‘That’s Pat Fitz, right?’
‘Yep.’
‘Aw – she’s such a dote. Listen, don’t worry, we’ll be grand. I’m happy to get someone with your experience wanting to do part-time work.’
Cassie had already gathered this was the case. The majority of the peninsula’s part-time workers in the tourist trade were foreign students subsidising a holiday in Ireland or saving for their following term’s tuition. Kids born in Finfarran were pretty much ‘raised for export’, an expression she’d heard a lot since she’d been here. There was no longer the steady exodus to Resolve, which had been the norm in Pat’s day. Now people went off to college in Cork or Dublin, then on to work in the cities. But for every one who returned and settled in Finfarran there were six who found posts abroad that they wouldn’t find at home. Margot and her fiancé were exceptions to the rule. Cassie asked if she’d been born in Ballyfin.
‘Yeah. My dad was a fisherman. Well, he still is, but now he mainly does boat tours.’
‘And this is where you always wanted to settle?’
‘That’s it. Went off to college at nineteen. Always knew I’d be back.’ Her fiancé, Paul, was a blow-in, she explained. ‘He started out in the Lifeboat Service. Then he came here to work at the marina. It was a bit of a risk throwing up his job and moving to Finfarran, but we’d fallen in love as soon as we’d met and it’s worked out grand. I’ve told him there’s a site up the mountain with my name on it, and that’s where we’re going to live and raise our kids.’
There was still workable farmland to the north and south of the peninsula, but its tiny mountain farms were now considered unsustainable, and many were being parcelled out as building sites for homes. Margot’s had been left to her by an unmarried uncle. ‘It’s a gorgeous place. I used to go there a lot when I was a kid. Back up on the mountain where it’s quiet, but close enough for work. There’s a great school in Ballyfin, too, for the kids when they come along. This is a fab place to grow up. Sea, sand, freedom. Real food. God, I remember the meals we used to have at my uncle’s. Spuds from the field and fish caught by my dad. Evenings on the front step drinking tea, gazing out at the sunset. That’s my dream.’
Cassie felt a stab of envy. Being footloose and fancy-free was brilliant, but knowing you had a place to put down roots must be good as well. It hadn’t really occurred to her to wonder where she might settle. Toronto had never felt like home, while Finfarran sometimes did, which was weird, since her dad had never brought them to visit Ireland. It seemed like he didn’t feel any pull from the place where he was born. Uncle Jim had never come home either. Maybe the urge had skipped a generation and come to her.
When she left the hotel she wandered down towards the beach. The stone pier was still in use by fishing boats. Beyond it, where the seabed had been dredged, the shining white marina sheltered several large yachts. The beach, which curved away from the pier, was deserted, except for a child walking a puppy. Buffeted by the onshore wind, Cassie crunched over shingle onto sand. The tumbling waves were tipped with foam, and gulls tossed and wheeled, surfing on air currents. The wind brought the smell of salt from the Atlantic and ribbons of crimson and emerald seaweed were fast being buried in hummocks of fine sand.
Down at the shoreline, where the packed sand was easier to walk on, Cassie turned her shoulder to the wind and happily lengthened her stride. As she left the pier and the marina behind, the sound of cables rattling against masts began to fade. Soon she could hear nothing but the cries of the seabirds and the shrill yapping of the puppy. With her cropped hair plastered to her head and her long fringe flying, Cassie turned her back to the ocean and looked up at Ballyfin. Directly above the beach was the esplanade, with its row of modern hotels, including the Spa. Above it, the steep streets of the port climbed to the town centre, where a terraced Victorian square surrounded a green. Beyond that again, above the outskirts of the town, rose the foothills of Knockinver, where Margot’s uncle had farmed.
The best school in Toronto, a luxurious home, and expensive, exclusive summer camps seemed nothing compared to the freedom of life here in this lovely place. Margot had described fishing trips when she and her dad would spend whole days on the ocean, and nights lying on the beach with friends, counting stars. She’d helped on the farm, milking cows and feeding chickens, and carried bundles of straw for the thatcher, who’d come in a rickety car to patch a shed roof. Her uncle had refused to abandon thatch for corrugated iron, saying there were years left in the roof if it was properly repaired. So Shamie had arrived with straw in the back of the car, and an armful of scallops, narrow pliable hazel wands sharpened at either end, to secure it to the roof. Cassie had loved Margot’s description of the old man’s deft patching and the bottle of milky tea he’d kept in his pocket, wrapped in a sock.
The house planned by Margot and Paul was modern, but Cassie could tell that Margot would capture all the charm of the farmhouse she’d loved as a child; the old house and its tumbledown barn and sheds were long gone, but the new home on the mountain would contain warm memories of the past. Swinging round to face the ocean, Cassie found herself longing to do the same. Not now, of course, when there was still so much of the world to see and explore. But sometime in the future when, like Margot, she’d be ready to settle down. Then, as the wind hit her again, she realised ruefully that one vital ingredient was missing. Margot had Paul, that solid, dependable guy in the photo. Footloose Cassie Fitzgerald had no one special with whom to share her dreams.
Chapter Five
Mary Casey frowned as she stood at her kitchen window. At this time of year you could never tell whether or not it was safe to hang out your washing and, despite a lifetime of coping with Finfarran’s changeable weather, the lack of certainty always put her on edge. Tea towels and that class of thing didn’t matter, but a good dress could get ruined if the wind caught it and twisted it round the line. Pat was always telling her she made mountains out of molehills but, whatever Pat might say, appearances mattered. To Mary’s mind, you were what you wore.
She could remember exactly what she’d had on when she and Pat had met Ger and Tom. It was at a match. Tom was playing and Ger had been in the crowd. The nuns were never happy about girls going to watch football but, since most of the lads on the local team had sisters and cousins who went to school at the convent, they couldn’t ban matches outright. But the girls were expected to wear school uniform, presumably in the hope that lace-up shoes and lumpy brown gym frocks would prevent lustful advances on the sidelines.
Mary hadn’t cared. You couldn’t expect sixth years to do the likes of that, and the bishop was her mam’s uncle so who gave a damn for the nuns? Pat had been doubtful but, as Mary had told her sharply, she could afford to be. When your figure went straight up and down, like a ruler, you didn’t have to keep hitching your gym frock down over your bust. The tunics had three pleats front and back and buttoned on the shoulders so, if you had any kind of shape at all, they hung four inches shorter fore than aft. There was a knitted sash too. The nuns called it a girdle, which always made people giggle because you’d see ads in papers for spandex girdles designed to hold you in. Though wearing one under a gym frock would have made no difference: with the pleats and the stringy sash, whatever you did you looked like a sack tied with twine.