Last Port of Call: The Queenstown Series

by Jean Grainger

  She felt very grown up all of a sudden. She tried hard to imagine her mother and the handsome Ralph Devereaux from the portrait doing the marriage act and failed. But they must have because she was there. She found the whole revelation exhilarating. The best person in the world after her mammy was Mr Devereaux, and now she’d discovered he was her uncle and that was wonderful.

  He was right – he never made mistakes and she was a Devereaux.

  ‘Let’s go home,’ she said, her eyes bright, all thoughts of the magnificent ship forgotten. Something far more exciting was happening. She couldn’t wait to see him.

  Chapter 4

  Harp saw the scene in her mind every time she closed her eyes.

  She’d scampered up the steps to get home, to tell Mr Devereaux the news that she knew he was her uncle and that it was the best news ever. All thoughts of Titanic had dissipated in the wake of the extraordinary revelation.

  Her mother had been puffing and her face was red with exertion from trying to keep up with her daughter. Harp had gone in through the gate in the wall of the steps as usual, into the garden. Everything looked just as they’d left it: weeds pushing cheekily up through the gravel, the gnarly old apple tree that gave an abundance of the most delicious Cox’s Orange Pippins each autumn leaning precariously on the garden wall, the tree like a corner boy up to no good, her mother used to joke.

  Harp ran around the back – the front door was rarely used by anyone– and let herself in. The kitchen was just the same, the delph from breakfast drying on the rack beside the big, deep Belfast sink, the large black flags on the floor, the table cleared and scrubbed, ready for dinner preparations, the big black enamel range that never went out heating the room, winter and summer, the tea cloths hanging on the line over it. Everything neat and tidy.

  She scurried out the door of the kitchen into the wide bright hallway, almost skidding on the silk carpet runner as she rounded the ornate bannister to bound up the stairs, taking two at a time. The landing overlooked the hallway and was home to a huge walnut sideboard on which sat all the china dolls Mrs Devereaux had loved. Harp thought they were a bit creepy with their glass eyes, real hair and fancy handmade clothes, and thankfully she’d never felt the urge to play with them as Mrs Devereaux would have had a fit if she did.

  She ran along the corridor and went into his study; she had never knocked on his door in her life, secure in the knowledge that she was always welcome, regardless of the hour. If he slept, he always closed the door into his sleeping quarters so she would never catch him in a state of undress.

  She found him, sitting in his chair, the brown leather wingback, same as always. It was positioned to the right of the bay window, facing Roche’s Point, the last spit of land before leaving the safety of Cork Harbour and setting sail on the high seas. He told her once he liked to sit there and imagine the thoughts running through the heads of the people leaving, or the first impressions of those arriving. His small side table had the cup of tea her mother had delivered before they left, a cheese-and-tomato sandwich untouched on the plate beside it. The rosewood and brass-inlaid octagonal clock ticked loudly on the wall. It was four thirty in the afternoon.

  At first she thought he was sleeping. His head rested on the back of the chair and his eyes were closed. He didn’t keep usual hours; sometimes he read all night and slept most of the day. He was known to eat a big meal of meat and potatoes as she was having her porridge before school. His circadian rhythm, just like every single other thing about him, was so different to everyone else.

  A book was open on his chest, as if he’d been reading and just dropped it. She could see it clearly – Contemplation by Franz Kafka. On the side table beside him was a D. H. Lawrence book, under that Marriage by H. G. Wells. The only thing that made the scene look anything but tranquil was the glass of water at his feet, toppled over but not broken, a small puddle of water just beside his foot.

  ‘Mr Devereaux!’ She’d rushed towards him, knowing he wouldn’t mind her waking him; his quiet happiness at seeing her was always evident. But he didn’t move. He was always a light sleeper. When he dozed in his chair normally, even the turning of the door handle would be enough to wake him.

  She still didn’t worry at that stage. It wasn’t until she touched his hand that she began to think all might not be as it should be. He wasn’t cold exactly, and she knew from a phase she went through reading about autopsies that it took around twelve hours for a human body to be cool to the touch and twenty-four hours to cool to the core. Rigor mortis commenced after three hours and lasted until thirty-six hours after death. She knew that police and detectives used clues such as those for estimating the time of death. But what immediately struck her was that he was unresponsive.

  She would later recall with piercing agony the next few minutes. She shook him. His mouth dropped open ever so slightly, but his eyes remained closed.

  Her mother arrived, took in the scene and did as Harp did, calling him, then opening one of his unseeing eyes with her thumb. His pupil was slightly dilated.

  Harp had stood to the side in horror. This could not be happening. He could not be dead. It wasn’t fair. She needed to speak to him, tell him she knew why he called her Harp Devereaux, see the smile on his face. They had so much to do, so much to share. This was not right. But however wrong it was, however incomprehensible or unfair or cruel, the truth was, he was dead.

  If time slowed down during those few minutes, it sped up in the following days. The doctor came, then Mr Quinn, the local undertaker. He took Mr Devereaux’s body away. She had read about times like these in books; usually there was a lot of activity, food being prepared, guests coming to pay their respects, but not in their case.

  When Mr Quinn took him away to prepare him for burial, the house was eerily quiet. There was nothing to be done. Rose had written a telegram to Mr Devereaux’s solicitor in Cork, who would probably contact his brother, Ralph. She and Harp walked to the post office to send it, and that process had, of course, announced his death to the town. Mrs O’Boyle in the post office was known as ‘News of the World’ behind her back. Nothing was a secret once Madge O’Boyle was in on it.

  Together they’d walked back up the steps. Nobody said anything, no condolences were offered, though they were observed surreptitiously by several people who might have seen or heard about the doctor or Mr Quinn arriving at the house. There could only be one reason for their visits. But why would they commiserate with them? Rose was just the widowed housekeeper and Harp her fatherless child. The neighbours would speculate that Rose and Harp would be out of a job but that Henry Devereaux’s death was nothing more than an inconvenience to them.

  Harp remained stoic, as her mother had trained her to be, but inside she screamed. ‘You didn’t know what he meant to us!’ she wanted to shout, but she couldn’t speak, let alone raise her voice. It was as if a ball had lodged in her throat and no sound could come out.

  Mr Quinn called again that evening to say he’d been in touch with the vicar and the funeral had been arranged. Ralph Devereaux was informed of his brother’s death but there was no question of him returning. India was so far and travelling would take too long. There was no further impediment to the ceremony going ahead.

  Henry Devereaux had been baptised in the small Protestant church in Queenstown before the family moved to Japan, but his adult foot had hardly ever been inside the door. He’d attended his father’s funeral a few years before Harp was born, then his mother’s the previous year, but apart from that, Harp didn’t think he’d ever gone to church.

  He told her once when she was questioning the point of learning an entire catechism for her first Holy Communion, ‘It’s all just an elaborate fairy story, Harp, dreamed up by mortal men years ago and designed to keep the masses in line, to ensure everyone knew their place and did as they were told for fear of the fiery pit.’

  Her mother had shot him a fierce warning glance that day, and he’d been quiet for days after that.

&n
bsp; Rose took Harp to Mass every Sunday, and while Mr Devereaux never again commented on their practice, Harp knew he thought it a load of old nonsense. Perhaps he was right, but then could they all be wrong, all the priests and bishops and the pope and all of the other religious people? Were they all being fooled into believing a lie? When she asked her mother about the subject, as usual she was more pragmatic, less radical.

  ‘Well, Harp,’ Rose explained, ‘I’m not completely sure. Nobody can be. Nobody’s ever come back to say heaven is real. But the way I look at it is I would like it to be true, I think it might be, and even if it isn’t, what harm does it do to spend an hour a week in the church, thinking about our lives, being grateful for what we have and trying to be good people? The rules of the Church are generally good ones – be kind, don’t tell lies, don’t kill or steal or be disrespectful. Those are good rules to live by, aren’t they?’

  Harp had to agree. But while Mr Devereaux didn’t dismiss faith as such, he did give her a book by Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx’s collaborator, that explained atheism. Harp had read a lot of philosophy and believed that people have a barometer inside them that knows right from wrong. She felt that living a good life and not hurting people could be achieved by non-believers as easily as by those with faith in the spiritual world.

  He would have probably objected to the church funeral if he could, but in the absence of a family member to make a decision or any other method of burying the dead, they went ahead.

  The vicar came out onto the altar and began the ceremony. Harp did exactly as her mother asked, and they both sat, dressed in black, not fidgeting, not crying, completely impassive.

  Reverend Simcox, a tall slim man with an English accent, was not acquainted at all with the deceased, having only moved to the Queenstown parish five years ago. Harp recalled him calling to the house one day, presumably a courtesy visit to introduce himself to a member of his flock. She was much younger then but remembered it vividly, as Mr Devereaux refused point-blank to see him and her mother was mortified as she had to make some excuse.

  Nonetheless, the vicar did his duty admirably that day, making all the right noises about eternal salvation. Harp could hear Mr Devereaux’s voice in her head as the vicar quoted John 11:25–26.

  ‘“I am the resurrection and the life,” says the Lord. “Those who believe in me, even though they die, yet shall they live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”’

  ‘Ah, but I did die, Harp. You see, I told you – fairy stories.’ Remembering his lopsided grin comforted her.

  Harp had never been inside the Protestant church in Queenstown in her entire life. It wasn’t allowed. And if Canon Long knew she and her mother were sitting there now, he’d probably take a dim view of it, but Harp didn’t care, and in this instance, neither did her mother.

  The mahogany box was almost level with her head as she knelt on the hard kneeler. It had come as a surprise that the Protestants didn’t have long pews like the Catholic church had; instead each person had their own chair and kneeler, with a little shelf for a hymnal and a prayerbook. A few other people she didn’t know dotted the church, but the only mourners were her and her mother.

  It wasn’t hard not to cry. She couldn’t even if she wanted to. All of her emotions were churning sickeningly inside her, pressure building like seltzer water, but she couldn’t let them out. He was gone. It felt so wrong to even say it. Mr Devereaux was gone.

  Mr Cotter, the solicitor, was at the funeral, as was the long-suffering accountant, Mr Byrne. A few of the older Protestant families of the area had sent a representative, and Mr Quinn stood respectfully at a distance, his hat in his hands. But the truth was, nobody had seen Henry Devereaux for years and years. His parents had been sociable when they were younger and Ralph was well known in society as a young man, but Henry had always eschewed social contact and so knew almost nobody.

  The service was interminable and Harp tried to block it all out, all the talk of death and the kingdom of heaven and all of it. She used a trick Mr Devereaux had taught her in one of his more animated moments for when things got too boring. He showed her how to make a face that looked like she was completely engaged, but then mentally escape. He told her to picture her imagination as a bluebird, flying out of her head, leaving her face and body at the boring event and soaring out of the windows, over the town, over the ocean, crossing deserts, forests, cities, flying through sun and rain and wind and finally coming to rest wherever she wanted, on a white-sand beach, at a theatre or a concert, in a library, in a restaurant, on a yacht – wherever she wanted to be at that given moment.

  Harp focused her eyes on the ancient-looking vicar, cocked her head slightly to the left, one ear ever so slightly inclined to the speaker. She tried not to smile at that bit; he’d said the ear was vital to the look of complete concentration. And then she let the bright bluebird fly, out through the stained-glass windows, over the harbour. She knew exactly where to go: to the island. When she was little, her mother had invented an island called Bolloping. It had palm trees and warm azure water, but it also had caves, and in each cave was a library. The books were arranged by colour, not by title, so one could get a surprise. Each night as Harp lay in bed, her mother inventing the tale as she went, Rose would ask her what colour they should choose. She might pick orange, and then they would go to the orange cave and select four orange books. One might be about primates, another a cookbook, another a romance featuring a dashing pirate who really had a heart of gold, and the fourth could be a book about a talking rabbit. They would make up the contents of each book, and soon Michael the talking rabbit would be making a sumptuous cream cake to invite a chimpanzee called Bingo and Blackie the pirate to tea.

  She let her imagination rest on Bolloping. She was probably much too old for such childish fantasies, but today she needed to be anywhere but there in that dank, musty-smelling church, with Mr Devereaux lying still in a box before she ever got to tell him she knew who he really was.

  Mr Quinn had several large black umbrellas that were necessary, because as they walked to the churchyard and the Devereaux plot, the heavens opened. It was a cold day for the time of year, and a stiff breeze blew the rain off the sea. Harp didn’t care if she got wet; in fact, she wanted to. She would have loved to stand out in it, allow the cold drops to trickle down the back of her starched collar, to soak the horrid black dress, to drench her hair, just so she could feel. Anything was better than this dull nothingness, this sense that she would never again be happy. But her mother accepted the umbrella and pulled Harp under it with her. They picked their way across the uneven ground, around old gravestones sticking out here and there without rhyme or reason to the formation. Eventually they reached the Devereaux plot. It was one of the more imposing ones, a double grave with a black marble edge. There was a marble plinth, atop which was a large stone angel the size of a tall man, one wing outstretched, the other curled in, and the angel’s finger rested on her lips to quiet the living.

  The freshly opened grave emitted an earthy aroma, like the smell one got when it rained for the first time in weeks on hard ground, only amplified. Harp inhaled; it wasn’t an unpleasant smell. Somehow she knew that whenever she smelled that for the rest of her life, she would be brought back here, to the little churchyard beside the Protestant chapel on this, the worst day of her life.

  More droning words from the vicar. She allowed them to wash over her. The Protestant prayers were different anyhow, so she didn’t know them. Then the undertaker and his son, a boy she recognised as being a few classes ahead of her, lowered the coffin with ropes into the hole.

  The handful of gathered men each took the shovel and threw a shovelful of earth down, the dirt landing with a thud on the coffin. She and her mother just stood there, the rain drumming on the black umbrella. The gravestone would be inscribed in due course to add him to the list.

  The stone bore the name Devereaux, carved in solid letters and inlaid with gold against the black ma
rble, without embellishment.

  Harp read from the top down:

  George Ralph 1732–1801

  Emily 1750–1820

  Henry Joseph 1770–1834

  Emily 1781–1844

  Ralph James 1800–1802

  Evangeline 1808–1876

  George Joseph 1809–1884

  Henry Davis 1833–1896

  Matilda 1840–1911

  The last two were her grandparents. Mr Devereaux’s father had died before Harp was born, but Matilda Devereaux, her grandmother, let her be raised in the Cliff House knowing she had Devereaux blood in her veins but never allowed her to be acknowledged.

  Mr Devereaux – Harp could never think of him as anything but that – never spoke about his family at all, and they’d never been to this graveyard before.

  Henry George Devereaux 1860–1912

  That’s all there would be to remember him. Nothing to indicate what kind of man he was, how clever and kind and interesting. Just the words and the dates. Nothing more.

  His would probably be the last name ever carved on the stone, she realised. Ralph was younger but settled in India, nobody had seen him for years, and surely he would die and be buried over there.

  She tried to imagine her own name there.

  Harp Mary Devereaux 1900–

  She shook the morbid thought from her mind. The Devereaux family had not acknowledged her in life; they certainly wouldn’t now.

  The rain fell relentlessly and the skies darkened.

  Normally people would sympathise with the family at that point, but there was nobody to sympathise with – Harp and her mother were just the staff – so the crowd dispersed the moment the vicar finished.

  Matt Quinn removed the ropes and put them in the back of the hearse, then he approached them and said kindly, ‘Can I take you back to the house, Mrs Delaney?’

  He was a gentleman in every sense of the word and everyone liked him. At five foot ten and fairly slight, he wasn’t a powerful man. But he commanded the respect and affection of everyone in Queenstown, as he dealt so kindly with them when the time came to bury a loved one. He had sandy hair and blue eyes, and something about him made one feel that it was all going to be all right. He had been married to a terrible harridan who was never done carping about this one or that, and they had only one child, a son. Bessie Quinn died in 1910 of TB, and Matt and the boy had lived alone ever since. Matt Quinn was one of the few people with whom Mr Devereaux had exchanged a few words now and again, when Mr Quinn came to the house with deliveries, he sometimes did that kind of work for the butchers or the greengrocers if there were no funerals to manage, and they talked about matters political. They were aligned in their thinking about Irish independence. He was a well-read man, Mr Devereaux always said.