The Tour (34 page)

‘And last, but of course by no means least, our friend Patrick,’ Conor continued. ‘You came here, like so many Irish-Americans have done before you, expecting to find something that I don’t think exists on this island. The culture of Irish-America is definitely born here, but that culture has grown and gained strength in your country. Though it is
of
Ireland it
isn’t
Ireland.

‘I have observed over the years that some people find this painful or disappointing. But not you Patrick. You came with one idea and you will leave here with something far,
far better
. You have found a wonderful person in Cynthia here and we are all delighted for you both. You are willing to see this country with new eyes and appreciate all that it has to offer. I feel very sure that we will all continue our friendship in the future. So to Patrick O’Neill, whose people came from this old country, it is my pleasure to say – welcome home.’

As Conor sat down, the group rose to their feet and gave him a standing ovation. Anastasia and the other waitresses who were standing off to the side joined in. When the applause eventually subsided, Bert stood up.

‘Now it’s our turn,’ he began in a mock menacing tone. ‘The group asked me today to be the one to say a few words tonight, and I was delighted to oblige. I think we all agree that for each of us, in very individual ways, this week has been life changing. When we book a vacation, we don’t know what to expect. We all know you are taking a chance by going on a tour. What if the people are awful? What if the guide is terrible? But no one could have predicted this. We all learned something valuable here about ourselves in this beautiful country, and there is only one common denominator.

‘Conor O’Shea, you are a remarkable man and you are a credit to your country. Your knowledge, kindness, common sense, and sense of humour succeeded in uniting a bunch of very different people and creating what I am sure will be many lifelong friendships. For that alone, we can never thank you enough. You have gone so far beyond the call of duty for each of us, and we will never forget your kindness. I know I speak for each member of the group when I say our doors are always open to you if you ever come to the United States.’

Though Conor made such speeches and listened to such speeches virtually on a weekly basis, he had to admit that on this occasion he was finding it hard to keep his emotions in check. So much had happened in just a few days. Events had taken so many twists and turns – good and bad. Despite all the drama, here they all were, gathered together in a room positively brimming with camaraderie and friendship. He looked across the room, past all the smiling faces exchanging email addresses and phone numbers and his eyes met the eyes of the woman he loved. He gestured to her to come and join him.

As she walked across the room wearing a radiant smile, he knew, with more certainty than he could possibly express, that he wanted Anastasia beside him. Then and always.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To my parents, John and Hilda, who each in their own unique way gave all of us roots and wings at the same time. To Rob, Barb, D-daw and Ais, my best friends. To Colletteo, Lia, Jack, Pete, Reneé, Chris and Simon for making my favourite people so happy. For all my ladies who share their lives with me. I am so lucky to have such wonderfully funny, strong, and inspirational women friends, thanks for the tea, the wine and the laughter. I am truly blessed. To all the Beechinors – for helping me to learn how to have my voice heard. No-one could have a better gang. To Gran and Granda, for giving us all another place to call home. For all the wonderful people I worked with on tours over the years, visitors, drivers, and guides. The craic was mighty and I loved every minute. To Natural Gas who I shamelessly used in writing this book. For Don and Johnny. For the staff and students of De La Salle College, Macroom, Co. Cork. A very happy place to be. I would like to extend a special thank you to the wonderful professionals whose expertise and attention to detail has turned this from a dream into a book. Vanessa O’Loughlin, Helen Falconer, Brenda O’Hanlon and Elaine Barry. To John O’Connell of Fermoy, Co. Cork for kindly allowing me to use his beautiful photograph as the cover for this book. For Conor, Sórcha, Éadaoin and Siobhán – thank you for all the joy you put in my life. I love each of you with all my heart.

And finally, for my lovely husband Diarmuid without whose constant love, support, and help I would never have finished this book. Because of you, I believe in true love.

ALSO BY THE AUTHOR

So Much Owed

Chapter 1

20
^th
January 1919

S
olange Allingham gazed out of the window of the black Morris Oxford at the sodden fields. The endless journey through England by train and the choppy crossing to Ireland had barely registered with her. She could feel nothing except a dragging despair, deep within her. Even the rhythmic slosh of the wipers of the car seemed to beat out the mantra, ‘Jeremy is dead, Jeremy is dead’. They had been planning to buy a vineyard in the Dordogne, after the war; they had been going to have a huge family – three boys, three girls.
‘Jeremy is dead, Jeremy is dead.’

Gradually, the green rolling hills of the south eastern counties of Wexford and Waterford gave way to rugged stone-filled fields. She kept on catching distant glimpses of a grey, cold ocean. Beside her Richard drove in silence, his vivid green eyes focused on the wet road ahead, his sandy hair neatly cut and combed. How he and Jeremy had been such good friends amazed her. Her Jeremy had been always so bright and funny and full of life. This quiet, shy Irish doctor entirely lacked that sort of charm. When he spoke, it was always slow and deliberate. He was painstakingly methodical in his work, irrespective of any chaos that surrounded him. Yet she had seen injured soldiers stop screaming in agony when Dr Buckley spoke to them or touched them. ‘The gentle giant,’ Jeremy had dubbed him, and he was indeed big – well over six feet tall, with a deep voice she knew his patients found reassuring.

‘Not long now. We’ll be in Skibbereen by six, I should think. I hope you aren’t too uncomfortable?’ His eyes never left the road.

‘No, thank you.’ She hesitated, seeking the English words. Her mind felt like it was wrapped in wet cotton wool, and all she really wanted to do was sleep. ‘I am fine.’ In the weeks since Jeremy had died, she had barely spoken, in either her native French or her husband’s English. Not that she had learnt much English from Jeremy – he had always said he was too romantic and passionate to be Anglo-Saxon, and so spoke in French to her most of the time.

All the nurses had been in love with the young doctor with his thick, wavy hair and warm hazel eyes; he had flirted outrageously with all of them, but they knew there was nothing in it: he only had eyes for Solange Galliard. He had pursued her relentlessly from when he was first assigned to the hospital, ignoring her protests that she was engaged to Armand De La Croix, the son of a local banker. Jeremy saw this as no obstacle whatsoever: she simply had to break off the engagement and marry him instead. It was impossible to do anything else, he’d claimed – she had bewitched him with her deep azure eyes and her black corkscrew curls, forever threatening to liberate themselves from the starched white veil of her nurse’s uniform. He told her regularly that she occupied his every thought, waking and sleeping, and, despite herself, she had fallen in love with the incorrigible English doctor. When he talked, he made her laugh till tears flowed down her cheeks, and when he touched her she tingled with desire. She had married him and was the happiest girl on earth.

Back in 1914, the war had been seen as something to be over by Christmas. The girls had giggled with delight at the vast numbers of handsome soldiers arriving daily. It had all seemed so romantic, the men so gallant – a bit of a lark really, as Jeremy termed it. How wrong they all were. The fun and high spirits of those early days had quickly given way to scenes of unprecedented human misery. Those scenes would haunt all those who witnessed them for the rest of their lives.

Solange wondered if Jeremy would even recognise her if he were to see her now. Grief had taken its toll on the curvaceous body he had loved; her once round cheeks were hollow, and dark shadows circled her blue eyes. At twenty six her jet black hair had become suddenly threaded with silver hairs. The person she had been before the war seemed a distant stranger to her now. She suspected the carefree girl of her youth had died along with that whole generation of young men. All gone now, and Jeremy gone with them.

‘There is a rug on the back seat if you’re cold?’ Richard’s voice interrupted her reverie.

‘No, thank you. I am fine.’ She realised her answer was a repetition of her response to his earlier enquiry so she added, with an attempt at enthusiasm, ‘Ireland is a very pretty country. Quite like Brittany in places I think.’ She knew her voice sounded flat and colourless. She couldn’t help it.

He nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yes, I’m glad you like it. Though of course, when the sun shines it’s much better. When we were students in England, Jeremy often came here on holidays. He complained that it never stopped raining. I tried to get him to consider moving here after the war but he said he would rather get a suntan in France than rust in Ireland any day.’

They both smiled at the memory of him; his presence was almost tangible between them in the car.

‘Thank you for doing this for me,’ Solange began again. ‘You have been so kind. I cannot imagine how it would have been if I would have stayed in France. I don’t know if I can survive now, but at least here has no memories. I will try to be of service to you and your family.’

Richard drove and sighed deeply as if weighing up how best to phrase what he was going to say next.

‘Solange, I’m not bringing you to Dunderrig to be of service to us, I am bringing you to be a member of our family. Please understand that. It’s your home for as long as you want it to be. We, Edith and I, don’t expect anything from you but I, we, both hope that coming here will help you. I can’t imagine how hard it must be, considering all you have lost. Not just Jeremy but your parents, your brothers. It’s almost too much to bear. We just want to help, in any way that we can. Jeremy would have taken care of Edith had the situation been reversed. We talked about it you know. What we would do if either one of us didn’t make it. I know if it had been me who was killed then you and Jeremy would have helped Edith. So please, you are family as far as we are concerned. You don’t owe us a thing.’

In the four years she had known Richard Buckley, this was the longest speech she had ever heard him make. His voice was cracking with emotion and it was clear his offer came from the heart. She hardly knew what to say – she sat in silent gratitude as he drove the narrow, twisty road.

‘Down there is Skibbereen, but this is where we turn off,’ he said, taking a slow right at a signpost marked ‘Dunderrig’. ‘I wrote to Edith to let her know we were arriving this evening, so she will be expecting us. Though naturally, she has been very tired of late.’

‘Of course. She had only a few more weeks to go?’ Solange enquired politely.

‘Two weeks, perhaps. No more than three. I would have given anything to have been here to help her. She has suffered badly with sickness throughout this pregnancy. And she had to cope with the loss of my mother and father too, within a few days of each other. Thank God the influenza spared my wife, if not my poor parents. She has had so much to cope with.’

‘It will feel strange for you to be home and not to see them. Even as an adult, you are never ready to lose your parents.’ She was conscious that her voice had grown heavy with her own pain, and made an effort to be stronger for him. ‘But you must be very excited to see your wife after all this time?’

‘Yes, I am.’ A brief smile but nothing more.

She glanced at him, questioningly. Richard very rarely mentioned Edith; Solange had often speculated with Jeremy about what kind of marriage the Buckleys had – practical, passionate, romantic? When she wondered what Mrs Buckley was like, Jeremy told her that he had met Edith only briefly and explained how he had dragged his shy best friend to a dance while they were still at medical college in England; to his surprise Richard had spent his evening talking about Ireland with a cool but beautiful blonde from Dublin. Only weeks later they had qualified, and Jeremy had signed up for France, and met Solange, while Richard had gone to work as a doctor in Ireland and had ended up marrying the Dublin girl. Solange’s only knowledge of Edith was based on the photo Richard had of her on his desk in the hospital; it showed a tall and elegant woman, beautifully dressed. She also knew that Richard had seen his wife very briefly, eight months before, when in Dublin on leave – a leave that had been cut short before he’d been able to travel home to Cork to visit his parents, then still alive and well. Poor Richard. ‘And are you also excited to become a Papa?’