Aisling had made it clear that she saw Ma and Da as infrequently as possible and took their only grandchildren to visit on even fewer occasions. From what I could gather, Éamonn and Keenan weren’t exactly close to them either, and the divorce announcement hadn’t helped their relationships. It seemed that poor Nia had been terrified of Da. Mind you, after what she’d probably been subjected to at the hands of Jamie Doyle over the years, Nia was likely to be terrified of most men, understandably so.
Nia. She was another reason I wanted to attend the funeral. Although she was older than me by two years, she seemed like a baby sister whom I wanted to protect. I needed to know she was safe and was going to be able to walk away from Jamie Doyle and start living her life at last. The funeral could be my only opportunity to talk to her.
My legs shook as I walked slowly along the path to the entrance of St Mary’s in Ballykielty.
‘Who’s the winner?’ Ben whispered.
I lifted my head and pushed my shoulders back. ‘I am.’
‘That’s the spirit. So your mum doesn’t want you here. What’s the worst that can happen?’
‘She creates a scene like at the wake and throws me out?’
‘So what if she does? You’ll have paid your final respects, you’ll have shown support for your family – the ones who count, that is – and you’ll have held your head high, showing that you won’t be bullied or intimidated by a lonely old woman.’
He was right. What was the worst that could happen?
Éamonn and Keenan stood in the entrance, greeting the mourners. Aisling had told me they’d both stopped by Mrs Shaughnessy’s while I’d been sleeping and had been very concerned about me. Éamonn was deep in conversation with an elderly couple I didn’t recognise, but Keenan looked up and spotted me.
‘That’s one of my twin brothers, Keenan,’ I whispered to Ben. ‘The other one’s Éamonn. Oh bollocks, he looks angry.’
Keenan strode towards me. It took every ounce of strength not to turn on my pink heels and leg it. I stood my ground but was nearly knocked off my feet as he grabbed me in a tight bear hug. He didn’t say a word, just squeezed me tightly. What could you say when you discovered that your youngest sister had been raped by the man who then married your next-youngest sister and had beaten her regularly?
Éamonn appeared by my side and tightly hugged me too. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered into my hair. ‘We didn’t know. We should have known. I’m so very, very sorry.’
When he released me, I could see pain and confusion painted across both of their faces.
‘Don’t be blaming yourselves for any of this. I never let on back then, and Nia never let on either. You weren’t to know.’
They both nodded, but I could feel their guilt.
‘Is Nia here?’
‘She’s at the front,’ Éamonn said. ‘With Ma and Aisling.’
Keenan’s eyes widened. ‘You’re not going to…? Are you?’
‘I’m not going to what, Keenan? Make a scene? Of course not! Oh, unless you’d call tap dancing on Da’s coffin in my glittery pink stilettos making a scene.’
His eyes widened even further. Éamonn nudged him in the ribs. ‘She’s winding us up, you daft eejit.’ Then he frowned. ‘You are, aren’t you?’
I smiled. ‘It’s tempting, but have you seen how straight and tight this dress is and how high my heels are? If I attempted to get up there, I think I’d end up laid out in a coffin myself.’
Stepping through the church doors again was like stepping back in time. My eyes were drawn immediately to the lectern, where I could vividly picture Daran speaking with so much passion for God’s word.
St Mary’s felt cold and strangely empty without him, despite the packed congregation. I ushered Ben into a pew at the back and slipped in beside him. Another couple of people squeezed in next to me, but I didn’t recognise them and they paid little attention to me.
When the homily was delivered, I swear that the priest was talking about someone else entirely. If Keenan and Éamonn hadn’t been outside, I’d have thought we’d walked into the wrong funeral. Loving father? Dedicated husband? Devoted to his family? Yeah, right.
‘Pádraig’s wife of forty-one years, Maeve, would like say a few words,’ said the priest.
I found myself shrinking a little further into my pew. The church wasn’t that big. If she went up the couple of steps into the sanctuary, she was bound to see me.
Ma, wearing a shapeless, ankle-length black dress, lace-up black flats and a baggy, long, dark-grey cardigan, slowly staggered forwards. Her long hair was pulled back into a severe bun, but she’d missed a bit. In fact, she’d missed a couple of bits. A long straggle of hair hung down the side of her face and another clump stuck out of her bun at a funny angle. She’d never bothered with her appearance much, but today she looked extra dishevelled, like a bag lady. I tried to feel sympathy. She’d just lost her husband so washing her hair and putting on nice clothes weren’t going to be top of her priority list.
She lifted her foot towards the first step up to the sanctuary but somehow missed, falling forward and steadying herself just in time. A gasp went round the congregation. She regained her composure and somehow made it up the steps and across to the lectern, but as soon as she spoke, it was obvious why she’d lost her footing – the woman was blind drunk.
‘Forty-one years,’ she slurred. ‘Forty-one long, long years. And for what? Look at them! Look at the state of them. Two divorces. Two! What a disgrace.’
A murmur went around the congregation. People started nudging each other and I shrunk down even further in my pew.
‘Three of them incapable of producing offspring of their own. Wouldn’t be surprised if those poncey twins prefer men to their wives, bloody disgrace to God and mankind.’
I closed my eyes, willing someone to shut her up, but everyone seemed rooted to their seats, no doubt shocked at what they were hearing.
‘That one there!’ She pointed to Nia, head bowed in the front row. ‘That pathetic mouse of a woman with no idea how to please her man. No wonder he had to keep her in order. And don’t even get me started on the other one. Biggest embarrassment of the lot. At least she’s had the decency to stay away today after ruining the wake, the little whore.’
It seemed to happen in slow motion. Like a Mexican wave, heads turned from all directions to look straight at me. I could see Ma following the movement. And then she spotted me.
‘You!’ She pointed at me. ‘I asked you for one thing, but you couldn’t grant me that, could you? Had to waltz in here, showing off, and showing everyone up.’
Managing the steps without incident this time, she marched down the aisle towards me. Ben grabbed my hand.
Éamonn raced after her. ‘Leave it, Ma. This isn’t the time or the place.’
Keenan appeared by his side. ‘Let’s lay Da to rest. Clare’ll go, won’t you, Clare?’
I nodded, but I was trapped in the pew by the two strangers.
‘I never wanted you,’ she cried. ‘Did you know that?’
I rose to my feet. ‘Yes, because you decided to tell everyone at the wake and, even if you hadn’t, it was obvious from how you treated me my entire life. You made it very clear that you never wanted me.’
‘Is it any wonder, in light of where you came from? You’re just like her, you know, with your big green eyes and your perfect blonde hair. Should have known you’d behave just like her too.’
‘Just like who?’
‘Her!’ She spun round and pointed at Mrs Shaughnessy. ‘Dirty Jezebels, the pair of you. Like mother, like daughter, so you are.’
Jesus, Mary and Joseph! I stared at Mrs Shaughnessy, who stood a little way behind Ma, open-mouthed and pale-faced. I took in her bobbed blonde hair and green eyes. Aisling and the twins were brunettes like Ma, and Nia had mousy hair like Da. None of them had green eyes. How had I never questioned it before?
‘Is this true?’ I asked her, although I knew at that moment that it w
as. I could see the similarity.
Mrs Shaughnessy nodded. ‘I’m sorry, Clare. I wanted to tell you, but not like this.’ Suddenly, her kindness made sense, her insistence that I stay overnight, the huge hug and the request that I call her any time I needed anything. And a million comments that Ma had made over the years now had context too.
‘You and Da?’
‘We loved each other.’
Ma turned on her. ‘Loved each other? What a pile of shite. You were just a tart who offered it up on a plate, and he was an eejit who couldn’t keep it in his pants. A leg-over with consequences, that’s what you were.’ She turned round and pointed to me again. ‘Bet you weren’t expecting that, were you?’ She swayed in the aisle and grabbed hold of the end of a pew to steady herself.
‘It wasn’t like that,’ Mrs Shaughnessy cried. ‘It wasn’t just one night.’ She clapped her hand over her mouth, as though she hadn’t meant to let that slip.
Ma turned to face her again. ‘Yes, it was. That’s what you both told me. One drunken mistake on what would have been your dead husband’s thirtieth birthday.’
‘No, Maeve, it wasn’t.’
Ma looked her up and down, contempt written across her face. ‘So he came back for more, did he? Once? Twice?’
Mrs Shaughnessy pushed her shoulders back. ‘Twice a week for about twenty years.’
Another gasp went round the congregation. When they’d woken up that morning, I bet none of them had expected a sombre funeral would descend into a soap opera.
‘You’re lying,’ screeched Ma.
Mrs Shaughnessy shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Maeve. We never meant to hurt you.’
The next moment, all hell broke loose. Ma let out a high-pitched shriek akin to a battle cry, then hurled herself at Mrs Shaughnessy, kicking and screaming, trying to throttle her.
The priest, who’d maintained a dignified distance until that point, sprinted down the aisle, begging them not to fight in God’s house – a place of peace and forgiveness. Keenan and Éamonn tried to drag Ma off, but she was like a woman possessed, with the strength of decades of betrayal pushing her on. Mrs Shaughnessy didn’t fight back. Poor woman probably thought she deserved it.
‘I’m sorry you had to find out like that.’ Mrs Shaughnessy leaned back in her armchair and winced as I placed a bag of frozen mixed vegetables against her neck. Ma had really gone for her. I could actually see handprints and nail imprints. Just as well Ma kept her nails short as long ones would have definitely punctured the skin.
‘Were you ever going to tell me?’ I asked when Ben appeared from the kitchen with hot drinks for us all. I took my coffee from him and sat beside him on the sofa.
‘I wanted to tell you yesterday but you’d had such a shock already, it didn’t feel like good timing. Obviously your da’s funeral was even less ideal but what could I do? Maeve had already announced it in front of everyone.’
‘Were you really with him for twenty years?’
‘Yes. Right until the day he told me he’d banished you to England. He’d changed over the years but, that day, I didn’t recognise him at all. The Pádraig I knew and loved would never have been so cruel. I demanded he bring you back or it was over between us forever.’
There was a distant look in her eyes, as though she was remembering what must have been as challenging a time for her as it had been for me. ‘I’d better start from the beginning,’ she said eventually. ‘But, before I do, can I ask you one thing? I feel like a schoolteacher when you call me Mrs Shaughnessy. I’d rather you didn’t call me The Black Widow either.’ She winked at my shocked expression. ‘It’s Ellen.’
It turned out that Ellen’s husband, Cormac Shaughnessy, had been Da’s best friend – something I’d never known – but Ellen and Ma had never really hit it off. She said Ma was always very aloof towards her, which didn’t surprise me at all. Ellen was nineteen and Cormac was twenty-three when they wed. At that time, Ma and Da had been married for a year and Ma was pregnant with Aisling.
Two years later, Cormac was killed in a farming accident, leaving Ellen a widow at only twenty-one. They’d bought a house over the road from Ma and Da and had been planning to start a family.
Ellen and Da were distraught, but Ma was very unsupportive. She told Da that he should get over it and focus on his own family instead but he ignored her and regularly visited Ellen. It started off as support as they both grieved, but soon developed into a genuine friendship. Da opened up about the difficulties he had at home and how Ma had become increasingly distant since Aisling was born.
On what would have been Cormac’s twenty-sixth birthday – the first after his death – the pain was too much for Ellen. Da found her with a glass of brandy in her hand and fifty strong painkillers neatly lined up on her dining table.
‘He asked me why I wanted to end it,’ she said. ‘I told him that I had nothing to live for. I had no job, no children, no husband and no friends or family in the area. He said he thought we were friends and that he needed me to stick around because he’d already lost one friend he loved, and he couldn’t cope if he lost another.’ She smiled at the memory. ‘I could tell he meant “love” in a non-friendship way and I realised I felt the same. We had a few drinks, toasted Cormac’s birthday and, well, one thing led to another…’ Ellen blushed.
‘Things at home were close to breaking point for your da. Maeve was struggling with motherhood and Pádraig could do nothing right by her. She was always so angry. He decided to leave her for me but she found out she was expecting the twins. I couldn’t let him do it so I gave him an ultimatum – stay with his family and keep me or leave his family and lose me. Looking back now, I think your mother had postnatal depression, but it wasn’t really a thing back then, so she went without the help and support she needed. The birth of the twins darkened her mood even further. When she fell pregnant with Nia, things hit rock bottom. She had a difficult pregnancy and a long labour. She nearly died; did you know?’
I shook my head. ‘They never talked about things like that. All Ma would say was that Aisling screeched and gave her an instant migraine, the twins were the ugliest babies she’d ever seen, Nia was pale and weedy, and that she knew I was trouble the moment I was born. She was such a wonderful mother.’
‘You poor treasures.’
‘So, how did I end up living with them instead of you?’
‘Like Maeve said in church, your da and I got a bit drunk on what would have been Cormac’s thirtieth birthday and you were the result. I’d always wanted children so I was thrilled. Pádraig was too. He was adamant that he was going to leave Maeve for me but I couldn’t let him walk out on four young children; we would either continue as before, or I’d do it on my own. He reluctantly agreed. I’d already built a reputation as a maneater to throw people off the scent so we thought the villagers wouldn’t be surprised that I was pregnant with no man on the scene.’
It might have worked but somebody else had a long-term obsession with Ellen and, despite her repeatedly turning down his advances, he was determined to have her. He’d been watching her, had worked out her secret, and threatened to tell Maeve if she didn’t give him what he wanted. Ellen called his bluff, but strange things started happening. It started off as small nuisances like silent telephone calls. It escalated to petty vandalism. Then it became scary – a dead rabbit was strung up on her doorknob with a note attached stating, ‘It’s you next.’
‘I was terrified,’ Ellen said. ‘I got to the point where I was scared to use the car in case he’d cut my brakes.’
‘Who?’ I asked.
‘A man you don’t want to ever mess with,’ Ellen said, eyes downcast. ‘You know, they said it was an accident, but I’m convinced that he killed my Cormac. I’d been dancing with him at the céilí where I met and fell for Cormac. They worked on the same farm and, the next day, he attacked Cormac, accusing him of stealing his girl. Cormac laughed it off and said I wasn’t property so I couldn’t be stolen. He’d always been an awkwa
rd bugger to work with, but he made Cormac’s life hell after that. Cormac would joke that if I ever got a call to say he’d been in an industrial accident, I should tell the Guards who to investigate.’
‘Who was it?’ I asked again, a coldness engulfing me. I knew the answer.
‘Eoghan Doyle.’
‘No way!’ cried Ben. ‘He’s not…?’
I turned to Ben and nodded. ‘Jamie Doyle’s da. Eoghan Doyle was in and out of prison when we were kids. Theft, assault, fraud. When I was about fifteen, he was put away for manslaughter after a pub brawl. I’m guessing that’s what triggered his ma to change her and Jamie’s surname at some point after I left Ireland.’
‘He’s been in and out of prison ever since,’ Ellen said. ‘They never found any evidence back then to pin Cormac’s death on him, but I’m certain it was him.’
She went on to explain that the vandalism and threats continued until Eoghan cornered her one night, held a knife to her throat and told her she could either let the world believe the baby was Ma’s and hand it over at birth or she could keep the baby and be constantly looking over her shoulder, wondering if that would be the day her child would die.
‘Could you not go to the police?’ Ben asked.
‘What could the Guards do? I had no proof to put Eoghan away so I’d have been putting my baby at greater risk. I’d have had to confess to the affair, ruining your da’s family and my already delicate reputation. Besides, the Guards already thought I had a vendetta against him after I accused him of killing Cormac. I could have been the one ending up in trouble.’
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