Second Hand Jane (11 page)

***

By ten the
following morning, she was not only wishing she had taken heed of
Brianna’s warning regarding the bus she was also wishing she had
donned a sturdy sports bra instead of the non-underwire one she had
worn, opting for comfort. Not only had the bus done a loop inland,
passing through all sorts of out-of-the-way towns before finally
getting back onto the road that spliced through Drogheda and headed
north, but Brianna’s warning regarding the potholes had proved
prophetic too. She was fairly sure the bus driver whom she had
nicknamed Leery Len—his badge declared his real identity to be one
Leonard O’Reilly—was deliberately hitting each and every one of
them to see just how much bounce her boobs actually had in
them.

At this rate,
they’ll be down to my knees by the time we get to Ballymcguinness,
she thought despondently, crossing her arms over her chest before
catching Leery Len’s gaze in the rearview mirror. Humph, she
huffed; the bloody heating was turned up so high in the bus that it
wasn’t as if she could put her jacket back on over her top to cover
up—she’d expire before she even got to Ballymcguinness! She fixed
Len with her evil eye instead and received a wink for her
troubles.

Turning away in
disgust, she gazed out the window. They were officially in Northern
Ireland now, although crossing over the border had been a
nondescript event since the days of army checkpoints were long
gone. Still, she thought as they sailed past rows of Newry’s white
stucco identikit houses edged up against the grassy verge of the
motorway and Irish flags blowing from their brown tiled roofs in
the chilly autumn winds, even from here she could sense the
undercurrent. It sent a shiver through her.

The bus veered
inland, winding its way into the green heart of County Down where
they passed through the town of Banbridge and then on through the
smaller village of Dundrum. Spying the ruins of a castle perched
hillside and keeping watch over the villagers, Jess fell a little
bit in love. She’d heard of the father complex but she reckoned she
had castle complex. There was just something so romantic about
them, she thought, sighing wistfully and imagining the grand
banquets that it once would have hosted and the gallant men bravely
going off to battle as the bus left the village behind. She hoped
Ballymcguinness would prove to be just as much of a chocolate box
village as Dundrum.

***

Um, first
impressions—not overly fabulous, she thought, peering out the
window as the bus topped a hill and headed down toward the little
village some twenty minutes and at least one hundred potholes
later. The grainy Internet photo she had seen of Ballymcguinness
had been a good likeness and, from her vantage point, she could see
a narrow, curving street from which a pile of semi-detached houses
two streets deep ran off either side. There was a mishmash of power
lines dangling over the rooftops, stretching off toward a hill
dotted with pylons that lay over to the right-hand side of the
village. At the base of the hill stood an austere grey stone church
with a tall and wide spire. The location, of which, had been chosen
no doubt to keep the villagers in line. It was one of three
smattered around the surrounding countryside, she noticed—three
churches and not one single castle in sight.

The bus slowed
to a crawl as it headed down the main street of the village,
passing by half a dozen off-white pebble dash, two-up two-down
houses. Their flowering window boxes added a welcome splash of
colour to the overall greyness of the day, Jess thought, spying a
grocer’s shop followed by a pretty, pastel yellow painted pub, next
door to which was a hairdresser’s called Maura’s Place.

As they passed
by another pub with a decidedly more serious drinker’s-hole look to
it than the first one, Jess decided they were now officially on the
wrong side of town. This was reinforced when they drove past
another cluster of not-so-well maintained pebble dash houses. The
bus came to a juddering halt at the end of this metropolis outside
a school that looked at odds with the period of the rest of the
village. It was a one-level red brick building with the bland
building style of the 1980s and was obviously a much newer addition
to the town. Outside, a dozen or so children were running around in
the yard, screeching and enjoying the fresh air despite the damp
chill pervading it.

“Last stop,
Ballymcguinness!” Leery Len called out the obvious as he swung his
head round for one last lingering leer.

Pulling her
laptop in its shoulder bag down from the overhead rack, Jess
ignored him and glanced down the bus to see that there was only one
other passenger left on it. An elderly woman, her spindly frame
well rugged up against the cold in a tan wool coat she’d probably
held onto since the sixties, was struggling down the aisle with her
case. As she peered out from under her headscarf at Jess, she saw
the woman had a face like a pushed-in jam tin, as her mother would
say.

Oh, well, hadn’t she always been taught
not to judge a book by its cover? She’s probably a real sweetie and
if it were my Nan, I’d like to think someone would give her a
helping hand. She decided she’d ask her whether she wanted help
carrying her bag as Len apparently was not the chivalrous type. She
didn’t get a chance to, though, as with all the manners of an old
codger on a motorised scooter who thinks he owns the pavement, the
elderly woman shoved past her, sending her flying into the seat
opposite. She glared back at Jess, who was open-mouthed at finding
herself plonked with her legs swinging over the side of the armrest
as though to say
well, it was your own fault for getting in my way
and then her hunched back
disappeared from view as she disembarked.

“Rude old cow!”
Jess muttered, struggling to get out of the seat.

“What was
that—do you want a hand, luv?” Len called down the aisle.

She could well
imagine where his hand would inadvertently slip to. “No thank
you.”

It was with a face on
her
like that of a pushed-in jam tin that she got off
the bus, sending up a little prayer that not all the
Ballymcguinness locals were tarred with the same brush as the nasty
old biddy who was now hobbling off down the street at a
surprisingly fast pace. She sent a second prayer up in quick
succession as she heard Leery Len mutter something about
get a load of the
rump on that prize filly
that he would not be the driver on her return trip to
Dublin.

“Er,
Jessica?”

She quickly
rearranged her features from that of a smacked bum to that of a
sensitive writer. The tall man clad in an Aran knit jumper and
thick brown corduroy pants that were stuffed into a pair of
wellingtons standing over her looked nothing at all how she had
pictured the severe sounding Owen Aherne to look. She caught him
giving her a quick once-over and was surprised to see his
expression change to one of amusement, although she couldn’t
understand why.

In her opinion,
she had toned it down for her day in the country, opting for a
tight-fitting white top (okay, the top had been a bad move) tucked
into an artfully worn pair of jeans. The leather belt with its wide
brass buckle had been a recent find in one of her trusty little
boutiques—code for her favourite second-hand shops. As had the
scarf, which she had tied in a jaunty knot around her neck in what
she liked to think was a cowgirl sort of a fashion. Her brown
leather ankle boots, although reminiscent of the 80s, were a
practical choice because there wasn’t much call for owning a pair
of wellies in the city.

“Er, yes,
that’s me. Hello—you must be Owen. It’s nice to meet you.” She
decided to repay the favour by giving him the once-over before
peering up at him. His hair was dark brown, almost black, with a
smattering of grey around the temples and his eyes were a light,
almost luminous grey. It was a disarming combination—one that took
you unawares, she thought, holding her hand out to him. He looked
surprised by the gesture and for a split second as he took it, she
thought he was going to raise her hand to his mouth and kiss it but
instead he shook it like he meant business.

Jessica Baré,
here you go again, she told herself sternly; one of these days you
are going to have to stop behaving as though you have just stepped
out of the pages of a romance novel every time you meet a man. At
least he didn’t have sweaty palms. That was a good sign, she
decided, as he let her hand drop from his firm grasp. She could
never trust a man with sweaty palms. It conjured up all sorts of
unpleasant connotations. Unaware of her scrutiny, Owen followed the
direction in which she had been looking so disgruntled a moment
earlier and said somewhat formally, “Welcome to Ballymcguinness.
You didn’t just encounter Mad Bridie, did you?”

“If you mean
that bad mannered elderly lady making her way down the street like
the Bionic Woman, then, yes, I did. She pushed me over on the
bus.”

Owen omitted a
low, throaty laugh. “Ah, pay no heed to her; she’s mad as a hatter,
poor old thing. Besides, that’s mild by Bridie’s standards. She
once chased Teddy O’Shea the postman down the street with her
walking stick. Waving it around like a woman possessed, she was,
shouting at him for being a Peeping Tom. All the poor sod had done
was to push some letters through her door. So there you go; think
yourself lucky she only gave you a bit of a push.”

She had to
raise a smile at the mental picture he had invoked of Bridie and
the postman. She was relieved, too, that underneath his bluster, he
had a sense of humour.

“So did you
have a good trip up?” he asked, heading across the road to where a
battered and mud splattered Land Rover was parked.

“Let’s just say
it was a bit of a bouncy ride,” she replied, deciding not to
elaborate further as she clambered up into the passenger seat.

“The farm’s
about a ten-minute ride from here and it will be another bouncy
ride, I’m afraid.” Owen jammed the gearstick into first and
muttered something under his breath about the old bloody beast as
the jeep set off with a judder back through the village. The flash
of humour she’d seen a few minutes earlier had disappeared.

Damn this
bloody bra, she thought, feeling her own short-lived good humour
dissipate as quickly as Owen’s apparently had as at the juddering
of the jeep her boobs began a wobbling all over again.

Considering the
place had been devoid of street life five minutes earlier, it
suddenly seemed to have come to life, she noticed, as they drove
past an old man sitting on the low wall outside the drinker’s pub
she’d spied on her way in to town. He was wearing the requisite
tweed jacket and cap and his nose was a bulbous red. As Owen raised
his hand in acknowledgement, the old man raised his walking stick
in greeting.

“That’s Ned; he
was a great mate of me Da’s in their day. He’s waiting for the pub
to open. You can set your watch by him. He’s there perched on that
wall every day at ten forty-five a.m. come rain or shine even
though the pub doesn’t open until eleven o’clock.”

Outside the
hairdresser’s, a woman with a plastic cape and a headful of tin
foil stood chuffing on a cigarette. She nearly dropped her fag as
Owen scowled out at her. “Katie Adams—she’s our local busybody and
barmaid at the Primrose Arms up there.” He nodded in the direction
of the pretty yellow pub. “And over there, that’s Billy Peterson,
the grocer. His wife left him for another woman—took off to Spain
with her. I tell you, Katie pulled pints on that one for months on
end.”

Jess glanced
over to where a world-weary looking man who was probably only in
his early fifties despite his stooped gait was piling oranges into
a crate outside the grocery store.

Two young mums
in tight jeans and puffer jackets pushing their prams toward each
other had a head-on pushchair collision as Owen drove past, giving
them a mock salute.

It was all very
Twilight Zone
like, she thought, sneaking a peek at Owen
and as though reading her mind he growled, “That’s village life for
you. Everybody knows everybody’s business. It’s a bit like living
in a goldfish bowl; that’s what Amy struggled with. You mark my
words, I’ll be the talk of the town by lunchtime.”

“Why?”

“Because I have
a strange woman sitting in my passenger seat, that’s why.”

Oh, she
realised, suddenly understanding the stupefied looks on everybody’s
faces. It obviously was not a common occurrence.

“Oh well, at
least your wife knows what I’m doing here. That’s all that really
matters,” she said cheerfully.

“I don’t have a
wife,” he growled.

“Oh, I’m sorry.
I just assumed you were married,” she stuttered—just like she had
assumed his sister was alive when she had contacted him.

“Do you have a
husband?’

“No.”

“There you go
then.”

She wasn’t sure
she knew what he meant by that but she decided not to analyse his
comments. Or antagonise him more by asking him to explain. So she
settled back in her seat as the village disappeared behind them,
giving way to an unmade road with hedgerow on either side. Ah-ha,
that explained the mud splatters then, she thought, as the jeep
nosedived into a giant brown puddle and her boobs smacked her on
the chin.

“The dairy
farmers at home would love this,” she said, looking out at the
lush, flat green fields stretching to the horizon on the other side
of the hedgerow. Healthy looking cows chomped happily on the grass
and determined to make cheery conversation, Jess ploughed on, “How
many cows do you have?”