My second cousin, Dwayne, couldn’t have been more different. Where Brian was good-looking and flashy, Dwayne was plain and quiet, though when he smiled he could light up a room. He was always tucked away in his bedroom, reading books of sermons, fingering his rosary, praying in front of his little glass case that he said contained a hair of St Catherine of Siena. I liked him, but never quite knew how to handle his deep religiosity. We, the English branch of the family, were lapsed Catholics.
Dwayne joined the Christian Brothers, and trained as a teacher in a boys’ school. He sent Christmas and Easter cards every year, and a dutiful letter to my mum on her birthday, which always ended with the words, ‘Pray every day and you’ll not go far wrong.’
Dwayne died just four years ago, aged 53, of cancer. Uncle Pádraig phoned Mum, who was at that time dying of cancer herself, although we didn’t know it at the time. He was the last of Pádraig’s three sons to die. Mum went over to Ireland for the funeral, came back looking ill and exhausted, and full of news that Pádraig was insisting on changing his will in her favour, now that all his sons were gone and he had no grandchildren. Mum had argued it with him, saying what would she do with a farm in Ireland? But Pádraig had insisted, and said it could all come to me if I outlived Mum.
Mum had told me this on the quiet, when Paul was not around. I think she knew then she was dying but had not told me or Dad yet. I think she also knew I was unhappy with Paul, and could see that an inheritance, in time, from my uncle might be my escape route. She was a wise woman, my mum.
And then there was David, Pádraig’s third son and the one closest to me in age, being only two years older. But I don’t think it was just our proximity in age that drew us together. We shared a lot of interests (he lent me the entire set of Enid Blyton Mystery books) and we often went out cycling together along the country lanes surrounding the farm. It was David who first took me to the Hill of Tara (on a long day’s cycle ride when we were in our teens), and told me the legends of the ancient kings of Ireland. He knew so much about his country’s history. He was, of all of them, the most Irish, the most proud. The most Republican.
He was arrested for the first time when he was 20, on suspicion of involvement in planning an ambush of British troops on the border near Blacklion. There was not enough evidence to convict him, although one of his friends was imprisoned. It was after this that David announced by letter he wanted to be called Daithí, the Irish form of his name.
Mum had shrugged, taught me how to pronounce it (Doh-hee, more or less) and written back, urging him to ‘be careful, stay out of trouble’. I asked what she meant. Why did she think he could be in trouble? ‘Oh that boy,’ she’d replied. ‘There’s only one way he’s headed, with beliefs as strong as he has. Your granny has a lot to answer for, putting ideas in his head.’ I wasn’t sure what she meant, and she refused to elaborate. David was her favourite nephew, I knew, but also the one most likely to exasperate her. I only heard the reason for his arrest many years later.
The second time Daithí was arrested he ended up imprisoned in Long Kesh, where he died a couple of years later, of pneumonia, or so we were told. (‘Pneumonia, my arse,’ said my mother, through her tears at his funeral.) I was 22 at the time. It was hard to equate the smiling, Enid-Blyton-reading, cycling, Irish-history-loving boy I’d known as a child with a convicted terrorist. Even now it’s hard for me to get my head around.
Morbid thoughts. And yet today was the first day of the rest of my life. Time to shake off the past and look to the future.
A decent breakfast and the excellent coffee Janice served made me feel a lot more positive. When I’d finished eating and the café was quiet, she sat with me and told me where the supermarket was, and how to get my electricity reconnected. In turn, I ended up telling her a little about Paul. She regarded me with sympathy and then patted my shoulder in solidarity. ‘Sounds to me like you’ve done the right thing, making a clean break. Your good old uncle, eh, providing you with an escape route!’
‘That’s what I thought,’ I replied, gathering up my things. It was time I got going. My phone was fully charged but I was reluctant to turn it on while I was still in the café. There’d be messages from Paul, I was sure of it. I wasn’t ready to face them just yet, although I knew I’d have to, soon.
‘Use the café’s phone to call Electric Ireland,’ Janice said, as though she could mind-read. ‘Go on. It’ll only take a moment and the sooner you call them the sooner they can get working on it.’
So I called them and they promised to have the electricity reconnected by the end of the day. Another problem solved, and I could put off switching my phone on for a little while longer.
I left the café promising to be back again tomorrow, taking with me a slice of chocolate fudge cake wrapped in a napkin, which Janice had insisted I have. ‘It’s the last slice and a bit too crumbly to serve to a paying customer,’ she’d said. ‘I’ll be making more today.’
Food shopping was high on the list of things to do next. As was poking around Blackstown. There was that bookshop I’d spotted opposite the café, and as Uncle Pádraig had left no reading material in the house other than a few volumes of Padre Pio sermons (probably left over from my cousin Dwayne) and those boxes of old papers and letters, I was keen to buy myself a few novels.
But before all that, I realised I should ring or at least text the boys. That meant turning my phone on. There was a small park – just a patch of green really – at the end of the high street, surrounding a spreading oak tree with a bench underneath. I sat there, pulled out my phone, took a deep breath and turned it on. Once it was registered on Vodafone Ireland the notifications began coming through. Texts from both boys asking if everything was OK and if I’d arrived safely. Texts saying I had seven voicemail messages. A text telling me that there were no roaming charges as I was in a ‘roam-free’ destination. And a series of texts from Paul.
Why aren’t you at home?
Where’s the car?
Why aren’t you answering your phone?
Are you serious about leaving? You’ll never cope on your own.
I called Matt. He said you’d gone to Ireland. Is that right?
If you’re in fucking Ireland where’s the car?
If you’ve taken the car, how the fuck am I going to get to work?
It was clear he hadn’t believed me when I’d told him I was leaving. He’d dismissed everything I’d said as worthless, and had only believed I’d left him when Matt confirmed it. And he seemed more upset about the car than anything else.
My first reaction was anger when I read those texts, and then I calmed myself down, read them again, and realised they were almost comical. I realised too that I didn’t care.
Next, while I still had that ‘don’t care’ feeling, I listened to the voicemails. There were two from Matt – a ‘hope all’s OK’ one and another warning me Paul had rung him; and the other five were from Paul, saying much the same as the texts but in increasingly belligerent tones. The last asked what he was supposed to have for dinner. I laughed out loud at that one, and pictured him heating up a few tins as I’d done. More likely he’d have phoned for a takeaway curry, despite the freezer full of good food, and several ready-meals in the fridge. I’d stocked it up for him before I left.
So there were three phone calls to make.
I called Matt first.
‘Hey, sweetie. Just letting you know I got here safely. All’s good.’
‘Mum, that’s great! I mean, really. Well done. You took the car, right?’
‘I did. Your granddad gave it to me, after all.’
‘Yeah. Um, Dad’s furious about that. Has he called you?’
‘He’s tried to