by Orna Ross
“We’ll have to get back to the work. We’ll be needed more than ever now the army is…”
“They are our neighbours,” JJ interrupted. “And maybe now is the time to find friendship between us. While we still can.”
Máire fell back onto her pillow with surprise.
Peg found herself saying, “You might be right, Daddy.”
Nothing happened at this saying of the unsayable except for a small sigh. The three of them sat on, in silence, until Máire spoke again to JJ, but kindly, not cross. “You’d better go down and open up.”
“I will in a moment,” Peg’s father said. “The world will be met and its doings will be done. But let us just remain here, in the quiet, for another moment.”
Break: Jo
Break
Dear Rory,
I love you. Let’s start from there. Neither of us used the word today so let’s have it said. I love you — more than I’ve ever loved anyone else, before or after. Even that doesn’t quite describe it. For me, there was no before you, there has been no after.
Do you know what I did when I left you today and got back here to the shed? I wrote to Sue Denim. Yes, to that version of me that other people come to with their problems. And do you know what she said? She told me to tell you that it’s over.
So that’s what I’m doing. Hence this note, pinned on the door of my shed, even though I said I’d be here tonight.
You were right, today. I was troubled when I arrived here. I did need a friend and thank you, Rory, for being that.
I haven’t had proper friendship since the early days of Richard’s illness. Those days, when we first realised he was going to die, were his happiest ever, he once told me. Mine too. Isn’t that strange? We were always stopping in those days to admire a flower, or something in a store window, or an old lady’s face. He used to say he had never really looked at things until he knew he was going to lose his sight, and never really lived until he knew he was dying.
I can feel him now, as I’m writing, frail on my arm as we walked around the city together, looking. So light, no burden. No burden.
After that, I went wrong. The papers you gave me, Gran’s diary especially, has shown me how. And what I must do to put it right. Which is: let you go.
When we were young, I so wanted you to follow me, Rory. I wanted that long, long, long after there ceased to be any possibility that you might. I could follow that want of mine now, I could let it take me all the way into an affair. That’s what you and I have been doing, by default. Letting our desire build and build until one day soon, we’d find ourselves overwhelmed. We’d “give in”, and claim we had “no choice”.
No. Not because I don’t thrill to the thought, Rory, we both know I do. But no.
We missed our moment, my love. For reasons that were set in motion long before we came into the story, that love of ours failed to survive all that was ranged against it. You hurt me and I hurt you and, between us, we destroyed it.
Almost.
I’m leaving tomorrow and so I can tell you. As I say goodbye, I want you to know how in that place where there is no before and no after, I do still love you.
I am and will forever be,
Your Jo.
Plash: Nora
Norah 1923
Thirty-six hours she was in the coming. The pain of pushing my insides out, pain cutting me to blood. Two nights and a live-long day with no one to talk to. All I had was a cross old nun saying every few hours I'd be another while yet. And getting annoyed with me because she wanted to be in her bed.
Curses to the Lord. Curses on curses and pain on pain, for a night and a day and another long night. And when she finally came, she didn't come easy. Push. Push again. Push, for God's sake, push would you, push I said, push can't you? Push.
At the very last, when I could do no more, Child took over herself.
"It's coming, it's coming," said the nun. Out my daughter slithered in a rush of blood.
She was given to me and — oh! — all curled over, she was, from being inside me, her back curved like a bowl and her hands and feet like little cups. A black downy head on her. Arms and legs purple and fleshy. Bits of my body and blood stuck to her.
And her eyes. Open so wide they seemed half the size of her face. I couldn't take my own off them. They drew me in.
"Look how she's looking at me," I said to the nun.
"Don't fool yourself," she said. "Newborns see nothing for weeks."
She was wrong. I was being seen and it was opening my own eyes wide too.
Too wide.
They cut the cord. All for the best, they said. Hush now, stop now, all for the best now.
They took her away as my bosoms were filling. Your milk's come in, the auld nurse said, when I told of the pain in them. Full hard fit to burst, longing for little lips to ease them. And beneath, my belly shrinking, closing in round the space where she used to be.
I got to name her. Máirín, Maureen, but the Irish way. The new way. At least there’s that. The nun said they’d keep it while she was with them but once adopted, they could call her anything.
Child, Child, I can’t be naming you, so. Let’s leave it at Child. Leave me here, so, leaking every kind of liquid, blood and milk and tears, from every soft spot left in me.
THE END
Before the Fall
The Sequel to After the Rising
Click here to buy Before The Fall, the sequel to After The Rising on my website OrnaRoss.com or your favorite online bookstore
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Before the Fall picks up where After the Rising left off and is again narrated by Jo Devereux, in the same hot summer of 1995. We now know who killed Barney, Jo’s great-uncle—or we think we do—but who killed the person who killed him?
The answer plunges Jo back into Rory’s arms and further under the surface story of nationalist politics she’s been bequeathed, into a far more primal struggle: that between men and women.
For a century the 1920s civil war conflict in Ireland has been known as ‘The War of The Brothers’ but this book pays tribute to the sisters: the many women who, in the words of Jo’s Granny Peg and my own Auntie Ag, also ‘did their bit’ for the independence struggle. And also the experience of the many women and men who, like Jo, like me, find they cannot live on the island of Ireland, for whatever reason—but are none the less Irish for that.
And so we come to now. How Ireland commemorates those years of 1922 and 1923, and what grew out of them, a hundred years on will be telling. The commemoration of the 1916 Rising has been both praised for being “well organised, sensitive, dignified and inclusive”, and also criticised for the opposite: glorifying a “narrow concept of Irishness.” 1 Which is it? Both, of course.
The only way to prevent conflict building around two opposing sides is to allow other voices to be also heard. You can’t claim the glory of the Rising if you ignore the shame of what followed. You can’t walk away from your past, you must accept it as you work for a finer future. You can’t have a rising without a fall, or a fall without a rising.
The Easter Rising of 1916 was a theatre of insurrection, inspiring more of what became known as its “terrible beauty”2 of violent rebellion, while simultaneously generating pride in a newborn nation. The Civil War was a less complex, with more terror and less beauty. A kitchen conflict, far more everyday, far more personal, and consequently far more frightening.
Before the Fall doesn’t have all the answers to these big questions but—as the lies of her family’s past collide with her own secrets today—Jo finds that asking the right questions is more important than ever.
1 Dennis Kennedy. 2016. “Pride in ‘inclusive’ 1916 commemoration rings hollow”. Irish Times.
2 WB Yeats. 1921. “Easter 1916”
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Acknowledgments
My thanks to Jane Dixon Smith for cover design, to Margaret Hunter of Daisy Editorial for editing and proofreading and to Sarah Begley and the Book Whisperer team, especially Emily Volpe, for assistance with editorial and formatting. County Wexford is blessed with an abundance of talented, devoted local historians, and I am greatly indebted to their work, particularly that which acknowledges the lives of women.
Publication Note
The early parts of this trilogy were first published in 2006 by Penguin Ireland as Lovers Hollow, and subsequently republished by me in 2011, and further developed into a trilogy. This allowed me to give the books the title and treatment I had first envisaged when writing the books.
The joy of that self-publishing experience, and the experience of selling more books than Penguin, made me a passionate advocate for indie authors and led to the formation of the Alliance of Independent Authors.
Also by Orna Ross: Fiction
My novels are family murder mysteries, stories of lies, secrets and the ties that bind, across centuries and continents
—The Irish Trilogy—
An epic trilogy that follows five generations of women as they move through the momentous dramas of the 20th century.
—The Yeats Trilogy—
A famous poet, his revolutionary muse, and her confused daughter. What is true and what can only be imagined?
—Blue Mercy—
A heart-breaking, mother and daughter mystery, with a patricide at its heart.
* * *
You can buy my novels directly from me on my website, or on your favorite online store
Also By Orna Ross: Poetry
My poetry aims to inspire. It doesn’t deny doubt, damage or despair but seeks that secret space where we can also transact with the truth of beauty.
* * *
—Chapbooks—
Chapbooks of inspirational poetry: Ten poems at a time.
* * *
—Themed Poetry Selections—
Here is Where: A Book of Remembrance Poetry
Allowing Now: A Book of Mindfulness Poetry
Nightlight as it Rises: A Book of Love Poetry
* * *
—Occasional Poetry Selections—
Poetry for Christmas
Poetry for Mother’s Day
And more
* * *
POETRY BOOKS:
You can buy my poetry books directly from me on my website, or on your favorite online store
* * *
BECOME A POETRY PATRON:
You can become a patron of my poetry on Patreon.com/OrnaRoss.
My Patreon page is supported by a band of poetry lovers and indie poets who receive exclusives and bonuses from me. It’s also where I feature the work of other indie poets through #indiepoetryplease
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Copyright © 2011 Orna Ross
Centenary edition © 2020
All rights reserved
ebook: 978-1-913588-48-9
Paperback: 978-1-913588-49-6
Large Print: 978-1-913588-50-2
HB: 978-1-913588-51-9
Audio: 978-1-913588-52-6
The moral rights of the author have been asserted.
All rights reserved.
Enquiries: [email protected]
Published by Font Publications, London, UK.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Font Publications is the publishing imprint for Orna Ross fiction and poetry, the Go Creative! books and the Alliance of Independent Authors author publishing guides.