Back in Dublin, Anna immersed herself in work. She managed to avoid Philip on campus as much as possible, with the exception of an awkward night when they were both asked to the book launch of Michael O’Shea’s new volume of poetry in the Arts Club. It was laughable really, both of them with glasses of wine in hand trying to keep to the side of the room furthest from the other.
She found herself missing the cottage, missing the peace of the mornings watching the cormorant diving from the rocks on the beach and the near-empty landscapes, and as the final few weeks of term approached and the students began to study for their exams she decided to take a break on the bank holiday weekend, filling the boot of the car with folders and files, her boxes of books and her precious laptop and returning to Roundstone.
Anna could feel herself relax as she turned the final bend in the road and saw the dark grey slate tiles and chimney that signalled the roof of Gull Cottage. It was almost like a mirage after the hurly burly of the city and the pace of life in Dublin. She slowed down the car to take in the view of the sea and that first proper glimpse of the house. No wonder her grandmother had insisted on spending so much time here in her later years. Stopping the car she took a deep breath of fresh air, relishing the peculiar tang of salt water and seaweed that the breeze carried in to the shore.
Grabbing her backpack she opened the door and let herself in, almost giddy with excitement as she ran around and checked the place. She smiled, noticing immediately that the roof tiles were fixed, and that the ugly damp patch in the sitting room had been freshly plastered. The window was done, the tap in the bathroom sink for once actually worked and the grass was cut, and checking the shed she discovered the mower back in its correct place. Rob must have managed to fix it all. She must be sure to pay him for everything before she returned to Dublin.
It was windy outside and, grabbing her jacket, she decided to head down to the beach for a walk after the long drive. The strand was deserted and she ran and jumped and messed around like a little kid, chasing the waves, screaming and running back and forth, her shoes and socks in a pile as she paddled and splashed, her jeans absolutely soaked. Her hair was all over the place and she even had sand in her ears.
Reluctantly, after about an hour and a half she headed back to the house as the first cloak of rain blew in off the ocean, running towards the house as it began to fall heavily. She threw off her wet clothes, pulling on her warm pyjamas and a fleece sweatshirt as she flicked on the radio. She had no interest in traffic news or what was going on in the financial markets and quickly switched it off, slipping on Simon and Garfunkel instead. Their mellow sounds filled the pine kitchen as she made herself a vegetable stir-fry with rice, curling up on the couch to eat it as the light changed and the sun slowly sank below the horizon.
That night she sat down prepared to work, to write about the women in W. B. Yeats’s life: his mother, his wife, the woman he adored, his sisters, his patron; about a man nurtured by the love of many others who were satisfied to simply be part of his genius. The blank screen with its paltry sixteen lines of text mocked her as she searched for the right words and phrases to describe the intimate relationship that existed between the poet and his muse, the beautiful Maud Gonne. She reread her notes and scribbled on a rough paper pad, but no matter how much she tried to get the rhythm of the words that filled her brain on to the page she realized she could not convey her thoughts adequately. She who berated her students for their lack of depth and understanding was now unable to recreate the world of the poet she adored and respected.
‘Forget it!’ she said to herself, reaching instead for a book on her grandmother’s bookshelf about the lighthouses of Ireland. She read for two hours and then, after making a mug of milky coffee, went to bed. The wind howled through the night but, wrapped snug in her quilt, she slept.
The next morning the beach was scattered with streels of seaweed and flotsam washed ashore, the tide was out, the water calm once more. After breakfast she decided to drive to the shops to get a paper and some milk.
Looking around at the crowded shelves and fridges in Foley’s supermarket-cum-post office she was tempted to buy more. She picked out rashers and sausages, some free-range eggs and a loaf of wheaten bread, a few slices of baked ham and tomatoes and butter. Funny, but the air up here always made her hungry; when they were kids they were always starving and Granny and her mum would spend their time cooking up fries and barbecues and picnics for them.
Rose Foley asked after her mother as she paid for her groceries. ‘Tell her I said hello, and not to leave it so long before she comes back up to visit us.’
‘Rose, by any chance do you know where Rob O’Neill lives?’ she asked as she packed the items in her bag.
‘That scallywag of a nephew of mine lives up on the coast road, about half a mile past Grogan’s house,’ she replied. ‘You can’t miss it! It’s the old schoolhouse.’
The car bumped along the muddy road between the overgrown hedgerows as she searched for the house, coming to a halt outside the stone schoolhouse with its new windows and bright painted gate. His car was there but knocking on the door she got no answer. Maybe she could just shove a note in the letterbox? She wanted to pay him but had no idea how much all the work and repairs had cost. In an attempt to find him she walked around the back of the building to find Rob busy varnishing a garden table and chair set in the middle of a grassy area overlooking the beach. The front of the schoolhouse had been deceptive: the back looked nothing like a school building. It had tall almost roof-to-floor windows giving a magnificent view of the sea, with glass panels built into the slanting roof.
‘Wow, it’s wonderful.’
He stopped what he was doing and came over to her immediately, wiping his hands, followed by a black and white Jack Russell-type mongrel.
‘I got your mower fixed and the roof done.’
‘That’s why I came.’ She grinned. ‘Thanks so much for all your work. I want to find out how much I owe you.’
‘Three hundred should do it.’
‘Your house looks amazing,’ she said as she pulled the crisp fifty-euro notes she’d got from the pass machine in Galway from her purse.
‘I was going to take a break,’ he said, slipping the notes into the pocket of his jeans. ‘Do you fancy a coffee and Tippy and I will give you a tour of the place.’
‘Are you sure I’m not holding you up? I’d love to see what it’s like on the inside.’
Rob led her in through a high bright glass and pine patio door to a huge kitchen area with simple oak units and a long oak table and chairs. The sun splashed on to the white walls, picking out the granite-covered chimney breast, and highlighting a scatter of oil paintings and modern graphic prints hanging on the opposite wall.
‘It’s beautiful, Rob,’ she said, walking around, standing at the island unit with its magnificent view of the coast. ‘It must be fun cooking here!’
A staircase divided it from the open-plan living area with another fireplace, two huge couches and a wall with a complete sound system, flat-screen TV and DVD player.
She laughed when she spotted the old-fashioned blackboard left down the back wall.
‘Well, I couldn’t have a schoolhouse without having a blackboard!’
Unable to resist she got a piece of chalk and wrote her name and drew a big smiley sun on it.
A small buttercup-coloured bedroom with view of the front yard and a storage room completed the downstairs.
She followed him as he led her upstairs unable to disguise her envy when he opened the door of the main bedroom. The room held a large bed which faced the tall pointed windows with the breathtaking view of the sea and beach below. The room was cream and white with three giant Aran-patterned cushions on the bed.
‘My mother knitted those for me,’ he confided.
The room was neat and clean, with a walk-in wardrobe to one side where she noticed everything folded and hanging in its correct place. A simple white bathroom with a glorious power shower and another bedroom, where he was fitting wardrobes, completed the upstairs.
‘It’s so amazing, I can’t believe it was ever a schoolhouse.’
‘It’s taken me three years to get this far and it’s been a huge amount of work,’ he admitted candidly. ‘I’ve done most of it myself but I hope that I have managed to retain some of the character of the place.’
‘Rob, it’s lovely. I wish my sister Grace could see it. She’s an architect,’ she explained. ‘She’d love it.’
As they sat and had coffee back downstairs he told her how he had managed to buy it. ‘My father phoned me and told me it was going to auction. I was working in Manchester at the time, but I knew the building and the location. It had been empty for about five years, windows smashed, partly boarded up, but I went to school here with the rest of my brothers so I knew it very well. They merged the boys’ and the girls’ school and luckily for me this was the one put up for sale. I put in a bid, it was probably a bit higher than most so I managed to get it. I got home that summer and put in for planning permission and by the autumn I had moved back.’
‘Well, you’ve done a wonderful job on it,’ she complimented him, genuinely impressed with his work.
‘Aye, it’s been a bit of a long road, but it’s worth it.’
She had seen no sign of a wife or girlfriend and was curious as to why he had put so much work into it.
‘I told you I went to school here. Well, I sat at a desk over there against that very wall. I had Mr Horan our teacher driven demented,’ he said, laughing aloud. ‘I wasn’t good at school, all I wanted was to kick football in the yard and play hurling with my brothers. Mr Horan told me repeatedly that I was hopeless and that he didn’t expect much of me. I was ten years old and his words hit me hard. Isn’t it funny how someone not believing in you can sometimes spur you on to do things you might not have imagined doing?’
Despite his smile Anna could still see the hurt in his eyes and was tempted to reach for his hand.
‘I guess that sort of makes me crazy for buying this place.’
The dog whined to be let out and they watched her take off like a bolt of lightning across the lawn after a seagull, barking like crazy.
‘Do you fancy a walk on the beach?’ he asked, surprising her. ‘Tippy likes to run around and chase the waves.’
Anna thanked heaven she was wearing her loafers as they descended the steps. The dog raced between them as they fell into step together on the almost-empty beach, the waves rushing towards the sand.
‘What about you?’ he asked.
‘Well, I’m the opposite of you,’ she said honestly, staring at a sailing boat in the distance. ‘I was a swot at school. I always had my nose stuck in a book! Studying and reading and learning came easily to me. I loved poetry and drama and after studying English in college I decided I wanted to lose myself in the world of academia. Now I’m a junior lecturer teaching in the English Department in Trinity, specializing in Anglo-Irish Literature.’
‘I always hated poetry,’ he admitted, his blue eyes honest and direct. ‘I could never understand why someone wouldn’t say straight out what they thought. Poems were always like a riddle comparing something to something else, instead of loving it for itself.’
‘Maybe you’re right.’ She was taken aback by his insight and his utter lack of literary pretension.
‘Lately maybe I’ve begun to realize that there is more to life than words written on pages,’ she confessed. ‘I guess spending time up here in Gran’s place has made me see that.’
‘That’s a good thing then,’ he said firmly as he threw a piece of stick for the dog who ran demented after it and chased back and dropped it at his feet. He laughed. ‘She thinks she’s a retriever.’
As they walked back up the sand-covered steps fashioned from old timber railway sleepers, Rob surprised her again by asking her to stay for dinner.
‘It’s only chicken curry,’ he warned. ‘You’ll be saving me from another lonely bachelor dinner.’
Anna swallowed hard. She couldn’t remember the last time a man had offered to cook something for her. ‘Sure,’ she said lightly.
She watched as he cut up chicken breast and onions, the scent of garlic and curry powder and chilli filling the kitchen as they chatted easily. She set the table, managed to find the mango chutney he’d insisted he had at the back of his cupboard and put together a green salad.
The curry was hot and spicy and she reached for the glass of iced water on the table as he threw back his head and laughed.
‘I thought you said you went easy on the chilli!’
‘I did.’
Her tastebuds got used to it and after a few minutes she was able to carry on the conversation without looking too hot and flushed.
‘I do a creamy smooth korma,’ she teased, ‘you’ll have to taste that.’
‘I’ll hold you to it,’ he said, getting up and fetching two bottles of cold beer from the fridge.
They ate and chatted until it got dark; Anna was embarrassed when she saw the time. ‘I’d better get going,’ she apologized, thanking him for the food.
‘You could stay,’ he said slowly, his eyes never leaving her face.
Anna took a breath. She was tempted to nod and say yes but something was holding her back. Call it being old-fashioned but she wasn’t the type for casual relationships.
‘I’m sorry, Rob, but I really have to go.’
‘Let me walk you out,’ he offered politely. The dog followed them out into the darkness.
The night was still, the moon wobbling above them as he reached down and kissed her, his lips warm. Anna, surprised by her own response, kissed him back. The dark shape of the hedges and field and stone walls all spun together as she clung to him.
‘No changing your mind?’ he teased.
‘No!’ She burst out giggling as she fished for her keys. She fiddled, trying to start the engine, and flicked on the lights. The car jumped to life and she turned and drove back along the country road.