The Library at the Edge of the World by Felicity Hayes-McCoy

Author:Felicity Hayes-McCoy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-07-16T04:00:00+00:00

31

As Brian Morton stood on his balcony in Carrick, Hanna sat in the gloaming on a pile of fallen stones. The goats were grazing on either side of her and the exposed rafters above the stone walls that enclosed her future were like bared teeth against the sky. A single star winked and was lost in drifting cloud. Then the clouds lifted and a curtain of stars appeared above the ocean. It was clear that, despite what he’d said, Fury had been to the house in the last week. Much of the half-buried rubbish had disappeared and the goats were grazing on new patches in the scrubby, rutted field.

Earlier, she had stood on the threshold of the house looking in at an empty shell. Directly opposite the front door, fresh planks boarded up what used to be the entry to the extension. With the slates and the sagging ceiling removed, the rooms were brighter. And there was a new smell, no longer musty, more like the dankness of a cave. Fury must have removed everything in the house that had been rotting: the door with its shrunken planks and rusty hinges was gone; so were the piled-up boxes of junk and the broken bits of furniture. Only Maggie’s tall wooden dresser remained in its alcove by the fireplace, the cobwebs washed away by rain.

Crossing the room, Hanna had opened the dresser. Inside, the old cups and glasses were still on the dirty shelves. One glass, with straight sides and a heavy base, had been the measuring cup for the buttermilk that Maggie had used to make soda bread. The rim was uneven and the glass had a green tinge. Hanna lifted it down. It had been more than forty years since she had touched it, yet she remembered its weight in her hand. She had taken it with her when she walked down the field to the goats.

Now, sitting on the stones with the glass in her hand, she wondered if she’d lost the will to continue to struggle with Fury O’Shea. Maybe Brian Morton was right, and, for the time being, the house belonged to Fury, not to her. And right now she found herself moved by other, older emotions.

She had been twenty-one when she lost her baby in London. Ridiculous that the memory should come back to her now as she sat on a fallen wall with the stars shining over Maggie’s house and the ocean pounding the cliff so far below. It had happened on a Monday in Malcolm’s flat near Sloane Square, when she had been puttering about in her dressing gown trying to control her morning sickness after a breakfast of toast and weak tea. Joni Mitchell was singing “Chelsea Morning” on the stereo and Malcolm had left for work. The bay windows were open and the door leading out to the balcony was ajar. The long sheer curtains hung motionless, filtering the shafts of sunlight that fell across the wooden floor.

It had been over

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