‘Yes. Yep.’
‘Try to not worry about Helen.’
‘Thanks.’ I smiled, still on a high. ‘Take care.’
And he was gone.
Had I imagined it?
Or had he actually been flirting?
When he’d agreed that I had skills other than counselling? The twinkle in his eye? The way he’d said, ‘Oh, I know’？
Had I imagined it?
Or was this what friendship with him was like?
86
The last ten minutes of the drive were always the most beautiful. On both sides of the bumpy boreen were theatres of green-grey rocks or fields that plunged and rose steeply.
Overhead, a massive expanse of mauve-coloured sky threatened rain – torrential, by the looks of things. But in seconds, the clouds had changed to a less ominous grey-blue, and just as I arrived at Brigit’s house, the sun was blazing.
I’d been here with Luke and I’d been here with Quin and now I was here alone.
You know it’s not an either/or? Suddenly Yara was very loud and clear in my head. It doesn’t have to be a choice between Quin and Luke. You can have a very happy life without either of them.
Okaaay. I had to sit for a moment, to absorb her wisdom.
Here Brigit came, running in jeans and a rough jumper, her arms open. It was shockingly lovely to see her.
‘You’re early!’ She caught me in a close hug and we half danced, half wrestled in her front yard.
‘I’m not. But you know my theory.’ Which was that ex-big-city girls went overboard embracing the whole fey Connemara time-is-elastic thing. The blowins were always the worst offenders.
‘What’s going on with your hair?’ I asked.
‘Got one of those spray-in Krazy Kolours in Dealz, they only had carmine. It runs in the rain. You’ll probably see it in action later. So come in, we’ll all have lunch, then go to Femke’s to pick up a jar of rose harissa.’
Whenever I visited, most of my time seemed to be spent in the passenger seat of Brigit’s jeep, traversing the townland of Maumtully, dropping things off and picking things up. It was a billion times more enjoyable and bonding than any contrived spa days or afternoon teas.
‘Femke is the lovely Dutch woman in the mansion?’
‘That’s the one.’
Into the glassy dream house, where I had hugs with Colm and the four kids: fifteen-year-old Lenehan, sweet and straightforward; fourteen-year-old Sully, a confident charmer; ten-year-old Ree, chatty and cheeky; and nine-year-old Queenie, suspicious and hilarious.
Brigit put a sturdy loaf of bread on the table. ‘Treacle and walnut.’ Then a heavy ceramic saucepan. ‘Vegetable soup.’
‘Did you make this?’ I asked.
‘Are you mad? Remember Arthur Ankles?’ A Welsh ex-footballer who’d had a breakdown and retreated from the world. ‘He’s working in the hotel now, doing lunches. Great at soups and breads. And, oh my God, his flapjacks!’
Outside, in the sunlight, the greens were a sharp emerald, then the light dipped and the landscape became a muted sage.
‘It’s ridiculously beautiful here.’
‘Try saying that on a November day,’ Colm said. ‘When it’s been raining for a week and a half and the Lidl wine lorry is late.’
‘Haha. You’re only saying that because you’re embarrassed by how wonderful your life is.’
As soon as we’d eaten, Brigit directed me towards the mud-spattered jeep and we set off at speed down the bumpy track. At the turn of the peninsula, a vast beach appeared, grains of white sand blowing in the wind. Beyond was a flat expanse of silver-grey diamonds.
‘Tide’s going out,’ Brigit said, veering sharply inland towards the town. On Main Street we passed a lanky man outside the hardware store. Brigit exclaimed, ‘Padraig!’ and pulled in suddenly.
‘Just need to return his wetsuit.’ She jumped from the jeep. ‘Two seconds.’
I followed her because I knew that a two-second handover of a wetsuit would become fifteen minutes of intense chat. All fine with me, I was on my holidays.
Padraig was full of news: there had been a ‘ruckus’ in the creamery; the hotel had offered Arthur Ankles a contract until Halloween and ‘the powers that be’ were worried about some ‘young fellas coming from Dublin’ for the August bank holiday. Apparently they didn’t ‘want a repeat of last year’。
About five minutes into the chat, when the drizzle began, neither Brigit nor Padraig noticed. My theory was that when you’d lived here for half a year, you grew a water-repellent coating. Not fully waterproof – you wouldn’t survive a dunking in a rain barrel, say – but light precipitation no longer penetrated.