The Girl from Ballymor. Kathleen McGurl
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of change, that’s all.’ There was more change going on than he knew about, but now was not the time to tell him. Or maybe it was the right time, and I was just being weak and feeble by not feeling able to do it.
He smiled, with relief that I hadn’t said no, but disappointment that I’d felt unable to say yes. My heart broke for him. What a rubbish girlfriend I was.
‘I love the ring, by the way,’ I said, by way of consolation. ‘You got that right.’
‘It’s yours, whenever you’re ready for it,’ he whispered. He snapped the ring box shut again and put it in his pocket, as though to signal the subject closed, for now.
And indeed it wasn’t mentioned again for the rest of the meal. Our conversation was a little stilted and awkward. I could see I’d upset Dan by not giving him the answer he wanted. But how could I say yes if I felt unsure and unready for such a big step? It was such a huge commitment. I needed time to think about his proposal. I needed space. I needed to get away. There was so much happening and I couldn’t cope with it all. I found myself switching off from his conversation and thinking instead about my planned book on Michael McCarthy.
The very next day I’d made a snap decision to go to Ireland, a trip I’d talked about for ages but not got around to planning. While Dan was at work, I’d booked flights and the room at O’Sullivan’s, but then Dan was out in the evening at a work colleague’s leaving do, and I was in bed by the time he returned, and somehow I didn’t get the chance to tell him about the trip until I was leaving for the airport the next morning. He’d been, understandably I supposed, pretty miffed.
‘You’re running away,’ he’d said, as I finished my hurried packing. ‘Getting as far away from me as you can so you don’t have to answer my question. I thought you loved me, and were happy with me?’
‘I do, and I am,’ I said. ‘But it’s all so sudden. So many changes . . .’
‘Not that big a change really. Just a couple of rings, to symbolise our commitment to each other.’ He pressed his hands to his temples and shook his head, sadly.
But he didn’t yet know the extent of the changes. And still I couldn’t tell him. ‘Dan, I’m so sorry. I just need some time alone. Please, give me that.’
That was when he’d given me that look of deep hurt and disappointment. I’d turned away, zipped up my suitcase and hooked my handbag strap over my shoulder.
‘So. I’ll see you when you get back, I suppose,’ he’d said, as he left for work, not catching my eye.
‘Yes. See you, then.’
And that was it. We’d parted, so much unsaid and unresolved, and now here I was, sitting alone in a coffee shop in a small town in the south-west of Ireland, wiping away a tear that had trickled down the side of my nose, trying to smile reassuringly at the waitress who’d given me a look of concern, and no nearer to being able to give him an answer, or be as honest with him as I ought to be.
The duck stew had lasted three days, and the sack of potatoes from Martin O’Shaughnessy would last a few weeks yet. And Michael had been paid, which meant Kitty had been able to walk to Ballymor and buy flour to make bread and a laying chicken which provided one or sometimes two eggs each day. She and the children had had full bellies for days. Grace had improved, and was able to get up and spend part of the day helping Kitty with chores. They had fended off starvation for a little longer. The weather had been mild too, and despite everything, Kitty was hopeful that this year’s early potatoes might be harvested blight-free. That early harvest was still three months away, however, and it’d be a struggle to find enough food to last until then. She prayed daily that somehow she’d manage, and that the potato harvest would be a good one.
She had baked two loaves of soda bread, and wrapped one in a cloth to take to Martin. He’d been so kind. Giving him small gifts whenever she had something to share was the only way she could repay him.
‘Grace, love, will you take this along to Mr O’Shaughnessy. He’ll like to see your bonny smile. Away with you, girl.’
Grace took the bread and skipped out of the door and up the street. Kitty smiled to see her go. She was a different child to how she’d been a week ago, when Kitty had feared she was near death. She was still horribly thin – they all were – but she had some life and energy in her. It was good to see, and gave Kitty hope for the future. Maybe they were through the worst.
If only her dear Patrick was still here. He’d have been another pair of hands to work. He’d been a trained copper miner, and although the mines were gradually closing, being unprofitable, he’d surely still have been able to get work. That would have brought in money, and perhaps they’d have been able to afford food when the potatoes went bad. Perhaps the little ones, Nuala, Jimmy and tiny Éamonn, might have survived those terrible winters with no food. She sighed as she remembered her beloved husband. Her thoughts began to run on that awful day when she’d heard the news of his accident, but not now, she did not want to dwell on that now. Instead, she forced herself to bring to mind the happy times. Their first meeting.
*
It had been at the Ballymor midsummer fair that Kitty saw Patrick for the first time. She was then nineteen years old, and old Mother Heaney had taken Michael for the afternoon, so that Kitty could go to the fair. If her own mother had been alive, she’d no doubt have helped out with little Michael, but then again, she’d have been mortified at the idea of her daughter having a child out of wedlock. No matter what the origins of that child. But dear old Mother Heaney, who’d brought her up, helped out with Michael and Kitty was eternally grateful for it.
Kitty had longed to go to the fair that year. She had not been since she was fifteen, before Michael was born. The year when she was sixteen she’d been big with Michael; indeed, he was born just two days after it. The following two years she’d wanted to hide away from people, and had kept at home, raising Michael and tending their potato patch. But Mother Heaney had been nagging at her to get out more, meet people, find herself a husband, for she would need someone to provide for her and the bairn in the long term.
And so it was that on the day of the fair, which dawned bright and clear, a hot sun in a glorious blue sky, Kitty left Michael with Mother Heaney and set off along the road to Ballymor. The fair was held in a field on the other side of town and, as she got near, she caught up with crowds of excited people, all heading the same way. As she walked, occasionally skipping with the sheer joy of being alive on such a day, she found herself alongside a tall and well-built young man with sandy hair and a wide smile, who kept looking sideways at her and grinning. She liked the look of him, and couldn’t stop herself from smiling back.
‘Will you be entering the Queen of the Fair competition?’ he asked, blushing to the roots of his hair.
‘No, I will not!’ she replied.
‘Ah, but there you’re wrong. You’d win, for sure, with your beautiful red hair and your lovely smile. I think you should enter. I’ll cheer you on, so I will.’
Now it was Kitty’s turn to blush. ‘Away with you! I’d never win. I’d no more win that than fly to the moon.’ Still, she was flattered that he thought she might, and couldn’t help but smile. She wondered what his name was and where he was from, but was too shy to ask. If he would ask her name, she could ask his in return. But he seemed too shy as well, and they walked in silence until they reached the fair and he was swallowed up in the crowds.
Kitty took her time wandering around the fair, looking at the horses being traded by gypsies, the pens of sheep and cattle on show, the stalls selling pies, hot potatoes and flagons of stout, the sideshows where magicians made handkerchiefs and pennies disappear or fortune-tellers told your future. At the far side of the field, a number of young women were gathered, and a man in a bright red jacket was pinning