by Helen Cullen
She laughed at him. “I’m only joking, Daddy. Don’t look so worried.”
They started walking again, their pace picking up.
“It’s not like we’re expecting many people,” he said. “It’s just ourselves, Jeremy, Dónal, and maybe one or two from the island will show. Probably for the best.”
As they marched a beat down the long, narrow lane toward the pier, Murtagh trailed his hand along the stony wall covered in moss and repeated his mantra.
Give me courage, Maeve. Give me courage.
In their companionable silence, Nollaig ran through the lines of the speech she’d written in her head.
“What’s funny this time?” he asked her, stopping to shake a pebble from his shoe.
“Nothing,” she said. “Nearly there now.”
Soon they would turn right at the chapel and follow the road until they reached the hilly path that led to the ancient ruins where the ceremony would take place.
The sea was calm tonight, lapping at the shore like a kitten’s tongue in her milk bowl. Murtagh slowed down to breathe in the sea air when his attention was caught by the glitter of lights up ahead.
“What’s all that?” he said. “Mossy hasn’t dragged lights all the way down here, has he?”
“Come on,” Nollaig said, pushing him forward. “You’ll see.”
As they drew closer, Murtagh squeezed her hand and said:
“Oh, Noll, is that...?
“What are they all...?
“Is that...?”
Along the winding lane to the castle, every man, woman and child from the island lined the path holding a flickering candle inside a pint glass, jam jar or tumbler.
Their faces glowed in gold as he passed, each one smiling at him as he fought back tears, reaching out to shake his hand or give him a quick little hug.
As he moved along the lane, the islanders fell in step behind him, so a parade of lights followed him to the crumbling fortress wall of the castle.
In the grass before it, a patchwork quilt of dozens of blankets lay spread across the grass.
An aisle was marked by oars adorned in yellow ribbons and ivy.
At the end of the aisle stood Fionn, handsome in a black tuxedo, complete with a white silk pocket-square sent to him by Maeve’s mother, June.
He waited with Jeremy, who had acquired his license to perform civil marriages especially for them.
Over his shoulder, Murtagh saw Mossy, Dillon, Sive, Kalindi and the twins clustered together on two wooden pallets, just like the stage the Moones had used when they were children. Mairtin Higgins played the fiddle quietly while the islanders spread themselves around on the blankets, a few of the older folks propped on deck chairs at the back. Father Dónal was the last to take his seat, and then Sive gave Mairtin the nod. He let the last notes of his tune fade away, waited for a moment and then with gusto launched into the melody for “Moon River.”
Sive started singing, and the rest of the Moones joined her as Nollaig walked her father down the aisle.
Murtagh and Fionn stood in front of a tall ebony pedestal that displayed the matrimonial kintsugi vase full of the mistletoe, so rare in Ireland, that grew in the island cemetery around the bark of an old apple tree. Beside it sat a photograph of Maeve, Murtagh and Fionn sitting on the beach at Inis Óg with the four Moone children scattered around them.
The good people of the island joined in for the second chorus of the song.
Everyone joined in, even those who didn’t believe they were singers.
In fact, theirs were the loudest voices of all, as, with each verse, the light grew brighter.
It was Christmas Eve.
Inis Óg,
December 24, 2005
My dearest Murtagh,
I feel as if I have been writing this letter in my head for twenty years or more, but now, when it comes to finally doing it, I am lost for words.
I know on some level you’ve been expecting it all this time, too, hoping it was lost forever in the post, but always on the alert.
I am sorry for that, and for so many other things.
I am sorry that this terrible illness has dogged our lives, teasing us with good times and then punishing us for enjoying life without it, storming back in, petulant and unforgiving.
I am sorry that our children have borne witness to it, and learned to handle me with care, like one of your fragile pots.
I am sorry that I can’t stand up to it anymore, but I’ve had glimpses of how bad things could get, and you have, too. I don’t want either of us to see how that version of life ends, and want to give you all a happier ending, impossible as that may be to believe in now. I am scared of who I will become, scared that the good that still remains in me will be completely destroyed. If I leave now, there may still be more good than bad for them to remember.
Please believe me when I say there is nothing you could have said or done to change this outcome. You could not have saved me, because, and you need to hear this, my love, this seizing of control is in truth the only way I can be saved. You know I’ve never lied to you.
I am so sorry that I couldn’t always be a better mother to our children, but I take comfort in knowing that by leaving earlier than we all might have hoped, I have stopped myself becoming a worse one.
It is so much easier to love a dead mother than a mad one.
To grieve a dead wife than a sad one.
My truth is not a universal one, I know, but I recognize it as my own. One that has crept up on me so gradually but now leaves me dazzled by its beauty. And I know the hot light of truth will revive you, too, when you are ready.
When we met, Murtagh, we were such untethered spirits floating through the world, as if one of us might drift away if we didn’t hold hands tightly. We were imperfect people who fitted perfectly together.
You have made me so happy.
When I think back on our life together, I am filled with gratitude.
I am illuminated by your love.
For so long now I have been filled with dread and worry about the future, about what this illness would do to me, to the children, to you, but now for the first time in such a long time I think of your future and I am filled with hope.
I am sorry that you will have to tell the children, to answer impossible questions, and help them to make sense of all of this. I must accept that it may never make sense to them; it is all but impossible for them to separate me as a woman from their mother. That is how it has always been for mothers since the dawn of time so who can blame our lovely children for the same?
And one more thing, my darling man in the moon. Love will come for you again, and when it does you must throw your arms open wide to it. You deserve someone to take care of you, to love you, and you must know I would want that for you.
Please tell the children again and again how much I love them, share with them stories from the good times, and when they are ready, maybe you can help them understand the bad times that led me here.
I hope I have laid the foundations in their hearts for understanding, and have taught them how to love, and to be loved.
I leave them, I leave you, because I love you, and because I want you to always be able to love me, too.
I am rambling now. It is hard to finish this letter.
“Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath.”
My darling, wherever I go, my heart stays with you.
Please leave a light on now for yourself, a light to guide you home.
All my love,
Your Maeve
* * *
Acknowledgments
The song, “Dublin Saunter,” sung by Maeve and Mu
rtagh in Dublin, was written by Leo Maguire, with lyrics reproduced here with the kind permission of Waltons Music Ltd.
* * *
I would like to sincerely thank all of the following people for their endless support and encouragement while I was writing this book:
My incredible agent, Kimberly Witherspoon, and all the team at Inkwell Management, with special thanks to Jessica Mileo
Peter Straus, my UK agent, and all at Rogers, Coleridge and White
Melanie Fried and the extended Graydon House team
Jessica Leeke and all at Michael Joseph, Penguin Random House (UK)
My mentor and friend, Michèle Roberts
My writing group comrades, Marc Lee and Natalie Burge
Niall Williams and Christine Breen Williams
My parents, Frank and Margaret Cullen
Gaby and Hans Wieland
All of my loved ones, my family and friends, for their love and inspiration
Demian Wieland, to whom this book is dedicated
ISBN-13: 9781488036637
The Dazzling Truth
Copyright © 2020 by Helen Cullen
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
Graydon House
22 Adelaide St. West, 40th Floor
Toronto, Ontario M5H 4E3, Canada
www.GraydonHouseBooks.com
www.BookClubbish.com