3

When Colm visits Paddy in hospital he looks old and frail. There are purple bruises under his eyes and an orthopaedic collar round his neck. The doctors say he’s going to be alright but he’s taken quite a kicking. He has a couple of broken ribs and needs time to recuperate. It’s played on Colm’s mind all day. What will the old fellow do? What will happen to his land and the cottage? There was some talk from the social worker of a nursing home. But Paddy was so distressed at the suggestion that the hospital agreed to give his sister a call. Nora, is coming over from Cork to look after him till he’s back on his feet. At least that way he can go back home.

Colm spends the afternoon trying to catch up. There’s a gig to organise in Waterville and they’ve been booked for a wedding next weekend for which they’ll be well paid. There’ll be folks from all over and it’s a good opportunity for him and Niall to get better-known. And he needs to get down to the corn merchant to pick up some pellets. There’s been little time in the last couple of days to think about his poems or Martha’s comments. Life has got in the way. After he finishes work he gets in his van and drives up past Bolus Head to check on Paddy’s place. He promised he would keep an eye. A few of the other farmers on the hill are helping care for his stock. So everything’s covered for the moment. A full moon is hanging over the cottage, casting lily pads of light across the bay. Paddy’s washing flaps on the line in the starlight. Colm unpegs his pyjamas, overalls and socks, takes them inside and folds them in a neat pile on the kitchen table. Then he goes to check the turf reek and fasten the banging lean-to door.

As he drives back down the hill he notices the light is still on in Martha’s cottage. He pulls up outside and stops the van. He’d forgotten, what with all that’s been going on, that he said he’d take a look at her stove. Anyway, for some reason, he suddenly wants to see her. When he knocks, she comes to the door in her socks, wrapped in a big scarf. Standing in a ring of light on the doorstep holding a torch, he can barely see her face.

Colm. How nice to see you, she says softly. Come in. I was just about to go to bed. As you can see I was trying to make sense of this pile of Brendan’s papers and not getting very far. It’s freezing in here. I can’t get the stove to light.

He takes off his heavy jacket and hangs it on the back of the chair, then pokes and prods around in the stove, shining his torch up the dark flue.

What I thought. There’s a whole load of shite up there. It probably got dislodged by the wind. It should be okay now, he says, giving it another poke so a whole pile of soot covered debris falls onto the hearth, which he sweeps up in the dustpan and tips outside the front door. D’you have any fire lighters?

A black streak of soot runs across his brow and down the bridge of his nose like war paint.

Better have a bit of a wash, if you’ve got a towel?

As the stove begins to heat up a smell of coal dust fills the room. She goes to the dresser and takes out a clean towel, still stiff from the line, and places it by the kitchen sink. Colm pulls up the sleeves of his thick jersey with his teeth to avoid getting covered in soot. His white, hairless arms are sinewy and there’s a small tattoo visible beneath the dirt. Turning on the taps with his elbows like a surgeon, he rubs his forearms with the transparent disc of carbolic from the cracked saucer on the draining board. She stands in the doorway watching as the water runs black, then clear, a fist closing in her stomach.

Can I get you a drink? Wine? Whiskey? I think you’ve earned it. It was good of you to come over so late.

He takes the offered glass in his wet hand, then sits down in the easy chair by the stove, placing it on the floor and dries his arms, his wrists, the thin webbed skin between his fingers with the towel.

Sure ’twas no bother, Martha.

Is anything wrong? She asks. If you don’t mind me saying so, you look rather tired.

Wrong? Well, not exactly. But you’re right I am tired. It’s good to sit down for a bit. It’s been a difficult couple of days. I don’t know if you’ve heard about the accident yesterday. Paddy O’Connell, you know from the white cottage up top, was hurt on the mountain and had to go to hospital. I was the one who found him.

Hurt? How was he hurt?

Well somehow his cattle got out. If you ask me someone cut the fence. Though who’d do a feckin’ stupid thing like that I’ve no idea. But Paddy slipped trying to pull a cow out of the ditch. She fell on him, broke his ribs, and hurt his neck. He was airlifted to hospital.

Hospital?

Yer. The cattle were all over the mountain and Paddy is such a careful man.

Something in Martha grows cold. Eugene. Surely he wouldn’t stoop so low?

Have you any idea how it happened? It’s probably nothing to do with anything, and I don’t want to be the instigator of rumours but do you happen to know about Eugene’s plans up on the headland? By the way, are you hungry? I’ve some homemade soup on the stove if you haven’t eaten. Would you like some?

Ah that would be grand, Martha, he says stretching out his long legs and relaxing into the sofa, realising how comfortable he feels in this candle-lit book-lined room.

I’m bushed.

Outside the wind is blowing. Shadows from the stove flit across the ceiling like owls.

No, he says taking a sip of whiskey. He knows nothing about Eugene’s plans. Does that mean he’s trying to get rid of Paddy?

She tells him what she knows about the spa, which isn’t a lot.

And he wants part of my field so he can have access.

You wouldn’t, would you Martha? You wouldn’t sell it to him?

Well until now I haven’t really given it any thought. It had crossed my mind to be shot of it. But no, of course, I won’t sell it to him and let him destroy Paddy’s life and ruin this special place.

I have been thinking a good deal over the last few days. About Brendan and Bruno. About the cottage and Eugene’s scheme. I want to do what I can to stop him. It may not be much, but I feel it’s important. That I have a responsibility. I’m one of a generation that had so much. Free health care, free education. Jobs were easy to find and we could travel cheaply, live on very little. It didn’t cost an arm and a leg to buy somewhere to live. But we got greedy. House prices rose and we felt rich, so homes became investments. People began to borrow more than they could afford and the banks encouraged them. I don’t want to be a part of that. I want to leave this place as it was when I came here with Bruno and Brendan. To remember it as it was.

She gets up and takes his glass to refill it. Then as she makes her way back to the sofa stops and, without thinking, brushes a damp lock of hair behind his ear. It’s a spontaneous gesture. Not weighed, not considered. Not what she really meant to do at all. She turns to move away but as she does so he reaches for her hand and pulls her towards him so suddenly his tongue is in her mouth. Was this what she intended? She doesn’t think so. But she hadn’t realised what a hunger she still has for touch. For something to obliterate the Bruno-shaped hole in her life. She knows that she should resist. But what harm can it do? She can smell smoke and carbolic on him as he unbuttons her thick shirt and is suddenly aware of the stretch marks on her breasts. He unzips his jeans, and, as he undresses, her finger traces the outline of the Japanese carp tattooed on his left arm. Its compact muscles, the golden scales and lashing tail. In the firelight he looks very young. His white torso like a boy’s with its line of dark hair running from his navel down to his wiry tuft. She buries her face in it and feels him grow like something she’s cultivated. He gets up, fetches a blanket from the back of the armchair and covers them with it. Then, as he touches her, she gasps and the peat in the stove collapses into a glowing heap. Slowly her body begins to unfold from its knife-edged creases. For the first time in months the knot inside her starts to unravel. In its place is a new quietness. As though she’s being returned to herself. They lie on the rug in front of the stove, drifting in and out of sleep, until the sky whitens across the damp morning fields.