Читать книгу The Girl from Ballymor - Kathleen McGurl - Страница 11

CHAPTER 5

Maria

The next day was overcast and threatened rain, so I decided to drive into Cork city to visit the art galleries and museums there. I hoped I’d find a few Michael McCarthy portraits in one of them, and maybe even a ‘Kitty’. I had a leaflet from Ballymor tourist information office – a Cork city tourist guide with a list of galleries – and, having parked the car not far from the small but beautiful university campus, I set off on foot with my trusty rain-mac to visit as many galleries as possible. Disappointingly most of the galleries were dedicated to modern art so did not detain me long. I mean, it’s nice enough, but not what I was looking for. Mid-morning, in need of refreshment, I ducked into the nearest café and was delighted to find it specialised in chocolate. I wanted to drown in the glorious deep warm aromas. I could have sampled everything on the menu but made do with a hot chocolate and a slice of chocolate brownie. Heaven.

Heading away from the town centre and along a riverside walk, I eventually came to the Cork city museum. Perhaps this would be more likely to have some McCarthy pictures. He was, after all, a local artist. The museum is an impressive Georgian building set in pleasant grounds. I went in, mooched around various displays related to Youghal lace, Irish patriot Michael Collins and a history of copper mining in County Cork, then finally, tucked away in a corner, I found a section devoted to local artists. There, side by side with two other McCarthy portraits and a couple of sketches, was an unmistakable ‘Kitty’. My heart beat faster as I stepped forward to examine it. It wasn’t one I’d seen before in any books, and it was a beauty. The museum had labelled it ‘Unknown Woman by Michael McCarthy’ but, as I gazed at her long copper curls and startling green eyes, I knew it was her – my great-great-great-grandmother. In this portrait she was sitting on what looked like the deck of an ocean liner, with a glass of wine at her side and an open book on her lap. She was wearing a pale pink dress and a grey shawl, and I noticed the shawl was pinned with the same distinctive Celtic knot brooch she was wearing in my own Kitty portrait, back home. The brooch must have been a treasured possession, I thought, though it was hard to imagine that someone who lived in such a poor cottage as the ones I’d seen at Kildoolin yesterday would own anything of value. I stood for a while, staring into her eyes, trying to see beyond them into her mind. ‘What happened to you, Kitty?’ I whispered. ‘Where did you go? Where did you end up?’

I took some notes and a couple of photos of the portrait (I knew I’d have to get permission from the museum and a professional picture of it if I was to include it in my book, but this would do for now), then looked at the other McCarthy works on display. One intrigued me – it was a rough pencil sketch of a haughty-looking man on a horse. Something about the expression of the man made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It was quite unnerving. It was unsigned but the museum label said it was attributed to Michael McCarthy and had hung for many years in Ballymor House. The style was odd – it looked almost amateur, juvenile, as though Michael had not yet refined his technique. I wondered who the man was, and whether Ballymor House still existed and who had lived there. More questions for poor Declan when I next saw him!

*

All in all, it was a pleasant day in Cork city, with the rain holding off for most of the day. I drove back to Ballymor full of chocolate and thoughts about the Kitty portrait and the sketch of the man on the horse.

Back at O’Sullivan’s, I went up to my room to freshen up before dinner and an evening in the bar. I felt like dressing up a little after the last couple of days in my jeans, which were feeling a little tight on me these days, so I put on a loose summer dress and wedge sandals. I fancied wearing my Pandora bracelet to complete the outfit, and rummaged through my toiletries bag for it. Usually I put jewellery for a holiday into the side pocket of my toiletries bag, but it wasn’t there. I upended the bag on the bed and rooted through – a pile of tangled necklaces but no bracelet.

‘Shit. I’m sure I packed it,’ I muttered, and tried my handbag. Perhaps I’d put it in there for some reason. But there was no sign of it. Oh God, I couldn’t lose it – it was my most precious piece of jewellery, the last present my father had ever given me, the Christmas before he’d died of cancer. Dan had bought me a new charm for it every year that we’d been together.

I grabbed my phone and called Dan. I’d promised him we’d talk, but this call wasn’t it. I just needed to know where the bracelet was. Maybe I’d failed to pack it. I had been in a bit of a rush, after all.

‘Dan? Quick call, as I know you’ll be having dinner and I need to go down and order something soon. I can’t find my Pandora bracelet. Can you have a look for me?’

‘Hi, Maria. Sorry, love, I’m not at home at the moment.’

I registered sounds of a busy pub in the background. ‘Where are you?’

‘Crown and Sceptre, with a couple of lads from the office. Drowning my sorrows and all that, ha ha. I’ll look for your bracelet when I get home and will text you. Where’s it likely to be?’

I thought hard. ‘Top drawer in my bedside cabinet, probably. Or the next drawer down. Sorry to be the cause of your sorrows.’ I felt that all-too-familiar band of guilt tightening across my chest. But he didn’t sound as hurt as he’d been during our last phone call. Just businesslike, as though he wanted to get me off the phone as soon as possible. Well, he was on a night out.

‘OK. I’ll have a look. Two Peronis and a Stella please, thanks, mate.’

‘You what?’

‘Sorry, Maria, it’s my round. Just ordering. Cheers, mate, no, that’s the lot. Here’s a twenty. Maria, I’ve got to go, love you. Still waiting for an answer . . .’

‘I know. I love you too.’

‘And that’s why we should marry. What’s to stop us?’ He blew a kiss down the phone and hung up.

*

I’d had Aoife’s Irish stew on the day I arrived and it was so delicious I decided to have it again. My favourite table by the window was free so I sat there, nodding and smiling at the family who occupied a larger table in the corner. I hadn’t seen them before and something about them suggested they were tourists. The parents looked to be around forty, with a frazzled-but-happy-to-be-on-holiday air about them. There was a girl in her mid-teens, with plaited blonde hair, a slightly sullen expression and a surgically attached phone, a boy of about thirteen with gelled black hair wearing an assortment of leather wristbands and another boy of perhaps five with a sweet freckled face and a grubby stuffed elephant toy under one arm. Their food arrived before mine, while I was flicking through the photos I’d taken so far on my phone.

‘Come on, Sammy. You asked for chicken nuggets and now you’ve eaten none of them,’ the mother was saying, in an exasperated tone. Her accent was from the south of England, which confirmed my suspicions they were holidaymakers.

‘I have. I’ve eaten two.’ Sammy had seated his elephant beside his plate and, as he spoke, it fell over, trunk first, onto his plate. The older boy laughed and looked expectantly at his parents for their reaction to this tragedy.

‘What have we said about keeping Nellie off the table at mealtimes?’ the mum said, snatching the offending toy and placing it on the bench seat between her and Sammy.

‘That thing’s disgusting,’ said the teenage girl, wrinkling her nose. ‘I wouldn’t eat his dinner now that smelly toy’s been in it.’

‘That’s enough, Kaz,’ said the father, glaring at her.

But the damage was done. Little Sammy pouted and pushed away his plate decisively. I tried hard not to smirk but even I as a non-parent could see that he would eat no more of his dinner on principle. Perhaps if they bought him cake or ice cream as dessert he’d be tempted, but that was it for the chicken nuggets, chips and beans.

The mother rolled her eyes. ‘For goodness sake, Kaz, now see what you’ve done. Sam, there’ll be no dessert for you and when we go back to the caravan you’ll go straight to bed, no playing, if you don’t eat at least half of what’s on your plate. Come on, it’s what you asked for. It’s perfectly all right. Nellie didn’t make it dirty.’

Sammy picked up his toy and inspected its trunk. ‘Nellie’s dirty though.’ He showed it to his mother. There were beans all over it.

‘Give it here, I’ll lick them off,’ the older boy said, trying to snatch the toy, but Sammy hugged it tightly to him, neatly transferring the beans to the front of his t-shirt.

The mum caught me watching, and gave a wry smile. ‘Kids, eh? Who’d have ’em?’

I chuckled politely in return. Who indeed? I thought. It always looked like a nightmare to me. All parents seemed to have moments like this when they snapped at their kids and wondered why on earth they’d ever had any. Surely if you had a child you should love it unconditionally, no matter how infuriating it was? You shouldn’t be saying to complete strangers, ‘Who’d have ’em?’ especially not in front of them. My mother had done that to me all my life. She’d told me many times she’d never wanted children. She wouldn’t even let me call her ‘Mum’ – I always had to call her by her first name, Jackie. She’d reluctantly attended parents’ evenings at my schools, and spent ages telling my teachers how she’d never intended to have a child and how life would have been so much easier without me. ‘Surely though,’ my Art teacher had said during one of Jackie’s worst anti-Maria rants, ‘now that you’ve got her you’re proud of what she’s achieving?’ Jackie had shaken her head. ‘No, not really. Just daubs of paint, isn’t it, and when she does it at home she makes a mess of her homework desk.’ My teacher had looked at me with sympathy and I’d had to turn my head away before I started blubbing. It was always like that.

I didn’t think this mum was as bad. She was just having a moment, making a joke. No one could be as bad a parent as Jackie. Thankfully, Dad had been a great parent, making up for Jackie as best he could.

‘Why doesn’t she love me?’ I’d asked him a hundred times.

‘She does, in her way, sweetie. She just finds it hard to show it,’ he’d always replied.

My own dinner arrived as I was pondering this, and I ate it in silence, occasionally tuning in to the banter and bickering at the next table. Eventually, Aoife, who was wearing a My Chemical Romance t-shirt today along with heavy black eyeliner, came to clear my plate, and, as she did so, she spoke to the family.

‘Really sorry, but the musicians will be here soon and they always take this table. Would you mind moving for me?’

‘Not at all,’ said the father. ‘Come on, Sammy, bring Nellie. Nathan, Kaz, come on, we need to find another table.’

The pub had filled up while I’d been eating and, as I glanced around, I realised the only spare seats were at my own table. I’d been kind of hoping Declan would come in and join me, but it looked like I’d have the company of this family.

‘Is it OK if we sit here?’ the mother asked.

‘Yes, that’s fine, I’m on my own,’ I replied, and they sat down gratefully, dragging one stool over from their previous table for little Sammy to sit on.

‘Hi. I’m Sharon, this is my husband Dave, Kaz, Nathan and Sam,’ the mum said, smiling, indicating her family. She had an open, likeable face and I warmed to her instantly.

‘Good to meet you. I’m Maria,’ I replied. ‘Are you on holiday here?’

‘Yes, camping just outside town,’ Sharon said. ‘Well, in a static caravan, so hardly camping but enough to manage with three kids.’

‘Where’s the campsite?’ I asked, just for something to say, really. Sammy was making his elephant walk around the table. I snatched up my glass of J2O before it got knocked over by Nellie’s bum.

‘You go out of town on Church Street for about a mile then turn right,’ answered Dave. ‘It’s a good site – in the grounds of an old ruined country house. The laundry and campers’ toilets and showers are built into the old stable block. The house itself is still there but in ruins, thankfully fenced off or the kids would be roaming wild in there no doubt.’

‘Ballymor House?’ I asked, remembering the caption under the sketch in the museum.

Dave shrugged. ‘Don’t know what the house was called but it could have been that, given its location. Campsite’s called “Clear View Campsite”.’

‘Huh.’ Kaz looked up from her texting. ‘There’s no view. The trees are too tall.’

‘I think there’s a view from the pitches at the top of the site, Kaz,’ Sharon said, as Kaz rolled her eyes and returned her attention to her phone.

‘Put that away. It’s very rude when we’re with other people,’ Sharon muttered to her. I wondered whether to say, No, it’s all right, Kaz, I don’t mind, but decided against it. The girl sighed theatrically and slipped her phone into the back pocket of her ripped jeans, then folded her arms across her chest. A moment later, a faint buzz alerted her to an incoming text and, with a defiant glare at her mother, she pulled the phone out again.

‘So, what brings you here, Maria?’ Dave asked. ‘You’re not local, I can tell that much!’

‘Ha, no, I’m not. Though if you go back far enough my family were from around here. That’s what I’m doing, actually – researching my ancestors.’ I didn’t want to tell them about the book just yet. It was too easy to sound arty-farty and pretentious if you started talking about writing books on obscure Victorian artists.

‘Wow, I’ve always wanted to do that,’ Sharon said. ‘Must be great to know the names of all those people who had to exist so that you could exist. I’d never have the time to do the research though, not with this lot consuming all my energy and my job and everything.’

‘Yes, it does take time.’ I took a sip from my glass. Was she really interested or was I in danger of boring her senseless if I said any more about my family history?

‘So did your ancestors live in Ballymor then? In the big house at the campsite?’ Nathan asked. He ran his fingers through his hair to smooth it into place across his forehead.

‘Not in the big house, no. But in the abandoned village. Have you been there?’

Dave answered. ‘Not yet. We only arrived yesterday and the weather didn’t look good enough for a walk today. Little one, there, needs a bit of encouragement. Actually, so do the others.’ Kaz and Nathan both scowled at him for this, while Sammy cuddled Nellie tighter. I saw his hand creep towards his mouth, before he pulled it away and tucked it around the toy. If I had to guess, I’d say he was being trained out of a thumb-sucking habit.

‘It’s worth a visit,’ I said. I turned to Nathan, who’d shown the most interest. ‘You can explore all the cottages, try and imagine what it would have been like to live there.’

‘Cool.’ He shrugged, then tried to look over Kaz’s shoulder at her phone. She punched his arm to stop him, earning herself a telling-off from Dave.

We chatted for a while longer, until the musicians arrived. I told them about Michael McCarthy, but not about my book. I kept looking round to see if Declan was in the bar as I had a number of questions for him, but there was no sign of him all evening, which left me feeling strangely disappointed. Paulie, however, was in his usual place at the end of the bar, steadily working his way through a number of pints of Guinness, and exchanging a few words with other local regulars. It was my third night in the pub and I was beginning to feel quite at home here.

When the musicians had got themselves set up, Sharon leaned over to Dave. ‘We should go before they start. Sam’s looking tired.’

Dave looked disappointed, as did the older kids. ‘Aw. I was hoping to hear a bit of traditional Irish music.’

‘Yeah, me too,’ said Kaz. ‘It’ll probably be crap but I’d like to hear some while we’re here.’

‘Language, Kaz,’ Sharon said, with a frown. ‘Maybe we could stay for one or two tunes, then, but not too late, or Sammy will be overtired. And you know what he’s like then.’

Sam’s hand crept towards his mouth again, and I couldn’t help but think if he curled up against his mum with his thumb in his mouth he’d probably stay happily for the entire musical set.

But, after the first two tunes – ‘The Rose of Tralee’, then ‘The Fields of Athenry’, which Dave clearly recognised as a rugby song, as he hummed along happily to it – Sharon stood and gathered up their belongings. ‘Come on. I’m driving and I’m leaving now. So you either come with me or you’re walking.’

The rest of her family pouted but got up and followed her out, waving at me as they left. I went to sit on a bar stool for the rest of the evening, rather than take up a table by myself when there were people standing. As I perched beside Paulie, he acknowledged me with a slight tilt of his head. I smiled to myself. It was probably as near as I’d get to being accepted in this community by the old fellow. I wondered whether Dan had found my bracelet. Hopefully he’d text me later and say he had it.