The Missing Sister, page 52
‘I have, yes.’
‘He must be very old these days.’
‘He is, but he still has his wits about him.’
‘And what did he say when you turned up out of the blue with no warning?’
‘He was shocked, but happy to see me. Katie, please don’t cry anymore. I’m here and I promise, I’ll tell you why I had to leave, and I just hope you’ll understand.’
‘I’ve had so long to think about it, and I’d reckon I have an idea. I think—’
‘Would it be all right if we talked about it another time, Katie? I’ve my children here with me and I haven’t told them anything about it either.’
‘What about your husband, assuming you have one? Does he know?’
‘My husband died a few months ago, he didn’t know. Nobody did. When I left, I forgot the past. I made a whole new life and got myself a new identity.’
‘Then I’m sorry for your loss, Merry. But . . . well, I’ve some things to tell you about our family, some things we didn’t know as children, but that make sense now, looking back. Especially for you.’
‘Then you must tell me, Katie.’
‘’Tis not a pretty story, Merry, but it explains a lot.’
I was just about to mention I’d read Nuala’s diary, when there was a brief knock on the door and Connor appeared.
‘Sorry to interrupt, but will we be having something for our tea tonight or not, Katie? There’s nothing in the fridge that I can see.’
‘No, Connor, I need to go shopping. I just came back here to take a shower and change out of my uniform.’ Katie stood up. ‘What about I come to see you tomorrow?’ she said to me. ‘’Tis my day off. Where are you staying?’
‘The Inchydoney Lodge Hotel.’
‘Oh, ’tis a lovely place that, with a beautiful view.’
‘It is,’ I said, sensing the tension that had appeared in the room with the arrival of Connor. ‘Well, I must be off anyway.’
‘Would eleven o’clock suit?’ she said.
‘It would. I’ll be down in the lobby to meet you. Bye, Katie. Bye, Connor.’
As I drove back to the hotel, I decided that, despite the car, the perfect home and the handsome, rich husband, my sister was not a happy woman.
That evening, Jack, Mary-Kate and I enjoyed a relaxed supper at a pub in Clonakilty. Afterwards, we went to listen to some Irish music at An Teach Beag, once a tiny cottage that had now been turned into a pub. The traditional band played the old ballads, bringing back memories of my father playing his fiddle. Then we headed back to the hotel.
‘Looks like the weather is set fair for some good surfing tomorrow, Mum,’ said Jack, ‘so if it’s okay with you, MK and I will get our togs on after brekkie.’
‘I’m seeing one of my sisters anyway, so that’s perfect.’
‘I really love it here, Mum,’ Mary-Kate said as we kissed goodnight. ‘Everyone is so friendly. It’s like NZ, with a different accent!’
I was happy that my children liked it here, I thought the next morning, as I donned a pair of jeans and a blouse for Katie’s imminent arrival.
At eleven o’clock prompt, she arrived in the lobby. Yesterday she’d been in her navy-blue nurse’s uniform, but today she was immaculately dressed in tailored trousers and a silk blouse.
‘Katie,’ I said, standing up to hug her, ‘thank you so much for coming.’
‘As if I wouldn’t! I might have been shocked and upset yesterday – who wouldn’t be? But I know you must have had your reasons, Merry, and ’tis so grand to see you! Where are your kids?’ she asked.
‘Out there, braving the waves. They’re both mad for surfing, so.’
I listened to what I’d just said and had to smile because, with the West Cork accent all around me, I was slipping back into it myself.
‘Is there somewhere we can talk? I mean, privately?’ Katie asked me.
‘Is here not private enough?’
‘You need to remember that walls have ears here, and my husband, well, he’s well known round these parts.’
‘Are you saying you’re ashamed to be seen with me?’ I giggled.
‘Of course I’m not, but what I want to tell you . . . well, we might not be comfortable being interrupted.’
‘Okay, let’s go up to my room.’
We ordered cappuccinos from room service and chatted away about how modern this part of the world had become.
‘Don’t I know it – until recently my husband had one of the biggest construction companies here, so he’s been kept very busy in the last few years,’ said Katie. ‘Now there’s a downturn, but he saw it coming and managed to sell the business last year. He’s sitting on a fortune, whilst the new owner and all those fellows who worked for him will probably watch the whole thing go down the drain. He’s always been lucky that way.’
‘Or a clever businessman?’
‘I suppose, yes,’ she agreed with a weary smile.
‘Can I ask you something, Katie?’
‘Of course you can, Merry. I’d never be keeping any secrets from you, anyway.’
‘Touché,’ I said with a slight grimace. ‘Are you happy with Connor?’
‘Do you want the long or the short answer to that?’ she replied with a shrug. ‘I mean, there was me pulling pints at the Henry Ford pub and he waltzed in one evening and swept me off my feet. Even then his company was starting to do well, so he’d all the luxuries. He showed me plans to build a grand house on land he’d bought in Timoleague, took me driving in his flash sports car and then presented me with a big rock of an engagement ring when he asked me to marry him.’ Katie shook her head. ‘You’ll be remembering what our childhood was like and how I’d sworn I’d not repeat it, so to have a rich man offering to marry me felt like a miracle. Of course I said yes, and we had a big wedding up at the Dunmore House Hotel, and a honeymoon in Spain. He spoilt me rotten with clothes and jewellery, said he wanted me to look the part on his arm.’
‘Were you happy?’
‘Back then, yes. We were trying to grow a family. It took a long time, but I managed to produce a boy and a girl – Connor Junior and Tara. It wasn’t long after Tara was born that I got wind of my husband’s first affair. He denied it, o’course, and I forgave him – and then it happened again and again, until I couldn’t any longer,’ she shrugged.
‘Why haven’t you divorced him?’
‘Knowing Connor, he’d have found a way to wriggle out of me getting much in any settlement, so once the kids had left home, I decided to go to college and take my nursing exams. It took me three years of driving back and forth to Cork City, but I got my qualifications, Merry,’ she smiled proudly. ‘So, for the past fifteen years, I’ve been working up at the old people’s place in Clonakilty, and I love it there. I’m happy enough, Merry; I’ve learnt we all need to make compromises in life. What about your hubby? Was he a good one?’
‘He was, yes,’ I smiled. ‘Very good. I mean, we had our ups and downs as any marriage does, and went through some very hard times financially when we were building up our vineyard—’
‘Vineyard, is it? Remember how we used to steal Daddy’s homemade porter? A couple of sips of that could pull the skin off a cat!’
‘I do! It tasted disgusting.’
‘But we still drank it,’ Katie giggled. ‘Sounds like we’ve both come a long way since our childhoods.’
‘We have. Looking back, we lived close to the breadline, didn’t we? I remember walking to school with big holes in my boots because we couldn’t afford new ones.’
‘We’d definitely be described as deprived kids these days, but then, ’twas half of Ireland at the time,’ said Katie.
‘Yes, and after all that suffering our ancestors went through to fight for their freedom, nothing much had moved on in reality, had it?’
‘As a matter of fact, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.’
‘Our past?’
‘Yes. You’ll be remembering that we never had our grandparents round to visit us, or any cousins either?’ said Katie.
‘I do, and I could never understand it.’
‘No, but when I started working at the old people’s home in the early nineties . . . let me tell you, you learn a lot about the old stories there. Maybe their folks have stopped listening, or maybe they tell you things because you’re a stranger. Anyway, I’d one old lady who was in our special care unit, as we called it, which meant those who didn’t have long left on this earth. I was on a night shift and went in to check on her. Even though she was in her nineties, she’d all her faculties on her. She stared at me and said I was the spit of her daughter, then asked my name. I told her I was Katie Scanlon, but then she asked what my maiden name had been. I told her it was O’Reilly and tears appeared in her eyes. She grasped my hand and said she was my grandmother, Nuala Murphy, and her daughter had been named Maggie. She told me she’d a story she needed to get off her chest before she met her maker. It took her three nights to tell it, because she was so weak, but she was determined to do so.’
I stared at Katie in disbelief. ‘Nuala was our grandmother?’
‘Yes, the one we never saw, apart from that once at Mammy’s funeral. After what she told me, I understand better why we didn’t see her. Merry, what’s wrong? You’re a strange colour.’
‘I . . . Katie, I was given her diary a very long time ago, by someone we . . . both knew.’
‘Who?’
‘I’d prefer not to say just now, or we’ll be off down another track and—’
‘Well now, I can guess who gave you that diary. Why did you never tell me?’
‘Firstly, because I only read it myself a few days ago – I know that might sound odd, Katie, but I was only eleven when it was given to me and I wasn’t interested in learning about the past. Then when I got older, because of who gave it to me, I never wanted to set eyes on it again.’
‘But you still kept it?’
‘Yes, I did. Please don’t ask me why, because I honestly couldn’t tell you,’ I sighed.
‘Sure, I won’t, but since you’ve read it, I’m guessing you’ve made the family connection?’
‘No, because the diary stopped in 1920. Something happened to Nuala and she said she couldn’t write anymore.’
‘Maybe you could show it to me sometime. I heard the whole sorry story from beginning to end. Where did you get up to in the diary, so I won’t be repeating myself?’
‘I . . .’ I cleared my throat. ‘It was just after Philip – the British soldier – had shot himself.’
‘Right. Nuala was still upset by that, along with a whole lot more that came after, including the reason why she never came to visit when our mammy married our daddy.’
‘Katie, just tell me,’ I said in a burst of impatience.
Katie drew a folder out of her smart Louis Vuitton shopper and flicked through a large sheaf of pages. ‘I wrote it all down after she told me, so I wouldn’t forget it. So, you already know the part up to when Philip killed himself.’
‘I do.’
‘Well, the War of Independence went on for a good deal longer after that. Finn, Nuala’s husband, was a volunteer, as you know, and they were dark times as both sides stepped up the violence. Now then, let’s start when Hannah, Nuala’s sister, married her fiancé, Ryan, soon after Philip met his end . . .’
December 1920
The wedding of Hannah Murphy and Ryan O’Reilly took place in Clogagh church, in a very different atmosphere than that of Nuala and Finn’s. They had wanted something small that befitted the sombre mood that hung in the air.
Decked with holly and a candle set in each window, the church looked festive, but Nuala walked through the wedding in a fog of grief she couldn’t seek comfort for. No one could know how devastated she was at Philip’s death.
At the party afterwards, held in the church hall, Sian, one of Hannah’s dressmaker friends, leant over to Nuala.
‘Is Herself not interested in helping the cause now she’s a married woman?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, she used to be the first we’d all go to if a message needed sending somewhere. Now she says she hasn’t the time.’
‘I’d say her mind was on her wedding, Sian,’ Nuala replied. ‘Sure, she’ll settle down once it’s all over.’
‘Maybe, but . . .’ Sian had to put her mouth to Nuala’s ear to whisper over the sound of the little ceilidh band. ‘I’d reckon her man doesn’t want her to be involved in our activities.’
Sian was pulled up to dance a few seconds later, but as Nuala sat and watched the bride and groom take their places in the centre of the group, she wondered whether love really was blind after all. As hard as she tried, she could not see what her strong-minded, passionate sister saw in the quiet, self-proclaimed pacifist she had just wed.
The year 1921 dawned, and over the following few months the brave volunteers did all they could to thwart the British. There were whispered reports of IRA victories, that the boys were slowly winning with their clever use of guerrilla tactics and knowledge of their own land, but the reprisals for British casualties were harsh. Nuala found relief in keeping busy running messages and helping those whose homes had been turned upside down and often set alight by the British in retaliation. There was many an elderly couple who had been forced to live in their chicken coops, too frightened to come out. Nuala rounded up as many Cumann na mBan members as she could and they met one night at a safehouse in Ballinascarthy to draw up a list of temporary accommodation for the poor souls to be billeted at. There was an air of positivity and hope that the conflict would soon draw to a close, but Niamh, their brigade captain, urged caution.
‘’Tis not over yet, girls, and we mustn’t let our guard slip too soon. We’ve all lost people dear to us in this battle and ’twould be good not to lose more.’
‘What about those in jail?’ asked Nuala. ‘I hear the conditions there are terrible, and they say they’re worse up in Mountjoy Prison in Dublin. Is there a plan to get our fellows out?’
‘They’re under lock and key day and night,’ said Niamh. ‘They’re the Britishers’ prized possessions; they know our volunteers will think twice before launching an ambush, for fear of one of their comrades being shot in reprisal.’
She was almost numb these days to hearing terrible things, but the death of Charlie Hurley, Finn’s closest friend, hit her hard. He had been shot at point-blank range at Humphrey Forde’s farmhouse in Ballymurphy. Finn was devastated but could spare little time for grief. A few days later he went deep undercover with the Flying Column and Nuala didn’t know when she would see her husband again. She knew that Charlie’s body had been carried out of the workhouse morgue in Bandon by the women of Cumann na mBan. He’d been buried in the graveyard in Clogagh in secret at night, so that all the volunteers who had loved and respected him as commandant of the Third West Cork Brigade could be present.
The thought of all those she and Finn had lost in the fight to secure Ireland’s freedom fuelled her determination to help as much as she could, which was more than she could say for Hannah. Even though she did her best to accept that Hannah had no choice but to follow her husband’s lead, her sister’s now open refusal to have anything to do with the cause she’d once been so passionate about cut her soul in two. The fact Hannah had told her Ryan condemned the volunteers’ bravery, in the name of pacifism, had caused a deep rift between them. Often, when she was in Timoleague and saw her sister emerging from the dressmaker’s shop, Nuala quickly turned and walked the other way.
The farming seasons carried on despite the war, and still no sight of Finn, apart from the odd message passed by Christy to say he was alive and sending her his love. Nuala spent time up at Cross Farm, and threw herself into any job she was given. As spring progressed, golden gorse filled the valley, the barn was full of newborn calves, and the days lengthened. At least, in the fear and grief that cast a shadow over everything, Nuala had a special secret that lit a spark of joy within her.
‘Soon enough, you’ll be showing yourself and there’ll be nothing can hide it,’ she said as she looked down at her tummy. By her estimation, she was about two months gone, and due sometime in late December. Now over the worst of any sickness, she felt renewed vigour to win the war for her and Finn’s child. She told nobody, wanting her husband to be the first to know, but was sure her mammy had guessed her secret.
As spring turned to summer and with fewer British troops visible on the roads – wary of ambushes from the volunteers – Nuala also did the rounds of those wounded in action or injured during a raid on their homeplace.
All of the fellows and their families poured gratitude on her head, offering her whatever they had to eat as a thank you. Most of her patients were barely more than boys, who’d had their bodies and their lives blown apart by the cause. They and their families humbled and moved her.
I’ve learnt more about nursing in the past year than I could ever have learnt from books, she thought as she cycled home one evening.
What with all she was doing, she fell asleep easily at night as the summer wore on. The talk was that the British had retired to their barracks, if they’d not already been burnt down by the volunteers. She’d heard from Christy that Michael Collins himself had sent a personal message of congratulations to the West Cork Flying Column. Next time she saw Hannah in town, Nuala invited her to sit and eat lunch with her. She wanted to tell her sister about the message to the lads, and have Ryan know too.
‘Imagine that!’ Hannah said to her dreamily as they sat on their favourite bench overlooking Courtmacsherry Bay. ‘A message from the Big Fellow himself!’
‘He’s behind the boys and all they’re doing, Hannah,’ she said pointedly. ‘I hope you’ll tell Ryan that.’
Hannah had ignored her sister’s comment, instead going on to confide that she was expecting. Nuala had shared her news too, but sworn her to secrecy until she was able to tell Finn. The exchange had engendered a few moments of their old closeness, as the sisters had imagined their babies playing together in the future.
