Hanna stared at the bony, brown-and-white animal that was calmly grazing a circle of cropped grass. It was tethered by a long, scruffy piece of rope to the rim of a half-buried cart wheel, and, to the extent that the rope would allow, the sloping field behind the house was now as smooth as if it were scythed. Beyond the circumference of the circle, however, the grass and weeds were as high as ever and clumps of yellow furze blazed in the evening sunshine. Like all the other rubbish that was scattered about, the wheel to which the goat was tethered had obviously been dumped in the field long ago and left there to disintegrate. But now, in the middle of the close-cropped grass, it looked almost decorative. And, somehow, the fact that even a small space had been cleared made the surrounding growth less formidable. The goat raised its head without much interest, observing Hanna for a moment. Then it ambled on and continued its contemplative grazing. Baffled, Hanna was about to take a step toward it when the horned head turned again and the yellow eyes with their oblong pupils focused on a point beyond her. Seconds later, she heard a familiar voice.
“I’d say the thing to do now is to move him to the freezer.”
Fury O’Shea was striding down the field toward her, his waxed jacket pulled tightly around his hips to avoid the briars. The Divil was bouncing along ahead of him, alternately appearing and disappearing through the waving grass. Arriving at Hanna’s feet, he pointed his nose at her, barking shrilly. Jabbing her finger at the goat, Hanna shouted at Fury.
“What is that animal doing on my property?”
The dog subsided as Fury reached them and Hanna repeated her question.
Fury cocked an eyebrow at her. “How well you think I’d know what he’s doing here.”
“Are you telling me that you don’t?”
“I do, of course. I borrowed him for you.”
“You borrowed him for me? Did somebody tell you I needed a goat?”
“Sure can’t the whole world see that you need a goat? You’d be better off with two of them. I have my eye out for another one but it might take a week or so yet.”
Outrage and common sense warred in Hanna’s head. Then common sense won and she glared at him. “How long would it take for two goats to clear this field?”
“Name of God, girl, where were you reared? Do you not know that yourself?”
Before she could reply he took her elbow and led her toward the cart wheel.
“I can’t be coming in here day and night to be shifting him for you. Untie the rope there now yourself and we’ll move him down to the freezer.”
Ten minutes later, with the dog bristling at her feet and the goat clearing a new circle of grass around the rusting fridge freezer, Hanna found herself sitting on the wall at the end of the field beside Fury O’Shea. The chances were that the structure of the roof would be grand, he said. And there was nothing wrong with the walls at all.
“How do you know?”
Fury turned his head and looked at her severely. “What is it you do for a living?”
“You know what I do, I’m a librarian.”
“And I’m a builder. Will we leave it at that?”
He stood up suddenly and for a moment Hanna thought he was going to stride off as he’d done the last time. Instead he held out his hand and pulled her to her feet.
“We’ll look inside, so.”
Falling into place behind The Divil, she followed him up the field.
As they entered the house Hanna caught her breath in dismay. Was she really planning to make a home here? The door sagged from its rotting frame and the windows with their tiny panes were cracked and dirty. The floor was covered in debris fallen from the ceiling that, in one corner, was stained with damp. Maggie’s tall wooden dresser still stood in an alcove by the fireplace, wreathed in cobwebs. Behind its dirty glass doors, old cups and glasses stood forlornly on the shelves. A crow’s nest had fallen down the chimney onto the hearth, bringing with it a mound of soot and a mass of feathers. Through the open door at the end of the room Hanna could see the corner of the high brass bed that had once been Maggie’s. Beyond it, faded paper was peeling off the wall. She watched as Fury inspected the cramped little extension. It had been roofed in corrugated iron panels and the weight of ivy growing outside had caused them to buckle dangerously.
There was a scuffling noise behind Hanna, who swung round in alarm. With a gasp of relief, she saw The Divil emerging from the bedroom with his nose covered in dust. Fury’s face appeared in the doorway to the extension. Feeling foolish, Hanna gesticulated toward the bedroom.
“I thought there might be rats.”
“You may be sure there are. I’d say you might need The Divil as well as the goat before you’d have this lot sorted.”
But back on the wall at the end of the field, as the sun sank into the ocean, he assured her that she had no need to panic. You’d get rats in any house that was left in that state, especially with an old mattress on the bedstead. The thing to do was to strip the whole place out and get it weatherproofed. It wouldn’t take ten minutes to knock down the old lean-to and no time at all to build it up again in blocks.
“That’s the place you’ll have your loo and your shower and a bit of space as a utility room. We’ll whack a few presses and an oven into the main room and you can do your cooking in style. Sure, with a sink, an oven, a fridge, and a run of work surfaces you won’t know yourself. You’ll keep the fire on the hearth and have an easy chair beside it. And once we deal with the roof and hook you up to the mains you’ll be laughing.”
It was all happening far too quickly for Hanna. She wanted to think and to see plans on paper. And she’d need to budget, she said, so she’d have to have a quote. Remembering the conversation in the day center, she fixed Fury with the look she usually reserved for borrowers with late returns.
“You do understand? I’d want everything on paper.”
“You would of course.” Fury stood up and looked around for The Divil, who was improving his acquaintance with the goat. “Do you know what it is, I’d say there’s rain on the wind. I should be getting home.”
Hanna scrambled to her own feet and laid a hand on his arm. “Look, I’m sorry, I know I was rude to you the other day.”
There was a pause and then he shrugged. “Listen, girl, you and I both knew Maggie Casey. If she thought she had a trespasser on her land, she’d have reached for a weapon.”
Hanna grinned. “That’s true.”
“So maybe I should have known better than to take offense at a bit of rudeness from her grandniece.”
“Maybe. But I’m still sorry.”
Fury pulled a blade of grass and chewed it, looking out at the horizon. “Maggie was a hard woman but, do you know what it is? I liked her. I gave her a hand round here for a while when I was a lad. Just for a month or so. She was always falling out with the neighbors, so she wanted a proper boundary round her land. And I wanted the price of a ticket to England, so I built her walls for her.”
He nodded at the house. “I patched a few holes in the roof there, too, while I was at it.”
“And that’s another thing.” Hanna eyed him sternly. “I want to retain the original slates when they’re stripped from the roof.”
“You do of course.” Fury thrust his hands into his pockets, pulled his long jacket round his skinny hips, and whistled for The Divil. “Don’t forget to keep shifting the goat now, because I can’t be always keeping an eye on you.”
“Yes but, hold on, I’ll need to take your mobile number.”
“Why?”
“Well, so we can keep in touch.”
“You won’t keep in touch with me that way, girl, I never turn the damn thing on.”