Ballinn, County Kerry
September 2019
On the way to Tabby Ryan’s one hundredth birthday party, Dylan called. Ellie was driving the Micra, Moira tucked into the passenger seat, the village of Ballinn in the distance and getting closer.
‘Leave it,’ she said when her mum picked up the vibrating phone. ‘It’ll be a McCarthy lawyer.’
‘It’s Dylan.’ Moira held the phone flat on her palm: a frog rescued from a plughole. ‘How do I hang up?’
Ellie put the brakes on. ‘No, I’ll—’
‘Is it this red button?’
‘No, Mum, don’t . . .’
Moira cut off the buzzing.
‘Mum!’
They sat in silence, paused on the empty lane. Between them the air thickened.
‘I should at least have found out what he wanted.’
‘No.’
‘Mum, please. It’s my life.’ Ellie’s voice was harsher than she intended. She reached across and squeezed her mum’s hand. ‘I’m sorry. I know you care.’
‘I do, love, I do.’ Moira had the good grace to look sheepish. ‘I’m sorry, it’s just . . .’ She trailed off.
Ellie understood. Were the roles reversed, she would have done the same, or worse. Answered the phone, told the man on the other end exactly what she thought of him. But as it was, the roles weren’t reversed. Ellie wanted to know what Dylan had to say. He had been in shock too, hadn’t he? Had his own grief to deal with. Didn’t he hold her hand after the bleeding started, tell her everything was okay? Or did he? Ellie could no longer recall that moment clearly. As though she might only have wished for it to happen.
As though it had never happened at all.
She put the car back into gear and rolled on. She would call him back. Tomorrow perhaps. Alone.
As they passed the garda station, Moira broke the silence. ‘The squad car’s there. On a Saturday. Beddy must be coming to Tabby’s party. Bless him.’
Ellie, pulled back from her reverie, paused. ‘Beddy?’
‘Beddy Cullen.’
Ellie raised her eyebrows. Beddy Cullen. The school clown. In his final yearbook, Ellie had written, Good luck with life! Try not to get arrested . . . immediately, followed by a very small smiley face to show she was (half) joking.
‘Beddy’s not the local garda, sure he’s not?’
‘Well, he’s our man on duty every second Tuesday.’
In fifth year, Ellie had seen Beddy dip his hand into the church collection basket, pull out a fistful of notes and stuff them in his pocket. They’d made eye contact at that moment, and Ellie was sure it was that which had saved her from ever being the butt of one of his numerous practical jokes.
On the outskirts of the village, they hit a traffic jam. A real traffic jam in Ballinn. Tabby, it seemed, was popular. ‘Well, that’s one for the books,’ Moira said, and Ellie wondered if she was talking about the traffic, about Beddy or about the man with an argyle jumper who was swinging his leg, with surprising agility, over his fixed-gear bicycle.
Jules came to the window, brought his eyes level with Moira’s. The mud that speckled his face today was less subtle than it had been on Friday.
‘Jules!’
Ellie frowned. This was a new voice from Moira. It was somewhat breathy. She worried what it meant.
‘Moira,’ he said. ‘Ellie.’ He fussed with his poorly fitting helmet.
Ellie was concerned that her behaviour at Jules’s historical society meeting had been so dismissive that he’d already decided she was a lost cause, but to her relief he looked up and gave her a broad smile. ‘You came?’
‘I couldn’t stay away,’ she said, and realised she’d used the same excuse to Nils in Procaffination only twenty-four hours before. She added, ‘I wanted to see Tabby again.’ The former teacher had been a regular visitor at Ballinn National School, a guest of honour, always given the VIP treatment at sports matches and Christmas concerts. The last time Ellie had seen her was more than seventeen years ago; she must have been eighty-three years old and as lively as a spring chicken. So she did want to see Tabby. That was the truth. But what if Tabby had known Charlotte? Would she not be the perfect person to ask about her?
Because the night before, as she’d sat in the marsh with Moira, Ellie had realised something. In returning to Kerry, she’d been fleeing not just the scandal. Not just the loss of her job. Not just her guilt. But also herself.
She was trying to run away from something that was always with her. That she couldn’t shake off.
Curiosity.
She was curious about Charlotte Rathmore and the letter she’d written after her disappearance. And now she had time, didn’t she? To just . . . well . . . not investigate exactly, but make enquiries.
That morning, for the first time in weeks, she’d felt awake. She’d slipped out of bed and down the stairs to the kitchen, relishing the cold wooden floor as she’d wiggled her toes and pushed aside images of Dublin. She’d made tea and toast for Moira, taken it up on a tray, as she’d done on weekends as a child. And her mum had been awake, a book open in her lap, her face bathed in light from the sun that streamed through the window into the small, tidy bedroom. The morning had disappeared like that, whiled away on inconsequential chat, mother and daughter sitting in the bed. And it dawned on Ellie that it had been years since she’d spent a morning just letting herself be, letting whatever happened happen. Since she’d sat sipping tea in bed and chewing the fat with someone she loved.
She looked across at Moira and Jules, who were discussing the weather with vigour. What was it Jules had said? I want to do something that isn’t on the clock. Something interesting. Something that matters. Did a woman who’d gone missing eighty years previously matter? She did, thought Ellie, if her own family cowered at her memory. If she was due to be wed. If she’d written a letter full of hope and energy two whole days after she’d disappeared.
Because Ellie knew full well that to disappear from your life wasn’t enough. She had tried it. The past had to be faced. Confronted.
It was possible to step out of a life, but not to leave it behind.
Because she’d tried running away.
And so had Charlotte Rathmore.
The hall was full when they arrived. Bunting formed a spider’s web across the ceiling and a huge banner hung over the stage: Happy Birthday Great-Great-Granny. The savoury smell of party food filled the room and the air was thick with the mass of mingling people. A hundred at least, with more filing through the door behind them. Ballinn had changed, morphed, in the years Ellie had been away. It was full of unfamiliar faces – blow-ins, growing families – and old friends whose names had slipped away from her. And hers, presumably, from them. She felt a pang of guilt; she’d let go of where she’d grown up. Left it behind like it didn’t matter.
She weaved through the crowd to a table and deposited the two bottles of reasonable Shiraz she’d found at O’Brien’s. Deidre had feigned surprise when she’d seen her, asked when she’d arrived back in Kerry. They’d completed the polite proprietor–customer discussions (weather, the ever-extending tourist season, weather again) and Ellie managed to extract herself before she was subjected to, or implicated in, any village gossip.
She opened the wine and poured three glasses, leaving the bottles among a rapidly amassing collection.
‘To Tabby,’ Jules said when she returned. They drank a toast as the buzz in the room grew. Something old and jolly played through the hall’s tinny speakers.
Bernie, draped in what perhaps had once been a quilt, appeared through a gap in the crowd. She spread her arms and wrapped Moira and Ellie in a single hug, then took Jules by the arm. ‘How’s things? How’s your history group coming along? Any members yet?’
‘Well,’ said Jules, clearing his throat, ‘it’s more of a society really.’
‘Ah, spoken like a true politician.’
Moira leaned in. ‘Speaking of historical societies . . .’
Jules sounded cautious. ‘Yes?’
‘Well?’ She indicated her head towards Ellie. ‘Any progress?’ This last she hissed as though Ellie were out of earshot.
Jules paused. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I think we’ll leave the letter with the family. Post it, perhaps. That’s what we decided, didn’t we, Ellie?’
Her heart leapt at his support. He’d accepted her unwillingness with a grace that Bernie and Moira had not. And yet the two women had known her so well that even as her indifference turned to objection, they’d pushed on. Known that eventually the letter would draw her out from the place where she’d locked herself away.
She turned to Bernie, who was glaring at Jules, disappointment written across her face. ‘Bernie,’ she said, ‘when you put aside that box of books, you knew about the letter, didn’t you?’
Bernie looked sideways at Moira. A pair of rabbits in headlights. ‘I may have flicked through the pages of a few titles . . .’ She took a gulp from her glass. ‘But I put everything back where I found it.’
‘I see.’
Jules looked between the three women, clearly trying to work out the game being played. Clearly wondering if he had been played. But before he could say anything, Ellie took the letter from her pocket. ‘This was written two days after Charlotte disappeared.’ Around her the atmosphere changed, softened. ‘Did you know that?’
Evidently they didn’t.
‘The cratúir,’ said Moira, and Ellie wondered, not for the first time, who she was talking about: her or Charlotte. Charlotte because, well, what had happened to her? And Ellie because she’d been drawn in and Moira knew she wouldn’t let go now until she had answers.
And nothing would stand in her way.
‘Tabby was a maid at Blackwater House, back when she was a Deenihan.’ Since Ellie had revealed her willingness to engage on Charlotte Rathmore, Bernie had not stopped talking. ‘Until 1939. Or was it ’40? Because that would make a difference, wouldn’t it?’ Before Ellie could answer, she carried on. ‘She was Mammy’s first teacher. And she must have started school in . . .’ she looked to the ceiling, ‘1942?’ She shook her head, began to recall second-hand memories of her mother’s childhood: dance halls, the mart and the Rose of Tralee.
Ellie whispered to Jules, ‘This could go on a bit.’
A child raced past, knocking her glass, which was – thankfully – empty. It surprised her: both the impact and the fact she’d finished her wine. She felt relaxed. She smiled at this; something to tell Nils. And she knew it wasn’t just the wine that had allowed her shoulders to drop. It was the acceptance that her life must carry on, step by tentative step.
‘Another?’ she said to Jules. He looked around at the sea of unknown faces, a sheen of perspiration on his brow. ‘I think I’d better.’ He downed the remainder of his glass. ‘Dutch courage.’
She patted him on the shoulder. ‘You’ll fit in,’ she said. ‘One day.’
‘Reassuring. Thank you, Ellie.’
She tilted her head towards Moira and Bernie. ‘Make a note if they come up with anything concrete.’ The two women were in full swing, their arms flapping, their mouths motoring. Their glasses were full, the wine playing second fiddle to chatter. Jules nodded and took a small black notebook from his top pocket. She wanted to laugh at his keenness, but she actually kind of admired it.
At the table, someone passed her a Cabernet Sauvignon.
‘Oh, thank you,’ she said, taking the bottle and inspecting it. ‘New world, notes of oak, comical label containing a cat and a frog. Delicious! Just my taste.’ Laughing, she set down both glasses and the bottle in an awkward juggle. When she looked up, her mouth froze mid-smile.
‘Dr Rathmore.’ Her intonation lifted at the end of his name, as though she were questioning the audacity of him standing directly in front of her. Or his audacity full stop.
‘Ellie,’ he said. On his face, she noticed with annoyance, was a smile. She fumbled the glasses; one tumbled to its side and rolled slowly towards the edge of the table. He picked it up and set it right. ‘How are you?’
‘Sleeping well,’ she said. ‘So you can cancel that follow-up.’
Between them a small man was reaching towards the Cabernet Sauvignon.
‘Hold on,’ Dr Rathmore said. He took the bottle and filled both Ellie’s glasses to the top. The man blustered and shuffled off, muttering.
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘As I was saying—’
‘Ellie . . . I feel I should apologise.’ The tiredness that had plagued his face in the surgery had been replaced with a seriousness that was more worry and less judgement. ‘When you came into the medical centre, I wasn’t myself. I wasn’t being reasonable.’
She couldn’t remember which glass was hers, but nonetheless she took a sip that turned into a gulp. ‘Were you not?’
‘You know I wasn’t.’ He spread his hands. ‘I’m sorry. I apologise.’ She noticed his lack of drink. God, was she already tipsy?
‘Do you now?’ Yep, she thought, straight to my head. The fire in her belly was a mixture of rebellion and red wine, and she found she rather liked the burn.
‘I do.’
His calmness irritated her. The flop of his hair. The concerned set of his eyebrows. The cut of his chinos. His hands, his long fingers, this new penetrating gaze. Two days ago he’d barely looked at her, and now she wished he wouldn’t.
‘I’m sure you’ve a lot going on.’ She said it like she didn’t mean it and immediately felt a twinge of regret. ‘How’s your father?’
‘One of his better days today.’
‘He didn’t come?’
‘No. He rarely leaves the house.’
They stood in silence. She recalled Dr Rathmore’s reaction to Charlotte’s letter, tried to read his face. Was he wondering what she’d done with it? Was he about to ask for it back? Quickly she waved to the banner that stretched above. ‘Have you met Tabby?’
At this, he smiled. ‘I made a house call last week. Ended up staying for dinner.’
‘Really?’ She tried to keep the surprise out of her voice. Dr Rathmore endearing himself to someone?
‘First time I’d met her.’ He poured himself a wine. ‘Have you seen her house?’
Ellie frowned. ‘Not in the last twenty years.’ It was a thatched cottage on the coast. Damp and rheumatism oozed from its walls. ‘She’s not still there, surely?’
He nodded. Grinned. ‘I’m invited back for dinner next week.’
Ellie laughed at this: Ballinn welcoming a prodigal son. Then she thought of him up there at Blackwater Hall, with the dad he referred to as my father. Or, even more coolly, Albert. She recalled what Moira had said: His son’s back for a bit. Sent away when his mother died, poor child. She frowned. Had she failed to see things from his point of view? Had she barged into his office demanding answers to questions about his family he hadn’t even thought to ask?
Before she could stop herself, she said, ‘I shouldn’t have gone to see your father like that. I didn’t know he wasn’t . . . well.’
He waved her words away. ‘He told me about your visit. Said you were the most beautiful woman he’d seen in decades.’ He laughed. For a moment she hoped he was laughing at the audacity of it. A heartbeat later, she hoped he wasn’t. ‘He was, however, under the impression you were my great-aunt Charlotte’s friend; that you had a letter for her.’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘he’s got some of the elements right.’
‘He said that when he told you Charlotte had killed herself, you became angry, thumping the table, raging then crying. He thought you’d been drinking.’
‘Killed herself? Wait, I . . .’ Someone offered her a sausage roll; she waved it away.
‘He said a lock of hair fell over your blue eyes and you pushed it back.’
‘Now hang on . . .’
‘I told him the Ellie I’d met had brown eyes.’
She flushed. ‘I don’t know what to tell you, Dr Rathmore.’
‘Milo, please.’
‘Milo. Obviously,’ she put her glass aside, ‘that’s not true. Don’t you think you would’ve noticed if I’d been drinking? I only saw you a few hours later.’
‘I know it’s unlikely you went around thumping tables. Or raging.’ He paused. ‘Well, maybe the raging . . .’
She raised her eyebrows. They both smiled. She looked away. ‘We had some tea.’
‘Was it an Albert special?’
‘You could stand your spoon in it.’ She grimaced. ‘He also set out three cups.’
Milo nodded. ‘He does that sometimes. Forgets my grandmother is long gone.’
‘Oh.’ That made her terribly sad. ‘I tried to give him the letter. He became confused. Said first that Charlotte had drowned. Then denied knowing anyone of that name.’ This didn’t seem to surprise Milo. ‘We talked a little, and he tried to sell me a painting.’
‘Oh, not the painting again. He’s convinced someone’s about to turn up and buy it, save the estate.’
‘Are they?’
‘No. It’s a fake. My grandparents sold the original in the late fifties. Albert’s been living off it, and other paintings, ever since.’
Ellie took a sip of wine. ‘But Charlotte . . .’ she said. ‘Albert thinks she killed herself?’
‘This morning my father was slightly more compos mentis. I asked him again about your visit. His description this time was like you’ve told me now.’ Milo paused. ‘He gets confused between the past and the present.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and she was.
‘But he did remember where his memory came from.’
She leaned forward eagerly. ‘Yes?’ Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Deidre O’Brien watching them intently. Ellie moved so her back blocked the incoming gaze.
‘It was of his mother. Nancy. My grandma. From the night they first arrived to live at Blackwater Hall in 1958. He kept repeating the year. 1958. 1958.’
‘Didn’t Hugo Rathmore, the heir, die in 1957?’
‘You’ve done your research.’
She felt a pang of guilt. ‘Well, I only googled a few things.’ Indicating over her shoulder, she said, ‘I was put up to it.’ They both turned to look. Moira and Bernie were talking animatedly with their hands, Jules nodding and scribbling frantically in his notebook, then ripping out the page and scrunching it in confusion as the women appeared to change tack. She felt sorry for Jules: local oral history was a flexible subject. Dates and places, names and events morphed so that people sat around arguing about them until a new truth was arrived upon. He looked up. Caught her eye. There was an element of pleading in his gaze.
Milo was unfazed by her admission. ‘There was a fight that night in 1958, and Nancy had been drinking. They were all in the front room . . . I believe you’ve seen it?’ She nodded, recalled it well. The duck-egg-blue walls. Those worn wingback chairs. That once white carpet. ‘My great-grandfather, Charles, told Nancy they were sure Charlotte hadn’t just disappeared. Hadn’t been taken by the IRA, as some had reported. He said she’d taken her own life to escape an arranged marriage.’
Ellie’s fingers tingled. Lord Hawley?
Before she could speak, Milo continued. ‘My father said he’d never seen his mother so incensed. He and Harriet – my aunt – were afraid. He was seventeen, and before that he’d never heard a cross word from either of his parents. Hearing about Charlotte’s suicide changed his mother.’
Ellie frowned. ‘But Charlotte couldn’t have—’
‘According to Albert, his father said Charlotte had been headstrong. She believed women were the equal of men.’ Charlotte became suddenly impossible to dislike. ‘And she idolised my grandma.’
‘Nancy?’ Ellie nodded slowly. ‘Why?’
‘She’d come from nothing. An orphan. Her life was entirely built by her own endeavour.’ He paused, then added, ‘I admire that. Forging your own fate.’
‘Why are you telling me all this?’
‘Because you took the letter.’
‘Ah.’ She flushed. ‘Yes, well—’
‘And,’ Milo interrupted, ‘that piqued my interest. If you were game enough to steal it’ – she gave him a look of alarm, but he waved it away with a laugh – ‘then I could at least bend some rules and look into the medical centre’s records.’
This was a surprise. ‘What?’
‘Yes,’ he said with a slightly resigned air. ‘You were right to want to check. On the twelfth of August 1939, Dr Mortimer attended Blackwater Hall. And he was a very thorough notetaker.’
Her heart leapt. ‘And? Charlotte was being mistreated?’
Milo pressed his lips together, shook his head. Smiled a little, with . . . pride? ‘It turns out my great-aunt was quite the rebel.’
‘I don’t understand.’ Across the room, a commotion; whoops and cheers. Ellie turned; although she couldn’t see her, she knew the birthday girl had arrived.
Milo touched her arm gently, and she looked back at him. In his hand he held a sheet of paper.
‘For you.’ He gave it to her.
It was a medical record from 1939. Frowning, she began to read, a drunken rendition of Happy Birthday gaining momentum around them. ‘Milo, I need to tell you something about the date of the letter: it was written after Charlotte disappeared . . .’ She faltered. Read on. And inside her, somewhere deep, something shifted, and a piece of her began to melt, thawed by the actions of a young woman eighty years ago and the sister-in-law who inspired her.