by Maggie Finn
‘Can I at least see the documents?’
Declan shook his head. ‘I don’t have a key and anyway, you’d need written permission and a special kind of white gloves to handle the documents. They’re historical artifacts. We can’t let anyone just go rummaging through them.’
‘I don’t need to touch them. I’ll just have a quick read.’
Declan smirked.
‘Oh, speak Latin, do you?’
‘Alright, alright,’ he said, holding up his hands. ‘So at least put me in my mother’s good books: tell me when Con and Kate are getting married.’
Declan’s eyes widened in surprise, then he burst out laughing.
‘I’m a romantic too, Danny, but they’ve only been dating for a few weeks.’
‘Yes, but this is Clover Cove, Father, things move fast. And Kate has moved into my Ma’s guest house.’
‘The poor girl’s got to live somewhere. Would you have her staying at the Suites and Spa?’
Danny couldn’t believe people were still referring to the pub as Suites and Spa. It had been one of Raff the fisherman’s many wheezes to increase tourism. Plus it meant the pub would need spa baths and as Raff just happened to double as the village’s plumber, it was another win-win for Raff.
‘I suppose not, but as you’re Connor’s best friend, I thought he might have confided something…?’
Dec chuckled. ‘Don’t you watch the movies, Danny? Anything said to a priest is confidential.’
Danny must have looked as dejected as he felt, because Declan clucked his tongue and sighed.
‘She’s up towards Wish Bay, she’s gone to see the seals,’ he said.
‘Who?’
‘Kate, you numbskull. She came past here just before you; I’m surprised you didn’t see her.’
Danny was half out of the door before he thought to turn and shout his thanks. Declan’s laughter followed him up the path.
He ran along the cliffs, his feet finding their way along the narrow crumbling track as easily as if it were a wide city sidewalk. Danny and his friends had spent their youth scampering along these pathways, climbing and jumping, pretending to be pirates and smugglers and commandos. This was his backyard.
He quickly saw Kate standing with her hands thrust deep into the pockets of her coat, looking down at the beach below.
She saw Danny and waved, then put a finger to her lips, pointing down towards the sea, where dozens of grey-blue seals were lying, lined up side-by-side.
‘Aren’t they amazing?’ Said Kate in a hushed voice as Danny sidled up.
‘They are that. Same group have been coming back here every year for decades. There’s a researcher, marine biologist based out of Kilmara called Dr. McGrath, who studies them.’
Kate smiled. ‘Do I take it you wrote a story about it?’
‘You’ve got me. Apparently, the collective term is a “pod”, although they’re sometimes referred to as a “harem”.’
Kate looked back at the seals with interest. ‘And is that how they, well, organize themselves?’
Danny chuckled. ‘We didn’t get into that. I don’t think the readers of the Examiner are ready for that much detail over their breakfast.’
They began to walk back towards the village.
‘So is that why you’re out here, Danny?’ asked Kate, ‘To get more detail on the Ross Oil story?’
He held up his hands. ‘Got me again. Sure, I was wondering if you had heard anything new.’
‘I don’t work for Ross Oil any more Danny,’ said Kate. ‘They’ve stopped sending me memos.’
‘Could I ask you about that?’
She gave him a shrewd look.
‘You mean did I fall or was I pushed?’
He nodded sheepishly. ‘Yes, I suppose.’
‘I resigned. Although I imagine I would have been fired if I hadn’t got in first.
‘So why… and this can be off the record if you like, I’m just interested, why the change of heart?’
‘What change of heart?’ asked Kate.
‘Well, I saw you at the public meeting and, well, I believed you when you said Ross was good for the village. What’s changed now?’
Kate had arranged a public meeting at the church where she had laid out the Ross Oil plans for Clover Cove. She had been passionate and convincing that Ross Oil would be good for the village, bringing better roads, services and of course money and jobs they sorely needed. That was until Connor James had stood up and torpedoed her argument.
‘I believed it too, at the time,’ said Kate. ‘And actually, I still do.’
Danny looked at her in surprise. ‘This is still off the record, is it?’
‘Yes, Danny,’ said Kate with a stern look. ‘it is.’
She thought for a moment.
‘Look, we certainly do need the money. We’re struggling to keep heads above water here and an injection of cash would be a huge positive for us right now.’
‘But…?’
‘Well, did you hear what I did there? I said “we need the money” and that it would be good “for us”. Since I met Connor, I began to think of Clover Cove as my home.’
Again Kate caught Danny’s eager look and laughed. ‘And no, Danny. That does not mean Con and I are getting married. Your mother informed me you had been digging.’
Danny’s shoulders slumped. ‘So is there anything I can report?’
‘Not from me, sorry,’ said Kate, with a wry smile. ‘Although I can tell you this for nothing: it’s not over.’
Danny perked up and looked at her.
‘What have you heard?’
Kate gave a non-committal smile. ‘That’s based on intimate experience of Ross Oil. They are a huge multinational with billions of dollars in their back pocket; they’re accustomed to getting their own way and they’re not going to just roll over because someone dug up a dusty old document. You can bet there’s an entire floor of lawyers in some building in Manhattan working on that single problem, looking for loopholes and precedents and counter-arguments.’
They stopped at a twist in the path giving them an uninterrupted view down into the little harbor, Raff’s lone fishing boat bobbing on the high tide.
‘You really think they’d do that? Just for Clover Cove?’
‘Sure. Why not? Those lawyers are on retainers anyway, they might as well use them for something. That’s the problem when you’re the little guy; the Big Bad Corporation always has more resources, and you know what else they have?’
Danny shook his head.
‘Time. Ross Oil are in no hurry. They can wait and watch. Which is why we need to find an alternative to the Ross Oil money quickly.’
Danny looked at her. ‘You really do care about this place, don’t you?’
‘I do.’ She gestured towards the village; the rooftops and the church tower just glimpsed over the swell of the hills surrounding the cove. ‘How could you not fall in love with it?’
‘With the village or with Connor James?’
‘Both. Love changes you, Danny, but for the better. It opens your eyes to things you didn’t want to see before. You should try it some time.’ She pointed at him with a grin. ‘And that’s on the record.’
He stood there, hands in his pockets as he watched Kate walk down towards the square. He gave a wry smile as he remembered Connor the tearaway setting off fireworks in the school bus or Connor the delinquent driving his da’s car across the top field before he had a license. Connor was his mate’s big brother and he’d always looked up to him, but in the last few years, he’d admired how the man had done his best to hold the little community together. And now he was jealous of him all over again for having found his true love.
Danny was a romantic; he wanted more than anything to be in love. The beautiful girl in that morning’s dream was popping up more and more, but when he tried to recall her face, he couldn’t see it properly, just a halo of golden blonde hair, like the sun was directly behind her head, the face in shadow. He sh
ook his head. A silly fantasy. Real life wasn’t like that.
‘And anyway, you’ve got work to do.’
He walked down along the hidden pathway into the church graveyard, then around to the church, pausing at the big front doors. Father Dec had been right; he did need to speak to the Bishop, but he wasn’t looking forward to it and for a moment, Danny paused, thinking of all the times he had come here to cover weddings, funerals and other assorted social meetings. If he was honest, the weddings had always made him feel uncomfortable. Perhaps that was why he was single after all; a deep-seated belief that marriage was doomed before it started. When all the posies and confetti was stripped away, people were just people, little more than animals with their base drives: sex, money, power. And you didn’t have to watch the news as avidly as Danny to know where all that led. People couldn’t help themselves. They were hard-wired to covet their neighbor’s wife or his ass or his brand new Jacuzzi.
‘So much for being a romantic,’ he muttered and reached for the door just as it opened and his mother stepped out, carrying a basket of flowers.
‘What are you doing standing there?’ she snapped.
‘Lovely to see you too, Ma.’
Diana Brennan narrowed her eyes suspiciously.
‘Shouldn’t you be at work?’
‘I am at work, Ma! I’m working on a story.’
‘Well it doesn’t look like it, it looks like you’re loafing.’
He took a deep breath and let it out.
‘Have you finished the flowers? Whose wedding is it anyway?’
‘Carol Regan, you know Bethany’s little girl?’
‘Oh yes, isn’t she marrying the fireman?’
‘A good solid career.’
‘And mine isn’t?’
‘Well, there will always be fires.’
‘So there will always be people to report on it.’
‘Seems a morbid way to spend your day.’
Danny used both hands to rub his face, groaning. It was exhausting being Diana Brennan’s son.
‘Ma, what’s happened?’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean…’ He wanted to say ‘What’s happened to you? Growing up, his mother had been happy, strange as it seemed now. He could remember singing and laughter and Christmases that went on for the whole of December. Yes, there was darkness too, the nights when Danny and his sister Freya would lie in bed tensed, waiting for the sound of their father’s key in the door, never knowing if there would be shouting and door slamming – and worse sometimes. But mostly, he recalled the cliff tops and the treehouses and cheeks red from the wind.
‘Look, why don’t I take you out?’ he said suddenly.
Diana looked at him in shock. ‘Out?’
‘I could drive you up to Kilmara, you used to love going to the cinema, remember? We could get popcorn and…’ he trailed off as he saw her stony face.
‘And when would I be having time to go gallivanting off to the Big Town?’ Said Diana. ‘I’m working my fingers to the bone as it is with the flowers and the guest house and my work at the church.’
‘But it would be fun, Ma.’
‘Fun?’ She said, as if it were an alien word. ‘Seems to me some people are far too fixated on their own amusement and not enough on the good of the community. Even your friend Connor seems to be settling down and doing something about this Ross Oil nonsense…’
Danny’s frustration finally boiled over.
‘I was the one who wrote about that, Mam!’ he cried. ‘I brought the Ross Oil story to the attention of the community! Me!’
‘Sounds like someone’s getting a little too big for his boots.’
Danny threw up both hands. He just couldn’t win.
‘Okay Mam, fine,’ he said, backing away. ‘I get it. You think I’m a failure and a disappointment and clearly, I’ll never please you. But the weird thing is, I’ve had someone notice my talent, the editor of a top newspaper. And he’s offered me a job.’
It was a stretch – he’d never even spoken to Pat Keen – but Danny was angry.
‘Job? What job?’
‘In New York, Ma. In America, working for The Globe, one of the best newspapers in the world.’
Diana stopped, her mouth open. Danny saw that one had hit home and immediately felt sorry he’d lashed out.
‘You… you’re going to America?’ she stuttered.
‘Maybe, I don’t know,’ he said quickly. ‘The point is, not everyone thinks your son is a waste of space. And you know what? Neither do I.’
He backed away.
‘Danny…’ she began, but Danny was already walking back towards the square.
‘It’s alright Ma, I’ve got somewhere to be. I’ll speak to you later.’
‘Danny, please. Come back,’ Diana called after him. But Danny kept on walking.
Chapter Nine
Ghost was agitated. Twisting and turning around Tessa’s legs as she worked, mewling.
‘What’s up, sweetness? I only fed you ten minutes ago.’
The cat miaowed again, then jumped up on the window sill, using his nose to open the shutters; just one of his party tricks.
Tessa followed the cat’s gaze and saw a band of grey across the beach.
‘Is it going to rain?’ Like most cats, Ghost hated water, but since they had lived on the harbor he had developed an uncanny knack of knowing when a storm was coming. If Ghost disappeared under the sofa or into an open cupboard, you could be fairly sure thunder was on the way.
Tessa walked over to the cat, stroking his neck reassuringly, looking down at the beach. The tide had rolled back revealing a tangle of… something. She glanced back up at the clouds. If there was anything worth salvaging, there was a good chance the storm might sweep it away again. She turned towards the door, grabbing her yellow oilskin from a peg.
‘Ghost, I’m just popping down to the beach. I won’t be long.’
The cat gave her a classic ‘what, are you crazy?’ look, then, with a flick of his tail, jumped down from the window and ran up the stairs to Tessa’s bedroom. ‘Well, at least I know where to find you.’
She closed the door, making sure it was fast, and pulled on her wellies, before flapping down the steps and onto the sand.
After the stresses of the morning at the gallery, Tessa was looking forward to losing herself in the strange world of the foreshore, just her alone on the sand gathering up the odd, random and often beautiful things the sea saw fit to leave trailing across the sand. Out where the water met the land, Tessa felt free. Free from guilt and disappointment, free from responsibilities she’d never asked for, free to just be herself: at least until the rain drove her back inside.
She was halfway to the tangle of debris she had seen from the studio when her eye was caught by a silhouette on the harbor wall. It was a man, sitting on the edge. Curious, she stopped to look closer and her heart fell: it was Danny Brennan, the reporter.
For a moment, Tessa was torn. She looked towards the pile of driftwood and rope, then back towards the harbor wall. Sighing, she changed her direction.
‘Danny!’ she called, waving.
He looked down, then looked away. When Tessa kept coming, he turned and called: ‘What do you want?’ He was surly, which Tessa could hardly complain about too much. She hadn’t exactly been friendly at their first meeting.
‘I just wanted to… look, I’m coming up.’
Danny shrugged in an ‘it’s a free country’ sort of way.
She looked up the rusty iron ladder bolted to the side of the wall, then down at her wellies. Not ideal climbing gear, but she didn’t have time to change. Carefully she picked her way up, rung by rung, until she swung up onto the top. Danny glanced up at her, his expression halfway between forlorn and hostile.
Which, again, was fair enough, thought Tessa.
‘Look, I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘About earlier, I mean. You didn’t exactly catch me at my best.’
He shrugged. �
��Okay.’
She sat down next to him.
‘Having a bad day?’
Danny snorted. ‘I’ve had better.’
‘What happened? Apart from me, I mean.’
That raised a smile at least. He raised his hands and dropped them in a gesture of helplessness.
‘Ah, you know. Families.’
She nodded. ‘I know all about that. In fact, that was why I was so…’
‘Horrid?’
Tessa laughed.
‘Something like that, yes. It’s not an excuse, I know, but families always seem to know which buttons to push to make you furious, don’t they?’
‘They do that.’
They sat in silence for a moment.
‘So was it your mum? Who made you so down, I mean?’
Danny gave her a wry smile.
‘So you’ve met Diana Brennan then?’
‘Our paths have crossed.’
Danny sighed.
‘The thing is,’ he said, ‘It’s actually embarrassing. All I want is for my Mammy to pat me on the head and say, ‘well done son’ – it’s pathetic really, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t think anyone grows out of that,’ said Tessa. ‘Don’t beat yourself up about it.’
‘Oh, it’s not just that. I’m not getting anywhere with my story.’ He smiled again. ‘I know, that doesn’t sound too important either.’
‘If it’s important to you, it’s important,’ said Tessa. ‘What’s missing?’
He looked at her for a moment.
‘I need a scoop.’
‘Scoop? I thought you were doing well. Your picture seems to always be on the front page.’
‘You know how it is, you’re only as good as your last story. But it’s the timing: if I can get something new, something big on this Ross story soon, there’s a chance I could move up.’
‘Move up?’ asked Tessa. ‘Like to Dublin?’
‘Like to New York.’
The mention of the city stopped her for a moment, remembering the trips there as a child and teenager; her father sitting in some salon or gallery, surrounded by groupies all clamoring to tell him how much they loved his latest work.
