The Good People Read online

  About The Good People

  In the year 1825, in a remote valley lying between the mountains of south0west Ireland, near the Flesk river of Killarney, three women are brought together by strange and troubling events.

  Nóra Leahy has lost her daughter and her husband in the same year, and is now burdened with the care of her four-year-old grandson, Micheál. The boy cannot walk, or speak, and Nora, mistrustful of the tongues of gossips, has kept the child hidden from those who might see in his deformity evidence of otherworldly interference.

  Unable to care for the child alone, Nóra hires a fourteen-year-old servant girl, Mary, who soon hears the whispers in the valley about the blasted creature causing grief to fall upon the widow's house.

  Alone, hedged in by rumour, Mary and her mistress seek out the only person in the valley who might be able to help Micheál. For although her neighbours are wary of her, it is said that old Nance Roche has the knowledge. That she consorts with Them, the Good People. And that only she can return those whom they have taken . . .

  ‘The Good People takes us straight to a place utterly unexpected and believable, where amidst the earnest mayhem people impose on each other, there is no patronising quaintness, but a compelling sense of the inevitability of solemn horrors.’

  Winner of the Booker Prize and Miles Franklin Literary Award –

  TOM KENEALLY

  Contents

  Cover

  About The Good People

  Dedication

  Map

  Irish ballad

  Epigraph

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER ONE: COLTSFOOT

  CHAPTER TWO: FURZE

  CHAPTER THREE: RAGWORT

  CHAPTER FOUR: ASH

  CHAPTER FIVE: ALDER

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER SIX: NETTLE

  CHAPTER SEVEN: DOCK

  CHAPTER EIGHT: YARROW

  CHAPTER NINE: SELFHEAL

  CHAPTER TEN: HOGWEED

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: FOXGLOVE

  CHAPTER TWELVE: GERMANDER SPEEDWELL

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: DEVIL’S-BIT SCABIOUS

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: HART’S TONGUE

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: OAK

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: YELLOW IRIS

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: BRAMBLE

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: WHITEHORN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN: MINT

  CHAPTER TWENTY: ELDER

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: HEATHER

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  About Hannah Kent

  Also by Hannah Kent

  Praise and accolades for Burial Rites

  Copyright page

  For my sister, Briony.

  There was an old woman and she lived in the woods,

  weile weile waile.

  There was an old woman and she lived in the woods

  down by the river Saile.

  She had a baby three months old,

  weile weile waile.

  She had a baby three months old

  down by the river Saile.

  She had a penknife, long and sharp,

  weile weile waile.

  She had a penknife long and sharp

  down by the river Saile.

  She stuck the penknife in the baby’s heart,

  weile weile waile.

  She stuck the penknife in the baby’s heart

  down by the river Saile.

  Three hard knocks came knocking on the door,

  weile weile waile.

  Three hard knocks came knocking on the door

  down by the river Saile.

  ‘Are you the woman that killed the child?’

  weile weile waile.

  ‘Are you the woman that killed the child

  down by the river Saile?’

  The rope was pulled and she got hung,

  weile weile waile.

  The rope was pulled and she got hung

  down by the river Saile.

  And that was the end of the woman in the woods,

  weile weile waile.

  And that was the end of the woman in the woods

  down by the river Saile.

  Traditional Irish Murder Ballad, c. 1600

  When all is said and done, how do we not know but that our own unreason may be better than another’s truth? for it has been warmed on our hearths and in our souls, and is ready for the wild bees of truth to hive in it, and make their sweet honey. Come into the world again, wild bees, wild bees!

  W.B. Yeats, The Celtic Twilight

  PART ONE

  Death is the Physician of the Poor

  Liagh gach boicht bas

  1825

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  Coltsfoot

  Nóra’s first thought when they brought her the body was that it could not be her husband’s. For one long moment she stared at the men bearing Martin’s weight on their sweating shoulders, standing in the gasping cold, and believed that the body was nothing but a cruel imitation; a changeling, brutal in its likeness. Martin’s mouth and eyes were open, but his head slumped on his chest and there was no quick in him. The blacksmith and the ploughman had brought her a lifeless stock. It could not be her husband. It was not him at all.

  Martin had been digging ditches beside the fields that sloped the valley, Peter O’Connor said. He had seen him stop, place a hand on his chest like a man taking an oath, and fall to the gentle ground. He had not given a shout of pain. He had gone without farewell or fear.

  Peter’s chapped lips trembled, eyes red-rimmed in their sockets. ‘I’m sorry for your trouble,’ he whispered.

  Nóra’s legs collapsed beneath her then and in the fall to the dirt and straw of the yard, she felt her heart seize with terrible understanding.

  John O’Donoghue, his thick forearms scar-speckled from ironwork, heaved Martin over his shoulder so that Peter was able to lift Nóra out of the mud. Both men were dark-eyed with grief and when Nóra opened her mouth to scream and found that she had choked on it, they bowed their heads as though they heard her anyway.

  Peter wrested the chicken feed from Nóra’s clenched fists and kicked the clucking hens from the doorstep. Placing her arm around his shoulders, he led her back inside the cabin to sit by the hearth where her grandchild, Micheál, was sleeping in the unfolded settle bed. The little boy, his cheeks flushed from the heat of the turf fire, stirred as they entered, and Nóra noticed Peter’s eyes flicker to him in curiosity.

  John followed them inside, his jaw clenched with the weight of Martin’s body and his boots tracking mud over the packed clay floor. Grunting with the effort, he laid Martin on the bed in the small sleeping quarter off the main room. Dust from the disturbed straw mattress rose into the air. The blacksmith crossed himself with deliberate precision and, stooping under the lintel, murmured that his wife, Áine, would be there soon, and that the new priest had been fetched.

  Nóra felt her throat close over. She rose to go to Martin’s body in the bedroom, but Peter held her wrist.

  ‘Let him be washed,’ he said gently.

  John cast a troubled look at the boy and left without saying another word, shutting the half-door behind him.

  The dark rose.

  ‘You saw him fall, did you? Saw him yourself?’ Nóra’s voice sounded strange and small. She gripped Peter’s hand so tightly her fingers ached.

  ‘I did,’ he murmured, looking at Micheál. ‘I saw him in the fields and raised my hand, and I saw him fall down.’

&
nbsp; ‘There was a need for those ditches. He told me yesterday there was a need for them to be dug, so the rain . . .’ Nóra felt her husband’s death creep over her, until she began to shake with it. Peter draped a greatcoat over her shoulders, and she could tell from the familiar smell of burnt coltsfoot that it was Martin’s own. They must have brought it back with his body.

  ‘Someone else will have to finish those ditches,’ she gasped, rubbing her cheek against the rough frieze.

  ‘Don’t be thinking of that now, Nóra.’

  ‘And there will be the thatch, come spring. It needs thatching.’

  ‘We’ll all be taking care of that, don’t you worry now.’

  ‘And Micheál. The boy . . .’ Alarm ran through her and she looked down at the child, his hair copper in the firelight. She was grateful that he slept. The boy’s difference did not show so much when he was asleep. The keel of his limbs slackened, and there was no telling the dumb tongue in his head. Martin had always said Micheál looked most like their daughter when asleep. ‘You can almost think him well,’ he had said once. ‘You can see how he will be when the sickness has passed. When we have him cured of it.’

  ‘Is there someone I can fetch for you, Nóra?’ Peter asked, his face splintered with concern.

  ‘Micheál. I don’t want him here.’ Her voice was hoarse. ‘Take Micheál to Peg O’Shea’s.’

  Peter looked uneasy. ‘Would you not have him with you?’

  ‘Take him away from here.’

  ‘I don’t like to leave you alone, Nóra. Not before Áine is with you.’

  ‘I’ll not have Micheál here to be gaped at.’ Nóra reached down and grabbed the sleeping boy under his armpits, hauling him into the air in front of Peter. The boy frowned, eyes blinking, gummed with sleep.

  ‘Take him. Take him to Peg’s. Before a soul is here.’

  Micheál began to squall and struggle as he hung from Nóra’s grip. His legs tremored, rashed and dry-looking against the bone.

  Peter grimaced. ‘Your daughter’s, isn’t he? God rest her soul.’

  ‘Take him, Peter. Please.’

  He gave her a long, sorrowful look. ‘Folk won’t mind him at a time like this, Nóra. They’ll be thinking of you.’

  ‘They’ll be gawping and gossiping over him, is what.’

  Micheál’s head slumped backwards and he began to cry, his hands drawing into fists.

  ‘What ails him?’

  ‘For the love of God, Peter, take him.’ Her voice broke. ‘Take him away!’

  Peter nodded and lifted Micheál onto his lap. The boy was clothed in a girl’s woollen dress, too long for him, and Peter awkwardly wrapped the worn cloth around the child’s legs, taking care to cover his toes. ‘’Tis cold out,’ he explained. ‘Do you not have a shawl for him?’

  Nóra, hands shaking, took off her own and gave it to Peter.

  He stood up, bundling the bleating boy against his chest. ‘I’m sorry, Nóra, so I am.’

  The cabin door swung wide after him.

  Nóra waited until the sound of Micheál’s crying faded and she knew Peter had reached the lane. Then she rose from her low stool and walked into the bedroom, clutching Martin’s coat around her shoulders.

  ‘Sweet, sore-wounded Christ.’

  Her husband lay on their marriage bed, his arms tucked close to his sides, grass and mud clinging to his calloused hands. His eyes were half closed. Their pearled whites glimmered in the light from the open door.

  Martin’s stillness in that quiet room sent sorrow pealing through her chest. Easing herself down onto the bed, Nóra touched her forehead against Martin’s cheekbone and felt the cold of his stubbled skin. Pulling his coat over the both of them, she closed her eyes and her lungs emptied of air. Pain descended with the weight of water and she felt that she was drowning. Her chest shuddered, and she was crying into her husband’s collarbone, into his clothes reeking of the earth and cow shit and the soft sweet smell of the valley air and all the turf smoke it carried on an autumn evening. She cried like a pining dog, with the strained, strung whimper of abandonment.

  Only that morning they had lain in bed together, both awake in the dark of early dawn, the warmth of Martin’s hand resting on her stomach.

  ‘I think it will rain today,’ he had said, and Nóra had let him pull her close against the broad barrel of his ribs, had matched the rise and fall of her breathing with his own.

  ‘There was a wind in the night.’

  ‘It woke you?’

  ‘The boy woke me. He was crying in fear of it.’

  Martin had listened intently. ‘There’s no sound from him now.’

  ‘Are you digging potatoes today?’

  ‘Ditches.’

  ‘And will you have a word with the new priest about Micheál on your way home?’

  ‘I will.’

  Nóra stretched herself out against her husband’s dead body and thought of the nights they had slept in company together, the touch of his foot on hers in the unthinking custom of their marriage, and sobbed until she thought she would be sick.

  It was only the thought that her cries might wake devils lying in wait for his soul that made her stop. She stuffed her mouth with the sleeve of Martin’s coat and shook, silently.

  How dare you leave me behind, she thought.

  ‘Nóra?’

  She had fallen asleep. Through the swelling of her eyes she saw the slender outline of the blacksmith’s wife standing in the doorway.

  ‘Áine,’ Nóra croaked.

  The woman entered, crossing herself at the sight of the body. ‘May the Lord have mercy on his soul. I’m sorry for your trouble. Martin, he . . .’ She paused and knelt by Nóra’s side. ‘He was a great man. A rare man.’

  Nóra sat up on the bed and wiped her eyes on her apron, embarrassed.

  ‘The sorrow is on you, Nóra. I can see it. And we’d do right to give him a proper wake. Would you be willing for me to wash and lay him out? Father Healy has been sent for. He’s on his way.’

  Áine put her hand on Nóra’s knee and squeezed it. Her face, hanging from wide cheekbones, seemed spectral in the gloom. Nóra stared at her in horror.

  ‘There now. Here are your beads. He’s with God now, Nóra. Remember that.’ She glanced around the room. ‘Are you alone? Did you not have a child . . .?’

  Nóra closed her fingers over the rosary. ‘I am alone.’

  Áine washed Martin as tenderly as if he had been her own husband. At first Nóra watched, clutching the prayer beads so tightly that the wood baubled her skin into welts. She could not believe that it was her husband naked before them, his belly painful-white. It was shameful for another woman to see the pale secrets of his body. When she stood up and held her hand out for the cloth, Áine passed it to her without a word. She washed him then, and with every movement of her hand she farewelled the boned curve of his chest, the sweep of his limbs.

  How well I know you, she thought, and when she felt her throat noose tighter, she swallowed hard and forced her eye to the neat cobwebbing of veins across his thighs, the familiar whorl of his hair. She did not understand how Martin’s body could seem so small. In life he had been a bear of a man, had carried her on the night of their wedding as though she was nothing more than sunlight.

  The dark fur of his chest slicked damp against his skin.

  ‘I think he is clean now, Nóra,’ Áine said.

  ‘A little longer.’ She ran her palm down his sternum as though waiting for it to lift in breath.

  Áine eased the grey cloth from her fingers’ grip.

  The afternoon darkened and a bitter wind began to blow outside. Nóra sat beside Martin’s body and let Áine stir the fire and fix the rushlights. Both of them jumped at a sudden knocking on the door, and Nóra’s heart gave a scalding leap at the thought it might be Martin, retur
ned to her by the evening.

  ‘Blessings on this house.’

  A young man entered the cabin, his clerical garb flapping in the doorway. The new priest, Nóra realised. He was dark-haired and ruddy-cheeked, with long limbs that seemed at odds with his soft, child’s face and pouting mouth. Nóra noticed a conspicuous gap between his front teeth. Father Healy’s hat dripped with rain, and when Peter and John followed him inside, their shoulders were wet through. She had not realised that the weather had changed.

  ‘Good evening to you, Father.’ Áine took the damp coat he held out to her and carefully arranged it over the rafter to dry by the heat of the fire.

  The priest looked around the cabin before noticing Nóra sitting in the bedroom. He walked towards her, ducking under the low doorframe. His eyes were solemn. ‘God be with you, Mrs Leahy. I’m sorry for your trouble.’ Taking her hand in his own, he pressed the flesh of her palm. ‘It must be a great shock to you.’

  Nóra nodded, her mouth dry.

  ‘It happens to us all, but ’tis always sad when those we love go to God.’ He released her hand and turned to Martin, placing two slender fingers against her husband’s throat. The priest gave a slight nod. ‘He has passed. I cannot give the last rites.’

  ‘He had no warning of his death, Father.’ It was Peter who spoke. ‘Would you not give him the rites anyway? His soul may yet be in his body.’

  Father Healy wiped his forehead on his sleeve and grimaced in apology. ‘The sacraments are for the living and cannot avail the dead.’

  Nóra gripped her rosary until her knuckles paled. ‘Pray for him, will you, Father?’

  The priest looked from the two men in the doorway to Nóra.

  She lifted her chin. ‘He was a good man, Father. Say the prayers over him.’

  Father Healy sighed, nodded and reached into his bag, taking out a small, used candle and a glass bottle of oil. He lit the candle by the fire in the main room and placed the waxy stub awkwardly in Martin’s hand, beginning the prayers and anointing the man’s head with a firm touch.

  Nóra sank down onto the hard floor beside the bed and let her fingers slide across the beads in blank habit. But the prayers felt empty and cold in her mouth and she soon stopped whispering and sat there, mute.