by Paula Clamp
"It's okay." Ronan reassured him with an arm around his shoulders.
Frankie then whispered something in his ear and his father’s relieved face lit up with a broad smile, "Frankie tells me it's only the gases in the bottle - warming up with the heat from our hands."
Ronan gave Cormac a playful nudge and the assembled crowd politely applauded.
Ellie couldn’t help but ask herself, what was this world she’d found herself in. Here was a close-knit community like no other she’d ever experienced. There was danger here in Lusty, she was sure of it. But, at the very same time, this also was a place where she was increasingly feeling like she could be somebody else. Back home, Ellie was hugely visible because of her height, but at the same time she was invisible in every other aspect of her life. Here, in this remote corner of Mid Ulster, Ellie had been given permission to become someone, and have experiences, she’d never thought possible.
Ellie wasn't alone for long. The boy who had looked up her skirt earlier was beside her in a shot.
“You’re the one who everyone’s calling ‘The Big English Girl’, aren’t you?”
"Yeah, I’m afraid so.”
“I’m Bap. My Ma owns the local bakery. Her warm bread rolls, or as we call them round here – baps - are to die for." The young boy coolly chewed on gum that wasn't there, "They say you're looking for your family.”
"Well, yeah, I am.”
“Can I be your research assistant?" Bap's two eyes, which had earlier looked like one, lit up bright.
Ellie instantly loved the idea of having a little assistant. It sounded so grown-up, "You could if you like. I’m trying to uncover anything there is to know about the Byrne family and their connection to Lusty."
Bap bounced up and down with excitement, "I could keep my ear to the ground, sniff out the facts, hunt around for clues. I know all around here like the back of my hand."
"That, Bap, would be such a help." Ellie gave him a camaraderie thumbs up and he swiftly reciprocated before, casually, spitting his make-believe gum onto the floor and walking off.
Again, Ellie wasn’t alone long, before Ronan was back by her side. Ellie remembered Roisin writing about feeling claustrophobic in Lusty, but coming from the anonymity of London, Ellie loved the fact that since being here, she’d barely had a moment by herself.
“I’d rather you hadn’t seen the scuffle between Conor and me.” Ronan kept looking towards the door with his wide, hungry eyes, “I hope you saw that I didn’t start it. He just…”
Suddenly, Father Daly appeared and shook the young couple's hands, "Excuse me, Ronan, Ellie. I'd better be off. I’ve already stayed rather longer than intended."
Ronan held onto the old man’s outstretched hand, "Now, Father, you don't want to miss all the fun do you?"
"Don't worry, lad, I'll hear all about it tomorrow, in confession." The priest's wrinkled-eyes smiled in unison with his mouth, "Oh, aye, Ellie, one last thing before I go - were the books I lent you any help?"
“Thank you, Father, but I’ve discovered my mother may not have been born here after all. I’m sorry to have wasted your time.”
"No bother, Ellie. If I find any more National Geographics, I'll leave them round to you in the morning."
"Thank you, Father. You're very kind."
Father Daly finished his farewells and with the tatty magazine he’d shown Ellie earlier, now tucked under his arm, he left the bar. The front door appeared to Ellie to both open and close all by itself.
"Are you okay?" Ronan asked Ellie, sensing the priest had unsettled her somehow.
"Yeah, absolutely. What time is it?"
"Don't worry, Ellie, your carriage won't turn to a pumpkin just yet. Do you want to go outside, for a walk?" He added softly.
Ellie was speechless. There was something in Ronan’s tone that made her think that this time, he wasn’t simply playing with her.
“Yeah, that would be nice.” Ellie was conscious that she sounded nervous, but there was no way to hide it.
Lit by moonlight, glimmering through the bar window, Ellie only now saw what she had missed earlier; the striking resemblance between Ronan and the portrait in the big house of Conor's father, Bernard Sullivan.
"Yeah, to going for a walk?" Ronan whispered as he now stood only a breath away, "Or yeah to hooking up with me for the next forty years?"
For a fleeting moment, Ellie remembered the popular boys at school, who only spoke to her when they needed someone in nets. She pulled every ounce of newly found confidence up from her size nines and whispered back, "Both."
Chapter 32
”Before dying for your country, think my friends, in how many quiet strenuous ways you might beneficially live for it.” Ellie’s reading aloud voice was even more shaky than usual, “Plant you your eight million trees of shade, ornament, and fruit: that is a symbol much more likely to be prophetic. Each man's tree of industry will be, of a surety, his tree of Liberty."
Ronan was stuck for words, but he just about managed a cool, "Cool."
"That was written by Thomas Carlyle in 1850."
"Of course it was." Ronan reached over and closed the local history book, given by Father Day to Ellie, and out of which Ellie was trying to read.
The walk that Ronan had suggested had been the two-hundred metres or so back to his parents Airbnb. Sat together in the living room, things were going way too fast for Ellie. The thought of being alone with Ronan was making her feel ill, as was the thought of what comparisons he would draw between her and the other girls he knew. Ronan was now so close that there was nowhere for Ellie to hide. She had needed to slow things down a little, hence the side-track to the history book.
"Don't you think that's odd, Ronan?"
"In what way?"
Ellie thought very carefully, but could find no other way of saying what she wanted to say, "That the Liberty Tree had become a symbol of peaceful protest and yet the one on the Sullivan estate belonged to a local IRA man."
Ronan casually shrugged his broad shoulders, “Not really. You know, you’ve got beautiful eyes."
Ellie dropped the book onto the floor. As she went to pick it up, Ronan suddenly scooped her up and balanced her on his knee, facing him. She had never been scooped in her entire life. His chest was pressed against hers; through his t-shirt, each of his muscle groups could be defined, reminding Ellie of an anatomical chart on a doctor's wall. She visualised the words 'solar plexus'.
"Do people in Lusty take anything seriously?" She asked shyly, “Ronan, don't you find the local history around here even just a tiny bit intriguing?" Talking was the only way Ellie could think of buying her some time, until she got to grips with the idea of being this close to him.
"Nope."
"What about Conor’s father, Bernard Sullivan? He sounds like he’d be a well-known character."
Ronan rolled Ellie back off his knee, "Ellie, if you want to know about the past and Bernard Sullivan, ask Conor - he's his son." The beginnings of a serious frown were unable to take hold, "But if you want to know about the here and now - I'm your guy." His cobalt blue eyes peeked out from beneath his long, blonde hair. They sparkled.
Ellie was annoyed with herself for persisting, but she just couldn’t let go, "What keeps you here, if you don’t like Lusty?"
"You could say the same about your friend Conor,” He smirked.
"No, I don’t think I could. Conor seems to me to belong here. I dunno what it is. I guess he's a bit like that old tree out there. His roots appear to have spread wide and deep."
"Aye, like the roots of a tree planted too close to a house - it begins to wreck the foundations in the end."
"Are you being metaphoric, Ronan?"
He scoffed, "So, Conor's deep and I'm shallow, is that it? Where are my metaphoric roots?"
"I don’t know."
"Maybe, in England - with you?" Ronan whispered, his heavy accent dancing in Ellie's ears.
The sound of the front door banging shut, followed by sh
uffled steps up the stairs, suggested that Ena and Soupy had fulfilled their fundraising duties for the night.
Ellie swept her loose hair over her shoulder and began to twist it. She nervously let the twist slowly unravel, before starting all over again, "Why do you hate Conor so much?"
This made Ronan smile again, "Hating Conor is just animal instinct." He flicked Ellie's hand, to signal that the twisting was starting to annoy him, "Haven't you ever hated someone like that?"
Ellie didn’t want to answer. She jumped up off the sofa, "Sorry, I have to go to the bathroom."
Ellie closed the door to the tiny downstairs loo, locked it and rested her head against the wood panelling. In the mirror opposite, she could see that her long hair had become statically charged, looking like a busted teddy bear. The window was open and she could hear the voices of people leaving the bar. Two men stopped directly outside of the window and cheerfully greeted each other.
"Look who it is."
"What?"
"Just look who it is."
"Aye, I know…what have I done?"
"You just have to be you…you just have to be you."
"Aye, I know."
"Just look who it is…"
The abstract conversation continued for a couple of minutes, without either man getting to any real point. They parted with a knowing laugh, content that they at least knew what they'd been talking about and had furthered human knowledge in their own special way. Whist they had been talking, the noise outside the bar grew louder and Ellie could now hear shouting and the sound of running feet.
In an effort to pretend that she had actually gone to the toilet, she pulled off a few pieces of toilet paper, threw them into the toilet and flushed. Ellie braced herself as she stared at her reflection in the mirror again. Yes, she had hated someone; and that someone was staring straight back at her. Her part in her mother’s death would always mean that she hated herself. If a boy like Ronan thought he could see something positive about her, then it was time that she told him truth.
Ellie attempted to tidy herself up at the mirror, but the static in her hair was fairly uncompromising. With resignation, she unlocked the door and headed back to the living room.
"What are these?" Ronan asked sharply.
Scattered across the sofa were tatty sheets of paper; Roisin and Ciaran’s letters.
"Where did you find those?"
"In a rusty tin at the top of your bag."
"Do you usually go through people's bags?" Frantically, Ellie began to scoop them up.
"It wasn't in your bag, it was on the top."
"Do you usually go through people's…tins?"
"I thought it was weed."
"You thought I took drugs?"
"No - but I do now. Calm down will you." Ronan tried to help her tidy them up, but Ellie pulled the letters from his hand. A corner tore off one of them.
Racing through Ellie's mind was the fact that she was just about to open her heart to a boy she’d only just met, who had just made a massive violation by opening the tin. The violation was not of herself, but of the private lives of Roisin and Ciaran. Hastily, Ellie began to pile the pages together. The fact that they were now out of their date sequence, only added to her frustration.
"Did you read any of them?"
"No." Ronan didn't sound too convincing.
"You did, didn't you?"
"No…Okay, aye, I read the first line only, I swear and then I could see they were personal letters and I stopped reading." He put his hands together, as if he was praying, "Honest, Ellie, I didn't read anymore."
"They're just old letters, that's all." She scrambled desperately for an explanation, "They belonged to my…Mum and Dad - Before she died." She added softly.
"I'm sorry. I didn't know…"
"My Mum died a couple of years ago and, well, my Dad has never really recovered. These letters…they're just…sentimental."
"It's okay, Ellie…I'm sorry."
Ellie glanced down at the untidy pile in her hand, only now appreciating why they had become so important to her. She missed both her parent’s desperately. She had lost them both, one way or another. Since the day her mother died so tragically, Ellie hadn’t moved on and she had felt anger at both herself and her father. The crumpled letters in her hands now also felt tarnished. The once ordered, but dramatic lives, were muddled and violated.
"I'm sorry too.” Ellie slumped back down on the sofa having returned the letters to their tin and pulled several floral cushions around her body, like a plump caterpillar having overdone it on the hedges. She felt her own life and those of the letter writers were becoming entwined.
"What did the line that you read say, Ronan?"
Ronan gently rested his hand on her shoulder, “Some rambling like, 'My wife's having another baby’. But you know the rest. After all, they're your letters."
"What rest?" Ellie was still struggling to hide her annoyance.
"About the ‘baby's not mine' bit."
A roar was heard from directly in front of the living room window. The shouting and running noise that Ellie had heard minutes earlier had travelled down from the bar and was now booming towards them. Ronan leaped up from the sofa and ran to the window, pulling open the curtains and yanking the slash window wide open. His broad back filled the frame.
"What's going on?"
"Quick, Ronan! There's been an accident!”
“Where?”
“Down at the Sullivan Lake!"
Chapter 33
Torchlights bounced off the three cottages like a disco ball in a school hall. In the midst of the group was Conor, who was helping the men with the search. Ronan had grabbed his own torch and within minutes was amidst them, discussing tactics. The police had been notified and were on their way. Ellie was about to join the search party when Rosie pulled her back at the Airbnb doorway.
"Leave it to the men."
"What's happened?"
"Some lad from the village went swimming down in the lake. His mates said he got tangled in some old lines, but they can’t find him."
Ena was ushering all the women in through her front door, "I've told those young ones time and time again not to go in there at night."
Soupy shook his head, "You can't blame them, Ena, we did just the same when we were their age."
"Aye, except in our day the poachers had the sense to take their tackle away with them. Bap should have known better."
"Bap?” Ellie was stunned, “It’s Bap who’s missing?"
Rosie tutted, "Aye, his mates said he was out looking for clues for something or other. You know what lads that age are like."
Ellie felt a cold shudder envelop her entire body, "Oh, no - it's my fault. He must have gone down to the lake because of me."
Ellie instantly felt the full glare of everyone around her; some of whom she had only met that morning, but who she already cared a great deal about.
"I'm so, so sorry. I told him that I was researching my family history and Bap offered to help me."
"Let's go!" Soupy led the men and they swiftly disappeared towards the forest.
Just as he had when she had met him jogging, Ronan didn't look back. Conor, however, glanced over his shoulder in Ellie’s direction several times, before he too disappeared into the shadows.
The women who had been left behind all promptly squeezed into the Airbnb and closed the door.
"Look, I can swim…" Ellie tried to push her way out of the door again, "Please, let me go with the men and help."
"No, Ellie, there's work to be done here." Ena was adamant, "You and your family have caused enough trouble for now."
"But…" Ellie could feel herself redden with frustration, humiliation and confusion.
From the window, she could see that the men were already a distant mass of flickering lights, cutting into the forest, leading to the Sullivan estate and to the lake. In the middle of the pack she could just about see Soupy and his brother, Cormac; the torchlight from the g
roup of men behind them bouncing off Soupy’s bald patch. Near the front of the pack, Ellie could also just make out Ronan's white t-shirt in the torchlight and alone.
Ellie quickly hid her bag and the tin in her room and when she came back downstairs, discovered that Ena had herded a group of women into her kitchen. They had become a hive of chopping, spreading, peeling, slicing and packing. Rosie had returned from her own cottage with a huge pan of homemade soup and the metal lid kissed the rim of its pan as Rosie lifted it open, releasing the pungent smell of beef and onion stock.
"I made this for the fundraising bizarre tomorrow. It'll need thinning out a bit if it's to go round."
"Leave that to me." Ena began to add more stock from a huge jug on her hob.
Ellie was delegated 'spreading', whilst the other women kept disappearing to their homes and returning with anything edible they could get their hands on. Ellie felt utterly humbled by the inferiority of her task. She wanted to redeem herself and felt that buttering the bread wasn't good enough. Surely, she had a duty to help out in a more constructive way. Sensing an unspoken animosity towards her, from all in the kitchen, Ellie had to battle this one for Bap's sake.
"I'm so sorry that I caused this to happen. Maybe, I could do something more to help, rather than stay here making a picnic."
Ellie’s nerves caused her to drop the bread-knife, the edge only narrowly missing her own hand as it splattered her with butter.
The hubble-bubble abruptly halted and all turned to face Ellie. Standing at the sink, a short, delicate girl, who Ellie now recognised as the girl Ronan had been chatting to in the bar, scowled and was about to be the first to reply, before Ena held her hand out to stop her.
"It's okay, Fiona, Ellie doesn’t know how we do things around here."
With those few words from Ena, all the work Ellie had done to build her own self-confidence since she arrived, melted like the butter on her fingers.