‘I’m not following you, Gerry,’ Patricia said.
‘Okay,’ said Gerry. He had seen this coming.
‘Imagine this SiobhanKennedy, Patricia.’
‘But I never knew her!’
‘Exactly. That’s why you have to imagine her. Now, imagine that her niece went off to America, and she stayed behind.’
‘Yes, I can imagine that.’
‘And this Siobhan stayed in Ireland and had children, and they had children, and they had children.’
‘Ye-e-e-s,’ said Patricia.
‘And those children would be in their eighties now.’
‘Ye-e-e-s.’
‘And one of them would be living in a town just like Ballymahoe, married to a cranky old shite called Mickey and the mother of five beautiful daughters.’
‘Ye-e-e-s.’
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ shouted Gerry, ‘open your eyes and meet the fourth cousin several times removed of Ivy Kowalski from Something, Nebraska.’
Eyelids flew open around the room to see Gerry, his arms flung open wide, standing behind Patricia O’Meara’s chair.
‘You old fox,’ whispered Dan under his breath. ‘You clever old fox.’
‘Fourth cousin, me arse,’ said Mickey, predictably. ‘That’s my wife.’
‘Technically, she’s your wife, Mickey, but theoretically, she’s Ivy’s fourth cousin,’ Gerry said. ‘Just like technically, Gertie Maguire here is Sheila Mahoney’s mother, but last week she was Great-great-aunt Cecilia to Patty Patinkin from Los Angeles, California.’
Sheila turned in amazement to look at her mother.
‘That’s what you were doing over at the O’Reillys that day?’
‘Ah, all I had to do was talk about the famine and how they all left me and never came back. It was great crack, all right,’ said Gertie. ‘She gave me 50 pounds and bought me a purple jersey, didn’t she, Eileen?’
Sheila and Seamus, the Fogartys, the O’Mearas and the Gintys all turned to stare at Mrs O’Reilly, who was blushing to the roots of her grey, frizzy hair.
‘Auntie Eileen,’ she whispered. ‘I was just the Auntie Eileen.’
‘Doesn’t everybody have an Auntie Eileen?’ asked Brendan. ‘When you think about it.’
Sheila Mahoney looked as though she were about to burst into tears.
‘But you’re not anybody’s Great-great-aunt Cecilia!’ she said to her mother.
‘Well, try telling your woman from Los Angeles that,’ her mother said. ‘She seemed pretty pleased, all right.’
Sheila looked down into her lap and started fiddling nervously with a handkerchief, whipped in moments of stress like this from the sleeve of her cardigan. ‘But it’s cheating,’ she whispered.
The room fell silent, and all eyes turned again to Gerry.
‘Well, I think that’s a very literal interpretation, Sheila,’ said Gerry slowly and contemplatively, ‘and fair play to you for seeing it that way but there is another way to look at it.’
He looked around the room and quickly estimated that they could all go either way on this, and that Sheila was the key.
‘Put it this way,’ he said. ‘Imagine people growing up all over the world knowing that they have roots back here in Ireland and always dreaming about one day finding their cousins or aunts and uncles and coming back here to meet them. Now, what if those dreams are shattered because it costs too much and it’s too hard and no-one can do it? Sheila, these people would give their eye teeth to find their great-great-aunt tucked up in bed in a painted cottage in the middle of a town like Ballymahoe. They’ve thought for years about the sunny day they arrive in West Cork and ask directions to a ramshackle farmhouse and wind their way up narrow roads. They always imagined they’d find distant cousin Paddy sitting behind a table in a darkened room with mud on the floor and a roaring fire burning and tea on the boil.
‘We’d be giving them what they want, Sheila. That’s it, pure and simple. What they want.’
‘And what would they be giving us, Gerry?’ Dan asked, the shadow of a smile on his lips.
‘They would be giving us a future, Dan, same as we talked about when we first set up the agency. They would be giving us turnover at your store. They would be giving the craft shop a market, Kathleen. They’d be helping us and realising their dreams at the same time. We’d be doing them a kindness.’
The room fell silent again.
‘What if they found out, you know, about their new-found loved ones being relatives in theory rather than practice?’ Jenny O’Brien asked.
‘Half the time these people we’re looking for don’t even have a name, Jenny. They’re just a vague notion of someone, sometime, coming from somewhere around here. Obviously, if our clients do have the details we will do our best to locate the practical relation, rather than the theoretical one. We’re delivering a result, Sheila, one way or the other.’
‘But what would the Virgin think?’ asked Sheila Mahoney. ‘To think she blessed Ballymahoe with her presence all those years and now we are reduced to, to, to …’ she wrung her handkerchief and searched for the words, ‘to this theory of relatives.’
Thanks for that, Paddy O’Riordan, Gerry thought briefly.
‘I think the Blessed Mother, having protected Ballymahoe all those years,’ he said, crossing his fingers behind his back, ‘would want us to keep going. She obviously believed this place was worth preserving — otherwise why did she choose us? Don’t you think she would bless our little attempt to bring a bit of joy and happiness to the ascendants of her beloved Ireland?’
Have I laid it on too thick? he wondered, looking at Sheila’s hanky getting a fierce strangling.
‘Well,’ Sheila finally said, looking at her son. ‘When you put it like that …’
‘Dead and gone, me arse!’ shouted Mickey, and for once his friends and neighbours didn’t kick him or punch him but instead laughed and cheered, and clapped him on the back.
Chapter 35
1998
‘What do you mean you can’t find it on the map?’ Craig snapped.
‘How many things can “I can’t find it on the map” mean, Craig?’ Kirsty retaliated. ‘It means that I’ve looked on the map and I can’t fucking well find it.’
‘Well, have you tried looking it up in the index?’ Craig suggested in the voice he kept especially for such occasions.
‘Of course I’ve looked it up in the index. I have used a map before, you know.’
‘You know what?’ Craig said, his anger mounting. ‘You know what? I’ve fucking had enough of this.’ He jerked the car into second gear and furiously pulled it onto the grass verge, where it bumped and jostled to a standstill.
‘Oh, babe, I’m sorry,’ Kirsty said. ‘It’s all my bloody mother’s fault. Let’s just forget it. I’ll tell her that we tried but the silly old bastard in Dublin gave us the wrong directions and it got dark and we asked at two different places and got two completely different stories and then we gave up. How about that?’
Actually, the silly old bastard in Dublin had given them pretty good directions but Kirsty had assumed that because Craig would be driving, he was listening to them, and Craig had assumed that because it was Kirsty’s second-cousin-twice-removed or whatever the hell he was they were looking for, she was listening to them.
As it turned out, neither of them had a clue once they got past Skibbereen and there was not one single mention of Kenmary on either of their maps.
So far, the lady in the bookshop in Durres had told them to go 10 miles in a northerly direction and then stop and ask for directions; while at Aghakista the man in the petrol station had told them to go 12 miles south and then stop and ask for directions.
Naturally, this hadn’t worked out particularly well so now they were travelling in an easterly direction, fighting like children and completely lost.
‘Okay, dollface, let’s skip it — if you’re sure,’ said Craig, mollified, leaning over to kiss her on the cheek. He started the
ignition and checked the rear-vision mirror before pulling back out onto the lane.
‘Yep,’ said Kirsty, running her hands through her cropped, bleached hair and checking her lipstick in the mirror behind the sun visor. ‘I’ll just tell Mum that you wouldn’t let me keep looking.’
Craig jerked the car into fourth.
‘That does it. We’re finding this old fucker,’ he said, teeth clenched as he put his foot to the floor. ‘I’m not having your mum blame me for anything. Anything else, that is. Now, look at the map and tell me where the nearest town is.’
Kirsty did as she was told and directed Craig to Lismurrogh, which was only a couple of miles down the road.
‘It looks quite big on the map,’ she said cheerfully. ‘It’s written in capital letters and everything.’
Lismurrogh turned out to be a pub and nothing else.
‘Here we go again,’ said Craig, pushing his Oakley sunglasses back on his head and its Sydney regulation number one clip, and checking the back pocket of his Levis to make sure his wallet was there.
Kirsty grabbed her little leather backpack and stopped to do up a sloppy lace on one of her Doc Martens. If she took long enough, she calculated, Craig could go in, ask the way, then be back out again without her having to do anything.
She knelt beside the Polo until it was obvious that this was not going to happen, and then followed her boyfriend into the pub.
Craig was standing at one end of the bar while an old angular-looking woman was smoking fags behind it at the other end. A very old fat man with only one eye was playing darts with a younger man who seemed much the worse for wear.
Kirsty stood in the doorway. The first dart the fat man threw, much to her amusement, hit a chair in dire need of re-upholstering. The second hit the wall only 10 metres from the dartboard, and the third landed perilously close to her foot as she stood staring at the scenario.
‘So you’d like a game of darts, then, would ya?’ the younger, drunker guy said.
‘I’m already playing darts with ya, ya eejit,’ the older, blinder one said.
‘I’m not talking to you, Paddy,’ the young one said.
‘I’m not listening to you, Paddy,’ the old one said.
Kirsty checked the air for darts and traipsed over to Craig.
‘It’s like the bloody Twilight Zone in here,’ she said quietly.
‘Tell me about it,’ said Craig. ‘I’ve asked Sourpuss here three times now if she knows the way to Kenmary and she hasn’t so much as looked up from her ashtray.’
Paddy and Paddy were still arguing about who was or was not talking or listening to whom, but Kirsty strode over to them anyway.
‘Excuse me,’ she politely interjected, as both men, disconcertingly, swayed on their feet, ‘would you happen to know what would be the best way to get to Kenmary?’
After a moment’s silence both the Paddys burst into laughter. ‘Yes,’ roared the young one. ‘Swim!’ shouted the other, pointing out the dusty window of the pub and across the water to the peninsula from whence Kirsty and Craig had just come.
‘Thanks. Thanks a lot. Thanks so much.’ Kirsty left the two of them doubled over laughing and sat back down at the bar.
‘Excuse me,’ she called shrilly to the barmaid. ‘Can we have a pint and a half of Guinness and a packet of Marlboros, please.’
To her surprise the sourpuss jumped from her seat and rustled up their drinks and cigarettes in no time at all.
‘Just passing through, then, are you?’ she said, setting their Guinnesses in front of them.
Craig looked at Kirsty and mouthed the do-do-do-do theme from The Twilight Zone while Kirsty turned and smiled politely at the barmaid.
‘Actually, we’re looking for a place called Kenmary,’ she said, as if the woman hadn’t been told that three times before. ‘We’re from Australia and my mum has a cousin there.’
‘Is that right?’ the barmaid said without so much as a glimmer of interest.
‘Yes,’ Kirsty soldiered on. ‘Um, I don’t suppose you know how to get there — Kenmary, I mean?’
The barmaid lit a fresh cigarette with her existing one and without any suggestion that she was even thinking about the question, called out to the arguing Paddys.
‘Which would be the best way to get to Kenmary, Paddy?’
The young Paddy stopped what he was doing, which was trying to pick darts out of the dartboard even though there weren’t any in it.
‘Kenmary? You go six miles back the way you’ve come, then turn right,’ he said definitely.
‘Ah, come on, you go eight miles back the way you’ve come, then turn right,’ the older Paddy argued.
‘Well, it might be seven, but it’s definitely not eight,’ the young one said decisively.
‘So,’ Kirsty said to the barmaid, ‘we go six or seven or eight miles back the way we’ve come, turn right, and then what? Will there be signposts?’
The barmaid started to cough so violently that Kirsty thought that any minute now she was going to hack up a lung, but slowly she realised that the painful convulsing was actually laughter.
‘There’s no signposts to Kenmary!’ Sour puss said derisively. ‘You drive six or seven or eight miles back the way you’ve come, turn right, and then ask someone for directions.’
Craig drained his pint, stubbed out his cigarette, and pulled his shades back down over his eyes.
‘Thank you all very much,’ he said, standing to leave, a pissed-off expression on his face.
‘Oh, come on, Craig,’ wheedled Kirsty, pawing at his arm from her bar stool, ‘let’s have another drink. Joseph Coughlan has waited 96 years to meet any of his relations from Australia so he can wait a few minutes more.’
The barmaid put her fag in the ash-tray.
‘So it’s Joe Coughlan of Kenmary you’re after?’ she asked.
Kirsty and Craig nodded dumbly.
‘Well, why didn’t you say so? Everyone knows where Joe Coughlan lives.’
Kirsty looked at her boyfriend and smiled — so she wouldn’t have to disappoint her mother after all.
‘Fantastic!’ she said. ‘Where is that, then?’
The woman looked at Kirsty as though she were something she had recently coughed up.
‘I told you, you go six or seven or eight miles back the way you’ve come, turn right, and then ask someone.’
‘But you just—’
‘Don’t,’ said Craig, picking up Kirsty’s backpack from the counter and swiping the Marlboros as he tugged at his girlfriend’s elbow. ‘Just don’t.’
‘But she just—’
‘Kirsty, let’s get in the car and do what the nice lady told us.’ He looked at the nice lady, who was again engrossed in the contents of her ashtray, and pulled Kirsty out of the pub, ignoring her confused protestations.
‘We were getting nowhere in there, Kirst,’ he said as they got into the Polo and turned back the way they had come. ‘The wicked witch wasn’t going to help us any more than she already hadn’t so we may as well just follow the directions they gave us and see what happens.’
Exactly nine miles down the road the Polo was brought to a virtual standstill by three men on three bicycles herding three cattle beasts along the narrow country road.
‘Here you go, Kirst,’ Craig said. ‘Ask this lot.’
‘They’re turning into that field, Craig. Follow them!’
Craig pulled the Polo into the muddy entrance to the even muddier field where the cattle were being herded and Kirsty jumped out of the car, ending up in mud up to her shins.
The grandfather, the father and the three cattle were continuing their journey across the field but the grandson had stayed behind to shut the gate.
‘’Scuse me! ’Scuse me!’ called Kirsty from her stuck-in-the-mud position.
The grandson turned around, surprised to see a trendy-looking girl with white blonde hair and black sexy librarian spectacles waving at him from beside a little green car. He smiled uncertai
nly.
‘I wonder if—’ Kirsty lifted one leg out of the mud with a ‘ploop’ and made her way towards the boy. ‘I wonder if — ploop — you can help us — ploop. We are looking for — ploop — a man called Joe — ploop — Coughlan. Do you know — ploop — where he — oh, shit — ploop — lives?’
Kirsty came to an exhausted standstill at the road side of the gate and leaned on it with a smile at the grandson, who had moved closer towards her. From this far away he looked a lot more like the younger brother of the lead singer of the Pogues than he had from a distance.
‘Joe Coughlan?’ the lad asked shyly. ‘I do know where he lives, sure I do, but, oh,’ he said, a worried look on his face, ‘how to explain it!’
He rubbed his chin with one hand, then scratched behind his ear, deep in thought.
‘Right!’ he said after some time, then shook his head again as if that explanation would be too difficult.
‘Okay,’ he said, as Kirsty felt the mud finally seeping down inside her boots and hitting her toes. If he tells me to go back the way we came and ask for directions I will throttle him, I swear, she thought, and braced herself for the complicated instructions for how to find Joe Couglan.
‘Right,’ said the boy again. ‘See that house over there?’ he pointed behind Kirsty and she turned around to look. There was only one house in the whole bleak landscape.
‘Yes, I see it.’
‘Well, it’s opposite that.’
Kirsty waited for the next string of incomprehensible directions and none came. She turned around to look at the boy and he was grinning at her.
‘Just drive up the lane you passed a little while back and your man lives in a white place up a long driveway that’s right across the road from that house over there. Have you got that, now?’
How to explain it! Kirsty thought. What was that all about?
‘Yes, I have. Thanks heaps,’ she said.
‘Not at all,’ the boy said and turned to follow the others who were now sitting on a pile of stones in the middle of the field, their charges standing silently beside them.
Kirsty plooped her way back to the car and, using a stick, tried to scrape off as much mud as she could before getting back inside.
Finding Tom Connor Page 28