Even so, a dreadful feeling of unrest swept over her and she looked up to see if the sky was showing any sign of easing in any direction. She was disappointed. It had been only twenty minutes since she’d left the cliff, but the weather had taken the nastiest turn. The rain was so heavy now, she could barely see down the boreen. She decided to go straight back to her cottage. Rory’s parents would not expect her in this weather. Like all fishing families, they respected the weather and adapted their plans as necessary.
She took her rosary out of her pocket. ‘Keep them safe,’ she whispered to the God she was losing faith in. ‘Keep them safe.’ Could things get any worse, she wondered. It was as if God knew something. ‘The angels are crying,’ she muttered into the darkness as she crashed in through the door of her cottage and hung her soaked shawl over the back of the chair near the hearth.
She threw turf on the fire and set the kettle on the cast-iron griddle above the embers to the side, ready for Angela. Forked lightning ripped the sky apart and her cottage lit up for a blinding few seconds. The doors shook and the windows rattled as the malevolent wind beat against them, threatening to pull her out and up into the maelstrom. Gales like this were strong enough to pick up sheep and even shepherds from the cliff and fling them into the ocean below, as local farmers knew to their cost.
Visibility was so poor now, and the downpour so fierce, she was quite sure that Angela would run the few yards back to her own cottage and wait for the worst of it to pass before coming to join her. She could hear the waves lashing the shore, surging onto the rocks on the headland. She of all people knew how vicious the sea could be when roused. A storm like this one had robbed her boy of his father and her of her husband. McGuffey would not set ashore in this. For now, until tomorrow at least, they were safe.
She lit a candle and made the bed. Slipping her hand into the covers, she imagined she could feel the warmth of Captain Bob’s body. The bedclothes smelt of his pipe, of the sea, of them both and their lovemaking. She felt guilty, sinful, and looking to the statue of the Holy Mother above the fireplace, she blessed herself and whispered a prayer of forgiveness. ‘You don’t want me to be alone all of my life, do you?’ she asked the figurine she could barely see in the candlelight. Another flash of lightning streaked through the room and illuminated the face of the Holy Mother, who winked and smiled down her benevolence in the brilliant flicker.
Bee lit another candle in the window. With a mug of Captain Bob’s porter in her hand, she sat back in the chair in front of the roaring fire, pulled a crocheted rug over her knee, shook out her long, damp hair and rocked to and fro, waited for the storm to pass and Angela to arrive. She was quite sure that with the motor to assist them, Captain Bob and Sarah would both be safely ashore in Ballycroy by now. Although she would have preferred Angela to have been with her, safe and warm in her cottage, two sisters together, talking thorough the momentous change about to befall them, she was confident that Angela would be safe. Sarah was safe. All was well.
*
It would have taken Michael less than an hour on foot to the coast from the farm, but he was consumed by the desire to lay eyes on his Sarah. To hold her, and then, with Angela’s blessing, to lift her onto the horse and ride like the wind to Father Jerry. The rain had become torrential in only minutes and now it lashed against his skin, as if beating him back. He was soaked through, but he neither felt it nor cared. He had only one thought on his mind, to reach his Sarah.
He was exhilarated to be home and as he neared the shore he was shouting, almost screaming, ‘Sarah, I’m home! I’m back! Sarah, I’m here!’ even though he knew that through the howling wind and rain she would never hear him.
The horse’s hooves slipped on the shale and shingle as the rain swept away the sandy surface. He could just about see the McGuffey cottage ahead through the curtain of rain, its white limewash standing like a ghost against the inky sky, guiding him. ‘Sarah, I’m coming! I’m coming!’ He wanted to shout the words louder as he approached, but instead he chanted them under his breath, in time to the thud of his horse’s feet. Finally he could contain himself no longer, and as the ground levelled out, he urged the horse into a gallop, racing across the last few yards.
Outside the cottage, he yanked on the reins and stopped the horse dead. Something was very wrong. The door was open and banging restlessly against the wall in the wind, and it was dark inside, with no sign of life. He tied up the horse, then took small, careful steps forward and merely whispered his calls. ‘Sarah?’ A sense of foreboding washed over him; it was so strong, it made his flesh tighten and his heart constrict. He had fought Germans, had dodged bullets, shellfire and shrapnel and survived them all, but now, faced with the open door to the McGuffeys’ cottage, he felt fearful of walking inside.
He looked around him and thought he saw a bent figure hurrying along the cliff edge. It was a shadow, a shimmer of white, and then it was gone, as quickly as it had come, behind the sheets of rain. He began to shiver, violently. The rain streamed down his face and into his eyes; the wind started to shriek, tearing at the cliff edge, hurling stones and shale into the air. If it was Sarah, she would never hear him through the gale and with her head bent against the wind. But was it her? Or was it a ghost? He’d been brought up on stories of ghosts and fairies. His skin prickled. He could not be sure what it was. If it was Sarah, what was she doing up on the cliff path?
He walked over to the door of the cottage, caught it to stop it banging in the wind, and pushed it back. ‘Sarah!’ he shouted. There was no reply, as he’d expected there wouldn’t be. He turned, hearing a noise behind him, to see a stack of Sarah’s heather lobster pots rolling off into the wind as if they were made of the lightest tumbleweed.
‘Sarah? Angela?’ he shouted again.
Silence. He stepped inside and reached his hand out to the stone windowsill to his right, where every cottage in the west kept a candle and matches. The fire was burning low and gave off a dull glow; from the light of it, he could see for sure that there was no one home. A curtain was pulled back at the bottom of the cottage, revealing an empty bed.
He lit the candle and the cottage flared into being as his own shadow climbed the wall. The place smelt of life, it was warm, it smelt of Sarah, she had not long been here. He swung around wildly to the door – was that her on the cliffs? It was too dangerous, she would never walk along a cliff edge in this weather – there were stories in living memory of people being blown off in a squall.
‘Sarah!’ he shouted again.
He turned to leave and placed the candle back down on the windowsill. The gale that hurtled through the door instantly extinguished it once the protective cup of his hand was removed. The wick sizzled in the molten wax and a long plume of grey smoke rose. The air hissed and crackled with static as lightning shot through the sky, and in the blaze of light that followed, he saw his own features reflected back at him in the black glass of the rain-soaked window. Through the blanket of heavy rain he saw that it was definitely a woman out there. He crossed himself. ‘Holy Mary Mother of God, who is it?’ Then he shouldered his way out into the storm and followed the ghostly form towards the dangerous cliff edge.
His progress was hampered by slipping, slippery shale. The figure wore a shawl, but her clothes were not white, it was the lightning that had made her appear not of this world, almost transparent. She was moving quickly and to his frustration kept disappearing behind the gorse bushes and out of sight. It was not Sarah, that he knew, but she was familiar, and something was pushing him, urging him on. ‘Run! Run!’ roared the wind in his ears as he slid and stumbled and attempted to gain ground.
The woman neither turned nor looked about her. She had a crazed determination to her, as if she was running away from something, from someone; she was weaving wildly in all directions, careless of her destination, her arms grasping at the air before her, heading dangerously near the cliff edge. Michael’s heart pounded against his ribs and the blood thundered in his ears. His fle
sh crawled with fear, he felt as though he was in the middle of a nightmare he could not wake from, and he began to shiver, more with terror than cold as the arms of gorse bushes reached out, grabbed hold of his trousers and pulled him down onto the soaked earth. His clothes ripped and his legs ran with warm blood from the thorns. Each time he regained his feet she looked more like a ghost than a woman. Through the sheets of rain she appeared to be floating, and then she stopped, and turned back, and it occurred to him that she was standing directly on the cliff edge, wavering, and she was screaming, at someone or something behind her.
His heart thumped as he ran for all he was worth, his chest wall stabbing with the pain of it as he gasped for his breath. The rain slashed his face, cold and hard against the heat of his skin, and the waves roared and crashed onto the rocks below. He began to shiver again and raced on, willing himself to cover the last few yards. The sky ripped with a bolt of lightning. She had stopped running – he could see her clearly, and he knew in an instant who it was. ‘Angela!’ he screamed. ‘Angela!’
Surprise mixed with panic in her eyes as she stumbled towards him. ‘Michael, is that you?’ she shouted.
He ran and threw his arms around her, swamped with relief that she was moving away from the edge. She felt frail and thin in his arms. ‘What are you doing out here, in this?’ he shouted.
‘Michael, thank God! He’s here! He’s after me! Be careful… Go!’ She was shouting up to him and even though she was telling him to go, she clung onto his arms.
In her upturned face he could almost see Sarah looking back up at him. But she was making no sense.
‘Angela, where is Sarah? Get back, come on, what are you doing out here?’ He put his arm around her shoulders and began to lead her back towards the cottage.
‘No, no! Go to the cliff… shout to her… gone! I went to wave… he’s come back, he saw me… he was after me. Out there! Out there!’ She was pointing frantically towards the ocean. ‘Go! Go!’ she screamed.
Michael ran to the cliff edge and stared out and down towards the ocean, but he could barely even see the waves through the torrents of rain. The wind howled and the ocean roared in his ears, and he had not a clue what Angela was trying to say. He had to get her inside and away from all this; then at least he could find out where Sarah was.
The storm swirled around the two of them, flinging them together and then trying to rip them apart, and it took all of his strength to keep them both upright. She clung onto his arm, but the wind ate her words. Sarah must be at her Aunt Bee’s, he thought. They were close and she’d often slept there as a girl, he remembered. He cursed himself for having gone to the wrong cottage first.
He gripped Angela and pulled her into his side as he tried to guide them both towards the cottage. She was shouting, gabbling, repeatedly glancing back behind them. Michael assumed that McGuffey was out at sea and she was looking for him, frantic with worry.
They had barely gone a hundred yards when the wind dropped abruptly and at last they could hear each other speak. Angela stopped still and almost shook him by the arms. Clasping her tightly so that she wouldn’t fall, he took a step back so he could see her face as he held her. ‘What is it, Angela? Why are you alone? Where’s Sarah?’
‘She’s gone, Michael. She’s run away. And he’s after me – he knows.’
*
Kevin McGuffey moved out from behind the rock he’d slipped behind as soon as he’d seen Michael making his way to the cliff edge and lookout. He wiped the rain from his eyes and looked over towards where Malone had stood. It was him, standing there as bold as brass, with his hands on his hips, looking out across the ocean. As quickly as he’d appeared, the rain hurtled between them like a wave and he was gone.
‘Coward.’ McGuffey spat the word out with the tobacco he’d been chewing. His dudeen had blown out of his hand and smashed onto the rocks, and some of the smaller boats had done the same, crushed into kindling as they’d hurtled down the beach. He’d pulled his own boat up into the cave for protection.
‘What the feck do you want here, Malone?’ he shouted up to the cliff as lightning fizzed across the sky and lit up Angela.
She had already seen him, and with the look of a scared cat, the one she always had before he hit her, she had turned and run. This was new to him – in the cottage, she had nowhere to run. An anger like he had never felt before swamped him. Envy and revenge slipped into his gut, curled like a cat and settled.
‘I’ll fecking show you, you English-loving bastard, Malone.’ He hissed the words as he walked. His eyes were bulging, his nostrils flaring. His steps were heavy and determined as he climbed up towards Michael and Angela. The whereabouts of Sarah flashed though his mind. Why was Angela out there on this night of all nights, alone? But a more pressing thought drowned out that and everything else: Malone might have survived the war, more was the pity, but he would not survive coming anywhere near his cottage, his wife or his daughter.
He placed his fingers on the trigger of his gun and climbed the final ridge to the top of the cliff.
They were just ahead of him. He could barely make them out through the rain, so he waited for a break. When it came, they were facing away from him, Malone with his arm around Angela’s shoulders, guiding her towards to the cottage.
‘You fecking bastard, take your last breath,’ he muttered as he lifted his gun, ‘You’re a dead man, Malone!’
Chapter 8
Mrs Doyle had heard the post van arrive, and as usual Sam, the driver, knocked on the back door to let her know he was taking the mail sack. Sometimes she opened the door, to hand him a glass of whiskey, sometimes she didn’t. Tonight he was lucky. Her hair was in wire curlers, held in place with a headscarf, and her floral dressing gown was pulled tight across her and fastened with the belt from her gaberdine mac. Her face shone white from the Pond’s Cold Cream she religiously applied every night, when she could get it. It was a novelty on the west coast – only those with relatives who could post it from abroad could benefit from its miraculous age-defying powers. She wore no stockings and her feet were bare in her leather shoes.
‘Can you receive the telex on those curlers?’ Sam asked her as he stepped inside.
‘Not as far as I know, but they are made of metal and I do wonder,’ she replied. ‘I sometimes feel a buzzing on my scalp.’ She put her hand up and laid it over her scarf. ‘’Tis going to be the foulest of nights, so it is,’ she said as she motioned for him to step inside. ‘Here, I’ve poured a glass ready, to set you on the road.’
‘I’ve had company all the way from Galway,’ Sam said as he knocked the glass back. He had news. He was letting her know he had news. He emptied the glass. If she wanted the news, she had to refill the glass.
She looked him in the eye – the news was worth a second glass. Her hand shook slightly as she splashed the amber Jameson into the tumbler. There was nothing that excited Mrs Doyle more than a good bit of fresh news.
‘I had Michael Malone in the van, all the way.’
She placed the bottle down with a thump. ‘Well, I never. You did not!’
‘I did.’
‘He’s home already?’
‘He is, and he was telling me he had a promise to keep to a certain young lady.’ He winked.
‘Sarah McGuffey?’
‘Aye, and the first thing he would be doing, he said, would be dropping his bag and heading straight off to keep it – tonight.’
Mrs Doyle gasped, reached over to the press and took down a fresh glass. ‘I need one myself,’ she said as she refilled his and poured her own.
‘I’m afraid you aren’t the first to know, though,’ Sam said.
This was news Mrs Doyle didn’t like to hear.
‘I had a heavy parcel for the McFees, so I thought I would save you the bother and drop it at the side of the road in the cut.’ This was the drop-off point for heavy goods destined for the costal cottages. Anyone with donkey and cart who was heading out that way would then pick up
the item and deliver it on. ‘I saw McFee himself, staggering back from Paddy’s, so I gave him a lift.’
Mrs Doyle sniffed. They all knew that McFee was one of McGuffey’s smuggling partners.
‘Anyway, he said McGuffey was due back tonight, and so I thought to meself, if Michael is going to keep his promise tonight, he might run into more than he bargained for.’
Mrs Doyle laid her glass down on the table. ‘Lord in heaven, and here was me thinking I was off to my bed. Get that whiskey down you. You have one last call to make.’
*
Michael knew that the drop in the wind and the rain meant the storm would soon be blowing itself out. At last he had a chance to get some sense out of Angela. He’d tried to not let his frustration show, but she seemed almost hysterical and he was desperate to locate Sarah. She was gasping for her breath from the force of the gale, but she was also gesturing with her hands, pushing him, telling him to go. Go where? After what seemed like an age, her breathing steadied.
‘She was waiting for you, Michael, waiting all these years,’ Angela said. ‘But now she’s gone, run away to Ballycroy – in this!’ She gestured again. ‘In this!’ She held on to both of his arms to steady herself. ‘Her da wanted to marry her to Maughan, Michael, but she wouldn’t, so she’s away now. Go after her, will you! God willing, they’ll have reached Ballycroy before it got so bad.’
Michael studied Angela’s face, tried to comprehend what she was saying, needed a moment to take it all in. His brow was furrowed, his eyes creased, his hair dripping. Water ran down his face. The wind, in a dying gasp, ripped Angela’s shawl from her head and whipped it into the air. She tried to hold it, but it was gone.
There was another thunderous crack nearby and Michael, disorientated, looked up at the sky before it dawned on him that the noise had come from below them. Not thunder but… His heart raced and his skin went cold. Not thunder but a sound he knew all too well from the war. A sound that made him want to dive for cover. Gunfire.
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