“Stone? You’ll be a relation, then?” And just like that she smiles and then laughs with delight and ushers me in. And she keeps laughing all the while she makes me a cup of tea, and while I tell her how I got here, by hitching and walking, and she laughs all the more when she starts calling round to her family and telling them they have to come over tonight. And I know that she’s not laughing at me, she’s laughing for happiness, for life, and I know just as well that she laughs like this all the time, every day, every minute. She is an absolute joy of a human being and I almost start crying right here in her kitchen as she jokes about needing a hot toddy instead of a boring old cuppa tea.
“Who is it then, love, which bit of the family do you come from?”
I panic, suddenly, and say, “I’m from the Australian branch.”
“Australia?” This seems to confuse her. “Goodness, you’ve come a long way then. What is it brought you here then?”
I don’t tell her that I’m Irish, too. It feels fraudulent. As though she is the real Irish and I am only a pretender. I say instead that our family left Ireland five generations ago and settled in Australia, which they did on my father’s side, I’m told. I say that I’ve always wanted to come back here and find the other side of the family, those descended from the ones who stayed, instead of the ones who left. This is truer to my nature, surely, and maybe this is why it feels right to share. That I am of the leavers, the searchers, the wanderers. The ilk of those taken by the tides, instead of the steadfast, the true. But that a part of me has always wanted to belong here.
She tells me of the other relations who’ve made the journey over from Australia, more cousins, seemingly an endless string of them, all fascinated by what they see as their heritage, and she says, with a laugh, that she’s never rightly understood the fascination, why they come here in droves to see this small windy stretch of land, where life is as plain as it comes. I don’t know how to answer her, except to agree that it is somewhat inexplicable, but has, I think, to do with music and stories and poetry and roots and family and belonging and curiosity. She takes this for truth and then goes right ahead and makes me a hot toddy regardless of the time. Her husband, Michael, is sitting in an armchair nearby and when Margaret introduces us I see that he can’t speak, nor can he move well, but he smiles as widely as she does, with the brightest eyes I have ever seen, and she tends to him with the tenderness of a lifetime’s worth of love.
The family arrives soon. Her three sons and four daughters, and several of their partners and children, too. It’s clear none of them have any idea who I am, but they all shake my hand or kiss my cheek, and they chat and laugh happily, all of us pressed in around the small kitchen table, everyone making room for Michael to be wheeled into pride of place, and we eat chocolate biscuits and drink from enormous bottles of Coca-Cola and then without preamble they draw free their instruments and begin to play.
I sit in stunned silence as the music unfolds around me. Three fiddles, furiously sawed or plucked, a set of pipes, hand drums, a flute, two guitars, and several of them singing. It swells to fill the kitchen, every inch of it and more, it is a bursting of life, of soulfulness, of fun. I’m watching half the bloody world-famous Kilfenora Céilí Band performing in a kitchen. Margaret bops up and down in her seat, her eyes shining with enjoyment. Without warning she takes my hand. I whisper, “Does this happen every night?”
And she says, “No, dear, this is for you.” And I do start crying then.
Later they take a break and demand that I sing, and it’s with no small measure of shame that I admit I don’t know the words to any songs.
“None?” Margaret’s son John asks. “Come on, you know something, all right. Shout out a name. Or just start away and we’ll follow you.”
“I’m … it’s not like this in Australia. We don’t really learn songs, not any worth singing. I’m so embarrassed.”
There’s a surprised silence.
“Well, then you’ve a homework task to complete. Next time you come to visit us here we expect you to have learned a song to share with us.”
I can’t nod vigorously enough. “I promise.”
* * *
It ends too soon. They all have to get home, and Margaret needs to get Michael to bed. I don’t know what to do or where to go. I keep lying and telling them I already have somewhere to stay, and I have no idea why I do this. I think the idea of imposing any further is mortifying.
It’s with a swelling of desperation that I pause at the front door, even though poor Margaret is so tired. “Do you know Iris Stone?” I ask finally.
She frowns and thinks, and shakes her head. “I don’t believe I do. Is she one of yours?”
I swallow. “My mother.”
“Ah, lovely. If she’s ever this way, love, you tell her to visit us.”
“I will.”
“No, ’tis a shame I don’t know more of you. The only Stone I know, come to think of it, was a Maire Stone, married to old John Torpey, my dear husband’s cousin. They were living up north a ways, last I heard.”
I’m not sure who these people are but I’m certainly going to find out.
“You get home safe tonight, dear,” Margaret tells me. “You’re sure I can’t make you up a bed?”
“I’m sure. Thank you, Margaret. Tonight meant a lot to me.”
I walk out into the dark night. I’m a long way from town, but I don’t mind. The night is mild with summer and the moon wide, and I like to walk. And perhaps this walk wasn’t one my mother ever made, but I feel a step closer to finding the ones she did.
It’s time to return to Galway, to where I’ll find Maire Stone and her husband, John Torpey.
And to where there’s a man, with his coverts and scapulars, with mantles and napes and crowns and birds dead or alive. Without my permission, something in me seems to have turned itself toward him.
5
The Saghani, NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN MIGRATION SEASON
There are bodies gathered around mine, pressing against me, elbowing for space. Everyone wants to see: on the laptop screen are three little red dots.
And they’re moving south.
“So these are what we’re gonna follow?” Mal asks.
I nod.
Samuel sees my expression and laughs, patting me on the back. “Well done, lass.”
“How reliable are the trackers?” Léa asks skeptically.
“They’re geolocators,” I say. “They measure light levels, which the software uses to measure latitude and longitude and get the location.”
“That doesn’t sound reliable at all.”
Given that’s the extent of my knowledge of the trackers, I can’t help but agree with her.
“Get your head out of the way,” Basil says, shoving Dae to the side so he can see better.
Together we watch the dots. After resenting the hell out of me, the sight of movement on the screen has the crew wriggling with eagerness. The birds are still farther north than we are, having only just left Greenland, but they’ll catch up to us soon, cleverly using the winds to hurry themselves along. After a while the three dots diverge a little, converge again, and then seem to be setting off in different directions.