‘I’m sixteen.’
She stopped walking then and examined me, a curious expression on her face. ‘Seventeen.’
‘Seventeen in a few weeks.’ I caught my breath.
‘Eighteen in a few weeks,’ she frowned.
‘I wish, but seriously I’m sixteen, but people always think I’m older.’
She stared at me as though I were a foreign object then, thinking so hard I could almost smell her brain frying. Then she took off on her heel again. Five minutes’ power-walk away, I was panting but Sister Ignatius had barely broken a sweat and we came across some more buildings, more like outhouses, and old stables. First, there was a church.
‘There’s the chapel there,’ Sister Ignatius explained. ‘It was built by the Kilsaneys in the late eighteenth century.’
Remembering that part from my school project I couldn’t take my eyes off it, unable to believe that what I’d stolen from the internet essay wasn’t just homework, it was actually real. It was a small chapel, grey stone, two pillars in the front as cracked as a desert earth that hasn’t seen water for decades. On the top was a bell tower. Beside it was an old graveyard protected by three thin rusty iron railings. Whether it was to keep the buried in or the wanderers out, it wasn’t clear, but it made me shudder just looking at it. I realised I’d stopped walking and was staring at it—and Sister Ignatius was staring at me.
‘Great. I live on the grounds of a graveyard. Just swell.’
‘All generations of the Kilsaneys are buried there,’ she said softly. ‘Or as many as possible. For the bodies they couldn’t find they planted headstones.’
‘What do you mean, “for the bodies they couldn’t find”?’ I asked, horrified.
‘Generations of war, Tamara. Some of the Kilsaneys were sent off to Dublin Castle to be imprisoned, others left through travel or revolution.’
There was a silence while I took in the old headstones, some green and covered in moss, others black and lopsided, the inscriptions so faded you couldn’t read the letters.
‘That’s fucking creepy. You have to live beside that?’
‘I still pray in there.’
‘Pray for what? For the walls not to cave in on your head? It looks like it’s about to fall apart any second.’
She laughed. ‘It’s still a consecrated church.’
‘No way. Are there weekly masses in there?’
‘No,’ she smiled again. ‘The last time it was used was…’ she pinched her eyes shut and her lips moved open and closed as though she was doing decades of the rosary. Then her eyes popped open wide. ‘Do you know what, Tamara, you should check the records to get the exact date. The names of everybody are included too. We have them in the house. Come in and have a look, why don’t you?’
‘Eh. No. You’re grand, thanks.’
‘You will when you’re ready, I suppose,’ she said and moved along again. I rushed to keep up with her.
‘So how long have you lived here?’ I asked, following her into an outhouse, which was used as a tool shed.
‘Thirty years.’
‘Thirty years here? Must have been so lonely here all that time.’
‘Oh, no, it was far busier back then when I arrived, believe it or not. The three sisters were a lot more mobile then. I’m the youngest, the baby,’ she said, and laughed that little-girl laugh again. ‘There was the castle, and the gatehouse…they were indeed busier times. But I like the quiet now too. The peace. The nature. The simplicity. The time to be still.’
‘But I thought the castle was burned down in the twenties.’
‘Oh, it was burned out many times in its history. But it was only partly burned on that occasion. The family worked hard to refurbish it. And they did a wonderful job. It was truly beautiful.’
‘You’ve been inside it?’
‘Oh, indeed.’ She looked surprised by my question. ‘Lots of times.’
‘So what happened to it?’
‘A fire,’ she said, and looked away, located her toolbox on the cluttered work table and opened it. Five drawers slid out, each filled with nuts and bolts. She was like a little DIY magpie.
‘Another one?’ I rolled my eyes. ‘Honestly, that’s ridiculous. Our smoke alarms were connected to the local fire station. Want to know how I found out? I was smoking in my room and I didn’t open the window because it was absolutely freezing out and whenever I opened my doors they used to just slam shut, which was a total head wreck. So I’d turned my music up really loud and next minute my bedroom door was being bashed down by this hot fireman, pardon the pun, who thought my room was totally on fire.’
There was silence, while Sister Ignatius listened and looked through the toolbox.
‘By the way, he thought I was seventeen too,’ I laughed. ‘He called the house afterwards looking for me but Dad answered the phone and threatened to have him put in gaol. Talk about dramatic.’
Silence.
‘Anyway, was everybody okay?
‘No,’ she said, and when she looked at me briefly I realised that her eyes filled with tears. ‘Unfortunately not.’ She blinked them away furiously while she noisily rooted through the drawers, her wrinkled but sturdy-looking hands pushing through nails and screwdrivers. On her right hand was a gold ring that looked like a wedding ring, so firmly on her finger, her flesh growing around it, I doubt she could ever take it off even if she wanted to. I would have liked to ask more questions about the castle but I didn’t want to upset her further and she was making such a racket as she rooted through her tool box for the correct screwdriver I wouldn’t possibly be heard.
She tried and tested a few and I grew bored and shuffled lazily around the garage. Shelf upon shelf of junk filled the walls. A table spanning the three walls was also filled with knick-knacks and contraptions that I didn’t know the use for. It was Aladdin’s cave for the DIY obsessed.
I looked around but my head hopped with new questions about the castle. So it had been lived in after the fire in the 1920s. Sister Ignatius had said she’d been here thirty years and had been in the house after the refurbishment. That would take us back to the late seventies. I was under the impression the castle had been lying idle for so much longer than that.
‘Where is everybody?’
‘Inside. It’s recreation hour. Murder She Wrote is on now. They love that.’
‘No, I mean, from the Kilsaney family. Where are they all?’
She sighed. ‘The parents moved away to stay with cousins in Bath. They couldn’t take looking at the castle like that. They hadn’t the time nor the energy nor the money, mind you, to rebuild it.’
‘Do they ever come back?’
She looked at me sadly. ‘They passed away Tamara. I’m sorry.’
I shrugged. ‘That’s okay. I’m not bothered.’ My voice was too perky, sounded too defensive. Why? I really wasn’t bothered. I didn’t know them from Adam—why should I care? But I did care. Maybe it was because Dad had died that I felt every sad story was my story. I don’t know. Mae, my nanny, used to love watching programmes about real-life cases being solved. When Mum and Dad were out she used to take over the television in the living room and watch The FBI files, which used to freak me out. Not for the gory details—I’d seen worse—but by the fact she was so fascinated by how to cover up crimes. I used to think she was going to kill us all in our sleep. But she also made the best lattes and so I didn’t probe her too much in case she got insulted and would stop making them. I learned from watching one of those shows that the word ‘clue’ actually came from ‘clew’, meaning a ball or thread of yarn, because in a Greek myth, a Greek guy uses a ball of yarn to find his way out of the Minotaur’s labyrinth. It’s something that helps you get to the end of something, or perhaps to the beginning. It’s the same as Barbara’s satellite navigation kit and my line of breadcrumbs from the gatehouse to Killiney: sometimes we have absolutely no idea where we are, we need the smallest clue to show us where to begin.
Finally the lock she’d
been working on gave way and unlatched.
‘Sister Ignatius, you’re a dark horse,’ I teased her.
She laughed heartily. As she lifted open the heavy front cover my heart fluttered. The voice of Zoey and Laura told me to be embarrassed about this and I momentarily was until the Tamara of this new world beat them away with a stick. But when Sister Ignatius opened the book that embarrassment came back intensified, bringing anger with it for there was nothing in the book. Nothing at all on the pages.
‘Hmm…well, look at that,’ Sister Ignatius said, flicking through the thick cream woven deckle-edged pages, which looked as though they’d come straight from another time. ‘Blank pages waiting to be filled,’ she continued with her voice of wonder.
‘How exciting.’ I rolled my eyes.
‘More exciting than an already filled one. Then you definitely wouldn’t be able to use it.’
‘Then I could read it. Hence it being called a book,’ I snapped, once again feeling this place had let me down.
‘Would you prefer to be given a life already lived too, Tamara? That way you can sit back and observe it. Or would you rather live it yourself?’ she asked, her eyes smiling.
‘Eh, you keep it,’ I said, stepping away, no longer interested in the thing I’d been hugging, feeling let down by it.
‘No, dear. That’s yours. You use it.’
‘I don’t write. I hate it. It gives me bumps on my fingers. And headaches. I’d rather email. Anyway, I can’t. It’s the travelling library’s. Marcus will want it back. I have to meet him again to give it back.’ I noticed my voice had softened on the last sentence. Quite immaturely, I fought a smile.
Sister Ignatius noticed everything and she smiled and raised her eyebrows. ‘Well, you can still meet up with Marcus to discuss the book,’ she teased. ‘He’ll understand, as I do, that somebody must have donated the diary to the library, mistaking it for a book.’
‘If I take it don’t I break a Commandment or something?’
Sister Ignatius rolled her eyes as I had been doing and, despite my bad mood, I had to grin.
‘But I’ve nothing to write,’ I said, a little softer this time.
‘There’s always something to write. Write some thoughts. I’m sure you’ve plenty of those.’
I took the book back, making a song and dance about how uninterested I was in it and ranting about how writing diaries was for dorks. But for all my talk, I was surprisingly relieved to have it back in my arms again. It felt right sitting there.
‘Write what’s up there,’ Sister Ignatius pointed at her temple, ‘and what’s in there,’ she pointed at her heart. ‘As a great man once called it, ‘’a secret garden.’’ We’ve all got one of those.’
‘Jesus?’
‘No, Bruce Springsteen.’
‘I found yours today,’ I smiled. ‘Yours isn’t a secret any more, Sister.’
‘Ah, there you have it. It’s always good to share it with someone.’ She pointed at the book. ‘Or something.’
CHAPTER NINE
A Long Goodbye
The evening was closing in by the time I made my way back to the gatehouse, with my stomach grumbling, not having eaten since Zoey’s Mum had made American pancakes and blueberries for lunch. As before, Rosaleen was standing at her open door looking out, her face furrowed with worry, frantically searching from left to right as though any moment I would emerge. How long had she been doing that?
She jumped to attention when she saw me coming, pushed her hands down near the crotch of her dress to smooth it out. The dress was chocolate brown with a green vine climbing from hem to collar. A humming bird flitted near her boob, and later I noticed another by her left bum cheek. I don’t think that was the designer’s intention, but her height dictated their ironic placement.
‘Well, there you are, child.’
I felt like snapping at her that I wasn’t a child but I gritted my teeth and smiled. I needed to exercise more tolerance with Rosaleen. Tonight, Matthew, I’m Tamara Good.
‘Your dinner’s keeping warm in the oven. We couldn’t wait any longer, I could hear himself’s belly talking to me from the ruin.’
Many things annoyed me about that sentence. Firstly, that she hadn’t called Arthur by his name; secondly, our discussion was once again revolving about food, and thirdly, she’d referred to the castle as a ruin. Instead of stomping my feet, Tamara Good smiled again and said sweetly, ‘Thank you, Rosaleen. I look forward to it in just a few moments.’
I turned to make my way to the stairs but her sudden movement, a jerk of some sort like an athlete at a starting line anticipating the gun, kept me rooted to the spot. I didn’t look at her, just waited for her comment.
‘Your mother’s sleeping so you’ll not bother her now.’ She’d lost that stammering eager-to-please tone. I couldn’t figure her out but probably nor could she me. Tamara Not-So-Good ignored her and I continued to make my way upstairs. I knocked gently on Mum’s door while Rosaleen’s searing eyes branded me with her stare and, not expecting a response from Mum anyway, I entered.
The room was darker than before. The curtains had been drawn but it was the sun that had slipped into something more comfortable for the evening that made it cooler and dimmer. It was the first time Mum had appeared mummy-like to me for the past month, but it wasn’t for her maternal instincts. The yellow blankets were pulled up to her chest, her arms were constricted down by her side under the covers as though a giant spider had rolled her into its web to kill her and eat her. I can only imagine Rosaleen had tucked her in this way; it was physically impossible for Mum to have trapped herself under the blankets so tightly. I loosened the blankets, lifted her arms out by her side and I kneeled down beside her. Her face was peaceful as though she was merely having one of her favourite crème fraiche and yoghurt wrap spa treatments. She was so still I had to move my ear to her face to make sure she was breathing.
I watched her then, her blonde hair around her on the pillow, her long eyelashes closed over her perfect blemish-free skin. Her lips were ever so slightly parted and were breathing soft, sweet, warm breaths.
Perhaps as I’ve been telling this story, I’ve been giving the wrong impression of my mother. The grieving widow mindlessly looking out of a window while sitting in a rocking chair in a bell-sleeved nightgown makes her sound so old. She’s really not old at all. She’s beautiful.
She’s only thirty-five, much younger than all my friends’ mums. Mum had me when she was eighteen. Dad was older than her, at twenty-eight. Dad loved telling me the story about how they met, though it always differed slightly each time. I think he enjoyed it, leaving the truth as something Mum and Dad only ever knew. That was a nice thing about Dad, and I never minded if they never told me the whole truth. Perhaps hearing it wouldn’t have lived up to all the other stories I’d heard and visualised. The common denominator in all of his stories is that they met at a posh banquet dinner somewhere and when their eyes met he knew he just had to have her. I started laughing and told him it was exactly what he’d said about the filly he’d seen when he came back from the Goffs sale.
He shut up then, lost the smile and the distant look, and momentarily wished he hadn’t got a teenage daughter, while Mum seemed to ponder my words in a long silence. I wanted to tell them that I didn’t really mean it, that it was just the way I was, awkward, and bitchy remarks dropped from my mouth without intention or preplanning. But I couldn’t say that to my parents. I was too proud. I wasn’t used to saying sorry. But refusing to take it back wasn’t just because I was too proud, it was also because a part of me thought that it could be true. It is exactly what Dad had said when he came home from Goffs. It was also exactly what he said when he saw a new watch, or a new boat, or a new suit: ‘You should see it, Jennifer. I have to have it.’ And when Dad had to have something, he had it. I wondered if Mum was as powerless as the filly in Goffs, as the yacht in Monaco and everything else in the world that Dad had to have. And if so, I don’t pity her at all
for her weak-mindedness.
I don’t doubt that Dad loved Mum. He adored her. He was always looking at her, touching her, he opened doors for her, bought her flowers, shoes, handbags, constant surprises to show her he was thinking of her. He was always complimenting her on the most ridiculous things which annoyed me a lot. He never complimented me on any of those things. And don’t go all Sigmund Freud on me, I wasn’t jealous—he was my dad, not my husband, and I know the same rules do not apply, nor would I want them to. But. You can’t lose a daughter, can you? A child of yours will always be your child, whether you see them or not. A wife, now that can more easily be lost. She can grow bored and wander off. She was so beautiful she could have had most men she met, and Dad knew this. His comments to Mum, meant in the most endearing way, seemed patronising to me.
‘Sweetheart, tell them, tell them what you said yesterday when the waiter asked if you’d like dessert. Go on, tell them, sweetheart.’
‘Oh, it’s not a big deal, George, really.’
‘Oh, tell them, Jennifer, sweetheart. It was so funny, really it was.’
And then Mum would tell them, ‘I simply said that I’d put on the calories just looking at the dessert menu,’ and people would smile and laugh lightly, while Dad’s face beamed with pride at the hilarity of his wife, and Mum would smile that mysterious smile that revealed nothing and I would want to stand up and shout, ‘But that’s fucking ridiculous! That joke is three thousand years old! And it’s not even funny!’
I don’t know if Mum ever saw it the way I did. She always just smiled and that smile hid a million responses. Maybe that’s what made Dad nervous: how much she kept inside. Maybe he never knew how she felt. They weren’t like other couples that sometimes rolled their eyes at each other, or picked each other up on comments they’d made to discuss or debate them a little further. They were just both sickeningly agreeable with each other. Mum pan-faced, Dad always complimentary. Or maybe I simply don’t understand what was going on between them because I’ve never been in love. Maybe love is thinking that every time your partner does or says something mundane that you want to start a Mexican wave from here to Uzbekistan in utter delight. I’ve never had that with anyone.