They sat there and watched the very last rockets and as it began to grow cold Killian took Claire in his arms and Rachel led Sue by the hand up to Donal"s caravan.
They walked a little apart now as the beach narrowed. She went ahead and his footsteps splayed into her smaller footsteps, distorting them and turning them into his own. He did it on purpose, noticing as he did her unusual gait: the tiny s.p.a.ces between the steps and the wide leg stance. She"d ridden horses as a kid. Their worlds weren"t so distant...
They laid the girls together in the double bed.
Donal had changed the sheets so that they were pink with flowers on them and he had put a stuffed Tigger and Pooh on the pillows.
"I"ll take the Pooh," Claire said sleepily.
Donal had also got a bunch of children"s books - picture books and Roald Dahls - which was a nice touch from someone who probably couldn"t read himself, Killian thought.
Claire was excited by the books and immediately grabbed Danny the Champion of the World.
Killian left Rachel to get the girls undressed and went into the living room.
There was a note on the small foldaway table.
It was a picture of a bowl of stew and a picture of a fridge. Another picture showed a roll-up in the ashtray.
He sniffed the roll-up and it smelled pretty good. He opened the fridge door and saw a Tupperware bowl full of stew.
"Well, I"m hungry even if no one else is," Killian said.
He dished some of the stew into a pot and heated it up.
"What are you cooking?" Rachel asked coming into the kitchen area.
Killian put some on a wooden spoon and offered it to her.
She took a bite. She hadn"t tasted anything so fresh and delicious in a while. The lamb was succulent and melted on your tongue and the vegetables were young, tender, perfect.
"My G.o.d, that"s awesome. I"ll go tell the girls."
She came back a minute later.
"They"re out for the count," Rachel said. "The poor wee la.s.ses. Probably be in psychotherapy for the rest of their lives after today."
"I don"t know about that," Killian said. He had seen plenty of horrifying things by the time he was Claire"s age: a man kicked to a death by a horse, a man burned in a paraffin heater explosion, a woman stabbed in the belly..."Kids are resilient," he added. "Let"s eat."
They sat at the fold-out table by the window. The horse fair was over and the Islandmagee locals were gone, leaving only the travellers and their animals. It was quiet. The sky was filled with stars.
They ate the lamb stew and had a couple of cans of Harp from the fridge.
They cleared the table and turned on the portable TV but the only thing they could was get was The Flintstones from BBC Scotland"s Gaelic service. Killian discovered that he could understand almost all of it.
"What"s happening?" Rachel asked.
"Wilma thinks Fred treats her badly and she"s leaving him," Killian said.
"It"s Betty I feel sorry for. Barney"s no catch," Rachel said.
Killian laughed and when the episode ended they wrapped themselves in blankets and went outside and sat on a couple of ratty deckchairs.
The bonfire on the beach was a ma.s.s of embers being dispersed by the surf breaking on the sh.o.r.e. They sat for a while looking at the fire on the water.
"Let me check on the girls," Rachel said.
Killian lit a cigarette and Rachel rejoined him two minutes later.
"The girls are asleep," she said. "What time is it?"
Killian shrugged. "I don"t have a watch and my phone"s dead."
"I"m shattered," she said.
"Go to bed," Killian said.
Rachel nodded. "I will."
"I"ll sleep on the sofa," Killian added.
"There are two beds in that room."
"I know. I"m restless though and you need your sleep."
"Have you got any smokes?"
Killian lit her a ciggie.
"The sea"s nice," she said.
"Yeah, it is."
"It"s mild for March."
Killian nodded.
They sat and smoked and Killian counted the lighthouses. Eight of them, the one furthest north maybe fifty miles from here.
"So these are your people, eh? Gypsies."
"Not gypsies. Pavee."
"That"s a new word on me."
"Not to us. You can call us tinkers or travellers if you like."
"No, Pavee is good. But, if it"s not a stupid question, what is the difference between Pavee and gypsies?"
"Gypsies are Roma people. Originally, I think, from India. They speak an Indo-European language, which I"ve been told is quite similar to Sanskrit."
"And Pavee?"
"No one"s really sure where we came from. I"ve heard and read about dozens of theories over the years."
"What are the theories?"
"Oh, that we were the original inhabitants of Ireland before the Celts came, or that we were the survivors of Cromwell"s land clearances, some even say that we didn"t come from Ireland at all, but an Atlantis-like island that used to exist between Ireland and Scotland."
"What do you believe?"
"I like the we were here first theory."
"Are there many of you?"
"Not many. A few thousand in Ireland, couple of thousand in England and America."
"Never really gave you lot much thought before, you know? In Northern Ireland, you don"t. It"s all about Prods and Catholics."
"Most people don"t."
"You speak what, Irish?"
"It"s kind of an Irish dialect, we don"t like to talk about it with outsiders, it"s an argot."
"How come you never learnt to read until your twenties?"
Killian shrugged. "Just never got around to it. We were so busy learning other things."
"What things?"
"Fixing motors, chopping cars, picking locks, learning to care for horses, that kind of stuff."
She nodded, looked at the water.
"What"s going to happen to us? Me and the girls?"
"You"ll be safe here, for a while at least. I"ll get a phone and make some calls. Losing the laptop changes things. It changes the whole game. If I can"t get through to Richard I"ll get through to Tom."
"It"s going to be okay?"
"It is. I promise."
She smiled at him. "So is this what you do for a living? All this madness."
"I used to. I"ve retired. Semi-retired. I"m doing architecture at the University of Ulster. BA. Mature student kind of deal."
"Architecture? That stuff interests you?"
"Very much. Not you?"
"Not really. One building"s pretty much like another isn"t it?"
Killian put the ciggie on a breeze block between the two chairs. "You see for me, houses are mysterious and fascinating places. You have to understand I lived in a caravan until I was seventeen. And then hotel rooms for the next ten years. I didn"t actually live in a house until my late twenties. They still seem weird and exotic. I"ve got a whole theory about it."
"Aye?"
"Aye," he said with a smile.
Rachel considered him. You wouldn"t exactly call him handsome, he was too tall and ungainly for that. But you could see how certain women could fall for him. His eyes in particular had an odd grey glint to them that she liked.
"Go on then," she said. "You know you"re itching to."
"Well, architecture is the art and science of permanent structures, but I think humans aren"t supposed to live in permanent structures. It"s not natural. So that"s why the whole thing is weird."
"What are you talking about?"
"h.o.m.o sapiens came from Africa. For a million years we and our ancestors lived in the savannah of the Great Rift Valley following the herds. Our life for the last fifty thousand generations has been about motion. There were no buildings because there were no settlements. We followed the grazing animals, hunting them, gathering fruit and wild gra.s.ses. This whole idea of living in cities is completely alien to the human species. It"s a blip in our history. We"ve only been doing it for the last few hundred generations. Wanderl.u.s.t is programmed in, you see? It"s in our DNA, we"re supposed to move. We"re supposed to see new vistas with each new dawn. Man was not meant for a sedentary lifestyle and that"s why most of feel unhappy and anxious living in these boxes in towns and cities. Architecture, good architecture, tries its best to alleviate some of these problems, but it"s a losing battle. The problem isn"t with the buildings. It"s with us."
Rachel nodded in the darkness and watched a little night-fishing boat chug out of Larne Harbor. "So you, the tinkers, uh, I mean...what did you just call them?"
"Pavee."
"Sorry. So you think Pavee are happier than the rest of us?"
"I don"t know. I had a happy childhood. Even though my da died, it was happy, you know? And go out there among those men and their horses at the fair and I don"t think you"ll find much angst."
He thought again about the photograph in his wallet and wondered if his grin was lighting up the beach. And the truth was, that right now, in these chairs, among his own people, with this woman, he was happier than he had been in decades.
"I suppose not," Rachel said and laughed and coughed. She threw away her cigarette.
"Want another?" Killian asked, offering her the pack.
"Nah, I"m giving those up too. I"m trying to be more careful about what I put into my body these days. I"ve gone straight before. But this time... this time I mean it. It"s different."
Killian liked to hear that.
He smiled at her.
"You know I went to university too. I studied astronomy for a year. I loved that guy Patrick Moore. Ever see him?" Rachel said.
Killian shook his head.
"I loved all that stuff. It"s not just looking in telescopes. There"s a lot of maths and forumulas."
"Why did you quit?"
"Ach. I met Richard in the Beaten Docket. That was when he was just coming on the TV, you know? Completely fell for his act. The patter, the persona. He was still married then."