Promised Land (2 page)

Their black and white collie dog Monty had pestered her, following her around like a shadow as if she had somehow or other spirited the old man away. She knew that he just missed his master. She was behind in the work too, late doing everything. The hens were scratching outside looking for food clucking worriedly at the ground, waiting for their meal. The cowshed was in a state and she’d have to muck it out, as it smelled something awful. She’d meant to check the sheep and lambs up in the back fields, first thing in the morning, but
hadn’t
got round to it yet. The pots and pans needed washing and she’d hardly a stitch of clean clothes to put on her. She’d wash a few bits and pieces first, and then set to, once she’d hung the washing on the line. Nowadays between the hospital visiting and the farm, she hadn’t a spare minute. Doing the work of two wasn’t easy.

There had been no improvement in her father’s condition and if anything he appeared worse to her. He had lost his speech and seemed paralysed down one side of his body. She hated seeing him like that, one side of his strong face pulled different from the other, one arm and hand useless, unable to walk or move around. She’d noticed, too, that once or twice he had seemed not to recognize her when she sat down in the chair beside his hospital bed.

‘He’s a sick man, and everyone on the staff is doing their best to keep him comfortable,’ was all that Dr Walshe consoled her with, though she noticed he made no mention of recovery.

Ella had rifled through her father’s bedside table drawer and found the bundle of her brother’s letters. The old man had kept them all. The last one Liam had sent was from an address in Liverpool and that was a few years ago. There was very little information in the letter and she’d read it and reread it to try and discover more about her brother. She’d written to him, telling him all that had happened and what the doctor had told her; that was over a month ago and there still had been
no
reply. She was angry with him. How could he not come home and see his father when he knew how ill the old man really was? Liam had walked out of the house over ten years ago after a blazing row. She remembered her brother’s white face and furious temper as he’d packed the old brown suitcase, flinging everything into it.

‘Don’t go, Liam! Don’t leave us!’ she’d pleaded, begging him to stay, grabbing hold of his jacket, crying, scared of the rows between himself and her daddy. She had just been a schoolgirl then with no say in anything, least of all the ways of men. Her brother had left for England the next morning, his cap pulled down over his curly hair, his eyes red-rimmed and sore-looking. The old man had shaken his hand and wished him well, neither of them prepared to say sorry or climb down. They were stubborn, the Kennedy men, pride parting the pair of them.

So it was that she had been left with her widowed father. The two of them lived alone in the old farmhouse at Fintra. In time she had learned to cook and clean, her father showing her how to gut a fish and skin a hare and make light crusty pastry, the way her mother used to, but nothing she could say or do or make or clean could return the farmhouse to the way it used to be when her mother was alive.

Fair-haired Helena Kennedy would sing or hum as she worked, her bright eyes shining as she
spotted
another chore that needed doing. Folding clothes, washing the Delft, cooking the meals, tending the animals, sowing and planting and hunched over the heavy spade digging into the earth; even at night as she sat by the fire her hands never stilled, knitting a heavy woollen sweater for her husband, darning the socks, or mending the tears in their clothes. Yet Ella knew that her mother was totally contented, happy with her life. The house had always seemed warm and cosy then, filled with the smell of baking and the sweet freesia scent that her mother wore.

Ella’s heavy winter coat now hung on the peg beside her father’s at the back of the kitchen door and her boots nestled under the pine rack. The two of them worked side by side, tending the cattle, minding their sheep and planting with the seasons. She’d left school at fourteen. The land was her education; that’s where she was needed, school could teach her no more. At times she wished that her brother was there to share the workload and help with the farm but knew that it was useless to voice such hopes. Tom Brennan, a local man, was hired at times by her father and besides there were plenty of casual farm labourers always looking for work. She herself worked as hard as any man, her hands hard and callused from using the spade and hoe, her skin wind-burned, her long light brown hair pinned up out of her way. She grew strong and tough and wiry. A good farmer’s daughter.

‘Martin, you’re raising the child like a tomboy!’
her
Aunt Nance had complained. Her father would stop whatever he was doing as if suddenly noticing her, paying heed to his older sister. ‘Helena wouldn’t like it!’

The very mention of her mother’s name was enough to change the expression on her father’s face from argumentative and annoyed to a reflective one as he considered whatever his sister had to say on a subject.

‘She’s the living spit of her,’ was all her father would murmur and Ella would blush, knowing that excepting her light brown hair and taller frame she was a constant reminder of the woman he loved, with the same large blue eyes and full lips and skin that freckled in the sun. A visit to Aunt Nance and Uncle Jack’s dairy farm at Rathmullen about five miles away would be organized and she would spend a few days with her five cousins, Teresa, Constance, Kitty, Marianne and Slaney, who like steps of stairs were around her own age, with Kitty only six months older than herself, and their older brother Brian. The influence of ‘the ladies’, as her Uncle Jack referred to his daughters, was bound to rub off on a gauche young girl who spent far too much time on her own. Their brother Brian would be kept deliberately busy on the farm and out of the way of their giggling and whispering and racing around playing silly games that Kitty and Connie invented.

There was always fun and laughter and plenty of female company up at the Kavanaghs’. She loved
visiting
them and being considered part of their family but, when the time came, was glad to get back to the peace and comfort of home, entertaining her father with stories of all their goings-on as he sat and smoked his pipe in front of the fire. Often they would both drive over to join Jack and Nance and their clan for Sunday lunch. Her kind aunt would fuss over the two of them and send them home with fresh-baked soda bread, and sweet cake and whatever else was left in her pantry.

Ella sighed and dragged on her boots tentatively. She’d found a field mouse in the left one once, and her father had checked them for her ever since. It had only been a tiny mouse but the memory of it still made her cringe. Pulling on her warm coat, she walked up the back fields, Monty racing along beside her. Her breath formed clouds of steam it was so frosty out, and she dug her hands in her pockets and was glad of the thick knit hat and scarf that she’d decided to don. The grass was greening up and bunches of wild daffodils spattered the ditches. The ground was heavy underfoot, rain-soaked and muddy as she turned her back on the lake and clambered over a turnstile and up towards the hill fields. She could see the white fleece of their ewes and lambs in the distance. It was only as she came closer to the flock that she could see the cluster of worried-looking ewes, huddled together, the lambs bleating plaintively.

Monty made a run at a mass of black crows pitched on the grass, scattering them with his barking. Dread coiled in her stomach as she spotted the bloody carcasses of two young lambs, their entrails stretched along the ground.

‘Jesus!’ she said aloud, closing her eyes as nausea washed over her. There were three more, she discovered as she surveyed the field, and two of the ewes were injured where they had obviously tried to fight off their attackers. Monty sat at her feet, unsure of what to do. Who could have done this? What should she do? What would her father do? She knelt down to examine a ewe. She had a deep gash on her leg, but the blood had caked and although she was limping slightly, it looked like it should heal up. The dried blood soaked into her fleece was probably that of one of her lambs. Ella patted her, trying to comfort her. The poor thing was still dazed with shock.

‘Ella! Ella!’

She turned round to discover Sean Flanagan climbing over the ditch. His father’s farm bordered on theirs and the families often shared the cost of wire fencing and digging ditches and putting in drains.

‘So they got you too! How many lambs did you lose?’

‘Five,’ she replied angrily.

‘We lost nine.’

‘Who did it, Sean?’

‘Bloody dogs! O’Sullivan’s dog is half crazy, it
would
nearly take the arm off you if you step into their farmyard, and they always leave it out at night. You see it roaming around the place, and the tinkers have a few half-starved bitches that probably joined in. Jim and the da are gone down to the sergeant to complain.’

Silently Ella thanked the Lord that Monty slept stretched out in front of the fire every night, guarding the house, for the dogs involved would have to be put down.

‘How’s the da?’

‘Much the same, Sean.’ She stood up, brushing the dirt off her knees.

‘Do you want me to bury them for you?’

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. In situations like this she realized just how alone she was, and was grateful for the good neighbours.

‘I’ll wait till the sergeant has seen them, so don’t be worrying yourself, Ella.’ He reached for her hand clumsily and gave it a squeeze. She didn’t draw away.

When she was about fifteen she’d had the biggest crush ever on Sean, following him around and finding excuses to visit Flanagan’s farm whenever she could. Sean had pretended not to notice despite some fierce slagging by his two older brothers. Now the boot was on the other foot, and he somehow or other always seemed to be over at their place. He had a sturdy build, with broad shoulders, and long legs and body, making even her feel small when she stood beside him. His
straight
dark hair was in sore need of a good cut, his eyes were a hazel-brown colour, his face strong and almost handsome. She supposed he was good-looking compared to most of the men she knew, with a quiet reserved manner that made him easy to talk to. Her father liked and respected him, and she knew he held her father in high regard too. She was still mad about him and was glad that it was now being returned, the two of them often attending the local dances and parish socials together. When Sean escorted her home in the moonlight, his kisses almost made her weak.

‘Is it all right if I call over later Ella, after tea?’

‘I’ll be going to the hospital.’

‘Then I’ll drive you! My da won’t mind me driving you to see Martin.’

She nodded, pleased. Sean had brought her to the hospital a few times. Twice on the way home he had pulled the old Ford Prefect into a quiet spot off the lake road and courted her. She had been glad of his kisses and his hands pulling her close to him. She had responded as eagerly as he had and returned home red-faced and swollen-mouthed, glad that her father was not there to witness her passion.

At the rate things were going one night she would end up bringing him inside, and up the stairs to her bedroom.

‘Sean Flanagan fancies you like mad,’ said her younger cousin Slaney.

‘Sean Flanagan wants a wife and a farm of his
own
,’ murmured Marianne, ‘and you’d be a great match.’

‘And you have him if that’s what suits you Ella love,’ added her aunt.

Ella blushed, glad that men couldn’t read women’s minds. She wasn’t stupid and knew that it was high time she made a match and settled down. She was twenty-one and with her father sick, the farm would need a man about the place. The Kennedys and their farm were no doubt already the talk of the place.

‘See you later then Ella, pet.’

She watched as he crossed back over the hedge. He’d called her pet. She wanted to run after him and fling her arms around him but instead began to walk.

Honest to God she was like a bitch in heat with all the dogs after her, what with her father sick and the running of the farm to be sorted out. Every local bachelor was coming out of the woodwork considering her a good prospect. Men she didn’t give a toss about like John Mannion, who’d insisted on giving her a lift home from the village last week and was a skinny galoot of a fellow, and Tim Murphy, who made her laugh with his jokes, and Kevin O’Leary, all seemed to have become obsessed with her father’s welfare of late and were always enquiring about him. As far as she was concerned there was only one man in her mind and that was Sean Flanagan; none of the rest of them were even a patch on him.

Her head full of such considerations, she made her way back down to the outhouse. She’d fetch a bucket and some disinfectant back up to the hill field and wash the sheep’s cuts and grazes. She didn’t want the animal getting sick on her. What if the dogs came back tonight? Maybe she should sit up in the field keeping watch, or move the sheep to the small paddock at the back of the house. She should have asked Sean what to do. There was no point worrying her father about it as he had enough to contend with. He just had to get better. The farm needed him and truth to tell so did she.

Chapter Three

ELLA HAD SCARCELY
slept a wink, tossing and turning all night. Her bones were so stiff and sore she could have sworn that she was an old one, instead of a twenty-one-year-old woman in her prime.

Martin had been in a bad way the night before. He had never opened his eyes once to any of them and had developed a strange heavy breathing.

‘He’s just resting.’ Her aunt had tried to reassure her but she could see the worry in Nance and Uncle Jack’s faces. Sean had gone out to sit in the hospital waiting room.

‘Do you think your father would like the priest?’ the staff nurse had asked.

Ella had seen the look that passed between his sister and her husband. She had just nodded in agreement. She had sat by his bed for an hour, watching the rise and fall of his chest and the easiness that now filled his face. Her father was a religious man; he’d want the priest to attend him.