The midnight house, p.22
The Midnight House, page 22
‘What’s your name?’ The woman took out a notepad.
‘Ellie.’
‘And your grandmother?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Your grandmother. What was her name?’
‘Oh, Rathmore. Charlotte Rathmore.’ Ellie nodded. ‘Early August 1940.’
The woman smiled kindly at her. ‘Come back in an hour. I’ll see what we’ve got.’
When Ellie returned, a different woman stood behind the front desk. Younger, blonde. Smiling. There was now a line of people waiting. And no one taking selfies. It appeared that Terrance was doing his job.
Ellie paused. Where was her ally from earlier?
She returned to the doorway, asked Terrance. ‘I’m just a temp,’ he shrugged, ‘because of the Instagram situation.’
‘So sorry for the waiting,’ said the woman when Ellie finally got to the front of the queue. Her Eastern European accent rolled the r’s and her hands worked quickly on the keyboard. ‘What name is reservation?’
‘Oh, I don’t have a reservation.’
‘I’m sorry, we are fully booked tonight.’ Already she was looking behind her to the next person in the queue.
‘Actually, I was speaking to your colleague. About an hour ago. She was going to leave me some . . . documentation.’
Her face brightened. ‘Ellie?’
‘Yes.’
‘Sinéad had to leave. Busy woman. Always busy.’ She said this in a way that suggested she didn’t understand such busyness. ‘I have book for you.’ She took a large leather-bound tome from the top of a filing cabinet and placed it on the far end of the reception counter. ‘Okay?’
Ellie nodded. ‘Thank you.’
It was a guest book, almost identical to the one that sat on a small table at the far end of the lobby. But this one was faded, the once-rich red of the leather now pale at its edges. Wynn’s Hotel was embossed on the front in gold. She opened the cover. It made a delicious creak and she resisted the urge, in a room full of people, to smell it.
April 1940–October 1940 was written on the title page. She flicked to the back. It had been filled to the very last line. Carefully she travelled back in time. October. September. August. The fifth, fourth, third of the month.
The surnames were a mix of Irish and English. O’Sullivan, Byrne, Kelly. Smith, Reynolds, Jones. Each entry noted a date, a name and a forwarding address. There was a space for comments. It was a wonderful snapshot in time. And yet Charlotte’s name was absent.
Ellie rubbed her eyes; the day was getting the better of her.
‘Excuse me,’ she said to the blonde woman, who was busy tapping away at the keyboard, her backlog of guests cleared. ‘Do you need ID to check into the hotel?’
‘Yes. Passport preferable. EU driving licence okay.’
She knew it was silly to ask, because there was no way this girl could know, but . . . ‘Back in 1940. Would you have needed ID?’
‘Identification? In 1940?’ She didn’t appear confused by the question but instead looked at Ellie as though she might be slow. ‘During Emergency?’
‘Yes.’
‘I think very likely. Yes.’
‘Do you?’
‘In 1940, you don’t travel without identification and permit. Very difficult.’
Ellie appraised her. ‘Really?’
‘I do master’s in history at UCD. A profile of de Valera.’ The girl shrugged. A noisy young family entered the lobby and she turned to beam at them. Ellie had been dismissed.
She sighed. Wynn’s Hotel was another dead end. The paper from Charlotte’s letter could have come from anywhere: a relative, perhaps, who had stayed here before journeying to Kerry?
She turned back another page to the second of August. Doherty, Doyle. Walsh. Three Quinns, one after another. A note from a Marianne Moore thanking Wynn’s for a memorable stay. She ran her finger down the page, her heart dropping with each line. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
But wait . . . a name. Right there. Not Charlotte Rathmore but another name. A name Ellie recognised. And not just a name, an address.
She stood back from the page, her hands resting either side of the book. The chatter of the family next to her dropped to a hum as her mind whirled.
‘Thank you,’ she said to the girl, who threw back a small smile. Ellie took a photo of the open page of the guest book, donned her coat. If she hurried, she could make the five o’clock train. She felt the urge to get back to Kerry. To chase this new lead.
To chase these new leads.
She made the train with minutes to spare, and as it pulled away, she called Milo. He answered on the first ring and she cut to the chase.
Asked for his help.
He agreed immediately. That very night, he promised, he would make enquiries. Help find answers to the questions that she’d posed. She could almost see the cogs turning in his mind, almost imagine the conversation. And she wondered if he thought it would change things.
If it could erase the past.
Chapter Thirty-One
Holborn, London
August 1940
Her doctor had said, after checking her vitals and taking in her pale appearance, that Nancy should be eating more protein.
‘And how,’ she said, ‘am I supposed to do that?’ Her green ration book – issued to pregnant women – already allowed her extra milk and eggs.
Without looking up from his notes, he slid a tiny, almost transparent piece of paper across the desk. On it was a name and address. ‘Mr Hodges owns the bookshop in High Holborn.’ He referred to his notes. ‘Just around the corner from where you live.’
She knew the one. Imaginatively named after the man himself.
The doctor continued, ‘He has an addiction to sweet tea.’
‘Sweet tea?’
‘Yes. Not that you heard that from me. He also has a nephew, a prolific little hunter. If you were in the market for extra protein, you might start there.’
She said, carefully, ‘I don’t have sugar and tea to swap.’
The latter was a lie. Teddy’s love of Barry’s Tea meant that they had brought back a dozen boxes from Ireland last year, ordered from the company’s shop in Cork. Tea rationing had begun only a month ago, and Nancy had hidden the stash under the wardrobe.
‘Protein is necessary for the baby. Sugar and tea . . . are not.’
Wartime London was changing. Rapidly. Those like Nancy who would once never have considered breaking the law were now dabbling in the black market. Rationed goods were useful barter and scarce items even better. A little luxury – chocolate, a fine brandy, a particular brand of cigarette – could go a long way to lifting one’s mood and ever so slightly bolstering the British spirit.
Now, as she arrived back in Parker Street, she carried a bag containing two sausages, some sad-looking vegetables, her rationed supply of butter, bacon, sugar and tea and, nestled at the bottom, a whole jointed rabbit ready for the pot.
Mrs McLaughlin, her ample frame taking up half of the narrow hallway, was locking the door to her flat as Nancy entered the building. Darkness was falling and the bare bulb did little to illuminate the staircase beyond. She quickly closed the front door, trapping the light inside.
‘Off to the club?’ she said.
The large woman jumped with a cry of surprise. She put her hand to her breast. ‘Lord. What a fright you gave me.’
Nancy apologised as she put her shopping down and rubbed the base of her aching spine.
Mrs McLaughlin laid a hand on her arm. ‘How are you, pet?’
‘Fine, fine.’ She knew there were shadows under her eyes. Charlotte’s ghost had kept her awake these last nights.
The older woman acknowledged her reluctance to be drawn. ‘How’s the wee one?’
Relieved, Nancy smiled. ‘That’s why I’m late.’ She laid a hand on the bump under her loose-fitting swing coat. ‘Doctor’s appointment.’
‘A general practitioner working late? We must be at war.’ Mrs McLaughlin had an overt dislike of the medical profession and had proudly announced to Nancy, over a dram of whisky, that she’d not visited a surgery in twenty years. ‘A tot of the good stuff and plenty of blood pudding. That’s all you need.’ She’d taken to giving Nancy – after she’d disclosed her pregnancy – a weekly supply of rich, salty black sausage sourced from somewhere near the border, which arrived well wrapped on her doorstep each Wednesday morning. It had crossed Nancy’s mind to enquire as to its origin, but she didn’t want to push her luck and instead gratefully accepted the gift.
Mrs McLaughlin looked down at the carrot tops spilling vividly over the edge of Nancy’s tote bag. ‘Hope you’ve some meat in there?’
‘A few sausages. Some bacon.’
The old woman made a pained face. ‘Last time’ – by this, Nancy understood Mrs McLaughlin to mean the Great War, or World War One as people had started to call it – ‘sausages became a depository for rusk and water.’ She rolled the r with a flourish.
Nancy had to admit the sausages she’d been handed did look suspicious. She raised her eyebrows and turned to the mailbox. A solitary letter sat at an angle inside. She took it out, frowning. Her name and address were written in small, neat handwriting.
‘That’s why we called them bangers. Burst like water mains when you fried them up.’
Nancy grimaced. Something to look forward to.
‘So then, that’ll never do.’ Mrs McLaughlin replaced her key in the lock. ‘I’ve a piece of lamb in here, would only go to waste.’
‘Actually,’ Nancy picked up her bag and shifted the contents, ‘I also have . . . this.’ She pushed the carrots aside. The pale flesh of the rabbit was just visible in the dimness.
Mrs McLaughlin nodded her approval. ‘You’re full of surprises. Can I ask . . .’
Handing over the piece of paper with Mr Hodges’ details, Nancy winked. ‘He’s keen on sugar and tea. But I doubt he’d say no to a dram or two.’
Before the war Nancy would have soaked the rabbit meat in buttermilk, to draw out any last gaminess, and cooked it for hours in a low oven with plenty of wine and butter. Now when she returned to the flat she made a quick stew, sealing the flesh before adding diced carrots – and their tops – and small pieces of turnip and potato. She mixed a beef Oxo cube with hot water and poured it into the pot, threw in a couple of bay leaves and then, as her stomach grumbled, leaned back on the countertop and picked up the letter from her bag. She turned it in her hand. Examined it.
The writing didn’t belong to Teddy, but it was familiar. There were no return details. A pink notice – OPENED BY CENSOR/AN SCRÚDÓIR D’OSCAIL – covered one side of the envelope and a green stamp had been haphazardly affixed on its top right-hand corner. It was postmarked Baile Átha Cliath.
Dublin.
She opened the envelope and withdrew a single piece of paper. It was a letter, written in a neat hand on headed paper. Wynn’s Hotel. Its date was a week old, 3rd August 1940.
My dearest T,
Whatever you hear, do not believe it for a moment. Life twists and turns, as you well know and my situation is this – I can no longer remain at Ink House. The place is as dark as midnight . . .
Nancy steadied herself against the kitchen countertop. The rabbit stew had begun to bubble, its rich aroma filling the small kitchen. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry or do both at once.
Charlotte was alive.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Ballinn, County Kerry
September 2019
The alarm clock on Ellie’s bedside table read 9.30 a.m. She groaned and swung her legs out of bed, her toes curling as they hit the cold laminate floor.
Last night the train from Dublin had paused at Limerick Junction for what felt like days before rolling into Killarney two hours late. Moira had met her at the station, taken her bag and bundled her into the car, where she’d slept for the hour of winding road back to the hill farm. She’d mumbled snippets – I found something, someone you wouldn’t expect – before waving off her mum’s questions and tumbling into bed towards a dreamless sleep.
The smell of bacon greeted her as she opened the kitchen door.
‘Here she is!’ said Moira, waving the warped metal tongs that had been in their household since the turn of the century. Ellie knew that voice. It was the tone her mother used when she wasn’t alone. When there was a guest in the house.
A figure wearing a grey-and-green argyle jumper turned to her. ‘Ah, Ellie. Jolly good work yesterday. Wynn’s Hotel: very clever!’ His eyebrows, as always, had a life of their own.
He tapped the table next to him. It was neatly laid with Moira’s best napkins, folded into triangles and tucked under themselves so they resembled three white crowns. It was a streak of formality in an otherwise informal kitchen.
Ellie sat cautiously. ‘Jules. What a surprise.’
‘I wanted to be here to celebrate the returning conqueror.’
She looked at Moira. ‘Mum . . . invited you?’
‘Mammy,’ muttered Moira, still hovering over the cooker.
‘She did,’ said Jules, pouring her a Moira-strength cup of tea from the hideously ugly teapot.
‘When?’
‘Last night. She called me to tell me you’d made a new discovery.’
Discoveries, Ellie wanted to say. But she savoured the moment, which was too delicious to break. They were both looking at her intently; Moira holding the tongs at half-mast in front of crackling bacon that was starting to smell on the other side of well done, and Jules with his wiry eyebrows lifted by curiosity.
‘Coffee,’ was all she said in reply, standing and patting Jules’s shoulder before pointing out the burning frying pan to her mum. She flicked on the kettle and left the room as Moira and Jules danced around the kitchen attempting to save breakfast from its carbony demise.
She returned brandishing a plunger and a pack of ground coffee, bought in Bewley’s the day before. ‘Anyone?’ She held the treasures aloft for all to see.
Moira politely declined, overtly topping up her tea cup to the brim. Jules gave a small nod when Moira wasn’t looking, subtly pushing his cup of watery tea to one side.
Ellie scooped coffee into the plunger. The smell of the steam as the hot water hit the grounds reminded her instantly of her apartment – her and Dylan’s apartment. The morning ritual that had let her take a breath before the day began. She pushed the thought aside.
‘So, we’re all ears.’ Jules had a piece of toast halfway to his mouth, a dollop of marmalade hanging precariously from its edge.
‘Wynn’s Hotel,’ Ellie said, carrying the plunger to the table, ‘is a nice place. Timber panelling. A chandelier. A big jar of free sweets on the front desk.’
‘And?’ said Jules, taking a bite. ‘Good record-keeping?’
‘Well . . .’ she poured the coffee, ‘they do keep records. Of a sort. Guest books.’
‘And?’ He nodded in encouragement.
‘And,’ she said, ‘unfortunately I didn’t find Charlotte’s name in the book.’ The two faces before her fell.
‘But I thought . . .’ Moira placed a dish of white pudding on the crowded table. She looked at Jules. ‘I’m sorry, Jules, I thought she said she’d found Charlotte.’
Jules patted her hand. ‘Not to worry.’ He gave Ellie a look that appeared to say, That’s disappointing, but let’s not give up. Then he turned his attention to the spread before him. ‘But we’ll still have the breakfast, won’t we?’ He had the decency to look abashed as he picked a crumb off the grey arm of his jumper.
Ellie shook her head. The way to a man’s heart . . . ‘But although I didn’t find Charlotte’s name,’ she continued, placing a fried egg on her plate, ‘I did find another one.’
Jules’s hand paused over the bacon. ‘Another name?’ If his eyebrows shot any higher, they’d be on the ceiling.
‘Yes. One that we all recognise.’ Ellie let it hang, watched her audience hover with anticipation. She sipped her coffee, savouring both the taste and the moment.
‘Well?’ Moira said with exasperation. ‘Who? Who was it?’
‘I’ll give you a clue.’ Ellie waggled her eyebrows. ‘A hundred years I’ve walked this earth . . .’
‘Oh my,’ said Jules, just as Moira said:
‘Get away with you.’
Ellie nodded. ‘Tabby Deenihan. Or, as we know her, Tabby Ryan.’
Moira frowned. ‘They stayed together? Her and Charlotte? At the hotel?’
Ellie shook her head. ‘No, the handwriting in the guest book matched Charlotte’s. I think she travelled under Tabby’s name.’
‘She stole Tabby’s identity?’ Moira looked stricken.
Ellie sipped her coffee. It was heaven. The cogs of her mind began to turn. ‘Perhaps.’ But she doubted it. She thought back to Tabby’s speech: I was given a helping hand, by the lady of the house, no less. Tabby had paused, searched the sky for an answer when Ellie asked her about it. Said that Charlotte had helped her apply for a scholarship.
And Ellie had known, even then, that she was holding something back.
Jules set his fork beside his abandoned breakfast. ‘It must have taken some nerve to travel on someone else’s papers in 1940.’
Ellie nodded proudly, taking ownership of Charlotte’s daring. ‘Via hackney to Kenmare probably, then by train onward to Dublin.’ She’d researched the route the night before, as her own train had rolled through the darkness.
Moira said, ‘And the boat?’
Jules scratched his chin, spoke before Ellie could. ‘From Dún Laoghaire? To Liverpool, perhaps?’
‘Probably.’ Ellie paused theatrically. ‘And on to . . . London.’
‘London? How can you know that?’ He leaned forward, his elbows hovering dangerously close to the bowl of baked beans.
