1949 (35 page)

Barry loved the train. While Ursula read the newspapers, he alternated between babbling nonsensically to the other passengers and gazing out the window with rapt fascination.

One of Lucy's hired men met them at the railway station with a wagonette drawn by a roan mare. A cushion on the driver's seat indicated that this had been Lucy Halloran's personal transport as well as an all-purpose farm vehicle. The roan mare had a sway back and was seriously over at the knees.

“
Oorse
,” Barry said when he saw her.

Gerry Ryan was a stubby, low-built man in his late forties, with a face, Ursula thought to herself, like a traffic accident. His weather-beaten complexion was blotched and mottled. His eyes were set at differing heights, half of his teeth were missing, and his huge nose sprawled across his face without any sense of discipline.

Lucy had hired Gerry and his brother George when she took ownership of the farm, and complained about them ever since. But never fired them.

On the station platform man and boy scrutinized one another. Barry with his head cocked to one side, Gerry unself-consciously scratching himself.

“
Oogy
,” Barry decided.

“Short,” Gerry retorted. Turning to Ursula he said, “This yours, is it?”

“He is mine.”

“Call everybody ugly, does he?”

“It's a new word for him. He started to talk early.”

“Didn't lick it off the ground though, did he?”

The exchange constituted Gerry Ryan's sole commentary on Barry. No questions were asked about the child's father or Ursula's marital situation. Gerry Ryan was a man who minded his own business.

The farm looked as Ursula remembered; as she had dreamed during lonely nights in Geneva. The contours of the forty-seven acres, the beloved land, were as familiar as the palms of her hands. But as they drove up the long, deeply rutted lane toward the house, she noticed that the walls on either side had gaps like broken teeth. In the fields beyond, bits of abandoned farm equipment lay rusting.

“Are we making any money at all, Gerry?”

“Just about hanging on.”

“What crops are we growing?”

The hired man slanted a look in Ursula's direction. He was not accustomed to a woman taking interest in the details of agriculture. “Barley,” he said, “and a few turnips. Ain't had a good barley crop for several years, though. We're too far away from the big buyers like Guinness and Murphys anyway. And turnips has got so watery it's hardly worth takin' 'em to market.”

“Did the government include this farm in the compulsory tillage scheme?”

“Thought they would, but they didn't.”

“Then what about livestock? Cows and pigs make money.”

“Your aunt got rid of the livestock. She thought it was too much trouble.”

She thought one old horse was too much trouble
. “Are you the one who buried my horse, Gerry?”

He nodded. “Me and George.”

“Was he…did he…”

“I don't think he suffered none,” Ryan said gently.

 

At the end of the lane the farmhouse came into view.
My house
, Ursula told herself. Still not quite believing. A small cottage built of local stone in an earlier century, the house had been added to and modified as the Halloran family prospered. It now stood two storeys high, with a steeply pitched slate roof bracketed by brick chimneys and a porch to shelter the rarely used front door.

Behind the house was the barn.
Saoirse's barn
.

“Could you show me where my horse is buried, Gerry?”

“Whenever you say.”

Ryan drove the wagonette around to the farmyard. He handed Ursula the reins while he stepped down and opened the gate. A broad, sturdy gate made of thick iron pipes.

“Is that new?” Ursula asked.

“Your aunt bought it in the summer of '38. Old one fell apart completely, couldn't even patch it no more.”

The heavy gate swung open with surprising ease. Ursula flapped the reins and drove the roan mare through.

“Your aunt had them special hinges installed,” Ryan remarked as he closed the gate behind them. “That's what got her killed. She went to get the wagonette to drive into town, and a high wind slammed the gate against her and crushed her chest.”

 

How strange the house was, unoccupied! Silent. Dusty. The remit of the hired men did not extend to housecleaning.

Carrying Barry, Ursula wandered from room to room, soaking up memories. Inevitably she wound up in the kitchen. She sat the toddler on the floor and glared at the big black iron range. One challenge she did not relish.

Barry pulled himself to his feet by hanging on to the leg of the big old table. He threw his mother a triumphant grin. “ '
Tand!
” he announced.

“I see you standing.” Ursula started to add, “Be careful,” then decided against it.

With the choice of all the bedrooms, Ursula took her old one for herself and Barry. When he was bigger she would move him into Ned's room, she decided. Unless Ned came home.

If Ned ever comes home
.

Once they were settled Ursula sent Gerry into town to buy the necessary supplies. Accompanied by his younger brother George, she began a systematic reconnoitre of the farm, field by field, building by building.

In the woodshed she found a neglected cider press bound to its base by a network of cobwebs. When she lifted the lid she caught a whiff of the faint, sharp sweetness of a long-ago autumn.

“George, were there many apples last year?”

George, who was as tall and gangling as his brother was short and squat, but no more handsome, shook his head. “Didn't bother to pick 'em.”

“But they could have been sold in the market!”

“Trees're too old, apples is small and wormy.”

“All those trees need is care,” Ursula replied, exasperated.

“Your aunt didn't tell us to do nothin' for 'em.”

His words gave Ursula a clear picture of Lucy Halloran in recent years. An aging, sour spinster, increasingly self-absorbed. Without supervision her hired men did no more than they had to do.

Things will be different from now on
.

Saw in hand, Ursula scrambled up into one of the neglected apple trees in the orchard.

George was alarmed. “What're you doing? You'll break your neck!”

“I'm going to prune these trees.”

“Well get down and give me the saw. I'll do it.”

“There's another saw in the barn,” Ursula told him.

They worked in the orchard until dark.

The following morning, though her damaged thigh muscles were stiff and sore, Ursula loaded a wheelbarrow with well-rotted manure from the floor of the barn and spread it around the base of the apple trees. They would not produce much of a crop this autumn, but by next year the cider press could go back into service.

 

With the fall of France, the government of Éire had taken alarm. An official state of emergency was declared. Since the end of the Civil War the regular army had been largely stood down. Now the troops were called back and the force enlarged as rapidly as possible. Leading politicians of every persuasion urged the nation's men to prepare to defend their country if an invasion came.

Within twenty-four hours, teachers and students and laborers and professional men and shop owners and businessmen were joining the Emergency Army in their thousands.
¹
The new recruits were known as “Emergency Men,” or “Durationists.”

Agricultural workers were deemed an essential part of the nation's wartime economy. Although not actively encouraged to enlist in the regular army, they were urged to volunteer for the newly established local defense force. George and Gerry Ryan dutifully signed up. They were issued green uniforms, outdated rifles of dubious reliability, and given a drill schedule. No matter what else was happening at the farm, Ursula saw to it that they never missed attending drill. “Always be ready to fight for Ireland,” she told the brothers sternly. “And that's an order from me.”

She was hugely proud of them.

She did not let herself think about how lonely she was. No one came to call. As far as Catholic Ireland was concerned, Ursula had done the unforgivable. She had borne a child while unmarried and dared to keep the baby. Her soul was damned.

The only friends she had now were those from the past.

Ursula began writing letters to give her new address to correspondents around the world. Felicity Rowe-Howell was the first to reply. “Congratulate me; I've joined the working classes. I'm now a factory worker at Cricklewood, helping to build a quite splendid bomber called a Halifax. When the shift is over we girls, still in our dungarees, jump on the underground and get off at Green Park. Within a few minutes we're in the Ritz Bar, being toasted by servicemen. This is the life, Ursula! Whatever did we do for excitement before the war?”

A few days later Madame Dosterschill popped unbidden into Ursula's thoughts. The gentle German language teacher with the twinkling eyes. What was happening to her in all of this?

Ursula wrote to Surval, hoping someone there would at least know where Madame was.

She never received a reply.

She never heard from either of the Florentine twins again, either.

 

Mussolini's decision to enter the war had dismayed many Italians, who traditionally regarded Britain as a friend. It also had the effect of virtually cutting off Geneva from the rest of the world.

“I still have not received your letter of recommendation from Seán,” Elsie Lester wrote, “but am thankful that you no longer need it. Enjoy the farm, and please give Barry a big hug for me.”

 

The Ryan brothers had buried Saoirse in the field beside the laneway, where he had spent the last years of his life. Only one tree stood in the field, an ancient thorn tree that had sunk its roots deep into a strange low mound. At the foot of the mound was Saoirse's grave. One of the brothers had marked it with a slab of limestone.

Ursula rarely visited the cemetery on the hill where generations of Hallorans were buried. But she often visited Saoirse's grave.

 

Knowing that experience was the best teacher, Ursula visited the markets to talk to veteran farmers. At first they were surprised that a young woman was showing any interest in agricultural matters, but she smiled and listened and smiled more, and eventually they warmed to her.

She was repeatedly told that the climate was colder and wetter than it used to be. Only one man disagreed. “Our climate is wonderful,” he insisted. “Sure 'tis only the weather that spoils it.”

The weather did seem to be causing exceptional difficulties for tillage farmers. The Halloran farm was not alone; throughout Clare yields had dropped drastically. Livestock, the old-timers claimed, could cope better. Damp, cold soil and a short summer season did not matter as much to them. In Ireland grass grew no matter what. Income per acre was lower with livestock farming than with tillage, but costs were lower too. There was no need to hire extra help at harvest time.

Ursula listened and learned.

“We're out of the barley business,” she informed the Ryan brothers. “We're going to buy dairy cows.”

George said, “Why not sheep? They don't need as much tending.”

“They won't make as much money, either. There's a war on and there's talk of rationing. The prices for milk and butter are bound to go up.”

“You know anything about dairy farming?” Gerry asked.

“I know how to
learn
,” Ursula told him. “And I hope you do too.”

As Ursula walked away the brothers exchanged glances. “What d'ye think?” George asked Gerry.

“Won't do no harm,” the other replied.

 

In Europe Ursula had seen prosperous farms occupying land that appeared to be no more suitable than the wettest or stoniest holdings in Clare. Yet every acre was profitably put to work.

If they can do it, we can do it
.

Once she had taken the farm for granted, but those days were well and truly gone. “Hard graft, that's what's needed now,” she told Barry.

“
Grft
,” the little boy agreed. He was beginning to walk independently, toddling along behind his mother wherever she went. He did not want to be carried and did not even want his hand held.

 

Although publicly de Valera was unwavering in his commitment to Irish neutrality, on his instructions the Irish government quietly began supplying the British with intelligence information.
²
Finbar Cassidy helped collate the material. Sometimes he stopped in the midst of his work and thought of Ursula.

Thanks to his job in External Affairs, he knew she had joined Lester's staff at the League of Nations. He had heard nothing of her since. Once or twice he had started to write to her in Geneva, then decided against it. Finbar was not at his most persuasive in writing. Better to wait until she returned to Ireland.

Finbar knew how to be patient.

While he waited he lit candles for Ursula at Mass and prayed daily for her safety.

 

De Valera's determination to make Ireland self-sufficient meant new government agencies were being created to help the farmers. Ursula ordered every pamphlet available and attended every lecture in the Grange. She made a thorough study of those crops that were doing well in Clare; she toured local farms to see how the more successful farmers raised and fed—and culled, when necessary—their dairy herds.

Ursula did everything she asked her hired men to do except the culling. She could not kill an animal.

The work was unremitting but she thrived on it. What one did to a farm
showed
.

Ursula eagerly awaited the arrival of mail though she had no time to read it until the end of the day, when everyone else was in bed. Letters from abroad were very slow in coming. Many of her friends in Europe never responded to her change of address and request for news from their part of the world.