‘Not quite, but it’s definitely up there with the fact that I’ve just seen the Sale Agreed sign going up on the house next door to your mother’s. Now, that’s worth celebrating.’
‘You bought Murphy’s cottage?’ Lucy said a little incredulously. ‘I can’t believe it. I thought you had your eye on Elizabeth’s house?’
‘Well, I might have had, but when I heard you bought the surgery, I figured either Elizabeth would hold onto it, or you might want to buy it yourself…’
‘I didn’t put in an offer because I thought you wanted to buy it!’
‘That’s the most wonderful news,’ Elizabeth said clapping her hands and Dan watched as a glance passed between Elizabeth and Jo and he wondered if he’d missed a step. Somehow it didn’t matter. It felt as if everything was unfolding exactly as it should.
32
Niall
At just after two o’clock the following day, his mother opened the door to his room. He had slept solidly after their late night celebrating the charity swim and this morning seemed to come much too quickly.
‘Niall,’ she said softly. ‘Are you awake? It’s just that Zoe is here…’
‘Here?’ Niall poked his head above the quilt and sure as wheels were round, there was Zoe Huang standing in the narrow doorway next to his mother.
‘Come on, sleepyhead, my father is almost ready to go.’ She smiled and closed the door gently; he could hear them both pad towards the living room. He sprung from the bed, sprayed some deodorant vaguely in the direction of his upper body and flung on a clean T-shirt, before ruffling up his hair and rinsing his mouth out. There wasn’t time for much more getting ready, and then he bounded downstairs without looking back.
‘What time will you be home?’ his mother called behind them, forcing an apple into his hand as he went.
‘By six, Mrs Nolan,’ Zoe shouted as they raced out the door.
Soon they were jogging back into the belly of the village and up towards the piano shop. They stopped next to a dusty old Ford that didn’t look as if it ever went much further than the end of the road and back.
‘Ah, Zoe, you found your friend?’ Mr Huang pulled the shop door firmly behind him.
‘Sorry, I was late, Mr Huang, I slept in. It was a late night.’ That at least was true and now he was so hungry, he almost felt weak.
‘Yes, but your grandmother must be very proud,’ Mr Huang said kindly and he sat in the car.
‘Yes, I think she had a wonderful time, thank you.’
It turned out Niall’s first impression of Mr Huang’s car was probably right. He was a very nervous driver and he never passed thirty miles an hour for the whole journey. Through the village and on bends he lowered down to no more than ten miles per hour. The journey to the next village would take an age, Niall thought, but strangely enough, because they chatted happily on the way, it seemed that they arrived much too quickly.
‘I have some business to catch up on, Zoe. I’ll meet you both back here at five, okay?’
‘Sure.’ She reached up and kissed her father on the cheek and then they were racing to the furthest end of town and the Ferris wheel that Niall had spotted as they’d approached. ‘All of the kids from school will be here. You’ll like them,’ she said as they neared the fair.
Zoe was right. The other kids, about a dozen of them in all, were just like Niall. Regular normal kids, who played video games, listened to the same music and watched reruns of television shows over and over again, so they knew the lines off by heart. These kids were not broken into camps of either rugby or maths geniuses – they were just ordinary. And he had a blast. Three hours disappeared into fish and chips, dodgem rides and sitting on grass in a circle talking about nothing and maybe, just a bit of everything. By the time he got home that evening, it felt as if he was becoming a different person.
‘You had a nice time?’ His mother looked tired.
‘Yeah, it was all right,’ Niall said, but he couldn’t help but smile. ‘Will I make you a cup of tea, Mum?’ he asked as he put on the kettle to boil and it struck him, he wasn’t sure how his mother drank her tea. After all, she made him coffee all the time, but when was the last time he’d offered to make her a cuppa? He couldn’t remember; probably some Mother’s Day long ago, when he’d slopped tea and orange juice on a tray alongside badly buttered toast and a dandelion from the garden in a vase.
‘Lovely,’ his mother said lightly. ‘Just the one sugar, I’m trying to cut back.’ Niall placed the cups on the kitchen table.