“I’m so sorry, Lol.” I sigh, looking around for a box of tissues before remembering our world no longer has tissues.
“It’s all right, Gran. It’s good to remember Mum and Dad.”
Upstairs, Rafiq is hopping along the landing — probably pulling on a sock — as he sings in hybrid Mandlish. Chinese bands are as cool to kids in the Cordon as American New Wave bands were to me.
“We’re luckier, in a way,” Lorelei says quietly. “Mum and Dad didn’t … Y’know, it was all over so quickly, and they had each other, and at least we know what happened. But for Raf …”
I look at Aoife and Örvar. “They’d be so proud of you, Lol.”
Then Rafiq appears at the top of the stairs. “Is there any honey for the porridge, Lol? Morning, Holly, by the way.”
SCHOOL BAGS PACKED, lunches stowed, Lorelei’s hair braided, Rafiq’s insulin pump checked and his blue tie — the last vestige of a uniform the school at Kilcrannog can reasonably insist on — done again and redone, we set off up the track. Caher Mountain, whose southern face I’ve looked at in all seasons, all weathers, and all moods nearly every day over the last twenty-five years, rises ahead. Cloud shadows slide over its heathered, rocky, gorse-patched higher slopes. Lower down is a five-acre plantation of Monterey pines. I push the big pram that was already a museum piece when me and Sharon used to play with it during summer holidays here in the late seventies.
Mo’s up and out. She’s hanging clothes on her line as we get to her gateway, wearing a fisherman’s geansaí so stretched it’s almost a robe. “Morning, neighbors. Friday again. Who knows where the weeks go?” The white-haired ex-physicist grabs her stick and hobbles across the rough-cropped lawn, handing me her empty ration box to take to town. “Thanks in advance,” she says, and I tell her, “No bother,” and add it to Lorelei’s, Rafiq’s, and mine in the pram.
“Let me help with that washing, Mo,” says Lorelei.
“The washing I can handle, Lol, but yomping off to town,” as we call the village of Kilcrannog, “I can’t. What I’d do without your gran to fill up my ration box, I cannot imagine.” Mo whirls her cane like a rueful Chaplin. “Well, actually I can: starve by degrees.”
“Nonsense,” I tell her. “The O’Dalys’d take care of you.”
“A fox killed four of our chickens last night,” says Rafiq.
“That’s regrettable.” Mo glances at me, and I shrug. Zimbra sniffs a trail all the way up to Mo, wagging his tail.
“We’re lucky Zimmy got him before he killed the lot,” says Rafiq.
“My, my.” Mo scratches behind Zimbra’s ear and finds the magic spot that makes him go limp. “Quite a night at the opera.”
I ask, “Did you have any luck on the Net last night?” Meaning, Any news about the Hinkley Point reactor?
“Only a few minutes, on official threads. Usual statements.” We leave it there, in front of the kids. “But drop by later.”
“I was half hoping you’d mind Zimbra for us, Mo,” I say. “I don’t want him going all Call of the Wild on us after killing the fox.”
“Course I will. And, Lorelei, would you tell Mr. Murnane I’ll be in the village on Monday to teach the science class? Cahill O’Sullivan’s taking his horse and trap in that day and he’s offered me a lift. I’ll be borne aloft like the Queen of Sheba. Off you go now, I mustn’t make you late. C’mon, Zimbra, see if we can’t find that revolting sheep’s shin you buried last time …”
AUTUMN’S AT ITS tipping point. Ripe and gold is turning manky and cold, and the first frost isn’t far off. In the early 2030s the seasons went badly haywire, with summer frosts and droughts in winter, but for the last five years we’ve had long, thirsty summers, long, squally winters, with springs and autumns hurrying by in between. Outside the Cordon the tractor’s going steadily extinct and harvests have been derisory, and on RTÉ two nights ago there was a report on farms in County Meath that are going back to using horse-drawn plows. Rafiq trots ahead, picking a few late blackberries, and I encourage Lorelei to do the same. Vitamin supplements in the ration boxes have grown fewer and further between. Brambles grow as vigorously as ever, at least, but if we don’t shear them back soon, our track up to the main road’ll turn into the hedge of thorns round Sleeping Beauty’s castle. Must speak to Declan or Cahill about it. The puddles are getting deeper and the boggy bits boggier, too, and here and there Lorelei has to help me with the pram; more’s the pity I didn’t have the whole track resurfaced when money still got things done. More’s the pity I didn’t lay in better, deeper, bigger stores, too, but we never knew that every temporary shortage would turn out to be a permanent one until it was too late.
We pass the spring that feeds my cottage’s and Mo’s bungalow’s water tanks. It’s gurgling away nicely now after the recent rains, but last summer it dried up for a whole week. I never pass the spring without remembering Great-aunt Eilísh telling me about Hairy Mary the Contrary Fairy, who lived there, when I was little. Being so hairy the other fairies laughed at her, which made her so cranky she’d reverse people’s wishes out of spite, so you had to outwit her by asking for what you didn’t want. “I never want a skateboard” would get you a skateboard, for example. That worked for a bit till Hairy Mary cottoned on to what people were doing, so half the time she gave people what they wished for, and half the time she gave them the opposite. “So the moral is, my girl,” Great-aunt Éilish says to me across the six decades, “if you want a thing, get it the old-fashioned way, by elbow grease and brain power. Don’t mess with the fairies.”
But today, I don’t know why, maybe it’s the fox, maybe it’s Hinkley, I take my chances. Hairy Mary, Contrary Fairy: Please, let my darlings survive. “Please.”
Lorelei turns and asks, “You okay, Gran?”
WHERE DOONEEN TRACK reaches the main road we turn right and soon pass the turnoff leading down to Knockroe Farm. We meet the farm’s owner, Declan O’Daly, hauling a handcart of hay. Declan’s around fifty, is married to Branna, has two older boys plus a daughter in Lorelei’s class, owns two dozen Jerseys and about two hundred sheep, which graze on the rockier, tuftier end of the peninsula. His Roman brow, curly beard, and lived-in face give him the air of a Zeus gone to seed a bit, but he’s helped Mo and us out more than a few times and I’m glad he’s there. “I’d give you a big hug,” he says, walking across the farmyard to the road in stained overalls, “but one of the cows just knocked me over into a huge pile of cow shite. What’s so funny,” he mock-fumes, “young Rafiq Bayati? By God, I’ll use you as a rag …”
Rafiq’s shaking with silent giggling and hides behind me as Declan lumbers over like a manure-spattered Frankenstein.
“Lol,” Declan says, “Izzy told me to say sorry but she’s gone on into the village early to help her aunt get her veg boxed up for the Convoy. You’re coming for a sleepover later, I am informed?”
“Yes, if that’s still okay,” says my granddaughter.
“Ach, you’re hardly a rugby squad now, are ye?”
“It’s still good of you to feed an extra mouth,” I say.
“Guests who help with the milking are more than—” Declan stops and looks up at the sky.
“What’s that?” Rafiq squints up towards Killeen Peak.
I can’t see it at first but I hear a metallic buzzing, and Declan says, “Would you look at that now …”
Lorelei asks, disbelievingly, “A plane?”