The Matchmaker (17 page)

Anna had to admit it did sound appealing, especially after the stresses of the past few days. She could do with a little tranquillity. She needed to be alone, have time to think. A few days in the peace and quiet of Granny’s cottage in the West, away from everything and everyone, was exactly what she needed. How was it her mum always seemed to know what was best?

Maggie Ryan smiled to herself. A few days in Roundstone was indeed the best medicine for any tortured soul. The cottage might be a bit damp but things like that never usually bothered Anna, and she could check out if any repairs to the place were needed.

Anna set off on the road to Galway after her last lecture on Thursday.

The traffic was light as she drove through town after town: Moate, Athlone and Ballinasloe, bypassing Loughrea; at this rate she’d be in Galway before she knew it. She’d been up for a few days last summer with Sarah and Evie, and before that it had been a family celebration for her grandmother’s birthday two years ago. The Ryan family had enjoyed a perfect weekend in Roundstone, with a barbecue and chilly swims on the beach and chatting long into the night wrapped in rugs around the fireplace. At eighty-two, her grandmother Annabel had been strong and well then, beating them all at poker and insisting on cooking huge meals and playing Joan Baez songs on her guitar and telling their fortunes.

Her decline and failing memory had all happened so suddenly. One minute capable and kind, organizing them all, and the next becoming a frail bedridden woman in a Dublin nursing home who could hardly remember their names. Poor Gran! How she must have hated it! Her death had brought an awkward sense of relief that the sparkling spirit of her grandmother was no longer tied to the decrepit frame and mind of an old woman.

‘Thank God, she’s finally free.’ Her mother’s words had echoed all their sentiments.

The road leading to the cottage was dark; her headlights picked up a rat running across the road. She turned off the engine and fumbled in her bag for the house keys as she grabbed her bag and locked the car.

The grass was overgrown and she trod carefully on the driveway that led to Gull Cottage, a dark shape that was perched near the sea. The sound of the waves and the smell of the sea cast their usual spell on her in the dim moonlight as she grasped the reassuring stone bird ‘Gully’ who perched beside the blue-painted front door, jiggling the keys as she opened it.

Inside, the air was musty and damp. She flicked on the light and looked around her. Dead bluebottles littered the windowsill; spider webs looped across the glass, which was salt-stained. The kitchen had been left neat and tidy ready for visitors with tea bags and coffee and sugar ready in their polished tins. She checked the fridge and switched it on, then plugged in her grandmother’s radio and tape player. The sound of fiddle music filled the air. Gull Cottage always made every visitor feel welcome.

She got down a mug and filled the kettle after letting the water run for a minute. From the small bag of groceries she’d brought along, she opened a packet of wheaten crackers, adding two slices of cheese to them. She wrapped herself in a wool blanket as the heating got going and walked around inspecting the place. There was a leak from the roof in the bathroom, the window pane in the spare bedroom rattled ominously and in the living room there was a large patch of damp on the wall behind the blue couch. She smiled when she spotted that Evie’s red bucket and spade had been left in the little bedroom ready for her next visit, along with a rubber ring and a broken sandal. She used to do the very same thing when she was small – leaving something behind in the hope of ensuring her return.

Once the cottage was warm and aired, she’d make up her bed. She looked in on her grandmother’s room with its old-fashioned double bed and dressing table and opted instead for the familiarity of the room she’d shared with her sisters. This time she had no rivals for the sole possession of the cosy double bed rather than the bunk beds that crowded one half of the room. She opened the window slightly to air it before making her way back to the kitchen.

The kettle was boiled and she cut herself more cheese, adding three baby tomatoes and a spoon of pickle to the plate of crackers. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was as she poured milk into her tea and sat down to eat, perusing a copy of her grandmother’s favourite cookbook as she did so. Monica Sheridan had been the doyenne of Irish cooking and Gran used make big jugs of homemade lemonade based on one of her recipes. Gran had scribbled notes and measurements in pencil on some of the pages along with a recipe for brown bread. She touched the perfect looped writing, emotion welling up inside her as she remembered Annabel Ryan. Her grandmother had been a bright interesting woman, filled with a zest for life and curiosity about everything – botany and plant life, nature, politics, literature and history, music and cookery – and was a great one for collecting recipes, though she never got round to using the half of them.

Once she’d eaten, Anna made herself comfortable in the sitting room, snuggling up on the couch and putting on one of her favourites tapes: Simon and Garfunkel. The tension eased from her as she listened to the words of the ‘59th Street Bridge Song’ telling her to slow down. She flicked through two old magazines and yawned.

Bedtime beckoned and, after putting crisp white sheets on the mattress and a pale blue floral quiltcover on the bed, she soon found herself drifting off to sleep, listening to the sound of the sea and shifting shingle and sand from the beach below.

She slept in and it was late morning when she woke to perfect silence in the cottage except for the distant sound of the waves. She stretched in the comfortable bed, trying to make decisions. A walk then breakfast? Breakfast and a shower? Or should she pull on a towelling robe and go down the beach for a swim? Although it was bright and sunny outside there was a strong breeze blowing so she soon rejected the latter. Getting out of bed, she flicked on the immersion switch in the hot press before padding into the kitchen in her bare feet and putting on the kettle. First, a mug of coffee and a slice of toast and marmalade, then a shower, then get dressed. She needed some supplies: bread, milk, butter, meat, juice, plus a few odds and ends to clean the place. She’d drive into town to pick up a few things and a newspaper, then concentrate on work for the rest of the day. She jumped when she realized she had wasted almost an hour sitting at the windowsill watching honeysuckle blow against the cottage wall and wild roses dance in the wind. Her gaze was drawn to the patch of blue and the hardy souls playing and running on the beach. How was it that children and Labradors never felt the cold?

Braving the ancient bathroom Anna hopped under the useless contraption her family considered a shower. It limped into action as she turned the mixer tap frantically trying to achieve some balance of water that wasn’t roasting hot or freezing. Scrubbing herself dry she flung on a pair of jeans, a washed-out pale blue T-shirt and her navy sweater as she grabbed her car keys.

Foley’s shop was busy and Anna found herself smiling in recognition as she bumped into some of the locals.

‘Are you down for the holidays?’ asked Peggy Smith, an octogenarian who used to play bridge with her grandmother.

‘It’s just a flying visit till Sunday,’ she admitted, grabbing some beautiful goat’s cheese and slices of honey-baked ham and deliberating between a white soda bread or a brown, eventually popping the two of them into her basket.

‘Well, it’s good to see someone using the old place.’

Her shopping basket was full by the time she reached the checkout and she was relieved to have brought the car with her, throwing the bags on to the back seat.

Back in Gull Cottage she ate the simple lunch with bread still warm from the oven as she contemplated the rather dated interior of the cottage. As children and teenagers it had always seemed to her and her sisters the most perfect place in the world. They had relished every hour and day and week they spent in the place. Strange, but now with her grandmother gone it suddenly looked shabby and run down and in sore need of some attention.

Finishing her coffee, she pulled out her old brown briefcase, spewing across the table a pile of essays comparing Molly Keane’s heroines with Edna O’Brien’s. Some of the comments made her laugh. Two hours later, lured outside by the sunshine, she sat on one of the old wooden sun-chairs. Long stripped of its original blue colour, it squatted between Granny’s pots and beds and flower baskets. All were in dire need of attention and the grass was begging to be cut. Anna found herself fetching the shears from the wooden shed and checking the ancient lawnmower.

She abandoned the lawnmower after twenty minutes, realizing it needed to be either repaired or serviced and she couldn’t tell which. Instead she began clipping with gusto at the weeds and thorny briars that were taking over the bed. She pulled up grass and dug up dandelions and thistles and cleared chickweed. After almost two hours she took a break with a glass of iced water and a piece of dark chocolate.

The sun was sinking before she finally stopped, her hands and nails filthy, muscles aching. She realized as she slipped off her mud-encrusted shoes and glimpsed herself in a mirror, her glowing face above the dirty sweater, that the lure of the garden and the house was in some bizarre way working its magic on her. Dinner was her priority next, then perhaps a quick walk or the pleasure of curling up with a book or listening to the radio. It was a very appealing programme.

Pasta in a pesto sauce with a crisp green salad proved delicious and she snuggled up on the couch with an ancient copy of
Heidi
that still had her name inscribed on it as she listened to the daily farmers’ journal and the shipping news. By ten o’clock exhaustion had overtaken her and she was in bed, ready for sleep.

Maggie was embroiled in her household bills, trying to balance all the payments on her bank statements when Anna phoned next morning. It was a tiresome job which Leo had uncomplainingly done for years and now fell to her. Pushing aside the calculator and papers she was glad of the distraction.

‘Mum, I’m going to stay on in the cottage for another few days, if that’s OK? It’s so peaceful here I’m actually getting some work done and I’ve had three swims in the freezing water and this morning I saw a pair of seals in the cove.’

‘Of course you can stay. Stay as long as you need.’ Maggie was relieved to hear Anna sounding more like her old self.

‘I’ve rescheduled a few lectures and that new Ph.D. student from Belfast will take the two tutorials for me. I should be back by Wednesday night.’

‘Well, enjoy the break and take care of yourself.’ Maggie was delighted that Anna had organized it properly and was able to stay on. Of late, she always seemed to be rushing and had no time for anything or anyone. ‘Is everything all right? You’re sleeping and eating OK?’

‘Mum, honestly,’ Anna protested. ‘I’m going for long walks and all the exercise and swimming is giving me an appetite and I’m getting plenty of sleep.’

‘Any of the summer visitors around? Or the Murphys or the Kennys?’

‘Not a sinner. The place is deserted. I’ve got the beach totally to myself. It’s perfect.’

‘Are you sure it’s not too quiet or lonesome there for you, Anna?’ she worried.

‘Mum, peace and quiet is what I want.’

‘Is the house OK?’ Maggie continued.

‘Well, I think there might be a bit of leak in the roof as there’s a big damp patch on the wall in the sitting room, and another in the bathroom. Maybe a few roof tiles are missing. The garden’s like a jungle and one of the bathroom taps is broken, but otherwise the cottage is the same as ever.’

Maggie smiled to herself. Annabel Ryan, her mother-in-law, had never been too good on the tidiness and neatness side of things, always seeming to live in a clutter of books and paints and garden things, with great plans to fix and do things tomorrow which were never fulfilled.

‘Well, maybe I’ll see if I can get someone to run out and have a look at the roof while you’re there, Anna. We don’t want it collapsing with rain when we go up in August. I have a list of people Annabel used for odd jobs; I’ll try and get one of them to call out to the cottage and check it for us.’

‘That’s fine, Mum.’

‘Take care of yourself, love,’ urged Maggie as they ended the phone call, glad that Anna was actually winding down and enjoying the West.

She was due to have afternoon tea with Regina Reynolds, the elderly grande dame of the square, who lived on the far corner and still enjoyed keeping up to date with the latest news of her neighbours and their families. But, as she was rooting around, she came across her mother-in-law’s old Liberty-print address book in the kitchen drawer. Putting on her reading glasses, Maggie searched through the names, running her finger down the list of useful numbers. There was Tommy Leary, that rather grumpy sixty-year-old handyman who had painted the place four years ago and replaced a broken pane of glass in the kitchen that a bird or a stone must have cracked last summer. He lived about twenty miles away and she was about to call him when she remembered Robert O’Neill, the nice young man Annabel was always telling her about who could be relied on in times of emergencies and had worked as a building contractor. He’d probably know about fixing the roof – he’d once done a great job replacing the ancient back kitchen door for Annabel.

Maggie had met him only briefly once or twice on visits to Roundstone but she still remembered his kind words and expression of sympathy at her mother-in-law’s funeral. He was a nice guy and lived much closer. Perhaps he wouldn’t mind calling over to check the roof and also keep an eye on Anna for her while she was staying there. As she dialled Rob’s number, she smiled to herself; he was unattached and rather good-looking if she recalled and had returned to the area he’d grown up in after a few years in England with the hope of settling down . . .

Anna had been digging and weeding all morning, watching with satisfaction as the pile of nettles and dandelions, leaves, dead wood and old flower heads grew. Standing beside the vegetable patch she remembered how her grandmother used to grow her own potatoes and lettuces, cabbage and carrots, and how she and her sisters fought to gather the juicy plump strawberries that Annabel Ryan produced summer after summer.