Molly had every intention of further defrauding her former fiancé out of the exorbitant price of two rooms at the Merrion but her aunt cut her dead at reception and insisted on paying herself.
‘The worthless bug will ruin himself financially, I’m sure,’ she overrode Molly’s arguing as they climbed the beautiful staircase to the first floor. ‘I don’t think he will need our help on that one and we are probably on a wild enough goose chase as it is without adding a string of police cars to the convoy.’
She stopped outside her door and looked at Molly.
‘Besides, the way you look, the hotel would probably think you stole the damn card in a street fight. Now, go to your room and clean yourself up and I’ll call you in an hour.’
Where Vivienne was concerned, Molly decided, it was easier to do as she was told.
Inside the room next to Viv’s she dumped her pathetic little bag inside the door and looked around in awe. The room was lavishly decorated, with a high stud, and looked out over the den of thieves and fibbers the taxi driver had told them about. She peered outside at the street bustling with people rugged up in winter coats, pitting themselves against the wind, and she thanked God for central heating. Perhaps the dress would have to go after all. She was sure the cab driver had been eyeing her nipples and she couldn’t blame him. They were everywhere.
Collapsing on the bed, Molly started to leaf through the folder of tourist brochures tucked away in the bedside cabinet.
Something was gripping at her bowels and it wasn’t the first-class cabin fodder. She knew what it was and she didn’t want to think about it but it kept pushing its way through. ‘You’re on your own,’ it kept whispering to her. ‘Not just now, but for ever.’
It was only lunchtime and Molly wanted to make sure she didn’t have any spare time in her day to fret over her miserable life. So far she had managed to keep suicidal thoughts at bay by getting pissed with a security guard, storming an airport and fleeing the country. What she needed to keep misery from her company was action. Lots of it.
But what did she really know about Dublin? In fact, what did she really know about Ireland?
When Molly thought about it, almost all of what she knew about the country she now found herself in she had gleaned from watching two Daniel Day Lewis movies, reading Angela’s Ashes and repeatedly perusing the Doors of Ireland poster that Jess had had on the back of her lavatory door for the past nine years.
Oh, and there’d been a book too about another tragic Irish Catholic childhood, but in Dublin instead of Limerick. And the girl grew up and went and looked after Chinese orphans or something. Actually, she didn’t think she’d quite finished that book, come to think of it. Same as that other Chinese book about all the generations of women. Once they stopped binding their feet and started donning communist uniforms Molly had lost interest.
Unlike Jack would have, she suddenly thought, and surprised herself by laughing.
The vision of Sheila blathering on at her at the airport popped into her mind and Molly decided that being nutty as a fruitcake combined with jet-lag and a possible concussion would provide her with the perfect excuse for making the wild and crazy decision to go and meet these perfect strangers for a drink tonight. But what to do until then?
Her good eye fell on one of the brochures lying open on the bed. Dublin’s Famous Literary Pub Crawl, it read. Meet at the Duke at seven.
The phone in her room rang, giving her a fright. It was Viv, checking to see whether she had started her cleaning-up process. The plan, apparently, was to have a spot of lunch and then find O’Rellys and get on with it.
Sighing, Molly sloped off to the sumptuous bathroom for a shower and general spruce-up. What was the point, really? she wondered. Who cares? But an afternoon with Vivienne would pass like a lifetime if there was even so much as a whiff of airline cabin in the air. Also, Molly thought she could detect a trace of the cab driver’s armpits in her hair.
At exactly the second Viv said she would knock on the door, she knocked on the door, looking like anything but someone who had just crossed two oceans. Molly still had an empty, dazed feeling and she wasn’t sure if it was jet-lag or Jack-lag but it put her in an excellent frame of mind to do what she was told.
‘Let’s get this show on the road,’ Vivienne said, giving Molly the once-over and wrapping her own beautiful camel-hair coat more tightly around her. ‘The plan so far is that we research the trip today and then head off tomorrow, unless by some miracle of course Tom Connor has been found in Dublin. And I don’t know about you but I’m just not feeling that lucky right now. Are you going to do anything to cover up that eye?’
Molly had forgotten about her airport injury. It didn’t even hurt any more.
‘It’s okay,’ she assured her aunt, who nevertheless grabbed her by the arm and marched her into the bathroom where she pulled out her own impeccably organised makeup bag and applied layer upon layer of foundation and concealer until Molly’s injury was thoroughly disguised.
‘You really should wear makeup more often,’ Vivienne said, scrutinising her niece in the mirror. ‘You could have been model material, Molly. It’s all about effort, you know.’
Molly couldn’t be bothered feeling offended. Couldn’t be bothered feeling anything, in fact. Just wanted something to eat and maybe a little tipple to keep reality at bay.
When the pair emerged from the hotel, however, Molly realised that the only thing that was going to keep reality at bay was a lot more clothing. It was bollock-freezing cold. Beyond bollock-freezing cold. Shivering underneath a Merrion umbrella she trotted along behind Viv, wondering if perhaps it was time to set her wedding dress free, but the thought kept making her want to cry and, post the Samsonite incident, she was trying to cut down on crying.
They reached the top of Grafton Street and the boulevard was packed with tourists and Dubliners alike, weaving and bobbing across the wide paved mall like a moving carpet.
Molly’s hands were blue. She couldn’t move them. She could barely move herself. And nicely rugged-up people were staring at her in her flimsy clobber.
‘Viv,’ she said, louder than she planned, startling her aunt.
‘I have to … It’s just that … Can we … In here,’ she veered off on a sharp left and headed in the door of the Laura Ashley shop.
‘Don’t you think one formal evening gown is enough, given the purpose of our trip, Molly?’ Viv bristled, eyeing a maroon velvet off-the-shoulder number with horror.
‘Coat,’ Molly whispered gratefully, finding a long black woollen one, nipped in at the waist and full in the skirt. She was sure she had seen Annie Lennox in just the same thing.
She pulled the coat on and made her way to the counter, fiddling in her evening bag (well, it was the only bag that matched her dress) for Jack’s credit card.
‘It’s gorgeous on you. Isn’t it gorgeous on her?’ The assistant attempted, unsuccessfully, to rope Viv into the proceedings.
‘I’ll take it,’ said Molly, pulling on a pair of gloves from a pile on the counter and shoving her long ponytail under a brown velvet hat. ‘I’ll take all of it.’
‘You look like a mental home escapee’s idea of Princess Diana,’ Viv said acidly as they poured out of the shop and back into the rain.
‘So, how would that be different from the actual Princess Diana?’ Molly replied, deliriously happy to be warm, before remembering that answering Aunt Vivienne back only led to pain and torture.
Her aunt had only fresh fruit salad and Perrier on her mind, but at Bewley’s coffee house further down Grafton Street, Molly’s appetite returned with a vengeance and she ordered a full fried breakfast, complete with black pudding.
‘You’ll regret it if you let yourself go,’ Viv chastised.
‘Well, if having six-pack abs didn’t even get me to the altar, I may as well go the spare-tyre route,’ Molly said, licking her fingers. ‘Besides, isn’t it fashionable to be rounded and soft these days?’
‘
It’s fashionable to have a husband — that never changes and don’t you forget it. Don’t let that miserable excuse of a fiancé of yours put you off husbands for good, Molly Brown. Life is a whole lot easier with one than without. Trust me. This I know.’
Molly opened her mouth to argue but then lost interest. Actually, when she thought about it, she didn’t even have an opinion. Hall rug strikes again.
Did she want a husband? No. Yes. Well, not now. No, not ever. Not one like Jack, anyway. Either that or one exactly like Jack.
Her gloomy speculation was interrupted by a spotty youth two tables over throwing up beside his chair.
Vivienne, naturally, was appalled, but Molly marvelled at how no-one else seemed even slightly put out or even surprised, and as her aunt hustled her out onto the street she was sure one of the waitresses in the well-named Clattery was even starting to clean the mess up.
Despite the fact that her aunt was holding her arm so hard it was bruising, Molly felt exhilarated by the atmosphere in Dublin’s busiest street. Buskers appeared every 20 metres, teenagers smoked and scowled, babies in pushchairs cried while older children ran and laughed and were yelled at by their mothers. The place was alive.
Viv had done her homework back at the Merrion and knew exactly where to find O’Rellys. She worked her way in her perfect heels through a labyrinth of alleyways off Grafton Street until she came to St Patrick’s Street where she told Molly to keep an eye out for number 42 or the O’Rellys sign.
There was a number 42, and no sign, so the two opened the heavy green door and started up the wooden staircase in front of them. On the second floor a sign directed them down the hallway to a black door with a shiny brass plaque bearing the name they were looking for.
‘Don’t forget,’ Molly said, ‘O’Rellys will o’find them.’
‘For God’s sake, behave,’ her aunt snapped irritably and Molly realised, with a flush of guilt, that perhaps her cool-as-a-cucumber aunt was actually nervous.
Vivienne cleared her throat and rapped at the door.
‘Come in, come in,’ a voice welcomed them and they entered.
The office was tiny but incredibly well organised. Matching alphabetised filing cabinets lined the walls and the crests of common Irish family names surrounded the upper levels of the office walls, also in alphabetical order.
Sitting behind a well-polished wooden desk in front of a bank of sophisticated computer gear sat Charlie Ahern, grinning from ear to ear at the sight of them.
In his late sixties, Molly guessed, he wore a dark suit that probably wasn’t new but was definitely well made, and a green tie that bore what she gathered was the Ahern crest.
‘Will you look at the two of you,’ he said, beaming, and came around the side of his desk to shake hands, first with Viv and then with Molly, who got an extra squeeze of her other arm as well.
‘Good afternoon,’ started Viv, ‘I am—’
‘Well, of course I know who you are,’ schmoozed Charlie, the twinkle in his eye nearly blinding the two of them.
‘You’re the two gorgeous girls after finding Tom Connor. Now, you must be the young niece from New Zealand,’ he said, touching Viv on the elbow, ‘and as for this gorgeous child you’ve brought with you …’ and he placed both hands on Molly’s shoulders and pulled her to him.
‘Tom Connor’s going to think he’s died and gone to heaven when he claps his eyes on the two of you,’ he said, drawing back and looking at them with a shake of his head.
‘You’ve found Tom Connor?’ Molly ogled. ‘Already?’
‘Ah, now, I was meaning it more figuratively than literally,’ said Charlie.
‘You mean he has died and gone to heaven?’ said Viv with a touch of nastiness that Molly suspected was to cover her nervousness.
Charlie looked silently at Viv and Molly knew in an instant that, blarney aside, he had taken the measure of the viperous New Yorker and probably the dopey New Zealander as well.
‘You’ve come a long way in a short time, girls,’ he said, snapping into a more business-like mode, ‘and I’ve a lot to tell you. Take a seat.’ He drew two polished wood and dark green leather chairs to the opposite side of the desk and beckoned them to sit.
Tapping away at his computer he opened a document and gave a tiny here-we-go sigh.
‘Now, as I told you in your letter, Ms Connor,’ he began, ‘that is actually not one of our common Irish surnames but in the area where you told us you believe your parents came from, we have traced a family of O’Connors who fit your description.’
He stopped and studied Viv and Molly for a reaction. Fatherless Molly was completely captivated by the twinkly old man.
‘It was actually a common enough practice in the 1950s for folk to drop the “O” when they emigrated,’ Charlie went on. ‘O’Driscolls became Driscolls, O’Callahans, Callahans—’
‘Aherns became Herns?’ Molly smiled and her aunt flashed her a warning look.
‘We get the picture, thank you,’ she said. ‘Now what about my brother?’
‘It’s a long and complicated process, Ms Connor, when there’s so little information to go on so you will have to bear with me, I’m afraid. As I said in the letter I wrote you, we had gone as far down the Tom Connor track as we could within the confines of the resources available but after getting the message saying you were on your way over here I took the liberty of putting our Relate team of genealogy investigators to work on your behalf.’
Molly waited for Viv to snipe about their spending her money without her written consent but her aunt remained silent and listening.
Charlie Ahern smoothed back the half a dozen or so strands on either side of his bald pate and launched into phase two of his finding-Tom-Connor spiel.
‘In my business, Ms Connor — and you, of course, Miss—’
‘Molly. I’m Molly,’ smiled Molly, giving the old man an encouraging nod.
‘In my business the real skill is to know when you’re at a dead end and when to keep going. In your case we have every reason to believe that Michael and Kathleen O’Connor departed Tarooragh in 1955 with two young girls. We have records showing a Michael O’Connor sailing to New Zealand with Bernadette, child, and Kathleen O’Connor sailing to New York two days later with Vivienne, child.’
Molly and Vivienne were all ears.
‘Our problem has been finding out who was left behind in Tarooragh and what happened to them. Not a single resident from that time remains in the village — in fact it’s not much of a village any more — so for the past 24 hours our Relate team has been combing the countryside within a 20-mile radius, literally going from door to door trying to find anybody with information that might aid your search. They’re sort of like the Gestapo,’ he said, winking at Molly, ‘only they laugh and sing and dance a lot more.’
‘More Sound of Music-ish, then?’ joked Molly.
‘Beauty, brains and a sense of humour — what a combination in one so young,’ beamed Charlie.
‘What about Tom Connor?’ Viv was losing it.
‘Well, Ms Connor, there was a message for me when I came in this morning from the team leader to say it seems someone in Durres remembers someone from Schull who once talked of a Tom O’Connor from Ballymahoe. In short, if you call me at five this evening I may have something more to tell you.’
Chapter 16
1969
Margaret Mary O’Reilly stood gazing at herself in the mirror and what a fine sight it was.
The dress her mother had stayed up two nights in a row making for her brought out the best in all her features, she could see that.
The blue was the exact blue of her eyes, the satin as soft and flawless as her own perfect skin and her blonde hair had been styled and waved and lacquered until it shone with the same lustrous sheen as the dress itself.
There was a knock at the door.
‘Margaret Mary, Father is here,’ her mother whispered. ‘Are you ready?’
The girl opened the door and g
ave a twirl for her mother, who looked on more nervously than admiringly.
‘Isn’t it beautiful, Mam?’ she asked. ‘Isn’t it just beautiful?’
‘I’m just not sure, Margaret Mary,’ her mother began, hesitantly, ‘now that I see it on you, that it’s entirely appropriate for today.’
‘Am I supposed to traipse around the countryside happening upon religious visions looking like a wreck, then, am I?’ Margaret Mary snapped. ‘You never see Our Lady herself dressed in rags — in fact, now I come to think of it, I think she told me to make an extra special effort on the dress front. So there.’
She admired her reflection once more in the mirror, trying to ignore the worried woman behind her, then twirled around and swept past her, down the stairs and into the front room where she knew the fat priest would be chewing on something.
‘Good afternoon, Father,’ she said, sweeping majestically into the room.
Father Cahill took one look at her and spat currants from the fireplace to the china cabinet.
‘What in the name of—’ he started. ‘What are you wearing, girl? You can’t let the Virgin see you like that — it’ll scare her from here to kingdom come.’
Margaret Mary’s majestic pose slumped to a girlish slouch.
‘It’s blue, isn’t it?’ she snapped petulantly at the priest. ‘Isn’t that Our Lady’s favourite colour?’
‘Well, yes,’ answered Father Cahill. ‘But your frock has no back to it. And there’s not an awful lot at the front. And the sides seem a bit scarce as well, Margaret Mary. Our Lady expects modesty in all women but especially young girls. Have you forgotten your catechism? Mrs O’Reilly,’ he said, turning around to face the girl’s mother, ‘have you taken leave of your senses?’
Mrs O’Reilly stood absolutely shamefaced at the door, caught in the battle between her headstrong teenage daughter and God’s envoy.