A Small Inheritance

By Pat Jourdan

The house and land bequeathed to distant relatives Kitty and Simon is the background to a web of deceit that involves them with Josh, a small-time crook.
As the country changes rapidly, the three characters react differently, keeping secrets from each other.The house was the home of a spinster, Miss Ursula Brennan and her brother,Father Benedict Brennan a missionary priest who has died in Nigeria. A descendant of one of his converts comes to preach amid the bustle of the Celtic Tiger while the local church applies for demolition.
In conflict with all the changes, the house is used, ironically, as the background for filming the classic "Castle Rackrent" of Maria Edgeworth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pat Jourdan
• Release date: Aug 22, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476214528

Pat Jourdan

Winner of the Molly Keane Short Story Award and runner-up in the Michael McLaverty Short Story Award. First short story collection was Average Sunday Afternoon;second collection = Rainy Pavements; and a novel -Finding Out. Poetry collections -Bedsit Girl, Ainnir Anthology,Turpentine,The Bedsit,Cast-Iron Shore,Liverpool Poets 2008,Citizeness. Mentioned in Ian McEwan's Saturday as " a liitle-known but gifted poet of the Liverpool school..." Editor of The Lantern Review, a magazine of poetry and short prose. Newest novel is "A Small Inheritance," coming to Smashwords soon.

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A Small Inheritance

by Pat Jourdan

Published by Pat Jourdan at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 by Pat Jourdan

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,

electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording

or any information storage or retrieval system,

without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Pat Jourdan is hereby identified as the author

of this work in accordance with section 77 of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988

for

Amelia Hull-Hewitt & Hunter Jourdan

A Small Inheritance

Pat Jourdan

Chapter 1

Simon had only just managed to get here in time and now the funeral droned on in the darkening church. Six ceremonial candles glowed on the altar and the tabernacle was hidden behind a dark purple veil. Very few people were here. Simon glanced at Mattie standing next to him, dressed in black from head to toe but still managing to look cheerful.. He was not surprised at the small number of mourners who had turned up, about a dozen or so and probably half of those were local people, drawn here because the lights were on and a ceremony in progress. There’s definitely something wrong with me, he thought. These little black flecks I can see all round. My eyesight’s going, just like they said it would. I’ll have to lay off the drink from now on. Ursula’s death is a warning, not that she’s died of the same sort of drink, but it’s definitely a sign.

Then he noticed that more and more of the flecks were moving about and some were now on the pew in front of him. One by one the small dark dots tried out cleverly-folded wings, tried a first jump and moved from the deeply architraved windows onto the empty benches nearby. The church was full of hibernating ladybirds and with the warmth of human bodies and some rare church heating turned on, they were limbering up out of their winter sleep. So far their bright summer red with its black dots had not developed. Simon, fascinated now, went on watching the advancing crowd of dark ladybirds throughout the service. They glided along the polished sepia wooden prayer-book ledges of the pews in front of him as though they had something important to do.

Relieved at this, Simon felt like taking back his decision about going teetotal; now he could get away with merely starting to cut down a bit on the drink. There was no need to give it all up. No need for rash promises. He looked around the church, still quite dark, lit only in the sacristy where the coffin stood in front of the old-fashioned brass rails. It was a ghost church, opened now and again for ceremonies like this. The ladybirds ruled in privacy.

Ursula Brennan had lived so long that no friends were left and as this was so far from her own neighbourhood, no-one except Mattie knew her. It was only by accident that he had ended up at the funeral himself.

I’m always coming to funerals up here, it’s how this all started. I meet Ursula at my adoptive-mother’s funeral ages ago and now this one too, her own one. It’s all going round in circles.

Deacey the postman met him on the path back at Hawthorn House a couple of days ago.

There’s no answer up at the house. Is Miss Ursula away? I’ve got a catch of letters here and - see here, one’s for you. He often stuck them in the hedge, to save him having to venture down the side lane in heavy weather, claiming the van would get stuck. Simon reassured him,

Oh, that’s all right, she’s staying up with a friend of hers, an invitation to stay, take care of her. They say she took ill the other week, even called Malachy out from his shop one night. I was away myself. So she’s been up somewhere in Cootehill staying with a friend from her music college days, Mattie Egan, they’ve kept in touch all these years. Deacey was already getting back in his green van and waving goodbye.

Expect she’ll be back soon then. But Ursula was never coming back. The letter to Simon gave hurried news of her serious heart attack. The sudden death meant that poor Mattie had to arrange the funeral. He looked down at the invitation. He had always managed without a phone of any sort and Ursula’s old friend, Mattie had not been able to each him earlier. Phoning up only led to an echoing ring through a deserted house, as Simon lived in the old stable block further round the lane that ran at the back of the grounds. This letter, addressed to him care of Hawthorn House gave the name of a local funeral directors up in Cootehill.

Mattie wrote that she was the executor of the will and had already set the proper arrangements in motion but hoped he would be able to advise her. She hoped she had done the right thing in the circumstances as there had been no one else to help her. Mattie also mentioned that going through Ursula’s diary she had found another address, of a Mrs Geraghty and had risked sending news of the funeral, but had received no answer. There was also a Kitty Flaherty who she was trying to contact, a distant relative, but it was proving impossible so far. There was no more family, as far as she was aware.

After telling Malachy at the shop, which took care of telling all the neighbourhood the news, Simon made off northwards by bus the next morning. For once, he was wearing a black suit, something that had hung at the back of his bedroom cupboard. It almost squeaked in the sunlight and he felt a foreigner to himself wearing it. But the old proprieties would be very important right now and he did not want to make a bad impression at such an awkward time. He even remembered to order a wreath to be sent on in advance to the funeral directors. Any B&B would have to do when he got there. There would be far more important problems to be sorted now; his tenancy over the stable block had never been formally written down and he could soon be made homeless now if things went wrong.

He wanted to stay put after all these peaceful years down his country lane, with birds calling in the trees. He needed their calming sounds, away from city noise. While he tried to look vague and undisturbed, he worried if Ursula had bothered to make a will and if so, what on earth was in it. He should have been more pushy or more concerned. Now he knew nothing and had to wait like any worried stranger for the news. She could have left everything to Malachy and his wife along at the shop, for all their help over the years. Simon was kicking himself now about all that, all those ignored episodes where he could have played at being Sir Galahad to a drunken old lady.

He must be on his best behaviour here. Simon looked around the church again, with its real marble and brass mixture of remembrance and hope, scintillating in stained glass light.

The little group of older people would be going for a funeral tea after this service. There would definitely not be any rip-roaring wake afterwards, not with this small grouping of elderly respectable friends of Mattie. He would keep his ears open for any bits of gossip – old women were good at that. If it came to the worst, Simon decided he would just stay put in his lodging and make any new owner of the property have to go to court to push him out. It would serve them all right if he ended up as the first item on the evening news. It would be fun digging out his T.D. and making him rake out all ancient laws on occupants and tenancy rights and landlords and hazy arrangements that were never written down. Perhaps something in the Brehon laws could be dug up and reused.

Simon joined Mattie at the church door as the few mourners straggled out, past the priest shaking hands with each of the scant congregation as they left.. The empty winter afternoon had no colour about it, grey sky matching the grey of the buildings. Even those houses or shops with painted exteriors looked dull. A slight mist was beginning to rise from the lakes beyond the town’s edge. In summertime the place was alive with fishermen striding around looking for places to drink and discuss a day’s catch, in all kinds of accents from American to German but now it belonged back with its residents.

A few stragglers joined them at the graveside where the priest gave both warning and hope. The balance between behaving yourself and not behaving yourself had to be kept. He and tried to work out how old they had been at death. There was no heart-rending throwing of lumps of soil – perhaps that was a tradition that was beginning to die out too – and the small group split up into two gossiping huddles. In the midst of it all was the gaping pit, draped and disguised in the false bright grass of greengrocers’ counters.. No one was paying any attention to the deceased any more, who was merely there as a large gap in the lawn, with the heavy lifting straps still spread about. The funeral attendants loitered politely by the empty hearse, still partly on duty and not wanting to be seen dashing off before the mourners had left. Their thick black woollen coats shielded them from the worst of the January weather.

There won’t be many people coming back to the house, Mattie said, No one here remembered Ursula really, except your parents and they’re long gone themselves. We’re all going in the same direction rapidly now. He noticed most of the small congregation was already drifting off to their cars. Mattie, still managing to be as bright as a sparrow, lived round the corner, near enough to walk and so they ambled along Main Street chatting or as much as he felt talking about in the circumstances. Luckily, Mattie could manage an entire conversation on her own and filled in any blanks easily.

The insistent quiet step-stones of gravestones down the hillside was behind them now facing the turreted church. As they left the cold graveyard he tried to avoid looking at the new grave, its disturbed soil ringed with a few wreaths. In the cold January day they stood out garishly, the only flowers in all the landscape apart from an earlier grave where wilting blooms were already falling over in the cold air. Across the road the Church of Ireland’s steeple was pointing like a gingerbread house from a fairytale. A few brave daffodils had already started to emerge and leant sideways against the wind.

Mrs Mattie Egan said she had sent Simon the letter after ringing up the empty house in Athlone several times.

I kept hearing the phone ringing, it sounded utterly helpless and I knew you weren’t anywhere near, just hoped you’d be about, taking in the letters and so on.

No, we never had that sort of connection. We were quite independent of each other, Ursula and me. She just liked the thought of me being around in the background. You know, having a man near if things went wrong. Mattie knew exactly what he meant. She said that when her husband died several years ago it was a wrench each evening as she locked up, bolting the front and back doors, switched lights off and checked that the garden gate was closed – all the little ceremonies that her husband attended to every night. She was quick to offer Simon the spare room to stay in.

You don’t need going round to any of the B&Bs, she protested. It’s no trouble at all. She was glad of having a trapped listener for her account of the drama. As soon as I saw Ursula was growing weaker last week, I thought of airing the back bedroom. Oh, I knew there was going to be trouble. Simon, for one second, thought he might have been put in the very room and bed that Ursula had died in, but luckily he was shown into the little bedroom over the hall, leaving the recently-departed’s room tactfully empty.

"D’you know, looking back, I thought Ursula didn’t look well when she arrived here, I was really surprised at her turning up suddenly like that.. She seemed a bit dreamy, more than usual, that is. Oh, she certainly had the artistic temperament, all right. It’s a pity she didn’t get on any further with her music. Wasted talent. She was far better than me, it was a real gift she had. Anyway, she’d insisted on visiting me out of the blue, even though the weather wasn’t that good. It looks like it’s going to be a slow spring this year, in fact if you ask me it gets later each year these days. And only last year when she was on a visit Ursula mentioned she had various legal things to attend to, and would I agree to being the executor of her will. She said it would be cheaper than asking the solicitors or the bank to do it and then she went out one afternoon and told me quite seriously that she had gone and made a new will round at Mullery O’Dolan and Doyle’s in Main Street.

And if you ask me, it seemed as though she knew there was not much time left, people often do. And to be on the safe side, I tell you, when she was pronounced dead, I took her handbag and her suitcase round to them too, just to be legal, like. You can’t be too careful at times like this, there’s all sorts of complications. It’s a good thing I haven’t passed away myself by now. You’d probably have been the one to do it all instead. They would have had a job to get in touch with you. So anyway, all her stuff is at the solicitor’s offices, all properly locked up. They gave me a receipt. To think it was only last week I got the doctor in, well, she was already dead when I found her, passed away in her sleep, a wonderful way to go. He said she must have known. Dr McNally wrote the death certificate right there and then. You’re lucky, there could have been all the trouble of going into an inquest. That could have taken ages." Simon had a chance to speak at last.

You were music students together, weren’t you? It was long ago, wasn’t it? Ursula looked back at that time fondly, often mentioned you. He did not know what else to say about all this. He was also beginning to feel uncomfortable in the formal black suit.

You’d better get round to their office tomorrow then, or you could try right now, this afternoon, in fact, Mattie said, suddenly being businesslike. I haven’t a clue of any relatives that might be left, or who might turn up and start claiming, but I can tell you that she hinted that you’ve got the place you live in and there’s the house gone to a Katherine Flaherty, with the land and all the rest being shared.

She knew that there was something in the will for herself as Ursula had not asked her to be a witness, and had told her why. People often used the staff in Mullery, O’Dolan and Doyle’s office for that, as she had done herself some years ago.

By the way, now, I ought to tell you that I do know that Ursula has left me the grand piano, she did mention it. But well, it’s far too large for any of these rooms and it would take a small fortune to move it up here, so you are really welcome to it, or whoever inherits. I don’t play any more either, it’s all gone now, my hands aren’t that good any more. Music students from well over sixty years ago! I can hardly believe it’s that long – I’ve got enough memories to keep going on with and I don’t need any more earthly possessions. I’ll be following her very soon, the way things are going.

It’s strange Ursula’s been buried here, did you know anything about that? Simon asked Mattie. I noticed there was a stone there already, but it had a different name, someone from the nineteen twenties.

Well, of course her brother, that poor Father Benedict’s buried somewhere in Africa with the missions. There’s some other relative had a grave bought here, one of the old ones, and there’s always room for six, I think, in those old plots, they just place the coffins on top of each other. She looked across at him speculatively. There’ll be room there for you as well, if you want. You could pretend to be family by now, though I expect you’ll go for cremation what with all the overpopulation of the dead. When you think of it, there’s more of them around than there are of us. They say there’s about a million over in Glasnevin already. Mattie saw his shocked face.

Don’t worry about me, I’ve lived with the thought for so long now that it’s got no worry for me. Like they said about that King George the sixth, ‘He walked with death until death became his friend’, that’s how I try to think of it. They had reached her house by this time. Now, what would you like to drink, come on into the front room and meet the others, they need some entertainment. The small gathering turned out to be members of Mattie’s Music Appreciation Group. A white-haired little man with a natty moustache leant across and explained to Simon,

We meet and listen to records now. Each one of us puts on a little programme and we discuss it. No heavy instruments to lug around, then, at our age. And of course, Arthritis takes its toll. I think your Aunt Ursula had to give up playing the piano at the end, too.

Halfway through the limp reception a flustered group burst into the house. Paschal and Maeve, appeared. They claimed they were some distant relatives, the daughter, brother and son-in-law of a Mrs Geraghty, second or third cousin of the deceased.

We got lost, took the Edgeworthtown road and then we went to the wrong church.

Yes, said Maeve, backing onto a chair, We even turned up at the wrong funeral. I wondered why we didn’t know anyone.

I told you, Uncle Fintan reproved her. I was right all the time. He was so used to being ignored that it had not really rankled. He eyed the food and drinking glasses approvingly, always ready for a drink. Mattie played the perfect hostess and plied them with dainties on a plate to go with the customary sherry and white wine and her favourite bottle of port from the back of the sideboard. Paschal and Maeve went on moaning about their detour and the shame of missing the proper ceremony. They glared at Simon, who was just saying goodbye to one of the visitors, seeing old Mr Loughlan down the narrow hall to the darkening afternoon street.

Wasn’t he the one who was living over at Aunt Ursula’s place? That Simon something?

He had lodgings over the stables, that was it, added Fintan knocking back his sherry with skill and holding out his glass for a refill. Funerals were like a pub with no real closing-time.

Yes, dear, he’s going to have a lot to attend to, things about his tenancy and suchlike. Do have another sandwich, here, Mattie coaxed them again, sensing trouble in the air. I’m so glad you managed to get here eventually. By the way, I found your mother’s address in Ursula’s diary. All of Ursula’s personal possessions are in the solicitor’s offices right now, to be on the safe side. To tell you the truth, I didn’t know what to do for the best.

We’ll go right round to them tomorrow then, Maeve said, taking down the address. It’s the least we can do for Mam and Fintan here, they were Ursula’s second or third cousins or something suchlike. You can’t have many relatives left around for a childless spinster like her, after all. Mattie did not like to tell them more details. That was the job of the solicitors, to act as screens for disputed situations. They were the last to leave, giving an extra stare at Simon when they found out that he was staying in Mattie’s house himself.

That one! He gets his feet under any table that’s going, by the looks of it," Paschal muttered as they drove off to stay at their cousin Moira’s nearby in Cavan town. As she was seeing them out of the house, Mattie asked them if they knew any way of getting in touch with a distant relation , Kitty Flaherty.

She’s over at our house right now, funny you should ask. She’s babysitting our Mam, who’s not feeling so good these days, or she’d have been here herself. Why would you want to know? Maeve asked.

"Well, I gather she should have been invited too, as one of the distant relations but I had no address. Perhaps you could give it to me. I’ll phone you up tonight about it if you haven’t got it on you now. I can tell you though, that Ursula hinted that Kitty is mentioned in the will. The solicitors