Conor remembered his mam saying long ago that Joe had never really been suited to farming, which was why he was prone to kicking over the traces once in a while. Not regularly, but sometimes, as if he’d suddenly had enough. The accident to Paddy’s back had happened the day after Joe had been on a pub crawl in Lissbeg. He’d arrived home totally wrecked, and the next morning he hadn’t been concentrating so, when a pregnant cow in a pen went for him, she’d nearly trampled him down. It was Paddy getting him out of there that saved him, but Paddy himself had rolled over the rail at the last minute, and he’d come down on his spine in the cobbled yard.
Paddy had never blamed Joe for his accident, nor he wouldn’t neither. But if your man hadn’t gone off on the tear, it mightn’t have happened at all. Conor reckoned that Joe himself hadn’t got over the shock of it. So it was a good thing for the lot of them to be facing a new beginning and, by next year, with a new man worked in, things might be better all round.
Steering the Vespa into the yard, he rode it round the hay shed and parked at the back. Then he took off his helmet and texted Aideen again. There was no response and, since it was closing time at the deli, he hit speed dial and tried giving her a call. But her phone seemed to be off.
Fed up, Conor went and changed into his overalls. Paddy was inside in the room going through dockets, while Joe was up having a bath and, according to their mam, using the very last drop of the hot water. She was standing at the kitchen table, slicing tea brack, and there was no sign of Marmite or the kittens. Conor nicked a piece of brack as he passed her, and went back to the sheds to deal with the tractor.
Once he got properly mucky there’d be no point in trying to use his phone so, before opening the tin of grease, he had another go at calling Aideen. Her phone was still off. Conor wondered if he might nip into Lissbeg later and find her. He had a dawn start next morning, though, because the vet was coming, and it might be late to go looking for her by the time they’d finished tea. It could be that she, too, would need an early night, anyway. She’d been kind of down the other night when he’d seen her – sniffly and red-nosed and saying she might be starting a summer cold.
His mam had made it crystal clear that she wanted him at the tea table. Conor didn’t blame her. She liked Eileen well enough but, at the same time, she’d be glad of a bit of support. Beneath all the generosity and the over-the-top enthusiasms, there was a steely sort of assurance about Joe’s fiancée. Maybe it came with the money. Or maybe, like Joe, she was just used to getting her own way.
Back when he and Joe were growing up, their mam used to say that Joe had what she called ‘older-brother syndrome’. When he and Conor used to row over something, Mam would always try to laugh them out of it; and, while Joe usually threw a strop, Conor would join the laugh because he hated her to be worried. Anyway, when push came to shove, he was never all that bothered. If Joe wanted the ball or the biggest bit of cake, what matter? It was easiest just to give in to him and find something else to do.
It couldn’t have been like that with Eileen, though, because she was the youngest in her family. Maybe she had ‘only-child syndrome’. Her five brothers were well grown before she came along, as an afterclap. According to Joe, the house the brothers were reared in had opened onto a street, and the lads had slept in two rooms, stacked up in bunk beds. Eileen was the only one born into the big place in the country with the tennis court and the gardens, and the bedrooms all en suite.
So, maybe you couldn’t blame her for being a bit of a lady of the manor. And, actually, she and Joe were well matched. It was typical of the two of them to want to pay for the wedding. Slapping grease onto the tractor’s bearings, Conor told himself Joe’d always had a mad generous streak. Once he’d claimed the football, he was happy for you to choose what position you played in, and he’d break the bit of cake in two and give you the bigger half. There was nothing complicated about his generosity either. It just had to be his way or the highway.
Reaching up to the shelf where it stood in a jumble of obsolete tools and ends of wire, Conor turned on the ancient transistor radio, which was so knackered it seemed to be impervious to muck. Then, as his body automatically kept working on the tractor, his mind floated off on a dream of bliss.
They seemed to be settling on a wedding date sometime next June. So by high summer next year Aideen and he would be living here on the farm.
Conor whistled happily along with the song on the transistor. Aideen’s house in Lissbeg was one of those modern council boxes where you could hear all that went on in one room from the next. The inside walls at the farm weren’t like that because most of the building was more than a hundred years old. The upstairs rooms were small, though, so Joe’s bedroom was going to be knocked through into Conor’s to make a room for him and Aideen. There’d be room for a built-in wardrobe and a king-size bed. His window had a view over the garden, which in June would be full of the flowers Aideen loved. There was a bathroom across the landing that would be theirs.
To begin with, he’d wondered if Joe would mind them appropriating his bedroom but, from Joe’s description, Eileen’s room at the Dawsons’ house was palatial, and her dad had fixed to get them a big place of their own in Cork. Anyway, when their mam had first thought of knocking through into Joe’s room, she’d managed to get Joe thinking he’d had the idea himself.
And the little parlour at the front of the house was going to be done up as theirs. That had been his mam’s idea too. She said he and Aideen would want a place to relax together. If Conor knew Aideen, she’d probably want to spend most of her free time down in the kitchen. But a room of their own with a sofa and a telly would be great. They could put their wedding photos on the mantelpiece, Aideen in her gorgeous dress and himself probably looking like a dog’s dinner. And they’d find a print of the Primavera and frame it on the wall.
Everything was going to be hunky-dory. Paddy had even had wind of the word of a man who’d be willing to take on the farm job. The guy had a proper agri degree from uni but he’d been born and raised on a farm east of Carrick. His granddad was still farming, though, and his dad was only in his sixties, so for the next while he wanted to hire himself out.
Paddy had told Conor that the final decision was his. ‘You’re the one who’ll be working with him and, ultimately, when you’re out on the farm, it’s you who’ll be the boss. If you like him, we can take him on and, whatever happens, we won’t end up stuck with him. He has his own place to go off to in a few years’ time and, meanwhile, we can be taking a view of what comes next for us here.’
There had been times since the accident when Joe had treated Paddy almost like he was thick. Not unkindly, but sort of over-solicitous, as if the poor man had lost the power to think. But, as their mam always said, Paddy was a great man for the big picture. He’d stand back and say nothing and then you’d find he had it all taped.
Still whistling, Conor went back to dreaming about Aideen. Though she’d grown up on a council estate, she had no fear of any animal. The first day they’d gone up for the cows with her on the back of his Vespa, she’d hopped off and stood in a gap instinctively, and the cows had sensed her assurance and turned the way they should. She was daft about cats and went moony over Bid the sheepdog, but she understood that farming was a business, and she’d come up with more than a few suggestions that made sense.
Conor didn’t want to jump the gun and start raising them with Paddy but, once they were married and settled in, there’d be plenty to discuss. Moving towards getting a few acres certified as organic, say, and looking at her notion of raising pigs. You couldn’t just keep plodding on, doing what you’d always done. And the new man with the uni degree might contribute ideas as well.
It was twenty to six by the time he’d finished with the tractor and he’d just managed to get himself showered when he saw Eileen’s car driving round to the kitchen door. Joe went out to meet her, fierce natty in a Hilfiger shirt and a pair of new chinos. Looking down from the open bathro
om window, Conor could see he was getting a bit thin on top. Eileen’s hair, which used to be short, now reached her shoulders. It was weird, though you’d have to admit it suited her. She seemed to have lost weight too.
As Conor came into the kitchen, she was telling his mam that she probably shouldn’t eat brack. ‘I’m on a really strict diet. I fancy myself as svelte now that I’ve got these hair extensions. Not the Atkins diet exactly – the same thing but with a modern herbal twist. I won’t stick to it, though, will I, Joe? Honestly, Orla, I’m dreadful! Show me a lovely brack like that and I’m slathering on the butter!’
Orla laughed and invited her to sit down. ‘Have something to eat anyway. The brack isn’t mandatory.’
‘But I daresay I’ll succumb to it. Actually, I’m sure I will. Wouldn’t you think I’d have a bit of self-control?’
Joe gave a laugh and smacked her on the bum. ‘Sure, you’ve no bloody self-control whatever! Look what you said to Aideen the other day.’
There was crackling silence in which Conor looked at him sharply. This was typical. A couple of weeks back Joe had chosen a safe moment to break the news of the family meeting at the farmhouse, and now he was using the same trick again. A lifetime of living with him told Conor this had to be a setup and, by the look of their mam’s face, she thought so too.
But clearly it wasn’t a setup that Eileen was in on. Looking from Orla to Conor, she shifted in her chair. Having said his piece, Joe was sitting back, waiting to see what would happen. Conor turned to Eileen and asked her what he’d meant. At the back of his mind he knew he was dancing to Joe’s bloody fiddle but, right now, he needed to find out what on earth she’d said to Aideen.
‘Honestly, Conor, I didn’t mean to upset her. Hasn’t she told you?’ Turning to Joe, Eileen spread her hands. ‘You see? It wasn’t a big deal. Aideen hasn’t even mentioned it.’
Her eyes were sending darts at Joe, asking why he hadn’t kept his mouth shut.
‘Mentioned what?’ Feeling his mam’s hand on his arm, Conor lowered his voice and controlled himself. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to shout. What did you say to Aideen?’
‘We were just having a chat about what she’d planned to wear.’
‘At the wedding?’
‘Well, yes. And it does sound lovely, and perhaps we could even find a way around it . . .’
Conor’s eyes narrowed and, seeing his face, Eileen changed tack. ‘. . . I mean, she said maybe we could use her colours as a theme. She did. And I’d be fine with that, Conor, really. I just thought I ought to mention something about the design.’
‘So what did you say?’
‘Oh, dammit, I didn’t mean it! She took it the wrong way!’
Conor turned to Joe, who shrugged his shoulders. ‘Look, if Aideen hasn’t said anything, the chances are that it’s fine. And, let’s face it, Conor, she couldn’t waltz down the aisle looking pregnant. Eileen’s right. What would people say?’
Conor felt the colour drain from his face. ‘You told her people would say she looked pregnant?’
Eileen looked at him beseechingly. ‘Well, that’s the way the girl is in the painting, Conor, you’ve got to see that.’ Turning round, she held out her hand to Orla. ‘Honest to God, I never intended to upset Aideen. I never even thought about her mum.’
‘Jesus Christ Almighty!’
Without waiting for his mam’s response, Conor blundered through the kitchen door out into the yard. Digging his phone out of his pocket, he frantically hit speed dial, praying incoherently that Aideen would pick up. But she didn’t. Her phone was still turned off.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Hanna stood at the courtyard gate and considered the nuns’ garden. It was what Pat Fitz always called ‘a pet day’. An extraordinary amount of growth had occurred since the last film club meeting. At the beginning of May the predominant colour in the garden had been the grey of the gravelled paths that ran between the herb beds. The conifers edging the far perimeter wall had added an unrelieved note of dark green, and the beds, which were mulched with bark, had still shown wide expanses of dark brown chippings.
Back then, the eye had been caught by the flash of birds’ feathers and sunlight on the fountain. Now, wherever you looked, there seemed to be hundreds of shades of green, and the clipped box hedges enclosed tracts of blue hyssop, white and yellow feverfew, and deep red bee balm, all flowering or breaking into blossom. It was too early for purple and pale blue lavender flowers, and for deep blue rosemary, but their grey-green leaves made a spreading background for lemon-yellow Moonshine yarrow, silver sage, and shimmering Firewitch dianthus.
At Hanna’s elbow, the red-brick wall of the old school was warm under green creeper; and at the far side of the garden, at right angles to the school building, stained-glass saints in the old convent’s windows glowed like tall flowers between their grey stone arches. As she stood there in the sunshine, movement by the polytunnel at the far side of the garden caught her attention. She stiffened. Beyond the fountain, Louisa was talking animatedly to some of the volunteers who tended the herb beds. Beside her, listening with his sleek head bent, was Malcolm. Instinctively, Hanna stepped into the shadow of the gateway. Even at this distance, viewed through the veil of shining water, his figure was unmistakable. And she could see he was charming the socks off the group gathered around him.
Though he’d arrived at The Royal Vic yesterday, Hanna had yet to encounter him. The previous night he’d given Jazz and Louisa dinner in Carrick and today, according to a text from Jazz, Louisa was taking him out to lunch and showing off Edge of the World Essentials. Presumably, having shown him the garden, she was about to take him into The Old Convent Centre. Hanna considered retreating into the library. But, as though he’d sensed her presence, Malcolm turned and waved.
It would be silly to pretend not to have seen him so, feeling absurdly like Alice in the looking-glass garden, she started down the gravelled walk, half wondering if, like Alice’s, the path would give a sudden twist and shake itself and lead her back in the direction from which she’d come. Instead, Malcolm and Louisa moved steadily along the path at right angles to hers and, unlike Alice and the Red Queen, they met within moments on the old convent step.
Malcolm was wearing Armani. He usually did. Hanna, who’d slept through her alarm, was wearing whatever had come to hand when she’d scrambled out of bed. The Audrey Hepburn scarf was at home at the bottom of a drawer. Uncomfortably conscious of the contrast between her own jeans and T-shirt and Louisa’s neat, calf-length dress worn with a string of pearls, she pushed back a stray strand of hair and pecked Malcolm on the cheek. ‘Good to see you. Are you comfortable at The Royal Vic?’
Knowing Malcolm, it was a toss-up between whether he’d find the Vic delightful or complain that it was provincial and badly run. Apparently, he’d decided on the former. ‘Extremely comfortable, and they keep a very good wine cellar. And a remarkable barman. We ate like lords there last night, so we’re planning a sandwich lunch here today.’
There was nothing for it but to admit that she’d been on her way to pick up a sandwich in the café.
Louisa beamed. ‘Well, join us, Hanna, won’t you? We’re popping up to show Malcolm round our offices. It shouldn’t take long. If you’ll find a table we’ll meet you there.’
‘Okay. Lovely. Will Jazz be with us?’
‘No, I’d hoped she would, but she’s off to a meeting.’
Hanna managed to keep her face in neutral. Leaving them to go upstairs, she walked briskly across to the Garden Café, telling herself that she couldn’t go round dodging Malcolm forever. Anyway, she’d already agreed to attend a family dinner tomorrow, when Malcolm was hosting the Turners and the Caseys at the Vic, with Brian thrown in. It was likely to be excruciating. Mary would take issue with Malcolm’s house sale; Jazz would be feeling the lack of Sam; and she herself was already wishing that Brian hadn’t been invited. So perhaps a sandwich with Malcolm and Louisa would serve as a kind of rehearsal and make h
er feel less apprehensive.
Having found a table and sat down with a coffee, she gave Jazz a call. ‘Where are you?’
‘On my way to a meeting. Where are you?’
‘Sitting in the nuns’ garden about to have lunch with your dad.’
‘And feeling that I’ve abandoned you?’
‘No. But I wondered if all went well last night?’
‘Of course it did. But, honestly, Mum, he’s already driving me crazy. He’s full of bright ideas about how we should grow the business. That’s why I’ve bunked off to this meeting. I was buggered if I was going to sit up in the office watching him making mental notes of what we’re doing wrong.’
‘There is no meeting, is there?’
‘Actually, I’m having a sneaky pub lunch with a book.’
Twenty minutes later, when Malcolm and Louisa joined her, Hanna could tell that he’d irritated his mother as well as his daughter. Louisa was being determinedly upbeat. She praised Hanna’s choice of table and announced firmly that the café’s food and ambience were better than anything comparable in London. ‘Such delicious sandwiches and so much local produce!’
Malcolm laughed indulgently and said that, where Finfarran was concerned, all her geese would seem to be swans. ‘It is a charming garden, though, I’ll give you that.’
‘Thank you, Malcolm. I was an avid gardener before you were born, so I suppose I may be allowed an uncontested opinion on that.’
Malcolm’s dark eyes danced. ‘Darling Ma, there’s no need to be prickly! All I said was that you might find a better place to rent as your HQ.’
‘And I’ve told you already that this place couldn’t be bettered. The facilities are splendid, and one could hardly find an environment more suited to our brand.’
The Month of Borrowed Dreams Page 22
