‘Only one,’ she said and her voice had a tinge of something in it, which sounded like compassion, but that was such an outdated quality where Dan had come from that he almost missed it amidst the tide racing in towards their slow, easy steps. ‘And I’ve told everyone in the village – you’ve written scripts for every English heart-throb we’ve ever heard of.’
‘Stop it, Jo – you’re going to embarrass him,’ Elizabeth castigated her friend. ‘You might have the decency to embarrass yourself too, if you had an ounce of decorum about you.’
‘Yep, if only their sex appeal wore off on me,’ Dan said self-deprecatingly.
‘See,’ Jo said triumphantly. ‘We’re as bad as each other.’ And they all laughed as they made their way back towards the village.
‘Niall says you’re writing a book next.’ Jo looked at him expectantly.
‘That’s right. I came here to get away from the madness of London and maybe finally start that novel I’ve been hoping to write for years.’
‘Well,’ Jo said stopping at her gate. ‘Tell us – what’s it about?’
‘Yes, is it all about Ballycove and the scandals that secretly lie hidden behind our pristine net curtains?’ Elizabeth laughed. ‘What?’ She looked at her friend. ‘You know it’s what we’re all wondering…’
‘Is it about the old convent?’ Jo asked then.
‘Sorry,’ Elizabeth said touching his arm, ‘but it’s just someone mentioned you’d been up there, looking about the place, so naturally, we assumed that you might be…’
‘Researching?’ Dan finished for her. He took a deep breath. ‘Yes, something like that. I’m looking into a few things as well, and yes, you can rest assured that the novel will be set here in the west of Ireland, but don’t worry, I have no intention of scandalising any of you with secrets that have been kept hidden.’ Then he laughed. ‘Although, if there are secrets that I could work into a subplot, I’d be delighted to hear all about them.’ He was only half joking and half telling the truth, because aside from getting away from London and starting the novel, he wanted to come to Ballycove for more reasons than just peace and quiet. But, nice and all as these two old ladies were, he was nowhere near ready to share any more of his reasons with them than he had been with Harry before he’d left London.
‘Well, you’re talking to the right women if you’re interested in village gossip.’ Jo laughed.
‘Jo!’ Elizabeth bristled. ‘I never gossip.’ She leant in closer to Dan now. ‘But if you’re interested in the convent I might be able to help a little.’
‘Actually, she’s probably one of the only people around who will help. Apart from Elizabeth, there’s only a handful of nuns left. Most of them are going gaga and none of them are inclined to talk about what went on there,’ Jo said.
‘And the women who lived there?’ Dan asked.
‘I’m afraid that the few who were left when it closed down are scattered to the four winds now. Mostly, they’d become so institutionalised they ended up in some sort of sheltered living. None of them wanted to come back here; you couldn’t blame them really. They felt abandoned by the people of the village. They’d been thrown in there as young girls and forgotten about. That leaves a sort of scar that isn’t healed just because the prison door is swinging open.’
‘God, I suppose,’ Dan hadn’t realised that women had stayed on there after their babies were born. ‘And the ones who left after…’
‘They’ve all but disappeared into the passage of time. Mostly they left here as quickly as they could; tried to get away from the shame that was attached to… well, you know. Ireland was a very different place then,’ Elizabeth said sadly.
‘Anyway,’ Jo said more brightly, pushing in her gate and effectively locking Dora inside to put a finish on her night’s adventure. ‘If it’s Saint Nunciata’s you’re interested in for your novel, Elizabeth is the very best woman to talk to. She visited there every single week when no-one else in the village was allowed to so much as look through a window.’
‘I hated going there, every week,’ Elizabeth said softly, ‘but I couldn’t just turn my back on those girls.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘Thank goodness times have changed so much since then.’
‘Yes,’ Dan sad softly, ‘thank goodness indeed.’