New Orleans, 1860
It took Patrick and Oxy a year of ‘adventurin’ to reach the ‘Jewel of the South’ – New Orleans. In that intervening year they’d seen, according to Patrick, ‘The whole wide world of America.’ Which prompted Oxy’s observation on the vast tracts of land they had travelled since leaving Massachusetts, ‘It isn’t that much bigger than Ireland … once you get to know it!’
Patrick laughed, started to list out all the places they had been through, rejoicing in the names and the memories they evoked. ‘Maryland, Virginia, the Appalachian Trail, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama … Louisiana … Do you mean Ireland’s bigger than all of them together, Oxy – or a corner of one of them?’
‘All!’ Oxy responded, not giving an inch to Patrick, nor to all the States, even if gathered up together. ‘Apart, maybe from that big pond!’
By this diminutive did Oxy refer to the mighty Lake Pontchartrain, between which and the meandering Mississippi to the south of the city, was wedged New Orleans. The Pontchartrain held some strange fascination for Oxy. A song he had once learned about it.
‘I always wanted to see it after that song,’ he said wistfully to Patrick, and began to sing in a beautiful clear voice.
‘’Twas on one bright March morning,
I bid New Orleans adieu,
And I took the road to Jackson town …
‘… All strangers there, no friends to me,
Till a dark girl towards me came,
And I fell in love with a Creole girl,
By the lakes of Pontchartrain.
‘… The hair upon her shoulders
In jet black ringlets fell;
To try and paint her beauty,
I’m sure ’twould be in vain …
‘… I asked her if she’d marry me,
She said it could never be,
For she had got another,
And he was far at sea …
‘So fare thee well my Creole girl,
I never will see you no more,
But I’ll ne’er forget your kindness,
In the cottage by the shore;
‘… And at each social gathering,
A flowing glass I’ll raise,
And I’ll drink a health to my Creole girl,
And the lakes of Pontchartrain.’
Patrick listened spellbound, as Oxy, his head lifted to a place above the endless waters, sang of them, to them, in the sweetest of voices. He had never before heard his friend sing. Oxy must have waited for years to get to this place. Somehow fascinated by the love story of the Creole girl that he had heard back in Ireland. How strange now to have realised his dream, sang at its shores.
‘Was it that – the song,’ he asked Oxy, ‘made you want to come here?’
‘It was,’ Oxy replied. ‘The song … and other things.’ He left it there, giving Patrick one of his enigmatic smiles, of which there was no further question to be asked.
Prior to Patrick’s departure Lavelle had gifted him a sum of money. Although it could hardly be called a handsome sum, this, when added to his greengrocer’s money, was nevertheless more than sufficient for Patrick’s needs, and he had been able to put some by.
Oxy Moran, on the other hand, had that kind of aunt who doted on her nephew and had the wherewithal to indulge her dotage. When Oxy had informed her that he was going South, she had immediately taken him to the First Bank of Boston and showered him with a largesse of funds so that he could be ‘a gentleman while on your travels’ … also warning him to ‘be careful of thieves and vagabonds in that southern land!’
The further South they had travelled, the more they both had become aware of the brewing restlessness. And the sometimes distinct lack of southern hospitality that greeted them. Until they identified themselves as Irish, not ‘Yankee’!
They had been in New Orleans only a month when, to Patrick’s great surprise, he espied the tall figure of Stephen Joyce.
Sartorially elegant, Stephen Joyce was not to be mistaken, either here or anywhere. He was a man who would always stand out, Patrick knew. Tall and angular, sinewed like whipped cord, the man’s dark hair swept back from his face to the nape of his neck, a wayward strand or two drooping over the intent forehead. Eyes black as opals – centred with the stone’s same burning zeal. But it was not the man’s physicality alone that marked him for easy recognition by Patrick. It was more the air of languid arrogance with which Stephen Joyce joined in conspiratorial-type conversation with his two equally intent companions.
‘Mr Joyce!’
The other men broke away at the sound of the interloper.
Unperturbed, Stephen Joyce turned. ‘Patrick! Patrick O’Malley!’ he exclaimed, the slightly gaunt face coming alive with recognition, Patrick’s eyes being drawn to the dark spot – the macula – under the man’s left eye.
‘Let me look at you! My, how you’ve grown – you still have your father’s dark head but your mother’s fair cheek. How is she … and my friend Lavelle?’ he asked animatedly.
Patrick hesitated. ‘My mother has disappeared … Lavelle still searches for her!’
‘But …?’ The granite black eyes seemed perplexed. ‘When … why?’
Patrick explained the calendar of misfortune that had beset them since they had last seen Mr Joyce.
‘It wasn’t the first time,’ Patrick added.
‘But she had no choice the first time, Patrick, you know that,’ Stephen Joyce replied. ‘Either she went or you all would starve. Think what fortitude that demanded of her?’
‘She had a choice now,’ Patrick retorted.
The older man placed a sympathetic hand to his shoulder. ‘I am so sorry to hear of this turn of events and more so of your disaffection. Your mother is a remarkable woman and has suffered much.’
Of his own part in all of the foregoing ‘turn of events’, Stephen Joyce was careful to reveal nothing.