Chapter Thirty-Eight
Nick rolled out of bed and fired up her laptop. Scrolling through and deleting the customary junk mail, she wondered again how these spammers got her email address. Really, did anyone ever fall for these things? How many did they have to send out before they caught the eye of some unwary victim? Obviously, it was worth the spammers’ efforts, but Nick wished the technology were implemented to track these criminals down. The financial markets were regulated and one day the online world would be as well. And how many innocent people would get caught up in those regulations? wondered Nick.
There was no reply from her solicitors which she supposed could be interpreted as good news, but the waiting chafed. No matter how much she was enjoying being helpful to the building team, their surveyor would soon return to work and then she would be back to staring at the wallpaper. About to close the laptop, she hit refresh and a new email popped up from the investigator she had hired to find her grandmother. The email had a collection of attachments, so Nick picked up the laptop and headed down to the kitchen. She poured herself a cup of coffee, then she read the email.
Mary Margaret O’Callaghan of Ballyfeard was almost certainly the mother of Michael O’Callaghan. She had had the baby when she was sixteen. Nick’s investigator had hired a local agent to go to the town and start asking questions. Missing fathers and unexpected babies were something of a taboo subject in public but behind closed doors, sure, everyone had a theory. The strongest theory for Mary’s partner was the son of a local well-to-do family. Mary and the boy had walked the same way to school and were said to be friendly. No one claimed fatherhood of Michael, but Mary’s family hadn’t thrown her out, and there was always money for the baby. Then, after about five years, the boy and his family moved away. Soon after that Michael was sent to Ballyfeard Convent and soon after that, Mary travelled to England.
Nick paused and considered what she had read. Reading between the lines, the boy’s family had been prepared to support the baby but when they moved away, they stopped. Why would they do that? Then Mary’s family decided not to take care of Michael any longer? Why? Surely after five years they had grown attached to the child? And what of Mary? She was twenty-one by that stage, hadn’t she developed a bond with her child? Had she come to England to get a job to support herself and Michael but if so, why leave him behind for adoption? Had Michael’s father moved to England? Had she followed him and left the child behind?
It was all too easy for Nick to picture Michael standing on the causeway waiting for his mammy to return. Did he scour each car, did he keep watch out of the shore-side windows? How long had he watched and waited? She knew that he had run away from every placement. Clearly, he had never stopped waiting for her.
Nick stood up and put her running shoes on. She was furious with a woman she had never met, and it was clouding her judgement. It was a Saturday, so the other house was empty, and she decided to run sprints between the two properties, the quickest way to tire herself out. As she ran back and forth the cattle watched her from beyond the electric fence. Having assessed her behaviour as peculiar but not threatening, they returned to chewing the grass and dreaming of a light breeze to keep the flies away.
Puffed out, Nick returned to the kitchen where Ohana was now awake and let her out. She instantly bounded out to say good morning to the cattle who all sniffed a good morning to her. Having done her own business Ohana ran back in and Nick cleaned bits of grass off her, fed her and returned to the email.
Mary had arrived in England and then seemed to spend a few years moving around. Eventually she had settled in Birmingham and worked as a cleaner at a private residence for a couple of decades. She had retired a few years back and still lived in Birmingham. She had never married, had no further children and had never been arrested. She also had no clear political allegiances and to all intents and purposes had led a quiet and uneventful life.
Nick checked the roads; it would take her two hours to drive up there. It was a Saturday; she had an address, and she could be there before ten. Aware that the last time she had done something on the spur-of-the-moment, it had gone horribly wrong as Giles Harrington had pretty much laughed in her face. She decided to have a shower and think it through. Eventually, she called Paddy.
‘So, what should I do?’ said Nick.
‘Go up there immediately and ask her what the hell was she thinking!’
‘You don’t think this is a mistake then? ’
‘Not at all. How could she? How could she abandon her five-year-old son? Jesus, Nick, I can’t imagine doing that to Eleanor and she’s not yet one. I couldn’t have left her after three minutes. Tell you what. Give me a few hours and I’ll come up with you and we’ll go and confront her together.’
Nick stared down the phone in bemusement. Paddy was the most mild-mannered of the girls – everything was about conciliation, kindness, turning the other cheek and generally soothing the water. But when it came to someone she loved or God forbid a child, she was vicious. It was a trait that had really blossomed after the birth of Eleanor. Nick realised that having her shouting at some stranger might not be for the best.
‘Tell you what. I’ll go up today and report back. I’ll let the others know as well that I’ve found her.’
‘Better if you hadn’t,’ said Paddy darkly.
Hanging up, disturbed by her sister’s level of venom, Nick slipped into a pair of sandals and packed for Ohana, and then the pair of them jumped into Gabe’s old Golf and headed north.
As she drove along the motorway her phone rang and she saw with pleasure that it was Clem.
‘Morning! What can I do for you?’ she smiled. She and Clem weren’t great ones for chatting on the phone and generally only talked shop, preferring face-to-face chats for daily life stuff.
‘Nothing, actually. I was just calling to see how you’re doing. You’ve been through a lot recently and I know you don’t like change. ’
Nick smiled ruefully, a touchy-feely call from Clem. Her life must look dreadful to her sisters.
‘I don’t mind change, it’s the chaos I dislike.’
Nick smiled as Clem laughed down the line. ‘It’s the chaos that makes life great!’
‘Hmm,’ snorted Nick.
‘Well, tell me are you still able to go for a morning run followed by a shower and a spinach omelette, then brush your teeth, then wear the outfit third from the left?’
Now it was Nick’s turn to laugh. ‘Are you taking the mickey out of me?’
‘A little bit. Tell me I’m wrong?’
‘Very well. This morning I went for a run—’
‘Ha! See!’
‘I ate last night’s ratatouille for breakfast.’
‘Very edgy.’
‘I picked some flowers for the bedrooms.’
‘Flowers?!’
‘And now I’m driving up the motorway to see if I can find Da’s mother.’
‘You’re what!’
Nick was happy to have surprised Clem and went on to explain the email she had just received. Now she was off granny hunting.
‘Just like that?’ mocked Clem. ‘No research, no studying the area, no follow-up investigations. No calls to your sisters to discuss the next steps. You just got in your car and went?’
Nick laughed nervously. The way Clem described it, it did sound mad. What was she doing ?
‘Do you think this is a mistake? Should I have consulted you all first? I did run it past Paddy, but she wanted to come up and lamp her, so I said no.’ Nick was beginning to look for exits off the motorway – maybe she should go home, this impulsivity sat uneasily with her.
‘Are you mad? Sound like an excellent thing to do. Like going to Ireland in the first place. All of Da’s stuff you found. That was incredible. Trust your gut, Nick, let the chaos in.’
‘God, that sounds like a dreadful idea. But do you think this is okay? Only now I’m starting to doubt myself. What happens when I find her? What happens if I don’t? What if she doesn’t want to see me?’
‘Lots of questions there, hen. You’ll only get answers by going there. I think it’s brilliant. Do you know, for the first time since all this crap landed on your shoulders I feel something good may come of it.’
‘Bloody hell, Clem. I might be about to lose my business!’
‘Aye. But you won’t. And look at what you are gaining. Chaos, creativity, conflict. Bring it on!’
Nick was now openly laughing as she listened to her sister – she could stir up the dogs of war with that speech. Beside her Ohana started barking and Nick had to quieten her.
‘Look. I have to calm Ohana down. I’ll let you know how it goes and thanks for the chat. You’re a tonic!’
With a final cry of ‘Chaos!’ from Clem, Nick ended the call and shushed the now thoroughly excited dog. Despite Clem’s reassurances, Nick was somewhat apprehensive, she was driving into a situation she hadn’t studied or planned for.
** *
After a relatively easy drive she pulled up on a terraced street and switched the engine off. All the houses faced directly onto the street without even the small front garden that she had grown up with. Otherwise it had a similar vibe, and she was certain that somewhere along the street, someone had clocked her arrival and was already taking notes for the Neighbourhood Watch. Locking the car, she and Ohana walked a little way down past the binbags that lined the pavement and knocked on an ugly white uPVC door. It was nine thirty, hopefully Mary was at home but up and about. Nick had already demonised her into some freewheeling baby-abandoning good-time girl. The house would smell of fags, booze and regrets.
The door swung open and a woman in her late sixties looked out. She held her door wide open with a questioning expression. Her hair was cut in a neat bob, mostly grey. She was wearing jeans and a Levellers T-shirt. Whilst she was shorter than Nick, she was tall enough. Nick was momentarily surprised not to see tattoos, nicotine-stained fingers or morning tremors. This woman looked sharp and alert, although the T-shirt suggested a certain level of feistiness that the private investigator hadn’t picked up.
Nick realised she was staring and hadn’t spoken yet, but she was looking at her one and only grandparent for the very first time. She wasn’t sure how to proceed.
The older lady looked at her, puzzled. ‘Hello? Do I know you?’
Nick cleared her throat. ‘No. We haven’t met. Can I ask, are you Mary Margaret O’Callaghan?’
Mary nodded slowly; her expression still puzzled .
‘For the life of me, I am certain that we’ve met. You remind me of—’ Her voice trailed away as an old memory crossed her mind and her expression became hostile. ‘Who are you?’
Ohana was snuffling around her ankles investigating the exciting smells from the bin bags. In the distance Nick could hear the beeping of the binmen’s lorry making its way along the terraces. Despite the outside world, time seemed to freeze, and Nick felt a buzzing in her ears.
‘My name’s Nicoletta Byrne. I’m your granddaughter.’