But, surrendering to the dominant personality, her husband hurried to do as he was told, whilst the women and children moved to enter.
‘Eh, don’t be giving yourself a hernia,’ said Niall, beating Austin to his suitcases and grabbing two of them. ‘I’ll carry ’em.’
‘You will not,’ said the elderly man, whose slenderness was offset by huge ears, and a big hawkish nose, all of which were scarred from a life out of doors. ‘I’d never hear the last of it from Bridget were I to let a guest tout his own luggage.’ And with hands the size of shovels, he grabbed the cases back.
‘But—’ Niall was stopped in mid-protest by a firm demand from his host.
‘How long have you been on this earth, Nye?’
‘Thirty-four years,’ he replied, after a puzzled moment.
‘And you haven’t learned the rules yet?’ quipped Austin. ‘Anything for a quiet life, that’s the motto! Do as you are told, and never answer back.’
‘That’s where I must be going wrong then,’ muttered Niall, with a cryptic glance at Nora’s armour-plated figure, before it disappeared into the cottage, and finally he allowed the elder man to take possession of his luggage.
Whilst everyone else filtered indoors, for a moment he himself held back to reappraise the sun-dappled setting, a dozen hens pecking and croaking and scratching around him as he stared. Nothing had changed since last he had been here, save possibly the addition of a fresh coat of whitewash to the cottage walls. The thatched roof; the tiny windows, each no bigger than a chess board; the green planking of the door, which was divided horizontally like that of a stable; the stack of peat set out to dry, its original lush blackness turning gradually to brown under the sun; the sow in her sty built of old doors and corrugated iron and bits of bedstead, with half a dozen meaty piglets running riot – all were exactly the same as they had been, probably for centuries. So was the garden, totally lent to vegetables – for who needed flowers with such picturesque natural surroundings, thought Niall, as he lifted his abstracted gaze to the hillside beyond the fence. What a lovely peaceful place this was. In years gone by, he had thoroughly enjoyed each of his sojourns, but this time …
Feeling a tentative tweak of his trousers, he looked down at his small assailant. The red hen looked back at him, cocking her head and surveying him with beads of curiosity. He gave a sigh, and vowed to try his best not to spoil his children’s holiday.
With everyone now entered, so too did he, booting out the chicken that would have followed him, sending her into a clucking panic, before closing the lower half of the door against her. A pleasant coolness overtook him, emanating from the stone floor, and infiltrating his sweat-drenched clothes like a welcome breeze. With only two tiny windows, even with the upper half of the door still open, the interior of the cottage was dim, and it took a moment to adjust his eyes. Then Niall saw that everything in here was as he remembered it too. There was the Sacred Heart in its little shrine set into the wall; the religious pictures on the walls; the religious relics amongst the pots on the dresser; and the four brass candlesticks that shone like beacons, even with no sun to catch them. There was the wooden bench by the hearth, and several more around the large table; suspended from a crane over the fire was the black cauldron, which was giving out the most delicious smell of Irish stew, and on the table a stack of soda bread accompanied an array of best china.
Now that Beesy’s guests were arrived, the meal was quickly served. Having expended her excitement, she wrapped the plaid shawl about herself, and joined Austin and the others at the table, a quiet dignity about her as she clasped her hands to pray.
‘Can I say grace, Aunty Beesy?’ exclaimed Juggy.
‘Why, to be sure you may,’ agreed her great- aunt.
The child lowered dark lashes, and pressed her palms together. ‘Jesus, Mary, Joseph, bless this lovely food we are about to receive, bless this house and all the people in it, and bless Aunty Beesy and Uncle Austin for letting us come here on our holidays.’
Beesy crossed herself, and, with a misty smile, leaned over to pat the child. ‘God love her little Yorkshire voice.’ Then she bade her guests tuck in, and returned to her quiet everyday mode, sitting in silence and allowing them to eat in peace.
Austin too was a man of reserve – at least until a hen fluttered up to perch in ungainly fashion on the half-door, where it flapped and muttered for a second in trying to keep its balance, before fluttering down amongst the guests. Whereupon he gave an oath, and jumped from his bench to chase it round the room, the creature squawking and scattering feathers until he managed to grab it and threw it back from whence it came.
This caused the children no end of amusement, their widowed parent heartened to hear such bubbling laughter.
‘That will be your job from now on!’ Austin warned those who giggled.
‘I’m having t’first go!’ announced Dominic, which did not go down well with his siblings who began to bicker then, earning a scolding from their father.
‘Remember you’re guests in this house!’ Niall interrupted his meal to warn.
‘And remember why you’re here too,’ muttered Nora, with a telling glance that brought him quickly back into line.
If Austin noted the coldness that emanated from her eye, he refrained from mentioning it, but concentrated on the children, wagging a finger, and putting an end to any bad feeling over who was to take charge of the hens. ‘Sure, you will all take your turn! Those creatures could provide work for an army.’
The children were to find out this was true when later, after tea, they were allowed to run up and down the hill, and about the garden, helping their great-uncle to round up the hens for the night. After that, apart from a few words with the sow and her piglets, and a quiet stroll in the field as the sun went down, they were too exhausted to do much else, and were soon in bed.
Weary and despondent, their father was not long behind them.
Surprised to find he had slept soundly, even wedged alongside his boys in the smaller of the two bedrooms, Niall woke quite refreshed and alert the next morning. He had no idea what time it was – this room was without a window – but it was obviously very early, for no one else stirred, not even Beesy. She and Austin had given up their own bed to Nora and the girls, and had spent the night in a recess of the living room. Niall lay there for a while alongside his sons, acutely aware of their breathing, of his own wrongdoing towards them, yet tortured and brooding also over his lost love. After a while, unable to get back to sleep for thinking of her, he inched as carefully as he could from the bed, trying not to rouse the other occupants, who, thankfully, were still flat out from their journey of the day before. Tentative of movement, donning each item of clothing with infinite care, ever conscious of any change in his children’s breathing, he finally sneaked away as quietly as he could.
In the rustic living room, in danger of stumbling into something in the dark, he waited for his eyes to adjust. What sky that could be seen through those tiny windows was uninviting, like a charcoal-grey blanket. Niall underwent a moment’s contemplation. Should he go for a walk as intended, and perhaps in lifting the latch disturb his hosts, who slept soundly beneath their patchwork quilt in the recess? Feeling so low, he had no wish to converse with anyone. But if he did mismanage his exit, Beesy and Austin would wonder who had been so ignorant as to disturb them. The least he could do was to have the fire going in case they arose. Deciding on the latter course, he moved cautiously through the gloom to the hearth, crouched over it, and as gingerly as he could, raked aside the white ashes that had been used to damp it down the night before.
A tiny red glow appeared. Niall sat back on his heels to stare at it for a pensive moment. Then, bending his face to its warmth, he used his lungs as bellows, offering first gentle encouragement, then more passionate approach, until it radiated new life. His emotions mixed, he took a slab of turf from the basket beside the hearth, and laid it gently upon the fire. Momentarily, the glow was gone, though he knew
it survived, for smoke began to creep around the edges of the dry slab, curling and drifting incense-sweet against his nostrils. Experiencing a raw moment of anguish, he tore himself away and, not caring whether he made a noise now, anxious only to escape, he lifted the latch and strode out into the morning.
It was very cold. Hunching himself into his jacket, he made his way to the lane. Not a street- lamp in view, he must be careful not to trip in the gloom. Once away from the trees, he could see there was light on the horizon now, and a bird sang. Apart from this, and the sound of his own boots prowling the stony ground, it was deathly quiet. The land still bore tendrils of mist, as did the lane ahead of him, vaporous wraiths that spiralled sluggishly upwards to meet a bleak sky. A small furry creature dashed from a crack in the dry-stone wall and ran across his path to disappear into the tangle of briars on the other side. Niall could hear it rustling as he passed, and paused to investigate briefly, before moving on.
Eventually coming across a side-track, he took it, and squelched aimlessly along, staring out across the brown peat bog in a state of melancholy, agonising over Boadicea. He tried to remember what his life had been like before she had suddenly appeared in it, but could remember only darkness of spirit. Not wanting to revisit that place, in an effort to drive the demons from his mind, he strode on, leaving the imprint of his boots in the spongelike carpet of moss.
Somewhere, the sun had risen, the sky was lighter in shade, though in hue it remained a drab slate, and the coldness and emptiness of the land was such that it penetrated his soul. Having never really noticed before how depressing this region could be, today Niall was granted an insight into why his ancestors had left. This was what it was truly like to eke out one’s daily life here.
Unaware of how far or how long he had roamed, past tremulous swathes of bog cotton, thickets of gorse and desolate spaces, he came eventually to a lake, and paused to watch a furtive figure amongst the reeds – a heron stalking its breakfast. Under his weight, the moss began to exude little puddles of brown water that formed and trickled around his boots. There was barely a sound at all now, so hushed that he could hear the lightest of breezes rippling the grass, and the sound of his own heart crying for Boadicea. He was meant to be with her. What the hell was he doing here?
A child’s voice called faintly in the distance, reminding him. ‘Da-ad! Daddy, where are you?’
Sighing to himself, Niall threw his eyes heavenwards, holding this position for a number of seconds, as if appealing for an unguent to his pain. Then, turning, his hunched figure slowly made its way back.
When he returned to the cottage the heavy incense of the peat fire had increased, providing a more welcoming atmosphere than the bleak outdoors. Everyone was up, and seated around the table, his children eagerly expectant of their cousins’ arrival.
‘Ah, here it is you are! Didn’t we think the bog had swallowed you up.’ The gentle Beesy bade Niall sit down with the others. Bacon was thrown into a pan, but barely had time to sizzle before it was whisked onto the plate, the fat still as white and soft as when it went in. ‘’Twas very early up you must have been – was your bed uncomfortable?’ She looked most concerned that her hospitality might not meet the grade.
‘No, no, it was grand, Beesy. I slept like a log,’ Niall assured her as, rubbing his hands, he sat down to eat. ‘Sorry if I disturbed anybody. I just woke really early and couldn’t get back to sleep.’ He felt his mother-in-law’s eyes on him. Guilty conscience, she would liked to have said.
But just at that point her nieces Mary and Nancy arrived with their horde of children – Johnny and Clare, Patsy and Deirdre, Molly, Jimmy, Bridget and Peggy – prompting both he and Nora to rise and greet them, the house becoming a bustling throng of excitement.
‘Ah, still as shy as ever!’ With a teasing smile, and sturdier by far than her parents, having first greeted her Aunt Nora, Mary took hold of Niall’s cheek between forefinger and thumb, her sister possessing an obvious fondness for him too, for both gazed long and admiringly into his face.
‘Can’t a man have his breakfast in peace?’ complained Austin, overrun by his grandchildren, but mainly referring to his guest.
‘Aye, leave the lad alone,’ Beesy told her daughters. ‘Sure, he’s just this minute sat down.’
Niall said he didn’t mind, though he blushed like a youth under the women’s laughing blue eyes, and he could not help comparing them to Boadicea. A similar age, they were even less sophisticated in the dresses they wore, the shapeless low- waisted fashion of a decade earlier, the shoes with straps across the instep, the bare legs, the short brown hair all curly and untamed. Yet he knew them to be kind and pleasant girls, and he put up with their teasing for a while before reminding them they had husbands.
‘And when are we going to see Fergal and Con?’ he said, in the hope of diverting their attention from himself.
‘Sure, haven’t they work to go to!’ Copying her sister, Mary bent her curly head to exchange greetings with each of Niall’s children, the room resounding with kisses as Nora underwent the same with her nephews and nieces. ‘You’ll be seeing them tonight, I’ve no doubt.’
Austin groaned at the thought of being even more overrun. The greetings were still going on around him, Niall addressing the native children now, remarking on how they had grown.
The smaller members of his own offspring, to whom this was all new, had been staring with fascination at their cousins, whose ages ranged from five to twelve – the whole posse of them barefoot, their calves covered in splashes from the mud of the bog. But soon the watchers found themselves being herded towards the door, as the young mothers bade Niall and their Aunt Nora resume their breakfasts.
‘Get along now, you children, out to play and get to know each other!’ Nancy banished the two tribes into the garden, though they needed no encouragement.
Breakfast recommenced, Nancy and Mary partaking of a cup of tea whilst the rest ate. It had not progressed far when Juggy burst in, announcing excitedly: ‘Dad, our Brian’s taken his shoes off!’
‘That’s all right.’ Niall chewed calmly. ‘He just wants to be like his cousins.’
‘But you said only gypos ran about wi’ no shoes on!’
Under accusing laughs of the host family, Niall looked deeply embarrassed and tried to cover his gaff, quickly explaining to Juggy, ‘Things are different when you’re in the country. Go on, out now!’
‘Can I take me own off then?’
‘Yes! Now go on, before I take your blasted head off!’ Hardly able to look at his hosts, he gave a self-conscious laugh and muttered, ‘Kids, eh?’
Things were to get little better from here. After breakfast, when Austin went off to work, Niall remained to chat for a while with Nancy and Mary, but, with the conversation turning to feminine subjects, he was soon to fall back into his normal quietness. Envious of their musical Irish accents, he began to feel even more of an interloper, and loath to interject his unattractive Yorkshire vowels. This threatening to plunge him back into despondence, he rose from his chair as unobtrusively as he could, and wandered over to the door to look out over it.
But Nora was keeping an eye on him, interrupting the conversation to ask, ‘And what will you be doing with yourself this morning, Niall?’
He started at her voice, then went back to watching his children playing with their cousins, all of them barefoot now, as they swung on a rope that dangled from one of the larger trees. ‘I was going to take the kids for a walk … but I think I’ll let them play whilst they’re happy.’
‘Well, don’t think you have to hang about here,’ said Nora. ‘I’m sure Beesy will understand if you feel a bit outnumbered among all us women.’
‘Aye, specially as we’re gypos,’ teased Mary, to an embarrassed laugh from the one who had made such a gaff.
Wondering whether Nora wanted him out of the way so she could spread her nasty gossip, Niall glanced around the room as if seeking some outlet. His hosts could barely read, so t
here was no book about the place to occupy his mind. ‘I might as well make use of meself and give Austin a hand,’ he elected.
And so, for the rest of that day, whilst his children had a great old time playing with their cousins, and the women constantly fed each other on bits of family news, Niall helped Austin tend the fields. It might not be much of a holiday, but the physical labour did serve to divert his mind from Boadicea, and tired him out so that he could at least sleep at night.
But in the early hours of the morning, there she was again, the first thing on his mind.
Whether or not his mother-in-law had broadcast his treacherous behaviour, Niall could not say, for the family’s generosity towards him was to continue unabridged. But then, Beesy was hospitable to everyone, however irksome, he noted when, three days into his supposed holiday, another branch of the clan arrived unannounced from Ballina, and these too had to be put up. This involved some ingenious rearrangement of beds. The woman and her daughter being allocated the one in the living-room recess, Beesy and Austin were now relegated to the roof space over the pigsty, poor Austin having no say in the matter at all.
‘Well, they are city people like yourselves,’ explained Beesy in a whisper, when Nora commended this self-sacrifice after breakfast, the latest guests enjoying a garden stroll in the morning sunshine. ‘They expect the best.’ Twill do us no harm for a couple of nights.’
‘No harm, says she,’ muttered Austin to Niall, scratching the mat of grey hair that protruded from his open-necked shirt, as they prepared to set out to work after an uncomfortable night. ‘Then there’s no harm in we men taking ourselves to market for a spot of drinking the day.’
But when he made his voice audible, it was for Beesy’s benefit. ‘If ’tis helping me you’d be again this morning,’ he said cheerfully to Niall, ‘you can help load the pigeens into the cart for market.’
Secrets of Our Hearts Page 21
