Page 209 of The Missing Sister

‘Come through to the kitchen. Is it coffee or tea you’d be wanting?’

‘A glass of water will do me fine,’ I said as I sat down at a small table. The kitchen was as nondescript as the bungalow and not nearly as smart as its resident.

‘So, what brings you to these parts after all this time?’ Helen asked as she poured some coffee from a machine into a mug and came to sit down next to me, handing me a glass of tap water.

‘I thought it was time I visited some friends and family. And, well...’ I brought out the family tree that Katie had given me. I’d decided that the familial connection between us should be the initial pretext for my visit.

‘Ah, don’t tell me you’ve been living in America and wanted to come back to explore your roots? A good few tourists that pass through the duty-free shop are after thatcraic.’

‘That’s where you work?’

‘It is indeed. I do all the promotions for them, like hand out tasters of whiskey or portions of a new local cheese we’re selling,’ she shrugged. ‘I enjoy it and I’m after meeting some interesting people there too. So now, what have you to show me?’

‘Maybe you already know this, but it looks like we shared the same grandparents.’

‘Yes, my mammy told me before she died. She said that your mam and my dad were half-siblings.’

‘They were.’ I turned the tree around and pointed to Nuala and Christy’s names. ‘If you follow the tree, there’s your daddy’s parents and there’s you. And Bobby.’

Helen’s glossy nails traced a path down the tree.

‘It means we’re cousins. Mind you, ’tis hardly surprising, is it? Everyone in that area is a cousin of someone.’

‘I only ever saw a glimpse of Nuala, my –our– grandmother, once. And that was on the day of my mother’s funeral when I was eleven. Nuala and Hannah were estranged.’

‘Oh, I know all about that. We saw a lot o’ Granny Nuala when we were younger,’ said Helen. ‘She and Granddad Christy were always up at our cottage, singing the old Fenian songs. When he died, and then my daddy, Granny came to live with us. What a load o’ chat she filled Bobby’s head with,’ she sighed. ‘You remember those walks home from school.’

‘I do,’ I said, hardly believing we’d moved on to this topic so quickly.

‘Would I be remembering right if I said that you were at Trinity College, while Bobby was at University College, in Dublin?’

‘You would be,’ I nodded.

‘And wasn’t he always sweet on you?’

‘Yes,’ I said, feeling like the mistress of understatement. ‘Um, how is he?’

‘Well, ’tis a bit of a story, but sure, you’d already be knowing that he got mixed up with the republican crowd at university?’

‘I would, yes.’

‘Jesus, the venom inside him and the stuff he used to come out with...’ Helen gave me a direct gaze. ‘Do you remember how angry he got? He was so passionate about “the cause”, as he called it.’

‘Is he dead, Helen?’ I asked, not able to bear the suspense any longer. ‘You talk about him as though he’s in the past.’

‘No, he’s not dead, or at least he hasn’t left this earth. But to be honest, he might as well have done. I thought you were up in Dublin in the early seventies? Surely you’d have heard?’

‘I left Ireland and went abroad in 1971. Bobby told me he was going on protests in Belfast with the northern Catholics.

I even heard a story that he was shielding a Provisional IRA man on the run down in Dublin.’

Helen looked at me uncertainly, then sighed. ‘Listen now, it isn’t a subject I’d be wanting to talk about to just anyone, but seeing as you’re family... Wait there.’

I did, because even if she told me to leave, I wouldn’t have been able to. I felt weak all over, and though my body was still, I could feel the blood rushing through my veins.

‘There now, read that,’ she said as she returned and handed me a sheet of paper.

I saw it was a page photocopied from an old newspaper, dated March 1972.