The Boatman's Wife(40)

‘Of course I do, he’s family,’ she said. ‘Come on, just one pint. Please.’

‘Okay,’ Jesse said, shaking his head.



They drove back into Clones. For a moment, she thought Jesse might keep going, but then he pulled in outside the Creighton Hotel bar, where they’d agreed to meet Brendan, Liam and a few of the others.

‘You sure you want to go in?’ Jesse asked her again, once they’d taken off their helmets.

‘Just a quick one.’ She kissed him on the lips to placate him.

‘Okay, if you insist,’ Jesse said, pulling her towards him and giving her a long kiss back. ‘But I want to get you home soon, right?’

Niamh regretted her decision as soon as they walked in the bar, and saw Brendan and his group had taken over an entire corner. Their loud banter filled the whole pub – but Brendan had summoned her. She couldn’t just go home.

There were already pints on the table for them, Niamh saw, as she and Jesse sat down. Jesse didn’t take part in the chat, stiff by Niamh’s side. Brendan and his friends were talking about football. Surely all boys liked football? But Jesse said nothing. Did he think he was better than them? Niamh shook the thought out of her head. He was just outside of his comfort zone. Didn’t know about football, obviously, because he was American. She gave him an encouraging smile, but he returned with an unsmiling look. Despite the drink, Niamh was rigid with tension.

Jesse went up to the bar and bought Brendan a pint, but not one for himself, which somehow seemed insulting to Niamh. On his way back to the table, he leant down and whispered to her. ‘We’d better get back.’

‘Have another pint?’ Niamh said. ‘We’ve just got here.’

‘I can’t,’ he said tightly, glancing over at Brendan, who was laughing loudly at one of Liam’s jokes, though his gaze was on Jesse, cold and hostile. ‘I’m on the bike.’

‘We can stay over at Brendan’s. You’re off tomorrow, aren’t you?’

Jesse looked at her, as if he was trying to tell her something with his eyes. ‘No, Niamh, I want to go,’ he persisted. ‘You coming with me?

She should have known better than to bring Jesse with her. Of course he wouldn’t mix with these people. She downed her pint and stood up, turning to Brendan.

‘We’re off,’ Niamh told her cousin.

‘Ah no, it’s early still,’ Brendan said. ‘You’ll miss the session. Stay for another. You can crash at the house.’

‘Jesse has to be up early,’ Niamh said. The first excuse she could think of, and she felt Jesse shift beside her at the lie.

‘Well, that’s okay,’ Brendan said, staring right at her. ‘He can go on. And I’ll drive you back tomorrow morning. You can stay over.’

‘Oh no, I should go,’ Niamh began to say.

‘Didn’t you want to talk to Daddy?’ Brendan cocked his head on one side.

Jesse stood waiting, holding his helmet in his hands. What should she do? She turned to look at him, begging with her eyes.

‘Can you not stay?’ she asked him.

‘No, but you can if you want,’ Jesse said gruffly. ‘I know the way back, and it’s still light.’

‘Are you sure?’ Niamh said, conflicted by her duty and her desire. A part of her hoping Jesse would insist he needed her to accompany him.

‘Yeah, it’s all cool,’ he said, clearly trying to sound breezy, but Niamh could detect the hurt beneath his words. ‘Nice to meet you guys.’

Brendan and his friends barely acknowledged Jesse’s departure. He walked off looking tall and dignified in his biking leathers. Niamh wanted to run after him, but if she stayed the night, she had a chance to talk to Tadhg. It was an opportunity too important to let go.

As the session began and the fiddler struck up, Niamh looked down glumly at the contents of her pint glass. This was not how she’d imagined the day was going to end. Listening to diddly-aye music on the piss with Brendan yet again. She imagined Jesse riding away on his bike, dipping round the corners of the country lanes.

Niamh picked up her glass and slugged back the contents, before following it with a shot of whisky as everyone in the bar began to sing ‘The Fields of Athenry’. This was where she belonged. She was a fool to believe anything else.



Niamh woke with a banging headache, curled up on the sofa in cousin Tadhg’s house. Brendan hadn’t even made it up to his bedroom and was sitting in the armchair, an empty bottle of whisky on the table, his mouth wide open in deep sleep.

She groaned as she stretched her stiff body. She’d been so drunk she couldn’t remember getting back to the house, or ending up on the couch, but catching sight of an empty tumbler on the floor, she must have helped Brendan demolish the bottle of whisky. She sat up on the sofa, taking in the small living room. It hadn’t changed in all the years she’d been visiting her cousins. Everything in tones of brown. Faded wallpaper, striped brown and beige, and the maroon-tiled ceramic fireplace. A picture of the Sacred Heart over the armchair where Brendan was sleeping, and the brown velvet footstool indented with the weight of cousin Tadhg’s legs, which she’d used to sit upon as a little girl while she listened to him telling his stories.

She got up and perused the mantelpiece. All the same framed photographs. Brendan at the age of fourteen, with a mess of curly red hair, pimples, and the beginnings of a moustache, grinning like mad at the camera. A picture of his parents and her parents together at a lakeside picnic, before either she or Brendan had been born. Her dad and mam looked so young in the photograph, and so very carefree. Next to the photographs was a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes, which had been one of her Aunt Mary’s most prized possessions, brought home from when she’d accompanied her sick mother to the holy grotto as a young woman. The room smelt musty, and in need of a good airing. It certainly wasn’t as clean and tidy as Aunt Mary used to keep it.