The Library at the Edge of the World

by Felicity Hayes-McCoy

  Now Brian nudged her with his elbow. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Well, I will anyway. You can’t do worse than murder me and consign me to the waves.”

  Hanna laughed. “Go on, then.”

  “Do you like your work?”

  She had anticipated another question about the nuns’ garden, so this one threw her. Playing for time, she looked at Brian sideways. “I might well ask you the same.”

  “Yes, but I asked you first.”

  “Oh, well if we’re going to behave like kids . . .”

  “Absolutely. Truth or dare.”

  Hanna groaned inwardly. If she hadn’t mentioned the de Lancy photos, they might still have been talking about seals. Then, to her own surprise, she found herself longing to confide in him. She was inspecting this fact when she realized that telling the truth at this stage would actually be an effective way to support her ongoing lies. For a moment she hesitated, struggling with the faintly ridiculous moral dilemma. Then she gave up and told him anyway. No, she said, she didn’t like her job much. Which was ironic since she’d always longed to be a librarian. Just not a librarian stuck in a nosy, provincial town.

  “I went away with plans for a big career in London and came home with nothing more than a broken marriage. And now I’m the local laughingstock working in the local library.”

  “Why a laughingstock? People’s marriages break up all the time.”

  “Yes, well, not everyone’s husband spends the entire marriage having an affair with another woman. She was a family friend, too, by the way, and seems to have spent most of the summers living in our home while his daughter and I were on holiday. Plenty of belly laughs there.”

  Hanna dug her heel viciously into the sand.

  “So, if I had my way I wouldn’t be working in a public library where everyone could gape at me. I’d probably just crawl under a duvet and never come out. And, for God’s sake, don’t tell me I’m being over the top. According to Sister Michael, the fact that men constantly make fools of me is their problem, not mine. But that’s not how it feels.”

  Brian stared out to sea without looking at her. From her first reference to the lawyer husband to the description of her difficult mother, talking about her personal life had clearly been painful for Hanna; and the truculent admission he’d heard just now had left her looking vulnerable as a child. But she’d trusted him, and to fail to show equal trust seemed unfair. So, with his eyes on the horizon, he told her his own story.

  The Wicklow childhood had been followed by boarding school in England because his dad had worked in the Gulf. Holidays had mainly been spent with aunts. “Very Kipling and Saki, except that I adored my aunts.” He had qualified as an architect and knocked around the world a bit gaining experience before returning to Wicklow to set up in partnership with a friend. Shane, who had been to school with him, was married with a couple of kids. Brian had got married as well, almost as soon as he came home.

  Contracts weren’t that easy to find, he said, but he and Shane had worked like mad to put their names out there, and, eventually, jobs had come in. Then, after a couple of years of doing extensions and local restaurants, they were offered the job they’d been waiting for, which would move them to a whole different league. Ten times the pressure and still very little cash flow. But they were on their way.

  Brian glanced at Hanna. It must have been the same for her when she went to England, he said. Everything to play for and the world at your feet. But then Sandra, his beautiful wife, had gone and left him.

  “You mean she just walked out?”

  “No. She died.”

  He spoke again before Hanna could react. “I’m sorry, that was melodramatic. And incredibly egotistical. But that really was what it felt like. And I’d never have believed it could happen.”

  It was cancer. Three months from her diagnosis to her death. “I told Shane that I wanted to keep working. I said it was the only thing that would keep me sane. Sandra was at home till the last couple of weeks and I worked from a desk in the house. And then that was how we continued after she went. I told Shane I couldn’t cope with sympathy and having to see people, and he said not to worry, to work from home.”

  Brian’s voice was strained. “We were coming up to a big meeting with the client. We’d planned a pre-meet to discuss the elements I’d been working on and get everything sorted. But when it came to it, I just couldn’t leave the house.”

  He drew his legs up and rested his chin on his knees. “I know it sounds pathetic. But I couldn’t cross the threshold. There was stuff that Shane needed for the meetings. He needed me to be there to give the presentation to the client. But I just locked my door and turned off my phone.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. I got into bed and I must have stayed there for a week. Shane was probably outside banging on the door like the Antichrist, but I didn’t hear a thing. When I got up I knew that we would have lost the contract.”

  “Surely not? I mean, it was awful but it was understandable.”

  “Yes, well, maybe you’re right. Anyway, I didn’t wait to find out.”

  Instead he had put his house for sale online at a crazy price. Well, not completely daft, but low enough to be certain of its being snapped up.

  “It only took a week to sell and by that time I’d driven to Carrick. And when the money came through I sent the lot to Shane.”

  Lying back on his elbows again, Brian looked up at Hanna. “And that’s me. Essentially irresponsible, personally and professionally. But, like you, I needed a job, so here I am. Overqualified. Fairly bored. But probably in the right place.”

  “But why Carrick?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. As far away from Wicklow as I could get. And there’s plenty of crags to climb on the peninsula. Maybe I’ll find my eagle on Knockinver.”

  After a couple of minutes Hanna said she was sorry about his wife.

  “Yep. She was nice. I think you’d have liked her.”

  They sat side by side saying nothing until Brian spoke again. “It all sounds faintly ridiculous when you say it out loud, doesn’t it? I don’t mean death or divorce, or even betrayal. I mean how one’s reacted.”

  “Yes, well, I think you get the prize for being over the top.”

  As soon as she’d spoken Hanna caught her breath, afraid that she’d sounded flippant.

  She darted a look at Brian who just grinned. “Oh well, that’s enough soul-baring. Shall we go back to books?”

  “I think we’d better.”

  But instead they sat in companionable silence watching the ocean for seals.

  51

  Over the next few weeks, while planting took place in the nuns’ garden, a new group of workers began to gather at the table in the library. When they plugged a laptop into the socket by the table, Hanna looked suitably disapproving and Conor played along. They weren’t using excess electricity or anything, he explained loudly and earnestly. It was just that the laptop was more powerful than the library’s desktops.

  The owner of the laptop was a gawky young man called Ferdia who was sitting at the table surrounded by four or five others including Fidelma Cafferky, Dan’s mum. Hanna had seen Seán Cafferky among the volunteers in the garden. Now she realized that the last time she’d parked the library van outside the Cafferky’s post office she’d seen Ferdia in the Internet café there, talking to Seán. Just as Sister Michael had intended, the networking process was taking on a life of its own.

  Conor dragged her over to the table. “Wait till you see this, Miss Casey. It’s brilliant.”

  It actually came from a suggestion of Aideen’s, he told her. Of course it was only in development at the moment, but it was going to be great. Before Conor could go on, Ferdia interrupted to say that there was no point in talking about multimedia. It was all about the interactive experience, and Miss Casey should see for herself. Then he clicked on his touchpad and a caption appeared
on the screen.

  WELCOME TO THE FINFARRAN PENINSULA

  Hanna watched in fascination as the lettering dissolved to reveal a stunning aerial photograph of the peninsula and a second caption.

  WELCOME TO THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

  A series of tabs then drifted onto the screen from left and right. Ferdia clicked the touchpad again, producing a line-drawn map of the peninsula with a series of hyperlinks in green.

  Conor couldn’t contain himself. “See what it is? A bunch of us got together and Ferdia’s building this website. It’s going to have every business and every place to go along the whole peninsula with links to people’s own sites or scans of their publicity. Posters, stuff about their services, everything.”

  Fidelma leaned over and nudged Ferdia. “Show her the EcoTours bit.”

  Beginning with one of Dan’s photos of the meteor shower, the Marine EcoTours section included a video of whale watching, descriptions of the various packages Dan offered, and links to local bed-and-breakfasts that did special rates for his clients. They were all small places that specialized in organic food, Fidelma explained to Hanna, and one was a farm that offered lessons in dry-stone walling for people who preferred to remain on land while their partners were out on the ocean.

  Ferdia clicked on tab after tab, revealing everything from graphic designers who did banners and wedding stationery to local shops, beauty spots, jumping castle and bike rental companies, massage courses, and restaurants. There was a gallery of gorgeous photographs by a local photographer you could hire to drive you around on your vacation, showing you all the best views and how to capture them.

  “And it’s not just about selling the peninsula to tourists. It’s about allowing people who live here to network.”

  Everyone around the table nodded in agreement. That was the big thing, Conor told Hanna. There was a forum where local people could post messages and everyone who was featured on the site could upload stuff to their own pages and flag it to each other if they wanted to.

  “So, like, if HabberDashery did something new like Bríd’s chocolates, yer man who’s doing the wedding stationery might be interested because people might want them as favors in little boxes. Or, say, a hairdresser might do special haircuts for a debs’ dance. Or we could stick up the dates when the lads with the machines would be coming round to cut silage.

  “Or let each other know if there was a bunch of people on bikes likely to be looking for lunch on a particular route.” According to Fidelma Cafferky, people running small shops and cafés were always driven mad by food waste. As soon as she’d said so, she clicked her fingers and grabbed a memo pad. “We could organize local food-waste delivery systems for people who wanted feed for pigs and hens.”

  Ferdia clicked through a couple of half-empty screens and opened a page that listed Finfarran’s wildflowers. The website was nowhere near being finished, he told Hanna, both in terms of its content and how it worked. But he was getting there. He wanted to add sections on Finfarran’s past and notable events in its history. Someone had suggested that the publishers of A Long Way to LA might be up for reissuing it as an e-book that could be downloaded from a page about Ballyfin. And Ferdia had wondered about the nineteenth-century photos in the de Lancy collection; did Hanna know who owned the copyright?

  Before Hanna could reply one of the older members of the group said firmly that paying out money for content was out of the question. Eventually they’d have to work out how to make the website self-funding, but right now Ferdia was building it for free. Other volunteers were collecting and collating the material and everyone was chipping in with development ideas. And of course everyone was grateful to Miss Casey and Conor for letting them use the library as a hub. Knowing that if it hadn’t been for Sister Michael she’d have done nothing of the sort, Hanna blushed. To her astonishment, she received a ripple of applause.

  “And, like I said, Miss Casey, it all started with something that Aideen said ages ago.”

  Conor was always eager to give credit where it was due. But maybe this time, thought Hanna, it was more than that. He and Aideen with their unassertive enthusiasms and capacity for hard work could almost have been made for each other. It would be nice to think that they might have a chance of a life together on the peninsula without either or both of them having to leave to get work.

  As she returned to her desk Hanna glanced at the poster on the notice board, realizing that it was only a few weeks before the county councillors’ vote. The night before, sipping sherry with Sister Michael, she had said again that she thought it might be time to go public about preparing a submission. There were meetings to be had, papers to be filled in. There was a rigorous time frame. But the nun remained quietly adamant. There was big money to be made from a new marina in Ballyfin, she said, and everyone in the council was dying for their new offices. Let them get wind of the word of resistance and anything might happen. This was a time for growth, she told Hanna, and what was needed was patience. The shoots from the seeds they had planted were already increasing in strength.

  52

  Fury continued to be uncontactable by phone. If Hanna wanted to speak to him she had to drive over to the house, where he and Dan were now working from seven in the morning six days a week. When he wanted to speak to her he rang her cell phone and hung up before she could answer. She complained but he just laughed at her. Sometimes, remembering her first conversation with Brian, she wondered if Fury was illiterate or just canny. Whichever it was, his determination not to put anything in writing extended to texts. That was no way to do business, he told her, or to have a civil conversation either. Couldn’t she see from her phone who it was that had called? And, since she knew where he’d be, couldn’t she come over and talk to him?

  She drove over early one morning when the dew was still on the fields. Dan was up on a scaffold, completing the walls of the new extension. The Divil, who was curled on the passenger seat of Fury’s van, was used to her now; when Hanna approached the gate he didn’t even lift his head. Inside the house, Fury was considering Maggie’s dresser, which still stood in its corner by the fireplace. As Hanna stepped across the threshold she drew in her breath. The glass in the dresser doors had been cleaned and polished and the drawers, which had been jammed half-open at angles, now fitted neatly as they should. The contents of the shelves, including Maggie’s old buttermilk measuring cup, had been removed and carefully placed in a box in the corner. And both the interior and exterior of the dresser had been given a new coat of paint.

  “So what’s the verdict?”

  Fury spoke without turning round, which gave Hanna time to control her reaction. The paint job on the dresser was immaculate. But the color was one that she’d never have considered for a moment.

  Fury looked round and, despite Hanna’s polite expression, seemed to sense her response at once.

  “Well, clearly Madam’s not happy so what’s the matter?”

  “Nothing. It’s great. It’s just . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t know that I’d have gone for that exact shade of terra-cotta red.”

  “You might not have, but Maggie did.”

  He had sanded back the grubby paint, which had turned a muddy shade of brown, he told her, and revealed the original color underneath.

  Hanna remembered it all too well. Somewhere between wine and brick red, it was a color that had once been highly popular in Finfarran’s kitchens. In Maggie’s case it had been confined to the dresser, but in other houses on the peninsula Hanna could remember it on every stick of furniture in the room. Since the last time she’d been here, Fury had cleared out the fireplace, sanded the floorboards, and removed layers of grease and dirt from the wide hearthstone. The kitchen units were installed, along with the sink and the slate counter. The high chimney breast above the fireplace was now painted a deep cream that, admittedly, did look well with the color of the dresser beside it.

  But this was no time to be thinking about decorat
ion. What she needed to do was revisit the question of money. What if some other arbitrary decision of Fury’s were to end up costing her a fortune? With no contract, no plan, no time frame, and no budget, nothing in this project seemed foreseeable.

  Fury took her by the elbow. “And come and look at this!”

  Stacked on a pallet in a corner were the fittings he had bought for Hanna’s bathroom. Hanna, who had become accustomed to his upcycling, was taken aback to see that they’d come from the HomeStore in Carrick. Only a while ago her initial instinct would have been to rant at Fury for making design choices without consulting her. Now she looked at the shower, the toilet, and the piping, trying to calculate their cost. Fury saw her reaction and shook his head.

  “I know what you’re thinking but that’s not the way to think. Never cobble stuff together when it comes to plumbing. It won’t pay in the long run and it only gives you grief. No, what you want in a bathroom is good middle-of-the-range stuff that goes in the way it was designed to and comes with a guarantee.”

  Hanna examined the boxes on the pallet, looking for a washer-dryer.

  “Ah, I wouldn’t get one of them at all, girl, I wouldn’t trust them. One machine for each job, that’s what I say. You’ll want a decent make of washing machine and a separate tumble-dryer.” Fury clapped her cheerfully on the back. “But don’t worry about the cost, I’ll find you a couple somewhere. It could be a while, mind, but sure where’s the harm in that? You’ll take your weekly wash back to your mam’s in the meantime, and the pair of you can have great chats together over the cups of tea.”

  With that, he jerked his head at her and marched her out into the sunshine. At the bottom of the field, which was now cleared, the boundary wall had been rebuilt. Hanna followed him down the slope to where three stones protruding from the wall made a stile that led to the broad ledge of grass by the clifftop. On that side of the wall, a plank resting on a stone plinth made a bench looking over the ocean. It was painted in the same shade of red as the dresser. Hitching his waxed jacket round his skinny hips, Fury sat down and waited for Hanna to join him. The setting of the bench was perfect, and here on the windy cliff, with a red fishing boat passing in the distance, the color looked fine. Hanna sat down and leaned against the wall. Early though it was in the day, the stone at her back felt warm. At her feet was the cushion of sea pinks she’d rested her muddy shoes on that first day that she’d climbed through the old extension window and found her way down the field.