You do the same as me someday, little Saoirse, her eyes kept telling the little figure as they drove away. Promise me you’ll do the same. Fly away from there.
With eyes full of tears, Elizabeth watched as the bungalow got smaller and smaller in her mirror until finally it disappeared when she reached the end of the mile-long road. At once her shoulders relaxed and she realised she had been holding her breath the entire time.
‘Right, Ivan,’ she said, looking in the mirror at the empty back seat, ‘I guess you’re coming to work with me so.’ Then she did a funny thing.
She giggled childishly.
Baile na gCroíthe was stirring as Elizabeth drove over the grey-stone bridge that served as its gateway. Two huge coaches full of tourists were currently trying to inch past each other on the narrow street. Inside, Elizabeth could see faces pressed against the windows, oohing and aahing, smiling and pointing, cameras being held up to the glass to snap the doll-like town on film. The coach driver facing Elizabeth licked his lips in concentration and she could see the sweat glistening on his brow as he slowly manoeuvred the oversized vehicle along the narrow road originally designed for horses and carts. The sides of the coaches were almost touching. Beside him, the tour guide, with microphone in hand, did his best to entertain his one-hundred-strong audience so early in the morning.
Elizabeth lifted the handbrake and sighed loudly. This wasn’t a rare occurrence in the town and she knew it could take a while. She doubted the coaches would stop. They rarely did unless it was for a toilet break. Traffic always seemed to be moving through Baile na gCroíthe but never stopping. She didn’t blame them; it was a great place to help you get to where you’re going but not one for sticking around in. Traffic would slow down and visitors would take a good look alright, but then the drivers would put a foot down and accelerate off out the other end.
It’s not that Baile na gCroíthe wasn’t beautiful – it was certainly that. Its proudest moment was winning the Tidy Town competition for the third year running, and as you entered the village, over the bridge, a display of bright blooming flowers spelled out a welcome. The flower display continued through the town. Window boxes adorned the shop fronts, hanging baskets hung from black lampposts, trees grew tall along the main street. Each building was painted a different colour, and the main street, the only street, was a rainbow of pastels and bold colours of mint greens, salmon pinks, lilacs, lemons and blues. The pavements were litter free and gleaming, and as soon as you averted your gaze above the grey slate roofs you found yourself surrounded by majestic green mountains. It was as though Baile na gCroíthe was cocooned, safely nestled in the bosom of Mother Nature.
Cosy or suffocating.
Elizabeth’s office was located beside a green post office and a yellow supermarket. Her building was a pale blue, and sat above Mrs Bracken’s curtain, fabric and upholstery shop. The shop had previously been a hardware shop run by Mr Bracken, but when he died ten years ago, Gwen had decided to turn it into her own store. She seemed to make decisions based purely on what her deceased husband would think. She opened the shop ‘because it’s what Mr Bracken would have wanted’. However, Gwen refused to go out at the weekends or involve herself in any social outings as ‘it’s not what Mr Bracken would have wanted’. As far as Elizabeth could see, what made Mr Bracken happy or unhappy seemed to tie in nicely with Gwen’s philosophy on life.
The coaches moved past each other inch by inch. Baile na gCroíthe in rush-hour traffic; the result of two oversized buses trying to share the narrow road. Finally they were successful in their passing and Elizabeth looked on, not amused as the tour guide jumped from his seat in excitement, microphone in hand, succeeding in turning what was essentially a boring halt into an eventful bus journey on Ireland’s country roads. Cue clapping and cheering on board the bus. A nation in celebration. More flashes out the window and the occupants on both buses waved goodbye to each other after sharing the morning’s excitement.
Elizabeth drove on, looked in her rear-view mirror to see the excitement on the celebrating coach die down as they came face to face with another on the small bridge that led out of the town. Arms slowly went down and the flashes died as the tourists settled down for another lengthy struggle to continue.
The town had a tendency to do that. Almost as if it did it purposely. It welcomed you into its heart with open arms, showed you all it had to offer with its gleaming multicoloured florally decorated shop fronts. It was like bringing a child into a sweet shop and showing them the shelves of luminous sugar-coated, mouth-watering delights. And then while they stand there looking around with wide eyes and a racing pulse, the lids were put back on the jars and sealed tightly. Once its beauty was realised, so was the fact that it had nothing else to offer.
The bridge, oddly, was easier to drive over from outside the town. It curved in an unusual shape, making driving out of the village difficult. It disturbed Elizabeth every time.
It was just like the road leading from Elizabeth’s childhood home; she found it impossible to leave in a hurry. But something about the town kept dragging her back and she had spent years trying to fight it. She had successfully moved to New York at one time. She had followed her boyfriend, and the opportunity to design a nightclub, over. She had loved it there. Loved that no one knew her name, her face or family history. She could buy a coffee, a thousand different types of coffee, and not receive a look of sympathy for whatever recent family drama had occurred. Nobody knew that her mother had left her when she was a child, that her sister was wildly out of control and that her father barely spoke to her. She had loved being in love there. In New York she could be whoever she wanted to be. In Baile na gCroíthe she couldn’t hide from who she was.
She realised she had been humming to herself the entire time, that silly song that Luke was trying to convince her that ‘Ivan’ had made up. Luke called it ‘the humming song’, and it was annoyingly catchy, chirpy and repetitive. She stopped herself singing and spun her car into the empty space along the road. She pushed back the driver’s seat and reached in to grab her briefcase from the back seat of the car. First things first: coffee. Baile na gCroíthe had yet to be educated on the wonders of Starbucks – in fact, it was only last month Joe’s had finally allowed Elizabeth to take away her coffee, but the owner was growing increasingly tired of having to ask for his mugs back.
Sometimes Elizabeth thought that the entire town needed an injection of caffeine; it was as though some winter days the place still had its eyes closed and was sleepwalking. It needed a good shake. But summer days like today were always busy with people passing through. She entered the purple painted Joe’s, which was virtually empty all the same. The concept of eating breakfast outside their own homes had yet to be grasped by the townspeople.
‘Ah, there she is, the very woman herself,’ boomed the singsong voice of Joe. ‘No doubt spittin’ feathers for her coffee.’
‘Morning, Joe.’
He made a show of checking his watch and tapping the clock face. ‘Bit behind time this morning, aren’t we?’ He raised his eyebrows at her. ‘Thought maybe you were in bed sick with a bout of the summer flu. Seems like everyone’s got it this week.’ He tried to lower his voice but only succeeded in lowering his head and raising his voice. ‘Sure didn’t Sandy O’Flynn come down with it right after disappearing the other night from the pub with P. J. Flanagan, who had it the other week. She’s been in bed all weekend.’ He snorted. ‘Walking her home me arse. I’ve never heard such nonsense before in my life.’
Irritation rose within Elizabeth. She didn’t care for tittle-tattle about people she didn’t know, especially as she was aware for so many years that her own family had been the root of all the gossip.
‘A