by Gemma Whelan
Critical praise for Fiona: Stolen Child
“Gemma Whelan’s Fiona is amazing. It’s a story of an Irish writer living in America who is collaborating on a film script of her own life which forces her to confront the lies and deceptions of her past, lies that have poisoned her relationships and walled up her creativity.
This is a richly textured novel, written with passion and style; an absolute delight to read.”
—James N. Frey
How to Write a Damn Good Novel, The Long
Way to Die, and Winter of the Wolves
“Gemma Whelan is a natural born storyteller with a brilliant eye for character and description. Her writing oozes with class.”
—Peter Sheridan
award-winning Irish playwright and director
“Fiona is the captivating odyssey of a writer who, seeking fulfillment in Manhattan and Hollywood, is drawn back inexorably to face her roots in rural Ireland.
Beautifully written, populated with memorable characters, possessed of a page-turning plot, the novel unspools in the imagination like a rich and wonderful film—and resonates afterward in the heart.”
—Darryl Brock
If I Never Get Back and Two in the Field
“Set in the U.S. and Ireland, this fascinating novel within a novel poignantly illuminates the protagonist’s heroic struggle to reconcile the complexities of her hopeful present with a haunted past, richly rewarding the reader with lustrous language and a spellbinding story!”
—Howard G. Franklin
An Irish Experience
Gemma Whelan
First published by GemmaMedia in 2011.
GemmaMedia
230 Commercial Street
Boston, MA 02109 USA
www.gemmamedia.com
© 2011 by Gemma Whelan
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles of reviews.
Printed in the United States of America
15 14 13 12 11 1 2 3 4 5
978-1-934848-49-4
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: [TK]
for Betty
PROLOGUE
Fiona held her breath as the lights slowly dimmed in the theatre. From her fourth row center position, she was aware of the red plush seats fanning out all around her and filled with expectant film goers. The smell of sweet buttery popcorn tickled her nostrils, candy papers rustled, bags crackled, and giant sodas swished up through plastic straws. People chatted and laughed, and the rhythms of the soundscape floated in Fiona’s consciousness as she tried to settle, to center herself.
She looked up at the opulent art deco sunburst patterns on the walls; they helped her feel upbeat. Straight ahead was the tall silent screen that in a few short moments would start to unfurl a film made from her novel. She felt like a figure in a surrealist painting, floating above the earth, swimming in air, not able to touch down. She pressed her thighs into the velvety seat and her spine against the hard back to keep her body grounded. Her new shoulder length hairstyle caressed her neck like the touch of a lover. Her form-fitting emerald green silk dress was itself like a dream, all soft and luxurious against her skin.
She breathed in. She breathed out. She could barely contain her excitement. In one year, from June 1990 to June 1991, one revolution of the earth around the sun, her own orbit had been spun upside down and inside out. The lights faded to black. A moment of suspension, then the screen came to life and the credits began to roll. “Based on the novel, Eye of the Storm by Fiona Clarke.” A storm arose on the screen. 1964. Angry Irish summer skies. She could hear the suspended breathing around her, yet she herself felt surprisingly calm as she prepared to watch the film.
CHAPTER ONE
THE STORM
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”
ANAÏS NIN
Fiona was content. She had slipped into an hypnotic rhythm induced by the gentle but insistent tapping of her fingers on the computer keyboard and the strains of Handel’s Arrival of the Queen of Sheba on the kitchenette radio. Her long, slim fingers rippled with ease and grace over the keys, and the screen reflected back a faint image of her taut cheekbones, pale Irish skin and golden-lidded, moss-green eyes. She felt the caress of stray copper tendrils that slipped loose from the soft knot fashioned at the nape of her neck. Immersed in her review of a recent collection of short stories by Irish women writers, she was only vaguely aware of her surroundings, her tiny studio in a New York brownstone. The dark oak paneling and walls of bookcases, and the small multi-paned window high up near the ceiling which filtered in the waning evening light, were comforting in their peripheral caress.
The sharp splatter of raindrops on the window broke the spell. Fiona glanced up and noticed the sky over Manhattan had darkened. Distant thunder rumbled as hail pelted down violently on the tiled roof. She felt the same fear in the pit of her stomach that she always felt when a storm was brewing. She forced herself to concentrate on the keyboard, and to reason that the present assault on the window was only heavy rain and not shards of glass. It was almost June, summertime, surely it couldn’t last too long. Now her fingers pounded out an arrhythmic beat as she struggled to stay calm.
Instead of words, images were forming. She was back in Ireland on the farm. It was over two and a half decades ago, summer of 1964. She was nine years old and crouched inside the secret treehouse in the trunk of the ancient oak with her five-year-old sister Orla. Lightning flashed, transforming bronze-haired, cinnamon-eyed Orla into an ethereal being. Thunder crashed and the girls thrilled with fear and excitement. They listened to the heavy rain which threatened to flood the earth and, at first, they felt secure within their own little fortress. A fierce thunderstorm had exploded with a fury that stirred them up and made them feel daring. Like Alice in Wonderland, which Fiona was reading to Orla, they were having an adventure.
“Will we count? Fiona, can we count, can we?” Orla tugged at the hem of her thin cotton frock.
Fiona forced herself to put on a brave smile. “All right. Ready?”
Orla nodded vigorously, breathless with excitement. “And in Irish, I want to count in Irish!” Orla was going to start primary school in September, and Fiona was teaching her letters and numbers in both Irish and English. She dramatically spread out all of the fingers of her left hand, and as the lightning flared they began to count in unison. “A haon, a dó, a trí, a ceathair, a cúig . . . ” A fierce thunderclap shrieked through the air.
“That’s five miles away, isn’t it?” Orla was thrilled and clapped her hands. “Five seconds, five miles, isn’t it, Fiona?”
“Right, it would be about at . . . Mullingar . . . I think.” She tried to remember the maps of Ireland they drew in Geography class.
“We’re safe here though, aren’t we?” Orla’s laugh tinkled in tune with the next huge storm blast, and she started to count loudly again, marking out the numbers on her fingers. “A haon, a dó, a trí, a ceathair . . . ” Bang!
Fiona swept up Alice in Wonderland and the coloring book and crayons from the ground. “We’re not going, are we?” Orla shrieked. “I don’t want to go, please let us stay. Please, Fiona, please, pretty please!”
Before Fiona had time to answer, there was another lightning spike, and Orla started to shout out “A haon, a dó, a trí . . . Oh boy! Fiona, is it at Cregora yet? Do you think Mam and Dad are getting wet? How far away is Cregora, Fiona?”
“It’s not nearly as far away as three miles. About two and a half, maybe.”
“And Mam and Dad? Are they all right. Will they get sick?” Orla was working herself into hysterics now. “Is Mama coming home to us?”<
br />
Fiona gave her little sister a quick, urgent hug. “Of course she’s coming home, you nincompoop! Mama is all better now. She’ll never leave us again.”
She watched as Orla moved instinctively for the doll, the doll in their mother’s likeness that Fiona had made for Orla when Mam got tuberculosis and had to go away to a sanatorium for two years. The little girl clasped it to her chest.
“It’s just a summer storm.” Fiona tried to sound grown-up and assured. She wrapped the books and crayons in a plastic sheet and tucked them into the wooden shelf that formed itself out of the inner tree trunk. “And Mam and Dad are safe inside the chapel, so they won’t get wet at all.”
Orla held the doll ever closer. A sudden wind-blast ripped aside the first of the branches that shielded the entrance, and she screamed. Another onslaught stripped away the remaining twigs and leafy coverings, and the rain pelted in, dragged by the quickly rising gales.
“I don’t want to chance making a run for the house.” Fiona tried to keep the quiver out of her voice. “We’d get drenched.”
“And would I get sick again? Have to go away again to that awful hospital?”
Fiona choked on her dread. The doll’s face, which had an eerie resemblance to her Mama’s, taunted her. She grasped Orla even tighter, shook her head and mumbled “No.”
Another lightning flash. “One, two . . . ” Orla’s voice was high pitched with equal parts terror and excitement. The sound of the thunder reverberated in the hollow of their tree-trunk haven. The layers of burlap sacks that served as their carpet began to seep with moisture. The low wooden carton had initially protected them from the spreading wetness, but was now starting to disintegrate.
“Fiona, look, our floor!” Orla shouted hysterically. Fiona stared hopelessly at the darkening stains as their socks and sandals got progressively soggier. Orla shivered, and Fiona hurriedly slung the green tartan rug around her shoulders. “Here, this will keep you snug.” She hugged her close. “You’ll be grand. I’ll mind you. I promise you, I will.”
The rain turned to heavy hailstones. The sisters were trapped, a part of nature, and the storm gathered around them with a growing fury. On the next flash Orla buried her face in Fiona’s chest. “One.” It was an hysterical scream. “Tw . . . ” The little girl abandoned her counting game as the burlap sacks lining their hideout gave way and they were exposed to the full fury of the elements. Fiona finally sprung into action. “Come on.” She grabbed the old woolen rug, pulled it over both of their heads, took Orla’s arm, and sped out of their collapsing fortress.
“We have to run like mad, Orla. Run, run, as fast as you can!”
Like a two-headed Irish colleen, with red and green tartan fringes flapping into their faces, they raced along the narrow muddy path. Fiona half pushed, half carried her little sister in the crook of her arm. Their sandaled feet sunk into the dank mass, and they had to haul them out with every footstep. As Fiona dragged her along, Orla snagged her toe in a clump of intertwined twigs and fell headlong into the spongy brown muck. She screamed as she swallowed the mud and spluttered it out, spitting and choking with fear and rage. In a flash Fiona was on her knees trying to extricate her from the slippery mess.
“Try to get a foothold if you can and I’ll pull you up.”
“I can’t, I’m trying.” Orla was crying uncontrollably. “Help me.”
Fiona grasped her tightly around the waist, stood up straight, and yanked as hard as she could. A zigzag of silver brilliance sizzled across the gray sky, followed almost immediately by a deafening thunderbolt, as Fiona struggled to move them out of danger. A huge tug, a lunge forward, and both of them landed face down in the sludge.
Orla’s screams merged with the low rumbles. She lashed out and started to slap Fiona’s arm.
“Orla, stop it. I’m trying my best.” Fiona snapped angrily, as she struggled to get a foothold and haul them both up again.
“But you’re making me sick. It’s all your fault!” Orla wailed at the top of her lungs. “There’s muck in my mouth. It’s yucky!”
Fiona sunk her feet into the soft earth with determination. She swallowed her heavy guilt at first failing her little sister and then getting angry at her. With gargantuan effort, she managed to drag them out and plow through to the end of the pathway. Orla was choking on her sobs. They circled the rising pond, bolted through the tree-lined lane, picked their way over the glimmering gravel, until finally, after an eternity, they were in view of the looming farmhouse. It rose up out of the white rain-shield like a haunted castle, gray and forbidding. Orla hacked and coughed. The outline of the slate roof was barely discernible, and the chimney stacks jutted defiantly into the angry skies. Fiona glanced sideways at her sister, hoping and praying she wouldn’t get pneumonia, and pulled the soaking rug tighter around her thin shoulders.
“We’re nearly there Orla. There’s the house, look!”
Orla glanced up through her veil of tears and nodded when she saw the outline of their home. She shivered under Fiona’s protective arm, and they ran the last few feet, through the yard, up to the front door.
Their twelve-year-old brother Declan, with his helmet of flaming orange curls, stood sentry stiff in the massive oak doorway and radiated a piercing glare of disapproval.
“You got her all wet!”
“I couldn’t help it!”
“Where were you? What the hell took you so long?
“Would you get out of my way, Declan! I need to get her in and dried off.”
In a flash, Declan reached over, snatched Orla, encircled her with his arm, and ushered her quickly into the safety of the house. Fiona, rooted to the spot, stood stock still in the pelting rain and stared hopelessly after them. The tartan rug flapped violently in the gale and whipped her bedraggled body.
Weeks later, Orla was dead.
Fiona fought against the memories and the continuing saga of her past. Beads of sweat stung her forehead, and she could hear her own arrhythmic breathing drumming in her ears. She struck hard at the keyboard, trying to erase Declan’s stare from her brain. She desperately wanted to free herself from this onslaught that dragged her down and threatened to drown her. She was a writer, after all, and knew well how to shapeshift stories and situations, so she should be able to control them. The Handel oratorio signaled the triumphal welcome of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon’s court. Outside, on the streets of Manhattan, the rain mercifully subsided, and along with it, Fiona’s unwelcome memories. A jumble of nonsense words and symbols filled the screen, but she was safe again. She had managed, for now, to stop the images.
She slowly rose and began to circumnavigate her terrain. Nondescript cotton pants and top camouflaged her tall slender frame, as animal-like, she circled the small cocoon. Her nerves were fraught. She caught a glimpse of Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man—the coming of age of her great countryman and expatriate written almost a century ago. She plucked it from the shelf and leafed through the pages, inhaling the aroma. “This lovely land that always sent her writers and artists to banishment.” Joyce had said that somewhere. She spotted Edna O’Brien’s The Country Girls Trilogy on a nearby shelf, replaced the Joyce, and thumbed through the Trilogy. One of Joyce’s banished writers, O’Brien had to flee Ireland and the sexual repression of the 1950’s when her books were banned. Fiona returned to the desk and her scattered notes. They were part of an in-progress review of a collection of contemporary stories by some of her favorite Irish women writers. Many like Mary Beckett, Fiona Boylan and Jennifer Johnston still lived in Ireland, although many others such as Elizabeth Bowen, Anne Devlin and Julia O’Faoláin had moved away and lived abroad. Were they happy in their exile, she wondered, or was there always a longing, an emptiness? Were they too plagued by unwanted memories, and did those memories interfere with their writing and their lives? Were they thrown off schedule? Did they miss deadlines because past memories invaded? Fiona took solace in the familiar paper and oaky smells of her own refuge. The tall
wooden shelves housed her books and wrapped her ’round. Wood. Paper. Wood. A lifetime removed from that Irish childhood storm, in the depth of this American city, she had carved herself a place and crept inside. Safe. Unborn.
Still under the spell of the storm of past memories, Fiona drifted to the tiny kitchenette on the other side of the counter and put water on to make a cup of tea. Her hands shook as she held the kettle under the tap. She needed to calm her nerves, and the tea would help. She pried the lid off the Fortnum and Mason tea caddy and deeply inhaled the whiff of bergamot from the Earl Grey blend. The teacup rattled as she lifted it from the shelf above the sink and set it down carefully. She held on to the counter top to steady herself, and gazed at the purple gas flame as it leaped up and licked the sides of the old green kettle. She caught a glimpse of herself in the little mirror over the sink and saw that her hair had come loose—it spread like a wild and messy aureole around her head and made her think of Grace O’Malley, the Irish 16th century pirate queen. She had a vague notion that her second novel might be about this extraordinary Irish woman who had met face to face with Queen Elizabeth. But vague notions did not translate into solid writing, and Fiona was still unable to get started on that project as she knew she must. Instead she was writing reviews of other Irish women’s writing. A safe remove.
The phone rang and jolted her from her reverie. When Fiona heard the Irish voice of her father’s cousin Nellie on the other end, she froze.
“Fiona . . . is that you?” A whir of transatlantic noise hummed in her ear.
“Yes. Is this Nellie?” she asked, knowing right well it was.
“It’s myself all right, pet.” Fiona pictured her, standing in the entrance way of Fiona’s old family home, beside the carved mahogany hall-stand, her shoulders slightly bent, silver hair glinting in the oval mirror.
“Is Dad sick, or . . . something?” Nell lived down the road and had been coming over a few times a week since Fiona’s mother died two years ago.
