The Triumph of Katie Byrne (2 page)

Katie closed the heavy barn door behind her and shrugged deeper into her jacket. It had turned cold and she shivered as she hurried up the hill leading to the highway. Her mind was still on Carly and Denise. They were so much better than they realized, good actresses who were accomplished and knew what they were doing. But they didn’t give themselves enough credit, genuinely needed to gain more self-confidence, that was their main problem.

Mrs Cooke, their teacher, who ran the drama group and taught acting at the high school, predicted great things for them all in the next few years, because of their talent, dedication, and willingness to work hard. It pleased Katie that Heather Cooke believed in them with such conviction that she was encouraging their ambition to work in the theatre.

Katie trudged on up the steep slope, continuing to think about her best friends, imagining what it would be like to be living in New York and studying at the academy. She could hardly wait for the time to come
and she knew Carly and Denise felt the same way.

Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she saw rapid movement close to the mass of rhododendron bushes growing in profusion on the hillside. She stopped abruptly, half turned, stood frowning in puzzlement at the clump of dark-green bushes. But everything was still, silent, and there was no sign of life.

Shrugging dismissively, Katie continued on up the slope, deciding that the dark flash must have been a deer. There were a great number of them in the Litchfield hills, and they were becoming bolder. Everyone’s gardens, her mother’s included, attested to that fact.

Within minutes, the hillside flattened out into a piece of barren land that stretched all the way to the highway. This cut through New Milford, ran up to Kent and the small towns beyond.

Katie paused at the side of the road to let a truck pass, and then ran across to the other side. A second or two later she was on the dirt track that led through the wide meadows behind Dovecote Farm, a local landmark with its picturesque red barns and silos, and, in the summer, lush fields of rippling golden wheat.

At one moment, as she walked along, she glanced up. The sky had turned the colour of old iron, bitter, remote, and forbidding. Dusk was slowly descending and the meadows were beginning to fill with shadows. Wanting to get home as fast as possible, she began to jog down the track, and found herself plunging deeper into the fields.
But soon she realized she must slow down. A faint mist was rising, wispy and vaporous, floating in front of her like a grey veil; trees and hedges were rapidly becoming blurred, turning into weird inchoate shapes looming all around her. Having tramped this dirt track from early childhood, her feet knew it well. Nevertheless, she found herself moving at a snail’s pace, growing more cautious, afraid of stumbling in the thick fog.

Far off, in the distance, she heard cows lowing, and even farther away a dog was barking. These distant sounds were reassuring in their familiarity, yet still she felt a loneliness pervading the deserted fields, a strange sense of melancholy, and she was unexpectedly uneasy. It had grown even colder. She pulled her jacket around her chest, moving faster again, growing conscious of the time, as usual worrying about her mother.

It did not take Katie much longer to reach the end of the dirt path, and she finally came to the wide road which led into the area where she lived with her parents and her two brothers, Niall and Finian.

Malvern had been founded in 1799, and it was called a town, but it wasn’t even a hamlet, not really. It was a scattering of houses, a couple of shops, a cemetery, a white church with a steeple, poised on top of the hill, and a recreational hall near the church. To Katie, the white church had always seemed like a brave little sentinel standing guard above the houses nestled so cosily below in a hollow of the hills.

It was with a sense of relief that she hit this main road. She stepped out onto the smooth tarmacadam surface, glancing back at the mist-laden meadows as she did, and she suddenly realized how glad she was to be leaving them behind. There had been something strange, almost ghostly, about those empty fields.

Slowing down as the road swept upwards to the church, Katie began her climb, her pace steady. When she reached the top she stood for a moment looking down at Malvern. She could make out the twinkling lights shining in the windows of the houses scattered across the hillsides, and the mingled smell of woodsmoke and damp leaves floated to her on the chill night air. She was suddenly struck by a sense of an early autumn, and she smiled. Fall was her favourite time of year, when the foliage turned gold and russet and red, and her grandmother baked upsidedown apple tart and cinnamon cakes, and the entire family prepared for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Fall was the beginning of the holiday season which her mother loved so much. As Katie passed the forest of Scotch pine trees on the right side of the road, her nose twitched, assailed as it was by the sharp, pungent smell of pine.

How reassuring everything was now that she was out of the damp meadows. Soon she would be home, where her mother was waiting for her. They would prepare supper for the family, set the table together and serve the food. A loving smile flickered across Katie’s wan
face, giving it a touch of radiance, lighting up her blue eyes.

Although Katie loved her two girlfriends and was devoted to them, it was her mother who was the most special person in her life, to whom she was the closest, and whom she idolized. She thought of her mother as a faerie princess from Ireland. Certainly she was beautiful, with her flowing red hair and the bluest of eyes, which Katie had inherited. To Katie, her mother’s voice was mellifluous, warm, soft, resonant, touched with a hint of lilting brogue.

These thoughts of her mother galvanized her, and she began to run once more, her feet flying as she sped down the hill.

As her parents’ house came finally into full view, Katie was filled with a sudden rush of warmth, a sense of homecoming, and she continued to run, speeding down the road towards home as fast as she could.

Medium in size, and compact, the house sat atop a small hillock set back from the main road, and it was the only home Katie had ever known. She loved it dearly, as did her parents and her two brothers.

Tonight bright lights gleamed in some of the downstairs windows and plumes of grey smoke spiralled up from the chimneys; the house wore an air of friendliness, of welcome, and it appeared to beckon beguilingly.

Katie’s glance swept over it as she climbed the flight of stone steps; these cut down through the green lawn which sloped away from the flagged terrace at the front facing the road.

For a moment she paused to admire the house, and her pleasure in its appearance brought a quick, bright smile to her face. New England Colonial in style, it had
a white-painted clapboard façade, dark-green shutters and a slanted, black roof.

The original house dated back to the 1880s, and although its good bones had been retained throughout, some of the interior rooms had either been restored or remodelled by her father.

Michael Byrne prided himself on his knowledge of Colonial architecture, which he had always loved, and, in fact, he had turned his boyhood passion into a profitable business a few years after leaving school. He was one of the few local contractors who had a superior knowledge of Colonial design, and because of this he had managed to find plenty of building and restoration jobs, once he had established himself in business.

Katie’s father and her elder brother, Niall, kept the house looking pristine, and devoted a great deal of their free time to its care and upkeep. It seemed to Katie that they never had a paintbrush out of their hands, and even her younger brother, Finian, the intellectual with his nose permanently in a book, did occasionally put the book down to dip a brush into a pot of white paint. It struck her often that twelve-year-old Finian was now as addicted as the other two males in the family.

When Katie reached the terrace she veered to her right, headed for the side door and went into the house. A blast of lovely warm air hit her in the face as she stepped into the back hall and closed the door behind her. Once she had hung her jacket on a wall peg, she hurried down
the corridor to the big family kitchen. This had always been the hub of the house, the spot where everyone congregated, and it was a congenial and comfortable room. This evening it was filled with a warm rosy glow which emanated from the old Victorian glass lamps, placed strategically around the room, and the pile of logs blazing in the big stone fireplace.

Pieces of copper and brass winked and gleamed in this lambent light, and the room was alive with the most cheerful of sounds…the fire crackling and sputtering in the hearth, the kettle whistling atop the stove, the clock ticking on the mantel, and, in the background, soft music playing on the radio.

And even the air itself was special, weighted with the most delicious mixture of mouthwatering smells…an apple pie put out to cool on a board near the sink, loaves of bread baking in the oven, an Irish stew simmering in a huge pot and emitting fragrant wafts of steam.

For a split second, Katie stood in the shadows by the door, breathing all this in, wallowing in the sheer joy of the familiar and much-loved atmosphere…the cosiness, the smell of her mother’s appetizing cooking, the warmth after the cold meadows. But most of all she relished the feeling of safety, the sense of belonging that came from being a cherished member of her family.

Her best girlfriends were not so lucky, she knew that, which made her appreciate her own family that much more. Carly, more often than not, went home to an
empty house, because her mother worked at an old people’s home and kept most peculiar hours, and her father was long dead.

As for Denise, she was in much the same situation, in a sense. Her parents owned a small bar and restaurant in nearby Kent, and they were always there cooking and serving their customers at all hours of the day and night. Even so, it wasn’t all that profitable, according to Denise. Katie often wondered why they bothered to keep it open; she supposed it was the only way they knew how to eke out a living.

Of the three of them, Katie had long realized that she was the one who was the most fortunate, the one who had been truly blessed. Even though her mother also worked, she did so at home, keeping the books and doing the paperwork for the Byrne family business. She had a small office at the top of the house, and so she was always there for Katie and Finian. Niall, who was nineteen, was already working with his father in the building company.

At last Katie took a step forward and moved into the kitchen. Her mother was standing near the stove with a spatula in her hand, and she straightened and glanced over her shoulder on hearing the sound of footsteps.

At the sight of her daughter, Maureen Byrne’s face lit up. ‘Well, there you are, Katie Mary Bridget Byrne! But late again, so I see.’

‘I’m sorry, Mom, I really am. I got caught up with
another rehearsal.’ Rushing across the floor, Katie flung her arms around her mother and hugged her tightly. Maureen Erin O’Keefe Byrne was the best. The very best.

Against her mother’s hair, Katie whispered, ‘I’ll make up for it, Momma. I’ll finish the cooking and set the table and do the dishes later. Just say you’re not angry with me.’

Drawing away, Maureen stared into her daughter’s bright blue eyes, twin reflections of her own, and said with a light laugh, ‘Oh don’t be so silly, mavourneen, of course I’m not mad at you. And don’t worry, there’s nothing much left to do, at least there’s no cooking anyway. Still, you could be setting the table for me…that’s a grand idea.’

Katie nodded and exclaimed, ‘I do feel awful, Mom, letting you down this way. You’ve had to do everything yourself and you’re not well yet. I should have been home earlier.’ She bit her lip, guilt-ridden, knowing her mother was still debilitated after her six-week bout with bronchitis.

‘Oh get along with you, Katie, ‘tis not important, and I’m feeling much better today. Besides, Finian helped me.’ Her lilting laugh rang out again. ‘Why, that boy’s becoming the perfect little assistant, I can tell you.’

Katie laughed with her, peered around the kitchen and asked, ‘And where is our little scholar?’

‘I suspect he’s off watching TV in the back room. I
told him he could, once he’d peeled the vegetables, put out the garbage, and washed the pans in the sink. He’s a good boy really.’

Thinking out loud, Katie murmured, ‘I wonder why Finian has suddenly decided to become such a paragon of virtue, Mom? Could there be an ulterior motive?’

Maureen nodded. ‘I’m sure of it, Katie. He’s trying to please me for some reason.’ She smiled indulgently. ‘He’s a nice boy, but he’s brilliant, and like you I also think he’s plotting something. But what that is I can’t imagine. ‘Tis not important, darlin’.’

‘I guess not,’ Katie agreed, knowing that her mother was correct about Finian’s brilliance. He had an extraordinary mind for a boy of twelve, and in some ways he was old beyond his years.

Maureen, meanwhile, brought her attention back to the stove, began to stir the onions she was frying in the skillet, explaining, ‘I’ll pop these in the lamb stew for a bit of extra flavour, then I’ll help you set the table. After that we can –’ Maureen did not finish her sentence. She broke off, unexpectedly afflicted with a violent attack of coughing. Putting the spatula down quickly, she dug into her apron pocket for a tissue and covered her mouth with it.

The coughing went on for so long Katie became alarmed, and she eyed her mother with apprehension. ‘Are you all right, Mom? Can I get you anything? What can I do?’

Maureen was unable to answer; she simply averted her head.

Katie cried, ‘Why don’t you sit down? I’ll finish everything.’

Gradually Maureen became quieter, and she finally murmured, ‘I’m fine, Katie darlin’. Don’t fuss so.’

‘Take it easy now, Momma. I can set the table by myself,’ Katie answered in a more assertive voice, and immediately strode over to the Welsh dresser in the corner of the room. After taking down the white plates they used every day, she carried them over to the large square table near the picture window. The table had already been covered with a red-and-white checked cloth, and once she had deposited the plates, she went to get the other items they needed for supper.

Maureen had completely recovered, and she began to spoon the onions into the stew. Without looking up, she remarked, ‘Once you’ve set the table, it would be nice if you made a cup of tea for us, Katie. I’d like that.’

‘Yes, Mom, I will.’

Eventually Maureen walked over to the hearth and stood with her back to it, observing her daughter flitting around the kitchen. The girl was her pride and joy. She doted on her, spoiled her, yet she tempered her love with a great deal of discipline. Maureen was a hard taskmaster, especially when it came to school, homework, and household chores.

How alike we are in so many ways, especially physically, Maureen thought, yet we don’t have the same character or personality. We’re entirely different on that score. She’s more ambitious and driven than I was, and she wants so much more than I ever did. Katie wants the world in her arms…she wants the stage, the bright lights, the excitement, the applause, the success, and the fame. Yes, she wants it all, and of course she’ll get it, I’ve no doubts about that.

For a moment or two Maureen thought about her own life. I got what I wanted, thank God, so why shouldn’t Katie? Her dreams and desires, hopes and aspirations are very different from mine, but hers are just as
real
as mine. I craved marriage and a family, and I was fortunate that I found a good man, a man who loved me, still loves me, and whom I love. And I have fine, healthy, drug-free, responsible children, and a comfortable home, a beautiful garden, and a happy life in the country with my family. That was
my
greatest ambition, the dream I dreamed, and it did come true. I’ve been so blessed since I came to America.

The year had been 1960 and she had been exactly the same age as Katie was now – just seventeen. And her sister Bridget had been nineteen. They had emigrated with their parents, Sean and Catriona O’Keefe, and settled in New York. They had been lucky in that they had all found work relatively quickly; Bridget had opted for a career in real estate and had joined a small
but prestigious firm, and Maureen had become the showroom model for the great designer Pauline Trigère, who, once she had seen her, had decided her long, lean figure was ideal for the elegant and superbly-cut clothes the designer created.

Her mother, Catriona, had also gone into fashion, in her own way; she had become a saleslady on the designer floor at Bloomingdale’s department store. Her father, Sean, a master craftsman, had found a job with a custom-design furniture maker down on East Tenth Street, and had rapidly made a name for himself.

Looking back now, Maureen realized she had truly fond memories of their days in Forest Hills, where they had had an apartment. They had carved out a nice life for themselves and had forever rejoiced in the fact that they had had the courage to start their lives all over again by coming to America. But as the years passed they had begun to grow weary of the city, wanted to escape the hurly-burly, yearned to find a quiet spot that was reminiscent of the Irish countryside they loved. It was while they were visiting friends, who had recently moved to northwestern Connecticut, that they recognized they had found what they called God’s country. ‘This is it!’ her mother had said that day, and they had all agreed with Catriona. A decision was made on the spot: this was where they belonged.

It took over a year, but finally she and her parents moved to New Milford, where they had found a house
that had charm and comfort and wasn’t overpriced. Bridget, captivated by her wheeling and dealing in real estate, elected to remain in the city during the week, and came out to Connecticut at weekends.

She had been twenty-three when they moved to the country, and she had met Michael Byrne within the first few months of her arrival in New Milford. It had been love at first sight for both of them. He was the type of man she had always pictured in her mind’s eye as being right for her…tall, dark, nice-looking, and kind, with a loving nature. They had married when she was twenty-five and Michael twenty-seven, and it had worked. It was still working.

I got married
twenty
years ago, she suddenly thought, a small frown pinching her eyebrows together, making a tight knot above the bridge of her nose. How fast the time has flown. I can’t believe I’m forty-five already. She didn’t feel it, and she knew she didn’t look it. She sighed, remembering all of the things she still wanted to do in her life. I must do them before I’m too old, before Michael’s too old, she added, reminding herself to talk to him about that long-promised trip to Ireland.

Glancing across the kitchen, Maureen saw Katie was now standing by the stove, filling a brown teapot with water. They might be different in character and personality, but there was no question that they were mother and daughter. They were practically identical in appearance, with the same colouring and build.

Sitting down in the wing chair next to the fireplace, Maureen settled herself comfortably against the chair back, her gaze still on Katie, her middle child and her only daughter. She had always known deep within her Celtic soul that Katie was different from other children. Her daughter’s personality and character were already in place the day she was born. Even as a toddler of three years Katie had known exactly who she was and what she wanted, and she had been determined. Maureen had frequently told Michael that their daughter had an unusual awareness of herself, which was manifested in an amazing inner confidence. But he knew that without having to be told; she was unusual. Yet Katie had never been bratty nor had she been precocious in an objectionable way. There had been moments when Maureen had looked at her three-year-old daughter and seen the woman she would become, so well defined was the child’s personality and character.