The Tour (18 page)

‘I had no idea…never dreamed Sean was alive. But to discover this…Bert …what should I do?’ The usually composed Ellen looked at him with real fear in her eyes.

Bert turned her to face him, resting his hands on her shoulders.

‘What is it that you’re afraid of Ellen?’ he asked quietly.

‘I …don’t know,’ she said, searching for words, ‘I suppose this story was always in the past and so I could imagine it as I wanted it to be. I think that is why I feel more fear than excitement. I mean what if I don’t like these people? Or what if they don’t like me? What if the reason my father didn’t keep in touch was because of something terrible that someone did? What if there’s more to this story than meets the eye…what if the reason he never told me was to protect me from some horrible truth?’ she said, panic evident in her voice.

‘Ellen, no one is going to force you to do anything you’re uncomfortable with, but I’ll say this, and I hope you won’t mind. We are neither of us getting any younger and you don’t know if you will ever get this opportunity again. You know how it is. There comes a time when long-distance travel just isn’t an option any more. You can walk away now, get into that fancy coach over there, and we can forget this ever happened. But I think it would be a mistake. You’re a gutsy lady, and Lord knows this must be an emotional rollercoaster, but I think you didn’t come all this way to turn back now. So, I’m going to go back inside now and you take your time. Decide what you want to do and whatever that is, I will accept it and be there for you one hundred per cent. You’re right though: once you open this door it will be tough to close it again. If there are things you’d rather not know about, it might be best to leave now. So just relax on the seat there, and let your intuition decide. You know what’s best for you. Try to focus on what your heart is telling you to do.’

Eamonn seemed upset when Bert arrived back into the room.

‘I’m very sorry if I gave Ellen a terrible fright. I just assumed she knew Sean was alive. I should have been a bit more sensitive the way I just blurted it out. I don’t know what kind of an eejit she must think I am.’

Bert smiled and placed a hand on Eamonn’s shoulder. ‘Don’t worry about it, you’ve been great. She just needs to decide what she wants to do next. I think we all imagine the past and how it was, but she’s having to face the reality of it all for the first time. I guess she’s just a bit wary of what she’s about to be revealed. If you know what I mean.’

The three men stirred nervously as Ellen entered the room.

‘Let’s go,’ she said, ‘I want to meet my uncle.’

‘Maybe we should give them a ring first,’ Conor suggested, ‘rather than land in on top of them unannounced…what do you think?’

‘Of course,’ said Ellen, ‘I hadn’t thought of that. Perhaps it won’t suit them to have us visit today.’

Eamonn smiled. ‘Don’t worry. Julia has that in hand. Ye can be sure she’ll have phoned Mary the minute ye arrived. I’d bet the farm on it,’ he winked and then added in a whisper, ‘a mad one for the gossip is my Julia, and herself and Mary are thick as thieves. I guarantee the good skirt is being dragged on and the good china is being dusted off up there as we speak. Baby Ellen O’Donovan back after all these years? Sure ye’ll be the talk of the parish for years.’

Heading for the Land Rover parked around the side of the house, Eamonn muttered: ‘The state of me from the cows. I’d only destroy the seats of your lovely bus. I had to have strong words with a particularly recalcitrant heifer that was refusing to go into the stall this morning. Let’s just say she didn’t hold back in showing me what she thought of her new accommodation. Give me ten cranky men over one cranky cow any day. I’ll take the Land Rover. Let ye just drive behind me. Is that alright?’

Ellen settled herself into the coach for the short journey up the hill, a whirlwind of emotions engulfing her. Not only was she in fear and trepidation at the prospect of meeting her family, and possibly finding out something unsavoury about the circumstances surrounding her father’s departure to America, she was also feeling a little foolish about her reaction to the news that Sean was alive. She had never been one for big scenes and she had very little patience for those who did. She mulled over the information Eamonn had revealed. What exactly was he driving at? Her father had never given her the impression he had been involved in anything political, but Eamonn seemed to be hinting –
more than hinting
, in fact – at something like that. Tom O’Donovan had never been a chatty man, but neither had he ever given her the impression that he was hiding some big secret.

Eamonn’s Land Rover turned into a long lane leading to a remarkably clean farmyard with newish-looking machinery and pieces of equipment visible here and there. The farmhouse, while obviously very old, possibly Georgian Ellen thought, was beautifully maintained, with hanging baskets and window boxes bursting with trailing begonias and geraniums, all apparently trying to outdo the other in terms of colour display and profusion. Just as Conor pulled up to the front door, a woman of about seventy appeared. Small and slight, she was smartly dressed in a navy wool skirt and cerise linen blouse, her white hair swept up in a stylish chignon. Ellen took a deep breath and walked slowly and as steadily as she could down the steps of the coach.

The two women stood looking at each other for what seemed like a long time before breaking into broad smiles. Mary O’Donovan made the first move. Arms outstretched, she embraced Ellen as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Bert wanted to say something but was feeling too choked up to speak. Sensing this, Conor said: ‘It’s uncanny isn’t it? They could be sisters they’re so alike. Same hair, same build, same look around the eyes. It’s just remarkable.’

Bert nodded in response. It was true. Mary and Ellen were as alike as any two people he had ever seen. The snow- white hair, the way they moved with virtually identical grace and elegance.

Ellen was the first to speak. ‘I never met anyone who looked like me before,’ she said with quiet wonder. ‘I had no idea what it felt like to have someone say “you have your mother’s eyes or your aunt’s hands”, or anything like that.’

Mary beamed with delight. ‘Well,’ she said in a soft voice ‘I have loads of relations all over the place, but not one of them looks like you, so it’s an unusual feeling for me too, I can tell you. I remember my father talking about Tom and his little girl over the years, but we never could find out what became of you at all. I think Daddy said the last time he heard from Tom was back in the fifties sometime. We assumed he died, although we never got any notification of it or anything. Those were different times, of course. It’s not like now with computers and mobile phones and all those things, where we can talk to everyone no matter where they are in the world. Anyway, Ellen, you are very welcome here. Even if it’s nearly eighty years since you left. Daddy is inside, so I’d better take you in to him. Not be keeping you out here in the yard.’

Ellen glanced back to the coach where Conor and Bert stood looking nonplussed, unsure of what she wanted them to do. Ellen beckoned them over. But before she had a chance to introduce them, Mary exclaimed ‘Lord, what must you think of me at all? I’m so sorry. Ye are very welcome too. I was just so overwhelmed to see Ellen that I forgot to introduce myself. Come in let ye, and we’ll have a cup of tea and we can all relax.’

‘Tea! Tea! she says!’ a voice could be heard booming through the open door. ‘There’s no way I am greeting my niece home from America with a watery auld cup of imported leaves. She’ll sit here by the fire and we’ll have a glass of whiskey together at long last.’

Mary ushered them into the kitchen door and introduced them to the owner of the booming voice who was sitting in an easy chair in front of a glowing turf fire and looking a lot younger than his alleged ninety-two years.

‘So you came home at last. Somehow, I always thought you would. Mind you, I was starting to worry. Thought I’d be gone by the time you got around to it. How old are you now?’

Smart and all as he was, it never entered Sean O’Donovan’s head that this was a rude question to ask any lady, and particularly a lady of Ellen’s years. ‘Stand into the light there, so’s I can have a look at you,’ he almost barked, without giving her time to answer his original question. ‘By God hah? You’re the head cut off my Mary here. Isn’t she Eamonn?’ he asked his neighbour.

‘She is indeed Sean.’

‘When did Tom die?’ the old man enquired. ‘I wrote to him alright, back years ago, but after a while the letters got sent back with a note on them saying “not known at this address”. I could never understand that. I mean surely to God even if he was moved or something, the neighbours would have known where he’d gone to.’

Ellen smiled at the very idea. Things didn’t work like that in the apartment in the big old house that she and her father had shared. She recalled the Polish couple downstairs, who never even said hello, and the Jewish widow upstairs, Mrs Greenberg, who had designs on her father, as a result of which he avoided her like the plague. No, Ellen thought, when we moved house, none of the neighbours would have had a clue where we had gone to.

While Ellen was only too delighted to embrace her cousin Mary, she felt no such need in the case of her Uncle Sean. She was fascinated by him certainly, but she felt more comfortable viewing him from a distance. That seemed to suit him too, so as Mary bustled around directing the others to chairs at the large pine kitchen table, Sean didn’t budge, preferring to remain in his usual spot beside the fire.

Ignoring the two men, he shouted: ‘You’ll have a drop of whiskey.’ Ellen wasn’t sure if this was a question or a statement, so she made a non-committal gesture.

‘Well I don’t drink that much to be honest. Usually…’ ‘Usually, I don’t either,’ Sean interrupted her, ‘but this is no usual day. So put away the teapot and bring out the glasses Mary, like a good girl.’

Chapter 20

‘What can I do for you today?’ the young hairdresser asked Corlene as she sat in front of the mirror. Corlene had chosen this salon purely on the basis of a conversation she had overheard in a shop earlier that morning: two women discussing their mutual hairdresser who was having problems with her credit card machine. A problem with the phone link to the Visa centre in Dublin, or something like that.

This particular morning Corlene had begun to really despair of her situation. She was flat broke, her credit cards completely maxed out. OK, the food and accommodation costs of the tour were already paid for but, after that, she didn’t even have the fare to get her and Dylan from the airport to their apartment. Come to think of it, she soon wouldn’t even have an apartment, now that the landlord had served her with an eviction order.

There was nothing for it but to try to find a man here in Ireland, willing to engage in a whirlwind romance, a speedy marriage and, hopefully, she would be soon back on easy street. There was one problem with this master plan, she thought ruefully: her hairline was dominated by two inches of black, well OK let’s be honest,
greyish
black roots. Worse, she had managed to dye her fingers and her ears orange as she attempted to apply cheap fake tan the previous night. She was going to seed and she knew it. Her only defence against the tide of time was to throw cash at it, quickly and in vast quantities.

During her last marriage, she had maintained a glamorous look with the help of twice-weekly hair appointments, regular manicures, pedicures, waxing and spray tans. Recently, however, without the wherewithal for this cosmetic commando regime, things had been going downhill, and fast. The news that she could at least get a hairdo and use her useless credit card in this salon in Killarney gave her hope.

Corlene looked up at the young girl. ‘Are you Aisling?’

‘I am indeed. What can I do for you?’ replied the effortlessly gorgeous twenty-five year old.

‘I would like my colour touched up and a cut and a blow-dry please,’ Corlene said trying to sound nonchalant. ‘I’ve been travelling now for a few months and I just haven’t had a chance to get my roots done. I was going to wait until I got home. Usually, I go to Gigi on Rodeo Drive, that’s in Beverly Hills, but this morning I just decided I couldn’t look at it one more minute. I have a big event in London tonight, a charity thing…you know the usual, black tie, so I’ve just got to get it done.’

‘Er right,’ said Aisling ‘well we can’t claim to be Beverly Hills, but we’ll do our best for you anyway. The colour you have at the ends here is a bit brassy. Probably been bleached by the sun. Were you travelling somewhere hot? It’s just the combination of the chlorine and the sun can do that desperate damage to your hair,’ she looked critically at Colene’s dry, split, and corn yellow ends.

‘I’ll have to chop a fair bit off it to get rid of these straggly bits, and anyway there comes a time when long hair just doesn’t really work on someone of a certain age. Maybe we’ll tone down the colour a bit too? What do you think? I have some lovely caramel and ash tones that I put on my aunt’s hair for her fiftieth wedding anniversary last weekend and it was lovely,’ she smiled at Corlene with innocent blue eyes.

Corlene was raging. What is wrong with young people in this stupid country? First that kid of a barman and now this child. Comparisons with people’s elderly relatives was really taking their toll on Corlene’s confidence. The rejection by Bert was a blow but she consoled herself with the knowledge that he was too old for her anyway. On the other hand, constantly being addressed as if she was an elderly person by all these people in Kerry was simply ridiculous. With all the dignity she could muster, she replied coldly, ‘I just need my natural blonde touched up. Please do the roots only as you’re quite right, the sun
has
taken its toll.’ She somehow managed a frosty smile.

‘Righty-ho, whatever you say, said Aisling innocuously, but a few minutes later Corlene was convinced she heard her mutter to her colleague as she was mixing the colour: ‘Yeah right love, the sun makes you go grey. Natural blonde me arse, that one hasn’t been blonde since God was a child.’