Page 202 of The Missing Sister

She raised her eyebrows at me and I nodded in agreement. It was one thing that had struck me when I had moved to New Zealand – that there didn’t seem to be any long-running family feuds that had been passed down through the generations, just because a great-grandfather had once insulted his cousin’s fiddle-playing.

‘Old wounds run deep here,’ I murmured.

‘They do,’ Katie agreed. ‘Now, when our parents – Maggie and John – met and fell in love, Nuala and Hannah must have been horrified. ’Twas likeRomeo and Juliet. Nuala said she’d told her daughter that she’d disown her if she married John, but Mammy loved Daddy so much, she went ahead. Ah, Merry, Nuala couldn’t stop weeping as she told me how she had cut our mammy out of her life. And how much she regretted it looking back, especially when Mammy died so young. She said she just couldn’t bear to set eyes on Daddy – Hannah and Ryan’s son. She asked my forgiveness for not being there for all of us kids after Mammy died.’

‘Oh my God...’ I muttered, tears springing to my eyes as I thought about the diary I hadn’t read for all those years. The story of a brave young woman who had been my grandmother, who through the pain of war had lost her husband, but who had also been prepared to cut not only her sister but her beloved daughter out of her life.

‘So now, I went to Timoleague church to look through the records and put the tree together.’ Katie pointed to it.

‘There’s Bobby,’ I whispered. ‘All those stories he used to tell of his grandparents fighting the British in the War of Independence...’

‘Yes. I remember, Merry,’ Katie nodded grimly, ‘and I think it explains why Bobby was the way he was. With Nuala and Christy as his grandparents, Bobby would have been brought up as pro-republican as you can be. Nuala’s hatred for the British, for Michael Collins and “his gang”, as she called them, passed down through the generations. After all, the Treaty that Mick Collins signed with the British government in London sparked the Civil War, which killed her husband, Finn. He was the love of her life.’

‘Yes.’ I spoke quietly, as my chest felt so tight I could hardly breathe. ‘Which must also mean that I –we– are closely related to Bobby and Helen Noiro.’

‘We are, yes. He’s our first cousin. And o’course, his daddy, Cathal, was half-brother to Mammy.’

‘We knew that Bobby’s daddy, Cathal, died in a barn fire, didn’t he? So Nuala lost her son as well,’ I sighed. ‘What a sad life she led.’

‘I know so, ’tis tragic, but it’s interesting working with the old folks. They took death to be part of life back then, because they were used to it. These days, with all the new-fangled medicine, ’tis a shock when anyone dies, even if they’re very old. What I’ve learnt is that life was cheap back then, Merry. I went to Nuala’s funeral at Timoleague church. There weren’t many there, just a couple of old friends and Helen, Bobby’s little sister.’

‘Bobby wasn’t there?’ I held my breath for an answer.

‘No, he wasn’t.’ Katie eyed me. ‘What happened in Dublin, Merry? I know ’twas something to do with Bobby. He was obsessed with you from the first moment he set eyes on you.’

‘Please, Katie, I can’t talk about it now, I just can’t.’

‘But he was why you ran away, wasn’t he?’

‘Yes.’ Tears jumped into my eyes as I spoke the words.

‘Ah, Merry.’ Katie took my hands in hers. ‘I’m here now, and whatever happened then is long in the past. You’re safe back home with me.’

I put my head against my sister’s chest, gulping back the tears because I knew that once they began, they’d never stop. I needed to hold it together for my children. There was one last question I needed to ask.

‘Has he... have you seen him around here since I left? I was wondering whether he comes back to visit his mum. She was called Grace, wasn’t she?’

‘Helen Noiro told me at the funeral that her mammy was long dead, and as for Bobby, I’ve only seen him once, and that was soon after you’d vanished from the face of the earth. He came tearing up to the farm, wanting to know if we’d seen you. When we said no, he didn’t believe us, and went raging through the house, opening all the presses, looking under beds until Daddy came along – he had to threaten him with his rifle... Bobby was frightening, Merry. The rage on him... ’twas like he’d been possessed.’

‘I’m so sorry, Katie. He did the same at Ambrose’s flat too.’

‘But you weren’t there?’

‘No, I’d already gone. I had no choice, Katie.’

‘Well, part of me is glad you disappeared, Merry, because I thought to myself then that if he found you, he’d kill you. Though I’d have liked to have known whetheryouwere dead or alive sooner, so.’

‘It wasn’t just me he was threatening to kill, Katie, but...’ I shook my head. ‘I promise I will tell you everything, just not now, okay?’

‘O’course, and I hope what I’ve told you today has helped in some way. Old scars never seem to heal here, do they? And ’tis so unfair when they’re inflicted on the next generation. Ireland’s been too good at looking back at its past, but now I’d say we’re getting better at looking to the future. Things have finally moved on.’

‘Yes,’ I agreed as I dug in a pocket to find a tissue. ‘I really feel that. Even though part of me still wants to see the ponies and carts on the roads and the old cottages rather than all the modern bungalows, progress is a good thing.’

‘So you don’t know where he is, Merry?’

‘No. I’ve checked the records in Dublin and London to see if I could find out whether he was still alive, but there wasn’t a single Robert or Bobby Noiro registered as dying since 1971. So, unless he moved somewhere else abroad and died, he’s still alive, out there somewhere.’

‘And that frightens you?’