The Boatman's Wife(48)

As if sensing her presence, Jesse stopped what he was doing and stepped off the box. Turning around, he saw her standing at the door. She waved, gave him a smile, but he didn’t smile back. In fact, his face looked taut.

Jesse put down his caulking mallet and wiped his hands with a cloth before walking towards her. She could see a fine spray of sawdust on his cheeks, and she wanted so badly to brush it off with her fingers.

‘Hiya,’ she said, feeling tongue-tied with nerves, and wishing she hadn’t come down to the boatyard now. What should she say?

‘Hey,’ he said, but no more.

The silence was uneasy between them. Niamh felt her cheeks redden.

‘So, sorry about what happened on Sunday,’ she said, unable to look him in the eyes, staring down at the dirty boatyard floor.

‘Yeah.’ Jesse finally spoke up. ‘That was weird.’

She looked up, surprised. She’d been expecting him to say sorry, too. There had been no reason for him to take off. Brendan had offered for them both to stay.

‘What do you mean?’ she asked, unable to keep the defensive note out of her voice.

‘The whole thing,’ Jesse said. ‘I don’t get it. Building the road, just so it would get blown up again.’

‘That’s not the point,’ Niamh said, bristling, but Jesse had walked away and was washing his hands in the little sink in the corner of the boatyard.

She followed him, feeling a tight pinch of anger in her chest. She had come here today to say sorry for how things had gone on Sunday, but now she was shocked by his lack of empathy for the border community.

‘Some of those people have to drive for an hour just to get to the other side of their own property, or visit their relatives,’ she told him.

Jesse shrugged. ‘Yeah, that’s a pain, I get it. But rebuilding a road which gets blown up again the next day isn’t going to fix the problem.’

She felt the heat rising in her cheeks. ‘You wouldn’t understand,’ she said. ‘You’re not Irish.’

Jesse turned and looked into her eyes. She could see his disappointment in them. ‘I didn’t realise you were so political, Niamh,’ he said. ‘And I’m not.’ He paused, still staring at her. His eyes looked even darker in the shadows of the boatyard. ‘I really don’t want to know about what’s going on across in the north. It’s got nothing to do with me.’

‘How can you say that?’ she said in a fury. ‘Your father was Irish! So was mine, and he’s dead because of the conflict!’

Jesse’s face softened. ‘I’m sorry, that was dumb of me,’ he said, walking over to her, opening his hands wide as if in explanation. ‘But we’re from different worlds, you know, and your cousin Brendan was sure clear I wasn’t welcome.’

Was he breaking up with her? Had they even been a couple in the first place? She wanted to shake Jesse up, she was so angry. Yet another part of her wanted his arms to wrap around her and help her forget everything. Like he’d been doing so well all summer. It made her more furious with herself than him.

‘So is that it, then?’ she said, crossing her arms defensively across her chest.

‘It just got a bit heavy, is all,’ Jesse said. ‘You picked to stay with your cousin, not me.’

‘But he’s family,’ Niamh blustered. ‘His father’s old and sick. I had to go see him.’

‘Sure.’ Jesse nodded. ‘But you should have been straight with me before we set off, right?’ He looked her directly in the eyes, and she flinched, because though he sounded calm, she could see he was angry, too.

‘It’s not my fault you were so stuck up,’ she lashed out. ‘Looking down your nose at Brendan and his friends.’

Jesse raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s not true, Niamh,’ he said. His calmness was driving her mad. She wanted him to lose it. Shout at her. Tell her he was pissed off that she let him down. But he merely took a step back, placing his hand on the side of the boat, spreading his fingers upon its wooden curve. ‘Brendan and his friends aren’t my kind of people.’

‘Well, then, nor am I, Jesse,’ she said, turning on her heel, unable to look at him any longer.

She stormed out of the boat shed, hoping he’d call her back, or run after her, but nothing happened. She just kept walking to the top of the lane. When she got to the top, she took a quick look over her shoulder and was infuriated to see he had started work again on the boat. Not only that, she could hear him whistling.

Niamh stomped back home, ripping coarse stems of weeds from the hedgerows in her fury. Leaving a trail of them behind her on the road. She could feel a lump in her throat, tears beginning to well in her eyes, and she bit her lip hard to stop them. She was not going to cry. Not over this boy she hardly knew. Sure, they’d only been together a few weeks. He was too different from her, and it would have never worked. But while her head said one thing, her heart was hurting. She broke out into a run. She had to get home. The last thing she wanted was for someone local to see her so upset.



Inside her father’s shed, Niamh curled up on the mattress by the window and buried her face in her arms. She couldn’t stop the heaving sobs, her cheeks wet with tears that wouldn’t stop. She was raging now. But not with Jesse, with herself. How could she have let her guard down? The relationship should have been a bit of fun, nothing heavy, like Jesse said. But she’d fallen for him.