The Girl from Ballymor

by Kathleen McGurl

  I sail on Monday on the Victory, which is due to dock in Queenstown in mid-April. From there I shall travel to Cork city and onwards to Ballymor, to search for you.

  Why, you might ask, have I left it so long and not come to search for you before now? I have been easily able to afford such travel for some years, as you know, if you have received and read my letters. But the truth is, there were other things detaining me in New York. I wrote to you of Eleanor, of course, my love, my wife. I was reluctant to uproot her from her family and sisters. I know only too well what it is to be alone in the world without parents or siblings around and I did not want to inflict that on her. So forgive me, dear Mammy, for staying in New York, in my comfortable easy life, with my wife and her family, and with my ever-increasing income from my art.

  Dearest Eleanor succumbed six weeks ago to the consumption that had plagued her for years. My heart was broken, but I was thankful she should suffer no longer, and that we had no children to grieve for their mother. Eleanor’s parents and sisters have each other, but without her here I feel life in New York to be empty and worthless. My parents-in-law understand this, and have given me their blessing to return to the country of my birth to seek my own mother.

  And now I find myself just days away from sailing. I have given up the lease on my apartment, put my furniture into storage, cancelled my outstanding commissions and completed any that I had already begun. My affairs on this side of the Atlantic are in order, and I can spend as long as it takes to find you, in Ireland. Or, find what has become of you.

  God willing, I shall be with you in just a few short weeks.

  Your loving son,

  Michael

  ‘Land ahoy!’

  Michael was on deck when the cry went up, confirming that after several weeks at sea the south-west tip of Ireland, Mizen Head, was finally visible. The mood among the passengers changed instantly, from morose boredom to one of excitement and expectation. There was still some way to go as the ship passed by the treacherous rocky coastline of the south of Ireland. But finally the captain changed course to head towards land and navigated into Queenstown harbour, picking up a pilot en route and eventually docking alongside the quay.

  Michael felt a surge of elation as he set foot upon Irish soil for the first time for eleven years. So much had happened in that time. He had left Ireland a pauper and returned wealthy. He had married and been widowed. He had become a man. And now he was back again. The homeward crossing had been vastly more comfortable, in a first class cabin, than his journey westwards eleven years earlier. He sighed, smiled, and breathed in the sweet, fresh Cork air.

  The ship had docked late, so he stayed that night in the Queen’s Hotel, then took a coach to Cork city the following day. The city looked very different to the one he had left. Gone were the hordes of starving people in rags, congregating on street corners, despair in their eyes, waiting for the soup kitchens to open so that they might obtain a bowl of thin broth and stave off death for another day. Instead, the people looked well nourished, warmly dressed and were occupied with work. It was like Ireland before the famine, except, he knew from reading the newspapers, there were far fewer people living here than before.

  In Cork, he hired a pair of horses, a covered carriage and a driver. Once his luggage was on-board – so much more than he had left Ireland with! – he directed the man to drive him to Ballymor, with an extra shilling to be paid if he got there in under two hours. For now that his journey was nearly at an end, he found himself impatient to complete it, to be back in Ballymor and beginning the task of finding Kitty.

  As the carriage neared Ballymor, the gorse on either side of the road was in full bloom, its vivid sunshine yellow brightening the day and lifting his spirits. How had he stayed away so long? He should have brought Eleanor here. Maybe the mild climate of Ireland would have suited her better and cured her consumption. But she’d been American born, of English descent, and Ireland had held no appeal for her. It would never have worked. As the spire of Ballymor church came into view over the hill, Michael realised with a jolt the carriage was now on the piece of road he and Kitty had helped to build, back in those dark, hungry days. His stomach lurched with sudden nerves. What would he discover? What had happened to her? Why had he never received any letters?

  Michael’s first job on arriving in Ballymor was to find lodgings. O’Sullivan’s had rooms, and he supposed that although they were inferior to what he had more recently been used to, they were far above what he’d had when he left Ireland. So O’Sullivan’s it was, with the landlord (a new man, not the fellow he remembered from eleven years earlier) astounded that someone as rich and smartly dressed as Michael should want to stay in his humble inn.

  His second job was to call at the post office, where his worst fears were confirmed. Almost every letter he’d sent to Kitty was still there – a thick bundle tied up with twine. He flicked through, and found the very first two or three from 1849 were among them. Kitty had not collected a single letter.

  He paid the post office for their work in keeping them, shrugged off the sympathetic looks from the clerk, and tucked the bundle of letters into his coat pocket with shaking hands. All those letters, all his news, and Kitty had not heard any of it. She had not even heard that he had arrived safely in America. What had gone wrong? Why had she not collected them?

  The obvious reason was one he did not dare to dwell on, and refused to accept. But the church had to be his next port of call, even before he took the lonely walk out to Kildoolin. He remembered how so many who’d died during those black years had been buried unceremoniously, with no coffin and no marker, sometimes in mass graves on the edge of town. Please God don’t let Mammy be one of those poor people, he prayed, but in his heart he could not believe it. She would not have died of the hunger. She had survived that terrible winter of 1846–7 when the little ones had died despite her efforts; he could not believe that she would have succumbed in the end to either starvation or disease. She was too tough, too resourceful. And she was his mother. She could not be gone.

  The priest, another man Michael did not recognise, had not heard of Kitty McCarthy.

  ‘Kildoolin? ’Tis nothing but ruins up there now. No one lives there, sure they don’t. Not for many years and, for certain, not since I’ve had the living here,’ he told Michael.

  That did not have to mean anything. He would not have expected her to go on living at Kildoolin, alone. Nevertheless, he would pay a visit there, in case there was something left in the old cottage that would provide him with a clue.

  The priest checked the burial records, but found no mention of Kitty McCarthy.

  ‘But that does not mean she did not die,’ he said, with compassion in his eyes. ‘You have been in America a long time. Perhaps you’re not after knowing how bad things were, at the height of the famine. So many died, so many poor souls, and not all of them had a proper funeral, God rest their souls.’

  ‘I know,’ Michael said. ‘I was here then. My own brothers and sisters were all lost, and were buried here. Not all had coffins.’ A sudden thought struck him. ‘I would like a headstone for them, even though I cannot be certain exactly where they are in the graveyard.’

  The priest nodded. ‘There are so many who died in those dark days that have no one remaining to remember them at all. It is good that you are left to remember your family. I can check the records to see where your brothers and sisters were buried, and I am sure we can make space for your memorial. I’ll send the stonemason to see you at O’Sullivan’s.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Michael spent a few moments in church, praying to a god he was no longer sure he believed in, a god who’d allowed so much suffering and death to occur in just a few short years. He should go to Kildoolin next, but, first, he was in need of some refreshment. A pint of Guinness, for the first time in eleven years, the first one since the pint Kitty had bought him on the day she gave him the ticket.

  CHAPTER 23

  Maria

  T
entatively, I placed a trembling hand on the bundle, on what I thought in the gloom might be Sammy’s shoulder, and I gently shook it. As I did so, the sun finally rose above the horizon and filled the ruined cottage with a golden light. A ray of sunshine now shone across the boy’s face, and I saw with immense relief that he was breathing, he had colour in his cheeks and he was merely sleeping.

  ‘Sammy? Come on now, wake up. I need to take you back to your mummy.’ I spoke gently, quietly, to wake him but not frighten him. I was worried too about the state of the broken wall he lay beneath. It was listing badly inwards and I knew that outside the stream was undercutting it severely.

  ‘Mmm?’ he said, lifting his head and looking at me with sleepy eyes. How he could have slept, in the cold and wet, lying on a pile of rubble I had no idea. But he obviously had slept, and deeply.

  ‘Come on, sweetie,’ I said. ‘We need to get you out of here. Are you hurt?’

  ‘Nnh-hn.’ He shook his head, and gazed at me with confusion in his eyes. I wondered if he recognised me at all.

  ‘Let’s get out of this cottage, hey? The sun’s just coming up over the hill. Want to see?’

  He nodded, and lifted his arms to me. I found myself gathering him up instinctively, my hands under his arms to lift him. He wrapped his legs around my waist and his arms around my neck. He was heavy, but perfectly manageable like this, and I carried him outside, breathing a sigh of relief when we were out of the danger of that cracked and leaning wall.

  The next door cottage was the one with a low, broken wall – the one where I’d seen Declan sit and where I too had sat yesterday, as I’d pondered Jackie’s email. I placed Sammy down upon it. Despite his night out he didn’t seem cold, or upset in any way. He was warmly dressed in joggers, a fleece and a waterproof coat and I supposed the remains of the cottage had offered him some shelter.

  ‘I need to make a phone call now, Sammy, and let your mummy and daddy know I’ve found you, OK?’

  He nodded, and I pulled out my phone. I didn’t have Sharon or Dave’s number so I called Aoife at the pub. She had the list of contact numbers that Paulie had compiled yesterday.

  ‘I’ve found him,’ I said, as soon as she picked up. ‘Little Sammy. He’s all right. I’m up at the abandoned village with him. We’ll start walking down, but can you contact his parents and maybe Dave can come up and meet us.’

  ‘Oh praise the Lord, that is fantastic news, so it is! The Gardaí have just arrived to start organising the search party. I’ll tell them now.’

  I listened as she announced the news, and heard whoops and cheers. Obviously the whole town had gathered at the pub already to start the search.

  ‘They said to stay where you are – they’ll pick up Dave and Sharon and come up to you. Oh, Maria, well done for finding him!’

  I hung up, and went to sit on the wall beside Sammy. I wished I’d brought some water and something for him to eat.

  ‘Your mummy and daddy will be here soon. They will be so pleased to see you again. What happened?’

  He shrugged. ‘We were walking in the fog, and Nathan said it was cloud come down to earth, and I said it wasn’t, and he ran ahead to ask Daddy if it was cloud or wasn’t, and I sat down to wait, but he didn’t come back and then I couldn’t see anyone.’

  ‘Must have been very frightening?’

  He shrugged again. ‘Nope. Was all right. I walked and walked through the heather and it was very scratchy and I fell over twice but I didn’t cry and then I found the little house and it wasn’t so rainy in there.’

  ‘Good idea to take shelter. Were you cold in the night?’

  ‘No. The lady put her arms round me to keep me warm.’

  ‘What lady?’ I noticed he was fiddling with something he’d pulled out of his pocket.

  ‘The lady what give me this.’ He held up the item in front of my face.

  ‘Can I see?’ He nodded and I took it from him. A blackened piece of twisted metal, a couple of inches across. I turned it over and realised it was a brooch, its pin broken off. It was in the shape of a Celtic knot. ‘Where did you get this?’

  ‘The lady give it to me,’ he said, again. ‘The lady what cuddled me in the night. I don’t want it, so you can keep it.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I felt a shiver as a scene from last night’s dream came to me – the red-haired woman telling me she would not let another child die, tending to the sick girl, holding the child-me in her arms. And that brooch – where had I seen something like that before? So many questions, so much to think about, but now was not the time.

  ‘Do you want a cuddle now?’ I asked him.

  He regarded me silently for a moment, then nodded. I held my arms open and he climbed onto my lap, snuggling his head against my chest. His thumb sneaked into his mouth. I realised I had never held a child like this before. I’d held a couple of my friends’ babies, but never an older child. I couldn’t remember Jackie ever cuddling me like this. And yet it felt so right, just as in my dream being held by the red-haired woman had felt: a connection. His warm little body gaining comfort from mine as we waited for his parents to arrive. I realised he was not the only one being comforted. I could feel his little heart beating against my chest, and his free hand was absently stroking my fleece jumper. I bent my head until my chin rested on his hair and I could breathe in his scent – earthy from his night outside. So this is what motherhood might feel like. It wasn’t at all bad.

  I realised then that while I was descended from Jackie I had the choice not to be like her, but to be like my more distant ancestor Kitty – the kind of mother who would do anything for her child. And that was what I would be.

  Jackie had experienced such loss. I felt a pang of pity for her. I had the choice too, to try to forge a new relationship between us. An adult one, of forgiveness and understanding, and perhaps in time, friendship and love.

  Sammy and I sat there in silence, cuddling, each thinking our own thoughts. I had the brooch in my hand still, and I turned it over and over, pondering. Presumably he had found it in the ruins of the cottage. Where had I seen it before? I was tired, from the early start and lack of sleep, not to mention lack of breakfast, and my brain was not thinking straight. It was just an old brooch, lost long ago. Sammy’s talk of the kind lady who’d kept him warm – well, he’d been dreaming, of course. Or hallucinating. Who knew.

  The sun was well above the horizon now. The sky was blue and clear, in total contrast to yesterday. We were beginning to feel some warmth from the sun, and Sammy shuffled in my arms as if he was too hot. So was I, but I did not want to let go of him to take off my fleece.

  Something changed about the way Sammy was snuggled into me, and when I shifted a little I realised he was asleep. There was something very special about knowing this little person trusted me enough to fall asleep in my arms. I felt honoured. I raised my face to the rising sun, took in the view that I would never tire of, across the purple moors to the sliver of distant ocean, and felt myself to be blessed. I had a sudden, strange feeling that someone was standing behind me, her hand on my shoulder, smiling down at the sleeping child in my arms. Someone who cared for me. Kitty? Or Jackie?

  ‘Sammy! Maria!’ The shouts woke Sammy and roused me from my musings. I looked around and saw Sharon and Dave running ahead of the police towards me.

  ‘Mummy and Daddy are here,’ I whispered in his ear, and the spell was broken. He clambered off me and ran towards his parents. I watched as he stumbled across the rough track towards them. Sharon scooped him up and buried her face in his neck, and Dave wrapped his arms around the two of them. The two Gardaí who’d accompanied them stood grinning awkwardly at the reunion. I stood up, feeling a bit stiff as Sammy’s weight had sent my left leg to sleep, and hobbled over to them.

  ‘Good work, miss. We’ll need a full statement when we get back to town. We’ve a car waiting at the bottom of the track. Where did you find him?’

  I pointed at the remains of the cottage in which Sammy had been curled
up. One of the policemen frowned and went over for a closer look. ‘That wall looks dangerous, so it does. Could fall at any moment, the way the stream has undercut it. We’ll need to get it made safe before some tourist gets hurt.’ He came back over to join the other Guard and me. ‘Praise the Lord that the wall didn’t fall on that young man while he sheltered there last night.’

  I shivered. Yes, it could all have been an awful lot worse.

  ‘Well, thank you, miss, and we’ll catch up with you back in town. You’re staying at O’Sullivan’s, I think?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Fine pint of Guinness they do there. Grand place to take your statement, it’ll be.’

  I smiled, and began the walk back down the hill. I didn’t get far before Sharon caught up with me. Sammy was now in his father’s arms.

  She flung her arms around me and squeezed me tight. ‘Maria, I can’t thank you enough. How did you find him?’

  ‘I don’t know. I woke early this morning, before it was light, and just had a feeling it’d be worth coming up to check the village.’ I didn’t think it worth mentioning my strange dream. She’d think I was going mad. In my pocket, I closed my fingers around the ancient brooch Sammy had found. There was definitely something familiar about it.

  At the bottom of the track, we climbed into the two police cars that were waiting there, for the short journey back to Ballymor. O’Sullivan’s once again seemed to be the centre of operations and I wondered if the Gardaí even had a police station in the town at all. There was quite a crowd awaiting us – all people who’d come to join the search party this morning. They cheered as we walked in. Aoife was doing a roaring trade in teas and coffees. As soon as Sharon, Dave, Sammy and I entered, she waved us to a table near the window and brought out full Irish breakfasts for each of us. Nathan and Kaz were already there; Kaz hugged her little brother tightly and Nathan ruffled his hair, grinning. I was pleased to see Sammy tuck in to his breakfast and wolf down his sausages, fried potato, bacon and egg, liberally covered with tomato ketchup. He needed that after his night out in the wild. He pushed his black pudding off onto his father’s plate. Too spicy for a little one, I guessed.