A Keeper(19)

‘I’m here to clear out the house and I found some letters.’

‘Letters?’

‘Yes. They are from an Edward Foley. I think he was my father.’

Rosemary let out a short sharp yelp, which made Maxi and Dick come running to see if their mistress required some assistance.

‘Edward Foley! I haven’t thought about him in years. And you found the letters? That’s gas.’

‘So, you remember him?’

‘Well, not really. I mean, I never met him, but I knew all about the letters.’

‘So, you weren’t at the wedding?’

‘No. Sure, no one was. It was all very odd. She had gone to stay with Edward and the mother and then she just didn’t come back. Not a word. Nothing. Your mother had given me the number for down there but I had no joy. I wanted to call the guards but I remember old Mrs Beamish, she ran the salon I worked in at the time, she told me I’d get in trouble for wasting their time. So, and I don’t know what possessed me, I got in my car – a little Fiat it was – and drove all the way down to Cork and out past Timoleague. It took a bit of asking but eventually I found the Foley farm.’ Elizabeth imagined a much younger version of this woman wedged behind the wheel, setting out to rescue her friend. It pleased her to think someone had ever cared about her mother that much.

‘And?’

Rosemary paused and took a sip of tea.

‘Nothing. I never saw her, or him for that matter. The old mother came out to me and told me that Patricia was too ill to receive visitors. She was nice enough, apologised for my wasted journey, but at the same time I knew there was no way I was getting into that house. There was a steeliness to her.’

‘So, what did you do?’

‘I sat back into the car and came back to Buncarragh. The next thing I hear, about a week or two later, they were married. I can’t remember who told me. There was an announcement in the paper. Of course, it was only later that it all made sense.’

‘What did?’

‘Well, when she appeared with you in her arms. You were hardly a newborn. Anyone could have seen that.’ The old woman paused and examined Elizabeth’s face, trying to gauge how much of the story she already knew or had guessed. Rosemary took a breath and continued. ‘She was obviously pregnant when she left Buncarragh. That’s why I couldn’t see her. That’s why no one was at the wedding.’

‘Really? Are you certain?’ Elizabeth found it hard to imagine that her mother had ever been a sexual being, and certainly not someone who couldn’t control her desires.

‘Put it this way, when is your birthday?’

‘The twenty-first of March,’ Elizabeth replied automatically.

‘When you were a baby, there were no birthdays. It was only when you went to school, I saw balloons tied to your railings. That date was plucked from the air, I’d say.’

Elizabeth remembered all the fuss about her birth certificate when she had been applying for her passport. Her mother claiming to have lost it and getting it re-issued. At the time she had thought it had been delay tactics by her mother because she didn’t want her to travel abroad, but maybe this woman’s theory was correct.

‘She never told me any of this, mind, but it is the only thing that makes sense. It was all very …’ She searched for the right word. ‘Well, sad, I suppose. Your mother was never the same when she came back. We used to share a joke, talk about everything, but the woman who returned to Buncarragh, well, I never saw her laughing. Her whole life was raising you and looking after that house. I suppose that gave her a certain kind of joy. Maybe it was just me that never grew up. You never really know what is going on in someone else’s head, do you?’

‘No. You don’t.’ Elizabeth wondered what gave this dishevelled old woman in front of her joy. What was in her badly dyed head?

‘And Edward? What happened to him?’

‘I managed to get out of her that he was dead but that was all, and she made it very clear that she didn’t want to talk about him. She didn’t want to talk about any of it.’

Elizabeth leaned back in her chair and tried to absorb what Rosemary was telling her. The woman she was describing was a stranger.

‘Sorry not to have been of more help.’ Rosemary drained her mug and got up to bring it to the sink. Elizabeth’s tea sat untouched. ‘If I think of anything else, I’ll let you know.’ The interview, such as it had been, was over. Elizabeth got up and allowed herself to be ushered back to the front door.

‘Thank you. So strange to think that my mother could ever have done anything so scandalous!’

‘And she wasn’t a girl. She was a grown woman. Still, it was a different time. We were all a bunch of innocents.’

‘I suppose.’ Elizabeth turned to step back out into the street but then, remembering, added, ‘Oh, and thanks for the tea.’

Rosemary just raised an eyebrow and shut the door.

The blue skies were gone and pencil-grey clouds now lurked overhead with the promise of rain. With nothing else to do Elizabeth headed back towards Convent Hill. She was nearly at number sixty-two when her cousin Paul emerged from the house and greeted her.

‘Perfect timing!’

‘Is it? What can I do for you?’

‘I’m glad I caught you in time.’ Paul sucked his teeth and pushed his hair back from his eyes. ‘There’s no way you can stay in there. The place is coming down with rats.’