‘Should we knock on the door and ask to see it?’ said Rosie.
‘I’m sure they would let us,’ I said. ‘What do you think, Mum?’ I looked around. ‘Mum?’
Nora had darted into the garden and was already pulling herself up onto a lower branch of the tree, her legs disappearing into the foliage and showing remarkable agility. But then she never failed to surprise me.
‘Mum!’I hissed. ‘Come down! You can’t just climb someone’s tree… it’s trespassing!’ Rosie and I looked at each other for a moment and then ran over to her, ducking under the foliage. There she was, sitting on a long flat branch, a beatific smile on her face.
‘What took you so long?’ she said. ‘Rosie, give me your hand.’
But Rosie was already pulling herself up, climbing the lower branch and then slidingherself onto the long and strong branch. She sat herself on the other side of Nora. ‘Mum…’ she looked down at me. ‘Coming?’
‘Oh, all right.’ I managed to get myself up, and sat down beside Nora. ‘We’re going to get shot at,’ I said. ‘Or whatever they do in the countryside. Set the dogs on us.’
‘We’re in West Cork now,’ said Nora. ‘They don’t do that kind of thing. We’ve come home.’ She swungher legs. ‘Well, here we are, Rosaleen’s three little birds. She’d be very happy to see us in her tree. She always said it had healing properties,’ she mused. ‘Do you feel it, Rosie? When I came down here a couple of months after your great-grandmother died, it helped me. It really did. I crawled into it, like we are now, and I just sat here for ages and ages. And when I eventually emerged, I feltutterly and totally at peace.’ Nora, in the middle of us, took my hand as well and I knew she was remembering that time we spent together, after Rosaleen died and after my miscarriage. ‘You should have come with me,’ she said.
‘Maybe I should have,’ I said, after a pause. I felt her hand squeeze mine. Rosaleen’s three little birds, in her cherry tree.
‘People pay money to come and feel likethis,’ went on Nora. ‘But there is nothing in the world as healing than sitting on a branch feeling the power of a tree. We must do all we can to save trees. Notcutthem down.’ There was no escaping the Battle of the Copse, even here, all the way in West Cork.
‘Mum! They are not going to be cut down! I promise you!’
‘Right.’ She patted my hand, still speaking in her dreamy voice. ‘Just ensuretheir protection, all right?’ It was as though she was trying to hypnotise me into agreeing. ‘Just enshrine the rights of the trees into school policy, that’s all.’
‘It does sound reasonable,’ said Rosie. ‘Mum?’
‘Can we talk about something else?’ I said.
‘Did you know, Rosie,’ said Nora, satisfied that she had made her point, ‘that your great-grandmother was going to be an actress? That’swhy she left this beautiful part of the world, where our roots lie deep below the surface, from where the Thomas tribe hails.’
‘But she stopped acting, didn’t she?’ I added, ‘when she went to work as a front of house manager.’
‘Yes, but she was brilliant… she could act. Everyone said so…’
‘So what happened? Why did she stop?’ I had always thought it was because she lost interest, somehow, herpassion waned and she had Nora to look after. ‘Rosaleen never told me.’
‘She had stage fright,’ explained Nora. ‘It was her great tragedy. She never recovered. Her life’s dream taken away from her. But there was no way she could get back on that stage. I was very young when it happened, only one or two, I forget now, but she told me. It always makes me sad when I think of it, someone not achievingtheir dream.’ Nora paused dramatically, and looked at us both in turn, enjoying immensely telling us the story of her mother, drawing it out.
‘Go on, Granny,’ urged Rosie.
‘Well, she was standing in the wings of the Abbey Theatre, about to perform when she realised she couldn’t put one foot in front of the other. She couldn’t move. She said that her throat was dry and it was as though everyword, every thought, every line, had been removed from her brain. She couldn’t do it. And then, in her panic, as she saw her fellow actors on stage, it got worse and she didn’t know what to do. She never set foot on a stage again.’
‘That’s what happened to me,’ said Rosie. ‘That’s kind of how I felt.’
Nora took her hand. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘That’s why I’m telling you.’ She smiled at her. ‘Ithappens to the best of us. Even Rosaleen. It might explain why she was so… so indulgent of me,’ said Nora, now looking at me. ‘Why she let me follow my dreams, never put limits on me, wanted me to be happy. Never any expectations.’
I nodded, sad to think of Rosaleen now, her dreams and career cut short. ‘She was also just a really lovely person,’ I said. ‘The best, really, wasn’t she?’
‘Thevery best.’ Nora smiled at me. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘I think we need a speech. For Rosaleen. A poem… Rosie?’
‘Okay…’ Rosie thought of something. ‘There’s that Patrick Kavanagh poem. We learned it in school. It always made me think of you two…’ she smiled shyly at us, ‘but this time it’s for Rosaleen. Now I can’t remember all of it but there’s a part that goes…And I think of you walking alonga headland of green oats in June, so full of repose, so rich with life… O you are not lying in the wet clay, for it is a harvest evening now and we are piling up the ricks against the moonlight and you smile up at us — eternally.’
We sat there for a moment, memories hanging above our heads like leaves, ready to be picked and cherished.
‘To Rosaleen,’ said Nora eventually. ‘So full of repose,so rich with life.’
‘To Rosaleen…’ we echoed.
From the house, there was a sound, a voice.
