‘I gather she wrote a book about Eva Perón of Argentina. I might see if I can get my hands on a copy.’
‘Good idea.’
‘Although, I think I’d rather read about the woman’s husband,’ says Colm.
‘Don’t tell her that,’ his father adds. Colm glances at him. When he sees the jocular twinkle in his eyes, he grins. It has been years since they’ve colluded.
* * *
That evening, when Colm goes to O’Donovan’s for his usual glass of stout, he finds, to his surprise, Margot perched on a stool at the bar, talking to Seamus as he serves drinks behind it. Colm has made it clear that he does not like her. However, I sense that it’s the job she’s doing that he dislikes, not the person she is. He cannot help but be intrigued by her. He is a man, after all, and she is an attractive woman. I was an attractive woman in my day, beautiful even, and I know well that look on a man’s face when he is interested. Colm is interested. Margot is less easy to read. In fact, she’s closed as tightly as a clam.
‘Do you mind if I join you?’ he asks, taking off his cap and running his fingers through his hair. He has thick hair like all Deverill men – thick hair, good looks and a talent for making life difficult for himself.
‘If you like,’ she replies. That’s not exactly an invitation, but Colm sits down anyway and places his cap on the bar.
Seamus fills a pint glass with stout. He watches the two converse and I sense him bristle with possessiveness, like a territorial dog sensing a rival stepping into his domain.
‘I’ve been at Dad’s,’ Colm tells her. ‘He’s missing your company.’
‘He does seem rather lonely,’ she replies.
‘He needs to get out more.’
‘He needs to quit drinking,’ she says seriously.
‘That too,’ Colm agrees, averting his eyes. There’s an awkward pause. Colm does not want to go into his father’s drinking problem. He is aware that anything he says might go into her book. Seamus slides the glass of stout across the bar. Colm changes the subject and asks Margot about herself. ‘How did you like your ride?’
‘I adored it.’ She smiles. She is lovely when she smiles. One could be fooled into thinking that she hasn’t a care in the world. I’m beginning to realize, however, that she has many, she’s just good at hiding them. ‘There’s something very special about these hills. I’ve travelled a lot, but there’s something deep and magical about this place that I haven’t found anywhere else.’
Colm smiles back and he’s not pretending. He is genuinely pleased that she senses the enchantment in the land that we Irish have always known is there. ‘I’m glad you feel it too.’
‘I felt a great relief out there. A weight lifted. A rush of wildness, of recklessness.’ Her eyes sparkle at the memory of it. ‘It was wonderful.’
‘My grandmother told me you have Irish blood in you?’
‘I do. My grandfather was Anglo-Irish, if that counts.’
‘It counts. My aunt Kitty always referred to herself as Irish even though, technically, she was Anglo-Irish.’
‘I don’t think I can claim to be either.’
‘But that wild and reckless streak is there, undeniably. Inherited from your grandfather, no doubt. Maybe you unleashed it in the hills.’
‘Perhaps. I’d like to do it again.’
‘Dad would too. He said you’re a good rider. He’d jump at the chance to ride out with you again.’
‘Then I’ll ask him. Maybe, if I do it enough, I’ll discover my inner Irishwoman.’
‘Anything is possible.’ Colm is grinning in spite of himself.
‘My grandfather would have loved that. To him, the good old days hunting with the Deverills were the best days of his life.’
‘So they were good friends, he and Harry?’
‘They were. Grandpa died not long ago. But I remember all the wonderful stories he told about your uncle Harry and his father Bertie.’
‘I’d like to hear them.’
As Margot shares her grandfather’s anecdotes, I sense a warmth growing between them. Colm does not want to like her and Margot is aware that he resents her writing about his family. Yet, in spite of that they settle into an easy conversation as Seamus serves his regulars with one eye on the job and the other on the two of them. Margot doesn’t look at Seamus. She feels no sense of obligation towards him just because she is sleeping with him. It is obvious that she is a woman who takes her pleasure where she finds it and thinks nothing of it. Seamus, coming from a small Irish town like Ballinakelly, is not used to women like her. The priest would call her sinful, others might call her a slut – but it’s the 1980s, perhaps she is just modern – nonetheless, the fact that Seamus can’t hold on to her makes him want her all the more.
‘Where’s home for you, Miss Hart?’ Colm asks.
She shrugs. ‘I don’t really have a fixed abode, Mr Deverill.’ Her eyes are full of laughter, which prompts him to say:
‘That just sounds silly, doesn’t it? The Miss Hart, Mr Deverill part.’
‘If you’re going to sit on the bar stool beside me and talk to me as a friend, then I’m Margot.’
He takes a sip of stout then wipes the foam off his top lip with his sleeve. ‘So, Margot, if you don’t have a home, where do you hang your hat?’
‘My mother is French and lives in Paris. My father lived in Dorset but he died when I was a teenager, so I haven’t considered that home in years.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. Life isn’t a bed of roses for anyone. The trick is to live in the moment, isn’t it.’
‘That’s the idea, but it’s not so easy when you have things in the past that hurt.’
‘I don’t think about them.’ Margot shrugs and makes it clear with a dismissive sniff that she does not want to think about them now either.
‘You’re a nomad, then?’
She grins, liking the sound of that. ‘I have an English passport and a small flat in London. I return every now and then to open post, bills mostly, and make sure it’s still there. Otherwise, I like to move about. I find travel invigorating.’
‘You never get lonely on your own?’
‘Sometimes. But I’ve made friends all over. Look, I’ve only been in Ballinakelly a few weeks and I’ve already made a new one.’ She smiles at him, a charming, guileless smile.
He’s not sure how to respond, but he raises his glass all the same. ‘To new friends,’ he says.
‘New friends,’ she repeats and clinks her glass against his.
* * *
Margot returns to her tower feeling lighter having shared a drink with Colm. She no longer feels like the enemy. She kicks off her shoes and lies on the bed. Then she telephones Mrs Walbridge. She speaks to her most evenings, updating her on the latest developments. They talk for a long time and Margot tells her about her drink at O’Donovan’s with Colm. Margot laughs at something Mrs Walbridge says and I sense a real affection growing between these two women.
Margot does not call her mother. I begin to wonder about her roots – or her aversion to them. I question why she goes through life avoiding lasting ties with people, moving from city to city, country to country, never staying very long in any one place. On the outside she appears contented, charming, carefree and uncomplicated. I’m beginning to realize that that is just a front. A disguise. A decoy. Who is Margot Hart and what is her story?
Chapter 9
At the beginning of February snowdrops began to poke their delicate white heads out of the earth and the castle gardens were imbued with the sweet scent of Daphne odora. The days felt longer, the light a little brighter, the sun bolder in its attempts to rid the land of the dark winter mornings and the chill. Margot was now feeling at home in Ballinakelly. She was making progress with her research and enjoying her excursions into the hills on horseback with JP and her forays between the sheets with Seamus. She would run into Colm at his father’s house, where he was slowly being sucked into the fascinating ab
yss of his family history. He seemed to have forgotten his animosity towards her. Perhaps he was beginning to realize what a remarkable story his family’s was and no longer resented her for wanting to write it.
Most evenings she found entertainment in O’Donovan’s. There was usually live music, a folk or pop band or a lone musician with an accordion singing romantic ballads with tears in his eyes. Everyone knew the songs and the evening usually ended with the entire pub joining in. She was beginning to get to know the locals. Tomas and Aidan O’Rourke, who worked for Lord Deverill, were eager to play her at darts. Mr Flannigan to talk to her about ghosts and try to put his hand on her bottom – she avoided him as best she could, especially after he’d knocked back a few pints. Seamus was always there, busily drawing pints, keeping a possessive eye on her when Colm made her laugh, telling her funny tales of his adventures as a vet. She liked the gentle, slightly sleepy atmosphere in the pub, the fug of cigarette smoke and the open fire, the fact that people were slowly warming to her and no longer staring at her suspiciously when she walked in on her own.
One Sunday she decided to go to Mass. She wasn’t Catholic. She wasn’t really anything. Her mother had been brought up Catholic by her strict French parents, but her father had been Church of England until the war robbed him of his faith in God. How could God exist, he’d argued, in a world where there is such hatred and violence? He had been thirty-five when Margot was born and hadn’t stepped into a church in eighteen years. He’d married in a registry office and Margot was neither baptised nor confirmed. She went to Mass in the Catholic Church of All Saints in Ballinakelly out of curiosity, not because she had any desire to pray or to listen to a priest whose sole mission seemed to be to make everyone feel guilty for being born. But churches were exotic, mysterious places for Margot on account of having been denied them. They were pungent with the vibrations of prayer, supplication and hope, heady with the smell of incense and tradition, and bitter with contradiction. Margot wondered at the conflict between the spiritual teachings of Jesus, which in essence were about love and forgiveness and the life after, and the club mentality of religion, which separated people from each other and made enemies of them. She sat on her chair and took in the beauty and harmony of the ancient building and yet she couldn’t reconcile that beauty, which was spiritual, with the dogma, which wasn’t.
At the end of Mass she remained in her chair while everyone filed out. She noticed Jack and Emer O’Leary and Colm, and various locals from the pub. Róisín was there with her parents and siblings, the younger children eager to get out into the sunshine, delighted that Mass was over for another week. Once most of the congregation had filed out, and more specifically Jack and Emer O’Leary, who she didn’t think would be pleased to see her, Margot stood up. It was then that she noticed Mrs B, lighting votive candles on the table at the front of the church, to the right of the nave. She looked small there, alone with her prayers, passing the glowing taper from wick to wick. She was dressed in a long black skirt and shirt, a black shawl draped around her head and shoulders. There was something old-fashioned about her. She could easily have stepped out of one of those Victorian photographs Margot had been looking at in the Hunting Lodge. She wondered how old Mrs B was and decided that, although she looked younger due to her plumpness, she was likely to be in her seventies.
After a while Mrs B stood in front of the altar and genuflected. Then she turned and walked slowly down the aisle towards the doors. Margot went to greet her. ‘Hello, Mrs B,’ she said.
Mrs B raised her eyebrows in surprise and smiled. ‘Why, this is the last place I would think I’d find you, Miss Hart.’
‘I know. I’m not Catholic. I’m nothing. I just wanted to come and soak up the peace and quiet. It’s a beautiful church, isn’t it?’
‘Indeed it is very beautiful.’
‘It’s a nice place to come and reflect on things.’
‘Oh, it is. I come here to reflect a lot. I feel it’s a place where God hears what I have to say.’
‘Do you talk to God often, Mrs B?’ Margot asked as they walked towards the door and the sight of the gravel path and graveyard bathed in sunlight.
‘Don’t you talk to God, Miss Hart?’ she asked.
‘Not really.’
‘Well, you should. You should show your gratitude for your blessings and pray for those you love, both alive and deceased.’
‘I feel a bit silly talking to someone I can’t see.’
‘Then close your eyes.’
Margot laughed. ‘I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.’
Once outside, Margot asked Mrs B where the Deverills were buried.
‘Most of the family are buried alongside their fellow Protestants down the road. They had no airs and graces, you know. There’s no grand family mausoleum or crypt. Some are scattered like Kitty and Arethusa. They wanted to be taken by the wind. They were free spirits, you see. You’ll not find headstones for them.’
‘Is your family buried here, Mrs B?’
‘Indeed they are.’ She walked slowly across the grass, past ancient headstones blackened by age, the words carved into them corroded by years of wind and rain so they could barely be read. Some leaned precariously, others stood proud. There were all sizes, from the small and modest to the large and showy, and some were coated in green moss and lichen. Mrs B stopped. ‘This is where my brother lies buried,’ she said softly.
Margot joined her. She read the words inscribed on the simple stone. Rafferty Brandon Carbery 1906–1923. ‘He died young,’ said Margot.
‘Indeed, he did. He was only seventeen, God bless him.’ Mrs B took a deep breath for it still shocked her to see his death so blatantly displayed in those two sets of dates carved into the stone. ‘He was killed in the civil war. Irishman against Irishman. Brother against brother. The young man who killed him was only a boy himself. They’d been at school together. They’d shared the same table, the same bread.’ She shook her head incredulously and her eyes stung. Memories, like roses, have thorns.
‘How old were you?’
‘Thirteen. It was only the two of us. Me and Raffie. And I worshipped the ground he walked on.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Margot. ‘You must carry the weight of loss with you always.’
‘I do, Miss Hart. It’s a load I’m glad to carry. It’s me Garden of Gethsemane.’
Margot took her hand. Mrs B flinched. She wasn’t used to being touched. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time someone had held her hand. But Margot’s was warm and soft and the gesture was sincerely made. Mrs B felt the comfort in it and dropped her shoulders.
‘I don’t imagine one ever recovers from losing a sibling,’ said Margot.
‘The ache is always there,’ Mrs B agreed. ‘It’s a quare thing, but there’s a part of me that still can’t quite believe he’s gone. If I close me eyes and picture him, he’s as real to me as if I close me eyes and think of you. Yet, I’m seventy-five. He’s been gone sixty-two years. In me mind he’s still the golden-haired youth who’d only just started shaving. If he had lived he’d be as grey as me by now.’
‘I bet he was handsome.’
‘Oh, he was, Miss Hart. A handsome devil, he was. He knew it, too. He got away with everything because of his looks, because of his smile.’
‘I bet he loved his little sister.’
At that Mrs B hiccuped. She put a hand to her mouth, stifling the sob that followed. Margot saw her face cave in with sorrow. She squeezed her hand, which released something inside the old woman for she began to cry. Margot remained beside her. She wanted to wrap her arms around her, but she didn’t think Mrs B would feel comfortable with such a modern display of affection. Instead, she held her hand tightly and waited for her grief to work its way through her. At length she let it go. Mrs B reached into her pocket for a handkerchief and blew her nose. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what came over me.’
‘It’s okay,’ Margot reassured her. ‘Grief takes yo
u by surprise, sometimes, doesn’t it.’ Mrs B nodded. ‘Does it help, talking to God?’ she asked.
‘Oh, I wouldn’t have survived had it not been for my faith,’ she replied.
‘I’d like to have faith,’ said Margot suddenly.
‘You don’t have to go to church to find Him, Miss Hart. God is in beauty and there’s beauty in everything. Music, nature, light. Next time you’re in a beautiful place, up there on the hill with Lord Deverill, for example, look for Him there. I’m sure you’ll find Him. He’s love and you have a big heart, Miss Hart. He’s already within you, just waiting to be recognized.’
‘You know you can call me Margot.’
Mrs B smiled and wiped her eyes. ‘You can call me Bessie. But not when we’re in the Lodge. Then you have to call me Mrs B like everyone else. We might embarrass his lordship and the locals would think I was uppity.’
‘Very well,’ Margot replied. ‘I like the name Bessie. It suits you.’
‘Thank you. I like it too.’
‘Are you heading back to the Hunting Lodge now?’
‘Indeed I am.’
‘Would you like a lift?’
‘That would be grand.’
‘Thank you for showing me your brother’s grave.’
Mrs B put the handkerchief back in her pocket. ‘Thank you for listening, Margot,’ she replied.
* * *
That afternoon Margot put aside her research and went in search of JP. He wasn’t in the library, although the fire was lit and his book and reading glasses were in their usual place on the table beside his chair. She called his name, but there was no reply. At length, she found Mrs B in the kitchen, listening to the radio while she prepared stew for supper. It was heartening to hear music instead of the ticking of the grandfather clock and the silence. It suffused the house with life, as if it was able to seep into the cracks in the floorboards and restore the very bones of the building to health. Mrs B smiled when she saw her. The music had revived her too and her cheeks glowed with a faint blush. When Margot enquired after Lord Deverill Mrs B said she had seen him wander into the garden. ‘He’s begun to take an interest in it suddenly,’ she informed her with a frown. ‘He used to love to be in nature, but that was before…’ Her voice trailed off, leaving details of the divorce and his alcoholism unspoken in the air between them. ‘But he seems to have found a new lease of life recently,’ she said, and she was certain she knew why. However, she felt it might embarrass Margot to attribute his renaissance to her and added simply, ‘It’s been a long time in coming.’ She picked up her wooden spoon and began to stir the stew.
The Distant Shores Page 14