‘When will you be starting? Go on then, put the pie in the oven to warm up and I’ll have a slice. Just a little one.’
‘From tomorrow. I will work all day Saturday and have Sundays off. Sarah Malone said she would give me a hot supper each day, so I won’t have to be worrying about waiting to cook potatoes when I get home or you running over with supper for me, which is very kind of you and I’m grateful, but ’twas very nice of them to offer.’
Teresa removed her hat pin and replaced it in a firmer position. The hat never came off, even when Teresa ate. ‘Don’t be worrying about food,’ she said. ‘I can always drop a plate up during the day and put it on a pan on the embers for when you get home if needs be. It is a good thing, taking this job. Not just for the money too – you will get to talk to people.’
Rosie smiled and turned to put the kettle on the boil. No one left a Tarabeg home without having had tea. It wasn’t the idea of working or talking to people every day that thrilled her. She, Rosie, would be in the home of Michael Malone and she would see him every single day. She would have worked Sundays too if Sarah had asked her, despite what Teresa and Father Jerry would have said.
Teresa watched Rosie closely as she slid the pie into the oven next to the fire. ‘Will you enjoy the job?’ she asked. ‘Sarah Malone, she has a few fancy ways with her ribbons and things and she has a strange way with the dress and shoes. She’s getting a bit big for her boots, if you ask me, but she’s a good enough woman at heart and she never misses Mass.’
Rosie looked down and hid the flash in her eyes. ‘Aye, I’ll enjoy the job. I’ll work hard. They won’t be sorry they took me on.’
*
In their own kitchen that night, Seamus voiced his concerns to Nola. ‘How much did you offer Rosie for the job?’
Nola looked up from the drink she was making for Daedio. ‘She’s having ten shillings a week and, sure, that will transform her life. She only has the fifty pounds a year from the school. She eats what she grows, with a bit of help from Teresa. She nearly bit my hand off, she did.’
‘Aye, but, Nola, there’s a reason why Rosie is the only unmarried girl in the village. She still burns a candle for Michael. Couldn’t ye have opened a can of worms?’
Nola looked up at her husband. ‘Seamus, that was thirteen years ago. Do not be ridiculous. Our Michael never walked out with her – it was more in your head than theirs. She will be so grateful for the work, and besides, she’s a great one for the religion.’
Seamus smiled to himself as he remembered how much Nola had wanted Michael to marry the schoolteacher for nothing more than her badge of respectability.
‘A close friend of Teresa’s she would not be if she wasn’t a good person. I’m just relieved Sarah has help now and protection.’
‘She needs that all right,’ said Seamus. ‘Maughan is up to something. We can’t take our eyes off that child.’
‘Where’s the Powers, Seamus? What a day, I need a drop in me tea.’
Seamus grinned. ‘When don’t you, Nola? I swear to God, you drink more of the whiskey than the tea. We all had a fair bit down at Michael and Sarah’s.’
‘Sure, I could drink more than you if I had a mind to,’ Nola replied with a straight back, folded arms and an air of indignation. He poured some into her mug and walked to the fire to light his pipe.
He could stare into the fire and Nola could not see his thoughts. He had seen the way Rosie looked at Michael; he’d known all along. What he couldn’t understand was how Nola, the woman who knew everything, hadn’t seen it. He knew his son was as in love with his wife as any man could ever be. That thought did nothing to calm the unease running through him.
His eyes were drawn to the wall and as he placed his hand on the mantel shelf, he noticed that one of the stones was slightly proud of it. He lifted his hand and gently pushed it back into place. He’d been about to pull it the other way, to see what was behind it, but he heard a whisper, ‘Push it back, Seamus,’ in his ear. He turned to see had it been Daedio, but he was still snoring lightly, as was his wife, with her face flat down on the table.
Chapter 19
Sarah waited in line in the post office to be served by Mrs Doyle. It was a queue that defied convention and took ten times as long as any other ever known as each woman in it had her daily chat with Mrs Doyle, then with the other women, and then with Mrs Doyle again. Some were served tea as they waited by Keeva, who still worked there, during school hours, which also defied convention. For Keeva it was a simple choice: help in the post office or the butcher’s. She hated blood.
Sarah had called in to top up her supply of holy water. She kept her statues of Our Lady fixed to the front door and the back, and at the base of each was a small well which each morning was wiped out by Rosie with a cloth and refilled with the precious holy water. Since the day Jay Maughan visited the shop, Sarah had added two more statues. One on the mantel shelf over the fire and the other in the bedroom on the night stand.
‘Blessed by the Pope himself, this holy water is,’ Mrs Doyle had told everyone when she returned from her visit to the Vatican with a suitcase full of bottles and virtually a shipping-container load on the way. With no evidence to the contrary, everyone believed her. Much to Michael’s annoyance, she had secured an endless supply of it, direct from the Vatican apparently, and it had become the fastest-selling product in the west of Ireland, available only from the post office in Tarabeg. ‘Sure, we need to keep Michael on his toes, do we not?’ Mrs Doyle said to Sarah now.
‘That we do.’ Sarah winked as she took five bottles from the shelf. ‘But don’t let Michael be complaining, Mrs Doyle. He has enough variety to sell in our own shop.’
As the women stood behind her, holding fast to their baskets, they studied the shoes on Sarah’s feet, the scarf around her neck and the coat on her back. Her emerald glinted around her neck as it rested against her creamy décolletage. The women were silent, appraising, condemning. Not until she left the shop would the full commentary begin. Her new cornflower-blue dress, a purchase Michael had made in Dublin, was known as an A-line dress and was a mind-boggling phenomenon to the women, especially Ellen Carey, who had almost taken it apart and put it back together again before Sarah had worn it a second time. Sarah was taking full advantage of Michael’s buying trips and the new fashions hitting Dublin via Liverpool. Keeva and Rosie, who benefited from the cast-offs, could not have been more delighted. It was not a case of Sarah asking for new things but of Michael living his dream; he loved nothing more, once he had deposited his new wares in the front of the shop, than to show off what he had bought for his girls in the back.
‘Oh don’t be worrying about me now, Sarah,’ said Mrs Doyle. ‘I have my hands full catering to the tourists. I have the maps, the magazines and these.’ She pointed to the never-ending row of pottery donkeys on the shelf with ‘A Gift from Eire’ painted down their sides. ‘I can’t sell enough of them to the fishermen. I’ll be wearing out me shoe leather the amount of times I have to run around the counter and fill up that shelf.’
Sarah smiled. ‘Well, ’tis Mary Kate’s birthday, so I’ll take one myself.’
‘Oh God, well don’t be telling Michael where you got it from.’ Mrs Doyle laughed as Sarah stepped back and took a painted donkey from the dark wooden shelf.
‘I won’t. If I tell him it’s your biggest seller, he’ll be after stocking it, knowing Michael. We have enough in the shop, we don’t want painted donkeys as well.’ Sarah placed it on the counter with a twinkle in her eye.
For all her joking, Sarah was immensely proud of her husband. Michael was the great entrepreneur of Tarabeg, the man people came to for advice on everything from a low-weight potato crop to a shortage of money. As the youngest son of seven, he should by rights have been poor and living on the charity of his father, only to watch his eldest brother inherit the farm and all of the livestock. But Michael Malone was a survivor and had made good of not joining the crowds heading to the ships bound for Live
rpool or New York. He had shown every man, woman and child that exile was not the only future awaiting those who loved their homeland. And Sarah loved him for it.
‘And a pad of airmail paper, please, Mrs Doyle. Michael wants to be writing to his brothers in America himself. He has a surprise for Nola and Seamus.’
‘Do you think they will be home for a visit?’
‘God willing, but it’s a secret.’ Sarah tapped the side of her nose.
Mrs Doyle recoiled, a look of total shock on her face. ‘Oh now, with this job, don’t I know and keep better than anyone all the secrets of this place.’ Then she dropped her voice. ‘How is Bee, is she still with Captain Bob?’
Sarah was taking the money out of her purse and had failed to notice the silence that had fallen on the post office, awaiting her reply. ‘How much is that for the water and the donkey, Mrs Doyle?’ She chose not to answer the question. The captain still had a wife in Ballycroy. He and Bee were living a life as man and wife and he as a father to her Ciaran, albeit on only two nights per week. There had been the odd resentful comment at sinful living happening in such close proximity to the village, but these had died down quickly because Captain Bob was liked by everyone, and Bee, the defender of her beaten sister and niece when so many had turned a blind eye, even more so.
Mrs Doyle took the hint and changed the subject. ‘And how is Nola and Seamus, I haven’t been seeing either of them this week?’
‘Oh, they are fine. Away up to us tomorrow for Mary Kate’s birthday tea.’
‘Jesus, no, that child is never seven,’ said Philomena O’Donnell, and the following minutes were spent discussing the height of Mary Kate, the length of her hair and the scratches that were always present on her knees.
As Sarah turned to leave, she spoke to the ladies on the way out. ‘Bye, Mrs Doyle, bye ladies, and thanks for the tea, Keeva, nice to be seeing you.’
The bell on the door jangled, and after a minimal pause conversation erupted among the waiting women.
‘Well, would you be getting her, Mrs Doyle. Do they have no manners, be putting you out of business, they will be. Tell them you are the one to be selling the painted donkeys first, not Michael Malone.’
‘Oh no, not Michael, he wouldn’t be doing that,’ said Mrs Doyle as she fussed about her counter, wiping it down with a cloth ready to receive the next purchases. ‘He’s always been very respectful of my business and he has all the trade around here he needs. There’s room for us both.’
‘You won’t be saying that when he puts you under,’ said Susan Murphy, Maria Murphy’s daughter. ‘And did you see those shoes? Where in God’s name did you ever see a pair of shoes like that – blue and with at least an inch and a half on the heel if I’m not mistaken! Michael Malone is doing a lot better than you are and that’s a fact. When did you ever get a new pair of shoes, tell me that.’
‘He bought them in Dublin,’ said Keeva, who was wearing Sarah’s old shoes. ‘Real leather, they are.’
‘Well, seems to me like he’s spending everything he earns.’ Teresa Gallagher had remained silent until now. She placed three painted donkeys on the counter. ‘I’m sending them to America, to my nephew Pat in Chicago,’ she said by way of explanation. ‘They love the place – wonderful, so it is, they say – and they are all clubbing together to send me out there for a holiday. Can you imagine! But as grand as Chicago is, they can’t get enough of home and won’t they just love these. The shoes are from Dublin, you say, Keeva? Well, there’s no worse city of sin in my opinion.’ She turned back to face Mrs Doyle. ‘You wouldn’t catch me setting foot in the place, and Michael Malone spends more time there since he got that van of his than he does in Tarabeg.’
‘No, God in heaven, what does he do there?’ asked Susan Murphy, who was helping herself to a cup of tea from the wooden tray.
‘I wouldn’t be knowing. But he comes back with plenty of fancy stuff for Sarah – shoes, scarves and the like. What does that tell you? Where does he get it all from, and who is putting those fancy notions into his head, and since when did Michael Malone know what an A-line dress was, that’s all I would like to know, because it isn’t Sarah Malone. I knew her as a kid, scampering down the rocks and running on the beach at the head. She wouldn’t know a velvet wrap from a crown of thorns and I’ll tell you this, neither does he. Someone else is buying that stuff and it is not Seamus Malone’s son. Anyway, I haven’t the time to be standing here having waited for Lady Muck for so long. No wonder she needed so much holy water, living with a man who spends half of his life in Dublin.’
‘Well, ’tis not that I’d be worrying about,’ said Philomena, who had joined the queue. ‘They have more problems than that to be dealing with.’
Everyone fell silent as all eyes rested on Philomena.
‘You know they built that house on the fairy path? And we all know what that means.’
Mrs Doyle blessed herself.
‘How do you know?’ Teresa asked, who was no longer in such a hurry.
‘The storyteller told me. He said the fairies used that path from the river to the village and the Malones have built right across it. They will have nothing but trouble.’
Mrs Doyle tutted as she tore off a piece of newspaper to wrap the first painted donkey. ‘They had that problem at my sister’s. Had to plant a hawthorn bush for the fairies to go under, they did. Put it at the side of the house and from the day they planted it, they didn’t have another moment’s bother.’
Keeva carried the tray out to the kitchen. She had wanted to say that as the Malones were doing so well, the fairies must be mighty pleased with the shop, but she would only have been scolded by Mrs Doyle for voicing an opinion. Keeva knew the best way to a happy life in Tarabeg was to have no opinion about anything. She had thought that one of the women would have commented about Rosie working at the shop. But as had been the case with Rosie for most of her life, hardly anyone had noticed.
Chapter 20
The following day was Sunday and Mary Kate’s seventh birthday.
She had lain in bed the previous night too excited to sleep. She listened to her mammy and daddy counting the money from the shop. Even she could tell that cashing up after the day’s work was taking longer than it used to. It wasn’t talking she heard most often now, nor even her parents laughing, but the sound of the pennies being counted into the tin. Then would come the chink of the key in the lock and the dull clunks as the peat blocks were removed from the hole in the chimney and the tin box slipped in behind.
Mary Kate was proud of her daddy. Early in the mornings, when he was home, he had taken to putting her in the front of the van and they would drive up the hills and wait at the bottom of the boreens to collect the children who were walking down to school without shoes on their feet.
Today, on the morning of her birthday, her father had been up at the sound of the cock crowing. The only person to wake earlier than Michael Malone was Father Jerry, and today Michael was up and out before the father was off his knees after his first prayer. The Malones’ donkey, Jacko, who was rarely put to work these days and spent most of his time grazing the land between the back of the shop and the stony banks of the river, was the only living soul to see him leave.
Today’s route took Michael south along the narrow, lonely road that skirted the Atlantic. He carried goods from the shop to those cottages that wanted fresher than what was taken by the boat, and he dropped farm feed along the way. By the time he’d returned from his morning errands, the kitchen of the Malone house was preparing for a feast. As he entered the house, the sight of Sarah standing at the table covered in flour did what it always did and made his heart leap.
‘What took ye so long?’ Sarah almost shouted at him. Her face was covered in flour and her arms were elbow deep in a large mixing bowl.
‘Jesus, woman, will ye let me in the door before you start giving out.’ Michael was framed in the doorway with the low river at his back and the mountains rising beyond.
Sarah
bent her head to look behind him and check the weather. ‘We have all your family on the way down this afternoon for her birthday, I’ve been at it since six and there hasn’t been a sight of ye all morning. It’s Rosie’s day off. Do you think a birthday feast appears by magic?’
Michael was kicking off his boots. Dipping his fingers in the holy water on the wall at the base of the statue of Our Lady, he blessed himself. ‘I do, yes, but I know my mother doesn’t and she’s just getting out of the van.’
Sarah’s face dropped and then broke into a smile. ‘You collected Nola in the van?’
Michael moved around the table and, slipping his arms around the waist of his wife from behind, buried his face in her neck and began kissing her.
‘Get off! You said Nola was coming in – she’ll catch ye.’
‘She is, but she’s tying up Jacko first. He was halfway to the village, making his way to Mrs Doyle’s back yard. He was after making a protest about the painted donkeys and Mammy’s bringing him back. Has a soft spot for him, she does so. Mary Kate ran up with her. By the time they’ve caught him and finished chatting to half a dozen people, they’ll be at least half an hour.’
Sarah turned around and faced him. She didn’t care that her hands were full of flour or that she was covering her husband’s back with her telltale handprints. He smelt of all the things she loved – the shop, their home, the inside of his van, and himself. She kissed him hard and wriggled closer to him as he lifted her up onto the table and slipped his hands under her skirt and up the length of her bare legs.
‘Have we time?’ she whispered, always anxious, fearing being caught by Nola or, even worse, her daughter.
He wasn’t waiting for a reply as he undid his belt and pulled her forward onto him. ‘We still want another baby, don’t we?’ He’d been aroused by nothing more than the sight of her alone at the table, wiping the flour from her eyes with the back of her hand. He pulled the ruffled neck of her dress down and exposed her breasts. Sarah giggled, but her laughter became a gasp as he slid his hands up and along the inside of her thighs, inside her underclothes and with his probing fingers, explored her and gently pushed her legs apart with his hands. ‘Come here,’ he whispered into her neck as he slid his hands under her buttocks and sliding her forward, slipped her knickers down her legs and dropped them onto the floor.
Shadows in Heaven Page 27
