House of Memories (10 page)

“The secret is to remember that even in the bad days, when you cannot see it, it is still there. The trouble is that with you working such back-breaking hours things could get on top of you.”

“It has happened,” Danny told him grimly.

“You need help,” Fr Brady declared.

“Help costs money, and as the whole parish probably knows by now, I’ve no money,” Danny told him.

“Help does not always have to cost money,” Fr Tim said.

“Well, that’s news to me,” Danny began, but changed his tone and continued, “but that’s not strictly true, because Shiner has been great and comes every chance he gets to help me, and there is nothing in it for him only he is such a good old skin.”

“There are more like Shiner out there,” Fr Tim told him quietly.

“Like who?” Danny demanded incredulously.

“My father,” Fr Tim said evenly.

“Your father?” he exclaimed in amazement.

“Yes, Danny,” Fr Tim said, “and now just hear me through. When you are young and challenged like you are, you might be sometimes overburdened, but still life is full of excitement and vibrancy. Now, when you come to my father’s age and you have your family reared and you are no longer absolutely necessary for their survival and sometimes they wish that you might just get lost for a while, well, then it’s a different story altogether. As a young man my father worked on the buildings in England where he made good money. He was smart enough to get out while he was still young, and he came home and bought a pub. He did well, but he had hard times too because my mother died when we were all young, but he got through it and reared six of us and put us out in the world. My brother who is at home in the business got married last year, and my father now finds himself surplus to requirements in his own house and business. He is beginning to think that he has nothing to look forward to but old age. In other words, he needs a project. And this is where you come in. He would reroof Furze Hill with the slates that Jack says are stacked up at the back, and then he could do the barn. At least it would be a start.”

Danny listened in growing amazement. Could this really be
happening? A hundred questions ran through his mind.

“But how old is he?” he blurted out.

“Sixty next year and as fit as a fiddle,” Fr Brady assured him, “and the great thing is that he has all his tools in perfect nick, and my garden shed is like a carpenter’s workshop. That is his burning interest: carpentry, building and gardening.

“I can’t believe it.”

“He’s probably just what the doctor ordered,” Fr Tim quipped.

“He’s a godsend,” Danny declared in amazement.

“He’s been called worse. You’re on then?” Fr Tim asked.

“Well, of course I’m on! Wouldn’t I be a bloody fool not to be?” Danny gasped, hardly able to take it in.

“Any move on the ownership problem?” Fr Tim asked.

In answer Danny handed him Rory’s letter. He read it slowly, nodding his head, and then asked, “Can I take this with me?”

“You can, of course,” Danny told him in surprise, although after the last few minutes he felt as if he was gone beyond being surprised. From his experience of training sessions, he knew that Fr Brady moved fast, but tonight he was passing himself out.

The following morning as Danny let out the cows after milking, Fr Brady’s car whipped into the yard, and as he unfolded his long legs from beneath the steering wheel, a much smaller man with a thatch of greying hair jumped out of the passenger seat. Danny felt a jolt of surprise. He was not quite sure what he had expected Fr Brady’s father to look like, but certainly nothing like this youthful, solidly built man who strode forward and caught his hand in a warm, firm grasp and
announced, “I’m Bill Brady.”

“Thanks for coming, Mr Brady,” Danny stammered in confusion.

“Forget the Mr,” he was told with a friendly smile.

“Nothing like the geriatric you were expecting?” Fr Brady grinned in amusement at Danny.

“Well, no,” Danny admitted wryly.

“Dad, I think that Danny was expecting a much more senior citizen,” he told his father.

“Well, that’s probably on the way, but hopefully this job will postpone it for another while,” he said with enthusiasm, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. Almost like a magnet, his eyes were drawn to the arch. “Oh boy,” he breathed, “look at that for workmanship.”

“Would you like to see the house?” Danny asked, sensing his enthusiasm to size up the whole situation.

“Lead me to it,” Bill Brady instructed.

Danny led them under the arch and through the tunnel that he had created last night. When they reached the front door, Bill Brady stood back silently appraising it and then ran his fingers lovingly along its surface and outline.

“We don’t make doors or entrances like this any more,” he breathed. Turning to Danny with a face full of admiration, he declared, “Young fellow, your grandmother’s people could certainly build a house.”

Danny felt a glow of appreciation for this warm exuberant man. This was the kind of father to be proud of and love. For no reason that he could understand, Danny felt tears in his eyes. The older man put his arm around him and hugged him.

“Young Danny,” he told him, “you and I are going to do
wonders here. Tim, you go about your business now and, Danny, you look after your farm jobs. I need a few hours here to get the feel of things and form a plan of campaign.”

A
T FIRST
J
ACK
thought that he was imagining it when he saw movement on the roof of Furze Hill. He was walking down to Mossgrove, his eye wandering along the valley. As his gaze rose to the distant hills, a sudden movement on the roof caught his eye. He was so familiar with every inch of the landscape that anything different struck him immediately. That someone was on the roof of Furze Hill brought him to a standstill. He had no clear view as the roof was partly submerged in trees, but some had not yet leafed, so through bare branches he could see a figure move carefully along. He was too far away for recognition but knew from the outline that it was not Danny Conway. Who on earth could it be? Then, as he watched, two other men came across the roof. They were carrying tools and began to remove the sheeting and slide it down off the roof. The other man, the one he had noticed first, had some kind of a pulley system bringing up what must be slates on to the roof. He was carrying them slowly along
and carefully placing them beside the stripped section. Then he began to reroof.

Jack could see that these men knew exactly what they were doing; they had the look of men at home on rooftops. Where on earth did they come from? By God, he thought, miracles do happen, and Molly Barry is getting her roof back on! He stood watching them, impressed by the methodical way they were working. It was only when Bran came panting up the boreen and began to lick his hand that he realised he had been standing there watching for a long time and was running behind schedule.

“Good boy, Bran,” he praised, patting the dog’s head. “What the neighbours are doing does not bother you. Your job is to get the cows in for milking.”

He turned in the next gap where the cows were lying in a cluster at the bottom of the field. Bran ran ahead, his paws spattering dew and creating a green path through the silver field. When the cows saw him, they began to lever themselves up, leaving flattened nests in the high grass. Bran circled around them, making sure that they all understood that milking time had come and that there was nowhere to go only out the gap. But that did not hurry them as they slowly came on to all fours and calmly ambled across the field. Long necks craned over big bellies as the entire bawn gently nudged or forced each other through the gap, and then they stretched out into an orderly row down the boreen. Jack smiled to see Mother Legs lead the bawn as usual. She was a long-legged, bawny cow who had great difficulty calving but was a good milker. They had had her for years, and now she had a daughter and granddaughter in the herd, both of them close behind her in the row. The Legs were
speedy movers, but then they were not weighed down with large udders of milk like Snow White, who was trailing at the rear. Snow White was a strange name for a red cow, but she had been a pet calf of Nora’s, who had named her after her favourite fairy story at the time.

He had two of his cows milked before Peter arrived silently and sat under Snow White across the stone channel from him. They each had their own quota of cows and without discussion went straight to their own. Peter was not a morning person, so there was no salutation, and it would take him a while to make any attempt at conversation. Jack understood this and waited for him to thaw out. Shiner, however, when he arrived a few minutes afterwards, had no such considerations and, full of exuberance, started singing:

“Oh what a beautiful morning,

Oh what a beautiful day.”

“Shut up,” Peter growled.

“Oh boys, you’re a right pain in the arse in the morning,” Shiner told him.

“Did any of you notice anything strange across the river this morning?” Jack wanted to know.

“Across the river?” Shiner asked in a puzzled voice.

“Conways’, stupid,” Peter snapped.

“Well, there’s no way you’d notice anything anyway,” Shiner told him good humouredly. “You can hardly find your way out here in the morning.”

“Shiner, would you ever piss off,” Peter said petulantly. “Jack, how could you be watching what’s going on across the river at this hour of the morning?”

“Because it was extraordinary,” Jack declared and was
rewarded when Peter stopped milking and Shiner, who had been heading back the stall to his own cows, stopped beside him and demanded, “Like what?”

“There are men on the roof of Furze Hill,” Jack told them.

His announcement had the desired effect, and they both stared at him.

“Jack, are you sure that you are not losing it?” Shiner demanded. “Seeing little men is the first sign.”

“Shiner, would you ever cop on! If Jack says that there are men on top of Conways’, then there are men on top of Conways’,” Peter asserted.

“In other words, Jack, you can’t be wrong; you’re infallible,” Shiner grinned at him.

“Would the two of you ever stop?” Jack protested. “Are ye not amazed as I am that there are men on the roof of Furze Hill?”

“But what the hell are they doing up there?” Shiner wondered.

“Fishing,” Peter said sarcastically.

“They’re reroofing it,” he told them.

“Holy God,” Shiner breathed. “How did this get going?”

“No idea. Didn’t Danny say anything?” he asked.

“I wasn’t over there with a bit because my mother has me building a bloody hen house every evening. But something must have happened to change things.”

“Extraordinary,” Jack declared.

When they went in for their breakfast after milking, he knew that Shiner would not bring up the subject of Furze Hill, but he was not surprised when Peter looked at Martha and said, “They’re roofing Conways’ place.”

If he was expecting a reaction he got it.

“You mean that old house that’s been buried for years?” she demanded in an amazed voice. “In God’s name, what would they be doing that for and all the rest of the place falling down around them?”

“Well, maybe that’s only the beginning,” Peter said evenly.

“And where’s the money going to come from?” she demanded. “Sure, the Conways haven’t a brown penny and no way of acquiring it either.”

“Well, this morning there are three men on the roof of Furze Hill, whoever is paying,” Jack put in.

“So it’s Furze Hill now, is it?” Martha said disdainfully. “Are we supposed to think that changing the name is supposed to put a better face on things?”

“Well, it was always Furze Hill in the Barrys’ time,” Jack told her.

“That was a long time ago before they got mixed up with the Conways,” Martha said dismissively, “and since then it’s been downhill all the way. I don’t think that there is any way back up that slippery slope.”

“Stranger things have happened,” Jack said quietly, “and I think that Danny Conway could be the one to turn things around.”

“I doubt it very much,” Martha asserted.

“Well, that’s his plan,” Jack told her.

“Well, that’s his business, and we’re not going to get mixed up in it,” she said firmly, eyeing Shiner who was studiously ignoring her. “We were long enough tangled up with that crowd, and no good ever came of it.”

“Different man in charge over there now,” Jack said.

“He’s not in charge. Aren’t they’re all stuck into it?” Martha asserted.

“Well, that could be sorted out,” Jack told her.

“Not that easy,” Martha asserted. “Not everyone gets things handed to them on a plate.”

He could see Peter getting ready to rise to the bait, so he interjected quickly, “Anyway, if it does get sorted out, I think that it will be a different place with Danny in charge. The grandmother had a big influence on him.”

“Don’t be too sure,” she cautioned. “It will take longer than that to dilute the bad blood of the Conways.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Peter protested, “you are the one who is always preaching that it’s what you are that counts, not what you came from, and now you’re singing a different song when it suits you. It’s either this or that.”

“Well, the Conways are neither this nor that,” Martha told him decisively. “They’re a mongrel breed.”

“Jesus,” Peter snapped angrily, pushing back his chair, “I’m getting out of here.”

When he was gone there was an uneasy silence, and Shiner got up quietly and slipped out after him. As the door closed behind him, Martha turned angrily to Jack and demanded, “Did you know that our brave Peter spent half the night dancing with that foxy Conway one at that youth club dance?”

“How do you know that?” Jack stammered in surprise, because Martha never took the slightest interest in local gossip.

“I know because this is a small, newsy little hole where people love to tell you things that they hope will annoy you.”

“Well, if they do I wouldn’t mention one word about it to Peter, because these things blossom in opposition, and from
what I hear Rosie Nolan has her eye on Peter, and you don’t back Rosie off too easily. So let it with her and she might sort things out for us.”

“Is that right?” Martha said her face brightening. “Well, anyone is better than one of the Conways.”

Thanks be to God, Jack prayed silently, that she must not have heard about Nora dancing with Danny or there would be blue murder. Then before he could think of something to change the subject, Martha looked at him and said, “Jack, I know that we have had our differences over the years, and you are more Phelan than I will ever be, or want to be either, it might surprise you to know. Mossgrove to me is just a farm, though I know that you think it’s the Garden of Eden. But the place is in good hands now, and to be honest, when I’m not in charge I don’t get the same satisfaction out of it. So I’m looking outside of Mossgrove, and I have a project in mind. This little one-horse village is ready to have its boundaries pushed out. So I’m just letting you know that there are changes coming up.”

“Thanks for telling me,” Jack said quietly.

So Kate was right and Martha was on the move! He wondered if it was the school that she had in mind, but he knew that even if he asked he would not be told, so he changed the conversation. After a few minutes he left the kitchen and went out into the yard.

He breathed a sigh of relief to be back out in the fresh air. He should be used to Peter and his mother having running battles across the table and Shiner and himself getting caught in the crossfire. This morning, however, it was only a minor squabble and of no great consequence. Now he looked around the yard with pride. He had helped to build many of the fine
stone houses, and it gave him great satisfaction that the yearly tradition of painting the old timber doors a dark red had never varied. He had had it drilled into him by the old man that constant maintenance was one of the keys to good farming, and he had passed that creed on to Peter. Peter was smart and not afraid of hard work, but he also had Martha’s odd streak in him, which was probably why they clashed so often. If she had other interests, the conflict would probably ease off, but they would miss her around the yard where she looked after the fowl and the calves and kept everything in great order. Then maybe it was time for himself to slow down a bit and come in from the fields and he could do the yard work. It was usually the women who did the yard because the work was lighter and they were better with the young animals, but he smiled to himself as he decided that this role would probably suit him better now, especially when Peter was doing so much work with the tractor out the fields. Inside around the house would be a different story, because Martha was a good cook and housekeeper and the place was immaculate. But then maybe Ellen Shine, Shiner’s mother, could fall in there. Shiner was for ever saying that with all of them gone except himself she found time on her hands, and, more importantly, she was one of the few neighbouring women that Martha really liked. She maintained that Ellen kept her mouth shut and minded her own business.

“Well now, Jack,” he told himself, “you’ve it all sorted out, even though you don’t have a bull’s notion what’s going to happen.”

He did not notice that he had spoken aloud until Shiner, who was taking fresh straw across the yard to the calves, said good humouredly, “If I were you, Jack, I’d be getting worried
about myself – men on the roof and talking to myself.”

“Well, they were on the roof,” he protested indignantly.

“Yerra, Jack, you know I’m only doing the fool. You’re as near to losing your marbles now as I am to growing wings and flying,” Shiner told him.

“Are they still up there?” Jack asked.

“They are,” Shiner said. “I went over to the haggard a few minutes ago just to have a good look across the river, and those boys on the roof know what they are at, wherever they came from.”

“I’m going to walk over there after the supper to see what’s going on,” Jack told him.

After supper, instead of heading up the boreen, he turned in the gate leading down to the river. It was a grand time of evening to be taking a stroll down through the fields. As he walked along by the ditch, rabbits scurried in all directions, and even though they were a scourge in the cornfields, their capers still brought a smile to his face. When he was into the Horses’ Field, the horses looked in his direction but were not sufficiently curious to come over to him. He walked on through the next field and climbed over the ditch into the Clover Meadow. Suddenly a hare reared up below him and was gone in a flash of grey and gold. Constantly on high alert for the first sign of human intrusion, he raced like lightening on his long, strong legs. The crows were heading home to the big tree in the haggard. Out here all were settling down for the night, but when he saw a fox he knew that this boy had other things on his mind and was about to begin his nightly prowl. The fox, however, was not unduly perturbed by his sudden appearance and strolled slowly into the bushes.

“You’re a beautiful boy,” Jack told him, admiring his gorgeous amber tail; but then, remembering the dead hens last year when he forgot to close the hen house, he added, “But you are also a right bastard.”

Then he smiled to himself and thought, Sure, they all have to survive one way or another. If the bloody fox just took one hen and had her for his supper, but the red divil killed anything that moved when he got into the hen house. Just in front of him a cock pheasant darted out of the bushes and rose in flight, and Jack breathed a sigh of relief that he had escaped the fox. He was so close that Jack could see the golden red of his magnificent wings as he flew over the field seeking a sanctuary. All around him the ditches drooped with whitethorn, and he stopped to breathe in the wonderful smells.