Chapter 66
66
“You’re not going back to New York, you headcase!” Jacqui said. “I’ll come over on Sunday, it’s barely an hour’s drive and we’ll—”
“—brainstorm?”
“Brainstorm? Are you mad? We’ll get langeroo! I’ll stay the night, drive back for work in the morning.”
Jacqui and I seemed to have picked up the best parts of our old dynamic, as if we’d never fallen out. Only a fool would think we wouldn’t hit some pockets of turbulence but hopefully we’d handle them better now.
I still got her, she still got me and, the best bit of all, she lived “nearby.” (My perspective of distance had changed dramatically.)
“How can you even think of leaving now we’re friends again?” she demanded. “You have a great life!”
I guess I did.
Even so, it was twenty-four more long, wet hours before I saw another human being. When Courtney arrived on my sodden doorstep, I almost cried with happiness.
“Oh my God, come in . What a surprise!”
“I messaged. You didn’t get it? This effing place! Has the magic Wi-Fi upped and gone? No, no wine, Anna. All I have is thirty minutes.”
“We’ll talk fast. So tell me everything.”
“Everything? You mean Ben? I haven’t seen him. He said he was giving me space I didn’t ask for. That was the last I heard.”
This was disappointing, on many levels. Mostly the “revenge on Sergeant Burke” one.
“We can’t keep living with Dad, his flat is too small and too hot. But Kilcroney’s given me and Teagan a free room in the hotel, even though we’re coming up to Easter.”
“When’s that?”
“Tomorrow week is Holy Thursday. Busier than Paddy’s weekend. The rain might have stopped by then. Now, c’mere to me, did something happen with her ladyship and the go-boy?”
I felt myself go pale. “Why?”
“They were spotted in Galway Cathedral at some Mozart thing the day before the fire.”
“They’re just friends, apparently.” My tone was impressively calm. “Although it’s nothing to do with me.”
“That right? The pair of you seemed…” Courtney thought about it. “…fond of each other. More than fond.”
“But we’ve never been able to get it right.”
“Oh, Lord.” Now she understood.
“It’s a long story, Courts. I’ll tell you sometime. Right now though, I’m doing my best to not think about him, not talk about him…”
“I get you. I do. And I’m sorry—”
We were surprised by a rap on the door. We exchanged a look and went out to discover a small truck reversing in: it was Mrs Mahon and Hardware Ralph.
“I don’t know if it’s much better than a bike,” Mrs Mahon said. “But while Hal is laid up, you can have his moped.” Then, “Ralph! Can you get it out of the truck without having a heart attack? Good man.”
—
As early as the following day, there was a change in the air. A lifting, a lightening. I began puttering about on the moped, cautiously at first, then with a little more verve. Passing through Main Street, townspeople raised their hand when they realized it was me. I bought myself an Americano from Catreen in Café Grumpy. The next day, when I crossed the threshold, she called, “Your usual, Anna?”
Work had resumed on Kearney’s Farm; the progress was heartening. Hal was still out of commission but Tipper and his crew were hard at it, along with several other construction workers.
Initially Tipper and the lads were sheepish, but it passed. Rose or Burke hadn’t been spotted around town but in general there didn’t seem to be any lingering upset after the fires. Could it really be this easy?
I popped into Ferne in Fine Irish Knits, hoping the offer of a discount on something beautiful from Heather my focus was firmly on a discount.
“Anyway, go on up to Heather Mum and Dad were coming for Easter. Very quickly, Helen, Artie, Regan and Helen’s Best Friend Bella Devlin were also on board.
Bella Devlin was an issue: Artie’s twenty-year-old daughter, she inspired so much awe, Anna Wintour herself would have second-guessed her choice of footwear. Bella Devlin’s taste was impeccable. Every stitch she wore was designer vintage, courtesy of her mum Vonnie. But at least she was nice. Absolutely lovely, in fact. Well aware of her privilege, she was deeply kind to the lumpen peasants. (By which I meant me.)
Next to throw their hat into the ring were Margaret and her family. Then Rachel and Luke.
No word from Claire, though. I sensed it would be a long time before she returned.
Margaret, Rachel and Helen all rented holiday homes near mine. Mum, though, wanted to stay in the Broderick. “I’ve no ‘beef’ with the man.”
“You just want a freebie.”
“How dare you?” Then, “Do you think he would?”
They could sort it out themselves, I decided. They were all adults.
On Good Friday morning, the sun glinting off the blue sea, Claire rang, greeting me with, “What the hell! Francesca and Lenehan ?”
I almost choked. “What? Seriously?”
“They’re a thing! She’s on her way down in the car with Mum and Dad. Anna, it has to stop. I can’t go back to…that…hole. My most stylish child can’t possibly live there. She’s even given up on the polyamory. Everyone else, their children are productive little dullards. But Francesca had so much promise. She was about to move to Berlin!”
“Lenehan’s going there at the end of the year. An internship in some hospitality ‘disruptor.’?”
“What now?”
“Claire, come on. Lenehan is his parents’ son, he’s going to travel and live a full, fabulous life. M’town was never going to hold him.”
“…I thought he was just this small-town boy—”
Man! I heard someone—probably Francesca—shriek. He’s a man!
“A small-town man, then!” Claire yelled back at her. The line went dead.
—
The weekend was a riot. The place was thronged, the rain gave us a break and the sun shone often. Easter-themed fun abounded. Ike, dressed as the Easter Bunny, led the Sunday-morning egg hunt with the same ill-will he’d channeled for the role of St Patrick.
I was so glad nothing had happened between him and me. At the time I’d been bouncing around like a sugar-starved child who’d been given free rein at a pick n’ mix counter. One or two nights might have been fun but that’s all I’d have wanted—and now that I was living here, it could have been awkward.
The subject was broached late that evening, in the Spanish, when we’d both had a couple of drinks. “I wouldn’t have minded,” he said, with a sidelong smile.
“Neither would I,” I said. “But we’ll just, aah, park it.”
The very moment the last tourist departed on Easter Monday, a black cloud settled over the town. In a panic, I wanted to leave too.
Things got worse when Hal recovered from his bout of depression and needed his moped back. Dark, dark days.
Trying to lift my spirits, Augustina Mahon gave me an embroidery beginners’ kit and an invitation to her monthly Sewing Circle. “Nice bunch. Lyudmila and Yelana, they put us to shame with their needlework. Young Ziryan comes. And Tipper’s wife, Sinéad, but only to stay on the right side of me, because I’m her mother-in-law. Her heart isn’t in it. Tell me, Anna, do I seem like a woman with a ‘wrong’ side?”
“In all honesty, Mrs Mahon, you don’t.”
“So we’ll see you on Wednesday week.”
“Yes, but—” No!
Being car-free would be my get-out, I decided. Then Pamela and Glen Custard Cream went to visit their son and grandchildren in Adelaide and loaned me their car for the month they were gone.
This meant I was able to whiz over to Jacqui, see this much-vaunted marina, meet Griff, Ollie and Trea, stay the night, get “langeroo” and drive back for work in the morning. It was wonderful. Griff was very easy, one of those level, steady people. Funny but mercifully not in a life-and-soul way.
Ollie, a walking encyclopedia, was sweet as could be but terrifyingly boring. It was his age, Jacqui said.
Trea was also afflicted with age-related personality issues. Tall, blonde and standoffish, she wore a disdainful smile as Jacqui and I reminisced about the days I was her babysitter. Jacqui said she’d be nice again by the time she was twenty.
The May bank holiday was the next high spot in M’town. Immediately afterwards came the plunge into depression. By now I was getting used to the rhythms of the place.
I’d only seen Burke once since the fire; he hadn’t even looked at me. As for Rose, our paths had yet to cross. But they were bound to and it was important I behaved myself. Honestly, though, it was difficult to even look in the direction of her house. Which was insane. It didn’t matter what Joey did or didn’t get up to with Rose—or anyone. All that mattered was that he didn’t want to get up to it with me.
But even in the troughs, good things happened. The Living Well with Dementia group finally got their minibus. The inaugural outing was to the cinema in Galway city, accompanied by Aber, Ziryan, Pamela and Glen Custard Cream and me.
Karina in Crowning Glory cut and colored my hair for a shockingly reasonable price. As thanks, I took her and the other hairdresser Gráinne for drinks in the Spanish, then the Boot, then McMunn’s. (“I miss Grinner,” I remember telling them. “Let’s visit him.”) Perhaps it was the alcohol or the company or my beautiful new hair, but it was the best fun. The following day I had a pleasingly excellent hangover. Now and again we all need a night where we wake up in flitters the next day.
One Friday, I messaged all my favorite M’town people, suggesting a post-work pizza. Ben, Ziryan, Aber, Vivian, Hal, Karina, Dr Muireann and Farrelly the Flowers showed up and we had such a good time we did it again the following Friday, then the next.
When the inevitable WhatsApp group was set up, Aber named it “Anna’s Gang.”
“It’s not my gang,” I said, but Aber insisted. “Before you came along, Ziryan and I hadn’t exchanged more than two words. That first night we all went out, some mysterious disagreement between Karina and Farrelly got squared. Poor Muireann never came for a drink because of everyone looking for free, on-the-spot consultations. Now she has us for protection. You’ve brought us together.”
Anna’s Gang was undoubtedly a mixed bag, Farrelly the Flowers probably the most mixed of all. Unshameably nosy, he extracted the nitty-gritty of our lives while divulging nothing of his. All I’d established was that he lived alone, being “Too young” to settle down. All details of his actual age were under wraps; I’d have put him anywhere between forty-three and sixty-one.
And somehow embroidery had gotten a hold of me! One day I cared not a jot about needlework, the next I was clicking, clicking, clicking, obsessively scouring the internet for linen squares and silk thread. It did what weaving had once done for me: devoting two hours to sewing a leaf both calmed and uplifted me.
Augustina Mahon and I began to drop in on each other unannounced to shriek and coo over our latest thread delivery.
To my disappointment, nothing further transpired between Ben and Courtney. However, Courtney hadn’t gone back to Burke; that everyone knew of his humiliation was genuine solace. When the IT company shut down their Galway office or the rainfall was once again torrential, the sad, head-shaking chats around town frequently ended with, “?’Tisn’t all bad. Didn’t Ben Mendoza sleep with Sergeant Burke’s wife. Shur, God is good.”