by Anne Doughty
It could just be he was so relieved to have someone to talk to after all those lonely weeks, but then again, he’d said she was an angel in disguise. The trouble was she had no way of telling whether or not he really liked her or whether that was just the sort of thing he would say to any girl who took his fancy.
She fell asleep without coming to any conclusion and was pursued by ugly dreams all through the night.
Uncle Joe was there in most of them, unwashed and unshaven, poring over his newspaper, reading out accounts of gun battles and ambushes. At one point, he appeared standing on a low hill cheering as two groups of men shot at each other.
‘That’s it. Go on ye boys,’ he shouted, above the crack of pistols. ‘Kill each other off. The only good Fenian is a dead Fenian.’
‘All Fenians have red hair. Kill the bastard!’
Suddenly, there was Patrick too, his red hair matted with blood, little rivulets flowing down his ash-white face.
She cried out and woke up, her body bathed in sweat.
She lay there shaking until her heart began to beat more quietly then she slid out of bed and drew back the heavy curtains. It was only six o’clock but already it was a fine, sunny morning. Although her room faced west, long fingers of light crept round the hotel and lay across the gardens. Beyond the lawns and flowerbeds, the tiny waves ran silently up the beach and the low sun set them sparkling. The wet sand was dazzling as they slipped silently back into the calm waters of the bay.
Comforted and reassured by the familiar sight from her window, she spoke severely to herself and went to the wardrobe. In it there now hung three dresses and the skirt and blouse that had been her Sunday best. The green and white gingham check had been obligatory wear at Miss Wilson’s and she’d never liked it, but that still left two dresses and her blouse and skirt to chose from. For the first time in her life, she had the problem of what she would wear for this second visit to Currane Lodge.
Her grandfather was more silent than usual at breakfast. Even while eating his bacon and egg, he kept glancing towards the handbook for his hired Bentley and a new roadmap he’d parked beside his plate.
Rosie noticed that her grandmother had brought a large handbag to breakfast. When it was opened she saw it was quite empty, except for a large sheet of tissue paper with which it had been carefully lined. In the course of breakfast, they filled it with well-buttered toast thickly spread with marmalade made into sandwiches.
‘Is there anything I can get you this morning, ma’am?’ enquired Bridget, approaching the table a great deal more confidently than she had the previous week.
Rosie wasn’t surprised that she was easy with them. Unlike the way she’d seen other guests behave, they all treated her as no different from themselves, a girl doing her job for their benefit.
She smiled at them as John nodded to her, unfolded his map and disappeared behind it.
‘Yes, thank you, Bridget. We’re going to visit some old friends today, over in Dingle, so we’d like a picnic lunch.’
‘Certainly ma’am.’
She listed the available sandwich fillings, several kinds of cake, apple tart and fruit and noted down what Rose chose in a small pad she took from her apron pocket.
‘Actually, Bridget, they are rather elderly friends,’ her grandmother added. ‘Do you think you could make lunch for five? We haven’t told them we’re coming and we don’t want to put them to any trouble.’
Bridget beamed.
‘Certainly, Mrs Hamilton,’ she said, bobbing her little curtsey. ‘I’ll bring the hamper out to the motor in about twenty minutes. Will that be all right?’
‘That will be splendid,’ Rose replied, smiling. She slid a few coins from her pocket unobtrusively under her saucer, picked up the handbag and got to her feet.
‘Have a nice drive, miss,’ Bridget added, as Rosie followed her grandmother out of the dining room.
Just as Rose had had second thoughts about taking Patrick into a hotel for a good lunch, John had changed his mind about putting up the top on the motor. It promised to be yet one more beautiful day, the barometer high, the weather set fair. The hood might indeed conceal his passenger, but it would be more likely to attract unwelcome attention on such a fine summer’s morning.
They set off, taking the same road as the previous day, in the same warm sunshine. But nothing else was the same. A young man’s life was at risk. If his young brother tried to contact him he might simply reveal his hiding place. He had no means of transport but his own two feet, and negotiating unfamiliar territory where his presence would immediately be noticed was far too dangerous.
They drove in silence. The sun-drenched landscape, the prolific blossoming of hedges and wayside flowers and the bright splashes of colour in cottage gardens were ignored. They had eyes only for anything strange in their immediate surroundings or any other traffic on the road.
Apart from a couple of fishermen, one or two carts heading in the direction of Waterville and a man driving cows to new pasture, they met no one coming towards them. Only two motors caught up with them. John slowed down and observed their occupants closely as they passed. They were all relieved when one vehicle contained well-dressed ladies, the other an elderly priest.
There was no one anywhere in sight as John swung the motor into the overgrown drive at Currane Lodge and proceeded as quickly as he could to get the motor out of sight of the road. They bumped a bit as they met the cobbles of the stable yard, but moments later they came silently to a halt outside the stable block.
Rosie looked up at the window where she’d sat the previous day, expecting to see a face, or a hand waving in greeting, but everything remained silent and still. She felt the tight grip of anxiety as the minutes passed and there was no sign of him.
‘Maybe he didn’t hear us stop,’ said John quietly.
‘Or perhaps he’s being very cautious in case anyone followed us,’ said Rose, looking behind her, back down the drive.
‘He could be in the other room, Granny. If he’s writing. That’s where he had his things,’ Rosie suggested.
‘I think you could go up and fetch him, Rosie. Here, give him this and tell him to wear the cap. If it’s too big, we can pad it with some clean handkerchiefs.’
Rosie took the parcel her grandmother handed her and got down from the motor quickly before John had time to protest. She ran across the yard and up the stone steps. As she arrived at the top, he pulled the door wide open and stood staring at her.
‘I thought you mightn’t come,’ he said, shaking his head and drawing her into the room. ‘I only let myself look out the window every ten minutes. But I was awake from six.’
‘So was I.’
She handed him the parcel, acutely aware of how closely he was observing her. ‘What’s this?’
He looked so confused and anxious she wondered if he had slept any better than she had. Certainly, there was something different about him today and for a few moments she couldn’t work out what it was. Then she saw that he’d washed his hair. It was soft and shiny and even redder than she’d remembered. His shirt looked cleaner too but it was even more crumpled than before. She glanced cautiously at his trousers. They no longer had black marks below the knee, but in their place, large, dark smudges all over them.
‘It might be trousers,’ she said tentatively. ‘I know there’s a cap.’
‘Cap? But it’s not raining.’
‘No, but you have very red hair.’
He pulled open the brown paper and found a pair of corduroys and a motoring cap.
‘Where did you get these?’ he asked in amazement.
‘I didn’t. They look like Granda’s to me. But I know Granny asked Bridget for some sewing things last night. You’d better go and put them on.’
He hesitated for a moment and then disappeared into the other room, pulling the door very firmly shut behind him.
She smiled to herself and sat down on the windowsill to wait, amazed at how confident she now felt that
everything would be all right.
‘Well, what do you think?’
He reappeared looking remarkably respectable. He was wearing a comfortable tweed jacket that just might have been bought to go with the trousers her grandmother had shortened the previous evening. Only a small part of his shirt showed under the jacket and not a single shred of red hair escaped her grandfather’s spare motoring cap.
‘Goodness, I wouldn’t recognise you,’ she said, delighted.
‘But I recognise an angel when I see one.’ He hesitated and smiled shyly. ‘I have a present for you.’
He put his hand into the jacket pocket and took out a slim, leather-bound volume.
‘With love, and kisses,’ he said, as he handed it to her, took a step towards her and drew her into his arms.
It took only a few moments for him to collect his books and writing materials and put them in a knapsack he’d hung on a hook on the back of the bedroom door. He’d already thrown away the bracken that he’d used to take the edge off the hardness of the floor. He picked up the folded rug and handed it to her and then stood looking round the almost empty room. A chipped enamel bucket stood in one corner. Nearby, a tin plate and mug sat on the floor. Beside them, the smoothed out paper from yesterday’s sandwiches and his discarded trousers.
She saw him glance at them undecided.
‘Those were Thomas’s. Army issue,’ he said awkwardly.
‘The trousers, you mean?’ she asked, following his gaze.
‘No, the plate and mug. It’s the first thing they give you when you join up.’
‘Then you’ll want to keep them,’ she prompted.
‘Will I?’ He came back at her, his tone full of bitterness. ‘If he hadn’t joined up, he might be here now.’
‘But he’s not here. And being bitter won’t help.’
‘Why not?’ he asked, glaring at her.
‘Because bitterness disables. It stops you from doing the best you can and from taking the comfort there might be for whatever you’ve lost.’
She heard herself speak the words and stopped in amazement wondering wherever they’d come from. He was still staring at her angrily when she remembered. Out of a story her grandmother told about the time her family was evicted from their home in Donegal.
Sitting in the garden of the hotel the previous week, she’d spoken of the day their cottage had been battered to the ground. It ended with a gathering of some of those evicted that day in the house of an old man who knew his home would itself be knocked down the very next morning. It was his words that had come to her, warning all those who’d suffered and were about to suffer that it was bitterness damaged people most, not hardship, because those who were bitter could take no comfort for their loss.
Rosie saw his belligerent scowl soften as he knelt down on the bare boards. He tore the paper in two, wrapped the metal plate in one piece and the tin mug in the other.
‘Here, hold this,’ he said, thrusting the knapsack into her hands so abruptly she had to let go of the rug she’d been carrying.
While she held it open, he wedged the plate in easily enough, but he could see nowhere to put the mug. He stood clutching it in his hand, looking down in dismay at the well-packed books.
‘If you take the ink bottle out, the mug might fit in the space.’
The mug slipped neatly into place. She then pointed out that the ink bottle would fit inside the mug. He shook his head and smiled a strange, rueful little smile, did up the straps and hitched the knapsack over one shoulder.
‘What am I going to do without you?’
He glanced back at the floor. His blackened trousers lay where he’d dropped them.
‘What about those?’
‘They could do with cleaning.’
She picked them up and wrapped them inside the rug she’d retrieved from the floor.
‘I did try. I went down to the lake and swam and washed my shirt, but I couldn’t get the marks out.’
‘How did they get there in the first place?’ she asked, trying not to smile.
‘Cooking my porridge. I lit fires in the ruins, in among the fallen timber. That way the smoke could have been accidental. There were plenty of bits of broken glass around to get one going. It was hard work climbing in there and the burnt timbers rubbed off on me. I’m not going back for my saucepan and spoon,’ he declared, as he slipped an arm around her and led her towards the door.
Rosie noticed how uneasy her grandfather looked as they came across the cobbles to the motor, but he greeted Patrick warmly and nodded enthusiastically when he saw the transformation in his appearance.
Her grandmother opened her handbag and laughed when she saw his eyes light up.
‘There’s not time to make tea,’ she said, ‘but you can eat as we go. We’ve worked out a plan to put to you, but you must decide if it’s any good.’
Patrick nodded, his mouth full of marmalade sandwich.
‘The obvious way to go to Dublin from Waterville is by train from Kenmare,’ John began. ‘There’s two things against it. One, that your men might be about the place. Two, that that’s what they’ll be expecting you to do.’
Patrick nodded again.
‘So we thought we’d take you to Tralee and put you on a train for Galway. Then from Galway, where no one knows you, you should be safe enough getting across to Dublin tonight or tomorrow morning.’
Rosie saw the flicker of unease in his eyes, but so had her grandmother.
‘I’m sure you haven’t any money left by now, Patrick,’ she said, ‘but John here always carries more than we ever need. You can pay him back one day if you want to. Treat it as a long, long loan.’
‘That’s very generous of you, sir,’ he said, looking up at John. ‘To be honest, I didn’t have any money in the first place, Mrs Hamilton,’ he added, smiling at her. ‘When my father died, his pension was so small my mother had to give up the Dublin house and come and live with her sister down here. That’s why Thomas joined up in Waterville. I was only able to stay on at college because I got a job evening and weekends in a pub and my uncle and aunt let me stay with them for free. I was looking for work when I came home, but then the O’Connor’s got let out and I had to run for it.’
‘So how about Tralee?’ John asked, aware that time was moving on. ‘What do you think?’
‘You’re quite right, Mr Hamilton. However many IRA men are back home in Tralee, they don’t actually know me to see. And they may have their minds fixed on other things like trying to find work. There’s not much about. I thought it was bad in Dublin but its much worse here.’
‘Right, Patrick. That’s agreed then. Come and sit in front with me and let the ladies sit behind,’ said John briskly, helping Rose down from her seat. ‘That’s the way all these visitors drive around. Two by two. If we have to stop for any reason, pretend you’re Rosie’s brother.’
Rosie looked around as he turned the motor in the cobbled yard. This was the place where it all began, she thought. Over there was where her grandfather once sat with the other grooms, waiting for her grandmother to come back from work. Then they walked out together along the lakeshore.
Up there, where Granny had lived with her mother, she had met Patrick. They had not walked out, but they had talked and he had kissed her. Twice. As the motor moved slowly past the ruins of Currane Lodge, she fingered the pocket of her skirt where she’d thrust the small, leather-covered volume he’d given her. She longed to see what it was and if he’d written anything in it for her.
They slowed right down at the end of the drive. Cautiously, the motor edged forward on to the road. Her grandfather looked both ways to see if there was anyone in sight, but there was no one. Apart from the song of a skylark and the soft murmur of a light breeze from the lake, not a single sound broke the empty silence of the road.
‘That’s good news, Patrick,’ she heard her grandfather say.
Once safely on the road, to her great surprise, he put his foot down and drove faster than
she’d ever seen him drive during all their time in Kerry. Despite the roughness of the road, the motor he had longed to drive, responded beautifully. In a very short time Lough Currane was left far behind.
CHAPTER NINE
Driving back to Waterville by the coast road, alone in the back seat of the motor, as Patrick’s train carried him away in the opposite direction, Rosie could not make up her mind whether she was happy or sad.
It had been such an extraordinary day so far, so full of confusing and contrary feelings. There’d been real anxiety when they’d set off from Currane Lodge, but once they left the lakeside road and climbed steadily higher on the long pass between the mountains, it felt as if good fortune were smiling on their journey as brightly as the July sun.
As they headed north and east through green, empty country, not only did nothing overtake them, but they met hardly anything at all, not even a turf cart. Miles passed and wide vistas of valley and mountain unfolded before them, rich and luxurious as the sun rose higher. Still nothing came up behind them and the anxiety of the morning quietly faded away.
After the first hour her grandfather was happy enough to stop, convinced by now that there could be no pursuit from the direction of Waterville. They paused often. Each time they drew in to view the newest prospect or let the engine cool on the steepest gradients, Patrick was there at her side.
His jacket now discarded in the bright sunshine, she could feel the warmth of his body through his thin shirt as he stood close beside her, sharing the road map, pointing out to her places he’d heard of from his grandfather for whom these mountains, the Magillycuddy’s Reeks, had been home, until he’d got his first job as a groom in Waterville a few years before Sir Capel took him on at Currane Lodge.