by Tyler, Anne
John wanted time to write or time to serve drink, he couldn’t switch from one mode to another like lightning. Like Kate. He couldn’t switch toward the children like she could as well. Either they were good or they weren’t. He wasn’t able to see the swift changes of mood like Kate was. He would not be cross and then smile minutes later. If he was cross he was very cross indeed. It was rare but it was all-embracing when it happened. One of Daddy’s great angers was remembered long, whereas Mammy had a dozen quick and easily forgotten angers in a week.
John sighed again at his wife’s swiftness and the annoyance at having to leave his work, his real work, just at that time. He knew that in this pub fate had handed him something that many a man in Ireland would envy mightily. It didn’t bring in enough money for them to employ another pair of hands, but it wasn’t so slack that a man could sit at the counter and write undisturbed. John Ryan hadn’t brought his paper and pencils with him, any more than his thoughts. If customers saw you with paper and pencil they thought you were doing the accounts and making a small fortune. Anyway, what would have been the point? There was Jack Coyne from the garage who had just sold a heap of rusty metal to some unsuspecting farmer and they were in to seal the bargain with a pint.
Jack Coyne had a face like a ferret and two sharp eyes looking around him for a bargain or a business deal. He was a small wiry man equally at home underneath a car, covered in grease and shouting out about the extent of the repairs, or in a suit showing off his newly acquired vehicles which was what he called his second-hand stock. Everything about him seemed to be moving, he never stood still; even now at the bar he was shifting, moving from foot to foot.
“Great day, John,” said Jack Coyne.
“It’s been a great day all the time,” said John, preparing to pull the pints.
“Bad for the crops,” the farmer said.
“When were you lot ever pleased with the weather?” Jack Coyne laughed, the happy sound of a man who could sell second-hand cars no matter what the weather did.
The children of Mountfern had a place to play like no other children in the land. It was Fernscourt, the ruined house on the bank of the River Fern. It had been burned down one day forty years ago in 1922 during the Troubles. The Fern family had not been there on the day of the fire, they had been gone for many months before.
The children often asked their grandfathers about the fire but found a strange lapse of memory. The passions that had run so high in those years had settled down as time went by. The Ferns and all they symbolized had been forgotten. Their house stood as a beautiful ruin, where once it had stood as a beautiful big empty shell anyway. Now as a place to spend the long summer days it was quite simply perfect.
The orchards that the Ferns had asked their gardeners to plant all those years ago still grew wild and plentiful. The apple trees didn’t know that the Ferns had gone. Their old gnarled branches bent to the ground, sometimes making even more places for the children to play.
There was thick trailing ivy everywhere over the walls that remained of the house. The outhouses which had once been the stableyard had survived better than the main house. Here there were still rooms with roofs to run through, here there were limestone arches and well-made stone walls. In the days when Fernscourt had been built people saw the stables as being very important; guests would expect them to be of the same high standard as the rest of the house.
As Kate Ryan marched through the laurels that grew wild now on each side of the path up from the river she could hear the cries and the laughter. She thought back on her own childhood in a small silent house in Dublin, her mother always an invalid. She had not had brothers and sisters to play with; friends were frowned on and kept well away from the home.
These children had a wild, free life by comparison.
Fernscourt belonged to the group that were here today. Those who were the right age for it. It had always been like that. You were too young if you were Eddie and Declan’s age, you were hunted away and sent about your business, which was anywhere but here. Then the older boys and girls went to the bridge and showed off to each other. Where boys dived from the ledge to oohs and ahhs, where girls were sometimes pushed in horseplay and had to climb up the bank with wet dresses clinging.
But if you were in Fernscourt, no other world existed. It had been a fine summer and as soon as any work that had to be done in the various homes in Mountfern was finished they gathered, coming in dribs and drabs across the fields, up the River Road and across the footbridge in front of Ryan’s, or some of them braving the brambles and briars on the towpath at the other side of the river, a disused way that saw no traffic these days.
Fernscourt belonged to all the children but it was Dara and Michael’s special home. The twins had their own place, a pretend-house. They played there even when none of the others came up to join them. They had an old table and two broken stools from the bar. There was cutlery too, a twisted fork and a rusty knife, and some chipped plates. These were for private feasts. Ever since they had been old enough to go across to Fernscourt alone the twins had said that this is where they would live when they were grown up.
It would be nice and near home, they said reassuringly, but it would be theirs. They would buy the whole place and have a boat and go everywhere by river instead of by road.
It would be their palace, their castle, their home.
It was because they lived so close to the place, because they could see it from their windows over the pub, and they could go there every day winter and summer, that they felt it was their own.
But of course they didn’t want to own it exclusively. Fernscourt was also for everyone, particularly during the long summer holidays when no day was long enough for the games they all played there.
There was no form to the games, but the huge mossy stones, the crumbling walls, the great fronts of ivy hanging down like curtains, and the window and doorway gaps in half-standing walls meant there were plenty of places to climb, to perch, to jump, to sit and giggle.
The girls had made a makeshift home in the old clock tower which still stood in the stableyard, though the clock and dome were long gone. The boys would use the long shallow steps that were now almost indistinguishable as steps, so overgrown with weeds and moss had they become, and arrange a jumping competition that was a cross between a long jump and a chicken run. They would all gather to see who could jump down the greatest number of steps; it was the sissy who would opt out of the jump that seemed likely to break a limb.
Yet they had ways out of being a softy. It was always time to go home or to milk the cows or to go for a swim. The boys of Mountfern had no death wish as they played in their own magnificent ruined house.
Kate saw that some of the children were already heading for home where they would be ill-received because of the need to smarten up for the concert. She saw Tommy Leonard racing down to the towpath—it would be a bit quicker that way for him. Leonard’s paper shop was near the big bridge, he would do the distance faster than by crossing over to the River Road where there was a proper surface to walk on. At Tommy’s age children didn’t mind having half their clothes and even bits of their arms torn and scratched by the thorny branches, Kate thought in wonder. Little Maggie Daly, who was Dara’s great friend, was heading toward the laurels and Kate.
“Just running, Mrs. Ryan,” Maggie said, knowing well that the twins’ mother was not coming to pay a social call. “I think Dara and Michael are just finishing up now.”
“I’m sure they are.” Kate was grim. Maggie Daly had big anxious eyes; she always looked startled by the most ordinary things. She was terrified of Leopold, the pub’s big harmless dog. When poor Leopold stretched his misshapen body in the sun, little Maggie Daly would look at him fearfully as if he were about to go for her throat.
And Maggie’s older sister Kitty, who was nearly grown up enough for the crowd on the bridge, was sauntering down the laurel path too. Kitty was too mature to scuttle; she was being bored this summer, bore
d by Fernscourt and the games they played, bored by having to go home and dress up for the concert. Bored by being neither one thing nor the other. Neither a real person of fifteen who could have a smart red bathing costume and be able to sit on the raft having a crowd laughing and admiring; too old to find fun every day climbing up to an old room in a ruined clock tower, or squeezing through the chinks in the mossy walls. Kitty Daly sighed heavily as she passed Kate Ryan.
“I suppose you’re coming to beat their heads in,” she said as if this was the usual practice of elderly parents when they arrived in Fernscourt.
“Not at all,” Kate said brightly, “I came to wonder was there anything they’d like, afternoon tea on a tray maybe, I’d be delighted to … my beloved twins …”
Kitty moved on hastily.
Dara and Michael had taken after their mother. No sandy brows like John Ryan—those only seemed to come out in Eddie. They were thin and wiry too, but of course their father had been as a boy. But Kate realized that in their strong dark good looks they didn’t have the Ryan laugh lines either, the face that always seemed to smile even when nobody was watching. All the Ryans looked like that—even the disapproving old mother-in-law who hadn’t thought Kate a suitable wife for her favorite son, she had had a face that seemed to smile. Dara and Michael often looked solemn, their eyes big, dark, and too concentrated. Like her own. Whenever Kate saw a photograph of herself she would scream and say she looked like the hag of Bearra or an avenging angel. She always seemed to be burning with intensity rather than smiling at the camera.
Nobody else noticed it at all.
And everyone always said the twins were a handsome pair, particularly in the summertime when, tanned and eager in their shorts and colored shirts, they roamed the countryside far and wide and explored every corner of Mountfern and its environs.
Kate wondered briskly how they would accept the blame today. They should have been home a good half hour ago to get smartened up for the school concert. She was annoyed but she would try not to show it, otherwise they would be mutinous about the washing and brushing and maybe less sure in their party pieces. Dara had a poem in Irish to recite and Michael with the boys from the brothers would be singing Moore’s melodies.
Young Miss Lynch up at the school had been so enthusiastic and given so much of her free time to organizing it that everyone in Mountfern had been drawn into the whole thing unwillingly. Normally the convent and the brothers had few joint undertakings but old Canon Moran thought it seemed a much better notion to have one concert rather than two, and everyone agreed with him, so Nora Lynch had won the day; it was being held in the church hall and all participants had to be there in their finery at five o’clock. The concert began at six o’clock sharp and promised to be finished by eight.
Kate was nearly at the house now. In the old days it must have been an impressive place: three stories tall but with high, high ceilings, big rooms, and tall windows. The Fern family who had lived here, different generations of them for over a century, surely loved this home. Kate wondered if any of them had ever paused in their gracious way of life to imagine that one day it would be a ruin played in by all the children of the village who would never have gotten inside the walls except to carry scuttles of coal or great jugs of water in the old days.
The children had all scattered. Only her own two were inside. What could they be doing that made them stay when all the others had gone? A wave of annoyance came over Kate at their disregard for any kind of order in life. She pushed through the hanging wall of ivy and saw them: sitting on a great fallen pillar and looking ahead of them through the gaps in the wall.
They looked at something in the distance with a caution that was more like fear than anything else.
Below them two men with instruments mounted on tripods peered and wrote notes in their pads. Then they would replace the tripods and start again.
Kate came up behind the twins.
“What are they?” Michael asked in a whisper.
“They’re called theodolites,” Kate said. “I know that word, it’s always very useful in crosswords.”
“What do they do?” Dara wanted to know.
“It’s a sort of survey, you know, getting levels. I’m not totally sure, to be honest.”
“They shouldn’t be here, the theodalists,” Michael said, face red with upset. “Tell them it’s private land. Go on Mam, tell them to go away.”
“No, the things are called theodolites, not the people. The men are surveyors, I suppose. Anyway it isn’t private land. If it was we couldn’t be here.”
“Could you ask them … like will they be coming back again or is it only today that they’re doing their photographing or whatever? You could ask them, Mam,” Dara pleaded. “You’re good at asking people awkward things. Please.”
“I have one awkward thing to ask at the moment and it’s this: Why, when I gave you my good alarm clock and the strictest instructions to be back home at four o’clock, why is it half-past four and we’re all here? That’s the awkward question I’m asking today, and I want an answer to it.”
The twins seemed not to hear the rising impatience in her tone; they barely heeded her.
“We didn’t really play at all, we’ve been wondering what …” Dara said.
“And hoping that they’d go away …” Michael finished for her. They often finished each other’s sentences.
“And not understanding it one bit …”
“And not liking it one bit …”
Kate took them by the shoulders and marched them back for the alarm clock and their uneaten lunches, then headed for the footbridge. There seemed to be a commotion on the other side. Eddie and Declan were lying on the edge of the water trying to reach something that was floating downstream on a piece of plywood.
Carrie, the new maid, was standing twisting her hands helplessly as the boys screamed, and Kate realized that Maurice the tortoise was heading off into the unknown.
“Get the garden rake, and the big broom,” she shouted. Michael and Dara raced across to find them, delighted to be released from the pinching grip and abuse Eddie, who was eight, was scarlet with the knowledge that he would get the blame; Declan was only six and the baby—he got off with everything.
Kate maneuvered the tortoise ashore and with a face like thunder brought it back to its original home in the mudroom. Watched by the four children and the terrified Carrie, she dried the animal with a clean towel and put it in a bed of hay. With a voice that was going to take no argument, she said that she would very much like to see Carrie at the kitchen sink washing the faces and hands of Eddie and Declan. She would like to see Michael and Dara in the bathroom and emerging in five minutes with necks, ears and knees all shining. She mentioned knees, ears and necks only because particular attention would be paid to those parts, but the rest was to be spotless too. A great deal of heavy scrubbing took place, and after inspection Dara and Michael were allowed to head off toward the hall. An unusually silent Eddie and Declan sat waiting sentence from their mother. They didn’t know whether they were going to be barred from the concert … which mightn’t be a bad thing. Or if there might be a slapping of the legs administered. The slapping wasn’t too likely; if it was coming at all it would have been done at the time.
They were unprepared for the severity of it.
“That is no longer your tortoise, Edward and Declan. That is now my tortoise. Do you understand?”
Things were bad when Eddie was called Edward.
“But do you mean …”
“Yes, he’s mine now. And I can do what I like with him. I can bring him back to the pet shop where I so stupidly bought him, thinking you were the kind of children who could love a pet. Or I could eat him. I could ask Carrie to serve him for lunch tomorrow.”
They were aghast.
“Well, why not?” she continued airily. “You tried to drown Maurice, why don’t I try to roast him? It’s a hard old life being a tortoise.”
Eddie’s eyes
filled with tears. “Ma, we weren’t trying to drown him. It was to see if he could swim, and when he didn’t seem to be managing it too well we got him a raft, then it floated off.”
“Thank you, Edward. You are telling me it was just a careless accident, is that it?”
“Well, yes?” Eddie thought salvation lay this way but he wasn’t totally sure.
“Right, well now that he’s mine other careless accidents could happen. I could let him fall into the oven or something. Still, that is none of your business now. You are forbidden to go near him in the mudroom or near the stove or wherever else he happens to be.”
Declan let out a roar. “Mammy, you wouldn’t burn Maurice. Please don’t burn my tortoise.”
“It’s mine,” Kate said.
“You’re not allowed to kill things,” Eddie raged. “I’ll tell the guards. I’ll tell Sergeant Sheehan.”
“Certainly do, and I’ll tell him about the drowning.”
There was a silence.
“Don’t be stupid,” Kate said. “I’m not going to hurt Maurice, but he is mine, you know, so you can’t play with him anymore. And no ice creams in Daly’s tonight after the concert.”
It was bad but it was better than what might have been. They accepted it.
“Come on, Carrie,” Kate said, suddenly pitying the seventeen-year-old spending her first Saturday night away from home. “Tidy up your hair a bit and we’re off.”
“Am I to come with you?” Carrie’s face lit up.
“Of course you are. Did you think we’d leave you here on your own?” Kate had only just thought of it, looking at the stricken face of the girl as she had listened to the possible future of the tortoise.
“You’re a real gentleman, Mam,” said Carrie, and ran to put on a clean blouse and fix two new barrettes in her hair.
Canon Moran was small and fussy, a kind man with pale blue eyes that didn’t see very far or very much. He believed that basically most people were very good. This made him a nice change from many other parish priests in the country who believed that most people were intrinsically evil. The word went around for young curates that Mountfern would be a great posting altogether. And the young priest Father Hogan knew he was indeed a lucky man. Once Canon Moran had a nice big chair for the concert and a little footstool because he sometimes got a cramp, then he would be happy. He would clap every item enthusiastically, he would praise all the brothers and the nuns by name, he would know that old Mr. Slattery the solicitor had made a contribution so that they could have proper curtains instead of the desperate old screens they used to make do with before. The canon would thank him briefly because that was all the Slatterys would need, but he would dwell longer on the generosity of Daly’s Dairy in providing the cakes for the tea at eight o’clock, and the excellence of the programs printed free thanks to Leonard’s the stationers. The canon began confessions on a Saturday at five, and he would make sure that they were all well completed in time for the concert. Father Hogan knew that Canon Moran believed a kind word of encouragement and a pious hope that things would be better soon helped a lot of his parishioners. And they felt sure, because of his pale dreamy blue eyes, that he was also somehow deaf and wouldn’t recognize the voices that whispered their sins.
