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She fried some of Finula’s homemade sausages and free range eggs for dinner. It was the only thing she could think of to cook as she had no idea how to deal with the range. It could take twenty minutes to boil the kettle on it – Lord knew how many years it would take to cook a chicken casserole.
After dinner, she sat in front of the range with a cup of cocoa and watched Matt fiddling around with the television trying to pick up a signal. There was no noise outside, no sound of other people or car doors slamming or horns blaring. Nothing. Just the silence of the countryside.
Used to the madcap atmosphere of Ciaran and Finula’s where people arrived at all hours, unannounced and wandering into the kitchen to make themselves tea, it felt strange to be on their own again.
Finula had been very kind but she was so overbearing, as if she wanted to lay claim to the newcomers as her own possessions. Matt couldn’t see it and felt that any criticism of his new friend was a sign of ingratitude after all she’d done for them. Well, they wouldn’t see that much of Finula from now on, would they?
Matt cursed under his breath as the snowstorm effect on the television got worse instead of better. He’d been fiddling with the damn thing for half an hour and so far, all he’d managed to locate was an Irish language television channel, which was going to be bugger all use to them. Maybe they had sub-titles for the films: that was going to be the best they could do at this rate.
‘We could always watch with the sound turned down and make up our own dialogue,’ he joked, turning round to Hope. But she was deeply asleep, squashed into a corner of the uncomfortable old brown sofa with a cushion wedged against her head. Matt watched her for a moment, smiling at the way her fair hair was all fluffed up around her face, lots of little curls running wild because she probably hadn’t run a comb through it since that morning. She hadn’t bothered with make up either and her long, thick eyelashes rested palely against her flushed cheeks. She looked very vulnerable in sleep, her rounded face defenceless against the world, her gentle coral mouth moving as she dreamed. She certainly didn’t look like a thirty-seven-year-old mother-of-two. More like a naive, trusting twenty-something. Naive, that was certainly Hope, Matt thought with a twinge of guilt. Despite his fierce belief that this was a good move for them all, he couldn’t help feeling selfish for bringing her here. Dear Hope loved her routine, the comfort of the familiar. A creature of habit, she was nervous of the unknown and yet he’d transplanted her from her own world into a strange place where she knew nobody.
He knew she’d follow him to the ends of the earth and that was why she was here: because she loved him utterly.
And he was here for purely selfish reasons. Sure, he’d managed things so that he’d have a job to go back to in Bath, and their mortgage there was taken care of by letting the house out. So the family wouldn’t lose out financially. But the reason they were here was because of his dream, not theirs. He wanted the peace to write and he’d brought them all here because of that.
Hope would forfeit every dream in her life just to make sure her beloved family were happy and content. And he’d forfeit all their contentment so that he could be happy. Matt thrust that thought out of his mind. Redlion was a beautiful place. He loved it here, he felt connected to it on some deep, emotional level. He’d had such wonderful holidays here as a child. Hope would learn to love it too. He’d work his backside off to make his book a success, then they’d have real financial security for the rest of their lives. He could do it: he was sure of it. Whenever he thought about the book, he felt a fresh burst of excitement.
He’d started it in a rush of ideas, racing to get his thoughts on paper, eager to tell the story of a man on the verge of a breakdown who takes off around the world to escape his misery but ends up in a parallel universe where he’s living fifty years in the past. In his fantasies, Matt imagined literary magazines reviewing his novel with words like ‘lyrical’, ‘exquisitely written’ and ‘a breathtaking new talent.’
It wasn’t going to be easy, he knew, but life wasn’t easy, was it? He’d write a wonderful book with the drive and determination he was well known for. He’d work deep into the night every night if necessary but there was no way he would fail. He dismissed the idea. After all, he smiled to himself, his drive and brilliance had worked magic for Judds, making them the hottest agency in the area. He could do that again, for himself this time. When had he ever failed at anything?
‘You’re the new people from old Gearóid’s place,’ said the elderly man behind the counter at the convenience shop when Hope went in to buy groceries for her newly painted cupboards.
‘Er yes,’ said Hope, a bit startled. It was the day after they’d moved into the cottage and this was her first time in the village. How did he know who she was?
‘Lovely house, say it’s a bit wild on the inside. He wasn’t the full shilling, old Gearóid. Them hens had the run of the place, inside and out.’
‘Really,’ Hope said politely as she dawdled in front of the eggs. She wanted to buy free range but they were more expensive and she’d better economize until she knew how their finances were going to pan out. The hire car had gone back and they were stuck with her Metro, which had been fixed at great expense.
‘Would you be thinking of getting hens yourself?’ the old man inquired sweetly.
‘Well, I don’t know…’ Hope hesitated, disarmed by his twinkling faded blue eyes in a warm old face. Finula had suggested she got some, she just hadn’t felt ready for livestock just yet.
‘They’re very easy to look after. Just throw in a bit of feed and sure, you’ve got your own eggs. You could even sell the eggs and make a few bob. The tourists are mad for eggs in the summer. And the winter,’ he added hastily. ‘I know just the man you should see.’
The six baby chicks tweeted maniacally all the way back into Redlion. Muffled thumps from the big cardboard box in the back of the car made it sound as if they were clambering hysterically over each other, falling off and landing painfully on each other’s fragile yellow feet. Slowing down, Hope peered in the back. The chicks were clambering hysterically all over each other and were making desperate, upset baby noises at being separated from their mother. Oh God, what had she done, Hope wailed out loud. Matt would kill her. It had sounded like a brilliant idea for saving money when Emmet, the man from the shop, had explained it.
All she’d need now was a feeding trough, some hen meal and maybe to put a light bulb over the box to keep them warm at night. The chemist was also the animal foodstuffs provider, Emmet’s brother, Paddy said happily as he waved her off, her cheque in his hands. It seemed a lot of money for six little birds but Paddy insisted they were pedigree.
The kind-looking woman in the chemist, who introduced herself as Mary-Kate and who, like Emmet, seemed already to know who Hope was, was sceptical: ‘Pedigree, my backside. That old rogue Emmet Slattery sold you his brother’s runts. Nobody else would buy them at this time of the year. It’s too cold to have them outside for months unless you put central heating into the hen house. You’ll have them killed with pure temper long before you’ve got an egg to your name. What are they?’ she relented. ‘Speckled or Rhode Island Reds?’
‘I have absolutely no idea,’ Hope said. They both peered into the cardboard box in the car.
Mary-Kate’s hard face softened at the antics of the tiny balls of yellow fluff.
‘I love chicks but they’re not always easy,’ she sighed.
‘I thought they were no trouble at all,’ Hope said anxiously. ‘Finula said they weren’t. So did Paddy.’
‘Finula Headley-Ryan has killed more pullets than the chicken factory,’ snorted Mary-Kate. ‘Don’t mind her. She thinks farming is so easy a child could do it but she hasn’t a clue. She’s a city girl born and bred and until she landed here, the only time she’d ever seen a hen was in an illustration over the frozen chickens in the supermarket. And as for that pair of old bandits, Paddy and Emmet, I wouldn’t listen to a word they said. Come on in. I’ll make you a cup of coffee and tell you what to do with your hens.’
Smiling guiltily at the thought that the spectacularly efficient Finula wasn’t as brilliant at everything as she thought, Hope opened a window in the car for the chicks and followed Mary-Kate, not thinking that it was unusual to be asked in for coffee when you were shopping. This was Redlion: everything was different here. Talking to total strangers seemed bizarrely normal.
Mary-Kate’s office at the back of the chemist was a cosy nook complete with a comfortably worn couch, portable television and a sophisticated looking Italian coffee machine. Three darling kittens played in the corner, taking turns to mangle a knitted mouse. While Mary-Kate began the complicated business of brewing coffee, Hope sat down and watched her hostess. She was tall, thin and on the wrong side of forty. Soberly dressed in a grey dress with her brown hair cut in a neat, shining bob, she was as far removed from the flamboyant Finula as it was possible to be. She also had an intense, clear gaze. ‘What you see is what you get,’ said Mary-Kate’s honest expression.
‘Are you settling in?’ she asked.
‘Well, it’s a bit difficult,’ Hope said, wanting to be loyal to Matt. ‘The house is a bit of a mess and I have to admit that it wasn’t my idea to come here,’ she amazed herself by revealing.
‘I’m not surprised the house is a mess. Your husband’s uncle was a complete nut,’ Mary-Kate remarked, handing Hope a cup of coffee. ‘He used to say he couldn’t get married because he was too eccentric for any woman to live with. The truth was he lived like a pig. I had to throw him out of the shop on many occasions because he’d put the other customers off with the smell of him.’
Hope laughed. ‘So far, everyone I’ve met has claimed he was a misunderstood genius who deserves a statue erected for him.’
‘Genius doesn’t mean you can’t wash your clothes,’ said Mary-Kate, proffering biscuits. ‘If they erect a statue to old Gearóid, I hope it’ll have a scratch ’n’ sniff bit to get the whole effect.’
They talked about the trials of doing up old, damp cottages and how terrible the weather was, managing to consume two more cups of coffee while doing it. Hope found it an incredible relief to talk to someone who wasn’t discussing culture, with a capital C, organic food or making your own compost heap. At home, she’d have never let her reserve down in such a manner but Mary-Kate was very easy to talk to.
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