Heartstones (33 page)

Theo picked one up and squinted at it in the murky light.

‘My God, it can’t really be!’

‘Really be what, Daddy?’ asked Honey.

‘Really be a bloody William Flynn.’

Phoebe peered over his shoulder, vaguely making out a little tossing boat almost suspended against a wall of towering waves. She felt her stomach twist in excitement. Actually to see one: the powerful brush strokes, the thick layers of oil paint, almost three-dimensional in places. No picture in a book could have prepared her for the sheer energy that seemed to exude from the painting’s surface.

Theo picked up another one. ‘Look, it’s the black rock, you can tell, and behind it there’re the mountains, and just look at that sea crashing on the beach, it looks like it’s almost moving.’

‘That’s Grandma’s favourite,’ said Honey, pointing at the next one: a tiny cottage perched precariously on the edge of a cliff, a line of white washing flapping against a blackening sky.

There were eight in all. One by one they took them out of the hidden room to look at them in the sunlight of the flat.

Theo uttered a string of expletives as he examined each one in amazement.

‘Daddy, you shouldn’t swear so much,’ said Honey, who had grown bored and was busy eating from a box of cereal she’d found.

‘I can’t help it. You have no idea how bloody valuable these paintings must be.’

Theo brought out the last painting and placed it against the back of the armchair.

‘That’s my favourite!’ cried Honey through a mouthful of crunchy-nut cornflakes.

Phoebe had been studying a painting of a tanker on a heaving horizon. She looked up and glanced at the picture on the armchair.

‘Oh!’ she let out a gasp. It was Anna in her scarlet coat, Razzle at her feet, both of then gazing out across a tempestuous sea. It was the painting of the sketch he’d done. Phoebe stared at it. That stormy day had been at the beginning of their journey together. So much had happened because a lonely girl and a painter had found each other on a windswept Irish beach. Sixty years of repercussions; layer upon layer of secrets had been laid down just as William Michael Flynn had layered his oil paints.

Phoebe picked the painting up and held it at arm’s length, admiring it, grinning at it, feeling her heart begin to beat harder at the excitement of what they’d found.

‘What’s that?’ Honey was pulling something from the back of the canvas. ‘It looks like a letter but it’s got a funny pattern round the edge. Someone’s sellotaped it to the painting.’

‘Careful!’ cried Phoebe, but already there was a ripping sound and Honey held two pieces of an envelope in her hands. Phoebe could see it was an airmail envelope. She took the pieces from Honey and held them back together again. It was addressed to Anna in a scrawling hand that looked vaguely familiar. She examined the brightly coloured postage stamp: U.S.A., the postmark 1995.

‘I can’t understand how all these paintings got here?’ Theo shook his head in disbelief.

‘It’s a long story,’ Phoebe said slipping the two halves of the envelope into her pocket. Theo looked at her quizzically.

‘You know?’

Phoebe nodded. ‘Though now it’s an even longer story than I thought, and I still don’t think I know the ending.’

‘Uh oh,’ Honey was looking outside the window. ‘Looks like the Guards and the television people have arrived.’

‘I think your revelations will have to wait, Phoebe,’ said Theo. ‘Honey, it’s time to do some explaining yourself.’

Chapter Thirty-one

The sea was as calm as the warm evening air, reflecting the sunset like a mirror; in the distance the mountains looked purple against the blush pink sky.

‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ said Phoebe leaning against the battlements. ‘I could look at the view from up here for ever.’

Theo came and stood behind her; he lifted up her hair and very gently kissed her neck. ‘You can now,’ he turned her round to face him, his arms encircling her waist. ‘That was the developers on the phone, you’ve no idea how cross they were when I told them that the deal was off.’

‘You’ve done the right thing for Honey, you know.’

‘What about for us?’

Phoebe smiled. ‘We’ll see.’

Theo started to roll up Phoebe’s sleeves. ‘You look rather nice in my old shirt.’

‘I had to put something on to come up here; I didn’t want the whole village talking about a naked women standing on your roof.’

Theo drew her towards him again. ‘I’ve just put one of Katrina’s chicken pies in the oven. You can stay for dinner, can’t you? Fibber and Katrina have offered to keep Honey for the night.’ He nuzzled into Phoebe’s neck. ‘I feel like I haven’t seen you properly since you came back.’

‘We’ve just spent the entire afternoon in bed.’

‘I mean to talk to,’ he kissed her. ‘We didn’t seem to do much of that this afternoon did we?’ Phoebe laughed. ‘It’s been so busy since everyone discovered Honey had been found: photographs for the papers, interviews, Rory’s party for the school children, Fibber’s endless celebrations and now there’s the special céilidh tomorrow night.’

‘Anyone would think Carraigmore had won the football again. Honey must feel like the Queen.’

Theo sighed, ‘She’s been embellishing her story so much that I think she actually believes she flew off on a dragon’s back and was locked up in that room by an evil goblin. I don’t know whether to get cross with her for telling lies or praise her for her imagination.’

‘There seems to be a great tradition of distorting the truth in this village.’

‘Especially in your family!’

‘My family?’ Phoebe disengaged herself from Theo’s arms and turned back to the view. ‘Oh yes, I keep forgetting that I’m part of Honey and the Flannigan’s family. It seems weird to think I’m not related to anyone from the Castle at all.’

‘Do you mind?’

‘Not really, at least I have some actual relatives now. Nola’s a bit disappointed; she’s always been very proud her aristocratic lineage, she loved to lord it over Steve whenever he was getting on her nerves.’

Theo handed Phoebe a glass of wine. ‘I thought you might like an aperitif before dinner.’

Phoebe thanked him and raised her glass. ‘To the Castle.’

Theo picked up his cup of coffee. ‘To us.’ He leant back against the battlements, cradling the coffee mug between his hands. ‘So, did you discover how your father came to be brought up by Anna and Gordon Brennan in the end? Katrina said Mrs Flannigan wouldn’t settle until she’d told you and Nola the whole story.’

Phoebe nodded and took a sip of wine from her glass. ‘It seems that poor Della didn’t even realise she was pregnant until it was pointed out to her mother by the parish priest. In a matter of days they had her bundled off to some awful home for unmarried mothers run by nuns,’ Phoebe shook her head. ‘I can’t even begin to tell you some of the appalling things Mrs Flannigan said had happened to her in there.’

Theo grimaced. ‘Poor Della, you hear such terrible stories. Did she run away?’

‘No, the day after she had given birth, she was just about to be forced to sign the baby over to a farming couple from the back of beyond when Anna appeared with papers from the priest, instructing the nuns to release Della and the baby. Mrs Flannigan said she found out later that Anna had forged the papers herself.’

‘Why wasn’t Anna in Africa? Where was her baby?’

‘Her baby had been stillborn. Afterwards she needed a hysterectomy, so Gordon sent her back to Ireland to have the operation in Dublin – safer than a Nigerian hospital. When she was strong enough she hired a car and came back to visit Carraigmore. She found that Della was missing and somehow she managed to get Mrs Smythe to tell her where Della was.’

‘So she rescued Della and took her baby in return?’

Phoebe nodded. ‘That just about sums it up. After a few days in a guest house in Kinsale she gave Della a lift back to Carraigmore and took my father back to Africa.’

‘Did Della tell her that Michael had come back, did she tell her the baby was his?’

‘No, she said she thought Anna would be so angry that she’d take her back to the nuns, so I don’t know if Anna ever knew the baby was Michael’s. Della never told her.’

Theo took a sip of coffee and frowned. ‘Even when Anna came back to Carraigmore all those years later? But Della must have seen her son and his family on the annual summer visit; surely that must have been hard for her, and what about when your parents and Anna died, why didn’t she tell anyone you and Nola were her granddaughters?’

‘She says she couldn’t tell anyone, she was terrified Maeve and Fibber would find out she’d had an illegitimate child and be horrified.’

‘Considering Maeve was seven months pregnant when we got married, I don’t think she would have cared.’

‘Was she?’ Phoebe looked surprised.

Theo turned Phoebe round to face him, ‘I think you’ve got the wrong impression about Maeve. She wasn’t the perfect wife you seem to imagine she was; she had a tongue as sharp as her mother’s and was as stubborn as that old bugger Fibber Flannigan Senior, over in Roscommon. She was beautiful and full of fun and energy, but she not at all easy to live with.’

Phoebe looked at him archly. ‘And you were, I suppose?’

Theo gave a short laugh. ‘No, I know I wasn’t the perfect husband either but together we weren’t a good combination. Maeve and I fought like cat and dog over everything. When we lived in our tiny house in Dublin poor Honey would have to lie in bed at night and listen to us. I know she could hear because Katrina used to complain that she could hear us from next door. We were on the verge of splitting up when my father died. Inheriting the Castle seemed a chance for us to give our marriage another go.’ Theo paused and drew his hand across his face. ‘Though it soon became pretty clear that the Castle was only going to drive us further apart; Maeve had so many grand plans, I just wanted to make pots. She was all for taking out big loans to renovate the place. I thought we needed to be careful. Then Maeve got diagnosed with cancer and I became consumed with guilt, all that time we’d wasted arguing; suddenly I couldn’t bear to be without her. When she died I thought I would go mad, not just from grief but from remorse for something that we never actually had – a happy marriage.’

Phoebe touched his arm. ‘I’m sorry you weren’t happy together but, to be honest, I’m relieved to hear that I don’t have to live up to some impossibly saintly wife. I think the strain would drive me crazy.’ Theo took her hands in his.

‘Let me assure you, you don’t have to live up to anyone.’ He kissed her. ‘You are perfect just the way you are.’ His hand wandered underneath the shirt and he started to undo the buttons. ‘Surely no one will see us all the way up here.’ Phoebe smiled and closed her eyes.

‘Phoebee, Phoebee,’ someone was shouting from the driveway. Phoebe clasped the shirt together and looked over the battlements to see Rory standing far below, holding up his phone in his hand. ‘He’s texted back,’ she could just make out his voice. ‘He’s coming over on the Friday night ferry.’

‘Fantastic,’ Phoebe shouted and Rory turned around and sprinted back towards the gate, whooping as he ran.

‘What was all that about?’ asked Theo.

‘I think Welsh Owen has forgiven him.’

‘Who?’

‘His long-lost love.’

‘What about the paramedic?’

‘He succumbed to the charms of a junior doctor. Nola and I persuaded Rory to text Welsh Owen and tell him that
Jailhouse Rock
was just as good as
Blue Hawaii
.’

‘I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.’ Theo looked confused.

Phoebe reached up and kissed him. ‘It doesn’t matter; we’ve got far more important things to do than talk about Rory O’Brian’s love life.’

ONE YEAR LATER

Phoebe walked along beach, enjoying the sun on her face and the gentle breeze. As she neared the tide line the breeze turned into a wind that whipped up her curls and made goose-bumps on her arms. She had been carrying the red coat but now she put it on and wondered how much longer she would be able to do up the buttons. Poncho padded obediently at her heels, though every few minutes a gust of wind would ruffle his fur and send him racing back and forth across the sand.

Phoebe looked up towards the Castle, it was a relief to see it without its shroud of scaffolding at last. The new roof seemed to have taken ages, but now the house had been revealed in all its splendour: the stonework cleaned, the Virginia creeper cut back to frame the new windows, and the stained-glass dome repaired so that instead of filling the hallway with rainwater it filled it with a rainbow of sparkling light. Inside the builders were still working on the water-damaged walls and floors and they were doing a wonderful restoration job on the Georgian plaster-work ceilings. It wouldn’t be long before Nola would be moving into the apartment she’d had made on the second floor. Phoebe knew her sister was desperate to move out of the holiday cottage she and the children had been renting in the village. She seemed to spend most of her time picking out carpets and looking at curtain swatches and trying to persuade Amy and Ruben that Carraigmore was just as exciting a place to be a teenager in as Basingstoke. Phoebe smiled, Oliver had sent an email to Theo that morning; he was coming over yet again next month. Something was definitely going on between him and Nola; ever since they’d spent all night dancing at Phoebe and Theo’s wedding Nola used any excuse to bring up his name.

Phoebe could see two figures waving from the battlements, she knew it would be Honey and Boza; they seemed to have some sort of kite that they were trying to launch in the wind. Since Boza and his grandmother had arrived from Slovakia he and Honey were rarely to be found apart. Boza quickly picked up English and his Gaelic was as good as any local child. And he was now the star of the Carraigmore under-twelves football team, much to Fibber and Katrina’s delight.

Katrina’s mother, Rosa, had found it more difficult than her grandson to adjust to life in a new country; with a limited grasp of the language and an aversion to the sea, it had been hard for her to settle down in Carraigmore. But she had surprised everyone by getting on with Mrs Flannigan. Maybe because of her lack of English she didn’t seem to mind Mrs Flannigan’s cantankerous nature and, maybe because of Rosa’s smiley disposition and her vast array of floral aprons, Mrs Flannigan always seemed more cheerful in the Slovak woman’s company.

Rosa seemed to be enjoying working alongside her daughter in the pub kitchen, making wonderful cakes and soups and pies. Carraigmore had recently had a write-up in the
Irish Times – Top Twenty Places to Visit in County Kerry
. Fibber Flannigan’s was mentioned and Rosa’s Slovakian potato dumplings were recommended by the journalist, which brought an extra flush of happiness to Rosa’s plump pink cheeks.

The article had also brought the Castle Pottery its first coach-full of tourists – Kieran Kennedy’s Luxury Coach Tours had deposited thirty-five members of the Ohio Ladies Circle in front of the newly converted stable block. In seconds they were swarming everywhere, taking pictures, asking questions, and enthusing about everything, while Theo and Phoebe ran around trying to keep up with them.

A genuine Irish castle, how wonderful.

Is that tower really a thousand years old?

Isn’t that view just divine?

Don’t you just love the pottery?

What a charming gallery, are all the things in here really made by you?

Is it true there’s a connection with William Flynn?

I can’t make up my mind between the cute little jug or the vase.

Oh, I adore those blue and white bowls – I’ll take ten.

Since then Kieran Kennedy’s had made the Castle a regular stop on its Ring of Kerry route, and Phoebe and Theo began to think maybe they did have a viable business after all.

When she reached the black rock Phoebe stopped and leant against its sun-warmed surface. She was sheltered from the wind here, and she undid the buttons of the coat and looked out across the sea. A sailing boat slipped by in the distance. She vaguely wondered if she should produce more nautical designs but her mind soon wandered to more immediate concerns. She closed her eyes. Was this really the right time? So much was going to change; but then so much had changed already.

Phoebe still found it hard to believe that the paintings could have fetched so much. She and Nola had looked at each other in disbelief as the auctioneer at Bonham’s reeled off the figures. Heads kept nodding, new phone bidders kept coming in, museums bidding against collectors, a businessman from India, galleries in China and Japan; the excitement had been built up by numerous magazine and newspaper articles and even a feature on the evening news. Phoebe’s head had swum as she held on tightly to Nola’s hand. Hundreds of thousands of pounds, up and up. Phoebe had been shaking at the end, and when the head of a major national gallery shook her hand and congratulated her on one of the most significant finds in contemporary Irish art, Phoebe had had to excuse herself to get fresh air before she passed out at his feet.

‘Has the world gone mad, or is it me?’ asked Phoebe as she and Nola drank gin in a pub off Bond Street. ‘No one’s meant to have any money but there’s still enough around for paintings to sell for ridiculous amounts.’

Nola shrugged and took another gulp of gin. ‘Don’t tell me you’re complaining! Like everyone keeps telling us, the whereabouts of William Flynn’s early works have been a mystery for years. They were bound to have attracted a lot of attention.’

‘Michael knew where they were. It seems amazing that he just told Anna to keep them.’ Phoebe thought about the letter they’d found, taped to the picture of Anna and Razzle on the beach, it had been dated two months before Anna had died.

Dear Anna,

I was overjoyed to get your letter in the post this morning; I didn’t dare to believe that you’d reply. As I said in my first letter, when I saw your work in that book about Irish Pottery I simply couldn’t stop myself from picking up my pen – I only wish I’d known about the exhibition in Dublin, I think I was even visiting Ireland at that time.

I can imagine the boathouse it is as wonderful a place for a pottery as it was for a painting studio and I think your pots are beautiful, I wonder what your art mistress would think now!

I enjoyed hearing about your son and his family in England, and in answer to your question no, I never seemed to get round to having any children myself.

You mentioned that you still have some of my paintings. Please keep them. Hang them on your walls – remind yourself of all those happy days we spent together, long ago.

I will be coming to Ireland in June, I wonder, would you mind if I came to visit you?

Yours, William Michael Flynn.

‘I think they would have got back together.’

‘You’re always such a romantic, Phoebe. He was a famous artist, he probably had a string of young muses to entertain him.’ Nola drained her glass. ‘Do you really think he’d have wanted to rekindle an old flame?’

‘I think that was what Anna wanted to tell us when we picked her up from the airport. She was going to meet the man she’d always been in love with; they were going to be reunited at last. That was the surprise she told me she had for us.’ Nola stood up shaking her head, Phoebe persevered. ‘But he did come, didn’t he? Mrs Flannigan told me she saw him in Carraigmore after Anna died. And that painting he did of the beach, the one on the postcard – he must have done that then; and the figure walking on the sand in red – don’t you think that was meant to be Anna, Anna in the coat I sometimes wear?’

Nola rolled her eyes. ‘I don’t know Phoebe. It all sounds like some wild flight of your imagination. What I do know is that I need another G&T; you …?’ Phoebe nodded, and Nola disappeared to the bar.

Phoebe received her fourth text from Theo that morning.

Come home soon, the Castle feels too empty without you. XXX

X from Honey too.

‘I still think we should have sold the painting of the girl and her dog,’ said Nola as she sat back down with their drinks.

‘No,’ Phoebe had been adamant. ‘We mustn’t ever sell Anna. After all, we’d have nothing if it hadn’t been for her.’

Two million each, after the auctioneer’s fee and the taxes. Nola had had an immediate spending spree; new car, new clothes, a holiday with Ruben and Amy, a holiday on her own, a holiday with a man called Marcus she had met on her previous holiday, and another holiday to get over her and Marcus splitting up.

Phoebe knew immediately how she wanted to spend her money. It was all for the Castle. Even though it was no longer the ancestral legacy she’d once thought it was, it had become her home. She loved living there more than she ever could have imagined when she had been a little girl gazing through the locked gates.

The house ate up the money at a tremendous rate. Nola’s investment in the second floor apartment had been a help, but Phoebe and Theo were only too aware that they had to make the pottery work as a viable business if they were really going to be able to stay.

Phoebe suddenly had a huge desire to lie down on the sand. Still leaning against the rock she closed her eyes. Was it normal to feel so sleepy in the afternoons? She’d have to ask Nola or Katrina.

She opened her eyes and realised that she must have dozed off. The wind had died down; the sea looked like a gently undulating piece of satin, reminding Phoebe of the curtains Nola had just chosen for her bedroom. Phoebe looked up at the Castle and saw that Honey and Boza’s kite was high above the battlements now, tail fluttering like some magnificent medieval flag. She waved to the two children, but this time they were too engrossed in flying the kite. Suddenly she noticed a figure sitting on the slipway; a large woman dressed in purple. Phoebe put her hand up to shield the sun from her eyes and saw that it was Mrs Flannigan.

‘It’s not often I see you on the beach,’ Phoebe said as she reached her. ‘Are you out enjoying a walk in the sunshine?’

Mrs Flannigan crossed her arms, small breaths escaped through her mouth; she was evidently out of breath. ‘I wouldn’t say enjoying is quite the word, but my doctor says I must get more exercise so here I am getting it. I only meant to walk as far as the Castle, but I could see that red coat of Anna Brennan’s from the top of the lane so I knew well enough where to find you.’

Phoebe wondered if Mrs Flannigan minded her wearing the coat; did it bring back painful memories? Even though Mrs Flannigan was her grandmother, Phoebe still found herself rather uneasy in her company, and could never think of her as anything other than
Mrs Flannigan
. Even
Della
seemed consigned to the depths of another period of Mrs Flannigan’s life.

‘Were you looking for me especially?’ Phoebe asked. Mrs Flannigan nodded so that her long diamante earrings swung back and forth, sparkling in the sunlight. She was silent for a few minutes as she recovered from her exertions. Phoebe sat down beside her and wondered if Mrs Flannigan had brought her tablets with her – underneath her make-up her face looked very red.

The old woman began groping around in the pocket of her cardigan, tutting when all she seemed to pull out were tissues and empty sweet wrappers. Phoebe thought she was looking for her bottle of pills but instead she finally pulled out a folded square of paper and handed it to Phoebe. ‘I wanted to give it to you on the morning of your wedding, but there never seemed to be the time, and then I thought maybe it was all best left good and buried in the past. But lately I’ve been thinking that maybe you ought to see it after all.’

Phoebe looked at her quizzically. ‘What is it?’

‘Just read it,’ she said. ‘I think it might be of some interest.’

The yellowing paper crackled in Phoebe’s hands. It opened out into a long official-looking document. Mrs Flannigan watched her.

Registration of Births and Deaths. Form A
.

‘It looks like an old birth certificate.’

Mrs Flannigan grunted. ‘It is old, very old; in fact it’s as old as me.’

‘Is it your birth certificate?’ Mrs Flannigan nodded.

The certificate was filled out in spidery black ink and Phoebe had to strain her eyes to make out the tiny writing.

Date and place of birth: 8th March, 1934, Clontarf Nursing Home, Dublin.

Name: Adelaide Mary

Sex: Female

Name and Surname and Maiden Surname of Mother: Margaret Shaw. Formerly Hickey

Name and address of Father: Charles Shaw, the Castle, Carraigmore

Phoebe drew in a sharp breath and looked at Mrs Flannigan.

Mrs Flannigan nodded. ‘That’s right, child, Charles Shaw was my father.’

For a few seconds Phoebe couldn’t speak as she struggled to comprehend what this discovery actually meant. Charles had been Anna’s wayward uncle, she remembered him being mentioned in Anna’s diaries.

Phoebe shook her head and looked up at Mrs Flannigan. ‘But how did your mother bear him a child?’

‘The usual way,’ the older woman’s reply was curt.

‘I mean how did they meet? Were they really married?’

Mrs Flannigan pursed her lips. ‘No, they were never married. That was just a bluff for the Dublin nursing home so that my mother didn’t get carted off to the nuns like I did sixteen years later. Charles Shaw never showed the slightest bit of interest in acknowledging my mother’s predicament or that he had a daughter. It was the age-old story; woman falls in love with man, man gets what he wants and leaves the woman to deal with the consequences.’

‘How did they know each other?’

‘She was a housemaid up at the Castle.’ Mrs Flannigan gave a disparaging sniff. ‘At the time he was languishing in the family home waiting for his elder brother to give him enough money to resume a more exciting life in London. To Charles, Margaret Hickey was a way to pass a dull, damp Irish winter, to Margaret Hickey, Charles was the love of her life.