to give Joe as much privacy in this moment as he can, despite three people invading his home and a camera pointed at his face. Of course Solomon was against revealing this news to Joe on camera, but the producer has the final say.
‘Laura’s mother, Isabel, was your housekeeper over twenty-six years ago.’
He looks at Bo then, coming alive. ‘Isabel?’ he barks.
‘Yes, do you remember her?’
He thinks back. ‘She wasn’t with us very long.’
Silence, his brain ticks over, sliding through the memory files.
‘Do you recall Tom and Isabel being particularly close?’
‘No.’ Silence. ‘No.’ Again. ‘Well, he’d …’ He clears his throat. ‘You know, he’d do the same as with Bridget: pay her for the cleaning and the provisions. I’d be out on the land. I’d not much to do with that.’
‘So you’d no idea about a love affair between them?’
It’s as though that expression occurs to him for the first time. The only way for Tom to have become a father was to have had a love affair. Something they both had said they’d never had. Two virgins at seventy-seven years old.
‘This girl is sure about that?’
‘After Isabel died, her grandmother revealed to her that Tom was her father. Laura’s grandmother, who was ailing herself, made an arrangement with Tom for Laura to live at the cottage.’
‘He knew about her then,’ Joe says, as if that’s been the burning question the whole time but he was afraid to ask.
‘Tom only learned she was his daughter after Isabel’s death, ten years ago. The cottage was modernised as much as was possible, by Tom, though there’s no electricity or hot running water. Laura has been living there alone ever since.’ Bo consults her notes. ‘Laura’s grandmother Hattie Murphy reverted to her maiden name Button after her husband’s death. Isabel changed her name too, and so Laura calls herself Laura Button. Hattie died nine years ago, six months after Laura moved to the cottage.’
Joe nods. ‘So she’s on her own then.’
‘She is.’
He ponders that. ‘She’ll be expecting his share then, I suppose.’
Solomon looks at him.
‘His share of …’
‘The land. Tom made a will. She’s not in it. If that’s what she’s looking for.’
The infamous Irish hunger for land rises in him.
‘Laura hasn’t mentioned anything about wanting a share of the land. Not to us.’
Joe is agitated; Bo’s comments don’t do much to calm him. It’s as though he’s readying himself for a fight. His land, his farm is his life, it’s all he has ever known his entire life. He’s not going to give any of it up for his brother’s lie.
‘Perhaps Tom had planned to talk to you about her,’ Bo says.
‘Well, he didn’t,’ he says with a nervous, angry laugh. ‘Never said a word.’ Silence. ‘Never said a word.’
Bo gives him a moment.
‘Knowing what you know now, will you allow Laura to continue living at the cottage?’
He doesn’t respond. He seems lost in his head.
‘Would you like to start a relationship with her?’ she asks gently.
Silence. Joe is completely still though his mind is most likely not.
Bo looks at Solomon, uncertain as to how to proceed.
‘Perhaps a relationship is too much for you to think about now. Perhaps it would be simpler to consider whether you will continue to support her, as Tom did?’
His hands grip the armrests, Solomon watches the colour drain from his knuckles.
‘Joe,’ Bo says gently, leaning forward. ‘You know this means that you’re not alone. You have family. You’re Laura’s uncle.’
Joe stands up from the chair then, fiddling with the microphone on his lapel. His hands are shaking and he’s clearly upset, becoming irritated by the film crew’s presence now, as if they have brought this nuisance into his life.
‘That’s that,’ he says, dropping the mic to the thin cushion on the wooden chair. ‘That’s that now.’
It’s the first time he has walked out on them.
The crew move to Laura’s cottage. Laura sits in her armchair, the same checked shirt-dress tied at the waist with a belt, and a tattered pair of Converse. Her long hair has been recently washed and is drying, there isn’t a stitch of make-up on her clear, beautiful skin.
The camera is off, Rachel is outside with the gear, on the phone to Susie. The day is drizzly, unlike yesterday’s heatwave, and Solomon wonders how she survives in this place in the depths of winter when even his modern Dublin city apartment feels depressing. As Bo talks, Laura watches Solomon. With Bo in the room, this makes it somewhat awkward for him. He clears his throat.
Laura mimics him.
He shakes his head and smiles.
Bo misses what passes between them as she prepares for her conversation. ‘So, bearing in mind we don’t know how much of an assistance Joe will be to you, moving forward, we’d like, Solomon and I …’
He closes his eyes as she mentions him. It’s a ploy to build Laura’s trust by portraying herself as an ally to Solomon and therefore an ally to Laura. Technically, it’s true; she is, after all, his girlfriend. But it still feels like a ploy.
‘We’d like to make a suggestion. We’d like to offer to help you. I feel you and I got off to a wrong start – and let me explain why. I apologise profusely for how I behaved when I first met you. I got excited.’ Bo places her hand on her heart as she speaks completely honestly, meaning every word. ‘I’m a documentary maker. A couple of years ago, I followed your father and uncle for a year.’
Solomon notices how Laura flinches at that, as if equally uncomfortable with the truth as Joe is.
‘They are, were, fascinating people and their story spread all over the world. Aired in twenty countries, I have it here. This is an iPad; if you do this …’ She swipes carefully, looking at Laura then back to the iPad to see if she understands.
Laura mimics the iPad clicking sounds.
‘Then you press this to watch it.’ Bo touches the screen and the film starts playing.
She allows Laura to watch it for a moment.
‘I’d love to make a documentary about you. We’d love to film you here at the cottage, get a sense of who you are and how you live your life.’
Laura
