Page 58 of The Start of the Story
‘Hmmm.’ Connor had been a bit sensitive about burning the noodles, although it hadn’t been entirely his fault as I’d been showing him a folklore book at the time.
‘But what about you?’ I turned to face him. ‘You’ve talked a lot about me making new memories and everything, but what aboutyourmemories? They must be mostly good, surely?’
He sighed and his gaze went from my face to a space above my head, a distant, inward-looking stare. ‘When we were kids, yes. Very. But then, when I decided that the Catholic faith wasn’t for me any more, so Midnight Mass wasn’t really a thing, well, then the magic sort of evaporated as it does when you get older – it got to be a bone of contention with Mam. Dad goes along with anything for a smooth ride, and the house full of the brothers and their wives and fiancées and then the kids…’ His focus moved back to my eyes. ‘You’re not the only one to want new memories, Rowan,’ he said. ‘Saoirse and I, we’d planned out our Christmases. The little cottage, hopefully a couple of kids, just us as a family without having to include every passing congregation member and Father MacDermot, a man who I am convinced had at least fifteen Christmas dinners whilst “visiting his parishioners”.’ He squeezed me gently. ‘All those lies. They’ve made me a bit wary of forward planning.’
‘I think…’ I began, and then paused to make sense of my thoughts before starting again. ‘I think too much forward planning might be a bad thing. It kind of leaves you open to disappointment when everything doesn’t fall into place like you wanted. Elliot and I had our lives planned out – house, children, careers, all that, but then the children weren’t happening…’ Another memory: that bathroom, that morning, thathope. ‘Then he died. And, in some ways, it was twice as bad because I didn’t just lose Elliot, I lost a whole future life. If we’d been a bit less rigid about things, had more of a “take it as it comes” attitude, maybe I wouldn’t have felt so lost for so long.’
‘That’s the folklore talking.’ Connor squeezed me again. ‘History is all about the documentation and the proof, a bit like planning, only backwards. But I know what you mean. If Saoirse hadn’t been one for the talking about what we’d do in the future, I’d have taken it more in my stride. Just a wee thing that happened, a mistake. But it wasn’t justher, as you say, it wasthe whole of my future life went “pop” when I found out about her.’ He sighed. ‘Future faking. Only yours wasn’t faking, it was a genuine expectation of how things would be.’
I pushed his hair back from his face, grinning at his expression, at the fact he hadn’t shaved for two days, at the whole dark package that was so uniquelyConnor.‘So, this time round I think we should take it as it comes, don’t you? No plans, no expectations, no certainties. Just us.’
‘Ah, and there’s still the matter of your stone up there.’ An elbow jutted to indicate the distant hump of moorland beyond. ‘I’d like to know what’s going on with that.’
‘And your Roman settlement.’
‘That can wait until summer. The archaeology boys can get up there and see if my theories are right.’
I ran my hand down his cheek, feeling the sheer realness of his cheekbones, his jawline, that stubble. ‘Does that mean you’re not going to lift my stone to prove your case?’
He sighed. ‘If I’m right, we might not want to. But let’s wait until Eamonn gets here for that.’
‘Fairyland,’ I muttered as I started to drop into sleep, feeling Connor’s breath and his arms tight around me. ‘We can’t let fairyland out.’
I heard him say ‘the Little People ought to be known’ before I fell into dreams of joyful little winged fairies bouncing around and granting wishes.
25
Before we knew it the Christmas holiday had passed, and that charmed, secret time was over. But that was all right, I reminded myself. Life couldn’t all be bed and giggling and making our own timetable. Reality had its place.
Reality was dropping Connor off near the university and heading into my office, where Chess was working, pink and enthusiastic after the break. I sent the Fairy Stane book off for editing and half planned some trips out for when winter gave up and let spring in.
Chess had, of course, taken one look at me and knownexactlywhat sort of a Christmas I’d had.
‘I knew it!’ She punched the air triumphantly on my arrival into the office on our first day back. ‘Iknewit!’
‘What did you know, Chess?’ I asked, playing for time as I sorted through post and checked that my chair wasn’t growing mushrooms.
‘You’re glowing! And if that isn’t stubble burn, then you ought to go and see a dermatologist. Connor, right? Iknewit! You’re made for each other.’
There was absolutely nothing I could say, so I did the annoying little smile that neither confirms nor denies, to keep her on edge a little longer. She obviously took it as confirmation, because she spent the whole morning fluttering about singing ‘I knew it!’ and bought me an extra-large coffee and a bun from the little café down the road.
When we’d been back about a week, Connor turned up in my office at the end of the day with someone in tow.
‘This is my brother, Eamonn,’ he said, poking a young man through the doorway. ‘Go on, Eamonn, she won’t bite you, now.’
Eamonn, whom I’d consistently pictured as a rotund, placid little man with a beatific smile and a natty line in those cape things that priests always seem to wear on TV, turned out to be the most stunningly attractive man I’d ever seen. Connor was, of course, subjectively more attractive, but Eamonn’s sheer beauty took my breath away.
‘Er. Hello there,’ he said.
Chess, who hadn’t left yet although she’d got her hat and coat on, was glued to the wall of my office, boggling. When Eamonn and Connor leaned over my desk to look at a map, she looked over at me, her mouth and eyes wide in a silent scream of astonishment.
Wow! she mouthed and fanned herself with her hand.
Priest, I mouthed back and mimed a dog-collar.
No!
I gave her a rueful smile and nodded, but she still couldn’t take her eyes off Eamonn, who wasn’t only astoundingly gorgeous, but also had Connor’s height and long-limbed frame. Then I grinned to myself at the thought of the whole of Eire coming to a halt every time he walked down the street. He’d never be short of an offer of a Christmas dinner, anyway.
