The Boatman's Wife(79)

Brendan had been her constant. As she squeezed his limp hand, she realised the fact it was still warm meant that whoever had done this was still close by. She let Brendan’s hand go. Quickly, she closed the lids of his eyes, and got up. There was blood all over her legs, but she didn’t have time to clean up. She knew well enough to get out. As she stood up, she turned her head away. She couldn’t bear to look at Tadhg’s blasted face again.

She rushed down the hall, slipping on the blood, giving a hiccup of grief as she stepped over poor Patch. Why the dog?

She ran back across the yard, relief washing through her to see Connor still strapped in, and crying for her.

‘I’m coming, darling,’ she called out to him.

But she could feel eyes on her. A shiver ran down her spine. She spun around in the yard, but she couldn’t see anyone. Yet she felt it. The impending doom, as sure as the dark clouds covering the sun, plunging the yard in shadow.

A murder of crows took off from the dense spruce wood at the back of the house, cawing. Were they coming for her?

Niamh jumped in the driving seat, barely closing the door before she tore off down the road.

Connor began to scream, picking up her fear.

‘It’s okay,’ Niamh said to him, pulling on all her inner strength and calm. ‘It’s okay, baby.’ But she was thinking of her father. He’d been shot, too, left on the side of the road like a dog. Was this her fate?

Connor’s crying intensified into full-blown wailing. Niamh glanced in the rear-view mirror and saw his face red and scrunched up.

‘It’s okay, baby, it’s okay,’ she crooned. She wasn’t going to stop. She knew exactly where she was going, and what she needed to do.

By the side of Lough Melvin, Niamh pulled up. She placated Connor with his soother before getting out of the car. She walked around to the back of the car, opened the boot, and took out the spare pair of jeans she kept in the back. She pulled off her bloody pair and dropped them on the ground. Had the presence of mind to put on the gloves she kept in the back, too. Then she lifted up the carpet and pulled out the hold-all, shoving the bloody jeans into the bag. She lugged it over to the edge of the shore, and picked up a couple of heavy stones, putting them in the bag for good measure.

She went as far out as possible onto a rocky ledge, swung the bag back and forth and threw it as far as she could. It sank immediately, as the surface of the lake rippled outwards.





Chapter Twenty-Five





Mullaghmore to Maine, 21st November 2017





Connor,

We are halfway over the Atlantic, halfway between your home and mine, and I am sitting next to your grandmother on the plane. She’s shown me album after album of pictures of you. I’ve even seen your wedding picture with Eve Malone. She was very beautiful, but I can see in your eyes that you weren’t happy. Your expression is so different from our wedding pictures. So yes, I am taking that. I look at your big smile on our special day and I know in my heart you loved me. But Connor, why did you lie? Every day, I find out a little bit more about you before me, and it hurts to discover there’s so much I didn’t know. I can’t stop staring at the photos of you as a baby with your mom. She was so young, with her long red hair – I’ve seen strands of that colour in yours. When I stayed in your grandmother’s house, I slept in your bedroom. All around me was you as a little boy. The faded wallpaper with little blue airplanes on it, and the shelves filled with childhood books. I found a battered copy of The Call of the Wild, my all-time favourite book. I love Buck, and how he felt different among dogs. A wolf at heart. I opened the book, and inside you had written your name in spidery, childish handwriting:

‘Connor Fitzgerald, aged 11.’

I gave a little cry and clutched the book to my chest.

I’ve so many questions. Why is it Rosemary said you were excited we were trying for a family, and yet you never told me this? But the biggest question is about your mother. Why did you never tell me she was in fact alive, not dead? We could have gone and found her together.

Your grandmother has helped me, Connor. Even my arm has stopped itching. Rosemary said the rash was caused by my body reacting to the stress of your loss. Before I went to bed, she poured me a bath. I watched her fill the steaming water with strands of seaweed she told me she’d gathered herself. It was just like you told me.

Once I got into the bath, sank into the warm water, beneath the salty aroma of the ocean, I could detect the soothing scent of rose geranium. Rosemary had claimed it would help my sore skin too.

It worked. The seaweed bath, the rose geranium oil, your grandmother’s nurturing presence. Later, as I lay in your childhood bed, my body surrendered. I let myself cry until your bedsheets were wet with my tears. I knew I had to go back home but it was going to be so hard seeing all the places we were once together.

In your bed, looking around your room at things belonging to you, my darling Connor, the boy with no father, I remembered the first time my dad took you out on the Lily May. We’d been married about three months when Dad finally accepted you as my husband. Once he did so he was all in.

I remembered watching my dad standing next to you as you tried to negotiate exiting the harbour. His hand on yours helping you steer, and then stepping back to let you take control on your own. Telling you, ‘As soon as we’re clear, open it up, and we can see what we can do.’