Ballinn, County Kerry
September 2019
The white thatched cottage hung on the edge of the ocean. Below it, foam-tipped waves licked at the rocky coastline and a hundred gulls wheeled offshore, diving for a hidden shoal. And surrounding it: green. Endless green. Fields that ran to the sea.
Ellie stepped up to the worn doormat, Fáilte – ‘Welcome’ – woven into its surface, and rapped on the door. Took a step back. Wondered at the right thing to do. Traditionally, neighbours in Kerry did very little waiting at doors; they walked right in, the unspoken rule being that one’s kitchen was always open. Abiding by this rule, a voice called from inside.
‘Come in.’ It was Tabby. ‘The tea’s wet.’
The interior of Tabby’s house was not what Ellie had expected. Firstly, it was open plan; its western half an oak-trimmed kitchen, the eastern half a sitting room with a huge corner sofa and an oversized coffee table. Secondly, it was cosy warm. And thirdly (Ellie couldn’t believe what she was seeing), the entire southern wall – which had been hidden on the drive down the hill, its aspect facing only the sea – was made entirely of glass. The view beyond was breathtaking. As though someone had taken a picture of Kenmare Bay in perfect light, at the perfect moment, and even then ramped up the colours.
Ellie realised her mouth was hanging open. She closed it, but continued to gaze around the bright interior with its whitewashed stone walls, its indoor plants and its grey slate floors. It made her Dublin apartment look old fashioned, and it was a thousand miles from the worn, dim interior she’d expected. There were only two things that didn’t surprise her about the house: Tabby Ryan, who stood at its centre, one hand holding a pot of tea; and the reassuring smell of baking.
‘Like it?’ Tabby said, though it wasn’t really a question, because no one could walk in and not like it.
‘It’s . . . wow.’
The large open fireplace was set but unlit. Tabby followed Ellie’s gaze.
‘Underfloor heating.’ She indicated the dark stone tiles.
‘It’s stunning,’ Ellie said. The house. The underfloor heating. The view.
Tabby winked. ‘Better to spend money like there’s no tomorrow than to spend today like there’s no money.’ She turned and went slowly to the oven – a black range set into a second fireplace – and withdrew a tray of scones. Ellie wanted to ask Can I help? But she felt that Tabby was the sort of woman who might take that as a slight. She took a seat at the concrete countertop and pulled her eyes away from the view beyond.
‘My grandson’s an architect. It started with a plan to convert the range to oil.’ Tabby swept her hand behind her. ‘Then things . . . escalated.’
They sure had. A door at the far end of the room lay ajar; Ellie caught a glimpse of the corner of a bed.
‘Just one bedroom,’ said Tabby. ‘The road may be longer walked alone, but I’m partial to an expedition.’ She laughed and set down the tray, pushing aside a pile of papers, indicating them with a nod. ‘Been at the poetry. Turns out I quite like ballads.’
Ellie considered her next move and decided to step right in. ‘Tabby, I’ve just been up at Blackwater Hall.’
‘Oh yes?’ The old woman walked around the counter and took a seat, easing herself into it with a small wince. ‘How are they up there? How’s Milo?’ She said his name with such affection that Ellie smiled.
‘They’re grand. I had tea with them both in the walled garden.’
‘The garden? Really?’ Tabby pushed the tray of scones forward. ‘I’ve forgotten the jam . . .’
‘Please, let me.’
Tabby nodded. ‘It’s in the fridge. Behind that cupboard.’ She pointed. ‘No . . . that one to the left.’ The fridge was outrageously large. Ellie sorted through a shelf of jars. Raspberry and Hawthorn Conserve. Elderberry and Whitethorn Jelly. Blackberry Jam. She picked the latter, brought it back to her seat. Began to butter a scone.
‘You mentioned at your party that your father was the gardener at Blackwater Hall?’
‘He was, o’course. He had a knack for it. One that I didn’t inherit.’ She waved to the lack of garden out the window. ‘I prefer to forage.’ The contents of her fridge were certainly testament to that.
‘I saw a photo of you both,’ Ellie continue, ‘from Blackwater Hall in 1939. The summer party.’
The old woman nodded. ‘An annual event. It stopped after Charlotte disappeared.’ This time she said Charlotte’s name easily, as though she’d been practising it in the days since her birthday. Which, given her conversation with Milo, she had.
‘Milo tells me you sold your identification to Charlotte in 1940?’
‘Yes. She wanted to leave and I didn’t.’ Tabby said this simply, as though it were the end of the story. But Ellie knew it wasn’t.
‘Why did you tell me she helped you get a scholarship?’
Tabby reached across to pour the tea. ‘Because it was true.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She did help me apply. Charlotte had as good a way with words as she had with people. She was a talent. And a fine actress.’ Tabby smiled a secret smile. ‘She loved the stage. I don’t know where she got it from. Both her parents were deadpan. But’ – she pushed a cup towards Ellie, indicated the milk and sugar – ‘we wouldn’t have the Ballinn Dramatics Secret Society without her.’
Ellie’s hand hovered over the milk. ‘What?’
‘Charlotte started it. The society. When she was fifteen years old. Her family thought she was teaching literature to local girls.’
Ellie laughed. ‘You’re kidding?’
Tabby raised a thinly drawn eyebrow. ‘In every land, hardness is in the north of it, softness in the south, industry in the east, and fire and inspiration in the west. ’Tis what we say, is it not?’
Ellie smiled. Her father had once told her that, when she’d announced her interest in journalism. ‘It is.’
They sat in silence. Out in the bay, a yacht rounded Dinish Island, its sails white against the dark folded cliffs.
After a moment, Tabby looked at her watch. ‘My granddaughter will be here soon. She’s very protective of me. Wouldn’t like to think that someone was digging into my family’s past. So,’ her voice softened, ‘you’d better get to asking whatever it is you’ve come here to ask.’
My family’s past.
Ellie put her cup aside. Swept the crumbs from the counter and brushed them onto her plate. She appreciated Tabby’s bluntness. It reminded her of Hattie. ‘Your brother was also in the summer party photo. He worked in the gardens too, didn’t he?’
In lieu of an answer, Tabby said, ‘May I see this letter Milo told me about? This charity shop find?’
Surprised, Ellie nodded. She took it from her satchel, where it nestled next to the folder from 1940.
Next to the folder from 1958.
Tabby took a thick pair of glasses from the counter and read the letter. When she had finished, she looked up. Ellie felt she was being assessed. For her nerve? For her boldness? Her inability to tread lightly around someone nearly seven decades older than herself? ‘The spit of the mother,’ Tabby said.
Ellie smoothed her hair with her hand, sat a little taller. She thought she had some way to go until she developed Moira’s charming yet undeniably matronly features.
‘But that’s where the similarities ended. Charlotte had spirit. Passion. She was interested in other people’s lives. In their plight. And I can tell you, in those times life was full of plight.’ Tabby reminisced as though no one else was in the room. ‘A girl like that – high-born yet so . . . lovable – was bound to get into trouble.’ She gazed into her cup. The tea steamed gentle wisps.
Ellie prompted, ‘What kind of trouble?’
Tabby stood. She steadied herself on the counter, then went to the window, where the sun shone a halo around her white hair.
‘Tabby, I found something in the garden. Two names. Intertwined. Charlotte and—’
‘Don’t.’
‘And Tomas.’
Tabby spoke without turning. ‘You always had an inquisitive mind.’
Ellie took a sip of tea, burned her tongue. Added some milk. ‘Charlotte was pregnant, wasn’t she?’ She said this as casually as she could. Because it was obvious, wasn’t it? She had known it when she’d seen those names etched into the wood in the arbour. Charlotte and Tomas. Written so that they shared the O. Tomas’s name vertical across Charlotte’s. And the date, 1940.
Tabby’s shoulders dropped. She pressed her hand against the glass, then let it fall. ‘Yes,’ was all she said. She went to the sofa, sank into it. Closed her eyes. ‘No one knew. Only Ma and Charlotte’s parents. Her father arranged for Tomas to go to war and Charlotte was to be sent to the sisters.’
‘Did they love each other?’
‘I think so. At least, in the way the young love.’ She considered for a moment. ‘I suppose, in the end, he was more taken with her.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because she never returned.’
‘What happened to her?’
‘I don’t know.’ And Ellie could see that the woman was telling the truth. She knew, because she’d already seen her lie.
‘Did she write?’
‘Ah, she did. Dozens of letters. At first. Ma burned every one of ’em. Never even opened them. They kept coming and coming. Then, one day, they just . . . stopped.’
‘God,’ said Ellie, her brow furrowed in sadness. ‘Who else knew that Charlotte didn’t drown in the lough?’
Tabby took a deep breath. She shook her head. ‘It must have been the only time my mother ever kept a secret. He who keeps his tongue keeps his friends. Even my father didn’t know.’
‘And Tomas, when he returned?’
‘That,’ said Tabby, ‘is the saddest part. My . . . greatest regret.’ She looked down at her hands, examined her gnarled knuckles, as though they were that way for gripping such a secret for so long a time.
‘You never told him?’
‘No.’ She closed her eyes. ‘Will you fetch me a glass of water, Ellie?’
When Ellie returned, Tabby had resettled herself, her legs now propped on the sofa, a blanket across her lap. One arm lay over the backrest, so that she could watch the sea. Ellie handed her the water and she took a sip, nodded. ‘Hindsight is the best insight to foresight.’
Ellie sat on the far end of the couch. ‘Isn’t that the truth.’ But she wasn’t sure which part of her own life she was referring to. Of all the loss – she pressed her hand to her stomach – how much had been avoidable in the end?
‘Tomas shouldn’t have gone back to work at Blackwater Hall when he returned in 1944. But he did. He was changed, Ellie. Much changed. He became . . .’ Tabby paused. ‘Unpredictable. It wasn’t something anyone talked about then, o’course. Shell shock. All the lads had it, in one form or another. And when he returned, he mourned Charlotte so deeply and . . . violently that Ma warned me never to tell him about the letters. He believed that she drowned and that was it. And once that first moment to tell him passed . . .’ She looked at Ellie, her eyes rheumy. ‘How do you go back on something like that? Desperate, it was. The guilt overcame me at times.’
Another Tabby sat before Ellie now. Tired and serious. A woman who’d carried with her a great secret and had kept it from someone dearly loved.
‘I don’t understand . . . Why would Tomas have been given work at Blackwater Hall? Niamh and Charles Rathmore knew about the pregnancy. As far as they were concerned, Charlotte drowned herself because of it. Did they not blame him?’
Tabby ran her fingers across her forehead. ‘That was Ma’s handiwork. She was a hard woman. A match for Niamh Rathmore. Our home needed income – Tomas was expected to work, but he couldn’t get a job. Who was going to employ an Irishman who’d fought for the English? Ma went to the big house, told them in no uncertain terms that she’d reveal Charlotte’s secret – the pregnancy – if Tomas wasn’t given his old job back working with my father in the gardens.’
‘Quite a gamble,’ Ellie said.
‘And didn’t it pay off? I s’pose Niamh Rathmore’s concern about losing face outweighed what Tomas had done. That’s saying something. But she never spoke to him again. Tomas worked there for fourteen years without so much as a word passing between them.’ Ellie wondered whether now was the moment to mention the case file in her satchel, but Tabby carried on. ‘’Twas difficult to know what would happen when Ma died. Would I need to carry on the blackmail? It kept me awake.’
‘But Tomas died first,’ said Ellie.
‘Yes.’
Ellie hesitated. ‘Tabby, I know what happened. In 1958. And I’m sorry.’
Tabby looked surprised. She linked her hands together, set them in her lap. The two women stared at each other. Ellie looked away.
‘Sean Reilly always said you were the brightest in his class.’
Ellie almost laughed. ‘There were only twelve students,’ she said, repeating what she’d said to Bernie the week before.
But Tabby was serious. With one hand she rubbed the gnarled knuckle of the other. ‘Arthritis.’ She looked up. ‘I’m like this house, Ellie. Young on the inside. Old on the outside.’ She laughed. ‘My thatch could do with replacing.’
‘Windy days are not for thatching.’
She smiled. ‘I’m glad my poem left its mark.’
‘It did.’ Ellie had thought of it a dozen times since.
‘Can you imagine burying a scandal like that in Ballinn?’ Tabby was back in the past. Back in 1958.
‘No,’ said Ellie. ‘How did you bury it?’
‘There’s only one thing worse than being talked about, and that’s not being talked about,’ Tabby said. ‘Tomas had become an outcast. Very few people cared what happened to the boys who fought in that war. They were sometimes cruel, the villagers, back then.’ She nodded. ‘They’ve improved.’
‘But why did Nancy Rathmore kill your brother?’ Ellie wanted to hear it for herself.
‘It was self-defence. Manslaughter,’ said Tabby. Her voice was devoid of blame or bitterness.
‘And you believe that?’
She frowned. ‘Of course. Tomas had become unstable . . . he’d let his temper get the better of him.’ She sighed. ‘And yet deep down, he was good.’ Now she was lost in thought. ‘He was once a very good man.’
Ellie said, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Me too. Every day. But what’s done is done. A misunderstanding.’ Tabby began to fold the blanket from her lap. ‘For every mile of road there are two miles of ditches, Ellie. Two sides. Two stories.’ The colour had returned to her cheeks. ‘Tomas was no thief,’ she said. ‘My brother was a complicated man . . . no . . . he became a complicated man. Before that, he was full of light and joy. He loved Charlotte with a fierce passion. I can only imagine what it was like returning home; her missing, his future gone. His life was over.’ She looked at Ellie. ‘Have you ever felt that? Like life was over?’
Ellie lowered her eyes. ‘Yes,’ she said.
Tabby nodded, leaned forward, took her hand. Patted it. Examined the smooth skin under her own. ‘Then you’ll understand. Tomas thought naught for that comb. All he cared about was Charlotte, and what could’ve been. Material possessions meant nothing to him. He was broken by life and loss. And broken by . . . love.’