Across the River

by Alice Taylor

“There was no arranging in it; they offered and I accepted, and I’m getting a loan of Nolans’ tractor to do the cutting.”

  “You asked the Nolans for a loan of their tractor without even discussing it with me?” she demanded angrily.

  “There was no asking,” he told her. “Tom Nolan offered, so what should I have done — refused him to keep you happy?”

  She was glad when the dinner was over and she had the kitchen to herself. When everything was tidied up to her satisfaction, she went upstairs to get ready. She intended to dress well, as that always made her feel more self-assured, but at the same time she did not want to draw any attention to herself. Jack and Peter would assume that she was going to the funeral and that suited her fine. They could find out afterwards that she had not been there, and by then it would not matter. She did not go into the village to catch the bus but waited for it at the end of the road.

  When she saw Mr Hobbs she could understand why he was known as Old Mr Hobbs, even though there was no young Mr Hobbs. Everything about him was aged and fragile, and he wore a slightly bewildered air which she knew was entirely misleading. He was extremely tall, thin and courteous, with faded blond hair trailing along the sides of a completely bald head. His clothes seemed to have been tailored for someone two sizes smaller, and tiny gold spectacles perched precariously at the end of a long thin nose.

  “Well, Mrs Phelan,” he enquired, putting his long thin fingers together in a praying position and peering out over his spectacles, “what can we do for you?”

  His pale blue eyes coolly appraised her across a large oak desk, and Martha felt that he intended to do as little as possible. On the desk lay one green file that she assumed held the Phelan documents. The sight of the file had a strange effect on her. In there was the will of Nellie Phelan, with whom she had shared a house but whom she had never liked. She did not understand why, but even before she had moved into Mossgrove she had resented Ned’s mother, and now the feeling was coming back. Nellie Phelan might be dead, but she was still alive in a file that enshrined her wishes. This old man, who looked like a fossil but whose legal brain was clever and calculating, had kept her wishes entombed in his oak desk. All these thoughts flitted through her mind, but she was not going to let this austere geriatric unnerve her.

  She sat well back into her chair, straightened her back and looked directly at him.

  “I would like to know what’s in Nellie Phelan’s will,” she demanded.

  “Very wise,” he said evenly, making no attempt to open the file.

  There was complete silence in the room. While waiting for Mr Hobbs to begin, she looked around and concluded that every item in the room looked as if it had lain undisturbed for years. Mr Hobbs seemed quite content to sit still, his long bony fingers now playing soundless notes on his desk.

  “Well?” Martha demanded.

  “Well indeed,” he refrained.

  “How long does it take to open that file?” she demanded.

  “It has not been opened for eight years,” he said mildly.

  “And then at the request of my sister-in-law, Kate.”

  “No,” he said quietly

  “How do you mean, no?” she snapped.

  “Your sister-in-law did not request to see her mother’s will,” he told her.

  “But how else did she find out about the right-of-residency clause that prevented me from selling Mossgrove?” she asked.

  “Because I told her,” he said.

  “So you sent for her instead of me, which to my way of thinking would have been a more correct procedure,” she said.

  He sat still, looking at her, and though he never twitched a muscle she could sense that he was annoyed. He sniffed lightly and rubbed his chin as if pondering the peculiarities of life, and then said in the same tone of voice, “You had sought other counsel and it would have been unethical of me to have interfered. However, in order to avoid your public embarrassment, I told Kate Phelan about the clause in the will when she came here with Mr Twomey about the school. She did not ask about the will, but because the Phelans have been valued clients for many years, I intervened before the farm was sold. If it had been sold, there would have been the public embarrassment of the clause overturning the sale. By strictly legal terms, that should have been the course of action. Miss Phelan, however, was very anxious that you should not be upset, so I informed your legal representative.”

  Martha swallowed hard. So Kate had just come across the knowledge by chance.

  “Kate Phelan has not seen her mother’s will?” she asked.

  “That’s correct,” he told her.

  “Has anybody?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Why?” she demanded.

  “Nobody asked,” he told her.

  “Don’t you think that’s extraordinary?” she exclaimed.

  “Not in the least,” he told her.

  “Why do you alone have the right to know what’s in there?” she demanded, pointing to the file.

  “I have no rights whatsoever,” he said quietly. “Only the people who made the will have rights, and my job is to protect them.”

  “And what about the people who come after them?” she demanded.

  “My job is also to serve them, and a good will does that. It also protects the rights of the unborn, as it did in this case.”

  “Well, I think that the only important people in a will are the living,” she asserted.

  “The living can very quickly become the dead, Mrs Phelan.”

  In the present circumstances, she considered it an ill-chosen statement.

  “Ned never made a will,” she said.

  “Not unusual in a young, able-bodied man,” he told her, “so his mother’s will still stands.”

  “Has it got implications for Mossgrove today?” she asked.

  “Certainly.”

  “Dictating from the grave,” she said scornfully.

  “In anything she decided she was advised by me,” he told her.

  “Do you like playing God?” she asked.

  “Sometimes we get it right, between us.” He smiled cryptically. “He is the silent partner.”

  “Do you have to go into consultation with Him as to when I get to see this will?” she asked, pointing to the green file on the table.

  “No, I can make that decision on my own,” he assured her.

  “Well,” she demanded, “what are we waiting for?”

  “Your children,” he said

  “What!”

  “Yes,” he told her evenly, “it would be desirable to have them present.”

  “Why?” she demanded.

  “Because it affects them too,” he told her. “Actually it was opportune that you came in today, because I would have been writing to you.”

  Martha was alarmed. What on earth was this old bird up to? Nothing good, she was sure.

  “So we must come back together,” she said.

  “Correct. You can make an appointment with my secretary on the way out.”

  Later, as she walked slowly up the road to Mossgrove, she churned the whole interview over in her mind. So Kate had not gone to Old Hobbs to poke out things about Nellie’s will. She had come across it by pure chance, and when she had discovered the stipulation in the will, she had not taken advantage of the situation and told the family. If Peter had known it would have been the last straw between them. She had misjudged Kate in that. But what the hell has Old Hobbs up his sleeve now? Martha wondered. There was no doubt but he was hell-bent on looking after the wishes of the dead Phelans and making sure that Mossgrove was safe. The prospect of Peter accompanying her on the next visit disturbed her. She felt now that it was inevitable that he would find out about the right-of-residency clause and that she could not sell Mossgrove. It had passed through her mind to ask Old Hobbs not to mention it, but as he was not sympathetic towards her, he would probably have refused. It would be the final wedge between herself and Peter.

  Chapter Thirteen />
  THERE WAS SILENCE in the kitchen but for the ticking of the clock and the occasional rustle of the newspaper as Peter straightened it to read further down a column. He was stretched out on the sofa beneath the back window through which the evening sunlight slanted. His hair kept falling across his eyes, and every so often he tossed his head like a pony keeping flies at bay. As Martha caught the movement out of the corner of her eye, a memory of Ned darted through her.

  With a frown of intense concentration on her face, Nora sat writing at the table in the dying light of the kitchen. Martha darned a sock in the well of the front window, working the needle back and forth through the cross threads, slowly weaving away the hole. When it was indistinguishable from the rest of the heel, the sharp snip of the scissors cracked into the silence of the kitchen. She eased the sock off her hand and examined it for further signs of wear and tear. The toe area was about to come asunder.

  “Peter, you have toes like meat cleavers,” she told him.

  “My mother’s anatomy.” He grinned good humouredly as he lowered the paper and sheets of it floated on to the floor. Before she had time to tell him pick them up, he retrieved them saying, “Right, right, you don’t like untidy newspapers. You like to get the paper in the order in which it should be read.”

  “Nothing wrong with that,” she told him, holding up the darning needle between herself and the window to see the eye more clearly to ease the dark brown wool through it. “Is your vision fading, Mother?” he asked.

  “I’ll do that for you, Mom, if you like,” Nora offered, pushing back her chair, but Martha said, “One minute. I think I have it, Nora. That’s it, it’s through.”

  “It’s always good to stretch oneself,” Peter proclaimed.

  “Could you stretch yourself, so, and put on the kettle for the supper?” Martha asked him.

  “Women’s work,” he announced, watching Nora out of the corner of his eye. He did not have long to wait for a reaction.

  She jumped up and crash-landed on top of him, intent on pulling his hair, but he caught her hands and they rolled around the sagging sofa while she told him, “You’re off the ark, set in prehistoric times.”

  “He said that specially to annoy you,” Martha told her.

  “I know, but he’s not going to get away with it,” Nora yelled as she tussled with Peter to get him off the sofa.

  As Martha watched their horseplay, she thought of Mark and herself; they never had that comradeship. Since these two were children they had looked out for each other. Nora was kind and gentle while Peter was brash and direct, but still there was an understanding between them. If push came to shove between Peter and herself, she was not sure on whose side Nora would come down. Hopefully it would never come to that. Tonight she would tell them about going over to see Mr Hobbs tomorrow. She had left telling them as late as possible because she knew that Peter would be full of questions, and the shorter run he had into the interview the better. As they sat around the table, Peter was describing in great detail to Nora how much faster the tractor was at cutting the hay, but Nora was preoccupied with a point that Jack and herself were after discussing.

  “But if there was a pheasant hatching in the middle of the high grass, the tractor would be going too fast for anybody to see it and it would be killed.”

  “Yourself and Jack have all these notions about caring for the wildlife, but, Norry, we can’t put them before us, and if we did we’d never move forward at all,” Peter told her.

  “I still think it’s not right,” Nora argued.

  “Well, that’s the way life is.”

  “Well, we don’t have to like it that way.”

  “You’re all nicey-nicey but you’re as stubborn as a mule,” Peter informed her.

  “You’ve got to stand up for what you believe in,” Nora responded.

  The argument went around in circles for a few more minutes, and when Martha judged that they were running out of steam she cut in, “If you’re finished sorting out the balance of nature, I have interesting news for the two of you. Tomorrow the three us are going over to Mr Hobbs the solicitor; we have an appointment for three o’clock.”

  They both looked at her in amazement, and as she had expected Peter shot the first question.

  “For what?” he demanded.

  “I don’t know,” she told him.

  “But how do you know that he wanted to see us?” he demanded.

  “I was over about something else and he told me,” she said.

  “You were over about something else?” he said in a puzzled voice. “What took you over to him?”

  “Well, I wanted to know about the family wills,” she said.

  “But Dad made no will, so there was only Nana Nellie’s giving Dad the farm, and we know about that for years,” he said, looking at her curiously.

  “But nobody had actually seen it,” she told him.

  “Didn’t you see it after Dad dying, surely?” he asked.

  “Well, I didn’t,” she admitted.

  “But why?” he demanded.

  “Because I went to another solicitor,” she told him.

  “Oh.” She could see him thinking back to that time, and he continued slowly, “That was because you were going to sell and you knew that Old Hobbs would advise against it.”

  “Maybe,” she admitted.

  “There’s no maybe about it,” he told her, “you really went off the tracks that time and nearly took us all with you.”

  “That was because Mom was so upset at the time,” Nora intervened, “and Jack says that it was quite understandable in the circumstances.”

  “Well, hooray for understanding Jack,” Peter said angrily, “but if Mossgrove had been sold out from under him, he might not have finished up so compassionate.”

  “Well, it wasn’t,” Nora told him, “so why are we arguing about something that never happened?”

  “Because the idea of it, so soon after Dad dying, nearly killed me with him. The thought of the Conways coming in here was enough to make every Phelan in Kilmeen graveyard turn over.”

  “Well, it will never happen now,” Nora declared.

  “That’s for sure, even though Matt Conway intends to rough us up a bit over the river meadows. He was stone mad after Fr Brady’s sermon,” Peter said, “but Brady beat the lard out of him. He took on the wrong man there.”

  “I wonder will Fr Brady be reprimanded?” Martha asked, glad of the respite from talk about the visit to Mr Hobbs.

  “Well, he was at training last night and he was in great form, so I’d say he is all right,” Peter said.

  “I wouldn’t like to be a priest,” Nora decided.

  “You’re not likely to have that problem thrust upon you,” Peter told her dismissively, and continued in a perplexed voice, “But what on earth could Mr Hobbs want the three of us for?”

  “There must be something in Nana Nellie’s will that affects the three of us,” Nora concluded.

  “Brilliant deduction. Did he give you any hint?” Peter asked Martha.

  “None whatsoever.”

  “But what made you decide to go to see him now after so many years?” Peter asked, looking searchingly at his mother. “You must have had some reason. You never do anything off the top of your head like me; you think it all out carefully.”

  “Maybe Mom got a feeling in her bones that the time was right,” Nora told him.

  “She doesn’t operate like that,” Peter insisted.

  “Maybe Nora is right,” Martha said, glad to side-step the issue, but like Peter and Nora she, too, was very curious to know what was in Nellie’s will. Old Hobbs was a difficult man to fathom. Nora was right about the feeling in her bones, but that had to do with her next visit to Hobbs, not the last one. She felt in her bones that the news might not be favourable to her, but she was less worried about that than the prospect of Peter finding out the details about her attempt to sell Mossgrove. For the last eight years it had been a bone of contention between them
even though he thought that she had changed her mind and decided against selling. It would really turn him against her when he found out the truth tomorrow.

  Just then they heard Bran barking out in the yard.

  “Someone coming,” Nora announced, and when Bran stopped barking, “It’s someone he knows.”

  They heard the back door into the scullery opening, and when Kate’s dark head appeared around the door into the kitchen, Nora smiled in delight.

  “Aunty Kate, you’re very late. We thought you were Matt Conway.”

  “Heaven forbid,” Kate said.

  “You were delivering a baby back this way?” Peter guessed.

  “No, Peter, I called back to Davy’s mother. She is a bit down and out since her mother died,” Kate said.

  “Davy was saying that,” Peter told her. “He thinks that it has brought back the upset of his father’s death.”

  “He could be right,” Kate agreed. “It was a terrible tragedy the way he was killed by Nolans’ bull. Biddy was left with a house full of young children, and she had to keep going then, so maybe now she is double grieving.”

  “Will you have a cup of tea?” Martha offered. “We’re just having it.”

  “Thanks,” Kate said. “Any move from across the river?”

  “No,” Peter answered. “All quiet on the western front.”

  “I hope that you’re keeping an eye out for him,” Kate cautioned. “I wouldn’t underestimate him.”

  “Well, we can’t let ourselves become obsessed with it or we wouldn’t move at all,” Peter told her.

  “I suppose you’re right,” Kate agreed. “Did you hear that Rodney Jackson is here for a few weeks?”

  “Is he?” Nora said eagerly. “Is he staying with you, Aunty Kate?”

  “As usual,” Kate told her. “After all, we owe him so much that’s the least we can do.”

  “The least you can do!” Nora echoed. “I wouldn’t mind him staying here. I think he’s gorgeous!”

  “I suppose he’s pretty dishy, all right, but he’s a bit long in the tooth for you, Nora.”

  “I like older men,” Nora sighed, “and it’s hardly fair that you have him and Uncle David all to yourself. When I was in first year, I had a big crush on Uncle David, all the girls had, but I’m over it now.”