The Library at the Edge of the World

by Felicity Hayes-McCoy

  From her place at the lectern she watched the faces in the audience. The reactions ranged from skepticism to dawning excitement. Then a voice from the back pointed out that money was scarce. Weren’t there bright lads in the council who’d already done the costing? Why would you think that some other plan might work better than theirs?

  Immediately, Conor’s hand waved in the audience. He’d been to the so-called consultation meeting, he said, and he’d heard the bright lads talking. Time-servers the lot of them, only dying for a cushy billet in a grand new council complex. No, the bottom line was that Carrick and Ballyfin would end up laughing and to hell with everyone else.

  Hanna could see several people from Carrick and Ballyfin in the center row mentally arming themselves for a fight. Hastily, she rapped on the lectern, interrupting a chorus of agreement and resentment.

  “The divisive nature of the council’s proposal is one reason why I called this meeting. We all live on the same peninsula. We need a budget proposal that reflects that, and offers scope for mutual support.”

  Once again she waited, with one eye on Sister Michael. They’d agreed beforehand that what they needed tonight was a consensus.

  Fidelma Cafferky stood up and asked a question. What kind of time frame were they looking at? It would take an awful lot of meetings to come up with an alternative proposal.

  “We’d have to discuss ideas and agree to them and find a format for a presentation . . .” Fidelma looked apologetically at Hanna. “I’m sorry, Miss Casey, but I don’t see how it’s to be done.”

  “And what difference will the council’s plan make in the long run?” A man who farmed round Crossarra was on his feet. “Sure, there’s nothing they haven’t already taken away from us.”

  “But don’t you see?” Hanna could hear her voice sounding strained. She controlled it with an effort and spoke with assurance. “With a different investment strategy everyone’s lives could be improved. Not just people who’d benefit from the marina and the new council complex.”

  Fidelma’s point was valid, she said, and there were only four weeks left to make a submission. But half the work involved was already done. The garden project had produced working groups and The Edge of the World website had already collated masses of information.

  “We have lists of names and businesses, details of services, hard evidence of how cooperation has produced partnerships, and potential for growth. We’re building a community infrastructure that can grow Finfarran’s revenue exponentially.”

  Suddenly she stopped and grinned. “And it may be useful that I appear to have learned how to sound like what Conor calls a pen pusher.”

  There was a ripple of laughter and she felt her audience relax. Squaring her shoulders, she glanced at Sister Michael. Then, seeing a flicker of assent in the old nun’s eye, she came to her final point.

  “And no, they haven’t taken everything from us. Not yet. But if their proposal goes through we’ll lose Lissbeg Library. And there’s a good chance that the garden project will be shut down as well.”

  A week later, at the corner table in the library, Hanna was chairing a committee on Finfarran’s broadband coverage while, at the other side of the room, Pat Fitz gave a class in Internet use to a group of Knockmore seniors. At tables in the nuns’ garden, volunteers were working through lists of data illustrating aspects of what they’d agreed to call The Edge of the World submission. In Sister Michael’s living room, Ferdia, the gawky website designer, was preparing a hard-copy template based on the flowcharts he’d already created for his web pages. And Aideen and Sister Michael were charging to and fro across Broad Street bringing sustenance to the workers.

  Initially Pat’s computer group had no involvement with the submission. It was simply that, once the idea for a class in Lissbeg had been floated, the seniors wouldn’t let it drop. Over coffee in the garden, someone had remembered that Pat kept in touch with her grandkids over the Internet. Wouldn’t learning about Twitter and Facebook be a great way to get into computing? Then, as everyone agreed that it would, Nell Reily had had an idea. While they were at it, wouldn’t the same classes send a great message to the council? The trouble with those lads was they had an answer for every argument. If you told them you’d miss the books they’d say they’d still send them round in the van. But the computer classes would demonstrate that the library itself was important. And you could walk round while you were in there and pick out a book as well.

  In fact, increasing support for the submission was appearing on all sides. After the public meeting, Oliver the dog man had cornered Hanna. Was it really true that the library might be closed?

  “The way it is, Miss Casey, I like to begin a thing at the beginning, go on till I come to the end, and then stop. Now, at twenty minutes every second day I’d say I’ve a good way to go yet on my dog search. So God knows what I’ll do if they decide to close you down.”

  To Hanna’s dismay, he then produced a placard with which he planned to picket the library. It was painted in huge black letters and read:

  I AM LOOKING FOR A BOOK.

  Fortunately, Conor had diverted him to assisting with the coffees, and, according to Aideen, he was fast becoming a barista, with feathering skills almost equal to her own.

  Now, Oliver approached Hanna’s work party with an order pad. There had been a point at which Hanna was under pressure to lift her embargo on drinks in the library. But that was a bridge too far, so a compromise had been reached. Orders were taken before a session was due to end and the workers took their break in the garden. Actually, it was a solution that pleased everyone because it was great to stretch their legs.

  What astonished Hanna even more than the growing support for the library was the extent of the personal support for herself. Ferdia had a brother who owned a riding lawn mower and went round in the summer cutting people’s grass. He was in huge demand, but Ferdia assured Hanna that once she’d moved into her new house he’d find her a place on his list. Hanna feared that by next summer she’d have plenty of free time to cut her own grass and no money to pay someone else to do it, but she appreciated the offer. Then Orla McCarthy, Conor’s mum, flagged her down on the road one day. She wasn’t looking for a book, she said, she just wondered if Hanna could use some old furniture. Taking her round to the cowshed, she showed Hanna three upright, straw súgán chairs and a low fireside one with broad armrests and a high back. They had come out of her granny’s house, she explained, and had ended up in the cowshed because no one had the heart to throw them away. Hanna was astonished. They were genuinely old, the wood polished by generations of hands and the straw-rope seats undamaged. When Hanna protested that they were heirlooms Orla shook her head.

  “Ah, sure what kind of an insult is it to the past, Miss Casey, if nobody ever uses them?”

  She liked the chairs herself, she said, but she had no place to put them.

  “Then Conor said you were doing up an old house and I thought they might suit you. As a gift, mind, I wouldn’t take money for them, especially from you. Not after all your kindness to Conor.”

  Deeply touched, Hanna had thanked her and Conor brought them round that evening in the bucket of the tractor. Hanna was slightly horrified by the mode of transport but he assured her that he’d lined the bucket with perfectly clean fertilizer bags.

  A few days later, when Hanna was at the house talking to Fury, a stranger appeared with a package. She turned out to be the daughter of an elderly woman who lived in Lissbeg.

  “You wouldn’t know me, Miss Casey, because Mum and I moved to Lissbeg when you were in London. But she really relies on the library and I hear you’re putting up a great fight to keep it open.”

  She was an accountant herself, she said, and she’d already offered to join the volunteers working on the submission.

  “But this is just something I thought you might like for your house.”

  Unwrapping the package she revealed a patchwork quilt as beautiful as a work of art, patterned i
n yellows, greens, and grays.

  “Mum’s had it put away for years. I’m afraid it might smell of mothballs! But Orla McCarthy said you liked old furniture so I thought it might suit you.”

  When the woman was gone Hanna carried the quilt into the garden and spread it over a furze bush, breathing in the warm coconut smell of the yellow flowers. Fury came out behind her with The Divil at his heels.

  “We’ll have to put you up a washing line like Maggie’s.”

  Remembering the salt tang of Maggie’s sheets and the feel of rough cotton dried in the sun, Hanna smiled. She’d put a clothesline on her list, she said, right after a kitchen table and a bed.

  “Well, you can cross the bed off the list anyway.” Fury scratched The Divil under the chin with the toe of his boot. “I dumped Maggie’s old mattress but I kept the bedstead. It’s a grand bit of iron and brass and it’s cleaned up lovely.”

  Maggie’s bed had had a high rail at the head and foot and a paisley-patterned eiderdown, which Hanna remembered had seemed to weigh a ton. She looked dubiously at Fury who laughed.

  “You’ll like it when you see it. And, sure if you don’t, can’t you sell it for a fortune to an antique dealer? Just so long as you split the profit with me and The Divil.”

  Hanna wasn’t sure. The bedroom was just big enough to take a double bed, a chair, and a chest of drawers. At one end of it there was a ceiling-high built-in cupboard. She had spent several evenings painting the cupboard and the window frames a creamy gray and the walls a soft shade of yellow. Then she’d papered the interior of the cupboard in green paisley wallpaper, which was as far as she’d intended to go in terms of a nod to the past; the idea of sleeping in Maggie’s old bed seemed a step too far. But the next time she came to the house she was enchanted. Fury had restored the bedstead and put a coat of cream enamel on its head and foot rails, leaving the polished brass balls on the bedposts unpainted and shining. As Hanna stood and admired it, he shouted through from the other room. “I ordered you a new mattress when I was in getting primer in Carrick and that quilt you got from yer woman will look grand.”

  Standing in the tranquil bedroom, Hanna was amazed by her good fortune. Yet underneath her pleasure was a feeling of dread. With each passing day she was falling more deeply in love with the house. What would she do if she were to lose it?

  56

  The work on The Edge of the World submission was going swimmingly. Each evening when Hanna closed the library she crossed the garden for a meeting with Sister Michael. Ferdia, who did daily updates on the core document the volunteers were producing, had given Hanna his spare laptop so she could keep tabs on the overall progress. The bishop, who was in favor of anything that would take the convent off his hands, had extended its insurance policy to cover public access to the garden. And, to Sister Michael and Hanna’s delight, he had given Father McGlynn definite instructions not to involve himself in the submission, lest anyone accuse the Church of feathering its own nest.

  The garden working parties had spawned new groups that were taking on responsibility for different aspects of the submission. Several were composed of a mixture of young businesspeople and seniors whose varied skills and experience occasionally produced conflict. Jimmy Harty, a seventy-nine-year-old who had once been head of the council’s Roads Division, had somehow got attached to the Finfarran Flora and Fauna group and fallen out badly with Darina Kelly who was chairing it. But then Dan Cafferky’s dad pointed out to Hanna that Jimmy’s background made him the perfect man to address the peninsula’s lack of decent roads. Within hours, Jimmy was chairing his own group and digging out paperwork on an unimplemented scheme that he’d once worked on for the council. If they re-costed it, he said, they could add it as an annex to the submission, which would beef things up. A graphic designer who lived in a village north of Knockmore had been co-opted to the group for his computer skills, and, according to Ferdia’s latest update, the work was now forging ahead.

  Sitting over sherry with Sister Michael, Hanna considered the time chart that was pinned to the living-room wall. So far everything was going to plan, but with the council’s decision meeting only three weeks away, no one could afford to slacken. And new ideas kept presenting themselves. Someone had pointed out that Internet access was a big issue so a hastily convened group was researching government policy on rural broadband provision and establishing how far the peninsula fell short of it. Meanwhile Hanna and Sister Michael had decided that, as well as producing an online submission complete with hyperlinks, they needed to make a bound hard copy for each county councillor who would vote at the meeting. It would involve masses of printing, collating, and checking, but in the end it should be worth it. And, to be certain of avoiding sabotage, the hard copies would be hand-delivered to the councillors’ private addresses.

  Hanna left Sister Michael painfully typing up the next day’s agendas on the convent’s old Remington typewriter and walked back across the garden toward the parking lot. Susan and little Holly were sitting on the rim of the fountain watching birds eating bread from the outstretched hands of the stone statue of St. Francis. Hanna sat down beside them, listening to the little girl’s squeaks of delight and the sound of the falling water. It seemed incredible that, for better or worse, these intense weeks of effort would soon be over. Right now, at the end of an exhausting day, it seemed all too likely that their work would have been for nothing. Suddenly Susan nudged her, indicating Holly whose eyes were as round as pennies. A bird had fluttered down from the statue’s hand and was pecking at a piece of crust by the child’s shoe. The look on Holly’s face swept Hanna straight back to Jazz’s London childhood, when they’d walk home from the local library and stop in the park to feed the birds.

  Held both by the past and the future, it took Hanna a moment to realize that Susan was asking her a question. Had she heard about Pat Fitzgerald’s bargain plane tickets? It was a brilliant deal, Susan said. Pat had been showing her computer class how to use a search engine when she’d clicked on an airline’s website and found this great offer on flights to where her kids lived in Canada. There were only four seats left at the price and the money was nonrefundable. But it was an amazing deal, and, fair play to Mrs. Fitz, she’d reached for the handbag and gone for it.

  “You mean she bought them without consulting Ger?”

  “She did! She put them on her credit card and rang him up and told him and, by all accounts, he was delighted.”

  Hanna wondered if Pat would have been quite so brave if her computer class hadn’t egged her on. Still, it was a great story, even if it was likely to devastate poor, indignant Mary Casey. On the other hand, it might have the opposite effect and make Mary herself more proactive. With so much excitement going on in Lissbeg, and so much talk up and down the peninsula, Hanna had a growing suspicion that her mother was feeling left out.

  Later that night, when Hanna got home to the bungalow, instead of complaining about her lateness, Mary produced hot chicken soup and a loaf of delicious homemade soda bread. Then she sat down and pumped Hanna about the events of her day. What was the story in the library? And what was all this guff she’d been hearing about Hanna carrying on like Joan of Arc? More to the point, what was all the talk about people giving Hanna bits of furniture?

  Hanna sighed, anticipating an argument. But, turning on her heel, Mary went to a cupboard and returned with a shopping bag.

  “Heirlooms and old things, that’s what they’re saying they’ve been giving you. Stuff out of old cabins that was shoved out into sheds! Well, it’s far from súgán chairs you were reared, Hanna-Mariah Casey. Though God knows you didn’t appreciate it.”

  Dumping the bag on the table, she stood back and glared at Hanna. “And it’s not as if your mother’s family hasn’t heirlooms of its own.”

  Inside the bag was a shawl. Hanna shook it out in amazement. It was made of thick beige wool with a broad black and cream band around the edge and a fringe a hand span deep. She pressed her face against the wool
, which smelled of oil and lavender.

  Mary tossed her head. “It was your granny’s. My mam’s. And her mother’s before her. I don’t suppose you’re going to be fool enough to go out with it round you like a hippie. But you might throw it on a bed or the back of a chair.”

  Before Hanna could speak, Mary stumped away again, this time to the dresser. Opening a door, she took down a battered cardboard box.

  “They were my grandma’s, too. Basins, she called them. The old people hereabouts used to use them for drinking tea.”

  Hanna had seen similar bowls in France and Brittany. They were pottery, made without handles, wide enough to require two hands to grasp them and deep enough to allow you to dip a croissant in your coffee.

  There was no point in waxing lyrical to Mary Casey. Instead Hanna just put the gifts into the shopping bag and said thanks. When she went round to the house the next day she found that Johnny Hennessy had left a fertilizer bag full of black turf on the doorstep. She carried the bag through to a corner of the unfinished extension and, taking an armful of sods of turf through to the hearth, laid a fire, ready to be lit when she moved in. Then she hung the shawl on the back of the súgán chair by the fireside and placed the bowls on a shelf in the dresser alongside Maggie’s buttermilk glass. The house was still unfinished and there were dozens of other things that had yet to be bought, thought about, and decided upon. But now, sitting by the hearth with her hands in her lap, she felt that she’d truly come home.

  57

  As the day of the councillors’ vote approached, the pressure was really on. Last-minute ideas kept occurring to people who wanted them added to the submission, and Hanna and Sister Michael had to be firm. Then, just as Hanna was about to approve the final printing, Conor turned up on his Vespa with a man from Ballyfin. He was a fisherman, Conor explained, who had rung him up last night saying he wanted to speak to Miss Casey. The library was crowded so Hanna took them into the kitchen. With the three of them crammed together the space seemed small.