Page 11 of The Elements

When he knocks on my door a few days later, I realize that I’ve been expecting him to call.

At first, I don’t even know for sure that it is him, but the embarrassed look on his face, not to mention the vague resemblance to his mother, gives the game away.

He’s tall, with sandy hair that falls over his eyes, which I notice are two different colors, one pale blue, the other green.

He’s in his late twenties, I’d imagine, and carrying a not unpleasant musk of sweat about him.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” he says, unable or unwilling to look me in the eye. “I’m Luke. I live in the—”

“The farm over there,” I say, nodding in the direction of his family’s land. “Yes, I know.”

“I wondered if I could have a word.”

The poor boy looks so mortified that I step out of the way and invite him in. Bananas glances up from the armchair, perhaps surprised to see a familiar face here, and jumps down onto the floor in deference.

“You may as well take it,” I say, pointing toward the vacated seat. “He doesn’t do that for just anyone. Will you have a cup of tea?”

“I won’t,” he says. “I’ll not stay long.” He sits. “Only I wanted to apologize to you.”

“Oh yes?” I ask, taking my usual spot on the sofa. “For what?”

“A couple of nights back, I was… well, I was outside late. Just having a smoke above. And I saw you coming back from the beach. I didn’t mean to see you, but I think you noticed me up there.

It might have seemed like I was watching you, but I wasn’t spying or anything like that.

I’m not some…” He searches for the right word.

“I’m not one of those types, do you know?

Who’d be out in the middle of the night looking at women in that way. ”

“It’s fine,” I say, not wanting him to feel any more tortured than he already does. “I’m not surprised you stared. I imagine it’s not every day you see a middle-aged woman walking back to her cottage stark naked.”

“No,” he admits, blushing a little, which is when his beauty shines through. He looks up at me now and offers a half smile.

“You must have thought me mad.”

“Sure it takes all sorts.”

“Well, I hope you enjoyed the show.”

“I’ve had worse nights.”

And now it’s my turn to blush. We look at each other and something strange passes between us. An understanding of some sort.

“What were you doing up at that time of night anyway?” I ask, and he shrugs his shoulders.

“I might ask you the same thing.”

“I had a nightmare. And then I woke to the sound of something on my roof. It turned out to be that wee scut there,” I say, nodding toward Bananas, who has settled on the floor, preparing for one of his regular naps.

It occurs to me how quickly I have adopted the language of the island, for this was exactly the way Luke’s mother described the cat on our initial encounter.

“Then I was awake anyway and something drew me toward the sea.”

“It can be dangerous down there at that time of night,” Luke tells me. “You’d want to be careful doing that sort of thing.”

“I’m a strong swimmer.”

“No matter. Water is dangerous.”

“Oh, I know that.”

“I’m not telling you what to do, but you’d be well advised only to swim when there’s someone else nearby.”

“Thank you,” I say. For some reason, I don’t feel patronized. After all, he’s lived on the island his entire life so must know the dangers of the tides better than I ever could, and his tone is not condescending.

“You’re right. I’ll be more careful in the future. If you won’t have a cup of tea, would you take something stronger?”

He thinks about this and smiles. A boyish expression on his face.

“Sure why not,” he says. “If you’re having one.”

I stand up and make my way toward the kitchen area, where I pour two small glasses of whiskey, dropping a large ice cube into each, and hand one across.

My earlier vow not to keep alcohol in the house evaporated a few weeks ago, although I’ve drunk very little here.

But I like to know there’s something on hand in case of an emergency.

“I should have introduced myself,” I say when I sit down again. “I’m Willow. Willow Hale.”

“Mam told me,” he says. “She came to visit you, I believe.”

“She did. She seemed put out that I’d been feeding her cat.”

“That creature is the bane of all our existences,” he says. “She roars at it from morning till night, but she’d trade any one of us in for it.”

It doesn’t surprise me to hear this. Despite her army of children, Mrs. Duggan didn’t strike me as the maternal type. Not that I’m one to talk.

“So, are you enjoying yourself here anyway?” he asks after an awkward silence.

“It’s giving me time to think,” I say, recognizing that this is an answer to a different question entirely.

“You’re from Dublin, I’m told?”

“Yes.”

“Most people leave here to go there. Not the other way around.”

“I needed a break,” I say. “I had some family issues and—”

“No, stop,” he says, waving a hand in the air. “It’s none of my business. I wasn’t prying.”

“It’s fine,” I say. It’s curious, but even though we’ve only just met, I feel as if I could trust him with the upsetting facts of my life and he would keep them to himself.

I felt the same with Ifechi. Something in the insular nature of island life, perhaps.

A tendency to respect the privacy of others.

“I rarely get to talk to people, other than Mam and Dad,” he tells me. “So I’m not the best at it. Throw me out when I get boring.”

“I will, but we’re not there yet. I suppose people have mentioned David Bowie to you before?”

He nods and closes his eyes for a moment so I can no longer see the different colors of his pupils. He seems embarrassed by them, when, in fact, they only add to his attractiveness.

“I don’t really know the lad myself,” he tells me. “Some of his songs, I suppose.”

“Before your time,” I tell him. “I grew up with him. Metaphorically speaking.”

I notice a gaping hole in the right knee of his jeans and can see the dark brown skin beneath it and a sprinkling of golden hairs.

It baffles me that I feel unexpected desire for this gentle young man, who can’t be more than a few years older than Rebecca.

And yet I do. I can’t remember the last time I felt desire for anyone.

When I realize that I’ve gone silent, I force myself back to the conversation.

“And what about you?” I ask finally.

“What about me?”

“It must have been near three o’clock in the morning when you saw me out there. What had you up at that time?”

He reaches down to stroke Bananas, who submits to his hand, purring happily.

“I’m not the best of sleepers,” he says. “I keep what you might call odd hours.”

“In what sense?”

“The farm,” he explains. “It’s a twenty-four-seven type of job, you know?

I’d been up late the night before when one of the cows was calving and then I took a nap midafternoon, woke in the early morning, and couldn’t get back to sleep.

So I went outside for a cigarette on account of Mam having a conniption fit if I smoke in the house.

Anyway, I don’t really follow the clock in the way other people do.

I wake, I work, I sleep, and then I do it all over again. It’s all the same to me.”

“Do you enjoy it?”

He frowns, as if this is something he’s never considered before.

“It’s what I do, I suppose,” he tells me. “Enjoyment doesn’t really come into it. Do you mind if I use your bathroom?”

I’m about to tell him where it is—not that it’s too hard to find—but he’s already on his feet and making his way toward it. He’s been here before, then. I remain where I am while he’s gone and, when he reappears, less than a minute later, he smiles and sits down again.

“This isn’t your first time in the cottage,” I say.

“Oh no,” he says. “A couple of lads had it a few years back and I used to come over at night sometimes for a game of cards and the odd drink.”

“Your mother told me about them,” I say. “She said there was some sort of hostility toward them from the islanders.”

“It was fucking disgraceful,” he says, surprising me with the forcefulness of his response. “Mam led the charge, no better woman. They were a nice pair, though. No harm in them at all. They might have stayed longer had they not been made to feel so unwelcome. A shameful set of circumstances.”

“I suspect the island isn’t exactly running with the times,” I say.

“No.”

“Have you been to Dublin?” I ask him, a non sequitur, but I’m running out of things to say and don’t want him to leave just yet.

“I have.”

“Do you like it there?”

“‘Like’ would be too strong a word,” he says. “It can be fierce noisy, for one thing. I’m not used to that. But it makes for a change, and you need that once in a while. I had a girlfriend once from Dublin. Do you know Dundrum?”

“I do.”

“Well, she lived there, near the Town Centre. I never saw a place like it. All the shops. You’d lose your mind buying things you don’t need.”

“Did she work there?”

“No, she was a teacher.”

“And how did you meet?”

“She came over with a group of students in the summer months. The ones who arrive to learn the cúpla focal . áine was her name.”

“That can’t have been easy,” I say. “A long-distance relationship.”

“No. It didn’t work out in the end anyway. On account of that, for the most part.”

“Do you miss her?”

“I do and I don’t,” he says with a sigh. “But sure, it’s five years gone now. She might be married for all I know.”

“You don’t stay in touch?”

“Ah no.”

He looks around the room, and something in the nostalgic expression on his face makes me think that he might have taken áine here when they were dating, if the cottage was empty at the time, and used it for their trysts, for I can’t imagine his mother would have allowed him to use the farmhouse.

He might have slept with her in my bed. The idea sends an unexpected frisson through me.

“And you,” says Luke, rousing me from my reverie. “Are you married yourself?”

“Divorced,” I tell him.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not.”

“Right.”

He strokes the cat again. I wonder is this his default move when he feels uncertain in conversation.

When he looks up again, he brushes the hair out of his eyes and smiles at me and I can see that he’s trying not to study my body too closely but that he can’t help himself. He’s lonely. It’s easy to see.

“And there’s just you, I’m told?” I say. “Your mother said your brothers and sisters moved away.”

“Sure, they’re long gone,” he tells me. “Four above in Dublin, one in America, one in Canada, one in Australia. “’Twas me drew the short straw.”

“Why is that?”

“I’m the youngest.”

“And that means you have to stay?” I ask. I’m not here to reorganize his life, but I wonder does he realize how ridiculous this sounds.

“Someone has to.”

“You must never see them.”

“The eldest pair I’d have difficulty picking out of a lineup.”

“It seems unfair that you’re left to look after the farm, just because of when you were born.”

He nods and sighs a little before picking at the tear in his jeans. He agrees, probably, but can’t see a way out of it. His mother is made of tough stuff and will still be here, I imagine, in twenty years’ time. When he’s finally liberated, it will be too late for him.

“I can’t imagine there’s much of a social life on the island,” I continue. “For a boy your age, I mean. How old are you anyway?”

“Twenty-four,” he says. “I’ll be twenty-five in a few weeks’ time.”

“Will you have a party?”

“A few drinks, maybe. In the pub.”

“The new pub or the old pub?”

“The old pub.”

“Do you know the man who runs the new pub?” I ask, recalling my visit to the church and how distraught he seemed in his pew, beating his knee with his fist.

“I do,” he says. “Tim Devlin.”

“Do you know much about him?”

“A bit. Why, have you taken a shine to him?”

“Oh no, it’s nothing like that,” I reply quickly.

I don’t want him to think I would be romantically interested in a man in his fifties, even though I’m of that age myself.

“It’s just, I have lunch there most days and he never speaks to me.

But I saw him another time, in another place, I won’t say where, and he was terribly upset. I don’t want to pry but—”

“He has his troubles,” says Luke, and I wait for him to expand on this and feel both disappointment and admiration that he chooses not to.

“But then, don’t we all? I have them myself.

” He smiles a little as he says this. Every time he smiles, I find him more beautiful.

He is wasted on this lump of rock. “But I don’t have the time to indulge them. ”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” I ask.

“It’s a terrible thing,” he says. “My head is wrecked half the time and I can’t get it cleared.”

“You must have friends?”

“A few. One or two stayed on for the same reasons as me. But most are away to the mainland.”

“You’re lonely.”

He grows more serious now as he looks at me.

“This is a fierce intense conversation, Willow Hale,” he says.

“I wasn’t expecting this at all. I only came over to apologize and so you’d know I wasn’t a peeping Tom.

” He takes a deep breath and looks me directly in the eyes now, the first time he’s done this.

“And now I feel like I want to tell you all my troubles. That I could. And that you’d let me.

You’re not a therapist in real life, are you? ”

“Real life?” I ask, frowning.

He looks around and indicates the living room around us, the cottage, the island as a whole.

“Sure this isn’t real life, is it?” he says. “You’re escaping that for your own reasons, I’m sure. I would too, but I don’t know how.”

He looks down at the floor again and I feel great sympathy for him.

I reach out, seeking his hand, and he takes it.

His skin is rough and masculine. When we release each other, we both finish what’s left in our glasses and stand.

To my surprise, he walks to the sink, rinses them out, and places them upside down on the steel counter to dry. He is so mannerly.

“I should be going so,” he says, turning around to look at me but making no attempt to leave.

This is not how I expected my day to turn out, but it all seems so natural.

I nod, then turn my back on him and walk toward the bedroom.

He remains where he is for only a few moments before following me inside and closing the door behind us.