Ashes In the Wind (46 page)

I heard the shots that killed the rest of my section ten minutes later, and later still rejoined our men as they advanced to the edge of the town.

Mam, I’ve escaped the hangman and now the firing squad. There’s more fighting to be done at the Ebro, but the war is won. I’m ready to come home and to begin being a father to Michael.

Your loving son,

Tomas

James hands the letter back to Michael, who puts it away. His eyes are moist as he says, ‘He was killed a week or so later at the battle of the Ebro, so I never got to see him.’

‘I’m sorry. I’m glad my father did what he did.’

Anna and Jack move out of Seaview and into James’s cottage. At Oysterbed Pier, Anna takes over the running of the kiosk, while Jack spends most of his time with James or playing with Mick and the Sullivans’ son.

Anna asks James to take her over to Derriquin.

‘I can see it means a lot to you,’ she says. They are sitting on the stone pier. Above them is the golf club car park, the place where the castle, and then its ruined shell, used to stand.

‘I have a picture of Dad as a little boy sitting next to his father on this spot, with Derriquin Castle in the background, taken in 1908. Looking at them, you wouldn’t think that they had a care in the world, and yet twelve years later Henry was dead and Derriquin gone. That Scots pine is in the photograph, the only thing other than the rocks that still survives. I never lived in the house, never knew it, but Dad was born in Derriquin. He always thought of himself as a Kerryman and was never at home in England. Odd that he should wind up on Mount Athos.’

They stay on the jetty for several minutes, then go back to the cottage. On the way back through the rhododendrons James sees a woodcock sitting unafraid in their way.

‘What’s that? It’s beautiful,’ says Anna.

‘It’s a woodcock. My father would have told you it’s my grandfather, Henry Burke. Dad and Josephine, she was my cousin on the wrong side of the blanket and very superstitious, saw one here the night Derriquin was burned.’

James walks towards the bird and reaches down to pick it up. It rises, and Anna feels the beat of its wings as it zigzags away.

‘You land on the opposite side of Mount Athos to the Stavronikita monastery,’ James says to Anna.

They are sitting in the kitchen late after dinner with the Sullivans.

‘It’s a stiff walk, rough paths and mule tracks mostly, up and down a series of valleys. The sea is always in sight and the air is scented by the pines and by oleander, “the odour of sanctity”, Dad called it.

‘He’d meet me an hour above Stavronikita and we’d walk down together. Until my last visit, when he was having trouble with his breathing. He’d been a heavy smoker when he was young, untipped cigarettes and pipes, gave it up too late to save his lungs. He was a reserved man, quite shy, wouldn’t talk about himself much, asked about Georgia, whom he hardly knew.

‘The monastery was beautiful, although parts of it were crumbling. From the top of the descent it looked like a mediaeval castle, with a big battlemented tower at the centre and an ancient arched viaduct leading into it.’

‘What did you do for four days?’

‘You get caught up in the routine. Endless, chaotic services at all times of day and night, rushed meals where we were read improving texts in a gabbled Greek, the occasional escape on the boat. Dad was the fisherman, which he enjoyed; it gave him a status among the monks.

‘They were an odd bunch, his fellow monks, mostly Greeks, some Russians and Bulgarians, one American. Dad said there were endless squabbles about rituals, about saints’ days, but he insisted they were part of ordinary life and to be expected, even in a holy place.’

‘Did he die out there?’

‘I got a message one January that he’d had a severe heart attack, and I went out as soon as I could. Mount Athos was covered in snow, and it took me five hours to get to the monastery, the paths were so treacherous. I was met at the gates by the Guest Master and the Abbot, who told me that Dad had died the day before. I was taken to see him, laid out in his monk’s habit, his eyes closed, his face grey and gaunt, his beard completely white. His hands were crossed on his stomach over a little wooden crucifix. They left me alone with him for half an hour, then took me to the refectory for supper.

‘He was buried along with all the other monks in a graveyard that overlooks the Aegean. As beautiful a place as any to finish up, although it’s a long way from Kerry.

‘I felt incredibly sad that I hadn’t got there in time, sad that he and I had only begun to know each other late in the day, sad that I’d never properly told him how much I loved him. I wept when I was alone with him, and again when his coffin was lowered into the ground. The American monk told me as we walked back from the cemetery that death was not the end, but the beginning, and that I should be happy that Dad had found peace at Stavronikita. I wish I believed the first part.

‘They gave me his Bible and the copy of Donne’s sermons that I had given him. The walk back to Daphne was hard. I remembered how Dad used to walk with me as far as the watershed, holding my hand most of the way. The last time we parted he made a little sign of the cross on my forehead with his finger. I did the same thing for him when I was left alone with his body.

‘He didn’t leave a will. He’d made everything over to me before he became a monk, and there wasn’t much left after we’d sold Killowen and cleared the overdraft.

‘He did leave a short letter in which he told me that the girl in the newspaper cutting, the girl I’d asked him about, was my half-sister. He told me how to get in touch with her.’

‘What was she like?’

‘I’ve never met her. It wasn’t clear from Dad’s letter whether they had ever met, whether she knew about him. It did explain, among the family papers and stuff that Linda and I salvaged from Killowen, the raft of cuttings from the
Maryborough Gazette
, about this girl and her family. Looking back, we were remarkably incurious at the time, but there were no clues. And Dad seemed the last person in the world to have an illegitimate daughter.’

James pours himself a stiff whiskey.

‘It makes me feel sad for both of you,’ says Anna. ‘Although there are a lot worse father–son relationships. Zach’s father used to knock him and his mother about, and my grandfather vanished the moment my father was born. Dad and I have never talked, ever, about anything important. Perhaps you’re feeling too sorry for yourself.’

‘Maybe. But it makes me determined, this time round, not to let go of you and Jack. He feels like my son, he looks like my son, he doesn’t look half Samoan. Jack needs me and I need him. And I think you need me too. You’re so independent, and I love that in you, but you and I would be better together than apart. There, I’ve said enough.’

‘You should get in touch with your half-sister,’ says Anna, putting her arms around him.

I
N
LATE
O
CTOBER
, James gets a call from Georgia
.

‘Dad, can you come over and see me? I’ve got a problem and I can’t talk about it on the phone.’

They meet for lunch in London.

‘Dad, Stephen’s company has gone bust. The banks appointed the administrator last week.’

‘Good Lord, I’m sorry to hear that. But Stephen’s an able man. He can start again.’

‘No, he can’t. He’s been using new money to pay dividends, pay the bank. It was a classic Ponzi scheme. And he pledged Donhead as security without telling me; he’d put it in his name, for tax reasons he said. I think he’s going to jail.’

Georgia starts to cry. ‘Dad, you were right about him. He’s lost all our money, all your money, and he’s a crook.’

‘Darling Georgia, I never thought he was a crook – I just didn’t understand his world. He’s obviously got into deep water, didn’t know how to get out, did some silly things. He’s not the only investment banker to have been caught out. London and Dublin are full of them.’

‘But he’s my banker, my husband, and he’s lied to me and let me down. And you.’

‘I’ve got my oysters, and I bought the cottage in Drimnamore this autumn. You and the boys can live in the London flat if you have to leave Donhead. The tenant gets out in December.’

Georgia lifts her head, blows her nose hard on James’s handkerchief and says, ‘Donhead’s finished. I can’t afford to live there, and the banks own it now. So thank you for the flat – I’d rather be there than move in with Mum and William. I’ll try not to be there for ever.’

On his return to Drimnamore, Anna opens the cottage door, pulls James inside and puts her arms around him.

‘I wasn’t expecting you for two more days. Jack won’t be back from school for an hour.’

‘So?’

Anna leads James into the bedroom, says, ‘Remember the refuge box on Holy Island,’ and very soon James does.

They are sitting drinking coffee when Jack comes in; he throws himself into James’s arms. Mick is with him, and they sit together on the sofa, Jack’s arm around the dog.

‘Do you take him to school?’

‘He comes to the yard, then he goes home, comes back at three o’clock when we get out.’

‘You’ve taken a shine to each other, that’s sure. He’s getting to be more your dog than mine.’

Jack looks pleased. ‘Only for a bit, I haven’t known him that long. He still likes you.’

That evening James tells Anna Georgia’s news.

‘I’ve got my pension in a few years’ time, and I’ve got the oysters. But most of my capital has gone and there’ll be no rent from the London flat as long as Georgia’s there.’

‘I always thought you had too much money. Perhaps you need me in Drimnamore now, perhaps I’ll be more than the visiting lover.’

‘Your description, not mine. Please stay. Jack likes it here and he loves Mick.’

‘He’s very happy. I’m the restless one. I don’t like being dependent.’

‘You don’t always have to be moving on. It’s not a crime to be dependent on someone, able to rely on them.’

‘I’ve got Dad to think about, remember. He’s given up the golf club, he lives off his old-age pension, and that’s scraping.’

‘Well, I’m not rich any more, but I’m not penniless. Let’s work out where you and Jack and I, and your father, and Georgia, should live. And how.’

There is no clear resolution to this conversation, but Anna sends for her things from Allenmouth, which gives James some degree of comfort. Jack is now formally enrolled in the Drimnamore school, and James has Michael Sullivan build a little extension on the side of the sitting room that becomes Jack’s room, greatly enhanced because the bed is in a gallery reached by a ladder.

James persuades Anna to take over the packing line in the oyster shed.

‘They’ll not thank you for putting a foreigner, an Englishwoman, in charge.’

‘They’ll be OK. None of them wanted the responsibility. You’re a hard worker, and competent. And I can’t manage the line and go out in the boat. Besides, you’re not English, you’re a Geordie.’

‘True – but you’ve no idea whether I’m competent. I’ll give it a try, and we’ll see.’

Anna packs more boxes in an hour than anyone else, treading with care the delicate line between giving orders and asking for help. James and Danny dredge oysters three days a week. After thirty years of sitting at a desk, James is earning his living through hard labour for the first time, and he feels his years, particularly in the winter, when the estuary is covered in sheeting rain from the Atlantic and his hands and feet are numb with cold. His back makes bending and hauling on the ropes difficult, and after three hours on the boat he has had enough. Danny doesn’t seem to feel the cold.

‘You’ve always got at least one black or missing fingernail,’ says Anna. ‘I hope you’re careful. Danny’s half your age, remember.’

‘I’m done in at the end of a dredging day. I’m sorry I’m not an ardent lover any more.’

‘You’ve nothing to be sorry about. I get tired after a day’s work. We’re both calmer than we were about sex, but I still find you exciting. Perhaps in yellow oilskins and thigh waders tomorrow night?’ Anna laughs when James looks alarmed. ‘Only a fantasy.’

James knows Anna well enough to wonder.

J
AMES
WORRIES
THAT
Anna won’t find enough in and around Drimnamore to persuade her to stay. They have supper every Saturday in the bar of The Liberator, enjoying the
craic
and leaving before the serious singing and occasional fighting begin. They have dinner with the Sullivans at least twice a month. Anna doesn’t share James’s passionate interest in birds, but she takes on the oyster shed and the garden around the house.

‘Drimnamore is Allenmouth with an Irish accent,’ she tells James. ‘I don’t need a big city any more. I’ve got something useful to do which I enjoy, I’ve got Jack, and he likes it here. And I’ve got you.’

She picks up that week’s copy of
The Kerryman
.

‘Look, it’s just like the Alnwick
Courant
. “Killorglin plans lights for the festive season.” “Invite to new Killarney defibrillator course.” “Garda stations to be axed – elderly fear for their safety.” That’s real news. If I want to find out about the Middle East I can listen to the World Service or RTE.’

Jack talks to James about what he should be called.

‘The boys at school ask me about my dad, ask me about you.’

‘What do you tell them?’

‘I say Anna’s my mum. I like calling you James, it makes me feel grown-up, but...’

‘Tell them at school I’m your dad, and that will keep them quiet. And you can go on calling me James at home.’

Jack looks pleased. James reports the conversation to Anna.

‘That’s an Irish solution if ever I heard one. Next thing they’ll be asking me for my marriage certificate. Holy Ireland’s a long time a-dying. But if it makes Jack happy...’

It does; it also makes James happy when young Tomas Sullivan refers to him as ‘your dad’ when he plays with Jack.

James begins to feel settled. The hard work at the oyster shed and his research into the Famine years keep his body and mind active.