The Velvet Ribbon
The Velvet Ribbon
Also by Nadine Dorries
The Tarabeg Series
Shadows in Heaven
Mary Kate
The Velvet Ribbon
The Lovely Lane Series
The Angels of Lovely Lane
The Children of Lovely Lane
The Mothers of Lovely Lane
Christmas Angels
Snow Angels
The Four Streets Trilogy
The Four Streets
Hide Her Name
The Ballymara Road
Standalone Novels
Ruby Flynn
Short Stories
Run to Him
A Girl Called Eilinora
An Angel Sings
Nadine
Dorries
The
Velvet Ribbon
www.headofzeus.com
First published in the UK in 2020 by Head of Zeus Ltd
Copyright © Nadine Dorries, 2020
The moral right of Nadine Dorries to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (HB): 9781786697578
ISBN (XTPB): 9781786697585
ISBN (E): 9781786697561
Author photo: © Cassie Dorries
Cover Design: Rory Kee
Cover Photo: Colin Thomas Photography
Background Photo: Getty
Head of Zeus Ltd
First Floor East
5–8 Hardwick Street
London EC1R 4RG
WWW.HEADOFZEUS.COM
For my husband, Paul, who passed away at home on June 7th 2019
Contents
Also by Nadine Dorries
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Glossary of Irish terms
About the Author
An Invitation from the Publisher
Chapter 1
Tarabeg
Shona the gypsy woman and her bad-tempered grandson, Jay, had slipped into Tarabeg under the cover of darkness and camped in their old haunt, up against the church wall on the edge of the seven acres. He had complained bitterly every step of the way. ‘This is a waste of our time – why the feck are we here?’
‘We have been sent for,’ she replied, and Jay knew better than to ask for more. ‘Wrap rags around the horses’ hooves to muffle them,’ she instructed as they reached the outskirts of the village. The light had just begun to fade and the moon appeared, large, bold and orange, close to the earth. At the sight of the blood moon, Shona finally knew in her heart why it was they were there.
‘What use are the rags?’ Jay grumbled. ‘They’ll see us if they look from the bar in Paddy’s and they’ll drive us out again. Why are we even here?’ he repeated.
Shona had not the strength to answer, even had she been inclined to tell him. It was where she had to be just one more time for one last curse; it was all she had left in her and she was waiting to be told how to use it. They had remained unseen, invisible, as she knew they would be, as they set up camp, fed the horses, lit the fire and settled down. But all the time Jay complained. ‘What use are you when you can’t even cook any more,’ he said as he threw the rabbit he’d trapped the previous day into the scalding cast-iron pot. Without any further words, they both bedded down for the night.
In the hour before dawn, Shona lifted her head and took one last look through the parted oilskin draped across the rear of the caravan, down the hill towards the Taramore river. The wind raced through the trees as the river thundered down the steep slope then meandered round the base of the hill, hushed and deep over the Taramore table where the salmon came to spawn year after year, before whispering over pebbles in the shallows. She’d been woken by the voices from the dark, forbidding flow and they were calling her name. It was time.
The straw mattress crackled beneath her shifting weight, disturbing Jay, asleep on the pallet beside her. ‘Lie down, you mad old crone,’ he barked.
She wanted to answer him, to order him to speak to her with the respect she deserved. She was Shona of Erris, the head of the oldest gypsy family in the west of Ireland and the true owner of the land on which they were now camped. They’d parked up on almost the very spot on which she’d been born. But her strength, her powers, were ebbing away from her; she felt it and knew it for what it was.
She gulped down hungry, shallow breaths of the damp night air and tried to speak, but failed. She ignored Jay and his impatience as the sweet and pungent earthy smell of night grass rose, stung her nostrils and scorched her lungs, competing with wood-smoke from the fire to the side of the caravan steps. With supreme effort, she pushed herself up with one hand, grabbing at the bent-willow frame of the caravan for support.
Jay, blinking, offered no assistance. ‘Have you finally lost your mind?’ he grunted as he punched his straw pillow.
Desperate for his help but too proud to ask, she made one last attempt. Grasping and clutching, she leant her back against the frame and looked down on the scene below. The white Church of the Sacred Heart was just in view, on the periphery of her vision; the gravestones reflected the luminous full moon, and the stars shone in the cold, clear sky and danced on the surface of the river.
It was a perfect night to leave the place where she’d spent so many nights before. She knew every rabbit burrow that had kept her and her family fed, the fox that fled when she approached, and the owl that, perched and blinking, watched her now. ‘I knew all your mothers before you,’ she murmured to the bird. The smile of reflection slid from her face as a lone tear trickled down her cheek. The whispers of her ancestors were floating up to her from the banks of the river, in and out of the caravan as the wind grew stronger. She could hear the long past sounds of Daedio Malone from when he and the guards drove her and her family off the seven acres the old Lord Carter had given to her grandmother before his death.
Jay, tiring of her ramblings now, hearing nothing and exhausted after acquiescing to her demands to reach Tarabeg by nightfall, pulled the sacking and the old blanket up to his neck and turned onto his side. ‘You’ll be dead by morning if you sit there for much longer,’ he said. His eyes, black, snapping, held no sympathy. He sensed she had almost lost her powers, and his respect, rooted in fear, had all but disappeared as a result.
Shona had a message for him; she could see it, hear it. The white walls, the fire, the money… It was the cottage on Tarabeg Hill, where the Malones lived. The voices were urging her to pass the message on before she left. The money was at the root of it all. It had given Daedio Malone the means to buy the seven acres, the reason they’d been evicted. Revenge burnt like a torch in her heart and she found her voice.
‘The farm on the hill. The money. The fire. I can see it. They have brought it to me, to give to you. The American… Get the money. Avenge us all.’ Each word came out on the end of a gasp.
A smile spread across Jay’s face. ‘You fecking mad witch,’ he said, his grey lips curling in disdain. Within moments, his breathing told her that he slept once more.
She had failed. She had grown weaker as his contempt for her had grown stronger.
Shona and Jay Maughan were no longer as welcome in Tarabeg as they had been not so many years before. Back then, villagers had wanted to buy their pots and pans, have their fortunes told, get their knives sharpened or ailments healed. But the Maughans had been driven out by the Malone store, built on Shona’s land, and by the priest who wrapped a band of prayer around the village as he strode around the periphery with his Bible each night after Mass, chanting as he walked. It was a force she could not break. Father Jerry blamed her for all the ills that had befallen locals, including the death of Sarah Malone in childbirth many years before, and he was right, Sarah had been cursed, but it was not enough. Sarah Malone’s daughter, Mary Kate, must pay the final price.
Dark sins cast long shadows as the memory her ancestors had returned to her played out before her eyes. She watched the ghostly tableau of the eviction: not one villager lifted a finger to help, as with sticks and dogs the Maughans were driven from the seven acres, Daedio and the old man Carter beating from the front. She strained her eyes until she could see her young self, huddled there with her mother, her grandmother wailing, her father cursing, the wind howling. It was those same people, her own loved ones,
whose voices were calling her now, their cries piercing the night air, carried on the wind. It was time for her to slip across to the other side and she felt the shame she would take with her. She had let them down and would die an outcast, hovering on the edge of the land she had never reclaimed. She had failed them.
‘Help me,’ she gasped. ‘I cannot come yet, I have not avenged you.’
But they were insistent that her mortal work was done. She had wreaked havoc, and yet still she had failed.
The villagers had been right to blame Shona. Their ills had been her doing and if it had not been for Bridget McAndrew, the village seer and holder of powers almost as strong as her own, she would have completed her task long ago. But the priest and Bridget had been too much for her now she was an old woman, and they plagued her still. She’d seen in her crystal ball as they’d come into Tarabeg the all-knowing face of Bridget watching them arrive.
Shona’s shoulders drooped and as she slipped a few inches down the wooden frame, the willow as sharp as a knife against her spine, the wind lifted the tarpaulin and she saw her mother on the steps. The night was clear, but her mother’s hair was dripping down her face, just as it had on the day they were driven off the land, when a fierce rain had pelted the sorry band of evictees. There was no mistaking the message as her lips moved and her eyes burnt with a fire deep within.
‘Come, Shona. It’s time.’
‘I can’t, not yet.’ Shona gasped, lifting her hand towards her mother and wanting to look to see had Jay woken. But there was no turning back. She felt a shift in her core, a lifting of the pain, a lightness, and she knew that the passing over had begun. It was all beyond her now.
That old fool Daedio, he had outlived her. The image of his great-granddaughter, Mary Kate, came to Shona and it occurred to her just what her last curse must be. She smiled. Bridget could not reach her here; it was her parting gift from the twilight.
She closed her eyes and felt death envelop her. The icy hand of her mother slid into her own. ‘Wait,’ she whispered. ‘I am not done.’ And with the rattling wheeze of her last breath, she uttered her final, deadliest curse.
Chapter 2
Liverpool, two years later
His starched shirt collar stood upright and his cuffs hung down, waiting to be secured. Breathing in, shoulders rising, a slight lift onto the balls of his feet – she could never understand why he did that – he tucked his crisp white linen shirt deep into the front of his trousers. She nuzzled her face into his pillow, pulling the recent warmth of him closer, and smiled up at him lovingly. She adored watching him dress. Even after two whole years of sharing the same bed, it was still a novelty, a pleasure that she never wanted to end as she gazed upon her total undoing.
He smiled back down at her, equally adoring, and the quizzical look that crossed his brown eyes told her that he was curious to know what she was thinking. His face was morning pink and freshly shaven and as he dropped a kiss onto the top of her head her space filled with the fresh aroma of his favourite Old Spice aftershave and the soap from his recent bath.
‘Take me to Tarabeg, to meet your family, please?’ he said as he lifted his smouldering cigarette from the ashtray on the bedside table. The smoke caught his eyes, made them sting. Blinded, he blinked furiously before stubbing it out. Slivers of silver ash exploded into the air before floating down onto the unmade bed.
Mary Kate lifted her head, frowned at the overflowing ashtray, its contents now scattered over the polished mahogany, and made a mental note to empty it as soon as he’d left. She threw back the sheet and flung her legs out of bed, collected her robe from the brass post and slipped the dove-grey satin edged in white Nottingham lace up her arms. His wife, Lavinia, had left it hanging on the back of the bedroom door when she’d departed in something of a hurry and had never asked for it back. Lavinia was a good six inches taller than her and as Mary Kate flopped down at the dressing table the robe trailed over the dark woodblock floor, covering the pink rose-patterned oval rug that kept the wheels of the three-legged stool stationary. She swivelled on the round needlepoint seat to face the mirror and do battle with her morning hair.
Her reluctance to answer had not deterred him. ‘They all sound like such characters. I can see each one of them reflected in you every time a letter arrives and you chatter on about one or the other. They say the apple never falls far from the tree. Go on, darling, please, take me there. I so want to see the shop, and the farm on Tarabeg Hill. I’ve never even met your little brother, Finn, and I know this sounds odd, because I’ve never been there, but I swear that sometimes it’s like I even dream about the village, you describe it so well.’
Mary Kate sighed, more to herself, not so that he could hear her. He’d asked her the same question only the week before and she’d guessed he was warming to a theme and would ask again soon. She stopped with the hairbrush halfway down a stroke of her long red hair and looked past the triple oval mirror, through the grey, rain-splattered window and down over the tops of the cherry trees that lined the avenue. They stood bare and dormant, their cold branches stretching up to the sky like the splayed fingers of the dead, grasping for the life-giving sunlight that was still months away. An image of her home and the view from her bedroom window in Tarabeg flashed into her mind. Her nostrils retrieved the memory of the green fields, her mind recalled the fast-flowing Taramore river, and her heart tightened in response.
She swivelled back round on the stool to face Nicholas, with the hairbrush, which had also once belonged to his wife, still in her hand. Her hair had not yet been tamed: red curls were hanging down over her shoulders, and the back was a bird’s-nest muss, a consequence of their vigorous lovemaking the previous evening.
A kept and childless woman, she had the luxury of the morning to prepare for her day, but Nicholas had only minutes to spare. He hated to be late for work and was always keen to arrive at his GP practice long before his patients. His signed letters were waiting on the desk in his office across the landing from their bedroom, letters he had handwritten the night before just as soon as he had finished his supper, ready to be dropped into his bag and handed to his loyal receptionist, Bella, to post. He never liked to keep patients waiting for test results a moment longer than he had to. Some of his letters were asking patients to call in and see him, so that he could explain the findings in person. ‘No appointment required,’ he would write at the bottom in his almost illegible scrawl, and then Bella would scold him for overloading his surgery. The list of phone calls he would need to make that day sat next to his letters. As he became more popular and his surgery busier, the list grew. Dr Nicholas Marcus loved his work, and in his drive to improve the health and wellbeing of his poor dockside patients nothing was ever too much trouble.
His cufflinks lay on the dressing table in a lime-green lustre dish, next to Mary Kate’s discarded gold crucifix. Long since abandoned, it could never save her now. He bent over her to retrieve the cufflinks, his apologetic smile always spontaneous, full of love and gratitude because he knew, or he thought he did, the price she had to pay for being in love with a man who was still handcuffed in law and in the eyes of God to the woman who had left him and taken his sons with her. In truth, he had no idea. How could he? How could she explain a way of life that was totally alien to him?
There was nothing more she would have loved than to alight from the bus and walk into Tarabeg holding his hand, taking him into every home and shop and announcing to the people she had grown up with all of her life, people who would greet her as though they had seen her just yesterday, ‘Look what I did! This wonderful, kind and clever man – he’s mine. Are you proud of me now?’ But she knew that no matter how much time passed, that could never happen. If they walked in through the doors of the Church of the Sacred Heart, Father Jerry would see beyond her smile to the sin beneath, and at the very least a bolt of lightning would strike and the doors would slam shut behind her.
But Tarabeg was with her. She lived this life in Liverpool with the man she loved, but Tarabeg would never leave her. When she closed her eyes at night, the familiar rumble of Nicholas’s deep, rhythmic breathing morphed into the rushing of the Taramore at the back of her old bedroom. It pulled at her heart and blotted out the caterwauling of the cats and the squealing of brakes as the buses came to a halt down at the bottom of Duke’s Avenue. In her dreams she saw the grave of Daedio, her great-grandfather, even though she’d never seen it in person, having been too ashamed to attend his funeral. How had she done that, lied to her own family? In the darkest hours, the guilt came to haunt her. What price had she paid for love? How could she take Nicholas home?