‘And do you know what? If you’d been a proper mum, Megan wouldn’t even want to make her own decisions about where she wants
to live. She’s twelve years old, for goodness’ sake, but you’d think she’s thirty the way she speaks sometimes. What sort
of mother can’t even manage to buy her own daughter something she actually
wants
for her birthday?’
‘But … but I thought she’d like a voucher to have a fun day
at the spa with her friends!’ Eileen manages to get a word in at last.
‘No,
you’d
like a fun day at the spa with
your
friends, Eileen, but that’s not what Megan wants. You don’t know her at all. If she was my daughter I’d know what she wanted,
I’d know how to be a proper mother to her, and do you know why?’ I demand, pointing my finger accusingly at her.
Eileen recoils against the bench. ‘No,’ she says in a small voice.
‘It’s because you treat Megan just like my own mother treated me,’ I say, each word shooting from my mouth, extinguishing
my internal fire a little bit more. ‘And if Megan wants to come and live here with her father, away from you, just like I
used to escape my own mother when I came to Ireland to stay with my aunt Molly, then I’ll do everything I can in my power
to help her!’
I turn away from Eileen now, and realise something else. My voice has been so loud and so forceful, as I’ve finally let loose
the repressed emotions I’ve kept boxed up inside me for so many years, that it’s carried way above the sound of music and
merriment, and everyone has stopped dancing and is standing like statues witnessing my verbal attack on Eileen.
As they stand silently watching me, waiting to see what I’ll do next, I can do nothing else but leap up from the bench and
run in the opposite direction away from them, glad for once when I don’t even have to call Woody and Louis. For the first
time ever they just come running after me of their own accord.
It’s a clear night with a full moon sitting high in the night sky, lighting my path like a beacon as I run past my cottage
and
along towards the beach. I stop at the top of the cliff and pull off my high-heeled boots before I descend the path onto the
sand below. Then, tucking myself underneath the rock face so no one else will see me, I curl myself into a tight ball, and
with Woody and Louis sitting either side of me, I begin to cry like I’ve never cried before. For once, tears that should have
been allowed to fall years ago stream from my eyes, dropping down onto the beach in a seemingly never-ending flow that, after
a while, begins to mingle with the salt water that rolls rhythmically back and forth in front of me across the sand.
I sit on the beach for a long time, just watching the sea crash against the rocks and the waves roll in and out along the
sand, and all the time Woody and Louis keep me company. They don’t go off foraging for whatever it is they usually go in search
of, they simply sit either side of me occasionally giving me a lick or a nuzzle, depending on whether I’m dropping tears on
them at the time.
And if I’d seen and felt red when I was up at the party, now I feel very much surrounded in a cloud of blue as I sit on the
beach drowning in my own sorrowful thoughts. In fact, the only thing that prevents me from falling asleep there and then once
my tears cease falling, and a wave of extreme exhaustion comes crashing in, is a strange feeling inside me that something
isn’t right.
Woody and Louis’s ears suddenly prick up, and their heads turn towards the end of the beach. I look in the direction they’re
wagging their tails in to see Dermot walking along the beach towards me.
‘This is where you’re hiding,’ he says, bending down to fuss the dogs as he arrives next to us. ‘We’ve been looking for you.’
‘Have you?’
‘Of course,’ he sits down on the sand next to me and pulls a walkie-talkie from his pocket. ‘Niall, this is Dermot, over.’
A crackly voice feeds back over the speaker. ‘Niall here, Dermot, any sign yet? Over.’
‘I’ve got her, Niall. She’s quite safe. I’ll take it from here. You can tell the others the hunt’s over, and they can go to
bed now. Over.’
‘Righty-ho, Dermot, will do. Over and out.’
Dermot puts the walkie-talkie back in his pocket and looks at me. He raises his eyebrows. ‘I thought you said you weren’t
a queen, earlier? That little charade at Megan’s party looked pretty drama-queenish to me.’
My head falls into my hands in shame. ‘How is Megan?’ I ask in a muffled voice.
‘She’s fine, Darcy. I think she quite enjoyed seeing you stand up to Eileen like that.’ He nudges me. ‘
I
enjoyed seeing you stand up to Eileen like that. I was never brave enough.’
I look up at Dermot now, and find he’s smiling at me. ‘Really?’ I ask. ‘Megan’s not cross at me for ruining her party?’
‘Megan, cross at you?’ Dermot laughs. ‘Are you kidding? Megan adores you. Everyone adores you on this island, Darcy.’ Dermot
swiftly turns his head away and appears to concentrate on the waves that ebb and flow along the beach.
‘I shouldn’t have said those things to Eileen, though, it wasn’t my place to.’
‘It was about time someone did. There was no point me saying anything, she wouldn’t have listened.’ Dermot still gazes
out to sea. ‘And it certainly helped open up
negotiations
between Eileen and myself after you ran off. She told me what she’s thinking of doing.’
‘You talked?’
Dermot turns his head back now and nods. ‘Yes, and we’ve agreed to sit down and discuss Megan’s future between the three of
us properly, tomorrow, and decide what’s best. It seems I owe you thanks again, Darcy, not only for helping me bring my daughter
back into my life, but for helping me to keep her there.’ Dermot’s eyes roam over my face as though he’s trying to take in
every inch of it in the pale moonlight, and for a moment neither of us speaks.
‘Did Conor come looking for me too?’ I suddenly ask, wondering where he is. Shouldn’t it be Conor sitting here with me on
this beach, looking at me like this, not Dermot?
Dermot sits bolt upright at the mention of Conor’s name, as though hit by an icy-cold wave. ‘I’m not going to lie to you,
Darcy,’ he says, looking me straight in the eye again, but this time it’s concern I see reflected back at me, not − well,
what did I see before in Dermot’s gaze? ‘I haven’t seen Conor since you ran off.’
I look with disbelief at Dermot. ‘But where would he go?’
And why didn’t he come looking for me like Dermot and the others did?
Dermot shrugs, ‘Fishing, maybe? You said he liked to go out at night.’ But he doesn’t look very sure of himself.
‘It’s possible, I suppose.’ But even I’m having a hard time convincing myself now.
‘I wouldn’t worry; I doubt he’s too far away. He always seems to turn up.’ I just know Dermot wants to say
like the proverbial bad penny
, but he stops himself just in time. ‘So,’ he
says, standing up and holding out his hand, ‘Shall we get you into bed then?’
I can’t help blushing as I reach for Dermot’s hand.
‘Like the others, I mean,’ he says, a pink glow spreading across his own cheekbones as I take his hand and he pulls me effortlessly
up from the sand.
‘Sure,’ I smile, as we begin to walk back down the beach together. ‘I know what you meant.’
But as we reach the little path that climbs up the side of the cliff, I realise that we’ve walked the entire length of the
beach still holding on tightly to each other’s hand.
I don’t sleep at all well in what little is left of the night. In fact, by the time Dermot has walked me back to my cottage
and I’ve settled Woody and Louis down, I only doze for a couple of hours before I’m awakened again by the dogs barking. I
roll over in my bed and put my pillow over my head in the hope that they’ll settle down again. But they don’t, they keep on
going. So I roll out of bed to see what the problem is.
Dawn is just starting to break outside my window as I go through to the hall to find the two dogs pawing and scratching at
my front door.
‘What on earth is wrong with the pair of you?’ I ask, rubbing my eyes. ‘We barely came back from the beach a couple of hours
ago; you can’t need to go out again already.’
But still they press their noses to the bottom of the door, sniffing and clawing at it in turn.
‘All right, all right, just give me a minute,’ I say, grabbing a sweatshirt and my UGG boots to pull on over my pyjamas.
Just about suitably dressed, I open the door expecting them
just to wander out onto the grass in front of the cottage and do their business out there. But they don’t, they go bounding
down the hill towards O’Connell Street.
‘Hey, wait!’ I call out as I hurry after them. ‘Where are you going?’
I follow the dogs past all the other sleeping cottages down through the deserted square where, just a few hours ago, it had
been alight with music and merriment, as they head towards the harbour. As our little jetty comes into view, I see that we’re
not the only ones up at this hour of the morning.
‘Conor, Dermot, what are you doing up so early?’ I call, running down to the harbour after the dogs.
Both men spin around at the sound of my voice. But neither look particularly pleased to see me.
Conor is standing on the deck of the little red boat surrounded by wooden packing cases.
Dermot has one foot on the side of the boat and one foot on the jetty. He looks as if he’s about to climb aboard.
‘Darcy, just go back to your cottage,’ Dermot calls. ‘I’ll deal with this.’
‘You’ll deal with what?’ I ask, coming closer to them. ‘What’s going on?’
Conor doesn’t speak. He just stares at me.
Woody and Louis sit down either side of me as I stand on the side of the harbour wall waiting for an explanation from one
of them.
‘Do you want to tell her or shall I, Conor?’ Dermot asks, swinging his leg back onto the jetty.
Conor’s head drops as he stares at the deck of the boat. ‘You had to ruin it, didn’t you?’ he says, shaking his head. He lifts
his
head again and glares at Dermot with such venom I’m quite shocked. ‘You couldn’t just keep those great boots of yours out
of it.’
Dermot just folds his arms and waits.
‘Please, you two, stop messing about and just tell me what’s going on.’ I’m starting to feel nervous. There’s a really strange
atmosphere between them.
Dermot sighs. ‘Since Golden Balls here obviously doesn’t seem to have
any
balls, it looks like I’ll have to explain.’ Dermot looks across at Conor, who just scowls back at him. ‘Conor here is trying
to abscond from Tara with stolen goods.’
I look at Conor, still standing in the boat and shooting daggers at Dermot. ‘What stolen goods? What’s he talking about, Conor?’
Conor looks at me apologetically, but he still doesn’t try to explain.
‘Still nothing?’ Dermot enquires, looking at Conor with disdain. ‘You’re even less of a man than I thought you were.’ He turns
back to me. ‘Stolen goods from our Eamon’s cottage, apparently.’
‘From Eamon? But what’s Eamon got that’s worth taking? And more to the point, why would you even think of taking anything
from him, Conor?’ I look desperately at him, standing bobbing up and down in the moored boat. I can’t believe this is happening.
Surely this is some weird dream I’m going to wake up from, in a minute. In a moment I’ll be back in my bed, remembering that
I have to apologise to Eileen for my harsh words and to Megan for messing up her party. It
must
be a dream; this can’t be happening.
‘Artefacts,’ Conor says now, addressing me properly for the
first time. ‘Eamon collects old Irish antiquities – mainly weaponry, swords, shields, things of that nature. But there was
also jewellery and amulets up in that cottage of his. It was a complete treasure trove for a buyer of that sort of thing.’
‘But you’re …
stealing
them?’ I can hardly bear to say the word, let alone ask him the question. ‘And from Eamon, too, a friend. He’s an old man.
What’s he ever done to you?’ I can feel tears beginning to form in the corners of my eyes. And there was me, thinking I’d
cried myself completely dry last night. ‘What have
any
of us done to you to deserve this?’
‘Darcy, I never meant to hurt
you
,’ Conor makes a move towards the edge of the boat. Louis and Woody both growl as they immediately stand up either side of
me.
‘It’s OK, guys,’ I say, patting their backs. I turn to Dermot. ‘Dermot, can you give us a moment alone, please?’
Dermot looks like he might start growling in a minute too. ‘Sure, whatever,’ he nods. ‘But I’m watching you,’ he assures Conor
as he moves a little way up the hill to give us some privacy.
Conor climbs out of the boat and stands facing me on the jetty. I can hardly bear to be this close to him, knowing what he’s
done, and yet I have to hear it from him.
‘Why?’ I simply ask, looking up into his big blue eyes. I feel I should be angry with him, shouting or doing something more
dramatic. But my heart is beating so hard against my chest it feels like it’s going to break right through and burst out into
the harbour. I feel completely empty, as if it’s not really happening. ‘Why are you doing this?’
‘Because that’s what I do, Darcy,’ he says, at least having the grace to look shamefaced. ‘I’m … not what you think I am.
I’m
a con man. I take advantage of situations. I meet women and convince them to part with their money in my favour. I thought,
what with you inheriting this island … ’
‘You thought you could get money out of me?’ I can only stare at him.
‘Yes, that’s the truth of it. But with you I’d taken on a bit more than I could handle. You’re stronger up here than most,
Darcy,’ he taps his forehead with his finger. ‘And I realised you were falling in love with this island; there was no way
you were ever going to leave it. I knew that any money you inherited at the end of your time here you’d just plough right
back into Tara, so … ’
‘So there was nothing here for you,’ I finish for him, feeling the words hit the bottom of my stomach like cold stones. He’d
been using me this whole time.