Shadows in Heaven

by Nadine Dorries

  ‘They won’t let us – Father Jerry won’t marry us after this… it would be the talk of the coast,’ said Michael, sounding distraught.

  Brendan, having been provided with food and drink, had been eager to escape the cottage full of keening women. He’d come out to join the other men and was listening thoughtfully.

  The sun was bold and relentless for a fresh June morning and it sparkled off the surface of the now calm ocean. There was a moment’s silence as they all looked down at a trawler sliding through the unresisting breakers. The news had spread and the trawler blew its horn as a mark of respect. The men raised their caps in acknowledgement and thanks.

  ‘Off for the herrings,’ said Captain Bob.

  Brendan took a swig from his mug and flinched as it hit the back of his throat. ‘I will have a word with Father Jerry, Michael. Leave him to me – he and I, we are due for a battle of principle. Sure, I’m always the loser in our arguments about morality – he has the upper hand on me there.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘But I always win on the law. The father has a terrible nature for poaching – he thinks the salmon belong to God and anyone can help themselves. And what’s more, he thinks I don’t know.’ He glanced up at Paddy, Seamus and Tig, all of whom were suddenly mighty interested in the dirt on their boots. He focused on Michael. ‘Father Jerry can bury Angela, and then I suggest, if it is what you and Sarah both want, you marry straight after. I will ask Father for a hasty burial – how does tomorrow sound? I can’t think anyone will object to the fact that McGuffey won’t be in attendance, least of all Sarah.’

  For all his pious talk about poaching, the men were reassured by Brendan’s calm authority.

  ‘Will it really be possible to have the funeral tomorrow?’ asked Seamus.

  Brendan didn’t hesitate with his reply. ‘It will. I will make it so. Once the funeral is over, take my advice and get Sarah the hell out of this remote cottage and into the safety of the village. Leave McGuffey and Maughan to the Garda and the men, to Captain Bob and meself, even, if he dares show his face. Though I’m thinking he won’t. He’s long gone and the Garda know it.’

  ‘Will it not be a scandal if we are to marry so soon?’ said Michael, knowing that Sarah would be afraid of local opinion.

  Brendan drank from his mug and flinched again at the strength of the beverage. ‘Jesus, there is more whiskey in there than there is tea.’ He looked into the mug as he spoke, just as Rosie arrived with a tray to remove the empty mugs. ‘Rosie, you will have me on my back, so you will. The strength of the drink.’

  Rosie was neither looking at Brendan nor listening to him. Her eyes were on Michael, who hadn’t even noticed she was there as he absentmindedly placed his mug on the tray.

  ‘You’re right, it would be a scandal under normal circumstances,’ Brendan said. ‘But for Sarah an exception will be made. Especially should someone have a mind to let everyone know that McGuffey was to marry her off to Maughan. No man in his right mind wants that life for his daughter.’ Brendan winked at Michael as he spoke. ‘I’ll away to the gravedigger’s now. I’ll help them myself if I have to, while the whiskey is working. I’ll have a word with Father Jerry first and get him to agree to marry you both tomorrow, so I will. Sarah can then move up to the farm, where she can be safe.’

  The tray tipped up out of Rosie’s hand and a clatter of tin mugs and dudeens fell to the ground. Rosie bent to retrieve the mess and Brendan squatted down to help her. ‘Will you be wanting a lift on the cart back into the village, Rosie?’ he asked.

  Rosie shook her head. ‘No, I’m just helping Teresa in the kitchen here. We’ll walk back. ’Tis Saturday,’ she said by way of an explanation for her being able to stay. She was answering Brendan but glanced up at Michael, her eyes bright, her heart pounding. She wanted to scream, ‘No, don’t do it, it’s too quick. Take time, wait…’ Instead she asked, ‘Would you be wanting more tea, Brendan?’

  Michael made to say something to Brendan, but the words stuck in his throat and he had no answer.

  Seamus put his hand on his son’s arm. ‘Thank you, Brendan. I think that would be a grand idea if you can get that sorted, thank you. We need to look after these two and do what’s best for them both now.’

  Captain Bob placed his mug on Rosie’s tray and gave her a kindly smile, which made her blush. ‘I think that would be best for Bee too,’ he said. ‘The man has never crossed the line into Bee’s house, but I wouldn’t put it past him if he knew Sarah was there. Her being unmarried, he has the right to take her, should he come knocking.’

  ‘He’ll be for the noose if he comes knocking here,’ said Brendan.

  ‘You’ll have to catch him first,’ said Captain Bob. ‘We all know that the guards from Galway won’t be here for long if they think he’s gone, and then it’ll be down to you – there’s no one else here.’

  They all knew that Captain Bob was right. McGuffey was afraid of no one and Sarah was in danger.

  *

  When the visitors had left and the cottage was quiet at last, Michael sat down next to Sarah at the top of the kitchen table, alongside Angela’s head, and Bee sat on the other side. Bridget, who being the village seer sat with every corpse in the village, and Teresa had laid a bedsheet on the table and another over the top of Angela, covering half of her body. A fresh tallow candle burnt at each corner and her face flickered in the half light, waxen and white.

  Earlier in the afternoon, Sarah had fallen into a fitful sleep, her head on Bee’s lap as the shock subsided and she was left spent. Bee had stroked her niece’s hair as her own tears dropped onto the back of her hand, her rosary clenched between her fingers. She now had two people to care for, her son and her niece.

  As the day wore on, Bee felt the need to see her son’s face, to touch him and hold him close. ‘I have to go and see Ciaran,’ she said. Grief had robbed her of her vitality and left only weariness and despair. Her face was puffy and red from crying, her voice flat. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can, in an hour or so.’

  Tears continued to pour down Sarah’s cheeks as the door clicked shut. For the first time, she and Michael were alone together, though they both knew that wouldn’t be for long. The village women would be back again soon, to sit with Angela. In the face of adversity, the women of Tarabeg always supported each other. Regardless of past animosities or feuds, they stood in solidarity with each other in times of need, in death as in life. Angela McGuffey had benefited from this companionship in so many ways over the years, often finding parcels of food on her doorstep when Kevin McGuffey went missing for weeks at a time. They would not leave Angela to face her journey to her maker alone.

  Michael wasted no time in telling Sarah the plan. It felt unseemly, but others had urged him to move swiftly. ‘If you wait, you will lose,’ Brendan had told him, and the words rang in his ears as he looked down into the face of his Sarah. A face that was different from the one he’d recalled when far from home. She was almost twenty-one. Her puppy fat had fallen away, her cheekbones were more defined and her eyes were larger, albeit haunted and bloodshot and full of pain. He had left a girl and returned to find a beautiful woman who’d been prepared to leave everything and everyone she knew to keep herself for him, not knowing if she would ever be able to come back, or, for that matter, if he would. He looked now deep into the eyes that were peering questioningly up at him.

  ‘If we are to be married, we must do so after your mother’s burial. Only Father Jerry will marry us so quickly, after everything. We will have to move fast’ – he turned his head to the corpse lying between them, as though addressing her too – ‘so we will, Angela. We have to, and I know you will forgive us.’ He turned back to Sarah. ‘Brendan O’Kelly is arranging the funeral and the requiem Mass.’

  Sarah made a small sound, a stifled sob, and Michael held her into him as tightly as he could. He’d been wrong. This was a ridiculous idea. How could she marry when she was supposed to be in mourning for over a year before it could even be considered. He wa
nted to absorb her pain, take it and carry it for her, but the reality was he couldn’t, she had to do it alone, and this would be the last thing she wanted. He would do anything to save her if he could.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, getting to his feet, ‘this is too much for you to deal with all at once. Your mother, this tragedy and getting married. It’s not how it should be.’

  Sarah rose with him, rubbing her hands down the front of her skirt until he held out his own for her to take. Someone had hung a width of black mourning cloth over the window, so the only light came from the candles, even though the sun was only just setting.

  ‘Come here,’ he whispered. ‘Angela won’t mind,’ he said as he glanced down at the serene face in the coffin.

  Sarah turned back and followed his gaze. ‘Look at her,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve never seen her look so young or so peaceful.’ She gulped down a sob. ‘The torment he put her through… Bee always said to her, every time they had one of their sisters’ tiffs, that he would kill her one day, and… and… he has.’ She clamped her hand across her mouth to stem the fresh bout of tears and her shoulders heaved.

  In seconds, Michael’s arms were about her. Gently, as the wave of grief subsided, he led her towards the door and opened it out onto the view of the ocean. They stood in the doorway and Michael filled his lungs with the briny air as he pulled Sarah into his side. There were no words he could say to ease her tears. His instinct was to hold her and say nothing, to let her cry her grief out.

  The sky blazed scarlet and orange as pillars of gold pierced the mirror-still surface of the green ocean. A lone fisherman bobbed, stationary, half a mile out, a black silhouette against the flaming sky. His curragh lurched from side to side as he hauled up a heather-twisted lobster pot he would have dropped before the storm, a pot Sarah had woven. Dolphins broke through the glassy calm and circled, ready to swim in his wake as he rowed to shore.

  Sarah turned her tearstained face up to Michael. ‘I want us to be married, Michael. Daddy, he is such a bad man. Aunt Bee thinks he’s near mad. I haven’t told you half of it – I can’t, not yet. ’Tis the way it has to be – we have to be married, if you still want me.’

  He heard the tears catch in her throat. She was beyond comfort for the loss of her mother, and yet it felt to Michael that with his return, even though her mother lay dead, a weight had fallen from her shoulders.

  ‘Are you strong enough to do this?’ he asked her as for the first time he kissed her salty lips. He needed to see her eyes, to reassure himself that this was still what she wanted and had been waiting for; that despite all of this, she was stable enough to make a decision. More than anything, he did not want it to be something she regretted later.

  ‘I am.’ She nodded vehemently. ‘I can do anything, face anything, as long as I know you are never going to leave me again. Ever. If we can’t be together, then I may as well follow Mammy to heaven and throw myself over the cliff. God knows, I’ve wanted to. I would rather do that than live without you and be hounded by Jay Maughan.’ Her lip began to tremble and she began to shake again, just at the mention of Maughan’s name.

  Michael grabbed her into his arms and buried his face in her hair. It was thick and salty from her voyage across the bay and from Bee’s tears.

  ‘I am never leaving your side, Sarah. We will spend every day of our lives together – do you understand that? There is nowhere better than this to live and I know that now. I am yours, Sarah, and you are mine. You kept me safe. It was only the thought of you that brought me home. We will make Tarabeg our own piece of heaven, together, you and me.’

  *

  Back in the village, Teresa Gallagher buttered a hot oatcake and pushed it across the table to Rosie. ‘I wonder what Brendan needs to speak to Father Jerry about so urgently. I can’t imagine, with all that’s going on. He only ever comes when there is trouble in the village.’ She sighed. ‘God, that poor girl, she must be distraught, losing her mammy, and her own daddy being the one to kill her like that, and him on the run.’

  Teresa poured tea for her and Rosie, then sat on the chair closest to the fire to drink it. ‘I never thought we would be laying out a body today, did you?’ The steam rose from her feet and clothes and the oatcakes failed to overpower the smell of wet wool. ‘I’ll pop in when Brendan has left and ask Father is everything all right. With a bit of luck, he’ll tell me what it was he wanted.’

  Rosie swallowed the scalding tea as she washed down the oatcake. She hadn’t eaten anything for hours and was grateful to Teresa for both her home cooking and her friendship. She placed her cup on the saucer with uncustomary care and, looking up, said, ‘I know why he’s here. He wants Father Jerry to marry Michael and Sarah as soon as the mammy is buried, and he wants that to happen tomorrow. I heard the men talking.’

  ‘God in heaven, no! That cannot be – surely not,’ said Teresa, her own cup only halfway to her mouth. ‘How can he do that? People are always asking Father Jerry for the impossible. They think because he’s a man of God, he can perform miracles.’

  Rosie didn’t reply. She had picked up the final piece of oatcake and was about to pop it into her mouth, when Teresa spoke again.

  ‘Mind you, they would make a lovely couple, would they not? They are both obviously just mad for each other.’ She immediately flushed, embarrassed.

  The oatcake never reached Rosie’s lips. As she smiled and replied, ‘Oh, yes, grand,’ it disintegrated between her clenched fingers into a thousand crumbs.

  Chapter 10

  As the women gathered at the house to begin their overnight prayer vigil, Bee urged Michael to return home. ‘Go home to your mammy,’ she said to him. ‘She will be desperate to see you.’ He was torn, afraid to leave Sarah. ‘Go, this is for us now, the women. Leave Angela and Sarah to me. You do what you have to and there’s plenty to keep you busy.’ Sarah was sat at Angela’s side, holding her hand. The wake, the ritual of death was in full flow and he knew he was out of place if he stayed for much longer. The cottage had filled almost in minutes with the women from the coastal cottages and the village, rotating their hours, in and out. Keening, whispering, praying. The cottage of candlelight and shadows was filled with the clicking of rosaries and the making of tea. There they would remain until the time came to carry Angela on a spiritual wave of love and companionship, all the way into the ground.

  Nola rocked back and forth in her son’s arms, crying and wailing from the depths of her own dismay. She had been proud of herself when he’d first arrived home, maintaining her composure, not wanting to embarrass either of them, but the news of the shooting and Angela’s death had torn away her defences.

  As Michael pulled her into his chest, she occasionally surfaced for air, her words garbled. ‘Oh God, Michael, ’tis you. ’Tis. ’Tis you. I thought you’d never come back, and then… then… you were nearly shot in your own village.’

  The tears flowed again and he crushed her into him with an urgency, almost hoping that he might suffocate her distress.

  ‘I have prayed so much the entire time you’ve been away, my rosaries are worn to dust and me knees to the bone – I can barely walk,’ she cried.

  ‘Mammy, Mammy, shush, what’s wrong with ye? I’m not dead, I’m here.’

  Nola pulled back from him and cupped his face with both of her hands. ‘Would you look at ye,’ she said through her tears. ‘Yer face has altered beyond all recognition, I hardly knew ’twas you when I first saw you.’

  ‘Aye, ’tis usually a horny woman with big titties gaspin’ for her life that she finds here in me bed that surprises her,’ shouted Daedio. He was keenly feeling the lack of attention being lavished on himself, and his stomach was crying out for his supper.

  ‘Oh hush your mouth, you dirty, disgusting old man,’ Nola retorted over her shoulder. Reaching down, she threw one of the cushions straight at Daedio’s head.

  Michael laughed. ‘Your aim is just as good as it always was, Mammy.’

  Nola smiled as she wiped
her eyes. ‘God, there were so many telegrams.’ She gasped. ‘And they were going all over the place. Jesus, you couldn’t walk into Tarabeg without hearing the name of someone you had known having died in some foreign land. Boys who went from the farms just for a bit of money and the adventure, that was all they was after, and instead they died, Michael. I thought every day one would be coming here too. Every time I saw yer daddy coming around the bend in the cart being pulled by that mad horse, I was terrified to see his face in case it wasn’t the horse but him rushing to bring me the bad news. Oh, Michael, never have I been so glad to see anyone in my life. Never, never.’

  Seamus coughed. ‘The boy hasn’t had much of a welcome home. I’d say it’s been all go, wouldn’t you all agree? ’Tis a good rabbit stew he needs in his insides, and a pot in his hand, and then we can all have a talk about what will be happening, Nola.’ He self-consciously touched his cap and scratched his head beneath it. He wasn’t used to making decisions in his own home.

  ‘Thanks, Daddy.’

  Their eyes locked over Nola’s head.

  ‘Anyway, I’ll be taking the pail down to Pete – don’t you be worrying about that, Nola.’ And with that, Seamus swung open the door and the fresh evening air filled the room.

  *

  Less than an hour later, they were all seated around the table. Michael felt his shoulders ease as the hot stew hit his belly and the porter ran in his veins. Seamus refilled their mugs.

  ‘You know what the English say, don’t ye?’ said Daedio from his bed. ‘That God invented the drink to stop the Irish from conquering the world. So don’t be complaining, Nola – we are only doing God’s work.’

  Pete Shevlin was at the table for supper and slowly, after a number of questions from Daedio, Michael passed on snippets of information about the war. They were all aware that it would be disrespectful to talk about Angela and her death while they were eating; that would have to wait until the dishes had been cleared and the pipes lit.