Sheltering Rain

  Thom and J. C. woke one morning to discover a horse box in the process of removing the four horses from their stables, to go to another yard in Newmarket. Newly opened it was, the implacable driver said, as J. C. went purple with rage. Some fellow called Kenny Hanlon. It was at that point that things had gotten a bit out of control. J. C. had punctured the horse box's tires with a pitchfork, so that the driver had called the police. There was a succession of nighttime raids between the two yards, lifting saddles, rugs, even a microwave oven, supposedly "in lieu of payments" on both sides. But when Kenny Hanlon was suddenly fingered by the tax authorities for supposed nonpayment of tax on his fruit machine operations--a charge that resulted in a prison sentence of some four years--and the subsequent burning down by suspected arsonists of J. C.'s yard, Thom decided he had had enough of the racing scene. He quit drinking and came home.

  He had told Kate this story--minus the bit about his late mother's feelings toward her--on the slow wet walk back to Kilcarrion, a walk that had become even slower when, shortly before they reached the gateway to the house, he suggested they pause for a few moments in a deserted bus shelter. There, seated on the benches as the big gray horse dozed, and periodically accepted Polo mints from Thom's hand, he had filled in, in somewhat less emotional terms than Kate had, the last sixteen years or so of his life.

  He had, after she commented that it was strange, them both ending up here again, also stared for a disconcertingly long time into Kate's eyes, so that she blushed and felt temporarily unbalanced. But then she had been unbalanced by lots of her reactions to Thom: by the fact that, increasingly, when she bumped into him around the house and its grounds, she found herself becoming more tongue-tied rather than less, and, worse, that at least twice she had blushed; by the fact that his habit of staring at her very directly when he spoke left her unable to concentrate on what it was he was actually saying; by the fact that the last few nights in the inaccurately named Italian room (unless they meant Venice, she thought, eyeing the latest spreading damp patch) it had been Thom's, rather than Justin's, face that she had found herself picturing.

  Had he always been this attractive? Or had the weathering of pain and suffering cast compelling new shadows on his face? (Maggie had often accused her of being unhealthily attracted to those she termed "walking wounded.") Had he always been this good at listening? Gazed at her so attentively? She couldn't say; the Thom she had known at nineteen had been such a different, less confident character. And the Kate she had been had been so much more confident, so determinedly impulsive. So sure that there were bigger and better things awaiting her.

  You fool, she had told herself, one afternoon, as she lay on her bed like a teenager, contemplating such questions. You're bloody incapable of existing anywhere without imagining some kind of flirtation. This is exactly what got you into so much trouble last time. This is exactly what Maggie has been criticizing you for.

  So she had decided to avoid Thom; had busied herself in her room, working on long-standing writing projects that she had brought with her; had borrowed her mother's car and taken herself off to explore some of the nearby sights, and, most important, had avoided the summerhouse, the back fields, the yard--anywhere, in fact, where she thought the slightest possibility existed that she might run into him.

  He had seemed not to notice at first, and then, catching her scuttling across the drive to the car one morning, had said, close into her ear so that she jumped: "Are you avoiding me?"

  She had denied it, had stuttered that of course she wasn't, that she was busy, had to pop into town, had an awful lot of work on. But he had just nodded slightly, and raised an eyebrow, and she had known that he knew. And she had decided even more furiously that she should stay away from him. Away from trouble.

  And had said yes when he asked if she'd like to go out for dinner.

  Annie's door was unlocked, as was normal, but somewhat warily, Joy knocked on it twice before entering. She was not entirely sure, given recent events, what to expect. When there was no response, she gently pushed it and walked in, stopping on the threshold to give her eyes time to adjust to the dim light. The living room looked both neglected and as if some whirlwind had recently passed through, scattering books and papers over every available surface as it went. The curtains, which had not been opened, shrouded the room in gloom, the few thin slivers of light to slice through catching the particles of dust suspended by Joy's arrival. It looked like the scene of some great crime, resting quietly on its turbulent secrets.

  "Annie?" she said, clutching the tin of shortbread to her chest.

  She didn't often venture out into the village these days, there being so much to do around the house, especially now that Sabine was helping her sort out all those old papers. More important, privately, she suspected that it would be tempting fate to venture too far away. She had left her with Edward, flicking through some of the old souvenirs that he used to bring her when he returned home. Edward seemed to like spending time with Sabine. Sabine could sit in; Joy could manage everything outside; it made things so much simpler.

  "Are you there?"

  There was an answering rustle from the kitchen.

  "Annie?"

  "Hello?" came a male voice. A head shot out from the doorway, that of a sharp-featured man, probably in his forties, with short, businesslike hair. "I couldn't find anyone," he said apologetically. "So I thought I'd help myself to breakfast. I hope that's okay."

  "Oh," said Joy, glancing around. "I'm sure that's fine. You're a guest, are you?"

  "Anthony Fleming," he said, thrusting out a hand. He was wearing a Windcheater and quite the tightest pair of shorts Joy had ever seen. Brightly colored, and made of some kind of shining nylon, they molded themselves around him, outlining the finer points of the man's anatomy in a manner that, had Joy been the type to blush, would have provoked a color of damsonesque hues. Instead, she just blinked rather hard, and looked away.

  "Joy Ballantyne," she said, extending her own, a little less forcefully. "I live across the road. Is Annie around?"

  "I haven't seen her since last night," said the man, who had returned to his bowl of cereal. "She let me in, and found a place for my bike--I'm cycling around Ireland--but then there was no sign of her this morning. I'm a bit fed up, to be honest, as I've been hanging around for ages. And cornflakes and slightly off milk are not exactly my idea of bed-and-breakfast."

  "Oh," said Joy, unsure what she could offer this man in return. "I'm afraid I can't help you there."

  There was a short pause.

  "Annie . . . ," she said, slowly. "Annie's had a bit of bad luck lately. She's normally a little better organized." She was aware of how weak these words sounded, faced with the chaos and grime around her.

  "That may be," said Anthony Fleming, rinsing his bowl under the tap, and adjusting his cycling shoes. "But I can't say I'll exactly be rushing back. Not my idea of Irish hospitality. Not like the last place I stayed, in Enniscorthy. The White Horse. Or House, I can't remember. Do you know it?"

  Joy didn't, but the man, apparently placated by simply being able to state his dissatisfactions to somebody, collected his bicycle from one of the outhouses and departed, after rather gallantly leaving with Joy the full amount due for his overnight stop.

  After she had watched him cycle off down the road, she turned to the kitchen, seeing it properly for the first time. It was not a happy sight: dishes piled up in the sink, half submerged in rank, greasy water. A stale, half-eaten loaf sat upside down on a plastic chopping board. A selection of cardboard wrappers from ready-made meals formed rickety, multistory towers on the surfaces that weren't littered with chocolate wrappers, stale crumbs, or out-of-date pints of milk, the organic indicators of a disintegrating life.

  It wasn't a huge surprise, although she had been surprised that Mrs. H hadn't seen it. It was she who had confided unhappily that Annie's husband, Patrick, had finally tired of a wife who no longer even seemed to notice he was there; a wife who neither wante
d to share anything with him, talk to him, nor even argue with him, and had left. "He's a good man," she had said, as Joy stood by, a little uncomfortable with Mrs. H's unbidden confidences. "But I can't blame him. Lately she'd try the patience of a saint, floating around like she's in another world. She won't talk about Niamh, won't admit that this is what's causing it. She won't open up to him at all. Half the time she won't even talk to me."

  It was Mrs. H's uncharacteristic and public grief that had prompted Joy's visit; Annie had gotten so bad the last week or so that she would not let her in, she said, so when Joy suggested that she pop around with a tin of biscuits, Mrs. H had accepted gratefully. "She won't expect you," she said. "She'd probably just open the door to you."

  But what on earth do I tell her about this? Joy thought, gazing around her. She didn't want to interfere; she wasn't the type. People should generally be left alone to sort themselves out, if that's what they wanted.

  But this . . .

  "Annie?" she said, letting herself out the back door into the kitchen garden. The vegetable patch, from which Annie had once prided herself on conjuring up ripe, green produce, now looked bare and infertile. The grassed area spilled messily over into the borders, where the browned, brittle remains of the summer's plant life wound itself sadly through the earth.

  She backed into the house, closing the door behind her. The utility room, once competently stocked with toilet rolls, kitchen rolls, and sacks of potatoes, was cold and almost empty. The dining room bore a thin sheen of dust.

  "Annie?" she called up the stairs. "Are you there?"

  Niamh's room was the last that Joy entered. Anyone who knew Annie felt unwilling to enter that place, not because of any superstition about the little girl who had once lived there, but because of an awareness of the depth and fragility of Annie's grief. Someone who had lost a child, according to village wisdom, should be allowed to grieve in whichever way she chose; the awfulness was so unimaginable that unlike other life events--weddings, christenings, disappearing spouses--no one felt qualified to suggest a right or wrong way of dealing with it.

  "Annie?" she said.

  Annie was sitting on the carefully made child's bed, her back to the door, and a plastic doll in her right hand. She didn't immediately turn around when Joy called her name, but continued to stare out of the window at the brown fields beyond, as if she hadn't heard.

  Joy stood in the doorway, taking in the children's toys, the brightly colored curtains, the curling wall posters, unsure whether to venture farther in. She already felt like she was intruding.

  "Are you all right?" she asked, tentatively.

  Annie's head moved slightly to the right, as if she were examining the doll. She lifted it slowly, and ran her finger over its face.

  "I keep meaning to do some dusting," she said. "It's a bit of a mess in here."

  She turned her head so that she could see Joy, smiling a strange, bleak smile. "Housework, eh? It always gets away from you."

  Annie looked pale and tired, her hair lank over her face, and her movements slow and precise, as if the very act of moving at all exhausted her. She sat awkwardly, swaddled in her usual layers, bound up as if in an attempt to further remove the world outside. Joy, who had hardly seen her recently, apart from the interlude when she had argued with Sabine, wondered with a heavy heart at how grief could transform someone from the bright, sparky young mother of three years previously, to this seemingly drugged automaton. It made her think of Edward, too, and she swatted the thought away.

  "I--I've brought you some biscuits."

  It sounded so ridiculous somehow. But Annie didn't seem remotely surprised.

  "Shortbread. How lovely."

  "I wasn't sure how you were. We've not seen much of you around lately."

  There was a long pause, during which Annie seemed to be examining the doll's face, very carefully, as if for damage.

  "I wondered if you needed any help with anything. Shopping, perhaps. Or . . ."--she didn't like to say cleaning, with its implications--". . . a bit of company. Sabine always loves to see you. Perhaps I could send her over later."

  She paused, remembering the money in her hand.

  "Oh. And a Mr. Fleming, your guest, left this for you." She held out her hand, and then, meeting no response, stepped forward and placed it quietly on the dresser.

  "How's Mr. Ballantyne?" Annie said, suddenly.

  Joy took a deep breath.

  "He's fine, thank you. A little better."

  "That's grand." She placed the doll carefully on the bed and turned toward the window again.

  Joy stood, unsure whether she was being dismissed. Eventually, she stepped forward, thrust the tin of shortbread onto the bed, and began to back out. The poor girl's thoughts were evidently elsewhere. There was little that Joy could do. She would tell Mrs. H that Annie definitely needed some help, perhaps even to be taken to her parents' home for a while. Perhaps she should have some--what was it they all had these days?--some counseling.

  Quietly, her footfall muffled by the thick carpet, Joy left the room.

  "Patrick's left me, you know," came the voice.

  Joy turned around. Annie still faced the window. It was impossible to see her expression.

  "I just thought you should know," she said.

  There were two dates leaving Kilcarrion House on Saturday night, although both parties would have been at pains not to let them be described as such. Sabine had decided she would go out with Bobby McAndrew, had accepted his offer of a trip to the pictures, helped choose the film from the local paper, and then spent the following days worrying about whether he would try to seat her in the back row and stick his hand down her top. She wasn't entirely sure, but she thought she might have gone off him again.

  "I'm going to wear my black jumper, the polo-neck one, so that he doesn't get any ideas," she had told her grandfather. "And my jeans, so that I don't look like I've tried or anything."

  Her grandfather's eyes had swiveled across to her. Behind him, the technology, encased in its plastic surround, bleeped a regular pulse. "Don't look at me like that," she said, scoldingly. "It's perfectly smart for nowadays. Just because you lot used to wear suits and stuff to go out."

  Her grandfather had looked away again. Sabine had grinned at him, and placed his hand back on the bedspread.

  "Besides. If he's a right pug, then I want to make myself look as horrible as I can."

  But Bobby McAndrew hadn't looked terribly puggy. He had worn a pair of dark green trousers, dark brown, heavy-soled boots, and his own black woolen polo neck, which had made her want to giggle. Perhaps he was terrified that she was going to jump on him. He had also driven his own car, which was quite impressive; it was only a little Vauxhall, but it was a nice color. And Sabine, who had never been on a date with anyone who drove before (she hadn't actually been on that many dates full stop), quite enjoyed the feeling of maturity conveyed by a boyfriend with wheels. She also liked the chivalrous way that Bobby reminded her to do up her seat belt (as opposed to when her mother reminded her, in which case she was simply being a nag). She leaned forward and turned on the stereo, and the voice of a famous female singer had flooded the car, warbling on about lost love and sleepless nights. Listening, Sabine had realized with a start that it was well over a month since she had heard any kind of pop music. The woman's voice, once one of her favorites, sounded almost alien, a bit self-indulgent, and silly. She had leaned forward again and turned it off.

  "You don't like music?" said Bobby, glancing over at her. He smelled of aftershave. It wasn't too awful.

  "Not really in the mood for it," she had replied, and gazed coolly out of the window, quietly pleased with the way that sounded.

  The showing had been on early, the film had been funny enough to make her laugh out loud without thinking, and Bobby had failed to embarrass himself or her by clammy-handing her in the dark (she had spent much of the first half on the edge of her seat, primed to retaliate), so when he asked if she fancie
d a pizza, Sabine said yes. No one had told her what time she had to be back, and at Kilcarrion such opportunities were to be relished. She also, she admitted, didn't mind spending a bit more time with Bobby; it was good after all this time to hang out with someone her own age. Even if she had forgotten quite how irritating teenage boys could be.

  "Vegetarian, are you?" said Bobby, eyeing her choice of pizza over his menu.

  "Yes. So?"

  "And you hunt?"

  She sighed. Gazed around her at the bustling restaurant. The waitress had looked at her as if she were too young to be there.

  "I went once. To see what it was like. And we didn't catch anything, did we?"

  "Do you wear leather shoes?" He leaned down, as if to peer under the table.

  "Yes, I do. Until they make decent rubber ones I don't have much choice."

  "Do you eat wine gums? You know they're made out of bits of cows. It's the gelatin in them."

  Sabine grimaced, wishing Bobby would change the subject. He had done this nonstop since they left the cinema; this conversationas-battle thing, joking and trying to score points off her. It had made her laugh at first; now it was becoming exhausting.