Chapter 5
FIVE
RORY
It’s a gorgeous evening, and Bonnie Bay is filled with wondrous sights: the towering cliffs, the soaring gannets, the rocky islands glittering in the distance.
Always the same, but always different. I wander the shoreline, jeans rolled up and waves tickling my ankles.
I love collecting random items from the beach, shells and driftwood and interesting pebbles.
I’ve been away for a few days, meeting a new client – a businessman from Yorkshire who wants to commission an artwork for the grounds of his headquarters on the east coast. I’m excited about the job and its possibilities, but as ever, relieved to be back here.
I’m letting a few ideas filter through my mind as I walk.
I do my best thinking when I’m not trying to.
I pause, scoop up a gorgeous piece of shining sea glass from the beach.
The colours are amazing, and it makes me wonder about a coastal theme for the new project.
The client had started in shipping, he might like that.
I could try and source some materials from containers, from docks, from the boat graveyard that’s up by the lighthouse.
My art isn’t for everybody – it’s mainly in metal, combined with natural elements like wood and rock, even moss.
Some people think it’s ugly, and the process of creating it certainly isn’t pretty.
It involves a lot of welding, grinding, hefting chunks of iron around and swearing.
Mainly swearing. Barely a day goes by I don’t pick up an injury, and my body carries the marks – burns, healed breaks, ridges of scar tissue.
I could have used watercolours, which rarely fight back.
But no, as my dear old mammy used to tell me, I’m a sucker for punishment.
I used to have what most people would see as the good life.
Practising law, getting the big bucks, living in a swish penthouse flat in Dublin.
I tried to live the way everyone said I should.
I worked hard, I went to Mass with my parents when I visited them, I had an active social life.
I ticked all the boxes – apart from the one marked ‘happiness’.
It broke my dad’s heart when I gave it all up, and I don’t think he ever forgave me.
He died a few years ago, still confused by it.
Mum was a bit less distraught, just muttering under her breath about me being a feckless fool but ultimately letting me be.
I think she could see that the job I hated was slowly killing any joy I ever had in life. I needed to escape.
There were probably less dramatic ways to do that than quitting my chambers, selling my flat and moving to a different country – but it was the right thing to do. I’ve felt the rightness of it every day since.
I love this place. I love the wildness of the landscape, the kindness of its people – not least Moira in the bookshop that now has a new lease of life – the restless and awe-inspiring combination of nature and humanity.
I love coming back to it when I’ve been away, and I love the idea of spending the rest of my life here.
But for some reason recently, I’ve definitely been feeling more melancholy than usual. More aware that I’m alone.
My reasons for choosing Bonnie Bay were complicated, and some of them I’ve never really acknowledged – a sense of nostalgia for the past, for the future I’d planned here but never had.
A feeling that it still connected me to her somehow.
None of that makes sense, none of it is logical – why come and live in the place that reminds me of the woman who broke my heart all those years ago?
Am I a masochist, like my mammy suggested?
No. I don’t think so. It just felt right – and it has felt right ever since the first day I arrived.
There’s no getting away from it, though, I’m definitely going through a phase of feeling more melancholy, a touch of bitter edging the sweet.
It’s barely there, but it’s irritating. Rubbing away at my peace of mind like a pebble in my shoe, grit in my eye, the smallest splinter beneath my skin.
Insignificant but annoying, in the way of all those things.
It feels like I need to take a pair of tweezers to my heart, and have a gentle root around.
I spot a perfect queen scallop shell, and hold it up to the sun, examining its shades and textures.
Beautiful. I glance up at the main street that runs through the village, see a woman in the distance, paused by the steps.
She’s staring at me, it seems, and I wonder if I know her.
If I should wave? Before I can, she turns and walks quickly away. Ah well.
I gaze out at the sea, the sunlight rippling on the waves. It’s beautiful, and I’m lucky, and I need to get out of my own way. I have so much to be thankful for, and I’m being a clot.
I explore for another hour or so, then consider heading into the Kestrel for a pint.
I live further around the coastline, up in the hills, but I could dump the car, spend the evening in pleasant company.
It’s the kind of place you can just drop in, no need to make arrangements – there’ll always be someone in there you know.
Just like the theme song to that old show, Cheers.
Shirley the landlady even buys in Taytos, the crisps of my childhood, to make me feel at home.
I’m thinking that’s a grand idea when I see a couple walking along towards me.
They’re not young – somewhere in their sixties – but they’re clearly lovers.
Holding hands, smiling and laughing as they stroll.
I don’t know them. They’re probably staying in one of the holiday lets.
But seeing them, the simple companionship they share, the obvious pleasure they take in being around each other…
well. Suddenly that looks like the most perfect thing in the world, and also like something I will never have.
I stride away past the Kestrel. I’m not fit company tonight, I decide.
I will go home and drink Guinness, watch TV.
I like quiz shows, and spend many happy hours boosting my ego watching Mastermind and Pointless.
Or maybe I’ll try and catch up with my family.
I have two siblings, one in Cork and one in Sydney, and between them they have nine kids.
They joke that they’re making up for me, and I know they don’t mean anything by it.
They assume I’m perfectly happy the way I am, and most of the time I am.
So why not now? Why this creeping dissatisfaction?
Am I having some kind of mid-life crisis?
I already have the motorbikes – should I get a dog, a cat, even a sheep?
I have the land, and they have these brilliantly strange-looking sheep around here called Texels, heads like pit-bulls.
Maybe I should contact one of the local farms, look at getting a couple of those…
I should get my head out of my own backside is what I should do.
So I got my heart broken when I was younger.
Most people did. I’m fine, and I’m sure she is too.
She probably never even gives me a second thought, she’s probably forgotten all about me – it was just a fling, after all, no big deal.
I was a fool to think it would last. We were too young, and it was too perfect – the way we felt about each other was too intense. It had to burn out.
And so what if I’ve never met a woman to compare to her? So what if I’ve never felt that way again? There’s nothing wrong with being alone – and it’s not like I’m pining away in solitary confinement.
Catrina is back in the country soon, and we will arrange to meet.
One of my ‘friends with benefits’, as Moira called her.
I haven’t seen her in ages, and it’s something to look forward to.
It might not be the kind of love Moira wants for me, but it’s a distraction.
And maybe more, if I give it the chance, who knows?
Moira. I think, perhaps, she would be the only company I could tolerate right now.
She has loved, she has lost, and she is one of the most naturally empathetic people I know.
If only the world had a few more Moiras in it, humanity would set aside their grievances, and settle in with a good book and nice mug of tea for the rest of eternity.
I walk along the street, getting waves and greetings from people I pass, and stop outside the bookshop.
The closed sign is up, but that means nothing.
If she’s still in there, the door won’t be locked.
If she’s gone back home up the hill, I’ll leave it – her sister Joanne, despite her apple cake, is a dour and disapproving woman.
If Moira is a warm fire, Joanne is the cold draught that sneaks under the window frame.
I push the door, hear the familiar tinkle of the bell.
Look around and see nobody. I head further inside, and see the door to the new Secret Garden is open.
It’s a beautiful day, and it’s gorgeous out there – one of the absolute best things about expanding into next door was the outdoor space it brought with it.
Kate and Moira are already full of plans for barbecues, acoustic nights, even a ceilidh.
I could stand a spell in the sun with Moira, I think, walking towards the door. It might dry up my invisible man tears and restore my balance.
As I get closer, though, I hear that she is not alone.
There are female voices, and then a sudden and huge eruption of laughter.
That uninhibited laughter you only seem to get when a bunch of women are together.
I freeze on the spot. If this is a meeting of the Three Witches, then I want no part of it.
They’ll be sending me on a quest to collect some eye of newt for them.