Buried in a Bog (3 page)

“A couple of hundred, no more.”

“And you’ve lived here all your life? Are you finished with school?”

“I’ve done my Leaving Certificate.” When Maura looked blankly at her, Rose went on to explain what that meant.

Maura tried hard to follow Rose’s explanation of the Irish educational system. She didn’t mean to be rude, but the long
trip was catching up with her, and she quickly lost the thread. She thought she understood that Rose had finished with her secondary education, but apparently had no plans to go on. “Listen, I’d better go see this place of Ellen’s,” Maura finally said. “Is there someplace to eat around here?”

“We’re not doing food here at the moment, unless just crisps will do, and they’re none too fresh,” Rose said dubiously. “There’s the hotel,” she added. “And maybe the café’s open, though they do mostly lunches. You’d be better off in Skibbereen.”

“I don’t have a car. How often do the buses run?”

“Ah,” Rose said. “Well, maybe you should ask Mrs. Keohane. She’d know better.”

“Good idea. Thanks for the tea, Rose.” Maura slid off the bar stool and almost fell over—her muscles had stiffened up, not that she’d been sitting long. She really needed to get some food and some rest, preferably but not necessarily in that order. “I’ll go over there now. Just across the road, you said?”

“Well, across and down a bit. You’ll see the drive off to your right, and then you go down the hill, kinda. You can’t miss it.”

Maura wasn’t so sure, especially now that it was getting darker by the minute—the heavy clouds showed no sign of thinning. At least there wasn’t much traffic. “I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again. Bye for now.”

The straps of her bags were digging into her shoulder—how had they gotten heavier since she had arrived? Outside the pub Maura stopped a moment to get her bearings. She looked both ways—and then looked again, reminding herself that the cars would be driving on the left here—and then headed across the road. Rose had been right: there
weren’t many chances to get lost. She followed the graveled drive down and discovered a house with its front door facing the drive. Nowhere did it indicate that there were rooms to let, but at least there were lights on inside. She found the doorbell and pushed it. She could hear it ringing somewhere inside the house, and the bell seemed to precipitate a clamor of childish voices, followed by footsteps. The door was opened by a thirty-something woman wearing an apron; the noise of clamoring children grew louder. The woman pushed her hair out of her face and said warily, “Can I help you?”

“I’m Maura Donovan. Are you Ellen Keohane? Bridget Nolan said I should talk to you.”

“Ah, of course—you’re the American. She mentioned you’d be coming soon. Welcome! I’m just giving the kids their dinner, but come in.”

Maura willingly followed her in, dropping her bags on the hall floor.

“Come on through—I’ll only be a minute,” Ellen said, striding back toward the brightly lit kitchen at the end of the hallway. Maura hesitated, then followed.

In the kitchen, Ellen said, “The three of you, eat up now. This is Maura, come all the way from America. Maura, this is Kevin, Sean, and Patrick, and the baby’s Gráinne. Kevin’s ten, Sean eight, Patrick seven, and Gráinne’s not yet two.” The children looked up briefly, then returned their attention to their fish sticks. Maura guessed that strangers held no particular interest for them: if Ellen welcomed a succession of guests, no doubt they’d seen their fair share.

“Gráinne?” Maura asked, confused. It sounded like “grawn-ya,” and she’d never heard it before.

Ellen laughed. “Of course, you wouldn’t know it. It’s a girl’s name here, and Gráinne’s my little darling. I’m so glad she turned out to be a girl, after this lot.” She smiled affectionately at the children around the table. “Boys, I’ll be showing Miss Donovan here the room, below. I’ll only be a minute. Kevin, you keep an eye on the little ones.” Ellen turned back to Maura. “It’s downstairs, at the back. Kevin’s the only one sleeps down there, but he’ll be no trouble. He’s a quiet one. Shall I show you now?”

“Please,” Maura said. The idea of a space of her own—with a bed—was becoming more and more appealing with every passing moment. She snagged her bags from the hall and followed her hostess down a flight of stairs and around a corner. Ellen pulled a key out of her pocket and opened the hall door, ushering Maura into a midsized room with one double bed and one single tucked in the other corner.

“The bath’s at the back,” Ellen said, “and you can hang your clothes in the cabinet there. I’ll push the heat up a bit, now you’re here. Do you know how long you’ll be needing the room?”

“I…don’t really know. A week? And I guess I have to ask how much you’ll be charging?”

Ellen cocked her head at Maura. “The off-season rate is 250 euros a week. Does that suit you?”

Maura tried to translate euros to dollars and thought that came out to something like forty-five dollars a night—if she was right, that certainly sounded reasonable. She could work it out later. She desperately craved food and sleep. “Sure, that’s fine. Listen, I’ll let you get back to your kids. But is there someplace I can get something to eat?”

“There’s the hotel—it’s the closest. You look dead on your feet. Why not get a bite there tonight, and I’ll tell you about some other places in the morning. You’ll be wanting the full breakfast?”

“What’s that?” Maura asked.

Ellen laughed. “And you a good Irish girl! It’s everything you can fit on a plate—eggs, streaky bacon, good Clonakilty sausage, beans, mushrooms, and more. It comes with the price of the room.”

“It sounds wonderful,” Maura said, overwhelmed. Maybe with a breakfast like that she wouldn’t need to eat the rest of the day. She should try it, at least once, on her first day. “Thank you.”

“Grand.” Ellen handed her a set of keys for the room and the front door, and hurried back up the way they’d come, where the sounds from the kitchen had increased in volume. Once Ellen was gone, Maura carefully closed the door and surveyed her temporary home. It was clean and tidy, more practical than elegant. She checked out the tiny bathroom and splashed water on her face, then sat down on the bed: it felt comfortable, and there were plenty of pillows and blankets. She lay down, just for a moment…

Maura woke some time later to pitch dark. Real dark; cut-it-with-a-knife dark. And there was no noise: no cars passing, no airplanes overhead, no distant sirens. Where was she? Oh, right: Ireland. She was in a small town her grandmother had never said a word about. All her life Gran had kept quiet about where she had come from, yet in the end she had wanted to send Maura here.
Well, Gran, you wanted me to be here, and here I am. What now?

As she lay in the dark listening, she realized she
could
hear something—the rhythmic lapping of water against the shore. Hadn’t Rose said there was a harbor? She hadn’t seen it, but now she could hear it, and in the end it soothed her back to sleep.

M
aura woke again when light began to filter around the floor-length curtains opposite the bed. The clock on the table by the bed had been unplugged at some point, probably because the room didn’t get much use, and she hadn’t remembered to reset her watch. What was the time difference? Five hours? Six? Still, if it was light outside, she must have slept nearly twelve hours, a rare luxury in her life. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stood up, pulling her shirt down, trying in vain to smooth out the wrinkles. Her bag still sat on the smaller bed across the room, unopened, and the clothes she had packed would be equally wrinkled after being crammed in there for a couple of days.

Now what? The long drapes at the end of the ground-floor room must cover a door. Maura pulled them back, then
stopped, transfixed. Last night the weather had been cold and wet, but today the sun had broken through. Outside her door lay the harbor, an inlet maybe a mile wide, with tall pines clustered on the right and open fields rising up the low hills beyond. There were sheep grazing on the hillside and swans floating on the water nearby. It looked like every tourist picture of Ireland that Maura had ever seen, and for the second time in two days she wanted to cry, this time because it was so lovely.

From upstairs she could hear sounds of activity—mostly the thuds of children’s feet, then Ellen’s voice as she shooed them out the door. To school? What day was this? She had to think for a moment before confirming that it was Wednesday, which meant it was a school day. With the kids out of the way, Ellen would be looking for her for breakfast, and Maura reluctantly tore herself away from the view to take a quick shower before she faced…what? She had no idea what her plans were for the day. But a shower and breakfast would be a good start, and she was starving.

But the shower baffled her. She hadn’t done more than the bare minimum in the bathroom the night before, but now she was faced with plumbing she didn’t recognize. Shower stall, relatively modern fiberglass, check. Handles, although left and right were switched. Hot water? She ran it for a minute or so but it stayed cold. She examined a small rectangular box set on the wall outside the stall, and after a couple of minutes she realized she was looking at a point-of-use water heater, something she’d heard about but never seen. It had a button, and when she pushed it, hot water miraculously came out of the showerhead. She felt ridiculously proud of herself for having figured it out, and stepped into the shower.

Ten minutes later she headed up the stairs in search of Ellen—and food. She found her landlady in the kitchen, with her youngest child in a high chair at the table. “Good morning,” Maura said tentatively.

“Ah, there you are. I hope the children didn’t disturb you?”

“Not at all. I didn’t hear a thing. I hadn’t realized how tired I was. Something smells good.”

“You said you’d be wanting the full breakfast, right?” Ellen grinned a challenge at Maura. “Do you prefer coffee or tea?”

“Either’s fine, if you have it made.”

“Coffee, then. Go settle yourself in the parlor and I’ll bring it out to you.”

“I don’t want you to go to any trouble.” And the idea of this nice woman serving her made her uncomfortable. “Do you mind if I just stay here, or would I be in your way?”

Ellen laughed. “With four kids I’m often doing at least six things at a time! If you don’t mind the mess, you’re welcome to stay.” She busied herself with a frying pan at the stove. “So this is your first trip to Ireland?”

“Yeah. My grandmother was born somewhere around here, but she never told me much about the place. Before she died recently, she made me promise I’d visit.”

“That’d be Nora Sullivan?” As she talked, Ellen handed Gráinne a piece of bread with butter.

“That’s right, before she married. Bridget Nolan told you about her?” Ellen was nowhere near old enough to have known her grandmother personally.

“She did indeed—her grandson brings her by now and then, seeing as she doesn’t drive anymore.”

“How old is she? If she knew my gran, she can’t be young.”

“Eighty-some? But she still lives on her own, bless her. Mrs. Nolan told me she knew not only your gran, but your grandfather and father too, come to that.”

Maura realized with a shock that she had never considered that. People who had known her father as a child? And his father, the grandfather she had never met? But Gran had said so little about the losses of her husband and her son, and Maura hadn’t wanted to upset her by prying. “Hers was the only name I could find in Gran’s things. I’m looking forward to meeting her. But how do I find her? When I wrote her, the address was kind of vague, although the letter must have gotten here.” Worse, Maura knew that even when she found out where to find Mrs. Nolan, she had no idea how she was supposed to get there. Would there be a bus? Maybe someone would lend her a bicycle…

Ellen must have read her mind. “Mick’ll be coming by to give you a ride out. That’s Michael Nolan, her grandson. He looks out for her.”

Maura hated to have to impose on anyone else, particularly someone she didn’t know. “I can get there on my own.”

Ellen laughed. “Not unless you know your way around the townlands. Mick’s back and forth between the pub and his gran’s in any case, so it’s no problem.”

Maura didn’t recall seeing any man at the pub the day before, other than the old one in front of the fire. “He works at the pub?”

“Manages it, him and Jimmy Sweeney. That’d be Rose’s father.”

“Does Rose actually work at the pub?”

“She does. She’s done with school. Her ma passed on a couple of years back, and she’s living with her da.”

And working at a dead-end job in a dead-end town,
Maura thought. Surely a smart and nice-looking girl would have better options? Then a sharp voice in her head reminded her,
Like you, Maura?
But she’d had Gran to think about, and she owed her. Maybe she should find out what Rose’s story was. “So Mrs. Nolan has lived around here for a long time?”

Ellen did some mental math. “She’s lived in that cottage in Knockskagh since she married, and she’s not about to give it up. Mick brings her groceries and keeps the place in good shape.” Ellen set a plate heaped with food in front of Maura.