grandmother Jane collecting mussels with Aunt Mary there at low tide many, many years
ago.
Around "half ten," we call on Elizabeth. It takes her awhile to answer the door but we wait patiently on her doorstep knowing she is
home and just working somewhere in the house. When she answers the door she is smiling and wearing her apron.
"Wait a minute ye see - I was jest dun at the shop," she says and steps aside to urge us through the door.
"We thought you were sleeping in Elizabeth."
"Ah no. Come in here ye now an set a wee minute while I get me jumper on."
When she returns she has several framed pictures wrapped in brown paper to show mom.
"Ye see this one hare. Does any ye's want it?" It is a picture, one side showing Pope Benedict, the other side of Pop John Paul. At the top it says, "Bless This Home."
"Elizabeth, don't you want to keep it? After all, you can never have too many pope pictures in your house."
"Ah now," she laughs, "I have three already at the top of the stair and no mere space."
Elizabeth walks the short distance to the cottage with us so I can take some pictures. The cottage is the thatched one on Seacoast Road in Bellrena. It was home to the thirteen McPoyle children, although not at the same time. My grandmother, Jane, was one of only two children to emigrate and she knew her youngest siblings (Sarah and Mary) primarily through letters and a few dear return visits. Elizabeth's father, Philip, and mom's mother, Jane, were brother and sister. The house became part of the British National Trust when upkeep became too much for Sarah and Mary, who lived without electricity and running water until their eighties. The home has since been modernized: gone is the pile of peat that Sarah and Mary used to cook their meals and heat their home., and there is now indoor plumbing and other homes built right up to the edge of the property.
Elizabeth didn't know the man who now lives there, but after a couple of knocks on the half-door we made ourselves as home outside and took a few pictures (logistically a bit challenging since the man has two very modern forms of transportation parked right in front of the cottage but we did alright).
I took a different route back to Elizabeth's afterwards so I could take a few pictures of Binevenaugh. It was there that I probably amassed a wee bit of bad karma for the day when I tried to give a lost passerby directions.
Man In Car: Sorry, I'm looking for the wee road that is jest after the bar on Seacoast Road?
*it is worth an aside here to point out that the way that the Irish give directions is problematic even for the Irish; using landmarks vs. actual street names is visually more interesting but sometimes impractical, such as when Aiden O'Donnel's old brown cow decides to switch fields and therefore can no longer be found at the corner where one must turn to go to Dublin rather than Cork
.
Man In Car: Sorry, miss? The wee road?
Me: (Imagine here an Irish accent a la Madonna, but after she'd only been in the other country for about 3 days): There used to be an old bar just there - the Oasis - but I think it is gone now.
MIC: Ye see I don't know. I'm a social worker and my directions say, "Turn on the wee road jest after the pub." But I can't find the pub.
Me: The Coastal Road splits about another 2 kilometers down the road. Could that be it?
MIC: Ah no - I don't think so.
We go back and forth for a bit like this - me throwing out landmarks I can think of because - in this situation - I actually am the one in the know and for all he knows my funny accident is from watching too many American sitcoms. But I am useless and we eventually laugh at his situation and he drives off.
Before we leave, Joan hugs Elizabeth.
It has always been evident that Elizabeth isn't the hugging kind. She is the kind that loves by inviting you through the door, by showing you her grandchildren's school pictures from St Anthony's, by offering you a framed picture
of the pope because she already has three in her house, and by fixing you a cup of tea, putting extra butter on your potatoes and insisting that she buy you a glass of stout at The Point Bar.
Elizabeth accepts a hug from Joan. Then mom hugs her and that is it. Elizabeth is in tears, pushing mom away and waving us off while she waves us goodbye. I don't get to hug her at all and it bothers me a bit because the way she sets her kitchen table and fusses over meals and says, "Oh aye" now reminds me of my own grandmother who died when I was ten.
She stands at the door until we drive away.
And she is still there waving when we drive back by a second time because we actually went the wrong way the first time.
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