by Faith Hogan
All of the major renovations were complete now. The builders had been and gone. In their wake, they left behind not just new plumbing, electrics, kitchen and damp proofing, but also a mess that in some ways represented more work than when they began. The curtain fitters had finished just this morning. Now she had blue and off-white ticking at the windows and in thick seat pads on each of the chairs and benches. When they looked in the stores, there was enough crockery to last a lifetime. Delicate china cups, saucers and side plates, all with a light blue wisteria pattern. On Rita’s advice, Kate had gone out and purchased ten dozen white dinner plates, the best quality she could get. They would continue to use the heavy cutlery Zoe had spent almost two days shining back to its former glory.
Colin showed her how to build a fire and keep it going for the whole day using local turf. ‘A moving-in present,’ he told her as he unloaded a heaped trailer of the stuff into one of the sheds at the back of the bathhouse. ‘Plenty more where that came from.’
Kate loved the smell of it, burning softly away in the big recessed chimney.
‘I think we should have a fire every day,’ she said to Rita.
‘You might need to, even on the hottest days outside, you’re going to be facing the ocean breezes coming through that door.’
So, it was the first thing Kate did each morning when she came into the bathhouse. She emptied the ashes from the previous day and built up a new fire for the day ahead. While it took off, she set up her first cup of coffee. It took nearly a week for them to become proficient in making proper coffee. They still weren’t exactly baristas, but they were improving with every cup. Sitting by the fire, with the aroma of fresh coffee before her, she would then set about writing out her list of things to do for the day. It was the nicest part of her day. Sometimes, she just thanked whatever had sent her to this place; she was meant to be here, this she knew for sure.
*
Kate planned to move into the flat on the Friday before she opened the bathhouse for business. She’d miss staying in the hotel with Iris and Archie, but she was looking forward to getting settled all the same. She would see them every day, after all, they were a big part of why she loved it here. Finally, she felt like she had family around her and she knew it was as important to them as it was to her.
‘Housewarming?’ Colin said hopefully, but there was too much to do and, anyway, they were a week away from the official launch of the bathhouse. ‘You’ll have to mark it, somehow.’ He gave her a huge bunch of wild flowers, tied with string bleached by years of sun. Then he helped her to assemble the sleigh bed, which had arrived to much local amusement, in a forty foot truck that had no way of making it down the narrow path to the bathhouse. It had taken Colin and a few of the local men half a day to transport it between two small trailers and manoeuvre the parts up the winding cast-iron stairs to her flat. ‘We should at least head down to the Weaver’s Knot for a nightcap before you stay your first night.’
‘Okay.’ She liked the Weaver’s. It was the only pub in the village open the whole year through.
Although she’d only been here a couple of months, already she felt like a local. Her first few visits were greeted by the curious looks of the old men who kept the business afloat in the dead months. As the weeks had crept by, she noticed the place fill up a little more each time. Now, on Friday and Saturday nights there was live music and the pub was packed by nine o’clock in the evening. It was strictly a beer and crisps sort of place. Plenty of Guinness and a friendly welcome – just what she thought Irish pubs were supposed to be.
Colin signalled to the owner from the doorway. A pint and a glass of black stuff and Kate grabbed two high chairs along the bar. She was glad to sit, the bar was full of stools made from tractor seats perched on single steel uprights. They were surprisingly comfortable. The place was wedged. The music struggled over the loud voices and laughter of local drinkers and visitors sampling what the town had to offer. Rita never came out with them for these evening drinks.
‘Someone has to look after my old Duncan,’ she said. ‘Barry has shoes to chew and an allergic reaction to aggravate.’ Apparently, Duncan came out in a rash if Barry so much as looked at him and this seemed to give Rita more satisfaction than any sticky toffee pudding. Kate had a feeling that Rita headed home to an empty house and an evening spent in the company of her adored Barry and the television soaps. ‘Anyway, you don’t want me cramping your style,’ Rita had said when Kate pressed her.
‘Believe me, I don’t have any style left to cramp,’ Kate laughed, and it was true, everything was so much more laid-back here than in London.
‘You could do worse, you know?’ Rita had smiled conspiratorially. ‘He’s the best catch around these parts, easy on the eye and he’s solvent. I wouldn’t want to be putting you off Colin, just because I married a bit of a spare.’ Kate had a feeling that she wasn’t joking, in spite of the hammy winks. She also had a feeling that Rita was spot on, he was the most eligible man she’d seen in the village.
Colin handed her the glass of Guinness, rescuing her from her thoughts.
‘Thanks for that,’ she said, sipping it. She had a low tolerance for alcohol, no point pretending otherwise, any more than two of these and he would be carrying her home. He seemed happy with two pints as well and she never asked, but she assumed he had the same resistance to the stuff. She looked at him now; he was handsome, in a rugged sort of way. His face was slightly more weather-beaten than the men she met in London, but his eyes were alive in a way she had never seen. If they held some sadness, they did not linger in it. His voice lilted with the kind of infectious enthusiasm that made you feel like he would always find the good in life. Kate wasn’t looking for love, or at least, she wasn’t aware that it was something she was looking for. Colin Lyons threw something stark at her and it took her a while to fathom it. Colin was probably the nicest, most suitable man she had ever met. They never spoke about love or romance. They were strictly friends. He was a good friend. Kate felt that the more time she spent with him, the more she was aware of him. She watched when he stood waiting for their drinks, other women noticed him too. She wondered why he had never married. He was the only decent-looking man in town at his age. The rest of the men were either married or too fond of standing in the Weaver’s Knot most nights. Part of her knew, that if he was snapped up from under her nose she would be sorry. Sometimes, she wondered too if he wanted to be anything more than friends. Or indeed, if deep down, whether she wanted to be anything more than friends.
‘Colin, I owe you thanks for more than just the drink, you’ve been a great…’ she wasn’t quite sure what the right word was.
‘Friend?’ he smiled and her stomach did a little flip. ‘It’s what we do here, you’re going to be my neighbour, and of course I’m going to help you when I can.’ He sipped his pint now, looked at the crowd thronged about the bar. ‘I’m glad to have you, to tell the truth. Sometimes living out there,’ he nodded towards the sea, ‘well, it can be a little…’ he thought for a moment, ‘isolating.’
‘Of anyone here, I’d say you never need to feel isolated, Colin.’
‘Oh, you think?’
‘Surely you’ve noticed how the women look at you; you should be married by now with a family. You wouldn’t be isolated then?’ she raised her glass, she had broached the subject bravely, but keeping eye contact might give her thoughts away.
‘The same could be said for you,’ he said, suddenly finding the contents of his pint glass very interesting.
‘Oh, my story is very tragic,’ Kate smiled. ‘Dumped at the altar, so long ago it shouldn’t matter anymore.’ It was good to talk about Todd and not become emotional.
‘God, I’m so sorry,’ Colin looked at her now and she could see it in his eyes that he was.
‘It’s history now, but it was the only time I came close to anything that might lead to…’ she smiled at him, ‘domestic contentment.’
‘And there’s been nobody else?’
<
br /> ‘No one I’d settle down with. Basically, no one that lasted more than two weeks.’ She leant over towards him, lowered her voice, ‘I’m very fussy and London isn’t exactly thronged with the kind of men I want to spend the rest of my days clearing up after.’
‘Well, his loss,’ Colin said and the light blue of his staring eyes held her in their trance for a second too long. ‘My story is much more boring. I fell in love much too young, didn’t realize how to handle it and I messed it up.’
‘So?’
‘She married someone else, they’ve left here now. The last I heard they were living in Baltimore; she works in computers and he’s a big noise in the security business.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Kate knew she genuinely was.
‘Ah, sure that’s life, isn’t it? It wouldn’t have worked out anyway; I mean we grew into two very different people. I couldn’t see her being happy to live on the side of a mountain with the sunset being the highlight of the day.’
‘I suppose you’ve heard that there are plenty more fish in the sea.’ Kate spotted a local girl, late twenties giving him the eye.
‘Oh, I’m not a hermit, or anything like that. I’ve had my fun, but in a town like Ballytokeep, you can’t knock about too much without there being expectations and I haven’t met anyone that I’d share my sunsets with.’
‘Hmm,’ Kate said, suddenly not sure that she wanted to continue this conversation. She intended to live in Ballytokeep for a very long time and that meant that she needed to keep her neighbours as her friends. The last thing either of them needed was a failed love affair and all the baggage that might mean between them.
‘I agree.’ Colin covered her hand with his, reading her thoughts, he lowered his voice, ‘It’s probably better if we stay friends, although, you know that I feel a great deal for you.’
‘How do you manage to do that, it’s like you’re reading my mind half the time?’ She smiled at him, was he letting her down gently? Perhaps, but she was glad in some ways that they had named what lurked between them. Maybe a little sad that they both knew it was better to carry on as friends.
*
Colin walked her back to the bathhouse that night, kissed her lightly on her forehead before she ran inside and bolted the door. The flat was perfect. She kept the antique sideboard and the large dining table. Robert Hartley’s papers had covered almost every available surface of the flat; for now she had moved them into the spare bedroom.
‘Burn them,’ Archie told her, when she brought back some of the old ledgers that he had recorded the day’s takings in. ‘It’s of no use to any of us now,’ he said. ‘We should have cleared it all out years ago, but to be honest, I never had the nerve to do it and Iris wouldn’t have the heart.’ Maybe, Kate thought now as she flicked through a notebook that belonged to Robert Hartley, she didn’t have the heart either.
She lit two Kinsale candles in the windows, luxuriated in the scent of heavy fragrant wax mixed with the turf smoke. In the open fireplace, she had set a fire earlier. It welcomed her now with an orange glow that warmed her face as she sat before it.
This was her first night in the bathhouse and as she lay in her familiar bed tucked beneath the arched window, she snuggled between the crisp sheets to the sound of the waves crashing on the rocks below. She was home.
12
Todd
Denny just thought Todd would grow out of it. Todd knew it was why he drove him to the airfield and patted his back as though fortifying him. ‘See you soon, mate.’ Of course, he would, because if Todd didn’t forget about this whole crazy plan, Denny would just move the tour forward. Todd was flying over there a couple of times a week now, but the place was nowhere near finished. Perhaps when it was, Denny would understand or maybe Todd believed he’d be ready to settle back into ‘real life.’ Meg wasn’t so sure, she said it suited him. Denny said Todd wouldn’t survive more than a week away from London. A night or two over there with the sea howling up at his door would surely be enough to bring Todd to his senses.
They were mates, first and last and their business partnership was just a lucky coincidence that boosted their friendship. Denny had come across him when he was living in a squat in London. Denny put the band together, got them their first deal and shepherded their way through the last two and a half decades. It was Denny that put up his Christmas dinner every year. They both knew Todd had nowhere else to go and Meg knew just how to do things right. Todd would arrive, Christmas morning, a bottle in each hand. Perfume for Meg, whiskey for him and Denny. Meg. He loved Meg as if she was his own sister. Meg looked out for him too. Meg had fed him, sobered him and put him to bed, too many times over the years to count, and she was still there. She stood, staunchly in the background, with kids of her own, a home running on a constant supply of love and pots of tea and family dinners, but always looking out for Todd. Their kids were big now, with flats of their own and lives of their own. It struck Todd, one day as he was walking along the sea front in Ballytokeep, that it was time that he too struck out and made a life for himself.
Since the band made their first top ten hit, Todd had lived as he felt a rock star should. He moved from the squat into a hotel room and never moved out. The Embassy Rooms suited him. It was a faded nineteen seventies colossus, with an owner who liked to beat him at poker and a suite of rooms he now called home, whatever that was. The staff knew how he liked things done. They understood how important it was to him that things were just so; soap on the left, toothbrush on the right, no dust, no ribs, no germs. All the same, leaving for Ballytokeep, checking out after over twenty years, it would be liberating. He would not miss it. He wouldn’t miss London either, nor and this surprised him, would he miss the guys in the band. They were all getting on with their own complicated lives. He’d miss Denny and Meg. Denny picked up the pieces of his heart attack. And Claudia. He’d miss Claudia, after all, they had been together for a while now. He was sure to miss her, wasn’t he? As Denny said, he was lucky to have a girl like Claudia around, even if things were a bit strained since Atlantic City. It’d all sort itself out in the end, that’s what Meg said, it was time he settled down now. Maybe, being out of London was the best thing he could do for all of them.
*
Rock Castle was coming along quickly. He was pouring a barrel of cash into it, ‘get it done fast and get it done right.’ He might not have an expensive designer on board, but he knew what he wanted. Life for Todd needed to be simple; it needed to be clean and it needed to be organized. The guys in the band called him ‘OCD Todd’, but he’d much rather be called discerning. He put it down to his poverty-filled youth. This castle was going to be his home and he wanted to please himself; he was glad to be here on his own.
Ballytokeep was in off-season mode for now; each time he visited, he managed to go unnoticed. He wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or depressed about that.
Skeffington had put him in the way of a couple of builders. They were working fast, with a sea of yellow high-vis vests, hammering and chiselling from early morning until late at night. Todd had a feeling they weren’t the cheapest, but he also knew instinctively they were the best. The castle was taking shape, morphing from a dilapidated barbican into a space that could yet be welcoming. The finer points could hold off until he found someone who would do a tasteful job, maybe he would call Bono or Jeremy Irons – he had a place somewhere down south. Skeffington suggested a few names, but Todd had muttered something about having to think about it and then changed the subject. The truth was he just wanted to get into the place. He wanted to move in, and he knew that some crackpot ponce walking about with colour palettes and swatches would only drive him bananas.
Summer was tripping closer by the day. Todd knew one thing for sure; he wanted to spend it here, in the tower looking out onto the Atlantic Ocean. He had a feeling he’d be content with nothing more than a cup of strong Irish tea in his hand, the sun in his eyes and the wind on his face. He wanted to walk along that beach each morning be
fore the world woke up and enjoy the sun disappearing over the horizon every evening. Maybe he would make his way down to that cute bathhouse for a look, or walk up to the quaint hotel for a glass of something small.
*
Denny landed at Knock airport at three o’clock, one very sunny May afternoon.
‘A mad place altogether, whoever heard of an airport built on a fen?’
‘Here, we call it the bog,’ Todd said wryly, but he was delighted to see Denny.
‘Very apt.’ Denny started to laugh, ‘Don’t even get me started on the roads.’ He scratched his head. ‘Seriously, the lads are wondering when we’re getting back on the road.’ They both knew this was a lie. The lads were up to their necks in their own lives; apart from the band, there was a chasm between them. They didn’t meet up these days unless there was a reason and that usually involved getting paid. Todd wasn’t even sure they liked each other very much more anymore.
‘Oh, yeah, I got their flowers,’ Todd looked at him. ‘Come on, Denny, it’s all about alimony and college fees these days for them.’
‘Naturally enough.’ Denny smiled. ‘I’m wondering when you’re coming back, and so is Meg.’
‘I don’t know. Like I told you, I’m…’
‘Having a break?’ They had breaks before, only then it had been Todd itching to get back to work. This was different, Todd knew it was, and maybe Denny knew it was too. They walked in silence along the narrow track that led to the castle. Beneath them, the bathhouse baked in the afternoon sun, and below that, cool waves lapped hungrily at the giant purple rock that jutted out over the water.
