Rainbow's End (21 page)

‘An’ came to Liverpool,’ Deirdre breathed. ‘An’ they’re still here, only you can’t find ’em! Ain’t that romantic, our Donny!’

Donal grunted derisively, but Bill shook his head at her.

‘No, alanna, ’tis more sad than romantic I’d say and they didn’t come to Liverpool. Not then, not immediately. They went to Dublin, where one of Paddy’s younger brothers lived. I don’t know for sure what was in Paddy’s mind, but I’m thinkin’ that Dublin was just a stopgap, that he always intended moving on – immigratin’, as so many Irish have done in the past. I t’ink he thought they’d stay a whiles, mek money for a passage to America or Australia or some such, an’ then move on.

‘But the girls, Grainne an’ Fidelma, put a stop to all that. They’d quarrelled, you see, because Fidelma wanted to stay an’ marry Durvan Casey, a neighbour’s boy, but Grainne simply wanted to get as far away from Clare as possible. And when they reached Dublin Grainne just disappeared. The story goes that she left a note, sayin’ she’d gone to seek her fortune an’ that they weren’t to follow her, but Roisin, the youngest girl, suspicioned that her sister might ha’ been expectin’ a child, an’ couldn’t stand the shame of bearin’ it out of wedlock in a big city.’

‘Why d’you say that?’ Deirdre demanded. ‘If the family sort of got lost track of, how would anyone know?’

Bill grinned at her. ‘You’re bright as a button, so you are! As it happens, the folk of the Burren knew about the Feeneys first because Roisin wrote, occasionally, to one of the Casey boys an’ telled him what she knew an’ suspected. But the other reason’s a bit more personal. Me eldest brother met Paddy, a good while after the Big Wind, when folk had almost stopped wonderin’ about the Feeneys.’

‘Met him? In Dublin, Bill? Or did he come back after all?’

‘He came to Cork, to Cobh harbour, in fact, and me brother was after buyin’ cattle in Cork an’ didn’t they walk slap-bang into one another in the street? Paddy telled Talbot that he were off to America, himself an’ the three youngest children. He said Grainne had taken herself off to Liverpool an’ was married an’ settled there, an’ Fidelma was stayin’ in Dublin, ’cos she were sweet on some young feller there. Bitter he was, for he must ha’ realised that there were no point in returnin’ to the Burren wit’ his two eldest children gone. The others were growin’, but they’d not manage to pull the farm around wit’out Grainne an’ Fidelma.’

‘Gosh,’ Deirdre said, awed. ‘So that’s how you know so much, Bill! I wonder what happened to Fidelma, though? And Grainne, of course.’

Bill shrugged. ‘The dear knows, alanna. Perhaps Fidelma an’ her young man went to some other part of Ireland . . . the potato famine came along ten years later, you know, and it’s entirely possible that they may have died, starved to death when the potato crop failed. As for Grainne, she wrote to her daddy when he was in Dublin, but once she was wed an’ settled she’d not try to get in touch again.’

‘Then . . . then who told you the first part of the story, Bill?’ Deirdre asked, having thought the matter over. ‘You said when we first come over your wall that your daddy had done the Feeneys a great wrong, so you must be a part of the story yourself. Oh, oh . . . I know! Your name’s McBride, an’ that was William’s name, wasn’t it?’

‘That’s it. Fergus McBride was me daddy,’ Bill said. ‘I came along late in their lives and they called me William because the other William died before I was born. I t’ink it was always on me daddy’s conscience that he’d refused Paddy Feeney a loan, knowing how it was wit’ Paddy’s daughter Grainne an’ his eldest son. Me mammy would always have it that Grainne was carryin’ William’s child. An’ I’m the last McBride, so I am, for neither Talbot nor me sister had children, though me sister wed young, an’ died young, too. So me daddy axed me to seek ’em out, particularly Grainne Feeney, if I could find her.’

‘An’ what would you do if you found her?’ Deirdre asked eagerly. ‘Is there a pot of gold, Bill? ’Cos you said more than twenty pound.’

Bill laughed and rumpled Deirdre’s bright ginger curls. ‘There’s a thrivin’ little farm up on the Burren, acushla. Me brother Talbot has it now. When it was too late, when the Feeneys had disappeared into Dublin like a raindrop into a puddle, Fergus began to t’ink on what he’d done, an’ he was ashamed. He set to an’ he rebuilt the farmhouse, the pigsty, the stable, everything. An’ he started in to farm up there, just puttin’ a few sheep on the land at first, then cattle. He told me he pretended he’d bought the farm off Paddy for a song, but he never did; he was waitin’ for Paddy or one o’ the youngsters to come back so he could hand it over.

‘But Paddy never did come back, an’ it began to lie heavy on me daddy’s conscience, because it looked more an’ more as though he’d driv Paddy off by refusin’ the loan, and then taken the land for himself. And I can’t deny there was talk,’ Bill admitted, looking hunted. ‘I heered it meself, an’ I t’umped a feller on the nose, so I did, who was talkin’ big in the pub one night about folk who walked into farms when the famine was over an’ the farmers dead an’ gone. He said the McBrides were one of the many who’d profited from the miseries of their neighbours. And I were right to t’ump him, so I was,’ Bill added righteously. ‘For there was no t’ought in me daddy’s head but to give the place back to Paddy in a dacint state, when he come home, an’ to show him he was sorry for refusin’ the loan.’

‘An’ who telled you that Grainne came to Liverpool, then?’ Donal asked. ‘Who said Fidelma disappeared, come to that? How could you know, if you never found any of ’em, Bill?’

‘Well, as I told you, Paddy could neither read nor write, but the children could, all of ’em. And the youngest girl, Roisin, never forgot the Burren or how happy she had been there as a small child. She wrote letters to the Caseys, who she remembered quite well, and of course the Caseys talked, told people that the girls had both run away and that Grainne was believed to have gone to Liverpool. I don’t know precisely how Roisin knew she’d gone to Liverpool – mebbe Grainne left a note, or told someone – but know she did. Paddy planned to follow her, find her, but so far as we heard he never did. He died of a fever in ‘fifty-five, during the great hunger, so there was no hope, after that, of my father being able to tell him how sorry and ashamed he was. He thought to do it through the daughters he had most wronged, or the sons, perhaps, but even the sons have disappeared. Well, they probably went to America, which is the same, so far as I’m concerned.’

‘But they won’t have changed their names, they’ll be Sean and Kieran Feeney for the rest of their lives,’ Donal pointed out. ‘You could find them, Bill.’

‘Yes, possibly I could, though America’s a mortal big country to find a couple of farmers in,’ Bill said. ‘But the debt my father wanted to honour was either to Paddy or to the eldest two girls. They’d made the place what it was, you see, through sheer hard work. And of course William was promised to Grainne. Fergus knew that he should have helped Grainne for his son’s sake if nothing else.’

‘And when you find ’em they’ll have a farm of their own,’ Deirdre said wistfully. ‘We’d love to be farmers, wouldn’t we, Donny? We’d have pigs an’ cows an’ that, an’ we han’t even gorra dog. I wish it were us, but now we know the whole story we’ll try harder than ever to find ’em for you, Bill,’ Deirdre finished. She sat up, then wriggled off the chair. ‘Donny, we’d better go; Mam isn’t goin’ to be too pleased wi’ us when we find this Mere Lane. And . . . Bill, we’ll be back. We promise, don’t we, Donny?’

‘We promise,’ Donal said fervently. ‘In a day or two, Bill. When we’ve got ourselves settled in.’

Chapter Seven

Ellen finished her house-clean and went round to Mrs Edwards to give back the broom and to unhook the clothes-line and roll it up. She was much hampered by the prop, but it was a good one and her mother would not be best pleased if she left it behind. Those wretched twins, she thought wrathfully, as she juggled with prop, clothes-line and a bag of pegs which she had found sitting behind the door as she went to swing it closed. I’ll tell’em what I think of ’em, the wicked little layabouts!

Mrs Edwards took back the broom, sniffed dolefully and asked her whether the twins had turned up yet.

‘Not yet. I’ll give a holler presently an’ see if they come runnin’,’ Ellen said. ‘Oh thanks, Mrs Edwards, that is kind!’

Mrs Edwards had given her a rustling brown paper bag containing a number of raisin buns, and a hug and a kiss as well. ‘We’ll miss yez,’ she said, her grey eyes filling with easy tears. ‘Eh, you brung up them kids without no ’elp from anyone, jest about. An’ when our Jimmy and our Kath were with you I always knew they was all right. Well now, come back an’ see us sometimes, queen.’

‘I will,’ promised Ellen, quite overcome by so much emotion. ‘’Bye for now, Mrs Edwards.’

She shouted for the twins a couple of times without very much hope, then set off on a tour of the neighbourhood, asking whether anyone had seen her brother and sister.

‘Not today, chuck. An’ you can’t miss that red ’ead,’ the man in the corner shop said, weighing sultanas into small blue bags. He raised his voice so that his customers could hear. ‘Anyone seen them Docherty twins?’

But no one had, so Ellen set off on her journey to the new house with her mother’s directions ringing in her ears.

‘Along the lane to Netherfield Road, turn left. Keep goin’ right to the top of St George’s Hill, turn right down Priory Road and at the end of it, you’re on Heyworth Street. Turn left along Heyworth Street and go along it a goodish way until you see the Heyworth Street school. Opposite it, so that’s a right turn, is Mere Lane. See? Easy!’

It was one hell of a trudge though, Ellen thought, trudging. But once she got on to Heyworth Street it was so interesting that she forgot her aching arms and legs. Nice shops, she thought approvingly . . . and then came to her aunt’s cake shop. It wasn’t open yet, wouldn’t be open until the following week, but Ellen lingered outside it, peeping through the glass. Someone had painted swirls of whitewash on the inside to try to stop folk peeping, but with a bit of jiggling around she could just about make it out. A long counter, a smart piece of linoleum on the floor, shelves behind the counter . . . and stands in the window for the cakes to be displayed on.

And I’m goin’ to work there, Ellen reminded herself, feeling a warm glow of satisfaction steal over her. Working at last – and in a shop as smart as the one she was standing outside! Not a bad beginning, she told herself approvingly as she moved reluctantly on at last. The customers at such a smart shop would no doubt be smart as well, and Mam had said they would sell only the best and most expensive cakes and pastries.

Still, standing around wouldn’t do anyone any good and the prop, as well as getting heavier and heavier the further she walked, was also a menace to other pavement users. Ellen had already caused cries of dismay when she’d spotted a pet shop with a window full of rabbits and pigeons and had swung thoughtlessly round, her prop sweeping two ladies’ hats off their heads at the height of its parabola and striking a man so hard amidships on its downward path that he had goggled at her, his breath whumped out of him as the prop took its malicious revenge on everyone within reach.

‘Jeez, I’m awful sorry,’ Ellen had cried, conscience-stricken. ‘It were the rabbits, see . . . are you much hurt, mister? Look, have one of me raisin buns, that’ll bring the colour back to your cheeks.’

The man had muttered something about her carelessness, but he had taken one of the proffered buns, eaten it in two bites and smiled at her in quite a forgiving sort of way. ‘It were the shock,’ he said, adjusting his cap on his head and preparing to set off along the pavement once more. ‘It ain’t often as I’m swep’ off me feet by a young person like yourself!’

The ladies had been rather more indignant and had refused her offer of a bun with more haste than good manners, Ellen thought. They felt they had been made to look foolish, she realised, fussing around them, fetching back the hats and dusting them off with the peg bag before watching them placing them tenderly on their smooth heads. And no one likes looking foolish. She had stood the prop down during this operation and had had to grab it hastily back, since she had leaned it against the wall alongside a hardware store and a customer, who had been examining the galvanised buckets and watering cans, had wandered over to it, a hand stretched out, no doubt about to take it inside and ask the price.

‘Sorry . . . the prop’s mine, I just stood it down for a second,’ Ellen gabbled, snatching her property and holding it defensively to her bosom. ‘It were the rabbits in the winder . . . they took me eye, an’ me prop got out o’ hand . . .’

The customer said it were the best prop he’d seen for a day or three and went inside the shop and Ellen looked round for her victims, but the ladies had taken the opportunity whilst she was otherwise engaged and had hurried off, no doubt clutching their hats. Since there was nothing more she could do Ellen continued breathlessly on her way, thinking that the journey had certainly not been a dull one. She was sorry the ladies had not accepted the bun of apology, but there you were; they looked like the sort of people who thought it not at all the thing to eat in the street, and the man had proved to be both understanding and, in the end, forgiving. I’ll have to be content with that, Ellen thought, being careful now and trailing the prop behind her as her footsteps got slower and slower. Oh, shan’t I be glad to see this Mere Lane Mam talked about!

And just as she was beginning to wonder whether her mother had missed out some essential part of her instructions she saw a building which looked exactly like a school and right opposite it . . .

‘Mere Lane!’ Ellen said joyfully, stopping dead in her tracks. ‘Thank Gawd for that . . . Mere Lane at last, and Mam were right, it’s nigh on opposite the school.’

As she crossed the busy road, Ellen reflected that it really would be a blessing to be so near the school. At the moment, Sammy and the baby were too small for such things, but later it would only be a few yards’ walk for them. And the twins would not have to be accompanied, even for the first day or so. They could scarcely miss a school so conveniently near.