An hour into their filming, the funeral car arrives, closely followed by Joe, eighty years old, behind the wheel of the Land Rover. Joe climbs out of the jeep, wearing the same dark brown suit, sweater and shirt that they’ve seen on him hundreds of times. Instead of his Wellington boots he wears a pair of shoes. Even on this sunny day he wears what he’d wear in the depths of winter, perhaps a hidden layer less. A tweed cap covers his head.
Bo goes to him immediately. Rachel and Solomon follow.
‘Joe,’ Bo says, reaching out to him and shaking his hand. A hug would have been too much for him, not being comfortable with physical affection. ‘I’m so sorry for your loss.’
‘You didn’t have to come,’ he says, surprised, looking around at the three of them. ‘Weren’t you in America when I rang you?’ he asks, as if they were on another planet.
‘Yes, but we came home straight away to be here for you. Could we film, Joe? Would that be okay? People who watched your story would like to know how you’re doing.’
Solomon tenses up at Bo’s nerve but she also amuses him, he finds her gutsiness, her honesty, remarkable and rare.
‘Ara go on,’ says Joe, waving his hand dismissively as if it makes no difference to him either way.
‘Can we talk to you afterwards, Joe? Is there a gathering planned? Tea, sandwiches, that kind of thing?’
‘There’s the graveyard and that’s it. No fuss, no fuss. Back to business, I’m working for two now, aren’t I?’
Joe’s eyes are sad and tired with dark circles. The coffin is removed from the car and is placed on a trolley by the pallbearers. Including the film crew, there are a total of nine people in the church.
The funeral is short and to the point, the eulogy read by the priest, who mentions Tom’s work ethic, his love for his land, his long-departed parents and his close relationship with his brother. The only movement the stoic Joe makes is to remove his cap when Tom’s coffin is lowered into the ground at the graveyard. After that, he pops it back on his head, and walks to his jeep. In his head, Solomon can almost hear him say, ‘That’s that.’
After the burial, Bo interviews Bridget the housekeeper, though it’s a title that’s used loosely as she merely delivers food and dusts the cobwebs from their damp home. She’s afraid to look at the camera in case it explodes in her face, looking defensive as though every question is an accusation. Local garda Jimmy, the Toolin twins’ animal feed supplier and a neighbouring farmer whose sheep share the mountainous land with theirs, all refuse an interview.
The Toolin farm is a thirty-minute drive, far from anything, deep in the heart of the mountainside.
‘Are there books in the Toolin house?’ Bo asks out of nowhere. She does that often, blurts out random questions and thoughts as she slots the various pieces of information that come from different places together in her head to tell one clear story.
‘I’ve no idea,’ Solomon says, looking at Rachel. Rachel would have a better visual image and memory than any of them.
Rachel thinks about it, re-runs her shot-list in her head. ‘Not in the kitchen.’ She’s silent while she runs through the house. ‘Not in the bedroom. Not on open shelves, anyway. They have bedside lockers, could be in there.’
‘But nowhere else.’
‘No,’ Rachel says, certain.
‘Why do you ask?’ Solomon asks.
‘Bridget. She said that Tom was an “avid reader”.’ Bo scrunches her face up. ‘I wouldn’t peg him as a reader.’
‘I don’t think you can tell if someone’s a reader or not by looking at them.’
‘Readers definitely always wear glasses,’ Rachel jokes.
‘Tom never mentioned books. We lived their entire schedule with them for a year. I never saw him read, even hold a book. They didn’t read newspapers, neither of them. They listened to the radio. Weather reports, sports and sometimes the news. Then they’d go to bed. Nothing about reading.’
‘Maybe Bridget made it up. She was very nervous about being on camera,’ Solomon says.
‘She was very detailed about buying books for him at second-hand shops and charity sales. I believe she bought the books, I just can’t figure out why we never saw one book in the house and neither of them reading. That’s something I would have wanted to know about. What did Tom like to read? Why? And if he did, was it a secret?’
‘I don’t know,’ Solomon says, yawning, never really hung up on the minor details that Bo dissects, particularly now, as the hunger and tiredness kick in again. ‘People say odd things when they’ve a camera pointed at their face. What do you think, Rachel?’
Rachel is silent for a moment, giving it more clout than Solomon did. ‘Well he’s not reading anything now,’ she says.
They arrive at the Toolin farmhouse and are more than familiar with the land; they spent many dark mornings and nights, in torrential rain, traipsing over this treacherous land. The brothers had separated the work. As hill sheep farmers, they had split their responsibilities from the beginning and stuck to that. It was a lot of work for little income, but they had each stuck to their designated roles since their father died.
‘Tell us what happened, Joe,’ Bo says gently.
Bo and Joe sit in the kitchen of the farmhouse on the only two chairs at the plastic table. It’s the main room of the house and contains an old electric cooker, the four hobs the only part of it in use. It’s cold and damp, even in this weather. There is one socket on the wall with an extension lead feeding everything in the kitchen: the electric cooker, the radio, the kettle, and the electric heater. An accident waiting to happen. The hum of the heater, Solomon’s sound enemy. The room – in fact the entire house – smells of dog because of the two border collies that live with them. Mossie and Ring, named after Mossie O’Riordan and Christy Ring who were instrumental in Cork’s victory in the All-Ireland Hurling final in 1952, one of the few times the boys travelled to Dublin with their father, one of the only interests they have outside of farming.
Joe sits in a wooden chair, quiet, elbows on the armrest and hands clasped at his stomach. ‘It was Thursday. Bridget had dropped by with the food. Tom was to put it away. I went off. I came in for my tea and found him here on the floor. I knew right away that he was gone.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I put the food away. He hadn’t done that yet, so it was early enough when he died. Must have been soon after I left. Heart attack. Then I made a call …’ He nods at the phone on the wall.
‘You put the food away first?’ Bo asks.
‘I did.’
‘Who did you call?’
‘Jimmy. At the station.’
‘Do you remember what you said?’
‘I don’t know. “Tom’s dead”, I suppose.’
Silence.
Joe remembers that he’s on camera, remembers the advice Bo gave him three years ago to keep talking so it’s him that’s telling the story. ‘Jimmy said he’d have to ring the ambulance anyway, even though I knew there was no bringing him back. He came by himself then. We had a cuppa while we waited.’
‘While Tom was on the floor?’
‘Sure where would I move him?’
‘Nowhere, I suppose,’ Bo says, a faint smile on her lips. ‘Did you say anything to Tom? While you were waiting for Jimmy and the ambulance.’
‘Say anything to him?’ he says, as if she’s mad. ‘Sure he was dead! Dead as dead can be. What would I be sayin’