House of Memories

by Taylor, Alice

  “Oh what a beautiful morning,

  Oh what a beautiful day.”

  “Shut up,” Peter growled.

  “Oh boys, you’re a right pain in the arse in the morning,” Shiner told him.

  “Did any of you notice anything strange across the river this morning?” Jack wanted to know.

  “Across the river?” Shiner asked in a puzzled voice.

  “Conways’, stupid,” Peter snapped.

  “Well, there’s no way you’d notice anything anyway,” Shiner told him good humouredly. “You can hardly find your way out here in the morning.”

  “Shiner, would you ever piss off,” Peter said petulantly. “Jack, how could you be watching what’s going on across the river at this hour of the morning?”

  “Because it was extraordinary,” Jack declared and was rewarded when Peter stopped milking and Shiner, who had been heading back the stall to his own cows, stopped beside him and demanded, “Like what?”

  “There are men on the roof of Furze Hill,” Jack told them.

  His announcement had the desired effect, and they both stared at him.

  “Jack, are you sure that you are not losing it?” Shiner demanded. “Seeing little men is the first sign.”

  “Shiner, would you ever cop on! If Jack says that there are men on top of Conways’, then there are men on top of Conways’,” Peter asserted.

  “In other words, Jack, you can’t be wrong; you’re infallible,” Shiner grinned at him.

  “Would the two of you ever stop?” Jack protested. “Are ye not amazed as I am that there are men on the roof of Furze Hill?”

  “But what the hell are they doing up there?” Shiner wondered.

  “Fishing,” Peter said sarcastically.

  “They’re reroofing it,” he told them.

  “Holy God,” Shiner breathed. “How did this get going?”

  “No idea. Didn’t Danny say anything?” he asked.

  “I wasn’t over there with a bit because my mother has me building a bloody hen house every evening. But something must have happened to change things.”

  “Extraordinary,” Jack declared.

  When they went in for their breakfast after milking, he knew that Shiner would not bring up the subject of Furze Hill, but he was not surprised when Peter looked at Martha and said, “They’re roofing Conways’ place.”

  If he was expecting a reaction he got it.

  “You mean that old house that’s been buried for years?” she demanded in an amazed voice. “In God’s name, what would they be doing that for and all the rest of the place falling down around them?”

  “Well, maybe that’s only the beginning,” Peter said evenly.

  “And where’s the money going to come from?” she demanded. “Sure, the Conways haven’t a brown penny and no way of acquiring it either.”

  “Well, this morning there are three men on the roof of Furze Hill, whoever is paying,” Jack put in.

  “So it’s Furze Hill now, is it?” Martha said disdainfully. “Are we supposed to think that changing the name is supposed to put a better face on things?”

  “Well, it was always Furze Hill in the Barrys’ time,” Jack told her.

  “That was a long time ago before they got mixed up with the Conways,” Martha said dismissively, “and since then it’s been downhill all the way. I don’t think that there is any way back up that slippery slope.”

  “Stranger things have happened,” Jack said quietly, “and I think that Danny Conway could be the one to turn things around.”

  “I doubt it very much,” Martha asserted.

  “Well, that’s his plan,” Jack told her.

  “Well, that’s his business, and we’re not going to get mixed up in it,” she said firmly, eyeing Shiner who was studiously ignoring her. “We were long enough tangled up with that crowd, and no good ever came of it.”

  “Different man in charge over there now,” Jack said.

  “He’s not in charge. Aren’t they’re all stuck into it?” Martha asserted.

  “Well, that could be sorted out,” Jack told her.

  “Not that easy,” Martha asserted. “Not everyone gets things handed to them on a plate.”

  He could see Peter getting ready to rise to the bait, so he interjected quickly, “Anyway, if it does get sorted out, I think that it will be a different place with Danny in charge. The grandmother had a big influence on him.”

  “Don’t be too sure,” she cautioned. “It will take longer than that to dilute the bad blood of the Conways.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Peter protested, “you are the one who is always preaching that it’s what you are that counts, not what you came from, and now you’re singing a different song when it suits you. It’s either this or that.”

  “Well, the Conways are neither this nor that,” Martha told him decisively. “They’re a mongrel breed.”

  “Jesus,” Peter snapped angrily, pushing back his chair, “I’m getting out of here.”

  When he was gone there was an uneasy silence, and Shiner got up quietly and slipped out after him. As the door closed behind him, Martha turned angrily to Jack and demanded, “Did you know that our brave Peter spent half the night dancing with that foxy Conway one at that youth club dance?”

  “How do you know that?” Jack stammered in surprise, because Martha never took the slightest interest in local gossip.

  “I know because this is a small, newsy little hole where people love to tell you things that they hope will annoy you.”

  “Well, if they do I wouldn’t mention one word about it to Peter, because these things blossom in opposition, and from what I hear Rosie Nolan has her eye on Peter, and you don’t back Rosie off too easily. So let it with her and she might sort things out for us.”

  “Is that right?” Martha said her face brightening. “Well, anyone is better than one of the Conways.”

  Thanks be to God, Jack prayed silently, that she must not have heard about Nora dancing with Danny or there would be blue murder. Then before he could think of something to change the subject, Martha looked at him and said, “Jack, I know that we have had our differences over the years, and you are more Phelan than I will ever be, or want to be either, it might surprise you to know. Mossgrove to me is just a farm, though I know that you think it’s the Garden of Eden. But the place is in good hands now, and to be honest, when I’m not in charge I don’t get the same satisfaction out of it. So I’m looking outside of Mossgrove, and I have a project in mind. This little one-horse village is ready to have its boundaries pushed out. So I’m just letting you know that there are changes coming up.”

  “Thanks for telling me,” Jack said quietly.

  So Kate was right and Martha was on the move! He wondered if it was the school that she had in mind, but he knew that even if he asked he would not be told, so he changed the conversation. After a few minutes he left the kitchen and went out into the yard.

  He breathed a sigh of relief to be back out in the fresh air. He should be used to Peter and his mother having running battles across the table and Shiner and himself getting caught in the crossfire. This morning, however, it was only a minor squabble and of no great consequence. Now he looked around the yard with pride. He had helped to build many of the fine stone houses, and it gave him great satisfaction that the yearly tradition of painting the old timber doors a dark red had never varied. He had had it drilled into him by the old man that constant maintenance was one of the keys to good farming, and he had passed that creed on to Peter. Peter was smart and not afraid of hard work, but he also had Martha’s odd streak in him, which was probably why they clashed so often. If she had other interests, the conflict would probably ease off, but they would miss her around the yard where she looked after the fowl and the calves and kept everything in great order. Then maybe it was time for himself to slow down a bit and come in from the fields and he could do the yard work. It was usually the women who did the yard because the work was lighter and they were
better with the young animals, but he smiled to himself as he decided that this role would probably suit him better now, especially when Peter was doing so much work with the tractor out the fields. Inside around the house would be a different story, because Martha was a good cook and housekeeper and the place was immaculate. But then maybe Ellen Shine, Shiner’s mother, could fall in there. Shiner was for ever saying that with all of them gone except himself she found time on her hands, and, more importantly, she was one of the few neighbouring women that Martha really liked. She maintained that Ellen kept her mouth shut and minded her own business.

  “Well now, Jack,” he told himself, “you’ve it all sorted out, even though you don’t have a bull’s notion what’s going to happen.”

  He did not notice that he had spoken aloud until Shiner, who was taking fresh straw across the yard to the calves, said good humouredly, “If I were you, Jack, I’d be getting worried about myself – men on the roof and talking to myself.”

  “Well, they were on the roof,” he protested indignantly.

  “Yerra, Jack, you know I’m only doing the fool. You’re as near to losing your marbles now as I am to growing wings and flying,” Shiner told him.

  “Are they still up there?” Jack asked.

  “They are,” Shiner said. “I went over to the haggard a few minutes ago just to have a good look across the river, and those boys on the roof know what they are at, wherever they came from.”

  “I’m going to walk over there after the supper to see what’s going on,” Jack told him.

  After supper, instead of heading up the boreen, he turned in the gate leading down to the river. It was a grand time of evening to be taking a stroll down through the fields. As he walked along by the ditch, rabbits scurried in all directions, and even though they were a scourge in the cornfields, their capers still brought a smile to his face. When he was into the Horses’ Field, the horses looked in his direction but were not sufficiently curious to come over to him. He walked on through the next field and climbed over the ditch into the Clover Meadow. Suddenly a hare reared up below him and was gone in a flash of grey and gold. Constantly on high alert for the first sign of human intrusion, he raced like lightening on his long, strong legs. The crows were heading home to the big tree in the haggard. Out here all were settling down for the night, but when he saw a fox he knew that this boy had other things on his mind and was about to begin his nightly prowl. The fox, however, was not unduly perturbed by his sudden appearance and strolled slowly into the bushes.

  “You’re a beautiful boy,” Jack told him, admiring his gorgeous amber tail; but then, remembering the dead hens last year when he forgot to close the hen house, he added, “But you are also a right bastard.”

  Then he smiled to himself and thought, Sure, they all have to survive one way or another. If the bloody fox just took one hen and had her for his supper, but the red divil killed anything that moved when he got into the hen house. Just in front of him a cock pheasant darted out of the bushes and rose in flight, and Jack breathed a sigh of relief that he had escaped the fox. He was so close that Jack could see the golden red of his magnificent wings as he flew over the field seeking a sanctuary. All around him the ditches drooped with whitethorn, and he stopped to breathe in the wonderful smells.

  God, he thought, May is a great month. Everything coming alive. As he stood there, the voice of the corncrake from the grove below Mossgrove echoed down to him. He could never be sure if the sound of the corncrake was soothing or grating, but it had a certain haunting rhythm. As a child it had been the background music that had put him to sleep at night. He climbed over the ditch, and now he was into the two fields that had caused all the trouble between the Conways and the Phelans. Strange, he thought, the bother we can create over land or money, and then we have to leave it behind, but the bad feelings fester on. Hopefully now, with Danny at one side of the river and Peter at the other, it would all be finally put to bed. All the trouble had affected the Conways more than the Phelans. When Danny had found the key, he would tell him the full story, but he would tell Kate first.

  By now he could hear the sound of the river, and the grass was giving way to rushes. He knew exactly where the boggy patches were and circled around them. When he reached the river bank, he was glad to see that the water was swirling well clear of the top of the stepping stones. These stepping stones had survived all the trauma between the two families. They were the one link that had never been eroded.

  As he climbed Danny’s high field, he was glad to see the fine even texture of brown earth stretched out in front of him. He had watched from across the valley as Danny had ploughed and harrowed and had been impressed by the thoroughness of the young fellow. Now the first sheen of green was showing as the young corn sprouted. With God’s help, he should have a great crop. There is no doubt, he thought, but farming makes you very aware of your dependence on God and nature, and he sometimes wondered if there was any dividing line between them. When he came into the yard, Danny was stacking his buckets after feeding the calves.

  “God bless you, Danny,” he called. “My curiosity brought me over to see the great work that’s going on.”

  “Aren’t I delighted to see you,” Danny told him as he came across the yard. “Come on through and see the progress.”

  As they went through the arch, Jack looked at it with admiration. It was a fine, sturdy construction and had been very carefully cleaned down.

  “That looks good,” he said, nodding in appreciation, and was equally impressed to see that a wide path had been cleared to the front of the house and all around it. Now you could see the fine doorway with the limestone pillars at both sides.

  “By gor, there is a touch of ould dacency about that,” he commented, and then seeing the neatly stacked galvanised iron at the corner he made a beeline for it.

  “It’s good enough to resheet the barn, I’d say.” Danny followed him answering his unasked question. “At least that’s what Bill Brady thinks anyway.”

  “Bill Brady?” Jack questioned.

  “Yeah,” Danny said in surprise, “Fr Brady’s father. ’Tis he’s doing it. I thought you’d know.”

  “Well, sure, he’s the boy for the job,” Jack exclaimed in delight. “He has mighty experience after the buildings in England. Shiner’s father worked with him there and thought that the sun shone off him. No, I didn’t know, but I was bursting with curiosity when I saw men on the roof this morning.”

  “It was all Fr Brady’s idea. Then his father organised the whole thing and contacted two of his old workmates. They arrive with him in the morning in his red van with their flasks and sandwiches and look after themselves, and we don’t put in or out in each other.”

  “Perfect arrangement,” Jack declared, clapping his hands. “I heard Kate say a while back that Fr Tim felt that his father needed more to do, and this is just it.”

  “But, Jack, you know I can’t pay them, and I feel bad about that. And I’m sure that Bill has bought things like nails and washers, but he brushes it all off and doesn’t tell me half of what he is doing,” Danny confessed shamefacedly.

  “Now, Danny lad,” Jack comforted, putting his arm around his shoulder, “we can’t have givers without receivers, and sometimes it’s good to be able to receive graciously.”

  “God,” Danny assured him, “I’m more than grateful. Sure, they’re life-savers for me!”

  “Well, it’s suiting everyone, so where’s the problem?” Jack asked him, clapping him on the back.

  Just then they heard singing in the yard and Shiner appeared in the archway.

  “Jack, are you hearing confessions as well?” he grinned, and then looking around whistled in appreciation. “Oh boys, oh boys, but there has been some clearing done around here. Danny, did you get in the army?”

  “Just three good men who knew what they were at,” Jack told him. “Better than any army.”

  “But who the hell?” Shiner demanded.

  “Bill Brady,
Fr Brady’s father, and his buddies,” said Danny.

  “Bill Brady! My father worked for him years ago and thought he was top of the range,” Shiner smiled. “By God, Conway boy, you’re haunted.”

  As they walked around the house with Danny leading the way, Jack smiled at the proud possessive way he ran caressing fingers along the wall. Danny was really blossoming with the restoration of this old house, and it was good to see it.

  “Bill says that we’ll leave the coverings over the windows until the roof is done,” he told them.

  “That makes sense,” Jack agreed.

  When they reached the back door, Shiner looked at it in surprise.

  “Didn’t you get in yet?” he demanded.

  “No key,” Danny answered.

  “But where the hell would you find a key after all these years?” Shiner asked in surprise. “Surely you can get in some other way.”

  “No,” Danny told him. “Jack says that there must be a key and that Nana Molly would have left it in safe keeping and that it’s only proper to walk in the front door, not break in like hoodlums.”

  “That’s right,” Jack said.

  “Well, that doesn’t surprise me one bit coming from you, Jack, but what happens if the key never turns up?” Shiner demanded.

  “It will,” Jack told him confidently.

  “Blind faith,” Shiner pronounced.

  “Or perfect trust,” Jack smiled.

  He knew that the key of Furze Hill would have meant a lot to Molly Barry and that she would have definitely put it into safe keeping. Sooner or later he felt sure that it was bound to turn up.

  Now they returned to the front of the house and stood looking at the overgrowth that entirely cut off the view of the entrance gate and the road beyond. It seemed an impenetrable wall.