The Bird Woman (44 page)

This spring there were thirteen heads, red and gold like a carousel, all out at the one time, bumping softly against one another
whenever the wind blew. Sometimes I squatted down beside them. I listened till I nearly thought I heard them chime.

My mother died more than a year ago now, but somehow it doesn’t seem that long, for so much has happened since.

Liam had left for Derry as soon as I’d put the phone down. Wed lifted the children out of their beds, bundled them into their
clothes, thrown some blankets into the car, and set off. They’d arrived the next morning, but I wasn’t there, I’d already
gone looking for whatever it was that my father’s secret might mean for me.

Liam said that they’d walked in on Brian, giving out about me, but
Anne had cooked breakfast and Brian had made an effort and calmed himself down. He’d managed a civil welcome, and after that
everything sort of fell into place.

Anne phones every other week or I phone her. She’s back at work teaching now. It seems she’d had a sabbatical when my mother
took sick, but she used it all up on minding her till she died.

They’re coming down in July, all four of them. Anne says the girls aren’t saying much to their friends, but they’re dead excited
inside. She is as well, she tells me. She looks at the map and she can’t believe that she’s coming this far South.

We’re alright, Liam and I. We’re more careful with each other but also more tender. Some of the joy has gone, but there’s
a respect and a trust that wasn’t there before.

Dermot hanged himself a bare six months after Derry. He’d worked it all out, waited till Liam was off at an opening in Dublin,
then phoned his mobile and left a message telling Liam to call at the studio when he got home. He said to bring his spare
keys and the Guards but on no account to come in.

The note he left said he’d never be good enough as a painter. And he couldn’t kick the drink, so he’d never be any good as
a father either. And he knew he was copping out, but he couldn’t go on.

I phoned Catherine with the news then got into the car right away and went to see her. I didn’t get lost this time, I knew
the way, for I went there often. Liam had made it clear that he didn’t want her around, and I’d made it equally clear that
I’d found her again and I wasn’t prepared to lose her. If he wanted to go on feeling guilty, I said, that was his affair.

When I drove through the gates she was standing there waiting. I got out of the car, and her face went from blank to broken.
Then she clung to me and wept, just as Liam had done.

“
Where’s Danny?” I asked her when she was calmer.

“
Sleeping.”

“
Go and get him and pack a few things. You’re coming home with me.”

“
Liam
…
?”

“
Liam will want to see you. You and Liam were Dermot’s closest friends
—”

She started to heave again, so I put my arm round her shoulders and steered her in.

Marie fell to bits after that, so Catherine and Liam had to pull together for Dermot’s sake, and to everyone’s surprise things
are working out well.

It’s helped Liam’s guilt about Dermot. And overnight Catherine began to take Danny seriously, which meant making space for
his half-brothers as well.

Catherine and Danny come often now, as do Maries two sons; many’s the time I’ve five children sleeping under my roof and that’s
alright by me. People talk, but I take no notice. What do I care? They’re still there in the morning, awaiting my hands when
I open the door.

When first I came here I looked but I hardly saw, I was too far away still, I had to wait for the pictures I carried inside
me to fade so the ones that I saw all around me could colour and glow in their place. In those early days I must have been
like the tulip before it got planted
—
hanging in there, but only just.

When you lose your home the first time you don’t lose your yearning or your belonging, but when you go back and it won’t take
you in, there’s the loss of all those feelings you’ve cherished for years.

It can’t take you in, for you’re not who you were anymore
—
you’re of somewhere else. Then you go back to your “somewhere else” and you find that you don’t belong there either. It’s
where you live
—
perhaps where you love
—
but you don’t belong the way you belonged to your first place, you don’t belong the way that the folk who have never left
belong. So then you don’t know who you are or how you should be.

I’m thinking now that maybe when you reach that point you can’t be anyone else but yourself, just as the tulips flower red
and gold, year after year, and they’d still flower red and gold in another place, though they might not look so well nor bloom
so free.

baby grow
   All-in-one garment for small babies

boreen
   Small road

Celtic Tiger
   Name given to the economic boom that has transformed Ireland in recent years

chancer
   Man or woman who lives out of the fluff in his or her pocket

City and Guilds
   Certificate of competence issued to those practising trade or craft skills

Club bar
   Wrapped chocolate biscuit-bar

craic
   Informal entertainment, jokes, wit

Croppies
   Rebels; refers to the short, cropped hair favoured by the 1798 insurgents; and in Northern Ireland, a general derogatory
term for Catholics. “We’ll fight for our country, our king and our crown / And make all the traitors and croppies lie down”
(popular ballad, c. 1798)

delph
   Dishes, china

eejit
   Idiot

farl
   Portion of a circular griddle scone

fecker
   A euphemism for
fucker,
but the original meaning was thief or “one who stole,” from the verb
to feck;
can be used in polite company

flex
   Length of insulated electrical cable used to connect an electrical appliance to a socket

Foyle
   The river that enters Lough Foyle at Derry

foundered
   Frozen

Glen
   A housing estate on the Cityside of Derry

Guards
   Police, from
Garda Síochána

grafter
   Hard worker

grah
   Attraction to, affection for, love of

het up
   Upset, in a state

juke
   Look

kitted
   Dressed

Lambeg drum
   Enormous drum, used on Orange Marches

Lady Muck
   An expression meaning someone who thinks a lot of herself

lep/lepping
   Words commonly used in Ireland meaning leap or leaping

Macmillan nurse
   Nurse specially trained in care of the dying

naff
   Lacking sophistication, coolness, or style

nixer
   Work undertaken outside of normal paid employment and usually clandestinely

optics
   Spirit measures behind the bar in a pub

press
   Cupboard

rashers
   Slices of fried bacon

red up
   Finished, done

ring road
   Road that goes round or bypasses a town

rota
   List of people who will take turns at some task

RUC
   Royal Ulster Constabulary; now called the PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland)

Saracens
   Armoured personnel carriers used by the British Army

scaldy
   Bald-head

squash
   Sugary drink, e.g., lemonade

Taig/Tague/Teig/Teague
   From the Irish word
Tadhg,
meaning “poet” or “fool”; in Ulster, a term of disparagement for Roman Catholics

tat
   Low-quality or tasteless material or goods

thole
   Put up with, endure

toe rag
   An insult, meaning a bit of cloth only good enough to bind your feet with

togs
   Swimsuit

tray bake
   Sweet confection cooked on a baking tray and then cut into slices or squares

Twelfth Holiday
   Fortnight’s holiday taken after the twelfth of July commemorating the Protestant victory at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690

UDA
   Ulster Defence Association, a Protestant paramilitary organisation

Ulster fry
   Eggs, rashers, potato bread, sausages, black and white puddings

ward sister
   Nurse in charge of a ward in a hospital

wean
   Derry word for child

wrong-foot
   To make out someone else is in the wrong when you know all the time that the fault is yours

I would like to thank the Chateau de Lavigny, Switzerland, the Hawthornden International Writers Retreat, Scotland, and the
Heinrich Boll Cottage, Achill Island, for awarding me residencies which were invaluable to me in the writing of this novel.

The Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig provided sure refuge when I needed an uninterrupted space to work in. My deep
thanks to the director, Sheila Pratschke, and to all her staff for their unfailing kindness and empathy.

In 2001 I was awarded a writing residency at the Verbal Arts Centre, Derry, which was funded by the Arts Council of Northern
Ireland and by the Arts Council of Ireland. Without this residency I could not have written this novel, and I wish to thank
both arts councils and all the staff of the centre itself. Also Dick Sinclair, who gave me invaluable gifts of friendship,
information, and insight, as did Frances McEvoy. Margaret Fleming and Liz England of the oncology unit at Altnagelvin Hospital
answered my questions with care and humanity, and Stella Burnside made it possible for me to spend time in the unit.

The Bird Woman
had many readers at draft stage, to all of whom I am greatly indebted. These include my mother, Dorothy Jolley, who read
and reread with unfailing patience and encouragement. Colette Bryce and Sinéad Morrissey—both outstandingly talented
poets—read and advised and helped me to keep
my nerve, while Ellen Hinsey (another outstandingly talented poet) always seemed to phone from Paris at exactly the right
moment. To Yvonne Boyle, Carmel Cummins, Paddy Jolley, Olivia O’Leary, Dorothea Linder, Harvey Stahl, Katie Hardie, and Dr.
Rosaleen Jolley, my thanks for their reading and overview.

Thanks to all at Little, Brown, and more thanks to Shannon Langone for her meticulous and insightful copyedit. Thanks also
to the following, all of whom helped me in ways great and small and not always explicitly with the text: Joan Ryan, Carolyn
Vernon, Frances Barco, Fintan Ryan, Val and Marian Lonergan, Olivia Goodwillie, Brenda Ward, Helen Parry-Jones, Richard Bull,
and Claire Fletcher. And last but not least, my thanks go to Lowry Wasson, who once made the most wonderful giant teapots.

The section on the death of Ellen’s mother is dedicated to the memory of Maura McNally.

K
erry Hardie was born in 1951, went to school in Bangor, Northern Ireland, and read English literature at York University.
In the seventies she worked for the BBC in Belfast and for the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. She is the author of one
previous novel, A
Winter Marriage,
and four books of poetry. She lives in County Kilkenny with her husband, Sean.

E
LLEN MCKINNON SEES THINGS.
She’s managed to keep her unsettling visions to herself, but a recent experience that predicted the death of someone close
to her has left both her marriage and her health teetering on the edge of total destruction. When she meets Liam, a sculptor
from the south of Ireland, she thinks she has finally found an escape from a life that has become stifling, and from the images
that haunt her.

So she flees with Liam to his countryside home, and with her new love comes new hope that she can suppress the strange powers
developing within her. But Ellen, once so strong, is no match for the forces that seem to be taking over her entire being,
and soon her “Seeings” mutate into an ability to heal. She fiercely guards her secret, but rumors quickly swirl around her
community, and soon the infirm seek her out from far and wide for comfort and cure.

Ellen’s struggles to honor her gift, to save her marriage, and to make a life that is both honorable and uplifting form the
core of this mysterious and unforgettable story. In prose as beautiful as her award-winning poetry, Kerry Hardie has written
a novel that effortlessly captures emotions that are stirred by the mysteries of faith and fidelity, hatred and love.