Page 42 of The Missing Sister

‘Wonderful! Six p.m. in Sabrina’s suite then?’

‘Yes. Although I won’t stay for long, or I might fall asleep where I sit.’

‘I understand completely. Sabrina is looking forward to seeing you too.’

Even though Orlando had not struck me as a man who would jump me, and was half my age anyway, I was still glad Sabrina would be there.

‘I’ll see you at six then. Goodbye, Orlando,’ I said.

‘À bientôt, Mrs McDougal.’

I hung up the phone, immediately taken back to my Dublin days when I’d first gone to Trinity College and encountered similar types to Orlando and Sabrina, with their cultivated English accents and their worry-free lives.

‘I’m meeting an English viscount and a lady for drinks tonight,’ I said aloud, and thought how muchhewould have hated that.

Lying back on the downy pillows, I went over the facts that I’d gathered so far on both men I’d been searching for. There were certainly no males of either name of the right age living in New Zealand – I had exhausted all possibilities before I’d left. And after going through pages of marriages and deaths at the records office in Toronto had drawn a blank, the only place that was left for me to search before I headed home to Ireland was right here in London.

Come on, Merry, stop thinking about all that. It was so long ago and this is meant to be a relaxing holiday!I reprimanded myself.

I pulled my bottle of duty-free Jameson’s whiskey out of its box and poured myself a finger, deciding that, having travelled across so many time zones, my body was completely confused anyway. Normally I’d never have allowed myself to drink alcohol until the evening and it was barely two p.m. here, but I took a deep swig anyway. The sudden vivid memory floated back to me of the first night I’d ever seen him. I’d looked like a complete fright, turning up at some Dublin bar to hear Bridget’s latest boyfriend play in a band.

That night, he’d told me I was the most beautiful girl he’d ever laid eyes on, but I’d just taken it as part of the chat. He’d not needed to say a word to charm me, because it had only taken one look at those warm hazel eyes to fall in love with him.

Dublin...

How could it be that I had been drawn back into the past so vividly since Jock had died? And was it just coincidence that, since my thoughts had travelled back in time, these women had begun pursuing me?

I’d also realised that by tentatively opening up the memories that had been sealed for so long, it had unleashed a torrent of further ones, some stemming way back into my childhood.

I rememberedhim, the young boy I’d known when we were both at school together and walking home across the fields – and how passionate he’d been even then. Fiercely set in his beliefs and determined to convince me too.

‘You read this, Merry, and you’ll understand,’ he’d said as he’d pressed the notebook into my hands. It had been the day I’d left for boarding school in Dublin.

‘I’ll be after calling you the missing sister till you’re back,’ he’d said.

I remembered how his intensity had always been unsettling, especially as it was always so focused onme.

‘I want you to read about my grandmother Nuala’s life and see what the British did to us, and how my family fought for Ireland and freedom... ’Tis my gift to you, Merry...’

The first page of the black exercise book had been inscribed with the wordsNuala Murphy’s diary, age 19. I had kept it for forty-eight years, yet never read it. I remembered flipping through the pages when I had arrived at boarding school, but the cramped untidy writing – as well as the atrocious spelling – had put me off, besides which there had been so much else to occupy me in my new life in Dublin. And then, as he and I had got older, I had tried to distance myself as much as I could from him and his beliefs, yet still I’d taken the diary with me when I left Ireland. I had found it again in a box when I had gone about the painful process of packing up Jock’s things. And instinctively brought it with me on this trip.

I stood up, opened my suitcase, and found the diary in the inside pocket, wrapped in a canvas bag to protect it. Why hadn’t I simply thrown it away, just as I had cast off almost everything else to do with my past?

Taking out my jewellery box, I went to put it in the room safe, but something urged me to open it. I picked up the ring, the seven tiny emeralds glittering in the light. Then I lay down on the bed, slid on my reading glasses and picked up the diary.

It’s time, Merry...

I opened it, tracing my fingers over the faded black script that covered the pages.

28thJuly, 1920...

July 1920

Nuala Murphy was hanging out the washing on the line. Over the past few months it had extended to three times its size, what with all the laundry she was doing for the brave men of the local brigades of the Irish Republican Army, known as the IRA for short.

The washing line stood at the front of the farmhouse, which overlooked the valley and caught the morning sun. Nuala put her hands on her hips and surveyed the lanes beneath for any sign of the Black and Tans, the dreaded British constables named for their mix of khaki army trousers and the Royal Irish Constabulary dark green tunics that looked almost black. They trundled around the countryside in their lorries of destruction, their only mission to root out the men fighting the British as volunteers for the IRA. They had arrived in their thousands the year before to support the local police force, who had been struggling to contain the Irish uprising. Thankfully, Nuala could see that the lanes beneath the farmhouse were deserted.

Her friend Florence who, like Nuala, was a member of Cumann na mBan, the women’s volunteer outfit, arrived once a week on her pony and trap with a new load of laundry concealed beneath squares of peat turf. Nuala allowed herself a small smile as the line of laundry flapped in the wind. There was something satisfying about displaying some of the most wanted men in West Cork’s underthings for all to see.