Whitethorn Woods

by Maeve Binchy

  ‘It’s just I was thinking of getting a job helping to build the road,’ Josef said.

  ‘You mean it’s really going to happen?’ Father Flynn was astounded.

  ‘I have Polish friends and they say that it will. They are going to stay with Anna and me, and Father Flynn, you would not believe the great money they will earn building it.’ Josef’s face was full of hope and dreams.

  ‘Yes, but it’s only money, Josef.’

  ‘It’s money that will buy a little shop for my brothers back home in Latvia. We have everything we need here but they have so very little.’

  For no reason at all, Father Flynn thought of his friend James O’Connor who had been ordained the same day as he had. James had left the priesthood, married Rosie, had two little sons. James worked in computer technology of some kind, he said it was great, easy work, and when you came home from the office you could put it all behind you.

  Not at all like parish work. No more of this standing up for the indefensible, or staying silent on matters you cared about. Father Flynn thought he would have loved it.

  Just loved it.

  Skunk Slattery looked up as Kitty Flynn came into his shop with a good-looking woman he hadn’t seen before.

  ‘How are you, Skunk?’ asked Kitty. ‘We’re getting ourselves a few glossy magazines and going off to Fabian’s for a makeover.’

  ‘More power to you, Kitty. It’s never too late, I say,’ Skunk responded, not very gallantly.

  ‘Always the man to flatter you,’ Kitty said.

  ‘Are you going to introduce me to your friend?’ Skunk asked.

  ‘That’s not my friend, Skunk, that’s my sister-in-law – don’t you remember her?’ Kitty said.

  ‘Kitty is another person who’ll always flatter you!’ Judy said. ‘I’m Judy Flynn, by the way. Brian and Eddie’s sister.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, I am Sebastian Slattery,’ said Skunk.

  ‘You are not!’ Kitty would argue with her shadow. ‘You’re Skunk – you always were and always will be.’

  Skunk and Judy exchanged glances of despair as Kitty burrowed amongst the glossy magazines.

  ‘I’m amazed I never met you before. Will you be around for long?’ Skunk asked.

  ‘For as long as it takes,’ Judy Flynn said mysteriously.

  *

  Naomi approached Father Flynn. Normally she steered well clear of him. Naomi was used to steering clear of people, there were a fair few she had to avoid. Like Eddie’s wife Kitty, like Eddie’s children, like his mother, and most certainly his brother Brian, the local priest.

  ‘Excuse me, Brian?’ she began.

  Father Flynn nearly dropped to the ground in shock. ‘Yes … um … Naomi.’ What on God’s earth could the girl want?

  ‘Brian, I was wondering if you could explain to me how Eddie could get an annulment of his marriage.’

  ‘With great, great difficulty, Naomi,’ Father Flynn said.

  ‘No, I mean, it can be done obviously, it’s a question of how.’ Naomi turned her big nineteen-year-old eyes on him.

  ‘It can’t be done,’ Father Flynn said. ‘Annulment is saying that no marriage existed, and I have to tell you that a marriage did exist between Eddie and Kitty, and they have four children as a result of it.’

  ‘It wasn’t a real marriage,’ she began.

  ‘It was, Naomi. You weren’t born at the time. I was there. It happened, you can’t say it didn’t happen. Now have I said one word to you about your living with Eddie? No, I have not. It’s your business, yours and his, but don’t go dragging the principles of canon law and the Church into it. Please.’

  ‘He didn’t know his mind then, he was only twenty, for God’s sake, what does a young fellow of twenty know about taking on a wife and having children? He shouldn’t have been allowed to do it.’

  ‘What brought all this on, Naomi?’ Father Flynn’s voice was level. It wasn’t much worse than anything else that was happening around him in his life these days. But it would at least be nice to know why after two years this girl wanted respectability and the approval of Church and State.

  ‘It’s just that I want things to be fair and open …’ she began.

  ‘Really?’ Father Flynn was doubtful.

  ‘And, you see, my parents have discovered that I’m not a student any more, they thought I was going to college and they’re being a bit troublesome …’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure.’

  ‘And so, you see, I told them that I was going to marry Eddie, and now they’re all delighted again and getting ready for the wedding, so that’s what we have to organise, you see.’

  Father Flynn looked at her wildly. He thought that he had become master of the meaningless comforting cliché. But on this occasion he could not summon up one single word to say.

  Neddy Nolan brought his father in to see the canon once a week. The two old men used to play chess together and Josef would serve them coffee and biscuits.

  ‘Tell me, Canon, shouldn’t we all be voting against this road if we get a chance?’ Marty Nolan asked.

  ‘I don’t think we do get a chance.’ Canon Cassidy’s grasp on it was tenuous.

  ‘But you know what I mean, Canon, voting with our feet. Going to the meeting in the square and everything, having banners maybe. Don’t we owe it to St Ann?’

  ‘Why don’t you ask Father Flynn, he’s the brains of this parish,’ the old man said.

  ‘I did ask him, Canon, but he just went on about doing what our consciences told us to do.’ Marty Nolan shook his head in disappointment. ‘That’s no use at all, suppose everyone’s conscience told them something different. Where would we be then? It’s guidance we need.’

  ‘Do you know, Mr Nolan, I think the days of guidance are long gone. I never thought I’d live to hear myself say this but it appears to be true.’

  ‘It’s a great worry for us,’ Marty Nolan said. ‘You see, people are making us offers for the land. Unmerciful sums of money. And I know it has Neddy awake at night wondering what to do.’

  ‘But nothing has been agreed yet. Why would people be offering to buy your land?’ The canon was bewildered.

  ‘I’m not sure, Canon, maybe they know more than we know. But you see the problem for Neddy. I mean, his own mother was cured at that well. No amount of money could ever pay for that.’

  ‘Where is Neddy at the moment?’ the canon said, possibly trying to change the subject. It worked.

  ‘Ah, you know Neddy, Canon, always the dreamer, he’s wandering round Rossmore with his hands in his pockets, interested in everything, understanding nothing.’

  ‘Well, we’d better get on with our game of chess then,’ the canon said. ‘Was it my move or yours?’

  Neddy Nolan was in fact in Myles Barry’s law office. ‘I’ve always been a bit slow, Myles,’ he began.

  ‘I wouldn’t say that at all. Haven’t you done very well for yourself, married a grand girl? Aren’t you a friend to everyone in Rossmore?’

  ‘Yes, but, Myles, I might not be for much longer. All kinds of people are coming to me and suggesting we sell our property to them.’

  ‘Well, isn’t that good?’

  ‘Not really. They must have inside information or whatever it’s called. They must know that the road really is coming and will go over our land.’ He looked very troubled.

  ‘I know, Neddy, but isn’t that the luck of the draw? It couldn’t happen to a better family.’ Myles couldn’t see where the problem lay.

  ‘But I can’t sell our land to speculators, people who are buying up bits here and there for no reason, except that they can hold the authorities to ransom by cornering all the available acres. Then when the time comes they can hold out and eventually sell it on again at a huge profit to the government and the builders. That’s not the kind of thing we want to be involved in.’

  ‘Well, no … no …’ Myles Barry wondered where this was leading.

  ‘It’s just a few of them have told me they are a
pproaching you about it,’ Neddy said anxiously.

  Myles Barry played for time. ‘That’s a fact, Neddy. But it’s not illegal, you know, to make an offer for someone’s land. You name a price and they pay it, and you put the money in the bank, and they sell the land on later for more money, because they’ll have lots of little bits here and there to offer. Or you refuse it and take less from the government when the time comes and that’s that. It’s the system. Where’s the problem?’

  ‘The problem is that it’s all just about making money,’ Neddy said.

  Myles sighed and decided to be very direct. ‘Yes, it’s true some clients have asked me to put in an offer to you but I said you’d need to get a solicitor of your own, and maybe an estate agent to advise you and I couldn’t be acting as a sort of an intermediary and twisting your arm over it all.’

  ‘Could you be our solicitor, Myles? I’ve known you for ever, you were at school with my brother Kit.’ Neddy’s face was without guile.

  ‘I could indeed be your lawyer, Neddy, but I suggest you get someone more high-powered than me. A big firm from Dublin maybe. There’s serious money tied up in this. You’d want a really professional team working for you.’

  ‘Is it that you don’t want to let the other people down, Myles, by changing horses and representing me?’ Neddy wanted to know.

  ‘No, there would be no conflict of interests. Nobody has mentioned any sums involved. I have seen no papers or proposals. I just said I wouldn’t do anything until you got representation, that’s all,’ Myles said.

  ‘So you could do it if you wanted to?’ Neddy was distressingly direct.

  Of course Myles Barry could. But there would be much more money in it for him if he were to represent a consortium of local businessmen. He couldn’t charge Neddy Nolan and his father proper fees. Especially if things were as they looked and the Nolans were going to hold out. The land would be bought eventually if the road went ahead, which it looked very likely to. Those particular businessmen who had approached him would not have sought out the Nolan farm unless they knew something from the council. Myles Barry had been given to understand that any reasonable demand from the Nolans would be met.

  Of course it was speculation. But that’s how an economy worked. People took risks; they won or they lost. Only Neddy Nolan would see anything dubious about the whole system.

  Myles sat and looked at the gentle man on the other side of the desk. A man who had worked very hard for what he had. It would be great to see someone like that being dealt a winning hand.

  Myles Barry was only too aware that the rumours were going to become a reality and the heat was about to be turned on. Cathal Chambers in the bank had told him about two local councillors, they were fellows who hadn’t a bone to throw to a dog, and yet they were coming into the bank these days with large wads of cash which they wanted lodged in savings accounts. It was so obviously vote buying that Cathal was amazed.

  Yet what could he do except invoke the law about banks needing to know where any lodged money came from. They looked him in the eye and told him that it was from poker games. The vote about the road when it came would be first at local council level, and then nationally. And it looked like a foregone conclusion.

  Myles Barry looked at Neddy. He needed someone to look after his interests. These were dangerous waters that he was entering. But Neddy Nolan didn’t want the big boys in Dublin, the firms that would frighten off anyone trying to cheat him. No, he wanted the man who had been at school with his brother Kit – now serving time in an English prison at Her Majesty’s pleasure.

  ‘Sure, Neddy,’ Myles Barry sighed. ‘I’d be honoured to be your solicitor.’

  Judy Flynn walked up to the Whitethorn Woods on her own. She wore her best outfit, a navy silk dress with a navy and white scarf. Her newly streaked hair was elegant and shiny. She wanted to show St Ann the raw material for her quest.

  In the cave were half a dozen people muttering and praying near the statue. Judy kneeled down and got straight to business.

  ‘I’m going to be completely honest with you, St Ann. I don’t really know whether you exist or not, and if you do exist whether you deal with cases like this or not. But it’s worth a try. I am going to come here and pray for peace on earth, or whatever you yourself think may be needed, for nine mornings in a row. That’s a fair bank of prayers we’re building up. And in return you are going to guide my steps towards meeting a man I can marry and have children with. You see, I do drawings all the time for children’s books and yet I have no children of my own. And because of doing these drawings I sort of believe in magic, well, a magical world where marvellous things happen. So why shouldn’t I find a husband in this place?

  ‘Oh, and you’ll want to know why I didn’t find one already. That’s easy. I looked in the wrong place. I looked in publishing and advertising and the media, that kind of world. Not the right base. What I would like is someone maybe from this town so that I wouldn’t feel so alienated and guilty about not being here. And then I could help my brother Brian to look after our mam, I could help Kitty – I’m sure she’s been up here asking you to get my brother Eddie to go back to her. Don’t do it, it wouldn’t work.

  ‘I don’t think that marriage is all about appearances and dressing well, but it’s only fair to tell you that this is the best I can look. I am inclined to be a bit impatient and short-tempered but I think that I am keeping it under control. And that’s it now. I’ll say a rosary for your intentions and I’ll come again tomorrow. I can’t say fairer than that.’

  Eddie Flynn came out of the bar in the Rossmore Hotel. Times were very worrying. He had a good business deal possibly going ahead with a gang of people who knew what they were doing. It should bring him in some very badly needed money. And did he need money just now!

  Young Naomi had been telling her parents a pack of lies, saying she was a second-year student above in Dublin. Now she was telling them more lies, saying that Eddie’s marriage was going to be annulled and that he was going to marry her. It would never happen, not in a million years. The girl was soft in the head.

  In many ways it would be easier to have stayed with Kitty. At least there was always a meal on the table when he got home in the evening, there were the children to entertain him. It was all a bit awkward and artificial nowadays, they seemed to think he was some kind of rat who had deserted them. Then Kitty would let him take them to the pictures in the middle of the week, and young Naomi wanted to go out at weekends. And everyone was on his case about not going to see his mam enough.

  He was weary of it all. If he went home now, Naomi would be there with pictures of wedding dresses and lists of the people they would invite. Apparently she had had a highly unsatisfactory conversation with Brian about it all and now thought they should go straight through the canon who would surely have a more helpful attitude. And anyway wasn’t he technically Brian’s boss?

  On the other side of the road he saw Kitty. Or was it Kitty? She wore Kitty’s anorak certainly but her hair was totally different and she was wearing make-up. He pulled back into the shadows and watched. It was Kitty. But she had done something to herself. Dyed her hair, maybe?

  She looked years younger.

  He saw her talking animatedly to that poor Lilly Ryan, the one whose baby had been stolen all those years ago and then her husband had turned violent. Eddie watched as Kitty moved along the street. He wouldn’t even admit it to himself but life would be a great deal easier if he were going home to Kitty for his tea.

  The march against the new road was held right through the town and up to the Whitethorn Woods. Some people carried posters with ‘Save Our Saint’ on them, others had ‘No to the New Road’. Television teams and journalists from national newspapers came to cover it.

  Father Brian Flynn knew he would have to make some kind of statement to someone. He couldn’t sit like a dummy looking on. But he hated the thought of himself on national television.

  ‘I have such desperate hair,
I look like a lavatory brush,’ he confided to his sister.

  ‘Go to that man Fabian, he’s brilliant,’ Judy advised.

  ‘Are you mad – you’d feed a family for a week on what he charges.’

  ‘You don’t have a family to feed, go on, Brian, it’s my treat,’ she said and that was that.

  He went into the salon feeling more foolish than he had ever felt in his whole life. He couldn’t see what the guy who called himself Fabian actually did to him but he did look a lot more normal afterwards.

  So he was interviewed and said that the Well of St Ann was a place of local piety and it was always sad to see parishioners upset and their sensibilities offended.

  Then a week later he was interviewed again at the candlelit meeting calling for the introduction of something that would take the heavy traffic away from Rossmore. This time Father Flynn told the interviewer that the death of a child was to be deplored and that the authorities had a duty to do all in their power to make sure that a young life was never lost again in this way.

  ‘I’m sure that anyone who saw both of those interviews will think I am a complete clown,’ he said to Judy.

  ‘No, they’ll think that when you’re in a hole you’re right to stop digging,’ Judy said.

  She was proving to be a much more restful companion than he had feared. She said she knew it was barking mad but she was getting a lot of comfort from that crazy old well. She had also painted her mother’s kitchen and got her a kitten, which had cheered the old woman up – but not yet to the extent of admitting that she recognised Judy.

  The brother and sister would have a drink together each evening in the Rossmore Hotel. Once they saw Eddie there and waved him to join them. Nobody mentioned Naomi, Kitty or Mother.

  It was a perfectly pleasant chat.

  ‘I think we’re all getting seriously grown up round here,’ Judy Flynn said afterwards.

  ‘Oh, if only, if only,’ said Father Flynn. He saw really immense problems ahead once the council’s vote was known, which would be any day now.