The Distant Shores Read online

  ‘I am,’ she replied. ‘I’m the Writer in Residence at the hotel.’

  He arched an eyebrow. ‘That’s grand.’

  ‘I’m writing a book on the Deverills and their castle.’

  He chuckled. ‘You’ve got enough to fill a library, I suspect. They’re a wild family, they are. A cursed family.’

  Margot frowned. ‘Why do you say cursed?’

  ‘They’ve had more bad luck than most, haven’t they?’

  ‘I’d just call that bad luck.’

  ‘You would, but we Irish are a superstitious lot.’ He finished making her drink and slid the glass across the bar.

  She took a sip. ‘Lots of castles were burned down during the Troubles. Are they cursed too?’

  ‘Perhaps the Anglo-Irish are a cursed lot. Most of them acquired their land from Cromwell or King Charles II. Who do you think lived on that land before them? The Irish.’ He shrugged again. ‘You piss people off and it comes back to haunt you. That’s what I’d say. You build your houses on stolen land and you’ll never be lucky.’

  Margot considered his words. ‘Interesting,’ she said.

  He gave her a crooked grin, a flirtatious twinkle in his eye. ‘You going to put that in your book?’

  She laughed. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Be sure to get my name right. Seamus O’Donovan.’

  ‘You own this pub?’

  ‘It’s a family business going back to 1764.’

  ‘You look younger than that.’

  He enjoyed her wit. ‘What’s your name then?’

  ‘Margot Hart.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound very English, I mean the Margot part.’

  ‘My mother’s French.’

  ‘Father English?’

  ‘Was.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. He died a long time ago.’

  The door opened and a cold draught swept into the pub along with Colm Deverill, who Margot recognized from her near crash on the road from Emer and Jack’s house a couple of days before. He was wearing a flat cap and jacket, a wool scarf and heavy lace-up boots. No sooner had he closed the door behind him than he spotted Margot perched on the stool at the bar. His face darkened as he recognized her. Margot was bemused. He had smiled at her in the car, but presumably that was before he knew what she was doing there in Ballinakelly. He must know now about the book she was writing.

  Colm acknowledged Seamus with a nod, then walked straight past the bar to sit with a group of friends at the other end of the room, near the fire. Margot watched him for a moment, wondering whether she should go and introduce herself. She was sure she could win him over, given the chance.

  ‘I guess the Deverills are none too pleased about your project,’ said Seamus, putting a pint glass beneath the Guinness tap. Colm was a regular at O’Donovan’s and Seamus knew what he liked to drink.

  ‘Lord Deverill has invited me to his house and given me access to the family records, so I wouldn’t go as far as saying all the Deverills are hostile to my book.’

  ‘Lord Deverill is not in his right mind these days,’ Seamus commented, not unkindly. ‘JP Deverill was a golden boy, but he’s turned into a tarnished man. That’s what they say.’

  ‘Sad, if it’s true.’

  ‘Aye, it’s true. I hear his own family no longer speak to him.’

  ‘What? Just because he lost the castle?’

  ‘More than that,’ said Seamus. He put the glass of Guinness on a tray and walked out from behind the bar. ‘Much more than that.’

  Margot watched him take Colm Deverill his drink. They exchanged a few words. Colm glanced at her and glowered. She held his gaze, which must have unnerved him for he looked away.

  ‘And tell me, me lady, are the pleasures of Ballinakelly to your liking?’ came a gravelly voice from behind her. She turned to see Mr Flannigan, the porter, his face swollen and red. In his rough hand he held a glass of stout.

  Margot’s heart sank. She did not care for drunk men. ‘Very much, thank you,’ she replied politely, looking over for Seamus, hoping he’d return and rescue her.

  ‘Did ye bump into any dead fellas in the night?’ he asked, grinning lopsidedly.

  ‘No, all very quiet at night,’ she answered.

  He swayed and smiled in the way people do when they know something you don’t. ‘That castle is full of ghosts and dead fellas wandering around without a by your leave, you know. Don’t let that Mr Dukelow tell you otherwise.’

  ‘I don’t believe in ghosts,’ Margot said, an edge of impatience to her voice. She was tired of talking about the supernatural.

  ‘You won’t be so by September, girl.’ Mr Flannigan laughed heartily, exhaling a puff of sour breath, and swayed again. She wondered why he didn’t steady himself on the bar. Perhaps he wasn’t aware of how drunk he was.

  ‘I’ll let you know if I hear anything.’ She turned away.

  ‘Indeed and you will, because they will put the heart crossways in you. You’re in the western tower. Mr Dukelow doesn’t usually put guests up there, but Mrs de Lisle insisted.’

  ‘And why would she do that?’ she asked, irritated.

  ‘Because it’s a meeting place for the dead, that’s why, God save the mark.’

  ‘Like I said—’

  He cut her off. ‘You will, as sure as me name is Flannigan, mark my words,’ he added with absolute certainty, trying but failing to wink.

  Margot decided she’d had enough of this pub. She was on the point of leaving when the sound of music rose above the drone of voices. A hush descended on the room. A band of five musicians began to play Irish folk songs. She’d like to have stayed, there was something very charming in the cliché. However, her haunted bedroom was more attractive than this bar with Mr Flannigan trying to scare her with stories of ghosts. Ghosts indeed! she thought as she left the pub. What a lot of nonsense.

  Kitty

  This Writer in Residence, Margot Hart – the woman who doesn’t believe in ghosts – is staying in the western tower. The very place Barton Deverill inhabited when he was stuck in the In-between, cursed by Maggie O’Leary, whose land he built his castle on and who he had burned at the stake for witchcraft. As a child I used to spend a great deal of my time in that tower, talking to him, but he was a curmudgeon in those days and not much entertainment for a ten-year-old girl. He had been there for over two hundred years, so I suppose he had a right to be bitter. He was only released when Maggie forgave him. I realized, at that point, that the curse had never really been about land but about love. It was forgiveness that broke the curse and saw the two of them disappear into the light together.

  I think of love and forgiveness as I watch my half-brother JP colluding with Margot Hart as she researches her book. I feel his resentment towards his family; it hangs about him like a fog. A fog of self-pity and reproach. Our father, Bertie, became a pathetic drunk when Mama left him. Now, it seems that the son is repeating the mistakes of the father. His wife Alana is gone and JP dulls the pain of rejection and loneliness with whiskey, his loyal friend. I suspected as much when I was alive, but now I know because I can watch him from where I am between worlds. I cannot help him, however. I could have done so during my life, but I chose not to. Even here, I resent him still.

  JP sold the castle in 1976 and, in the four years that followed, I refused to speak to him. I cut him off, like a rotten limb. I did not ask him how it had got to this, I simply cast blame. I didn’t try to understand him and I didn’t sympathize with him. I was blinded by fury and frustrated by my inability to buy the castle myself. My husband Robert was dead, my father also, and not since the days of my childhood has my family had the wealth needed to rescue it, as Celia did. Now we have no wealth at all. How the mighty fall!

  When Bridie died, she left JP the castle and a fortune. Where did that fortune go? I ask myself. Now he has neither. He lives in the Hunting Lodge where I grew up. A bleak and depressing house that is always damp from the river that runs past it a
nd dark from the small windows that let in little light. He has infused it with his negative energy, so it is even more gloomy than before. Yet Margot seems not to feel the oppressive atmosphere, or if she does, it does not bother her. She is focused on her goal, which is to write a book about the history of the castle and the family whose lives have been shaped by it. I could tell her a few things, if only she could hear me. But I cannot tell her how JP lost it, or how he lost his wife and family. I cannot tell her that. I’m hoping that she will find out and enlighten me.

  Margot is in the games room, sitting on the rug in front of the fire, surrounded by papers, when I enter. Of course, she cannot see me. I am as transparent as air. She is engrossed in our history, delighted by every new piece of information she finds, like a child full of wonder at the world. The papers are in neat piles, sorted into what is relevant and what isn’t, in date order. She is pretty with long blonde hair, tousled by the drizzle and partly swept up and held fast by a pencil. Her eyes are intelligent and green, the colour of beech leaves. Even in reading glasses she is attractive. I admire her, for her energy reveals a young woman with ambition, drive and vigour. She is independent and feisty and yet I detect a loneliness there, buried beneath a happy-go-lucky façade and fiercely denied. She thinks she can outrun it, but she cannot. It is deeply embedded, from childhood, I believe. An unhappy childhood. She cannot hide that from me, for I can feel her vibrations. I was empathetic in life, but my senses are more acute here. Here in the In-between.

  I am beside her now. I hover over her, so close I could touch her were I made of matter. But I am as vapour, so I propel a ripple of energy through the air and, like a wind, it sends the papers flying across the rug. Alarmed, she scrabbles for them, catching them before they float into the fire, and arranges them back into piles. She looks at the door, which is closed, then back at the windows, which are also shut. I know she is wondering where the draught came from. She does not think it is a spirit. She does not believe in them. By the time I am finished with her, she will.

  I am about to amuse myself with some more tricks when the door opens and Colm stalks in. He hasn’t even taken off his coat and hat, which are both wet from the rain. Mrs B is behind him, anxiously twisting her hands and explaining that his father has gone for a nap so perhaps he should return later. But it is not JP he wishes to see – it is Margot.

  Margot turns round and stares at him. She knows who he is and that he does not come as a friend. Slowly, she gets up, but she does not extend her hand. This is not a social call. Colm’s face is contorted with fury. His anger has been boiling since his grandmother told him about Margot and the book. ‘Thank you, Mrs B,’ he says politely. ‘You can leave us now.’

  Colm is so like his grandfather. He is tall, with the same dark brown hair, the same cleft chin, the same strength of character in his features. But unlike Jack, those features betray his honesty, his inability to lie. Jack was the best liar I ever met. When Colm is not furious he is charming, witty, mischievous and kind. All the qualities his father once had in abundance, before he lost them in the whiskey bottle. I wonder, what would it take to revive them? My father was rescued by his cousin Digby. Who is going to rescue JP?

  ‘I’m sorry we cannot meet in more favourable circumstances,’ Colm says. It goes against his nature to be rude.

  ‘I am too,’ says Margot, looking at him steadily. Trying to find a way to win him over, no doubt.

  ‘I’ve come about your book. To ask you not to write it.’

  Margot is surprised. She tilts her head and narrows her eyes. ‘Why do you think I’ll agree to that?’ she asks calmly. ‘Why do you think I’ll give up my project just because you ask me to?’

  ‘Because I’m hoping you’re a decent woman.’

  ‘I’m a writer. This is my job.’

  ‘Eva Perón is dead,’ he says, and Margot is surprised that he has done some research of his own.

  ‘Yet Argentina is full of people who view her as a saint. People whose lives she touched in a magical way. They didn’t try to stop me writing about her.’

  Colm puts his hands in his trouser pockets and glances at the ceiling, as if hoping to find a more persuasive argument there. ‘Look, I know there’s no reason why you should feel any sense of responsibility towards a family you’ve only just met. But my father is not in his right mind.’

  ‘He drinks too much, but he is not a hopeless drunk. I know about those and he is not one of them.’

  ‘I disagree. You’re preying on a vulnerable man.’

  Margot is affronted at the suggestion. ‘I’m not preying on anyone,’ she replies, and even I, a spirit impervious to her moods, feel the sharp edge in her voice and am startled by it. ‘I’m writing a history of your entire family, going right back to Barton Deverill himself. Yes, I will be writing about your father and the loss of the family home. The selling of the castle is the end of the story. The place where the Deverill seat and the Deverill family part ways. If you think I’m going to leave him out of the narrative, you are deluding yourself. The book would be incomplete.’

  ‘You are delving into people’s pain,’ he says. His face is twisted with hurt. He cannot conceal it. His parents divorced, that I know. But why, I do not know. What dark secret is he trying to hide, I wonder?

  ‘I am not a monster, Mr Deverill. I am a writer and I will give a balanced account. I admire your family. My own grandfather was a friend of your uncle Harry’s. Your family has suffered tragedy but it has shown great resilience. Your ancestors were flamboyant, colourful, daredevil and big-hearted. The castle had been in your family, almost without interruption, for over three hundred years. How many people can claim that?’

  At this, Colm’s face looks even more agonized. He is thinking of his grandmother, Bridie Doyle, who as the Countess di Marcantonio, bought the castle. The fact that she was once a maid there will not worry Colm, he has no airs, but she died without ever knowing her son, his father, and that worries him. He knows how much that wounded JP. I know too, although during my life I did not want to acknowledge it, because it was I who brought JP up believing his real mother was dead. It was I who forbade Bridie to meet him when she moved back to Ballinakelly from New York, and it was I who kept her a secret from him, her own son, even though she had settled into the castle only a couple of miles across the estate. I had to live with the consequences of those choices when she left him a letter in her will explaining everything. I thought we were enough for him, me and Robert, and our father, Bertie. I thought he didn’t care to know about his biological mother because he felt secure enough in our love. But I was wrong. When JP finally learned the truth, it was too late. Bridie was gone.

  ‘This book of yours is going to further divide the family,’ Colm says, moving towards the door. ‘I hope you realize that what you’re doing will scupper any hope of reconciliation between my parents, my siblings and my grandparents. By digging up the past you will thwart any plans to put it behind us. It is bad karma and it will come back to haunt you.’

  Margot shrugs. ‘I don’t believe in karma. Nor do I believe curses, leprechauns or ghosts.’

  ‘What do you believe in, then?’

  ‘My ability to make my own luck.’

  ‘And how has that gone for you so far?’

  ‘I’m doing very well, thank you.’

  ‘Good.’ Colm turns the brass knob and opens the door. ‘I wish you a good day.’

  He leaves and Margot remains by the fire, staring at the place where he stood, a frown furrowing her brow. She tries to get back to work, but she is filled with doubt and fury. Colm has rattled her. The biography of Eva Perón was easy because she was dead. Perhaps Margot should not write about the living.

  Chapter 5

  A few days later Margot drove into Ballinakelly in search of some action. She wasn’t used to living in such a quiet, provincial place. She’d lived in Buenos Aires, Milan, Paris, Amsterdam and Oslo, all vibrant cities in constant movement. Ballinakelly, by contrast, w
as eerily still. She had too much time to herself and too much time to think.

  She hadn’t seen Colm since their awkward encounter in the Hunting Lodge. Angry at the suggestion that she was preying on a vulnerable man, Margot had lain awake most of the night, going over their conversation, inventing responses that she hadn’t had the wit to think of at the time, and imagining what she’d say to him were she to see him again. But that didn’t seem likely. She had avoided O’Donovan’s on purpose so as not to bump into him, even though she’d like to have seen Seamus O’Donovan again. He had a rough magnetism that appealed to her. She hoped she wouldn’t bump into Colm in town. At least there were no animals at the hotel that might require a vet.

  Two more hotel guests had complained about strange noises in the middle of the night. Margot wondered why these so-called ghosts always seemed to come out at that time. Why didn’t they appear during the day? Were they like sea urchins that hid beneath rocks during daylight hours and crawled out when it was dark? The whole idea was preposterous. But Mr Dukelow had taken the complaint in his stride, persuading the young couple that the castle really wasn’t haunted. Mrs de Lisle had even hired a priest to cleanse it of any negative vibrations, he’d told them. Margot wasn’t sure that was true. Mrs de Lisle did not seem like someone who believed in such nonsense. She was an upfront businesswoman with a sensible and practical head on her shoulders.

  The couple hadn’t been convinced, but they’d certainly felt they had been listened to and went off appeased. Margot wondered whether Mr Dukelow was beginning to worry that these ghost stories might put guests off coming. ‘It’s a creaky old castle,’ he’d told her when she mentioned it. ‘Who’s listening out for ghosts in the daytime? No one. They lie in bed at night, ears straining to hear every squeak and groan. If they were as alert during the day as they are at night, they’d hear the same noises and think nothing of them.’ Margot was inclined to agree with him.