There’s nothing quite like a turbulent flight sat next to a hysterical first-time flyer to temporarily distract you from your own mental chaos and I’m grateful for both as we judder to the ground at Knock airport, battling a stubborn crosswind.
‘Hurricane Something-or-other,’ says retired ex-Sergeant Bill Swords, tossing my case into the boot of his seen-better-days Volvo. ‘We always cop the tail-end here. Rap music and fierce winds, that’s America’s gift to the west coast of Ireland.’
When Swords said he’d pick me up, I assumed it was some sort of professional courtesy, however it turns out that retired ex-Sergeant Bill Swords is now a taxi driver and it’ll cost seventy euro to take me, thanks very much. He’s an interesting sight, that’s for sure. Tracksuit trousers paired with shiny black work brogues. A green Aran sweater with the sleeves rolled up.
No coat. They build them hardy in this part of the world.
He informs me this is my interview slot. He has to bring a stag do to Westport as soon as he drops me off and then he’s flying to Lanzarote tomorrow for a blast of winter sunshine and ‘a few rounds of the ol’ golf.’ I bite back telling him that it might have been nice to have known that before and instead I silently rifle through my bag for my interview apparatus – my pad, a pen, the file, etc. Swords entertains himself by passing comment on just about every other person’s driving ability and singing along to Sounds of the Sixties. I wait for the last chorus of ‘You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me’ before I start.
An unprofessional courtesy, you might say.
‘So did you ever wonder about what happened to Maryanne, Bill?’
In a flash, his face changes – deadly serious – and his answer is instant. ‘Wondered, yes. Worried, no. People go missing all the time, Cat. Honestly, you wouldn’t believe the number of folk who say they’re popping out for the paper and then, poof’ – he takes both hands of the steering wheel – ‘never seen again. It’s unusual, right enough, but it’s not uncommon and unless we have evidence of foul play, or unless it’s completely out of character, which it wasn’t in the Doyle girl’s case, there’s not a lot we can do.’ He stops for a second, gives the finger to a boy-racer flying out of a side road. ‘Anyways, I spoke to the people who knew her best, put the wind up them a bit, but they all kept saying the same thing – well, apart from the father and the brother but then it’s the family who normally know the least about someone – everyone else kept saying it didn’t surprise them one bit that she’d took off.’
I nod. Fickle as I am, I decide I quite like Bill Swords – even if seventy euro does seem a bit steep for a forty-minute journey in a rust-bucket of a car that smells faintly of feet – and I’m given to thinking I might have been a bit hasty in my assessment of him. While nothing he’s said particularly differs from the words he committed to paper eighteen years ago, face-to-face it seems less half-arsed and dispassionate, leaving me wondering if I’d really have done anything different?
‘So are you stopping long?’ he asks.
‘Afraid not. I’m on the fifteen-forty back to Gatwick tomorrow.’ I glance at the clock on the dashboard. ‘I’ve got twenty-fours hours.’
Swords hits the steering wheel, delighted. ‘That’s what they say in the movies, isn’t it? You know, the angry Lieutenant giving out to the Detective: “You’ve got twenty-fours or you’re off the case, goddammit.” He laughs to himself, bouncing in his seat. “You’ve got twenty-four hours or I’m having your badge!”’
He’s kind of infectious, I can’t help but smile. ‘Yeah, well, it might come to that yet, Bill.’
He screws his face up. ‘And sure, what are you doing here then, loveen? ’Tis London that finished that girl off, nothing to do with Mulderrin.’
I trot out the party line. ‘Maybe, maybe not. Maybe she was in contact with someone and they can tell us something? Maybe she asked them not to say anything but now she’s dead, they might? I don’t know, Bill, clutching at straws is better than sitting around scratching our heads.’
He’s not convinced. ‘Something like that’d get out around Mulderrin, I don’t care how much someone said they’d keep it a secret. This isn’t London, Cat. You might be able to run across Piccadilly Circus, naked as the day you were born and no one’d pay a blind bit of notice, but round here, if your washing’s out too long, folk start to speculate. Secrets are just gossip you haven’t been drunk enough to spill yet, you know?’ I must look despairing because he suddenly changes his tune. ‘Ah sure, you never know, I suppose. What harm will it do talking to folk . . .’
I open the file, take out the list of names. ‘So given I don’t have a lot of time, who’s still knocking around? Who should I prioritise?’
Swords laughs. ‘You’ll have plenty of time, loveen. Half of them have gone to meet their maker, the Lord have mercy on them. Another good few emigrated. We’ve got Mulderrians in the US of A, a few Down Under. One in Papua New Guinea, of all places!’ He seems to find this riotously funny and for that same infectious reason, so do I. ‘Colette Durkin’s still around but, God love her, the lift wouldn’t be going to the top floor, if you know what I mean. A few fries short of a Happy Meal.’
I strike a line through ‘CD’. ‘What’s wrong with her?’
He tuts. ‘Ah sure, what’s wrong with anyone? Depression, I suppose. Anxiety – isn’t that what they call it nowadays?’
‘Lot of it about, Bill.’
‘Well, not near me, thank Christ. I finished me thirty years in 2012, got me pension, bought this car, and now I have a grand old time driving about the place, listening to the radio, having the craic with folk. And a few pints at the weekend o’ course.’
Sold. I wonder if he wants an apprentice.
‘Anyways,’ he goes on. ‘the only two you need bother your head talking to are Manda Moran and Hazel Joyce. Now the three of them were very cosy. Manda Moran’s still Manda Moran. Never did marry, God love her, but she has a B&B behind St Benedict’s. Does well, I think. A great girl, altogether. Hazel Joyce’s now Hazel O’Keefe, I think. She lives in the next village up.’
For no other reason, other than my kamikaze tendencies, I look down at the file and say, ‘Oh look, how funny, there’s a Kinsella! No relation of mine, ha ha.’
His face pinches. ‘Now why in God’s name would I have questioned Agnes Kinsella?’ He thinks for a minute. ‘Ah, I know, she’d relatives over from England. One of the kids was sorta pally with the Doyle one.’
‘The McBrides?’ I say, casually, just shooting the breeze.
‘If you say so, I forget their names. Ah now, Agnes Kinsella, she was a nice woman. Decent sort. She died, oh, it must be ten years ago now.’
Eleven years. I had my GCSE Double Science exam so I couldn’t go to her funeral and only Mum ended up going in the end. Dad had to work for ‘Uncle’ Frank at the last minute. Work that involved flying to Rotterdam and back in a day.
Mum seemed to placidly accept it. I raged for months.
‘Here we are,’ Swords says, nodding towards the road ahead. ‘Didn’t take long now, did it?’
We drive into Mulderrin up the Long Road, a narrow winding track flanked by tall blackthorn hedges and grey drystone walls. Red and gold balloons, starting to wither and deflate, are tied in clusters to the Ash trees that still border Duffy’s field.
‘Big wedding last weekend,’ explains Swords in a crabby tone. ‘Children starving in Syria and they spent €2,500 on flowers, can you believe that? Plain scandalous.’
As we get closer to the town, the sign comes into view – ‘MULDERRIN’ written in austere black lettering. I’d have sworn there was a ‘Welcome to . . .’ back in the day but that could be me over-sentimentalising. Embellishing the facts, the way memories often do. There’s an instruction to drive carefully that I don’t think was there before. And a twinning with a town in Brittany – some lucky local dignitary quaffing Chablis at the taxpayer’s expense, no doubt. The houses look newer and it feels like there’s twice as many. Huge great piles with twin garages and pillared porches, monuments to the time when the Celtic Tiger was still having its tummy tickled and ostentation was de rigeur.
The town square’s empty. Just a few stationary cars and a lone old man creeping along the footpath with a stoop and a tin of dog food. The Diner’s called something else – we pass it quickly and I don’t catch the name – and Mrs Riley’s is now a Londis.
There’s also a bookie’s, three pubs and a funeral parlour.
Somewhere to eat, somewhere to shop, somewhere to bet, drink and die.
A blueprint for a life simply lived.
My B&B’s about a kilometre outside the town. Swords insists on helping me with my tiny case and introducing me to the owner, a tall woman with a bad bleach-job that’s left her hair the colour of off-milk. Before he sets off, he gives me the lay of the land.
‘Now, if you’re wanting a drink, you’ll have to wait a while. They don’t open till late, although if you’ve a real thirst on, you could probably give Grogan’s a bang. Matty Grogan’d be likely open up for the likes of you.’ He gives me a wink, and a gentle tap on the forearm. ‘Well, ta-ta then, Cat Kinsella. Take care of yourself, loveen . . .’
It’s unexpected – unexpected and self-indulgent – but for one clear second, as I watch Swords pull away, I feel a calm sense of restoration being back in Mulderrin. A return to who I once was. A quirky, trusting eight-year-old with a head full of greasy curls and a mouth full of wobbly teeth, and almost certainly wearing a Pokemon T-shirt.
Mum’s still alive and fussing around Gran.
Jacqui’s still someone I aspire to be like.
Noel’s still Noel. Just slimmer and with ridiculous tram-lines.
Dad’s still my hero and all’s right with the world.
*
Ignoring Swords’ advice to take care of myself, much later, after the wind’s died down and I’ve eaten a home-cooked stew, I take a dark and perilous amble up to Gran’s old house, using just the light of my phone to chart my half-remembered course. Heading back down the Long Road, I turn right at Duffy’s gate, doubling back on myself when it becomes apparent I should have gone the other way, and then past the field where Pat Hannon kept his cows. This brings me out at the foot of the Pot-Holey Road, otherwise known as the Road Where Gran Lives.
Or now to my mind, the Road Where I Was Last Truly Happy.
Gran’s house hasn’t changed, not in an obvious way. It’s still small, pebble-dashed white and with that stone slate roof that Kinsella clans carefully maintained for well over a century. But now there’s a satellite dish fixed to the front. A child’s trampoline where there should be a chicken coop. The paint’s definitely fresher. The windows look brand new.
Through thin gauzy curtains, though, I see the familiar glow of a turf fire and I instinctively breathe it in, convinced that I can smell it, taste it, see us all sat around it, snacking and bickering and watching game shows before bed.
Getting our last fill of Dad before he kissed us all and went out.
In the window of the largest bedroom – the one where Gran used to sleep – there’s a little girl bathed in light, no more than ten years old. She’s smiling broadly, clapping her hands and making faces so I smile back and take a photo.
She startles at the flash and retreats from the glass.
Or maybe I’m just dog-tired?
‘Overtired,’ Mum used to say when I claimed monsters were in the wardrobe or ghosts were rattling chains in my face.
Later when I check, there’s no child in the photo. Just the shadow of a coat-stand where Gran’s grandfather clock used to be.