Chapter 5
5
‘And this is the kitchen,’ I said, awkwardly, leading Connor down the hallway and into the room at the back that overlooked the river. We’d knocked down an outside toilet and extended out, so the walls were bare brick but the windows were huge, with what an estate agent would call ‘extensive river views’.
‘It’s lovely,’ he said, lugging his large case along with him. He had a suit bag draped over his shoulder and another bag dangling from a wrist. I wasn’t quite sure where it was all going to go; if he put all his clothes in the bedroom there wasn’t going to be a lot of room for him. ‘No, really, the cottage is lovely, thank you for this.’
‘I’ll show you your room.’ I backed along the hallway to the bottom of the stairs.
‘So, you renovated the place yourself, then?’ The question was a polite one, the standard query from visitors, usually followed by, ‘How long did it take?’
I hesitated, halfway up the staircase, bracing myself with a hand on each wall. The cottage had been built along the same plans as the mill, narrow steep stairs and rooms of exceptionally odd shapes, and it could take some getting used to. With luck, I thought, he’d find the wobbly layout and ceilings low enough that he’d have to duck in doorways so annoying that he’d be back in York by supper time.
I murmured something vague in response to his question and opened the door to the little spare room. To myself, in my head, I still called it the nursery, but really it was a proper adult spare bedroom: double bed, small chest of drawers and a bedside cabinet. Not enough room to live in for long, but fine for occasional occupation, the odd guest.
My very odd guest put his bag down on the bed and moved to the window with a soft whistle. ‘Wow. Overlooks the river.’ Then he turned to me. ‘Seriously, Rowan, I know we may have got off on the wrong foot back there, but I can’t thank you enough. I’ll be able to get a proper night’s sleep finally.’
An urge to discomfit him overcame me. ‘As long as you’re a heavy sleeper,’ I said. ‘I do Morris dance practice in the kitchen at four every morning, and then my death metal bandmates come round for rehearsals every night. No neighbours to disturb, you see.’
He stared at me for a moment, and then seemed to work out that I was joking. ‘Morris dancing, eh? That explains your trousers earlier. Didn’t know that needed so much practice. Isn’t it mostly flinging your hankie?’
‘It’s the bells,’ I replied, straight-faced. ‘They take a lot of work.’
‘And death metal?’
‘Oh, yes. We’re working on a twenty-minute drum and tuba duet,’ and then even I couldn’t keep it up, and backtracked. ‘No, you’re right. It’s very quiet out here, only the ducks really make much of a noise.’
‘It’s perfect.’
‘There’s no transport, as I said, so if you need to be in York on days I’m not going, you’ll have to book a taxi pick-up.’
‘Ah, it’ll be fine now.’ He sat on the edge of the bed and bounced experimentally. ‘And I don’t snore, so I won’t disturb you. I’m well mannered in the house, clean up after myself and all. Mam brought up five boys and she knew what she was doing.’
I imagined that life. A busy house full of children, the noise and the chatter, toys strewn around floors and a smell of cooking always in the air. I often found myself doing this when I talked to people, as though I were seeing through a window onto another life. It stood me in good stead when I was working, this ability to imagine how people lived, stepping back through time into homes with no electricity when an evening’s entertainment was stories around the fire. It was almost as though the past existed in two parallels. One was the actual way of life, cooking and cleaning and milking the cows – the practicalities – and the other gave insights into the beliefs and nightmares. So it was really my training that made me pick up on his throwaway comment. ‘Five boys? That’s quite a handful. Where did you all grow up?’
‘Mostly outdoors.’ Then he smiled. ‘We’re Dublin born and raised, a good Catholic family, at least, the others are. Me, I’m secular to my fingertips, much to their disappointment, although being a professor helps make up for it. Mam nearly died of pride when Eamonn went into the Church.’
‘Er…’ My mind wheeled around the image of someone’s walking through a church doorway being a cause for family celebration.
‘He’s a priest,’ Connor explained with a grin at my baffled expression. ‘It’s a bit like being related to royalty. I tell them all that I’m a worshipper of Mithras now. I’m not, of course, but it’s worth it to see their faces, even if it does mean I only get half as much dinner when I pop home for the weekend.’ The boards of the bedroom floor squeaked as he got up again and went over to the window. ‘Can I open it?’ he asked.
‘Of course. It’s not just for show.’ I stood back to allow him room and was mildly pleased by his temporary confusion at the apparent lack of window opening mechanism. ‘It’s a Yorkshire sash. It slides sideways, like this.’ I demonstrated. ‘We kept all the original features when we restored the place.’
Connor nodded and slid the window a few times, experimentally.
‘I need to…’ I made vague hand signals towards the door as though I had to wave to a crowd or scatter grain. ‘So I’ll leave you to settle in.’ Then I berated myself all the way back down the tiny staircase. Why had I agreed to this? The cottage already felt too full of people. There were noises I hadn’t made, creaks and bumps overhead, presumably Connor unpacking, although hopefully he wouldn’t be here for long enough to need to unpack. I’d sent Chess some fairly pointed texts on the subject of finding him somewhere more convenient to stay for the remainder of his six months. Guilt might have provoked me into making my spare room available, but his stay absolutely could not be anything more than fleetingly temporary. There was nowhere for him to sit, for a start – the loveseat sofa that faced the fireplace was only meant for one. Two if they were physically close, and I did not intend to be physically any closer to Professor O’Keefe than the driver and passenger seats in my car.
And where was he going to work? My computer took up the dining table and there wasn’t room in the kitchen for him. Outside? I briefly entertained the idea of Connor O’Keefe sitting dismally out on the step, or on the narrow fringe of garden that fronted the river, overgrown and matted with weeds as it was. The vision of him sitting there damply, making muted duck-call noises, with his feet dangling in the river, was unexpectedly amusing and I found myself letting out a little giggle, which made me feel better.
When had I last giggled? Chess made me raise the odd smile now and again with her pronouncements, but actually giggle ? Or laugh? When had that been? Too long ago now for me to remember. I worked too hard to have time for levity: long solo hours recording, typing up notes, compiling and collating. Being a folklorist was a solitary occupation. We roamed the peripheries of life armed with voice recorders and notebooks, grumpy and aloof. There’s not generally a lot of laughs in listening to eighty-year-olds reminiscing over memories handed down from their parents and trying to sort out the tales that might be important, stories that might interleave with others of a similar nature to give a base to local legend. There’s a lot of drinking tea, looking at photo albums and going back over how much better things had been before computerisation. Or decimalisation. Or the car.
In short, it was a job that involved dedication, attention to detail and a kind of detached sociability. None of these things seemed appropriate to being forced to share a house with a Roman historian. A historian who wanted to destroy a local folkloric totem, at that.
I felt my face shrug off the smile and assumed my normal composed expression and went to look busy.