Buried in a Bog (2 page)

She tried to smile politely in return, but she was exhausted. She didn’t know where she was or what she was doing. She was on this rattletrap bus only because Gran had asked her to make the trip—just before she died, worn down from half a century of scrabbling to make a living and keep a roof over her granddaughter’s head in South Boston. Now that she thought about it, Gran had probably been planning this trip for her for quite a while. She had insisted that Maura get a passport, and not just any passport, but an Irish one, which was possible only because Gran had filed for an Irish Certificate of Foreign Birth for her when she was a child. What else had Gran not told her?

And what else had she been too young and too selfish to ask about? Gran had never talked much about her life in Ireland, before she had been widowed and brought her young son to Boston, and Maura had been too busy trying to be American to care. She didn’t remember her father, no more than a large laughing figure. Or her mother, who after her father’s death had decided that raising a child alone, with an Irish-born mother-in-law, was not for her and split. It had always been just her and Gran, in a small apartment in a shabby triple-decker in a not-so-good neighborhood in South Boston.

Which was where Irish immigrants had been settling for generations, so Maura was no stranger to the Boston Irish community. Maybe her grandmother Nora Donovan had never shoved the Ould Country down her throat, but there had been many a time that Maura had come home from school or from work and found Gran deep in conversation with some new immigrant, an empty plate in front of him. Gran had taken it on herself to look out for the new ones,
who’d left Ireland much as she had, hoping for a better life, or more money. The flow of immigrants had slowed for a while when the Celtic Tiger—the unexpected prosperity that had swept Ireland then disappeared again within less than a decade—was raging, but then it had picked up again in the past few years.

Maura suspected that Gran had been slipping these newcomers some extra cash, which would go a long way toward explaining why they’d never had the money to move out of the one-bedroom apartment they’d lived in as long as Maura could remember. Why Gran had worked more than one job, and why Maura had started working as early as the law would let her. Why Gran had died, riddled with cancer after waiting too long to see a doctor, and had left a bank account with barely enough to cover the last bills. Then the landlord had announced he was converting the building to condominiums, now that Southie was becoming gentrified, and Maura was left with no home and no one.

It was only when she was packing up Gran’s pitifully few things that she’d found the envelope with the money. In one of their last conversations in the hospital, Gran had made her promise to go to Ireland, Maura to say a Mass in the old church in Leap, where she’d been married. “Say my farewells for me, darlin’,” she’d said, and Maura had agreed to her face, although she had thought it was no more than the ramblings of a sick old woman. How was she supposed to fly to Ireland, when she wasn’t sure she could make the next rent payment?

The envelope, tucked in the back of Gran’s battered dresser alongside Maura’s passport, held the answer. It had contained just enough cash to buy a plane ticket from Boston
to Dublin, and to pay for a short stay, if Maura was frugal. Since Gran had taught her well, she didn’t think she’d have any trouble doing that. How Gran had managed to set aside that much, Maura would never know.

She’d buried Gran, with only a few of her Irish immigrant friends in attendance, and a week later she’d found herself on a plane. And here she was. Maura was surprised to feel the sting of tears. She was cold, damp, jet-lagged, and—if she was honest with herself—depressed. It had been a long few weeks, but at least staying busy had allowed her to keep her sadness at bay. Gran had been her only relative, her only tie to any place, and with Gran gone Maura was no longer sure where she belonged. She was free, if broke. She could go anywhere she wanted, and with her work experience tending bar and waitressing, she could pick up a short-term job almost anywhere. The problem was, she didn’t know where she wanted to go. There was nothing to hold her in Boston, but there was no point in leaving either.

Maura looked out through the rain streaming down the windows. She’d always heard that Ireland was green, but at the moment all she could see was grey. What had Gran wanted her to find in Ireland?

Since Gran had never really mentioned any people “back home” to Maura, she’d been surprised to find a bundle of letters and photographs stashed next to the envelope with the money, where Gran must have been sure that Maura would find them. Sorting through them after Gran’s death, she had found that the few photographs were ones she had seen no more than once or twice in her life, but luckily Gran had written names on the back; most of the letters had come from a Bridget Nolan, with only the skimpiest of return
addresses—not even a street listing. Taking a chance—and wanting to believe that someone in Ireland would still care—Maura had written to the woman about her old friend Nora’s death and her wish that Maura make the trip to Ireland to pay her respects there. Mrs. Nolan had written back immediately and urged her to come over. Her spidery handwriting hinted at her advanced age and suggested that Maura shouldn’t delay, and it was barely two weeks later that Maura had found herself on the plane. And then on a bus, which passed through small towns, cheerfully painted in bright colors, as if to fight the gloom of the rain. Most often it took no more than a couple of minutes to go from one end of the town to the other, and between there was a lot of open land, dotted with cattle and sheep and the occasional ruined castle to remind Maura that she was definitely somewhere that wasn’t Boston. The towns listed on the road signs meant nothing to her. She was afraid of dozing off and missing her stop. Mrs. Nolan had given Maura sketchy instructions to get off the bus in front of Sullivan’s Pub in a village called Leap, and they would “see to her,” whatever that meant. The bus lurched and belched fumes as it rumbled along the main highway on the south coast, though “highway” was a rather grand description: it was two lanes wide. More than once the bus had found itself behind a truck lumbering along at a brisk twenty miles per hour, but nobody had seemed anxious about it; no one was hurrying.

Finally, through the murk of the late March afternoon in, Maura could make out a large painted sign by the road: Sullivan’s of Leap, with a dashing highwayman riding a horse straight out of the sign. It was no more than a minute later that the bus driver called out “Leap” (which he
pronounced “Lep,” as in “leper”), and Maura gathered her belongings—which consisted of a battered duffel bag with her clothes plus an old school backpack with everything else—and waited while a few other women climbed down. The women appeared to be regular riders; they exchanged farewells and vanished quickly in different directions, leaving Maura standing alone in the rain looking at the dilapidated facade of Sullivan’s.

Despite the rain she took a moment to study the town and get her bearings. Actually “town” was probably not the right term, since she could see most of it from where she stood on the main road. There was a string of brightly painted houses along each side of the road, with a glimpse of the occasional cow grazing on the hill behind. Two churches—one Catholic, one Church of Ireland—faced off across the road from each other. One school, next to the Catholic church. A small hotel, and a couple of shops. And she counted three pubs, including Sullivan’s, huddling together where the road widened.

From what little she’d read online at the local library in Southie, Leap’s population had been hovering around two hundred people for more than a century. Once the ladies from the bus had vanished, there was no one in sight, though she spied a few lights on here and there, including one inside Sullivan’s. Gran had always said that making a good first impression was important, but Maura didn’t have a lot of options: she hadn’t brought much with her, and she’d left even less behind. Now she was wet and rumpled. She ran her fingers through her hair, then hoisted the straps of the two bags up on her shoulder, approached the door, and pulled it open.

Inside it seemed barely brighter than the dusk outside. A black-and-white dog lay sprawled on the floor near the entrance. It lifted its head as Maura approached, then decided she wasn’t worth bothering about and went back to sleep. There was a small, smoke-stained fireplace at one end, surrounded by shabby upholstered chairs, and what Maura guessed was a peat fire glowed dimly. The smell of the peat smoke helped to conceal the other, less pleasant odors: a mix of stale beer, staler cigarette smoke, unwashed bodies, and just a hint of urine. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she took in the bar that occupied half of the back wall and the complete absence of customers, except for a bulky figure slumped in the chair nearest the fire. Maura wasn’t sure he was breathing.

A young girl was swabbing the top of the bar with a damp grey rag, her eyes on whatever sitcom with laugh track was playing on the television mounted over the end of the bar. Her hair was carelessly tied up in a ponytail, with a few curls escaping, and her delicate face was lightly sprinkled with freckles. She looked up eagerly when Maura came in, and said, “How can I help you, ma’am?”

Maura would bet that she was no more than ten years older than the girl, who looked about fifteen—when had she become a “ma’am”? And why wasn’t the girl home doing her schoolwork on a weekday in March? Not that it was any of her business. But at least the girl was polite and welcoming, and Maura was cold and tired and hungry. She couldn’t even remember when she had eaten last. “I’m Maura Donovan,” she said. “Bridget Nolan said I should stop by here?”

The girl looked perplexed for a moment, then recognition dawned. “Ah, you’d be the American, come to visit. She left
a note for you—I know it’s here somewhere.” The girl turned and shuffled through odds and ends on a shelf behind the bar. “Here it is.” She smoothed the slightly crumpled folded piece of paper before handing it to Maura. “Would you care for a cup of tea? Or coffee? Americans do like their coffee, don’t they?”

To Maura’s experienced eye, the coffee she spotted on a hot plate behind the bar would probably be suitable only for sealing asphalt. “Tea would be fine, thank you.” How far wrong could she go with a tea bag and hot water?

As the girl hunted up the cup, the bag, sugar, milk, a spoon, and a napkin, Maura took a seat on a creaking bar stool and read the note Mrs. Nolan had left for her. She apologized for not being able to come out and meet her right away, and instructed her to cross the street and talk to Ellen Keohane, who would fix her up just fine. Maura shook her head, trying to decipher what Mrs. Nolan could mean by that.

The girl proudly set a steaming mug in front of Maura, with a tea bag tail dangling. At least it was Barry’s tea, which her gran had loved—Maura couldn’t fathom crossing an ocean just to get a cup of Lipton’s. “Thank you. What do I owe you?” She’d gotten some euros from what she’d finally identified as an ATM at the airport, after a bit of wrangling with numbers—at least her debit card had worked, not that there was a lot in her bank account. It was funny, putting in the card and getting out a handful of bills with pretty pictures on them—it was like play money. Just to reassure herself, she had broken a few bills, buying something to drink and a bun, to have coins on hand, but after paying for the bus ticket she wasn’t sure how much she had—or how
long it would need to last. She’d seen neither a bank nor an ATM in Leap so far.

“Seeing as you’re a friend of Mrs. Nolan’s, it’s on the house,” the girl said, flashing a dimple. “By the way, my name’s Rose Sweeney.”

“Nice to meet you,” Maura said. “I can’t say that I exactly know Mrs. Nolan, but my grandmother did.”

“No matter, Mrs. Nolan said that we should be looking for you. At least Mick, her grandson, did—he’d be the one who brought the note here for you. We didn’t know when you’d be coming.”

“I wasn’t sure myself—I kind of had to grab the first cheap plane ticket I could get, and there wasn’t time to let anyone know. Is it a problem?”

“Mrs. Nolan knew you’d be here soon, and she let Ellen know. Don’t worry yourself.

“So, who is this Ellen Keohane I’m supposed to find?” Maura asked.

“She takes in a few visitors now and then, in the house over by the harbor there.” Rose gestured vaguely across the road. “It’s a small place, she only rents out the two rooms, but it’s nice. Quiet, and the views are pretty.”

“That was nice of her. Tell me, does Ellen charge much?”

“It’s off-season, and Ellen Keohane’s a fair woman, or so me da says. And cheaper than the hotel, not that there’s any space there. Full of fishermen, it is. Will you be staying long, or are you just stopping for a bit?”

Maura dunked her tea bag a few times, then pulled it out of the water. “I…really don’t know. A week, maybe?” She’d booked a return flight for a week later, but only because it was cheaper that way. She looked around the
room, darkening by the minute. The clock above the bar said it was only four o’clock. How could it be so dark, so early? “Does this place get busier?” She was the only customer, although the old man sleeping by the fire had a half-full pint glass in front of him. She didn’t remember seeing anyone pass by on the street outside in the time she’d been in the pub.

Rose looked momentarily confused, then smiled. “It’s Tuesday, and it’s early yet. Come Friday, you’ll see the place more lively. Where’re you from, then?”

“Boston, in the States. I guess I’m used to having more people around.”

“I’ve never been farther away than Cork City,” Rose said wistfully. “Is Boston much bigger than Cork?”

“I think so,” Maura said. “It’s more than half a million, I know.”

Rose’s eyes widened. “We’ve only about four million in Ireland, all in. Cork City’s got little more than a hundred thousand and some, but I’m told Dublin is over a million. So your Boston would be more crowded than Cork, but not as big as Dublin.”

“I didn’t get a chance to see Dublin, just the airport.” Which had seemed smaller than Boston’s to Maura. “But yes, it’s pretty crowded, at least in parts. How big is Leap?”