The Boatman's Wife(6)

Niamh sat down at her mam’s desk. Rosemary Kelly handwrote everything, sometimes typing it up herself on an old typewriter, but more often sending off her scribbles for her editor to unravel. Her mam had a publisher, but she hardly made any money from her slim volumes of poetry. The last royalty cheque had made a grand total of twenty-five pounds. They’d gone for fish chowder and pints of Guinness in Sligo to celebrate.

Niamh sipped her tea. She should go to bed. She was exhausted and sore from the fall, but her eyes dropped to a poem her mam was working on. She could see the ink was still a little wet on the blotter. Her mam even wrote with a quill pen. She often told Niamh that she woke up with the words of poems in her head and wrote before she was even properly awake. A notebook and pen were always by her bedside table. Niamh wondered if she had dreamt this one.

I see a child.

His eyes are full of light and open dreams.

I see his past, an agile mite, dashing through high, sharp grass.

Sleeping with cows, upon their napes, sighting dreams of pure cloud shapes.





Who was the child? A boy, so not her. Was it about her father? Nearly all her mam’s poems were about Niamh’s father. There was something about the poem which made Niamh want to read it again, and again. She could see an image in her head of a little boy running towards her: dimpled cheeks and outstretched arms.

The phone rang on the desk, making Niamh almost drop her mug of tea on her mam’s poem. It rang so rarely. She put the tea down and picked up the receiver, already knowing in her heart who it was.

‘How’s it going, Niamh?’

‘I’m just in from work, Brendan,’ Niamh said, trying to quell the nerves in her stomach.

‘Can you meet me later?’ Brendan asked her, then gave her the details of when and where without pausing to hear her answer.

By the time they’d ended their brief chat, Niamh was wide awake. How could she sleep now? Whenever Brendan called her up, no matter how many years he’d been doing it, she was all in a heap.

Niamh had always known Brendan. He was her father’s cousin Tadhg’s son. Five years older than her. He had been her first love, the summer she’d turned fifteen, and seven years later, he was still calling the shots.





Chapter Three





Rockland, Maine, 18th October 2017





The storm had come so fast. Lily watched from the window in the kitchen, cradling her coffee cup in her hands, but not drinking. Willing the wind to drop. But it only got worse: the waves rolling larger, the rain turning to snow and then rain again, lashing against the window.

She picked up her phone.

‘You seen this storm building?’ she asked her mom.

‘I know, honey,’ her mom said. ‘But your dad will have turned back the moment he saw it coming.’

‘You sure?’ Lily asked. ‘I’ve been watching from the window, and all the other boats have returned. How come they’re not home?’

‘Your dad’s boat is forty foot; he can manage more than the others. He was dropping a line of traps in a new gravel bar in deeper waters,’ her mom said, not sounding as worried as Lily thought she should be. ‘Your dad knows what he’s doing,’ she added, before pausing. ‘Shouldn’t you have left for your appointment with the specialist?’

‘Mom, look outside the window! They called and cancelled, of course. Because of the storm.’ Exasperated, she took a breath, tried to stay calm. ‘It’s going to be bad, Mom.’

‘Honey, come on over,’ her mom said. ‘We’ll wait it out together.’



Lily took her rain jacket off the hook in the back porch. Her whole body felt charged with nervous energy. Her hands shook as she zipped up her jacket. When the clinic in Portland had called to tell her the appointment with the fertility specialist had been moved to the following week, her anxiety had intensified.

‘I’m sorry,’ the receptionist had said. ‘But there’s a bad nor’easter coming down from Canada. There’s weather warnings out and we’re shutting for the day.’

Her words had confirmed what Lily knew already. This storm was serious.

But there was still no sign of Connor, her father and Ryan in the Lily May. Why the hell weren’t they back yet?

As soon as she opened the back door, it felt as if the wind was slapping her back into the house. She put her head down and pushed into the icy bites of sleet, which stung her bare cheeks and plastered her fringe to her forehead. Lily was used to the wind. There was a part of her which liked the adrenalin rush of battling against the winds out on the ocean. If you knew what you were doing – as she did, as her father did – it was possible to ride huge waves in a relatively small boat, as long as they didn’t smack you side-on. Even then, the wave had to break at an exact moment to overturn the boat. Lily liked the challenge of nature. Felt like a warrior when she was out on high waves.

She remembered a big storm, one night when she was around ten years old. She’d got out of bed and run to the window to look at the forked lightning on the horizon, the violent swells and surges of the ocean, glinting silvery in the dark. Excitement had coursed through her. Lily had opened her bedroom window, and been immediately knocked back by the force of the wind. The thunder had boomed, and it had felt as if she was being raised upwards. She had stood on her cold feet in the middle of her bedroom, spread her arms wide, and let the wind bounce off her, the white drapes streaming like angel’s wings, her nightie billowing, her black hair flying all over the place. She’d imagined herself taking flight, like a great big cormorant. Her books had clattered off her shelves onto the floor and the window panes had banged backwards and forwards, but Lily had been lost in her own world. Not until her parents had come tearing into the room had she come to with a jolt.