Owen had telephoned to tell her that he had received her emailed draft of “Amy’s Story.” Jess braced herself for a barrage of corrections but to her surprise he said he thought it read well. “It was hard to read my own words and see them laid out like so but you’ve written it well. It’s not too flowery like.” He finished by telling her he was happy for it to be submitted to her editor as it was.
Jess stopped slouching and pulled herself upright. This was high praise coming from someone like him who, she was quite sure, would not be shy in coming forward had he not liked what she had sent through to him. It was only right, too, given how close to his heart the article was that he should want it word perfect.
“I am glad you are pleased with it. It wasn’t an easy thing for me to write.” She wouldn’t send him the bill for the two Big Macs. Comfort eating at its worst.
“Aye, I’m sure it wasn’t.”
“Do you think Amy would be pleased with it?” She held her breath because his answer mattered to her.
“Aye.”
“Good.”
An awkward silence stretched out between them which Jess finally broke. “How’s Wilbur doing?”
“Not bad. He’s hanging in there. He’s a fighter, alright.”
“Good. I’ve been worried about him.”
“Well, you don’t need to worry; he’s in good hands. I know what I’m doing.”
Jess could tell by his tone he was amused, though she didn’t know why. He changed the subject on her before she had a chance to mull it over further.
“The reason I rang you was because I found an old family album I’d forgotten about and there were some pictures of our Amy in there that I thought might go with your piece.”
“Oh, that would be great! I was going to phone you anyway and ask if we could use some pictures but I didn’t know how you’d feel about it. Would you be able to scan them through to me?”
“Well, the thing is I’m down in Malahide tomorrow for a meeting. There’s a new deli opening soon who are interested in stocking some of my produce and being a Saturday, I thought that you might be able to, uh… ” His voice trailed off and Jess, getting the gist of what he was in an awkward roundabout way trying to say was, offered, “You’d like me to meet you in Malahide?”
“Yes. If you’re free, that is. I thought we could have some lunch and you could take a look through the photos then.”
Why did he have to make it sound like he was asking her to join him while he had his teeth pulled out? Remembering her father’s words about him having good reason for being an awkward bugger, she decided she could afford to be gracious. “That would be lovely, Owen, thank you. If you hang on a minute, I’ll let you know what time the Dart gets in.”
Getting up, she retrieved the crumpled timetable from its home in the fruit bowl and told him she could be in Malahide for mid-day and so before they hung up, it was arranged that he would meet her off the train at the station.
***
Jess lay in bed that night thinking about him. She knew that beneath the taciturn exterior there lurked an insecure soul and when he let his guard down, she liked him. The man really was an enigma, she concluded with a yawn before dropping off to slumber the deep, uninterrupted sleep of the hungover.
***
The next day dawned with a brilliant blue sky peeking through the crack where her curtains didn’t quite meet in the middle. Jess was pleased the weather suited the buoyancy of her mood and she tossed the duvet cover aside. Sitting up and stretching, she was profoundly relieved to find that physically she also felt like part of the human race once more. Getting up, she bounced down to the shower, peering into the mirror to see that the only remaining evidence of her cocktail overindulgence was a set of slightly puffy eyes.
They’d have gone down by lunch time, she thought before opening the shower door and stepping under the hot water stream. For some reason she washed her hair even though it didn’t really need it and shaved her legs, although, she thought with a rueful glance down, they really did need it.
She dawdled over her hair, opting to wear it loose, and then fiddled around with her makeup before taking an age to decide what she should wear. Not that it really mattered, she thought; Owen wouldn’t care if she showed up in a sack. He was a pig farmer, not a man about town.
She wasn’t in a casual kind of a mood, though, she thought, tossing her jeans down on the bed and rifling through her wardrobe. A flash of green amidst the rainbow of colours caught her eye and she plucked out her classic 1930s sage green suit. She was getting a bit tired of the whole 80s look—there was only so far she could go with a double belt or leg warmers. Besides, she always got loads of compliments when she wore her sage suit. The colour set off the gold flecks in her hair.
Letting her towel drop, she began to get dressed. The jacket had a cinched waist that flattered her hourglass shape and the fitted pencil skirt finished at a respectable mid-calf length. Standing back to admire her efforts, she announced to her reflection, “Rita Hayworth, eat your heart out!”
All she needed to really look the part were a pair of elbow-length white gloves, a pillbox hat, and a little handbag. That might be going a little over the top, she decided, before grabbing her shoulder bag and heading out the door.
It was a bit hard mincing down the Quays as the skirt had definitely not been designed and sewn in an era when women power walked but nevertheless, lots of wiggling later, she managed to make it to Connolly Station in time to sidestep onto the northbound Dart.
To her surprise as Jess sat down in her seat and smoothed out her skirt, she realised she felt nervous. Her stomach was churning with the sense of anticipation she always got when she was going on a date. Which was ridiculous, she told herself, because this was by no means a date. If anything, it was a kind of business meeting and the only reason Owen had wanted to meet up with her was because he was probably worried about the quality of the old photos if he had scanned them through.
In an effort to distract herself, she decided to pass the time voyeuristically by staring down into the handkerchief-sized gardens attached to the back doors of the pebble dash houses they were now whizzing past. They afforded their residences no privacy in the slightest, she thought, noticing that some backyards were well tended while others were slovenly. Some had lines full of washing—talk about airing your dirty laundry. Imagine having your smalls on public display like that. Mind you, she wrinkled her nose as they passed a pair flapping on the breeze that could have set a ship a sailing, some of them weren’t exactly small. Slowly, however, the residential vista gave way to a more eye-pleasing rural one and Jess settled back, enjoying the rest of the short journey.
As the train slowed before finally coming to a standstill at the pretty coastal town of Malahide’s station, Jess spied a man pacing outside the newspaper kiosk. It was only as she stood draping her bag over her shoulder that she realised it was Owen. She hadn’t recognised him, not because he looked different but because it was so strange seeing him out of context somewhere other than Glenariff or Ballymcguinness.
Jess’s mind went into overdrive once more as, feeling as though she were in a scene from a wartime movie, she sidestepped down in what she hoped was an elegant manner from the train onto the platform in order to meet her beau just returned from the war. Except, she told herself sternly, he wasn’t her beau and in the movies it would have been Owen getting off the train, not her. Even when she was having a fictional fantasy, the journalist in her liked to keep it fairly factual.
“Alright?” he asked in that gruff manner of his, and Jess crashed back to the present millennium. That was definitely not the way a returned soldier would greet his sweetheart and she was definitely not his sweetheart.
His eyes twinkled as he looked her up and down and she sensed he was laughing at her choice of outfit. She’d felt so good when she’d left home, too; now she felt vaguely ridiculous. There was something about Owen that made her own mood swing from good to sour smartly.
“So how was Wilbur when you left him this morning? I hope he’ll be okay on his own,” she asked tartly.
“Wilbur will probably outlive us all. He was fine. I should have him off the bottle soon.”
“That’s good news—he must be piling the weight on.”
“Yes, he’s getting quite porky.”
Jess looked at him, startled—had he just made a joke? His deadpan expression gave nothing away.
As they got farther down the road, Jess began seriously regretting her outfit. She was beginning to feel like an un-dainty version of a Japanese woman in a kimono trying to keep up with Owen’s long-legged stride. He glanced over at her and again she spied that hidden amusement lurking behind his eyes but at least he slowed down. Why the hell hadn’t she gone with the acid washed jeans and leg warmers? Then she spied Malahide Castle and completely forgot about her choice of clothes.
“I went to a great Radiohead concert there. It was such an amazing venue,” she said, pointing through the established greenery of the grounds to where eleventh-century stone ramparts peeked through the foliage.
“You wouldn’t have struck me as a Radiohead fan.”
“I’m not but the tickets were free.”
He laughed. “Fair play to you. So what sort of music do you like then?”
“All sorts, really; it depends on my mood. If I am doing housework, then I like a bit of ABBA or if it’s really heavy-duty stuff like window cleaning, then I always play my AC/DC CD. ‘Thunderstruck’ really gets my arms going.” She made a circular motion with the palm of her hand to demonstrate. “If I am out with the girls, though, I like to relive my misspent youth and listen to anything from the nineties. Oh, and I love my New Zealand music collection, as well as anything by Coldplay. What about you?” She really hoped he wouldn’t say Country and Western.
“I like all sorts too.”
“That’s a very evasive answer and one that won’t do. Who is your all-time number-one favourite band?”
“That would have to be the Stones.”
“The Rolling Stones?”
“You sound surprised.”
“Hmm, it’s just that now that you mention it, I kind of had you down as a Billy Ray Cyrus type of a guy.”
Owen snorted and looked at her aghast. “Why on earth would you think I would be in to that shite? I don’t wear a Stetson or cowboy boots, and I most certainly do not have a mullet.”
“I don’t know. Maybe because you are a country boy, I kind of assumed you’d be into the whole line dancing culture and don’t knock Billy—‘Achy Breaky Heart’ was a classic.”
He stared hard at her and she paused in her shuffling along to grin slyly. It was payback time for his silent mocking of her. Realising she was having him on, he laughed again and Jess decided she liked his laugh. It was warm and genuine and that harsh worldliness etched into his face lifted when he smiled. She wished he would laugh more because it suited him.
Malahide Marina came into sight with its surprisingly large number of gleaming white launches moored up to the jetties. Expensive apartments flanked either side of it. The smell of serious money wafted over toward them on the early afternoon breeze. Somehow Jess never visualised Ireland as a boaties paradise but then again when the rain finally stopped and the sun came out, its harbours were as beautiful as anywhere in the world so why shouldn’t it be? Owen interrupted her thoughts.
“What do you fancy for lunch? And just so you know, I am not a quiche sort of a guy nor do I always have to have steak.”
It was Jess’s turn to laugh. “Fair enough. What about some good old pub-grub then?” She pointed halfway down the block to where a sign depicting a regal-looking cockerel was swinging gently back and forth out the front of a sprawling stone building.
“Aye, sounds good.”
The weather, although sunny, wasn’t overly warm and deciding it was too cool to sit out in the beer garden where they’d spied a few diehard smokers, they opted for a nook near the fireplace instead. The log burner was only just ticking over but it was enough to warm the room to a comfortable level. Jess shrugged out of her jacket and draping it over the back of her chair, looked around.
Yes, this would do, she decided; it was the kind of pub she liked, being cosy and traditional. A proper pub with none of that flashy chrome crap or couches made for perching in sight. Owen asked her what she’d like to drink and returned a moment later with a glass of wine in one hand, a pint of Guinness in the other, as well as a couple of menus he’d managed to tuck under his arm.
“Well, well, well, who’d have thought? A man who can multi-task.”
“Aye, I am a man of many talents.” He placed her drink down on the mat in front of her and handed her a menu.
It didn’t take Jess long to decide what she was going to have: scampi in a basket. They were in a coastal town, after all, so it should be super fresh she thought, unconsciously licking her lips and oblivious of the startled look Owen gave her. He announced he was opting for the roast of the day, which Jess was relieved to see was beef and not pork. In her opinion, it would have been almost cannibalistic on his part were he to tuck into a helping of pork and crackling.
As he headed up to the bar to place their order, she spied the landlord, who was propping it up for the first time. He bore an uncanny resemblance to Rick Stein and she wondered whether they were related.
“Don’t you think he looks like Rick Stein?” she said, inclining her head over toward the bar when Owen returned.
“Aye, he does a bit and he likes a drop of the old wine like Rick does too, by the look of him. I quite like his show.”
“Yeah, me too, though I like the scenery as much as I enjoy the actual cooking.”
“Ah, that’s right—cooking’s not your thing.” He took a deep drink of his pint.
“That stuff’s like a meal in itself; you won’t eat your lunch,” she admonished and saw that familiar gleam in his eyes as this time he took a deliberate slurp followed by lots of aahing.
“You sounded just like my Ma then,” he stated, swiping his foam moustache with the back of his hand.
Jess frowned. “Well, it’s true. I never quite acquired a taste for Guinness,” she said. “For me, it is right up there with oysters, even though I only live a hop, skip, and a jump from the Guinness factory and Glendalough’s Guinness Lake is one of my most favourite spots in all of Ireland.” She was babbling, she realised, so forcing herself to shut up, she took a sip of her wine instead. It was just that if she didn’t make small talk, she was worried he might lapse into that moody melancholy of his, and she didn’t want that to happen, not when she was actually enjoying his company.
“So despite your aversion to a good old pint of the black stuff, you live near the Guinness factory? That’s fairly central.”
She nearly said, “Aye, it is” but stopped herself just in time. “I do, yes. It’s a great spot to live down on the Quays. I can walk everywhere I need to go. Do you know Dublin?”
“Aye, a bit. I had a few nights on the tiles there that I woke up worse for wear from.” He rifled through the breast pocket inside his jacket and produced a couple of photos, handing them to Jess. The first she saw was a classic school portrait of Amy. She really had been a pretty girl despite the missing two top front teeth she was proudly displaying with a broad grin. She looked so young; peering closer at her, Jess was sure she could detect that same glimmer she spotted in Owen’s eyes sometimes when he found something amusing. Flipping it over, she saw someone, probably their mother, had written “Amy aged 6” on the back.
Six was the age she had been when she got her Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs book, Jess realised and turning it back over, she stared at the photograph, feeling the little girl whose name had been scribbled on the inside cover of her book come to life.
She would have been a popular child. Pretty girls always were, she thought, remembering Melanie Cox, who had set the trends at Hillsborough Primary where she had gone. If she wore her long blonde hair in pigtails, all the other girls arrived the next day at school with their hair in pigtails. She had pestered her mother for weeks about getting a pair of sneakers the same as Melanie’s but her mother had been unable to grasp the enormity of having pink sneakers with blue trim and not plain old white ones.
Amy would have been a trendsetter, too; she could tell just by looking at her. Unlike Melanie Cox, though, Jess would have bet money on it that Amy would have been a fair and just queen of the playground as she delegated who got to take turns playing jump rope with her.
The other handful of pictures were far more relaxed and candid shots. One showed Amy kicking a soccer ball around in the garden with a young Owen. They both looked so carefree and Jess felt her eyes prickle at their naivety as to what lay around the corner. She’d never been to see a fortune teller and now she knew why. It was far better to be blissfully unaware of the cruel knocks that might be coming your way.
“Is that Tippy Toes?” she asked, glad of the diversion as she flicked to the last picture. Amy was holding a mangy-looking black and white cat. She had a look of total devotion on her face as she gazed at the cat who, looked like she would rather be someplace else.
“Aye, that’s Tippy Toes—not exactly a thoroughbred, was she?”
“No.” Jess laughed. “But I can tell she would have had personality. So is it okay if I take these?”
“Aye, but I would like them back sometime.”
“Of course. I’ll look after them, I promise.” Their eyes met briefly and she felt her face flush, grateful that their food arrived at that moment. Jess inhaled the wonderful aroma of the sea coming from her basket and was pleased to note the generous pot of tartar sauce that came with it—there was nothing worse than a mean serving of sauce.
Owen’s roast looked pretty good, too, and it came with a couple of her favourite Yorkshire puds. She wondered briefly if there might be any chance of swapsies but a quick glance at his hooded profile as he began sawing into his meat made her decide he probably wouldn’t appreciate the suggestion.
“So when will your paper run the article?” he asked, loading his fork.
“I think Niall thought that it would be particularly poignant were it to run on the anniversary of…well, you know, but I’ll tell you for sure once he confirms it and of course I’ll send you the paper as soon as it’s gone to print. Have you told your father about it?”
“Aye. He hasn’t read through it yet. He’ll pick it up when he’s ready like. I think he’ll be pleased enough that Amy will be remembered, though, and not just by us.” He changed the subject then, making small talk about the other Ladybird books Jess had in her collection before asking, “So why the fascination with other peoples’ cast-offs?”
It was not the most eloquently put question and it got Jess’s back up. “Have you not heard the saying one man’s junk is another man’s treasure?”
Owen looked suitably chastened.
“Besides, to me they’re not cast-offs; they are treasure. Anybody can walk into a shop and pick something brand new off the shelf if they have the money but where’s the thrill in that? I get so excited when I stumble across a vintage designer label that I feel my heart beginning to pound and my palms get all sweaty.” Oh dear, had she just made herself sound like a werewolf? “It’s not just for the love of a good bargain either.” She quickly carried on, “I like the fact that I won’t see anybody else wearing what I am wearing and I don’t know, maybe there is good reason for that.” Jess shrugged and glanced down at her sage green ensemble.
“I think you look great.”
“Really?”
“Aye.” Owen looked embarrassed and busied himself with his roast taties.
“I found the most beautiful powder blue Wedgewood box the other day in an Oxfam shop that I am going to use as a jewellery box. It gives me such a buzz, imagining the stories that something like that could tell. I wouldn’t be sitting here now with you, either, if it weren’t for my fascination with things that have been pre-loved.”
“No, I suppose not and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound flippant before—I was curious, that’s all.”
“Right then, put your money where your mouth is. I saw a thrift shop back on the High Street with my name on it. Come and check it out with me after lunch and you’ll see what I’ve been talking about,” Jess challenged.
“Alright then, I will.” He held his hand out and they shook on it before resuming eating.
As he placed his knife and fork down on the plate, Owen leaned back in his chair with the contented look of a well-fed man. “Are you up for pudding?”
“I think I may just have a teensy bit of room left.”
“It’s good to see a girl who likes her food.”
Unsure if that was a compliment, Jess reached over and took the sweets menu from him before deciding on the sticky date pudding.
Owen announced he was going to have banoffee pie.
Jess watched him walk up to the bar to order and gazing at his back bent over the bar, she wondered—not for the first time—why his marriage had broken up. The words were out of her mouth before he even got his bottom back down on his seat.
“Why did you and your wife split up?”
Owen looked at her in surprise. “What brought that on?’
“I told you I am a nosy rosie.”
“Aye, you are that. I suppose it goes with the territory like.” He didn’t look annoyed, though, and Jess wondered whether he would answer her.
He toyed with his drinks mat for a moment and not looking up, replied, “I met Sarah in London through work; she was a lawyer too. She wasn’t like the girls I’d grown up around and I liked the fact she didn’t know about my family’s past when we got together. It felt like a proper fresh start.” He shrugged. “We lived together for a bit and then decided to get married. In hindsight, we were too young and by the time we moved into our thirties, we realised we had nothing left in common. We weren’t the same people anymore; we both wanted different things.” His eyes when he looked up were distant. “She loved living in the city whereas I think I always knew that I would go back to Ballymcguinness one day. It was a bonus that we split up before we got to the having kids part.”
“How long were you married?”
“Eight years.”
“Oh, that’s quite a long time.” It was a big chunk of his life, Jess realised, wondering whether he was as over his ex as he made out. She was surprised to find herself hoping he was.
Two bowls of calorific desserts were deposited in front of them and not wanting her pudding to get cold, Jess tucked in.
“God, that was delicious,” she declared minutes later, leaning back in her chair and clasping her hands round her full belly. Realising she probably resembled a green Buddha, she quickly sat upright. Owen, too, looked well and truly satiated as, groaning, he got up to pay for their meal. Jess minced up behind him, getting her purse out, but he insisted on paying, telling her in that brusque manner of his that it had been his idea in the first place, therefore it should be his treat. His expression brooked no argument so she tucked her purse away again.
True to his word, Owen allowed Jess to lead him into the thrift shop she’d spotted earlier. It was a long, narrow shop cluttered with racks of mismatched clothes on the left-hand side of the wall. To the right were bookshelves filled higgledy-piggledy and bric-a-brac treasures lined the back wall. A changing room cubicle with a floral curtain on a rail screening it off was tucked away in the corner. Behind the counter sat an elderly woman clacking away with her knitting needles. Owen looked out of place as he lurked uncomfortably near the door while Jess began rummaging through the clothes.
“Here!” she called out triumphantly a moment later, holding a belted cream jacket aloft.
“That looks like something my Gran would have worn.”
“For your information, this style happens to be all the go this autumn and if I were to pick up a jacket like this on the High Street, I’d pay around fifty euros easily but look, it’s only three and a half euros.”
“Maybe there is a reason for that,” he replied, taking a step further inside the shop.
Jess ignored him, peering at the label inside the collar. “Plus it’s made in England, not India, so it hasn’t been knocked up on the cheap by some poor underpaid factory workers.”
“And she’s got a social conscience,” Owen muttered, rolling his eyes.
Jess was determined not to be put off and putting the coat to one side, she carried on rifling through the clothes. She spotted a skirt she liked and then headed over to the shelf housing the books. There wasn’t much there to get her excited—old Jilly Coopers and a couple of Sidney Sheldons but no children’s books. She moved toward her last port of call in the shop, pausing to smile at the old woman knitting as she passed by the counter on her way to the bric-a-brac section.
As she spied the little green, leaf-shaped dish hidden amongst a mishmash of seventies pottery, Jess felt a familiar roaring start up in her ears; her heart began to race as her palms grew slippery.
Picking it up reverently, she turned it over and almost let rip with a jubilant, “Yes!” Its stamp declared it was, just as she had suspected, none other than Carlton Ware and…it had a price tag of a ridiculous one and a half euros.
“Owen,” she hissed out of the corner of her mouth, inclining her head for him to come over. She did not want to attract the attention of any of her fellow shoppers or alert the knitting woman that she had spotted a true bargain.
Owen raised an eyebrow and came over to see what she was holding on to as though her life depended on it.
“What’s that you have found then?”
“Shush, keep your voice down,” she whispered, her eyes flickering around the room to make sure they weren’t attracting any undue attention. “It’s Carlton Ware. I can’t believe it.” She turned the dish over in her hands and showed him the stamp on the bottom. “It’s collectable; isn’t it gorgeous?”
Owen looked bemused. “It’s a dish shaped like a leaf. So what use will that be to you?”
“I won’t actually use it you-you-eejit!”
Jess moseyed up to the counter and handed the dish over nonchalantly. “I’ll have this please.”
“It’s a pretty little dish, isn’t it, dear?” The old biddy behind the counter put her knitting to one side and turned the dish over in her hands.
Jess sent up a silent prayer, asking for her not to spot the stamp. If it had been a hospice shop, she might have felt guilty enlisting God like this but since it was a community thrift shop, she was sure he’d be okay with it.
“That’s one and a half euros ta, lovie.”
She flashed Owen a triumphant I told you so look and handed over the money before telling the old dear not to worry about a bag. Then secreting it away in her own bag, she walked as fast as her skirt would let her out of the shop. To her surprise, when she turned around, Owen wasn’t behind her. She waited a few moments until he appeared in the shop’s doorway, toting a plastic bag. It was her turn to raise an eyebrow.
“It was a bargain,” he said, opening the bag and showing her a thick Aran jersey to add to his Aran jumper collection. He had the good sense to look sheepish.