The Ladies' Midnight Swimming Club(22)

‘There used to be one, but these last few years, it’s died off a bit. You know how these things go; someone starts them up and well… every dog has its day,’ her mother said gently. She looked across at Niall who had hardly said a word since she got home. With that, he pushed back from the table and left the kitchen, slamming the door behind him.

‘Oh dear,’ Jo said softly. ‘I’m afraid he’s not very impressed with Ballycove. I tried to get him out for a walk today, see if he could meet up with some of the other kids around the village? I’m afraid he wouldn’t go much further than the pier with Dora.’

‘Don’t worry about him, Mum, he’ll get over it; if anything, getting out of his comfort zone might be the best thing that ever happened to him.’ Although Lucy knew it would be better if she got to spend a little more time with him while he was adjusting to village life. She moved towards the kettle and took down a mug for each of them. ‘Actually, I wanted to talk to you on our own anyway.’

‘Oh?’

‘I’m worried about you.’ Lucy knew there was no point in beating about the bush with her mother. She’d see right through her. ‘When were you last at the doctor?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with me,’ her mother said sharply.

‘Well, there’s no denying that you’re fading away and I’ve heard you trying to catch your breath while you’re going about the house.’

‘I’m perfectly fine. I go swimming every day; I’m looking forward to seeing you do the same. Hah,’ Jo said getting up from the table, but she stopped when Lucy reached out and touched her hand.

‘Just let me do a blood test, okay? It’ll only take a minute and I’ll send off the samples tomorrow through the surgery.’

‘Fine, but just so you know I’m as healthy as an old trout,’ Jo said dropping into the chair and rolling up her sleeve for the inevitable.

*

The night was beginning to toss up a northerly icy wind and after Lucy had cleared up the kitchen and placed the blood samples in a bag for the following day, she figured she’d better get her walk with Dora over with before it decided to turn into a fresh storm. The village streets were empty as she wound her way back up and away from the pier. She wasn’t sure she wanted to walk all the way to the top. The wind would be biting and raw up there now. It was hard to believe as the rain began to fall in spiky barbs that it was only twelve hours since she’d walked along the beach, with a bright and cutting sun spitting into her eyes. Still, there was something in the silence, a fullness that held within it a treasure bigger than any city could ever hope to touch. It was a medley of community, small-town history and the rushing energy of the sea, collapsing together within the very fabric of this little village. There was something soothing about it.

She turned back when she reached the point that she’d always considered about halfway up the town. She was opposite one of the village’s three pubs. The Weavers was a small bar that had only shrunk as the years had passed. It was housed in what might have been someone’s front room once, but now the little terraced house had been given over entirely to the business of selling porter and making traditional music at the weekends. Tonight, the place was quiet. There would be the regular round up of patrons, sitting or standing at the bar, counting down the hours until they had to return home to their cold houses and perhaps neglected spouses.

Over her head, high up on the hill she heard the church bell ring out: nine bells. She imagined, in the little houses along the way, people resting up in their armchairs, tuning in to hear the nine o’clock news of the day. The headlines a melody of prison strikes and foreign wars – Ballycove seemed to be insulated in some ways from those terrible atrocities. This thought, while it unsettled, also made her feel a little more at home, as if, by some happy miracle she had settled into a comfortable chair before a roaring fire and here, everything would turn out well in the end.

It was with the intention of catching the evening news, or at least the tail end of it, that she decided to move more quickly. She called to Dora, who was dawdling by a lamp post. ‘Come along, we can’t stay out all night.’ She was looking back, when she should have been looking forward, not expecting to run into someone else on the empty street. But that is exactly what she did. She turned the bending corner, half aware that she was following the uneven footpath, mostly feeling slightly punished at the notion that she too would like to be sitting in the front room of her mother’s cosy cottage watching the day’s news unfold on the slightly too large TV screen. When Bam.

For a moment, she wasn’t entirely sure what had happened, but then, she felt steadying hands upon her shoulders. They were large, strong hands that seemed to anchor her in spite of herself. Behind her, she heard Dora, suddenly, too late, spring to her defence. The little dog came trailing bravely, if a little uncertainly, yapping her loudest bark in defence of her treasured mistress.

‘I’m sorry.’ The voice was local. She stood for a moment, looking up, perhaps a little dazed, until she realised, it was Alan – the local parish priest. They sidestepped about each other for a moment, but she had the overwhelming feeling that if this was the worst that could come to you on an evening walk, then surely Ballycove was exactly the kind of place she should be rearing her son.

The cottage was even cosier when Lucy pushed in the front door than it had been when she was leaving. There was the faint aroma of home baking in the air and the low drone of her mother’s snores before the television in the sitting room. Niall had taken himself off to bed, according to her mother, with a wedge of apple pie and a tall glass of milk – probably still angry with Lucy for bringing them here.