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Authors: Alice; Taylor

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“That makes two of us,” David said ruefully.

“Any ideas, Kate?” Fr Tim asked.

For a long time it had bothered Kate that there was so little activity for the young in the village, but especially the girls. Nora and Rosie Nolan were for ever complaining about it, maintaining that the boys had hurling and football but that they had nothing, and she agreed with them.

“Why not run a fund-raising event,” she suggested.

“Like what?” Fr Tim demanded.

“Well, let the young decide that,” she told him. “Why not form a club of the boys and girls and then let them do it together and divide the returns between the Kilmeens and the club. If the Kilmeens go it alone, they won’t have all the young with them, but the club would be a parish effort and everybody would be on board.”

“That’s a great idea,” Fr Tim declared enthusiastically.

“Where would they meet and run their events?” David asked.

“The parish hall, I suppose,” Kate said. “Sure there is nowhere else.”

“Oh, oh, that’s the first stumbling block,” Fr Tim decided. “I can imagine the face of the PP when I ask him for the hall for a gang of young ones, and we’ll have to ask him as it’s parish property.”

“Yerra, you wouldn’t do to ask him at all,” Kate told him. “We’ll have to send David.”

“Great idea,” a relieved Fr Tim declared.

“So I’m to take the bull by the horns,” David smiled.

“And bull is the operative word,” Kate said.

They sat for a long time discussing the pros and cons of the
new venture, and as they chatted Kate realised that between the three of them they knew most of what went on in the parish. This aspect of Kilmeen irritated Martha, and she often complained that it was like living in a fishbowl, but it never bothered Kate. She had often discovered on her rounds that some of people’s problems, when they were aired, were not really as big as they had thought. She was always nervous of the problems that went on behind closed doors, and when she came on a problem like Matt Conway and his daughters, she nearly lost her faith in human nature. But then old Molly Conway, with her determined efforts to protect her grand children, restored it.

“Kate, where are you gone off to?” David’s amused voice broke in on her thoughts and she heard the doorbell ringing. “That will be Rosie Nolan,” David said rising. “She is coming in to go over some maths. Nora is very anxious that she do honours maths and get a good leaving cert to go to college with her.”

“Is that what Rosie wants?” Kate asked in surprise. “I thought that Rosie has this big dream of becoming a showband singer.”

“She probably has, but Nora is determined that she will do a good exam and have something else behind her as well,” David told her.

“Well done, Nora,” Fr Tim said. “The singing could be a shaky number, but Rosie could make it because she has a great voice and she is all up for it.”

“Well, for the next half an hour she must be all up for Euclid,” David declared.

When he had gone, Fr Tim poured himself another cup of tea, and Kate smiled as he filled her cup without asking.

“You’re a rale tay boy,” she told him.

“A family failing,” he smiled.

“How are they?” she asked.

“They’re all fine. The pub is humming away, but since Brian got married Dad is feeling that he is not as needed as he was. He does not say anything, but I can sense it in him. I suppose after Mom died he had been stretched to the hilt trying to get us all reared and educated, and now it’s done. He’s coming over to me next week to do my garden and straighten out my garden shed. But I know that he is only doing it to pass away the time. He loves gardening, but mine is very small. Dad was used to a very full life. He was a builder, you know, before he bought the pub. Made his money on the buildings in England and then came home and bought a pub.”

“Smart move,” Kate told him. “Can’t go wrong with a pub in Ireland.”

“Suppose so, but Kate, you have no idea of the drivel you have to listen to in a pub.”

“Prepared you for the priesthood,” Kate smiled.

“Maybe,” he agreed, “but I suppose that it was my mother’s death when I was a teenager that really started me on that road. Her death opened up all kinds of questions about what life was all about.”

“Did you find any answers?” Kate asked.

“No,” he told her, “and I’m beginning to think that there are none and that we must all struggle along the best way that we can.”

“Any regrets?” she questioned.

“Sometimes when I shut the door behind me at night, I think that it might be nice to have someone to sit down and have a chat with and discuss the day that is gone. When I see
David and yourself so happy and contented together, I regret that it can never be mine.”

“Nothing is perfect, Tim,” she told him lightly.

“You regret very much that you and David don’t have children?” he questioned gently.

“My one regret in life,” she told him, “and yet I feel that it is not right to complain when we are so happy together, and David never makes any issue out of it. It’s I have the problem with it.”

“Well, that’s only natural, I suppose,” he said.

“You know, when I think of the likes of Matt Conway having children and abusing his daughters and David and my not having any, wouldn’t you question what God is thinking?” she demanded.

“God isn’t very good at answering questions, Kate. But hearing about Danny’s efforts to sort out Furze Hill, maybe it is up to all of us to help the Conways to recover from the life he inflicted on them.”

“I feel so helpless on that score,” she told him.

“Well, who knows but ways to help might open up yet,” he smiled.

“That’s what I like about you, Fr Tim: you are the eternal optimist.”

“Inherited from my father, because he is a firm believer that if you keep plugging on things will eventually work themselves out.”

“He’s my kind of man,” she said, “and…”

“Oh my God, I almost forgot to tell you that I had a letter from Rodney Jackson this morning,” Fr Tim interrupted, diving into his pocket, “and he is coming after Easter. He says that he
has big plans for Kilmeen. I didn’t half read the letter as I was rushing down the street when I met Johnny and just opened it and sconced over it and pushed it in here,” he finished pulling a crumpled envelope out of his pocket.

“Typical of you,” she told him, “but I’d better get the spare room tidied out for him and see …” But she was interrupted by a gasp from Fr Tim who was busy reading down through the letter.

“Listen to this bit: ‘For a long time I have felt that Kilmeen is in the need of a small hotel as the catering facilities are so limited and there is no place for any tourist to stay in the village.”

“Tourists!” she echoed.

“Just listen,” he told her continuing: “While the school at the moment is occupying my family home, I feel that the house would lend itself better to being restored and made into a small, intimate, first class hotel…”

“Jesus,” Kate gasped, but Tim continued reading from the letter, “…but this is only part of a larger plan, and I will discuss it all with you when I come. Please tell Kate that I’m looking forward to her hospitality.”

Fr Tim put down the letter and looked across at Kate’s stricken face.

She felt as if somebody had given her a kick in the stomach.

“What on earth is he talking about? The school is in the old Jackson home since it started. There is no other place for it. He just can’t kick us out now,” she gasped.

“Where did all this come from?” Fr Tim wondered. “There was no mention of it when he was here last summer. What has happened since?”

With Fr Tim’s question something clicked in Kate’s brain.
Martha had happened since. Last summer they had all been surprised when Rodney Jackson had fallen in love with Martha. We should have known, Kate thought, that it was never going to be straightforward. Nothing was straightforward with Martha. Even if she had no great feelings for Rodney, he was still a bright prospect for getting what she wanted in life. He was too good a business opportunity to pass up. Rodney would never mean to wrong anybody, but Martha was a manipulative woman, and Kate had seen how she had outmanoeuvred Ned and got her own way in everything. While she was in New York, Peter had taken over in Mossgrove and was not going to relinquish his grip. There was too much of his mother in him to give in to her. Jack had often said that it took your own to level you, and Peter had edged Martha out of the running of Mossgrove. She had surprised them all by accepting it. Now Kate felt a piece of that jigsaw slip into place.

N
ORA CHECKED THE
list of subjects in the timetable on the parlour table. Every evening before beginning her homework, she allocated a certain amount of time to each subject, and though it did not always work out, it still brought a bit of order into her study. She had tried to get Rosie to do this but gave up in the end because Rosie Nolan would never adhere to a plan.

The parlour was a good place to do her lessons. It was a restful room with flowing cream drapes that Nana Agnes had made when Mom was getting the house ready last year to impress Rodney Jackson. As it happened, Rodney Jackson had been so impressed with the house and the whole lot of them that it looked as if he wanted to become part of them. She liked Rodney Jackson but not enough to want him as one of them. He had been delighted with the old family pictures in the parlour, and Peter had been highly amused at that, because Mom had evicted them years previously and had only brought them back
because Peter was making such a song and dance about it. Nora was glad that they were back, especially Nana Nellie, who had a kind face, and she liked looking at the picture of Dad and Mom on their wedding day. Dad looked a bit uncomfortable, but Mom was beautiful. Secretly she wished that she looked like Mom, with her high cheekbones and wonderful green eyes. But she did not want to be like Mom, whom she knew that the neighbours, even though they might be a little bit in awe of her, did not like very much. The other mothers were all chatty and friendly, but Mom did not go in for small talk. Though her school friends were impressed by Mom’s appearance, they were never very comfortable in her presence, and Mom made no effort to put them at their ease. She sometimes wished that Mom was more sociable, but Mom was Mom, and there was no way that she was going to make an effort to impress anyone.

But the picture that dominated the room was the one that Uncle Mark had painted of Great-grandfather Edward Phelan. Aunty Kate had taken the original picture when she got married and had got Mark to paint a portrait for Mossgrove. It hung on the wall at the end of the table where he could keep an eye on everything. He had steely grey hair and eyes that followed you all around the room. Nobody, not even Mom, would dare to shift Great-grandfather. Everyone knew that he was the foundation stone of Mossgrove, but he was also the one who had started the huge row with the Conways. Growing up, even though she did not know all the details, she accepted that there was an unbridgeable gap between them and the family across the river.

She tidied up the books on the table and was pleased that she was finished with the writing exercises. Now all she had to do was the reading and learning off, and she could sit by the
fire after the supper and do those. When doing her homework she did the subjects that she liked least first, and then the night got easier as it went on. This was her last year and she was determined to do her best and get the results that she would need to get to college. She had her heart set on doing teaching so that she could join Uncle David and teach in his school. Everything about Uncle David impressed her, and secretly she thought that Aunty Kate did not really appreciate him enough. He was one of the reasons that she was determined to do well. Peter called her a slogger, but he helped her in any way that he could. He was very good at maths, but she preferred English, especially poetry, and dreamed of one day opening up the world of her favourite poets to students. When she had told Rosie about this, she threw back her long mane of blonde hair and rocked with laughter.

“In the name of God, Nora Phelan, there’s about as much interest in poetry in Kilmeen as there’s in outer space,” she declared.

“We are a poetic people,” Nora asserted.

“And pigs can fly,” Rosie told her.

Now the muted sound of the kitchen clock striking six echoed through the house. Having stacked up her books, Nora left the parlour and went across the front hallway to the kitchen. After putting on the kettle, she went over to the radio and tuned into Radio Luxembourg and was delighted to hear Elvis Presley singing “Wooden Heart”. She danced around the kitchen to the soothing sound of Elvis and closed her eyes, imagining what it would be like to dance with Uncle David. Then she began to lay the table. They would soon be in from the cows and the yard jobs. Sometimes she wished that Mom would
come in early and get the supper and not always be depending on her to do it. Mom and Shiner did the yard work and Jack and Peter did the cows. Peter and Jack worked in complete harmony, and it had always been like that. She sensed that Jack had filled Dad’s shoes and become Peter’s support and adviser, and she remembered Aunty Kate saying that the same thing had happened for her when Grandad had died. No wonder they all loved Jack. He was the heart of Mossgrove and of their lives. Sometimes she worried when she saw him trying to lift something that was too heavy and tried to help. But Mom had advised, “Let Jack do things his own way and don’t be trying to make him feel like an old man.”

“But, Mom,” she had protested, “sure at seventy-five he can’t be whipping bags of wheat and spuds around.”

“If he feels able, don’t interfere. Jack would prefer to burn out fast rather than rust out like old mowing machine. Haven’t you often heard him say that?”

“But I don’t want him to burn out fast,” Nora protested. “I would die if anything happened to Jack.”

“Norry, my dear, you must toughen up a bit or life will crucify you,” Mom said firmly.

“Did life crucify you, Mom?” she asked curiously, because Mom never talked about her emotions.

“No,” Mom had declared grimly, “because I learned early in life that if you saw something that you wanted you went right for it.”

Nora wondered if that included Rodney Jackson. She did not want Mom to marry him. Peter and herself had discussed it, and Peter had concluded, “She might not marry him, but he is going to come in useful in some other direction.”

Davey Shine was the first to come in the back door, and Nora knew by his face that himself and Mom were after a confrontation. He was running his finger through his wiry red hair, causing it to stand upright above his normally happy round face. Davey was broad and short, but what he lacked in height he made up for in muscle. Now he grinned ruefully at Nora.

“Your mother,” he told her, shaking his head, “has the happy knack of acting like Queen Muck and thinking that she can control all around her. Wouldn’t you think that I’d be used to her at this stage?”

“Davey, you know she doesn’t mean it,” Nora assured him.

“Not so sure of that now,” Davey decided. “I go over every night to help out Danny across the river, and your mother thinks that she has the right to tell me that I’m working here and not at Conways’.”

“I think that you are great to be helping Danny,” she told him warmly, “but you are probably tired and that’s why Mom’s annoyed you. Normally she doesn’t bother you and it’s Peter does all the complaining.”

“God, you had better say nothing about me being tired,” Davey warned her, “because that’s exactly what your mother is complaining about.”

“But it’s all in a good cause,” she told him.

“Nora, my girl,” Davey smiled at her as he dried his hands, “sometimes I think that you are in the wrong nest.”

“Oh, she’s in the right nest all right,” Jack assured them, overhearing the remark as he came in the door, “her grandmother down to the ground.”

“Oh the blue blood of the Phelans!” Shiner laughed,
throwing the towel across to Jack. “There you are now, wash your dirty paws before you dine with your betters.”

“There is none better than Jack around here,” Nora asserted. “Jack is the best, and there would be none of us here only for him.”

“Jack, you have them all brainwashed,” Davey told him. “Peter thinks you’re God, and Nora thinks that you made the world, and even herself is a little bit in awe of you.”

“Is Mom in awe of Jack?” Nora asked with interest as she laid out the cold meat and boiled eggs on the table.

“Just a bit, but even a bit is a big thing with the boss woman, and now here comes the big boss himself,” Davey announced as Peter came in the door. He put his head down and pretended to shadow-box in front of Peter. Peter tried to wrestle him to the floor, but his tall athletic figure was no match for Davey’s solid frame.

“The trouble with you, Phelan,” Davey said looking down at him, “is that you are all long legs and speed, but when it comes to holding your ground you are no match for me.”

“But you’ve no speed, Shiner. I’d outdistance you without trying,” Peter told him as he straightened up and joined Jack and Nora at the table.

“Speed is not much good, my boyo, if you’re caught in a corner,” Davey told him, slipping on to the long form beside Jack inside the table.

“Do you know what ye remind me of?” Jack asked them.

“Well, we don’t,” Peter told him, “but I’m sure that you’re going to tell us.”

“Bran’s two pups out in the barn, and they might have more sense than the two of you.”

“And you’re like Bran, Jack, full of age and wisdom,” Nora smiled.

“Where did that come from?” Jack wondered.

“Yeats,” Nora told him.

“So we’re having Yeats for supper in Mossgrove now. There is no doubt but things are looking up around here,” Shiner decided.

“Davey, what do you think of poetry?” Nora wanted to know.

“Well, now let me think,” Shiner said slowly, sighing deeply and stroking his chin. “This is heavy stuff after a day piking dung.”

“Ah, Davey,” Nora protested, “this is serious. I’m researching an idea that I have.”

“In other words, Shiner, you’re a pilot project,” Peter told him.

“That’s agricultural language, my boy,” Shiner told him in a condescending tone.

“Nora and I are on to higher ground at the moment. Now let me think. I learned poetry in the Glen school, and a lot of it did not mean much to me, but then one day there was a poem about the sky and blackbirds and I liked that. So to me poetry is someone putting pictures that I like into words.”

“I knew it! I knew it! I knew it!” Nora waved her hands in the air with excitement. “Davey, you’re a genius,” and she ran around the table and planted a kiss on top of his wiry head.

“You should have aimed a little lower,” he grinned up at her.

“Forget about that,” she told him. “You’re after saving my belief in the human race.”

“You know, Norry, sometimes…” Peter began, but then changed into song, “You speak a language that the strangers do not know.”

“Well, between poetry and singing, we’re like a Bunratty banquet,” Shiner declared.

“What’s all the racket about?” Martha demanded, coming in from the back porch having washed her hands and taken off the long apron that she usually wore around the yard. Nora always marvelled at how her mother could come in from the yard, having spent an hour feeding calves and hens, and still look elegant. Aunty Kate had once described Mom as a black swan, and Nora thought that it was a perfect description. There was not a rib astray in her glossy black hair coiled in a knot at the back of her long neck. Now she slid gracefully on to a chair at the head of the table, and with her arrival a more restrained air descended on them. Nora saw Shiner glance at her mother out of the corner of his eye. He was gauging whether she was going to forget or continue the argument that they had started out in the yard, and she did not leave him long in doubt.

“Now, Davey Shine,” she began, “I expect you to arrive here on time in the morning and not to arrive with the two eyes hanging out of your head with exhaustion.”

Nora knew by the surprised look on Peter’s face that he did not know what Mom was talking about, but she felt that it came as no surprise to Jack. How did Jack know everything?

“What are you talking about?” Peter demanded, preparing for an argument because he recognised the tone of voice that was normally reserved for him.

“Our Davey Shine,” she informed him icily, “is haring across the river every evening when he finishes here and spending
until the small hours of the morning slaving with Danny Conway, trying to bring law and order into that wilderness over there. How can he do a day’s work after that?”

“Well, to be honest,” a surprised Peter told her, “I saw no difference in Shiner’s work.”

“That’s because half the time the two of you are so busy discussing football that you don’t know what’s going on around you,” Martha declared.

“Hold it right there now, Mother,” Peter asserted forcefully, “this place is running like clockwork now, and it’s due in no small way to Shiner, and what Shiner does in his own time is Shiner’s business. This is 1962, you know, not the middle ages.”

“So you have no problem with him helping out the Conways, who spent years trying to bankrupt us out of here by burning our hay and hurting our cattle, not to mention other things?” she demanded.

“Now that’s another question altogether,” Peter told her.

Nora felt that her mother was backing Peter into a corner and forcing him into confrontation with Shiner, and even though she hated getting involved in arguments between Mom and Peter, she blurted out, “Well, I think that I owe Danny Conway a lot, because only for him the night of his father in the wood might be … might…” Suddenly the old fear flooded back, and the whole scene in the wood swam in front of her eyes: the terror of Matt Conway forcing her to the ground and tearing her dress and then her amazement when Danny came from behind to hit him with a hurley, yelling for her to run. For months afterwards she had nightmares in which she was still running, but since the trip to New York they had faded. Now the terror was back. She ran sobbing from the kitchen into the
parlour.

The door opened gently, and it was Jack who came in quietly and sat into the armchair across from her. “It is good to get that crying out, Norry,” he reassured her.

“I don’t know where it came from, Jack,” she sobbed. “I thought that I was over it.”

“Sometimes there are hurts buried in crevices of the mind, girleen, and it eases us to to clear them away. You’ll be the better of it,” he told her.

BOOK: House of Memories
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