He only stopped talking when the pot of tea and a plate of scones with fresh cream and a bowl of strawberry jam arrived and were put down on the table in front of them. They dived into them and when he leaned across the table to wipe off the blob of cream she’d somehow managed to get on the tip of her nose, Clio knew she was falling in love with the good-looking American with the candid smile opposite her.
Chapter 20
Present
Clio’s fingers hovered over the keys. She was in her writing room, the room that doubled as a guest room when she’d had Fidelma’s children stay over through the years. Her desk overlooked the back garden, which was an unruly display of cottage garden flowers in the summertime. Clio liked the disorderly and riotous colour that ran rampant through the warmer months in her otherwise orderly world. She liked to get amongst her flowerbeds and hear the humming bees as she pulled weeds and trimmed edges. She’d found over the years that, when she was in her garden getting her hands dirty, her mind was free to roam and the scene that had been tied in knots would become untangled so that when she sat back down behind her typewriter the words flowed.
Today the lawn was covered in a blanket of snow and she watched her little friend the robin redbreast, who visited her apple tree most days. It came to nibble on the bird feeder she hung from the branch of the tree. She’d placed it safely out of reach of Bess whose arthritic old bones meant her climbing days were over. The bird’s shiny black eyes fixed on something only it could see as it perched on the spindly branch. She admired its stillness and the vibrant orange, red feathers of its breast. There was a lot of folk lore associated with the bird; Clio knew the stories. To kill the robin, the tale went, would result in a tremor in the hand of the perpetrator for the rest of their days. They were messengers from the spirit world, that signalled the death of a loved one. She didn’t go in for all of that, she just liked to watch the little bird’s graceful, darting movements and enjoyed the splash of colour its visit brought on an otherwise dull day.
She was also glad of the distraction because since she’d received Gerry’s card, the words refused to come. She’d sat down in front of her typewriter, a cup of coffee you could stand a spoon up in alongside it because she liked the mellowed rich smell. It reminded her of her days working in a newsroom and she liked to think it was the scent of industriousness. There’d been nothing industrious about her sitting at her desk staring at the window these past days though, as she found herself lost in the past. It didn’t pay to look backwards when you got to her age, Clio thought. There was no point in questioning the decisions you made when you were young. What was done was done.
She sighed and got up, knowing she was going to read through the box of letters she’d tucked away in the attic years ago, and which from time to time she’d revisited over the years. There was one for every week Gerry was away from her for those three months until she’d broken things off. Love letters full of hope for the future. Mostly, Clio scanned through them, her eyes misting as she wondered how her life might have been had she gone to Boston as they’d planned. She knew he’d married from grainy newspaper copies of the Boston Globe thumbed through at the library. She knew too he was a widower and had been for some time. The knowledge he’d married had caused a bittersweet pain, especially when she’d read he’d had children too. Sons, three handsome mini versions of their father, and she wondered if the eldest would be expected to rise high in politics like his father and grandfather had before him. The shoebox was where she’d left it, downstairs on the side table next to her sofa. She’d been going through the letters again last night, enjoying the warmth from the fire as she’d travelled back in time.
Chapter 21
1958
Clio huddled inside her coat as she waited on the corner of Grafton and Dame Street for Gerry. The weather had been brutal these last few days. Winter seemed to be intent on not letting spring get so much as a look in, despite it nearly being April. She was wishing they’d arranged to meet inside a cosy pub instead of on this street corner where the wind whipped around. She watched a pile of leaves in the gutter dance about in a private whirlpool and then, looking up, spied Gerry’s familiar loping gait as he strode toward her. The smile, the one she could never contain when she saw him, broke out on her face despite the fact she was on the verge of hypothermia.
‘Hello, darling, you look frozen. You weren’t waiting long, were you?’ He kissed her with a passion that received a disapproving look from a woman marching past, whose headscarf was knotted so tightly against the wind it had given her an extra chin. He took her hands in his and tried to warm them.
‘That wind cuts you in half, c’mon let’s go somewhere warm,’ Clio said through chattering teeth once he’d released her.
‘Kehoes?’ he suggested, and she nodded, not really caring where they went so long as there was a fire. She tucked in under his arm enjoying the way she fitted just right and they made their way up Grafton Street. They veered into Anne Street where they burst in through the saloon style, stained glass
