Buried In a Bog Read online

  Maura took a deep breath. “Then I’ll do it. Until you get things settled.” She leaned closer to Jimmy and said in a low voice, “What’s the story with Billy, there? Do we charge him, or is whatever he gets on the house?”

  “Mick gave him a free pass for life. I’d hate to be the one to change that.”

  “That’s fine—I was just checking. Now, where can I find some cleaning supplies? Because I’m betting there aren’t any here.”

  “The quick mart up the street’ll have what you want. You can’t miss it—it’s across from the church. Oh, and I’ll send Rosie over here to help you out.”

  “What, you’re not planning to help? Only women can clean?”

  Jimmy held up both hands in protest. “Nothing like that! Only I’ve got to talk to our distributors and such.”

  Maura had to wonder how much time he spent on business calls and how much hanging out with his buddies somewhere else. “Then while you’re at it, get some more snacks, preferably some whose expiration date is in this century, not the last.”

  “Right, I’ll take care of it. See yeh later!” He escaped out the back before Maura could make any more demands.

  “You hold him to it, young lady,” Billy suddenly volunteered.

  So he hadn’t been asleep. “You heard?” Maura came around the bar and sat opposite him again.

  “Enough. He’s not a bad man, just likes to take the easy road, if you know what I mean. So you’ll be staying on, at least for a while?”

  “Looks like it. But you probably heard that the first thing I’m doing is cleaning this place up. Gran would be horrified by the state it’s in.”

  “As long as you don’t think I’m part of the rubbish and throw me out as well.”

  “I wouldn’t do that, Billy. I have a feeling you have a lot more stories I should hear.”

  “Ah, you’re a good girl, you are. Your gran would be proud.”

  Maura hoped she wasn’t blushing. “I’m going to go get some cleaning stuff, pick up a sandwich. Can I bring you anything?”

  “No, I’ll be fine. I’ll pop into me own place, where I’ve got the fixings.”

  “You live far from here?” Maura asked.

  “Just the other end of the building, the last door on the right. I’ve two rooms on the ground floor.”

  “Did Old Mick own the whole building?”

  “He did. Some of it’s empty, now—he couldn’t be bothered to find lodgers, the last few years. But he didn’t need to, he said.”

  “You have any idea what’s going to happen to the place, once it gets sorted out? Did he say anything to you?”

  “It’s not coming to me, I know that much, but Mick never said more.” Billy began to extricate himself from the depths of the chair, and Maura hesitated over whether to offer him a hand. Still, he managed well enough, and once he was upright she found that he was shorter than she was.

  “Will you see me out?”

  “I’ll even see you to your door—I’m going that way.”

  “Ah, yer too kind.”

  Maura gave a brief thought to whether the place should be locked up when no one was in it, but she couldn’t imagine there was anything worth stealing, and it wasn’t like she had a key anyway. She made a mental note to ask Mick or Jimmy about their policy for locking up—and their ideas about opening and closing times, since they’d been all over the map so far. She dropped Billy off at his door—which, she noted, wasn’t locked either—then proceeded up the street toward where she remembered seeing a gas station. On the same side of the street, she came upon the Catholic church. It seemed surprisingly large, with a spacious parking lot. It must have been built when there was greater allegiance to the Catholic Church. A cemetery climbed up the steep hill behind. Maura wondered how anyone could manage a burial there. The mourners would have to be mountain goats, though maybe those difficulties kept the burial part of the funeral short. Was Old Mick buried there? She marked both the church and the cemetery for later exploration; right now she had more pressing things to do, like see what was under the grime in the pub, and if anything could overcome the stench of generations of drunken guys missing the mark in the loo.

  She found the small market easily enough, and to her surprise it looked much like any mini market back in the States. Even the packages looked familiar—until she read them more closely. Apparently international companies picked different names for different markets. She stifled a giggle: no way Fairy Liquid would sell in the U.S., but here it seemed to be an ordinary dish soap. The sandwiches were a bit boggling as well. Did she want to eat something labeled “fish paste”? Since she was in no hurry to get back to clean, she took her time, going up and down the couple of aisles and reading labels. The sugar bore the title siúcra in addition to “caster sugar,” and there was some bottled drink called “barley water” that looked positively nasty. Despite the unfamiliar brand names, she was able to collect the basic cleaning materials she needed, including rubber gloves. It cost her much of her remaining cash, and she wondered if the pub would reimburse her. Well, duh, if she was working there, she could take the money she needed from the till—if there was enough there. What kind of bookkeeping did the place use? Silly question: the most likely answer was, none at all, no matter what Jimmy said. Well, that wasn’t her problem. She’d take what she needed first and let Mick and Jimmy worry about the rest of it. And if they couldn’t manage to pay her, she’d be out the door.

  When she returned to the pub, laden with two full carrier bags plus a packaged sandwich, Rose was already there. She looked up and smiled happily.

  “Da says you’ll be staying on for a bit?”

  “Looks that way,” Maura replied.

  “Well, I’ll be glad of the company. I don’t often have anyone to talk to behind the bar here. Well, there are plenty who come in to chat, but it’s not personal, like. Some days it’s so dull I watch the American shows on the telly.”

  “I know what you mean. Listen, I told your father that the first thing I wanted to do was give this place a good cleaning. Maybe he thinks it’s not important, but I refuse to work in a filthy dump. Are you okay with that?”

  “Of course. I’d’ve done it myself, but I didn’t know where to start, it’s that bad. What’s your plan?”

  “I’m starting with a sandwich. Let me eat my lunch, and then we can dig in. Can you hand me a Coke? And do I have to keep a record of what I eat or drink?” Usually in Boston no one had cared if the bar staff helped themselves, as long as it wasn’t the expensive stuff, but she wanted to start off on the right foot here.

  “Sure, go ahead, and don’t worry about it. Just tell me what to do with the cleaning bit,” Rose said cheerfully.

  “I’ll take the toilets. I wouldn’t ask anyone else to do something even I hate to do.”

  “You’ll hear no complaints from me,” Rose said, smiling.

  Chapter 10

  Three hours later Maura declared herself finished. No customer had even poked a head in, and Maura didn’t know if she was worried or relieved. She wouldn’t call the bathrooms clean, exactly, but they were substantially less filthy than they had been when she started. They were also stocked with paper towels and toilet paper, although she’d exhausted the pitiful supply she’d found. She’d have to tell Jimmy to order more. And some more lightbulbs.

  She washed her hands one last time, noting the poor water pressure. Was that due to the plumbing? For that matter, how old was the plumbing—or the building? From what she’d seen around here, construction styles in the village hadn’t changed much in a century or so, which made it hard to tell. Rose had scrubbed the top of the bar, and Maura could see the grain of the wood for the first time. A quick glance around the room told her that Rose had been diligent while Maura had been busy in the back; most of the surfaces gleamed, and the windows sparkled.

  “Great job, Rose! This place looks a whole lot better,” Maura said sincerely.

  “All I did was clean the tops a bit—
I saved the floor to tackle later.”

  “I’ll bet your father will be impressed.”

  Rose waved a hand dismissively. “Ah, he wouldn’t notice. My ma showed me how to clean, and I’ve been keeping our place up since she…passed.”

  “I’m sorry—has it been long?”

  “Going on two years.” Rose swallowed. “I miss her still. My da tells me you never knew your own mother?”

  “No,” Maura said without elaborating. She’d already told that story more often in the last day then she’d done in years. She turned the conversation back to Rose. “So, do you have any brothers and sisters?”

  Rose shook her head. “No, there’s only me. And yourself?”

  “Same here. I don’t know how Gran would have coped if there’d been more than me.”

  The door opened, and Maura was surprised to see two twenty-something men shamble in. One nodded to a table in the back corner and headed in that direction; the other came over to the bar and said, “Two pints,” then turned away to join his friend.

  “Friendly sorts,” Maura said in a low voice. Most people she’d served so far had at least greeted her, and they often chatted while waiting for their pints to settle. “Local?”

  Rose studied them briefly. “I don’t know them.” When the pints were ready, she took them over to the men, who looked up and nodded without smiling. When she came back to the bar, she changed the subject. She reached under the bar and pulled out a pile of letters, pushing them toward Maura. “I found these under the bar here while I was cleaning up. Should I give them to Da?”

  Maura sorted through them. Mostly bills—presumably those should go to Jimmy or Mick, whichever was handling the books for the pub. They hadn’t been opened, though the dates on them were fairly recent. But there was one personal letter, handwritten, whose envelope had been slit open. Maura pulled it from the stack and was startled to see an Australian return address. She looked up at Rose. “Australia! Did Old Mick know anyone there?”

  Rose craned her neck to look. “Nice stamp. No, I can’t say as he did. Wonder why the letter came here instead of to his home? I’m surprised Old Mick left it here—he was real private. But maybe he was feeling poorly and forgot to take it home with him.”

  “How did he die?” Maura asked, hoping she wasn’t about to learn that he’d dropped dead in the pub.

  “He went easy. He didn’t come in one morning, and when Mick went looking for him, he found him in his bed, gone. Old Mick was well into his nineties, anyways.”

  “How long ago was this?” Maura asked. She wondered briefly what local regulations might be for burying someone; she was more familiar than she wanted to be with the American customs.

  “Ten days, is it now?” Rose calculated in her head. “There was talk of waiting to put him in the ground until a next of kin was found, but nobody was sure where to look, since most of his family’s long gone. The Sullivans have a plot behind the church, so they put him there. The funeral filled the church—everyone knew Old Mick.”

  No wonder things were so unsettled about the pub. “Maybe we should look at the letter. If it’s personal, someone might be hoping for an answer, and at the very least they should be told that Old Mick is gone.”

  “Go on, then—read it. It’s already open,” Rose said.

  Feeling vaguely guilty, Maura pulled two sheets of paper from the envelope and scanned them quickly. They were covered with dense script, and it took her a moment to decipher what the writer, Denis Flaherty, was saying. Denis wrote that he was in his eighties and working on his own family history and thought that Old Mick might know something about the local McCarthys, from his mother’s side. It appeared to be an out-of-the-blue letter, and the first that Denis had written to Mick, because he took the time to introduce himself as the son of Bridget McCarthy, and he wondered if she was the sister of Ellen McCarthy, Old Mick’s mother, but he couldn’t be sure because he’d only learned bits and pieces from his family in Australia. Genealogy, then. Something Maura had had no particular interest in, and that Gran hadn’t encouraged—indeed, she’d often said that she’d made her choice to find a new life in America and looking backward was useless. And what was it with all these Denises and Bridgets and whatever? Mrs. Nolan had mentioned something about traditional naming patterns, but this was ridiculous. How did anybody keep straight who was who, and who was related to whom? Of course, they’d probably known all their lives, unlike her.

  “What’s it about?” Rose asked.

  “It’s a letter from some guy in Australia who’s looking for some of his relatives or ancestors around here. He thought Old Mick might be able to help, because he might be related.”

  “Who’s he looking for, then?”

  “His name’s Denis Flaherty, but he’s looking for his mother’s people. Her name was Bridget McCarthy. Do you know of any McCarthys around here?”

  Rose giggled. “At least a dozen. I was at school with a few.”

  “Should I ask people at the pub if they can help this Denis? I hate to just send the letter back, and I don’t know who’s who around here or where to find them.”

  “You can ask, but it may not help you much.”

  Maura looked down at the letter in her hand. Poor Denis probably didn’t have many years left to him, and she hated to leave him in the dark, if there was anything she could do. “Still, I think I should do something. If you see a McCarthy walk in the door today, point him out to me, will you? I’ll hang on to the letter for now. And maybe I’ll ask Bridget Nolan if she has any ideas—she’s probably around the right age to know. Oh, and thanks a lot for helping with the cleaning, Rose.”

  The door opened, ushering in a few customers, who found their way to seats. Maura tucked the letter deep in her bag. If Old Mick had read and saved the letter, he must have had some reason, and it occurred to her that it might help give some clue as to who his relations might be.

  “I’ll give these others to me da, when he comes in, shall I?” Rose asked.

  “Sure. He’s the one that pays the bills, right? You want to take care of those two?” Maura nodded toward the latest arrivals. “And when we have a moment, maybe we should go over the staffing schedule.”

  “Right,” Rose said, then went to take the newcomers’ order. She chatted for a moment, then came back and started pulling two pints.

  Maura began again, “Your dad said that the place doesn’t usually open until midafternoon this time of year?”

  “That’s right, or later, especially in the middle of the week. No point in wasting the electric, now, is there? Of course, Old Mick was usually here, and if business was slow, he and Billy would sit by the fire and swap lies. He might have been old, but he stayed on until nearly closing, most nights. Da and Mick Nolan kind of shared the evening hours, but there was nothing like a plan—they just worked it out day to day. I cover afternoons mostly, and I help at night when things are busy. What’re you thinking?”

  “I can be flexible, but I want a little time to look around the area. Mick’s grandmother knew my grandmother, so I want to spend some time with her, and I want to go see where my grandfather is buried. It’s kind of hard to plan when I don’t know how long I’ll be staying.” She slid off the bar stool and came around to the back of the bar. “Okay, walk me through what we’ve got here—you know, what’s popular, where everything is.” She noted that Rose had done a good job cleaning and tidying behind the bar as well.

  After that there was a steady trickle of customers. Closer to six, another man came in and made a beeline for the bar. “Rosie, you’re looking grand, my love. And who’s this?” he asked, catching sight of Maura. “A new face for the old place?” He extended his hand. “The name’s Bart Hayes.”

  Maura shook his hand. “I’m Maura Donovan.”

  “American, are you? How did you find yourself behind the bar in this old dump?” He said it with a smile, so Maura had to assume he know the place well.

  “My grandmother came from around h
ere. What can I get you?”

  The one-line explanation seemed to satisfy the man. “A pint, of course.” He looked around the all but empty pub. “I’d offer to buy a round, but that seems an empty gesture. Will you join me, Maura Donovan? Rosie here’s too young to raise a toast.”

  “You seem in a happy mood, Mr. Hayes,” Rose commented.

  “That I am. I’ve just landed a big order—that’s a rare thing these days, and cause to celebrate.”

  Maura slid his pint across the bar and poured herself a soda. “Congratulations. What is it you do?”

  “I work for one of those pharmaceutical companies, over toward Cork. One of them that arrived under the Celtic Tiger and managed to make a go of it. Business has been slow for a while, let me tell you, but maybe now things are looking up. Sláinte!”

  After a while, Bart Hayes recognized a newcomer and went over to talk with him. It was only her second night, but Maura fell easily into the rhythm of serving. The patrons seemed to enjoy the chance to chat her up. Many were curious to meet the American girl they’d somehow already heard about. The first question was usually, “So, you’re from America?” most often followed by some variation on “Why are you here?” although usually phrased more politely than that. Maura felt a bit embarrassed to be the center of attention, but from what she could see it was meant kindly. Funny—the bartending part she could handle, because she’d had plenty of experience, but she’d never been good at making small talk, much less flirting, with patrons. They all seemed to know each other, and she was the odd one out, but she was welcomed warmly. Her stock answer quickly became, “Because my grandmother came from near here,” as she had told Bart, which usually led to an exchange of stories about relatives near and far, and Maura was soon lost in the maze of surnames: there were few names, but many families with the same names, widely scattered, and it was not something that her brain was ready to sort out. Hearing that she was a Donovan often prompted more questions that she couldn’t answer. Sometimes that segued into stories of other relatives who had gone to America—and almost everyone could name one or two.