Ellen rushes past them and climbs into Peg’s car. They are all parked closely together in front of Peg’s house, but there is enough room for Ellen to drive out. She watches a moment as they enter the house. The scene reminds me of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. But there are four bears in this tale, and Goldilocks has come back.
Ellen finds Conor’s car parked in front of the castle. She pulls up beside it and climbs out. Her face is pale against her dark hair and she looks terrified. As well she might. Conor has a vicious temper and nothing makes him more furious than lying. He trusted her and she abused his trust. I don’t think he’ll ever forgive her. In fact, I know he won’t.
I watch her walk to the front door and try the latch. She finds it unlocked and opens it slowly, as if she is afraid of what she’ll find inside. Conor is still on the stairs. He has been there for some time. When he sees her, he stands up. He puts his hands in his pockets and I am happy to see that he has surrounded himself with that familiar wall of defence I know so well. That impenetrable, invisible wall which is so good at keeping people out. Ellen finds herself on the other side, unable to reach him, and I feel her desperation. Conor is a stranger now, not the lover he once was. She has lost him, only she doesn’t know it yet. There is still hope, she thinks. I could tell her that once up, it will take more than begging and explaining to bring that wall down.
‘I didn’t think it mattered,’ she begins in a small voice. His cold eyes watch her impassively but he says nothing. So she rambles on, helplessly. ‘I don’t love him. That’s why I fled. I came here to get away from him and my mother. I didn’t want to break off the engagement by phone, and I didn’t want to go back to London. So, I put my head in the sand and focused on you. William isn’t important, Conor. You must understand that; you are.’
He takes a sharp breath through his nostrils. ‘You should have told me, Ellen.’
‘I know, I’m sorry.’
‘I trusted you with everything. I let you in and what do I get in return? A slap in the face!’
‘No! It’s not like that at all. William no longer existed. In my mind I wasn’t engaged any more. I fell in love with you and I let everything else go.’
‘It’s not kind to leave a man like that. You should have told him how you felt, not left him hanging on, waiting for you like an eejit. Poor sod! Did you ever think about him?’
‘No, because I was thinking about you.’
‘Well, you can go back now and tell him.’
‘I will.’
‘Unless you were just sitting on the fence, waiting to see if we were worth pursuing.’
‘I always knew which side of the fence I wanted to be on.’
‘Well, it doesn’t matter any more. It’s over between us, Ellen.’
She blanches the colour of a turnip. ‘Don’t say that, Conor!’
‘I don’t want to be with a woman I can’t trust. I’ve been let down enough in my life to know the value of honesty.’
‘I won’t lie to you again.’ She is clinging onto the shards of their splintered relationship like a shipwrecked sailor. ‘Please, you have to forgive me.’
He gives a hollow laugh. ‘Oh, Ellen. I thought you were different. I believed we were good for each other.’ She begins to cry, but he remains hard-hearted, and I am willing him to stay strong and not to weaken. A woman’s tears are powerful weapons and he must remain focused on what he really wants and not be swayed by them. I stare down from my portrait and he lifts his gaze and locks his eyes in mine. I see the resolve in them and I know that I have won.
He ushers her out and locks the door behind him. ‘So, this is it?’ she asks, astonished. ‘You’re going to drop me because I failed to tell you I was engaged? When I never intended to marry him!’
‘No, because you’re not the woman I thought you were.’
She struggles to speak through her tears. ‘Then you’re not the man I thought you were!’ She climbs into her car and drives off without looking back. Conor remains there for a long while, watching her disappear into the distance. He stares down the avenue of trees as if he is half expecting her to come back. Finally, when she does not, he gets into his Range Rover and roars off in the other direction. I am triumphant. In spite of the fog closing in around me, I am victorious. Conor is mine again. This time I will guard him more closely.
In the heavy atmosphere of my darkening world, I find that I am not alone after all. I see faces at the windows of my castle and they are looking at me. Other unhappy spirits, stuck in their own murky limbos, stare out like prisoners behind bars. I know now why I couldn’t see them before: because I was made of a higher vibration. But now, I realize, I am one of them. I have sunk so low. I have fallen to their level. But I am not repentant. Blinded by the determination of my possessive heart, I am elated by the battle I have just won. I have protected my family from invasion, which is my duty as a wife and mother, so I am willing to sacrifice my soul. I am resigned to this low level of existence. Heaven is so far away now, I wouldn’t find my way there even if I wanted to. But I do not. Here is where Conor is, where Ida and Finbar are. And as long as they are here, I will remain here also. And when they go, I hope that they will find a way to take me with them. I will not leave them. As long as I exist, I will not leave them.
Chapter 30
Ellen pulled up in a lay-by and sobbed onto the steering wheel. It was the same lay-by into which she had driven only a few weeks before, after she had met Conor for the first time. She could never have predicted then that she’d be here now, crying her heart out.
She should have told him about William. She knew that. And she should have been honest to William in her note, or to his face, which would have been kinder. She had messed up and she longed to turn the clock back and do it all again differently. Conor had been let down by his wife; now she had let him down – she wished to God she hadn’t. She understood his fury, but she didn’t understand his leaving. He had been so loving. How was it possible to switch his heart off so suddenly and so irrevocably? Was their relationship really worth so little to him that he could end it for one small misdemeanour?
She thought of her mother and Dylan at Peg’s cottage with her uncles, and knew that she didn’t want to go back there. So she drove further up the road and parked at the foot of the hill where Caitlin’s little chapel stood above, overlooking the sea. She knew she’d find solace there.
She pulled her coat around her body and headed off up the path that cut through the heather and long grasses. The wind dried her tears and the beauty of the countryside filled the hollow sense of loss that ached inside her. She arrived at the gate and pushed it open. There on the left was Caitlin’s grave with its marble headstone and habitual jar of red roses. The mystery of who was leaving flowers here distracted her a moment from her unhappiness, and she considered Caitlin and the secrets buried along with her. Perhaps the person leaving flowers was the reason Caitlin let Conor down. Maybe she had fallen in love with someone else and that was why they were fighting the night she died in the fire.
Ellen walked on up the path and pushed open the door of the chapel. It was cold and damp inside, but at least it was out of the wind. She wandered down the aisle and sat in the front pew, facing the altar. The place was dimly lit by windows clouded with mildew and the lack of light only added to her sense of desolation. She breathed in the musty air and wished she had a packet of cigarettes. If ever she needed a cigarette it was now. Her sorrow rose in a rush of self-pity and she began to cry again. Could she remain in Connemara without Conor? Was her family enough? Why did fate always give with one hand and take with the other? Why did there always have to be a negative to puncture every positive?
She remained in the chapel for a long time. The peace and silence enabled her to examine her predicament more calmly, and then, when her misery swelled to overwhelm her again, she remembered Dylan and the time they had sat here together, their voices echoing off the ancient stone walls, and she smiled through her tears.
When at last her stomach began to rumble with hunger she decided to go back to Peg’s. She walked slowly down the hill. There was no hurry, no one to rush back for. It was still drizzling. Heavy grey clouds raced across the sky, chased inland by a cold, icy gale. She took solace from the magnificent view of the sea. The lighthouse stood defiant against the onslaught of wind and wave, like a knight in a white tunic refusing to surrender even though he is shot through with bullets and his ribs are laid bare. She stopped walking a moment and watched the white gulls wheeling above it like angels waiting to carry its spirit home. Yet there it stood, almost gritting its teeth with determination not to give in, clinging onto life with all its might. Suddenly she was struck by an idea for a song. Oh, battle-weary lighthouse, still rising from the sea, don’t you know it’s over and the angels call to thee. She stopped a moment and hummed it as a sliver of excitement slipped through the crack in her broken heart. She shook her head and put her hands on her hips. How ironic that she should get inspiration the very moment she decided to leave.
When she arrived at Peg’s, Johnny’s truck and Desmond’s car were still parked alongside Dylan’s and the driver of her mother’s hire car was reading the papers in his shiny black motor. She drew up and took a deep breath for courage. She didn’t feel like talking to anyone. Like a dog, she wanted to hide under her bed and lick her wounds. But as she stepped onto the gravel, Oswald came hurrying across from his house next door.
‘Gracious, what’s going on?’ he asked, looking at all the cars in bewilderment.
‘My mother’s come back,’ she told him.
‘Good Lord. Is Peg all right?’
‘Shocked, but all right.’
He took in her tear-stained face and sorrowful expression and smiled sympathetically. ‘But you’re not, are you, Ellen?’
‘Not really.’ She shrugged her shoulders helplessly. ‘It’s all gone horribly wrong, Oswald. I lied to everyone and I’m paying a dreadful price.’
‘I’m sure you lied with good reason.’
‘I thought so, but Conor doesn’t want to see me any more.’
He glanced at Peg’s kitchen door. ‘Do you really want to go in there?’
‘Not really.’
‘Then come into my house and you can tell me all about it. I’m a wise old codger, you know, and I have more experience of love than you might imagine.’
She followed him into an immaculate sitting room. A fire was crackling in the grate and an easel was set up in front of the window, where he had laid out his paints and brushes neatly on a round wooden table.
‘You’re very tidy for an artist,’ she commented, wandering over to see what he was painting. She caught her breath when her aunt stared out at her from the canvas. ‘Good Lord, that’s Peg.’
Oswald smiled secretively. ‘Don’t tell her. It’s a gift.’
‘She’ll be astonished. It’s really good. I mean, not that your other paintings aren’t good, but this looks just like her.’
Oswald was not offended. He crossed the little hall and disappeared into the kitchen. Ellen stepped closer, taking in the modesty of Peg’s smile and the warmth of her eyes, which contained both her sorrow and her joy. He had captured more than her appearance; he had painted her as he saw her when she looked at him, which was different from the way she looked at anyone else. Peg’s spirit seemed to shine out from the paint and give her a gentle beauty that Ellen hadn’t noticed before. She realized then that he must love her, and she smiled with the pleasure that thought gave her. She wondered whether, when he gave her the painting, Peg would realize, too.
A moment later, Oswald returned with two cups of coffee on a tray with a jug of milk and a bowl of sugar. ‘Peg makes much too much tea,’ he said, putting the tray down on the little table in front of the fire. ‘You look like a coffee-drinker to me.’
‘I haven’t drunk coffee since I arrived. How lovely. I need warming up.’
‘And cheering up,’ he said. ‘Now, what was your lie?’
She sat down and put a spoonful of sugar in her coffee. There was no point hiding anything any more. She wondered why she had bothered in the first place. ‘I’m officially engaged to a man called William Sackville,’ she told him.
‘Ah, and how did Conor find out?’
‘Mother told him.’
‘And she’d like you to marry this William?’
‘Yes, she thinks he’d be good for me because he’s rich and grand, which, according to my mother, are the only important qualities in a man.’
‘I see. So that’s why you ran away?’
‘At the time, I wasn’t sure what I wanted. I just wanted to get away, from Mum and William and a future I don’t want.’
‘And Conor is cross that you never told him.’
‘He says he can’t trust me.’
‘He’ll get over it.’
Ellen shook her head sadly. ‘No, I don’t think he will.’
‘He’s just angry. Give him time.’
‘I don’t think he’ll ever forgive me. You should have seen his face. It was as hard as stone. Unyielding. Horrible. Caitlin let him down in some way, and now I’ve let him down, too. I’m just as bad as she was and he ended up loathing her.’
‘Is that right?’
‘Yes, he can’t bear her or the memory of her. Now he hates me, too.’
‘But she’s dead, my dear, and you’re very much alive.’
‘There’s more. Dylan is my real father.’
Oswald nearly dropped his coffee cup. ‘Good gracious! That’s one I didn’t see coming.’ He put the cup on the table for safety.
‘Neither did I, but there it is.’ She shrugged. ‘Pandora’s box is well and truly open. That’s what they’re all discussing in the kitchen. Lots of lies, and now I’m just as bad as my mother.’
‘You’re going to have to tell me from the beginning, Ellen.’ He took off his spectacles and pulled a handkerchief out of his breast pocket to clean them. ‘And let me be the judge of whether you or your mother are bad!’
Ellen told him the whole story from the day her mother left Ireland to the moment she came back thirty-three years later. He listened quietly, taking it all in, his wise old eyes watching her with compassion. When she finished he put his spectacles back on. ‘Where do you want to be, Ellen?’ he asked gently.
‘I wanted to be here. But I’m not sure I want to be here without Conor.’
‘I see.’ He looked like a doctor, taking in all the information before making a diagnosis. ‘And what are you going to do about your father? Are you going to talk to him? You said your mother told you that she doesn’t know whether or not he is aware of the truth.’
‘I don’t know what to do.’ She looked at him helplessly. ‘What should I do?’
He folded his hands in his lap. ‘I’ll give you my opinion, Ellen, but ultimately you must do what feels right for you.’
‘OK.’ She began to bite her thumbnail anxiously.
‘I think you should talk to him. Otherwise, you will live a lie for the rest of your life and I think it’s time for everyone to stop lying.’ She nodded her agreement, although she dreaded the thought of having to confront her father and cause him unhappiness. ‘And you should tell your William as soon as possible that the engagement is off, to his face, kindly but decisively.’
‘And then?’
‘You should come back.’
‘But what about Conor?’
‘Ah, only time will tell. But you fit in here, Ellen. You have a job in Alanna’s shop, a room in Peg’s house and a father who wants to get to know you. Ireland’s in your blood, on both sides. It’s no wonder that your heart has settled in here like a nesting sparrow.’
She drained her coffee and put the cup down on the table. ‘I don’t think I can,’ she replied. ‘I don’t think I can bear it. Everything here reminds me of him. Every which way I look, he’s there.’
‘Then, if you’re sure, we shall be very sorry to see you go,’ he s
aid sadly. ‘Especially Peg – and I imagine Dylan. You will leave a very big tear in the fabric of our lives.’
‘Oh, Oswald, don’t say that.’ Ellen began to cry again.
‘It’s true, isn’t it?’ He patted her hand affectionately. ‘Haven’t we decided not to lie any more?’
A little later, when Oswald and Ellen entered Peg’s kitchen, they found the Byrne men squashed around the kitchen table with Madeline, Dylan and Peg. The atmosphere was heavy but it wasn’t awkward. They were talking in low voices and there was a sense of unity about the group. They looked more like a band of thieves than a dislocated family coming together after over thirty years apart. For a moment, Ellen felt her resolve weaken. She thought of the formal kitchen back at Eaton Court and her heart sank. She had grown attached to Peg, Mr Badger and Bertie. She hadn’t even met Reilly the squirrel who slept on in the laundry cupboard upstairs. She felt at home with her uncles now: they no longer alarmed her with their broad shoulders and dark faces. And she had found a kindred spirit in Dylan.
The room fell silent. Madeline looked at her daughter with concern. ‘What did he say?’ she asked.
‘I’m coming home,’ Ellen replied simply.
Peg was horrified. ‘You’re leaving?’ she asked.
‘But you’ve only just got here,’ said Dylan. Ellen couldn’t look at his face, and dropped her gaze to the floor. ‘You’re not going back to marry this man, are you?’
‘Of course not.’
‘But you’ll come back, won’t you?’ said Peg.
‘I don’t know,’ Ellen replied, swallowing back tears. Dylan’s gaze was so intense it forced her to look at him. His face was grey and his large brown eyes full of sadness.
‘You can’t let Conor Macausland chase you out of Ireland, Ellen,’ he said.
‘I agree with Dylan,’ said Johnny. ‘He’s a feckin’ eejit.’
‘Do you want us to go and talk to him?’ Desmond asked, and Ellen was surprised at his unexpected offer of support.
Secrets of the Lighthouse Page 33