‘Please don’t. I beg of you. Please don’t,’ I implored.
Nora ignored me. ‘It was possibly one of the most transformative things I have ever done. I wish we could have lived there permanently, instead of a month here and there.’
‘Why didn’t you, Granny?’ said Rosie.
‘Well, I had little Tabitha,’ she said, ‘and she, Rosie, in case you haven’t noticed, is not cut out for tent life. That was very clear from an early age. She liked everything neat and tidy.’
‘Don’t blame me,’ I said. ‘Anyway, I don’t think your free spirit was curtailed too much by me. You practically spent my entire teenage years down there.’
‘I didn’t,’ she insisted. ‘You must be imagining it. As far as I recall, it was a week here and week there.’
When we finally entered the county of Cork, after hours of driving and stops for loo breaks, tea breaks, leg stretching, Nora sat up, like a farmer’s collie and rolled down the window and sniffed the air.
‘Ah, it’s good to be back,’ she said.
‘In Blarney?’ We were driving past the castle at that moment.
‘Cork. The ancestral home. Spent my happiest years of my life here in Cork.’
‘Your happiest years?’
But Nora was too busy, lost in thought, looking out of the window, no doubt remembering magical days of mud and melodeons.
*
It was late afternoon when we pulled into Schull, the village where Rosaleen had grown up. We parked beside the church to stretch our legs and I managed to get enough of a signal to text Clodagh.
Survived journey so far. No one has been murdered. Yet. How are you? Stay away from the sugar. Back in the morning.
I didn’t call Red because I didn’t have time to say everything I wanted to. I’d told Rosie about the baby and it was about time I told Red and I was feeling nervous about it. What would he say? The memory of what he said to me on the bench kept replaying in my mind. He had missed me. He had missed me.
I did text him, though.
In West Cork. Will call tomorrow xxxx.
And then I deleted the xxxx’s. And then put them back in and pressed send.
Rosie was more mature than me, I thought.
‘That drive wasn’t too bad,’ I said to Rosie and Nora who were perched on an old wall. Rosie was texting as well and Nora was sniffing the air.
‘Not too bad,’ she agreed, ‘and worth it just to breathe properly. Dublin is too smoky.’ She wrinkled her nose.
‘Mum,’ I said, ‘we live by the sea, the air is amazing.’
‘But it’s sweeter down here,’ she said. ‘Honeysuckle and heather and bluebells. It’s like a tonic.’
‘Mum, I think you might be a little too romantic about West Cork. I mean, it’s nice and everything…’ But I looked around and I knew exactly what she meant. A robin hopped onto the ground beside us, looking at us, his head on one side. ‘Who’s ready to go and see Rosaleen’s house?’ I said.
‘Me,’ said Rosie, who jumped to her feet and turned to give Nora a hand. Rosie was looking well again. Smiling and happy. Like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She seemed to be just glad to be here with us, me and Nora.
‘Who were you texting?’ I said.
‘Alice,’ she said. ‘We spoke properly last night…’
‘That’s good news.’
‘We were both crying,’ she said. ‘She said she missed me and she thought I hated her or that she’d done something wrong.’
‘So when are you going to see her and Meg?’
‘Well, they’re in the middle of the exams.’ She pulled a face, as though she had been reminded of her awful reality. ’But I thought about going tomorrow, when we get home…’
‘That’s a plan. Right, next stop, the old house.’
We drove through the village and found the house and once we were out of the car, we stood at the gate, peering in.
‘There’s her cherry tree,’ said Nora, pointing to a low and overgrown beautiful tree in full leaf. ‘It could do with a prune.’
‘I don’t think we can go in,’ said Rosie.
‘I think Granny was thinking we would just march in and demand to be shown round the house,’ I said. ‘Not just have a look at the tree.’
‘That is not a bad idea,’ said Nora. ‘House tour anyone?’
‘Let’s stick with the tree,’ I said.
‘Should we knock on the door and ask to see it?’ said Rosie.
‘I’m sure they would let us,’ I said. ‘What do you think, Mum?’ I looked around. ‘Mum?’
Nora had darted into the garden and was already pulling herself up onto a lower branch of the tree, her legs disappearing into the foliage and showing remarkable agility. But then she never failed to surprise me.
‘Mum!’ I hissed. ‘Come down! You can’t just climb someone’s tree… it’s trespassing!’ Rosie and I looked at each other for a moment and then ran over to her, ducking under the foliage. There she was, sitting on a long flat branch, a beatific smile on her face.
‘What took you so long?’ she said. ‘Rosie, give me your hand.’
But Rosie was already pulling herself up, climbing the lower branch and then sliding herself onto the long and strong branch. She sat herself on the other side of Nora. ‘Mum…’ she looked down at me. ‘Coming?’
‘Oh, all right.’ I managed to get myself up, and sat down beside Nora. ‘We’re going to get shot at,’ I said. ‘Or whatever they do in the countryside. Set the dogs on us.’
‘We’re in West Cork now,’ said Nora. ‘They don’t do that kind of thing. We’ve come home.’ She swung her legs. ‘Well, here we are, Rosaleen’s three little birds. She’d be very happy to see us in her tree. She always said it had healing properties,’ she mused. ‘Do you feel it, Rosie? When I came down here a couple of months after your great-grandmother died, it helped me. It really did. I crawled into it, like we are now, and I just sat here for ages and ages. And when I eventually emerged, I felt utterly and totally at peace.’ Nora, in the middle of us, took my hand as well and I knew she was remembering that time we spent together, after Rosaleen died and after my miscarriage. ‘You should have come with me,’ she said.
‘Maybe I should have,’ I said, after a pause. I felt her hand squeeze mine. Rosaleen’s three little birds, in her cherry tree.
‘People pay money to come and feel like this,’ went on Nora. ‘But there is nothing in the world as healing than sitting on a branch feeling the power of a tree. We must do all we can to save trees. Not cut them down.’ There was no escaping the Battle of the Copse, even here, all the way in West Cork.
‘Mum! They are not going to be cut down! I promise you!’
‘Right.’ She patted my hand, still speaking in her dreamy voice. ‘Just ensure their protection, all right?’ It was as though she was trying to hypnotise me into agreeing. ‘Just enshrine the rights of the trees into school policy, that’s all.’
‘It does sound reasonable,’ said Rosie. ‘Mum?’
‘Can we talk about something else?’ I said.
‘Did you know, Rosie,’ said Nora, satisfied that she had made her point, ‘that your great-grandmother was going to be an actress? That’s why she left this beautiful part of the world, where our roots lie deep below the surface, from where the Thomas tribe hails.’
‘But she stopped acting, didn’t she?’ I added, ‘when she went to work as a front of house manager.’
‘Yes, but she was brilliant… she could act. Everyone said so…’
‘So what happened? Why did she stop?’ I had always thought it was because she lost interest, somehow, her passion waned and she had Nora to look after. ‘Rosaleen never told me.’
‘She had stage fright,’ explained Nora. ‘It was her great tragedy. She never recovered. Her life’s dream taken away from her. But there was no way she could get back on that stage. I was very young when it happened, only one or two, I forget now, but she told me. It always makes me sad when I think of it, someone not achieving their dream.’ Nora paused dramatically, and looked at us both in turn, enjoying immensely telling us the story of her mother, drawing it out.