by Penny Feeny
‘I don’t know,’ he said again. ‘I can’t be certain.’
‘I’ve told Ronnie anyway,’ Teresa said.
‘Told her what?’
‘That we think the widow’s come back.’
‘Isn’t that a bit hasty?’
‘She needed warning,’ said Breda, peering at him over her spectacles like the schoolteacher she had once been. ‘It could come as an awful shock otherwise.’
‘Why put the wind up her? There’s no need for their paths to cross.’
‘It could be helpful for them to meet.’
‘I don’t see how.’ He thought they should leave well alone, but it was hard to get this across to women: meddling was in their bones.
‘Ah well…’ Teresa paused. ‘Because it’s haunted her, has it not, that she was indirectly responsible for the death of a man? And since her own husband…’ Her hand shook a little as she replaced her cup on its saucer, though the Lord knew why, because Vince was in tip-top condition, never a day’s illness – apart from the osteoarthritis in his knee joints. He wasn’t going to leave her anytime soon.
‘And how can you tell what’s inside another person’s head?’
‘She used to have nightmares,’ said Teresa. ‘She told me about them: a man striding out of the ocean dripping with seaweed, coming to claim her boy.’
‘She told you once,’ said Vince. ‘I was there. It was after he’d fallen off the roof of Chrissie O’Grady’s henhouse and concussed himself. There was fear of brain damage or a haemorrhage of some kind, was there not? But he was up and running within hours.’
‘That doesn’t stop a nightmare recurring,’ chirped Mary in her birdlike way.
Vince was outnumbered. He’d known all three of them as girls (four if you counted Ronnie), hanging around the local bars and ballrooms, and they’d been no less terrifying then. Even so, he was not easily pushed around. They shouldn’t have started the conversation if they didn’t want his contribution. ‘And what about her?’ he said, recalling how reserved the lady doctor had been. ‘The widow. If that’s who she is. Do you think she will welcome a meeting?’
‘If she’s been to St Silas, she’ll have realised how much the family cared, how grateful they were. I can’t see that bringing the two of them together would do any harm. People get satisfaction, you know, from closure.’
When Teresa wasn’t reading the romance sagas she borrowed from the library, she’d rummage through her collection of self-help books and read aloud what she considered to be plums and Vince regarded as nonsense. Closure was one of those expressions he was highly suspicious of. It only made sense to him in terms of shutting down: a shop for instance, or a factory producing goods people didn’t need any more.
In the country you had to carry on as best you could – though they were struggling to keep their heads above water. He wouldn’t get involved in the reasons why, but it was generally the wrong fellers lining their pockets and that was the truth of it. People used to oblige each other in return for the side of a cow. They were having to go back to that kind of bartering now to keep the banks at bay.
‘Well,’ he said, folding his arms to give himself a look of authority. ‘I don’t think you should interfere.’
‘You have to ask yourself, don’t you, why else is she here?’
Breda and Mary nodded.
‘But, Teresa, all I’m suggesting—’
‘You’ll not understand, obviously.’
He understood he wasn’t going to get her to change her mind.
‘A simple phone call.’ She collected the scraps of paper from her friends and returned them to the box file. ‘Or rather, two. I shall broach the subject with each of them tactfully. I know how to handle these things.’
‘Well,’ said Vince who knew when he had lost. ‘Let’s hope you’ll not be mistaken.’
18
The Introduction
Ronnie was knitting when Tom reappeared. Her needles were clicking an insistent rhythm – a sound that could be calming or irritating depending on your mood. Her grandsons, Eoin and Conor, were sorting through her ends of wool, dividing them into piles of red and green, blue and violet. Pat was in the back parlour, dozing in front of the television. There was an old set in the kitchen too, which she kept for the little ones, but they were more interested in her overflowing basket. She had to keep stopping what she was doing to help them untie knots or disentangle skeins – but there was no hurry. She’d more than fulfilled her orders. The craft shops of Dingle would have a glut of fingerless gloves, jaunty berets and stripy scarves to sell.
She was relieved when she heard Tom’s footfall. She had always wished, helplessly, that she could keep him within her sights. He had this knack of walking out without telling anyone where he was going. And finding trouble. She couldn’t count the number of times there’d been a phone call or an infuriated knock on the door.
She looked up from her knitting and was surprised to see he’d brought company. The young woman couldn’t be local – Kerry girls were rosy-cheeked and dairy fed; they had bounce and energy. This was a waif-like creature with huge eyes in a hungry face, unsteady as a calf on her skinny legs. And there was a little girl with her, a little black girl who could hardly have sprung out of nowhere.
‘This is Bel, Mam,’ said Tom. ‘From England. We met her on the ferry. And this is Clemmie.’
So this was the woman who’d delayed their arrival. Ronnie had expected someone more alluring. And there’d been no mention of a child tagging along. She wondered what had happened to the husband though she knew well enough how casually people treated their obligations these days. Bel was shivering, she noticed. She never felt the cold herself but she’d kept the range stoked up since Pat came back from the hospital. The room, in point of fact, was sweltering and the two little lads were playing in their cotton vests. They’d given up sorting the colours and were coiling the lengths of wool to create the shapes of trains and boats on the squares of lino. ‘Are you cold?’ she asked.
‘The thing is,’ Tom said. ‘Bel has an injury.’ He pushed up the sleeve of her jumper and she flinched. There was fierce bruising on her arm and grazing on her elbow, as if she’d been in a fight.
‘What have you been doing with yourself!’ exclaimed Ronnie. ‘Get that blood rinsed off and I’ll find you an ice pack. The little one can play with the boys. Go on, Eoin, make room for – what’s your name again dear? Clemmie?’ As she laid down her needles the little girl came to her side and kissed her. Ronnie was startled, but taken with the greeting nonetheless. ‘What a sweet little thing,’ she declared, patting the child’s fuzzy plaits and heaving herself out of her chair. She was carrying too much weight and her joints creaked. She foraged in the freezer in the pantry and came back with a bag of ice.
‘Are you sure there’s nothing broken?’
Bel was holding her arm in front of her, bent at the elbow. ‘I took a battering, but everything still moves. It was more the shock than anything.’
Clemmie said, ‘She couldn’t talk; she couldn’t even cry.’
‘I was winded for a bit. I’ll get over it.’
‘Then you’ll be needing a cup of tea too,’ said Ronnie. ‘And, Tom, did you miss lunch again?’
‘No one’s hungry, Mam.’
Switching on the kettle, she said, ‘So go on, tell me what happened.’
Tom shrugged. ‘I was showing Bel around the place because she’d expressed an interest. She tripped over the ladder in the barn and went sprawling.’
Ronnie suspected she was being lied to, but it seemed to her she’d rather have some attempt at a story than nothing to go on at all. If you had a little hint, you could work out the rest for yourself. She poured the boiling water onto a teabag and added generous spoonfuls of sugar. She handed Bel the mug. ‘Farms are dangerous places. You should have looked after your visitor better, Tom.’
‘I’ll be fine in a moment,’ said Bel.
‘You’ve no flesh to cushion you, t
hat’s the problem.’ She had a narrow pointed chin and a flat chest; not Tom’s type at all, Ronnie decided. ‘Is this your first trip to Kerry?’
‘Yes, I’m just here for a week.’
The child, Clemmie, had joined the little boys on the floor. She sat with her tongue poking through the gap in her teeth, teasing the strands of wool into shapes of her own: houses, trees, buses.
‘We thought we might go fishing tomorrow,’ Tom said. ‘That is, if Bel’s okay and you can spare me.’
Ronnie was indignant. ‘It’s not up to me! You’re here to spend time with your father – isn’t that the plan? You’re home rarely enough, for the love of Jesus.’ She shouldn’t have let her anger out. It was the surest way to antagonise him. He was sweet as honey when he had what he wanted.
He said, ‘Only while he’s having his afternoon nap. The tides will be right and I reckon Gerry Lenane will lend us his boat. A couple of hours, that’s all, depending on the weather.’
She knew that Pat would tell her to let him go. ‘Sure, you’re a devil for disaster,’ she said, capitulating. ‘First you nearly break the girl’s arm, now you want to drown her.’ She turned to Bel. ‘You’ve discovered already the liability that’s our Tom. You’ll have to take your chances.’
There came a sharp yelp from Conor on the floor. Clemmie, in the manner of precocious little girls, had taken charge. She was explaining that you couldn’t have a boat sailing down a main street along with the traffic and anyway she’d decided they were going to change the story and build a hospital. Or better: an operating theatre. Then they could use the red wool for dripping blood. Eoin warmed to this idea, but Conor, being younger, wanted to continue his own game. Ronnie could foresee tears but she was impressed with Clemmie’s air of authority and the way she was taking control. Clemmie picked up a length of blue wool and coiled it into the shape of a person. ‘This is my mummy,’ she announced.
‘Is your mummy a nurse?’ said Ronnie.
‘Yes.’ Clemmie took the wool basket onto her lap and rifled through it for more colours. Squeezed out of the game, the boys moved back to their collection of toy fire engines, combine harvesters and dump trucks.
It seemed to Ronnie that Bel hadn’t much of a clue when it came to first aid. ‘I didn’t realise you had medical training,’ she said.
‘Oh I don’t – but my mother does. I’m staying with her here. Actually she’s a doctor.’
Ronnie was thoroughly confused. Did that mean the child was talking about her granny? Or was she pretending? Letting her imagination run wild? That was the glory and freedom of childhood: you had no need to be shackled to the mundane. Further questions queued on the tip of her tongue, but were blocked by a commotion in the yard. The dog, JP, could make you think you were being savaged in a terrorist attack, when in point of fact it was merely Kieran strolling home and taking off his boots on the doorstep. He entered the kitchen soundlessly in his socks and glanced at the visitors in surprise.
‘Have you met Tom’s friend?’ Ronnie began. ‘Well to be sure you have, what am I saying!’
‘Well,’ said Kieran to Tom. ‘How did it go?’
‘I got your car back in one piece,’ Tom said lightly. ‘But Bel hasn’t been so lucky. She’s had rather a mishap.’
‘That’s me all over,’ confessed Bel. ‘I’m just accident prone.’ She hugged the bag of ice to her chest.
‘It was the ladder,’ said Clemmie. ‘It wasn’t my fault.’
‘Nobody’s blaming you,’ said Bel.
The child put aside the basket, got to her feet and crossed the room to Kieran. She tugged him down to her level so she could whisper in his ear.
Ronnie noted the confident way she approached him. ‘She doesn’t suffer from shyness at all,’ she observed.
‘And isn’t that a good thing?’ said Tom with one of his wicked smiles.
‘Ah but you know how the English can be so reserved and the kiddies, they can just clam up when you talk to them. They often need a little drawing out.’
‘Not me,’ said Bel. ‘Guess I’m a freak really. Forever in trouble for not holding back, putting my foot in it. Full-on honesty that’s amusing in a child is seen as weird in a grown-up. My mother despairs because she’s always had to be especially tactful. When you’ve bad news to give to people you can’t go charging in like a bull in a china shop, can you?’
‘Sure, she must take after you then,’ said Ronnie.
‘Who?’
‘Herself.’ Kieran had straightened up and Clemmie was standing beside him still; his hand was on her shoulder. Ronnie nodded towards her. ‘She’s a grand little thing, you should be proud of her.’
Bel blurted, ‘Clemmie? You think she’s mine? Oh Lord no! I’m only twenty-six.’
For goodness’ sake, what did her age have to do with anything? ‘Then who…?’ In a moment of confusion and chaos, it seemed to Ronnie that all the objects in her kitchen rose up and spun around as if in the vortex of a tornado. She saw the contents of her dresser dance; she saw the cushions on her window seat tumble and regroup; she saw the apples leap out of the fruit bowl and jostle back into a pile; she saw the features of her sons and grandsons and those of the Englishwoman dissolve and reassemble. And she saw the brown-skinned child grow into a monstrous giant filling her vision, and then shrink to a normal size again, with her dinky braids, her gold earrings, her round eyes. Where had she come from, this creature? Who did she belong to? Surely not one of her sons?
Since no one else was prepared to speak, Ronnie addressed her directly. ‘Is your mummy not with you then, Clemmie?’
‘No.’
‘So, is she working in the hospital like you told us?’
‘She’s on holiday,’ said the child in her high, precise voice. ‘In another country. I come here with my daddy.’
‘Did you now? And where are you staying?’ To her relief a new thought had struck her. Tom and Kieran had arrived home two days ago. Unaccompanied. She was barking up the wrong tree. They were giving the child an outing while her father had some errand to run. There was no mystery to it.
‘She’s been staying with the McCauleys,’ said Kieran, his eyes fixed on Tom.
‘Ah well, they’re a lovely couple,’ said Ronnie. ‘Very welcoming. So where did your daddy go today?’
Clemmie wrinkled her small blunt nose as if she didn’t understand the question. Bel let the bag of ice slip and it thumped onto the floor. ‘Gosh, sorry,’ she said, picking it up again. ‘I think my fingers are numb.’
Kieran said, ‘It’s not been easy for us, Mam, judging the moment to tell you. You’ve had so much to deal with.’
And then Tom began to whistle. The sound pierced her, the beauty of it, the way he could turn even a simple bout of whistling into a melody. He would use it to calm the animals when they were distressed, to lull them into doing what he wanted. She still mourned the voice he had lost at puberty, although occasionally, in the drift between sleep and wakefulness, she could hear it soaring in her head.
He came over to her chair and put his arm around her. She stiffened, for she was not a heifer to be easily placated. He stopped the whistling to murmur, ‘She’s a grand little thing. You said so yourself.’
Ronnie took a deep breath. She twined her fingers into his in a tight grip but she would not look at him. She stared at the child and the child stared back. ‘How old are you?’ she asked.
‘I’m six and three quarters,’ Clemmie said.
‘Six whole years, Tom… And you never told me!’
‘Well, Mam, it wasn’t so clear-cut. I mean I didn’t know myself.’
This time she did look at him. She tilted her chin and said sharply. ‘And how is it then that you know now?’
‘It’s a long story. Do you need the gory details?’
Ronnie couldn’t decide which was worse – having the child sprung upon her in such a way or being robbed of the excitement of her birth and the chance to watch her grow. It wasn’t the poor mite’
s fault. She didn’t care to contemplate the mother, for whom she only had disapproval (on a par with the rich banker’s wife of her imagination). Besides, how could she be sure of anything? Where was the evidence? ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I believe I do. How many more are there to come out of the woodwork do you think?’
‘It was time she met you,’ said Tom. ‘And Dad.’
‘You haven’t been thinking of him at all. This could break his heart.’
‘Why?’
Why indeed? Tom had broken Ronnie’s heart a thousand times into a million pieces, but Pat, she knew, found him resistible. ‘Has she your name?’ she demanded. ‘Is she a Farrelly?’
‘No she isn’t, but what’s that got to do with anything? He needs to see her. I’ve had to work myself up to this, Mam, so don’t spoil it now. Give the kid a chance. Clem, come over here.’
Clemmie trotted towards them and Tom hunkered down to embrace her. There was nothing, thought Ronnie, examining the pair of them, that would give you the idea they were related. Her head was bursting with unwelcome information; she couldn’t tell where her thoughts would go next.
She was aware of Kieran saying, ‘Why don’t I drive you back home, Bel?’
‘Thank you. I think that would be a good idea.’
‘Don’t go yet.’ Tom rose to his feet in a graceful leap. ‘We’ve the boat trip to arrange.’
The girl was embarrassed – that was apparent. She said, ‘You can ring me later.’
‘Wait!’ Tom turned back to Ronnie. ‘Will we invite her to the do, d’you think?’
He certainly knew how to shift the conversation. And how could she refuse in a situation like this: a minefield when any utterance could take on another meaning? Tom had her on the back foot, all right. Ronnie glanced across at Kieran, but his expression was more than usually enigmatic. Well yes, anything to get the girl out of the way. ‘Surely,’ she said, thinking of the gossip Clemmie would cause and how she could counteract it. ‘The more the merrier.’