It had been shortly after tea that Sabine had begun counting up the money her mother had given her, to see if she had enough to get her back to England. Her mother wouldn't like it, but she couldn't see how living with her and the odious Justin could be any worse than staying here. This was impossible. Even when she tried to do the right thing, they acted like she'd deliberately done wrong. They didn't care about her. All they cared about were bloody horses, and their stupid, rigid rules. She could be lying in the kitchen with an ax in her head and they'd tell her off for bringing tools into the house.
She was scanning her ferry ticket for a booking line number when there was a soft knock at the door. It was Mrs. H.
"Why don't you come over to our Annie's with me this evening? Your grandmother says it would be fine, and it'll be nice for you to have some younger people around you." What she meant was, it was probably best if you and your grandparents gave one another a bit of a break. But Sabine didn't mind. Anything was better than spending another evening in with them.
Annie was Mrs. H's only daughter. She lived in the large farmhouse farther up the village, which she ran as a bed-and-breakfast with her husband, Patrick, a much older man who wrote books. ("I've never read one--not my cup of tea," said Mrs. H. "But I'm told they're very good. For intellectual types, you know.") Annie's skills as hostess were less assured--the B-and-B was legendary, according to Thom, for never retaining guests for a second night. She forgot stuff, apparently. Like breakfast. Or even that she had guests at all. And some objected to her habit of walking around the house in the early hours of the morning. But neither Thom nor Mrs. H elaborated on that.
"She's not that much older than you. Twenty-seven. How old are you again? Oh. Well, she's a fair bit older than you. But you'll like her. Everyone does. Just don't mind if she's a bit--well--a bit distracted."
Sabine, walking slowly down the dark, wet road with Mrs. H, both huddled under a rather tired umbrella, was intrigued, picturing some Maud Gonne type, all wild red hair and floaty skirts, waving away domestic queries with a thin, artistic wrist. Annie's eccentric habits sounded a million miles from those of Kilcarrion House. A woman who forgot to make breakfast wasn't likely to want to hold a formal supper, was she? And a writer husband didn't sound like all he would want to do is talk about horses. She might be able to relax this evening, sparkle, and be witty in admiring company. Perhaps watch proper telly. Annie might even have satellite--lots of Irish houses seemed to. And besides, Mrs. H told her that Thom would pop by later. He often did, apparently, just to see how Annie "was doing."
But the Annie who opened the door was not quite the glamorous eccentric she had envisaged. She was a short woman in a large sweater with straight, shoulder-length brown hair, full lips, and big, sad eyes. They wrinkled into a greeting as she held out her hand--not to shake Sabine's own, but to pull her gently in to the house. She was also, Sabine noted, a little sadly, wearing chain-store jeans.
"Sabine. How are you? Lovely of you to stop by. Hi, Mam. Did you bring the bacon?"
"I did. I'll put it straight in the fridge."
There was no hallway; they walked straight into the living room, almost one side of which was taken up by an old stone fireplace, complete with fiercely burning log fire. Two long, slightly tatty blue sofas sat at right angles to it, while a coffee table sat between them, burdened by huge, precarious piles of magazines and books. Now that she looked properly, books were everywhere. They lined each wall on sagging shelves and sat under stools and tables in irregular heaps. "Those are Patrick's," Annie said, from the kitchen area at the other end of the room. "He's a great one for reading."
"Annie? What have you prepared for the supper?" Mrs. H stood up from the fridge and stared around her, as if expecting to see some pan bubbling on the stove. Annie rubbed at her forehead, frowning.
"Ahh, Mam. I'm sorry. It went clean out of my mind. We can stick something in the microwave."
"We cannot," said Mrs. H, affronted. "I'm not having Sabine going back to the big house saying we never fed her properly."
"I wouldn't say that," said Sabine, who really didn't mind. "I'm not that hungry anyway."
"A skinny girl like you. In fact, look at the both of yous. I've seen more meat on a butcher's dog. Annie--you sit down and talk to Sabine and I'll do us some chops. I put some in the freezer a couple of weeks ago."
"I--I'm not a great meat eater," Sabine ventured.
"Well, then, you can eat the vegetables. And we'll do you a cheese sandwich on the side. How's that?"
Annie grinned at Sabine conspiratorially, and motioned at her to sit down. She didn't talk much, but in that way that prompted confidences, and before long Sabine found herself unburdening herself of the many unhappinesses--and injustices--she was subjected to at Kilcarrion House. She told Annie about the endless rules and regulations, and how completely impossible it was to remember them all. She told her how ridiculously difficult it was to communicate with her grandparents, and how hopelessly old-fashioned they were. She told her about how alien she felt among all these horse-obsessives, and how she missed her mates, and her telly, and her own home, and all her things, like her CDs and her computer. Annie just listened and nodded understandingly, so that after a while Sabine suspected she had heard much of this already from Mrs. H. That just fueled her sense of victimhood. For that was what she must be, she mused, if they were talking about her in sympathetic tones.
"And why's your mam not over here, Sabine? Is she working?"
Sabine halted briefly, unsure how much to give away. They were nice people, but she hardly knew them, and she did feel some loyalty to her mother.
"Yes," she lied. "She wanted to come over, but she was too busy."
"What does she do now?" said Mrs. H. "It's so long since I've seen her."
"She writes." She paused. "Not books and stuff. Just features for newspapers. About families."
"Any old families?" Mrs. H shoveled a tray of food into the oven.
"Not really. Family life in general. Problems and stuff."
"That sounds very handy," said Mrs. H.
"You must miss her," said Annie.
"Sorry?"
"Your mam. You must miss her. Her being so far away and all."
"A bit." She hesitated, then said boldly, "We're not that close, actually."
"But she's your mam. You must be close." And suddenly, inexplicably, Annie's eyes appeared to fill with tears.
Sabine stared at her in horror, trying to work out what she could have said to have prompted this. Mrs. H, looking sharply at her daughter, called her over.
"Sabine--I've found a bit of fish in the freezer cabinet. Do you fancy this, if I do it in a butter sauce? Perhaps you could help me defrost it in the microwave. Annie, love, why don't you go and fetch Patrick and tell him we'll be eating in about twenty minutes."
Sabine stood slowly, and, trying not to stare too conspicuously at Annie, walked over to the kitchen.
Annie became very quiet for about half an hour after that. She hardly spoke through supper, and her husband spoke very little, so it was left to Mrs. H and Sabine, who was feeling rather unnerved, to carry the conversation. Patrick was not the writer-type she had imagined: not thin and tortured-looking, but a big man, barrel-chested and slightly coarse-featured, with lines like plowed furrows along his forehead and down the sides of his mouth. But he was gentle, and solicitous, and he had that quiet air of intelligence that made Sabine slightly tongue-tied, and aware that almost everything she said sounded trite or stupid.
"Is your dinner all right, Patrick? It was all a bit of a rush job, I'm afraid."
"It's grand, Mam," he replied. "Lovely bit of lamb."
Sabine, who found herself staring at Annie, found it hard to picture the two together. He was so big and rough-looking, while she was so small and insubstantial, as if some melancholy breeze could just blow her away. And yet he obviously adored her; although he said little, Sabine noticed him touch her on the arm twice and once, gently
, rub her back with slow, loving strokes.
"Have you anyone coming this weekend?" said Mrs. H, picking up one of her chops with her knife and fork, and placing it on Patrick's already overstuffed plate.
Patrick looked at Annie, and then back at his mother-in-law. "I don't think there's anyone booked. I had a thought Annie and I might go up to Galway, just for a bit of a change."
"Galway," exclaimed Mrs. H. "Lough Inagh, now there's a beautiful spot. Me and your father used to holiday there every year when you were small, Annie. The weather was always terrible, for some reason, but you used to love it. We bought you these Wellington boots with glitter on, you see, and you just ran up and down in the water all day long."
Annie didn't look up.
Mrs. H, briefly lost in past happinesses, continued: "One night you even insisted on sleeping in them, you loved those boots so much. In the morning your bed was that full of sand I had to shake your sheets out of the window! Ahh, bless. You were only three."
Annie shot a sharp look at her mother, who abruptly shut up. For a few minutes, all that could be heard was the spit and crackle of the fire, and the distant thrum of the rain on the windowsill. Sabine, watching, glanced back at Annie, wondering what Mrs. H had said that was so wrong. But she just looked down again, and pushed her half-full plate toward the center of the table.
Curiously, Mrs. H didn't seem to mind. She just waited until she was sure everyone had finished and began collecting the plates. Not in that kind of brisk I'm-doing-this-to-make-a-point way that her own mother did when she had been rude to her. She just seemed genuinely unoffended, as if all she had to consider was the destination of the plates themselves.
"It doesn't have to be Galway," said Patrick, gently, in his wife's ear. "We could go to Dublin. A city break. It's meant to be a great craic at the moment."
There was a brief pause.
"Maybe another time, eh?" Annie patted her husband's arm, stood, and walked without explanation from the room.
Mrs. H pushed her own chair back, and walked toward the kitchen. "Now, Sabine, you'll have some pudding, won't you? We've got some apple pie that I can heat up in the microwave, or a bit of chocolate ice cream. I'll bet you'll not say no to some ice cream. Am I right?"
She didn't give Sabine time to wonder what was going on. Patrick, with an affectionate kiss on his mother-in-law's cheek, also left the room, but nodded to a query about pudding, suggesting he would soon be back. It was at this perplexing moment that the door opened and Thom walked in, the wind blowing behind him and his oilcloth coat slick with rain. Sabine almost ran to greet him; she had started to feel a little uncomfortable.
"Have I missed dinner? One of the boxes started letting in water, so I thought I should try and whack a tarpaulin on the roof before I left. It's filthy out there," he said.
"Sit down, love, sit down. Put your coat over by that chair. I've kept yours in the oven. Lamb chops all right for you?" The atmosphere in the room seemed to immediately relax and expand, so that Sabine sat back in her chair. Thom had that air--he just seemed to defuse tension. Sabine grinned at him and he grinned back.
"Did you get to watch some good telly, then, Sabine?"
Sabine, embarrassed, looked at Mrs. H. "I didn't come just to watch the telly. I wanted to meet--everybody."
"Ahh, was there something you wanted to watch, love? To be honest, what with the dinner and everything I didn't give it a thought. Well, let's have it on while we're having our pudding, shall we? There might be a film on, mightn't there?"
They sat, channel-surfing companionably, as Thom wolfed his way through his food. He ate voraciously, head down, his knife and fork working in tandem to scoop the food into his mouth--the kind of eating employed by siblings of large families, determined not to lose out on second helpings. Mrs. H nodded and smiled with some silent satisfaction. She was evidently fond of her nephew; she looked at him like one would a favored son. Sabine, watching this in the warm room, her own stomach full, and the distant roar of the wind and rain outside, felt a sudden pang that her own grandmother's house couldn't feel enclosed and warm like this one did. She didn't even know these people and already she felt loath to return to Kilcarrion House.
Sabine looked up as Annie walked back in. She was smiling. Patrick was standing behind her, looking slightly anxious.
"Hi, there, Tomcat," Annie said, ruffling Thom's hair. "How's my favorite cousin? You look like a drowned rat."
"You want to try going out some time," said Thom, reaching up and squeezing her hand. "It's called weather."
Still smiling, Annie sat back down at the table. Patrick sat next to her, gazing at his wife. He didn't touch his pudding.
"Where have you been all week?" Annie said to Thom. "I've hardly seen hide or hair of you."
"I've been around," he said. "Busy time of year. Getting the horses ready for the start of the season. All right there, Patrick?"
"You and your horses. You want to get yourself a girlfriend, have some proper interests. What happened to that girl from the restaurant? She was all right."
Thom didn't look up from his food.
"Not my type."
"And what is your type?"
"Not her."
Mrs. H, wiping down surfaces in the kitchen, burst into a laugh. "You should know by now, Annie. You'll not get Thom to tell you a thing. He could have a wife and six children at home and his own family would know nothing about it. Have you ever met a bloke like him, eh, Sabine?"
Sabine found she was blushing. To her relief, no one seemed to notice.
"Your trouble is you're too picky," said Annie, pushing her melted ice cream around a bowl.
"Probably."
Mrs. H glanced at her daughter a few times, but, apart from that, didn't remark upon her brief absence. She seemed to relax now that Thom was here, and busied herself with the washing up, dismissing Sabine's half-hearted offer to help.
"You sit down. You're the guest."
"Ahh, don't say that, Mam. You'll make her feel like one of the Twoobies."
Sabine glanced at Thom for explanation.
"Twoobies. B-and-Bers," said Patrick. "Our paying guests."
"I thought they were inmates," said Thom. "You're not saying you make them pay as well?"
"You're not a guest," said Annie, ignoring him and placing a hand on Sabine's arm. "You're a Ballantyne, so you're practically family. And you're welcome anytime. I could do with the company." Her smile was genuinely warm.
Mrs. H nodded, as if confirming it. "Would you like a cup of tea, Patrick? I could bring it up to you if you're working?"
"Thanks, Mam. I'm fine with my wine here. Thom, have you got a drink?"
Sabine went to pass him the bottle of wine, but almost before she could get there, Mrs. H had passed him a glass of orange juice, which he picked up and drained greedily.
"I'll have another drink," said Annie, looking around her. "Where's my glass gone?"
"I washed it up," said Mrs. H.
"Well, you can pass me another one then. I hadn't finished that."
Thom looked up from his food. "How's the book going?"
Patrick shook his head.
"It's a bit sticky at the moment, to tell you the truth."
"I don't know how you do it, sitting up there by yourself day after day," said Mrs. H. "I'd be bored out of my mind. No people, no one to talk to, just those characters in your head. I'm surprised you don't go mad. . . ." She finished washing the pans. "Right, then, I'm done. I'll be off in a minute. Your father's out at his club this evening and I want to be in before he gets home."
"Off to meet your fancy man, eh, Mam?" Patrick stood and held out her coat for her. "Don't worry. We won't say a thing."
"She likes to welcome him home," said Thom, shaking his head in disbelief.
"If I like to welcome my husband home, then it's no one else's business but our own," she said, pinking slightly.
"And the neighbors," said Patrick, grinning at Thom. "The poor things."
"You're a rogue, Patrick Connolly," she said, now bright pink. "Now, will someone walk Sabine home, all right? I don't want her on that dark road by herself."
"It's only one hundred yards. I'm fine, honest," said Sabine, chafing at the suggestion of her youth.
"Don't worry," said Thom. "We'll chuck her out after closing time."
"Thanks for cooking, Mam," said Annie, walking her to the door and kissing her. She was smiling all the time now, a soft, gentle smile, although it still didn't seem to stretch to her eyes. Right behind her, Patrick kissed his wife tenderly, and then walked slowly back upstairs. She had patted him vaguely in response, as one would a child.
As Sabine watched, Annie closed the door after her mother and then stood still in the center of the room, as if unsure where to put herself. After a few seconds she walked over to the sofa and collapsed on it, tucking her knees under her chin. "Right, Sabine, why don't you find a film or something," she said, looking suddenly, desperately weary. "And you two chat or something. I hope you don't mind, but I'll probably just crash here. I'm all out of talking today."
Your friend Melissa rang, and wanted to know if you were going to go to her party on the fifteenth. I told her I didn't know if you were going to be back or not."
"Oh."
"And O'Malley was sick in your room, but I've put your rug in the dry cleaners and they think it will be no problem."
"Is he all right?"
"He's fine. It's just because I ran out of cat food and he wolfed down a can of tuna."
"You're not meant to give him tuna."
"I know, sweetheart. But the corner shop was shut and I couldn't see him go hungry. He's all right with it when he doesn't eat so quickly."
Sabine had rung her mother the previous day with the intention of begging her for enough money to get her home. She was going to tell her that she loved her, and that she was sorry for being such a cow, and that everything would be better if she could just come home, because she knew, and she knew her mother would understand, that she couldn't stand being stuck here one more minute.
But they had been on the phone some seven minutes now, her mother evidently a bit bemused as to what Sabine had wanted when she left her "urgent" message to call, and yet Sabine just couldn't find the words. She wanted to go back, she really did. But it was somehow slightly less urgent since the previous evening, at Annie's house. And she found that she was still, deep inside somewhere, furious about Geoff and Justin. And it was so hard being overly nice to her mother. Kate just got all emotional and said too much back, so that Sabine ended up regretting saying anything and feeling faintly cross, like she had somehow given too much away. Her mother never could just let things be.