potatoes, and put them in the pot ready to cook. There’d be a meal awaiting Grace when she woke, and ready for Michael when he returned from work. The sky outside was beginning to darken; he’d be home soon.
*
But Michael did not return until an hour after dark, when Kitty was just beginning to worry about what might have happened to him. He was carrying something wrapped in a piece of sackcloth, which he put down upon the scarred table in the middle of the room.
‘What’s that?’ Kitty asked, her curiosity greater than her wish to tell him of Mr O’Shaughnessy’s kindness.
‘A duck,’ Michael said, with pride.
Kitty looked at him with equal pride. He was tall and strong, too thin of course, but handsome, with his black hair and blue eyes. So unlike her own copper hair and milky freckled skin, which Grace had inherited. ‘Where from?’
‘Waterman’s ornamental pond,’ he replied, with a sideways look at her. ‘So we will eat well tonight.’
He was aware, she knew, that she objected to poaching, even from Thomas Waterman, who had more than enough. ‘Ah, Michael,’ she said, shaking her head but unable to stop the beginnings of a smile at the corners of her mouth. ‘What if you were caught? What if the steward saw you? If you get taken away and locked up for thievery that’ll be the end of us, so it will.’
But Michael wasn’t listening. He’d crossed the room to the pile of straw and blankets, and was kneeling beside Gracie, stroking her hair and whispering. Kitty went closer to hear what he was saying.
‘You’ll eat like a princess tonight, Gracie. Duck breast, fried with a little rosemary and sage, cut into succulent thick slices. And duck broth tomorrow. Meat, Gracie! Meat such as Mr Waterman has every day. And when this duck has gone, I know where I can get more. We’ll have duck every week, so we will. Awake now. We’ll be eating in an hour or less.’
‘There’s potatoes as well. Good ones. Enough for a month,’ Kitty said.
Michael turned to her with wide eyes as she told him how she’d come by the sack of potatoes. ‘He’s a good man and a true friend,’ he said. ‘I’ll take him a leg of this duck, will I, in return?’
‘But he will ask where it came from,’ Kitty said, frowning. She wanted to repay Martin’s kindness but feared what would happen if people heard Michael was poaching from Waterman.
‘Sure, and I’ll make him up a story. He’ll guess the truth but he won’t tell, sure he won’t.’ Michael unwrapped the duck and pulled out his knife. He swiftly removed a leg, including the thigh, and wrapped that in a smaller cloth. ‘I’ll be back in a minute, Mammy. Get that duck and some potatoes in the pot!’
I woke up early the next morning, with the sun streaming in through the thin white curtains of my room at O’Sullivan’s. For a moment I wondered where I was, and why Dan was not beside me, and then I remembered with not a little guilt my sudden decision, the early start on my travels and the way I’d left Dan with barely a chance to say goodbye. I sighed. I would put this right – I had to. But I also had to sort myself out, and half the point of this trip was to do just that.
I pulled back the curtain and looked out of the window, across the town square towards the church. The sky was azure, with just a few fluffy white clouds scudding across it. The perfect day for my expedition to the ruins of Kildoolin, and after the long day of travel the thought of a good walk to stretch my legs and clear the cobwebs was very appealing. I glanced at my watch and saw that it was just seven thirty. Aoife had said I could have breakfast at any time, but was this too early to expect a pub landlady to be up and about? I decided to take a leisurely shower, have a cup of tea in my room and generally potter about until eight o’clock which seemed a more reasonable hour.
I shouldn’t have worried. By the time I went downstairs, Aoife was already busy behind the bar, unloading the glass washer, polishing the optics, restocking the beer mats.
‘Good morning! Did you sleep? Will I get you the full Irish breakfast?’
I grinned at the hearty welcome. ‘Slept like a log, and the full breakfast would be lovely, thank you.’
She nodded and went through to the kitchen. While I waited, wondering whether a full Irish breakfast was the same as a full English breakfast, I wandered around the bar, peering at the various pictures on the walls. The pub had been too crowded yesterday evening to be able to look at them. There was a fine miscellany of pictures – black and white photographs of Ballymor; framed newspaper cuttings about the pub, its food and music; signed photos of traditional musicians sitting in the bay window playing their instruments. I recognised one or two of the musicians from last night. They’d started playing around nine o’clock, with no announcement, no microphones. Just a clutch of middle-aged men, who’d pulled instruments out of pockets and cases, and played jigs and reels and ballads and old Dubliners numbers for a couple of hours until Aoife had called time. I’d meant to get an early night, tired after the long drive, but the music had made me smile and tap my foot, and I’d stayed till the end, making an experimental half-pint of Guinness last most of the evening. The music had helped me forget, and that was good.
When breakfast came it was huge, just like a full English including bacon, sausage, fried potatoes, mushrooms, toast and fried tomatoes but with the addition of a huge hunk of black pudding – the real thing from Clonakilty, just up the road, so Aoife informed me. I wouldn’t need lunch, that was for certain. It smelt divine.
With that lot inside me, I went back to my room, stuffed a lightweight fleece, fold-up mac and bottle of water in my small day sack and set off for my walk. First stop was the tourist information office to pick up a map of the town, but they weren’t open till nine o’clock and I wasn’t prepared to wait. Declan had said the path began at the end of Church Street so I found that and followed it out of town. Sure enough, as the last housing estate petered out, there was a rutted track leading off to the left signposted ‘To the Deserted Village’. I turned off on the track, enjoying the exercise, relishing the sun on my back, thinking about Michael, my ancestry, the past, and most definitely not about the future.
The track climbed steadily, weaving its way between fields of ripening wheat which eventually gave way to open moorland, covered with magnificent purple heather. To my right was a range of hills; far over to the left I could just make out the sea, shimmering in the morning sun. There was a light breeze keeping the temperature just right, and I was accompanied by constant birdsong – a skylark was up there somewhere. All in all, it was a pretty perfect day. I was working up a bit of a sweat on the hill, and stopped to admire the scenery and have a swig of water.
Just over the brow of the hill, the remains of the village came into sight. I stopped and took in the view. It was more of a hamlet than a village – a single row of cottages alongside the track, with their backs to the hill and their fronts facing the view over the moors towards the sea. It would have been a beautiful place to live on a day like today, with the sun shining and only a light breeze, but I could imagine life would have been tough here when the weather was bad. Although it rarely snowed here in the south-west of Ireland, it could be pretty stormy at times, and the village was high on the moors and exposed.
I continued walking along the track towards the village. There was a worn-out sign for tourists, showing a plan of the village and with a brief summary
