Maura held up a number of other ingredients – bok choy or Chinese white cabbage, which she had ordered especially from a Galway greengrocer. She also showed the class a number of different noodles, including cellophane and hokkien noodles, which were a staple of Asian cooking but could be used so deliciously in many other sorts of dishes. She was pleased the students guessed most of them, and remembered the best ways to handle and cook them.
She’d been pleasantly surprised to find many of the Asian ingredients in the Ennis supermarket, and had said as much to Bernadette. “It’s fascinating, isn’t it, all the food from different countries gradually crisscrossing the world? Asian food in Ireland, Irish food in America, Indian food everywhere. I’d love to really trace how it all happened,” she had said.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Eithne whisper something to Dominic, who nodded. Eithne quietly opened the kitchen door, slipped out and carefully shut it behind her, but to Maura’s discomfort Dominic stayed, even quietly moving a stool and sitting down to watch. If he was trying to unsettle her, it was working very well, she thought.
She moved on from the sight test and started telling her students about the growing use of native foods in Australian cooking.
She held up a few examples and explained how they could be used: wattle seeds, used to flavour everything from chocolate to flour and pasta; mountain pepper, which she used in sauces and as a marinade; and quandongs, a native Australian peach that could be used to make delicious jams and chutneys.
To amuse herself and Bernadette, she started to speak in what she thought was a very exaggerated Australian accent. “This bush tucker is really beaut. The blokes and the sheilas get stuck right into them with a few tinnies after an arvo at the footy or watching the Aussies beat the Poms at the cricket.”
To her shock, the students – and Bernadette – continued looking at her with straight faces. She realised they hadn’t noticed the difference. Her real accent was obviously as strong as the joke one, she realised, more than slightly embarrassed. To her slight relief, she saw a ghost of a grin cross Dominic’s face. Thank heavens for small mercies, she thought to herself.
Returning to her normal voice, for all that it mattered, she brought the subject around to herbs, spices and other flavour ingredients.
“I’ll need a few volunteers for this next test – I’m going to blindfold four of you and see if you can guess, just by the smell, what herb, spice or secret ingredient I am holding. So, any takers?”
They all seemed to be looking at their feet all of a sudden. “Please don’t be shy, nobody gets punished if they get any wrong,” she laughed.
Bernadette stepped forward. “I see we’re going to need a bit of persuasion,” she said. “Seeing as I’m allegedly in charge here, I can give a few orders. So, let me think – Una, Rachel, Fiona and let me think, yes, how about you, Dominic? We can test just how much you’ve learned in the last five minutes.”
Dominic’s head shot up, and he started to protest, but Bernadette was taking no excuses.
“No, I need four volunteers and you four will do very nicely.”
The rest of the class, relieved that they hadn’t been picked, settled down into their seats to watch with enjoyment, as the four guinea pigs made their way up to the front of the kitchen.
Maura lined up the four stools and stood ready with the silk scarves as they took their seats one by one. Dominic inclined his head as he took the seat on the end. Starting from the other end, Maura deftly began to tie the scarves around each person’s eyes, checking that their eyes were covered, but their noses free. “You’ll be relying totally on your sense of smell now, so concentrate,” she said, talking quickly to mask a sudden attack of nerves as she came up to Dominic.
Standing behind him with the scarf in her hand she could smell the fresh, citrusy scent of his aftershave, and was suddenly overwhelmed with a memory of the night in the hotel room with him. As she carefully tied the scarf around his face, her wrist brushed against his skin and she knew for a fact that she had suddenly blushed red. She was struck with the thought that given very different circumstances, what she was doing could be a prelude to something very sensual indeed.
She stepped back from Dominic and snapped herself back into the present. “Now, if I can call upon my trusted assistant Bernadette to help me, we’ll get started.”
Maura directed Bernadette to walk along the four blindfolded people and hold a bowl containing one of the secret ingredients under their noses, while Maura spoke in general terms about how each one could be used. Once all four had smelt it, she asked for their guesses.
Coriander. Ginger. Lemongrass. Soy sauce. Basil. Coconut milk. Garlic. To her amazement, the only one who got most of them right was Dominic.
“Well, there we are,” she said, still surprised. “Thank you to today’s guineapigs. You can take your blindfolds off.”
As they stood up and took them off, she turned to find Dominic right behind her.
“Congratulations,” she said, looking up at him. “You surprised me.”
She could see a glint of a smile in his eye, and was relieved to see something other than the coldness there had been between them since the night in Ennis.
“I might have grown up in a monastery,” he said, a half-smile playing on his lips, as he referred to their heated discussion that first morning in the car, “but it was a very cultured one.” She smiled at him, about to say something back, when one of her students came up to her asking a question about the nutritional value of coconut milk. By the time she had answered as best she could, Dominic had left the room.
Packing up that afternoon, she casually asked Bernadette where Dominic had gone.
Just as casually, Bernadette answered her. “Oh, back to Dublin for business, I think. And then next week he’s off to Glasgow and London and probably Paris, I think. Magazine publishing’s a heady world by the sound of things.”
Rats, Maura thought childishly. She imagined she could still smell his aftershave from where her sleeve had brushed against his cheek when she was blindfolding him. The thought sent a little tremor down her back. What was happening to her? she wondered. She was carrying on like a teenager with a crush on a pop-star.
Bernadette interrupted her pleasant thoughts. “This might help you get over the disappointment,” she teased. She held up a large envelope which had just arrived by international express mail.
“Nick’s photos,” she cried. “Oh, let’s have a look.” She fell upon the envelope, quickly ripping it open. Nick had sent enlargements of nearly a dozen photos of himself and Fran with tiny little Quinn. Maura felt tears come to her eyes as she looked at the three of them together. After all they had been through, it was a miracle to see Quinn. She looked in the envelope again and found a hastily written note.
Pictures paint a thousand words, don’t they? We love him and so will you. The three of us can’t wait to see you. Lots and lots of love, Nick, Fran and Quinn.
Maura felt a lump in her throat. “Oh, isn’t he lovely, Bernadette, look,” she said. “It’s incredible, isn’t it?”
Bernadette looked closely at each photo.
“He’s gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous,” she said. “They look so happy.”
Maura was looking at one of the photos, a close-up of Fran gazing down at Quinn lying in her arms. Her look was soft and full of love.
She suddenly made a decision. “Are you free tomorrow afternoon, after the barbeque?”
Bernadette looked up and nodded. Maura had a feeling the older woman knew what she was about to ask.
She was right. Bernadette spoke first. “Of course I’ll take you to your mother’s village,” she said softly.
Chapter Twenty-four
The sky was grey, but the light clear as they climbed into Bernadette’s small car the next afternoon after saying goodbye to the second group of students. Maura’s manner had been easy, but her mind was preoccupied.
“I’ve a few books on tracing your Iri
sh ancestors, but I suppose they’re not exactly applicable in your case?” Bernadette asked with a smile, looking across and noticing Maura’s tension.
Maura shook her head. She’d read all those books. They tended to concentrate on great grandparents and ancient shipping records. She knew exactly where her Irish ancestors were from, right down to the address of their house. She had the practical side covered – it was the emotional side she was having difficulty with.
“So tell me again what you know about Catherine and her family,” Bernadette asked, as they turned off the main road onto a much bumpier and narrower one.
Maura turned in her seat toward Bernadette. “Apart from what details she left in her letter, not much. I talked to one of the nurses she last worked with, and she told me a little bit more. I know she left Ireland for America when she was about twenty-three, then travelled on to Australia. I don’t know why she left America, or Ireland, if it comes to that.”
“And your father?” Bernadette asked gently.
“Nothing, not a word. The nurse at the hospital said that Catherine had talked about her daughter, but not about the father. She said she thought it might have been a married man, but she wasn’t sure. And there’s no way to find out now. She wrote ‘father unknown’ on my birth certificate.”
Bernadette looked closely at her. “Do you want to know?”
Maura laughed nervously. “I think trying to find out about a long-lost mother will do me for starters, don’t you? At least she knew she had me. He may not even know I exist. Besides, I didn’t grow up with a father in my life, so it’s not something I know about anyway. I guess all I hope is that it was a great romance between them, even if it was short but sweet. I hope it was, I’d hate to think it was something awful.” She was quiet for a moment. “Anyway, I’ve done all my crying and ranting and raving about who or what or why. I’ve decided that if I don’t find out anything about her today, then I’m not going to look any further.”
“Then let’s hope you do find something,” Bernadette said. “So let’s work out where to start looking and asking questions about her. What age would she have been now if she was still alive? Did she write of any friends in Ireland? What did her parents do for a living?”
“I feel like I’m travelling with Miss Marple,” Maura said, trying to lighten the situation. Bernadette just smiled at her.
Maura carefully unfolded the note her mother had left for her sixteenth birthday. She’d been clutching it tightly since they left the house. She knew every word off by heart, but scanned the lines again.
“Her parents were called John and Rosa, and he was a farmer. Catherine was thirty-four when I was born, so she would have been sixty-two now.”
“So we’re looking for people around sixty who may have grown up with her here. Well, in a village as small as this one is, there’s sure to be someone who remembers her.”
“What do you suggest? Will we round up all the sixty-plus aged women into a room and interrogate the lot of them?”
“That’s one way,” Bernadette said, looking over at Maura. She knew Maura well enough now to know that her light words were masking a dose of nerves. “But why don’t we take it a bit more slowly?”
Maura took a deep breath. Now that she was this close she wanted to stand in the middle of the village and shout at the top of her lungs. “Does anyone want to meet Catherine Shanley’s surprise daughter? Here I am.
“Would you like to go to your grandparents’ house first – Catherine’s letter gave you directions, didn’t you say?”
Maura was silent for a moment. She’d often imagined turning up at her grandparents’ house. Sometimes in her mind they welcomed her, other times they had been cold and unforgiving. She bought herself some more time. “Her parents would be very elderly, if they’re still living there. I’d probably give them the fright of their lives if I just turned up at the door.”
Bernadette agreed silently. “Then what about a look around the village first, maybe find out what we can first from someone local?”
Maura nodded.
“Right, so, where would we find people aged about sixty in a town like this, to get us started?” Bernadette thought aloud.
“In the hospital?” Maura suggested. “Doctors or nurses or cleaning ladies and cooks.”
“No hospitals in these little villages,” Bernadette answered. “Everyone travels into Ennis these days.”
“Shop-owners. Publicans or their wives,” Maura suggested again.
“The very thing,” Bernadette answered. She had a feeling there’d be little else in this village other than a shop and a pub or two. “We’ll try all of them, just to get a feel for the place.”
Maura looked at her watch. “It’s a bit early for pubs, isn’t it?”
“God, you really do think we’re all heathens, don’t you? I was thinking of a cup of tea, you minx. That’ll get the chat going. Now, what story will we go in with? Presumably you don’t want to just charge on in there and ask if anyone knew your mother?”
Maura shook her head.
“Rule number one in these situations, keep your story simple and stick to the truth as much as possible. Let’s say you used to do some volunteer work as a cook in a little rural hospital in South Australia, say, just a couple of nights a week while you were studying to be a chef. And who did you work with only this lovely nursing sister called Catherine Shanley from Ireland who used to make her home town sound so gorgeous you always wanted to visit it if you were ever over here.”
Maura laughed despite herself. “I’ll need to write notes on my hand to remember all of that.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll get you back on track if you get stuck,” Bernadette promised.
They pulled into the town. Maura’s immediate thought was it would have been hard for Catherine to make this place sound gorgeous and alluring to a potential tourist. There wasn’t much to remark about at all. It wasn’t one of County Clare’s beautiful seaside villages and didn’t seem to boast any historic houses or ancient ruins. It was just a jumble of little houses and a small row of shops and pubs, all looking a little gloomy in the grey afternoon light.
“What would Catherine have done if she had stayed here?” Maura whispered.
“She must have asked herself the same question,” Bernadette said, looking around. “Perhaps that’s why she left.”
They walked into the first shop on the street and bought some peppermints from a surly young man behind the counter. He barely grunted at them as he took their money.
Bernadette shook her head ruefully as they came out into the street. “There’s that famous Irish hospitality for you,” she laughed. “And I bet he wonders why business is quiet.”
“Now, watch your tongue, that could be my second cousin you’re talking about there,” Maura said sternly.
“Well, now, I did notice a resemblance,” Bernadette teased.
They walked on, past a combination hardware and undertaker shop. Maura shook her head at Bernadette’s enquiring look. “Maybe as a last resort,” she said.
There were two pubs to choose from. As they walked into the first, their eyes taking a moment to adjust to the low light inside, they saw they were the only customers. The elderly man behind the bar served them in near silence, more interested in reading his newspaper than having a chat.
They drank their lukewarm tea, looking around as the front door opened again and two elderly men came in and joined the uncommunicative barman. They too took out newspapers and the three sat companionably reading and sipping their pints. The arrival of two younger fellows, with a sulky-looking teenage girl, added a bit of noise. The two boys set up the pool table for the latest in what sounded like a long-running tournament. The girl sat in a chair on the edge of the room, watching both boys, as she twirled a piece of her long hair round and round her finger.
Maura tried to imagine Catherine in this pub as a young girl, and couldn’t. She couldn’t imagine herself here either. It had been fairly quie
t growing up in the Clare Valley, but nothing like this.
Bernadette leaned over. “Do you want to ask any of them any questions?”
Maura shook her head quickly.
“Then we’ll try the other one and hope for better luck there.”
They walked the short distance up the road to the other pub, which looked very similar to the one they had just left, apart from the addition of a cheerful-looking window box of red geraniums on one of the windowsills.
The welcome couldn’t have been more different. The woman behind the bar started chatting to them as soon as they set foot over the threshold.
“I thought you’d come in here eventually – I saw you go into Down the Road,” she said, with a disparaging nod of her head, meaning the pub they had just left. “Lord, I don’t know why that man bothers opening for the general public – sure, he only talks to the people he knows. It might as well be a private men’s club the way he carries on. Now, what can I get the two of you?”
Bernadette and Maura exchanged glances. They’d get on much better here.
Bernadette answered. “My Australian friend and I would love a cup of tea each, please.”
“Oh, you’re from Australia,” the lady looked over at Maura with friendly curiosity. “You’re very welcome, are you travelling around the whole country?”
Maura decided to stick with the truth for the time being.
“I’m here in Clare for a few weeks, running some cooking classes with my friend here at Ardmahon House,” she answered.
“Oh yes, I heard something about that on the radio, an Australian cooking school. What are you having – barbeques every night?” The woman gave a loud laugh.
“Well, maybe just a few,” Maura smiled back, hoping she wouldn’t hear any kangaroo-steak jokes.
The lady arranged their pots of tea and cups on the bar in front of her, introducing herself as Dymphna Hogan. Maura and Bernadette took up the unspoken invitation, pulling bar stools up close to the worn wooden edge.
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