by Penny Feeny
‘Hell, I didn’t know there was money on it.’
‘These girls…’ Leo’s arm was draped across the back of Sheba’s chair, his thumb a centimetre from the dark lustre of her skin. His eye held Matt’s again, this time in a measure of defiance.
He’s not stupid, Matt told himself. He’s arrogant and provocative. He can be a prick. But he’s not an idiot. He knows she’s under age. He’s just messing, like Nathan with the cats. ‘I knew all along which was which,’ he said. ‘I can tease too. That’s the thing when you have a party trick. You’re the one in charge, not your audience.’
Kelly was sidling closer to him on what seemed to be the most rickety of the chairs. So it wasn’t much of a surprise when the chair wobbled and capsized and she fell directly into his lap. Leo snorted. Dan and Nathan had already left the table. Because Matt had been distracted by the colour test, he’d failed to spot Nathan using the spatula to lift some glowing charcoal onto the grass and encouraging Dan to add a wigwam of kindling. And when he did see the beginning of a blaze he couldn’t do anything about it because Kelly was spread-eagled heavily across him, refusing to right herself. Then some inkling made him turn his head, look past the debris to the top of the steps where Rachael stood, appalled.
She screamed and ran straight past him, knocking the boys aside and stamping out the embryo fire, even though she was only wearing slippers. Matt succeeded in pushing Kelly off his lap and got to his feet. ‘Christ, be careful! You’ll hurt yourself.’
‘I can’t believe you lot,’ she raged back. ‘How could you not notice?’
By now Danny was sobbing, upset by his mother’s wrath and confused by the change in the mood of the party. Rachael attempted to calm herself in order to comfort him, but he turned his face away.
In the lull, Kelly said to Sheba. ‘Come back to ours, yeah?’
Sheba said, ‘Nah, I’m cool here thanks.’ She was still sitting disturbingly close to Leo.
Rachael mouthed at Matt: No!
Matt said mildly. ‘Probably better if you get going, girls.’
Leo continued to smirk, but he moved his arm to reach for an empty beer can, which he crumpled in a quick clench of his fist. Kelly and Sheba put their heads together and whispered. ‘S’all right,’ said Kelly after a bit. ‘We’ve got stuff to do anyhow.’
‘Make sure you take him with you,’ said Rachael, pointing at Nathan.
‘Mummy,’ said Danny. ‘You’re spoiling everything.’
Matt was about to intervene when Rachael said to Leo: ‘You won’t be staying much longer either, will you? Don’t you have another friend you could go to?’
He ladled cream into his voice ‘My dear girl. You only have to say the word.’
‘It’s just that it’s been a bit much…’
‘I know. We’ve had quite a day. Don’t mention it. We understand each other.’
Matt was surprised to see Rachael blush and a curious look of complicity dart between them.
PART FOUR
Tuesday Wednesday
15
The Breakfast
As soon as she’d woken on Tuesday morning, Bel knew she was alone. Dolphin Cottage was small enough for her to be aware of another person’s breathing. Or their absence. In her pyjamas she pottered around the living room. Last night’s peat turves smouldered in the inglenook fireplace but they didn’t stop her poking her head under the mantel. At the top of the chimney she could see a tiny square of blue sky. She wrapped herself in one of the crochet throws intended to give the armchairs rustic appeal and went outside.
There was a field at the back of the cottage, nothing so grand as a garden, hemmed by a tumble-down fence and cultivated with thistles and ragwort. The westerly wind, which so often contorted birch trees and fuchsia hedges and swept pastures into submission, had abated. Dew glistened on the grass; the air was cool and refreshing; the light soft and clear. Rising in the background, the spine of mountain peaks was a breath-taking violet. She spotted a clump of wild flowers and picked some stems of white stitchwort and red campion. She brought them indoors and put them in water but they looked spindly out of their habitat so she left them on the windowsill.
She took a long shower and dressed in one of her Oxfam-find shirts and a pair of skinny jeans. She sat by the hearth and switched on RTÉ One, which offered little of interest. An electronic beep startled her and she seized her phone, hoping for a text, a morsel of gossip, the news that someone was missing her, but its screen was blank. The only calls she’d taken recently had been from Matt and Rachael, separately warning her of Leo’s descent. He hadn’t bothered to get in touch himself. Anyway, there wasn’t anything she could do. She hoped she’d made it clear that he should be prevented from hassling Julia.
The jingle had come from Julia’s laptop, which was set up on a small drop-leaf table and plugged into the socket below. Bel raised the lid and clicked it into operation. She found herself looking at a series of photographs, recently uploaded. Some she recognised from yesterday, when they’d had, on the whole, a successful outing. They’d driven around the glorious Dingle peninsula and taken the corkscrew climb to the summit of Mount Brandon. After a dramatic descent they’d arrived at the tiny harbour where St Brendan set off for Paradise and allegedly found America.
Perched at the edge of the Atlantic, the sense of isolation and stillness made it feel like the last place in the world. Julia had carried her digital camera in her pocket and whipped it out frequently. She hadn’t spoken much, but she’d squeezed Bel’s hand once or twice and the lines had been smoothed from her face the way stains vanish from laundry in clear air.
Bel scrolled through the images on the computer: the mist eddying over the Conor Pass, the raspberry pink pub at the quayside, the black-tarred coracles (just like St Brendan’s) upended on the shore. Then came photographs of a forbidding rock face, the sharp spikes of sea holly and a curving strand at dawn. The tide was low and there was no distinction between the sheen of the water and that of the wet rippling sand: both reflected the rising sun.
One snapshot followed another, so little difference between them Bel wondered if Julia had kept clicking the shutter by mistake. She realised, however, this was not a place they had visited on yesterday’s excursion; this was not a beach she had seen.
When she heard a key in the lock, instinctively she closed the lid. She would ask about the photographs, the purpose of them, but she’d choose her moment.
Julia entered as if laden with heavy baggage, although she was only carrying a newspaper, a carton of milk and a loaf of soda bread. ‘Slept well?’ she said. ‘You must have been tired.’
Bel inched back towards the fireplace. ‘Yes, I did thanks. Where have you been?’
‘Me, oh, I’ve been rambling about in the back lanes. And I’ve bought some breakfast.’
She set down her purchases and began to lay the table with plates, knives, butter and jam. She filled the kettle and fetched teapot and mugs. These actions were performed with a balletic poise that made it impossible for Bel to intercept or help. Eventually she sat down while her mother sawed through the loaf and poured out two cups of tea. Bel nibbled at the bread.
Julia said, ‘I wish you’d eat properly, darling. You need to put on weight.’
As if Bel didn’t know she was as spindly as the stitchwort. Why couldn’t she have said something more endearing, as Leo might have done: Let’s feed you up, my little chickadee. ‘I’m doing my best,’ she muttered.
‘It will always be there,’ said Julia. ‘In your gut, you know that. You have to build up your strength against it.’
Bel sipped the tea, which was too hot and too strong, and wondered whether Julia was referring not to the malaria at all, but to the wound she herself had received. Is that what she was doing here: testing old scar tissue?
‘Are you all right, Mum?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘I guess it ebbs and flows,’ said Bel. ‘Like you were okay yesterday, weren’t you, bu
t upset on Sunday. I wish you’d tell me a bit more about what you’re going through. You must have been really really mad at Dad.’
‘Yes,’ said Julia. ‘I was.’
‘Why? I thought you’d got all that heavy stuff out of the way.’ Her parents had divorced while she was at art college; she’d been taken aback by the speed of it.
‘I suppose my patience had worn thin.’
Bel ventured, ‘It’s not because of how much he hurt you?’
‘I know it doesn’t sound very romantic, but you’ll discover that love wears out too, like shoe leather.’
Except for first love, thought Bel. High on a pedestal. Love that didn’t have time to disintegrate – love that nobody else can match. ‘So are you going to explain why you came here?’
Julia’s dark eyes were opaque. ‘There isn’t an explanation for everything in life, you know. Sometimes the subconscious simply takes over.’ She added in a low whisper, ‘Perhaps it was connected to the shock of nearly losing you.’
Bel pushed back her chair and went round to the other side of the table. She wrapped her arms around her mother’s shoulders, which felt as tense as steel cable. She laid her cheek against Julia’s hair. ‘Well you didn’t. I’m still here.’
‘Yes, thank God, you are. And now I want to see you get better.’ Julia buttered another piece of soda bread and slathered it with jam. ‘You’ve been stuffed full of medication and I’m hoping, with a bit of luck, that fresh air and tranquillity will complete the process.’ She held out the plate.
Bel took it and sat down again. She bit into the dense, moist slice. Okay, she thought. You win.
Julia watched her eat. ‘Any idea what you’d like to do today?’
‘Well…’ Bel contemplated the glint of sunlight through the deep-set window. ‘I think I fancy a boat trip, maybe go out to see the dolphins. People swim with them, don’t they? It might be cool, you know, to watch them splashing around.’
A shadow of alarm crossed Julia’s face. ‘I’m not sure I’d fancy one of those tourist excursions,’ she said. ‘They cram you in and fleece you. And there’s only one dolphin after all.’
Oh God, thought Bel, she doesn’t want to be out on the water, does she? It’s bound to rattle her. What an idiot I am! Her phone was lying by her plate. It began to jiggle and, relieved by the interruption, she snatched it up without looking at caller display.
The Irish voice was at first unfamiliar. ‘I have to pay you back the money.’
‘Hello? Is that…?’ Well, how many Irishmen did she know? ‘What money?’
‘Saturday night in the hotel,’ said Tom. ‘I promised, didn’t I? And you shouldn’t be out of pocket because of me. Well I’ve been to the bank now. I have cash for you.’
Julia had also been to the bank, yesterday morning before they set off for Brandon; she was flush again. ‘It’s okay,’ said Bel. ‘I said I wanted to pay for myself anyhow.’
‘Ah, but it was our fault we made you stop over. You shouldn’t have had to fork out.’
‘It doesn’t matter any more. Honestly. How was the prodigal’s return?’
She could picture his quicksilver grin. ‘Prodigal! Enough to eat for a week.’
‘And Clemmie? How’s she getting on?’
There was a pause as if he didn’t quite know how much to tell her. ‘Oh… grand. In fact she’s wanting to see you too. Have you made any plans for the day?’
Bel shot a quick look at Julia who was wrapping the bread in cling film and replacing the lid on the jam jar. ‘Not yet. I’m still having breakfast.’ She wandered, as naturally as possible, across the room and through the front door, which gave on to an area of gravel and budding hollyhocks. She preferred to pace up and down during phone conversations.
‘Breakfast!’ he exclaimed. ‘We’ve been up for hours.’
‘Well I’m on holiday. I’ve been slow getting going, that’s all.’
‘Will you not meet us then? We could do with the distraction.’
‘You and Clemmie?’
‘I’m on my way to her now.’
‘In the car?’
‘Kieran doesn’t need it. He’s out helping my brother-in-law mend the fences on the lower pasture. He can bang a nail straight can Kieran.’
‘Can’t you?’
‘I’ve lost the inclination. Come on, Bel, aren’t you looking for a little distraction yourself?’
‘Well…’ She scuffed the gravel with the toe of her trainer. ‘I wanted to see the dolphin, but my mother’s not keen. She thinks it’s a rip-off tourist scam.’
‘She could be right. Fungi’s a draw because he’s so tame. But there are schools of wild dolphins in the bay and they’re a marvellous sight if you can catch them following the fish. We may be able to borrow a boat from Gerry Lenane if I can sweeten him first.’
‘That would be great. If you could…’
‘I can fix anything,’ he said.
‘Even straight nails?’
‘Anything I’ve an inclination for. Will I pick you up after I’ve fetched Clem?’
She glanced through the sliver of doorway. ‘Let me get back to you in a few minutes.’
Julia had spread the Irish Times over the table and was studying it through her rimless reading glasses. She looked up as Bel re-entered.
‘That was Tom.’
‘Tom?’
‘He’s one of the brothers who gave me a lift. He asked if… if I was up for an outing. I think he probably just wants some help with his kid.’
‘And do you want to go?’
‘Well we were in the middle of talking about it, weren’t we? What we might do. What do you think?’
Julia flattened the newspaper with the side of her hand. ‘I’m perfectly happy to stay in and read. But if you’re bored you should go out.’
She didn’t know how to interpret this. Why had her mother dragged her across the Irish Sea if she didn’t care whether she stuck around or not? Every time she reckoned she was making progress, getting to the heart of what was bothering Julia, she withdrew.
‘Fine,’ said Bel. ‘Then I will.’
16
The Ladder
Tom waited at the end of the drive so he wouldn’t have to negotiate the potholes in his brother’s car. Clemmie jumped out of the passenger seat and threw her arms around Bel’s knees. ‘Have you been having fun?’ Bel asked. The child nodded and began to talk about the new kittens she’d played with and the hens’ eggs she’d collected, warm in the straw.
‘Must be quite an experience for her,’ said Bel, as they set off. ‘Coming from the city, to see her grandparents’ farm.’
‘She’s talking about Sean’s place,’ said Tom.
‘You mean she hasn’t yet…?’
‘It’s tricky, with my dad being the way he is.’
‘Oh. But I thought… I mean, wasn’t that the whole point of bringing her with you?’
‘It’s not as easy as you think,’ said Tom. ‘Dad’s tired, still sleeping a lot. Mam’s obsessed with keeping things uncontentious…’ He overtook a milk lorry on a bend and cut in front of it so abruptly Clemmie would have skidded across the back seat if Bel hadn’t strapped her in. ‘And Sean and Kath have been taking good care of her. You just heard, she loves pottering around on their land.’
‘She’s not been anywhere else?’
‘Ah, Bel, you should be grateful for the joys of anonymity! It hits me whenever I come back – from Dublin, London, wherever – the way you can’t just stroll down a street teeming with strangers. Here every person you meet wants to know your business.’ He looked at her mournfully, his eyes the colour of the sea. ‘I find it hard adjusting.’
‘What do they want to know?’
‘What don’t they! Where am I living, who am I courting, what work am I doing…’
‘Is that a problem?’
‘It is when you’ve had as many jobs as me.’ He tapped out a list on the steering wheel. ‘Farmhand, singer, songwriter, postie
, barman, van driver, waiter, cook, salesman, TV runner, gardener, interior decorator…’
She interrupted. ‘What did you cook?’
‘Burgers.’
‘What did you sell?’
‘Swimming pools.’
‘Seriously?’
‘To ex-pats in Spain. And timeshares. Sunshine melts resistance you know.’
‘D’you speak Spanish?’
‘I didn’t really need to, but I picked some up.’
‘And the TV stuff?’
‘Outright exploitation, and I’m not good at being told what to do. I have a temper on me, Bel; you wouldn’t want to push me too far.’
Was that a warning? she wondered. And if a person had run through all those occupations by the time they were thirty and still didn’t know what they wanted to do… For Bel the magic number was more than four years off but she could see the shape of it on the horizon. It loomed, it definitely loomed. How would it feel to be rudderless?
‘Tell me about the singing.’
‘Ah, The Voice – it was my best talent once; sadly I peaked too soon. Now you’d have to wait till I had a few pints inside of me.’
‘My dad was very successful when he was younger,’ said Bel. ‘He’s an artist, an abstract painter. Leo Wentworth. Have you heard of him? No? Well his work was very fashionable in the late eighties, early nineties. And then it wasn’t, if you know what I mean. That Brit Art stuff took over. He kept plugging away of course but he found it quite hard to come to terms with. I think that’s why he had the affair, the one that led to my parents’ divorce. The ego takes a battering doesn’t it, with the stress of…’
‘Failure,’ drawled Tom wryly. He turned into a narrow lane; high hedges rising on either side formed a long green tunnel, like an entrance to a mysterious world.
‘So where are we going now?’
‘Moment of truth. I can’t put it off any longer. I need you, Bel, that’s the nub of it, to help break the ice.’
‘What ice?’ Bel remembered how cordially Sean and Kath had welcomed them.
