neat, regular features, and Jack’s parents, whom Pat had met in Resolve, were dark too. So Seán Shanahan’s blue eyes, red hair and freckles had skipped a generation and come down to his grandson. It was strange to think of Seán’s copy of The Late Pig being read by his widow for the Transatlantic Book Club. Almost as strange as it had been to see his collection of crime novels in the Shamrock Club’s library.
Behind the chattering group in Resolve still discussing e-books, Pat could see the glass-fronted bookcase. The enormous plaque above it said ‘Gift of the Shanahan Family, in loving memory of Seán Michael Shanahan of Resolve, 1936–2009’. There were far more books in the case than Pat could remember on Seán’s bedroom shelves, so he must have kept collecting crime stories all his life. When Cassie had suggested the holiday in Resolve, Pat had wondered if Seán had remained there, and whether, if he had, he was still alive. On the night of their arrival Josie had mentioned him casually. ‘He married a good while after you did. His widow is very active in the Shamrock Club.’ That was Josie, quick to know what was needed and always the soul of discretion. She’d gone on to discuss other friends and Pat had been glad, because she hadn’t wanted to talk about Seán. She wouldn’t have minded if she’d never had to think about him again. It had been a shock to see his looks replicated in Jack, though, and to sit in the Shamrock Club’s library on the night of her farewell party and see the date of his death above those shelves of familiar books.
When the book-club meeting was over, Cassie and some of the others went off for pizza. As Pat let herself into the empty flat she felt bone tired. In a way she wished she’d stood her ground and hadn’t allowed Cassie to fix that holiday or to talk her into the Transatlantic Book Club. It was hard enough dealing with Ger’s death without having to cope with buried memories of Seán Shanahan, and strange to sit in Lissbeg beside Mary with Josie talking to them from Resolve. When Mrs Shanahan suggested they read Seán’s books, Pat had seen Josie’s troubled reaction. Hanna had seemed to think she was bothered about how to organise things. But Pat knew better. Josie had been a witness to all that had happened that summer in Resolve.
When she took off her coat, Pat laid The Case of the Late Pig on her well-scrubbed kitchen table. Then she remembered Thomas Hardy’s poems about his wife. Years ago, in a second-hand bookshop, she’d bought a collection called Poems of 1912–1913. According to the introduction, Hardy’s wife’s death had hit him so badly that the past had become more real to him than the present. When she’d first read that, Pat had thought it pretentious, the sort of thing you might hear from Darina Kelly, but now, having lost Ger, she saw it made sense. Death did strange things to people left behind, so no wonder so many poets and authors wrote about it. Look at The Case of the Late Pig. The plot hinged on a man who appeared to have died and been buried and turned up as a murder victim five months later. Of course, it was just light reading, with an aristocratic English detective, whom Pat found a bit annoying. But Seán had said that sleuths and all the whodunit stuff weren’t the point of crime stories – what they were really about was love and hatred, guilt, fear, greed, death, and lost opportunities. Pat could almost see him now, sitting with a book in his hand, explaining to her. He’d been six or seven years older than she, and intense in a way that sometimes seemed boring, so Pat hadn’t taken much notice. Her strongest memory of him was that he’d been kind.
Thomas Hardy had written stories, too, but according to the introduction of Pat’s book, his poems were his best work. Pat didn’t know. She just liked them. Now she went to the dresser and found the book on a shelf. Carrying it to an easy chair, she switched on the lamp. The pages parted at a poem called ‘When I Set Out for Lyonnesse’. Pat spoke the first two verses aloud to the empty flat.
‘When I set out for Lyonnesse,
A hundred miles away,
The rime was on the spray,
And starlight lit my lonesomeness
When I