The Tour

by Jean Grainger

  Back at the hotel Conor checked his BlackBerry. He deliberately hadn’t looked for a reply to his email since he sent it because he still wasn’t sure what he wanted to hear. As he opened his email he instantly spotted Sinead’s name among the long stream of messages.

  Hi Conor,

  Great to hear from you! I was worried when I didn’t hear back, I didn’t know if you just didn’t receive my letter or, worse, you received it and didn’t want to get in touch. As I said in the letter, I’m coming home with my son Conor. We’re arriving this weekend into Shannon. Conor is really excited. I’ve been telling him all about Ireland and about his Uncle Conor, so he can’t wait to meet you. I don’t really have a plan as such, as it depends on some things. There’s no easy way to say this dear Conor, but I have cancer, and it’s not looking good. I just need to be at home. I don’t know how things are going to go, but I do know that the happiest I have ever been was all those years ago in Passage West. My family and I haven’t spoken for years. They hated Gerry, as you know, and well, that’s all water under the bridge now. They did try to see young Conor, but we don’t need them and their ‘I told you so’s’.

  Anyway, I’ll hopefully see you soon!

  Lots and lots of love,

  Sinead xxx

  Chapter 13

  The more Ellen got to know their driver and guide, the better she liked him. She realised how much work he did behind the scenes trying to help each of them in different ways, and all the while he maintained his constant good humour. He seemed to have great knack of allowing the group to do their own thing. He never got in the way but he seemed to be instantly available if he was needed. He was relaxing in the lobby of the hotel with a cup of coffee and The Irish Times after the group had dispersed for dinner when she approached him.

  ‘Excuse me Conor. I’m really sorry for interrupting you.

  I’ll only keep you a minute if that’s alright?’

  ‘No problem Ellen, sit down. Can I get you a coffee?

  There’s plenty in the pot. I can just ask for another cup.’ ‘Well if you are sure, that would be lovely. Thank you.’

  Conor gestured to the young waitress, who produced another cup almost instantaneously.

  ‘I’ll get right to the point Conor. There’s a free day tomorrow, and I have something I need to do alone. I will meet you all back in the hotel in the evening. It’s just that I didn’t want you to worry about me …put me on a missing list.’

  Despite her voice and equally gentle approach, Ellen tended to present things in a way that indicated the matter was already decided. But that didn’t mean she didn’t expect objections and questions to whatever it was she was presenting. She was very pleasantly surprised when Conor replied ‘Righty-ho Ellen that’s perfect. Thanks for letting me know. The next couple of days are relaxed ones anyway. Is there anything I can do to help you, or have you it all under control?’

  ‘Well actually, I was going to ask the front desk, but maybe you could suggest someone. You see, I need a car and driver for the day. Do you know of a local taxi firm or chauffeur service that I could use?’

  Conor thought for a second. ‘Well Ellen, I’m sure I can sort something out. If you could tell me where it is you want to go, I could maybe organise a price for you too. It would be cheaper I’d say to do it that way. Cheaper than per mile on a taxi meter anyway. But if you would rather keep the destination details to yourself, well then that’s fine too. Whatever suits you.’

  ‘I guess I want to go to…well this might sound crazy, but I am not that sure. It’s a long story and I’m sure you don’t have time to…’

  ‘Ellen’, he said, ‘I have all night. I was going to go into town to a nice quiet little pub I know and have a bite of dinner, maybe even a pint, and do the crossword. If you would like to join me and tell me some, none, or all of your story, then I would be delighted with the company.’

  Ellen’s face broke into radiant smile. ‘Well Mr. O’Shea’ she laughed ‘If you are sure I’m not intruding on your private time, a dinner and a pint sounds just what I need.’

  ‘I can see I have a hardened drinker on my hands so. Mind you, with a name like yours, it couldn’t have been any other way.’

  ‘Ms O’Donovan,’ he said, standing up and offering her his arm and embarking on what was to become a most extraordinary evening.

  Settled in the corner seats of Murphy’s Pub and Restaurant, Ellen sipped on a glass of stout.

  ‘This really is a good drink. I’m not much of a drinker but I could develop a taste for this’.

  Conor took a gulp of his pint. ‘Well, actually, it’s probably just as well you never had it at home. The breweries export this all over the world. I don’t know what they do with it when it gets there, but they seem to make a right pig’s ear out of it. Maybe it’s the water or something. Whatever, the thing about stout outside of Ireland is that it’s something that shouldn’t be inflicted on anyone.’

  Ellen smiled ‘Then I guess it’s right that I should have waited till I got to Ireland to consume my first pint of Guinness.’

  The ordered bacon and cabbage with potatoes and, as they waited for their food, they chatted generally about the trip. Conor was careful not to discuss any individuals – a policy that had served him well for many years.

  ‘So,’ Ellen began, ‘are you sure you want to hear this?’ ‘Fire away, I’m all ears.’

  ‘Ok then. I was born on the 18th of December 1920. My name is a West Cork one I know, so no prizes for guessing my Irish connections. What might surprise you though is that I was born in the Parish of Inchigeela in County Cork.’

  ‘I know it well’, said Conor.

  ‘My father brought me to America when I was a few weeks old, after my mother died. In childbirth I believe. He remarried a few years later and they had a son, my stepbrother, but that marriage broke up. I stayed in touch with my brother and his mother, but she passed away from breast cancer in her early fifties. I think she really did love my father but it was never going to work really. It seems my Dad could never really fully commit to the marriage.. I remember Diane, that was her name, saying years ago that he must have loved my mother so much he couldn’t let her memory go. He would never talk about it or about his life before coming to America. I tried asking him many times about my mother and his family back in Ireland, but all he ever said was that we were Americans now and the only way to get on in America was to be American and leave the past behind.’

  Conor nodded encouragingly.

  ‘My father avoided anything to do with Irish organisations and even when discussions started about Irish neutrality during the Second World War, or the Troubles in the North, he would never engage. Despite that, I found the subject fascinating and my whole career was spent researching and teaching the story of this little island. He was always encouraging and supportive of me but he never offered an opinion or asked me anything about it. I didn’t even know if he ever read my books until after he passed away. Then I found one I wrote about 1916 and it was so well thumbed it was almost falling apart. Yet never a word to me about it, I …’ Ellen’s voice faltered.

  ‘It seems that there was some correspondence between him and his Irish family over the years though but he never mentioned it to me. When he died, I found a pile of letters and Christmas cards in a box in his apartment. The address on the letters was Inchigeela, County Cork and they were from Sean, my father’s brother. The letters were just newsy ones, announcing births and deaths in the parish and things like that. I’d really hoped, when I found them they would tell me more. I know my father had an older brother, I think he was called Michael because I remember one time when my stepbrother and I were playing with an old coat we had found in a wardrobe, he came in and told us we should find something else to play with, because that coat was special. He told us that my Uncle Michael had given it to me to keep me warm on the way over from Ireland. I remember saying to my father “we don’t have an Uncle Michael”, to which he replied “Yes you
do, but he lives back in Ireland, and he can’t come to visit because it’s too far away to come without a coat.”’

  Ellen smiled at the memory and her eyes welled up.

  ‘I don’t want you to get the impression my Dad was a cold man, far from it, but something must have happened here, perhaps the death of my mother, that made it so painful for him to recollect. He was such a good and loving father to me and my brother. He did everything for me. I often think what it must have been like for him, with a baby, all on his own in a foreign country. I don’t know why, but I feel like there’s something I don’t know about the story. I just want to go there. Maybe see if I could find my mother’s grave. I’ve been thinking about it for years. Ever since he died, to be honest. But I’ve never felt really ready until now.’

  ‘Well Ellen, what a story. Your Dad sounds like he was a remarkable man. To bring you up alone like that, so far from all his family, I’m not sure I could do that now, and those times were so different. Fathers had very little to do with their children, leaving it all to the women. I have vague memories of my own father boasting how he had never pushed a pram, but then my father and yours sound poles apart. Anyway, where do we go from here? I’m happy to help in whatever way I can.’

  ‘Thanks Conor. I want to try to find the house, maybe see if anybody knows anything about my family there. My father’s younger brother, the one who wrote the letters, was only ten or twelve when we left. I think we lost touch sometime in the nineteen-fifties. I realise it’s probably a wild goose chase but I’d like to try. Even just to be in the village they came from.’

  ‘I am not a genealogist Ellen, but tomorrow is my day off and I’d be happy to drive you there if that would help. I’m at a bit of a loose end anyhow.’

  Tears welled up in Ellen’s eyes again.

  ‘Conor that would be just wonderful. I was thinking how on earth I would ever find the place on my own. I insist on paying you for your time and the fuel and so on…’

  ‘Indeed and you will not. It’s no problem whatsoever. In fact, it would be a pleasure. Do y’know what Ellen? This is turning out to be a very interesting tour altogether.’

  Chapter 14

  Dylan was totally hooked. The trouble was he didn’t know what to do next. He sat at the back of the large pub crammed with Irish people and tourists and listened to Diarmuid and the others as they played their music. Tonight was different to the atmosphere in the pub in Kinsale. More of a concert than a session, but still amazing. The songs were sometimes wild, other times funny. One song in particular completely transported Dylan to another place.

  He had never enjoyed anything about school, least of all history, which Dylan regarded as a litany of just one boring thing after another. But when he heard this song ‘Kilkelly’, it made him want to cry. It was based on a true story, the singer said. It seemed to be like a conversation in the form of letters between a father in Ireland and his son in America. All a long time ago. Dylan remembered Conor mentioning something about there being a famine in Ireland, so he guessed the letters referred to events around that time.

  The father wrote long letters telling the son all of the news about the family and all the people that the son would have known from home. The son wrote back and sent pictures of his wife and kids, but never returned to Ireland. The song ends with the last letter from the man’s brother, telling him that their father had died. Dylan wondered what it would have been like to have a father who cared so much about you that he wrote every month even though he hadn’t laid eyes on you for years. Dylan’s own father hadn’t stuck around when he discovered that Corlene was pregnant. In fact, Corlene herself wasn’t too sure who Dylan’s father was.

  It seems the guy she tried to pin the pregnancy on could not have been the father, for medical reasons, so Dylan had no clue who his father was. He used to fantasise when he was a kid that his Dad would show up, having found out about the existence of his son; that he would take him away from Corlene and bring him to live with him. In Dylan’s fantasy, his father was a shopkeeper who had a nice wife and lots of kids who welcomed Dylan into the family. As he grew older, he realised that the family of his dreams didn’t exist anywhere outside of his imagination and he eventually gave up on the idea. Grandma was the closest he came to having a family, but Corlene didn’t really get along with her mother, and she only ever went back home to visit her when things were very bad in her own life. Every time things got rough, Dylan wished he could up sticks and go stay with his Grandma, but Corlene always moved them on to wherever she could manage to scrounge enough money.

  Something was happening here in this little place in Ireland. He could feel it. He really wanted to be part of this world, but he felt that he might as well be a Martian he had so little in common with these people. There was a break in the music and the musicians were chatting to a group of people sitting together near the stage. Dylan remained in his seat, feeling ridiculous. Everyone else here seemed to be with someone and he had never felt so out of place. As he looked into his glass, he heard Diarmuid say

  ‘Dylan! How are things? Are you on your own? Come over here and meet some people.’

  Dylan smiled and gratefully followed the piper.

  ‘This is my wife Siobhán and one of our daughters, Laoise, and my cousin Sean and his wife Kate. These here are a variety of relations, all on the way back from a funeral in Kerry of an old lady we knew.’

  Everyone in the group smiled and said hello. Slightly thrown by such attention, Dylan blushed. ‘Eh…Hi guys,’ he managed to stutter.

  They looked like nice people. Diarmuid’s wife was younger than him and kind of hippyish, but she had a very friendly smile.

  ‘If you’re sitting up there on your own, why don’t you join us?’ Siobhán asked, nudging the teenage girl sitting beside her. ‘Push up there Laoise and make some room.’

  Diarmuid’s daughter moved over, creating just enough space for Dylan to squeeze in. She was about seventeen and dressed in black from head to toe. Not exactly his image of an Irish colleen, but he was nonetheless fascinated by her.

  ‘So,’ she said, sipping a drink, ‘you’re American?’ Dylan nodded.

  ‘We went to Savannah, Georgia last year. Dad and the lads were playing there for St Patrick’s Day. It was brilliant. We had such craic…’

  Registering the look of surprise on Dylan’s face she laughed and explained, ‘Not crack as in cocaine, it’s an Irish word, it means having a good time. It was so much fun compared with being in Ireland for Paddies Day. It’s always feckin’ raining for a start. My Dad said you were at the gig in the church the other day, and that you went to the session in Kinsale too.’ Laoise seemed very confident and very scary.

  ‘Well your Dad said it would be OK…I didn’t get in the way I hope…I mean…,’ Dylan felt himself blushing again.

  ‘Nah,’ Laoise replied. ‘It’s just I was expecting you to be different. Dad said you might come tonight. I think he thought I could talk to you, being your age and all that. Anyway, I dunno what I was expecting, but you’re not it anyway,’ she laughed.

  Dylan froze, and then quickly realised she was only kidding him, so he laughed too. She was amazing looking, he thought – really short, raven black hair with streaks of violent pink. Her tiny frame dressed in a mixture of black denim and leather, her tongue pierced. On her neck a small tattoo of a treble clef.

  ‘Cool tattoo,’ Dylan ventured.

  Laoise beamed. ‘Yeah it’s deadly I know, but my Mam and Dad went mental when I got it done. You’re supposed to be eighteen to get it done, but I have fake ID. Dad is getting used to it now, but for ages I had to wear a scarf ‘cause every time my he saw it, he went off on one. You’d swear he was a saint all his life the way he went on at me. I mean like, it’s my neck right?

  ‘I think your Dad is awesome…I’ve never heard anyone play like him,’ Dylan replied, thrilled to be talking to this incredible girl.

  ‘Yeah he’s grand, I suppose he’d want to be good
by now. He’s been doing it like, forever. I’ve been listening to it all my life, so I suppose you get a bit immune to it, you know what I mean?’ Laoise took a sip of her Coke.

  ‘How do you spell your name?’ These Irish names were a total mystery to him.

  ‘L A O I S E, but pronounced Lee-sha.’ she said, her mouth full of potato crisps. It was the most beautiful name Dylan had ever heard.

  The band had restarted and the singer was calling someone to the stage. It suddenly dawned on Dylan that it was Laoise they were looking for. With a sigh, she got up, shuffled past Dylan and headed for the stage. Without a hint of nervousness, she took the microphone and began singing in a language Dylan couldn’t understand. Diarmuid accompanied her on the tin whistle, her mesmeric voice stilling all conversation in the pub. When the last sad plaintiff notes rang out, the crowd erupted with whoops and cheers and calls for more. Laoise said something to her father, took up a small, blue electric fiddle, nodded to the other band members, and began to play a furious and frantic tune. As the music reached a crescendo, the whooping and cheering erupted all over again, but this time the crowd were on their feet yelling and applauding. Laoise handed the fiddle player his instrument, smiled her thanks for the applause and sauntered off the stage, cool as a breeze. She made for the front door and, as she did so, gestured to Dylan to follow.

  The cool air that greeted them was a welcome contrast to the hot and sticky pub.

  Laoise lit a cigarette and offered Dylan one. They stood smoking in silence for a few moments. ‘That was amazing,’

  Dylan finally managed to say

  ‘What was? Oh the tune? Thanks.’ As ever, Laoise was unfazed. ‘It gives the lads in the band a chance to have a pint,’ she took another long drag,

  ‘My Mam goes mad over me smoking though, says it will wreck my voice.’

  ‘So, are you like, professional now?’

  Laoise burst into peals of laughter. ‘Yeah right!’ Me and all the other fifty thousand Irish girls who can carry a tune. Nah, I’ve just done my Leaving Cert and finished school. I just sing a bit with my Dad at home and an odd time at something like this. It’s a tough way to earn a living, music, even if you are out of the ordinary, which I’m not. My folks want me to go to college and all that. I suppose I will, but I really just want to do music.’