Chapter Twelve
Sean’s waiting for me and he’s not happy.
‘Come on, tides won’t wait, y’know,’ he barks, and I run to get my boots with Grace following close behind.
‘Thought you’d run out on me again,’ he says as we march towards the water. He gives me a sideways glance from under his scowling eyebrows, like he doesn’t trust me.
‘Just went to the café for tea.’ I try and keep up. ‘Got the third degree.’
‘Ah.’ He rolls back his head, understanding.
We reach the tractor.
‘Don’t take any notice of the nosy beggars. Don’t tell them anything either,’ he says, his eyebrows lifting a little. He tosses the keys in the air and catches them. ‘Suppose they wanted to know your life story?’
I think about Margaret. It wasn’t so much my life story she was after, but more his.
She’s obviously in love with him. She actually seemed quite harmless in the end.
And she really wants to do something for her town, which doesn’t seem like such a bad thing to want to do.
I’ve never been in one place long enough to feel strongly about its future.
I quite like that about her. She’s obviously a girl who wears her heart on her sleeve, not tucked in the back of the wardrobe like me.
‘Actually they asked me to join their committee,’ I say, defending Margaret.
‘A committee? What kind of a committee?’ Sean is doing up his waterproof jacket.
‘The Dooleybridge Events Committee,’ I say, suddenly wishing I hadn’t.
‘An events committee? Here in Dooleybridge?’ Sean throws back his head and laughs.
‘I’ve heard it all now. That’s like saying we need a committee to deal with our drought conditions!
’ He looks up at the drizzling sky and then starts up the tractor, the noise of the engine seeming to join in his loud laughter.
He gestures for me to get on the back of the trailer.
‘You’re not going to, are you?’ he shouts over the engine noise.
‘Not sure,’ I say evasively. Of course I’m not going to go. I’m sure I couldn’t think of any ideas. But, in a funny way, it felt good to be asked. And I don’t like being told what to do. Sean Thornton might be my boss, but he’s not my keeper.
‘Good. I find it better to keep my personal life away from the town, you might find that too. Hold on!’ Sean tells me.
If I want to go to the committee meeting, I will, I think firmly.
For the following week I’m a slave to the pattern of the tides.
Some nights Sean is there, others he isn’t.
But it’s the same every morning: I get up, feed the donkeys, open the hen house, and try to put the food in the feeder before they tip it over, and each morning I try to out-run Brenda the goose who’s desperate to have a piece of my backside.
I’m now clearing the gate in one swift movement.
Oh, and I’ve named her Brenda after Brian’s mother, who was also beady-eyed and vicious.
The only variety comes in the different ways in which it rains: sideways, straight down, drizzle, wispy flecks, icy pellets, and whooshing down and up again.
Or those mornings when Freddie has broken out of the field and I have to run down the lane to get him back with a bucket of pony nuts.
Sometimes Mercury is with him, sometimes he stays in the field.
But Freddie’s always gone to the same place, to be with his lady love.
After sorting the animals we either work in the sheds, cleaning mesh bags and equipment, or in the yard, fitting in the chores around the pattern of the tide.
Everything must be spotless for the inspector’s visit.
Sean’s cutting the grass with a big old petrol lawnmower and mending fences; I’m painting the window sills and door of the old barn, and we’re ruthlessly clearing any trace of debris.
Then, every day I stand ankle deep in the water while Sean puts back the bags we’ve graded on trestle tables.
The area with oysters ready to go to the co-operative is getting fuller by the day.
They’ll be collected just after the inspection, at the end of my month’s trial.
Once Sean’s put the bags back in the water, he collects more.
I stand around trying to look useful, but really I’m barely keeping the panic attacks at bay.
Then I travel back on the tractor and work my socks off washing and grading.
It’s cold, wet, and makes me ache and I hate every minute of it.
It’s Monday morning and Sean is dressed, drinking coffee and reading the tide times from a chart laid out on the kitchen table.
I’ve just out-run Brenda the goose and am puffing for breath. He gives me a puzzled look but doesn’t ask.
‘It’s the neap tide,’ he tells me. ‘We won’t get to the oysters this week; the tide won’t go out far enough.
I’m at the sailing school. The last lesson finishes at five, so I’ll be home after that, but there’s not much we can do when the tide’s like this.
Just keep an eye on things. We don’t want anything going wrong with the inspection just round the corner, so make sure no one comes near the place. ’
I slide the kettle onto the stove, nodding and rubbing my hands together to warm them up. The front door closes, the empty coffee cup is on the table, and I’m all alone. I put the radio on. It’s Hector. I’m starting to like Hector’s cheery voice.
I throw some more turf on the fire and wonder what to do next. I could walk into town and go to the café. It’s stopped raining and it’s just windy out there. I saw Sean sailing this morning before he went to work; flying along he was.
Just then Grace pushes open the door and with her comes a huge gust of wind and the paper piles on the desk swirl up like the hurricane in The Wizard of Oz.
I spin around trying to catch them. They dance round me as I run to the door and slam it shut.
The papers flutter to the ground and all over Grace, standing in the middle of the mess.
There’s only one thing for it. I clear the table of tide charts, spare rope and old newspapers.
I put the newspapers by the fire in the basket and the rope outside the front door, ready to take to the shed.
I’m a bit worried about touching the charts.
I look around for something useful to keep them in.
When I first moved into my bedsit above Betty’s Buns, I had to make do for everything.
But I was used to it. Moving was a regular thing for us.
I’m not sure I ever spent Christmas in the same place two years running.
I wasn’t always sure why we moved. It usually followed a lot of shouting.
I’d hide in my room, and then we’d leave and within a few weeks I’d have a new uncle.
I hated moving. But I hated having new uncles more.
I wished it could have just been me and my mum and that I could’ve looked forward to Christmas in the same place.
Whenever we moved anywhere new I always had to make what I could from the packing boxes.
I’d put them on top of each other to create a chest of drawers and use a crate with a towel over it for a bedside table.
Then of course I moved into our show-home flat with Brian where everything was new.
In a funny way, although I didn’t miss having cardboard boxes as a chest of drawers, I did miss not being able to make the flat into my home.
After a bit of rummaging around in the kitchen I’ve made a little organiser out of a cereal box and a milk carton.
I roll the charts into it and put the whole thing on the window sill.
The table is clear. Grace is watching me with a look of interest and puzzlement.
I rub my hands together with satisfaction and then turn my attention to the papers scattered all over the floor, some with large muddy paw prints on them.
I gather them up on the table. Hector has handed over to Ryan Tubridy on the radio and I find I’m smiling at the banter and chat, as though they have become my friends, only I don’t have to explain anything about my life to them.
With all the papers from the floor picked up I look at the desk.
I might as well have a go at it all, so I carry the precarious piles over to the kitchen table as well.
I push back the sleeves on my baggy sweatshirt and set about putting them in some kind of order.
I create piles all over the kitchen table.
Occasionally I look up, out to sea. The heron is there, as usual, on its rock.
It’s such an ungainly bird and yet it seems like part of the landscape now, not out of place as I’d first thought.
The rain changes in its ferocity against the window pane and every now and again the sun attempts to push through, until the clouds outnumber it, bullying it away.
I think this job might take up the morning, but I’m nowhere near finished as the sun has one final go at pushing through the clouds then starts to sink in the sky.
I’m beginning to get a good idea of how Sean’s business is looking.
There’s more red ink on these bills than black.
There’s income tax and levies, animal feed, and generator repairs.
There are papers all over the table, the settee, the chairs; some are sorted, some not.
I stand up straight and stretch out my stiff back.
Sean and I may not have much in common, or even particularly like each other, but for now anyway it looks as if we both need each other.
I go out and feed Freddie and Mercury and I’m delighted to find they’re actually in their field. It’s just a small thing but it puts a spring in my step. I give them an extra handful of pony nuts for good behaviour. Perhaps Freddie is finally starting to give up on his lady love.
The chickens have taken themselves off to bed and I slide down their wooden door. Just the geese to go. I grab my stick, keeping my eye on Brenda; she in turn is keeping her yellow eyes on me.
I crouch down and slowly herd the geese towards their old stone shed, my stick in one hand.
I feel like the bird man, hoping to take off at any minute.
I’ve just about got them to the shed when Grace lets out a huge joyous bark and runs towards the lane.
There’s a beep of the horn and I turn to see Sean’s red van pulling in through the front gates.
As I do, Brenda takes her opportunity to launch herself at me, pecking at my shins.
I drop my stick and run to the gate, mistiming my leap and throwing myself painfully against its bars.
I look up to see Sean and Nancy watching me.
Sean is shaking his head in disbelief and Nancy looks thoroughly amused.
I clutch my bruised ribs. I can’t decide which is worse, staying out here and trying to get Brenda into her shed, or going into the cottage where Nancy and Sean will no doubt be laughing at my goosing.
Then I remember the paperwork and, clutching my sides, I run to the cottage, hoping I can get there before Sean does.