by Anne Doughty
‘She’s not telling you the half of it, Rosie,’ said John quietly. ‘But we’ll not say another word about it.’
‘That would be best, John. For now,’ she said, as she turned away to gaze unseeing across the passing countryside.
They all fell silent. John unfolded his newspaper. Rose leant back in her seat and closed her eyes. Rosie looked out of the window, absorbed and fascinated by houses and fields and hedgerows she had never laid eyes on before. She saw strong farms with well-tended stables and barns, poor houses with grass grown thatch, paths and lanes and cart tracks. Golden fields of cut hay, the after-grass sprouting bright green in the stubble. Wheat and oats not yet ready to cut, shimmering like a green-gold inland sea, rippled by the breeze. In the dense shade of a mature chestnut, horses swished their tails. Cows gathered in the short noonday shadow of a hawthorn hedge.
I’m going to Kerry, she said silently to herself. I’m going to the furthest corner of Ireland to stay in a hotel and we’re going to drive round and see the sights and go and look at the big house where Granny used to work and where she and Granda met.
She’d been through it a hundred times since the morning Rose had suggested it, coming up with her breakfast tray herself to show her how much her back had improved and to tell her what she and John had decided the previous evening.
Even when all the arrangements had been made, when Emily had been phoned at work and asked to pack her case, a single room requested from the hotel in Kerry, the hire firm contacted about a larger motor than the Lagonda John had already booked, she still could not believe it. But here was the proof. The green fields of Ulster, its villages and towns, streaming past her eyes, names she knew only from Miss Wilson’s battered atlas. Poyntzpass, an unknown place as exotic as Paris or Prague.
Down there in that narrow main street people lived and worked and bought their groceries just as she did in Richhill. But these people were separate and as completely unknown as Poyntzpass itself. She wondered if they went for Sunday walks to the strange, broken earthwork called the Black Pig’s Dyke. Looking down from the high embankment, she saw its random shape breaking across the smooth landscape of small fields. She’d read that the dyke was thrown up as a defence against raiders from the south. There were those who declared it was made by a huge, angry monster furiously gouging the earth. But surely that would leave a trench, not a ridge.
She was still thinking about stories and legends and where they came from when she became aware that the countryside had changed. Now the fields were full of rushes, the cabins scattered and poor. On the horizon mountains rose, peak behind peak in shades of grey, their heads in cloud. The Mournes, Granny’s mountains. The ones you could see on a clear day from the bottom of her garden or from the lane running down the hill from Rathdrum to her old home at Ballydown. Sombre now seen from this distance. Their outline unfamiliar from this different angle.
She glanced across the carriage. Her grandfather was absorbed in the Banbridge Chronicle. Her grandmother had fallen asleep, her head to one side and her mouth slightly open. With a chilling shock, for the first time Rosie realised her grandmother was old. Without her quick smile and the twinkle in her eye, the wrinkles of her seventy odd years spelt out the length of her life rather than the quality of her living.
She looked from her grandmother’s face to the face she saw above the rim of the newspaper. White-haired now, but still broad-shouldered and fit, her grandfather was a year or two older than her grandmother. He was still absorbed in his newspaper, reading methodically from front to back. He liked to know what was going on in the district and still kept in touch with the mills, though he’d retired from his directorship when he was seventy. She knew how much he enjoyed being called upon when there was a particularly difficult problem with the machinery.
She wondered what it would be like to be old. It must be strange to have most of your life behind you, seeing your youth from far away, instead of looking forward to having all your real life in front of you. Perhaps it was like seeing the mountains from a completely different angle. They were the same rugged peaks, but you were standing somewhere different.
As the train slowed down on the outskirts of Newry, a cloud passed over the sun. As if a giant hand had covered the globe of a lamp, the sunlight was shut off. The fields lost their glow. The mountains retreated further from view. With a sudden gasp, as if her heart had stopped, she realised that being old, her grandparents would die. Unless there was some awful accident, they’d not die together, so one of them would be left alone, desolate, after a whole lifetime of loving.
The thought appalled her and she had to look yet more vigorously out of the window in case either of them should notice how upset she was. She was grateful when the train whistled and slowed to a halt alongside a more crowded platform. The carriage door opened and a man and woman got in, apologising politely for having to step over their feet in the narrow space between the seats.
Rose woke up and collected herself as the newcomers settled by the window at the far side of the carriage.
‘Goodness Rosie, I must have fallen asleep. How rude of me. Were you bored?’
‘No, not a bit. It’s all so new and so interesting. I wish I had Miss Wilson’s atlas so I could follow where we were.’
‘Remind me when we get to Dublin, Rosie, and I’ll buy you a map of Ireland,’ John said, folding up his paper. ‘It might come in handy for your granny as well,’ he added with a smile. ‘She’s been up and down to Dublin a few times now, as well as the first time we did the journey together, but she’s not been back to Kerry since she came up to Dublin in a coach. I was out with the driver that time, but I’m not sure how much chance she got to see where she was going. She had a ladyship for company.’
To Rosie’s delight, her grandmother laughed and caught a hand to her mouth in sudden recollection. Her own dark thoughts disappeared as rapidly as the shadows off the land when the sun broke through again. Her grandmother began to tell her about the longest journey she had ever made, by coach and train from Currane Lodge in Kerry, to John’s mother’s house at Annacramp, a few miles outside Armagh.
‘In a coach, Granny? But weren’t there any trains?’
‘Oh yes, there were trains, but the old families went on using their coaches. If they hadn’t had coaches, your grandfather and I would never have met. You don’t need a groom with you when you travel by train.’
‘But were you a groom, Granda? And how did you meet him then?’ she asked excitedly, turning from one to the other.
‘Well, ye see, it was like this,’ John began, angling himself in his seat so he could look across at his granddaughter more comfortably.
Rose smiled and said nothing. John was happy to tell the story yet once more. Whatever reservations she might have about the details which had been added over the years, she’d certainly not spoil his pleasure in the telling, nor his enjoyment of his granddaughter’s response by pointing them out.
Rosie too sat back in her seat, the broken hill country of southern Armagh forgotten for the moment. Just sometimes she had managed to get her father to tell her stories about the past, but it was always difficult. He would never talk about his experiences if her mother were there, so it was only if she could go over to the barn that there was any hope at all. Getting him started depended on the job. It was no good if the job was complicated or noisy, it had to be something simple and routine. But when he did begin, he’d use exactly the same words as her grandfather had just used: ‘Well, ye see, it was like this.’
Her mother never had any time for stories and got very angry if she found her husband telling the children about what happened long ago. She’d say he lived in the past, that he needed to move with the times, shake himself up a bit.
It wasn’t just telling stories that made her angry. There was something in the way her father did things, perfectly ordinary things like cutting a loaf of bread, or cleaning his boots, that her mother couldn’t tolerate any better than his talkin
g about the past. He was so calm and steady, so methodical, in every-thing he did, his very calmness, his steadiness, seemed to exasperate her.
She’d often seen her mother look across at him from her seat by the fire, her face taut with displeasure, then jump up and busy herself with jobs she hated and normally left for Rosie herself to do. She’d work quickly, sweeping the floor so vigorously she knocked the brush against the table or dresser. She’d clean the windows and rub so hard they rattled, or blacken the stove fiercely, or polish its silver edges so rapidly the emery paper tore.
Hastily, she put her mother out of mind and concentrated on what Granda was saying. He’d got to the point where Sir Capel Molyneux asked him to go to Kerry as a groom, because the groom’s old mother was ill and a coach can’t manage without someone to help the driver.
She listened hard, already aware she could easily persuade him to tell her many more stories, now he had time and leisure for a whole fortnight, and Granny too. She was sure Granny had stories to tell, but when she and Emily visited, there’d never been the opportunity, for Emily always wanted to do things and go places. She hated listening to anyone, even Granny. She said it reminded her of school.
The July sunshine sparkled on the Irish Sea and turned the empty beaches to pale gold as they steamed south towards Dublin. It continued to shine through their brief stay in the city and was still unbroken on the long day’s travel from Dublin southwards to Cork. Then onwards from Cork, ever westwards, till they finally reached the small station at Kenmare and drove the last miles of their journey to Waterville, the little town that had grown up on a narrow neck of land between the shimmering waters of Ballinskelligs Bay and Lough Currane itself.
By the time they reached their hotel, Rosie understood exactly why, whenever she’d asked Granda what Kerry was like, he kept saying the same thing: ‘Sky and water. Sky and water everywhere you look. Not just the sea, the lake as well and the mountains beyond. Just magnificent.’
She barely noticed the heavy furniture and wide staircase of the reception area as they went upstairs to see the luggage deposited. All she could think of was the sea such a very short distance away. Looking out of the windows in her grandparents’ room, she could hardly believe it was so close, closer than the bottom of Granny’s garden.
All she wanted to do was stand on the sandy shore and look around her. However splendid the views from the train, it was not the same thing as having your feet on the ground, looking up at the small feathery clouds in the clear blue sky, feeling the soft air on her face and smelling its unfamiliar, salty tang.
‘I think I might just have a little rest before dinner, Rosie. But you and Granda must go and have a walk if you want to. I’m sure he needs to stretch his legs.’
‘Granda, is Granny all right?’ Rosie asked anxiously, as they went down the wide, carpeted staircase together.
‘Aye, she’s fine. Just tired,’ he said reassuringly.
They went out by the main door, crossed the road, and followed the short grass path down to the beach in companionable silence.
‘You’re right enough though, she’s not quite herself,’ he said suddenly. ‘Maybe a wee bit sad for the moment. Sure she has a lot of memories of this place,’ he continued. ‘She’s wanted all her life to come back. I was only here a couple of weeks and I was driving here and there with the lords and ladies who were visiting. Taking them to see the sights, like I was telling you. I only saw your granny in the evening when we walked out down by the lake. But this place was her life from wee girl to full womanhood. I don’t know just how long,’ he pondered, twisting his face in an effort of memory. ‘Certainly from the time her father died and her mother brought her here from Donegal. That would have been 1861 or ’62.’
‘Donegal?’
‘Aye, that’s where she was born. Did she never tell you about the family being evicted? Thrown out on the street one bitter April. A whole valley full of people …’
He broke off as they came to the soft sand at the highest point of the beach and paused to look around. There were only a few people about, walking down by the water’s edge, their shadows reflected in the damp sand. The sea was smooth as beaten metal. Where the minute waves broke on the shore, they made only the tiniest splash before they ran back silently over the gleaming sand pulling small seashells in their wake.
‘But Granda, how did that happen?’
John looked down at her sharply, registered the sudden anxious concern in her dark eyes, the tensing of her narrow shoulders. She was so like the young woman he had first met on a hillside not all that many miles away. A little taller now, but the same fine eyes and dark hair, the slim waist and womanly shape. What was different about this one was her mind. Unlike her grandmother, who could rest quiet if the chance came to her, this one never rested, always wanting to know more, whether ordinary things like the difference between a male and a female blackbird, or complicated matters like why this poor island had been divided into two parts.
So often now, she reminded him of his youngest daughter, Sarah. She would always ask and ask till she understood. A trial at times he had to admit, when she was very young and sometimes hard to stop, but it stood to her now, the wife of a diplomat, surrounded by the high affairs of the day.
The sand near the water’s edge was firm and rippled, the tiny indentations full of small shells and broken fragments. She stooped to pick up a handful, choosing from the most perfect ones those with faint colour, pink or mauve or purple. She held them out to him arranged in a circle on her palm.
He bent forward to look at them and found her eyes firmly fixed upon him, still waiting for an answer to her question.
He laughed shortly.
‘Greed, Rosie, greed. A man that had money enough to do all he might want, but he wanted more. He put those people out so he could fence the land and make a deer park for his friends to come and shoot for pleasure,’ he went on, his tone hard and his face grim. ‘But if it hadn’t been for his wickedness, then your granny would never have come to Kerry and we’d never have met each other. And I don’t know where I’d be without her.’
He looked away quickly towards the low cliffs that bounded the far end of the long beach and strode off again. Rosie followed after, but she had not missed the words or what they were saying.
CHAPTER SIX
‘According to Miss Wilson, it’s because the moist air from the sea rises up the sides of the mountains, cools and condenses and then falls as rain,’ said Rosie solemnly, as she buttered a piece of toast.
‘Yes, that’s all very well,’ said John, eyeing her, ‘but it doesn’t explain why it rains at night.’
‘But it would be cooler up the mountain at night, wouldn’t it?’
Rose laughed, her weariness departed, her good spirits restored by the days just past. She’d had time to rest. To delight in the changing play of light on the mountains, the reflections from sea and lake, the remembered loveliness she had never stopped longing for in one small part of herself.
‘Well, all I can say is, aren’t we lucky? This wonderful freshness every morning and not a drop of rain all day.’
‘Was it like this when you were here, Granny?’
‘I can’t remember. I think I noticed if it rained on my afternoon off, but apart from that, work had to go on, rain or shine. It didn’t make much difference. At least I don’t think it did.’
‘Bad weather would have meant more work, wouldn’t it?’ asked John, looking across the breakfast table at her. ‘Dirty feet on the carpets and suchlike. But then, that wasn’t your job.’
‘No,’ she agreed, nodding. ‘But it was my mother’s job to oversee the whole house.
‘Yes, you’re quite right,’ she went on, as she refilled their cups. ‘I can remember now her saying how worn out she was when we got days of wet weather, or when it was colder than usual. She had to watch everyone to make sure the extra work was done, not just their routine jobs. They weren’t lazy,’ she added, ‘they just did
n’t think.’
To Rosie’s surprise, John laughed heartily.
‘Sure most of my life’s work has been clearing up after people who didn’t think,’ he said, still smiling. ‘I remember my father telling me that the old blacksmith he was apprenticed with once told him it was a good thing people were so careless, because he made a living straightening out what other people bent.’
They were still laughing when a pale, uneasy girl, neatly dressed in black, with a spotless white apron and cap, came to enquire if there was anything they’d like. She asked if she could bring more toast, or a fresh pot of tea, or if they’d like her to get reception to telephone through to another hotel to book their lunch should they be going for a drive.
‘Ah, well now, we haven’t discussed that yet, Bridget,’ responded John. ‘Would you like to come back in a wee while and ask us again?’
Rosie watched Bridget’s face soften into a shy smile. A girl about her own age, daughter of one of the cooks, she’d been sent to unpack Rosie’s suitcase as soon as they’d arrived, but Rosie had so few clothes, she’d emptied the case herself before she appeared, so there was nothing for Bridget to do.
She’d stood by the door so awkwardly not knowing what to do and Rosie felt instant sympathy for her. She asked her about the hotel, about her job, and if she’d mind telling her whether she ought to wear a dress for dinner. She knew perfectly well from what her grandmother had told her, in hotels as grand as this, that people dressed for dinner, but she knew asking Bridget would make her feel easier.
‘Well now,’ said John, breaking across her thoughts, as Bridget bobbed a curtsy and departed for the kitchens. ‘And what would my ladies like to do today? Now that I have my very elegant motor, you can go anywhere you want. The further the better. Valentia Island to see the cable station? Very historical,’ he suggested. ‘Or the Dingle Peninsula? Or Daniel O’Connell’s birthplace?’
