The Library at the Edge of the World

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The Library at the Edge of the World Page 7

by Felicity Hayes-McCoy


  So it wasn’t until she discovered that she was pregnant again that she realized how much she wanted a baby. Malcolm was ecstatic to hear that it was going to be a girl. That night, sitting with the damp, sweet-scented bouquet on her knee, he and Hanna had talked for hours about the future. It was Malcolm who came up with the idea of calling the baby Jasmine. His mum would love it, he said, what did Hanna think?

  “I love it, too. Let’s do it.”

  She smiled at him. “You’re going to spoil her rotten, though, aren’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  But he hadn’t. He had been a disciplined father, generous but firm. And, where Jazz was concerned, he and Hanna really had been a good team. Now, looking at their daughter lounging in the dusk beside her, Hanna was proud of what they had achieved. Malcolm, who had always planned to send Jazz to university, might despise her job with a budget airline, but Jazz had grown up to be happy, healthy, and responsible. And she’d left school with perfectly decent exam results. Who knew what she might choose to do with her life in years to come? Opening her mouth, she was about to tell Jazz how proud she was of her. But before she could speak, the sliding door opened and Mary marched onto the patio.

  “There’s some class of a cheese that’s stinking to high heaven in there in the fridge. Is one of you planning to eat it?”

  Hanna grinned at Jazz. “Goat’s cheese from HabberDashery. I thought you’d enjoy it on your last night.”

  “Yum!” Jazz got up and turned to go into the house. “Shall we have it as a starter on some crackers?”

  “Well, you needn’t bother bringing a plate for me!” As the patio door closed, Mary lowered herself into the garden chair that Jazz had just vacated. “’Tis far from starters that child was reared.”

  Hanna laughed. “Oh, Mam! She was practically weaned on dips and crudités.”

  Mary Casey snorted and said nothing. Still held by memories of the past, Hanna smiled.

  “We were talking about Dad’s flowers. I think she remembers more about this garden than her Granny Lou’s.”

  As soon as she’d spoken she wished she hadn’t. It was the perfect opening for Mary to come out with a sniffy remark about Malcolm. Instead, Mary’s face in the gathering darkness looked almost kind. She’d never been daft about flowers herself, she said, but she’d always liked evening scents in a garden. There was a pause in which Jazz could be heard in the kitchen. Mary nodded at the open window, speaking quietly for once.

  “You didn’t tell her you were in London then, I take it.”

  “No.”

  “Well, you won’t listen to me, of course, you never do. But you’re making a rod for your own back, girl, I’m telling you.”

  Hanna said nothing. Mary sat back in her chair and shrugged massively. “There’s none so blind as those who won’t see, that’s what your father always said. You may think you’re setting up some grand new independent existence for yourself, Hanna, but that fellow over in London still has you wrapped round his little finger.”

  The patio door slid open again and Mary lowered her voice even further. “And I’ll tell you something else you won’t want to hear. That girl’s not a child any longer. One day she’ll find out the kind of man her father is. And that’s the day she’ll discover that both of her parents are liars.”

  13

  The solitary pleasure of driving through stunning scenery was well worth the extra hour that the mobile library added to Hanna’s workdays. Twice a week she’d drive to Carrick and, leaving her car at the County Library, set off down the peninsula, driving the library van. Her route today would take her off the main road, to the southern side of the peninsula and on to Ballyfin.

  The weather was dull at first, but by the time she left Carrick and was driving west the clouds had begun to lift. Her first stop was a seaside village reached by a one-track road that meandered off the main route and climbed the low brow of a hill. As she reached the top, the air beyond the windshield shimmered, a rainbow arched from the horizon, and Hanna could see children playing near the school yard by the pier. Beyond the yard was a narrow cove where gannets nested on the cliffs and swooped down shrieking, to follow the fishing boats. It was a two-room school where, except for the presence of a couple of computers and an electric piano, the children were taught in almost the same surroundings as their parents and grandparents before them. The straight rows of desks were gone and the wall that used to be covered by a blackboard was hung with the pupils’ artwork, but the rows of pegs in the lobby, loaded these days with Puffa jackets and hoodies, had once held belted raincoats and corduroy jackets and, before that, shawls and frieze coats. Hanna had attended a two-room school herself before graduating to the high corridors and classrooms ruled by the nuns. But now, like the old, echoing convent in Lissbeg, most of Finfarran’s primary schools had been shut down years ago. The kids now running to join the line for the library van were among the last on the peninsula who could still walk to school by the roads or the beaches, or come and go on their bikes.

  “Did you bring me my Harry Potter, Miss Casey?”

  Hanna opened the back of the van and the little boy peered at the rows of books inside. She handed him Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and he grabbed it with all the excitement she’d seen on the face of his older brother two years ago. The other children jostled each other as they waited. Hanna dealt with them briskly, handing out copies of Vincent McDonnell’s Story of the GAA and Ice Man, the adventures of the Irish Antarctic hero, Tom Crean. A freckled eight-year-old with her eye on a copy of Charlotte’s Web tried to scramble past her into the van and was pulled back sharply by an elder sister. Everyone knew that you didn’t mess with Miss Casey.

  Later, as Hanna drove back over the brow of the cliff, she told herself that the freedom of growing up without constant adult supervision was one of the things that, in hindsight, she valued most about her childhood. Maybe that was why Jazz had enjoyed the holidays spent in Ireland; the pace of life was slower here, and instead of being whisked off to ballet class, summer camps, or creative workshops, kids tended to make their own entertainment and to help in the family business or on the farm.

  Emerging from the one-track road that had taken her to the village, Hanna joined the stream of tourist traffic heading west. Unimpeded by bends or potholes, she increased her speed. Five miles farther on, she slowed down and turned left again, onto another winding road, which snaked between fields and woodland. When she’d first found it years ago, bumping along on her bicycle, the ferns and briars along the ditches had obscured her view of the fields. But driving in the van was different. From her high vantage point she could see for miles across a patchwork of pasture and tillage, where cows grazed between stone walls, and cream flowers on green potato stalks moved like foam on the wind.

  She was headed for Knockmore village where a day-care center for the elderly was held in the church hall. There was convenient parking beside the church and people often used the arrival of the library van as a reason to drop into the village shop, or have lunch in the pub, as well as to get their books. Today, as she passed a farm gate, a woman ran out of the farmhouse door with a book in her hand and flagged her down. Sighing, Hanna stopped the van. Theoretically, this wasn’t supposed to happen but in practice it frequently did. She lowered the window and leaned out as the woman reached the van door and held on to the handle, panting.

  “Sorry, Miss Casey, Mum has a bit of a cold on her, so we won’t get to the center today.”

  “That’s fine, Nell, don’t worry about it.”

  Hanna reached out of the cab window and took the book.

  “How’s the cold? Has she just started it?”

  “Ah, it’s been hanging round for a while. She got great reading out of that book we got last week, though. You wouldn’t have another one there in the back?”

  It took ten minutes to find a book for Mrs. Reily, who loved murder mysteries, and a family saga for Nell. Mostly, Nell explained, she and her
mother made lace as they sat watching television. Hanna had seen the beautiful work they produced together and sent off as presents to family in America or donated to parish sales and fetes.

  “But I can’t settle to the lace-making when Mum’s not at her best,” Nell told her. “And I don’t like to have the telly on in case I wouldn’t hear her call. These will do us grand now till she’s downstairs again.”

  She balanced The Mysterious Affair at Styles and A House Divided on the top of the gate and waved as the van pulled off.

  Glancing in the rearview mirror, Hanna saw her walking back to the house with a spring in her step. It had only been a few minutes spent with an acquaintance but the human contact and the prospect of a couple of books to read and chat about had obviously made her day. No matter how isolated the scattered farms and villages on the peninsula might seem, there was a web of personal and communal relationships that linked people together, offering mutual support. And, Hanna told herself, it wasn’t just for the elderly. Jazz’s school friends, and Conor’s, who wanted to build lives in the area they had grown up in, needed a community that would support them. Even though its rituals and relationships could combine to drive you mad.

  That morning Conor had driven up on his Vespa just as she was unlocking the library door and it was clear that there was something on his mind. But her own mind was on getting to Carrick in good time to collect the van so, hoping Conor’s problem was trivial, she’d tried to ignore it. Then, on her way to the door, she’d glanced up at the old MIND YOUR STEP sign and told him to get it replaced by the end of the day. But that, apparently, was the very subject that was bothering him. So, since there was no way of avoiding it, she spent the next ten minutes unraveling a complicated story about how her gangling trespasser at Maggie’s house had effectively been sent there by Conor.

  “I wasn’t gossiping, Miss Casey, honest, I was only trying to help. And I never told him to go round to you. I don’t even know how he knew where to go. It’s just that he’s a builder and you asked me if I knew any builders. And then when I went to him for a drop of white spirit I just happened to mention your name.”

  Giving up on hitting the road in time to avoid the worst of the traffic, Hanna had perched on the edge of her desk while Conor, very red in the face, explained that the old sign couldn’t come down till the new one could go up; and the new one couldn’t go up till Fury O’Shea arrived with the white spirit; and Fury might not turn up at all since the word was that Hanna herself had mortally insulted him. Not that she would have wanted to, Conor said hastily, but someone had seen them having what looked like a bit of a row beside Fury’s van and that must have started a rumor. At Hanna’s suggestion that Conor could pop out and pick up a bottle of white spirit himself for a couple of euro, he had looked at her in horror. What if Fury turned up with the spirit after all? He’d be twice as upset if he thought that Conor had doubted him. And what about the crowds that might come looking for books if Conor ran out to the hardware shop? He’d have to leave the library with the CLOSED sign up, and what if they got complaints? Watching his eyes widen at the prospect of insult compounded by disaster, Hanna had quenched him briskly.

  “Well, there’s no point in making a crisis out of a simple misunderstanding. Leave the sign as it is till you see if Mr. O’Shea does come in and if he doesn’t we’ll deal with it tomorrow.”

  But now, increasing her speed along the rutted road, hoping to make up for the time she had spent with Nell Reily, Hanna was worried. Having grown up in Crossarra, she knew exactly what would happen if Conor was right and this O’Shea man felt mortally insulted. Not only would O’Shea refuse to work for her but no one else in the locality would take on a job he’d refused. Or at least no one that you’d want to have working for you. Hanna groaned. With luck, Conor was exaggerating. But by the sound of things it was far more likely that she herself had made a costly mistake. Then, pulling herself together, she told herself not to be stupid. It was the old Hanna who went about anticipating trouble. The new Hanna was different. And how hard could it really be to handle this Fury O’Shea?

  14

  Fury O’Shea drove down Broad Street, spotted a parking space, and pulled into it. A backpacker seated by the flower-filled horse trough flinched as the hood of the red Toyota van came to a halt inches from his knees and a small dog launched himself onto the dashboard, barking madly. Folding his map, the young man got up from his bench, hunched himself into his huge rucksack, and moved crossly away. In the cab of the van, Fury removed his keys from the ignition and reached into the glove compartment. Then, pushing a scuffed-looking plastic bottle into the torn pocket of his waxed jacket, he swung his long legs out of the van. The morning traffic rumbled past on either side of Broad Street. Fury dodged between a car and a truck, steering a course for the library. Seeing that his presence wasn’t required, the dog, known as The Divil, subsided onto the passenger seat of the van and tucked his nose under his tail. Fury walked along the pavement by the old school wall, turned down the side of the convent building, and entered the courtyard.

  Conor, who was at the desk, looked up as the tall, lugubrious figure appeared at the library door.

  “How’s it going, Mr. O’Shea?”

  “Never better.”

  Elaborately casual, Fury produced the old plastic bottle from his pocket and slid it across the desk.

  “You’re grand there now, boy. Say nothing.”

  “Ah, that’s great, Fury, thanks a million.”

  Fury squinted up at the sign above the door. “Did you offer up the new one?”

  “I did of course, it’s half the size. That’s why I needed this stuff.”

  Conor pulled a chair over to the door and began the process of removing the tatty frame of redundant adhesive with white spirit from Fury’s bottle.

  “Stay where you are there, Fury, and I’ll put the kettle on when I’m done.”

  “No need, boy, not at all, I’ve a job to go to.” Fury glanced around the library. “Herself isn’t here today, then?”

  Conor shook his head. He knew that Fury knew perfectly well where Miss Casey was. But this was a matter of having to take things slowly. Judging by what she’d said this morning before she set out with the library van, it would take a hell of a lot of diplomacy to get the pair of them on an even keel. But having come up with the idea of bringing them together in the first place, he was determined to make it work.

  According to Conor’s dad, there wasn’t a tradesman on the peninsula that was a match for Fury. It was the old houses he liked, too. Not those modern things that got thrown up in scores in the boom years of the Celtic Tiger, when speculators had gone mad. Fury understood stone and lumber, proper masonry, and decent joinery. And he hated waste. Where another man would charge you a fortune to cut corners, Fury went at it handy and did it right. Conor had been delighted to think that by introducing him to Miss Casey he’d be setting up a match made in heaven. Instead of which, he seemed to have started a war. You’d never know, though, the pair of them might come round yet. Conor reckoned they were like the cows. If you let them take their own pace, they’d be far faster getting to where you wanted them.

  The second stop on Hanna’s southern route was in Knockmore village, where St. Mary’s Day Care Centre was housed in the church hall. As she parked the van the parish priest, Father McGlynn, was walking towards his car. The seniors who came from miles around to attend the day-care center were always telling her about the battles Father McGlynn fought on their behalf. If it weren’t for him, they said, they’d all be traipsing off to that glass monstrosity of a care center on the far side of Carrick whenever they needed a pedicure or fancied a bit of a break from cooking their meals. Hearing the edge of anxiety in their voices, Hanna occasionally wondered if it would be kinder of Father McGlynn to avoid the temptation of presenting himself as a hero. But perhaps a parish as remote as St. Mary’s was lucky to have such an energetic incumbent. As Nell Reily had murmured to Hanna one day over the cho
ice of a large-print library book, half the priests in rural parishes around the county were well past retirement age. “Honestly, Miss Casey,” she’d said, flicking to the back page of a Mills & Boon to see if she’d read it before, “most of them wouldn’t know which side of the bed to get out of in the mornings, and more of them couldn’t tell you what they’d got up for in the first place.”

  Now Hanna made her way into the hall and sat down at an empty coffee table. The seniors, who were having lunch in the room next door, would shortly come through to have their teas and coffees, but for the next ten minutes she could be sure of comparative peace in which to eat her own sandwich. The regulars at the center treated the weekly arrival of the library van as an occasion: someone would always bake a cake or bring something from their garden as a present for Hanna, and often she had offers of a kitten or a puppy in need of a home. Knowing that Mary Casey would be outraged if she arrived home with a pet, she had always said no. But now, as she unwrapped her sandwich, she wondered if a cat on the hearth might be a good companion when she made the move from her mother’s bungalow to Maggie’s house.

 

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