House of Memories

by Taylor, Alice

  “I’m sure that he finds you a great trial, but then he does not love me either since that run-in we had about the trees around the church … Oh, that’s David now,” she finished.

  “I didn’t hear a thing,” Fr Tim decided, having listened.

  “No, David is the quiet type,” Kate told him.

  “Hello, quiet man,” he called out.

  Kate smiled, and she thought how different these two men were and yet what a strong friendship had developed between them. Fr Tim was a great support to David, giving all his free time to training the school teams. He was good with the young because he had a great zest for life. Kate felt that the older people in the parish did not appreciate him fully because he lacked a certain gravitas. But as she had stood with him by the bedsides of the sick and dying, she had discovered that he had unplumbed depths of spirituality. There he was a different person from the laughing, vivacious tearaway who outran the footballers up and down the playing field. Any family who had him with them for a death and bereavement saw the other side of him, and they never forgot his goodness.

  As David came into the room with a stack of copybooks under his arm, Kate felt the usual warm glow enfold her. She was always more complete in his loving presence. Now his dark eyes were full of amusement as he viewed Fr Tim and herself.

  “What’s all this about the quiet man?”

  “Your wife has been busy undermining my self-confidence by telling me what a big-mouthed, long-legged, awkward galoot I am and what a nice, quiet, gentle soul you are,” Fr Tim told him.

  “Well, isn’t it nice to be appreciated,” David said, ruffling Kate’s hair as he passed behind her chair.

  “You must be the most appreciated man in the parish,” Fr Tim told him, “all the mothers thinking that you’re wonderful and the leaving cert girls hanging off your every word.”

  “Oh, the first years might be impressed by me, but by the time they come to leaving cert they have gone off me because by then they have discovered that I’m a slave driver,” David told him, “but it’s you, Tim, that the leaving certs girls think is great.”

  “Do you think that it has anything to do with my half-starved look?” he joked.

  “Not really; just a case of any half-respectable-looking male under forty and teenagers full of awakening hormones,” David said ruefully as he joined them at the table. “But enough of that rubbish. Have you the Kilmeen team made out for Sunday or did you forget?”

  “Forget! You know that I never forget anything,” he protested much to their amusement. “It’s right here, boss,” he said, bringing a page out of his folder on the floor and waving it in front of David, who took it and studied the list.

  “I see that you have Danny Conway in goal again,” David said thoughtfully.

  “Why, what’s wrong with that?”

  “He nearly fell asleep there last Sunday. Only for Davey Shine we were wiped out,” David said ruefully.

  “I suppose he wasn’t up to his usual, but then Shiner, as the lads call him, covered well.”

  “But Shiner should not have to be carrying Danny. You can’t win matches with fellows trying to cover for each other,” David protested.

  “Yes, but Shiner won’t play as well in front of any other goalie, because himself and Danny understand each other and can anticipate each other’s thinking.”

  “I think that Danny’s lapse could be temporary,” Kate cut in. The two men looked at her in surprise. In their world of GAA, she seldom voiced an opinion.

  “How do you know?” Fr Tim asked with surprise.

  “Well, it’s a long story. Have you both the time to listen?” she asked them.

  “As long as it takes,” Fr Tim told her. “Don’t you know that the GAA is the second religion in Kilmeen, so it’s my second job. We’re all ears.”

  When she had finished there was silence for a moment as they digested the story. “What will Jack be able to do for him?” Fr Tim wondered.

  “Kate thinks that Jack can raise the dead,” David smiled.

  “Well, he raised Mossgrove from the dead when Dad died,” Kate told them. “I know that money is all-important to Danny now, but an experienced head is a great thing in farming and could spare him a lot of money in the long run.”

  “Somehow I don’t think that it’s the long run that Danny is worried about right now,” Fr Tim said. “Has he anyone to help him at the moment?”

  “As far as I know, Davey Shine goes over every evening when he is finished in Mossgrove. Danny didn’t tell me that, but I heard Martha complaining about it.”

  “How did she know, because I doubt that Shiner told her?” Fr Tim asked.

  “She probably saw him across the fields. You can see Furze Hill quite clearly from Mossgrove, and much doesn’t go on unknown to Martha,” Kate told him.

  “That’s typical of Shiner now to help out; he has a great heart. Of course, himself and Danny always stuck together. I remember him the time of Matt Conway’s funeral; he was never far away from Danny,” Fr Tim said.

  “It’s Rory that I’d be worried about,” David broke in. “When we had him playing with us he was nothing but trouble. Money could solve the first problem, but there are some problems that nothing can solve, and Rory I think could be one of them.”

  “We’ll have to wait and see how it all turns out,” Kate concluded, “but I thought that I’d fill you in so that you’d understand Danny, and maybe you might get a chance to help in some way.”

  “A rescue team?” Fr Tim smiled.

  “More than Danny needs a rescue team,” David told him.

  “How come?”

  “The Kilmeen club is going to grind to a halt without funds, and we can’t expect the likes of Danny and others like him who have nothing to put on the wind to buy jerseys and hurleys.”

  “You’re right there,” Fr Tim agreed.

  “Well, how do we make money?” David asked him.

  “You’re asking the wrong man,” Fr Tim told him. “My brothers got all the money brains in our family. I was the academic.”

  “That makes two of us,” David said ruefully.

  “Any ideas, Kate?” Fr Tim asked.

  For a long time it had bothered Kate that there was so little activity for the young in the village, but especially the girls. Nora and Rosie Nolan were for ever complaining about it, maintaining that the boys had hurling and football but that they had nothing, and she agreed with them.

  “Why not run a fund-raising event,” she suggested.

  “Like what?” Fr Tim demanded.

  “Well, let the young decide that,” she told him. “Why not form a club of the boys and girls and then let them do it together and divide the returns between the Kilmeens and the club. If the Kilmeens go it alone, they won’t have all the young with them, but the club would be a parish effort and everybody would be on board.”

  “That’s a great idea,” Fr Tim declared enthusiastically.

  “Where would they meet and run their events?” David asked.

  “The parish hall, I suppose,” Kate said. “Sure there is nowhere else.”

  “Oh, oh, that’s the first stumbling block,” Fr Tim decided. “I can imagine the face of the PP when I ask him for the hall for a gang of young ones, and we’ll have to ask him as it’s parish property.”

  “Yerra, you wouldn’t do to ask him at all,” Kate told him. “We’ll have to send David.”

  “Great idea,” a relieved Fr Tim declared.

  “So I’m to take the bull by the horns,” David smiled.

  “And bull is the operative word,” Kate said.

  They sat for a long time discussing the pros and cons of the new venture, and as they chatted Kate realised that between the three of them they knew most of what went on in the parish. This aspect of Kilmeen irritated Martha, and she often complained that it was like living in a fishbowl, but it never bothered Kate. She had often discovered on her rounds that some of people’s problems, when they were aired, were not
really as big as they had thought. She was always nervous of the problems that went on behind closed doors, and when she came on a problem like Matt Conway and his daughters, she nearly lost her faith in human nature. But then old Molly Conway, with her determined efforts to protect her grand children, restored it.

  “Kate, where are you gone off to?” David’s amused voice broke in on her thoughts and she heard the doorbell ringing. “That will be Rosie Nolan,” David said rising. “She is coming in to go over some maths. Nora is very anxious that she do honours maths and get a good leaving cert to go to college with her.”

  “Is that what Rosie wants?” Kate asked in surprise. “I thought that Rosie has this big dream of becoming a showband singer.”

  “She probably has, but Nora is determined that she will do a good exam and have something else behind her as well,” David told her.

  “Well done, Nora,” Fr Tim said. “The singing could be a shaky number, but Rosie could make it because she has a great voice and she is all up for it.”

  “Well, for the next half an hour she must be all up for Euclid,” David declared.

  When he had gone, Fr Tim poured himself another cup of tea, and Kate smiled as he filled her cup without asking.

  “You’re a rale tay boy,” she told him.

  “A family failing,” he smiled.

  “How are they?” she asked.

  “They’re all fine. The pub is humming away, but since Brian got married Dad is feeling that he is not as needed as he was. He does not say anything, but I can sense it in him. I suppose after Mom died he had been stretched to the hilt trying to get us all reared and educated, and now it’s done. He’s coming over to me next week to do my garden and straighten out my garden shed. But I know that he is only doing it to pass away the time. He loves gardening, but mine is very small. Dad was used to a very full life. He was a builder, you know, before he bought the pub. Made his money on the buildings in England and then came home and bought a pub.”

  “Smart move,” Kate told him. “Can’t go wrong with a pub in Ireland.”

  “Suppose so, but Kate, you have no idea of the drivel you have to listen to in a pub.”

  “Prepared you for the priesthood,” Kate smiled.

  “Maybe,” he agreed, “but I suppose that it was my mother’s death when I was a teenager that really started me on that road. Her death opened up all kinds of questions about what life was all about.”

  “Did you find any answers?” Kate asked.

  “No,” he told her, “and I’m beginning to think that there are none and that we must all struggle along the best way that we can.”

  “Any regrets?” she questioned.

  “Sometimes when I shut the door behind me at night, I think that it might be nice to have someone to sit down and have a chat with and discuss the day that is gone. When I see David and yourself so happy and contented together, I regret that it can never be mine.”

  “Nothing is perfect, Tim,” she told him lightly.

  “You regret very much that you and David don’t have children?” he questioned gently.

  “My one regret in life,” she told him, “and yet I feel that it is not right to complain when we are so happy together, and David never makes any issue out of it. It’s I have the problem with it.”

  “Well, that’s only natural, I suppose,” he said.

  “You know, when I think of the likes of Matt Conway having children and abusing his daughters and David and my not having any, wouldn’t you question what God is thinking?” she demanded.

  “God isn’t very good at answering questions, Kate. But hearing about Danny’s efforts to sort out Furze Hill, maybe it is up to all of us to help the Conways to recover from the life he inflicted on them.”

  “I feel so helpless on that score,” she told him.

  “Well, who knows but ways to help might open up yet,” he smiled.

  “That’s what I like about you, Fr Tim: you are the eternal optimist.”

  “Inherited from my father, because he is a firm believer that if you keep plugging on things will eventually work themselves out.”

  “He’s my kind of man,” she said, “and…”

  “Oh my God, I almost forgot to tell you that I had a letter from Rodney Jackson this morning,” Fr Tim interrupted, diving into his pocket, “and he is coming after Easter. He says that he has big plans for Kilmeen. I didn’t half read the letter as I was rushing down the street when I met Johnny and just opened it and sconced over it and pushed it in here,” he finished pulling a crumpled envelope out of his pocket.

  “Typical of you,” she told him, “but I’d better get the spare room tidied out for him and see …” But she was interrupted by a gasp from Fr Tim who was busy reading down through the letter.

  “Listen to this bit: ‘For a long time I have felt that Kilmeen is in the need of a small hotel as the catering facilities are so limited and there is no place for any tourist to stay in the village.”

  “Tourists!” she echoed.

  “Just listen,” he told her continuing: “While the school at the moment is occupying my family home, I feel that the house would lend itself better to being restored and made into a small, intimate, first class hotel…”

  “Jesus,” Kate gasped, but Tim continued reading from the letter, “…but this is only part of a larger plan, and I will discuss it all with you when I come. Please tell Kate that I’m looking forward to her hospitality.”

  Fr Tim put down the letter and looked across at Kate’s stricken face.

  She felt as if somebody had given her a kick in the stomach.

  “What on earth is he talking about? The school is in the old Jackson home since it started. There is no other place for it. He just can’t kick us out now,” she gasped.

  “Where did all this come from?” Fr Tim wondered. “There was no mention of it when he was here last summer. What has happened since?”

  With Fr Tim’s question something clicked in Kate’s brain. Martha had happened since. Last summer they had all been surprised when Rodney Jackson had fallen in love with Martha. We should have known, Kate thought, that it was never going to be straightforward. Nothing was straightforward with Martha. Even if she had no great feelings for Rodney, he was still a bright prospect for getting what she wanted in life. He was too good a business opportunity to pass up. Rodney would never mean to wrong anybody, but Martha was a manipulative woman, and Kate had seen how she had outmanoeuvred Ned and got her own way in everything. While she was in New York, Peter had taken over in Mossgrove and was not going to relinquish his grip. There was too much of his mother in him to give in to her. Jack had often said that it took your own to level you, and Peter had edged Martha out of the running of Mossgrove. She had surprised them all by accepting it. Now Kate felt a piece of that jigsaw slip into place.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  NORA CHECKED THE list of subjects in the timetable on the parlour table. Every evening before beginning her homework, she allocated a certain amount of time to each subject, and though it did not always work out, it still brought a bit of order into her study. She had tried to get Rosie to do this but gave up in the end because Rosie Nolan would never adhere to a plan.

  The parlour was a good place to do her lessons. It was a restful room with flowing cream drapes that Nana Agnes had made when Mom was getting the house ready last year to impress Rodney Jackson. As it happened, Rodney Jackson had been so impressed with the house and the whole lot of them that it looked as if he wanted to become part of them. She liked Rodney Jackson but not enough to want him as one of them. He had been delighted with the old family pictures in the parlour, and Peter had been highly amused at that, because Mom had evicted them years previously and had only brought them back because Peter was making such a song and dance about it. Nora was glad that they were back, especially Nana Nellie, who had a kind face, and she liked looking at the picture of Dad and Mom on their wedding day. Dad looked a bit uncomfortable, but Mom was beautiful. Secr
etly she wished that she looked like Mom, with her high cheekbones and wonderful green eyes. But she did not want to be like Mom, whom she knew that the neighbours, even though they might be a little bit in awe of her, did not like very much. The other mothers were all chatty and friendly, but Mom did not go in for small talk. Though her school friends were impressed by Mom’s appearance, they were never very comfortable in her presence, and Mom made no effort to put them at their ease. She sometimes wished that Mom was more sociable, but Mom was Mom, and there was no way that she was going to make an effort to impress anyone.

  But the picture that dominated the room was the one that Uncle Mark had painted of Great-grandfather Edward Phelan. Aunty Kate had taken the original picture when she got married and had got Mark to paint a portrait for Mossgrove. It hung on the wall at the end of the table where he could keep an eye on everything. He had steely grey hair and eyes that followed you all around the room. Nobody, not even Mom, would dare to shift Great-grandfather. Everyone knew that he was the foundation stone of Mossgrove, but he was also the one who had started the huge row with the Conways. Growing up, even though she did not know all the details, she accepted that there was an unbridgeable gap between them and the family across the river.

  She tidied up the books on the table and was pleased that she was finished with the writing exercises. Now all she had to do was the reading and learning off, and she could sit by the fire after the supper and do those. When doing her homework she did the subjects that she liked least first, and then the night got easier as it went on. This was her last year and she was determined to do her best and get the results that she would need to get to college. She had her heart set on doing teaching so that she could join Uncle David and teach in his school. Everything about Uncle David impressed her, and secretly she thought that Aunty Kate did not really appreciate him enough. He was one of the reasons that she was determined to do well. Peter called her a slogger, but he helped her in any way that he could. He was very good at maths, but she preferred English, especially poetry, and dreamed of one day opening up the world of her favourite poets to students. When she had told Rosie about this, she threw back her long mane of blonde hair and rocked with laughter.