by Paula Clamp
Thinking back to the early hours of the morning, Ellie remembered that she hadn't answered Ronan's question as to whether his father had anything to do with the Liberty Tree. She had simply stumbled over some words and raced back up to her room. Would he try and get a proper answer from her today? Back at her book, Ellie could see yellow Post-its on a few of the pages. The first was stuck alongside a United Irish Catechism from 1797. Ellie copied it out onto her notebook:
'What is that in your hand?
It is a branch.
Of what?
Of the Tree of Liberty.
Where did if first grow?
In America.
Where does it bloom?
In France.
Where did the seeds fall?
In Ireland.'
Written in spidery handwriting on a second Post-it on the following page, Ellie read aloud, 'The Liberty Tree is green in the spring, but by the autumn it's orange.
Ellie looked up to discover Soupy about to sit in the armchair opposite, with a mug of piping hot tea in his hand. She was so shocked to see him that she let out a nervous laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Soupy asked casually.
Ellie had seen him quite a lot yesterday, but this was the first time that she actually saw him. So this is what Ciaran, the poacher, the husband, the grieving father, the betrayed, had grown up to be. He ran an Airbnb with his second wife, played golf and knew his place in the order of things. Once he had poached down the river and dabbled with cooking; now Soupy wore Pringle sweaters and over-combed his receding hair. But this older man had a youthful glint in his eye that Ellie could easily imagine in the newly married Ciaran. Physically, Soupy was like a blown up version of what she expected Ciaran to be; as if over all these years he'd slowly been inflating. Possibly, the only reason he hadn't retrieved the letters, was because he would have struggled to make the first branch, let alone the canopy of the old tree. What had happened to him between his life with Roisin and his life now?
Soupy continued to sip his hot tea, oblivious to the fact that he was being scrutinised. Ellie felt self-conscious and ashamed that she had uncovered so much about him, and his troubled past, and he didn't have a clue that she knew. And only now, the innocent voyeurism of her interest in the letters felt like a mammoth violation.
"Nothing's funny." Ellie hesitantly replied.
"So, why are you laughing?" Soupy’s broad grin cut into two red cheeks.
"I don't really know."
"You want to watch that." Soupy smirked. "I worked for an old man once who laughed at nothing."
"And what happened to him?"
"He died."
"Of laughing?"
"No - of a broken heart." There was kindness in his voice.
"Well, that won't happen to me," Ellie closed the book, "My heart's made out of rock."
Now it was Soupy's turn to smile and for a moment Ellie saw the young man, before wrinkles and nasal hair and life.
"Since you wear your heart on your sleeve, Ellie, I know that's not true." Soupy chuckled to himself.
Self-consciously, Ellie attempted to flip back the conversation, "What job did you do?"
"I was a river bailiff on the old man’s estate. After he died, I moved on. Bought a little café across the border, which eventually turned into a nice wee restaurant."
"You made a living out of your cooking?" Ellie was so pleased for him.
"A nice wee living if you don't mind." Soupy rested his head back on the floral armchair, "Enough to take early retirement and settle back down in Lusty."
Soupy sounded so proud, but not as much as Ellie was in knowing that he'd done so well for himself.
"I don't understand one thing, Soupy - why did you come back here?"
"Why wouldn't I?"
Ellie shrugged her shoulders, pretending this was just a casual question.
"Don't you like our quaint wee life here, Ellie?"
"Of course, but I don't think it likes me - not anymore anyway."
"Don’t be daft, Ellie, you’re like a breath of fresh air around here.” Soupy breathed out and relaxed his shoulders, forcing the diamond patterns on his sweater to collapse on their sides. "How is your search going anyway?" He nodded at the book.
"Not great. It keeps coming back to the Sullivan estate for some reason. Do you know why it got so reduced in size?"
"Well…I suppose a lot has to do with a run of irresponsible owners. Old Man Sullivan must have drunk away a few hundred hectares all by himself and his father before him…he was more partial to grey-hound racing than business."
Ellie made a few notes in her book. The next question was going to be extremely difficult, but it needed to be asked, "And what about the Old Man's son - Bernard?"
Ellie could see Soupy's hands tighten on the now half-empty mug of hot tea. He wasn't aware of the heat.
"Bernard Sullivan is not a name I ever want to hear again.” Soupy released the mug and swallowed the remaining half of the tea.
Ellie had been hoping for a much more helpful answer; that Bernard was a philanderer, a waster, a man who would abandon his own child…an IRA man. What was the relationship between Bernard and her mother?
Yet again, Ellie was being drawn to the letters, especially the hidden one that she hadn’t read. Her struggle to forget about them was like her struggle under the water the previous night. All around her now had an underwater dimension, like the murky bed of the Sullivan Lake. Ciaran had said that he would be writing no more letters, so was the last one secretly hidden by Roisin and what did it say? The letter…would she find the answers in the hidden last letter?
Soupy broke her thoughts, "Is that what your family research has led you to - Bernard Sullivan?"
There was a caring quality to Soupy’s voice that instantly evoked the care with which he had constructed the cot all those years ago; a quality that her father had once shared with Ellie, before the loss of his wife.
“Bernard Sullivan’s name just keeps cropping up and he has a connection to my mother somehow. That’s all. I know that it’s not much, but it’s all I have."
“What have you found out about the old tree?”
Treading carefully, Ellie continued, “I know that the tree here in Lusty began as a symbol for peaceful unity and I suspect that this may have been hijacked in later years - but I've no evidence." She waited again for Soupy to chip in, but he didn't, "I also know that it was central to the entire Sullivan estate and that over the years, the estate has been eaten away."
Soupy thought for a moment, "That research you have already sounds more like something than nothing. Well done."
Ellie savoured Soupy’s compliment for a moment before, suddenly, remembering the letters in her room. She'd left the tin box open on her rucksack besides the dresser; in clear view for anyone. And that anyone, could be Ciaran’s wife, Ena, who was fond of tidying and cleaning bedrooms, without even thinking she had to ask to enter.
“Is there anything, Soupy, that you would advise me to do?”
There was a strength in Soupy’s puzzled eyes that immediately reminded Ellie of her father, or rather of how her father used to look.
"Sorry, Ellie, but I stopped giving out advice a long time ago."
Ellie leant over and kissed the man she wished her father could be, softly on the cheek, “That’s okay.”
Ellie left the room and hurried back up the stairs. As she turned the corner from the first floor to the second where her room was, a bedroom door opened wide and a perfectly made-up face greeted her.
"Good morning, Ellie. You're up bright and early. Best time of the day, don't you agree?"
Ena was dressed in a long, turquoise nightdress, not unlike a surgeon's tunic in shape, but reaching down past her shins. On her feet were leather slippers, revealing perfectly manicured toenails.
Ellie nodded, but was still distracted. In her mind's eye she imagined how close she could have come to Ena reading the letters. She burst open the door to her
room and stood blinking as she re-focused in the dark. The letters in the tin remained untouched.
That was close; too close. Ellie rested on the landing, besides the plastic, singing fish. Conor's parting words came flooding back; 'You can't just dip in for a few hours, have your fun and then hop out again'. Her search wasn’t just about her own mother anymore. Should she just give up and go home? Whatever it was she was supposed to be doing, it didn't feel right anymore; it felt like prying. Ellie felt that she had been weighed and measured and found severely wanting.
Chapter 39
Squeezing the front door quietly closed behind her, Ellie set off to return the letters to where they belonged. This was one important task that she wouldn't fail. Someday, maybe, somebody would rediscover the letters and read them all, but that person wouldn't be her. By forfeiting the opportunity to read the hidden letter, Ellie felt that she was showing the letter writers respect. As she passed the window, she could see Soupy picking up the book she had abandoned in her hurry.
Streaks of tangerine and vermilion clouds bathed the rising sun behind the chapel, creating marmalade skies. Ellie was conscious of the ominous, 'Red sky in the morning, shepherd's warning…' rhyme as she followed the now familiar lane down to the forest. The village was eerily silent for a Sunday morning. If there was bird song, Ellie didn't hear it. The only sound was a faint breath of breeze.
Ellie was surprised by how much she remembered of the route that Paddy had shown her. Before her visit to Lusty, a forest was a forest and a fence a fence. She was more used to breezeblocks and glass. But already Ellie was beginning to recognise every gnarled branch and decaying stump. Compared to the first time, Ellie straddled the barbed-wire fence leading to the Sullivan land with ease. She immediately took her bearings from the familiar undulating fields, clumps of hawthorn and tumbling granite walls. Ascending the brow of the hills, without the heat of yesterday, was also much easier. As Ellie climbed them, she counted, knowing clearly that her tree was behind the fifth.
Whether it was because she was more rested than the previous day, Ellie wasn't sure, but everything this morning seemed easier, calmer and purposeful. After effortlessly descending the fourth hill, she slowed down her pace. Ellie was even more excited about seeing the Liberty Tree today than she had been the day before. Was it because she now knew so much more about it, or was it that she knew there was so much more that she didn't know? Ellie ascended the fifth and final hill, carefully. Her first sighting was of the tree's canopy, glowing in the rising sunlight. And then the thick, dark, lush interior of the branches, leading to the rich, heavily scarred trunk. The iron beams that were struggling to keep it upright creaked and groaned - occasionally with a deep, almost human sigh.
The source of the sigh became clear when, as Ellie now strolled closer to the tree, she could see first two boots and then two legs sticking out of them. Closer still, she saw the figure of a man slumped in a heap at the base of the tree.
The man's head, which had been tucked under his arm, lifted and two eyes blinked quickly from a muddy face.
"Hiya, Big English Girl."
"Paddy? What on earth are you doing here?"
"I dunno - where am I?"
"Where should you be?"
“It’ll come back to me. The last thing I remember is opening the lid on a litre-bottle of good old Irish whiskey. Don’t suppose you’ve got some tea and toast in that bag of yours?” Paddy’s balloon-shaped torso was bursting out of his stained, wrinkled shirt.
Ellie took a crushed packet of biscuits that had been in her bag since she left home and passed them over to Paddy, before sitting down on the grass beside him.
"Good girl." Paddy tucked into the offerings as if he hadn’t eaten in days.
"Do you really not remember how you got here last night, Paddy?"
"I remember heading back to the bar from the lake, with a few of the lads - a bit of after-hours celebrating...and I remember…no, that's it."
"You don't remember anything else?" Ellie helped herself to the biscuit breakfast, "Like how much you had to drink?"
"Nope."
"The time that the other guys start leaving?"
"Nope."
"So, you don't remember running around the village, butt-naked?”
"Oh, God…what else…what else did I forget?"
Ellie laughed hard and Paddy, eventually, got the joke.
"Ha-ha! When are you going home?" He pretended to huff.
"Sorry, I was only winding you up. Actually, I've decided to go back a day early.”
“I’m only messing with you…”
“It’s okay, Paddy, I made my mind up this morning. There’s a bus this afternoon and I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to change my plane ticket to the flight tonight."
“You can’t leave early, Ellie – you’ll miss the fundraising bazaar."
Ellie smiled with relief, she could think of nothing worse than having to face Conor again, especially if there was going to be face-painting and circus performers. A cool breeze briefly disturbed the still air, as it waltzed through the canopy above them.
Paddy clumsily stood up. He brushed off dead leaves and bits of grass from his clothes, "That’s a shame." Paddy checked the time and nervously looked around him, "I'd better be off, and start getting things ready. Frau Campbell will be having me for her breakfast if I don't." He rubbed his round stomach, "Will I see you later, Big English Girl?"
"Not if I see you first, Paddy Irishman."
Paddy bent himself double with feigned laughter and then turned to race up the small hill. He didn’t get far and the sprint quickly turned to a jog and then to a stroll.
"Hey?" Paddy called over to Ellie.
"What?"
"You will call over to the bar before you go?"
"Of course."
Paddy was about to continue his ascent, "Hey?"
"What?" Ellie replied with feigned annoyance.
"Never mind me…what are you doing here this early?"
"Oh…just out for a walk." She lied.
"So, you're not staying?"
"No.”
Paddy gave a cheery understanding thumbs-up, without real looking like he understood anything at all.
Ellie waited a full ten minutes before deciding the coast was clear and it was safe to climb the tree, lifting the rusty tin from her backpack for the last time. She was proud of herself and the discipline it had taken to leave the one remaining letter unread. Maybe, in that one letter she would have found all the answers that she had been looking for. But this wasn't about her, as Conor and Fiona's words still reverberated - this was about other people's lives. This wasn't the private lives of the celebrities that people read about in the pages of Hello; tasting the juicy titbits, before spitting them back out. These were regular people.
This time, as she climbed the tree, Ellie imagined the footsteps of Roisin and Ciaran. At first, their steps would have been light and airy, only to turn bitter and wearisome as their relationship ended years later. By the time Ellie reached the great twisted bough at the centre, she began to slow down and as she next neared the furthermost branch and the hiding hole for the tin-box, her pace had almost come to a stop. She was now a good nine metres up from the ground and hidden completely amidst the rich, thick leaves of the summer.
Ellie looked down at the tin-box in her hands, for one last time. Maybe, she could have tied up the loose ends, only to discover in the process that she had lost far more. How the Sullivans, along with the Campbells, were connected to her mother, was a mystery that she couldn’t solve.
For a moment, Ellie didn't allow herself to think about anyone else, especially Ronan and Conor, as she had this one last mission to complete and she didn't want that to also fail. She pushed the tin-box back into its hole as hard as she could. Rammed in so tightly, she hoped that it would never be discovered again. With the blow of a farewell kiss, Ellie said goodbye to all the precious letters, including the final, unread one.
Jus
t as Ellie then began to take her first step down from the top branch, she heard voices from below. The last thing she needed was to be discovered and worse still, her guilty violation of the letters unearthed at the last minute. Ellie looked down, but could only make out the very tops of two heads. The shade of the tree cast shadows over them, making them both look very dark. The only consolation that Ellie had was that if she couldn’t see them, then they couldn’t see her.
From the whispering, Ellie just about made out two male voices. When their discussion became more urgent, their voices were still hard to distinguish, but the words they spoke were just about audible;
"Look at the state of you."
"Stop your nagging."
"Has the new gear arrived?"
"Aye."
"Where've you put it?"
"With the rest."
"Good, good. Don't you be getting side-tracked now. And take a bath."
"You'll make someone a wonderful wife."
"Amen to that."
Chapter 40
The whispering continued for a moment or two, before the heads disappeared. Ellie remained motionless as she tried to detect any further human presence from down below on the ground. The only sound now was the return of the cool breeze, which had increased its pace and tangoed, rather than waltzed, through the leaves. Finally, Ellie gingerly climbed back down the old tree. Before taking the final step to the ground, she furtively scanned around. There was nobody there now.
She was alone.
Jumping down, Ellie felt comforted by the sensation of the firm ground beneath her feet.
As she quickly left the tree behind and began to ascend the hill, she looked back and saw how at a distance, the old oak looked hale and venerable, firmly rooted to the earth. She couldn't make out a single crack in its structure and yet she knew the inside of the tree was hollow. Ellie felt that this would be the last time she ever saw her mother’s ‘Special Place’ and looked on it one last time as a friend, who had known so much and given so little away. But the old, rotting tree, struggling to live and begging to die, would never be forgotten by her.