hing. The whole of Dún Aonghasa came through the green door that evening. They brought soda bread and cold ham and a barrel of stout that Padraig from the shop

top of the hall and shook h

man and a great singer, and then he said, quietly, so that only I could hear, "She came to me in February and asked me questions I could no

l and their eyes on the room. The women moved among the tables with plates and teapots and their faces soft and kind,

e woman who ran the post office.

aid the woman from the shop. "Ther

with grey plaited hair and a face like a kind horse, "you com

by the tea table with a cup in his hands and his shoulders up around his ears, and when I passed close to him the smell of pine and wet wool came off him so strongly that I

he door closed behind him. Then the tal

ed to be sad and grateful at once, and the sadness has nowhere to go because everyone is watching to see ho

nd taken up a position by the window where he could see the whole room and the door and the coffin. He watched me for a long time. When I finally looked straight back at him he did not look away, he lifted one hand and touched

les put down their plates, and into the hall came a woman in a black coat with silver hair pinned up at the back of her neck and a face

he coffin and stood there with her hands folded and her head bowed, and

m Mairéad. I am sorry w

d smooth. She took my hand. Her fingers were cool and dry, and I felt nothing at all when she to

my siste

. "I am sorry to say a practical thing at a wake, but it is better said now than in a month. Siobhan's b

t cold yet

d it was a kind mouth, and it stayed curved while she said the next thing. "The Mary Rose will sa

member agree

years." She said it without heat, as a fact. "The boat is co-op property

n by the window had turned his head and was watching Mairéad with a loo

se you?"

and I did not yet know what. "Your sister's role in this village passes to the person the co-op chooses. That is ho

said. "I spent fifteen years

day. I keep an open table in the evening for anyone who wants to talk. You will be welcome. And Niamh," she added, already turning, "the Mary Rose h

into the night, and the room let out i

out onto the step. The wind had dropped. The moon was up over

announced it at my sister's wake

there was something tight in his jaw. "The co-op chooses. She had the

u k

kne

before she stood over my sister's

er with a lawyer's letter and burned every bridge in this village before you had walked across one. And I thought that tomorrow you might want a priest and a hol

circle in the cloud, and the sea was flat and shining, and I was

brown cardigan," I

Ronan. Th

e. Like this." I did it for him, two fing

voice had gone careful. "It is an old gesture.

have been here since yesterd

your mother." Declan looked down the pier, and his hands were at his sides, a

about her tomorrow,

he stopped. "Niamh. The locker on the Mary Rose. Did

N

ger than he needed to. "Mairéad knew. Nobody

swung shut and the noise of the wak

at the small things. The weight in my pocket was cold against my leg. The old man by the window had recognized me across a crowded hall before I had said a word. The boy had walked out rather than stand near me. And

round stone, grey and wet from the shore, and beside it a single sprig of something that looked like

re was a smell on the wind that I had thought was only the sea and now was not sure of. At the top of the road, where the track turns down to the boathous

aid. His voice was a raw thing. "He tol

ke, Cormac. Peo

was a boy's face and not a boy's face at all, and his eyes had a light in them I had only seen once before, through a window, up on the headland. "She will take it out o

rried a smell I knew from the farm at the back of my grandmother's house

ac," I said. "

about," he said. "It is the weigh