Mollie Cinnamon Is Not a Cupcake (3 page)

Nan goes quiet for a second. “It was complicated. Ellen wasn’t keen on island life. She wanted something different. After she left Little Bird she only came back a handful of times when your mum was little. Flora did meet him, but she may not remember very clearly. She was at his funeral, all right, but Ellen and I—” Nan stops abruptly. “It’s all in the past now, child. No need to burden you with it. Let’s just say that Ellen and I quarrelled and I regret it deeply. I’m a stupid, stubborn old woman and your granny was a wonderful person.” She smiles at me. Then she points at another photo. “You’re the spit of her at that age. She was about eleven when I took that one.”

Granny Ellen is sitting cross-legged on a beach towel, a comic resting on her knees. Her head is turned towards the camera, showing her dark blue eyes, nose dotted with freckles and wavy, flaming-red hair. Nan’s right − it’s like looking in a mirror.

“Where was the photo taken?” I ask. “Is that beach on the island?”

“That’s Horseshoe Bay, down near the harbour. We swim there when the weather is better. Now, I can smell that stew. I hope it’s not burning. This way.”

I look at Nan’s photos a moment longer before following her. They’re good. Really good. Like images you’d see in a magazine. I think about telling her that, but I suddenly feel shy. I know I’ve been a bit stand-offish since I got here. I need to be nicer, to say thank you once in a while. Granny Ellen was big on manners.

The kitchen is cosy, with a cream Aga, sky-blue cupboards and a dresser full of hand-painted pottery. There’s a wooden table in the centre of the room and an alcove in one corner with a desk and a laptop.

“I spend most of my time in here,” Nan says, planting her bum against the Aga. “I love baking. Does Flora cook?”

“She’s too busy. She’s the takeaway queen of Dublin.”

Nan laughs. “I see. And what about you? Do you like to cook?”

“Sometimes.” Actually, I love cooking, but I don’t get much chance any more. I used to do lots of baking at Granny Ellen’s house, but the kitchen in our apartment is tiny – more like a cupboard than a room – and the electric cooker barely works. Plus, cooking wouldn’t be the same without Granny Ellen.

Nan checks the stew, which smells delicious. My stomach gurgles.

“We’ll eat very soon,” Nan reassures me. “It just needs another twenty minutes or so. Would you like to see the rest of the house while we’re waiting?”

“Sure. I mean, yes, please.”

I follow Nan down the hallway again. There’s a small study full of packed bookshelves and a living room with a black pot-bellied stove and a squashy cream sofa. There’s also a huge flat screen TV. I smile when I spot it.

“Not so stuck in the dark ages, am I, child?” Nan says, nodding at the telly. “I love watching movies on a decent-sized screen – it makes it more like the cinema. Do you like films?”

“Yes,” I say.

“Ellen loved films. It must run in the family. I thought we could have a proper cinema night once a week. With popcorn and hot dogs. You can pick the film. Nothing too noisy or action-packed, mind. I’m not a big fan of films with lots of explosions or screechy-tyre car chases. Classics are more my thing. Right, let’s get you settled into your room. It’s up the wooden hill.”

That’s something Granny Ellen used to say – “wooden hill” instead of “stairs”. And “heavens to Betsy” for “oh dear.” That one always made me laugh.

As soon as I walk into the bedroom I know there’s something funny about it. It looks perfectly normal, although I’m not loving the Disney-Princess-style canopy over the bed, but the room feels different to the rest of the house − older and musty, like it hasn’t been lived in for a long time. Nan’s acting oddly too. She’s standing in the doorway with this stiff, forced smile on her face.

“This was Ellen’s room,” she says. “But it’s yours now. No one’s stayed in here for quite some time, so I’m sorry if it’s a bit stuffy. I did air it, but…”

I shiver. I believe in ghosts, you see. I’ve never actually seen one, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Granny Ellen believed in them too. “Don’t be scared of the spirits, Mollie,” she always said. “They’re just souls waiting to pass into heaven. They don’t mean us any harm. Think of them as guardian angels.”

For a second I imagine that Granny Ellen is in the room watching me, maybe even smiling, her eyes twinkling, and I don’t feel scared any more. How could I be afraid of Granny Ellen?

“Are you all right, child?” Nan asks.

I give myself a shake. “Just thinking about Granny Ellen,” I say honestly.

“I understand. Ellen was special, all right − always the brightest thing in a room. PJ used to say there are people in this world and there are
people
.” Nan presses her lips together, her eyes wet. “You must miss her.”

I nod silently. I don’t trust myself to say anything without crying.

“There’s another room if you prefer,” she says, “but it’s awfully small.”

“No, this one is nice.”

“Good. And I can change anything you don’t like.”

Apart from the canopy, which is a bit young for me, the bedroom is lovely and it’s much bigger than my room at home. It has a window seat, bookshelves and even a desk. I’ve never had my own desk before. I usually have to do my homework on the kitchen table.

On the wall above the desk is a framed painting of a woman with a shock of wild red hair. She’s wearing a red wool cape and there’s an ancient-looking curved gun tucked into her belt. I know exactly who she is − Red Moll, the famous Irish pirate queen.

“That picture belonged to your granny,” Nan says. “PJ painted it for her. It’s pretty good, isn’t it?”

“Granny Ellen told me the old legends,” I say.

“They’re not legends, child − it’s history. Red Moll was a real person and she lived right here on this island.”

“I know,” I say. “I saw her castle from the ferry. Granny Ellen showed me pictures of it once, so I recognized it immediately.”

“Did she tell you how Red Moll saved Little Bird from the Algerians?”

“Fighting off the slave traders, you mean?” It was one of Granny Ellen’s favourite stories. She was obsessed with Red Moll. She even dragged me to a Red Moll re-enactment once. We had to dress up in costumes from the sixteen hundreds. She made them herself. She was Red Moll in a chestnut-brown linen tunic and a billowing red wool cloak (called a “bratt”, which made me giggle), with a curved gun (a fake!) that she found on eBay tucked into her leather belt. I was one of her daughters in a matching outfit, but without the gun. Red Moll had three daughters and two sons, but because she was so busy as a pirate queen, she gave them to her sister to look after.

At the re-enactment we got to sail on a galley ship along the quays in Dublin and then we freed some “slaves” from another gang of people who were dressed up as Algerian slave traders. It was all a bit weird, but Granny Ellen loved it.

When I finish telling Nan about the re-enactment, she repeats the story I’ve heard so many times. “Those Algerians never knew what hit them. They were trying to raid Little Bird for slaves. Red Moll had been tipped off by a fisherman and she rounded up her men – over two hundred of them – and came tearing out of Dolphin Bay on one of her galley ships. She commanded her crew to howl like banshees and wave their swords in the air. She scared those slave traders right back to Africa. It was a different story for the poor folk at Baltimore down the coast,” she adds.

“What happened to them?”

“They didn’t have Red Moll to defend them. Slave traders sailed in and captured over a hundred people. They sold them all in the Algerian slave markets. Only three made it back to Ireland alive. It was called the Sack of Baltimore. Didn’t you do it in history class?”

I shake my head. “We never do anything interesting. Just the Greeks and the Romans and stuff. When did it happen? The Sack thing.”

“In sixteen thirty-one. Ten years after Red Moll’s death. They wouldn’t have dared if she was still around. Those slave traders were all terrified of her. The English Navy, too. She was forever raiding English merchant ships. She used to fight sea battles for whoever would pay her the most. She even fought for the French at one stage. She was an amazing woman. I can see why Ellen loved her. And Flora must have caught the bug too, naming you after her.”

“Granny Ellen told me they had a big fight about it. She wanted Flora to call me Moll, but Flora said it was too old-fashioned. So they settled on Mollie.”

Then I think of something else Granny Ellen once said. “Did Red Moll really lift up a horse?”

Nan smiles. “It was a foal with a broken leg. It had fallen down one of the cliffs on the far side of the island and she climbed down and rescued it.”

“And we’re really related to her?”

“Yes, we most certainly are.”

I look out of the window at the bay where Red Moll sailed all those years ago.

“Ellen loved to sit and look out at the sea,” Nan says. “She liked to imagine she was Red Moll, commanding her fleet.” She pauses before saying, “Mollie, I know it must be hard on you − new place, new people, everything reminding you of your granny and how much you miss her. I miss her too.”

She looks at me. I get the feeling I’m supposed to say something, but I can’t think of anything. Of course I miss Granny Ellen − I miss her so much it hurts − but I don’t feel able to talk about it with someone I hardly know.

When Nan realizes I’m not going to say anything, she continues, “Anyway, I’m pleased to have you here. No, more than pleased. I’m over the moon. I want to get to know you properly. We’re family after all.”

“I’m only here two months,” I remind her yet again.

“Yes, of course,” she replies quickly. “But in the meantime, I hope you’ll be very happy here.”

As soon as Nan’s gone, I look around the room again. The white walls are so plain. Apart from the Red Moll painting and a small mirror by the door, they’re completely bare. I open up my rucksack and take out my big yellow notebook. Tucked inside is my prized collection – my signed movie-star photographs. They used to belong to Granny Ellen. She didn’t actually meet any of the movie stars, but she used to write to all their film studios and fan clubs and ask for autographs. She started doing it when she was a little girl. After she died, Flora wanted to sell them on the Internet. I nearly killed her. We had a big row and eventually she let me keep them. But I always carry them with me, just in case. I wish I could trust her, but you never know what Flora’s going to do.

I arrange some of the photos on the desk: Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly, Maureen O’Hara and Audrey Hepburn, all posing in different ways. Elizabeth Taylor is wearing a full-length crimson evening gown and smiling at the camera. Her eyes are the most amazing colour – almost violet. The picture of Grace Kelly is an elegant black-and-white head shot. Her hair is so perfectly styled in a ballerina’s bun that it looks like it’s been sprayed on. They’re all dead now, apart from Maureen O’Hara, who’s an old lady. She’s Irish and has red hair like me.

The Audrey Hepburn photo is my favourite. Granny Ellen was only my age when she wrote to her, and Audrey sent her a photo of herself hugging a kitten. She signed it: “To my young Irish fan Ellen McCarthy. Fond regards, Audrey.” I put that one on the bedside table, propped up against the reading lamp.

Then I take out my movie-star book and put it beside Audrey’s photograph. After that I start to unpack my clothes, but I get bored of that pretty quickly. Instead I sit on the window seat and watch a bird flying past in the twilight. It’s so quiet in this house. I listen out for Nan, but I can’t hear her. In our apartment there’s always some sort of noise: Flora chatting on her mobile or singing along to a song on the radio, our neighbours’ baby crying, dogs barking outside, traffic. Here there’s nothing. It’s spooky and unnerving. Another world. I feel like Dorothy landing in Oz. I wish I had a little dog to hug, like she did. After picking up Audrey’s photograph again, I run my fingers over the image of her cat. It’s all I have.

“Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more,” I whisper.

When I wake up the next morning, Nan’s digital clock says it’s 6 a.m. Six! I groan inwardly. Why does my body think it’s time to get up? It’s practically the middle of the night.

I didn’t sleep very well because I kept having nightmares and then sitting up in a panic, my heart racing. In one of them all my teeth fell out and I swallowed them
and
a load of blood – yuck! In another I was dangling over the edge of a cliff. The earth was crumbling beneath my fingers and I was whispering, “Don’t let go! Don’t let go! Don’t let go!” And then the ground gave way and I started to fall, but before I landed I woke up.

I try to go back to sleep, but it’s no use. I’m wide awake. I lie in bed for a while reading my movie-star book. It’s heavy and my arms start to ache from holding it sideways, so I sit up to read it, but then my shoulders get cold. Eventually I’m so chilly I climb out of bed and put on my hoodie. I draw back the curtains a little and peer out of the window. All I can see is inky blackness.

Then I take down a photo album from the bookshelves and open it. “Ellen, 11” is written on the inside cover in neat handwriting. There are two photos tucked under the plastic on the first page − faded colour snaps of Granny Ellen and my Great-Grandpa PJ playing football in Nan’s garden. I recognize the stream and the humpback bridge in the background. I sit down at the desk and start to flick through the album. Some pages are empty, but the others are full of snapshots of Granny Ellen and PJ: digging rivers and dams on the beach; standing with arms around each other, squinting at the sun; PJ holding a spade proudly and Granny Ellen buried in the sand beside him, grinning, her body a mermaid’s made out of sand. She has huge sand boobs covered with shells, and dark green seaweed hair. I smile to myself. It’s a bit rude and funny, just the kind of thing me and Granny Ellen used to get up to on the beach near her house. Feeling a wave of sadness and longing for her, I pick up the album and kiss the photograph.

There’s a knock on the door and Nan’s head appears around it. “I thought I heard you stir,” she says.