Big English Girl

by Paula Clamp

  “Yeah…I know him. We were at summer camp together.” Ellie didn’t know where the lie came from. She had never been to a summer camp in her life, “He invited me to call in the next time I was in his part of the country.” Ellie knew that she lied miserably and she wouldn’t convince anyone who had an ounce of sense.

  “Did he?”

  Clearly, Paddy Doherty was not that someone.

  Ellie had to think quickly as to how could she get access to the tree without getting Paddy into any trouble, “‘Pop in and say hello’ Conor said.”

  “Conor Sullivan said ‘pop in’?”

  “Well, yeah. So, you see, I am allowed on the land. If you show me a way in, I’m sure I’ll be able to find what I’m looking for.”

  Paddy stood back up and held out his podgy hand for Ellie to grab. Not quite sure how much of her lie he actually believed, she held onto his hand as he yanked her up from the gravestone. She towered over him.

  “Okay, then.” He replied, without a hint of reservation.

  With his hammer now stuck in his trouser’s belt loop, Paddy led Ellie down from the chapel, along a path through a narrow conifer forest and out towards a barbed-wire fence.

  “Pop in?” Paddy shook his head again in disbelief at Conor’s alleged nonchalance, “Here, Ellie, I’ll stand on the fence to hold it down. You need to head in that direction.”

  Paddy pointed ahead, towards undulating fields divided by clumps of hawthorn and tumbling, granite walls.

  “Thank you, Paddy, for the shoulder to cry on and for not thinking I’m completely mad.”

  He shrugged his shoulders and turned to leave, “Big English Girl, I think you’re a bloody lunatic.”

  Chapter 6

  Ellie waved as Paddy left and she was saddened to feel all alone again in a strange country.

  Tentatively, she now ascended and then descended the brow of a small hill. The heat on her back was searing, but only when Paddy was out of the way, did she feel comfortable enough to remove her heavy coat. Since adolescence, she had always been self-conscious of her large, imposing frame and hid it the best way she could. Ellie wrapped the coat around her waist, remembering how she did the same when she was younger. She loved to scamper through St James’ Park with her father, pretending to be Batman. Underneath her feet, Ellie now saw small clusters of buttercups and harebells. Around her butterflies brushed themselves against the sticky burs of the burdock, whilst the hover-flies were seduced by the pink flower buds of hemp. Again, Ellie remembered the wildflowers as her father chased after her, always happy to play Robin to a daughter who was the same height as him by the time she was eight.

  The hills made it difficult to see ahead and over the brow of each one, Ellie expected to be greeted with the tree that had brought her from the other side of the Irish Sea. Would the Liberty Tree in Lusty really be the same oak as the one in her photograph? The one that she had been transfixed by since she was a large, small child. As Ellie climbed, she came across a small cluster of oaks, one of which could have been it, but she wasn’t sure. She just prayed that somehow her intuition would tell her immediately which the right one was.

  This longed for, gut-feeling, happened after Ellie climbed the fifth hill.

  The wrench, in her lower stomach, told Ellie instantly that what she faced was an almighty, magnificent presence. The Irish oak reached over twenty-five metres high. The spread was as wide as was tall and overshadowed all that was around. Lush green foliage radiated out of gnarled and twisted branches. The tree appeared to be stretching after a long sleep. The base was a blackened hollow and decay had long since taken hold. Large steel rods supported the splintered trunk, struggling to keep it upright and alive. This tree had no doubt lived through it all, but someone out there was refusing to let this old soul die.

  ‘Why would someone want to keep something that is so stunning, so private?’ Ellie pondered as she circled the massive trunk. She let the full shape of the tree fill the frame for her memory. This tree surely belonged to the people around it. No wonder the only photograph her mother ever kept from her past had this tree in it. Ellie now stepped slowly into the tree’s shadow; instantly cooled. Her full, outstretched arms barely reached a quarter of the way around the trunk. She laid her cheek against the rough bark and listened for the tree’s voice. Her chest was crushed tight against the cool surface. The voice was silent; the creak of the branches, in response to the occasional flood of breeze, came from the external periphery, not the internal core.

  Ellie looked up, straight up the shaft of the trunk and soaked up the dense, dark myriad of twisted branches and lush leaves. This was where she wanted to be, up there was where the life in the tree remained.

  The first branch was the hardest to reach. Ellie could just about grab it, but hadn’t the upper body strength to pull herself up. She rested her hand against some ivy that had engulfed the upper part of the trunk and discovered a small hollow, just the size of a child’s foot. Her long legs easily stretched to let her foot rest in the hole and with a bump-start she reached up to the first branch and then hauled herself up onto it.

  From here the climbing was much easier.

  The branches were more than strong enough to support her weight and the further she got away from the rotten hollow at the base of the trunk, the more substantial and firm they became. She took a rest on the thickest bough of the tree; an unusually twisted, but sturdy bough at the centre of the tree's arboreal heart.

  Ellie had always felt too awkward and gangly to climb before, but now she couldn’t stop herself - even if she had wanted to. As a toddler she would never have done anything remotely adventurous, but there was no backing down now. Ellie felt utterly compelled to keep going upwards.

  She could now see a thick ‘v’ shaped branch at the top of the tree and this was her target. Her T-shirt was speckled with wood splinters and her jeans, moss-green on the seat and around the slashes at the knees. The ivy on the top branch forced her grip to slip a few times before securing a hold. But, eventually, out of breath and heady with the exhilaration, Ellie made it.

  From the top of the Lusty Liberty Tree, Ellie could see beyond the Sullivan Estate to a massive lake, then across and beyond to Lough Neagh and then the Mourne Mountains. Ellie rested in the ‘v’, with her head against the branch and one leg up against the tip of the trunk. Her fingers interlaced with the ivy. She turned her ear against the branch and now she could hear the tree’s voice; it was her own, panting lightly, as she tried to recapture her breath.

  What amazing story did this tree have to tell and why was it so important to her mother?

  As she lay idly, listening to the rhythm of her heart, Ellie’s left hand came across yet another hollow underneath the ivy – slightly larger than her first discovery. She pulled the ivy leaves away, thinking that she was doing the tree a favour by liberating it from the manacles. But as she did so, she saw something shine, buried deep down in the cavity. Whatever the object was, it was wedged so tightly that she almost slipped trying to retrieve it. Ellie tried a second time, but her nails just scraped the surface. Eventually, with one mighty yank, out it came. The tin box was plain, except for the newly inflicted scratch-marks caused by her nails.

  Ellie prised open the lid, which immediately revealed several sheets of paper. On first appearances, the box appeared to contain a lengthy letter. She quickly rifled through the pieces of paper and discovered a second, then a third and then even more.

  Who would hide such things away and why?

  One thing was perfectly clear, whoever had hidden the letters, had no intention of anyone ever finding them - or of them ever being read.

  But Ellie wasn’t just anybody. She was a young girl in desperate need of answers. This old tree had probably been around for more than two centuries and had no doubt many, many stories to tell. This tree was her mother’s ‘special place’. Would Ellie find answers to her own questions? Maybe, these letters wanted to be found after all.

  Ell
ie nervously turned the bundle over and with excitement flooding through every over-sized organ in her body; she began to read the top page.

  Chapter 7

  New Year’s Day 1990

  Dear Liberty Tree

  I got married yesterday. So, what's a ‘blushing’ bride doing stuck up a tree writing a letter? My Ciaran and I had a chat about what we could do to celebrate our love - you know, something romantic. Eventually, I came up with this idea that each year, on our anniversary, we could take it in turns to write a special letter - about our feelings and stuff. There’s not much else romantic to do in a village like Lusty. I thought the letters could have three parts:

  Our Past: what we’ve been up to during the previous year

  Our Present: what we are doing on our anniversary day itself

  Our Future: hopes and dreams for the year ahead

  That’s it. These letters are to be a testimony of our love for years to come, if God spares us. The only rules are that we alternate writing the letters between us and that we promise never to read what the other has written until we’re old and grey.

  We 'ummed' and 'ahhed' about where to store these letters. We knew it had to be somewhere not easily got to and somewhere special. To cut a short story even shorter - you came up, Old Tree.

  So here goes;

  Our Past

  I started courting Ciaran in June. We we’re engaged in August and married yesterday. No, can I start again? That won’t do. That doesn’t sound one bit romantic. Bear with me. I need to spend a bit more time on this part and set the scene for the years to follow…

  I met my husband-to-be in June.

  That’s not entirely true.

  I first met him when we were kids, in a field when he showed me his collection of maggots. So, to be honest, I’ve known him for years. Lusty's like that - everybody knows everybody. But, technically, we didn’t actually ‘get it together’ until June this year.

  I was on a day-trip to Belfast with my best friend and the city was just mad with bomb scares. We had done the usual circuit of shops, to buy art materials for my friend, and shoes for me. Then we finished off in The Crown for soup and steak-and-onion sandwiches. As usual, the ones from the city were rushing about, showing off their self-importance, but we just kept ourselves to ourselves.

  And then Ciaran strolled in, got his soup and sandwiches and sat down besides us. He looked very handsome. His job as a river bailiff on the Sullivan Estate means he always has colour. Being stuck behind Doherty's Bar, where I do the afternoon shift, means my skin is only ever a shade of blue. Anyway, for half-an-hour Ciaran chatted to my friend about her paintings and then about his brother and the new tractor he'd just bought. He totally ignored me, until it was time to go and he spoke the first words to me since he'd arrived,

  "Can I call on you when we get back home?"

  "If you like." I answered.

  And that was that.

  From then on, the relationship didn't exactly blossom - it was more like a spud sprouting roots. Before we knew it, we were engaged. In fact, it was to you, Old Tree, that my Ciaran brought me to propose. Some wee gits from up the country had built a fire in your hollow and when we arrived, you were slowly being burnt alive. My Ciaran whacked one of the lads on the side of the head and the other two scampered away with their tails between their legs. We smothered the fire with big lumps of clay hauled from the earth. The smoke just bellowed up into the sky. You looked so violated and raw. I felt so useless and the only thing I could think of doing was to give you a big hug. My Ciaran, all soot and ash, looked over at me and said, “I could marry you for that.” And I said, “Go on then, you daft eejit” - which lead to…

  Ellie paused for a moment and re-read the words. She couldn't resist imagining her own parents’ courtship and their stories of day-trips to Southend and the shops with window displays that either had everything in them, or had nothing at all. The glass would be screened with a green film to protect the goods from fading in the sunlight.

  Ellie read on.

  Our Present

  I got married yesterday. Me, a married woman? I woke up this morning feeling complete, even if we have little in the way of material possessions. All I brought to the marriage was a picture of Our Lord and a set of sheets. Ciaran brought fishing nets and a rowing boat. Our folks clubbed together to get us a cooker and some pots and pans. My Gran gave me her old brass bed.

  For breakfast we had tea and toast, as we sat on boxes in the living room and then we hatched a plot to write these letters…well, you know the rest. So, here I am. Me, a married woman and the start of a whole new, glorious life!

  Our Future

  Marriage means the world to me, but I can't deny that it also means a way of escape from this place. By the end of the year I don't see Ciaran and myself still living in Lusty. The village is too parochial - too small. Everyone knows your business, which isn’t a lot to know considering nothing ever happens.

  But don’t worry, Old Tree, we’ll still come back here for our anniversary each year and give you our letters. So, no babies for the time being as we concentrate on saving up with a few more shifts in the bar for me and more poachers to catch for Ciaran.

  See you year after next, Old Tree.

  Love and tree hugs

  Roisin

  A very faint floral scent trickled into the air, where Roisin had obviously sprayed the paper heavily. Ellie focused on the delicate handwriting, belonging to a time when people still knew how to write. Ellie tried, but couldn't imagine her own mother as a gushing bride. Could her mother ever have been as sentimental as the letter writer? It was fun to think so, but Ellie had never thought of her in that way before.

  In the box, Ellie could see the second letter, which must be the husband’s contribution the following year. Facing upwards, she placed Roisin’s letter back on the pile, with Ciaran’s letter covered for another time. The optimism of the written words had elevated Ellie's spirit, however, she quickly felt grounded with the disappointment that she had uncovered nothing about her mother.

  Ellie looked out across the fields and towards the direction of the village. Where was Roisin now? Was she still happy? Why could her own mother not have found a way to be happy?

  There was nothing else for it, but Ellie had to chat to as many locals as possible to try and find someone, anyone, who remembered her mother. She couldn’t let herself be side-tracked by the letters and what her father would simply disregard as ‘silly, old nonsense’.

  Ellie picked Roisin’s letter out of the box and lifted out the one written by Ciaran underneath.

  Chapter 8

  New Year’s Day 1991

  Dear Liberty Tree

  Our Past

  Look, this wasn’t my idea. But if it makes the wife happy, well…highlights of the year?

  1. Old Man Sullivan nearly caught me with a full net. Being both poacher and gamekeeper makes life a bit hairy at times. Don’t tell the wife!

  2. Mervyn Mahon’s Da got a new Massey Ferguson tractor.

  3. What else? Nothing.

  Our Present

  Came home from Doherty's to find the wife had tie-dyed my shirt with beetroot. The lessons of the day are don’t trust your wife with root vegetables and never take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night (that's another story).

  Our Future

  My hopes for the year are that Old Man Sullivan will give me the pay increase promised last year and that I catch a fifteen-pound salmon.

  Yours sincerely

  Ciaran

  P.S. Just for the record, I wanted ‘Then’, ‘Now’ and ‘Next’ for the letter headings, but I was over-ruled.

  The handwriting was crude and the spelling appalling, but Ellie couldn’t resist re-reading Ciaran’s letter over and over. He hadn’t quite got into the spirit of the project the way that Roisin had and it was obvious that when Roisin said ‘we’, she mostly meant ‘I’. Ellie wondered if her own father would have entered into such an a
rrangement. He wasn't into expressing his feelings too much either (his astonished eyes did that for him). But, maybe, at the beginning of his marriage, he too could have been bullied into it.

  Re-reading Ciaran’s letter, Ellie was struck by the mysterious gaps in the information, such as there was no hint of any plans to leave Lusty. But then there was also additional material, such as Ciaran’s double life as bailiff and as a poacher.

  By being able to see both sides of the story, Ellie suddenly felt extremely intrusive, but also very privileged. In the absence of any information about her own mother’s past, Ellie had stumbled on someone else’s life entirely by accident.

  If all the letters continued in the same way, would Ellie know more about Roisin and Ciaran’s relationship, than either of them? And was that right? Ellie folded both letters and stuffed them back into the box.

  What should she do?

  She looked at the ivy-covered hollow, where the owners of the letters had placed their utmost trust. That was where they belonged.

  Climbing down from the Liberty Tree was much easier than climbing up. It was now shortly before three in the afternoon and Ellie had just over an hour to chat to as many people as possible, before the locals would be otherwise engaged at the fundraising meeting in the pub. She knew that her most likely source of local history had to be the priest, but she just couldn’t let go of her disappointment in the church. No, the terrace house in the middle - the one with the barred windows - that was calling to her for some unknown reason.