He looked at me and I couldn’t tell if he was sad or angry or happy. I definitely did not feel comfortable.
‘Mark, will you please leave?’
‘Yes, I shouldn’t …’ He didn’t finish the sentence but grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair and left.
I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to be Mark’s friend or not. He seemed to have a dark side.
Next day, he apologized again for ‘being so intense’。 Tina said I should accept apologies if they were sincere. So I did.
I welcomed the distraction of the cottage. Nadine and I had visited the derelict building on Bracken Lane three times. It was a shell. The walls were intact, but the roof had caved in on the left side. Nadine made sketches of what she thought it could look like. Her enthusiasm was contagious.
The survey results returned a list of problems, the most prominent of which was that there was an underground stream which tended to swell in the winter. That explained why the floorboards were rotten throughout. Nadine saw this as a challenge to elevate the interior and expose the stream and make it a feature by having a thick glass floor panel running through the sitting room with underground lights that illuminated it in the evening.
Nadine said if I bought it, she would project manage the whole thing for 10 per cent of the cost. It had been vacant for twenty years. After three days of negotiations, the owners accepted my offer on 2nd April 2019. Nadine thought it would be ready to move into by late autumn.
Now there was the small matter of selling my own house and land. My house was already clean so I didn’t have to do much tidying, but the estate agent suggested that the site would be more valuable than the house and that I shouldn’t bother repainting it. I was scared of change. Tina said it was progress: embracing change.
Mark and I met for coffee or a drink a few times with Udo and Martha, or Anubha and Sue and Kenneth, and once at a barbecue in Mark’s apartment on Easter Sunday, 21st April. The barbecue was on the balcony. He lived in the same block as Kenneth and Sue. He was a perfect gentleman on all of these occasions although, annoyingly, he never failed to ask me if there were any further developments in the search for Conor Geary.
I liked the way he played with all of the children and did magic tricks to entertain them. He and Anubha seemed to keep their distance from each other. Mark confided that he didn’t think she was interested.
I had started shopping in the small Gala supermarket on the village’s main street. It took me a while to orientate myself and get used to what was on offer in each aisle. They had a surprisingly large range of goods, and when I asked for fresh curry leaves （for one of Jamie Oliver’s recipes）， the nice lady said they would order some in especially. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘I think we need to expand our range of ethnic ingredients here. We don’t want to lose all our business to the supermarket in Roscommon.’
I showed her another recipe and she noted all the ingredients and assured me that they’d definitely be stocking them in future. Her name badge said Laura. I began to introduce myself. ‘Oh, we know who you are!’ she said. ‘You’re famous around here.’
‘Not infamous?’ I said. I thought it was a good joke and so did she, because she laughed.
I told her about my attachment to routines.
‘You figure out your routine here and I’ll make sure I advise you of any changes. How about that?’ she said.
I walked out of that shop feeling lighter and taller, and happy. I felt like I’d made yet another friend.
32
Peter, 1982
The neighbour boy’s name was Rangi. I heard the old lady call him by that name. He never paid any attention to me until, one day, he kicked the ball awkwardly and it landed on my side of the fence. I ran from our porch to pick it up but, instead of throwing it back, I held on to it, standing by the fence, waiting for him to approach. After a minute of glaring at me, he did.
‘What’s wrong with you? Why didn’t you just kick the ball back?’
‘I’m Steve,’ I said.
‘Rangi.’
‘I know.’
‘Give me the ball, eh?’
I threw it towards him and, even though I fumbled the throw, he caught it deftly with one hand under his leg.
He didn’t thank me and began to walk away. I had to stop him.
‘Do you go to school? Is that where you go every morning?’
‘Yeah?’ He said it as if my question had been an accusation.
‘You’re lucky,’ I said. ‘I have a medical condition which means I can’t mix with other kids. If they touch me, I could die.’
‘Yeah? How did you get that? I’d love not to have to go to school.’
‘It’s bad,’ I said, self-pity taking over. ‘I have no friends.’
‘You got a television?’ he said.
‘Yes. You can come and watch it if you like, before my dad gets home?’
‘Where’s your accent from?’ he said.
I didn’t think I had an accent. ‘I’m Irish,’ I said before correcting myself in line with our story. ‘Well, I was born here, but I lived in Ireland since I was a baby. I came home two years ago.’
‘Yeah? It’s got a rugby team, right? That place where the war is on. You ever get bombed?’
He seemed disappointed when I admitted that I’d never seen a bomb or a gun and that the war was confined to one small part of Ireland that was under British rule. I could see he was losing interest so I changed tack.
‘What age are you?’ I asked.
‘Fifteen. You?’
‘Fourteen. Are you allowed to drive that truck?’
‘Sort of. Cops don’t ask. Why, is your dad the police?’
Rangi was suspicious.
‘No, he’s a dentist. Is that your mum that you live with?’
‘Nah, she’s me Auntie Georgia. Where’s your mum?’
‘She’s dead.’ There was a pause. I expected him to express his condolences but he said nothing. I said, ‘Do you want to come in and watch television? You can’t touch me.’
‘No, you freaking weirdo. Why would I want to touch you?’
This was going all wrong. He was walking away.
‘See you later, maybe?’ I called, trying to keep the desperation out of my voice.
He didn’t look back.
Over dinner that evening, I nervously told Dad that I’d been talking to our neighbour.
‘The brown boy?’ he said, his nose wrinkling in disgust.
‘Yes, well, his aunt is white, so I think he’s mixed. He was unfriendly.’
‘You shouldn’t mix with them. I almost didn’t buy this house when I saw who was next door. I’m guessing that’s why it was so cheap.’
‘I would like to have a friend, though, someone my own age?’
He put down his knife and fork.
‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ he said. ‘Leave it with me.’
I was excited. In the weeks that followed, Dad began to do up the barn. I helped him run electricity from the main house in an underground trench we dug out. We pored over DIY books to figure out how to get water pipes from the mains into the corner of the barn. Dad installed a large sink, toilet and a modern shower. And then he bought a cooker and a fridge. He lined the walls with egg boxes. ‘Soundproofing,’ he said. ‘They’ll want their privacy. I’m going to look for a lodger, a young person who can work from home and keep you company.’ I was delighted at the idea, but then disappointed when, months later, this young man had failed to materialize. ‘It’s hard to find just the right person,’ Dad said, ‘but don’t worry, I’ll keep looking.’