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  Advance praise for

  Words to Shape My Name

  ‘Beautifully written and brilliantly controlled, this story of friendship and courage never drops a stitch. Words to Shape My Name intrigues from start to finish and has to be among the very best of novels in 2021.’ —Christine Dwyer Hickey

  ‘An ambitious and vital novel with an epic sweep: a complex, timely story about liberty, equality, identity. With acute intelligence, Laura McKenna has focused on a marginalised figure who is a unique witness to events that make nations. No longer at the margin, Tony Small is now the centre of his own story. This book is an act of salvage, performed with great skill: cleanly written, sharp-eyed, undeceived.’ —Hilary Mantel

  ‘Laura McKenna’s first novel is a deeply intelligent mosaic about the nature of freedom and the lineage of hope. Words to Shape My Name unspools a complex story in a daring and ambitious style reminiscent of Joseph O’Connor and Hilary Mantel. By turns demanding, lucid and poignant, it sets out to unravel the mysteries of belonging. McKenna’s debut is the song of a writer who is here to stay.’ —Colum McCann

  ‘A sophisticated novel, abundant with competing voices, bringing the rich, raw revolutionary world of the late 18th century to life. Laura McKenna writes with elegance and wit. Words to Shape My Name is as accomplished as Mantel, as humane as Heaney.’ —Mary Morrissy

  ‘A powerful historical fiction debut.’ —Joseph O’Connor

  ‘Arresting and absorbing from start to finish, a remarkable debut.’

  —Eibhear Walshe

  WORDS TO SHAPE MY NAME

  First published in 2021 by

  New Island Books

  Glenshesk House

  10 Richview Office Park

  Clonskeagh

  Dublin D14 V8C4

  Republic of Ireland

  www.newisland.ie

  Copyright © Laura McKenna, 2021

  The right of Laura McKenna to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000.

  Print ISBN: 978-1-84840-795-4

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-84840-796-1

  All rights reserved. The material in this publication is protected by copyright law. Except as may be permitted by law, no part of the material may be reproduced (including by storage in a retrieval system) or transmitted in any form or by any means; adapted; rented or lent without the written permission of the copyright owners.

  A transcription of a portion of a draft of Lady Lucy Fitzgerald’s ‘Address to Irishmen’ is reproduced here courtesy of the National Library of Ireland.

  This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all characters, with the exception of some historical and public figures, are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Where real-life historical or public figures appear, the situations, incidents and dialogues concerning those persons are entirely fictional and are not intended to depict actual events or to change the entirely fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  New Island received financial assistance from The Arts Council (An Chomhairle Ealaíon),

  Dublin, Ireland

  New Island Books is a member of Publishing Ireland

  Novel Fair: an Irish Writers Centre initiative

  For Íomhar. Grá agus buíochas.

  I

  must be given words to shape my name

  to the syllables of trees

  I

  must be given words to refashion futures

  like a healer’s hand …

  It is not

  it is not

  it is not enough

  to be pause, to be hole

  to be void, to be silent

  to be semicolon, to be semicolony; …

  —Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Negus (1969)

  For a people who have endured a long, long history of waiting … silence is an old familiar companion. Time and silence. Silence and time. The silence attending waiting, waiting through times of enforced silence. Silence the ground upon which wishes are inscribed while the endless waiting continues.

  —John Edgar Wideman, In Praise of Silence (2003)

  I BEGINNINGS

  II MIDDLE: JOURNEY AND ADVENTURE

  III WALKING INTO REBELLION

  IV ENDINGS

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  I

  Beginnings

  12th May, 1857

  A journey to St Mary’s graveyard

  May is a month what I hold in particular fondness after the gloom and damp of winter has passed. London offers little cheer during those earlier dark months and I look forward to my journey through the countryside and my visit to Baaba’s grave. So last week, I took a Hansom cab outside Euston Station as was my habit. The driver accepted my price once I told him I’d made the journey every year for the past twenty and knew better than he how far and how much and it would serve him ill to talk of half-mile fares and time spent standing, for I could just as easy give my custom to the next man, whose horse looked a deal livelier than his, and would likely do it for less than a pound. He raised both his hands in a gesture of defeat.

  We passed straight through Wimbledon and on to St Mary’s. I instructed the driver to take himself and his cab some distance hence for I had no wish that he should sit up there, looking down on my comings and goings, he being a cold sort, darkly whiskered and darkly dressed, in the manner of drivers who think they’re gentlemen when they are no such thing.

  I made for the far boundary wall, to my parents’ grave, marked not by any stonemason’s handiwork, but a metal cross, fashioned by myself from some ironmongery what came my way. Nothing fancy, only two spiralled bars wrapped tight with string on which I’d once chalked their names. But the rain is no observer of such formalities. I knelt to straighten the cross, and saw a peep of yellow nodding above the grass. Cowslips. I’m most partial to them, and mayflower. Cowslips for their lowly beauty and the soft fuzz of their necks.

  The sun were beginning to warm the ground and I sat there waiting, waiting for a sign. And all the while my fingers worried the grass and delved into the claggy earth beneath. A black crow perched on a broken headstone nearby, stretched out one wing like a widow’s fan and reached under it to tidy and trim himself. Never cawed nor made a sound. A shadow crossed my heart. The jackdaw’s feathers flared suddenly, and my eye were snagged by it. A breeze, I thought, struggling to my feet, while the bird struggled to take to the air, all aflap and afluster. The sky were overrun by a rabble of clouds. I heard the hedgerows seesaw, branch on branch, thorn on thorn and the weather vane screeched round sharp to the west. And there it was, the scatter of mayflower blossom.

  Now you may think it strange for a woman of my years, being almost sixty, to stand atop a grave, with her arms thrown wide and her eyes closed and her head flung back, while the mayflower shakes out her petals but so it was I received again the blessing of those white blossoms, their touch gentle, their smell familiar and dusty. An Sceach Gheal my Ma used to call it, in her Gaelic tongue, though she never cared for it, being superstitious for such things.

  The jack-chat calls of the birds scattered my rememberings and I opened my eyes to see them circling above me, three of them, smuts blown about by the breeze. And then that cough, that sound, ahem.

  Excuse my impertinence but I wonder if I have the pleasure of addressing the daughter of a Mr Anthony Small.

  I turned – sharp mind – to see a scrawny man swamped under the
weight of a thick coat, woollen muffler and felt hat, though Lord knows the weather hardly called for such. I took a step back, near stumbled over Baaba’s resting place. The man reached for my arm and steadied me.

  I must apologise. Miss Small. It is Miss Small, is it not.

  His cheeks were pink with what looked like excitement, though perhaps he weren’t used to exertion.

  What’s it to you, I may have said.

  Oh. It is you. I’m certain of it. I can hardly believe it. He clapped his hands together. Oh this is too, too good. What a happy occurrence.

  I don’t mind saying my first thoughts were that my bastard husband, gone near thirty years, had sent someone after me. Looking for a stake in my house in Euston Grove. I started to walk away, heading for the safety of the church.

  You leave me alone, I said. Tell him he’ll not get a brass farthing out of me.

  He had no trouble keeping pace with me. No, no. Please Miss Small. I don’t know this man you speak of. I have been sent by another. A Lady Lucy Foley. You may have known her as Lady Lucy Fitzgerald.

  That stopped me in my tracks. His face fizzed with delight.

  Lady Lucy Fitzgerald. Was she still alive. Perhaps he could tell my thoughts.

  She died six years ago.

  I turned from him.

  Wait, he called after me. She left detailed instructions. A kind of treasure hunt. In reverse. Please allow me to introduce myself. His legs crossed and dipped like a fold-up washstand. It seemed he was attempting to bow. He had my attention then.

  I am Mr John Butler. Solicitor. Of Tooley Street, Borough. His voice scooped up at the end as if in a question.

  How did you find me … how did you—

  Oh but I’ve been searching. You seem to shed your name each time you move.

  But just now, how did you—

  Pardon me, but I guessed you to be the daughter of Mr Anthony Small, he being a black man, and you … well, also black. And today being the anniversary of his death. Last year the verger mentioned a lady such as you had visited and I alas, too late, too late. I hoped against hope that you might visit on this day again, and that this year I might find you.

  He paused, removing his hat, one bone-thin hand appearing from his over-long sleeve. His pale blue eyes swam over me.

  Where’s the harm, I thought, extending my hand to his.

  Ain’t it strange how time can be squeezed backwards, to when you was a child, just by the slightest thing – a snatch of a song, the smooth warmth of a wooden toy, the way an apple may tumble from a cart and roll just so. Or the smell of ink on paper. Baaba’s ink, on his papers, what he wrote himself. That whiff of pickled walnuts were a potion, pulling me into the past, away from the dark panelled office, and Mr Butler fussing with papers on his hulking desk, and talking of bequests, and land deeds. Instead I were picturing my Baaba, sitting at his table – a half moon it were called, lovely – his quill in hand, waiting for his memories to walk past the window or tap on the pane. My Baaba, for so I called my father and that, not like all the other names he were given, that at least were at his own bidding. Baaba’s quill scratching across the paper, each word bringing a bead of sweat to his brow, a tremor to his hand.

  A clock doled out the time. Six dongs. Its face was smug and pale behind the glass. I lifted one of the sheets of paper that sat on my lap and pressed my nose to it, breathed in the dusty past of it. That must have been one of the last batches of ink that he made.

  A drawer were scraped opened. I looked up. Mr Butler took out an envelope, placed it on the desk in front of him with a fussy flicker of his fingers. I made no remark, just continued to look through some of the pages what he’d given me earlier. My Baaba’s papers. Written a half century before. I couldn’t take it all in. Them words, his words, inked on the paper.

  Tap, tap. He were tapping the bloody envelope now.

  Miss Small, I beg your pardon, but if I may …

  Well, now you’ve started, you may as well say what you have to say.

  His eyes swirled large behind his spectacles. He offered to read through my Baaba’s papers with me. Said he could explain them. Given that the writing might present a challenge to me and ahem, he cleared his throat, that some of the language, being old-fashioned, may need, ahem again, a small amount of simplification and whatnot.

  There’s no need for your help, I told him, while getting to my feet. I am perfectly capable of reading.

  I smiled at him then for really he were not the worst of his kind. Oh, he begged my pardon, regretted his presumption, said as how it was not on account of my … Then he stopped. Couldn’t bring himself to go on and his pale face fired up.

  Don’t fuss yourself, Mr Butler, said I. Sure how could you know anything about me, save what you see of me and hear me say.

  He dipped his head, pleaded with me to indulge him in one whim.

  Please. Allow me to read aloud Lady Lucy’s final letter. She dictated it to me shortly before she died. Her sight, you know, was almost gone.

  He rubbed his eyes at this, then turned to light two of them fancy gas lamps, and while they hissed and flickered he plucked a letter from the envelope. I saw it were trimmed in black.

  He coughed, adjusted his spectacles and began to read.

  Château de Belle Vue, Marseilles, France

  1851

  Dear Harriet,

  I am tempted to call you Ettie as that is how I think of you, but you have most likely left that childish name behind and would not recognise it. Over the years, amid much sorrow, The Lord has always been my guide and I am entrusting these papers to Him that they may find you. I have sought the assistance of Mr Butler in this task. He has proved his worth to me in the past and I know he will do his very best.

  I believe apologies should be brief. Anything more is self-indulgence. I am sorry you and your family were ill-served by mine, and that your father’s loyalty was so carelessly dismissed. Please accept these papers and accompanying deeds and notes as an act of heartfelt repentance and reparation.

  It gives me ease to think of you reading them. I picture you as you were, a wide-eyed joyful little girl. I pray that some of that joy still rests in you.

  I will not trespass any longer on your time other than to assure you of my regard and affection.

  May God bless you,

  Lady Lucy Foley

  He peered over the letter, looking anxious. Well.

  Fine enough words as words go, I expect. Mind you, there ain’t an awful lot of them.

  He seemed encouraged by my remarks and bustled around behind his desk.

  Perhaps you would like to know the context of your father’s writing. What you are holding in your hands there, is his Narrative. His account of his life as a slave – though perhaps not so much – and after, when he was saved by Lord Edward Fitzgerald during the terrible Independence Wars in America. Of course Lord Edward was a loyal British soldier then.

  His voice trailed off and sucked in through his lips. Yes well. Then of course he returned to Ireland and England with Lord Edward for a master. Free of course.

  I tried to interrupt, save him the bother of all his speechifying, told him I knew all this already. But once he had the bit between his teeth, it were hard to stop Mr Butler.

  Such a man, Lord Edward. You do not know …

  He paused to look at me over the top of his spectacles, a gesture what got my hackles up. You may not know that Lady Lucy added a codicil to her will, and explained how she persuaded your father to write about her brother, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, master to your—

  My father worked for him. He were a gentleman’s servant. Almost a companion.

  Indeed, indeed. Mr Butler had turned pink again. He ran his hand over his head.

  Poor, tragic Lord Edward. So beloved of all who knew him. Your father too, I expect?

  I nodded, thinking of the stories I had heard from Baaba. Why, even Ma spoke fondly of him back then. Mind you …

  Ma always said as how my
father had saved himself.

  Mr Butler settled back in his chair, behind his cluttered desk. He’d kept his muffler about his neck and his hands strayed to it, worrying at the knot.

  Yes well. Perhaps you are not aware of the true reason for the endeavour. It was not what it seemed. Not to encourage your father to write of his experience of slavery but rather to present His Lordship …

  His fingers flicked up and down as he struggled to find a word.

  I know what it were about, I said. The Family wanted to present Lord Edward in a pretty light, not as a traitor, so they could get all his confiscated money and land back. I know.

  Mr Butler shuddered. Don’t use that word I beg you, he was never a traitor. That ruling was overturned.

  But I’d had my fill of Mr Butler’s misty-eyed tales and told him so.

  Lord Edward organised a rebellion in Ireland and if that don’t make him a traitor, well what does. Not that I care. All I care about is that when my father died, he’d not received one brass farthing of what he were owed by that Family. Not a farthing. And that’s in spite of all his years of work, and the effort of writing what cut his life even shorter. And none of the Fitzgerald family, not the old Duchess nor the new Duke neither, saw fit to recompense him.

  The blood rose in my chest and my heart squeezed tight but I couldn’t stop.

  So it’s a bit late don’t you think for Lady Lucy to come over all a-jitter on her deathbed with her talk of God and send her, her … you out to find me and do what was right by me.

  He shrank back, tut-tutting under his breath.

  Don’t say that, please, he urged again. She was the fairest of her sex, a true Lady, noble and charitable.