A Girl Called Rosie (9 page)

‘Cooking my porridge. I lit fires in the ruins, in among the fallen timber. That way the smoke could have been accidental. There were plenty of bits of broken glass around to get one going. It was hard work climbing in there and the burnt timbers rubbed off on me. I’m not going back for my saucepan and spoon,’ he declared, as he slipped an arm around her and led her towards the door.

Rosie noticed how uneasy her grandfather looked as they came across the cobbles to the motor, but he greeted Patrick warmly and nodded enthusiastically when he saw the transformation in his appearance.

Her grandmother opened her handbag and laughed when she saw his eyes light up.

‘There’s not time to make tea,’ she said, ‘but you can eat as we go. We’ve worked out a plan to put to you, but you must decide if it’s any good.’

Patrick nodded, his mouth full of marmalade sandwich.

‘The obvious way to go to Dublin from Waterville is by train from Kenmare,’ John began. ‘There’s two things against it. One, that your men might be about the place. Two, that that’s what they’ll be expecting you to do.’

Patrick nodded again.

‘So we thought we’d take you to Tralee and put you on a train for Galway. Then from Galway, where no one knows you, you should be safe enough getting across to Dublin tonight or tomorrow morning.’

Rosie saw the flicker of unease in his eyes, but so had her grandmother.

‘I’m sure you haven’t any money left by now, Patrick,’ she said, ‘but John here always carries more than we ever need. You can pay him back one day if you want to. Treat it as a long, long loan.’

‘That’s very generous of you, sir,’ he said, looking up at John. ‘To be honest, I didn’t have any money in the first place, Mrs Hamilton,’ he added, smiling at her. ‘When my father died, his pension was so
small my mother had to give up the Dublin house and come and live with her sister down here. That’s why Thomas joined up in Waterville. I was only able to stay on at college because I got a job evening and weekends in a pub and my uncle and aunt let me stay with them for free. I was looking for work when I came home, but then the O’Connor’s got let out and I had to run for it.’

‘So how about Tralee?’ John asked, aware that time was moving on. ‘What do you think?’

‘You’re quite right, Mr Hamilton. However many IRA men are back home in Tralee, they don’t actually know me to see. And they may have their minds fixed on other things like trying to find work. There’s not much about. I thought it was bad in Dublin but its much worse here.’

‘Right, Patrick. That’s agreed then. Come and sit in front with me and let the ladies sit behind,’ said John briskly, helping Rose down from her seat. ‘That’s the way all these visitors drive around. Two by two. If we have to stop for any reason, pretend you’re Rosie’s brother.’

Rosie looked around as he turned the motor in the cobbled yard. This was the place where it all began, she thought. Over there was where her grandfather once sat with the other grooms, waiting for her grandmother to come back from work. Then they walked out together along the lakeshore.

Up there, where Granny had lived with her mother, she had met Patrick. They had not walked out, but they had talked and he had kissed her. Twice. As the motor moved slowly past the ruins of Currane Lodge, she fingered the pocket of her skirt where she’d thrust the small, leather-covered volume he’d given her. She longed to see what it was and if he’d written anything in it for her.

They slowed right down at the end of the drive. Cautiously, the motor edged forward on to the road. Her grandfather looked both ways to see if there was anyone in sight, but there was no one. Apart from the song of a skylark and the soft murmur of a light breeze from the lake, not a single sound broke the empty silence of the road.

‘That’s good news, Patrick,’ she heard her grandfather say.

Once safely on the road, to her great surprise, he put his foot down and drove faster than she’d ever seen him drive during all their time in Kerry. Despite the roughness of the road, the motor he had longed to drive, responded beautifully. In a very short time Lough Currane was left far behind.

Driving back to Waterville by the coast road, alone in the back seat of the motor, as Patrick’s train carried him away in the opposite direction, Rosie could not make up her mind whether she was happy or sad.

It had been such an extraordinary day so far, so full of confusing and contrary feelings. There’d been real anxiety when they’d set off from Currane Lodge, but once they left the lakeside road and climbed steadily higher on the long pass between the mountains, it felt as if good fortune were smiling on their journey as brightly as the July sun.

As they headed north and east through green, empty country, not only did nothing overtake them, but they met hardly anything at all, not even a turf cart. Miles passed and wide vistas of valley and mountain unfolded before them, rich and luxurious as the sun rose higher. Still nothing came up behind them and the anxiety of the morning quietly faded away.

After the first hour her grandfather was happy enough to stop, convinced by now that there could
be no pursuit from the direction of Waterville. They paused often. Each time they drew in to view the newest prospect or let the engine cool on the steepest gradients, Patrick was there at her side.

His jacket now discarded in the bright sunshine, she could feel the warmth of his body through his thin shirt as he stood close beside her, sharing the road map, pointing out to her places he’d heard of from his grandfather for whom these mountains, the Magillycuddy’s Reeks, had been home, until he’d got his first job as a groom in Waterville a few years before Sir Capel took him on at Currane Lodge.

In a small curved area where road stone had been quarried from a convenient outcrop, they’d drawn off the road and spread their picnic on a broad, flat rock. Surrounded by wildflowers and shadowed from the heat of the noonday sun by the bare cliff behind them, they’d eaten together, talking and laughing.

After the meal, while her grandparents read and rested in the comfortable back seats of the motor, she and Patrick explored the nearby rock faces and the sheltered crevices, home to a whole variety of small plants. Neither of them knew the names of the flowers they found, but he’d helped her to find the freshest of the blooms and together they’d arranged them carefully and pressed them between the clean pages at the back of her sketch pad.

Only when they arrived in Tralee and made their way through the unfamiliar streets to the railway station did some of the old tension return, but even that soon disappeared. The station was crowded, full of visitors. Some of them were English, some American tourists, easily distinguishable by their clothes and accents, but most were family parties from Cork, or Galway, or Dublin. No one gave them a second glance as they threaded their way on to the platform together, one more family going to welcome friends or setting off to visit relations at the height of the summer season.

Quite without planning it, they’d arrived only moments before the scheduled departure of a train that would take Patrick well away from Kerry. He bought his ticket and began to say thank you to her grandparents as the train itself steamed in.

There were only minutes left as he shook hands vigorously with her grandfather and said something to him she didn’t catch. Then her grandmother moved forward, hugged him and wished him well.

Encircled by a family party already pushing past them from the open carriage doors, he turned towards her. Their eyes had met and she found herself overcome with shyness.

He’d hesitated for a moment only and then, taking her by the shoulders, he’d kissed her vigorously on both cheeks.

‘Take great care of yourself, sister dear, till I see you again,’ he said with a broad grin.

They had laughed as he climbed in, stepping carefully around a small boy who refused to move away from his vantage point at the window.

He waved and disappeared into the crowded carriage as the train began to move out of the station. They watched it disappear in a cloud of steam and smoke knowing he could not look back at them or wave. All she could think of was whether he felt it safe enough now to remove his headgear and reveal his capping of shining red hair.

Now the sun was going down in an orange glow in the shimmering waters of Dingle Bay and the shadows were lengthening across the road ahead. She wondered where the same evening sun would find Patrick and what different prospect he might be viewing from the windows of a train steaming east across the map of Ireland. She was painfully aware the miles between them increased as each minute passed. Not only had no one ever left her before, but she had no idea if she would ever see Patrick again.

Saddened by the thought of their hasty and confused parting, another thought as sad came in on top of it. She caught her breath and stared indifferently at the lively activity filling the large central square in Cahirciveen.

In three more days their holiday would be over.
There would be no more drives, no more magnificent prospects of mountain and sea, no more walks on the beach or long talks with her grandmother in the hotel garden. She would be going home, home to Ulster. To the Six Counties, as people here in the south now called it. First to Banbridge to spend a night at Rathdrum, then home to the farm by Richhill Station.

Tears sprang to her eyes. She fumbled in the pocket of her skirt for a handkerchief. It was only when she’d wiped her eyes and was putting her handkerchief back in her pocket that she touched the slim, leather-bound book Patrick had given her only that morning.

With a great sigh of relief, she took out the book and held it firmly in her hand. Here was a token, some tangible evidence of what had been between them, however brief the time and whatever it might mean. Even after so few hours, it seemed as if Currane Lodge and her meeting with Patrick was slipping away from her as fast as the miles between Tralee and Waterville.

She examined the small volume closely, a
well-thumbed
copy of Shakespeare’s sonnets, the pages brown and brittle and spotted with age. On the title page, the name of some former owner had faded from black to misty grey. Inside the back cover, a very modest price had been scribbled in pencil.
A single leaf from a notebook, folded double and identical to the one she had found on the floor of Patrick’s hiding place, served as a book mark.

She read the familiar sonnet and smiled, then read it again. She leant her head back against her seat. Had he simply left the folded sheet to mark the place where he’d been reading, or was it placed there deliberately, to send her a message? She’d so like it to be meant for her, something that reached across the growing miles. Something to cherish. But she couldn’t be sure. Like Patrick’s kisses, she was sure they were sincerely meant at the time, but something told her that Patrick’s gestures might come and go very easily.

She opened the book again. Inside the front cover, was a freshly written message, slightly smudged, with a generous scrawled signature at the end. She was sure it began ‘To Rose’, but that was as far as she could go for Patrick had written his message in Irish.

Next morning over breakfast, they began to discuss what they might do in the precious few days that remained. Although he seemed tired after the long drive to Tralee, her grandfather was in the best of spirits. He said what he wanted was to make the best of the greatest motor he had ever driven.

Her grandmother smiled to herself, not at all surprised that all he wanted to do was drive. She confessed what she wanted was to see the mountains, from any angle, even from a seat in the hotel garden. She’d lived with the remembrance of these mountains, she said, for almost half a century, and she wanted to make sure they’d be with her for the rest of her life.

When they turned to Rosie and asked her what she’d most like to do, she made them laugh, because she suggested they just opened John’s guide book at random because there was nowhere she’d been so far she hadn’t loved.

In the end, they did two drives. They went west to Valentia Island, took the ferry to the island itself and saw the place from which the very first telegraph message had been sent across the Atlantic. The next day they went east to see the lakes at Killarney, for her grandmother said that no one could come to Kerry and not go to see them.

The time passed even more quickly than Rosie had expected. Sitting at breakfast on the very last morning she felt unspeakably sad. It needed a real effort to eat the tasty breakfast which Bridget had just served.

Looking down at her plate, she knew there’d be no bacon and eggs for breakfast when she got home. Nor smoked salmon kedgeree. Probably not even a
second cup of tea, unless she was quick enough. She couldn’t imagine that ever again anyone would ask if there was anything she’d like, or anything they could do for her.

The previous evening, after dinner, Bridget had knocked on her bedroom door.

‘I’ve come to do your packing, miss,’ she said politely.

‘Oh Bridget, come in. I’ve done it. It only took me a minute, but I’m so glad to see you. Come and sit down.’

‘I’m awful sorry yer goin’ miss,’ Bridget said bluntly, as she followed her to the window seat that looked out over the garden.

‘And I’m awfully sorry to be going,’ she replied honestly, as they sat down facing each other.

‘Maybe ye’ll come again next year, miss. Yer granda and granny enjoyed themselves, diden they?’

‘Oh yes, they did. We
all
did. But it was a special holiday for them. They’ve wanted to come for a long, long time, but something always came to stop them. For a very long time they couldn’t even afford the train fare. Then, when they could, there was family and work. They had it all planned in 1914 when the war broke out and then there were all the troubles that came after. Some people thought they shouldn’t even have come this year with all the bad feeling there’s been over the Boundary Commission
but Granny said they weren’t getting any younger. So they came. But I don’t think they would come again.’

‘But
you
could come, miss.’

‘Bridget dear, you mustn’t call me
miss
. There’s no one to hear you now and I’m not a guest any more. I’m just a girl like you, though I’ve turned sixteen now and you’re probably younger.’

‘I’m fifteen an’ this is m’ first job since I left school. An’ I only started last week the day you’s came, miss.’

She paused as Rosie smiled and shook her head.

‘Rosie,’ Bridget corrected herself, with a shy smile. ‘It’s a nice name, it suits you, miss. I mean, Rosie.’

She laughed at herself and then looked at Rosie cautiously.

‘What’ll ye do Rosie, when ye go home? D’ye live with Granny and Granda?’

‘No, I wish I did,’ she admitted. ‘I live on a farm about fifteen miles away and I don’t see them very often. I’ve eight brothers and sisters and I’ve been trying to find a job. No luck so far.’

‘I’m saving to go to America,’ said Bridget suddenly. ‘And your granda was very good to me. He gave me a wee envelope with money. Paper money,’ she added, her eyes wide. ‘If there were a few more like him I could go next year.’

She paused and hesitated. Then it all came out with a rush.

‘Maybe we’ll meet in America,’ she said brightening, her dark eyes flashing into life. ‘Irish people always meet each other over there. There’s so many clubs and societies, ye’d never be afraid of being lonely. That’s what my sister says. She went last year.’

‘My sister Emily is hoping to go too.’

‘Sure, you could come as well. Sure what’s to keep you here if you haven’t a job and don’t live with your nice granny and granda?’ She paused and added shyly, ‘Though I know you wouden want to leave them.’

‘That’s true. I’m so lucky to have them.’

‘Aye, an’ they’re lucky to have you,’ Bridget replied, as she stood up. ‘Sure don’t old people need young people to keep the life in them and to stop them thinkin’ long.’

Rosie looked up at her and smiled, watched as she straightened her apron and her cap with a practised twitch, a skinny, vulnerable figure.

‘If I don’t go now, someone ’ill be lookin’ for me,’ she said quickly, though she still made no move to go.

‘Yes, I suppose you must. A pity we couldn’t go out for a walk on my last evening.’

Bridget hesitated, as if she had something more to say, but felt to shy to say it.

‘Rosie, would you write to me?’ she managed at last, blurting out the words as she put her hand on the well-polished door knob.

‘Yes, of course I will, if you want me to.’ She got up and followed her to the door. ‘Maybe not very often if I’m living at home, but I
will
write.’

‘That would be great, really great,’ Bridget replied, holding out her hand and giving Rosie a great beaming smile. ‘And then we can plan where to meet if we’re both goin’ to America.’

‘Two messages for you, Mr Hamilton,’ said Bridget, approaching their table quickly as they finished breakfast. ‘The young man from Tralee is here.’

For one startling, heart-stopping moment all Rosie could think of was Patrick. But that was silly. Patrick had
left
from Tralee. The last thing he would be doing was coming back to Waterville.

‘Ah, thank you, Bridget,’ John said, folding his
Irish Times
and looking at his watch. ‘He’s a good bit early, but the cases are all ready and I settled up last night. Would you tell him we’ll be with him shortly.’

‘He’s in no hurry, Mr Hamilton,’ she replied, giving him a big grin. ‘The housekeeper is his mother’s cousin. She has him sat down with bacon and egg.’

Leaving them all laughing, she had just hurried away when she stopped, put her hand to her mouth and came back again.

‘I’m sorry, sir, there’s another message,’ she apologised, putting her hand to her apron pocket
and taking out a badly crumpled piece of paper. ‘It came last night late and there was only the night porter on reception. It’s not very clear and Jimmy’s a desperit bad han’ with a pen.’

‘It says,’ she began, peering at it crossly, ‘Mr Hamilton’s cat safe. Dublin … something … something … will send to North.’