July 1865, Hackett’s Cross
Norah
Norah’s husband, Barney, brought the letter back from the village. It had been given to him by the postmaster, and they’d both been intrigued. In her nineteen years, Norah had never been further than Ennis, and they couldn’t fathom why someone would write to her from America. Who was Mr F. Markham? And why had he used her maiden name when she’d been married for nearly a year?
When Barney got home, Norah was sitting on a stool beside the front door of their tiny cabin, the sun stroking her face. What matter that she had a hundred other things to do? It was a beautiful day. There would be plenty of grey days for scrubbing and polishing and tending the vegetable patch.
She stared at the envelope. The name was vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t think why. Then it came to her.
‘Markham was Mammy’s maiden name,’ she said. ‘She had a brother who went to America before I was born. She rarely talks about him, but I’m nearly sure his name was Francie.’
‘Do you ever remember him writing to your mother?’
‘I don’t.’
‘How would he know where to find you, then? How would he even know who you are?’
‘Go in and fetch the other stool, and we’ll find out.’
Norah had known Barney Nugent since they were small children. She’d been eleven years old when she’d first decided to marry him. Then again, she’d always been a dreamer. Unusually, she was an only child, so she’d had ample time to think. Barney wasn’t the best-looking man in the area. Nor would he claim to be the smartest. What he did have was the sunniest nature. In his view, no day was too wet, no dinner too plain. Even the most cantankerous people in the parish had their merits; the most sodden field had its uses. Having grown up with a father who would find fault with the sunrise, Norah cherished Barney’s amiability. His parents and siblings were the same. The Nugents were generous people. Despite having little, they’d welcomed her to their table like another daughter.
That wasn’t all. She loved the shape of her husband: his firm back and narrow hips, his thick eyelashes and long feet. She loved his hoarse laugh, his warm mouth and silly stories. She loved the way he had with neighbours, children and old people. Most of all, she loved being alone with him, kissing the hours away.
In the way that some girls obsessed about children or fine clothes, Norah had always sought pleasure in the world around her. She could spend an age looking at birds building a nest or waiting for frog spawn to turn into tadpoles. She also found joy in watching the waves lashing against the strand and in collecting shells and unusual stones. Nature made her happy. Nature and Barney.
She was aware that some would consider hers an overly simple approach to life. According to her father, she should have aimed higher. She was passably pretty, he said, and had done well at school. Could she not have set her sights on a clerk or a man with land? Why was she content to settle for a labourer from an impoverished family? But if as a child Norah had been willing to obey Thomas McGuane’s orders, she was determined not to live her adult life according to his prejudices.
Barney set down his stool beside her. ‘Maybe Francie’s writing to say that he’s become incredibly wealthy beyond in America, and he wants to leave all his money to you.’
‘Oh, yes,’ she said, with a smile. ‘Before we know ourselves, we’ll be travelling across the ocean first class.’
‘Will you read it out loud, so we can both hear what he has to say?’
‘I will.’
Norah opened the envelope and removed the letter. If the quality of the stationery was any indication of Francie’s status, he wasn’t writing to tell her that he’d made his fortune. The paper was as thin as a fly’s wing.
‘“My dear Norah,”’ she started, ‘“you won’t know me as I left for America nearly ten years before you were born. Indeed, you may not be aware of my existence. I’m your mother’s elder brother, Francie. When I say your mother I mean Mary Ellen, as I assume she is the only mother you can remember.”’
‘What does that mean?’ said Barney.
‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘Hopefully, he’ll tell us.’ She continued to read: ‘“It’s many, many years since I’ve written a letter home, and I thought for a long time before writing this one. I hope you understand that I’m not motivated by malice or by any desire to make your life difficult. Rather, I’m motivated by concern for my other sister, Bridget.”’
‘Other sister?’ said Barney. ‘Did you know you had an aunt?’
Norah shook her head and returned to the letter. She was properly confused now. ‘“There is, of course, a chance that you already know the complete story. Certainly, that is Bridget’s hope, but she always wants to believe the best. It is, I think, how she has managed to cope so admirably despite experiencing much hardship.
‘“Bridget has lived in Boston, Massachusetts, since 1848. She is married to a decent, hardworking man called Martin McDonagh and they have a son and daughter. Therein lies another tale, but it’s not my intention to trouble you with it now. Prior to leaving our home in Boherbreen near Clooneven, she was married to John Joe Moloney. I am sorry to say that, like our mother and younger brother, Michael, John Joe died during the Famine, leaving Bridget a widow. She was twenty-one years old and had a young daughter. You were that daughter.”’
Norah stopped. Despite the July heat, her teeth were chattering. She felt Barney’s arm slip around her. ‘Don’t read it,’ he said. ‘Maybe Francie is mad. Or maybe he’s not Francie at all. He could be an imposter, some fellow setting out to cause trouble.’
Her husband was wrong. Norah’s every instinct told her that Francie was genuine. But why had he chosen to do this now? She passed the letter to Barney and nodded. She wanted him to read the rest.
‘“You must appreciate,”’ he read, ‘“that Bridget was desperately poor. The two of you were evicted from your cottage and spent a period in the workhouse in Kilrush. She only left you in Mary Ellen’s care because she feared that otherwise you would die. Many of your friends and neighbours were already gone.”’
By now, Norah’s entire body was shaking. Barney stopped but she urged him to resume. ‘Please,’ she said, ‘I want to hear it all.’
He did as she asked. ‘“I have encouraged Bridget to write, but despite her enduring love for you, she has always refused to do so. She’s scared of upsetting you. I considered writing before now but accepted that it was not my place to interfere. She is unwell, however, and this has led to my change of heart. I didn’t tell her about my plan. Had I done so, she would probably have tried to dissuade me.
‘“I am sorry if this letter has come as a shock or is unwelcome. Should you choose not to reply, I won’t bother you again. I have included my address and also that of Bridget and her husband. To this day, she keeps a shell collected by you on your final day together. It’s as precious to her as gold or diamonds. I believe a letter from you, the girl she has never stopped loving, would mean a great deal to her. Yours sincerely, Francie Markham.”’
It took Norah some time to compose herself. For hours afterwards, she wandered the lanes and fields. She cooked no dinner and neglected the hens.
Barney urged her not to act too quickly. ‘By all means, talk to your parents, if that’s what you decide to do,’ he said. ‘Don’t rush into anything, though. You still can’t be sure that your uncle is trustworthy.’
In one way, this was correct. She didn’t know the man or his motives. That didn’t matter. Something about the letter told her that Francie didn’t write often. She imagined him taking great care over its composition, and she continued to believe that what he said was true.
Norah’s memories had only begun to fade in when she was five or six. By then, the worst of the Famine was over. While she remembered life being simple, she’d never known daily hunger. Or so she’d thought. According to the letter, she’d been in danger of starving to death.
She had only one memory from her earliest years and, in truth, it was more of a fragment than a substantial image. She was sitting beside a fast-running stream. A soft rain was falling. There was a woman with her. Perhaps that had been Bridget.
Francie’s letter cast her childhood in a different light, making more sense of some elements and less of others. It helped to explain why she didn’t look like either of her parents. She’d occasionally wondered how she’d been blessed with abundant dark brown curls when both her mother and father had wiry, unappealing hair. Other things were perplexing. If Mary Ellen and Thomas weren’t her original parents, should others not have known? Or had her origins been erased from memory by the years of turmoil? Few in the area liked talking about those years. Barney’s father said that people had endured so much and lost so many friends to starvation, disease or emigration that it was better not to dwell on what had happened. He also said that many people felt guilty. They asked why they’d been spared when those they’d loved had suffered agonising deaths.
It wasn’t as though forgetting was easy. Just as the land was marked by tumbled cottages, families were scarred by the memories of those who had died or been forced to leave. Norah had always known that Barney had two aunts in Canada and a cousin who’d died of fever. She’d been aware of her own uncle in America. What she hadn’t known was that another uncle had died. Neither had she ever been told that hunger had killed her grandmother.
The more Norah thought, the more she realised that there had been the occasional hint about her true origins. A neighbour had described her as doing well ‘despite a bad start’. Another had asked if she intended to stay in Hackett’s Cross. ‘Why wouldn’t I,’ Norah had replied, ‘when it’s my home?’ Back then, she’d seen nothing unusual about these remarks. Francie’s letter had forced her to reconsider.
Norah had a sleepless night, thoughts jumping around her head, like moths around a candle. In the morning, she kept watch, lurking in a nearby field until her father left the house. Was he still her father? Or should she refer to John Joe Moloney as her father and Bridget as her mother? No, she decided, they were as yet unknown to her. She had no reliable image of them, no firm grasp.
Barney had offered to come with her, but he was working on a new building in the village so she’d assured him that she’d cope on her own. While times had improved, they weren’t so good that he could afford to miss a day’s work.
Ordinarily, she would have preferred to stay outdoors. On this occasion, she asked her mother if they could go inside. She didn’t want anyone to see them, much less hear them.
She was nervous, unsure of how to start and unclear what she’d say if her mam dismissed the letter. She shouldn’t have worried. As soon as she began talking, it was clear that Francie had told the truth. Her mother lowered her eyes and bowed her head. At no point did she interrupt. Whatever Norah had expected – denial? anger? contrition? – this wasn’t it. Instead, her mother appeared resigned to her secret emerging. It was as if she’d spent every day of the past seventeen years waiting for this moment.
‘How is she?’ she asked eventually.
Norah was taken aback by the question. ‘According to the letter, she’s not well.’
Her mother looked genuinely concerned. ‘I’m sorry to hear that. She was always the healthiest of us. As a child, she ran everywhere. No one could keep up. Even . . . No, I can’t say she remained healthy during the Famine. Like many people, she didn’t have enough to eat. But I continued to think of her as strong. She was a very resilient girl.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me about her?’
Even though she must have known the question was coming, Mary Ellen hesitated before replying. ‘I should have done. I intended to, only the time never seemed right. And then we – your father and I – decided we’d left it too late. You were doing well, making your own way in the world. We felt it would only hurt you.’
Norah wondered if this was true. It sounded like a convenient excuse. She allowed her thoughts to drift back to her childhood. If not openly unhappy, her parents’ marriage had often been tense. There had been little sign of the affection she’d witnessed in the Nugents’ house. Her mother had always been anxious to please her father, as though she worried that she wasn’t good enough for him. At the same time, Norah had always felt protected. And if neither parent had been especially demonstrative, their love had shown itself in practical ways: in plates of potato and herring, in clean clothes and a warm bed. Certainly, she had never doubted her mother’s love. She recalled small things: a pat on the shoulder when the school master had commended her writing, the careful way her mam had combed and plaited her hair, the days they’d picked bluebells or honeysuckle together.
In her own way, her mother had been pretty, with sharp features and blue-grey eyes. Now, in her forties, she was prematurely old, her cheeks sunken, her mouth slack, strands of white in her rust-coloured hair.
‘You have John Joe’s hair,’ her mam said. ‘He had brown curls too. He was a handsome man. Otherwise, you look like Bridget. You’ve the same eyes.’
‘I need to know more than that,’ said Norah. ‘I need to know why you never told me about my grandmother and my uncle Michael. And I need to know why my . . . why Bridget left.’
‘She left because . . .’ Again, her mother’s gaze dropped to the ground, and she abandoned whatever she’d been about to say. ‘You’ve got to understand what it was like in those years. To this day, I remember the silence. Everywhere was quiet, and if you heard a noise, it was probably someone in pain or in mourning. I was a young woman then. I thought that as long as we stayed alive, we wouldn’t be affected. I thought we could shut ourselves off and forge ahead with our own lives. But, after all that suffering, how could any of us ever be the same? It brought a poison to the country, and sometimes I doubt we’ll ever be free of it.’
Norah was growing impatient. ‘I don’t follow you.’
‘We thought it best that you didn’t know about my mother and about Michael. I was ashamed. Ashamed that they’d died such a terrible death. And ashamed that I’d done nothing to assist them. Every day I regret that we . . . that I . . . didn’t act.’
Norah repeated her question. ‘Why then did Bridget go to America? Could you not have helped her?’
Her mother clasped her hands together as if in prayer. ‘I . . .’ The words didn’t come. Presently, she stood and went to the bedroom. When she re-emerged, she was carrying a letter, its paper crisp with age. ‘She left this for you.’
Norah took the sheets and read. Every single line, every single letter, hurt. It had been written by a woman in deep pain. A woman who had asked for her mercy. When she’d finished, she folded the paper and placed it in the pocket of her skirt.
‘She didn’t choose to leave, did she? She didn’t abandon me?’
‘No.’
‘You made her go?’
‘Yes.’
Norah watched her mother’s face twist with misery. She waited for her to speak again. Finally, she did.
‘What we did was wrong. I accept that. I wasn’t able to have a baby of my own, and I wanted you. I’m not blaming Thomas’s family, but they treated me like I was inferior. Like I wasn’t a proper woman. I thought you were the answer to my problems. We could give you a home, and I would love you. You were such an engaging child. We told her . . . told Bridget . . . that we couldn’t afford to feed you both. She’d run out of places to go . . . and she was scared that if she didn’t accept our offer you would die.’
‘You took me and forced your sister to leave the country?’ Norah caught her breath, concerned that she’d gone too far.
‘Yes,’ said her mother. She was weeping now, her shoulders shaking.
Norah’s immediate impulse was to leave. But the woman in front of her might not be so candid again. She sat on her hands and instructed herself to stay.
‘May God forgive me,’ said her mother. ‘What we did was wrong. I know that now. To be honest, I knew it then. We could all have lived here. It would have been difficult, but we would have survived. People survived worse. They lived ten or fifteen to a cottage and ate scraps. Still, they clung on.’
‘Did you ever hear from . . .’ she considered her words carefully ‘. . . from my mother again?’ Mary Ellen flinched at the way she’d changed her use of ‘mother’.
‘No. We agreed that she would start afresh in America.’ She rubbed her apron against her face. ‘Does the letter say anything about her circumstances? Does she have a comfortable life?’
‘She has a husband and two other children. But, no, I don’t get the impression that her life has been especially easy.’
When it came to America, Norah had heard conflicting stories. Some people sent money back to their family. They wrote letters claiming their new home was filled with opportunity. Others were quieter. They gave little away – or they didn’t write at all. Barney’s father said that America could be a harsh place and that not everyone succeeded. Norah thought of Bridget, a country woman in a city full of strangers, and felt uneasy.
‘Apart from telling me that my mother was healthy, and my father was handsome,’ she said, ‘you haven’t told me much about them. What was she like?’
‘She was lovely. Really lovely. With hindsight, I can see that I was . . . I can see that I was jealous. She was everyone’s favourite. Not that she was a saint. We fell out plenty of times. She didn’t like Thomas. I’ve always thought . . .’ She paused and swallowed. ‘I’ve always thought you got your friendly nature from her. Our brother, Michael, was similar. He was an immensely kind boy. I’ve come to think that the Famine was hardest on good-natured people. They allowed others to eat ahead of them, and they kept on giving when they’d nothing left to give.’
‘What about my father?’
‘I didn’t know John Joe very well. His people were poor, even poorer than our own family. I do know that Bridget loved him. She’d always been sweet on him, like you and Barney. He caught the fever when he was on the relief works, and he didn’t get long. You were only a baby.’
Norah knew every inch of the cottage, every dip in the floor, every stone in the walls. It was the only place she could remember. But she’d had a life before this place. She’d lived with her first mother and father in a cabin outside Clooneven. She’d spent time in the workhouse.
No sooner had she asked one question than another occurred to her. She needed more time to think, but her father might come home at any moment, and she was wary of facing him today. Unlike her mother, there was a danger he would be confrontational.
‘What are you going to do?’ she asked.
‘You mean am I going to tell Thomas that you know the real story?’
‘Yes.’
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘It’s your decision,’ said Norah, surprised by her own answer.
‘And if I don’t tell him?’
‘I won’t say anything.’
‘Thank you,’ said Mary Ellen, some of the tension leaving her face. ‘What are you going to do about Bridget?’
In the space of a day, Norah’s life had been turned upside down. She was not who she’d thought she was. Neither were her parents. She gave the only answer she could.
‘I don’t know,’ she said.
‘I see,’ replied her mother. ‘There’s one other consideration. Your father doesn’t know that I still have Bridget’s letter. He told me to destroy it many years ago, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to do that. If he found out . . .’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Norah. ‘I’ll keep it safe.’