Lyrebird

by Cecelia Ahern

  ‘For Bo, that’s a three course meal,’ Solomon teases.

  ‘Imagine how lonely life will be for him now, up that mountain, especially in the dead of winter, not seeing anyone for a week or more at a time,’ Bo says.

  They allow a moment of silence to pass while they ponder Joe’s fate. They knew him better than most. He and Tom had let them into their lives and had been open to every question.

  While filming, Solomon often wondered how the brothers could ever function without each other. Apart from the market, and tending to their sheep, they rarely left the farm. A housekeeper would see to their domestic needs, which seemed an inconvenience to them rather than necessity. Meals were taken quickly and in silence, hurriedly shovelling food into their mouth before returning to their work. They were two peas in a pod, they would finish each other’s sentences, move around each other with such familiarity it was like a dance, but not necessarily an elegant one. Rather, one that had been honed over time, unintentionally, unrealised. Despite its lack of grace, and maybe because of it, it was beautiful to see, intriguing to watch.

  It was always Joe and Tom, never Tom and Joe. Joe was the eldest by two minutes. They were identical in looks, and they gelled despite the difference in personalities. They made peculiar sense in a landscape that didn’t.

  There was little conversation between them, they had no need of explanation or description. Instead their communication relied on sounds that to them had meaning, nods of the head, shrugs, a wave of the hand, a few words here and there. It took a while for the film crew to understand whatever message had passed between them. They were so in tune they could sense each other’s moods, worries, fears. They knew what the other was thinking at any given time, and they gave the beauty of this particular connection no thought whatsoever. They were often bamboozled by Bo’s depth of analysis of them. Life is what it is, things are as they are, no sense analysing it, no sense trying to change what can’t be changed, or understand what can’t be understood.

  ‘They didn’t want anybody else because they had each other, they were each enough for one another,’ Bo says, repeating a line she has said a thousand times in promotion for her documentary but still meaning every word. ‘So am I chasing a story?’ Bo asks. ‘Fuck yeah.’

  Rachel throws her empty wrapper over Bo’s shoulder.

  Solomon chuckles and closes his eyes. ‘Here we go again.’

  2

  ‘Wow,’ Bo says as the car crawls towards the church in its stunning surroundings. ‘We’re early. Rachel, can you get your camera set up?’

  Solomon sits up, wide awake now. ‘Bo, we’re not filming the funeral. We can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’ she asks, brown eyes staring into his intently.

  ‘You don’t have permission.’

  She looks around, ‘From who? This isn’t private property.’

  ‘Okay, I’m out,’ Rachel says, getting out of the car to avoid being caught up in another of their arguments. The tumultuous relationship is not just with Solomon, it’s anyone who comes into contact with Bo. She’s so stubborn, she brings the argument out in even the most placid of people, as though the only way she knows to communicate or to learn is by pushing things so far that they spark a debate. She doesn’t do it for the enjoyment of the debate; she needs the discussion to learn how other people think. She’s not wired like most people. Though she’s sensitive, she is more sensitive to people’s stories, not necessarily in the method of discovering them. She’s not always wrong, Solomon has learned plenty from her over time. Sometimes you have to push at awkward or uncomfortable moments, sometimes the world needs people like Bo to push the boundaries in order to encourage people to open up and share the story, but it’s about choosing the right moments and Bo doesn’t always get that right.

  ‘You haven’t asked Joe if you can film,’ Solomon explains.

  ‘I’ll ask him when he arrives.’

  ‘You can’t ask him before his brother’s funeral. It’s insensitive.’

  She looks around at the view and Solomon can see her brain ticking over.

  ‘But maybe some of the funeral attendees will do an interview afterwards, tell us stories about Tom we didn’t know, or get their opinion on how they think Joe’s life will be from now on. Maybe Joe will want to talk to us. I want to get a sense of what his life is like now, or what it’s going to be like.’ She says all this while spinning around, seeing the view from 360 degrees.

  ‘Pretty fucking lonely and miserable, I’d imagine,’ Solomon snaps, losing his temper and getting out of the car.

  She looks at him, taken aback, and calls after him. ‘And after that we’ll get you some food. So that you don’t bite my head off.’

  ‘Show some empathy, Bo.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t care.’

  He glares at her, then having enough of the argument he senses he will lose he stretches his legs and looks around.

  Gougane Barra lies to the west of Macroom in Co. Cork. Its Irish name Guagán Barra, meaning ‘The Rock of Barra’, derived from Saint Finbar, who built a monastery on an island in a nearby lake in the sixth century. Its secluded position meant St Finbar’s Oratory was popular during the time of Penal Laws, for celebrating the illegal Catholic Mass. Nowadays, its stunning surroundings makes it popular for weddings. Solomon is unsure as to why Joe chose this chapel; he’s sure Joe doesn’t follow trends, nor does he go for romantic settings. The Toolin farm is as remote as you can imagine, and while it must be part of a parish, he’s not sure which. He knows the Toolin twins were not religious men; unusual for their generation, but they’re unusual men.

  He may not feel it’s right interviewing Joe on the day of his brother’s funeral but he does have some of his own questions he’d like answering. Despite his frustration with Bo for overstepping boundaries, he always benefits from her doing so.

  Solomon takes off on his own to record. Now and then Bo points out an area, an angle, or an item that she would like Rachel to capture, but mostly she leaves them to their own devices. This is what Solomon likes about working with Bo. Not unlike the Toolin twins, Bo, Solomon and Rachel understand how each member of the team prefers to work and they give each other the space to do that. Solomon feels a freedom on these jobs that is lacking in the other work he takes on purely to pay the bills. A winter spent filming unusual body parts for a TV show Grotesque Bodies, followed by summer shooting at a reality fat fit club that sucked the life from him. He is grateful for these documentaries with Bo, for her curiosity. What irritates him about her are the very skill sets that help set him free from his regular day-jobs.

  An hour into their filming, the funeral car arrives, closely followed by Joe, eighty years old, behind the wheel of the Land Rover. Joe climbs out of the jeep, wearing the same dark brown suit, sweater and shirt that they’ve seen on him hundreds of times. Instead of his Wellington boots he wears a pair of shoes. Even on this sunny day he wears what he’d wear in the depths of winter, perhaps a hidden layer less. A tweed cap covers his head.

  Bo goes to him immediately. Rachel and Solomon follow.

  ‘Joe,’ Bo says, reaching out to him and shaking his hand. A hug would have been too much for him, not being comfortable with physical affection. ‘I’m so sorry for your loss.’

  ‘You didn’t have to come,’ he says, surprised, looking around at the three of them. ‘Weren’t you in America when I rang you?’ he asks, as if they were on another planet.

  ‘Yes, but we came home straight away to be here for you. Could we film, Joe? Would that be okay? People who watched your story would like to know how you’re doing.’

  Solomon tenses up at Bo’s nerve but she also amuses him, he finds her gutsiness, her honesty, remarkable and rare.

  ‘Ara go on,’ says Joe, waving his hand dismissively as if it makes no difference to him either way.

  ‘Can we talk to you afterwards, Joe? Is there a gathering planned? Tea, sandwiches, that kind of thing?’

  ‘There�
�s the graveyard and that’s it. No fuss, no fuss. Back to business, I’m working for two now, aren’t I?’

  Joe’s eyes are sad and tired with dark circles. The coffin is removed from the car and is placed on a trolley by the pallbearers. Including the film crew, there are a total of nine people in the church.

  The funeral is short and to the point, the eulogy read by the priest, who mentions Tom’s work ethic, his love for his land, his long-departed parents and his close relationship with his brother. The only movement the stoic Joe makes is to remove his cap when Tom’s coffin is lowered into the ground at the graveyard. After that, he pops it back on his head, and walks to his jeep. In his head, Solomon can almost hear him say, ‘That’s that.’

  After the burial, Bo interviews Bridget the housekeeper, though it’s a title that’s used loosely as she merely delivers food and dusts the cobwebs from their damp home. She’s afraid to look at the camera in case it explodes in her face, looking defensive as though every question is an accusation. Local garda Jimmy, the Toolin twins’ animal feed supplier and a neighbouring farmer whose sheep share the mountainous land with theirs, all refuse an interview.

  The Toolin farm is a thirty-minute drive, far from anything, deep in the heart of the mountainside.

  ‘Are there books in the Toolin house?’ Bo asks out of nowhere. She does that often, blurts out random questions and thoughts as she slots the various pieces of information that come from different places together in her head to tell one clear story.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ Solomon says, looking at Rachel. Rachel would have a better visual image and memory than any of them.

  Rachel thinks about it, re-runs her shot-list in her head. ‘Not in the kitchen.’ She’s silent while she runs through the house. ‘Not in the bedroom. Not on open shelves, anyway. They have bedside lockers, could be in there.’

  ‘But nowhere else.’

  ‘No,’ Rachel says, certain.

  ‘Why do you ask?’ Solomon asks.

  ‘Bridget. She said that Tom was an “avid reader”.’ Bo scrunches her face up. ‘I wouldn’t peg him as a reader.’

  ‘I don’t think you can tell if someone’s a reader or not by looking at them.’

  ‘Readers definitely always wear glasses,’ Rachel jokes.

  ‘Tom never mentioned books. We lived their entire schedule with them for a year. I never saw him read, even hold a book. They didn’t read newspapers, neither of them. They listened to the radio. Weather reports, sports and sometimes the news. Then they’d go to bed. Nothing about reading.’

  ‘Maybe Bridget made it up. She was very nervous about being on camera,’ Solomon says.

  ‘She was very detailed about buying books for him at second-hand shops and charity sales. I believe she bought the books, I just can’t figure out why we never saw one book in the house and neither of them reading. That’s something I would have wanted to know about. What did Tom like to read? Why? And if he did, was it a secret?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Solomon says, yawning, never really hung up on the minor details that Bo dissects, particularly now, as the hunger and tiredness kick in again. ‘People say odd things when they’ve a camera pointed at their face. What do you think, Rachel?’

  Rachel is silent for a moment, giving it more clout than Solomon did. ‘Well he’s not reading anything now,’ she says.

  They arrive at the Toolin farmhouse and are more than familiar with the land; they spent many dark mornings and nights, in torrential rain, traipsing over this treacherous land. The brothers had separated the work. As hill sheep farmers, they had split their responsibilities from the beginning and stuck to that. It was a lot of work for little income, but they had each stuck to their designated roles since their father died.

  ‘Tell us what happened, Joe,’ Bo says gently.

  Bo and Joe sit in the kitchen of the farmhouse on the only two chairs at the plastic table. It’s the main room of the house and contains an old electric cooker, the four hobs the only part of it in use. It’s cold and damp, even in this weather. There is one socket on the wall with an extension lead feeding everything in the kitchen: the electric cooker, the radio, the kettle, and the electric heater. An accident waiting to happen. The hum of the heater, Solomon’s sound enemy. The room – in fact the entire house – smells of dog because of the two border collies that live with them. Mossie and Ring, named after Mossie O’Riordan and Christy Ring who were instrumental in Cork’s victory in the All-Ireland Hurling final in 1952, one of the few times the boys travelled to Dublin with their father, one of the only interests they have outside of farming.

  Joe sits in a wooden chair, quiet, elbows on the armrest and hands clasped at his stomach. ‘It was Monday. Bridget had dropped by with the food. Tom was to put it away. I went off. I came in for my tea and found him here on the floor. I knew right away that he was gone.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I put the food away. He hadn’t done that yet, so it was early enough when he died. Must have been soon after I left. Heart attack. Then I made a call …’ He nods at the phone on the wall.

  ‘You put the food away first?’ Bo asks.

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Who did you call?’

  ‘Jimmy. At the station.’

  ‘Do you remember what you said?’

  ‘I don’t know. “Tom’s dead”, I suppose.’

  Silence.

  Joe remembers that he’s on camera, remembers the advice Bo gave him three years ago to keep talking so it’s him that’s telling the story. ‘Jimmy said he’d have to ring the ambulance anyway, even though I knew there was no bringing him back. He came by himself then. We had a cuppa while we waited.’

  ‘While Tom was on the floor?’

  ‘Sure where would I move him?’

  ‘Nowhere, I suppose,’ Bo says, a faint smile on her lips. ‘Did you say anything to Tom? While you were waiting for Jimmy and the ambulance.’

  ‘Say anything to him?’ he says, as if she’s mad. ‘Sure he was dead! Dead as dead can be. What would I be sayin’ something for?’

  ‘Maybe a goodbye or something. Sometimes people do that.’

  ‘Ah,’ he says dismissively, looking away, thinking of something else. Maybe of the goodbye he could have had, maybe of the goodbyes he’d already had, maybe of the ewes that needed to be milked, the paperwork that needed to be filled.

  ‘Why did you choose the church today?’

  ‘That’s where Mammy and Daddy were married,’ he says.

  ‘Did Tom want his funeral to be held there?’

  ‘He never said.’

  ‘You never talked about your plans? What you’d like?’

  ‘No. We knew we’d be buried with Mammy and Daddy at the plot. Bridget mentioned the chapel. It was a grand idea.’

  ‘Will you be all right, Joe?’ Bo asks, gently, her concern genuine.

  ‘I’ll have to be, won’t I?’ He gives a rare smile, a shy one, and he looks like a little boy.

  ‘Do you think you’ll get some help around here?’

  ‘Jimmy’s son. It’s been arranged. He’ll do some things when I need him. Lifting, the heavy work. Market days.’

  ‘And what about Tom’s duties?’

  ‘I’ll have to do them, won’t I?’ He shifts in his chair. ‘No one else left to be doing it.’

  Both Joe and Tom were always amused by Bo’s questions. She asked questions that had obvious answers; they couldn’t understand why she questioned things so much, analysed everything, when to them that was that, all the time. Why question something when the solution was obvious? Why even try to find another solution when one would do?

  ‘You’ll have to talk to Bridget. Give her your shopping list. Cook,’ Bo reminds him.

  He looks annoyed at that. Domesticity was never something he enjoyed, that was Tom’s territory, not that Tom enjoyed it either, he just knew if he was waiting for his brother to feed him, he’d die of starvation.

  ‘Did Tom like reading?’
she asks.

  ‘Ha?’ he asks her, confused. ‘I don’t think Tom ever read a book in his life. Not since school, anyway. Maybe the sports pages when Bridget brought the paper.’

  Solomon can sense Bo’s excitement from where he stands, she straightens her back, ready to dive into what’s niggling at her.

  ‘When you put away the shopping on Monday, was there anything unusual in the bags?’

  ‘No.’

  Understanding Joe’s grasp of the English language, she rephrases, ‘Was there anything different?’

  He looks at her then, as if deciding something. ‘There was too much food, for a start.’

  ‘Too much?’

  ‘Two pans of bread. Two ham and cheese, sure I can’t remember what else.’

  ‘Any books?’

  He looks at her again. The same stare. Interest piqued. ‘One.’

  ‘Can I see it?’

  He stands and gets a paperback from a kitchen drawer. ‘There you go. I was going to give it to Bridget – thought it was hers, and the extras too.’

  Bo studies it. A well-thumbed crime novel that Bridget had picked up from somewhere. She opens the inside hoping for an inscription but there’s nothing. ‘You don’t think Tom asked for this?’

  ‘Sure why would he? And if he did it wasn’t just his heart that there was something wrong with.’ He says this to the camera and chuckles.

  Bo hangs on to the book. ‘Going back to Tom’s duties. What are the duties you have on the farm now?’

  ‘Same as usual.’ He thinks about it as if for the first time, all the things that Tom did during his day that he never thought about, or the things they used to discuss in the evening. ‘He saw to the well by the bat house. I haven’t been there for years. I’ll have to keep an eye on that, I suppose.’

  ‘You never mentioned the bat house before,’ Bo says. ‘Can you take us there?’

  The four of them and one of the loyal sheepdogs get into Joe’s jeep. He drives them across the land, on dirt tracks that feel dangerous now, never mind during the winter on those stormy days or icy mornings. An eighty-year-old cannot do this alone, two eighty-year-olds were barely managing it. Bo hopes that Jimmy’s son is an able-bodied young man who does more than Joe asks, because Joe’s not a man to ask for help.