Rainbow's End (57 page)

‘It’s the strangest thing I ever did see,’ Donal said at last. ‘Look how the stones are covered with flowers – tiny ones, medium ones and some quite big ones. Even the moss is all different colours – no wonder Bill wanted to come back, Dee. I’ve never seen nothin’ like it, I can’t tek me eyes off it.’

‘Look at that wall,’ Ellen said. ‘It’s every colour under the sun, yet you can see it’s just a thin slab of rock, six foot high and no more’n an inch wide . . . oh, and the grass in that medder’s such a bright green! Mr Donovan said the land rears the best sheep in all Ireland . . . can you doubt it, when you look at the colour an’ richness o’ the grass?

‘Aye, an’ if that’s a medder . . .’ Donal said, turning away from the stream, ‘then the Feeney place can’t be far off . . . look, is that . . .’

Deirdre glanced in the direction he indicated. A low, one-storey cottage hugged the ground, the grasses and wild flowers high enough to touch the windowsills. The walls were white, the thatch, although mossy and bird-tattered, was the golden-beige of dried reed and the shutters still had signs of paint long blistered and gone. And it was, because of the stream before it and the land behind, instantly recognisable.

There was a simultaneous gasp from Deirdre and Garvan. ‘It’s the picture!’ they both said, almost in the same breath. ‘It’s me mam’s picture!’

After a moment’s stunned pause, Deirdre turned to Garvan. ‘I didn’t know you’d seen the picture – I didn’t think Ellen had brought it out yet.’

‘I haven’t,’ Ellen said, looking bewildered.

‘I don’t know nothin’ about Ellen’s picture, I’m talkin’ about me mammy’s picture, what came down to her from me gran,’ Garvan said slowly. ‘It’s a real clever t’ing – it used to hang in Maggie’s room. It showed a cottage just like this one, wit’ the stream before it an’ the slabs o’ stone an’ the colours behind, an’ it weren’t painted, nor drawn, it were . . .’

‘Stitched, out o’ cunning little bits an’ pieces o’ cloth?’ Deirdre said for him. ‘Like ours, Garv? Ours shows the place in springtime, just like now.’

‘Ours is autumn,’ Garvan said dreamily. ‘All browns an’ golds an’ greys . . . but the sky’s blue, an’ the sunshine’s over everyt’ing, so it is. Well, ain’t that the strangest t’ing you ever did hear, now? How come we’ve both of us got a picture of this cottage?’

‘Could it be that our grans were related – sisters, or somet’ing?’ Liam said after a moment. ‘No, that’s not likely. But s’pose they were at the same school . . . or near neighbours? Would that mek sense of it?’

‘Only if the school was held in that cottage,’ Ellen said, pointing across the stream. ‘I know it’s the wildest of coincidences, but . . . it sounds to me as though them pictures were made by the same person. Or one was copied from the other. Which could mean our families were connected, way back.’

‘And why not, alanna?’ the driver put in. He had been listening to the conversation with keen interest. ‘I’m a Ryan, as I’ve mebbe mentioned, and we’ve lived on the Burren for ever, so we’re after knowin’ a t’ing or two. The way I’ve heard it the Feeneys were a big fambly, so they were. An’ wit’ a name like Docherty youse is bound to be of Irish distraction. So your gran could ha’ married a Docherty, an’ her sister a Nolan. See? As for the pictures, de Feeneys lost most of dere t’ings at de time of de storm, but de girls would keep somet’ing small, dat dey valued, like them pictures. Oh aye, it makes sense, so it does.’

‘When we unpack we’ll tek a look at our picture,’ Liam said. ‘Then Ellen can tell us if it’s made as hers is. Isn’t it grand, now, to t’ink mebbe all of us is findin’ our roots again? Ellie?’

‘Yes, grand,’ Ellen said slowly. ‘You brought the picture then, Liam?’

‘Aye. Mrs Collins gave it me, after Maggie’s death. I guess I t’ought you’d like it.’ He stood up and held out his hands to Ellen. ‘Are we goin’ to tek a closer look? I doubt the place is locked up, bein’ so far from everyt’ing.’

Ellen stood up too and let him hand her down, whilst the younger ones swarmed over the sides of the wagon and dropped down, discovering the stepping stones with cries of pleasure.

‘There would have been a little bridge here once,’ Deirdre said was she jumped from stone to stone. ‘We could build another . . .’ She reached the bank, scrambled up it and headed determinedly for the cottage. ‘Right, now I’m goin’ to look inside . . . look all round everywhere, at everythin’. Ain’t it a pretty place? An’ there’s still glass in the windows . . . an’ the door’s solid, but there’s a dacent-lookin’ latch. I think you were right, Liam, we’ll get inside without trouble.’

They did. The latch groaned and protested but it lifted and they stole inside, the older ones hanging back good-naturedly to let the youngsters go first. Donal went ahead and Deirdre and Garvan followed, she unashamedly gripping his hand. Suddenly it seemed like trespassing, she felt there might be someone inside who would ask what the devil they thought they were doing, coming unasked into private property . . .

But there was no one. Nothing. The interior of the cottage was dark, divided into four rooms, one very large, the rest smaller. But all were completely and utterly empty. In fact . . .

‘Beasts have been stabled here,’ Garvan said disgustedly, standing on one foot and examining the sole of his shoe in the muted light coming through the small window panes. ‘In the last year or so, I mean. Well, what a t’ing to do to a good little house!’

‘Hens, too,’ Deirdre quavered as her quick movement stirred a pile of hay and feathers into momentary unlikely life. ‘Oh, how Grainne would hate to think of her little home bein’ used for hens an’ sheep. Bill telled us how hard she worked to keep the place neat an’ tidy, how she cooked and preserved an’ stacked up veggies for the winter . . .’

‘If she were like most farmers she probably let the hens pop in an’ out as they wanted,’ Garvan observed frankly. ‘Sure an’ country folk aren’t as fussy as you townies – a hen can clean up your floor real nice if you’ve spilt peelin’s or bits o’ food on it, so it can. There’ll mebbe be a spot or two of chicken manure, but Grainne would have swept that out quick enough wit’ her twiggy broom. Sheep though . . . that’s another t’ing . . . an’ cattle, an’ if I read the signs right they’ve been here awright.’

‘Well, they won’t come here no longer,’ Deirdre said fiercely. ‘We won’t let ’em, will we, Ellen? We’ll purrit right, won’t we? A nice bit o’ linoleum on the floors, an’ new shutters . . . some furniture, mebbe . . . an’ we can clean out the chimbley, so’s we can have a fire . . .’

‘We’ll do it all in time,’ Ellen said comfortably. ‘But first we’ve the big house to sort out.’ She wandered across the room to the big stone fireplace. ‘I reckon the picture would have hung above the fireplace,’ she said. ‘No, I’m wrong – if there really were two they’d have hung one on either side of the fireplace, where the settles would have been once. Didn’t Bill say nothin’ about pictures, Dee?’

‘I b’lieve he did,’ Donal said, answering for his sister who stood in frowning abstraction, clearly racking her memory. ‘But I don’t know as we took much notice, not havin’ seen our mam’s picture then. She din’t fetch it down from the attic until you had a room of your own, did she, Ellie? An’ that weren’t till we moved to Mere Lane. But no worry, we’ll have all the time in the world to sort out the mystery once we’re settled into the McBride place.’

‘True,’ Liam said. ‘Come an’ look at the outbuildings, Ellen, see if we can patch ’em up wit’out too much trouble. If all we’ve been told is true, the best sheep come from the Burren, so they do, so we’ll need a shelter up here for when we’re lambing.’

The two older ones and Donal went out, back into the sunny yard, and Deirdre turned to Garvan. ‘Do you know, Garv,’ she said slowly, ‘I never got no feelin’ in me insides when we first saw the McBride place, ’cept that it were a proper good farm. But the moment me eyes clapped on this ’ere little house, I felt . . . I felt as if I
knowed
it, an’ . . . an’ loved it, too. Odd, ain’t it?’

‘No, not that odd; I felt the same. It’s knowin’ the pictures, perhaps, an’ feelin’, like I did when I were a nipper, that I’d find that white cottage one o’ these days,’ Garvan said. ‘Tell you what, Seamus is me brother an’ me best friend, but I’ll not miss him here, not like I would anywhere else.’

‘No, ’cos it’s
your
place too,’ Deirdre said at once. ‘Garv, I want to do this place up an’ one day, I want to live here. It’s a sad place now, but can’t you feel how warm an’ friendly an’ . . . an’
happy
it were once? Wi’ the kids playin’ out by the stream an’ in the yard, knowin’ the countryside like the backs o’ their hands, lovin’ what they’d made o’ the place, plannin’ what to do next . . .’

‘We’re all goin’ to have our work cut out these next few years to keep the McBride place in good heart,’ Garvan said. ‘But I’m wit’ you, Dee me darlin’, though there’ll be a deal of opposition, so there will. Liam an’ Ellen won’t want to move into a tumbledown cabin wit’ only a stream for their water an’ not a field ploughed or sown.’

‘I meant you an’ me an’ Donal,’ Deirdre said impatiently. ‘Ellen’s already talkin’ about gettin’ our mam over to run the house, wi’ Sammy an’ Toby, too. Mr Donovan says there’s a good livin’ at the McBride place for a big fambly, but ’tis the Feeney place what calls to me. An’ they’ll be glad enough to see us independent, you mark my words. Well? Are you wit’ me? Donal will back us up, honest to God he will.’

She looked up at Garvan as they emerged from the gloom of the house into the golden sunshine of the yard and saw the slow smile spread across his face.

‘We’ll give it a go,’ he said gleefully. ‘Just as soon as the others can spare us, which may not be for a while. Hey, Donny!’

It did not take a moment to explain the plan to Donal who was immediately in favour. ‘You’re on, Garv, Dee,’ he agreed at once. ‘Oh, I can’t wait to get started. I reckon they’ll agree pretty fast once Mam comes to give a hand.’

They returned to the stream, crossed it and joined the others in the wagon. Liam and Ellen were holding hands and gazing into each other’s eyes – sloppy stuff, Dee thought scornfully, but then what could you expect? They were newly-weds, and everyone knew newly-weds were soft in the head.

As they scrambled into the wagon a cloud drifted across the sky overhead and a fine soft rain began to fall. It would not be much, Deirdre told herself, settling down comfortably between Garvan and Donal, because there was sunshine too and the sky overhead was still a soft and radiant blue . . . and besides what did a little rain matter?

‘Come up, me ould lad!’ Mr Ryan shouted and flicked his whip above the patient cob’s broad back, and Dee felt a hand reach for hers and an arm turn her a little so that, together, she and Garvan were looking back at the Feeney place.

From this distance it looked all white and gold, as though it were new-built and waiting to welcome them home, and even as they watched faint tints formed in the drifting rain and tinged the thatch and the white walls with colour – every colour known to man.

‘Will you look at that, alanna?’ Garvan said softly into her ear. ‘A rainbow’s lucky . . . look, it’s paintin’ our house till it’s as beautiful as the Burren.’

Dee nodded. ‘When I were little me mam used to tell me I’d find me rainbow’s end one day,’ she said softly. ‘An’ we have, Garvan.’