Shadows in Heaven

by Nadine Dorries

  Daedio’s eyes never left her hands as she poured first the milk, then the tea, and then sloshed three helpings of whiskey into just three of the mugs. His jaw dropped. ‘Oi!’ he roared. ‘Where’s mine? Are you going to let her get away with that, Seamus?’

  Seamus looked at Nola, who grinned back at him. ‘Sure, I was only teasing,’ she said, and laughter filled the room once more.

  Seamus, a man of hard work and few words, was more than impressed with the enterprise of his father, who had kept all of this secret from his only remaining son. As was his way, he was waiting for the right words to come to him before he passed comment.

  Daedio held up his mug. ‘To the future.’

  Nola, Seamus and Michael picked up their mugs and echoed his words. ‘To the future.’

  And they all felt it, the emotional charge in the air, the cool breeze that wafted across the room, the sudden dancing and flickering of the candle flames as if the door had been opened and a single rock of the chair. Michael swallowed down his whiskey, which now held only a dash of tea. His eyes widened as he looked at the others to see had they noticed. A shiver ran down his spine and he drained the last from his mug. He had. They had. No one spoke. Nola blessed herself and picking up the whiskey bottle smiled, but only Daedio knew for certain who and what it was.

  Chapter 11

  The news of Angela’s death would not normally have caused a stir outside of Tarabeg, but the fact that she was murdered, and buried the very next day, and that her daughter upped and left the family home and married within hours, created a scandal that carried all the way across the Nephin Beg to Newport and beyond. It even reached the ears of those who owned telephones, as far away as Galway and Cork.

  ‘God in heaven, the telex has never been so busy,’ said Mrs Doyle, sounding very self-important as she bustled about the post office. ‘It’ll be wearing out at this rate, so it will.’

  ‘’Tis a shameful disgrace,’ said one customer, who, disgrace or not, had barely left the post office for fear of missing out on the latest news.

  ‘A sin,’ ventured another, who was equally entrenched.

  But Mrs Doyle, having received her instructions from Father Jerry, via Teresa, was having none of it. ‘Oh hush now, will you. Father Jerry knew what they were doing and sure, so did Brendan O’Kelly. One a man of God, the other of the law. How is it you think your opinion is worth more than theirs put together now? It was their idea – both of them agreed to the wedding happening quick. Hadn’t Michael and Sarah waited long enough to be wed? Besides, there was no big celebration, as ye well know. It was all done with the minimum of fuss.’

  ‘Aye, but what if her father comes back and the guards don’t catch him?’ said Philomena O’Donnell as she held on to young Theady’s hand. ‘This one hasn’t slept properly since he heard the stories running wild about the shooting. What if McGuffey comes back and wants to finish us all off in our beds when he hears the news that the marriage took place and not one of us stopped it or said a word to condemn it?’ She placed her hands over the ears of her son, who squirmed himself free in objection.

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t be worrying about him,’ said Mrs Doyle. ‘Kevin McGuffey won’t be darkening this village with his shadow again. Well away, he’ll be by now. Ye can sleep safe in yer bed, Theady. There are no bad men in Tarabeg now that he’s gone. Keeva has been scared herself, haven’t you Keeva? I told her the same thing.’

  Keeva turned from the shelf, which she was filling with pads of airmail paper. The biggest selling commodity in Tarabeg. She squatted down next to Theady. ‘What’s bothering you then, Theady? You’ve been a right misery guts, so you have. Can’t get a smile out of you for love nor money.’ Her face was on a level with his and she smiled at his woeful expression. She noticed the pale blue bags under his eyes and the greyness of his skin. ‘You poor boy. Yer mammy’s going to be here for ages yet, do ye want to have a lie-down on the settle in the back?’

  Just at that moment, the bell rang and Mr O’Dowd from the school walked in with a letter in his hand. Theady looked up at him and without a second’s hesitation placed his hand into Keeva’s, which was outstretched. Keeva noticed that his palms were clammy.

  ‘You are an angel, you are, Keeva,’ said Philomena. ‘I can’t be going home yet when there’s so much going on here.’

  ‘A letter do you have, Mr O’Dowd?’ asked Mrs Doyle. ‘Is it to your mother in Dublin again?’

  Philomena’s ears pricked up.

  ‘My, I hope she knows what a lucky woman she is to have such a dutiful son. And how’s Miss O’Hara? We haven’t seen her in here yet this morning.’

  ‘Good morning, ladies, and sure, isn’t it a fine one too, with the salmon due any day now.’ The day the salmon made their journey up the river always caused excitement in the village and was the busiest night of the year in Paddy’s bar. ‘Yes, I do have a letter, and yes, I do want it posted, otherwise what would be the point in my calling in here? Do you think I come just for the tea? Was that a cup you had on your tray for me there, Keeva?’

  The ladies laughed as his eyes rested on Keeva and young Theady and he watched the curtain fall behind them as they slipped into the back.

  Keeva led the boy to the settle and made him comfortable, laying a cushion under his head and a crocheted blanket over him. ‘Are you comfortable, Theady?’ she asked. ‘You don’t look at all well, so you don’t.’

  Theady’s eyes had welled up with tears. He wasn’t used to such kindness from anyone other than Miss O’Hara.

  Keeva smiled down at him.

  ‘I’m scared,’ he said in what was almost a whisper.

  She had noticed the tears but decided not to say anything. ‘Go on, have a little sleep,’ she said. ‘Everything is hard when you are scared and have had no sleep. I know what it’s like to be scared. We have a ghost at the farm and sure, sometimes it runs under my bed and I don’t get a wink for the rest of the week, never mind the night. Your mammy will be in here for half the afternoon and you, you look dead on yer feet.’ She tucked the blanket in around him. ‘There’s a big fire and there’s no Kevin McGuffey coming around here.’

  A moment later she was back around the curtain and in the shop, just as Mr O’Dowd turned around from the counter. The look he gave her as he walked to the door made a shiver run down her spine. Sure, you can get your tea elsewhere, she thought to herself as she continued to unpack the airmail paper. For all Mr O’Dowd’s popularity in the village, Keeva had never warmed to him. The chatter about Kevin McGuffey and the secret wedding continued. It had been going on all week and wouldn’t let up for several more weeks yet.

  *

  Mrs Doyle could not have been more wrong. Kevin McGuffey hadn’t gone far at all. He had waited in the cave where the goods for smuggling were stored until Maughan eventually turned up. McGuffey had known he would because he had Maughan’s share of the money from the last smuggling drop in a leather pouch attached to his belt. Maughan would follow him to the ends of the earth to find it and he would begin that journey there in the cave.

  He kept himself hidden, slipping out during the night, taking water from a well and smashing open tinned meat stored in the cave for smuggling north of the border. He consumed several bottles of whiskey and frequently fell into deep sleeps, only to wake with a start when he thought he heard Angela calling his name. There had been times when he’d hit her so hard, he’d wondered would he one day kill her, so he’d long planned what he would do should that ever happen. He would not hang for it, no, by God, he wouldn’t. He would escape. And now here he was, about to put his plan into action.

  He heard the faintest sound of the muffled hooves of a horse and dared to venture out to the mouth of the cave even though it was daytime. Just as he’d suspected, Jay Maughan was walking down towards him. His caravan was parked under the escarpment, protected from the wind. He could see Shona’s head peering around the canvas and he noted the rags tied around the shoes of the horse. It was Maughan’s
way of making sure no one heard them when they crept into villages and took a new child. There was no tent up and no fire lit, so it appeared they had no intention of staying.

  ‘Have ye heard the news?’ Jay shouted. He was only just inside the cave and McGuffey pulled him further in.

  ‘Shut the feck up,’ he hissed. ‘The guards are outside the cottage.’

  Maughan stepped back from him and defiantly thrust his hands deep into his jacket pockets as he retreated towards the cave wall, which was running with water from the cliff. ‘Do you think I’m not aware of that?’ he said.

  McGuffey didn’t like his tone. The hint of respect Maughan usually reserved for him was missing.

  ‘You are a fecking wanted man and if they catch you, you will swing,’ Maughan said. ‘She’s fucking dead.’

  McGuffey threw his head back and laughed. ‘Do you think I’m hiding out in the cave because I didn’t know that?’

  Maughan sneered. ‘Yeah, well, I bet you haven’t heard that she’s already fecking buried and that your precious Sarah and Michael Malone are now man and wife.’

  This, McGuffey did not know. But apart from a slight rocking onto his back heels and a sudden draining of the colour from his weather-beaten face, he gave nothing away.

  Maughan covered the ground between them and, stopping less than a yard away, stared into McGuffey’s cold eyes. ‘Did ye hear me? She’s married. To feckin’ Malone. That wasn’t the plan. You said I could have her and then he would have fecked right off to Liverpool or America, like every other maggot from around here.’

  McGuffey replayed Maughan’s words in his head as though he was analysing each one individually. His eyes glittered with anger, but he said not a word.

  Maughan jumped back. He had thought McGuffey might hit him, but now he sensed his confusion and continued to taunt him. ‘Your wife wasn’t cold in her grave before they were wed.’ McGuffey continued pacing the cave. ‘And where’s my money from the load to the North? I want good money for that whiskey.’

  This time, McGuffey did respond. Reaching into his jacket pocket, he pulled out the pouch and threw it to the ground. It landed on a wooden crate of porter. Turning on his heel, he carried on walking to the back of the cave, where he’d stashed his own money and his gun.

  ‘Don’t be throwing my money around,’ Maughan shouted back. ‘What do you think I am, a fecking animal?’ Nonetheless, he ran over, grabbed the pouch, slipped it into his jacket pocket and marched after McGuffey.

  The cave was dark, but McGuffey knew every undulation of the floor, every foothold, and felt some satisfaction at hearing Maughan stumble. He picked up his own pouch and his gun and, ignoring Maughan, pushed past him, strode out of the cave and into the daylight.

  Maughan took a moment to steady himself and then, concerned for Shona and the horse, rushed out after him. Maintaining a safe distance, he checked his pouch. ‘Only half the money we agreed!’ he yelled in disgust. ‘You’re all fecking talk,’ he shouted. ‘You can deliver me fecking nothing. Not your daughter or the money, and now there’s no fecking land because Malone is staying put. We would have got rid of him if you had kept your end of the bargain. You can’t do fecking nothing right, can you? All fecking talk.’ He spat violently in McGuffey’s direction and watched with his mouth open in surprise as McGuffey stormed up the embankment to the cottage.

  As McGuffey had suspected, the guards outside his cottage were nowhere to be seen. They had gone into the village to attend the wake and had never returned. As far as they were concerned, he was long gone.

  He threw open the door and as it banged against the wall, he stood on the step and stared inside. It was empty. The shadows of lazy ghosts moved to the side and allowed the sunlight to stream in. Clean and empty. Once the burial was over, an army of women had turned up and given it a thorough once-over. There was no indication that Angela had lain there, cold and dead. All that remained were the echoes of her screams from the many beatings he’d given her. Angela had gone. Sarah had gone. McGuffey was standing in the emptiest cottage in Mayo, and he knew it.

  He stepped inside and looked around. He heard the sound of ghosts shuffling as he marched through the room to Sarah’s curtained-off area at the end. For the first time in his life, he felt confused. In this cottage, nothing happened without his say-so. How had this emptiness come to pass? The willow-wood rail and its curtain left the wall easily beneath his angry fist. He ripped them both down and flung them to the floor, grinding his heel into the pole, breaking it in a number of places.

  Maughan appeared in the doorway and began to laugh. A shrill, hollow laugh.

  McGuffey fingered the long barrel of his gun. He flicked off the catch with his thumb and lifted it to his shoulder.

  Maughan’s laugh quickly became a whimper as he retreated, running backwards and yelling, ‘Put the feckin’ gun down, you fecking madman.’ He fell and smacked the back of his head on the ground. For a brief moment, there was nothing but blackness and silence. As he opened his eyes, he blinked at the brilliant whiteness of the clouds, and the gulls flying overhead. Light became dark as McGuffey’s face blocked out the sun above him, his gun still in his hand.

  McGuffey began to laugh. Nothing more than a guffaw, thrown out of his throat and down at Maughan. ‘Get up,’ he said.

  Maughan blinked, his eyes adjusting.

  ‘Get up.’ This time there was no mistaking the menace in his voice. This was the McGuffey Angela and Sarah had lived with every day.

  Maughan pressed his elbows into the stony ground and clumsily shuffled backwards, casting nervous glances over his shoulder. When he was sure he had enough space, he sprang to his feet, turned and ran back towards the escarpment.

  McGuffey’s laughter rang in his ears. It had moved up from his belly and become a roar. ‘Run, you little maggot!’ he shouted. ‘Run!’

  Minutes later, McGuffey was walking back down to the beach with his gun, and the few possessions he owned packed into a lobster net. Maughan was already saddling up his horse and Shona was keeping watch from the front board. McGuffey spotted her and his heart raced. He moved to the left to avoid her. She was like a black cat; no one walked across her path. She was doing something, casting a spell on him, cursing him, he was sure of it. He could do more harm right now than any spell, he thought, but his cocksure swagger was gone.

  ‘Where are ye going now?’ Maughan shouted over.

  McGuffey turned and spat his tobacco onto the shale. ‘To the North,’ he replied.

  Maughan laughed out loud. ‘What, you’re leaving Eire to live under the fecking English? You fecking hate them.’

  McGuffey had already begun walking away, not interested in Maughan’s reply. But now he stopped, impatient at having to explain himself, and fixed his eyes on Maughan. ‘And that is why I’m going. There are plenty in the North feel like I do. I won’t be back. No one in Eire will be after doing anything. They are all too busy running down to the post office to get their hands on the next parcel of hand-me-downs to arrive from America or the next envelope of dollars or pounds. Money has made them like mad old women.’ He glanced towards Shona to see if she’d heard him. ‘It’s robbed them of their memories, their debt to our ancestors and our past. May they all rot in hell. Jesus feck, a parcel of wool arrives in the post and the famine is forgotten. A twenty-dollar bill and no one cares that we were sending ships loaded with grain to England whilst people here starved to death.’

  ‘That was nearly a hundred years ago,’ said Maughan incredulously.

  ‘Aye, a hundred years ago my grandfather was made by the Board of Works to build a road that went nowhere, for a bowl of shite to eat at the end of it. He was so starving and broken, he couldn’t manage to walk the seven miles back home with the piece of rotten bread they’d given him to take back for his kids. My family, who lived here, in that house, they died lying on the ground eating grass that stuck in their throats and swelled their bellies, every one of them. The British as good as murdered them
. You and every other fecker who takes the Judas shilling may forget that, but I won’t. Holy shite, I won’t. I won’t be happy until I’ve seen every one of the British blown sky high.’

  Maughan had no answer. The hatred came off McGuffey in waves and it always had. He was consumed, obsessed by the need for vengeance. Jay and Shona stood and watched as he pushed his boat out into the bay.

  McGuffey kept the boat close to shore, hugging the rocks so as not to be seen until he was far enough away. He’d barely rowed ten yards when he turned, took aim and fired one shot. It hit Maughan in the flesh of his leg. The gulls screeched, rose from the water and circled in surprise. Above Maughan’s screams and the roar of the waves, all that could be heard was the sound of McGuffey laughing.

  Chapter 12

  Paddy and Tig Devlin were shaking fresh sawdust on the bar floor and Keeva was dallying in the butcher’s shop. Josie had no idea why she was lingering so. ‘If you don’t get along with that ham on the bone,’ she said, ‘I’ll have Mrs Doyle in here giving out to me.’

  ‘Oh, I wasn’t dawdling, Mrs Devlin.’ Keeva bristled and looked put out as she left the shop.

  Tig put his head through the dividing curtain just in time to catch Keeva’s retreating back and the jangle of the bell. His heart sank and he let the curtain fall with a swish as he returned to the bar. Often when he heard her voice he managed to find some excuse or other to slip into the shop. Keeva made his pulse race and he could barely stop thinking about her. It had been that way for years now – ever since the night they’d walked home from the Long Hall of Romance with Michael and Rosie O’Hara and some of the others. When Michael had walked Rosie up the boreen that night, Tig would have given everything he owned to have accompanied Keeva home, but he’d been too embarrassed to ask. They lived in the same village and saw each other every day, so if she were to have the slightest notion of how he felt about her, he would be lost, with more to bear than simply a short leg and a bad chest. A broken heart, he thought, had to be the biggest disability of all.