The Girl from Ballymor

by Kathleen McGurl

  Guard McAteer was holding up a human skull.

  CHAPTER 26

  Kitty, 1849

  It was four weeks since the Columbus had left the docks of Cork city. As Kitty made her weary way down the rutted track towards the town, and the day’s hard labour ahead of her at the road-building site, she wondered whether Michael would have reached New York yet. What was it like there? Had he found food and shelter, a job, friends? As she’d done so many times over the last few weeks she lifted her eyes to gaze at the sliver of silver that lay across the moors, and stared as though if she looked hard enough she might catch a glimpse of the ship. It would be many more weeks until a letter from Michael reached her, she knew, if indeed it ever would. She realised that if the worst happened and Michael did not survive the crossing, or perished soon after landing in America, she might never hear from him, and would never know what had happened.

  She turned onto the road and began the trudge through the town towards the worksite. As the road building progressed, the worksite moved further away from Ballymor and her walk became longer and longer each day. Her back and arms were sore from breaking rocks, her hands calloused and raw from wielding the lump-hammer, and her belly ached with the ever-present hunger. For the thousandth time she considered whether she should swallow her pride and go to Thomas Waterman, take up that housemaid’s job he’d offered. Sweeping floors and blacking grates in a warm house with no food shortages would be so much easier than her current life.

  But to accept help for herself from a man who’d raped her? No. She could never do that.

  One day, about a fortnight after Michael had left, she had arrived home to discover a basket of food set upon the doorstep. Bread, cheese, potatoes, beetroots, some slices of cold beef wrapped in paper and a jar of pickled onions. There was no note with it, but the basket was similar to the one she had carried back from Ballymor Hall on the day Waterman had given her money for Michael’s fare. It was from him, she knew, but, at the same time, she was starving with no food in the cottage and a few days yet before she could next expect to be paid. She told herself the basket could have come from anyone, the food would go to waste if she didn’t eat it, and she feasted on its contents. It lasted until she was paid, and thus her death from starvation was put off for a while longer. For she was certain that was how it would end for her. She would collapse by the roadside one day, crawl into a ditch and sleep for ever. She had seen plenty of others do just that, their skeletal bodies lying uncovered for hours, sometimes days, before being removed and buried in a mass grave.

  Sometimes she thought she should just stay at home, with a turf fire banked high, her blankets wrapped around her, and sleep the days away until she woke no more, and be reunited with Patrick and her babies. But the thought of a letter from Michael, telling her his news, reporting on his life across the ocean, would make her shake off these morbid, defeatist thoughts and she would rouse herself, eat what she could find and go to work.

  Today the work wasn’t so bad. It was raining heavily and, although that made it uncomfortable for her and the other labourers, it kept the overseer away. She was able to rest frequently, wield her hammer with less force, and generally conserve what little strength she had. She kept her mind occupied with dreams of Michael in his new life and the day passed relatively quickly, although the rain continued all day.

  At last it was time to down tools and make her weary way home. She pulled her sodden shawl tighter around her shoulders and, head lowered, feet dragging, she forced herself to walk the five miles back to Kildoolin. There was some cornmeal awaiting her for dinner that she’d bought with her last wage. She did not allow herself to fantasise that another basket might have been delivered, although she had left the empty one outside the cottage door, in case someone came to collect it and drop off another . . .

  The track up to the village was in a worse state than ever, rutted and muddy with a stream running down the middle of it. Kitty’s feet were already soaked through so she just trudged through it all, careful to keep her balance in the gusting wind on the worst sections. The stream that flowed through the village had become a raging torrent since the morning. Kitty noticed it had split a little way uphill, with one new stream diverted directly towards her cottage, rushing down alongside her cottage wall before crossing the track and heading on down the hill. She had to wade across this to reach her door.

  Inside, she pushed the door shut against the strengthening wind, stripped off her wet clothes and wrapped herself in a blanket, then set to work building a turf fire to warm herself up. She boiled water and cooked the cornmeal, washing it down with water, flavoured with a few mint leaves she’d gathered earlier in the week. There was nothing for her to eat in the morning.

  She was so cold from being wet through all day. She gathered all the shawls and blankets she had and made a nest for herself on the floor beside the fire. Lying there, staring up at the chimney breast, she noticed an alarmingly wide crack in the stonework. The new part of the stream was just the other side of this wall, she realised. Was it washing away the foundations of the cottage? Well, there was nothing she could do about it, not now, at any rate. She supposed there was nothing to stop her moving into one of the other cottages in the village, now that they were all empty and Smith was no longer coming by each month demanding rent. Waterman had kept his word about that. She resolved to have a look at the other cottages in the morning, and perhaps move her few belongings into one. Her own, that she had lived in since marrying Patrick all those years ago, no longer seemed safe with that gaping crack in the stonework.

  She lay before the fire, wrapped in her blankets, and stared into the flames, examining her feelings about leaving this cottage. Not long ago she’d have hated the idea. Her children were born here – all but Michael – she’d had happy days here when Patrick was still alive, before the Hunger. She’d never thought she would leave, even to move into another cottage in the village. But now – now she couldn’t bring herself to care where she lived. The children were dead, Patrick was dead, Michael was gone across the ocean. She was only staying in the village out of habit and because she knew of nowhere else. But she might as well move into a more secure building. Tomorrow. She would do it tomorrow. For now, she needed to sleep, and rest her aching legs and back. Her aching belly she would just have to ignore. Thank goodness she had turf, and blankets, and was beginning to warm up while the storm raged outside. She was comfortable, at least. She would be all right. God would protect her and Mother Mary would watch over her as she slept.

  *

  It was in the darkest part of the night, when the fire was reduced to a few glowing embers, and when Kitty was in a deep, dreamless sleep, that the diverted stream undercut the cottage wall so much that it dislodged a stone in the base of the fireplace wall. The crack, already six inches wide, gaped wider still as stones in the wall shifted downwards to fill the gap left by the missing one. The wind, which had grown to gale force as the night wore on, gusted suddenly, its full might hitting the weakened wall. With a groan and a creak, the chimney breast fell inwards, into the cottage, and the rest of the end wall of the cottage followed it. Kitty, mercifully, was hit on the head by one of the first stones to fall, her skull smashed and her dreamless sleep switched instantly into black oblivion. The rest of the stones fell on her body, till there was almost nothing of her visible. A casual observer might have spotted a corner of blanket emerging from under a particularly large stone, and if they’d knelt down in the dirt and looked closely, perhaps moving one or two of the smaller stones, they would have spotted part of her left hip and, further along, perhaps some of her auburn hair.

  But the village was empty. No one passed this way. Smith no longer came for rent, and Kitty had made it clear to Waterman that he was not welcome. The basket of food had been his last attempt at showing her what she was missing by not accepting his job offer. When she didn’t follow it up by calling at the Hall to say thank you, he decided not to bother again. She’d come
to him when she was starving, he was sure. He remembered her parting words to him: that he could do more for the people of Ballymor. He thought too about his groom’s skeletal, starving parents. But he thought most of his son Michael, who might also have starved to death, before Waterman was even aware of his existence. Kitty may not want his help but others were grateful for it. His eyes had been opened, and he did what he could to ease the suffering of the local people. It was what Michael would want him to do. By the time he did take his next ride up to Kildoolin some months later, and discovered her cottage in ruins, the word around town was that she had left the area, gone to Cork perhaps, to try to raise money there to join her son in America. Waterman, wanting to stay within reach of her as his only means of hearing news of his son, went to Cork to search, but found no sign of her. She’d gone to Dublin perhaps, some folk said, or over the water to Liverpool, from where far more ships sailed for America. Waterman had sighed, and returned to his estate, hoping against hope that one day Michael would return to Ireland and seek out his true father.

  CHAPTER 27

  Maria

  Funerals are held quickly in Ireland. Aoife had told me it was not uncommon for someone to be buried the day after they died. Even with ancient bones, such as those found in the ruined cottage, there was no waiting around. With the help of Paulie’s tractor, carefully pushing away the larger stones and with the manpower of as many volunteers as could be found (including Dan, although he insisted I should not lift any heavy stones myself), the bones were gradually recovered over the rest of the afternoon. There was a complete skeleton, which had been buried when the chimney breast fell, long, long ago.

  I’d thought that the police would want to date the remains, to investigate whether they belonged to any known missing person perhaps. But Guard O’Connell told me they would most certainly belong to someone who’d died at the time of the famine. Many people had died in their own cottages back then, and in the case of isolated cottages may not have been found for weeks, months or even years. It was apparently not the first time that famine-victim bones had been found in recent years. If the chimney breast had fallen on the body not long after death then it was easily possible that they would never have been noticed. Never, that is, until Paulie’s work with his tractor dislodged some of the stones covering the remains.

  ‘All we can say for certain is the bones are very old,’ O’Connell said. ‘These stones were covered in moss and had not moved for at least a century – we’ve old photos from the early 1900s showing that this cottage by the stream was partially collapsed even then. So the Gardaí have no interest in these remains. All we need to do is give them a decent Christian burial.’

  Declan was called up to Kildoolin to supervise the removal of the bones, which were reverentially placed into a cardboard coffin, and carried down to Ballymor by four men, followed by Declan, Dan and me, and the other volunteers. The mood of everyone was quiet and subdued. This poor person must have suffered so much, and he or she had had to wait a hundred and seventy years to be decently and respectfully buried.

  When the little procession reached town, the coffin was taken into the church and placed in a side chapel. Everyone followed, and Declan led the people in a few impromptu prayers. Tears sprung to my eyes as I watched the townspeople, all standing with their heads bowed, paying their last respects to someone they’d never known, who’d died so long ago. Dan squeezed my hand tightly throughout and I was glad of his company, and the strength he lent me. Declan announced that the remains would be buried the next day, in the same area of the churchyard as other famine victims. All would be welcome to attend.

  At last we went back to O’Sullivan’s. It had been quite a day, and I was exhausted. We spent the evening sitting quietly in my room – now our room – and I took the opportunity to read a little more of Michael McCarthy’s biography, the book Declan had lent me. Dan had brought his Kindle, and seemed happy to sit and read as well. I realised he too had had a very long day, starting with his early morning dash to the airport. Any other in-depth talks could wait until the next day.

  But part-way through the biography I came across a passage that made me sit up and grab hold of Dan’s arm. ‘Listen to this!’ I read a couple of paragraphs out loud to him.

  There was an occasion in the 1880s when Michael McCarthy visited Ballymor, and your author was able to meet with him and talk about his early life. One fine spring day I persuaded him to walk with me up to the abandoned village of Kildoolin, where he had spent his earliest years. All its inhabitants had died, moved out or emigrated around the time of the Great Famine, and the cottages – originally built to house workers for the Watermans’ copper mines – left to rot.

  There is not much to see in the village now – just a row of tumbledown cottages such as can be seen anywhere in the west of Ireland. However, revisiting them seemed to move Mr McCarthy, and he talked at length about his pre-Famine memories of his mother, father and siblings. Their cottage, he recalled, was the one immediately downhill of where a stream crosses the track in front of the row. This one was in a particularly poor state of repair, with the chimney breast and part of the roof caved in, a mound of rubble where once the fireplace had been.

  ‘Downhill of the stream? Is that the one where . . .’ Dan began, his eyes wide.

  ‘Where the bones were found. Yes! That’s it! And the description of it matches the state of the cottage when I found little Sammy there, before Paulie got at it. So those bones . . .’

  ‘Could belong to Michael’s mother!’ Dan was as excited by the idea as I was. ‘You’ve found her, at last!’

  ‘Bloody hell. I think I have! Got to tell Declan.’ I opened the door to rush downstairs. Aoife would have his number.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I think Kitty should be buried with her children,’ I replied, and Dan nodded solemnly.

  Thankfully, I wasn’t too late. Declan confirmed the gravedigger had not begun – he was due to dig the grave in the morning, and, yes, he could dig beside the existing McCarthy memorial. Declan was as intrigued by it all as Dan and I were.

  ‘It is always good to be able to lay someone to rest after all these years, but to be able to put her with her family under a named stone is even better,’ he said. ‘She will truly be able to rest in peace.’

  *

  There was a huge turnout the following afternoon for Kitty’s laying to rest. She was, as Declan promised, put in the same plot as her family, with Michael’s memorial stone at her head. Only Michael McCarthy was buried elsewhere – in Highgate Cemetery in London. Declan read some prayers and performed the funeral rites, as the cardboard coffin was lowered into the grave. I admit to shedding a tear or two, as I stood beside Dan, watching. We would never know exactly how she had died, but at last the mystery was solved and she was reunited with her family.

  Sharon and Dave were at the church too, along with Kaz, Nathan and Sammy. They stood beside us, and I quickly introduced Dan to them. Sammy slipped his little hand into mine, to my delight and surprise. There was something rather lovely about the feel of a warm, trusting little hand in mine, and I felt honoured.

  ‘Was that the lady who kept me warm?’ Sammy asked me in a whisper, as the coffin was lowered.

  ‘You know, I think it might be,’ I whispered back.

  *

  It was Tuesday, and our last night in Ireland. Dan had booked himself onto the same flight home as me, from Dublin, although he’d flown into Cork. We were due to drive to Dublin in my hire car and fly home the next day. There was, of course, only one way to spend the evening and that was in the bar of O’Sullivan’s, Dan drinking Guinness, me on sparkling elderflower, with Paulie in his usual place at the bar and a live band due to play later on. It was Sharon, Dave and their family’s last night as well, as they were moving to a different campsite on the Dingle peninsula for the remainder of their fortnight, so they’d come for their dinner and to say goodbye to the community. Declan was in the pub too.

  Sh
aron gave me a massive hug when the family got up to leave. ‘We must stay in touch. Here—’ she pulled out a piece of paper from her pocket ‘—my email and mobile number. At the very least you must let me know if it’s a boy or a girl.’

  ‘Of course I will,’ I replied, scribbling my own contact details onto a napkin for her.

  ‘I’m going to want to read your book as well, when it’s published.’

  I grinned. ‘I’ve got a lot of work to do on that first!’ Actually, I was beginning to wonder whether I would be able to finish it before the baby came. Well, I’d give it a shot, and I could always come back to it later, baby allowing.

  ‘Staying for the band?’ Dave said.

  ‘Yes, I think we will,’ I replied, and at that moment I felt it. A wriggle, a shuffle, a rolling over, inside my tummy. I put a hand on my bump and stood still, focusing inwardly, willing it to happen again.

  Sharon put her hand on my arm. ‘Did you just feel the baby move?’

  I nodded, too stunned by this new sensation to speak.

  She smiled. ‘First time?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I thought so. I recognised that look of wonder on your face. It’s a truly magical feeling, isn’t it?’ She spoke quietly, so only I could hear, excluding Dave and the kids who were waiting for her nearby. I felt as though I was being welcomed into the motherhood club. There it was again, a fluttering, a fidgeting, someone making him or herself comfortable within my womb. I smiled. ‘I guess this is something only us women can ever experience.’

  ‘Yes. It’s amazing. When I first felt Sammy move it was like I truly understood what it meant to be pregnant for the first time. That there was another life growing inside me, completely dependent on me, but my clever old body was able to provide everything needed to make a whole person, a separate individual, someone that could wriggle around inside me whenever he felt like it.’