Chapter Ten
“Come on, Danny. You know you want to.”
“I know no such thing,” he says. “In fact, I know the opposite. I’ve retired.”
“You have not retired,” I say firmly. “No one retires from music.”
“Well, I have,” he says gruffly. He’s sitting at the table next to me in Kelly’s, hunched over a lunchtime pint and is being thoroughly uncooperative.
It’s been days since we started work on the barn and things feel like they’re moving at a snail’s pace.
I want to host the thing in July and it’s already the middle of April.
But turns out when you don’t have money, you can’t just get things immediately.
You have to borrow. You have to beg. You have to flatter sixty-year-old men with a lifetime of grudges.
“I don’t want anyone else to play at the festival,” I tell Danny. “You’re the best fiddler around.”
“Tell that to Maurice Friel.”
“Maurice Friel? Is that what this is about?” Seriously? Why are men such children? “You don’t want to play anymore because of that…that thief ?”
His eyes flick up at that, the stubborn look on his face relenting. “A thief, is it?”
“He stole the Jeanie O’Dwyer cup from you, didn’t he? I was at the competition, Danny, I saw it. Better yet, I heard it. You deserved to win.”
He starts to smile before he catches himself. “Played the best reel of my life.”
“You did.”
“There’s no appreciation for the softer moments these days,” he continues, and I nod vigorously. “All about being flashy.”
“The worst,” I agree. “So why not show that to him? We’ve already got a group together. But it will mean nothing without you.”
“A group? Who do you have?”
“Tadhg Murphy. Jillian O’Mahony. Andy—”
“Jillian?” He perks up at her name, and I try not to smile at the undisguised interest in his voice. Look at me, already matchmaking.
“She owes Granny a favor,” I say. “Something about not returning her good spatula.”
“I haven’t played with Jillian in years,” he muses, and I picture the pretty silver-haired accordionist who had reluctantly agreed to travel down for the festival once Granny had strong words with her on the phone.
“She cut her hair short,” I tell him.
“Did she?” He considers this for a long, serious moment. “I’d say that would suit her.”
“It does. She looks beautiful. Radiant in fact.” Okay, too much. “So, what do you say?”
“I guess I could play a few tunes,” he says gruffly. “For Adam’s sake.”
“Thank you,” I say, relieved. “That would be amazing.”
He’s embarrassed now, shifting in his seat from the praise. “How are you getting on with it all anyway?”
“Brilliantly.” It’s my answer to everyone who asks, mostly because I’m kind of hoping that if I say it enough times, it will turn out to be true.
“Any interest from the press yet?”
“We’re reaching out to people,” I say, as Noah appears out of Adam’s office with Gemma’s laptop tucked under his arm.
“Do you really not know how to do this?” he asks, as Danny returns to his drink. He takes a seat beside me and opens the computer to show the website-building site he learned to use at school.
“I mean, I’m sure I could if I tried,” I say. “But your mam said you were really good at it, so I thought I should just ask you.”
I get a weary sigh for that attempt at a compliment.
“You can pick any of these templates,” he says, clicking through a bunch of options. “And we can change the color and the font if you like. Move stuff around.” He gives me a look. “A child could do it. It’s not hard.”
“It looks hard to me.”
“Because you’re old.”
“Of course, sorry.”
He presses another button and takes me to the checkout page. “It’s one hundred and twenty-five euro for the year.”
“I think we can afford that,” I say, checking the list. I’m planning to scrimp on a lot of stuff, but not on the important bits. We need a professional-looking website. A professional-looking website put together by an eleven-year-old, but it’s not like I know anyone else who can do it.
“I want to help,” Noah says, reading my mind. “But I don’t work for free.”
“That’s fair.” I blow out a breath, meeting his serious expression with one of my own. “What will it take?”
“Can you convince Mam to get me a dog?”
“No.”
“A cat?”
This could go on for a while. “It’s your birthday soon, right?”
His gaze narrows, instantly suspicious. “Right.”
“Am I still invited to the party?”
“You make the best cakes.” He says it like it’s obvious and I try not to preen under the praise. He’s correct. I do make the best cakes.
“I’ll make you two.”
“Three.”
“No one needs three cakes. I’ll make one really big.”
“How big?”
“Extremely big.”
He watches me for a long moment, weighing up my words before he gives a slow nod. “Deal.”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you.” I ruffle his hair before he can push me away. “And if any other adult asks what you’re doing—”
“I’m working on a school project.”
I give him a thumbs-up and leave him to his child labor just as Nush storms into the pub and slams a newspaper onto the table.
“Look at this shit!”
“Anushka!” Adam snaps from the bar, and she purses her lips before turning to Noah.
“Swearing is a conservative social construct. Curse words can’t hurt you and only boring people are offended by them.”
“Nush,” I warn, but she ignores me.
“Live your life, Noah. Be free.”
Noah doesn’t even look up from the laptop. “Mam says I’m not allowed to swear.”
“Because your mother has become the man .”
“His mother is also at work,” Adam calls. “So let’s not try and revolutionize her child when she’s not around. Noah, forget everything Nush just said to you.”
“Okay.”
Nush drops down into a chair and jabs a finger at a picture of Jack Doyle’s smiling face.
“He’s begun.”
“Begun what?”
She looks me square in the eye. “The charm offensive.”
My stomach knots as I pull the paper toward me. I’ve been expecting it, I guess. But it still makes me a little nervous to see.
Ennisbawn Hotel Development Breathes New Life into Disadvantaged Community
“Disadvantaged?” I scoff, skimming through the article.
…coming fresh off the redevelopment of the derelict Foxton’s Hotel in Waterford, Mr. Doyle is keen to replicate Glenmill’s success in their most ambitious project yet.
Overseen by the chairman of the company, Gerald Cunningham, the hotel will not only provide much-needed employment opportunities for the area but bring thousands of tourists to a part of the country traditionally left unloved and—
“Have you got to the part about—”
“Still reading,” I interrupt, as I skim down.
…like so many rural communities in Ireland, the village has been destroyed by emigration and lack of investment.
“It’s always a shock to see what was once a thriving town reduced to nothing but empty streets and abandoned homes,” Mr. Doyle says.
“Our goal at Glenmill is not just to revitalize the area once the hotel opens, but to give it a new lease of life. A new beginning. A new Ennisbawn.”
It’s all I can bear to read.
“There’s nothing wrong with the old Ennisbawn!” I snap, flinging the paper down. “And there’s not going to be anything for all these tourists to experience if he keeps bulldozing over everything!”
“We’re going to have to up our game,” Nush says seriously, and I groan.
“Nush, I told you, I’m not setting fire to anything.”
“No, not that,” she says, exasperated. “I mean that we need to think smarter . We should target the Americans.”
“I don’t think—”
“We can all wear knitwear,” she continues. “They love when we wear knitwear. And Adam can put cabbage and stew on the menu, and we can hire a horse and carriage to bring them places. We’ll pretend we don’t have cars.”
“They know we have…” I pause. “Okay, the horse and carriage idea isn’t actually a bad shout.”
“On it, boss.” She slaps her hand on the table, but Noah grabs the paper before she can take it.
“Can I have this?” he asks, and when she nods, he carefully tears out Jack Doyle’s picture before asking Adam’s permission to replace the old one on the dartboard.
He says yes.
* * *
Once Noah is well on his way with the website, I head over to the barn, where I spend a few hours clearing out the space before my shift that evening.
I accomplish embarrassingly little. It is not a one-person job getting rid of all the old equipment, and, by the time I’m done, I’ve barely made a dent, but leave the place sweaty and gross and with my lower back at literal pains to inform me I’m not seventeen anymore.
It takes me longer than usual to cycle home, but Granny is waiting at the door when I do with a cup of tea in her hand, which I promptly gulp down as I kick off my shoes.
“There’s a cobweb in your hair,” is all she says at the sight of me.
“It’s called fashion. Did you eat lunch?”
“I did.”
“And did you get out with Plankton?”
“He wouldn’t budge. He’s having a sniff in the back.”
I nod. The back garden is fenced off, so we let him roam around freely. Everywhere else, the dog needs a leash. He tends to run after anything and everything, and, with the added traffic on the roads because of the site, both Granny and I have gotten a little jumpy.
“I’ll take him out later. He can come with me to the barn.”
She frowns at that. “You just came from the barn.”
“I know. But there’s still a lot of work to do.”
“So long as you don’t tire yourself out,” she warns, as I race up the stairs.
“I said I was going to give this everything I’ve got.”
“You also said you were going to learn to make lasagna from scratch,” she calls. “But I’m yet to reap the benefits.”
I ignore her, tugging my sweater and T-shirt over my head, and stuffing them into the overflowing laundry basket in the bathroom.
Between my usual shifts at the bar and all the festival prep, I’ve been neglecting my chore list. I probably have two days of clean clothes left.
So, laundry. I need to do laundry, and go on a food run and get more of that bread Granny likes.
Tomorrow, I need to go to the pharmacy and pick up her medicine, and then I need to order a new bulb for her reading lamp, and do some meal prep for the week because it’s not like I’m going to have time to cook anytime soon.
But first, laundry.
Or maybe a shower.
I peel down my leggings, kicking them free of my ankles before unclasping my bra. Every bit of skin that was uncovered at the barn now has a fine layer of grime coating it, and my legs are stamped with bruises I don’t remember getting.
“Do you have any colors?” I yell to Granny, as I pad barefooted to my bedroom. “I’m going to put a wash on and then I need to—”
I cut off with a screech, clutching the falling bra to my breasts as I come to an abrupt stop in the doorway.
I can almost feel this new core memory slotting itself into my brain, ready to be analyzed during future sleepless nights as the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to me.
Because, as I stand half-filthy and half-naked in the hallway, Callum Dempsey stands a few paces away, looking right at me.