Breakfast at Darcy's (21 page)

Eamon shakes his head. ‘No, you’d be right there; I very much doubt anyone has ever made sandcastles on these beaches. But
they have done on the beaches on the mainland. Those items could have been floating around in the sea for years, and simply
been washed up here.’ Eamon glances out to sea.

‘Oh, yes, I suppose they could, I hadn’t thought of that.’

This is not the reaction I was expecting from Eamon. I thought with him being into Celtic myths and legends and everything,
he’d have appreciated what I considered my brush with something a bit mystical. Maybe he’s right, though; perhaps it was just
a coincidence? I’m about to question him further when I see what he’s looking at. There in the waves far out to sea are the
unmistakable curves of dolphin’s fins dipping in and out of the water.

‘They’re back again,’ I exclaim, staring out to sea with Eamon.

‘That they are.’

‘But you said that meant they were worried, or something.’

‘I said they sensed change afoot, and it seems now they were right.’ Eamon turns to me. ‘How many did you see the other day,
Darcy?’

‘Two.’

We both turn to look out to sea again, and can clearly see the back of at least four dolphins diving in and out of the water.

Eamon silently turns to me.

‘Oh, come on, Eamon, so you want me to believe a random bucket and spade being washed up means nothing, but an
ever-growing school of dolphins does? How does that work, then? You can’t have it both ways!’

Eamon sighs. Then he smiles, as his blue eyes peer intently into mine. ‘You remind me so much of your aunt Molly sometimes.’

I look back into his eyes and something stirs inside me once more. A flash of something familiar.

‘But you’re right. As she often was,’ Eamon says, pulling his stick from the ground. ‘It’s not fair of me to confuse you with
my tales one moment, then try to find a rational explanation for things the next. But you’d be surprised at what gets washed
up on these beaches; I’ve got quite a few bits and pieces in my cottage.’

‘Like what?’

‘Ah, bits and bobs. This ’n’ that,’ Eamon says cryptically.

‘Can I see?’

‘Maybe another time.’ He looks up at the sky. ‘You’d best be collecting up your friend and getting those dogs back before
it rains, hadn’t you?’

I look up into the clouds. It does look a bit dark.

‘So my holiday idea, Eamon,’ I prompt, gathering Woody and Louis up ready to find Roxi again. ‘You don’t have a problem with
it, do you? You can tell me.’

‘Now, why would I have a problem?’ Eamon plants his stick down firmly in front of him ready to head off.

‘I know you probably don’t approve of the idea.’

‘Did you hear me say that?’ Eamon mutters, as he sets off slowly in the direction of his cottage.

‘No, but I thought—’

‘Don’t think things about folk unless you know them to be
true,’ Eamon calls, not turning around as he continues to walk back along the path. He waves his stick in the air in a gesture
of farewell.

‘On this island?’ I say to no one but Louis, Woody and a random seagull who watches us from a nearby rock. ‘I try not to think
too much about any one thing for too long, or I might go insane!’

We don’t quite make it back to our cottages in time before the heavens open and rain begins to pour down. Roxi, me and the
two puppies look like we’ve swum over to see Eamon as we try to find our way back to our cottages through the mist and murk.

Everyone else seems to be sensibly sheltering indoors too. There are no signs of life as we hurry through the newly named
O’Connell Street (we’ve part nicknamed, part christened the area in front of the cottages where Dermot has built his benches
and his barbecues after the famous Dublin thoroughfare, and also after Dermot himself, and the name has stuck) but a few hands
are waved from windows as we pass by some of the cottages – and the small gesture feels very welcome on such a miserable morning.

‘Come on, guys,’ I call to the puppies as we leave Roxi at her cottage and head on over to our own. ‘We need to get you two
dried off, and I need a hot shower, fast.’

I haven’t had much success with the hot-water system in
the cottage so far. I know we’re lucky even to have showers at all; we could have arrived on Tara finding we only had tin
baths or something equally uncomfortable. But Dermot’s somehow managed to rig up a tiny shower cubicle for each cottage –
something to do with our generators and the boilers and a heating element, I think. He has explained it all to me, in great
detail. But that’s the thing with Dermot’s explanations – although they’re very thorough, they are sometimes quite long and
you do tend to drift off a bit in the middle of them.

So my attempts at showers have been somewhat erratic up to now. In fact I’ve avoided them completely, having never been able
to get the water to run at a hot enough temperature for long enough to get in properly. Instead I’ve bathed at my sink in
the little bit of warm water I can manage to run, and I’ve washed my hair under the shower hose in bursts of lukewarm and
cold water. But today is different; I’m soaking wet and freezing cold, and I need a hot shower to warm me up. I
have
to get this thing to work.

So after I dry off the dogs and give them some food, I go into my bedroom to collect my shower things. I claimed the Celtic-patterned
room set for myself when we’d been dishing out all the hotel furnishings. I can’t vouch for what the other bedrooms on Tara
look like, with pints of Guinness or sheep plastered all over the duvets, but my room looks quite pretty now that it’s all
set up in my little cottage. As I pass by the Claddagh-carved bedhead, something makes me stop and stare at it. Like so many
things here on Tara, it keeps reminding me of my aunt Molly. As I’d told Conor at the hotel, I always remember her wearing
her own gold Claddagh ring. Screwing
up my eyes, I try to remember again on which hand she wore it. But I can’t; all I know is she never took it off.

I wonder what happened to it? It would mean so much to me to remember Molly by. Niall had given me a small wooden box of things
which I’d taken a brief look through, but Molly wasn’t really one for jewellery, so what few bits there were, were mostly
costume. The ring definitely wasn’t in there, though, or I’d have seen it. I make a mental note to ask Niall about it sometime.

I go through to the tiny bathroom and begin running my shower. It’s cold, as usual. But that’s what always happens; it starts
off like that, then it comes through warm in a minute, and just when I’ve got my hopes up it might stay hot, it will go stone
cold again.

‘
Please
,’ I wail as I hurriedly peel off my cold, damp clothes and wrap a towel around myself. ‘Please, just this once can the water
stay warm long enough for me to take a hot shower? I’m cold; I don’t want to catch pneumonia.’

As I stand there shivering, I wonder who exactly is supposed to hear my request in the empty bathroom. Perhaps a tiny leprechaun
plumber could be perched on my windowsill at this very moment, and come to my aid? On this island, it wouldn’t surprise me!

Tentatively I put my hand back under the running water again, and to my surprise I find it’s still running hot, and not only
that, it appears to be getting hotter all the time. I glance around the bathroom suspiciously. ‘Excellent work, Mr Leprechaun!’
I grin, about to pull my towel off.

There’s a crash from the kitchen.

‘What? No, not now!’ I cry, looking longingly at the steaming-hot water pouring down into the shower and running away down
the plughole. ‘Woody, Louis, this had better be good,’ I call, pulling the curtain back around the shower and stomping out
to the kitchen.

Woody has somehow managed to hoist himself up onto the sink’s draining board and is growling at a large seagull perching nonchalantly
on the windowsill outside, while Louis bravely eggs him on from the floor below surrounded by the remains of a broken dinner
plate.

‘What are you two doing?’ I lift Woody down immediately and place him back on the floor. ‘Woody, that’s bad,’ I say in my
sternest voice, quickly clearing up the pieces of broken china. ‘In your beds, now!’ I point to their dog beds. ‘I’ll deal
with you two later.’

I rush back to the shower, praying the water is still hot, and to my surprise it is. As I climb under the running water and
allow it to pour over my body the sensation that it brings is comforting, yet at the same time quite overpowering, and I realise
this is the first time I’ve done anything as familiar to anything I would do at home in London since I’ve been here.

Lathering my hair up with shampoo, I decide that these sensations must be a type of homesickness, and it’s the familiar feeling
of the shower and the smells of my regular bathtime products that are evoking these emotions. Rinsing off my shampoo, I apply
conditioner and comb it through, then I stand in the shower allowing the product to soak into my hair, enjoying for a few
minutes longer the hot water comforting me within the tiny, four-walled cubicle.

‘
Aaargh
!’ I scream, as the water suddenly has a change of
heart and decides instead to give me a quick slap around the face by dropping several degrees and then continuing to run at
a temperature only a polar bear could love.

Pulling back the curtain, I climb out as quickly as I can and stand for a few seconds dripping water onto the floor in the
hope that it will heat up again, as it usually does. But each time I put my hand under the water to test it, it’s still freezing.

‘No!’ I cry after a couple of minutes have passed and it’s still stone cold. ‘I only have to rinse my conditioner out. Can’t
I just have enough warm water to do that?’

But when no more hot water is forthcoming, it seems the plumbing leprechaun has gone home.

‘Aargh!’ I shout again in frustration, leaping up and down on the spot like a Maori warrior doing a haka dance. ‘Aargh! Aargh!
Aargh!’

There’s an urgent banging on my front door, and I hear the dogs barking.

‘Great,’ I say, rolling my eyes to the ceiling. ‘What now?’

I pull a towel around me again and go to the door.

‘What is it?’ I say abruptly through the unopened door. ‘I’m trying to take a shower.’

‘Is that what you’re doing?’ I hear Dermot’s voice say from the other side. ‘I thought you were being murdered.’

‘It felt like it when the stupid water went cold!’ I say irritably, pulling my towel around me. ‘I don’t think the hot water
in my cottage works, Dermot. This is the first time I’ve got it to work properly today, and even now it hasn’t run for very
long.’

‘How long were in the shower for?’

‘I don’t know … about ten minutes, maybe?’

‘Are you sure it wasn’t longer than that?’

‘No,’ I attempt a convincing voice. But now, thinking about it, I suppose it may have been a bit longer than that …

‘Look, I can’t do anything about it standing outside in the rain. Are you going to let me in? I’m probably wetter than you
are, hanging about out here.’

‘But I’m not dressed,’ I glance at my reflection in the Celtic carved mirror that now hangs in the hallway – a part of Mary’s
bedroom set.

‘I should hope not, if you’ve just got out of the shower. Look, Darcy, do you want hot water or not?’

I close my eyes for a moment and sigh. Then I pull the latch back on the door and swing it open.

Bending his head in order to do so, Dermot walks in through the low door. Pulling back the hood of his raincoat, he smirks
at the puddle of water that has now gathered around my feet on the hallway floor.

‘Don’t say anything,’ I instruct him. ‘Just fix my water, please.’

‘The shower, or your own personal supply down there?’ he laughs.

I pull a face behind his back as he walks through to my kitchen, gripping my towel extra tightly around me as I follow him.

The boiler is housed in a little cupboard at the back of the kitchen. Dermot sticks his head in the cupboard, then just as
quickly reappears again. ‘How long did you say you were in the shower for?’ he asks, looking me up and down in a suspicious
manner.

I wish I was wearing more clothes. The towel, while it’s a
bath towel, is making me feel very exposed under Dermot’s intense gaze right now, and I don’t feel able to defend myself in
quite the way I’d like to.

‘Ten … maybe fifteen minutes.’

‘Was the water running long before you got in the shower?’ Dermot demands, like a detective cross-examining his suspect.

‘No,’ I say proudly. ‘I know we’re not supposed to waste the water. It’s one of the fundamental rules on the island.’ I reinforce
the words
fundamental rules
in the same way I’ve heard Dermot when he’s instructing anyone about how to run their homes. ‘I would never—’

I stop abruptly.

‘What?’ Dermot asks.

‘I may just have had to step into the kitchen quickly before I got into the shower.’

Dermot raises an unruly eyebrow at me.

‘It wasn’t my fault, the puppies were causing trouble and I had to sort them out.’

‘And you left the water running?’

‘It was hot. It had never been that warm for so long before. I needed a hot shower, Dermot, I was freezing cold and soaking
wet.’

‘There’s your answer then.’

‘What is?’

‘The answer to why you’ve not got any hot water now. You’ve used it all up from your tank. It’s empty.’

I look at Dermot blankly.

He sighs. ‘You’ve only got enough in these little tanks for a constant stream of about fifteen to twenty minutes, absolute
max. By the sounds of it, you must have been running the water much longer than that.’

I look towards the cupboard, then back towards Dermot.

‘You mean, my water is kept in
there
?’ I ask, feeling stupid.

‘Your hot water is stored in there while it’s heated, yes. I thought I explained all this to you the other day.’

You probably did …

‘But when I was in London I just had hot water all the time. I didn’t have a tank with it all in, I’m sure.’ I think quickly;
maybe we did have a tank in our flat and I’d never noticed it. No: the flat was barely big enough for us to fit all our clothes
in. I couldn’t have missed something like that. Could I?