The Boatman's Wife(41)

Niamh dragged her feet across the living room and went into the kitchen. She leaned at the sink, filling up a glass of water and glugging it down in one go, before refilling it and repeating the process. She looked out the window. It had rained overnight, and her cousins’ back yard and garden was lush with greenery, the mud glinting wet, puddles formed in tractor tyre tracks. She opened the back door and Patch the collie dog came trotting over, pushing her muzzle into Niamh’s hand. This was her father’s homeland. The place his father and his brother – Tadhg’s father – had moved their families to from West Belfast in the fifties. Cormac Kelly had been born and bred down the road. It was Niamh’s mother who’d grown up in Sligo, by the sea. Her daddy’s home had been on this very farm, growing up by the bogs, woods and loughs of the border country.

Niamh wandered over to the hawthorn tree, which had been left untouched by her cousin Tadhg, despite the fact it was right in the middle of the garden. It was bad luck, her daddy had told her, to cut down the hawthorn. It was a fairy tree, and belonged to the Little People. He’d been dead serious when he’d told her this story. Her daddy, though a practical man, had believed in the fairies – as did most people where Niamh had grown up. She couldn’t help wondering what Jesse from Cape Cod would make of the Little People. He was so different from her. She was stupid to think it might have worked out.

She closed her eyes and took a breath. The air felt thick and smelt earthy, heavy with summer weeds.

‘There she is!’

She opened her eyes to see Tadhg walking towards her. He was using a walking stick, and she was shocked to see how much he’d aged since she’d last seen him.

‘Well, how’s the head?’ Tadhg asked her, a smile cracked wide on his face.

‘A bit sore.’

‘Not surprised,’ he said, eyes merry. ‘The two of you made an awful clatter last night.’

‘Sorry,’ Niamh said, embarrassed she’d let herself get so drunk she couldn’t remember their arrival in Tadhg’s house. She hoped to God Brendan hadn’t driven them, the state he was in.

‘Not at all,’ Tadhg said, lifting his stick and giving her a gentle poke in the ribs. ‘It was great to hear a bit of a laugh in the house. It’s been a morgue since Mary passed on.’

It had been a bad year for Tadhg. With no warning, Mary, his wife of thirty years, had died of a brain aneurysm the previous summer. She’d collapsed in the kitchen while making the dinner. Tadhg had rushed her to the hospital in Enniskillen, as Brendan was away at the time, but it had been too late. About a month later, he’d had the stroke.

He’d had it rough. But then Tadhg was one of the old vanguard. Despite losing his wife so suddenly, and his poor health, he was no victim.

‘How’s your lovely mother?’ Tadhg asked now, linking his free arm through Niamh’s. ‘Still writing her poetry?’

Without fail, Tadhg always asked Niamh about her mother, as if they were the best of friends. But the truth was, her mam refused to talk to Tadhg. His enquiry was a pretence and they both knew it. She could hear a slight resentful edge in his voice.

‘She’s grand, yes, she’s still writing,’ Niamh said, thinking of all the scribbled notes on the back of shopping receipts littered around their house.

‘She should come visit with you next time. Sure, I haven’t seen her in years. She didn’t even come to Mary’s funeral.’ He gave Niamh a doleful look.

‘She’s been very busy, with her job,’ Niamh said, knowing it sounded lame. But Tadhg was well aware Niamh’s mam would never come visit him. He was just playing with her, as he always did. Like a cat with a mouse. Waiting for her to speak the truth. Her mother blamed her husband’s family for Cormac’s death. Had never forgiven Tadhg in particular.

‘It’s hard to believe your daddy’s been gone ten years,’ Tadhg sighed.

Niamh couldn’t tell if Tadhg was being sincere. When she was younger, Niamh had believed so fervently in his tears every time his brother’s murder had been mentioned. She’d listened avidly to his rants on the injustice of what had happened. An innocent man, gunned down by Loyalist terrorists, and the Royal Ulster Constabulary in collusion with them so the inquest had barely lasted one day. Tadhg had fuelled Niamh’s fury. It was why her mam had stopped bringing Niamh up north to see her husband’s relatives. But Brendan had kept up the contact in secret. Calling Niamh up, driving down and arranging to meet her in the woods when she was a teenager. Bringing her to visit his father. It had seemed perfectly normal to keep the secret from her mother at the time, because her mother’s depression had been so bad. Niamh hadn’t wanted to complicate her mother’s life further. It was all her mam could do to get out of bed every day.

As Tadhg led her away from the house across the yard, Niamh wondered how much was for real. Did he really care about her?

‘I’m glad Brendan brought you back last night,’ Tadhg continued. ‘I’ve been wanting to give you my old car for a while now.’

Niamh started, turning to look at him with astonishment. Tadhg gave her a wonky smile – one side of his face had shifted because of his stroke. ‘You’re such a good girl, Niamh. You deserve a car of your own.’

‘No, really, thank you, but I can’t,’ she said. The last thing she wanted was to accept a gift from Tadhg.