The Belfast Girl at O’Dara Cottage. Anne Doughty
He turned towards the doorway and raised his voice slightly. ‘Mary, there’s a young lady to see you.’
Mary O’Dara came to the door slowly. She looked puzzled and distressed. Her face was blotchy and she had a crumpled up hanky in one hand. I wondered if I should go away again but I could hardly do that when I’d just asked to speak to her.
Her eyes were a deep, dark brown, and despite her distress, she looked straight at me as I explained what I wanted. When I finished, she hesitated, fumbled with the handkerchief and blew her nose.
‘You’d be welcome, miss, but I’m all through myself. My daughter’s away back to Amerikay, this mornin’, with the childer an I don’ know whin I’ll see the poor soul again.’
She rubbed her eyes and looked up at me. ‘Shure ye’ve come a long ways from home yerself, miss.’
‘Yes, but not as far as America. It must be awful, saying goodbye when it’s so very far away.’ I paused, saddened by her distress. ‘Perhaps she’ll not be long till she’s back.’
I heard myself speak the words and wondered where they’d come from. Then I remembered. Uncle Albert, my father’s eldest brother. ‘Don’t be long till you’re back, Elizabeth,’ was what he always said to me, when he took me to the bus after I’d been to visit him in his cottage outside Keady.
It was also what everyone said to the uncles and aunts and cousins who appeared every summer from Toronto and Calgary and Vancouver, Virginia and Indiana, Sydney and Darwin. Everybody I knew in the Armagh countryside had relatives in America or Australia.
‘Indeed she won’t, miss. Bridget’ll not forget us,’ said her husband energetically. ‘Come on now, Mary, dry your eyes and don’t keep the young lady standin’ here.’
But Mary had already dried her eyes.
‘Would you drink a cup o’ tea, miss?’
‘I’d love a cup of tea, Mrs O’Dara, thank you, but Mr Feely is waiting for me. I’ll have to go back to Lisdoonvarna, if I can’t find anywhere to stay in Lisara.’
‘Ah, shure they’d soak ye in Lisdoonvarna in the hotels,’ said Mr O’Dara fiercely. He looked meaningfully at his wife.
‘That’s for shure, Paddy. But the young lady may not be used to backward places like this.’
‘Oh yes, I am, Mrs O’Dara. My Uncle Albert’s cottage was just like this and I used to be so happy there. Perhaps I’m backward too.’
Maybe there was something in the way I said it, or maybe it was my northern accent, but whatever it was, they both laughed. Mary O’Dara had a most lovely, gentle face once she stopped looking so sad.
‘Away and tell Mr Feely ye’ll be stayin’, miss.’
She crossed the smooth flagstones of the big kitchen and took a blackened kettle from the back of the stove.
‘Paddy, help the young lady with her case.’
She bent towards an enamel bucket to fill the kettle so quickly she didn’t see Paddy clicking his heels and touching his forelock. He turned to me with a broad grin as we went out.
‘God bless you, miss, ye couldn’t ‘ive come at a better time.’
Feely sprang to life as Paddy lifted my case from the luggage platform.
‘Are ye goin’ to stay a day or two, miss?’
‘I am indeed, Mr Feely. Two or three weeks, actually.’
‘Are ye, begob?’
I was sure I’d told him I needed to stay several weeks, but he looked as if the news was a complete surprise to him. Paddy had disappeared into the cottage with my case, so I set about thanking him for his help.
‘I don’t know what I’d have done without you, Mr Feely,’ I ended up, as I pulled my purse from my jacket pocket and hoped I wouldn’t have to go to my suitcase for a pound note.
‘Ah no, miss, no,’ he protested, waving aside my gesture. ‘We’ll see to that another time. I’ll see ye again, won’t I?’
He started the engine and looked at me warily.
‘Oh yes, I’ll be in Lisdoonvarna often, I’m sure. I’ll look out for you. I know where to find you, don’t I?’
‘Oh you do, you do indeed,’ he said hastily. ‘Many’s the thing you know, miss, many’s the thing. Goodbye, now.’
He put his foot down, shot off in a cloud of smoke and reappeared only moments later on the distant hillside. I was amazed the taxi could actually move that fast. Before the fumes had stopped swirling round me, Feely had roared across the boundary of my map and was well on his way back to Lisdoonvarna.
While I’d been talking to Mary Kane, streamers of cloud had blown in from the sea. Now, as I crossed the deserted road to the door of the cottage where Paddy stood waiting for me, a gusty breeze caught the heavy heads of the hydrangea and brought a sudden chill to the warmth of the afternoon.
‘Ah come in, miss, do. Shure you’re welcome indeed. ’Tis not offen Mary an’ I has a stranger in the place.’
Mary waved me to one of the two armchairs parked on either side of the stove and handed me a cup of tea.
‘Sit down, miss. Ye must be tired out after yer journey. Shure it’s an awful long step from Belfast.’
She glanced up at the clock, moved her lips in some silent calculation and crossed herself.
‘Ah, shure they’ll be landed by now with the help o’ God,’ she declared, as she settled herself on a high-backed chair she’d pulled over to the fire. ‘It’s just the four hours to Boston and the whole family ‘ill be there to meet them. Boys, there’ll be some party tonight. But poor Bridget’ll be tired, all that liftin’ and carryin’ the wee’ ans back and forth to the plane.’
She fell silent and gazed around the large, high-ceilinged room with its well-worn, flagged floor as if her thoughts were very far away. The sky had clouded completely, extinguishing the last glimmers of sunshine. Even with the door open little light seemed to penetrate to the dark corners of the room. What there was sank into the dark stone of the floor or was absorbed by the heavy furniture and the soot-blackened underside of the thatch high above our heads.
I stared at the comforting orange glow beyond the open door of the iron range. One of the rings on top was chipped and a curling wisp of smoke escaped. As I breathed in the long-familiar smell of turf I felt suddenly like a real traveller, one who has crossed wild and inhospitable territory and now, after endless difficulties and feats of courage, sits by the campfire of welcoming people. The sense of well-being that flowed over me was something I hadn’t known for many years.
‘Is it anyways?’
The note of anxiety in Mary O’Dara’s voice cut across my thoughts. For a moment, I hadn’t the remotest idea what she was talking about. Then I discovered you had only to look at Mary O’Dara’s face to know what she was thinking. All her feelings were reflected in her eyes, or the set of her mouth, or the tensions of her soft, wind-weathered skin.
‘It’s a lovely cup of tea,’ I said quickly. ‘But you caught me dreaming. It’s the stove’s fault,’ I explained, as I saw her face relax into a smile. ‘Your Modern Mistress is the same as one I used to know. It’s ages since I’ve seen an open fire. And a turf fire is my absolute favourite.’
‘Shure it’s not what you’d be used to atall, miss.’
‘Don’t be too sure of that,’ I replied, shaking my head. ‘I used to be able to bake soda farls and