the car engine faded into the distance.
By the time it had vanished entirely and there was silence once more, it was as if nothing had happened. She stepped back, allowed the curtain to drop into place, then returned to their bed and pulled the blanket up to her chin. She stared at the ceiling as her husband’s chest rose and fell in harmony with his snoring.
‘Good luck, Mary Kate,’ she whispered.
She thought of her futile years of thankfulness. Of her time spent loving Michael, waiting for him to return from the war; watching him with Sarah, marrying Sarah and losing Sarah; waiting for her turn. She wouldn’t wish that on anyone. If only Mary Kate had confided in her, she would have been on her side. She would have pushed Michael to let her apply for university in Dublin, never guessing it was the last thing Mary Kate wanted.
She closed her eyes and knew there would be no more sleep tonight. She would wait for Michael to wake. She wondered how she would deal wi
th the fallout once he knew his precious daughter had run away; his Sarah lookalike, his Mary Kate.
*
Bridget McAndrew heard a car in the distance, but was too distracted by her own thoughts to wonder who it was as she sat by the side of her bed and reread the letter she had taken from Daedio. He had not wanted it left at the farm in case Nola should find it. She had no need to look at Porick to check he was asleep; his snoring shook the heather roof, confirming she was safe to take the letter out of her pocket. Electricity had only been installed in the main streets in the village and they were still dependent upon the fire and candles for heat and light.
Daedio had asked her what he should do and for the first time in her life she had no idea. The letter was typed and she read it again.
A letter written by my great-grandfather while he was in jail has, after many years, been passed on to me, in accordance with the terms of his will. It would be too complicated to enter into the circumstances of the delay; however, my great-grandfather urges that I make contact with you, as he has sent something to you to be kept safe for me.
Joe Malone Junior
Daedio had opened up to Bridget some years ago about the money behind the fireplace and its provenance. ‘I bought the seven acres Michael’s shop is built on with it,’ he’d confessed. ‘I’ve bloody spent enough of the feckin’ money. How do I know it’s Joe’s great-grandson? It could be the great-grandson of someone he was in jail with. Joe never told me about any wife or littl’uns. If there had been some, he wouldn’t have sent the money all the way here in a wooden box, would he? I’m convinced it’s an imposter who knows where the money was sent. I think we are all in mighty danger. He’ll be coming after me with a gun. That’s what those American gangsters do.’
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