The Unquiet Grave

by David J Oldman

  At the bus depot I joined the queue to buy a ticket. Getting to the window I found a grim-faced bespectacled man with the look of a raptor who might have passed for Eamon de Valera if you were lucky enough to catch the First Minister of Ireland on one of his sunnier days.

  ‘Newtownmountkennedy, please,’ I asked, trying to stress what I thought were the proper syllables in the town’s improbably long name.

  The man stared back at me. ‘Amháin nó ar ais?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Bailie O’gCearnaigh,’ he said. ‘Amháin nó ar ais?’

  We regarded at each other for a while before I pushed a ten shilling note across the desk.

  ‘Newtownmountkennedy,’ I said again.

  ‘Bailie O’gCearnaigh,’ the ersatz De Valera repeated, and for the first time his expression changed. The line of his lips firmed. ‘Amháin nó ar ais?’

  I heard the woman in the queue behind me mutter and before I could say Newtownmountkennedy again she pushed past me and stuck her face through the ticket window.

  ‘For the love of God, man, he’s said where he wants to go so why not give him a ticket?’

  ‘Amháin nó ar ais?’ De Valera persisted.

  She turned to me. ‘Do you want a single or a return?’

  ‘Single,’ I said.

  She looked back at De Valera. ‘You heard.’

  I collected my ticket and change and stepped away from the queue, wondering which bus stand I needed but not inclined to ask.

  ‘You’ll be wanting the Wexford bus,’ the woman from the queue said, tucking her own ticket into her handbag. ‘I’m taking it myself.’

  I followed her to the appropriate stand and waited while she checked the timetable and then her watch.

  ‘Ten minutes,’ she said and, glancing back the way we’d come, added, ‘It’s like an affliction from God. Some men as soon as they hear an English accent lose everything but the Gaelic.’

  Her name was Mary Flaherty and she lived in Newtownmountkennedy, having been up to Dublin where her married daughter now lived. A stocky, genial woman, she was full of talk and banter and I thought wouldn’t have looked out of place gutting fish with a gaggle of her kind on some port quayside.

  ‘Ballydrum, you say?’ she said when I told her where I was going. ‘Now what would you be wanting in Ballydrum?’

  I told her who I was and that a man named Kearney had died in Normandy. Ballydrum was where his family lived.

  ‘Well,’ she decided, ‘the British Army’s not as black as they’re painted if they’re after sending someone to a place like Ballydrum just to tell some poor woman her son’s been killed.’

  I didn’t tell her that Kearney’s mother was already dead, nor that my journey wasn’t a wholly altruistic exercise. But that was fine by Mary Flaherty who wasn’t really interested in me or the reason for my visit anyway, preferring to spend the hour or so it took to reach Newtownmountkennedy telling me what a fine marriage her daughter Mauraid had made and how well her son-in-law was doing in haberdashery. Stepping down from the bus she told me where to catch the one for Ballydrum and that I wouldn’t have to wait more than an hour.

  ‘And you’ll be getting the ticket from the driver,’ she explained, ‘and I don’t suppose he’ll be wanting the Gaelic from you.’

  I thanked her and carried my bag to the junction she indicated, sat on the bench by the stop and lit a cigarette.

  If Mary Flaherty was surprised at the lengths the British Army was prepared to go over one dead Irishman, it was no less pronounced than my own surprise by my decision to go to Ballydrum. I had no idea what I expected to find out: Kearney’s mother was dead and his sister presumably still in London; any other family——if Rose was to be believed——would be less than keen to speak to a member of the former oppressing caste. I’d already had a taste of what their attitude might be on entering the country when I’d got off the ferry at Dublin. Despite being careful to wear civilian clothes there was no disguising my military papers and the Garda, or whoever it was who guarded the country, had wanted to know precisely what the nature of my business in the Republic was. I told them the truth, that I was looking for relatives of a man named Kearney who had gone missing in Northern France. If they were curious as to why I was going to so much trouble over one absent sergeant, they didn’t say, just noted down in a large ledger all the details I had on the missing man, as if for some future reference

  There had been a vindictive campaign in the new republic after the Great War against Irish nationals who had volunteered to fight for Britain, and I wondered if the same thing was happening now. The Garda weren’t giving anything away, though. Not beyond a general demeanour of hostility and mistrust, that is.

  Then again, they might simply have been bored and were looking for something to do. As usual, most of the traffic was still going in the other direction.

  *

  The bus drove west through a patchwork of green and gold, the road rising as we approached the Wicklow Mountains. It was cooler than it had been in Dublin and ahead, above the dark granite outcrop of the hills, grey cloud shrouded the higher peaks. The road was little more than a narrow track, the bus rattling as it struggled with the climb and the fields giving way to heath, upland grass and blanket bog.

  Not wanting to waste my time while in the bookshop in Dublin, I’d read a little about the Wicklow Mountains. The area, it seemed, had been a centre of resistance to the Norman conquest and, thereafter, had remained a thorn in the side of whoever had subsequently ruled at Westminster. Those left of Wolfe Tone’s uprising had taken shelter there in 1798. It had been Tone who’d originated the strategy of rebelling against the British government while they were engaged in a foreign war. We were fighting the French at the time and Tone had expected French support which had never come. But we’d all been there, I suppose. As a strategy Tone’s stance was militarily sound although, unfortunately for him, guaranteed to gain the support of only those from whom he already had it. In those circumstances everyone else tends to damn you as a treasonous hound. The Irish rebels tried it again at Easter in 1916, with much the same result, only this time Westminster confounded its own folly by executing the leaders and so swaying public opinion——at least in Ireland——in the other direction.

  Back in Tone’s day they’d built a military road through the Wicklow Mountains to suppress the rebellion. But building roads hadn’t been of much use in suppressing the IRA. After independence, the Irish had been left to do that for themselves and hadn’t proved much better than the British at the job. By then it seemed that somehow the ideal had become subordinate to the action; as when the Fenian Brotherhood had murdered Cavendish and Burke in Phoenix Park. Both men had been supporters of Home Rule. But that hardly mattered once terror had become an objective, and blood became an end in itself.

  *

  Ballydrum when I reached it was even smaller than I had thought it might be and it wasn’t hard to imagine why Kearney had left. The main street ran into a huddled collection of drab cottages then ran out again into the bog on the other side. There was a church, a pub, two or three small shops and an air of abandonment, as if all the residents had long-since joined the Irish diaspora. Getting down from the bus I hesitated outside the pub, but it was already early afternoon and if I was going to catch the only bus back that day I couldn’t afford to waste my time. I turned around and headed towards the church.

  It was silent as the tomb inside and almost as dark, and it took my eyes a minute to adjust to the gloom. Then I saw an old lady sweeping between the pews near the altar who told me I’d find Father O’Dowd in his vestry. He was younger than I expected and quite unremarkable, my conception of Irish priests proving less than immaculate. It had been coloured, no doubt, by Hollywood’s irascible Barry Fitzgerald and the muscular Pat O’Brien. O’Dowd bore no resemblance to either and seemed equally surprised to see me, but then perhaps he wasn’t used to visitors. Given his age, I thought it unlikely he was going to re
member William Kearney unless he was from Ballydrum himself.

  ‘Kearney?’ he repeated when I told him who I was and why I was there. ‘No, there’s no Kearneys live around here. There used to be, I believe, but that was before I came to this parish.’

  I thought I detected just a touch of wariness in his reply. It might simply have been self-consciousness as I had caught him smoking in his vestry and he had quickly taken the cigarette from his mouth and held it in his long and bony fingers out of sight at his side. The smoke was curling up in the air between us though, which was something of a give-away and finally, perhaps reluctant to waste a good cigarette, he gave me an apologetic smile and took a drag on it.

  ‘A bad habit, I know, but God loves a sinner as they say and it often helps to have something in common with your parishioners. Smokers to a man although I know some of my good ladies don’t always approve.’

  ‘You wouldn’t know if one of those Kearneys happened to be named William?’ I persisted. ‘I don’t know exactly when he would have left but I should imagine he was probably quite a young man still.’ I showed him the photograph of the man I assumed to be Kearney I’d found in the file.

  Father O’Dowd studied the couple standing in front of the columns for a moment before shaking his head.

  ‘No, but then I never met the family. The father was a farmer and as far as I know had just the one daughter.’

  ‘Her name would be Rose, would it?’

  He took another pull on the cigarette. ‘No, that would have been Cathleen, rest her soul. I only know because the poor girl’s buried in the churchyard here.’

  He lowered his voice and bent towards me as if there might be a third party listening at the door.

  ‘There was a bit of a to-do about it, I believe. But Father Byrne——he was my predecessor——insisted on her being buried in consecrated ground and there weren’t many people in this parish that would go against Father Byrne’s wishes.’

  ‘And she never had a brother?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge.’

  ‘And the father and mother?’

  ‘Both dead...mercifully,’ he added after a second.

  It was obvious there was some sort of story here even if Father O’Dowd appeared reluctant to divulge the details. Whether the matter had anything to do with William Kearney was another matter.

  I asked if there was anyone in the village I might be able to speak to who remembered the Kearneys.

  ‘The elderly lady I saw in the church, perhaps?’

  O’Dowd straightened up, his face freezing in what, under other circumstances, I would have described as puritanical horror.

  ‘Now I wouldn’t advise that course of action. Best let sleeping dogs lie, as they say. It’s not a subject that’s talked about here and I only know as much as I do through tittle-tattle. I’m not one to pass that sort of gossip along, you understand.’

  ‘Of course, father,’ I agreed. ‘It’s just I’ve come a long way and I’d hate to leave without following up any lead, no matter how tenuous.’

  O’Dowd regarded me steadily for a second or two before stubbing out the remains of his cigarette.

  ‘Then you should speak to Father Byrne. He knows all about the sorry business. I don’t think it can have anything to do with this William Kearney you’re looking for, but Father Byrne will know.’

  ‘Is he still in the village?’

  ‘He lives at the seminary now. Retired but still able to give the young seminarians the benefit of his experience and teaching.’

  ‘And where is the seminary?’

  Father O’Dowd gestured beyond the vestry door. ‘Through the village on the main road. You can’t miss it.’

  ‘Do I need to take a bus?’

  He chuckled. ‘I’m afraid you came in on the only bus going that way. But you can walk there without any trouble. It’s no more than five miles.’

  16

  According to Father O’Dowd’s description, the seminary catered to both ends of the religious life, training the next crop of young men taking holy orders and providing a retirement home for those closer to discovering if they’d backed the right horse. I found the place easily enough as it was the only building there was, standing in the middle of a windswept wasteland several miles beyond Ballydrum. The gloomy Victorian pile sat cast against a grey Irish sky like an affront to the barren peat bog around it. So isolated even the devil might have thought twice about finding mischief for idle hands. Then perhaps that had been the point for those who had built it.

  A suspicious-eyed housekeeper answered the door and informed me that the fathers were having their tea. When I said I’d wait she relented sufficiently to allow she might be able to find a cup for me as well. Calling to a thin drab of a girl in a grubby housecoat whom she addressed as Sheilagh, she instructed her to take me through to Father Byrne. I followed along a dank corridor to a large room where a shaft of milky sunlight issuing through a pair of French windows made little impression on the dismal interior. Half a dozen priests in identical black garb sat around the room like a flock of elderly rooks stunned into silence. Several empty chairs spoke of either attrition or vacancies, depending upon one’s optimism, although neither view offered much in the way of assurance. Sheilagh, studiously avoiding eye contact, pointed out Father Byrne, and I picked up one of the empty chairs and set it next to him. He looked frail, stooped even in a sitting position, and didn’t raise his head as I sat down. At his side a cup of tea stood untouched on an occasional table and his eyes were fixed on a point on the threadbare carpet halfway between his chair and the door. Looking at his grey, patchily shaven face, I began to suspect that Father O’Dowd had sent me on a round ten-mile goose-chase to interview a man in his dotage rather than talk about the Kearneys himself. But after a second Father Byrne stirred himself from his reverie, turned a pair of inquisitive eyes on me and bade me a ‘Good afternoon,’ with startling heartiness.

  I explained who I was and that Father O’Dowd had suggested I visit him.

  ‘Did you bring the pony and trap?’ he asked.

  ‘I walked,’ I said.

  ‘Pity,’ he replied. ‘I don’t get out of this place much and it looks like a nice afternoon for a drive.’

  While walking there, I personally hadn’t thought the afternoon had that much to recommend it, although compared to being confined to the dreary seminary I dare say it had its attractions.

  Father Byrne reached a palsied hand towards his tea and managed to bring it to his mouth without spilling too much.

  ‘So what’s your interest in Patrick Kearney?’ he asked once the cup was safely reunited with its saucer.

  ‘William Kearney. It’s William Kearney I’m trying to find out about. And his sister, Rose.’

  ‘Different family, then,’ said Byrne. The Ballydrum Kearney was Patrick. He had a brother, Sean, but he went to America once their father, old man Kearney, died. His name was Brian. Patrick was the eldest and so took over the farm. It wasn’t big enough to support two families, you see.’

  ‘And Rose?’

  ‘Patrick’s daughter was named Cathleen, God rest her soul. And her mother was Mary. Mary died when Cathleen was just a child. There was no Rose in the family.’

  I took the photograph out of my pocket and passed it to Father Byrne. He fumbled for a pair of spectacles then peered at the image on the creased photo.

  ‘Now would you look at that,’ Father Byrne said. ‘And you say Father O’Dowd didn’t tell you what happened?’

  ‘No. He said something about village gossip and not wanting to repeat it.’

  ‘I’m sure he did.’ Father Byrne’s pale lips compressed tightly as if to trap a comment he’d prefer not to articulate. ‘But you still want to know, I suppose?’ he said.

  I wasn’t sure that I did. I had a five-mile walk back to the village and with a good chance of missing my bus back to Dublin at the end of it. I supposed if I left immediately there was a chance I might flag the thing down on th
e road if I saw it, but otherwise I’d be looking for a room for the night and Ballydrum hadn’t struck me as the most accommodating of villages.

  ‘If it’s not relevant...’ I said.

  ‘Oh, it’s relevant all right,’ Father Byrne said, ‘and you’d be better hearing it from me rather than from some slack-mouthed village gossip. Though I can’t see that it’ll help you much.’ He tapped a finger against the photograph. ‘He’s dead, you say?’

  ‘If that’s William Kearney then he probably is. Although his body hasn’t turned up yet.’

  Byrne chuckled unexpectedly. ‘Well there’s some irony in that at least,’ he said.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  Father Byrne shifted in his chair and finished his tea before going on. He glanced around the room at his fellow priests but none of them were paying us any mind.

  ‘He was a Godless man, Patrick Kearney. His wife, Mary, was devout and so was young Cathleen as she grew up. But Kearney himself never cast his shadow in my church. After Mary died you’d see him of an evening in the village——he’d not step into church but had no fear of crossing the threshold of Casey’s public house. He was wanting a new wife, of course, having worked Mary into an early grave. But there has always been a shortage of marriageable women in Ballydrum and Patrick Kearney wasn’t going to find one in the pub. And he certainly wasn’t one for spending money on looking further afield. Given the sort of man he was——a drinking man, I mean——it wasn’t any great surprise that once Cathleen began to grow he should turn to her to slake his carnal appetites.’

  Father Byrne pierced me with his cold gaze. My mouth had gone dry and I found myself looking towards the door and wondering where my tea was.

  ‘I didn’t know when it started,’ Father Byrne resumed. ‘Cathleen was a stoical girl, like her mother, and she gave no indication of what was happening at home. She attended Mass regularly, and Confession, and I wouldn’t be breaking my covenant by saying no word of what she was having to endure passed her lips in my confessional.