Page 18 of Harbor Lights (Inishderry Island Romances #3)

ELEVEN

Con sighed as she watched the young person sitting across the wide desk. She pulled her chair around and sat alongside him, holding out a box of tissues.

“I’m sorry it’s so hard for you, Jay. Have you talked to your teachers about how those kids behave?” She flicked a glance at his mother, Anne-Marie, who sat holding his hand as he spoke.

“Jay doesn’t want to be seen as a telltale. He’s already in the firing line, and he doesn’t want to give the kids any more ammunition.”

Jay blew his nose and sniffed. “It’s just a few older kids. Most people don’t care or aren’t really interested. But they don’t stick up for me, either. And I don’t have anyone to talk to about it. Other young people. There aren’t any other queer kids in the school.”

“You know that’s unlikely?” Con knew it wasn’t true. She’d had similar conversations with kids at Jay’s school as well as at the other schools in the area.

“It doesn’t matter, does it, if no one’s able to be open about it.” Jay’s mother rubbed her son’s back. “He needs to mix with other kids like him. The same way the cis kids do every day.”

Con rubbed her neck and skimmed through the listings on her screen, desperate to find something local. “There’s a trans youth group just outside Galway that meets monthly. I can give you the details.”

Jay shook his head. “I went once, but when Mum’s on shifts, there’s no way for me to get home. It’s miles away.”

“Is there nothing closer?” his mum asked.

“I’m afraid not.” Con sat back and crossed her ankles. “I can arrange counseling, if that would help, but there just aren’t any groups in the area.” She wished she could help. God knew there was the need for it.

Jay stood up. “I’ll be okay. I’m gonna start boxing, so I can look after myself.”

“It’s not good enough, Doc.” His mother stood. “These kids need a safe environment to be themselves.”

“I know, I’m sorry. I wish I could help.” She followed them to the door. “I’ll keep trying. See if I can request something to be set up.”

As they reached the front door, she stopped. “Jay.” He turned. “You can talk to me anytime, okay? I do understand. I grew up around here different, too, remember?”

The boy nodded and his mother smiled in thanks as they left.

Returning to her surgery, Con ran her hands through her hair. The good mood she’d felt all day, knowing Shiv was just a couple of rooms away, had dissipated in the face of her inability to help a young person in need.

She went in search of Shiv and found her, overall sleeves rolled up, oiling the wooden worktop she’d clearly spent hours rubbing down to remove a decade of burn marks and stains.

“It’s like a new kitchen.” She ran her hands over the newly smooth wood.

“It’s some fantastic oak. All I’m doing is restoring its original beauty. I wish the cabin had a kitchen like this, instead of the 1960s house of horrors I’m trying to fix.”

“I hope your granddad is paying you well.”

Shiv shrugged as she worked. “He foots the bill for all the materials I order. My labor is in return for staying in the cabin.”

Con’s frustration spilled over into the way Shiv was being treated by family who should be supporting her. “That doesn’t seem fair, Siobhán. You’ve done a lot more than you initially agreed with him and he couldn’t rent it out in that condition. Could you renegotiate?”

Shiv turned from her work and leaned back on the surface, her gaze settling on Con’s face.

“What’s wrong? I don’t think it’s my free labor that’s bothering you.”

“What do you mean?” Con blinked and exhaled. “I don’t know how you know these things, but you’re right. There’s a couple of things, but the first one you can definitely do something about.”

“At your service, ma’am.” Shiv wiped her hands on a rag and grinned, and Con couldn’t help but smile back.

“Follow me.” She led the way into her surgery and indicated the enormous desk she’d inherited from her father. “This has been in the same position for sixty years. I’ve never thought to move it, but today, the time has come.”

Shiv laughed. “You’d better have a modest plan because if we’ve got to move it more than a few feet I think we’re gonna need more lesbians.”

She pulled her chair to the side. “I just want it up against the wall. I’ll sit this side.” She pointed to the end next to the window. “And patients’ chairs can be here. That way I can use the desk, but it’s not between me and my patients.”

Shiv nodded. “Plus, you can push all your papers to that side of the table, and they won’t fall on the floor.” She pulled out a measuring tape and made vague measurements of the stacks of paper. “I reckon you can get another eight to twelve inches of height before things become unstable.”

Con slapped her arm and spoke with mock indignation.

“How dare you.” They giggled together, but underneath it, Con felt ashamed she was being teased for her messiness.

She’d never been like this when she was younger.

When she’d worked for her dad, she’d been the one to keep the surgery uncluttered and tidy.

“Let’s get it in place, and maybe I’ll have a clear out to celebrate the new location.”

Working together, they inched the heavy piece of furniture toward the wall, Shiv constantly checking they weren’t scratching the wooden floor. “I don’t want to make another job for myself. This is a beautiful floor. All the wood in this house is top quality.”

“It was built when my ancestors were very affluent landowners. All the land for miles round would have been part of their estate, even Inishderry. The landlord’s house would have been built to impress.”

Shiv found a clear section of the table and lifted herself to sit on the edge. “So, the Walshes and the O’Haras, and all the island families, would have been tenants?”

Con wished she’d never started down this route. “Yes. That was how it worked. The native Irish people weren’t allowed to own land. My ancestor was given it by the English king for his part in some war or another.”

“So how come the land isn’t yours anymore? My family appears to own a lot of the island now.”

“That’s a more recent development. Mostly down to your granddad and Anto buying up houses to rent out.

Unlike them, my ancestors weren’t natural landlords.

They didn’t agree with British rule, and as soon as it was legal to do so, they slowly sold off the land to the tenant farmers.

We spent most of our money during the famine because my several times great-grandfather refused to let his tenants starve. ”

Shiv jumped down from the desk. “That’s a good side of history to be on.” She lifted a chair and moved it toward the table, so there were three chairs close to Con’s own.

“Is this how you want it?”

The history lesson clearly over, Con nodded. “Perfect. thanks for your help.”

“What was the other thing?”

“What?” She wasn’t sure what Shiv was asking.

“You said a couple of things were bothering you.”

Con checked the clock. “I’ve half an hour before my last appointment. Let’s get a cup of tea.”

She followed Shiv into the corridor. “Tea, Maura?”

“Always.” Her receptionist’s voice sounded from down the corridor.

She filled the kettle and sat at the newly waxed table. “This looks good, too. Thank you for all your work today.”

“I’ve enjoyed it. I haven’t worked with wood for a long time. It’s a wonderful material. Especially this kind of quality.” Shiv sat opposite, smiling patiently.

Con wanted to share her concerns, but she needed to be careful not to break any confidences with her patients.

“I frequently speak with queer young people who are feeling isolated and lonely, and just really need to have somewhere to go to mix with other kids like them. There are quite a few kids dotted about the area, but there’s no meeting space anywhere close.

I’ve been pushing for a social event or something for them for years, but there’s never enough budget for youth services.

I get promises that they’ll see what funding is available in the future, but nothing ever happens.

It’s not even just the gay and trans kids.

All the young people could do with a place to meet others with similar interests.

Games nights and the like. Unless you’re into sport, there’s very little other than school to give kids the chance to mix.

” She paused, worried she was letting out her frustrations in a stream of words.

Shiv stood and poured boiling water into the teapot. “And what do you want to do about it?”

“I want to convince someone to provide them with the services they would get in a city.”

Shiv put a carton of milk on the table. Con would have used a jug, but she decided to let it be.

“Why don’t you use that energy to make it happen?”

“What do you mean?” She wasn’t following Shiv’s line of thought.

Shiv placed the teapot and three mugs in front of her and sat. “Do it yourself. Find a venue and some volunteers. Advertise it to the kids and see who turns up. If it’s popular, you have ammunition to insist on funding.”

Con screwed up her eyes and rubbed at a burgeoning pain in her temple. “You think I should start a youth club? All by myself? On top of a demanding GP practice?”

Shiv shrugged. “It would be an evening thing, and you have free time after work. And you’re not just a GP to these kids, you’re a visible queer role model. An out and proud butch dyke.”

“I prefer lesbian. Dyke is a word that was spat at me in student bars, when I wasn’t interested in talking to boys.”

Shiv shook her head and laughed as she poured tea. “How many years ago? Reclaim it and use it with pride.”

Shiv’s cocky approach to Con’s problems was annoying. As if she could change the world so easily. She poured the tea and fetched a jug for the milk. Gathering two mugs, she turned for the door.

“I’m sorry if I don’t have quite the same simplistic view of the world, Siobhán. I’d better get back to my patients.” She left and pretended not to feel Shiv’s confused gaze follow her out of the room.

After the last of her patients had left, Con returned to her irritation.

Why had Shiv giving her advice annoyed her?

Was it because Shiv was younger and virtually homeless, and she was offended she, the respectable village doctor, should need advice from such a person?

She didn’t like that possibility. She’d never thought of Shiv as someone to not respect; she’d just made different choices in her life.

No, it was the way Shiv just saw a problem and tried to solve it.

That’s what she was doing with her activism, and now she was trying to do the same with Con’s problems. Con couldn’t work like that, could she?

She needed time to process things and then decide on the best approach.

She groaned, dropped her glasses to the desk, and rubbed her face in her hands.

Who was she kidding? She just worried things around in her head and never got them moving.

“Everything okay?” Maura poked her head around the door frame, her wiry, steel gray hair escaping from her bun, as it invariably did by the end of the day.

Con retrieved her glasses. “Yes, sorry. Long day.”

Maura nodded, looking very much like she doubted that was the issue, but she spoke none of that doubt. “I’ll be getting away now.”

“Of course.” Con forced herself to rise.

“Young Siobhán is working in the kitchen, still. She’s a hard worker.”

Con chuckled. “Young?”

“Well, compared to me or you, anyway.”

Her laughter fell away as Con acknowledged she was closer in age to her sixty-something receptionist than she was to Shiv. “Thanks, Maura, that’s a sobering thought.”

She needed to remind herself she was the age of Shiv’s mother. However close they were getting, Shiv wasn’t having the same feelings she did.