And the rocking of her old wooden chair matched the rhythm of his heartbeat as he melted back down through the folds of sleep.
Chapter 4
Bee Cosgrove was grateful the rain was easing. She hated arriving soaked through for her evening shift at Paddy’s bar and always made an effort to look presentable. It was a job she needed, being a widow and with a child to raise, and she would always be thankful to Paddy and Josie Devlin, two of the kindest people in Tarabeg. They’d offered it to her within days of her fisherman husband Rory drowning six years ago; Ciaran had been a babe in arms and it hurt her to have to leave him with Rory’s parents on the nights she worked at Paddy’s, but he was used to it, and she had no choice.
As she hurried along the coast road towards the village, she spotted Seamus Malone turning his horse and cart into the boreen up to Tarabeg Hill. She raised her hand in greeting, but he didn’t stop to chat, which was unusual. He would often give her news of letters from Michael for her to pass on to Sarah, but today he appeared to be in a hurry.
There had been no word from Michael for weeks and Sarah had been fretting. Just that morning she had mentioned it again. ‘The war is done and I’ve heard nothing,’ she had wailed. ‘He promised me he would be back as soon as it was over.’
Kevin McGuffey was off on a smuggling trip and had been gone for days, so Bee had been in the McGuffey kitchen with Sarah and Angela, as she was every morning he was away. Even though it was June and the cottage was warm, the fire had been lit, ready for cooking and bread baking. They were sitting around the rough wooden table that McGuffey had made from timbers off a Spanish galleon that had risen from its grave and been washed up in Blacksod Bay, or so Angela had been told.
Sarah had just come back in. She’d been outside since early morning, weaving heather into the lobster pots that she sold for her living. At night she stored her day’s work in the turf shed so that the fishermen could take what pots they needed when they set out at dawn. They left payment in money, potatoes, eggs, fresh warm milk or whatever else was available.
Bee was nursing her mug of tea as her sister kneaded the bread. The sun fell in through the front door and captured the three of them in a pillar of bright smoky light. Sarah, in an act of dramatic exasperation, sat on a stool and placed her forehead on her folded arms on the table and groaned. ‘Why hasn’t Michael been in touch? He should be here by now. Have I not waited long enough?’
Bee’s heart contracted in sympathy as she looked down at the fan of her niece’s hair; it changed colour according to the light, and this morning, spread out across her shoulders, it glinted on a spectrum of red to pale gold. Sarah was the closest to a daughter Bee would ever have. Ciaran was already in Mr O’Dowd’s class at the school and though Bee was only just thirty, she knew there would be no more children for her.
‘I’ll ask Paddy and Josie when I go to work tonight, have they seen Seamus for the latest news, or heard anything,’ she said.
Sarah’s head shot up. ‘Will you? Please, Bee,’ she pleaded, her eyes bright with hope.
‘I will that, ’tis easy enough. God in heaven, I ask after Michael so often, there will be some thinking I have an eye to him myself. It’s the end of June, Sarah – have patience. He won’t be long, your knight in shining army uniform. He will be here soon enough.’
Angela had laughed, something she only did when Kevin McGuffey was away on his fishing or smuggling trips. And as Bee often thanked God, he was away more often than he was home.
*
Bee heard the news of Michael’s impending return before she had even reached Paddy’s bar. She was greeted on the road by Keeva, who was on her way home from the post office.
‘God, what a day, the excitement we’ve had,’ she shouted as she trotted over to meet Bee. ‘We had a telegram, so we did. But not with bad news, for a change.’
‘Really?’ said Bee, casting an anxious glance up the road towards the bar. She had spent longer than she should have with Angela and Sarah and didn’t want to be late.
‘’Twas from Michael Malone – he’s coming home.’
Keeva suddenly had Bee’s attention. She turned quickly, her focus unwavering. ‘Did he say when?’ She was slightly too sharp in her questioning and Keeva looked mildly surprised.
‘No, but Mrs Doyle reckons it won’t be long, though if he finds work in Liverpool on the way, sure, it could be months. They’ve had the VE Day celebrations in England and they’ve all been demobbed.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘We all remember Michael, though – it could be any day.’
Bee blessed herself. Michael had survived and was out of danger. The war really was over. ‘Thank God,’ she said.
The church bells rang out for the Angelus Mass, as if confirming Keeva’s words that they had something to rejoice about. ‘Do we have time for Mass?’ Bee said, looking up towards the Sacred Heart.
‘Aye, I was thinking the same.’ Keeva nodded. ‘Someone has to pray for Michael Malone – he’s going to need it. He is the only one to return alive and there are some not happy about him fighting for the English.’
‘Come on, then. There’s Miss O’Hara and Teresa, let’s follow them in. Josie won’t mind me being late if it’s because I was at Mass.’
Bee needn’t have worried; the church was packed. She filled her lungs with the smell of stale holy smoke as she dipped her knee and bent her head to the cross on the altar. She had no need to explain anything to Josie, given that she was sitting in the pew next to her. ‘Will Paddy be all right?’ she asked as she took her place.
‘Sure, there’s only a few in the bar yet. He’ll be fine. Have you heard the news?’ Josie whispered back.
‘I have. Keeva told me. I met her on the road.’
‘Well, good thing you came then,’ said Josie. ‘If anyone will be needing prayers right now, ’twill be the Malones.’
Bee wanted to ask how often people had prayed for her sister and her niece and the life they led at the hands of Kevin McGuffey, but with a blink of her eyes she banished the uncharitable thought as she blessed herself and looked about the church.
Mrs O’Doyle was sitting near the front next to Philomena O’Donnell, heads together, whispering. John O’Donnell was on the other side and the women from the village were scattered around. A hush fell and Father Jerry looked sombre as he took his place at the altar. Bee swallowed down her guilt as she met his eye. She had been to confession on Sunday. Father Jerry was the only man in Tarabeg who knew her secret. He held her gaze, his eyes mildly accusing. Bee was able to look away first as, with the rest of the congregation, she fell to her knees and buried her head in her hands. Her guilt was hidden, for now. She had her own soul to pray for, and she had been warned that she would need to pray and suffer penance every day for as long as she continued to live out her deepest sin.
By the time Bee got to the bar and hung up her shawl, the place had filled with the regulars. Captain Bob was sitting at the window table talking to Mr O’Dowd, who was shuffling a pack of cards. She was surprised to see Jay Maughan, standing with the farmhands and some of the fishermen. Paddy was sitting with Mr O’Dowd and Captain Bob and she threw him a look, but he sent back a shrug in response. She frowned, but she also understood: it was a difficult path for Paddy to tread. If he didn’t let Maughan in, he would simply help himself to the drink in the yard when they were away to their beds. Maughan could not survive without drink. She was surprised, too, to see Brendan O’Kelly sitting with Paddy. She knew he called in of an afternoon to do his crossword and gather the local news, but though he was single, he was not one for carousing and was always in his own home at night. He was the first to walk over to her and ask for a drink.
‘How is your sister?’ he asked as she opened the tap on the barrel. ‘And Sarah?’
Bee looked up and gave him a curious half smile. ‘They are well enough, thank you, Brendan.’
‘I don’t know if you have heard what McGuffey is up to,’ he said as she turned to face him.
> Bee, feeling both perplexed and fearful, handed him his drink and shook her head. Any conversation in which Kevin McGuffey featured was bad news. She was desperate to save her sister from her monster of a husband and had already begun hatching a plan, so fearful was she that one day he would do something to Angela or her niece that even Bridget McAndrew couldn’t fix.
‘Well, the talk is that he’s to be marrying Sarah to Maughan soon.’ Brendan inclined his head ever so slightly in the direction of Jay Maughan and the fishermen standing around him.
Bee purposely didn’t move a muscle, though her heart was thumping as if it might explode at any moment. Jay Maughan – that tinker! She didn’t need to look over at him to conjure his image in her head. The olive complexion darkened from the dirt he seemingly never washed off; the tendrils of black hair that stuck out from under his frayed and oversized hat; the black fingernails. And creepiest of all, the eyes – black as night, set wide apart and always on the alert, always darting, watching, waiting.
Bee forced herself back into the moment, made herself focus on Brendan, who had dropped his voice as he continued.
‘I’m so sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, Bee, and sure as anything I hope it isn’t going to happen. But we all know what McGuffey is like when he gets the wind up him. If I were you, I’d be having a word with your sister to see what’s to be done. I doubt you have much time to procrastinate.’ He leant forward towards the barrel. ‘Maybe you have family Sarah could go and stay with? To get her away for a while. I’m doubting a tinker’s life is what Angela has in mind for her only daughter.’
Bee took Brendan’s money into her outstretched hand and said nothing. She did not discuss family with people she had known all of her life, never mind with a man who had not long arrived in the village. It was a survival technique. Life was hard for both her and Angela – herself tragically widowed at a young age, and Angela married to a man who’d become a monster from the day he realised he wouldn’t be getting a son to make his life easier.
As Brendan took his change, his eyes met hers and held on; there was no mistaking his sincerity. ‘Bee, you need to do something within hours, not days. Maughan is in no doubt that it’s all arranged and happening very soon. If I were you, and sure, I’m not telling you what to do, I would go and see your sister as soon as you can.’
Bee’s stomach lurched. Brendan was not from the country. He didn’t dramatise things for sport, the way the locals did to alleviate their boredom. His common sense and his knowledge of the law made him a pillar of the community and a man to be listened to. Even if Bee found discussing her family difficult, her survival instinct told her to take note. If she ignored his advice, it might be at her own peril. ‘I understand,’ she said.
‘Will you need help?’ Brendan asked as he glanced over his shoulder.
‘Come on, Brendan, ’tis your round at the cards next.’ Mr O’Dowd was shuffling a pack of very worn playing cards.
‘I’m coming now.’ He turned to face Bee, who had her answer.
‘No, we will manage just fine, thank you.’ She quickly realised that her tone had sounded brusque, more so in the face of his kindness. ‘I mean that. Thank you.’
Both knew it would be futile to try and talk about Sarah’s rights. In Tarabeg, it was the men of the community who had the power: the husbands, the fathers, and the priest. The men of the village owned the property, the homes, farms, boats and businesses; men were the employers, made the decisions and occupied all the leadership roles. Even Brendan, concerned though he was, being the local magistrate, knew and understood this. As a young woman of nearly twenty-one, Sarah had no rights to speak of.
*
Sarah had spent the rest of the afternoon after Bee had left them restlessly pacing up and down outside their cottage, moving from the turf shed to the bench outside the front door to work depending on the rain. The cottage stood on the top of the escarpment, its gable end facing the ocean, buffeted by the strong winds and fierce Atlantic storms. She couldn’t stop thinking about Michael, replaying their brief time together, mulling over the sweet words they’d exchanged in the dozens of letters that had passed between them. Angela appeared in the doorway, just as the rain let up. ‘Here, let’s sit on the bench while we have the chance before the rain starts again.’ She held out a pot that Sarah knew would be filled with hot sweet tea. ‘I’ll just put this last lobster pot in the turf shed,’ Sarah said as she picked up a perfectly crafted pot. Angela sank down onto the bench and watched her daughter as she walked away, her head held high, her shoulders straight, her golden red hair, no longer worn in two girlish plaits, but hanging in a long pony’s tail, swinging across her straight back. Angela felt a mixture of pride and despair. Her daughter had grown from a girl to a woman whilst waiting for a man on the back of a promise and in the meantime, she had suffered the jibes from those that knew and had taunted her about Michael and the traitor he was to be fighting for the English.
*
Sarah returned and flopped, as she always did – Sarah never did anything with any patience, other than weave her pots – onto the bench and took the tea with a smile. ‘Oh, Mammy, I drive you to distraction, do I not?’ Angela smiled, placed her arm around Sarah’s shoulders, pulled her in towards her, kissed the top of her head and for a moment, inhaled the familiar smell of her hair. ‘No, you do not. ’Tis everyone else who does that.’
‘Who?’ asked Sarah, as she sat up abruptly and looked at her mother with a concerned face.
‘All those that give you a hard time about Michael, that’s who. I’d take the lot of them and bang their bleeding heads together so I would.’ Sarah stared down into the steaming mug. What little blue sky was above them, was disappearing as fast as it had arrived. ‘Oh, Mammy, it’s not been that bad.’ She lifted her mug and drank in order to hide her eyes from Angela’s inscrutable gaze. ‘Oh yes it has. If Bee had heard them, she would have ripped the tongues from their mouths. Not one has said a word to her in the pub, the little bastards kept it all for you.’ ‘They were only kids, Mammy, the lads around here, they have nothing else to talk about.’ ‘That may be, but not one of them would go and fight in a war, big babies, and they think taunting you made men of them, with all their threats about what they would be doing to Michael when he returned, Jesus, he’ll squash the lot of them with his little finger when he hears, so he will.’ Sarah let out a huge sigh, ‘Mammy, when is Daddy back?’ The clouds had done their work, the light faded as they wiped out the last blue blaze of sky. Seagulls screeched as they flew clear from a golden eagle as it headed back in to the mountainside with a large fish hanging precariously from its hooked beak. Angela sipped at her tea. ‘I’m not sure.’ ‘Will it be before Michael comes home?’ Angela turned to her daughter and her eyes filled with tears. She wanted to say something, anything that would make Sarah’s face light up. Make her jump up from the bench and spin around with the exuberance that had always been hers. It had amazed both Angela and Bee, that a daughter who suffered, as Angela often did, at the hands of McGuffey, should have retained such a strong spirit within. She put her arm back around her daughter and pulled her to her once more. ‘I’m hoping so. You know Sarah, I think I can feel Michael is close, can you?’ Sarah nodded her head and whispered, ‘I can Mammy, I can.’ They both lifted their heads and looked out towards the ocean. ‘Hurry up Michael, she’s waiting,’ said Angela and mother and daughter sat until the rain came, each in silent prayer, willing Michael home.
*
Five hours after her conversation with Brendan O’Kelly, Bee hurried back home. She smiled when she saw the light on inside her cottage, forever grateful that she lived up her own boreen, tucked into the side of the mountain just where it reached the shore. There were no windows at the rear of her cottage, no view, but when she opened her front door each morning, the ocean spread out before her like a painted canvas. Despite her tiptoeing around the side, the door opened before she reached it. She stepped inside and smiled up at the m
an waiting for her – Captain Bob from Ballycroy. He had done what he always did, left Paddy’s long before she finished work and made his way to her cottage, stoked up the fire, poured her porter, lit the lamps, turned back the bed and waited.
‘My little Bee,’ he said as she fell into his arms.
He visited Tarabeg one night a week, and if he missed a week, she couldn’t settle until he returned. He was her secret, her refuge, her sin. The man whose weekly attentions kept her sane and able to deal with the miserable lives of her sister and niece. She saved the money he gave her each week and from that put shoes on Ciaran to walk to school.
Captain Bob smelt of the warm tobacco he used in the pipe that lived in the top pocket of his jacket. As she laid her lips on his, his kiss tasted fresh, of the briny sea, and seductive, from the whiskey he had drunk at Paddy’s.
His tongue parted her lips; he was as desperate as she was to hold her naked body against his in the few illicit, guilty hours they had together. Hungrily, he removed the ribbon at the back of her hair and combed his fingers through her auburn waves as they tumbled down her back.
She pulled away, breathless, and his twinkly blue eyes locked onto hers.
‘What? What is it, little Bee?’ he asked, a frown forming on his weather-beaten brow. ‘You haven’t been yourself tonight. Something’s bothering you, I could tell.’
Her hand rose and pushed away one of his white, sun-bleached curls, then smoothed down his salt and pepper speckled moustache and beard, ruffled from the intensity of their kiss. ‘It’s Michael,’ she said. ‘He’s coming home, for Sarah.’
Captain Bob was one of the most popular fishermen on the west coast. He had resisted all calls to use his hooker to smuggle goods around to the North and as a result his honesty was renowned and most fishermen told him most things. He straightened up and looked down at Bee. He cast a longing glance towards the bed, but Bee’s eyes flashed with concern – he would have to tell her now. He kissed her nose first.
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