This time she lost. Without wasting time she removed her trousers, socks and shoes. ‘You’re getting less coy by the minute,’ he laughed. ‘That’s like five points lost in one go.’
‘I’m not sure I can last too much longer,’ she said, standing before him in her panties and bra. Her hair was falling in tendrils over her shoulders, her pale skin glowed softly in the electric light. He ached with desire and once again made a move towards her.
‘Are you sure about the no-touch rule?’ he asked, eyes tracing the contours of her body with longing.
She walked up to him and stood a couple of inches away. ‘If I can restrain myself, then so can you,’ she said, but it was all she could do not to reach out and touch him.
They raced around the table. Margot had the black. She let it go to lightly stroke the white. Colm reached for it but, as he aimed, Margot lay down in between, smiling at him triumphantly. The white ball came to a halt behind her. She laughed throatily. ‘Like for like,’ she said, arching an eyebrow.
Colm discarded the ball and climbed onto the table. ‘I’ve had enough of this game,’ he murmured, taking her wrists and pinning her down. ‘Let’s call it a draw,’ he said, pressing his lips to hers in a kiss.
Kitty
A dark presence has begun to shift in and out of the Hunting Lodge. While the house looks lighter and brighter for those on the earth plane, for me in the In-between, this odious creature is all too apparent. It does not stay for long. I sense it is male and of a lower vibration than myself, coming perhaps from some lesser plane, but why, I do not know. I am used to the coming and going of other spirits, but this entity is different. Disgruntled, angry and resentful, its shadowy form lingers in the drawing room, lowering the temperature and the energy, as well as my mood, which is growing increasingly impatient. It gets lonely here in this limbo with no one to talk to except Mrs Carbery.
I never felt lonely before. I was fired up with fury, but that fury is gradually diminishing. I suppose one cannot be furious for ever. Even spirits run out of juice. Mrs Carbery has thrown me, I admit. I thought that, once I’d woken her up to the fact that she is dead, she would find the light and make her way home. She did neither. Her illusory world collapsed and she now knows exactly where she is and isn’t at all happy about it. Maybe I should have left her where she was, in blissful ignorance.
Because of her, one uncomfortable question lingers in my mind. If the light did not come for her, does it mean that it will not come for me? Am I to remain here like her? And for how long? When I am ready to leave, will I find that I cannot?
Mrs B and JP are unaware of the Presence. Except for the lowering of the temperature, which they put down to the draught slipping in through the windows that are old and rickety, or down the chimney. They light the fire, heap on the logs, but as long as the Presence remains, the room will not warm up. Still, JP likes to use that room. It’s the music, I think, now he’s rediscovered his old records. Perhaps the Presence likes the music too, although I suspect it’s too mean to have a place in its heart for beauty.
JP is improving every day. The Deverills might not make life easy for themselves with their uncontrollable passions, but they have wills of steel. Once JP decided he would abstain from alcohol, that was that. Margot and Colm held up a mirror so that he could see himself and what he had become, and he made a conscious decision to change. I admire him for that. Perhaps, once he is fully recovered, he might work towards recovering the castle, although I’m not sure how he’ll do it, now that it is in the hands of the ambitious and avaricious Mrs de Lisle. I don’t like that woman, not one bit.
They have decided to employ a medium to entertain their guests. When my grandmother Adeline was alive, she and her two sisters, Hazel and Laurel, used to hold seances to contact the dead. I remember the table trembling as Barton Deverill, the old curmudgeon, used to sabotage their efforts with mischief. I think I can create a little mischief of my own. My fury might have lost its force, but it doesn’t require much strength to be mischievous and I really am dreadfully bored.
Colm is in love with Margot. I should have seen that coming. He has the passion of both the Deverills and the O’Learys, and I should know. They think the Fairy Ring is their special place, but it was mine and Jack’s, Alana and JP’s, and plenty of other love-struck souls’ before they came along to claim it for themselves. The land on which those stones were placed five thousand years ago has a very special energy, buried deep in the soil when the earth was created. Historians and archaeologists debate the mystery, claiming the stones were arranged to view the sun and the moon, or the planets and stars, to commemorate the dead or sacrifice the living, but they never look down. In the very depths of the earth beneath their feet is a magnetic pull. A supernatural energy that affects the ground above it and all those who step onto it. Even in death I am drawn to it. I bathe in its radiance and feel profoundly the connection of my soul to its source, somewhere out there, beyond the far distant horizon.
Jack is drawn to it because of the memories. It is among those stones that I often find him with his dog, staring at the skyline as if I am to be found there, in the mist. It is there that I find him now. I sense the heaviness in his heart – the weight of love that has nowhere to go. His mourning is my consolation. His regret mine too. While he is here, within the circle of stones, he belongs to me. He remembers the passion and the pain, and I come alive in his memory. If only he knew that I am with him still. He is searching for me at the point where the sea meets the sky and yet I am right here by his side, reliving the memories too.
Then, to my surprise, his wife appears. She steps into the circle and draws him away from his reverie. I am affronted. This is our place. She has no right to be here.
‘What are you doing up here, Emer?’ he asks. I would ask the same question, if I could.
She smiles in that serene way of hers. She has always smiled like that, without vanity or passion, and I feel myself bristle because she is like the calm, quiet bottom of the sea while I have always been like the waves, changeable, moody and erratic. ‘I came to find you,’ she replies.
‘Is everything all right?’
‘Alana is packing. She’ll be wanting to leave soon.’
‘Aye, I’m aware of the time.’
She stands beside him and they turn into the wind, taking pleasure from the gusts that blow salty and damp off the water. She sighs and puts her hands in her coat pockets. ‘I wish she didn’t have to leave.’
‘So do I,’ he agrees. ‘But she’s made her life in America now.’
‘I shouldn’t complain. I was born there. It’s where you and I met. America’s a fine country to live in.’
‘She belongs here, as do we. I settled in America as a young man but I pined for home.’
Emer takes his hand. ‘I’m grateful for the life we built here together. I’ve been very happy, Jack.’
He settles his blue eyes onto her face and he cannot help but return her smile with tenderness. They built their life together, but it was she who was the cement that prevented it from falling apart when our love affair was discovered. One word from him and I would have left Robert and gone anywhere in the world. I was ready to drop everything. Yet no word came. Nothing. I was too late. Jack was wiser than me. You cannot build happiness on the unhappiness of those you love. You simply cannot.
‘I know you mourn Kitty,’ she says suddenly.
‘I know you do,’ he replies.
‘I understand. She was your great love. I don’t want you to feel guilty about it. It is possible to love two women at the same time, in different ways.’
He frowns, gazing down at her as if he is struggling to make her out, this creature as serene as the bottom of the sea. She sighs, not in a weary way, but gently, consoling. ‘I know that you have struggled with this for all of our married life,’ she says.
‘Not all of it,’ he corrects her.
‘Most of it.’
‘I fell in love with you in Am
erica, good and proper,’ Jack tells her firmly, and I know he is telling the truth. I had refused to leave Ireland; I don’t suppose his memories of me were so tender back then.
‘But eventually we came here and, well, there she was. No one could rival Kitty Deverill in looks or character. With her flame-red hair and those stormy grey eyes, she was like no other. And she was a part of your childhood. You’d grown up together. I couldn’t compete with her beauty or the roots that connected you.’
‘You didn’t have to, Emer. You were always mine.’ Jack frowns again and squeezes her hand. ‘What’s brought all this on?’
She shrugs and looks wistful. ‘Life is short. We’re old. There are things that need to be said. Things that I need to say.’
‘Has Alana said something?’
‘She still loves JP, you know.’
‘I suspect she does.’
‘She wouldn’t be so hurt if she didn’t still care.’
‘JP’s a mess. He doesn’t deserve her.’
‘No, he doesn’t. But he did once and they created a beautiful family together. It makes me sad when I think what could have been. It makes me sad now to think of her leaving.’
‘Is that why you’re coming out with all this nonsense?’
She laughs. ‘I just want you to know that I don’t judge you, Jack. I also want you to know that I understand why you’re unhappy sometimes. You can mourn her without guilt. I’m not jealous. I wasn’t jealous when she was alive and I’m not jealous now she’s dead. And you can talk to me about her.’
Jack looks at her in bewilderment. ‘You’re a better person than I could ever be,’ he says and his voice is full of regret.
‘You must never beat yourself up for loving, Jack.’
‘I beat myself up for disrespecting you.’
‘Stop that now. Let’s celebrate your love, and Kitty. We stand among her ashes. Let’s not be bitter about the past, let’s honour it instead. It is what it is, after all, and nothing can change it. I love you. You’re my husband and my friend and the journey that’s got us to this point has made us into the people we are today. We’ve done all right, haven’t we? We’ve survived.’
‘Only because of you, Emer.’ Jack pulls her into his arms and holds her tight. ‘I’m sorry if I ever hurt you, or didn’t see you, or took you for granted. You’re right, we’re old. There are things that need to be said.’
‘I forgive you, Jack,’ she whispers, and I am deeply moved.
I stand aside as these two people make peace with each other, and I realize, to my shame, that it takes courage to say sorry and courage to forgive. I fought in the War of Independence; I carried on after Michael Doyle raped me in his farmhouse; I put aside my own desires in order to bring up JP as my own; I thought I, more than anyone else, had courage, but I was wrong. It takes courage to forgive and I have none.
* * *
I am drawn to the Hunting Lodge. JP is in the drawing room with Colm and Margot. They have finished dinner and are at the card table, playing Monopoly. I immediately sense the Presence. The fire is lit and yet I feel the chill. Margot has wrapped a shawl about her shoulders, Colm wears a jerkin over his sweater and JP keeps warm with a velvet jacket even though it is early March and velvet is traditionally a winter fabric. Classical music resounds from the record player in the cupboard. It is an uplifting sound. The Presence lingers close, a shadowy figure who, as I focus, becomes more defined. I cannot make out his clothes, for he is dark and blurred, but I can make out his size. He is a big man, with long hair and some sort of jacket, for the buttons gleam. His energy is so dense and heavy it is hard for me to reach him. But I speak to him nonetheless and hope that he can hear me. Speaking to spirits has never frightened me. In that I have courage enough.
‘Hello,’ I say. When nothing happens I try again. ‘Hello.’ The Presence doesn’t move. It remains by the cupboard as if it is drinking in the music. Can it really be here because of the music? I wonder. ‘Do you like what you hear?’ I ask. ‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ I feel the prickly sensation of its attention as it turns its focus away from the music, onto me. I continue bravely. ‘It’s Richard Strauss, I believe. Do you like Strauss? I have always loved music. It is balm for the soul.’ I feel as if the Presence is now seeing me, and is surprised to find that it is not alone. I wonder whether it can see JP, Margot and Colm. I somehow think not. It comes towards me, a towering man with a fearsome energy, as brown and heavy as mud.
‘You see me?’ I hear. His voice is deep and gruff like grinding pebbles on a desolate beach.
‘Of course I see you,’ I reply with confidence. ‘You are a spirit like me. Why would I not see you?’
‘Are you here for the music, too?’
‘No. I’m here because I used to live here. Are you here for the music?’
‘Yes, I was in a dark, miserable place and then, suddenly, I was here. It is the music that does it. I have worked that out now. It is the music I am here for. Then I am back in my hovel and the music has gone. There is no music where I live.’
‘Where do you live?’
‘In a horrible place. I used to live in a castle.’
‘Castle Deverill?’ I ask.
‘The very one,’ he replies.
‘I used to live there too,’ I tell him.
He steps closer and I feel the stinging sensation of his scrutiny. ‘I do not recognize you.’
‘Nor I you,’ I reply, lifting my chin and standing my ground. ‘I am Kitty Deverill. Who are you?’
‘I know no Kitty Deverill,’ he growls, his voice full of accusation, as if he takes me for a liar.
‘Then you cannot have lived in the castle.’
‘I did not just live in the castle. I owned it.’
My interest is now well and truly piqued. ‘You are not Barton Deverill, nor are you Egerton Deverill, for I have come across both. Nor are you my grandfather Hubert or my father Bertie.’
He sighs as if my listing of names is a bore. ‘I am Tarquin Deverill,’ he states impatiently. ‘Which must make you… too many generations past to count.’
Chapter 15
With spring came a renewed sense of optimism. Beneath the warm sun the landscape burst forth with purple heather and yellow gorse. Wild orchids and thyme flourished among the long grasses and the earth itself gave off the sweet scent of regeneration. The clamour of birds heralded the dawn in the early hours of the morning, filling the air with their uplifting twitter as the sky cracked and slowly leaked liquid gold onto the horizon.
The feeling of renewal was infectious. JP laboured in the garden, his heart full of wonder at the awesome sight of nature and his own miraculous recovery, for a miracle it surely was. He had relinquished the drink and in its place discovered a new vigour and an exhilarating sense of purpose. With a clear mind and a steady focus he had realized what he wanted, or rather who he wanted. It was an outrageous desire, but wasn’t it true that the limitations in our lives are only the ones we impose upon ourselves? Our lives are, in fact, full of potential waiting to be realized. The trick was to have the courage to manifest it. JP kept his secret to himself, however. He didn’t want Colm to put him off and he didn’t want to ruin the fragile relationship they were gradually rebuilding. Mrs B would simply shake her head and tell him that those kinds of dreams cannot be manifested, however hard the heart longs for them. The only person who would understand was Margot. Kind, compassionate, sweet Margot who had set him on the path of recovery in the first place. But he wasn’t ready to tell her. Not yet. He wanted it to be a surprise and he wanted to be himself again. Of course, the person he’d fear telling the most was Alana. But she’d gone back to America and it would be a while before she returned. That gave him time. Time to find the old JP.
Every morning he rode out in the hills, sometimes alone but often with Colm or Margot. With each ride he began to feel himself again. When he galloped over the grass his mind was wrenched out of the past and placed firmly in the moment. It was in th
e moment where he found, albeit fleetingly, the young man he once was, defined neither by time nor experience, but by his keen and exuberant heart.
Little by little his reflection began to change in his bathroom mirror. First it was the skin tone that improved, from blotchy to even, then it was the whites of his eyes, from the colour of old parchment to a bright, healthy white, finally it was the fat around his jawline and the bloat in his cheeks that left him looking years younger and handsome, even. This transformation spurred him on and brought him closer to his goal. It was possible, after all, for his old and battered heart to fill again with love. The feeling was intoxicating. How had he survived so many years of bitterness and resentment, he wondered, when love had always been there, patiently waiting to be rediscovered?
* * *
Margot had started writing the book. Her gratitude towards JP for allowing her access to those boxes of family records was immense. She realized, as she pounded away on her electric typewriter, that she couldn’t have begun to bring these Deverill characters to life had it not been for the letters, diaries and ledgers hidden in those seemingly dull boxes. She was excited. A gripping tale was slowly unfolding, for this family was indeed dogged by tragedy, drama, scandal and success. From the moment Barton Deverill built his castle on land stolen from the O’Leary family, a terrible seed was sown. A seed that sprouted into the beanstalk that spawned generations of titans and endless suffering. JP had been right. He was the Jack of the fairy tale who cut it down and brought an end to the Deverill legacy. If her theory – that the obsession with the castle had only brought the Deverill heirs unhappiness – was correct, then the freeing of their ties should have brought JP release, yet it hadn’t. It had brought him pain, shame and a crippling sense of loss. JP’s sorrow undermined her entire argument.
However, she did not focus on the ending, but concentrated on what she was currently writing. The words came easily, she had never suffered from writer’s block, but she was distracted. Every time she lifted her eyes off the page she saw Colm.
The Distant Shores Page 23