For Aoife

  Praise for

  ‘I hold my breath while reading Sarah Crossan’s books. Every word is filled with so much love, the book is practically throbbing. A beautiful, perfect, moving read’

  Cecelia Ahern

  ‘Sarah Crossan has consistently proven herself to be our finest verse novelist. But here, with this long-awaited book, she goes even further. She shows us she is one of our finest novelists, full stop. Where the Heart Should Be is a thing of beauty. Somehow it manages to be tender, tough, historical, current, meditative and gripping: the last forty pages literally left me breathless. It’s not a book I will forget, but it is a book I will reread. A moving, gripping and beautifully written novel. Put simply, wonderful. A love story to savour’

  Phil Earle

  ‘I hungered for every word of this beautiful novel. So many times I felt the resonances to now. I love the personal in the epic and was right there with brave Nell and her community in this story of love against all odds’

  Sita Brahmachari

  ‘Crossan is one of our most powerful and elegant writers. Where the Heart Should Be thrums with longing, beauty, loss and strength’

  Katya Balen

  ‘Sarah Crossan’s writing is powerful and necessary’

  Matt Goodfellow

  ‘A sensitive and moving portrayal of a very dark chapter of Irish history lit by a story of young love. A tour de force from Sarah Crossan’

  Patricia Forde, Laureate na nÓg

  Books by Sarah Crossan

  The Weight of Water

  Apple and Rain

  One

  Moonrise

  Toffee

  Where the Heart Should Be

  Tomorrow Is Beautiful (ed.)

  Breathe

  Resist

  For adult readers

  Here Is the Beehive

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  The Beginning and the End

  Falling

  Part 1 July 1846

  The Big House

  Dog’s Dinner

  Stranger

  The Nation

  Spreading

  Mrs Margaret Kennedy

  Head Down

  Up on the Hill

  Change in the Weather

  Loitering

  The Terrible Storm

  After the Storm

  All Day

  A Decent Dinner

  Long Story

  Rotten

  A Secret

  Stench

  At the End of the Week

  Summers Before

  Heir

  Doctor Riley

  Part 2 August 1846

  Shelley and Coleridge

  Champagne

  All the World’s Secrets

  Mass

  Seven Courses

  After Dinner

  A Name

  Like We Were Familiar

  Sissy Doyle

  A Visit from the Priest

  An Audience with Wicken

  Two Weeks

  Respectable

  Time Enough

  Carry-On

  Percy Shelley

  Wedding Day

  The Hens

  By Nightfall

  Soupy

  Alone in The Big House

  Like Other Men

  Then Again

  Part 3 Late September 1846

  Decisions

  Intervention

  All This Happens

  By the River

  Daydreaming

  The Third Day

  A Crust of Bread

  Commotion

  Bruised

  In the Scullery

  Sunken

  Peeling

  Making Plans

  What I Like

  Daddy Would Raise Hell

  In the Kitchen

  Punished

  Aching

  Saddled Up

  Slowly

  Feelings

  His Hands

  Strange

  Collecting the Rent

  Part 4 November 1846

  An Announcement

  Johnny’s Story

  New Baby

  The Helper

  A Recipe for Forgetting

  Once We Are Finished

  A Fire Burns

  In the Hallway

  A Surprise

  The Baby Is Better

  Road Works

  Rejected

  Target

  Gertie

  Owen Whimpers

  Sling

  Peace and Quiet

  Traitor

  What Have I Done?

  Waiting

  Friends

  By Candlelight

  Back Home

  The Morning After

  Part 5 December 1846

  A Present

  Beautiful

  And Yet

  Silent

  Princely

  Thinking

  Love Sick

  Johnny and Owen

  Last Rites

  Midwinter

  Together

  The Shore

  Keening

  Part 6 January 1847

  Removing the Roofs

  The Witness

  Johnny Is with Him

  What Could He Have Done?

  Johnny Says …

  An Offering

  By the Wall

  Fever

  By Morning

  The Devil

  Plucked

  Owen Recovers

  Found

  When Owen Was Small

  Faster

  Frozen

  Better Now?

  Part 7 February 1847

  Consecrated Ground

  By the Old Oak Tree

  What Else?

  This Wailing

  Questions

  Without Owen

  Back at The Big House

  Right in Front of Me

  Guilt

  Charlatan

  Leaving

  By the River

  Being Loved

  Not Here

  A Small Boy with Curls

  Alive

  I Do Not Want to See

  Last Supper

  At Dusk

  No More

  The Gathering

  Every Day

  Everything

  Turnaround

  He Is

  An Irishman

  Untold

  Prayer

  Accomplice

  On My Mind

  No One Will Get Hurt

  Innocent

  Long After

  On Their Way

  The Arrest

  Hurt

  In the Droveway

  Beneath the Clear

  The Shipment

  Lumpy Leather

  Books for Keeps

  Come With Us

  As If I Would Go

  Half-Family

  In Court

  Damned

  Michael Quinn

  Wilting

  Murphy

  Reusable

  At Sunset

  Coffin Ships

  Letting Go

  Keepsake

  Thunderstorm

  Green-Hearted

  The Last Thing

  Johnny Waves Us Off

  Gangplank

  Heartbreak

  The Mob

  The Dresser

  Gone

  And

  I’ll Love You

  Away

  The End and the Beginning

  My Heart

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Author’s Note

  Between 1845 and 1861 one million people died in Ireland of hunger or related diseases, and two million people emigrated from Ireland and never returned. This was triggered by the failure of the potato crop but ultimately caused by the distribution of food across the island of Ireland. At that time, Ireland was a part of the United Kingdom and all decisions regarding its governance were made by politicians in Westminster, London. This story is a work of the imagination. It is an account of a teenage girl living during the Irish famine in a fictional village called Ballinkeel in County Mayo.

  The Beginning and the End

  Falling

  It is hard to tell a love story

  and also the story of a people

  being torn apart.

  But this is what was happening in 1846:

  I was falling in love

  when everything

  around me was

  falling

  down.

  I look back with guilt and sorrow

  but mostly hope.

  Because it is true that love wins.

  True love wins

  even in the face of death.

  And it will guide us.

  The Big House

  Maggie Kennedy opens the door,

  takes one look at my mucky skirt and boots

  and smacks me flat across the face.

  ‘How dare you come to my door like a dirty pig.’

  I step back,

  brush myself off.

  The dogs behind her

  bark and growl,

  teeth bared.

  But it’s raining,

  and standing outside only makes me

  more bedraggled.

  ‘I was clean when I set off, Maggie. I’m sorry.’

  She lifts her hand to hit me again,

  but wipes her thi
ck fingers

  on her apron instead.

  ‘My name is Mrs Kennedy, you cheeky brat.

  And I couldn’t give a heifer’s tit

  what you looked like this morning.

  You’re not to come to this house like that again.

  D’ya hear me?

  It’s my neck on the line

  if Lord Wicken sees you in a state.’

  I nod.

  A trickle of summer rainwater

  runs

  down

  my

  back.

  ‘Get in here.’

  She grabs my arm and

  drags me into the kitchen,

  which is larger than our whole cottage.

  I’ve never been inside

  The Big House before.

  Maggie gives me a moment to take it all in:

  the smell of boiling ham and fresh bread,

  four large pots burbling on the range,

  their lids tinkling.

  In the centre of the room is a

  long table,

  a bench on either side

  and rows of cupboards and shelves

  packed with jars of jams and pickles,

  sauces, spices, flour and sugar.

  I’ve never seen so much food in my life.

  My stomach growls.

  I only had a small mug

  of milk this morning.

  Maggie puts her lips to my ear.

  ‘If you pinch so much as a grain of wheat,

  the landlord will have you whipped.

  And I won’t feel one bit sorry.

  D’ya understand?’

  I nod again.

  I understand:

  whatever is in this house

  or within one thousand acres of the grounds

  belongs to the landlord,

  and we cheat him at our peril.

  Maggie hands me a bucket.

  ‘Now scrub that floor you’ve muddied.

  When it’s clean, I want it polished.

  And tie back your hair like a Christian.’

  Dog’s Dinner

  I am on my hands and knees with a brush

  while Maggie slices

  into steaming cuts of meat.

  Greasy scraps fall to the floor.

  Before I can get to them,

  fat, growling dogs

  have slurped them up.

  No one in my home has

  had meat since Christmas,

  sweet mutton

  six months ago,

  yet here

  in The Big House,

  the dogs eat it every day.

  Stranger

  Sloshing along the muddy lane

  on my way home from work,

  I catch sight of a stranger walking,

  his face

  to the sun.

  He is a tall figure.

  I watch him move

  beyond the distant hedgerows.

  Who is he,

  this person I don’t know,

  in a village where I know everyone

  and everyone knows me?

  Who is this tall stranger

  with his face to the sun?

  The Nation

  Owen comes tumbling

  along the lane

  with an armful of nettles rolled in sacking,

  his curls bouncing.

  ‘Do they sleep in gold beds?

  Did you have to wipe

  their stinking bums for them?’

  My brother is ten years old

  but tries to imitate the naughty prattle

  of older boys.

  ‘I’m a scullery maid.

  I won’t ever be let out of the kitchen,’ I tell him.

  ‘Did you work hard at school, Owen?’

  He smiles.

  ‘It was so boring I fell asleep.

  But Master Sweeney says I’m a genius.

  He doesn’t care that you left.’

  ‘Is that right?’

  Owen hands me a newspaper,

  a worn copy of The Nation,

  a gift from the school teacher.

  Since I was small, Master Sweeney

  has been offering me things to read,

  pushing me to learn,

  praising me for my memory

  and understanding

  even though

  we both knew that at best

  I’d amount to nothing more than a servant.

  And so I have.

  Still,

  I turn the pages,

  excited to read

  something new –

  a verse or two.

  ‘He said to give it to Daddy afterwards.’

  ‘I know that.’

  I read the poems

  and my father follows the politics

  despite Master Sweeney

  passing on the newspaper weeks after

  it’s been published,

  once he’s read it

  back to front,

  top to bottom.

  ‘Why do you still bother with all that

  when you don’t have to?’ Owen asks.

  ‘Because I like it,’ I tell him,

  and I do, delving into worlds

  and words

  that take me away

  from Ballinkeel,

  not for long,

  but a little while.

  Owen grimaces.

  ‘It’s very suspicious,’ he says.

  Spreading

  When we get to the cottage,

  my brother drops the nettles in the yard,

  calls to Mammy. ‘Is the dinner made?’

  Mammy’s washing rags in a bucket,

  sitting on a stool beneath the oak tree.

  ‘It’s a skivvy he wants,’ she says.

  The heavy rain that came hard and early this morning

  stopped all at once in the afternoon

  but there is a light

  summer breeze now,

  bringing with it the salt of the sea.

  The leaves in the oak tree dance above my mother.

  ‘How did you get on up above?’ she asks.

  ‘Maggie Kennedy is a pure witch.’

  ‘I can believe it,’ she says.

  Owen puts his hands on his hips,

  scans our small parcel of land,

  Daddy

  in the middle of it,

  his head bent

  examining the lazy beds.

  ‘What’s the old man at?’ he asks.

  My father isn’t an old man at all.

  He is only thirty-five.

  But sometimes I want to look after him.

  Look after them all.

  ‘Your daddy’s minding his own business, Owen.

  Now go and wash your hands,’ Mammy tells him.

  Owen rushes off.

  ‘They’re saying the blight’s spreading across

  the whole country.

  From Antrim down to Waterford

  and back up to Clare.

  He’s killed with worry,’ Mammy whispers.

  ‘Aren’t we all,’ I say.

  Mrs Margaret Kennedy

  Slurping his soup,

  Daddy says, ‘If that bitch hits you again,

  tell her I’ll be up to her with a spade.

  I won’t have anyone touching my children.

  Who does she think she is, anyway?

  I knew her when I was a child, Nell.

  Her husband was a drunk and a deviant.’

  Mammy feigns shock. ‘Michael. Stop that!’

  ‘I will not. It’s true.

  And I’ll have no qualms reminding

  Mrs Margaret Kennedy,

  married to Seamus Kennedy,

  exactly where she’s from

  and where she can go to if she isn’t careful.’

  Mammy smiles. ‘The poor woman

  lost her son, Michael, don’t be so hard.’

  Daddy stares. ‘When? When did she lose her son?’

  I didn’t know this either.

  Owen has his whole face in his bowl.

  Suddenly he reappears.

  ‘He went to America last year and left

  her all alone.’

  ‘I thought you meant he died, Mary.’