introduces herself, Ruth Mulvey, and he does likewise.
‘I’m sorry for barging in on you like this,’ she says. ‘They told me in SuperValu that you might want a dog. I was going to put up a notice and the woman at the till said you might be interested. Katie, her name was.’ Then, a little bashfully, ‘She said to say she sent me.’
She gestures towards the car. ‘It’s my uncle’s dog. He’s gone into a nursing home. I have to go back to Dublin and I can’t take him with me.’
Luke peers into the car. A small brown dog is curled on a blanket on the back seat. Without lifting its head, its eyes fix anxiously on Luke. Katie Cullen works part-time in SuperValu, and has the same bleeding heart for animals as he has. She comes up and feeds his cats whenever he goes away. The size of your place, she says, if I had it, I’d have fifty dogs.
The girl looks to Luke before opening the back door of the car.
‘Go on, sure take him out,’ he says, with a nod.
She lifts out the dog, its ears flattened, its body trembling in her arms.
‘This is Paddy,’ she says. She grips him tighter to mask the trembling.
‘Paddy,’ Luke repeats. ‘How are you, Paddy!’
She raises her face to his and when their eyes meet her mouth widens into a broad smile, and he smiles back, elated.
They are standing very close. She comes up only to his shoulders. He can see the top of her head, the line of scalp where her hair is parted. He had forgotten how good it feels to be this physically close to a woman.
‘Bring him into the house,’ he says and turns and leads the way.
She sets the dog down on the rug in the drawing room. Rigid, tense, wary, the dog doesn’t move and they stand staring at him.
‘The poor devil,’ Luke says softly, then turns to her. She has long dark eyelashes. Green eyes. Beautiful. Something a little funky about her – her hairstyle maybe. ‘Sit down,’ he tells her. ‘I’ll get him a bit of meat or something. Will you have something yourself – tea, coffee?’
‘No thanks, I’m grand. And don’t worry about Paddy – he’s probably too anxious to eat. He’s had a lot of change lately and I think he’s sensing there’s more to come.’
He goes down to the kitchen and runs the cold tap and fills two glasses of water. When he returns, the dog is crawling on its belly towards her feet.
She is from Curraboy, three miles away.
‘Only out the road,’ he says. ‘I don’t think we’ve ever met before, have we?’
She shakes her head. ‘I don’t think so. Although we may well have, at some stage, around the town. At football matches maybe.’ Then she gives a little laugh. ‘Or Irish dancing years ago – everyone meets at Irish dancing!’
‘Did you go to St Mary’s?’
‘No. I went to Curraboy National School. And then I went to boarding school in Limerick.’
Villiers, probably. She might be Protestant.
‘But we were always in and out of town and we came to Mass in Clonduff,’ she says. ‘I’m sure our paths crossed there.’
Luke nods.
‘My grandfather’s name was Luke,’ she says then.
‘A lovely man, no doubt! Patron saint of doctors.’
She nods, smiles. He can do better than that.
They are both looking at the dog.
‘The poor cratur …’ Luke says.
So much conversation is phatic, social, he thinks. We must be the most accomplished race at saying nothing, and doing it with charm.
‘He’s very timid … worse since Mikey went away. I don’t know if he’ll ever come right.’
He steals a look at her. Slim, small-chested. Five foot four, at the most. The opposite of Maeve. They wouldn’t be a match, physically. He could pick her up.
‘Did you say you live in Dublin?’
‘Yes, but I come and go.’
‘Have you brothers or sisters? Maybe I know them.’
‘No brothers. Two sisters, and my mother. My father is dead about five years.’
They are silent then. There is something disquieting about the silence. Suddenly, out of nowhere, he gets an immense feeling of foreboding.
She looks around the room. ‘Are you the book-lover in the house?’ she asks. When she lifts her eyes to him he swims in them. Green, vivid green. He has to look away.
‘I am.’
He waits.
‘What do you do?’ she asks. ‘Are you a farmer?’
‘Not really. Well, not at the moment. I lease out the land. I’m a teacher.’
‘Ahh,’ she says, nodding. ‘Primary or secondary?’
‘Secondary. English. English and history actually, but mostly English. I teach in Dublin at Belvedere College. I’m on a career break at the moment.’
‘Really?’ Her eyes widen and she smiles. ‘I work in Summerhill and the North Strand area. I’m with the HSE.’
‘Ah, you’re only up the road from Belevdere then!’ They might have passed each other on the street, stood together at a bus stop. ‘What do you do in the HSE?’ He is trying to avoid looking at her breasts.
‘I’m a social worker. Child welfare and protection. I work with kids and teenagers – troubled ones – and their families. And with kids in care. That’s my catchment area – the north inner city, your neighbourhood. Very different kids to the ones you teach though, I’d say.’
‘A bit, all right. Though we have a few local lads coming to us too.’
They stand looking at the dog. Now the silence becomes a force field around them.
Soon she will leave.
‘Poor devil,’ he says, about the dog. He sneaks another look at her.
‘My mother thought she’d be able to keep him,’ she says. ‘But our own dog won’t tolerate him … And this fella is not one to fight his corner. I’ve been at home on holidays for the last fortnight so he’s gotten attached to me. But I can’t take him back with me. He’d be alone all day, it wouldn’t be fair.’
He leans forward and offers the dog the back of his hand. The dog stiffens with fear. He imagines the little heart beating against the ribcage.
He can keep the dog. He can do what
