by Paula Clamp
"Come on, Ronan! Isn't this what you want? Why not have a go at both of us at the same time?"
Ronan, bristling with anger, stood blocking the door and Conor's escape with the scaffolding bar locked in his grip. His broad shoulders heaved as he caught back his breath. Ellie tentatively squeezed past him and stood between the two boys. Their heavy breaths met at the point where she was and mixed with her own. After knowing them both for such a short period, it was near impossible for Ellie to believe that the carefree jogger, who dabbled with magic, or the passenger on the bus who, when he took his shoes off, revealed more holes than cotton, could be the same as these two, testosterone-fuelled teenagers before her.
"Stop this! Are you both mad!"
Ronan and Conor stood firm, but momentarily both relaxed their shoulders. At last, a sense of control permeated the dark room and Ellie only now allowed herself to be drawn to the third male presence in the room; that of the subject of the oil painting in Conor’s hands. The portrait of Bernard Sullivan stared sardonically out. Ellie, suddenly, realised that the three faces, at first glance so different, were also so very alike. The secrets of the Liberty Tree were beginning to reveal themselves.
Chapter 53
"You're related?"
"Half-brothers." Ronan was stationary, but still panting heavily, "We were both illegitimate sons of Bernard Sullivan. But Old Man Sullivan took pity on Conor’s real Ma, whoever she was. Bernard married some wealthy toff who couldn’t have kids and they adopted Conor. So, he got not only the estate, but also the big house and the name. What did my Ma, get, dear half-brother? It's funny - I always thought halves meant two equal portions." Ronan laughed bitterly, still holding tightly onto the iron bar.
"Ronan, you know as well as I do that the estate is worthless." Conor lowered the portrait, his anger appeared to have worn itself out, "What land there is left, is good for nothing, but grazing sheep. The rent goes nowhere close to paying for the up-keep of the house. The Sullivan legacy is bad debt, irresponsibility and an old tree - and we all know how rotten that is. I’m sure my Ma would agree that you are more than welcome to half of nothing."
Ronan's anger hadn't abated and he clenched his slightly bruised jaw tightly.
"Ah - but of course, my family did get something of its very own, Conor, our half was the secrecy - Bernard's other son was kept as a dirty little secret."
"But I don't understand, what about Soupy?" Ellie was still physically caught between the two boys, "Ronan, I thought that Soupy was your father."
Ronan still hadn't taken his eyes off his opponent, "He pretends he's my Da and I don't correct him." Each word was articulate, clipped and precise, "You see, Soupy doesn’t know who my real Da is, and he doesn’t know that I know the truth. The fact that I do is all thanks to my half-brother here. Your sweet, do-gooder friend, was the one who let the cat out of the bag five years ago. He had found a copy of Bernard’s will in some old family files. Remind me again, Conor, what did it say?”
Ronan's verbal daggers appeared to have wounded Conor far more than his punches; he had slumped down onto the bed.
Ronan’s bitter attack continued, "I think I can remember it, word for word, just as you told me - 'The estate goes to my son, Conor, the one thing I did in my life that made my father proud. To the Campbell boy…’" Ronan aggressively drew imaginary brackets in the air, "’…And any other children out there, who may wish to stake a claim…’" He closed the brackets, "’I leave my love'."
There was no doubting that the words stuck like razor wire in Ronan’s throat. Still firmly holding the rod, Ronan prowled over towards the window, "I've worked out myself that my Ma had an affair with Bernard. When Bernard didn't want to know, Soupy must have stuck with my Ma and raised me as his own."
"Roisin and Ena are the same person?" Ellie's question came involuntarily. She had got it so wrong.
Ronan now turned his attention away from Conor and focused his ferocity entirely on Ellie.
"How do you know the name ‘Roisin’?” Ronan’s words were sharp, “That's my Ma’s Irish name, the one the Presbyterian school she went to as a child, encouraged her to change.” His livid face was now only centimetres away from Ellie’s, “It’s those letters I saw in your room, isn’t it? The ones you mentioned in the confession box - did they belong to my parents?"
Conor abruptly stood back up and, carefully, walked over to the other side of the window, distracting Ronan. There was a brief and silent deadlock. Ellie had a moment to gather her thoughts; how could she have got it all so wrong? Rosie wasn't Roisin; it was Ena. The married couple in the letters, whose relationship Ellie had written off, had in fact made it. Their love had not only endured the test of time, but had been strong enough for Ciaran to raise Bernard’s son as his own. Even all those years later, after Roisin and Ciaran had discovered Bernard’s role in the death of Marianne-Mae, they had still found strength in their love for each other. Even after they found out that Ellie was Niamh Byrne’s daughter, they still found a strength to not judge her.
Ellie had lost her faith in humanity, but now her heart, unexpectedly, was full of hope.
Ellie thought back to the first ever letter that she had read and Roisin's words, 'Me, a married woman – the start of a whole new, glorious life!' Ellie realised that she had forced the conclusion that Rosie was Roisin, purely because she saw faint traces of her own mother’s troubled personality in her. When in reality, Roisin and Ciaran turned out to be just two regular people, who had endured tremendous heartache and loss. They had simply grown older together. Over time, the poacher had metamorphosed into ex-restaurant owner and respectable golf club member. And chairing fundraising committees and running an Airbnb had grown out of his wife's feelings of constrain and loss. They had found their way to happiness and the mystery of the letters was no more than the mystery of everyday life.
Life was not always a bleak catalogue of disappointment and despondency. Ellie wasn't used to happy endings, in fact, this was a first. But with it, her sense of optimism in life was rekindled.
Suddenly, the desire to broker the impasse between Ronan and Conor was paramount to Ellie, "Ronan, how can you envy Conor, when you ended up with parents who both love you so much?"
Conor swiftly answered for his half-brother, "Because it kills Ronan that he's more like our infamous father than I ever could be."
"Shut it!" Ronan's agitation was, suddenly, transferred to the iron rod as he rocked it between both his hands. He glowered out from under his long, straggly hair, like an injured wild animal.
"Come on, Ronan, you look like him, you act like him…" Without a weapon, Conor looked physically vulnerable, but he now spoke with confidence and without fear, "…You live your life exactly like him."
"I live my life how I want to."
"No, you don't - you live a life that you think would have made him proud. Like he’s some kind of hero. Little do you know of just how wrong you are."
Ellie suddenly realised that, unlike Conor, Ronan clearly didn’t know the whole story. But, of course, Ena would had done everything she could to shield him from the knowledge that his ‘real’ father, Bernard Sullivan, was responsible for the death of his half-sister.
Ronan was now the one who betrayed fear, "How the hell do I know what would have made him proud. I don't even have a memory of him. But you, Conor, you got that too, in every brick of this bloody house."
Ellie joined Ronan and with her hand on his, steadied the metal rod, "Ronan, is that why you're running guns?" She turned to Conor. "Did you know that was what he was doing?"
"I had my suspicions."
"What's the village going to make of this, Ronan,” Ellie stabilised Ronan’s shaking hand, “When they discover that their young, local hero turns out to be hell bent on destruction?"
Ellie could feel the muscles in his arm relax.
Ronan’s arms fell to his sides and he dropped his head down, “I told you, Ellie, I want to leave all that behind and go away with yo
u."
As before, when Ronan's emotional components were reduced down to a much younger child, Ellie felt herself soften to his vulnerability. She couldn't help believe that his version of truth was genuine to him. She gently lifted a strip of his long hair away from his eyes.
"Don't believe him, Ellie." Conor reacted immediately to the tenderness, "Ask him about Fiona."
"Ask him about Fiona." Ronan mimicked Conor. His arms and the rod were back, clenched firm.
"Go on - tell her what you did when you discovered that Fiona and I had become friends. What did you do? Have you forgotten already?" Conor leaned against the blistered window frame, with his arms crossed, "Have you forgotten that you immediately started flirting with her, playing her like a fish? How much money did you ‘borrow’ from her in the end, Ronan, and how much have you paid back?”
Ronan lunged forward and jammed the rod under Conor's chin, "I will pay her back – as soon as I can. She was the one who offered it to me."
Conor didn't flinch, "Well, what about the girl before that - the Mulligan girl? What happened to her money? Did she just offer it too?"
Ronan still had Conor within his grasp, but he turned his wide eyes towards Ellie, "I was off the rails and what is it they call it? Self-destructive."
"No, Ronan…" Conor's Adam's apple rubbed against the metal, "You are self-destructive by proxy, just like our father. It's other people that get hurt - not you."
Ellie held Ronan's stare, its intensity was both fierce, but also exposed. His weakness made her feel strong.
"Ronan, you are not your father and you shouldn't try to be." Ellie tried yet again to calm him, “In the same way I’m not my mother. We are our own selves.”
"I'm ready to change, Ellie."
Yet again, Conor could see that Ellie was responding to Ronan's charm and he cut in, "Ronan, you might pretend that it’s not the case, but your roots are as much tied to this place as mine, or that old tree out there."
"You're wrong, Conor." Ronan clenched his teeth.
Conor sighed and his long arms unfolded and dropped to his side, "Okay, if you say so. Ronan, I can't fight you anymore."
Conor held out his huge hand to his half-brother; it was shaking. Ronan pushed it away.
Side by side, Conor looked like an elongated version of the two, only finely drawn with pastels, compared to Ronan's blocks of oil paint. Unlike Ronan's modern good looks, Conor was handsome in an old-fashioned, romantic way. Everything about him was perfect. Ellie was whole-heartedly and unquestionably falling in love for the first time in her life.
Ellie just had to ask one final question, "What do you feel about me, Conor?"
Conor looked down at the iron rod, still held tightly to his windpipe by Ronan’s fist.
Ellie forced herself to continue, "Downstairs, when Ronan first arrived, you said you had feelings for me."
Conor kept his focus on the rod at his throat, "You can’t sing for toffee,” He paused, “You’ve had your knocks, just like the rest of us…but you can still find reason to smile…and it’s a beautiful smile.”
Ellie's heart ached with the word 'beautiful', "But what do you feel?"
Conor gently moved the bar away from his throat. He felt no resistance.
"I dunno." He answered softly.
Ronan released the rod and let it fall to the floor. He at least was satisfied with Conor's answer, "Come on, Ellie, let's go. I know that I care about you."
Ellie looked back across for Conor to say something, but he couldn't, or wouldn't find the words. The boy, who she felt she could no longer trust had a lot to say, but the boy who she knew she could trust completely - could say nothing. In that moment, Ellie felt like all three of them were just children playing at grown-ups. They were out to prove how responsible and mature they could be. They had each failed miserably.
Ellie turned away from both boys and looked out through the bedroom window and across the fields to the old oak. The winds had opened up a massive crack in the upper trunk and widened it as much as a metre, all the way down to its base. The Liberty Tree had been split in two.
Chapter 54
Ellie had learnt that the Liberty Tree in Lusty had once fostered a revolution. It had no doubt witnessed the blossoming of many a romance and had certainly seen death. It had defied fire, lightening and decay and been a symbol of freedom to some and imprisonment for others. How many more plots had been hatched under its shadow and how many secrets hidden? But now, the two hundred-year-old Irish oak, was dead. Since Ellie had been in Lusty, she had felt that the old tree was beginning to penetrate her insides, bonding with her heart in a way she’d first believed it had done with her mother; but, sadly, not anymore.
At four o’clock, about forty or so villagers gathered together for a farewell ceremony; some brought cameras, but most just had tears. Conor had already spotted the old tree’s demise during the storm and had phoned his mother in Dublin with the news. She, in turn, had contacted a tree specialist to come to Lusty at very short notice; the advice when he arrived was that the insides of the tree were too hollow to offer support and it was dangerous. After the previous night’s escapade with Bap in the lake, Conor was in no hurry to have another life threatened on the Sullivan property.
Father Daly opened the ceremony, "I hope, by the loss of our dear friend, the Liberty Tree, that we all commit ourselves not just to the preservation of the natural world, but to the preservation of the ideas that are stronger than any tree."
The old priest held the microphone away from his mouth and wiped away a tear. Father Daly had been an unlikely catalyst in Ellie’s short visit; providing Ellie with the clues that she needed to put the puzzle together. He blew his nose.
"In the past, some have said that we lived in a hollow shell in Northern Ireland - where our country's internal timber was rotting and the grief and the horror cut too deep to measure. But I say, we must look forward and as we now celebrate the long life of our friend, we celebrate a future that is liberated and peaceful." The priest crossed himself, "Amen."
A group of children giggled, embarrassed at the thought of having to pay their last respects to a tree. This was no usual wake. They were too young to understand the tree's significance, but not too old to receive a swift clout on the ear from their parents.
Ellie allowed herself a minute to imagine what her mother’s life was like before she came to Lusty. Was she a typical teenager? Did she have her heart broken the way Ellie had? And why did she end up on the path that she did? If Ellie came back to Mid Ulster, maybe, she would find out more, but then no one was asking her to come back.
Conor assisted a group of older men as they fired up their chainsaws and began to dismantle the Lusty Liberty Tree, limb by limb. Conor had, up until now, been so utterly protective of the tree, no doubt because of all that it meant to him and his ancestors. Ellie wondered if he now had to admit to himself that in fact, the old tree had died some time ago – at the same time as his father, Bernard Sullivan.
Huge chunks of timber came crashing to the ground. Splinters filled the air and the scent of decay took its last sickly breath. Ellie couldn't bear to watch and turned away. But then she was struck by horror; the letters!
As Ellie turned back around, Conor was slicing through the very top branch at the exact point where the hollow and the letters were. She held her breath as she awaited the sight of the sliced papers, tumbling through the sky. But the bough was cut quickly and crashed down to the ground; there was no tin-box and no letters. Ellie searched amongst the gathered faces, all grimacing with each cut.
They were there; Soupy and Ena, or Ciaran and Roisin as they were first known to Ellie, holding hands at the furthest distance from the tree. As she had done earlier that morning with Soupy, Ellie now looked at Ena with different eyes. Ellie had initially discarded Ena as a frivolous lady, who did nothing but play golf and sit on committees, however, all along she had been the female protagonist in the story within Ellie's own.
U
nlike Rosie's more natural, ethereal beauty, Ena’s required a keener eye to penetrate the heavy cosmetics and pencilled drawn eyebrows that made her look permanently startled. But it wasn't too far of a leap to imagine Ena’s skin, which had now thinned to skimmed milk, had once been full cream; under thick, false eyelashes, shone out dazzling, cobalt blue eyes - the same as her son. All evidence of why both Ciaran Campbell and Bernard Sullivan had been attracted to her was still visible. And this same woman, now in her fifties, who had once complained bitterly of living a parochial life, had eventually discovered her own glamour and sophistication. Clenched tightly in Ena's hand was the rusty old tin box. Soupy and Ena had somehow managed to salvage their secret before it was too late. Now they would have to find somewhere else to store their letters and, maybe, this time they would never be found.
Ellie was glad that she never read the last, hidden letter. She was fairly confident that the letter would have detailed how the couple had been reunited and how they had found their love again. Reconciliation was something that Ellie would have to discover for herself and it was a part of life that she couldn’t short cut. Why Soupy and Ena had stopped writing the letters, Ellie would never know. Perhaps, they felt that they were tempting fate by listing hopes and aspirations that were always doomed to disappointment. Or, maybe, they decided to take each day as it came. Possibly Ellie’s theories were all right and possibly they were all wrong; it didn’t matter.
Looking at the couple for one last time, Ellie couldn't help but think back to her memories of her own mother and father, but only now realised that they were seldom together in them. None of the recollections from her past that she would draw on, to inspire her or to comfort her, included them both. Her mother’s emotional instability, or her father’s disappearance to the garden, was how they had chosen to deal with a troubled marriage. Their lives had separated long before death kept them apart for good. And none of it was Ellie’s fault.