The Library at the Edge of the World

by Felicity Hayes-McCoy

  There was a clatter of chairs in the next room as the seniors stood up from the table. At the same moment, a text from Tim Slattery appeared on Hanna’s phone. She glanced at it quickly. He had missed her that morning when she’d collected the van, but he wanted to ask her a favor, so could she give him a call when she’d time? Hastily typing No problem, Hanna hit SEND and turned off her phone as the chattering crowd from the lunch tables surged into the room.

  Ten minutes later her warm, fuzzy vision of an open fire, a purring cat, and a place to call her own seemed more remote. As soon as the seniors had settled down, Hanna mentioned Fury O’Shea, thinking that the cheerful chat that always accompanied their coffee would be a useful cover for inquiry. The result was depressing. Everyone agreed that you wouldn’t want to cross Fury. He wasn’t violent or anything like that, but he was stubborn as a mule and greatly respected. Hanna’s heart sank. Clearly Conor was right. She had made a mess of her first encounter with the very man she needed for her project. Not that Fury O’Shea sounded like a man that she’d want to work with. Apparently he didn’t do estimates, let alone quotes, nor did he stick to a schedule. And you’d never know where to find him either, she was told, the way he’d always shut off his mobile phone and ignore his messages. In fact, it was generally agreed that he was a worse class of a divil than his noisy little terrier. All the same, he wasn’t called Fury for nothing. When he got his teeth into a job there was no holding him and he wouldn’t stop till it was done.

  The man beside Hanna, who was a retired baker, offered her a fairy cake. He had made them himself that morning, he said, because it was library day. They were delicious and Hanna had already eaten two of them, but now, seeing his wife’s anxious face, she smiled and took another. The little woman beamed with pleasure and poked her husband in the ribs. Then, as he heaved himself to his feet to offer the cakes at another table, she leaned over to Hanna and lowered her voice.

  “It takes a lot to keep his spirits up these days, Miss Casey. So it’s great to have a reason for him to be baking.”

  As she spoke, there was a burst of laughter from the far side of the room and when the man came back he was chuckling. “Look at that, now, I’d forgotten that one. Sure it was the talk of the pubs at the time. Do you know what he did years ago, the same Fury? Whipped the slates off the roof of some poor woman’s house and sold them on to a contractor. ‘Leave it to me to get you a fine price for them,’ says he. And half of it stuffed straight into his own pocket. Begod, you couldn’t beat him for the neck!”

  15

  Mary Casey threw open the bedroom window, stripped the bed with a practiced hand, and set about remaking it. Jazz had gone back to work at the crack of dawn, catching a lift from a friend and leaving her room with the duvet thrown back and a muddle of things on the dressing table. That didn’t bother Mary. As far as she was concerned, beds couldn’t properly be made or surfaces properly polished by anyone but herself. Thrusting a pillow into a clean pillowcase, she shook it up and patted it into place before smoothing the freshly ironed duvet cover and positioning a couple of frilled, heart-shaped cushions against the quilted headboard. Then, with the dressing table tidied and her arms full of things for the wash, she glanced round, appraising her work.

  The single room looked much as it had on the night that Hanna and Jazz had turned up on her doorstep. In the years that followed their unexpected arrival, Mary’s rose-patterned wallpaper had disappeared under pin-up posters and the whole place had been strewn with laptops and phones, clothes and cosmetics. Still, to give Jazz her due, as soon as she got her new job she had cleared the walls, tidied up her things, and got rid of the daft desk and chair that Hanna had insisted she needed for school projects.

  Flapping her duster at a bee that had bumbled through the open window, Mary told herself Hanna was awfully changed. She’d always been like her father, far too trusting and ready to believe in people. And it wasn’t the way that you’d want her when you saw how her husband had fooled her. But the way she was now was woeful, hardly trusting anyone and too tense to relax and be herself. Viciously, Mary smote the bee with the duster and shook the furry corpse out the window. There was many a thing she couldn’t forgive that Malcolm for, but leaving poor Hanna in that state was the worst.

  Back in the kitchen, Mary piled the bed linen into the laundry basket and set about washing her duster in the sink. Tom had set up a grand little short line for her out on the patio years ago, where her tea towels and dusters could dry under a bit of cover. Everything else went into the washer-dryer on a Monday morning, rain or shine. As she beat up a lather of suds in the sink, she remembered how, for years, her poor mother had had to wear her wedding ring on a chain around her neck. Long hours spent scrubbing floors and peeling spuds in cold water had crippled her fingers, and the memory of her shiny, swollen knuckles had haunted Mary ever since. It was all very well for the likes of Hanna to sneer at a warm, comfortable home full of modern conveniences and hanker after some kind of hippie life in a shed. She’d be back soon enough with a pile of washing, come the winter. Only, of course, she wouldn’t. Wringing the suds out of her duster, Mary told herself that that was the trouble with Hanna. She was stubborn as a mule.

  She had used that very expression to describe her that morning, in Fitzgerald’s butcher’s shop. As Mary was selecting sausages Pat Fitzgerald had come down from the flat upstairs and they’d leaned on the counter for a chat. Mary and Pat had been at school together, wriggling in the back desks under Sister Concepta’s cold eye and making for the door the moment the bell rang, with their schoolbags bouncing on their backs. Mary’s first date with Tom Casey had been a foursome with Pat and Tom’s school friend, Ger Fitzgerald. And when Pat and Ger got married, Mary and Tom had been their bridesmaid and best man, though Mary had never really known what Pat saw in Ger. Even back then he’d been a little, dour fellow with a tight look on his face. But he was an only son and his father had a grand, thriving business, so perhaps that had had something to do with it. This morning, leaning on the counter, Mary had found herself confiding in Pat, just as she’d done all those years ago in the back row of desks at school. The truth was that she was worried to death about Hanna. Bad enough that she’d been cheated out of her rights by that fellow over in London without this new notion of moving into Maggie Casey’s place.

  “She’s stubborn as a mule, that’s her problem, so there’s no talking to her.” Mary hitched her shopping bag onto her hip and shook her head. “And the Dear knows that we’ve had our moments, but you know yourself that I’d never put her out.”

  Pat nodded sympathetically. She’d always been a good listener.

  “The thing is, Pat, that she can’t have much at all in the way of savings. And she’s built up no decent pension either, how could she? The only job she ever had in her life before she went off to London was that first one in Dublin. And when she comes to retire she’ll only have clocked up ten years or so here in Lissbeg.”

  “And, of course, she got nothing from the husband at the divorce.”

  “Didn’t get it? Wouldn’t take it! Stubborn as a mule! And what’s it going to cost her now to do all that renovating?”

  Pat shook her head. “Sure the place is a dump.”

  “Isn’t that what I’m saying? So do you know what she’s done? Gone to the Credit Union.”

  “Ah, Mary!”

  “Debt! At her age! I don’t know what her poor father would say.”

  At that point the door behind them had opened, a man entered, and Mary took her leave. But Pat accompanied her onto the pavement, still shaking her head.

  “It’s not going to be easy for you left there either, is it?”

  Mary looked at her sharply. “What?”

  “Don’t go jumping down my throat, now, amn’t I only looking out for you? You’ll miss her, Mary, you know you will. And with Jazz gone as well . . .”

  Mary tossed her head. “Holy God, Pat Fitz, are you joking me? You try running round after
those two and see how you’d miss them! And isn’t Jazz back home every ten minutes with her suitcase full of laundry and her bits of toast at all hours?”

  The memory of Pat’s concerned expression still irritated Mary as she stood at the sink with her hands in the soapsuds. Rinsing her duster under the hot tap, she wrung it out vigorously and carried it out to the line. Once it was pegged up, she crossed the patio, collected last night’s shriveled evening primrose blossoms from the foot of their pot, and placed them neatly in her trash bin. Tomorrow was the garbage collection day when the bin had to be round the front. When Hanna came in she’d be tired after her day in the van but, to do her justice, she’d always take the bin out to the front gate before they’d sit down to dinner. Mary eased the bin away from its position beside the patio door and poked behind it with a yard brush; there was a dreadful lot of spiders got round the back of it if you didn’t clear the webs. Then, coming back into the house, she looked round her spotless kitchen and wondered what to do next.

  16

  Ballyfin was Hanna’s last stop of the day. She parked the mobile library van as usual in the little square, directly across from a small, handsome building where a large sign saying INTERPRETATIVE CENTRE almost but not quite obscured the word LIBRARY, which was carved on the pediment over the door. The building had been built two hundred years ago with money donated by the Anglo-Irish de Lancy family, who for centuries had been landlords to the whole peninsula. But now their benevolence was just a memory. The last member of the family still lived alone in the ancestral castle near Carrick but, twenty years ago when the dwindling de Lancy library bequest had run out, the County Council had taken over the building. And subsequently the powers that be had decided it was wasted on books. So the books, maps, photos, and records that made up the de Lancy collection had been removed to the County Library in Carrick and what had once been a public library became an interactive heritage experience. So now if people in Ballyfin wanted to borrow Little Dorrit or a DIY manual they were left with the options of driving to Lissbeg or Carrick, or waiting for Hanna’s arrival in the van.

  At a desk just inside the door of the Interpretative Centre a digital display alternated the words Tourist Information with images of dancing fish. With each passing year the number of tourists who came to Ballyfin to fish became fewer, but fishiness was the core of its brand image, not because of the town’s maritime history but because of the book that had turned it into a tourism phenomenon.

  A Long Way to LA was the life story of an immensely sexy film star whose Hollywood career had spanned thirty years of blockbuster successes. In a desperate attempt to make it stand out from the other celebrity memoirs, its publishers had latched onto the fact that the star had once spent a nervous breakdown angling in Ballyfin. The designer of the book’s iconic cover, unaware that the town’s name actually derived from that of a medieval saint, had produced an image of a huge dorsal fin rising from the waves and the editor had decided that the narrative would be presented as the star’s stream of consciousness during his long weeks in Ballyfin grappling with really big fish. This not only gave structure to the book but also added stature to the star, who emerged as a kind of Captain Ahab, struggling with madness and monsters. A Long Way to LA became a global bestseller, helped by the fact that it was published just as the star divorced his fifth wife and married his sixth, a twenty-one-year-old singer with a huge online fan base. And Ballyfin became the place to go.

  These days you were more likely to eat seafood in Ballyfin than to catch it, and A Long Way to LA was long out of print. But images of the star and the book cover still appeared everywhere in the town and the association with Hollywood, combined with the stunning scenery, continued to draw the crowds.

  From Hanna’s point of view, Ballyfin was sad. She could remember a time when the shops in the square sold provisions, school uniforms, and electrical supplies, and were interspersed with a doctor’s office, an attorney’s, and a hairdresser’s. Just as she could remember when the peninsula had seven village post offices. Now the last village post office west of Carrick, run by the parents of Conor’s friend Dan Cafferky, was struggling to stay open. And Ballyfin, which had lost its library, had gained nothing but gift shops and hotels.

  Having promised to check out the availability of collections of one-act plays for consideration by the local drama group, Hanna glanced at her watch and saw it was time to get back on the road. As she drove round the square, Gráinne, one of the girls who manned the tourist information desk, emerged carrying a poster. She waved at Hanna who stopped for a word.

  “Had a good day?”

  “Oh you know yourself, busy, busy.” Gráinne came over and leaned against the van. “It’s the time of year, sure we’re used to it.”

  There was a public notice board beside the Interpretative Centre, a vestige of the time when the building had served the local people rather than the tourists.

  Gráinne squinted up at the sky. “It’s going to be another lovely evening. I’ll get this on the board and shut up for the day and take myself off for a swim.”

  Hanna glanced down at the poster. “What is it?”

  “Oh, some consultation meeting of the council’s about their plans for next year’s budget. It came this morning from Carrick. And you know yourself no one will read it.”

  Hanna laughed. “It’s a daft time of year to be expecting people in this town to read posters. Or turn up at meetings.”

  “Well, you never know, maybe that’s the point! Maybe the last thing they actually want is people offering feedback.”

  Hanna smiled, swung the wheel, and took to the road. She didn’t want to be rude to Gráinne, who was nice enough, but since the phone call she’d made in reply to Tim Slattery’s text at lunchtime had resulted in a promise to attend a boring council event that evening, the last thing she wanted at this stage of the day was a chat about small-town politics.

  Hanna liked Tim. When she applied for her job in Lissbeg, he’d been immensely cordial, asked no personal questions about her years in London, and announced that Finfarran’s library service was lucky to have her. It was he who had organized the designated parking space in Lissbeg that, although she never admitted it, even to herself, had given her a sense of dignity; and his urbane manner amused her. Now and then she had wondered if he, too, felt confined in Finfarran. His parents had owned a thriving business in Carrick and his sister had a big job in Dublin. Yet, despite his impressive title of County Librarian, he worked in what was no more than a cubbyhole in a shabby, graceless building. Given his flamboyant sense of style, this was hardly the perfect fit but, sensitive to his respect for her own privacy, Hanna never probed his feelings.

  Today, on the phone, he had been more urbane than ever. He was sorry to be a bore but could she bear to come to a hootenanny? Well, not quite that, more of a dull drinks party. The council’s tourism officer had invited a government minister down from Dublin, and, having whisked him around the peninsula, she was planning to ply him with drinks.

  “Damn all to do with us, of course, but she’s desperate to impress him so she’s whipping up a sort of rent-a-crowd.”

  Hanna had groaned inwardly. God alone knew what favor Teresa O’Donnell the Tourist Officer had called in to make Tim summon his troops, but that was how things worked. And she herself felt indebted to Tim. In the five years since she’d left Malcolm, far from falling in and out of bed with rugged Irish fishermen, she had hardly had a social life at all. So the occasional dinner with Tim and his girlfriend had been a welcome respite from long nights watching television with Mary Casey while Jazz sat locked in her bedroom. And the occasional conversation with Tim, whose interest in books was more than just professional, had added interest to her workdays. Caught off guard by his phone call, she’d found that she couldn’t refuse him.

  “It’s a mobile day, so I’m driving the van back to Carrick anyway. A drink will be lovely.”

  “Trust me, it won’t. The red will be plonk and th
e white will be saccharine. I know it’s a lot to ask of you but I’m truly grateful. See you round seven.”

  The timing meant that she had an hour to kill so, driving the van back toward Carrick through slanting evening sunlight, Hanna couldn’t resist taking a detour to look at the house. Conor would have locked up the library and left things as they should be in Lissbeg. He was utterly reliable, even if his eagerness to be helpful could make him overstep the mark. She should have known that he would try to come up with an answer to her question about local builders. And the truth was that the problem with Fury O’Shea was her own fault.

  Leaving the van at the gate she wondered if the sensible thing might be to find herself a builder who wasn’t local; one way or the other, whoever she ended up with, she’d need to have a proper sense of the work herself before she came to brief him. The first thing to do would be to clear the site; it looked as if half the parish had been using it as a dumping ground since Maggie died. Making her way down the side of the house, she told herself that one thing she’d learned from her renovations in England was the importance of establishing complete control of a building project from the outset. Then, turning the corner at the gable end, she found herself facing a goat.

  17

  Hanna stared at the bony, brown-and-white animal that was calmly grazing a circle of cropped grass. It was tethered by a long, scruffy piece of rope to the rim of a half-buried cart wheel, and, to the extent that the rope would allow, the sloping field behind the house was now as smooth as if it were scythed. Beyond the circumference of the circle, however, the grass and weeds were as high as ever and clumps of yellow furze blazed in the evening sunshine. Like all the other rubbish that was scattered about, the wheel to which the goat was tethered had obviously been dumped in the field long ago and left there to disintegrate. But now, in the middle of the close-cropped grass, it looked almost decorative. And, somehow, the fact that even a small space had been cleared made the surrounding growth less formidable. The goat raised its head without much interest, observing Hanna for a moment. Then it ambled on and continued its contemplative grazing. Baffled, Hanna was about to take a step toward it when the horned head turned again and the yellow eyes with their oblong pupils focused on a point beyond her. Seconds later, she heard a familiar voice.