A Week in Winter(49)

And indeed John did sleep well, immediately, in his comfortable bed, but jet lag meant he did not sleep long. Still on California time, he woke at three a.m., alert and ready to face the day.

He made himself tea and looked out the window at the waves crashing on the shore below. He wanted to call Maria Rosa. It was eight or nine hours earlier back home. Perhaps she would have come back to her apartment after a long day’s teaching.

He picked up his mobile phone but before he dialled her number, he paused. Would she really be interested to know that he had booked into this bizarre vacation? She was always polite but distant, as if anything her father did happened in an unreal, childlike maze of ratings and reviews and column inches of publicity. To Maria Rosa it had little to do with the real world.

Then he told himself to stop analysing it.

He dialled the number.

‘Maria Rosa? It’s Dad.’

‘Hey, Dad. How are things?’

‘Just fine. I’m stuck in Ireland, of all places. I missed the connection when I was heading for Germany.’

‘Ireland’s OK, Dad, you could be in worse places.’

‘I know. It’s fine. Very wild where I am, right on the Atlantic.’

‘And cold, I guess?’

‘Yes, but it’s a warm hotel. I’m going to stay here for a week.’

‘That’s good, Dad.’

Was she interested? Was she bored? It was so hard to know from six thousand miles away. ‘I just thought I’d call to say hi.’

‘It’s good to hear from you.’

There was a pause. Was she ending the conversation?

‘And you.’ He was loath to let her go. ‘Can you hear the waves crashing outside? They’re really big. They’re like a sort of drum roll.’

‘What time is it there?’ she asked.

‘Just after three a.m.,’ he said.

‘Hey, Dad, you need to sleep,’ his only daughter said.

Corry said goodnight, and felt more lonely and lost than he had ever felt in his life.

He dozed fitfully after that, and felt sluggish and groggy as he went down to breakfast. Several people were already at the table and they commiserated with him over his jet lag. A young woman called Winnie, who was a nurse, gave him sound, practical advice and although he promised he’d follow it, he allowed himself to be persuaded to try a full Irish breakfast as an alternative remedy. Mrs Starr placed a cafetière of coffee in front of him and told him to help himself.

After breakfast, he lingered over a last cup as Orla cleared the table and Mrs Starr busied herself with maps and binoculars and packed lunches for the guests setting out on walks. As the last of them left, he saw her shoulders relax and he realised how much anxiety lay under the surface.

She caught his eye as she turned round and saw that he had been watching her.

‘This is our first week,’ she explained.

‘But you’re no stranger to the business, I can tell,’ he said.

‘You’re right,’ she said, ‘but that wasn’t my own business. I worked for someone else. Now I’m where the buck stops. So listen, John, what would you like to do today? Would you like another cup of coffee, and I’ll tell you what’s around?’

They chatted companionably over another pot of coffee; and so, refreshed, John set out in blustery sunshine for his first day’s walk.

Following Chicky’s advice, he chose to go inland. He walked over a lonely road, saw big sheep with black faces and twisted horns. Or were they wild goats? There had been little time to study nature when he was growing up. There were huge gaps in his understanding of so many things.

He found a small pub and went from the bright, cold sunshine into the dark interior where a turf fire burned in a small grate and half a dozen men looked up from pints, interested to see a stranger come in.

John greeted them all pleasantly. He was an American, he explained unnecessarily, staying at Stone House. Mrs Starr had suggested this pub would be a good place to visit.

‘Decent woman, Chicky Starr.’ The landlord was pleased with the praise, and he polished the glasses with greater vigour than ever.

‘She spent most of her life in America. Did you know her from there?’ an old man asked him.

‘No, indeed. I just saw an advertisement yesterday in Shannon airport, and here I am!’

Was it only yesterday? He already felt completely disconnected from any other life.

A large man wearing a big cap looked at John keenly. He had a broad red face and small curious eyes.

‘You know, you’re sort of familiar-looking. Are you sure you were never this way before?’

‘Never. This is my first visit. You people sure live in a wonderful part of the world.’

That satisfied them. John had perfected the easy transferring of the attention away from himself, coupled with praise for their having lucked out in where they found themselves living.

‘Chicky Starr was married to a Yank, you know. He was killed in a terrible car crash, the poor devil,’ the red-faced man said.

‘The Lord have mercy on him,’ said the others in unison.

‘That’s terrible,’ John said.

‘Yes, she was very cut up. But she’s got great guts altogether. She came back here to her own people and bought the old Sheedy place. She took ages doing it up. You wouldn’t believe all the work that went into that house.’