The Belfast Girl at O’Dara Cottage. Anne Doughty

if they could spare it, but that’s not much good with two girls away at school in England.’

      ‘So Patrick took over from Walter?’

      ‘He did, and a great job he’s made of it, so I hear tell. Anyways, his sisters finished their schooling in Dublin and went for a year in Switzerland forby, and one of them’s married in England to some big man in the government there. In the Parliament, I think, but I don’t know the right way of it. He’s very high up, for shure. And the other sister married a man who trained horses. They run the hotel and shop and have horses as well. They’re back and forth to Dublin and you’d see them in the papers regular with winners. It must be in the whole family.’

      She poured two cups of tea and handed me one.

      ‘Where’s Paddy, Mary? If he’s up on the far field he’ll be soaked by now.’

      ‘Ah, never fear. He’s gone to Doolin for the pension and I’m thinking he’s met somebody in Considine’s.’

      I hoped that Mary would go on talking, but she seemed lost in her own thoughts as she sat looking into the fire. ‘Patrick Delargy is a rich man now, Elizabeth,’ she said with an air of finality and sadness. ‘All he needs is a wife and shure who would he marry here and him an educated man?’

      She certainly had a point. In his position, he couldn’t just marry anyone, nor could there be many suitable single women of his age around. It must be very lonely to be so old and not have anyone to go home to. I remembered the way he had asked me about Tolstoy and I wondered who he could talk to about Tolstoy in Lisdoonvarna. Then it struck me that I had never talked to anyone about Tolstoy either. At home, no one ever reads anything but newspapers. George reads The Economist because that’s his subject and Alistair Maclean for relaxation. Good escapism, he always says. And don’t we all need some low literature to keep our minds off things.

      ‘That tea was marvellous, Mary. Can I help myself to another cup? What about you? Are you ready yet?’

      To my surprise and delight, Mary held out her cup and let me refill it. All week, she had been pouring my tea and serving Paddy and me at the table, while eating her own meal by the fire. She had waited on others all her life. Now, at last, she’d let me do something for her. It delighted me, for I knew such a gesture could have only one meaning. As far as Mary was concerned, I was no longer a stranger in the place.

      We finished our tea in silence. My legs were beginning to throb gently after the long walk and the standing in the shops. Mary had been on her feet all day too, feeding hens and calves, baking bread, separating milk and making butter. We were both reluctant to move.

      Finally, Mary got to her feet, her hand to her low back in a familiar gesture. ‘Have you writing to do today, Elizabeth?’

      ‘I have, Mary, but I’ll wait till we light the lamp. I’ll help you with the supper first.’

      Outside the cottage a van stopped. Mary moved quickly to the middle of the floor. ‘I wonder who that is. Bad luck to that hyderange, for I can’t see a thing these days.’

      The van started up again and continued on up the hill. The fumes drifted through the open door. They were followed by the scrape of boots on the flagstones. A moment later, Paddy appeared.

      He had shaved off the stubble which had graced his chin at lunch and was wearing his best suit of brown corduroy with the pink and mauve tie that had so amazed me on my arrival. His face looked as if it had been polished, the cheeks fresh and pink, his eyes even brighter than usual. From the top of his cap, perched on his shiny forehead, to the toes of his well-polished boots, he looked trim, collected and totally in command of himself.

      Such a small man, I thought, as he raised his hand in the doorway. Small and compact and full of a compelling sense of life that related not at all to the lines on his face, the remaining wisps of white hair, or the gnarled fingers, thickened with age. How can a man be old and yet so full of life? Paddy would never be old.

      He hung his cap on the hook behind the door, grinned at us cheerfully and walked into the room with only the slightest trace of a sway. He smiled again, a sideways smile directed mostly at Mary. It was like the look on a child’s face, when it knows it has been naughty, but expects to be let off with a caution.

      Mary said nothing, but I could see she was amused. We waited.

      ‘God bless all here,’ he said heartily. ‘I’m sorry, Mary, that I was unavoidably detained. I met some Yankees from Australia.’

       Chapter 4

      It isn’t Paddy who has the hangover this morning, I thought to myself, as I sat munching wheaten bread at breakfast next day. He had been in such sparkling form the previous evening that we had sat by the fire till midnight. He’d told me stories from every part of his life, moving back and forth across the Atlantic and the decades of his seventy-odd years with equal ease and a fluency that had me spellbound.

      He had such a gift with words. Everything he said was put in a simple, direct way but out of that simplicity he built something much more complex. The atmosphere he created was so very potent that as I listened to his stories, some happy, some sad, some cautionary, I felt sure I was experiencing something quite beyond the actual events he was recounting. It came to me that Paddy’s stories were like parables for in them he had concentrated the wisdom of a long life lived with passion and humanity. I had gone to bed, my head full of Paddy’s stories, and spent a dream-haunted night reliving stories of my own.

      ‘God bless all here.’

      The dark-caped figure of Paddy the Postman stood in the doorway, a hand half-raised in greeting. I’d been so far away that I had neither seen the bob of his cap above the hydrangea, nor heard the scrape of handlebars as he leaned his ancient, regulation bicycle against the wall of the dairy.

      ‘God bless you, Paddy. Sit down and rest yourself, till I get you a drop of tea.’

      He sat down, his cape dripping gently from a sudden shower. ‘Ah, miss, I have a handful for you today,’ he said. He counted out three letters for me.

      ‘Well, what’s news in the world today?’

      Paddy O’Dara put down his blue enamel mug. He’d persevered with the delft cup and saucer for two days after my arrival until Mary had absentmindedly taken the mug from the dresser. He clutched it thankfully and the cup and saucer did not reappear.

      ‘Good news. Mary-at-the-foot-of-the-hill has a wee boy and all well. Seven o’clock this morning.’

      ‘Ah, thanks be to God,’ said Mary, crossing herself. ‘I’ll go down and see the poor crater after a while.’

      ‘There’s Yankees arrived at John Carey Thatched House and his brother’s over from Kilshanny. There’ll be a big party tonight, I’m thinking. Flannigan’s lorry was there delivering crates of porter.’

      Paddy finished his tea at a gulp and stood up. ‘God bless you, Mary, that was good, but I must be like the beggar man, drink and go, for I’ve a packet for Flaherty’s beyond the Four Crosses.’

      ‘Ah, ’tis a good way that, Paddy, and mostly uphill,’ Mary nodded.

      ‘And we’re not getting any younger,’ said Paddy ruefully, as he settled his mailbag on his shoulder and put his cap on.

      ‘Good luck till ye.’

      ‘Good luck.’

      I began to stack the cups and plates at one end of the table, but Mary stopped me.

      ‘Sure leave them, astore. Aren’t you going over to Ballyvore. And I’ve not much to do today.’

      It was highly unlikely that Mary had not much to do. I had seldom seen her finish her daily round before supper. But I sensed that often she was glad to be alone, with me out pacing the fields and Paddy working on the land or in the haggard.

      ‘Will