Last Port of Call: The Queenstown Series

by Jean Grainger

  ‘You know your birds,’ the woman said, sounding impressed.

  She looked like nobody Harp had ever encountered. Her iron-grey hair was wild and curly and hung down her back, and her face was lined and weather-beaten, making her look like someone who spent her life outdoors. She reminded Harp of nothing so much as the Rembrandt Self-Portrait 1661. Her clothing too was odd. She wore men’s trousers and hobnailed boots, and on top she wore a man’s shirt and a blue hand-knitted jumper full of holes. On the garden seat she’d thrown a huge brown overcoat.

  ‘My father taught me.’ Harp surprised herself. It was the first time she had said the words ‘my father’ aloud. She half expected alarms to ring, or Emmet Kelly to pop out of the bushes and laugh at her, but nothing happened.

  ‘Is he a country man?’ the woman asked.

  Harp shook her head. ‘He died, but no. He just knew everything.’

  Miss Kind smiled. ‘I’m sorry for your loss. Knew everything, did he? That’s some achievement.’

  ‘Well, maybe not every single thing, but he knew most things.’

  ‘Was he a teacher?’

  Harp shook her head. ‘No, he…well, he just read a lot.’

  ‘And he passed that love of learning on to you?’ Ms Kind covered her eyes to shade them from the strong sunlight and looked at Harp.

  Suddenly this was getting too close. She should never have said anything. Her parentage was a secret and her inheritance predicated on a lie, and here she was blurting it all out to this stranger. ‘Um…yes, he did, but I’m not really supposed to talk about…’ Harp felt foolish now.

  ‘I understand. People need their privacy. Not enough people understand that.’ She smiled as a beautiful greeny-grey wood warbler sang from the branch of the oak tree in the garden.

  ‘He’s called a ceolaire coille in Irish,’ Harp volunteered. ‘The singer of the wood.’

  ‘And a Phylioscopus sibilatrix in Latin,’ Miss Kind added.

  Harp found the woman’s company restful but she had to remember her role. ‘Is there anything I can get you?’ she asked.

  ‘No thank you,’ Miss Kind replied. ‘I think I’ll stay out here and enjoy your lovely garden for a while. Would you care to join me?’ She indicated the other recently repainted white wrought-iron seat.

  ‘Thank you,’ Harp said, sitting down.

  ‘So what’s your name?’ the woman asked.

  ‘My name is Harp D…Delaney, Miss Kind.’ How she longed to say ‘Devereaux’.

  ‘Eleanor, please. I know children are supposed to refer to adults by Mr or Mrs, but I never felt grown up enough for that title, and now I’m too old to even try. Everyone calls me Eleanor. My brother, my only sibling, lives in America. His name’s Edward. He couldn’t say Eleanor when he was little, so he just called me El.’

  ‘Is he who you are going to visit?’ Harp asked.

  Eleanor sighed heavily. ‘Yes, but not just to visit, to stay. He lives in San Francisco.’

  ‘On the West Coast,’ Harp said quietly. ‘That’s a whole other journey even after getting to Boston. There was a huge earthquake and fire there six years ago on account of its position on the San Andreas Fault. How will you get there?’

  ‘By train.’ She sounded resigned and not at all enthusiastic.

  ‘Aren’t you excited?’ Harp couldn’t help asking. ‘If I were going there, I think I would be.’

  ‘About earthquakes and fires?’ Eleanor chuckled. ‘Is that what I can expect there?’

  Harp reddened. She’d said the wrong thing again. Of course it was insensitive to bring up such perils to someone about to go there. ‘Well, there is an earthquake most days, seismographs record them, but most people don’t even feel them they are so slight. I just meant it would be a real adventure to go there, so different even from the East Coast. I often wonder if Boston and New York are like Ireland, as there are so many Irish people there.’

  Eleanor smiled kindly. ‘I’m sure for a young lady such as yourself it would be a very exhilarating adventure indeed, but for me it’s complicated. I’m too old to go and too old to stay.’ She shrugged. ‘I’m of no use now, and so my brother says I must come to live with him where I’ll be safe. Yes, safe and bored out of my mind.’

  ‘Solon, the Greek philosopher, said that as he grew older, he learned more,’ Harp said. ‘You could use the time to read and learn.’

  ‘True.’ Eleanor nodded. ‘A worthy pursuit, I suppose, but I’m not that into the books, not as much as you clearly are.’

  ‘What is your passion?’ Harp asked. ‘If you know what that is, then where you are geographically in the world would be irrelevant.’

  Eleanor cocked her head to one side and looked quizzically at Harp. ‘You’re a funny one, aren’t you?’

  Harp coloured, embarrassed that she’d sounded peculiar yet again. ‘No… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…’

  ‘No,’ Eleanor said, ‘what were you going to say? I’m interested. Please.’

  Harp swallowed. ‘Just that happiness, according to Aristotle anyway, which is the highest of pursuits, is achieved through virtue. So to be virtuous – not in the social sense, but to live to your highest expectations of yourself, your best self – is the route to happiness. So if a person can find the best expression of themselves, then they will be happy.’

  Eleanor nodded, seemingly thinking about what Harp had just said. Then she took the remains of a crust of bread from her pocket and placed the crumbs on the table.

  Harp watched, fascinated, as the bird singing in the tree stopped and watched, then a gull swooped down and snatched the crust. It stayed just a few feet away from them, pecking the bread, checking back with Eleanor every few seconds.

  ‘How did you do that?’ she asked, amazed. ‘Birds eat what we put out, but they fly away the moment we arrive.’

  ‘Animals, birds, anything non-human really, that’s my passion. I have a way with them, even fish. They respond to me differently than to other people. I could tickle trout when I was knee-high to a grasshopper. Just because animals don’t talk doesn’t mean they can’t communicate – they are better at it than most humans if you just know how to interpret them. I’d rather be with animals than humans, that’s the truth.’ There was no pride in her voice; it was just a statement of fact.

  ‘Who taught you?’ Harp asked.

  Eleanor shrugged. ‘Nobody really. My mother was never well so spent a lot of her life bedridden. My father was the farmer and he taught me a certain amount. But I just spent my days outside on the farm, wandering the land. I should have gone to school, I suppose, but nobody cared whether I did or not, so I chose not to. I found that I could connect with animals in a way I never could with people. Except my friend Flick. She was different, but most humans, no.’

  ‘Even your brother?’ Harp asked.

  ‘Especially my brother,’ Eleanor said darkly. ‘He’s younger than me but he left for America when he was seventeen, and I’ve not seen him since. He writes all the time and I reply occasionally, but he’s never come back and I’ve never gone over there. He’d be sixty-four years old now, hard to believe. He was just a young buck when I last clapped eyes on him.’ She sighed and picked a leaf from the bay tree growing beside the front door, cracking the aromatic plant between her fingers, then raising it to her nose, sniffing appreciatively. ‘Great for a rash, this bay leaf, or for rheumatism either.’ She nibbled on the side of the leaf. ‘Edward thinks he knows what’s best for me. He wants me to leave all I love. He’s wanted it for years and I fought it off, but now I’m just too tired to go to war with him again, so I have no choice but to give in.’ She sighed again.

  ‘But you don’t want to?’ Harp asked quietly.

  Eleanor shook her head. ‘I don’t, but as I say, there’s no avoiding it now, it seems.’

  ‘“While prudence will endeavour to avoid this issue of war, bravery will prepare to meet it.”’

  Eleanor smiled quizzically. ‘Aristotle again?’ she asked.


  Harp laughed. ‘No, Thomas Jefferson.’

  ‘So you think I should stand up to him, be brave?’ Eleanor asked.

  Harp thought seriously for a moment. ‘If it’s what you truly want, if staying here in Ireland with your animals is your highest virtue, the thing that makes you happy, and you are positive about it, then yes, you probably should. Nobody should be dictated to by someone else, no matter what the reason. But I’m just a child so I don’t know.’

  ‘A wiser child than most adults, I’d wager.’ Eleanor threw some more breadcrumbs for the garden birds.

  ‘Not really. I don’t really know a lot of things other children know, so I’m a bit odd.’ Harp shrugged.

  ‘Me too. Talking to dogs and horses all day long, no wonder people think I’m half daft.’ She chuckled.

  ‘That’s wonderful knowledge to have, though.’ Harp was impressed. ‘The things I know are interesting but not that useful.’

  Eleanor nodded. ‘I suppose so. There isn’t a vet for miles, so people round about home bring their sick or injured animals to me. But I don’t suppose my skills will be much in need in San Francisco.’ She sighed. ‘Edward says I can’t cope, and to a certain extent he’s right, I suppose. My place is very far from the town, and it does take a lot of work to manage, and I’m not as young as I was.’

  ‘But,’ Harp said, ‘and this is just a thought, what about if you sold your land and moved closer to the town? Into the town even. As you say, there’s no vet for miles, so maybe you could set up a little clinic and people could bring their animals to you. It would be a way of making a living, and everyone knows how good you are with animals anyway, and you’d be part of a community, safer maybe?’

  Eleanor’s eyes filled with tears. ‘That’s a lovely idea, Harp, but it’s all arranged now. And besides, Edward is waiting for me to come and without any other family, I’m vulnerable. When my parents were alive, it was different, but now…’

  ‘I’m sorry about you losing your parents. That must have been hard when you had nobody else,’ Harp said, changing the subject.

  ‘I had my animals.’ Eleanor shrugged. ‘And I was grown up. But yes, losing a parent is hard, no matter what your age. You know yourself how hard it is.’

  Harp nodded. ‘My mammy is here, though, and she takes very good care of me.’

  Eleanor smiled. ‘You’re lucky then.’

  ‘There are animals in America too, you know, ones we don’t have here, lots of them actually.’ Harp listed what she’d memorised from the previous summer when she’d read a lot about the different continents and their individual features. ‘Raccoons, weasels, otters, beavers, lizards, coyotes, skunks, snakes, cougars, black bears and even whales.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll make friends with a big old bear some day.’ Eleanor smiled sadly.

  ‘If you go, you might.’ Harp smiled. ‘I’d better go and help my mammy. I can show you to your room or I can tell you where it is and you can go in whenever you want?’

  ‘I’ll go in later,’ Eleanor said, turning her face to the warm Irish sun, a gentle breeze rustling her hair.

  ‘Oh, there’s a dog there, I never saw it before.’ Harp had spotted a small terrier lurking in the hedge.

  ‘Ah.’ Eleanor held out her hand and the dog trotted over to her fearlessly. ‘I met him down at the station. Do you think someone around here owns him?’

  Harp took a better look at the pup as he licked Eleanor’s hand. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Well, he looks like a stray to me. I doubt anyone’s been feeding him.’ Eleanor smiled at the little dog and made some noises that Harp couldn’t understand.

  ‘Should I get some scraps for him?’ she asked.

  ‘If your mother wouldn’t mind. I’m sure our little friend here would appreciate that.’

  Harp skipped into the kitchen and returned in a few moments with some bacon fat and a bit of liver left over from their tea the previous night. She gave them to the little dog, who ate them hungrily.

  ‘You have a kind heart, Harp,’ Eleanor observed. ‘I don’t know if your mother will be happy about it, but you might just have adopted this little lad.’

  ‘I don’t think she would like that, Eleanor.’ Harp shook her head. ‘She’s a stickler for cleanliness, especially now, and dog hair and droppings wouldn’t really be part of her plan.’

  ‘Well, we’ll see.’ The old woman winked.

  Harp patted the little dog and handed Eleanor her key. ‘Your room is the first door on the left as you go up the stairs. Dinner is at seven this evening and breakfast is in the morning between seven and nine.’

  Eleanor took the key and put it in her trouser pocket. ‘See you later, Harp,’ she said as she stood observing the harbour with her hands in her pockets, the little dog resting on her foot.

  Chapter 16

  ‘Do you need any help, Mammy?’ Harp asked as she entered the kitchen.

  ‘No, I think everything is under control,’ Rose said, smiling.

  Harp was so relieved that the worried, anxious look her mother wore constantly in the weeks after Mr Devereaux’s death was a thing of the past.

  ‘Why don’t you go and read a book for an hour before dinner?’

  Harp nodded and walked upstairs. She would go to her room, choose something soothing. She had been given Anne of Green Gables as a gift by her mother for Christmas but had yet to read it; perhaps she would start that. It was a beautiful book, leather-bound and exquisitely illustrated. The books in Mr Devereaux’s library were all to his taste, and though she loved them, she rarely read books written for girls her age, so she was very much looking forward to it.

  She stalled on the landing outside Mr Devereaux’s bedroom, thinking of the thousands of hours she’d spent in there with him, reading, talking, listening to music, examining a painting. She wished she could just go in, sit in her window seat and read her book while he read quietly by the fire. Now Miss O’Brien would sleep in there, having no idea of the man who had lived there for so long.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  The voice broke through her reverie and she was startled to see the boy who was travelling with the American man come out of the bathroom.

  ‘Y…yes… I…I apologise, I was…’ Harp was flustered and embarrassed to realise her cheeks were wet.

  ‘But you’re crying,’ he said.

  She swallowed. ‘I’m fine, thank you… I’m sorry.’ Feeling awkward around someone her own age, she turned to go, but he stopped her.

  ‘I was going to walk down to the town. My cousin has gone to buy some tobacco, but he gave me some money to buy sweets for the voyage. Would you like to come? Show me the way?’

  Something about the boy made Harp pause before refusing. She could see it had taken a lot for him to invite her, but she’d never been approached like this before, by someone of her own age wanting to spend time with her. She wasn’t sure how to respond. Was he genuine? Was he trying to make a fool of her? Of course she should not go down to town with this boy, but he seemed as lost and as lonely as she was. She did have an hour to kill before dinner, and her mother had things ready. And all she was going to do was read anyway. It was a strange sensation for her, but just then she didn’t want to be alone.

  Alone had never meant lonely before, but seeing Mr Devereaux’s study as the bedroom of strangers, the pleasant aromas of cooking food and beeswax polish were suddenly not comforting and welcoming; instead they felt alien, foreign, as if his memory was being erased. She hated the feeling.

  ‘I’ll just ask my mother if it would be all right,’ she heard herself say. ‘What’s your name, by the way?’

  ‘JohnJoe O’Dwyer. But Danny – that’s my cousin, he’s American – says nobody in America will know what I’m saying if I say that, so he advised I introduce myself as JJ.’

  Harp felt a pang of compassion for the small freckled boy with the dark-green eyes and sticking-up hair. ‘Which do you prefer?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t
know. I was always just JohnJoe. My mammy’s father was called Joseph and my father was Johnny, and so was his father before him. I was the only boy, so I was named for both of them. I remember both of my grandas well – they’re dead now – and they were both really nice. My Granda Joe used to take me fishing, and he taught me how to draw birds and trees and things. It was the only thing I was ever any good at really, drawing. And my Granda Johnny was a great storyteller. He used to have us laughing when he’d be doing funny voices and everything. But I suppose JJ is all right. If people won’t understand me, it might be for the best?’ He seemed unsure.

  Harp shrugged. ‘I don’t know. My name is Harp and some boys at school tease me about it, saying it’s not a proper name, but whenever I get upset about it, my mammy says that it’s irrelevant what people think of me. She asks me what do I think of me? What do I think of my name? And she says mine is the only opinion that matters.’

  ‘I think Harp is a lovely name,’ JohnJoe said, and Harp could tell he was being honest.

  ‘Thanks. So do I. Now I’ll probably spend my whole life explaining it, but it’s who I am. And so maybe if your mother called you JohnJoe and you like it and it means something to you, then you should stick with it, force them to understand?’

  He smiled and she saw his gap-toothed grin for the first time. ‘Maybe you’re right, Harp. I’ll stick with JohnJoe. My mammy is dead and she named me, so it would be an insult to her memory if I changed it, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Maybe it would,’ Harp agreed.

  ‘They might make me do it, though, but we’ll see.’ His brow furrowed.

  ‘Who would make you?’ Harp asked.

  ‘My uncle in America. I’m going to live with him. He sent Danny to bring me over there. I…’ His voice dropped to a whisper, and he looked around as if expecting someone to be spying on them. He swallowed and Harp waited.

  ‘I…I was in borstal, and my father came and took me out and told me I was going to America because my uncle has no child and he wants one, so my father said I could go.’