‘Rogers. No, no interest at all. I’m more of a cow man,’ I said.
I took my leave and thanked him for his time.
I never told Sadie the truth of that night with Emily in the hotel. Never told Thomas’s story. She would have insisted I give the coin back there and then, and that was not my plan. To be honest I wasn’t sure what I would do. In one way it felt like me and the Dollards were quits, having paid royally, if you’ll excuse the pun, for the price of the coin by buying into the hotel and giving the money to a more deserving Dollard. But then again that blasted thing that I hadn’t given a second thought to for years began to niggle at me.
And then one day I was sat in my car thinking over all Emily had told me again, looking down over Molly’s hill as I called it. I had a few places I found myself when I was in need of some quiet time: nooks and crannies or open spaces, where the silence cured me, bringing a bit of peace to my weary head – Molly’s hill was the most beautiful of them. Its rich green fields dipped down into a forested valley below. I sat above in the car on the road, watching Molly move among the grass, running and laughing or sometimes walking and singing. It was her favourite place to find me. In one sitting, I could see her at different stages of her life, as a youngster galloping about or as a pensive teenager sitting among the growth, barely visible, lost in her worries or as a mother herself running after my grandchild. At some stage she would always stop to wave up to me. It was my favourite part. That day, however, no wave came. Instead she sat in the long grass and turned in my direction, holding her arm to her forehead to block out the sun to look at me.
‘But it’s not yours, Daddy,’ she said. A whisper in my ear, it was. Plain and simple. Her words had drifted up to me on the breeze that curved the grass in my direction.
‘It’s not theirs either, as it goes,’ I replied. But, it was no use. My daughter, as always, knew right from wrong.
‘But it still has one last job to do,’ came her final words on the matter. She smiled then rose and moved on, far down deep into the valley, until I could not see her any more.
Chapter Four
8.35 p.m.
Third Toast: to Noreen
Bottle of stout
There’s just me and Svetlana alone again. She’s taking the glasses out of the dishwasher. The clinking breaks the silence of us. Emily has gone to sort out proceedings below at the dinner. I’m getting a bit peckish myself.
‘Any chance of a toasted special, Svetlana?’
‘A toasted what?’
‘Special?’
She looks at me like I’ve just asked for it in Irish. ‘They’ll know what it is in the kitchen.’
‘I check,’ she says, looking a little bothered by it all and leaving through the bar door.
It’s back to just me and my reflection. Really, I wish it wasn’t there. Reminding me this night’s not even half over. Giving me that ‘Do you really think you’re up to this, Big Man?’ stare. I ignore him. What the feck does he know anyway?
‘They say yes, but twenty minutes.’ Svetlana returns to lay her elbows on the counter in front of me, like she’s worked here for years. ‘They do dinner now so very busy. OK? I order?’
‘Order away. And while you’re at it, I’ll have another of your finest bottles of stout.’
Stout of course always reminds me of Tony but it was my father who got me drinking the stuff in the first place. He wasn’t a big drinker, mind. The odd time he’d bring home a bottle if he felt his day deserved it. Even more rare was the occasion of a drink taken in a bar. Never this one, of course, even if it had been operating back then, my father would never have crossed its threshold. Hartigan’s, that was his watering hole.
‘I think we deserve it, son,’ he’d say, leading me over the bridge on the days the market had gone well. No further incentive was needed. I’d be by his side, smiling, working up a grand thirst.
‘This here beauty, son, always remember she’s fool’s gold.’
He’d watch the stout settle in the glass, eyeing it like a heifer that’s known for kicking. Putting off that first taste a little longer, he’d take out his pipe from his pocket and begin to pack the tobacco good and tight, his thumb pressing down into the bowl. And after, when he’d finally drink the first sip, he’d let out a sigh as if he’d battled winter winds all day and now stood at a blazing fire.
‘If ever you have money, son,’ he’d continue, ‘don’t indulge this jezebel. She’ll empty your pockets and make a drunken fool of you.’ He’d light up then and pull away at his pipe until a scattered orange glow peeped out from the darkness and he’d pap, pap, pap away for the duration.
Sermon over, I’d be free to drink in peace and watch Mrs Hartigan and whichever daughter might be around work at some pace, quenching the many thirsts of the winners and losers of the day. We didn’t talk with any of them. I loved to listen to their conversations, though. That’s what the old lad was at too – eavesdropping, picking up information we might somehow turn to our advantage. That’s how, years later, we came across the first piece of land we ever bought. But when the chat could offer nothing, my eye wandered, falling often on the cobwebs hanging from the ceiling, thick as ropes.
‘Are ya done?’ my father would ask, after a bit. Then we’d tip our caps to our hostess and leave.
’Course, my father trusted no one beyond his own. Blood, that’s where it was at for him. (How he ever got a wife was a mystery.) His mistrust followed him to the market and there he’d haggle his way to the best deal any farmer could hope for:
‘Do you think I’m a fool, man?’ My head bowed with the embarrassment of him, sometimes. But when his brusqueness pushed up his earnings, I paid attention. A master in manipulation. I watched his facial expressions and listened for his silences, counting the seconds until he spoke again. Learning his phrases, his hand gestures, his stance. I had it all by heart. By the time my turn came, I was ready. There were many who hated to see me coming but could not deny the quality I brought. Cows and sheep reared on the finest grain and grass. Tended closely. Ailments nipped in the bud before they had time to take hold. I stood at the stall gate knowing none other around had finer. I expected a good price and held my ground until it came. But there were times when even the best of what I had to offer fetched poor prices. I couldn’t always fight the economic tide, try though I might. I was as much a victim to its whims as the next man. But unlike him I would rise earlier, watch longer and pounce quicker.
Fool that I was.
This pint here, son, is for your Auntie Noreen. If it wasn’t for her I don’t think your grandfather Michael would have accepted me like he did. And it was her who solved another part of the mystery of the coin. But, above all, it is because of how much your mother loved and struggled with her. Noreen was a woman forever on your mother’s conscience.
I met Noreen and the rest of the in-laws not long after Sadie and me started stepping out. We were only a couple of months together when we boarded the bus that bumped us northwest to Annamoe in Donegal. Your grandfather Michael met us, a man taller than de Valera and broader than Churchill. Sadie hugged him like he was a big cuddly teddy bear, becoming lost in his coat folds, with only her shoes as evidence that he hadn’t swallowed her whole. When they finally separated, she held on to him with one hand and with the other reached behind to pull me forward and make the introductions. I shook his hand firmly, meeting his unsmiling eye.
‘Mr McDonagh,’ I said.
No words were offered in return. He simply nodded, then released my grip. The jig was up, I was convinced. He knew, as all fathers did, the thoughts that raced through my head about his daughter. I silently pleaded for mercy with promises of never thinking those things again. So distracted was I that I did not see his hand reach across to take my suitcase that I gripped in terror. His arm tugged and his eyebrow raised but still I didn’t let it go. We must have looked ridiculous, me most of all, stood there in this tug of war.