He lives alone. He never married, but he did live for a short time with a woman called Grace, who moved in with him when her husband, Sir Ronald Rowan-Hampton, discovered their affair and kicked her out. After the humiliation, not to mention the fall, which was from a great height for Grace had been one of the most highly respected ladies in the land, she took to the bottle. Michael, who had been sober for a good many years, joined her. The two of them became a sorry, though touchingly devoted, pair. Grace and I had been uneasy friends once, but that is another story.
Michael comes to the door of the farmhouse where he, his sister Bridie and brother Seán grew up with straw for mattresses and cows next door for warmth. The very same house where he and Jack and the other rebels planned their raids and their ambushes in the kitchen over tankards of stout and cigarettes. The house was renovated, thanks to Bridie’s money, but it is still much the same, only with running water, electricity and the sort of creature comforts most people take for granted. Michael is ninety-four and in surprisingly good health. After all the unspeakable things he did during the War of Independence and, I dare say after it ended as well, I would have expected him to pop his clogs long ago, but karma is not limited to this life alone. I have no doubt that he will pay his karmic debts in the afterlife he has created for himself.
He peers at Margot with an irritated expression on his face. He suspects that she wants to sell him something, even though local people know not to venture so far down this track. He looks her over and I can see the old glint of the Lothario brightening his murky eyes. Michael always did like pretty girls. He grins with one corner of his mouth, more like a grimace, or a leer. He’s a bitter man these days.
‘Mr Doyle, I’m Margot Hart. I’m writing a history book of the Deverill family and would love to talk to you, if you can spare the time.’
Time is something that Michael has in abundance. He has nothing to do all day but brood. He glances at the crate of stout and opens wide the door. ‘Come in,’ he says.
Margot is a brave woman. She does not hesitate. Mind you, Michael is not the threat he used to be. Back in the day he was tall and powerfully built, like a bull, with eyes full of menace and an imagination to match. He had a reputation in this town and those who wanted problems dealt with came to him. They knew the way he worked. Everyone knew, even the Garda. But no one messed with Michael Doyle. Now he is stooped and as thin as a reed. His muscles have wasted away and he has a tremor in his hands. Indeed, he is as feeble as a kitten as he approaches the end of his life. I wonder whether he looks back over the years and regrets the things he did. I wonder whether the black dogs that chased him throughout his life are now snapping at his heels. One way or another, the bad things we do catch up with us in the end. They must be close, those dogs. Very close.
He shows Margot into the kitchen. It smells of cigarettes and boiled cabbage. The windows are closed. I don’t imagine Michael thinks of letting the air in. Margot puts the bottles of stout on the table, takes a chair and sits down. Michael shuffles over to the kettle and switches it on. ‘I presume you drink tea?’ he says.
‘I do, thank you. Would you prefer a glass of beer?’ She lifts a bottle out of the crate and holds it up. ‘Is this any good? I wasn’t sure and, as I’m not Irish, I didn’t know which brand to buy. The woman in the shop was very helpful, however.’
He looks at it and I can sense him salivating. He’d always prefer a glass of stout over tea.
‘So you’re writing about the Deverills, are you?’ he says, coming over and taking a bottle from her.
‘Yes, it’s a history of the family, from Barton Deverill to the present day.’
He grunts. He does not like the Deverills. ‘You won’t hear anything positive from me.’
‘You’re JP Deverill’s uncle – and Leopoldo’s, of course, who grew up in the castle.’
‘I don’t see Leopoldo these days and as for JP, I never saw him then and I don’t see him now. I have no relationship with either. I fear you’re wasting your time in coming here.’
‘Have you met Leopoldo’s wife?’
Michael pours the stout into a glass. He finds a clean mug and fills it with boiling water. ‘A woman full of airs and graces, but Leopoldo’s always been an eejit.’
Margot laughs. ‘You don’t mince your words, do you, Mr Doyle.’
‘I say it plain, all right.’ He downs half the glass in one go, then wipes his mouth with his sleeve. ‘My sister and her blackguard of a husband spoiled him. Then Bridie denied him his inheritance and left the castle to her bastard. What hope did he have?’
He brings her mug of tea to the table, puts a half-empty bottle of milk beside it, and sits down opposite. ‘It’s a sad story,’ she says.
‘Nothing good ever comes of crossing paths with a Deverill.’ He smirks. ‘But you must know that already. How’s it going, your research?’
‘JP has agreed to help me.’
‘Don’t be fooled. None of them will thank you when the book comes out.’
She smiled sweetly. ‘Well, what do I care about that? I’ll be long gone by then.’
He nods, impressed. I admire the way she manipulates people to serve her end. If Michael senses that she might give the Deverills a pasting he’ll be more likely to talk to her. I know him and how his mind works. He’s bitter and vindictive and has nothing good to say about anyone. Although, it is clear to me now that of all the people he has come into contact with in his life he likes himself the least.
They drink and talk and Michael enjoys her company. He’s alone most of the time nowadays. He’d forgotten what it feels like to have companionship. It feels good and that good feeling makes him garrulous.
‘What happened to Leopoldo’s father?’ Margot asks and looks at him steadily.
Michael has lit a cigarette. He takes a long drag and blows the smoke out of the side of his mouth. ‘The Count was an opportunist. He married my sister for her money and then treated her like shite. He lorded it over the village, swaggered around like he owned it, and those that were taken in by his shallow good looks were eejits. But this village is full of eejits, isn’t it?’ He chuckles joylessly and takes another drag. His gnarled fingers are stained yellow from the tobacco.
‘I’ve heard that it was you who did him in,’ Margot suggests slyly.
‘Like I said, eejits! But I can’t say I blame the person who did it. Cesare was a fraud. Those bleeding Barberini bees he went on about, God save us!’
‘Bees?’ Margot frowns.
‘The Barberini family emblem was bees. Cesare claimed to be descended from Cardinal Maffeo Barberini who became Pope Urban the whatever. He had as much to do with that Pope as I do. He even put bleeding stone bees above the castle door, though it gave me a certain satisfaction to watch them destroy the Deverill family motto. He was running off with Bridie’s fortune and a young girl he’d managed to seduce, poor lamb, when they did him in. If someone hadn’t done it, I’d have done it myself.’ He flicks ash into an ashtray. ‘A good end to bad news.’
‘I was told he was buried in the sand up to his neck and left to die.’
‘That’s true. The tide came in and drowned him. It would have been slow. Very slow.’
‘A horrid way to go,’ says Margot with a grimace.
‘Nothing less than the blackguard deserved.’
‘Poor Leopoldo.’
‘He was better off without him. So was his mother.’
‘Still, I’m not sure how a person recovers from finding his father murdered, and in that horrible way.’
‘Leopoldo never recovered from that, or from being disinherited, I don’t imagine. He’s a damaged man with a strident, self-important wife who dreams of being chatelaine of the castle her husband should have inherited.’ He grins again and looks at Margot through the smoke that floats out of his nostrils. ‘Are you married, Margot Hart?’
‘No,’ she replies. ‘It’s not something I believe in.’
He shakes his head. ‘You�
�ll find it lonely on your own.’ Then, as if he reads her mind, he adds, ‘Lovers come and go, Miss Hart. I’m far from wise when it comes to questions about the heart, but I’ll tell you this: adventure, independence, selfish living is all very well, but in the end, you just want someone to care about you.’
As Michael Doyle approaches the end of his life, he realizes that no one cares about him.
* * *
JP looks forward to Margot’s visits. He fusses about the fire, throwing on fresh logs, stoking it to prevent it from smoking, pausing to enjoy the sparks that dance about the flames like fireflies. He wants the room to be pleasant for her. He wants those boxes to keep her here indefinitely. He doesn’t want her to stop coming. Then he waits. The grandfather clock ticks loudly in the hall, emphasizing with its hollow echo the emptiness in the house, for apart from that sound the place is silent. As silent as a crypt.
JP goes through the boxes, extracting documents and sweeping his eyes over them, trying to while away the time. Some he takes to the armchair where he sits and peruses them, but it is not the same without Margot to share them with. When she appears at last, parking her little blue car in front of the house, he jumps out of the armchair and heads down the corridor to meet her in the hall. His whole body lights up like a bulb. I wonder whether he isn’t a little bit taken with her; after all, she is a striking young woman. He is old enough to be her father, of course, but that makes no difference. He is a man and he has always appreciated beautiful women.
I can tell that Margot is growing fond of him too. But perhaps that’s because she feels sorry for him. He is a pathetic sight, admittedly, although I have noticed that he is taking more care over his appearance now. He spends a long time in front of the mirror, searching for the handsome young man he once was and wondering where he has gone. I could tell him where he has gone, but even if he could hear me he wouldn’t listen.
Over the next week they settle into a routine, the two of them. Mrs B brings in the tea and cake. Margot rummages inside the boxes, pulling things out, while JP looks over items of interest that she passes him and tells her stories of his own. Margot is fascinated. She writes it all down in her notebook, and I am fascinated too. Much of what he tells Margot is new to me. And, of course, one’s own experience is subjective. I’m hearing his story from his point of view for the first time and I realize how very different that view is to mine, like two sides of the same coin. All the choices I made for him came from my heart, I can honestly say that is true, and yet they were made from my standpoint, not from his. I told him his mother was dead because I didn’t want to have to explain why she had not kept him. I never thought she would return to Ballinakelly. I never imagined she would buy the castle. I never, in my wildest dreams, thought she might have given birth to twins. I hoped that JP would be satisfied with me and my husband Robert and our father, Bertie. And he was, until Bridie revealed the hole in his life that he never knew was there.
After a few days their routine changes and JP asks Mrs B to make them lunch. They sit together in the dining room, at one end of the long table where I used to sit with my brother and sisters when we were growing up, and talk like old friends. Margot is curious about every aspect of his life and he is keen to enlighten her. No one has taken any interest in him for years. She asks him about my daughter, Florence, who is married and lives in Edinburgh with children of her own. She asks him about me, and he tells her about my heroism during the War of Independence, which is greatly exaggerated, about my love of horses and riding over the hills, and about our family life with Robert. But will he tell her about Jack, I wonder? That is one of the many sore subjects Colm will be hoping his father will avoid. You see, when JP fell in love with Jack’s daughter, Alana, she discovered that I, his half-sister, had been having an affair with her father and called off the engagement. JP was devastated and blamed me for destroying his chance at happiness. The truth was, Jack and I had loved each other all our lives. When I backed out of our plan to run away to America together, he went on his own and eventually met Emer, whom he married. They returned to Ballinakelly years later and I had to face the truth, that my decision not to go with him had opened the door for him to find love with someone else. And love her, he did. He loved us both.
But that wasn’t enough for me. I wanted Jack’s love and I wanted it all to myself. I only had myself to blame, and the regret burned in my heart like a piece of coal; it still does.
Emer is a better woman than I am. She forgave her husband, and Alana married JP after all and moved into the castle. After that, JP and I never spoke about Jack again. I watched him from afar, this man I had always loved, hiding my true heart, pretending that the feelings I had once had had died like embers in a cold grate. I watched him commit wholeheartedly to his wife and give up the past, for good. But one cannot erase those kinds of experiences from one’s soul. They are indelible. They make us who we are. Jack and I were as one and yet, in spite of that, he never looked at me again with eyes full of understanding and love. He turned his back on me in order to devote himself to his wife and his family and his future. It was a sacrifice he had to make. We both had to make it. JP and Alana’s love blossomed and for a while their happiness was complete. Out of something broken flowered something whole.
I hover now as JP deliberates how much of my story to divulge. And then he puts down his knife and fork, wipes his mouth with a napkin and settles back in his chair. It is the position of someone making themselves comfortable in order to start a lengthy tale. I think of Colm. Colm, who wants so badly to protect his family from the hurt that will be inflicted if the ghosts of the past are unearthed.
‘Kitty was a passionate, hot-headed woman,’ he begins. ‘She loved a man from the wrong side of the tracks who she couldn’t have, so she married Robert Trench, who had been her tutor when she was a young woman. He was gentle and kind but had none of the flamboyance of the other one.’ I know then that he is going to tell my story. The little he knows is enough to wound. I cannot allow that. For Colm’s sake, I won’t allow it. I send a ripple into the atmosphere and both wine glasses topple onto the tablecloth. Margot’s breaks. JP’s bleeds claret onto the white cotton. They both stare at the glasses in bewilderment. My story dies in JP’s throat. Margot frowns. She, who does not believe in ghosts, tries to find a logical explanation for how it happened. I can feel her mind working, like a little mouse scurrying about a room in search of a hole. But there is no hole.
They move back into the games room, shaken but both of them trying to hide their fright. JP lights a cigarette. ‘How would you like to go riding?’ he asks, shunting the thought of ghosts out of his mind and turning his attention to more pleasant things.
‘I would love that,’ Margot replies.
‘You know, once I loved riding more than anything else. It’s in my blood, you see. I spent all the time I could spare in the hills on horseback. It was exhilarating.’ He pauses and gets a faraway look in his eyes. ‘I met Alana on horseback,’ he adds quietly. ‘I was out riding and saw, in the distance, a child wandering lost about the rocks. When I reached her, she was proud and didn’t want me to know that she couldn’t find her way back. But I could tell from the anxious expression in her eyes that she was afraid. I lifted her up and we rode back into Ballinakelly together. She was a little girl then. It was before I went off to war. When I came back she had matured into a young woman. A beautiful, formidable young woman.’ He chuckles, but there is no mirth in it, just a bitter regret, and nostalgia for something prized in the past, now lost.
They are standing in front of the fire, which has burned down to ash and the last remaining piece of log, glowing crimson. JP lifts a fresh log out of the basket and chucks it into the grate. It sizzles and spits and catches fire. ‘What happened with Alana?’ Margot asks softly and I am struck by how bold she is to question him like that, fearlessly.
To my surprise, he doesn’t object. He takes a long drag of his cigarette, scratches his head where his hair is th
inning and takes a deep breath. I am curious. I don’t know why their marriage ended. This time I remain very still. I send no ripples out to shake their world. I listen, grateful for her fearlessness.
At that crucial moment, Mrs B opens the door. ‘M’lord, Master Colm is here to see you.’ Mrs B has called him by that name since he was a boy.
JP looks at Margot and sighs. Margot smiles in that carefree way of hers, but I know she is disappointed. An opportunity to discover why he had to sell the castle is lost. She pretends she doesn’t care. She pretends too that Colm turning up does not make her uneasy. ‘I’m sorry, Margot,’ says JP. ‘I’d better see what he wants.’
‘Please, don’t apologize. I have plenty of work to do here.’ She pulls one of the boxes towards her to show that she has already moved on from their conversation.
‘We’ll ride out tomorrow morning, if the weather is fair.’
‘Lovely. I’ll come prepared,’ she replies. I wonder what she might have brought in her suitcase that is suitable.
* * *
JP finds Colm in the library. The drawing room is too big and cold to sit in. It is years since anyone has lit a fire in there. Years since it was filled with people. My father used to entertain regularly but JP is always alone. Only Mrs B with her duster braves the chill and the silence. The library, on the other hand, is warm and welcoming. Colm is standing by the window, looking out over the garden, when his father comes in. He turns and smiles. It is years since he has shown his father any warmth and it raises my suspicions at once. Here in the In-between my senses are sharp – I’ve had a lot of time to hone them.
‘Hi, Dad,’ he says.
‘A drink?’ JP asks, heading straight to the drinks tray to pour himself a whiskey.
‘No, thanks,’ Colm replies and watches his father fill his glass. He has endured too many years of witnessing JP’s descent into alcoholism to be shocked by it. Instead he feels only a weary disappointment, and resignation, because there is nothing he can do about it.
The Distant Shores Page 10