We present an extract from There's Something I Have To Tell You, the debut novel from journalist turned novelist Michelle McDonagh.
On Glenbeg Farm, it was a sunny morning like any other. Only the distressed bark of beloved collie Samson hinted that all was not well... When the bodies of wealthy matriarch Ursula Kennedy and her farmer husband Jimmy are pulled from the slurry pit, shock ricochets throughout the family and community. Everyone has questions, including the gardai. Was this a tragic accident? Or is there more to it than meets the eye?
Tuesday, 9 January 2018 – Glenbeg, County Galway
It was the dog who raised the alarm first. Or tried to at least. His frenzied yelping and whimpering were ignored for hours, but afterwards, people would recall that they had registered the sound somewhere in the background of their minds. Too preoccupied with their own business to pay heed to the unremarkable circumstance of a dog yapping in a farmyard, it wasn't until early afternoon that anybody began to wonder where Jimmy had got to. To Ursula’s displeasure, her husband still insisted on eating his dinner in the middle of the day – unusually, he had not given in to her on this one. Sometimes, he joined the lads who came to The Creamery at Glenbeg Farm Park every day for their midday meal: a rag-tag gaggle of ripely scented widowed and bachelor farmers who set the world to rights over their daily repast before heading back out to the land. More and more ately, though, Jimmy had taken to eating alone at the kitchen table in the farmhouse.
When there was no sign of him by one o’clock, Kate sent one of the girls from the kitchen over to the house with a cling-filmed plate bearing four slender slices of lean beef, two creamy hillocks of mash and a small mound of carrots and peas, a steaming ramekin of onion gravy on the side and a strong pot of tea to wash the lot down. It was Kate who had figured out that her father-in-law had forgotten how to make tea when she picked up the pot one day and realised it was stone cold. He had remembered to put in the tea-leaves but forgotten to boil the water. This once simple task now involved a step too many for his withering brain to grasp. The same man could still drive from Glenbeg to the centre of Dublin city without getting lost, or calve a cow with his eyes closed, but the boiling-water step of the tea-making process seemed to have dropped right out of his head.
The girl went straight in through the back door, singing out 'Special delivery’, lest, God forbid, she disturb her boss’s husband wandering around starkers. Not that it had ever happened – yet, anyway – but she had heard that people with the same thing Jimmy had wrong with him were taken to stripping off whenever the mood came over them, so she wasn’t taking any chances. There was no naked Jimmy, though – no sign of any Jimmy at all, in fact, which was unusual given that he was a man who adhered to a strict daily routine. Up at six, no matter if his head hadn’t hit the pillow until four with the calving. Breakfast at half seven, dinner at half twelve, a mug of tea and a couple of buttered Rich Tea biscuits around half three. And his tea to run concurrent with the six o’clock news. It wasn’t until around two-ish that Rob, hopeful of a cuppa on his return from his appointment in town, popped into the farmhouse to find the uneaten beef dinner congealing on the counter and realised his father was on the missing list.
There was no sign of his mother around either, but there was nothing strange in that. He assumed she was in her office: Mission Control. He had barely seen her since the previous Wednesday night, hadn’t wanted to see her. He didn’t feel good about it, the harsh words spoken, but he wouldn’t take a single one back. He had never been comfortable with confrontation but, if anything, his failing had been in not speaking up sooner. There was no point in asking Christina if she knew where their father was. She was going through one of her bad patches and was in her room with her curtains drawn. The breakfast dishes were still lying on the draining board.
A mug proclaiming Best Grandad, a Belleek china cup with a pretty floral design. One cereal bowl. Two plates. Two knives and a clutch of teaspoons. He didn’t notice his mother’s precious Mulberry handbag sitting on the table, or her mobile phone beside it . Having confirmed that his father wasn’t in the house, Rob started to search outside. His mother’s new-model Range
Rover Velar was parked out the front alongside his sister’s Mini Cooper. His father’s battered Land Rover was in its usual spot in the yard. It was as he headed towards the milking parlour that Rob finally connected the near-distant sound – that his brain had dismissed as being of no importance – with its source. Samson. His master’s scruffy shadow. Rob took off in the direction of the barking, his Fitbit recording a spike in his heart rate as he realised where he was being led.
There’s Something I Have To Tell You is published by Hachette Books Ireland
