Finding Tom Connor

by Sarah-Kate Lynch

  ‘I feel like my whole life has been a dream, Viv, and I’ve just woken up to find out what it’s really like and it’s all out of control and awful.’

  ‘It will get better, Molly. I know that’s hard to believe right now but it will.’

  ‘Well, it very nearly got better last night,’ her niece said. ‘I met this most amazing—’

  The door into the bar chimed as it opened and they both turned to see an over-excited wiry little middle-aged man bustle in, head swivelling. He gave them one look and headed straight for them.

  ‘Vivienne Connor and Molly Brown, what a pleasure it is to have you here in Ballymahoe. Are you all right for a drink? Can I get you anything? No? Ah, now, where are my manners? Of course, I know you but you don’t know me. I’m Gerry O’Reilly, I run the Relate team down here. I think Charlie Ahern explained the whole Relate business to you, did he not? Well it’s us has been on the trail of your brother Tom, Ms Connor, and has he led us a merry dance! There’s not too many folk can disappear without trace but your Tom, now, he came just about as close as you can get—’

  ‘Would you like a seat, Mr O’Reilly?’ Vivienne said, indicating a chair at the table behind them that could easily be dragged to the barrel.

  Gerry looked around and rubbed his hands together, then looked at the place on his wrist where a watch should have been.

  ‘Do you have the time, Ms Connor? It’s just that while it’s been a merry dance and all it hasn’t been a total disaster and in fact given how we first thought things were looking it may well prove to be one of the greatest triumphs O’Rellys has ever managed!’

  ‘Is it Uncle Tom?’ Molly asked. ‘Have you found Tom Connor?’

  Gerry was clearly agitated. ‘Could you ladies excuse me a moment? I’ll just make one quick phone call and make sure everything’s running smoothly. It wouldn’t do to have any hiccups in the proceedings right now.’ And he was gone, nearly knocking Brendan off his feet as he fled to the back room behind the bar, the beefy barman following him.

  ‘Is it just me or is it hard to get a word of sense out of that man?’ Molly asked her aunt. ‘Did they find Tom Connor or not?’

  ‘It’s not just you. I don’t think they have,’ Viv answered, looking around the bar. The bell on the door had been chiming constantly since they arrived and the place was nearly full.

  Vaguely familiar faces from all corners waved at Viv and nodded encouragingly at Molly, who was working her way through her rocket fuel.

  Vivienne returned each smile without feeling the warm flush of embarrassment she was sure she should. Vivienne Connor did not let loose and carry on in strange places. Not in New York. Not ever. But over here it didn’t seem to matter. In fact, if she was honest with herself, she felt better than she had in a long, long time. Not just because she had gotten wild and crazy in the local bar but because she had told her terrible secret to someone. To someone she tried hard to love. And don’t ask her why — ask her therapist — she felt that the atmosphere between the two of them had improved immeasurably since.

  Brendan was back behind the bar, looking only slightly harried, so Molly jumped up to order another drink.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ she asked the barman. ‘Is there a problem with Tom Connor?’

  ‘Oh, we try very hard not to have any problems in Ballymahoe,’ joked Brendan. ‘It’s why people love it here so much. Now, you go and sit down and I’ll bring the drink over with me.’

  Molly went back to her barrel, shrugging her shoulders at Viv. The place was alive with chatter and warmth and she suddenly knew that even if Tom Connor was bald and one-legged, it would be all right. They would be all right. In this place, anyway.

  ‘You can finish your story while we’re waiting,’ said Viv. ‘My nerves are getting to me. You were in the church across from the cake shop …’

  ‘I was in the church and there was a wedding going on and I was sitting in the back crying when the whole wedding party passed me down the aisle. Can you believe it? God knows what they thought of me, but I was sitting there blubbing when I suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder — aaaaaah!’

  Molly jumped out of her seat as she suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder — but this time it was Gerry O’Reilly.

  ‘They’re here,’ he was saying excitedly. ‘They’re here!’ He turned around and shouted at Brendan, who was approaching with their drinks: ‘Will you open the door, man. They’re here!’

  Brendan turned on his heels and was halfway to the door when it opened of its own accord. The noise level in the bar dropped measurably when they saw who was coming in as Gerry, nearly apoplectic with excitement, clapped his hands and announced, ‘May I introduce to you, Miss Mary Rose Connor, daughter of Tom!’ and in shuffled a mousy brown woman wrapped up in an ill-fitting brown coat wearing thick spectacles and a greasy ponytail.

  ‘And her brother,’ Gerry paused for emphasis as even the locals fell silent, ‘Father Paudie Connor,’ and in through the door, in a long black coat over his black threads and white dog collar, walked Pohraig.

  Chapter 30

  Mid 1990

  Brendan Byrne was worried. In all the years he’d known Gerry O’Reilly, he’d never seen him this gloomy.

  He was stood at the bar, staring into his pint and thinking black thoughts.

  ‘It’s not all bad, Gerry,’ Brendan counselled. ‘You were right about the pub. Ever since we un-renovated it and stuffed it full of everyone’s old junk I’ve been doing a roaring trade, and that’s without the Blessed Mother.’

  Gerry looked at him. ‘Well, that’s all very well for you, Brendan, but what about the rest of us? The Fogartys and the Mahoneys can’t go on for ever you know. It’s been nearly a year now since the widow’s confession and trade is certainly dropping off out there. And as for me, knocking 50 and with barely a penny to my name — without my saint of a mother I’d be living on the streets begging for food.’

  ‘If they were the streets of Ballymahoe you wouldn’t go hungry, Gerry,’ Brendan assured him.

  ‘If they were the street of Ballymahoe I wouldn’t want much of an appetite, either, Brendan. Ah,’ he said angrily, ‘it’s just much harder to find these Irish relatives than I thought it would be. Wouldn’t you think the countryside would be crawling with them? Every auld wan you meet has a truckload of nieces and nephews gone out to live in America or Australia, but they’re never the ones being looked for. Is that this Murphy’s Law we’re always hearing so much about?’

  Gerry was off his pint, a state of affairs never before witnessed in Brendan’s bar, or O’Sullivans est. 1654, as it was now known.

  ‘Is there something else the matter, Gerry?’

  Brendan’s friend looked at him and sighed.

  ‘That eejit Charlie Ahern up in Dublin has made a right mess of things,’ he said. ‘He’s only promised some poor woman a great-great-aunt that we can’t quite put our finger on.’

  Brendan disappeared into the back room and came out with a nice clean bag of sawdust, which he set about sprinkling on the floor.

  ‘That must be easily enough fixed. Can’t he fax her that there’s been a mistake and the old woman is not who he thought she was?’

  Gerry listlessly watched Brendan at his sprinkling.

  ‘If the woman hadn’t already left California to come over here, yes, he could have, but as she is due in Ireland in the next couple of hours, he’s left it just a little bit late.’

  Brendan stood up, confused.

  ‘Why did he tell her that he had found her if he hadn’t?’

  ‘Because he’s an eejit and the woman was desperate and he thought he was onto a Cecilia Corrigan over near Knocknagarry who turns out to be a Cecil Cadogan who’s not even Irish and has lived here all of five minutes and happens to earn his living by writing pornographic film scripts.’

  ‘Well, what’s Charlie going to do with your woman from California?’ Brendan asked, shaking out the last of the sawdust and straightening a picture of so
meone’s great-grandmother hanging on the wall between the horse brasses and an old fiddle.

  ‘Only put her on a bus to Ballymahoe!’ Gerry said bleakly. ‘Where I will have to break the bad news to her and send her home again.’

  Brendan was noisily straightening chairs around the barrels and assorted tables the cosily lamp-lit pub now had scattered about the concrete floor.

  ‘Ah, Brendan, the chairs still match!’ Gerry said disgustedly. ‘How is anyone going to think this is an authentic Irish pub if you haven’t made any effort to orchestrate the right furniture?’

  Brendan looked miffed. ‘I couldn’t get a single soul to give up a seat, Gerry,’ he said, adding bitterly, ‘and in fact I’m still waiting for this old Auntie Eileen of mine that you promised would turn up with her huge supply of poxy old chairs.’

  ‘Ah, now, don’t be a spoilsport, Brendan. Everyone has an Auntie Eileen somewhere.’

  Brendan noisily pushed a chair under a table. ‘You know yourself,’ he said in a clipped voice, ‘how hard it can be tracking down relations.’

  Ignoring the jibe, Gerry snorted in derision.

  ‘Well, if it was an Auntie Eileen everyone was after I wouldn’t be having any trouble at all, man. Sure, people who aren’t even Irish could probably come to West Cork and find themselves an Auntie Eileen. She’s just a woman of a certain age, running the family house while her ancient father lies upstairs bedridden drinking tea by the gallon and talking about the famine. If you can’t rustle up an Auntie Eileen, Brendan, there’s something wrong with you.’

  Brendan was bristling with rage by now. ‘Well, if you’re such a grand fine family-finder, Gerry, you rustle me up an Auntie Eileen. And make sure she has 24 mis-matched chairs while you’re at it.’ And he threw his empty sack over his shoulder in an almost most theatrical fashion and flounced into the back room.

  Gerry was sitting, frozen, over his pint.

  ‘Jesus, Brendan,’ he whispered, beads of sweat breaking out on his brow, ‘rustle you up an Auntie Eileen? Jesus, Brendan!’ He stood up and yelled over the bar at his friend. ‘Brendan! You’re a bloody genius.’

  His friend popped his head out from the back-room door. ‘I am?’ he said doubtfully. It wasn’t a theory he heard a lot.

  ‘You’re a bloody genius, man, and don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.’ He stood up and knocked back his pint in one gulp. ‘We’ve been friends a long time, Brendan, and haven’t you always been able to trust me with your life?’ Gerry had that old familiar glimmer in his eye.

  ‘Well, there was the time you got me to test out those half-price bungy ropes from Taiwan,’ Brendan said, rubbing the hard little knub left in his skull from the fall.

  ‘Okay, well, not literally, then, but theoretically, have you always been able to trust me with your life?’

  ‘I suppose,’ Brendan said, with a sinking feeling he often attributed to moments like this with Gerry.

  ‘When the American lady arrives, send her over to my mam’s, Brendan, and not a word about it to anybody.’

  ‘What do you mean not a word about it to anybody? When the American woman arrives I’ll have to tell her to go over to your mam’s so is that a word to anybody in your book? Because it would be in mine, all right.’

  Gerry regretted, briefly, thinking that Brendan was a genius.

  ‘When the American woman arrives, Brendan, make her more welcome than you’ve ever made anybody. Then tell her that Gerry O’Reilly, the grand fine family-finder, has travelled every road, every valley, searched every nook and cranny of this beautiful part of south-west Ireland and has found her Great-great-aunt Cecilia.’

  Brendan looked dumbfounded.

  ‘Then what would she be wanting over at your mam’s?’

  ‘That’s where she’ll be reunited with the lovely old dear. Are you with me, Brendan?’

  Understanding rose in Brendan’s eyes like the summer sun, only slower.

  ‘You’re the bleedin’ genius, Gerry, God love you.’

  Gerry headed for the door, grinning from ear to ear.

  ‘We’ll need a couple of weeks to sort out the details, Bren,’ he said, stopping in the doorway. ‘Then it’s a simple matter of calling a meeting to discuss the OTHER alternative plan.’

  Chapter 31

  Sunday, 21 February 1999

  Pohraig and Molly stared at each other across the pub as the scene pulsed and throbbed around them.

  Molly couldn’t hear anything but the sound of the blood pumping in her ears. She felt hot. She felt shocked. She felt sick to her stomach.

  So, he was a priest. That certainly explained a lot. The drunkenness and lack of enthusiasm on the sex front for a start. The indulgent way in which everyone at the wedding treated him. Aha. The lady in the bun shop: ‘We’ve not seen him out and about since …’ Of course. Pohraig’s own bumbling that he couldn’t, he didn’t, there was something she should know. It all made sense now.

  But why hadn’t he told her? They’d talked enough, hadn’t they? The bastard. The lying bloody bastard. And didn’t she know enough of those already? And didn’t he know she knew enough of those already?

  ‘Molly, are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!’ It was Viv’s smiling face beaming at her as she shook her niece’s arm.

  ‘His kids! Your cousins! Can you believe it? Come on!’ And grabbing her hand, Vivienne led a wooden Molly through the excited crowd towards Gerry’s beckoning finger and her new-found relations.

  ‘Father, are you all right?’ Gerry said, leaning over towards the priest as Vivienne and Molly approached. ‘You don’t look too good. Pull yourself together, son. Can I get you something?’

  Pohraig stared, ashen faced, as Molly, her head bowed, moved in slow motion towards him. He could not open his mouth to speak. Mary Rose stayed staring at the floor.

  Gerry, over-excited beyond belief now and failing to pick up any tension in the situation, grabbed at Vivienne as soon as she was close enough and thrust her in front of him.

  ‘Meet Vivienne Connor, daughter of Michael and Kathleen O’Connor, sister of your father, Tom, although they were separated from each other at a very early age, as you know.’

  Vivienne grasped Mary Rose by the shoulders and kissed her on each cheek, making the woman blush to the crown of her head, which was all they could really see.

  Then she took a step back and looked lengthily and admiringly at Father Paudie.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ she said, tears welling in her eyes. ‘You look just like my mother — it’s uncanny.’ And grabbing him too by his shoulder, she pulled the priest to her, resting her head on his chest, as he stiffly put one arm around her back and stared down at a fixed point on the floor.

  Gerry looked on, grinning from ear to ear, as Molly was hustled and bumped by the people around her making their way between the chairs and tables and the bar.

  ‘And not forgetting,’ he said proudly, ‘Miss Molly Brown, niece of Vivienne Connor and your own late father, Tom.’ He pulled Molly towards Mary Rose but not before Vivienne sprang back from Pohraig’s half-hearted embrace and lurched over to grab Gerry’s sleeve, pushing Molly back away from her cousins.

  ‘Their own late father, Tom?’ she said desperately. ‘Their late father?’

  Gerry dropped the smile and looking at her slightly nervously.

  ‘I was after telling you earlier, Ms Connor, but I wanted to give you the good news, show you the good news first. Can you blame me? I thought maybe losing a brother wouldn’t seem so bad in the light of gaining a nephew and a niece. Was I wrong?’

  Vivienne turned to Pohraig and Mary Rose and pulled them both to her in a gesture that would have worked better from a much bigger person more used to hugging. Instead she sort of clung to the space in the middle of them and they poked out from either side of her, both staring at the floor.

  Pohraig slowly raised his eyes to meet Molly’s.

  ‘You must think we’re so rude,’ he said, a naked pleading i
n his gaze, as he held out his hand in her direction. ‘I’m Pohraig and this is my sister, Mary Rose. Nice to meet you, Molly.’

  As if in a dream, she slowly reached out and shook his hand, but the touch of his skin, the strength of his grip, the very feel of him, snapped her out of her torpor and she snatched back her hand and gasped for air, as if she had been holding her breath underwater.

  Mary Rose extricated herself from Viv’s clutches and also held out her hand.

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ she repeated, looking up from under a mousy brown fringe and smiling shyly at her new relation. ‘We’ve never had cousins before.’

  ‘Right!’ said Gerry, clapping his hands together. ‘Why don’t you all go and get acquainted and I will organise a drink or two. Brendan!’ and he turned and held one hand above the crowd, clicking his fingers as the punters made way for him.

  ‘Come this way, guys,’ said Viv, pulling at Mary Rose and leading her over towards the fire. ‘We’ve got the best spot in the whole damn place,’ she said over her shoulder to Pohraig. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Excuse my French. Or is swearing allowed these days?’

  ‘Fine, yes, that’s fine,’ Pohraig said weakly, before turning his back to the barrel, to face Molly, and slowly starting to take off his coat.

  ‘Please don’t say anything,’ he whispered, head down, barely moving his lips. ‘I can explain everything. Just don’t—’ but Molly pushed past him, hissing, ‘Don’t even speak to me,’ as she brushed the priest’s side.

  My heart, she thought to herself as she sat down, what is wrong with my heart? It was hot by the fire and she looked over the barrel at her aunt’s face, flushed more with excitement and anticipation than heat, as she chattered on at Mary Rose.