Songs of Love and War (53 page)

Jack was trembling. He held up his fist. ‘You call her a whore again and I’ll finish you off for good.’

But Michael Doyle enjoyed taunting him and, propelled by drink, was unable to stop. ‘She asked for it, Jack. She came to my house. She came to me willingly. I didn’t ask her but I
gave her what she wanted.’ He narrowed his eyes and smirked. ‘I threw her onto the table and fucked her, Jack! I fucked her from behind like a whore. Did she tell you
that
?’ Jack was stunned. He hesitated, arm in the air, trying to make sense of Michael’s words. He was slow to react: Michael’s fist dealt him a blow to the stomach before
he had time to strike. Jack bent double and gasped for breath. ‘Were you not man enough to take her, Jack? Did you have to leave it to me to show her what a
real
man is capable
of?’ Michael kneed him in the ribs and Jack fell to the ground with a groan. ‘Don’t you ever threaten me again, do you hear?’ he shouted. ‘We’re not on the same
side any more, Jack. You were too lily-livered to continue the fight. Michael Collins sold us down the river and you were right there behind him, happy to give it all away! But look what happened
to him? Dead on the road in Béal na Bláth. The war is not over, Jack. And you’re on the losing side.’

Michael drew his foot back and kicked him in the kidneys, but Jack’s fingers had found a large stone and were curling around it. His fury numbed the pain in his ribs. All he could think of
was his beloved Kitty, thrown over the table, and Michael thrusting into her. He lifted the stone off the ground and threw it at Michael, hoping it would make contact somewhere. Hoping it would
give him time. It did more than that. It struck him on the temple. Michael fell backwards, hitting the grass like a vanquished giant in a fairy tale.

Jack staggered to his feet, holding his winded stomach. The clouds opened again and the silver eye gazed down at Michael Doyle, nursing his wounded head. ‘Jaysus, Jack!’ he cried,
writhing in agony. Jack was so full of rage he wanted to finish him off. He wanted to kick the life out of him. But Michael was drunk, and helpless now as he tended to his injury with a trembling
hand and Jack didn’t have the flint heart to kill him.

‘Don’t you ever go near Kitty again, do you understand?’ he growled. ‘Or I’ll finish what I started and the Devil will take your soul.’

The following morning Kitty was in the dining room having breakfast when there was a knock at the door. A moment later Bridgeman stood in the doorway. ‘Mr O’Leary
is here to see you, Mrs Trench,’ he said.

Robert frowned at Kitty. ‘Isn’t that the vet?’

‘Yes,’ Kitty replied calmly.

‘Did you call for him?’

‘No.’

‘Oh.’ Robert raised his eyebrows. ‘Odd lot, the Irish.’

Kitty smiled. ‘Darling, that’s not kind. I’ll go and see what he wants.’ Kitty hurried into the hall. When she saw Jack, one eye black, his lip cut and bruised, her heart
went cold.

‘Good day to you, Mrs Trench.’ He took off his cap.

Kitty stared at him in horror. In her mind’s eye she saw Miss Grieve dead on the gravel. Hadn’t they been here before? ‘What have you done?’ she whispered.

‘Michael Doyle won’t be troubling you any more,’ he replied flatly. ‘I’d have killed him if he hadn’t been so blind drunk.’

Kitty drew in a sharp gulp of air and put her hand on the door frame to steady herself. ‘I think you should take a look at her, Mr O’Leary,’ she said loudly, striding past him
towards the stables. She didn’t speak until they were alone. Only the mare was once more privy to their conversation.

‘Oh Jack. What happened?’ she asked, gazing up at his battered face.

‘Why didn’t you tell me, Kitty?’ he groaned. The dreadful pain in his eyes told her that he knew what Michael had done. ‘Why didn’t you . . . ?’

‘I couldn’t . . .’ she whispered.

‘That’s not something you can carry on your own, Kitty. It’s too big for one person.’ He put a hand on her arm. ‘I would have helped you bear it.’

‘I was ashamed.’

‘Of what? You have nothing to be ashamed of. You didn’t ask for it.’

Kitty’s face burned. ‘But I went there, Jack. I went there of my own accord. I went to shout at him for burning the castle. What was I thinking?’

He took her stricken face in his hands and held her gaze. ‘You’re a bold girl, Kitty Deverill. But boldness isn’t a crime and he had no right to touch you. No right at all. May
he burn in Hell.’ He wiped her tears with gentle thumbs and pressed his lips to her forehead. ‘Let me carry this for you, my darling. Let it all go.’

Kitty howled against his jacket. ‘I can’t live without you, Jack,’ she said, wondering how she had ever thought it possible. ‘And I don’t want to.’

Kitty rode her mare over the hills at a gallop. The sky was a rich display of indigo and gold as the sun slowly made its way towards the horizon to dawn on the other side of
the world. The sea was a violet bed of satin, its foam like lace, its rippling waves like folds rising and falling gently as the wind swept over it in a tender caress. Jack’s house was
isolated, at the bottom of a dusty track, surrounded by woolly fields and a sandy inlet that went out to the ocean. He was waiting for her there, ready to take her horse to the stable where there
was water and shelter. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. This time his face was full of joy. The lines of trouble had eased, his eyes were no longer windows into pain and his mouth curled
with delight as it always used to do before Michael Doyle had taken away everything he loved.

Holding her hand he led her into the cottage. The fire was lit in the parlour. The place smelt of turf smoke, dusty books and baking bread. He turned back and grinned and in that moment he was
the boy she had known all those years ago, with his hawk and his dog and his love of every living creature, even the spiders and rats that Bridie had been so afraid of. He stepped onto the stair
where the carpet was frayed with age and began to climb. Neither said a word as she followed him upstairs. There was something magical in the silence that neither wanted to break.

He took her to his bedroom. He didn’t have much: a large bed, a simple wooden chest of drawers, a wardrobe, a standing mirror and a bookcase. The window was open, the curtains billowing on
the breeze that carried on its breath the earthy smell of early spring. His eyes told her he had waited years for this. They told her that his love had no limits and no conditions. They reassured
her that it would heal the wounds of the past and reduce to ash the residual memory of Michael Doyle.

He slipped his hands around her neck, beneath her hair where she was still hot from her ride, and caressed her cheeks with his thumbs. He gazed upon her face as if his desire was to commit every
feature to memory. They needn’t rush. They had time. Here in this remote cottage they were a world apart. Jack bent his head and all the longing, all the dreams and fantasies of youth, went
into his kiss. Kitty ran her hands over his shirt, feeling the warmth of his body beneath, and closed her eyes. She wasn’t afraid. In Jack’s arms she was safe. In his familiar embrace
she could erase everything that had come before.

She pulled his shirt out of his trousers and unbuttoned it. She traced his ribs with her fingertips, where the bruise had muted to a dirty brown, and over his chest. Unlike Robert’s,
Jack’s was hairy and muscular, the chest of a man who hadn’t the money to pay others to do his work for him. Kitty found it deeply arousing and pressed her ear to hear his heart beating
beneath and to inhale the scent that she knew so well.

Jack tugged her blouse out of her slacks and lifted it over her head. She stood in her chemise and breeches, the skin of her shoulders pale against the red of her hair as it tumbled about them
in thick waves. Unable to resist, he sank his face into her neck and kissed her there. The sensation of his rough bristles and lips was too much and Kitty pulled away and sat on the bed so that
Jack could help her remove her boots and breeches. They both sensed an urgency now, an accelerating impulse to entwine so tightly that nothing could untangle them. Kitty’s inhibitions had no
place in this room, with Jack who had known and loved her for as long as they could both remember.

He stood at the foot of the bed and unbelted his trousers. As he bent his head his brown hair fell over his forehead and Kitty was reminded of the time he had helped her hunt for frogs in the
river. He was still the same, just more weathered, time and experience having deepened the lines around his mouth and eyes, and darkened his skin. She felt her heart expand with gratitude that God
had seen fit to preserve him, in spite of everything he had put himself through.

When at last Jack climbed over the bed to lie beside her, it was as if the intervening years had never been. He ran his hands over the soft undulations of her body as if he were the first and
she took pleasure from his caresses as if her trust in a man’s touch had never been broken. As Jack made love to her she discovered that this act that she had so abhorred was not a repulsive
thing after all, but the manifestation of two people’s deep and enduring devotion.

Robert’s novel was published at the beginning of May. Kitty was the first to read it. She lay on a rug on the lawn, surrounded by flowers and shrubs which
she
had
planted, inhaling the sweet spring air and devouring the love story that Robert had so clearly written for
her
. It was a beautiful tale and Kitty couldn’t put it down. He wrote with a
fluid, lyrical style that drew the reader into the plot, and on occasions she laughed out loud, which was unusual because Robert wasn’t particularly witty in person. She was so proud of her
husband. Although he had been paid very little for it, she hoped that it would sell well enough to justify writing another. They had sold the house in London, turning their back on England forever.
She had committed to a future in Ireland. It was where she belonged. It was where she was happy at last and it was where she could be close to Jack.

The spring flowered into summer and little Jack was growing boisterous. He loved exploring the beaches, playing with the dogs Robert had bought from Peter’s bitch’s litter and having
fun with his cousins. Kitty didn’t seek out her father. She visited her grandmother and the Shrubs, spent time with her sister and Grace and sneaked off to see Jack whenever she was able to
disappear without raising suspicion. As long as her father didn’t wish to see her, she would give him a wide berth. She was too busy thinking about Jack to care.

In August Celia, Harry and Boysie arrived with their high spirits and laughter and their demand for constant entertainment. Kitty arranged picnics, rides over the hills, excursions to Cork,
lunch parties and dinners with their neighbours where Boysie entertained them all on the piano and Celia led everyone into a dance. Indeed, no one was happier to be back in Ballinakelly than
Celia.

‘Oh, I do so love this old place,’ she said, sitting in Adeline’s tower, squashed onto a mouse-eaten sofa with Boysie and Harry, while Kitty took Hubert’s chair.

‘It’s very crowded now,’ said Adeline, sipping the cannabis tea Kitty had prepared for her. ‘Hubert is jolly fierce but he can’t keep Barton out. He says he was
here first so it’s his right. One can’t argue with that.’

Celia giggled. ‘I think you’re drinking too much weed tea, Adeline!’ But Kitty knew she wasn’t making it up for both Hubert and Barton were standing by the window looking
extremely put out at having their room invaded in this way.

Adeline passed the teapot to Boysie. ‘At least I’m never alone,’ she said.

‘And I have a lovely fire, even in the summertime. It gets very damp in here otherwise. But truly, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. I can’t leave Hubert to fend off all his
relatives on his own, now can I?’

Boysie poured tea into his cup then passed the pot to Harry. ‘We should drink more of this. I want to inhabit Lady Deverill’s world.’

‘I’m afraid it’s not the weed,’ said Harry. ‘Grandma and Kitty both see dead people. They say it’s a gift. I say it’s a design fault.’

Kitty caught Adeline’s eye and grinned. ‘In the olden days we’d have been burned at the stake,’ she said.

‘I always thought you made it up,’ said Celia. ‘That story about the curse and Barton Deverill and his heirs being stuck in the castle until an O’Leary returned to live
here.’ She took the pot from Harry and refilled her empty cup. Then she looked at Kitty steadily, remembering her confession in the garden about loving the man after whom she had named little
Jack. ‘Whatever happened to Jack O’Leary?’ she asked.

‘He’s the local vet,’ said Kitty smoothly, averting her eyes. ‘His father was wounded in the war so Jack took over.’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Celia, narrowing her eyes. ‘He was always very good with animals. They were all unafraid of him. Even wild rabbits and deer. Do you remember how
he used to tell us the names of all the birds? He knew every one.’

‘He sounds like St Francis of Assisi,’ said Boysie drily.

‘I don’t think there was anything saintly about him. He was always devilishly handsome if I recall,’ said Celia. ‘Tell me, Kitty, has he married?’

‘No, he’s alone,’ Kitty replied.

Celia grinned. ‘Oh dear. That’s frightfully dangerous.’ She passed the pot to Kitty who poured out the last few drops, thinking of Jack alone in the cottage by the sea. Would
he crave a family one day? She took a gulp and banished the shadow of guilt that drifted into her heart like a black cloud across a clear sky.

‘One day an O’Leary will return to claim the land,’ said Adeline portentously.

‘Do you think?’ said Celia. ‘Perhaps Harry and Charlotte’s future son will marry Jack’s future daughter. That would be enough to lift the curse, wouldn’t
it?’

‘Oh I think it would,’ said Adeline firmly. ‘Then all these poor spirits can return home, to where they belong.’ Harry nudged Boysie and smirked, because he didn’t
believe in things one couldn’t see with the eye. ‘If it doesn’t happen,’ Adeline continued, looking sternly at her grandson, ‘you will end your days here, too, Harry.
A wandering, angry soul unable to move into the light. It’s a dark world in Limbo.’