‘DID YOU KNOW?’

‘Did I know what? … Ellen, what’s wrong?’

They are in her sitting room the next morning. Her eyes are fixed on him.

‘Is she Mossie Mulvey’s daughter? Is that who she is?’

He makes a face. ‘Who’s Mossie Mulvey?’

She turns her head to the window.

‘Ellen, please, what’s going on? You’re frightening me now.’

‘What’s her father’s name?’

‘Ruth’s father is dead. Maurice, I think … yes, Maurice. What’s Ruth got to—’

‘That’s him … Maurice. Mossie Mulvey.’ She looks him directly in the eye. ‘You have to give her up.’

‘What?’

‘She’s bad news, Luke. Give her up.’

‘What are you talking about, Ellen? What’s gotten into you?’

‘I was engaged to her father years ago. It ended badly. I had to take him to court.’

His stomach lurches.

‘You know those big trunks of mine above in the house? There’s a wedding gown in one of them. It was bought in Bloomingdales in New York one morning in the autumn of 1962. Mrs Clark was with me – it was her gift to me. It cost $450, an absolute fortune at the time … I never got to wear it.’

He is shaking his head. ‘Stop, please. Slow down. What happened?’

‘I was a fool, that’s what happened. I made the mistake of thinking that Mossie Mulvey was a good, honest man. He seemed honest. He had a fine farm, he came from a good family. We were a good match – and that mattered in those days. And, much as I loved the Clarks, I never wanted to stay in America. I was always going to come home and settle down.’

‘What happened? What went wrong?’

‘He lied, that’s what went wrong! Why, I’ll never know. We got engaged in the summer of ’62 and planned to marry the following summer when I’d move back home for good. But a few months after I returned to the States – after getting engaged – he started to pull away from me. In his letters, I mean. The letters became less warm and less frequent. Oh, I should have confronted him – I know that now. But at the time I was afraid – afraid to admit that anything might be wrong. So I ploughed on with the plans, bought my wedding gown, my wedding chest, all that stuff.’

A fly lands on a paper napkin on the coffee table beside him. It seems to be moving its forelegs, like hands, over its head, like a cat washing.

‘I’d write him letters telling him how I couldn’t wait to be married,’ she says, ‘telling him how much I missed him and … loved him. I’d be longing for his letters – they were our only means of communication. But his were getting scarcer and more distant and finally I asked him straight out if everything was okay, or if I had done or said anything to offend him. Well, he hummed and hawed and avoided answering that question for weeks. Then he said yes, I had annoyed him a few times when I was home … He made out that I told him what to do, and that what I said and the way I said it sounded to him like an order! Well, I was mortified. I apologised profusely, explaining I never meant to sound like that, that I only wanted what was best for him. Anyway, that wasn’t really it, that was just a cover, that was him trying to set things up.’

Luke’s heart is thumping. ‘Go on,’ he says. ‘What happened?’

‘He claimed to have received anonymous letters about me … saying nasty things about me. He said he got three or four of these letters over several months. Well, I was stunned. I couldn’t believe it – who would write nasty letters about me? I had no enemies here – or anywhere.’

‘But who would – I don’t understand.’ He shakes his head. ‘It makes no sense.’

She is silent, looking at him.

‘Ellen?’

‘Are you’re doubting me, Luke?’

‘Go on, Ellen, please. Tell me what happened.’

She takes off her glasses, rubs her eyes. ‘Before any of this trouble … before it all went wrong, there were good times – normal, happy times, Luke. I want you to know that. Dancing, little road trips, boat rides on the river …’

She takes a deep breath. ‘What I’m trying to say is that there was a relationship, a real relationship between Mossie and me. Your father knew him. We’d all go to the dances together and they’d talk about cattle and the beet harvest and things … It existed, it was not some figment of my imagination.’

‘But why? Who would do such a thing?’

‘I don’t know. I’ll never know why any of it happened. I told him over and over that there was no truth in those letters, that it was all malicious lies. I begged him to ignore them or at least go to the Guards. At that stage my main concern was to reassure him that I was telling the truth … It was a terrible time, Luke, and … also, I felt for him too, you know, I really did. It was tough being so far away from him, every day waiting for a letter from him and nearly always being disappointed. Sleepless nights, worrying constantly, thinking that all this would reach Mamma and upset her.’

She shakes her head. ‘I wrote every day pleading with him to believe me. I’d dash down to the post office in Laurel Hollow at lunchtime to get a letter out in the afternoon post. Begging him constantly to stay strong and believe me, and that when I got home we’d get to the bottom of this together.’

She looks at Luke. ‘I was going up the wall – being so far from him, not able to talk to him. We arranged a few phone calls but he wasn’t much good on the phone … and nothing I said seemed to reassure him. And that made me even lonelier and more frightened.’

Silence again, the image of the phone calls lingering. His heart racing.

‘What was in the letters, what sort of lies?’

‘Does it matter, at this stage?’

‘It does.’

She averts her eyes and sighs.

‘He said the letters were warning him about me, tipping him off. He said they claimed that I had a child in America, that I was “a loose woman” … A loose woman!’ She lets out a wry, bitter little laugh. ‘Someone – or someone who knew someone – had a baby in a hospital in New York a few years before, and apparently I was in the bed next to her, after giving birth! Can you credit it!’

‘And were there letters? Did you actually see them?’

‘Eventually he produced two. I believe he wrote them himself, or got a drinking pal to write them.’

He brings a hand to his face.

‘The correspondence went on like this, back and forth between us for months,’ she continues. ‘I was going out of my mind. I never expected for one minute that he’d doubt me. Not for one minute! It was awful, awful … Going to bed every night after a long day’s work, full of fear and dread, waking up to face another day the same way. Finally I wrote to your father and told him everything. Not an easy letter to write, as you can imagine. Your father met him and tried to get to the bottom of things but only came to a dead end. Eventually we had to tell Mamma. I came home early that summer, still hopeful I could sort things out – that once he saw me and heard the truth in person – out of my mouth – he’d have no doubts whatsoever. How wrong I was!

‘I asked him to come up to Ardboe that first night, and he did, but he wouldn’t come in. He waited in the car until Mamma and Josie and your father were gone to bed. Then he came into the kitchen, sheepish, you know. Everything was so fragile between us … I feel sick even now thinking of it … Answer me, yes or no, I said, do you believe what was written about me in those letters? I don’t know, he said, it leaves a doubt. You either believe them or you don’t, I said, so which is it? I don’t know, he said, I don’t feel right inside, the letters are after coming between us. There was a long silence then. I remember thinking that he’s a good man and I’m a good woman and this – this shouldn’t be happening, and if we stick at it and if we have good intentions, we’ll be all right. And I really believed that. I felt this great peace coming over me and I reached out a hand to him, hoping he’d … But he didn’t move. He just sat there like a stone. Finally I asked if he’d stand by me until I was either proven innocent or guilty. He couldn’t even look at me. He shook his head. I don’t feel right, he said, I think it’s best to call things off … I remember the clock ticking behind me on the wall. It must have been past midnight by then. I could feel everything slipping away from me. I looked out the window into the night. I knew in my heart it was all over then.’

The clock on the wall. Not the same clock. The table is the same.

‘They were terrible times, Luke, terrible times! Do you know what it was like for a woman to be labelled loose then? I knew it would be the end of me – no one would ever touch me. And all lies, all lies … But mud sticks, Luke, and especially to women. People love gossip and scandal and the more salacious the better. The whole parish was talking about me. The unfairness of it – it still rankles. Never really knowing if I was believed – because it’s a man’s world and women are the first to be doubted, women are never really trusted. I learned that lesson – how quick people are to malign women, view us as liars, as conniving. Even my own family, good as they were, I often wondered if they doubted me too. Mamma and your father – if they had moments when they thought, well, she’s beyond in America and she might well have had a child and we wouldn’t know. Don’t tell me that thought didn’t cross their minds. I had to do something! I was raging and frightened out of my wits – and grieving him too, and grieving all that was lost. But I had to clear my name and my reputation. I was not going to lie down under his damn lies. Never! I’m an O’Brien, Luke, and when it comes to the truth, I’m a lioness. So I consulted a solicitor – your father came with me to Cork – and the solicitor told me the best way to proceed was to sue Mossie for breach of promise and defamation. And that’s what I did. But the upset it caused, the scandal! I thought it would all happen quickly but it dragged on for a couple of years, as these things do, back and forth between the two solicitors, with all the usual delays and adjournments. Luckily I had kept all his letters – and he had kept mine. The case was originally to be heard in the Circuit Court in Cork, but because of the amount of damages we were looking for, we got it transferred to the High Court in Dublin.’

She pauses and looks at him. ‘This happened, Luke, this really happened to me. Then, a short while before it was due to go to trial, I got a letter from him out of the blue. Offering to marry me! Can you imagine? It was a ploy. He wanted to avoid costs – that was his only motive, because at that stage he knew well he’d lose the case … What kind of man would …? What kind of marriage would that have been?’

She looks into his eyes, pleading. Must he answer her? Is she waiting?

‘What happened?’ he asks. ‘In court? Was he found guilty?’

‘We settled out of court on the morning. So there was no verdict, no guilty verdict. I often regret settling, I wish I’d had my day in court, but at the time I was terrified … and the pressure, the fear. It was horrendous! He was forced to admit he was wrong – that was the word that was used, wrong. He had to issue a formal apology for the charges and imputations he had made against me and my character. The apology was published in all the newspapers in the following days. And he had to pay me damages and pay my costs. So in the end, my reputation and good name were restored. But the lengths I had to go to – to prove …’ She stops and looks away.

‘It was a bittersweet victory, Luke, because the damage was done. And then, to top it all, the judge made a comment afterwards that took the good out of it. He said that the person who wrote the anonymous letters was responsible for a lot of the hurt and damage caused. That comment made Mossie look like a victim too. And that angered me, and still angers me, because he was no victim, I can tell you, and those letters were not anonymous. He set the whole thing up, I’m certain of it. I regret not hiring a handwriting expert to examine them – my solicitors slipped up there. But this was 1965 and I don’t know if such a person even existed in Ireland at the time …’

She pauses. ‘That’s it, really. And then every summer after that – during all those years when I’d be home, I’d have to watch him parading up the aisle at Mass every Sunday with his wife and kids.’

Her voice is breaking. ‘It was like a knife going through me. After Mamma died, I stopped going to Mass. Of course he went outside the parish – outside the county, in fact – for the new wife. A hard, swarthy little woman with a thin mouth. He didn’t delay either – he was married within the year. I often wondered if she knew. But you’d have to know a thing like that. You’d sense it – you’d feel it off someone that close to you, wouldn’t you Luke? … Marching up to Communion every single Sunday. Not a bother on him. Neck to burn!’

A wife. Children. Three daughters. Ellen watching them. Watching Ruth.

‘How come I never knew this, Ellen?’ His voice is weak. He clears his throat. ‘I don’t understand. All these years, how come I never knew? How is that possible? … I knew you were engaged once but not this. I never knew anything about a court case. I can’t believe Mam never told me, or I never heard rumours.’

‘It was a long time ago and it was a great scandal. It happened years before your father and mother even met – ten years or more. It had all died down by the time your mother arrived here. And your mother was never one to pry or gossip. No one wanted to talk about it, Luke. We all wanted to put it behind us. It was a very painful chapter in our lives. And the neighbours were very kind and considerate … It all felt like, I don’t know – a derailment – certainly in my life, but for the whole family too, and maybe even for the town. Poor Mamma, it almost killed her. Can you imagine how I felt bringing all this trouble down on top of the family? Your father was wonderful. I couldn’t have gone to court without his support. It was tough on him, very tough on him in the years after that too, meeting Mossie around the town and at the mart.’

‘But why? I don’t understand. Why did he do it? It makes no sense.’

‘I don’t know, Luke. I’ll never know. It could simply be that he got cold feet, that he lost his nerve and wanted to back out of the engagement but didn’t have the courage to say it and, I don’t know, maybe he panicked. That’s the kindest way of looking at it. Or maybe he didn’t feel he was good enough for me. Maybe I was at fault. I’ve had years to think about all this, Luke. Maybe I made him feel small somehow – with all my talk of America and the Clarks and the Governor of Vermont, the high life I appeared to be living. But the truth is, I don’t know. I don’t know what got into him. He went from being warm and kind in his letters, telling me every little thing he was doing on the farm, to being cold and distant, a different man. I quizzed him, thinking maybe he’d met someone else – another woman – but I don’t think that was it … In the end, maybe it was for the best. Maybe I had a lucky escape. But do you know what kills me now? When I look back, he wasn’t even that great a catch. Oh, he thought he was, like so many men at the time, thinking they were God’s gift to women – and we women should be grateful. Grateful! When I think of the Clarks and all the cultured people I met in America – refined people, educated people! What was he but a small uneducated farmer?’

As she talks, a strange bodily sensation surfaces in him; a tingling, like a mild electric current, shoots down his left arm from his neck and spine. He inhales slowly, exhales, moves his eyes to the fireplace and lets them rest on the companion set. Tongs, shovel, brush, poker. The current is stronger now, more intense, the tingle spreading into his left hand, strengthening. Throbbing painfully through the fingers, rendering the whole hand numb and weak and inert, but thronged with current. He focuses on his left hand, lifts it slowly and leaves it gently in the palm of his right hand. Calmer now. Hand on hand. What a weak and pitiful thing a hand is.

‘Last night, after your visit with … her, I was all up in a terrible state, thinking it couldn’t be her, that I must be mistaken, this couldn’t be happening! Of all the girls in the county, in the country …’ She shakes her head. ‘When I went to bed, I tossed and turned for ages. Then I got up and took down all the boxes of stuff I have down there in the spare room – his letters, all the solicitors’ letters and documents – and I sorted through them. I was up all night.’ She points to a plastic bag on the floor near the door. ‘They’re all there in that bag, the letters and the legal files. I want you to have them.’

He looks at the bag. He feels ill. ‘Why? Why would I want them?’

‘In case you ever doubt me.’

They stare at each other. He turns away and rubs his face. Ruth is at work now. Monday morning, at her desk, in her office on the North Strand. Or in Oberstown, visiting that boy.

‘Why are you telling me this now, Ellen? What good will it do?’

‘You are family, Luke. You are blood.’ She looks at him, imploring. ‘You need to know who you’re associating with.’

‘Who I’m associating with …? Who I’m associating with, Ellen! What kind of language is that? Are you an O’Brien at all, using that kind of language?’

She gives him a cold look. ‘She’s bad news, Luke. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. You have to give her up.’

‘Listen to yourself, Ellen! Ruth has nothing to do with what happened – Ruth did nothing.’

‘Don’t say her name again. I don’t ever want to hear that name.’

He stares hard at her. ‘You know what? Mam was right.’ His voice starts to crack. ‘You’re just a meddler, Ellen, you’re just a jealous old woman who cannot bear to see others happy.’

‘Say what you like. But the truth is, I wanted you to be happy. When I saw you out and about and realised you’d met someone, I was looking forward to meeting her. I imagined having ye here for Sunday lunch. I want to see you settled down, and the house alive again.’

He shakes his head.

‘Do you know what I went through, Luke? You have no idea, do you? … I had to be examined!’

He closes his eyes. He cannot bear much more.

‘I will die soon enough, Luke,’ she says, leaning towards him, ‘but you … you have your whole life before you. This – this woman – there’s bad blood there, Luke, bad blood. You might not see it now but, believe me, bad blood will show itself, it’s the nature of the beast. Nature always wins out in the end.’

‘Stop … Please.’

She turns towards the window. He follows her gaze to a robin hopping along the windowsill in tender little hops. The bird pauses, then turns and hops back the way he came.

‘Luke, how long do you know this woman? A month? Two months?’

He shrugs.

‘How long?’

‘A month.’

‘A month … Thirty days. And how well do you know her? Really know her? What is she like when she gets upset, or angry? Think about that. Thirty days. Walk away now, Luke, while it’s still easy. You won’t regret it.’

He shakes his head, tears stinging his eyes.

‘Oh, I know it’s hard. I know it is. And I hate to see you cry. But you’ll shed a lot more tears if you continue with her. Give her up … If you won’t do it for my sake, then do it for your father’s, a man who never put a foot wrong or spoke an ill word about anyone in his life. And for your mother’s too – for all our differences she was family to me.’

‘You can’t just drag something up from fifty years ago, Ellen, and hit me with it, dump it on me! Just when I’m happy … You can’t do this, you can’t.’

‘I didn’t drag anything up, Luke. I didn’t ask for this, any more than you did. Do you think I want the past – and all that pain – erupting in my life again?’

‘It’s not Ruth’s fault, Ellen. Why should she be punished? Why should I be punished?’

‘If you keep with that lady, Luke, you’ll regret it. Mark my words, you’ll rue the day you ever met her.’

‘I can’t believe what you’re saying, Ellen. You’re acting as judge and jury over an innocent woman, condemning her. Shame on you!’

‘Fine. Please yourself. Make your bed. Lie on it. But I’ll lay it out fair and square for you now.’ She looks him in the eye. ‘If you bring that woman into Ardboe, if you bring her into that house and parade her around here and humiliate me – deliberately humiliate me – that’s it, I won’t leave you a penny. Lucy will get everything – this house and the money too. You won’t get a red cent. I’ll get the hackney into Cork in the morning and change my will.’

‘Keep your money, Ellen. I don’t care about your fucking money.’ He stands up.

‘Oh, you care!’

She struggles to rise.

He makes for the door, savage in his stride.

‘Go on, off with you!’ she says, reaching for the plastic bag on the floor. ‘And take these with you.’

He stops, dazed, in the doorway. She shoves the bag into his arms and he does not resist.

‘They’re all there,’ she says, ‘the letters, the files, everything. You might even find the receipt for the wedding dress. She might get the wear out of it yet – that’d be a nice how-do-you-do for this family!’