Last Port of Call: The Queenstown Series

by Jean Grainger

  Danny scribbled in his notebook as he asked a few more questions about how long Deane had been serving and so on. ‘All right then, Inspector, I guess I got all I need. And thank you again for your time and your service to my cousin and me. We’ll have such good things to say about Queenstown back in Boston, won’t we, JJ?’ Danny placed his arm around JohnJoe and gave him a squeeze.

  ‘Oh yes, we will surely, sir,’ JohnJoe said, and the inspector seemed pleased with the note of deference in his voice.

  ‘Very well. I’ll be off then.’

  He departed on his bicycle, and the four gathered in the hallway watched as he freewheeled down the hill, united in their duplicity. Rose gave them a wry look as she returned to the kitchen, Danny went to retrieve his knuckleduster from the planter, and Harp and JohnJoe were alone.

  ‘Thank you for sticking up for me,’ Harp said shyly.

  ‘Of course I would. And you were so confident talking to the policeman like that. I could never have done that. You’re so brave, Harp.’

  ‘Not really. Inspector Deane is a bit lazy and he’s terrified of Mr Bridges, the magistrate, so I knew he wouldn’t want to be drawing him on him.’ She giggled. ‘Will you write to me when you get to America?’ she asked, blushing.

  ‘I don’t think…’ JohnJoe said quietly.

  ‘Oh…oh, all right. Maybe you won’t have time, and anyway I’ll be busy here…’ She spoke quickly to cover her shame. She’d obviously read it wrong, thinking they were friends now. He didn’t want to be friends with her, of course he didn’t. She turned to go.

  ‘No, Harp.’ He grabbed her hand. ‘I don’t mean I don’t want to – I do. I really, really do. It’s just…’

  She saw the brightness in his eyes and wondered if he was going to cry. ‘What?’ she asked.

  ‘I can’t,’ he said miserably.

  ‘Why can’t you?’ She was confused. ‘I’m sure your uncle will let you have paper and stamps?’

  He bowed his head and angrily wiped his eye with his sleeve. ‘I can’t read or write. I’m not able to. The brothers in the school and then the borstal tried to teach me, but I just can’t do it, and they just beat me when I got it all wrong, so I never learned.’

  ‘Oh, JohnJoe, I…’ Harp was speechless. She had no idea what to say. Then she had an idea. ‘I don’t mind, send me a picture. I have some envelopes upstairs, so how about I write my name and address on them and you can take them with you and you can send me drawings? You said you like drawing and I bet you’re great at it. And I’m sure your uncle will get someone to teach you, and once you learn, you can write to me and I’ll write back.’

  ‘Would you do that, write to me? Even if I can’t write to you?’ JohnJoe sounded choked.

  ‘Of course I would. We’re friends.’ Harp smiled.

  Chapter 17

  Molly O’Brien sat next to the window of her bedroom and watched the activity in the harbour. It reminded her of a scene from a picture book she’d loved as a child. She felt a pang. She’d never again see that book, or the small bookshelf her father built under the window of her bedroom, or that little room under the eaves, where she would sleep soundly no matter what the weather because her daddy and mammy were in the house and she was safe.

  The thought of crossing the ocean filled her with dread. Not fear of drowning, though that was now on her mind as well, but fear of burning her bridges with her family forever. Round and round the thoughts went. Honour thy father and mother said one of the Ten Commandments, and she was flying in the face of it completely. Would her decision to enter a convent negate that mortal sin? Was she sinning by refusing to do as she was told? And poor Finbarr. He was a nice lad. He’d get such a hard time now because of her. And the land deal would fall through undoubtedly, which would mean there wouldn’t be enough work for Kevin, Billy and Pius, so one or more of them would have to emigrate and break their parents’ hearts. Again. They were good people, her parents; they didn’t deserve that. And it was all her fault. Maybe she should just go up to the station now, go home and marry Finbarr. It would solve so many problems.

  She stood up and paced the room. Dinner wasn’t for another hour, so she decided to go to the cathedral, say a prayer and ask God for guidance, for peace, for protection.

  She went downstairs and walked towards the gate in the wall, which led to the steps she’d been shown by Mr Quinn as they arrived. She encountered Harp again, kneeling in front of a flowerbed inside the wall, this time watering the plants now that the heat of the day was waning.

  ‘Hello,’ she greeted the funny little girl. She was like something from a fairy story, Molly thought, old-fashioned and quietly spoken, her grey eyes dark and deep, her red-blond hair tied neatly back from her small face. There was something otherworldly about her.

  ‘Hello,’ Harp replied.

  ‘Your garden is lovely.’

  ‘My mammy does it mostly, but I water the plants in the evenings.’

  Molly admired the rows of flowers and hanging baskets. On the farm all available land was put to work; there wasn’t space or time for the frivolity of flowers. ‘What are those for?’ she asked as Harp put down the can and began to pick some flowers from the bed and place them in a small basket.

  ‘They’re edible – violas and pansies. Mammy puts them in salads for colour,’ Harp explained.

  ‘You can eat them?’ she asked, fascinated.

  Harp nodded. ‘The earth has more than 80,000 species of edible plants, but ninety percent of the foods we eat come from just thirty of them.’

  ‘Really?’ Molly smiled. Harp was so earnest, and though she was probably twelve or thirteen, she looked younger and sounded much older. It was an odd combination.

  Harp nodded.

  ‘I was going to go to the cathedral to say a prayer.’

  ‘You can just cut down those steps there and then take the right-hand set up again, and it will bring you out opposite the cathedral,’ Harp said, gathering her watering can in her free hand.

  ‘It’s so beautiful here,’ Molly heard herself say. Suddenly she wanted company, and this quirky girl was a restful person to be around.

  ‘It is,’ Harp agreed, and together they stood in the garden. It should have been awkward, but for some reason it wasn’t. They watched a tugboat pull a large trawler out to sea, gulls circling noisily overhead.

  ‘Do you get to travel by boat much, living so close to the harbour?’ Molly asked her.

  ‘Never,’ Harp replied. ‘I thought that one day I would sail on Titanic, but now I won’t.’

  Molly suppressed a smile. Harp had a matter-of-fact way of speaking, and while she wasn’t by any means impertinent or rude, she didn’t sugar-coat anything.

  ‘Indeed, that was so sad. I hope the Laconia is truly unsinkable,’ Molly replied.

  ‘No ship is unsinkable, but I suppose in life we need to take chances. The degree of danger is all we determine in each action.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Molly asked, intrigued.

  ‘Well, just that if we never did anything, stayed in bed all day, we would be safe but living an unfulfilled life. Equally if we lived life on the edge all the time, taking huge risks, like the Antarctic explorers or the men who fly test aeroplanes – that shows a spirit of adventure certainly but also somewhat of a disregard for life. Most of us do something in between. And we assess danger or risk every day, multiple times, and make decisions.’

  ‘Which is better, do you think, to be braver and to take risks or to play it safe?’ Molly asked.

  ‘I think when I grow up, I’ll take risks, calculated ones, though. Not reckless. But if we never try, never take a chance that we are making the wrong choice, then we’ll never know our true potential, our destiny. So you have to push yourself, I think, make yourself do things that are frightening. The only way to create anything original is not be afraid to be wrong.’

  ‘Is that what you want to do? Create something original?’ Molly was fascinated; she’d never met anyone l
ike Harp.

  ‘Well, yes, I suppose, to leave my mark on the world. I’m not sure how yet, but I’d like to do something. What about you? What do you want to do with your life?’ the girl asked.

  Molly sighed. ‘I want to be a nun.’

  ‘Why?’ Harp was candid.

  Molly thought for a moment. Nobody had ever asked her that before. ‘Because I want to serve God, I want to do good in the world, I want to help, I want to live among like-minded people.’ She paused. ‘I suppose that sounds awfully boring to someone who has such plans as you have?’

  Harp shook her head. ‘Not at all. I don’t believe in religion and I’m not sure that God even exists, but the truth is nobody knows, not me, not you, not priests or even the Pope himself. They say they know but they don’t, not really. They believe – that’s a different thing. There’s no evidence they are right. But if becoming a nun is what you are passionate about, then why not give it a try? If it’s not right for you, then you can leave, do something else. You only get one life. Carpe diem.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Molly asked.

  ‘Seize the day. The Roman poet Horace, among others, said it. I think it means we should enjoy life while we can, do what we want to do, not worry too much about the future,’ Harp explained.

  ‘Even if what we want to do hurts others?’ Molly asked. ‘If it’s selfish?’

  Harp considered the question. ‘In some instances, yes, that might be the case, but to be a nun, to dedicate your life to helping others, I don’t think that’s selfish. We all have only our own lives for which to take responsibility, I think. If someone is hurt by you doing what is in your heart, then surely that is their issue to resolve, not yours?’ Harp turned to look up at her.

  Molly blinked back a tear. ‘My parents don’t want me to go. They want me to stay at home and marry.’ The words dropped like stones. ‘They mean well, and they do love me, but I just can’t do it.’

  Harp remained silent for a moment. ‘Have you read The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling?’ she asked eventually.

  ‘No,’ Molly replied.

  ‘Well, in it there is a boy called Mowgli and he is raised by wolves in the jungle. His best friend is a big bear called Baloo, and he is watched over by a panther called Bagheera. They need to keep him safe from a tiger called Shere Khan, who wants to kill him.’

  ‘It sounds good. Maybe I should read it.’

  ‘You should, but the point is that Baloo allows Mowgli to do whatever he wants, sometimes leading him into danger, while Bagheera is very cautious, trying to keep him safe from everything. Mowgli has to go his own way, though, he just has to, even confronting Shere Khan, and finally Bagheera realises that. You can’t protect or control children forever. There comes a time when parents have to realise they created this person but the child has his or her own life path to pursue, and trying to stop them, even if it is to keep them safe, is a waste of time.’

  ‘I know you’re right, but I worry about my parents, all the people I’ve let down.’

  ‘Well, it’s either let them down or let yourself down,’ Harp said, as if it were the simplest thing in the world.

  ‘I don’t know. They need to join two farms, you see. It would be much better for them if I married the neighbours’ son.’

  Harp stood and lifted her basket. ‘Better for them, but not better for you?’ she asked, mirroring Molly’s own thoughts.

  ‘I suppose that’s it in a nutshell. I’ll say a prayer for you too, even if you don’t believe. It can’t do any harm,’ she said sadly as she opened the gate.

  Chapter 18

  Dinner was served at the big table in the newly redecorated dining room. The room had, up until the previous week, been full of boxes of Mr Devereaux’s correspondence, mostly unopened, bills, old newspapers and any amount of other rubbish. Rose and Harp had cleared it and held a large bonfire in the back courtyard. Then they sanded and polished the oak floorboards and painted the walls a lovely warm primrose yellow. They had arranged separate tables for breakfast for each guest, but for dinner they thought it might be nice for the group to dine together. The largest of the dining tables wasn’t big enough to seat eight guests, so they improvised by adding half an old door and propping it up with the other half cut into two-inch-square posts. Without a tablecloth it looked very rough and ready, but once Rose dressed the table with a floor-length tablecloth of gold damask, a relic of the more opulent days of the past that Harp had found in the attic, and set it with the dinner service and crystal glasses, admittedly mismatched but not noticeably so, it looked much more sumptuous.

  Though it was summertime and didn’t get dark until almost eleven at night, Harp drew the gossamer silk curtains. They were repaired many times, as moths had got to them over the years, but like everything else in the house, they looked fine at first glance, so long as the guests didn’t examine them too closely. The more subdued lighting meant they could find fewer faults with the room – the cracked window, the stain where the leaky roof created a dark patch on the ceiling, the broken floorboard. They promised themselves at each new decaying discovery that if the business was successful, they would return the Cliff House to the glory it deserved.

  Harp rang the dinner gong. It had been in the cupboard under the stairs and covered with years of cobwebs and dirt, but she’d washed it and then polished the brass and was really happy with the results. It was a beautiful burnished colour now. The hammer to make it resonate was long since lost, but Mr Quinn donated an old mallet. It didn’t sound as loud but perhaps that was a blessing. The gong itself hung from a brass frame by two steel chains and looked really lovely.

  The guests began to move about upstairs. JohnJoe and Danny had thanked them profusely for their help in managing Inspector Deane, and though Danny seemed nice and so friendly and funny, Harp wondered if JohnJoe was in fact going into danger. The average person didn’t carry a knuckleduster, at least not here. Perhaps it was necessary in Boston – how would she know? And as JohnJoe said, his new life could hardly be worse than borstal and being sold by an alcoholic father.

  The tall, handsome young man with the sad eyes, Mr O’Sullivan, had not come out of his room since he arrived. Harp wondered what had happened to him to instil such melancholy.

  She placed a phonograph record by Enrico Caruso on the gramophone. It was the last one Mr Devereaux bought before he died. It bore the name His Master’s Voice, and she smiled at the image of the dog, his head to one side in fascination as he listened intently to the horn. She selected a needle from the box and inserted it carefully before placing it over the turning recording. Harp kept the gramophone doors closed all but for a crack so it was cheery without being intrusive, and the gentle music wafted around the room. The candles were lit, illuminating the table in a welcoming glow.

  Molly was the first to arrive. Harp welcomed her. ‘My mother is putting the finishing touches to the meal, but please, have a seat. May I get you a glass of water?’

  Harp had read that offering guests a drink before dinner was customary, but she had no idea what would be usual, and besides they had no money for alcohol, so water was the best she could come up with.

  ‘Thank you, Harp, that would be lovely,’ the young woman answered.

  Before the conversation went any further, Mr O’Sullivan appeared, freshly shaved and dressed just in a shirt and trousers.

  ‘Good evening, Mr O’Sullivan,’ Harp said. Her mother was cooking and so her job was to entertain and serve while Rose was left to it in the kitchen. Harp was sure they would get into a routine once they’d done it a few times, but for now it all felt a bit like they were in a play and each person had a part. Still, this venture had to work; her and her mother’s future depended on it.

  ‘Hello,’ he said quietly.

  ‘My name is Harp, and my mother and I run this place. Can I get you a glass of water?’ she asked.

  He gave a shadow of a smile. ‘No thank you.’ He looked like he felt out of place.

 
; ‘Are you going to America for long?’ she asked.

  He gave her a cryptic smile. ‘For good, I’d imagine, if things work out. I’m hoping to find work and set up a home there.’

  Danny and JohnJoe next arrived, both laughing at something Danny said, and Harp was happy to see some of the anxiety of earlier when Inspector Deane was there gone from JohnJoe’s face. He struck her as a worrier. She was sure borstal would instil a fear of uniforms in a person too.

  Eleanor too had appeared and was chatting with Molly as they admired a portrait of Mr Devereaux and Ralph that hung over the large mahogany sideboard. The men were both in their late teens or early twenties when they sat for it, and they looked nothing alike. Ralph was dark where Henry was fair. Ralph looked more robust, though he was younger. He was the more traditionally handsome of the two as well. Mr Devereaux rarely spoke of his brother but he did confide to her that on the days they had been forced to sit for the portrait, the artist much sought after in polite society, Ralph had designed a bottle and straw system, hidden up their sleeves, and both brothers sipped happily at the gin in their pockets during the entire sitting. By the time it was finished, he’d declared, both he and Ralph were pie-eyed and his mother livid because they wouldn’t stop laughing. The painting gave her a lift every time she saw it.

  She invited everyone to sit and made the introductions. The group made polite small talk as Harp went to the kitchen.

  Rose was swirling fresh cream in the mushroom soup, the mushrooms having been picked early that morning by Harp. The butter was in pats and already on the table, so all that was left to do was slice the soda bread. Harp did that and brought it out on platters, one for each end of the table. Rose poured the fragrant soup into a large tureen that was decorated with some complicated-looking hunting scene and inserted the matching ladle.

  ‘Can you lift it or shall I?’ Rose asked, as Harp returned to the kitchen. ‘It’s heavy.’