THE HOUSE IN Wicklow was everything she’d hoped it would be: an extended farm cottage on over two acres of land, close to the mountains with the sea and a beach of gold only a few minutes’ drive away. The inside of the house was clad in stripped pine, with simple chairs and couches and a wood fire with a basket of turf and logs for if the evenings got cold.
Opening the back kitchen door she could see for miles, the view making her smile despite herself and lifting her spirit.
The kids each had a bedroom to themselves, Mary Rose’s with a narrow gabled window that looked over their fields, Alice’s sun filled and to the back where a silver lake glinted in the distance; the room overlooking the front path to the house was assigned to be Patrick’s. Alice had made herself at home straight away, unpacking her toys and teddies and standing them in rows on top of the bed and the windowsill. Bored, the girls had complained at first about the archaic television in the corner, which only gave them four channels and which if the weather was misty barely seemed to work at all, but by the end of the first week she’d noticed they rarely bothered watching it.
Martha loved the peace of the place and felt totally at home in its almost familiar landscape.
Seamus O’Gorman the letting agent had also organized a car for her through Delahunt’s, the local garage. The car was eight years old but seemed as if it would go for ever along the bumpy country roads. Seeing she was on her own with the children, the sixty-year-old grandfather had bent over backwards to advise her on the best places to go and where to shop, and what to do in case of emergencies.
The first few days she was so exhausted and jetlagged she had slept and slept and slept while the kids amused themselves and explored their new environment, the Irish weather fortunately clement and unusually dry and sunny. Then like a butterfly from a cocoon she had emerged, feeling much, much better, her thoughts clear, her body refreshed, ready to acquaint herself with her new surroundings.
Her nearest neighbours were the Clarkes who owned the two horses and a mare and a foal which had permission to graze on one of their fields. Alice nearly lost her mind when she first looked out the window and saw them.
‘Mom, can I go out and see the horses?’ she’d screamed with excitement. Martha had to get her to quiet down in case she spooked them.
The mare and foal trotted over immediately and Alice nervously patted them.
Mary Clarke had come over and introduced herself a few days later, a girl and boy about Alice’s age accompanying her.
‘This is Katie and this is Conor, they’re eight and nine. They may as well have been twins as there’s only eleven months between!’ she laughed. Martha was delighted to have such a nice person living so close by and with kids just the right age for Alice to play with. While the two of them had a cup of tea and a chat she watched as Alice’s shyness began to dissolve and she agreed to go out and play with the other two in front of the house.
Mary Clarke was Wicklow born and bred and filled her in about the neighbourhood and the places to take the kids and things they might all enjoy. If she was curious as to why someone like Martha was renting a house close by she disguised it, seeming to accept her at face value as an Irish American pleased to revisit the country of her forebears.
Martha and the kids spent much of the summer walking and exploring the countryside all around them, swimming in the freezing waters of Brittas Bay and Silver Strand and climbing the Sugarloaf mountain and driving up over the Dublin mountains through Sally Gap to the Featherbeds, watching young men cut out the turf and dry it in the sun in much the same way as she imagined their great-grandfathers had done before them.
Wet days, when the rain streamed along the window pane and pelted down, they drove to Dublin, visiting the busy crowded city and Trinity College and the Viking Centre and the ghostly Kilmainham Gaol where the 1916 leaders had been executed. Other times they explored the many towns further down along the Irish coast, visiting Waterford and its amazing crystal factory. There always seemed to be something to do, though most of the time they were just happy to stay put.
In Wicklow town the shopkeepers were beginning to know Martha, and she knew they had nicknamed her the Yank or the American. She came there to collect her purchases of meat and fish and eggs and bread every few days. The kids were already addicted to the creamy Irish ice-cream and chocolate.
Mary Rose had been sullen and uncooperative, and catching her trying to make an hour-long transatlantic call to her friend Cindy, Martha had banned her from using the phone without permission.
‘It sucks, Mom!’
‘When I can trust you, Mary Rose, then you can use the phone again, all right?’
There were a few days of silence between them and then she had signed the girls up for riding lessons at the local stables, which was only about half a mile up the road. Mary Rose yet again complained about being sent to do something she didn’t want to do.
‘Well, you can’t sit in your room all day listening to your Walkman for the next few months,’ argued Martha, ‘or you’ll drive yourself and everyone else in this house crazy!’
She’d gone off in a huff and Martha had pitied poor Alice having to put up with her.
The riding lessons had been a great success. After only a few, Mary Rose was insistent on joining the older age group.
Every morning Martha watched in disbelief as her older daughter pulled on a scruffy pair of jodhpurs and a T-shirt and sweater and after a quick breakfast set off for the stables where she would spend most of the rest of the day. Mucking out stables, grooming the horses, exercising them and riding, totally content with a load of other horse-mad like-minded teenagers.
Patrick had arrived over, mooching around a bit at first, feeling out of it, but after a night at the local disco with the oldest Clarke boy she reckoned he had begun to tag along with a crowd his own age. Mary told her the girls were all mad about his American accent and ways.
Martha loved the quiet and the solitude, the lack of rushing around and the time to sit and reflect, or just read a book or watch a lazy bee hover over the collection of wild daisies, montbretia and nasturtium that scrambled over the stone wall outside the house. She had no regrets about coming to Ireland and now knew that as far as the kids and herself were concerned she had made the right decision.
Content in herself, she kept in touch with her friends and family and loved to hear from them. Once or twice a week Mike phoned the kids to see how they were doing, surprised that they were busy and content.
Martha was pleased to see her kids relaxed and enjoying themselves without the pressure of summer camps and grind schools, happy to play silly games of cards or kick a football in the fields with the local kids till late into the night. She had discovered the local library and alone at night immersed herself in reading the great Irish novels, missing Dan more than she could ever have imagined; the sound of his voice was enough to make her smile, as he told her about what was going on back home. He’d mentioned he planned to take a nine- or ten-day vacation from work, and hadn’t yet decided what he was going to do. Maybe play golf! Martha was unwilling to put any pressure on him, except to say there was a warm welcome if he wanted to come visit Ireland, but not expecting him to.