She’d have to tell her mother. Oh God. That would be like going ten rounds with Tyson, except her mother would jab with love and care and she’d worry like crazy that everything was all right with her only daughter.
‘But that’s just so perfect,’ Jo said when she rang to tell her the news.
‘Really?’ Lucy asked, because she still couldn’t believe she’d actually done it.
‘Yes, really. I never understood why you stuck at it, after…’ She was too tactful to say after the divorce. ‘I mean, you’ve been killing yourself and for what? You hardly see Niall, you never get to take a weekend off and it’s not as if you’re broke. I mean…’ Again, the divorce and the sale of their old house had left her with a financial cushion – thankfully her mother was too kind to say that outright either.
‘Come home, Lucy. Ballycove could be just what you need now and…’
‘And?’
‘Well, you know I told you about old Dr O’Shea?’
‘Yes, I remember. How’s his wife? She must be very lonely.’
‘Elizabeth?’ Jo brushed off the name, as if his widow was unlikely to notice he was no longer about the village. ‘Oh she’s fine, nothing that a little getting out of herself won’t cure, but it’s the surgery…’
‘No, no, no, I can’t…’ Lucy realised why throwing in her job seemed like such a perfect opportunity to her mother. ‘Anyway, didn’t she have someone else running it for her?’
‘Oh, that dragon? No. Thankfully, she’s gone back to whatever cave she slithered from. No, Elizabeth needs someone new, someone who’s looking for a fresh start. Oh, Lucy, you’d be perfect and it could be just the thing for both of you.’
‘And what about Niall?’ Lucy shook her head. She couldn’t imagine Niall being at all enthusiastic about moving down to Ballycove. He was too geeky to fit in with the farming and fishing kids who normally hung about the village.
‘Look, just to keep your mother happy, will you come down for the weekend, get a feel for the place? Let’s see what you think. Don’t decide yet, but maybe when you meet Elizabeth and you have a look around – you never know. It might be exactly what you’re looking for.’ She ended the call before Lucy could say another word, no doubt off to make up their beds and cook up a storm of pies and cakes.
*
Lucy enjoyed the drive once she left the city behind; a looming red weather alert meant the roads were tame for now and Niall snoozed gently beside her. He was not a huge conversationalist when they were driving, but then what teenager ever was? Once she hit the midlands, she sank a little further down in her seat. The skies were rolling out a dark metal canvas before her and on either side peaty bogs unfolded purple heather and white cotton into the distance. The land was flat and uncompromising, but it was comforting to see little houses, smoke firing up their chimneys and the occasional stab at optimism where clothes flapped on clothes lines in the wind before the certain storm threatening from ever-darkening skies.
Soon, she was driving into Mayo, its familiar rocky fields and winding roads welcoming her with a soft misty rain that passed not too long after it began. Ballycove sat on the coast, facing off the Atlantic Ocean with its back at the North Sea.
Perhaps she was biased but Lucy always thought it was one of the quaintest villages on the western seaboard. Built into a stony cliff that hung over a stout pier, the streets zigzagged upwards in an angular spiral, until, at the top, the finest houses and the looming limestone church sat proudly overseeing all. Her mother lived at the lower end of the town in a small house – one of a row of workers’ cottages.
Lucy had loved growing up here. She’d always thought it was the most idyllic spot. She loved everything about the cottage, but most of all, she adored her tiny bedroom at the front of the house that overlooked the sea wall. She had always treasured waking up in that little room, with the crashing of the waves just beyond her window and the constant call of gulls and curlews floating in from across the waves. It was, she’d once thought, even lovelier at night, to be snuggled in the tiny room, safe and sound while the winter storms crashed against the walls opposite and whistled along the cottages, rattling letter boxes and swinging gates.
In summer, when she left the window open, she slept and woke with the salty fresh smell of the sea in her nostrils and the music of the tide in her ears. It was no wonder that she seemed to eat for four when she was here. Quite aside from the fact that her mother cooked good wholesome food, long walks on the beach or back across the peaty stretch of fields and hills meant she was constantly ravenous. It would be no bad thing, if she could persuade Niall, to stay here for a while and breathe in fresh air and maybe even sit at a table with good food and better company. There was no denying she had always been thin, but now, when she caught her eye in the rear-view mirror, she was positively gaunt. A shadow of the girl she truly was.