Page 201 of The Missing Sister

‘I... is he alive?’

The men bowed their heads. ‘Nuala, I’m so sorry,’ said Christy.

Christy caught her before she fell. She could hear someone screaming from far away. Then the world went black.

Finn’s funeral took place at the little church in Clogagh, the day after he had been waked. If she could have done, Nuala would have only allowed her family to be there to support her, as they prayed for his immortal soul. No one had come forward to confess to shooting her husband, and even though there’d been plenty of rumours as to who it might have been, Nuala had ignored them. Her husband’s murderer was probably sitting right here in the church, pretending to be sorry for not only ending Finn’s life, but her own and her daughter’s too.

On the journey up to Clogagh graveyard, which sat in an idyllic spot at the top of the Argideen valley a good half-mile away from the village, the coffin was borne by the volunteers Finn had stood side by side with. Nuala walked in front of the coffin, supported by Christy. With his volunteer’s cap on the top of it, Finn had been interred into the ground next to Charlie Hurley, his closest friend. Then the Clogagh company had fired off a seven-gun salute to their fallen comrade.

At the gathering afterwards, held up at Cross Farm, Nuala had smiled and nodded at the condolences from friends and neighbours.

Realising who was missing, she excused herself and went to find her mother. ‘I didn’t see Hannah and Ryan at the church. And they’re not here either.’

‘No, they didn’t come.’ Eileen did her best to control her anger. ‘Don’t blame your sister, Nuala, ’tis that husband of hers who’s the problem.’

‘Well, she married him, didn’t she?’

In that moment, in a heart already scarred with loss, Nuala felt a part of it turn to stone.

That night, staying in her childhood bedroom, with Maggie lying next to her in the bed she used to share with Hannah, she came to a decision.

‘God save me, but I can never forgive Hannah for this. And I never want to see her again for the rest of my life.’

June 2008

‘There now, that’s the story that Nuala told me only hours before she left this earth,’ said Katie. ‘’Twas emotional for both of us when she told me the family connection.’

I did my best to come back to the present, still enveloped in the utter tragedy of Finn’s death, and all that Nuala had suffered.

‘So Nuala was our mother Maggie’s mum... our grandmother? The one we never saw when we were growing up, apart from at Mammy’s funeral? And what about our grandfather? Finn died. So who was that man with her, who walked with a stick?’

‘’Twas Christy, her cousin who worked at the pub across the road. She married him a few years after Finn died. You can see why she did: Christy was always there for her. They had shared experiences,’ Katie replied, then paused as she stared at me. ‘Christy’s surname was “Noiro”.’

I stared at her in utter shock. ‘Noiro?’

‘Yes. As well as her daughter, Maggie, Christy and Nuala went on to have a son, Cathal, who married a woman called Grace. And, well, they had Bobby and his little sister, Helen.’

‘I...’ My head was swimming. ‘So we shared a grandmother with Bobby Noiro?’

‘We did, yes.’

‘But why didn’t Bobby ever say?’

‘I don’t think he knew, to be fair.’

‘Why didn’t Nuala and Christy ever visit us?’

‘’Tis complicated,’ Katie sighed. ‘Our great-uncle Fergus was running Cross Farm before our daddy; he inherited it when Fergus died.’

‘Fergus was mentioned in the diary I read. He was Nuala’s brother. Did he ever marry?’

‘No, so the farm went to our daddy as the eldest boy of the clan. We never met his parents – our other grandparents – because they both died before we were born. Our grandmother was named Hannah, and our grandfather was called Ryan.’

Katie gave me a meaningful stare as I tried to compute what she was saying. ‘So now, Nuala was Mammy’s mother and Hannah was Daddy’s! Our grandmothers were sisters! Which means...’ Katie produced a sheet of paper. On it was a family tree. ‘See?’

I took it from my sister to study it, but a raft of names and dates danced in front of my eyes and I looked up at Katie for guidance.

She pointed at two names. ‘John and Maggie – our mammy and daddy – were first cousins. It isn’t illegal here in Ireland, even these days – don’t worry, I checked. With such big families often living in isolated communities, ’twas common, and still is, for cousins to mix socially and fall in love. And after Hannah didn’t turn up for Finn’s wake or funeral, Nuala never spoke to her sister again. You know ’tis an awful thing not to pay your respects to the dead, especially here in Ireland, and ’twas the icing on the cake, after her sister had said such terrible things to her.’