small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made”,’ I continued, then sighed dramatically. ‘Honestly, Danny, you’re the one who grew up here! How can you not know one of Yeats’s most famous poems? ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’? Come on!’
He’d grinned at my exasperation.
‘I do know it, of course I do. We did it at school. I just don’t remember the words, not to just reel them off like you do. I haven’t got that sort of brain.’
‘You haven’t got much of any sort of brain,’ I’d muttered, and then squealed as he’d dragged me onto the bed and tickled me until I was helpless with laughter.
The laughter had been in short supply for most of the trip however, and I’d been glad we’d only decided to stay for two nights, citing work we needed to get back to. Danny didn’t talk about his childhood much, but I’d definitely got the impression it wasn’t the happiest time of his life.
‘I don’t get on great with my parents,’ was all he would ever say, and I hadn’t pushed it. If he wanted to tell me about it one day, I’d be there for him, but he clearly didn’t want to talk about it then and that was fine. And when I finally met his parents, the animosity between them and their son was immediately obvious. Bridget, a thin, downtrodden-looking woman with a deeply lined face and white hair tied back tightly in a low bun at the nape of her neck, gave me a quick peck on the cheek and a half smile when we arrived, but merely nodded at Danny, her face stiffening again as she looked him up and down. Donal, visually an older version of Danny with thinning grey hair, simply waved at both of us from his armchair, eyes barely moving from the hurling game he was watching on the small television that sat on the sideboard next to him. He was frail from a recent string of illnesses, but nonetheless was a brusque, stern man, a cold look in his eyes as he snapped orders from his corner of the farmhouse kitchen, his wife jumping to do his bidding, her expression hard, as if she was permanently angry at everything and everyone. I’d felt sorry for her, and taken an instant dislike to him, at the same time feeling guilty for feeling like that about my fiancé’s elderly, clearly unwell father.
At dinner on our first evening both parents engaged in a little stilted conversation with us, but after that they paid us scant attention; Danny, meanwhile, while virtually ignoring his father and being equally ignored in return, seemed almost pathetically eager to please his mother, repeatedly offering to help her with meal preparation or washing up, and looking crestfallen when she told him she didn’t need his assistance. The look on his face at each rejection hurt my heart and made me even more eager to leave the farmhouse at the earliest opportunity.
They were a staunch Catholic family, although Danny had told me not long after we’d met that he had lapsed years ago, and had made me giggle when he’d explained the reason for his rather unusual middle name.
‘It’s after Saint Ignatius,’ he’d said. ‘He was wounded in some battle and while he was in bed recovering he wanted to read adventure stories, but the only thing available in the hospital was religious stuff and books about saints. So he read those instead, and decided he wanted to do what they had done. Bloody git. Means me and thousands of other poor sods got lumbered with his stupid name.’
The O’Connor family house, spotlessly clean and cosy enough with its dated furniture, sagging sofas and the big old Aga in the kitchen, didn’t have a picture of Saint Ignatius that I could find, but it was certainly full of religious imagery. In the hallway, a plaster statue of Jesus, arms outstretched, greeted visitors, while the rest of the house was dominated by paintings and figurines depicting the Madonna and Child, Saint Bernadette (‘patron saint of illness’, Danny had hissed, one eyebrow raised, as he’d given me the tour), Saint Jude (‘he’s for desperate causes’) and Saint Clare (‘eye diseases. And, weirdly, patron saint of laundry and television,’ he’d said). Wildly sceptical, I’d googled Saint Clare at the first available opportunity, only to find out he’d been absolutely right. Laundry? Why did laundry need a patron saint?
The reason for the choice of saints soon, however, became