September 2019, Clooneven
‘It’s okay,’ said Jessie to Ashling. ‘You can get off home. I’ll close up.’
Her colleague didn’t need a second invitation. ‘Thanks a million, missus,’ she said, as she removed her apron and loosened her ponytail. ‘We’ll miss you when you’re far away.’
At the mention of her trip, Jessie felt a leap of happiness. ‘Ah, here. It’s not that far away. It’s practically the next parish. And I’ll be back in ten days.’
‘Well, take care of yourself,’ said Ashling, giving her a hug. ‘And have a great time. You deserve it.’
Not everyone would agree with you, she thought. She smiled all the same. ‘You’re the best, Ash. I mean that. The absolute best. I’d have been sunk without you and Ivana.’
Two months on, and there wasn’t an hour in the day when Jessie didn’t think about what her sister had been part of. Sometimes, she felt removed from reality, as though she’d become tangled up in someone else’s existence while her real life – Dublin, magazine writing, Phelim – was sauntering on without her. Often, she would wake at four in the morning, clammy and unsettled, unanswered questions circling her brain.
She tried not to talk too much about what had happened. Indeed, there were details the guards had warned her not to reveal.
This didn’t prevent the local gossips from having their say. They lived for the details.
Did you hear the latest?
Do you know what puzzles me?
Seriously, does anyone believe the rest of the family didn’t know?
While some townsfolk bombarded her with questions, more turned their backs. For others, the revelations were an opportunity. Resentments stored since childhood were dusted down and presented anew. Although Jessie trusted that the full story would eventually emerge, the court case was still several months away. In the meantime, people believed what they wanted to believe, and those without time to consider the evidence were content to be nudged in a certain direction.
There was always something grasping about Lorna Daly.
Simon Keating was never the brightest. Anyone could tell you that.
What was the sister doing there? That’s what I’d like to know. And the teacher? They must have been involved.
The papers were limited in what they could report, but social media had no constraints. On Twitter, people made the connection between Jessie and Lorna. On Facebook, there were suggestions of conspiracy. Maybe, wrote one grassy-knoller, Jessie had always been on Vincent McPartlin’s payroll.
If Jessie was tested by the case and its fall-out, her parents were tormented. ‘How did we fail?’ they asked over and over again.
‘You didn’t,’ she replied. She also pointed out that the guards didn’t see Lorna as the prime mover in the crimes committed at Clevedon. What was more, both Quan and Linh had said she was the only one to treat them with any decency.
Even as her mother and father murmured in agreement, she realised her words weren’t enough. Her parents would continue to question themselves, and there was nothing she could say to heal their wounds more quickly. She didn’t know how long their pain would last. What she did know was that the phrases tossed around by her profession, like ‘come to terms’ and ‘closure’, were meaningless. Who was to say how any of them would feel a year, five years, ten years from now?
After she’d closed the café for the evening, she walked the few steps to Sexton’s lounge. The scattering of early-evening drinkers looked up, their eyes sweeping across her. Two or three quickly turned away again. One shouted a showy ‘How are you doing, Jessie?’
‘Evening, Séamus,’ she said, then ducked into the snug where Ger was waiting with a pint and a glass of wine. He, too, had become used to the scrutiny of the crowd.
‘I saw Simon half an hour ago,’ he said, ‘walking up by the campsite.’
‘Did he say anything?’
‘Nope. I tried to say hello, but he blanked me.’
Even though Jessie still worked in the Seashell, her relationship with Lorna was strained. In the Hollywood version of events, they would have reconciled. A long heart-to-heart would have led them to understand each other as never before. But Jessie couldn’t bring herself to forgive everything. Whatever sympathy she had for her sister was diluted by her disgust at the exploitation of Linh and Quan. Lorna hadn’t instigated their mistreatment, but neither had she put a stop to it.
Jessie’s assumption that Linh had taken her bicycle had been correct. What she hadn’t foreseen was that another member of the family would play an important role that night.
Turning left along the lane and then left again, Linh had cycled until she’d seen a bungalow with the lights on. Frightened and distressed, she’d been fortunate that the woman who lived in the house was awake. She’d been doubly fortunate that Etty had listened to her, then immediately called the guards. Afterwards, Jessie’s grandmother had downplayed her intervention.
‘It was obvious the girl was in a desperate state,’ she’d said. ‘All I did was get her a bit of help.’ She was reluctant to say how she felt about her elder granddaughter’s involvement. When Jessie asked, all she would say was that while some people had long memories others had memories that were very short.
As it turned out, the gardaí had already been on Dave Hodnett’s trail. They’d been surprised to spot a known acolyte of the McPartlins in a west of Ireland seaside town. Assuming he wasn’t there for the golf or seaweed baths, they’d begun to track him. He’d also been seen in remote locations in Sligo, Leitrim and Donegal, and they’d suspected he was operating a chain of grow-houses. Before making a move, they’d been gathering information. They insisted they hadn’t known about Linh and Quan and would have acted more quickly if they had. Although Jessie and Ger were sceptical, they were powerless to challenge the official line.
That Dave had been on the force’s radar explained why officers had arrived so quickly – and in such numbers. Along with the others, Jessie and Ger had spent the night and part of the next day in the garda station. The questions had flown at her like wasps. Why were you there? What did you know? Why didn’t you raise the alarm when you first discovered what was going on? Finally, the police had accepted that she was a witness rather than a suspect.
She hadn’t been allowed to see Linh and Quan again. As important witnesses in a significant trial, the couple had been whisked away to Dublin. A guard had told her that when the case was finished, they would return to Vietnam. Jessie wanted to know that they were all right. She wanted to say sorry over and over again. They were always on her conscience. She thought not just of the conditions at Clevedon but also of the way they’d been brought to Ireland. Of how Linh had feared they’d die in the back of the lorry and of how they’d been duped into believing they were in England.
Whenever she became annoyed or upset by the swish of gossip, she reminded herself that she wasn’t the victim. It wasn’t about her. She also hoped that when the trial was over, Linh and Quan would get to tell their story.
She’d seen Dave on television as he left court on the day he was charged. Even with his head bowed, he’d radiated arrogance.
Now, in the muted early-evening light, Jessie picked up her wine glass and smiled. ‘Ashling was asking after you,’ she said to Ger.
He laughed. ‘Have I been forgiven yet?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t go that far, but the pain is easing with time.’
Not only had Ger skipped football training on the night of the garda raid, he’d had to miss it again the following evening. That he’d been bruised and battered from the fight with Dave hadn’t helped. The manager had dropped him for the next match, and Clooneven had been comprehensively beaten by Kilmurry Ibrickane. Of course, Ashling hadn’t really blamed Ger for the team’s exit from the county championship, but it was their joke, and they were determined to run with it.
The consequences of the night rippled on, and not always in predictable ways. Ger’s girlfriend, Rosemary, had been upset to hear about his brush with criminals, her dismay compounded by the news that he’d been roaming the countryside with Jessie. She’d lacerated him for his foolhardy behaviour and lack of commitment to their relationship. What was going on with the ‘TV girl’? she’d demanded to know. (Ger had confessed this to Jessie a couple of weeks later when they’d both had a fair amount to drink.)
As was often the way, an argument that began with one issue grew and grew until it covered a multitude of grievances. Rosemary lurched from complaint to complaint until Ger felt dizzy. His father’s cancer was in remission, she pointed out, so why hadn’t he come back to Cork? Or, failing that, why hadn’t he suggested that she move to Clare? He was thirty years old and still living like a student. What was that about?
They broke up.
As for Rosemary’s question, there was nothing going on with the TV girl. That didn’t prevent people from assuming they were together. For once, Jessie was cautious. Over the years, she had approached men and been approached. She’d had one long relationship and innumerable shorter ones. She’d had one-night stands, brief flings and unrequited crushes. She’d slept with men for affirmation, adventure and just because she could. This was different. Anything further than friendship would involve taking a risk, not simply the risk of rejection, but the risk that she might lose Ger as a friend. He was the one person in Clooneven with whom she felt fully comfortable, the one person she always looked forward to meeting. She liked his sense of fairness. She liked how he saw the world. Losing his companionship would be more than she could handle right now. So she forced herself to ration the time they spent alone, and she tried to suppress the small charges of longing that popped up when they were together. She thought of it as self-preservation, something she’d shown little aptitude for in the past.
‘How are your folks?’ he asked.
‘Not great, to be honest. Like, not as openly upset as they were a few weeks back but still not brilliant. At least they’re seeing more of Zoë and Ethan, which gives them a bit of a lift.’
The children often stayed with their grandparents while Lorna and Simon prepared for the upcoming trial. It was impossible to know how much they understood. Jessie had the sense that, while Zoë was too young to follow it all, Ethan was old enough and smart enough to grasp what was happening. Although Lorna and Simon continued to live together, Lorna insisted their marriage was effectively over. Jessie hoped this was true.
Since the events at Clevedon, she’d come to realise that the sisters were more alike than either had been willing to admit. They’d both craved the admiration of their neighbours, one by planting her flag and being conspicuously successful around the town, the other by making it clear that their home place was too small for her ambitions. The reasons for this were harder to pinpoint. Their childhood had been happy if uneventful. They had been raised to be modest, respectful, self-effacing. Everything about their lives had been average. Maybe that was what they’d been rebelling against.
Ger looked up and signalled for another drink. ‘Your parents do know you’re planning on sticking around?’
‘Ah, yeah. They’re pleased about that. They’re kind of iffy about my other ideas, mind.’
‘I thought your mother was enthusiastic about the family-tree stuff.’
‘She was, but they’re both worried that I’ll draw attention to myself and the family. I had to say, “Listen, Mam, there’s every chance no one will be interested in what I’m doing. Nothing might come of it.”’
‘Maybe so,’ he said. ‘It’s still a great idea. I only hope last year’s sixth class get the credit they deserve.’
‘Their teacher might have to get a mention too. If it hadn’t been for him, I’d never have known about Bridget.’
It was only when Jessie had been released by the guards that she’d had the chance to read Kaitlin’s email. Or emails. By then, there had been three. Understandably, Kaitlin had been perplexed by Jessie’s failure to respond.
She remembered standing in the sun-bleached street reading about how Bridget had become Alice and then become Bridget again. Her fourth-great-grandmother had made it to America after all. Just as importantly, she’d been able to write to Norah. Jessie remembered her breath catching in her throat as she’d deciphered the screenshot sent by Kaitlin. And she remembered her joy when she’d read that there was an entire box of correspondence between mother and daughter.
She’d called Kaitlin – her cousin! – straight away. A blend of sleep deprivation, stress and exhilaration meant she’d blurted out far more than she’d intended about her sister, Linh and Quan.
Since then, they’d been in almost daily contact. Jessie had also spoken to Gina, the cousin who’d inherited the letters, and to Orla, the aunt with the hybrid Limerick-Boston accent who’d spent her childhood holidays at the caravan park in Clooneven.
Tomorrow, she would board a plane to go and see the letters. Not only that: she would get to visit the places where Bridget had spent the second part of her life and she’d meet her American family. She had hoped that Ger would be able to travel to Boston too, but school was back, so he was stuck in Clooneven.
The idea had been Kaitlin’s. ‘Why don’t you write a book about Bridget?’ she’d said one night. Jessie had suggested they do it together, but her cousin had said, no, she had neither the time nor the skill. ‘You do, though,’ she’d added.
Jessie had run the plan by Etty, who’d been so enthusiastic she’d insisted on paying for her flights.
Since then, she’d filled several pages of a large red notebook with a rough summary of Bridget’s life. She wanted to tell the story from Bridget’s point of view, to try to give a sense of what life must have been like for a young woman battling for survival. Given their connection, she felt that if any story was hers to tell, this was it.
‘I reckon,’ she said to Ger, ‘that the story ought to begin slightly before the Famine so we can meet Johanna and get to the root of the disagreement between Bridget and Mary Ellen. What do you think?’
‘I like it,’ he said. ‘Mind you, it’s beginning to sound like an awful lot of work.’
She took a long drink of wine. ‘What else have I got to be doing?’
At eighteen, Jessie had pledged never to spend another winter in Clooneven. Between November and March, even the fine days were blighted by a biting wind. When the rain arrived, it fell in icy sheets so that one end of the beach was obscured from the other. The hotel was boarded up, the caravans abandoned, the town deserted. And yet here she was, on the cusp of winter with no plan to leave. In truth, she didn’t have a choice. This wasn’t the time to walk out on her parents.
Ivana was returning to her home in Karlovac, which meant that Ashling and Jessie would run the Seashell between them. Jessie had paid off her debt, so for the first time in months, her money was her own. Ashling said that, even though it was quiet over the winter, there was just enough business to make it worth their while. After all, who else would provide Venetia Lillis with her oat milk cappuccino with a teenchy sprinkling of cinnamon? When she wasn’t serving coffee, Jessie would write.
Her friend Shona was aghast at her decision to stay in Clooneven, suspecting that Ger was at the root of it. Any action yet with the ridey teacher? had been one of her more subtle messages. Maybe it was because she was almost three hundred kilometres away, but Shona couldn’t understand how Lorna’s arrest had upended Jessie’s life. ‘I don’t see what it’s got to do with you,’ she’d said, as though Lorna was a distant relation. ‘You can’t stay in the sticks because your sister screwed up.’
When Jessie felt lonely, as she sometimes did, it was for a life she hadn’t lived in many years. It was for her early twenties, a time of ambition and possibility, conviction and abandon. Of course, that was how it seemed to her now. At the time, she’d been riddled with angst, striving to fit in with her aimlessly comfortable friends.
Yes, she missed Dublin. She missed its scale and variety. She missed noisy young people. Noisy old people. A quiet cinema on a wet afternoon. She missed drinking by the canal on a summer’s evening and walking for two hours without meeting a single person she knew. She missed red-brick terraces, reliable broadband and Zara. She couldn’t rule out going back. For now, though, Clooneven was home.
‘I’d better hit the road,’ she said to Ger, as she gulped down the last of her wine. ‘My case won’t pack itself, and I promised Etty I’d drop up to her before I left.’
‘Grand so,’ he said, picking up his jacket. ‘I’ll walk to the end of the road with you.’
Dusk was settling in, a reminder that, as a payback for the long summer evenings, there were months of darkness ahead. By the time she returned from Boston, it would be October, and the sun’s power would be further diminished.
When they reached the hotel, and the point where she would turn for her parents’ house, she paused. ‘I’ll cycle on from here. I don’t want it to get too dark.’
‘Take care of yourself,’ said Ger.
‘I will.’
‘And tell your American cousins I said hello.’
‘I will.’
‘And be sure to enjoy yourself.’
‘I will.’
For a few moments, neither spoke. Nearby, two young fellows shouted affectionate abuse at each other. A car with exhaust trouble rattled past.
Finally, Ger reached out and ran one finger down the back of her hand. The unexpected gesture sent a series of small shocks through her body. ‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘I’m going to miss you.’
‘And I’ll miss you,’ she said, as she took his hand, lifted her face to his and allowed her bicycle to fall to the pavement.