Deep down I felt ashamed too, though. And I was going to have to end it with Martin McGuinness.
Joe joined me in the kitchen where I was making a brew and some cheese-and-ham sandwiches. I was struggling with a jar of chutney. As he took it from me, our fingers touched, and a current passing through me.
He opened the jar effortlessly and handed it back. “Is Tess OK?” he asked.
I looked down and sliced open a packet of ham. “She gets bad with her nerves sometimes.”
He asked no further questions and we buttered bread rolls together in silence, the sun warming our faces through the window.
Mikey sauntered through the front door just after six.
I ran into the hall. “Why didn’t you ring? Tess has been going out of her mind with worry.”
He was at that age when he thought of nobody but himself and I felt like slapping him.
When he walked into the living room Tess burst into tears and flung her arms around him.
He looked at her bandaged head. “What happened to you?” he asked.
When she finally let go of him, we told him about the bomb. He said he’d been at his friend’s house on the PlayStation all day and hadn’t heard a thing. Shortly afterwards Tess went upstarts for a lie-down and the three of us sat in the kitchen drinking beer.
Mikey gulped his down and frowned at Joe. “Who are you?” he asked, as if he’d only just registered his presence.
Joe laughed. Those were the days when Mikey was a loveable cheeky teenager. He had yet to turn into the drug-and-drink-addled yob that would give us both so much grief and heartache in the years to come.
“So that’s my messed-up family,” I said to Joe when Mikey left us and went upstairs to his room.
He slugged back his beer and smiled. “I think they’re great.” He moved to the chair next to me, his face suddenly grave. “There’s something I need to tell you, Carmel.”
I swallowed. “Go on.”
“Tess was shoplifting in Kendals. I saw her put three lipsticks in her bag.” His face broke into a grin.
I threw my head back and laughed. “She’d better have got one for me!”
“Well, I was about to ask her to get me some socks but they started evacuating.”
We laughed long and hard, the tension of the day loosening and falling off us like a suit of tight-fitting clothes. Then we locked eyes for a second time. I’d forgotten all about the missing inches. In my eyes Joe Doherty was ten feet tall.
He fiddled with the ring on his can of beer and asked me if I was seeing anyone.
I shook my head and as he leant in to kiss me a siren wailed in the distance.
Chapter 13
The following week I started my search for my sibling in earnest. I knew there’d be no point contacting the order of nuns who ran the home. The Bon Secours sisters were publicly denying all knowledge of a mass grave. They said that all documents from the home had been returned to Galway County Council after the home’s closure. This came as no surprise. When the Magdalene Laundries and paedophile scandals surfaced, the Catholic Church pulled up its drawbridges and operated a similar vow of silence. I had to look elsewhere.
So I emailed TUSLA, the family agency in Ireland which held the birth, death and adoption certificates of all the former residents of the home. I sent on Tess and Dad’s details and an approximate date of birth for my sibling. After that I wrote to the local historian who was in possession of the death certificates of all the children who’d died in the home. Statistically, the chances of my sibling being among them were very slim but I needed to know. My gut instinct told me Tess’s baby had been adopted. The thought that I had a brother or sister out there in the world, a doctor in Dublin, a labourer in London or a hairdresser in New York, sent a river of excitement coursing through my veins. Losing Dad, Mikey and Tess had left me feeling disconnected, like a great chasm had formed between me and my past. The idea that I might have another sibling, possibly the sister I’d never had, filled me with hope. My third plan of action was to track down Kathleen Slevin, the young maid in the home who’d smuggled out Tess and Dad’s letters. Hopefully she was still alive. She be in her late seventies or early eighties by now if she was.
Like a detective in TV crime drama, my project consumed me. I was constantly thinking about possibilities and looking for my next lead. I found it hard to concentrate at work. I started leaving my phone on during lectures in case I got a call from Ireland. One time, when an Irish number came up on my screen I rushed out of the room in a fit of excitement. On my way I tripped over my bag, to the hilarity of my second-year students. I was disappointed to hear my Aunt Julia’s voice on the other end of the line. It was the only time I’d been less than delighted to speak to her. Fortunately, Tallulah Phillips wasn’t in the lecture hall at the time. She’d probably have told her mother about my fall and Bryonie might have asked her if I’d been drinking or made another comment about university lecturers and their inappropriate behaviour. Luckily though, I was getting no vibes from Tallulah to indicate that Bryonie had told her anything about what happened at the Irish club that night. It looked like I’d been overanxious and, as was often the case. I’d been fretting about nothing at all.
On Thursday night I took myself off to a spa hotel in Cheshire with some vouchers Joe had bought me for Christmas. We’d stayed at Crewe Hall
