The Kilternan Legacy

by Anne McCaffrey

  “That for your fancies, my girl,” I told myself sternly.

  Mr. Corrig, the postman, was pushing his bike up the hill toward my house, so I pulled over. I could save him a few steps.

  “And a good evening to you, missus,” he said, all affability, touching his cap brim: a salute which made me feel so very lady of the manor … and awkward. “Did your man ever find you?”

  “My man?” I had a second’s horrible terror that Teddie had arrived in Ireland.

  “Yiss, missus. He was after asking me who owned the field there, so I told him ‘twas yourself, and he wanted to know where you lived, and your name, so I gave him your direction. He seemed desperate anxious to see you.”

  “No one came, but then, you see, it was Mrs. Slaney’s funeral today, and then I was out this afternoon.”

  “Poor old body,” said the postman, shaking his head and clicking his tongue. “Many there? Not that I suppose she’d many friends left living, asides from yourselves.”

  “Why, yes …” and then I stopped. Nosy had been one of the men sitting way back at the service! “Yes, the Ladies Brandel came, Mr. Kerrigan drove them over. And, of course, all of us here. Mr. Corrig, the man who wanted to buy my land—what did he look like? I mean, I think he’s been by before … when I wasn’t at home. My son mentioned something …” Not the best of prevarications, but Mr. Corrig didn’t seem to notice.

  He wasn’t very reassuring, either, because it was Nosy he described. And if Nosy had wanted to buy my property and had seen me turning into the lane, why didn’t he “find me”?

  “So maybe he’ll call on you later. Here’s your mail, missus.” He passed over rather a staggering bundle. “The most I’ve delivered up Swann’s Lane in many a year.”

  “I’m very sorry, but we’ve had so much to write home about.”

  “Not to worry, not to worry. Used to enjoy the odd chat with herself, I did, when she was still about.”

  I murmured something appropriate, and Mr. Corrig beamed at me.

  “Good evening, missus, and God bless.” He turned his bike around and whizzed off down the slope.

  I riffled through the letters—more from my mother, and, oh no, another from Hank, some forwarded from my apartment, several for Simon, and two for Snow. Quite a clutch. Suddenly, I didn’t want to open Hank’s letter or Mother’s all on my own. What bad news they might have to tell me was fortunately three thousand miles away. I could ignore it—for a while. I couldn’t ignore Nosy, who was right on my doorstep, so to speak, and I didn’t want him any farther in. Whoever he was! So I wanted very much to have a few words with Kieron … and I could give Simon his mail at the same time.

  Simon wasn’t with Kieron: He and Jimmy had gone off to Blackrock, Kieron told me. He invited me into his house to explain.

  “I’d an old bike in the shed, just needed some adjusting and two new tires, so the lads went off to get them.”

  “Good Lord, did Simon have enough money?”

  “Sure and they did, between them and me. You take milk and sugar, don’t you?” he asked, for his kettle was just boiling.

  “As Snow would say, constantly.”

  “Well,” said Kieron, sitting himself down opposite me in the rocking chair, “what’s troubling you?”

  I groaned, distressed that I was so transparent.

  You forget how much like Irene you really are.”

  “Forget? I only wish I knew …”

  Kieron frowned blackly at me. “Now don’t you start greeting over what you couldn’t help,” he said, then sighed. “I’ve had enough of that from Ann.”

  “Did the funeral upset her?”

  “No, but the going did.” He was much annoyed.

  “She can’t honestly be that afraid of her husband finding her?”

  “Oh, I fault your aunt on that score, Rene. She drummed it into Ann’s head that she was safe here, that she should never leave, but by God, I know Irene didn’t mean never set foot out of the place. How the hell would Paddy Purdee know Ann was here in Kilternan? When he married her, he’d two rooms in Finglas. They lived there”-he gave a short bark of mirthless laughter—“until he deserted her the first time.”

  “The first time?”

  “Forgot you haven’t had all the whole sorry story of it.”

  “True,” I replied, a bit stiffly, “it’s not something even the brashest American just blurts out and asks … particularly not of someone like Ann.” I sighed with real regret. “She’s such a wonderful person, coping … Oh, I know …” I had noticed his apprehension. “The Anns of the world prefer to do it their way and the hell with the helping hand.”

  Kieron nodded, the sorrow in his eyes adding to my sense of impotence.

  “You do love her, don’t you?” I asked.

  Kieron glanced sharply at me for a long, almost uncomfortable minute before his face relaxed and his very charming smile parted the moustache around his lips.

  “Yes, I do love her—not that it does me any good,” he said with resignation, and stirred his coffee into sloppy turbulence.

  “You mean, because of Ann or because she’s married and Ireland doesn’t have divorce?”

  His head came up in surprise. “Sure now, you can get a divorce in Ireland … of a kind,” he amended, pleased by my astonishment. “No, my problem is Ann. Because one man’s been a bastard to her, she’ll have nothing to do with any other. She won’t believe that men come in different sizes, shapes, and temperaments.” Kieron was very bitter. “And it’s such a flaming waste!” He propelled himself so forcibly out of the rocker that it nearly overtilted. “And that’s no thanks to Irene, sure it’s not. Much as I loved the woman, she did me no favors with Ann. And she could have done.”

  “But I thought Aunt Irene liked you! You’re here!”

  “Oh, she liked me well enough, she did. I had my uses,” and his gesture took in the furniture, the kitchen cabinets. “And I’d come back to take care of the old mother when I found my sisters had turfed her out. She was too old to help with the housekeeping,” he explained, noting my horror. His laugh was bitter. “The mother, you see, favored the boys in the family, now hadn’t she, said the sisters. So let the boys care for her when she couldn’t work for her keep. The men aren’t the only bastards in Ireland, Rene. Not that I really blame the girls: tiny houses, bad husbands, no money. They really couldn’t keep her, even with the old-age money to help out. Mrs. Slaney found her tottering along Kilternan Road late one November evening, and cold it was. Irene took over, of course. There was a letter in Mam’s handbag from me. Irene cabled. I was doing a tour of cabarets in the States. I decided that I’d better come back myself to see all was well. Although Mary and Ann were very kind to her.”

  “Doesn’t that prove to Ann what sort of person you are? You gave up everything …”

  Kieron’s laugh was amused now. “I gave up nothing, Rene, but it was good publicity. It’s best to leave when you’re on top. I do as well here, all things equaled.”

  “But Ann isn’t convinced?”

  “Not at all. It only serves to show her how unreliable I am, without a regular job, working as it pleases me. Sure and I make more in one night’s work than Paddy Purdee did in a week when the trawling was good.”

  “Surely Ann—”

  “Ann doesn’t, Ann won’t, Ann can’t. She’s as hidebound as her mother before her, and that bugger hurt her, like her dad did her mother, and he’s beat her and bred her and bollixed her so badly that she doesn’t know what she wants … except never another man in her house or in her life. Not that she ever had a man anyhow …” He glared defiantly at me for what he implied in that phrase. “No pleasure. She was never married to that bastard!”

  I held my reaction to a sympathetic nod, but I could see why he felt Ann was wasted. She was so lovely, and there was so much more to loving than bedding. Ann didn’t even know what she’d missed. I did, and …

  “You said the first time he left her?” I asked Kieron, gras
ping for a subject to distract my own line of thought.

  He glared at me ferociously, equally distracted by my abrupt backtracking. “Yes. A fortnight after the wedding he left her to go fishing. He got a chance at a berth on an English codder and took off for three months. He’d got her pregnant, and she was poorly when he got back, so he took off again for another three months. When he got back from that trip, she was in hospital with a threatened miscarriage, so he disappeared. He returned a week after Fiona was born … he must have had her in the hospital, because Tom was born nine months later. That’s when she moved, but he tracked her down, beat her up every night he was home, and by the time he’d signed on another boat she was pregnant with Michael!”

  My appalled expression seemed to mollify Kieron, for his fierceness lessened as he shoved his hair back from his forehead with impatient fingers.

  “I can’t imagine Paddy Purdee roughed her up before she married him,” I said, “so Ann must think the change in the man is related to marriage. Why should she want it? But, Kieron, you said he deserted her, and yet you said he was …”

  “Deserted her, yes, in the true sense of the word. He gave her no money to live on, she didn’t know what ship he’d sailed with, how long he’d be gone or anything.”

  “No money? Even when they were first married?”

  “The first time he went off, she thought he’d be back on the weekend, and she waited. She’d some money of her own, left over from wedding presents. She managed. Then one of his mates told her he’d signed on the codder, and she got her old job back. Once Fiona was born, of course, she couldn’t work. As far as I ever heard, Paddy never gave her any money the whole time he was married to her.”

  This was much worse than anything I’d imagined for Ann. “But that’s a psychological nonconsummation, isn’t it? Or a lie, entering marriage under false pretenses? I mean, you’re supposed to endow your wife with your worldly goods, cherish, honor, and support, and if he did none of those things … why, he never married her! But, Kieron, why can’t she get an annulment or a divorce or something, so that at least she doesn’t have to live in dread of his forcing himself on her again?”

  He cocked an eyebrow at me, and I more or less answered my own question.

  “No money!”

  Kieron nodded. “Nor wish. So long’s Paddy can’t find her here, she’s content enough.”

  He was obviously not. “Oh, really, Kieron, surely there’s a Legal Aid Society which helps the … no? Good Lord. We are in the Dark Ages. I mean, when she’s too scared to attend …” A sudden thought struck me. “You know, if he lived with her so little, would he even remember what she looked like?”

  Kieron did a double take and then chuckled. “You tell Ann.”

  “Which reminds me, Kieron, have you seen a man around here, saying he’s looking to buy my field?”

  “There was a man nosing about yesterday.”

  His choice of phrase was a bit unsettling.

  “You know,” Kieron went on, staring off in a middle distance for a moment, “I’ve seen that lot before … in the church … today!”

  “I went to the auction today, and I saw him there. He followed my car. If he really wanted to buy that property, as he told the postman, why didn’t he turn in after me? Do the police really believe what we told them? Or do they think I bashed Mrs. Slaney in the head?”

  “Jasus, no, Rene.”

  “Well, that man is obviously shadowing me.”

  “I’ll give Sean the Garda a shout, just to clear it up.”

  Any clearing up got postponed then by the return of Simon and Jimmy, festooned with bike parts. I’d only time to beg Kieron not to mention Nosy when the boys were in the door. Nothing then would do but that they get the bike set to rights. “So I’ve got transport of my own, Mom. Isn’t Kieron the greatest?”

  I handed Simon his mail, concurring with his opinion while Kieron grinned sardonically. We all went out to Kieron’s workshop. I still didn’t want to open my mail alone, so I perched on a convenient surface and stoutheartedly slit Mother’s envelope.

  Mother had received my news, dismissed the sisters with a choice qualifying remark, and advised me to enjoy the male companionship with a free heart (I thought that “free” had been penned in a broader, admonitory line) and to look into the matter of a good school for the twins in Ireland. She’d heard rumors that Teddie-boy was still acting the fool.

  Hank’s letter was brief: Teddie-boy had not paid this month’s support money, and a telephone conference with his lawyer disclosed that the omission was deliberate, so Hank was taking instant action.

  I wasn’t as depressed by these newses as I’d thought I’d be. I supposed that I’d half expected Teddie to stop the support money out of pique. The joke was on him, however, if he thought that action would force me back to the States. Sometimes Teddie had a hard time recognizing the Empty Gesture.

  I stuffed the letters into my handbag, and was then asked to admire the newly refitted bike.

  Chapter 17

  AS I COOKED DINNER, I found my mind doing some “what-ifs,” mainly financial ones. The days when I could cheerfully or reluctantly refer the matter to the man of the house were long gone. Like Harry Truman, the buck now stopped with me. And the loss of this month’s support money disorganized my careful plans. I had, fortuitously, it now appeared, paid the July rent on the apartment before I left, but I’d be down to a nervous-making $10.75 in the checking account. I did have my half of the sale money of the “matrimonial” home, but that was in mutual funds sacred to college for the twins.

  Although Hank had already set in motion the legal machinery to force Teddie to pay the support money, better best I not count on that money. Which left me nibbling away at the trust fund. I didn’t like that sort of pilfering any better, because if Rene’s Law came into effect the death duties might well turn out to be more than the trust fund. Still, for Teddie’s benefit, I was finally ahead of the game. I chuckled to myself.

  “What’s so funny, Mom?” asked Snow, busily writing letters at the dining table, which I was setting.

  “I’m winning.”

  “Huh?”

  I was, but I didn’t explain it out loud. Yes, I was really overcoming Teddie’s latest machination. Stopping the support money was only going to land him in trouble. After all, I could work the caretaker routine.

  I’d better contact George Boardman in the morning for a firm answer. Michael, too, because I wanted to know what to do about Mrs. Slaney’s house. And the place should be cleared of her belongings—not a task I relished, but it had to be done before I could arrange something for George. I should also find out what could be done about bribing Fahey out of his place and leaving the way clear for Shay’s candidate for … what could I call it? investiture … into the queendom. “How much should I bribe Fahey to leave?” Simon looked up from his letter-writing and exchanged a meaningful twinnish glance with his sister. I wished I could interpret those cryptic exchanges: I’d know what was going on in their little minds.

  “Well, Mom, I’d ask Shay or Michael or Kieron. Not us. But I’m really glad to hear it.”

  “Why?”

  Simon had that “I won’t answer you now” look on his face.

  “Why?” I repeated, coming back into the room with our dinner plates. I was a little irritated with my obtuseness and their subtlety.

  “Oh, because …” Snow began, paused, and then added “it’s good you’re involved enough here to get him out. He drank. Almost as much as—” Then she did shut up.

  “As Daddy?” I finished for her. I didn’t miss the look, which needed no interpretation, between Simon and his sister. (SHUT UP, SIS.) “Both of you used to love your father.” They were eating at a rate guaranteed to fill their mouths too full for answers. “You used to love doing things with him. What happened?”

  They ate in deafening silence.

  “All right, kids, something happened at the Harrisons’ party …” Not even a look
passed between them. “I know your father got stoned drunk that night. Did he embarrass you?”

  “You can say that again,” muttered Snow.

  “Mom,” began Simon in that ‘let’s be reasonable’ tone, “do you really need chapter and verse on Dad drunk?”

  I caught the shudder Snow gave, and the revulsion on her face. I knew that something very deep and disturbing had happened.

  “Let’s just say, Mom,” Simon continued, “that he was the worst he’d ever been.”

  “I’m your mother. I have certain rights. I can’t protect you …”

  “You did,” said Snow in an implacable voice. “You divorced him. If you hadn’t…”

  What I heard then shocked me: They would have left. I knew that they couldn’t have maneuvered me into divorce; that distressing solution had been in my thoughts long before the Harrisons’ party. But it was after that night that I’d noticed a distinct reluctance in the children to do anything, go anywhere, even chat with their father. And he had become almost defensively insistent on their company, lavish with his gifts and affectionate demonstrations. I suppose their attitude toward him had been a subconscious factor pushing me toward divorce.

  “Well, I did divorce him, and that’s that.” Even a clod could have felt the relief in the room, and I decided not to press the subject further. We finished our dinner in a less awkward mood.

  “Say, Mom,” Snow asked in a more normal voice, “has Daddy stopped the support money?”

  “However did you guess?” There wasn’t much point in hiding that fact, although I wouldn’t have been so frank half an hour ago.

  Snow giggled. “It figgers.”

  “Will it matter much, Mom?” asked Simon, worried.

  “Not in terms of eating …”

  “Don’t you dare knuckle under to that kind of blackmail,” said Snow, hard-voiced again, scowling at me.