Anna stood in the centre of Rob’s kitchen chopping tomatoes and slicing peppers and cucumbers for the salad while he checked the marinated chicken pieces and rubbed a little crushed garlic on the steaks. His parents, Pat and Sheila, and his sister Dee and her family had all arrived about half an hour ago. Sheila, in a denim skirt and linen blouse, was outside wandering around looking at the plants in the garden. She’d brought Rob a pot of rosemary which he’d placed out on the kitchen step.
‘A few sprigs are great when you’re roasting a bit of lamb or a chicken,’ she encouraged him.
‘Great match in Thurles today,’ ruminated Pat, pouring himself a glass of red wine. ‘Galway should get through to the quarter-finals now.’
‘Tony Fahey was on fire,’ agreed Rob, and the two of them began a deep discussion on the merits of the GAA football game.
Watching him she could see the two of them had an easy relaxed relationship and a similar outlook on life. Dee was small and plump with mischievous dark eyes and a great sense of humour. She worked part-time as a nurse in the local hospital and her husband Luke and two boys were sitting in the garden. The salads done, Anna carried them outside in three big ceramic bowls and, grabbing a glass of wine, joined the others. Dee was on sparkling water as she was expecting again in December.
‘The boys are so wild, I don’t know how we’ll cope if we have another,’ she joked as seven-year-old Tim and younger brother Ferdia wrestled fiercely and tumbled on the grass.
‘Hey, you two, behave!’ warned their grandmother, plumping on to a sun-chair beside her.
From the road outside Anna heard the sound of a car stopping and ran to welcome her own mother and sisters and Angus, leading them inside to meet everyone.
‘Wow!’ said Grace admiringly the minute she saw the house, taking in the tall windows and magnificent sea views.
After fixing a drink for everyone Rob proudly gave them a quick tour of the place while Anna made the salad dressing and checked the potatoes they’d tossed in oil and herbs that were roasting in the oven.
Angus was very impressed and made Rob give him a blow-by-blow account of the conversion from country schoolhouse to such a stunning home.
‘You’ve done an amazing job!’ Grace was full of praise. ‘It’s spectacular and Anna tells me that you’re doing a similar job on the old Corry Lighthouse.’
‘It’s a totally different project, but it’s great to be involved in restoring rather than bulldozing a place!’
Sheila and Maggie, the two mothers, were getting on like a house on fire, gossiping about the neighbours and poor Angela Reynolds who lived on her own in the village with a little Yorkshire terrier and was ill and refusing to go into a nursing home.
At first Evie had hung back and clung to the grown-ups but once she got talking to Tim and Ferdia she forgot about her shyness and was soon racing like a lunatic after the football that Ferdia had discovered under a bush, the dog barking and racing alongside them.
‘She’s having great fun!’ Sarah was delighted, her eyes shining.
Rob had heated up the barbecue and in no time the smell of beef and chicken and sausages cooking filled the air.
Anna had already set the table and soon Rob was handing out the meat and tasty big fat sausages. The kids immediately smothered them in ketchup. Anna passed round the bowl of piping hot potatoes.
‘Compliments to the chef!’ teased Luke as he tucked in.
Anna grabbed a seat beside Grace who she could tell was feeling rather out of it.
‘This place is perfect,’ Grace said softly, ‘and so is he.’
‘Sssh.’
‘Anna, I mean it,’ said Grace seriously, gazing into her eyes. ‘Rob is perfect for you!’
‘I know,’ she admitted, glancing up the table to where he was sitting laughing with Angus and his mother and telling some crazy fishing story. ‘Sometimes I just can’t believe it, we’re complete opposites but somehow it seems to work.’
‘You’re lucky.’ Grace smiled a little enviously.
‘What about you?’ she coaxed. ‘Any word from Mark?’
‘He’s still away,’ confided Grace, ‘but last week he sent me a text to say he’s thinking of me. I’m not exactly sure what it means but it’s something. He doesn’t phone or call or email me, just this silly three-word text!’
‘At least he got in touch with you,’ Anna said consolingly as she took a sip of her wine. She glanced around the garden and terrace; everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. She’d been dreading having both families for a meal and if Rob hadn’t insisted she wouldn’t have agreed to it. Now she was glad that they had made the effort. Sitting here looking out over the waters of the Atlantic sharing food and wine on a summer’s day with those they both loved made her feel somehow complete.
Later, after everyone had gone home and they’d washed the dishes and tidied up they lay in bed watching the moonlight shimmer on the water, her body a little on top of his, replete, passion spent, wrapped in each other’s arms.
‘I want you to stay,’ he said.
‘I am staying.’ She laughed, pressing her knee against his thighbone.
‘No, I mean I want you to stay always. Not just some weekends and holidays and nights here and there. I want you to stay here with me, live with me, move in with me and . . . the dog.’ He had sat up a bit, leaning forward, watching her reaction.
She could see his eyes and the way his stubby dark eyelashes made them seem bigger, and the scars from when he was a teenager and had acne, and the small dark freckle on his neck.
By rights they had nothing absolutely nothing in common. Rob was a builder who had left school at sixteen, she was an acknowledged expert in Anglo-Irish literature; he hated poetry and namby-pamby books, while she lived for language and words; he was a country guy and she a city girl. Yet she knew that she couldn’t live without him and that every separation was a little like dying, killing her. She had hated the real world, wanted only the type of romance and love written about in literature; now all she wanted was this warm, loving, ordinary man. Before Rob she had wanted to close her eyes to the world, enjoy her silence and solitude, but he, like a knight of olden times, had rescued her from the high walls she had built around herself. Now when she woke there was coffee and laughter and talk about the day and the future and everything that life held . . .
‘Yes,’ she said softly for she wanted it as much as he did. She had wasted enough years. She had no idea how they would make it work. Her career, work, finances, her house back in Dublin, the possibility of applying to Galway University to get some lecturing work . . . It was all up in the air but the logistics didn’t matter, the important thing was that she was going to move in with Rob and spend her life with him. She reached up and kissed him, wrapping her arms around his neck as slowly they took turns showing how much they loved each other.