The Copper Beech (6 page)

But when they walked together in Barna Woods away from the eyes of the town they walked close together. Sometimes they would stop by chance at exactly the same time and she would lay her head companionably on his shoulder, and lean against him as they peeled the bark from a tree or looked at a bird’s nest hidden in the branches.

Night after night Maddy lay alone in her narrow bed remembering that day he had cried and she had held him in the woods. She could remember the way his body shook
and how she could feel his heart beat against her. She could bring back the smell of him, the smell of winegums and Gold Flake tobacco, of Knight’s Castile soap. She could remember the way his hair had tickled her neck and how his tears had wet her cheeks. It was like seeing the same scene of a film over and over.

She wondered did he ever think of it, but supposed that would be foolishly romantic. And for Father Barry … for Brian … it might even be a sin.

Because of this new centre to her life Maddy Ross was able to do more than ever before. She could scarcely remember the days when the time had seemed long and hung heavily around her. Now there weren’t enough hours in the week for all that had to be done. She had long back hired young Maura Brennan from the cottages, a solemn poor child who loved stroking the furniture, to do her ironing and that worked out very well. Now on a different day she got young Eddie Barton to come and do her garden for her.

Eddie was a funny little fellow of about fourteen, interested in plants and nature. He would often want to talk to her about the various things that grew in her garden.

‘What do you spend the money on?’ she asked him one day. He reddened. ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s yours to spend any way you like.’

‘Stamps,’ he said eventually.

‘That’s nice. Have you a big collection?’

‘No. To put on letters. Father Barry said we should have a pen-friend overseas,’ he said.

It was wonderful to think how much good Father Barry was doing. Imagine a boy with wiry sticky-up hair like Eddie, a boy who would normally be kicking a ball up against a house wall, or writing messages on it, now had
a Catholic pen-friend overseas. She gave him extra money that day.

‘Tell him about Shancarrig, what a great place it is.’

‘I do,’ Eddie said simply. ‘I write all about it.’

When Eddie got flu and his mother wouldn’t let him out, Foxy Dunne offered to do the chore.

‘I believe you’re a great payer, Miss Ross,’ he said cheerfully.

‘You won’t get as much as Eddie – you don’t know which are flowers and which are weeds.’ She was spirited and cheerful herself.

‘Ah but you’re a teacher, Miss Ross. It’d only take you a minute to show me.’

‘Only till Eddie comes back,’ she agreed.

By the time Eddie was better and came back to fume over the desecration he claimed Foxy had done in the garden, Foxy had got himself several odd jobs, mending doors, fixing locks on an outhouse. Her mother didn’t like having one of the Dunnes around the place in case he was sizing it up for a job for himself or one of his brothers.

‘Oh Mother! They shouldn’t all be tarred with the same brush,’ Maddy cried.

‘You’re nearly as unworldly as Father Barry himself,’ said her mother.

There had once been a Dramatic Society in Shancarrig but it had fallen into inactivity. There was some vague story behind this, as there was behind everything. It had to do with the previous teacher having become very inebriated at a performance and some kind of unpleasantness was meant to have taken place. Nellie Dunne always said she could tell you a thing or two about the play-acting that went on in this town. It was play-acting in every sense of the word, she might say. But though she threatened she
never in fact did tell anybody a thing or two about what had gone on; and whatever it was had gone on long before Father Gunn had come to Shancarrig. And Monsignor O’Toole wasn’t likely to remember it.

Maddy thought that very possibly the members of whatever it had been were sufficiently cooled to start again. She was surprised and pleased at the enthusiasm – Eddie Barton’s mother said she’d help with the wardrobe; you always needed a professional to stop the thing looking like children playing charades. Biddy, the maid up at The Glen, said that if there was any call for a step dance she would be glad to oblige. It was a skill which her position didn’t give her much chance to use, and she didn’t want to get too rusty. Both Brian and Liam Dunne from the hardware store said they would join, and Carrie who looked after Dr Jims’ little boy said she’d love to try out for a small part, but nothing with too many lines. Sergeant Keane and his wife both said it was the one thing they had been waiting for and the Sergeant pumped Maddy’s hand up and down in gratitude.

So Maddy started the Shancarrig Dramatic Society and they were always very grateful for the kind interest that Father Barry took in their productions. Nobody thought it a bit odd that the saintly young priest with the sad face should throw himself whole-heartedly into anything that was for the parish good. And of course the proceeds went to the charity of the missions in South America. And it was just as well to have Father Barry, everyone agreed, laughing a little behind Father Gunn’s back, because poor Father Gunn, in spite of his many other great qualities, didn’t know one side of the stage from the other, while Father Barry could turn his hand to anything. He could design a set, arrange the lighting, and best of all, direct performances. He coaxed the townspeople of Shancarrig
to play everything from
Pygmalion
to
Drama at Inish
, and the Christmas concerts were a legend.

Only Maddy knew how his heart wasn’t in any of it.

Only she knew the real man, who hid his unhappiness. Soon she found she was thinking of him all the time, and imagining his reaction to the smallest and most inconsequential things she did. If she was telling the story of the Flight into Egypt to the Mixed Infants at school she imagined him leaning against the door smiling at her approvingly. Sometimes she smiled back as if he were really there. The children would look around to see if someone had come in.

Then at home, when she was preparing her mother’s supper, she would decorate the plate with a garnish of finely sliced tomato, or chopped hard-boiled egg and fresh parsley. Her mother barely noticed, but she could see how Brian Barry would respond. She would put words of praise in his mouth and say them to herself.

She spent her time in what she considered was a much more satisfactory relationship than anyone else around her. Mr and Mrs Kelly were locked in a routine marriage if ever she saw one. Poor Maura Brennan of the cottages, who married a flash harry of a barman, was left alone with her Down’s syndrome child to rear. Major Murphy in The Glen had a marriage that defied description. They never went anywhere outside their four walls. In any other land they would have been called recluses, but here, because The Glen was the big house, they were admired for their sense of isolation.

There was nobody that Madeleine Ross envied. Nobody she knew had as dear and pure a love as she had known, a man who depended on her utterly and who would have been lost to his vocation if it had not been for her.

And then one night all of a sudden, when she least expected it, came a strange thought. It was one of those sleepless nights when the moon seemed unnaturally bright and visible even through the curtains, so it was easier to leave them open.

Maddy saw a figure walking past going to the woods. She thought first that it was Brian, and she was about to slip into some clothes and follow him. But then she saw at the last moment that it was Major Murphy, on goodness knew what kind of outing. It was easy to mistake them, tall men in dark clothes. But Brian was asleep in the presbytery, or possibly not asleep, maybe looking at the same moon and feeling the same restlessness.

That was when it came to Maddy Ross that Father Barry should leave Shancarrig.

He could no longer be wasted passing plates of sandwiches, rigging up old curtains, praising a tuneless choir, welcoming yet another bishop or visiting churchman. There was only one life to be lived. He must go on and live it as best he could, serving the people of Vieja Piedra. The whole notion of there being only one life to live buzzed around in her head all night. There was no more sleep now. She sat hugging a mug of tea, remembering how her brother Joseph had said those very words to her, all that while ago when she had gone to Rhodesia for his wedding, about there being only one chance to live your life.

And Joseph, who had been given the same kind of education as she had had, and who came from the same parents, had been able to seize at the life he wanted. Joseph and Caitriona Ross had children out in Africa. Sometimes they sent pictures of them outside their big white house with the pillars at the front door. Maddy had never told her mother that these little children weren’t Catholics and might not even have been properly baptized.
She and Brian had agreed that it was better not to trouble an already troubled mind with such information.

If Joseph Ross had only one life so had Maddy Ross and so had Brian Barry. Why couldn’t Father Brian leave and go to South America? After a decent interval Maddy could leave too and be with him.

For part of the night as she paced the house she told herself that things need not change between them. They would be as they were here, true friends doing the work they felt was calling across the land and sea to them. And Brian could remain a priest. Once a priest always a priest. He wouldn’t have to leave, just change the nature and scope of his vocation.

And then as dawn came up over Barna Woods Maddy Ross admitted to herself what she had been hiding. She acknowledged that she wanted Brian Barry to be her love, her husband. She wanted him to leave the priesthood. If he could get released from his vows by Rome so much the better. But even if he could not Maddy wanted him anyway. She would take him on any terms.

It was a curious freedom realising this.

She felt almost light-headed and at the same time she stopped playing games. She took her mother breakfast on a tray without fantasising what Brian would say if he had been standing beside them looking on. It was as if she had come out of the shadows, she thought, and into the real world.

She could barely wait to meet Brian. No day had ever seemed longer. Mrs Kelly had never been sharper or more inquisitive about everything Maddy was doing.

Why was she putting greetings on the blackboard in different languages? Spanish. And French, no less. Wasn’t it enough for these boneheaded children to try and learn Irish and English like the Department laid down without
filling their heads with how to say good day and goodbye in tongues they’d never need to use?

Maddy looked at her levelly. Normally, she would have seen Brian in her mind’s eye standing by the blackboard, congratulating her on her patience and forbearance, and then the two of them wandering together in Barna Woods crying ‘Buenos dias Vieja Piedra, we are coming to help you.’

But today she saw no shadowy figure. She saw only the small quivering Mrs Kelly, who was wearing a brown and yellow striped dress and looked for all the world like a wasp.

Maddy Ross was a different person today.

‘I’m putting some phrases in foreign languages on the blackboard, Mrs Kelly, because, despite what you and the Department of Education think, these children may well go to lands where they use them. And I shall put them on the blackboard every day until they feel a little bit of confidence about themselves instead of being humble and content to remain in Shancarrig pulling their caps and saying
good morning
in Irish and English until they are old men and women.’

Mrs Kelly went red and white in rapid succession.

‘You’ll do nothing of the sort, Miss Ross. Not in the timetable that is laid down for you.’

‘I had no intention of doing it in school time, Mrs Kelly.’ Maddy smiled a falsely sweet smile. ‘I am in the fortunate position of being able to hold the children’s interest
outside
school hours as well as when the bell rings. They will learn it before or after school. That will be clearly understood.’

She felt twenty feet tall. She felt as if she were elevated above the small stone schoolhouse and the town. She could hardly bear the slow noise of the clock ticking until
she could go to Brian and tell him of her new courage, her hope and her belief that they had only one chance at life.

She met him at rehearsal under the eyes of the nosey people in town.

‘How is your mother these days, Miss Ross?’ he asked. It was part of their code. They had never practised it; it just came naturally to them, as so much else would now.

‘She’s fine, Father, always asking for you, of course.’

‘I might drop in and see her later tonight, if you think she’d like that.’

‘She’d love it, Father. I’ll just let her know. I’m going out myself, but she’d be delighted to see you, like everyone.’

Her eyes danced with mischief as she said the words. She thought she saw the hint of a frown on Brian Barry’s face, but it passed.

Miss Ross left the rehearsal and she imagined people thinking that she was a dutiful daughter, and very good also to the priest, to go home and prepare a little tray for her mother to offer him. As Maddy walked home, her cheeks burning, she thought that she had been a bloody good daughter for all her life, nearly thirty years of life in this small place. And come to think of it she had been good to the priest too. Good for him and a good friend.

Nobody could blame her for wanting her chance at life.

She sat in the wood and waited on their log. He came gently through the leafy paths. His smile was tired. Something had crossed him during the day; she knew him so very well, every little change, every flicker in his face.

‘I’m late. I had to go into your mother’s,’ he said.

‘What on earth for? You know I didn’t mean …’

‘I know, but Father Gunn said to me, this very morning, that he thought I should see less of you.’

‘What!’

Brian Barry was nervous and edgy. ‘Oh, he said it very nicely of course, not an accusation, nothing you could take offence at …’