The Traveller's Daughter Page 19

  “I met a young couple tonight Rosa; they were only a few years older than ourselves. They were talking all about the good times they had fruit picking in the South of France the previous summer.”

  Rosa could see that the seed of an idea had been planted and that it was fast germinating as he picked her up and swung her round.

  “So Mrs Donohue how do you fancy going to France? We could pick the grapes during the day and drink wine under the stars by night.” His face was aglow at the thought of it.

  “Ah, I don’t know Michael. It’s a long way away, so it is.”

  He hadn’t been put off, and whenever he mentioned this country across the water over the next few days, he would get a dreamy look on his face. Rosa could see that to his mind, France would be the land of milk and honey for them, but she knew no more of France than she’d known of the North of Ireland. Still and all she could see the unspoken need on that handsome face of his for her to say yes they would go, she had followed him here after all and look how that had worked out! Yes, she decided she would happily follow him to the ends of the earth if it meant he would find peace. Pouring him his tea, she waited a moment while he tucked his shirt into his trousers and then passed him the mug.

  “Michael I’ve been thinking.”

  He looked up from blowing the steam rising from his mug. “Oh yes?”

  “I’ve been thinking that we should go to France.”

  ***

  They said their goodbyes soon after and through her tears Rosa knew she would be forever grateful to the kind and gentle people of Michael’s who had welcomed them into their fold.

  For Rosa, her times spent with Michael were a time of firsts. Some were the simple everyday things other people took for granted but that she had never had a need of before, like riding on a bus or a boat. With Michael holding her hand, she had crossed the border of her country and explored the foreign parts of the North. She left the country of her birth with him to go to a land that was even more foreign to her than the settled life. Oh and, of course, there were other firsts too.

  With Michael by her side, Rosa was brave and fearless, and so it was they embarked on their fruit picking adventure. They had enough money to keep them fed and watered until they found the work they had gone to seek. Willie had given them a tent of sorts that could be erected for shelter. Michael was convinced that so balmy would the weather be they would have no need for anything else of a night. Having spent her entire sixteen years in a country where the sun would shine hot one minute, and the heavens would open the next Rosa doubted this. She didn’t doubt however that he would keep her warm with his arms wrapped around her even if the tent did not.

  They sailed from Belfast and that boat to Liverpool was the worst journey of Rosa’s life. The hunk of steel taking them across the sea rocked and rolled across the water with such ferocity that she thought they would all of them surely drown. She was sick as a dog along with over half the other passengers as she clutched the seat of the toilet to hold herself steady, and willed her tummy to settle. There was to be no respite though until the boat docked.

  When she looked back, Rosa couldn’t recall much about their short stay in England or the journey from Liverpool to Dover. She did recall however that it took a lot of cajoling and whispered sweet nothings for Michael to convince her to board the boat to France. Thankfully that was a much smoother journey.

  With the sun sparkling on a calm sea that day, she put the nightmare sailing from Ireland behind her. She let herself feel alive for the first time since Michael had hatched his plan with the excitement of this grand adventure they were embarking on. They were fortunate on that last leg of their sailing to get chatting to a young couple both with long hair and him with a beard that Rosa thought gave him a look of Jesus.

  The woman’s name was Joan and his was Henry. Rosa sat on the open deck area’s hard wooden seat next to Michael. The tang of salt from the sea spray was on her lips as she stared fascinated by all the pretty beads Joan had draped around her neck. To her mind she should have been called Laura it would have suited her better.

  “We’re driving to the Rhone Valley where the land’s rich and fertile.” Henry had a dreamy expression on his face like he was half asleep Rosa thought, listening to him. “We’re going to stay with a group of friends who’ve pooled their resources and bought an old farmhouse there.” He would have been no more than twenty-five, and he said this in a zealous tone that reminded Rosa of the way Martin Donohue sounded when he spoke of the Travellers rights. He carried on talking about how he and Joan were disillusioned by conventional life. They were going to try a new way of living. There would be time to meditate and think about the things that were really important in this world like peace and love. They would achieve this by living communally without all the materialistic trappings and distractions of the modern world. Rosa looked bewildered, and so Joan explained that they would all live together, sharing the workload, toiling the land that would feed them as one extended family. “We’ll be self-sufficient and that way the establishment can’t tell us who we should be or what we should be doing with our lives.”

  “We’ll make our own rules man.” Henry finished.

  Michael had thrown back his head and laughed. “Sure there’s nothing new about all of that, that’s the way us Travellers have always lived.” He told them their story then and it happened that when the boat docked Henry and Joan offered to give them a ride to the Rhone Valley. They told Rosa and Michael they would find grapevines a-plenty there, so long as they didn’t mind squashing in the back of their old car.

  They clambered gratefully into the back of their Morris Mini-Minor somehow finding room to perch amongst their bags. After breaking down twice and a night spent sleeping under the stars, they eventually put-putted into a fairy tale village called Gigondas. Michael peered out the car window at the village’s mellowed stone buildings. The red tiled roofs settled into the hillside and oversaw the rows and rows of vines below. He leaned forward and tapped Henry on the shoulder. “Can you pull over Henry? This is where Rosa and I will stay.”

  It was backbreaking work picking those plump, purple grapes for the Gigondas Rosé each day under an unrelenting, baking sun, but Rosa and Michael worked hard. The kindly winemaker was a romantic sort, and their passion for one another must have reminded him of his youth because he took a liking to the young couple. Their toil was rewarded of an evening with good food the likes of which they had never tasted before. They had basic lodgings and a small wage that would see them through to the next port of call when the season ended. He also gave them an old bicycle that had been rusting almost forgotten in the barn. A quick test run between the vines proved it roadworthy. After their evening meal, Rosa would perch upon the handlebars and Michael would peddle to the top of the hill. They would coast down those gentle slopes in search of a quiet spot away from the prying eyes of the villagers. Somewhere to sit and watch the sunset among other things that newlyweds do when they’re alone together.

  It was a magical time spent together in Gigondas and under that hot sun the lines of loss that had settled on Michael’s face since they left Cherry Orchard soon softened. Rosa and Michael thrived away from the ghosts of their past but like all good things it had to come to an end. The mornings had a dewiness to them that had not been there when they first arrived. The vines had been stripped bare; their work had come to an end and so it was time for them to move on once more. The winemaker kissed Rosa on both cheeks before turning his attention to Michael. He shook his hand and in that guttural English of his which was far better than any of their pitiful attempts at French he told them to take the old bicycle with them. “There will be work, here again, next season if you come back.” He said before waving them on their way. Rosa hoped with all her heart that they would indeed be back but she knew in that way she sometimes just knew things that they would not.

  They set off on foot from the village. Rosa with a sense of sadness at leaving behind a place wher
e for the first time in her life she had been completely and utterly happy. Michael, she sensed from the spring in his step was looking to forward to whatever it was that would happen next on this adventure of theirs. He wheeled the bike along, and she carried that auld brown case of theirs as they wandered toward the main road leading south of the village. “Where are we going?” She asked and he didn’t answer her at first. Eventually when she had almost forgotten what it was she had asked him he replied. “I think we should just go wherever the road takes us.” Rosa smiled, she was happy enough with that.

  It was quiet, and there was much to look at in the fields they passed filled with the fading yellow heads of the sunflowers bobbing in the gentle breeze. It was after a bit when their legs had begun to ache that they heard the rumble of an approaching truck, Michael stuck his thumb out.

  “If the trucks stops and gives a ride then we will go wherever it is going.” It stopped.

  They pulled into the town of Uzés around mid-afternoon after a bumpy ride on the back of the truck’s open trailer loaded up with fruit and vegetables. Somehow they managed to squeeze themselves and the bike in between the boxes. Rosa found herself squashed in beside a carton full of glossy purple and yellow tomatoes. The colours of which were as foreign to her as the taste of the small purple one she was unable in her curiosity to stop herself pinching off the top of the pile and scoffing down. Poor Michael got stuck between a box of cabbages and a crate of spuds. Both were foods they were oh so familiar with. Rosa hated to admit it but the sight of those vegetables that had once been staples of both their diets gave her a pang for the familiarity of the country she had left behind this was despite the beauty of the one they currently found themselves in. She could see by Michael’s face that Tyson was once more not far from his thoughts.

  “Here,” Michael held out his hand to help Rosa clamber down from the truck. “Wait over there I won’t be long.” He pointed to a fountain as she jumped down. Picking up a crate he followed the driver into the grocery shop he had pulled up alongside. It was on the corner of a street filled with shops in the market town. Helping to unload the truck was his way of saying thank you and Rosa sat down on the wall of the fountain to wait for him. A cherub stood in the middle of it busy emptying an urn of water into the pool at its feet. The trickling sound it made was soothing as she kept an eye on the bike and their case. All the while she tried to ignore the dark shadow she had sensed creeping around the edges of her mind’s periphery as the day had stretched out. She did not want to think of what that encroaching darkness might mean. The last time she had felt it was when Joe was sick. To distract herself she glanced around the bustling old town’s mellowed gold buildings and tried to convince herself that nothing bad could happen to them now. Sure, she told herself hadn’t they been through the worst of times together already?

  “What’s wrong?” Michael asked wiping his brow with a hanky.

  She shook her head. “Nothing it’s just hot that’s all.” He didn’t look convinced, so she kissed him and stroked his cheek trying to inject excitement into her voice. “Come on let's go and explore.” They wandered those pretty cobbled streets with no clue of what they would do when nighttime fell. The weather was still warm enough for them to sleep under the canvas tent if need be. After having had a bed to fall into for the last few months, Rosa wasn’t relishing the thought of sleeping on the hard ground again though. Eventually, their aimless meandering bought them out into the town’s main square. Michael was relaying a funny tale from his youth and Rosa laughed. She loved it when he recalled happy times from his childhood because they were few and far between. She had no idea of the pure joy of being in love that shone from her face.

  Christian Beauvau did though. He had just enjoyed a leisurely lunch in the picturesque square along with a light flirtation with a rather lovely waitress called Eva. He was draining his wine glass and hoping she would let him have some eh-hem dessert when a glimmer out of the corner of his eye turned his attention to the old building framing the square. It was the mid-afternoon sunlight, and the way in which it was illuminating the century’s old stonework turning it umber. He picked up his camera that was never far from reach and had been about to photograph that special Uzés light when a handsome young couple strolled into his lens’s line of vision. The look on the young girl in the pretty white dress’s face was mesmerizing as she gazed up at her lover, and so he had clicked the shutter. In doing so he had captured Rosa and Michael forever in the photograph he called Midsummer Lovers.

  Chapter 19

  It is better to be a coward a minute than dead the rest of your life – Irish Proverb

  Rosa

  You will have seen that photograph by now Kitty my love. I know that if you have read this far then Christian will have already done what I asked of him by giving you this journal of mine that is now yours. I hope you will see it as a part of me I’ve left behind for you to open when you feel lonely or sad. Whenever you do so, you will know that you are forever in my thoughts.

  Time my darling girl is short and it is precious. I have no desire to waste what is left of mine by repeating myself. Nor do I wish to relive the pain of what happened next in mine and Michael’s story by putting it down in words because I loved him with every part of my being. I don’t know where his body rests. I wish I did so I could have given his family a place to go and grieve had they wanted to. Instead I fled when I got the news. The only things I took with me were my white dress and the wedding ring he gave me. The ring is yours now to do with it what you want.

  The ending to mine and Michael’s story is one I can’t regret because as hard as it was to bear I realise now that it was simply our fate. If he hadn’t of died I would never have gone on to love Peter and to have you. I know too that Mammy and Kitty were strong enough to be alright without me, but my wish is that things could have been different for Tyson. I always hoped that one day he would understand it wasn’t his fault that Michael and I left Cherry Orchard. It was inevitable, and his brother never wanted to leave him nor did he ever stop loving him. If I can’t tell him in this world though, I am sure Michael will be there to meet him in the next. I hope too in reading this Kitty you understand why I have gone about things the way I have. Joe’s death shaped this decision I have made. It was a terrible thing to see someone I loved waste away little by little, day by day. So you see that’s why, I am grateful you’re living your life in London and out from under my roof. It would make this illness of mine so much harder to bear if you were here to witness the ravages of a sickness I won’t recover from. I don’t want you to go through what we went through watching Joe fade. Know this though Kitty. I never gave up. I fought this cancer of mine each and every day.

  I don’t want you to remember me in sickness because a slow death like his was leaves its scars forever imprinted on the memories of those left behind and tarnishes the good ones. I went back to Tuam to see where we buried him, our Joe not long after I first found out about this sickness of mine. I saw my mammy and da’s names on the headstones next to his. I didn’t know they had gone too. I thought I would have felt it when they went but I didn’t, and I wish I had taken the time to say goodbye when I had the chance. So many years had passed since I’d stood on Irish soil, but I needed to tell Joe, how things had gone for us Rourke’s after he left. I sat there for an age and talked, filling my mammy and da in on all the gaps until now. Before I left I told them that I would hold all their hands again soon. I know they heard me, and I know that it will be alright.

  I had two great loves in my life Kitty, which makes me a luckier woman than most. That’s where I would like you to scatter my ashes though, next to where my brother Joe’s body lies with my mammy and da in that little cemetery behind that auld stone church in Tuam. I want to go back to the beginning and fly free home in Ireland.

  Kitty, there’s an old Irish proverb I want to share with you before I go that says if you lie down with dogs, you’ll rise with fleas. You know who I am talking a
bout my girl so think on. I’m done now sweetheart, and I’ve said my piece. You, dear child, were all the very best bits of a full life lived. It’s time for me to say goodbye now. I love you always.

  Your Mammy x

  PART 3

  Chapter 20

  Men are like bagpipes no sound comes from them until they are full.

  Kitty

  Kitty turned the last page of the journal and saw the wedding ring Michael had given her mother. It was taped to the inside of the back cover, and she pulled it free. Holding it up to the light she looked at the simple gold band. Her eyes blurred making its smooth edges blur. “Oh Mum, I love you too.” She let the tears spill over as she said the words out loud feeling for the first time, since her mother’s death a sense of her with her despite the empty room. The journal lay open on her lap, and she traced her fingers over the words Rosa had at last sat down and written. So many words but they’d come so late. With each page and each day that had passed as she’d filled the journal’s pages with her life’s story, the writing had grown more spidery and faint in its etchings. Until finally with those last words she was gone.

  “You could have told me you know Mum. You should have trusted me because I would have understood.” Kitty sniffed and wished she had a box of tissues handy as she made do by wiping her nose with the back of her hand. The time for recriminations was over she thought, watching the ineffectual muslin curtains breathe in and out on the evening breeze. It had blown away the remnants of the short-lived storm. Later she would close the shutters, but now it was time for her to move forward. She would look toward the future just as her mother had wanted her to do.