Seamus suppressed a grin. ‘Well, I’m guessing that if you keep shouting at him and blowing up like you do, he’ll keep at it, what with you giving him such great satisfaction with all your huffing and puffing.’ He winked at Pete. ‘I’ll tell ye what though, Nola, with all that going on every night, there must be a babby on the way soon. I’d have managed it by now, eh, Pete?’
Nola’s face turned puce. ‘Jesus, the men in your family, your minds are all as bad as one another, along with yer dirty mouths. All ye say is fit for the midden, the lot of ye.’
She picked up the milk pail and marched back up to the house, bent over sideways as she heaved the bucket up the path, the roar of Pete and Seamus’s laughter at her heels. But Nola was a happy woman. She loved having Michael and Sarah in her home and though she knew it would end once they had built their dream of a shop on the land Daedio had given them, she was determined to enjoy every minute until that day came.
*
A few days later, Bee came up to the farm to see Sarah, as she did every Sunday. Captain Bob was now a more frequent visitor to the village and she’d brought him and Ciaran with her. Nola was busy in the kitchen. She smiled at Sarah and Bee, then shooed them out the door. ‘Go on out, the both of ye. Take the boy and show him the piglets. Feed them while you’re there, would ye. Go on, ye have lots to talk about.’ She inclined her head towards Captain Bob, who’d joined Seamus and Michael at the table. ‘I can manage with this lot here. You get off now while I make them some tea.’
The moment they were out of sight of the house, Ciaran ran off, revelling in the change of scenery, the green mountain so different from the sea view he was used to. It was something Sarah was also still adjusting to.
Bee folded her arms around her niece. ‘How are ye? Does Nola treat ye well? Some mothers-in-law can be right scolds.’ She stood back and pushed Sarah’s hair away from her face, searching for an honest answer.
The ferns on the boreen were shoulder high and dripping dew and Ciaran had leapt over the ditch to the field. ‘Watch out for the bog holes,’ Sarah shouted. ‘There’s a leprechaun lives in each one and they aren’t friendly.’
Ciaran screamed and came running back, throwing his arms around Bee’s legs.
‘There, that’ll teach ye,’ said Bee.
‘Keep to the boreen,’ said Sarah, ‘and just around the corner is the pig pen. Don’t disturb the pig and I’ll let you feed her.’ As he ran off again, with greater care this time, she turned back to Bee. ‘Nola couldn’t be better. She’s a dote of a woman. In some ways, I’m so lucky, and then in others…’ Tears, never far from the surface, jumped to her eyes and began to slide down her cheeks. Bee pulled her into her arms and Sarah stiffened, looking her straight in the eye. ‘I don’t know what others are like, but I couldn’t ask for better than Nola. The only thing that’s wanting is that no one here really knew Mammy and no one will talk about her. Why is that, Bee? No matter what I say, I can’t get them to talk about Mammy, and sometimes I want to, so much.’
‘Well, I’m here now. Talk to me. When we’re together, we will always talk about your mammy, because, Sarah, she lives in both of our hearts, she does, and when you and I are together, ’tis really the three of us, because she is right here with us.’ Bee hooked her arm into Sarah’s as they began to walk. ‘’Tis a funny thing, death. Those of great religion don’t see the need to cry, because the person who has died has gone straight on to heaven and the Lord will have saved them a room of their own in his house. You know that waits for all of us, Sarah.’
She pulled Sarah into her side for a hug and looked about her at the greenery. The fresh air smelt and tasted so different there to how it did at their own house by the shore. ‘I often think about Rory in that house that God had waiting for him, you know, in the room, like the priest tells us about from the pulpit, and I think, Jesus, Rory never lifted a finger in the entire time I was married to him, who the hell does he have cleaning the fecking room for him, because he won’t do it! And you know what I think now?’
Sarah, smiling, shook her head and looked sideways at her aunt.
‘I think he has Angela – she’ll be cleaning it and looking after him and waiting for me to join them.’
Sarah took out her handkerchief and wiped her eyes. The thought that her Uncle Rory might be with her mammy made her feel better. ‘But what about Captain Bob?’
‘Oh, well, that’s all good. You know, he wants me and the boy to leave Tarabeg and for him to leave his scold of a wife and for us all to be off to America. I’ve told him I’ll think about it. Maybe one day.’
Sarah looked alarmed. ‘Bee, no!’
‘Now then,’ said Bee, ‘you are right. The answer is no, not for a very long time.’
‘Do you not worry about what Uncle Rory might think? In his room like, in heaven.’
They were nearing the pig pen and Ciaran was standing on the wooden slats of the cage Seamus had made to keep the piglets in. He was peering over the top. The smell of the piglets hit Sarah and Bee long before they reached the pen.
‘No, I don’t worry about Rory. Yer mammy will have told him all about Captain Bob and he wouldn’t want the boy to grow up without a daddy. Oh, sure, Rory is his daddy and I will never let him forget that, not for a moment, and nor will his grandparents. I will always talk to him about Rory and how his son was the world to him, but there comes a time, just as it will for you one day, when things get easier and you move on. And you know, Sarah, if ever anyone was being watched over, ’tis you. Angela is watching over you, that’s for sure.’
‘Mammy, look, the pigs!’ Ciaran shouted.
‘We’re coming, Ciaran. And get down off that fence before it breaks and the pig thinks you’re one of hers and won’t let me have you back and we have to go home without you.’
Ciaran jumped down off the fence in shock and Sarah laughed out loud at the expression on his face. Bee looked at her and felt warmed.
‘Does it help, the time you have alone with Bee?’ Michael asked her later that night. They had retired to bed as soon as was polite and possible. Newly reunited, newly wed and surrounded by people all day, they never actually went to sleep until much later. Instead, making up for the time they’d lost while Michael was away at war, they talked for hours.
‘Oh, God, it does,’ said Sarah as she lay on her back. ‘When Bee and I talk, it’s like Mammy is back with us for that time. I can feel her, Michael. It’s as if the more we talk about her, the more she joins us, and my heart feels lighter. Sort of how it used to be, the three of us at home in the kitchen…’ She gulped down the lump that came to her throat. ‘I will get better, Michael. I love it here, but life has changed so much for me. Everything is new. At least the cows are getting used to me now.’
Michael laughed. ‘And the chickens chase you, I’ve seen them.’
Sarah laughed too. ‘Oh God, the chickens. I’m going to give them names. Daedio thinks I’m mad.’
Michael snorted. ‘Daedio thinks anyone who doesn’t hold the same opinions he does is mad, but he’s harmless.’
Sarah turned onto her side to face him. ‘Do you know what I miss the most, apart from Mammy?’ She began running her fingers up and down Michael’s bare chest.
He shook his head, almost absentmindedly. Her hair had cascaded onto his chest and he picked up a long strand. It felt silky and soft and he wove it over and through his fingers.
‘I miss the sound of the ocean and, you know, sometimes when I wake up, for just a minute I can hear it. And then it’s gone. Just like that.’
Michael frowned. ‘Sometimes I think I can hear shellfire,’ he said in a low voice.
‘Oh God, that must be awful.’ She had raised herself up further and, alarmed, had stopped running her fingers through the dark hair on his chest.
‘No, it’s not that bad. ’Tis only for a few seconds, like, but it still happens.’ He pulled her back down, missing the warmth of her body against his. ‘It’s our minds playing tricks. I
t will all stop soon because we have a life together now, and all that comes with it, and that’s what we’ll get used to. It will take time, but we will get there.’
As if on cue, the donkey that was in the habit of walking out of the shed at night and standing close to the house, next to their window, let out a bray. They both turned their heads towards it and Sarah grinned.
‘Noises like that, that’s what you’ll get used to,’ said Michael as he laughed. ‘We’re starting the building this week – the stone came down from the quarry today.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Sarah shrieked, playfully beating his chest with her hands.
He grinned as he grabbed her hand in his and moved it down his body, onto his lower abdomen. Sarah, without encouragement, continued its journey. ‘With a bit of luck, we will have a babby soon,’ he said, his voice thick. ‘A new home, a shop and a babby.’
Sarah’s reply was smothered by his lips, which had suddenly and urgently covered hers as he pulled her down on top of him. She thrilled at his hands roaming her body, exploring and becoming familiar with each part of her, and she responded in kind. Her heart glowed at the idea of a new life growing inside her, little knowing it had already arrived.
Chapter 13
The front door to the shop was painted red and so was the door to the rear, the one that led into the yard housing the cowshed and the dairy. The yard had high whitewashed walls, beyond which you could see the mountains that rose behind the Taramore river and extended all the way to the coast. Half an acre from the rear door was the bridge that crossed the river from one side of Michael’s land to the other. Directly across the wide and often muddy road from the shop’s front door was the side entrance to Paddy’s bar. Paddy could not have been more delighted. On a glorious autumn morning, just as the weak sun rose overhead, he stepped out of the bar with a spring in his stride, cleaning his hands on his butcher’s apron, and made his way across the road.
‘Michael, you are a genius, so ye are. You have blocked the view of the bar from Teresa Gallagher entirely. Who in God’s name would have known that would happen when you started building,’ he exclaimed. ‘That’ll mean more takings for me. We can open all the hours we want now.’ He rubbed his hands in glee but failed to see Tig, who was sitting on a rafter and had taken aim with his half-filled bucket of water.
The water cascaded down, soaking Paddy, and was quickly followed by a burst of laughter that saw Tig almost dislodge himself and come hurtling down after it. Paddy took his cap off and shook the water from it. Looking up at the half-thatched roof, he shouted, ‘Tig, you little bastard, I’ll be skinning your arse when ye finally get down.’
‘He’s not coming down until he’s finished. I’ve told him, I’ll send a pillow up.’ Michael laughed as he dropped a huge lump of quarry stone to the floor and, pushing back his cap, wiped the sweat from his brow. ‘He insisted on being put up there, to get on with the thatch. I’m in no mind to lift him down until the job’s finished.’
Sensing a further episode of satisfying horseplay to his benefit, Paddy winked at Michael. ‘Aye, well, ye might want to pop over for a drink later, Michael, and ye might be having a convenient lapse of memory with regard to who’s sat on yer roof when you leave.’
They both looked up towards Tig, legs dangling from the rafters and a worried frown on his brow as he strained, without success, to hear what they were saying. ‘Oi, what are the both of ye talking about? I can tell it’s about me. Shout so I can hear ye too.’
‘Not bloody likely,’ Paddy shouted back. He and Michael’s men roared with laughter and Paddy turned to make his way back to his own shop. Halfway across the road, he stopped and retraced his steps, this time with concern etched on his face. ‘Oh, Michael, I almost forgot why I came out to see you. Josie said the Maughans are camped not a mile out. John O’Donnell was in the shop this morning, said Philomena had walked out to where they are, to have her palm read by Shona. I’m telling Father Jerry meself, as soon as he comes in. We make our best efforts to keep the Maughans away and not to cross the old woman’s hand with silver when she comes anywhere near. Thought you might want to know. And apparently Maughan has a woman now.’
‘Well, that’s good news then – he won’t be after mine any more.’ Michael took a puff on his pipe.
‘Aye, God knows who he found to live that life. John said she’s from Clew Bay and she’s a widow.’
‘They must be different people altogether over in Clew Bay,’ said Michael. ‘I feel sorry for her, whoever she is. She must think she’s married into purgatory.’ He bent his knees to retrieve the lump of stone destined for the stable block. With one heave, he leant slightly backwards and looked up towards the village crossroads. ‘Why do they have to come here at all, Paddy? Will they ever just leave us alone?’
Paddy thought for a moment before he spoke. ‘You see, Michael, it’s like this. They were thrown off the land – by your granddaddy, we never knew why that happened, we thought that Captain Carter had paid Daedio to do it – and they never really went away. I might be wrong, but I reckon that Shona had a notion to take the land back one day. God in heaven knows how she thought she would do that, but now you’ve gone and built a place on it and… The Maughans have been trading in these parts for as long as I can remember and your shop, well, they’re bound to be curious, are they not? Selling is their business, it’s what they do. There’s not so many calls coming across the border for goods any more, so I hear, and smuggling was half of how they earned their money. I’ll be the first to admit’ – Paddy leant forward and cupped his hand round the side of his mouth so that no one could hear him – ‘but not to Josie, mind, I did very well from the smuggling business meself.’
Michael lifted one leg and rested the stone on it. ‘I heard a farmer from Roscommon was arrested trying to walk over the border with three pigs,’ he said. ‘When the border men stopped him, he said he was lost, with three pigs in tow!’
Both men looked at each other for a second, then burst out laughing at the audacity of the man.
‘What happened to him?’ asked Paddy.
‘He was put in a cell overnight and the pigs were confiscated.’
Paddy whistled. ‘Holy feck, that’s a harsh price. But there is a border and ’tis a sign of the times. I reckon the Maughans will be trying to sell more around here now the border trade has gone with the rations. They’ll be having more in the North than we do here. Isn’t that just a turnaround altogether?’
Michael looked up the road, distracted, still pondering Paddy’s news. A shadow crossed the sun whenever someone mentioned Jay Maughan’s name. ‘Why would anyone want to buy from the Maughans?’ he said. ‘That wicked pair. Even Josie won’t touch their money until she’s washed it. I reckon it’ll be a relief for people to shop at Malone’s.’
‘Aye, I reckon you’re right, but that won’t stop Jay trying to cause trouble. Just watch your back.’
They both heard Josie calling for Paddy, and he turned and made his way back across the road, raising his hand in a farewell salute.
Minutes later, Michael dropped the stone at the back of his new house and sat himself down in the cow byre Seamus and Pete had built. A wooden stall, carved by Daedio, had already been fixed to the wall with a ring and a chain. It stood ready and waiting, and Michael ran his hands over the smooth wood that had been worked with love.
So many friends and villagers had willingly donated their hard labour to help them out. With their bare hands they’d made a reality of the plan he and Sarah had drawn. Once the roof was finished, a priority to keep out the rain, the goods would start arriving and he and Sarah would leave the farm. Everything was perfect, except for the continuing presence of the Maughans.
He picked up the earthenware jug of cold tea as Tig, still up in the rafters, began banging wooden plugs into the joists. ‘Come down for your tea, Tig,’ he shouted up.
As he walked around to what was to be the kitchen of the new cottage, a heavy feeling set
tled in his gut. Jay Maughan might have found himself a wife, but with his wounded leg, he’d be finding it harder to get manual work, and he’d not thank Michael for becoming a rival trader. And Shona was no friend of the Malones, Daedio had made that very clear. The feeling of dread would not shift.
He came back to the shop area and looked up at the roof to see Tig kicking his legs in frustration.
‘Where have you been, you feckin’ useless lump?’ Tig shouted down. ‘You were so quiet, I thought you’d gone and left me here. Me mouth is full of the dust.’
‘Sorry,’ said Michael, grinning.
‘You don’t mean that,’ Tig shot back. And then, more seriously, ‘You know, I have the best view in the world up here. I can see the river, the hill and the coast, but best of all, I get to see Keeva bobbing in and out of the post office. I need a leg down now, Michael.’
Michael stood to give his friend the shoulder he needed to collapse onto before he hit the ground. ‘Keeva is it then? How long has that little flame been burning?’ Tig blushed and looking sheepish, kicked a stone with the toe of his boot. ‘Oh, since we were about ten I think. Yeah, when we were in school. But, for God’s sake, don’t be telling her. She wouldn’t be looking twice at the likes of me now.’
‘Jesus, and this is the first I know of it? You are a dark horse, you are that Tig, and get away with you, she would be a lucky woman to have a man like yourself. I’ll have to see what I can do about this.’ And to a chorus of protest, he knocked Tig’s cap off with the back of his hand.
*
The farm on Tarabeg Hill had been a hive of activity for weeks. Stools were being carved and a kitchen table had been hewn from a tree that had been felled when Daedio was still a boy; it had been stashed outside the cowshed for a special occasion, which this most certainly was.
Every morning, Daedio insisted on being carried by Pete and Seamus to the old cottage. He sat outside the front door and whittled and carved, all the while firing off instructions that tested Pete’s good nature. Today was no different.
Shadows in Heaven Page 18