‘So how is Maddie?’ Desmond asked, leaning back in his chair. The room fell silent and the awkwardness descended over them again like a heavy cloud. His brothers looked at one another uneasily but Desmond didn’t flinch. He didn’t look like the sort of man who cared too much about being tactful.
‘She’s very well,’ Ellen replied casually.
‘What does she make of you being here in the motherland with us?’ Johnny asked, rubbing his beard nervously.
‘She doesn’t know she’s here,’ Peg answered for her. The men stared harder.
‘She doesn’t know you’re here?’ Ryan repeated. ‘Where the hell does she think you are, then?’
‘In the English countryside, somewhere, trying to write a novel.’
‘You’re a writer, are you?’ said Joe. ‘That’s grand.’
‘Trying to be a writer, would be more accurate,’ Ellen said with a sniff, as if it really wasn’t very important whether she became one or not.
‘What do you write about?’ Joe asked.
‘Novels, you know, mystery, relationships, life,’ she replied importantly. ‘Oswald told me about the castle. That sounds like a good place to base a book.’
‘You can come with me and Joe today, if you like. We work up there. I’m estate manager and Joe just smokes and watches,’ said Johnny with a chuckle. ‘The idle gobshite!’
‘Yes, let’s humour the old man,’ Joe retorted, rolling his eyes. ‘Let him think he’s doing it all on his own.’ He turned back to Ellen. ‘There are plenty of ghosts up there for you to write about.’
‘Don’t listen to him, pet. The only ghosts are those two fooling about after a heavy night in the Pot of Gold,’ Peg interjected.
‘There’s not a lot for them to do up there, I don’t imagine,’ Ryan added. ‘The castle is locked up and Mr Macausland’s in Dublin most of the time. If they sat having a picnic all day no one would know or care.’
‘So, if your mam doesn’t know you’re here, how did you find us?’ Desmond brought the subject back to Ellen, his gaze steady and penetrating.
‘From Aunt Peg’s letters and Christmas cards that Mother keeps in a drawer. I thought Aunt Peg was her only sibling. I didn’t know she had four brothers.’
‘That’ll be for sure,’ Desmond muttered. ‘And what’ll you tell her?’
Ellen shrugged noncommittally. ‘I’m not going to tell her anything. What the eye doesn’t see the heart doesn’t grieve for. She doesn’t need to know I’ve found you.’ She lowered her eyes because she sensed Aunt Peg saw through her facade. The older woman was watching her pensively from the Stanley. Her story was gaping with missing information that Ellen didn’t feel ready to share, but a guilty blush warmed her cheeks because she knew Aunt Peg must suspect now that she had run away.
‘I’d love to see the castle,’ she said, longing to extricate herself. She didn’t want to talk about her mother any more. She didn’t like the feeling of being interrogated, especially when she was hiding so much.
‘Well, there’s no time like the present,’ said Johnny, pushing out his chair. ‘Thanks for breakfast, Peg.’
‘Don’t you all come to my door tomorrow expecting another fry-up, now will you?’
‘Too late, Peggine.’ Joe laughed. ‘It’s a grand way to start the day.’
‘You’re like a pack of dogs,’ Peg retorted. ‘Off with you all now. I’ve work to do.’
‘How’s that squirrel?’ Craic asked.
‘Hibernating. And he’s called Reilly, by the way.’
‘You’re just grand, Peg,’ said Desmond, patting her shoulder.
‘Flattery will get you nowhere, Desmond Byrne. Now, out of my house, the lot of you.’ She herded them out like a pack of sheep.
‘You sure you won’t come to the boozer?’ Desmond asked, his gruff voice suddenly surprisingly soft and full of compassion.
‘No,’ she replied in the same tone, as if there was something unspeakable in the air between them of which they were both acutely aware but unwilling to articulate.
‘OK, then we’ll share a pint with our niece,’ he conceded.
‘Bring her back in one piece, won’t you?’
‘I’ll keep an eye.’
Peg noticed Ellen shrugging on her fur jacket. It was the most inappropriate coat for the countryside. ‘Take a pair of my boots, pet. You’ll get very muddy up at the castle with the boys, and it might rain, so borrow an overcoat, too. Your furry thing looks very dear altogether, so you don’t want to ruin it.’
Ellen decided to wear her own jacket but gave in to the boots. They weren’t fashionable, but they were comfortable and fitted her perfectly. ‘You and I have the same size feet,’ she called to Peg.
‘We must be related,’ her aunt replied with a chuckle. ‘I’ll see you later. Don’t be believing all Joe’s stories, now, will you? He’s full of rubbish.’
‘I love ghost stories,’ Ellen answered, following the men outside.
‘So did I once,’ Peg added, almost to herself. And when Ellen turned back, her aunt’s face looked desperately sad, as if a fire had once burned through her heart, like the lighthouse.
Chapter 4
I am in a limbo, bound to the earth but not of it. The fact that I can be anywhere I want at will is little consolation. I have no body. I’m like a wisp of smoke that never dies, drifting from one place to another by the sheer force of my will. One minute I am in Dublin, the next in Connemara. How easy it would have been to have travelled like this in body! And yet the years have made me lonely. I have denied myself heaven but play no earthly part. I can only observe the lives of those I love as if in a dream. I have no need for sleep and I am never hungry. I don’t feel the cold or the rain upon my skin, and yet I experience a deep and lasting pleasure in the beautiful Irish countryside, just as I always did; perhaps even more so now, because it is all I have.
The frustration I felt in the beginning has mellowed and I am resigned to this nonexistence. I am lonely, but not alone. Spirits pass through the corridors of the castle but take no notice of me. I could drive myself mad trying to chase them, searching the rooms for their company. They are like mist that disappears into the air like breath on a cold winter’s morning. I imagine they were there when I was living, existing in this parallel dimension, as disinterested in me as they are now. I don’t know where they go and why they won’t communicate with me. It would be nice to have a friend.
I never liked Dublin. I’m a Galway girl born and bred, all right. I hated the noise and the concrete when I was alive and I still hate it now that I am dead. Yet I suffer it gladly to be near my children. I enjoy their good health and their happiness, for I have to admit that they are happy. They have buried their desolation like dogs who bury bones deep in the earth but always remember. One day they will dig me up and cry all over again for their loss, because that is the way grief works. It isn’t so easy to erase such deep pain. A person can only cover it up and hope in time to forget. But inevitably, sooner or later, he will have to face it and overcome it because, just as the earth throws up all its buried bones in the end, so the human heart throws up its pain. I might not be able to wrap my arms around them when they need their mother’s comfort, but I am right beside them like a shadow they cannot see, and I will be there when their loss rises up to challenge them.
And what of Conor? He has not buried his pain like Ida and Finbar. He carries it around like a burning coal in the heart of his heart. If I had known he loved me so much I would never have done what I did. Oh, Conor, my love, why didn’t you love me like this when I was alive?
He now spends most of his time in Dublin, and yet the films he worked so hard and with such enthusiasm to produce have dried up like thirsty hydrangeas. He’s drinking too much and partying too hard, in the hope that the noise of people and music will distract him from the pain in his heart and the nagging of his conscience. When he takes the children to Ballymaldoon he stays away from the castle. He rides out over the hills, his bla
ck hair like a mane in the wind behind him as his horse jumps the stone walls and ditches. He walks up the beaches, a dark and lonely figure against the white sand and wild sea. He doesn’t know that I’m right beside him for I leave no footprints, and when I reach out to take his hand I am as cool and intangible as the wind itself.
He doesn’t venture into town. The Pot of Gold is full of gossip and he cannot bear the condemning glances and the whispering. They were suspicious of him right at the start, when he bought the castle all those years ago. He was a townie from Dublin with an English mother and an Irish father, and as much as he thought of himself as Irish, the full-blooded Irish will always say that an Anglo-Irishman is Anglo first and Irish second. This simply isn’t the case with Conor and never has been. He loves Ireland with all his heart and there’s no space in there for England. But they resented the fact that he didn’t socialize or throw lavish parties for the locals, and worse, that he didn’t attend Mass. But Conor is not a religious man, although he is a deep thinker and I know he feels closer to God in nature than in a church. I wonder now whether he feels God has betrayed him – whether he doubts there is a God after all. I would like to say that I know, now that I am dead; but I have chosen to remain attached to the earth so I am as ignorant of God as he is. I only know that we don’t die, for I am proof enough of that. But where we go after, I will have to wait and see. Right now, I have eyes only for those I love; I daren’t raise them to heaven in case I’m tempted away.
When Conor married me, I was a dreamy Irish girl with aspirations to being an actress. We met on the set of a film he was producing in Galway. I had a small part and everyone said I caught his eye because I wanted to better my career. But the truth is we fell in love. I appealed to his romantic and creative nature and he to mine. He said I was the sort of girl who inspired poems and paintings and songs. But as much as I desired, I was not the sort of girl who could take the lead in a big film. So, I threw myself into Ballymaldoon Castle and into the nurturing of our two children and settled with the poems Conor wrote about me and the painting he commissioned to hang on the wall above the grand fireplace in the hall. Conor was everything I wanted and I knew that as long as I was with him, I would never desire anything more. I wouldn’t lament the actor’s life I had so readily given up and I wouldn’t dream of fame and adulation because if I was the light in Conor’s eyes I wouldn’t need to shine in anyone else’s. But love is a strange thing. Sometimes, however much love a person gets, it is somehow never enough.
When I can no longer bear the heaviness of Dublin, I fly about the tall trees and hills of Connemara and my heart sings with joy. I glide upon the surface of the lake where clouds are reflected on the water like scenes from my life that I view with detachment, as if they belong to somebody else. I stand on the clifftop, overlooking the ruined lighthouse where my life ended. I watch from afar as I cannot bear to go there. I linger in the places I love: the castle, the sailor’s church, the beaches, cliffs and hills. But I cannot visit the lighthouse because my memories are too painful to relive. Regret is still the thorn in my heart and I suffer it every moment of my death.
And then, one cold morning in February, I am haunting the grounds of the castle when I see a stranger on my land: a beautiful, raven-haired stranger in the company of Johnny and Joe Byrne. While Conor is in Dublin, those men look after the estate. But besides Mrs Haggett, who comes weekly to clean and dust the shell that was my home, no woman has set foot there. Until now.
I am transfixed. It has been a long time since someone has ignited my interest. I move closer and see that she is indeed lovely. She has deep-set eyes, tawny-brown flawed by tiny flecks of gold. Her skin is young and plump, and she has full lips, which she has glistened with gloss. She has the air of a foreigner, that look of wonder and uncertainty when faced with an unfamiliar place, and is wearing the most ridiculous jacket I have ever seen, but I suppose fake fur is fashionable and that is why she wears it. Perhaps she is Joe’s girlfriend, but they don’t touch each other as lovers do and there is no frisson of attraction between them. They are as siblings, but I know Joe only has brothers.
They are wandering around the castle grounds. I can see that the girl is struck by the magnificence of my home. I’m not surprised. Today, the sky is as blue as the sea with foamy white clouds floating across it like boats. The sun is shining brightly and every now and then, when a cloud passes over it, the valley is plunged into shadow and the air turns damp and cold. Then the cloud sails on and light races down the hills like a bright wave, swallowing up the shade and breaking onto the castle in a dazzling burst of radiance. It is as if God has opened his treasure chest full of gold and it is that which lights up the sky. I am distracted a moment by the beauty of it, but then the mention of my name brings me back to the little group wandering around the lake.
‘So, what was Caitlin Macausland like?’ the girl asks Joe. Her accent is English and posh, like Conor’s mother.
‘She was off her nut,’ Joe replies. ‘Away with the fairies.’
‘What, really mad?’
‘No, not really mad, just eccentric, I suppose.’
‘She was a stunner!’ Johnny rejoins and there is admiration in his tone. ‘There was something wild about her. She was an actress once, you know. She was born to be an actress, but she gave it up when she married Mr Macausland. I’d say that was a shame, because she would have made a good actress, I think.’
Joe laughs fondly at his father. Johnny looks short and stocky beside his tall son. ‘Dad had a bit of a thing for her,’ Joe says, grinning. ‘Didn’t you, Dad? Ah, go on, admit it to Ellen, she’s one of us.’ Ah, so she’s family. An English cousin, perhaps. I wonder how that can be.
Johnny shrugs nonchalantly. He is used to his son’s teasing. ‘Sure, I felt sorry for her, rattling around in this big castle on her own while her husband was away all the time. She was a woman who needed a lot of looking after.’
‘And you know all about that, do you, Da?’ Joe smirks.
‘You have a lot to learn about women, boy,’ Johnny retorts. ‘Especially beautiful women, and, aye, she was beautiful, all right.’
‘Did she mix with the locals?’ Ellen asks.
‘When Mr Macausland was away, she was singing in the Pot of Gold with the best of us,’ says Joe. ‘She had a good, strong voice, altogether. Do you sing, Ellen?’
But before Ellen can answer, Johnny interrupts and his voice is heavy with wistfulness. ‘She was mesmerizing. Ah, sure, you couldn’t take your eyes off her,’ he says.
‘In what way was she mesmerizing?’ Ellen probes.
‘Well, she had these very green eyes, and when they looked at you, they looked right through you and you were a fish caught on the end of a hook, trapped there in her gaze. She was a beauty, all right. Flame-red hair and pale white skin. She was like a painting.’
‘And she was painted,’ Joe interrupts. ‘There’s a massive portrait of her hanging in the hall up at the castle. Mr Macausland told us to leave it where it is. He was very specific about it. We took out everything of value after she died, but not that painting.’ He thrusts his hands into his trouser pockets and his breath mists on the damp air. ‘Mr Macausland then moved down by the river and the castle was boarded up. It’s like he’s locked her up in there as well.’
‘You mean, he couldn’t bear to live there without her?’
‘Not after what happened at the lighthouse.’
Johnny’s face hardens. He doesn’t look wistful any more, just angry. ‘Jaysus, it was a terrible waste of a life!’ he says hotly.
‘Was she really murdered?’ Ellen asks and the air stills around her.
‘No, she wasn’t murdered and Mr Macausland didn’t kill her. Who told you that?’ Johnny growls.
Ellen flinches at his tone. ‘Aunt Peg said that people whisper it.’
‘People whisper a lot, the fecking eejits! Doesn’t mean it’s true.’
Joe takes up the story. I have heard it all before, loads
of times, but I’m interested in the girl and what she makes of it. She is bristling with curiosity. ‘The night she died she was at the lighthouse with Mr Macausland. Apparently, they had a row and she ran up to the top of the lighthouse. Somehow it caught fire and she had to jump to save herself. But her body was found at the foot, broken on the rocks. That was about midnight, right? Well, Dylan Murphy was on the beach walking his dog about half an hour before that and he swears he saw a man rowing away.’
‘Who was the man?’ Ellen asks, intrigued.
‘No one knows.’ Johnny shrugs again.
‘Or no one’s telling,’ Joe adds darkly. ‘Mr Macausland insisted that he and Caitlin were the only people there that night.’
‘Do you have a theory as to who that mystery person might have been?’
Johnny scratches his soft salt-and-pepper beard. ‘Murphy’s imagination, if you ask me. He’d been down the boozer and was probably well langered.’
‘So, how did the lighthouse catch fire? I thought it wasn’t in use.’
‘The guarda found loads of candles all the way up the stairs,’ says Joe.
‘Caitlin Macausland was a woman who liked a bit of drama,’ Johnny adds. ‘She would often row out to the lighthouse, but only when Mr Macausland was away. He knew it was dangerous and forbade her to row out even in the daytime. Of course, she rebelled. That was her nature. She was a wild one, all right. Many a time I’d be leaving Peg’s late at night and see candlelight twinkling in the lighthouse windows. You wouldn’t know what she was up to, but it was well known that it was her and no one thought anything of it, until the fire.’
‘I wonder what she did in the lighthouse all night?’ Ellen muses. ‘It must have been frightfully cold. Didn’t anyone ever ask her what she did?’
Joe laughs and his father laughs with him, sharing a private joke. ‘Caitlin Macausland wasn’t the sort of woman you asked things,’ says Joe. ‘And if you did, she’d answer in riddles. There was no getting anything out of her that she didn’t want known.’
Secrets of the Lighthouse Page 6