The Distant Shores

by Santa Montefiore

  JP looked at Colm. ‘Shall I ask Mrs B to make us some tea?’

  ‘That would be a good idea,’ said Colm.

  * * *

  Margot left the room. She passed Mrs B in the corridor. ‘I think we’re getting somewhere, Bessie,’ she whispered.

  Mrs B crossed herself. ‘By God’s grace,’ she replied solemnly.

  ‘I think I’d make a good therapist,’ Margot added with a grin.

  But Mrs B was wiser than all of them put together. She patted Margot’s arm. ‘I think you need the therapy as much as they do,’ she said and continued on down the corridor towards the library. Margot watched her go, but couldn’t think of anything to say, except that she was probably right.

  * * *

  Margot set off across the lawn. Sunshine found its way through the tears in the cloud and cast long shadows across the grass. She felt a cautious sense of optimism. JP wasn’t out of the woods yet, not by a long way, but he had taken his first step. Hadn’t he said, on their first meeting, that he wanted to tell his side of the story? Hadn’t he complained that no one ever listened to him? That they didn’t care to hear what he had to say. Well, she hoped he was now telling it and that Colm was listening.

  She put her hands in her pockets and watched her breath mist on the damp air. Her mind turned back to the kiss. She sighed deeply as the weight of the dilemma settled heavily upon her shoulders once again. As reluctant as she was to get attached to someone, she had really liked kissing him. They were already colluding, what would it matter if they got a little closer in the process? Since when had she become so sensible? She’d enjoyed many men; Colm was just one more, wasn’t he? Margot thought of Mrs B and smiled to herself. She wondered what, in her uncanny wisdom, she would say about this.

  Kitty

  Alana and her father are on the beach. Small figures against the vast expanse of sea, beneath the enormous sky, buffeted by winds that sweep in damp and cold off the water. Angry grey clouds churn above them, as if Alana’s fury and pain have materialized into vapour, shutting out the sun, darkening the day, advancing the night before it is time.

  She is crying. Jack puts his arm around her as they amble against the gale. She is like a child again, leaning into his embrace. Relying on her father to make things right. But not even Jack, with all his wisdom, can do that. ‘What happened to the man I fell in love with, Da?’ she asks. We’d all like to know the answer to that. ‘What happened to the laughter and the mischief, to the fun?’

  ‘Life,’ says Jack. ‘Life happened, that’s what.’

  Life happened to us too, didn’t it, Jack?

  ‘Things were less complicated when we were young.’

  ‘They seem less complicated when you look back on them from a distance, but at the time, your problems were as big as they are now, only different.’

  ‘I don’t remember problems at all,’ she says.

  ‘Because the problems you’re facing now have eclipsed them. You look back on the past through rose-tinted glasses. But life wasn’t rose-tinted. It was tough and it taught us all some hard lessons.’

  Alana walks on in silence. Jack has triggered a dark memory that stirs from its slumber and bares its teeth. I know they are both thinking of me. ‘You’re right,’ she agrees. ‘I called off my engagement with JP because of your affair with Kitty Deverill. I remember that.’

  ‘You did, indeed.’

  ‘I didn’t want to have anything to do with the Deverills. I thought they had bad blood. I should have stuck to my guns. I went ahead and married one and look where it got me!’

  ‘And what of me, Alana? Shouldn’t I take some responsibility for my affair? Do I have bad blood too?’

  ‘It’s different.’

  ‘No, it isn’t. I was just as much to blame for breaking my marriage vows as Kitty was for breaking hers. JP broke his and hurt you, just like I hurt your mother. There’s very little difference when you boil them both down.’

  ‘I am half the woman Mam is,’ says Alana and her voice is heavy with defeatism.

  ‘That’s because half of you is me. Hot-headed and stubborn like all O’Learys tend to be.’

  ‘I’d like to be more like Mam,’ she says.

  ‘Indeed, she’s a good woman,’ he agrees. And he’s right, she is, a better woman than I ever was.

  ‘You know I promised not to tell Mam about the letters from Kitty that I found in your vet’s bag? Well, I broke my promise and told her,’ she confesses.

  ‘You did?’ says Jack, although he doesn’t care about it now. It was over thirty years ago, after all.

  ‘Do you know what she said?’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘That she had always known you loved Kitty.’

  He stops walking and looks at her in surprise. ‘She said that?’

  ‘She did. She didn’t blame you or have it out with you. She just waited patiently for the infatuation to die, which it did in the end, didn’t it. I promised I’d never tell you.’

  ‘So you broke both promises?’

  ‘I suppose I did.’

  ‘Some promises are meant to be broken for the higher good.’

  ‘Where’s the higher good in these broken promises then?’

  Jack sighs, no doubt casting his mind back to the time when he had to make a choice between me and his wife, and he chose his wife. But our love never died, as Alana thinks it did, we just had to honour those we had vowed before God to love and cherish. We had to fulfil our commitment to them. Our affair had reached the end of the road and had nowhere else to go. We had to do the right thing. ‘You said you wanted to be more like your mam. Well, your mam knows when to let go,’ he says. ‘You need to forgive and let go, too, Alana.’

  She doesn’t like the sound of that. She inhales through her nostrils and draws her lips into a thin line. There are few, like Emer O’Leary, who have the ability to rise above their egos. Alana is hurt. She is cross and she is disappointed. And JP is collaborating on a book about her family that she fears will expose all her secrets into the light of public scrutiny. ‘I am not ready for that,’ she says quietly. ‘He does not deserve my forgiveness.’

  ‘I did not deserve your mother’s.’

  ‘Mam is a better woman than I.’ She is a better woman than both of us, Alana.

  ‘Because of the choices she makes,’ Jack adds wisely.

  ‘I stand by my choices. It was not my choice that my husband slept with another woman.’

  ‘But it’s your choice to hold it against him. It’s been, what, fourteen years since you divorced? Are you going to allow one slip to stand between you for the rest of your lives?’

  Alana raises her voice. ‘It’s not my choice that he turned into a hopeless drunk. It’s not my choice that he’s helping that writer research her book on our family. And it was not my choice that he sold the family home. None of it was my choice.’

  Jack looks at her, his face is full of compassion and love, but also pity, for he can see her frailties, which she is unable to see for herself. ‘Until you take responsibility for the part you played in all of those choices, Alana, you will never be happy.’

  And there it is, wisdom spoken by a man who truly understands the meaning of humility and the value of forgiveness.

  Chapter 13

  Margot was in the games room pacing the floor when Colm came looking for her. She had been trying to work, sitting in the armchair beside the fire, reading, but her mind had kept going back to the library, hoping that Colm was allowing his father to say his piece and that they were both being empathetic. He pushed the door open a crack.

  ‘Can I come in?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course. I only had the door closed to keep in the warmth,’ she replied, moving closer, eager for a debrief.

  ‘Come for a walk with me? I need to get out of the house. I need some space.’

  Colm looked grave and weary, which wasn’t a surprise as he and JP had been talking for over three hours.

  They se
t off down the path that shadowed the river, past the fallen ash that bridged it and the evergreen shrubs that wore beads of rain like fine jewellery. Colm inhaled the cold air in loud breaths as if he needed the oxygen to restore his strength. Margot walked behind him in silence, giving him the space he’d said he needed, until the path widened enough for them to continue side by side.

  ‘You’re a bold girl, Margot,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t have confronted Dad without you.’

  ‘I’m glad I could help.’

  ‘You might not have managed to save your father, but you’re certainly helping to save mine.’

  ‘I don’t imagine anyone could have saved Daddy. The difference being that JP does want to get better. That makes all the difference in the world.’

  ‘I think he was most ashamed of being seen in that state by you.’

  ‘I’m sorry we had to tell him that, but shame was the only way to make him want to change. We can’t do it for him. He has to take the steps himself.’

  ‘I also want to thank you for encouraging us to talk, about the past, I mean. We’ve never really processed it. It’s hung between us for years, alluded to, but never discussed. I think we needed to talk about it.’ Colm looked down at her. ‘It was hard.’

  ‘Did it help to hear his side of the story?’

  ‘It did, but it also helped for him to hear my side of the story.’

  Margot hadn’t considered that.

  ‘It’s interesting how many sides there are to the same event,’ he continued. ‘We all see the same thing in different ways. It was important for Dad to appreciate that it wasn’t just his and Mum’s drama, it became mine too, and my sisters’.’ Margot wanted to ask why his sisters had maintained a good relationship with their father while Colm hadn’t. But she didn’t want to look curious. The book she was writing was always in the back of her mind. She imagined it was in the back of his mind too.

  They headed through a gate in the drystone wall and continued on up the hill towards the cliffs. She could hear the distant rumble of the sea and the desolate cry of a gull. They followed a well-trodden snake path that meandered across the land. Small yellow flowers flourished in the long grasses with wild garlic and heather, and the sun, ever higher in the sky, warmed the earth as spring edged in to dispel the land of winter. The wind toyed with Margot’s hair and she began to feel that sense of exhilaration she felt when she rode out with JP. Was it that ancient magic buried deep in the soil, she wondered, rising up to intoxicate her again?

  ‘I want to show you something,’ Colm said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s a surprise.’

  ‘I love a mystery,’ she replied.

  ‘Then you’ll love this.’

  She laughed. It felt good to laugh after the emotional events of the last twenty-four hours. ‘I’m intrigued.’

  ‘I sense that, beneath your cool exterior, you’re a romantic.’ He grinned down at her.

  She thought of their kiss and blushed. She was not normally a blusher. ‘Is that a compliment?’

  ‘It’s certainly meant as one,’ he replied.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve been at all cool in the last couple of days.’

  His eyes lingered on hers and they were full of knowing. ‘But you have been romantic.’

  She stole her eyes back and laughed. A defence mechanism she used to deflect awkward moments. ‘Is what you’re about to show me romantic then?’

  ‘It’s the most romantic place in Ballinakelly.’

  She felt her blush deepen. She knew he was also thinking of their kiss. Was he perhaps thinking of doing it again?

  As they came over the crest of a knoll a circle of giant stones rose up in the distance, like a coven of witches in dark grey cloaks, hunched against the wind. Beyond them the glittering sea stretched out to the horizon. Margot had visited the most famous of stone circles at Stonehenge as a schoolgirl and been fascinated by the mystery of its origins and purpose, which still remained unsolved. She was riveted to discover that Ballinakelly had its very own stone circle. ‘This is our local mystery. We have a few, like the swaying Madonna,’ Colm told her.

  ‘The swaying Madonna?’ Margot had never heard of that.

  ‘It’s a famous statue beside the Ballinakelly Road that sways all on its own.’ He arched his eyebrows.

  ‘Have you ever seen it sway?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Does it really sway?’

  ‘Apparently so.’

  She laughed. ‘And this? Does anyone know what it was built for?’

  ‘No, it’s a mystery too. There are seventeen stones and they’re supposedly over a thousand years old. Legend says that they are women cursed to live as stones by day but come alive at night.’

  ‘Nice. Who cursed them?’

  ‘A man, obviously.’ He grinned. ‘It’s always a man, isn’t it?’

  ‘A wizard perhaps,’ said Margot, sensing the beginning of a good story. ‘A very possessive wizard who had seventeen daughters. Afraid that they would marry and move away, he cursed them to remain here as rocks. But his power wasn’t strong enough to turn them to rock for always, only during daylight hours. So, when the sun sets they are restored to life, only to return to their sad stone formation at the first blush of dawn.’

  ‘You should be a writer,’ he joked.

  She sighed. ‘I think I’d have an easier job of it were I to write The Cursed Daughters of Ballinakelly. Let’s go and take a closer look.’

  They walked towards them. ‘My mother told me that this was her and Dad’s secret place when they first met,’ he said. ‘They’d steal up here in order to be alone together.’

  ‘I bet they weren’t the first, or the last.’

  ‘You’re probably right. It’s an ideal place to steal a kiss.’

  Margot didn’t dare look at him. She didn’t dare mention their kiss, either. There were so many reasons why they shouldn’t. Only one good reason why they should. ‘These stones hold many secrets,’ she said, striding over to touch one. She placed her hand against the hard, cold rock. ‘If only they could talk.’

  The wind raced around the stones as it had surely done for hundreds of years, playing with them, trying to rouse them from their sleep, or from their enchantment. And yet they remained silent and still and watchful, observing the secret trysts that took place in their sanctuary and listening to the plots and intrigues whispered in their shadows. Margot imagined how much they had witnessed over the hundreds of years of Ireland’s turbulent history and how much they could tell if only they were able. Ireland was a country steeped in war. As a lover of stories the stone circle fascinated her not only for its romance but also for the plotting and scheming that must have taken place there.

  She turned to Colm, who was leaning back against one of them, watching her with a wistful look on his face. ‘It’s very beautiful up here,’ she said.

  ‘That’s why I brought you. I knew you’d like it.’

  ‘And you needed some air.’

  ‘I needed to be alone with you,’ he corrected her. ‘Far away from the house. Far away from everyone. Just the two of us.’ He walked towards her. ‘I liked kissing you last night,’ he said. And there it was, out in the open, exposed, and Margot didn’t know what to do with it.

  ‘It was rash,’ she began.

  ‘I know.’

  She sighed deeply. ‘Look, I’m not a good bet, Colm, and I’m writing a book about your family. It’s just a bad idea on so many levels.’

  ‘You’re right. It’s a terrible idea. I still resent you for writing that book.’

  ‘I still resent you for asking me not to.’

  ‘My mother would be furious if she knew I was even talking to you.’

  ‘Your father might be a little put out, too, if he knew you’d kissed me.’

  ‘But you kissed me back.’ He smiled.

  She couldn’t help but smile with him. ‘I did.’

  She felt the hard stone against her back. He stood befo
re her, blue eyes gazing down at her and into her, as if he was going to allow nothing to come between them, especially not logic. ‘I like you, Margot. God help me, but I can’t help liking you.’

  She frowned. ‘I like you too, but…’

  Then he was kissing her again. Pressing her against the stone, his hands sliding beneath her coat and around her waist, pulling her into his arms, holding her tightly. And she was returning his kiss without inhibition, eyes closed, every nerve in her body electrified, sinking into the moment without resistance. And the stones kept their silent vigil, enfolding them into their sanctuary as they had done for hundreds of lovers before Margot and Colm. How little love changes, they would have said if they could speak. Always secretive, urgent, passionate and fearful. High up on the hill with no one for miles around, the stone circle gave them the gift of the moment, placing them fully within it.

  At length, they sat together on the grass, sheltered from the wind at the foot of one of the megaliths, and talked about JP.

  ‘Dad and I have kept a secret for years,’ Colm told her. ‘We never discussed it. But it stood between us like a rotten thing. You gave me the courage to bring it into the light.’

  ‘You don’t have to tell me what it is, Colm.’

  ‘Margot, I can’t be with you if I’m unable to trust you. So, I’m going to trust you and hope that I’m not an eejit for doing so.’

  ‘You’re not an eejit,’ she reassured him. ‘You have to trust that I have the sensitivity to know what, and what not, to put in the book.’

  ‘I won’t mention trust again, I promise.’ He pulled her towards him and kissed her temple. ‘I was twelve years old. Mam was out with my sisters and I was hanging around the river with my friend Paul. Paul and I had a fight. I can’t remember what it was about. But I ran off and went home. I wasn’t expected until dinner. I thought I’d go and whinge about the fight to Rosie, our governess. She wasn’t really a governess, more like a glorified nanny or a big sister. She was only twenty, or thereabouts. And I thought the world of her. She was pretty and funny. I suppose I was soft on her. She was the first woman who aroused feelings in me.’ Margot would have laughed at that if she hadn’t sensed already what he was about to tell her. ‘I went to her room. Padding up the corridor, all eager to tell her my woe. She had a bedroom on the first floor with a sitting room next door. We often played board games in there because it was warm with the fire lit. I didn’t just find Rosie. I found Dad and Rosie, in bed together.’