my usual overthinking. I pull Ben closer to warm him up with a towel and, as I dry his hair as quickly as I can, I feel Aidan watching us.
‘You know, seeing you do that just reminds me of me and my mum when I was little,’ Aidan tells me, wrapping his own towel now around his strong shoulders. He dries the back of his neck and hair in horizontal strokes as he speaks. ‘I remember her doing that to warm me up around this very same spot when I was about Ben’s age.’
‘That’s nice,’ I say, momentarily sensing his sadness and still scrubbing Ben’s head to make sure it’s as dry as I can make it. ‘You must have amazing memories of your childhood here, even if Ballybray is the land where time stands still and we have DVD players and the like.’
He smirks at my nudge towards his earlier, less complimentary comments about the place he once lived.
‘It’s certainly a much more happening place now,’ he admits. ‘You really love it here, don’t you?’
‘It’s been good for us,’ I say, catching his eye again. If only he knew just how much coming here changed my life for the better.
‘There’s no doubt about it,’ he tells me. ‘I spent the happiest days of my life here too. There’s no better place to raise a child than near the coast in a close-knit rural village. I have many happy memories from here, lots of which were triggered by coming up here today.’
Ben’s brown eyes dart towards Aidan in a spark of admiration, and my stomach gives a leap when I see a look I recognize from many years ago. He looks at Aidan with such awe that it takes my breath away and even scares me a little inside. He looks at him as if he is the hero he’s been waiting for. I need to get him home.
‘OK, Ben, it’s suppertime,’ I say, wanting now to escape back to the safety of my life behind the green door, away from any possibility of my son becoming too close too soon to Mabel’s nephew.
Call me paranoid and over protective, but I’ve seen that look in Ben’s eyes before, and I’ve also seen a very different look when his father let him down. I can’t risk ever seeing that again, plus Aidan Murphy owes us nothing. He could disappear in a heartbeat, and in a few days he probably will.
‘But what about Aidan?’ asks Ben. ‘Are you going back to Mabel’s house again, Aidan? We could—’
‘I’m sure Aidan is very busy,’ I say, avoiding Aidan’s eyes this time. ‘But we’ve all had such great fun today, haven’t we? I can just feel Mabel smiling down on us already, especially at your bravery, Ben, when you tackled the biggest slope.’
Aidan pipes up, contradicting my suggestion that he may be busy.
‘We could always finish off the day with some pizza? My treat?’ he says, patting his tummy. ‘I mean, that’s if it’s OK with you, Roisin?’
‘Yes! Please Mum, please!’ says Ben.
‘Sorry,’ says Aidan, when he senses my discomfort.
I breathe out and contemplate if I even have a choice right now. I’m totally outnumbered, but in the pit of my stomach, my gut instinct if you like, I am very, very afraid. I’m afraid of this feeling of euphoria, of the companionship and the laughter, of how Aidan put me at ease every time I had a moment of self-doubt up there on the hill. It awakened something inside me that has been dormant for so long, and it scares me. But then I look at Ben and—
‘OK, how can I say no to a boy who is chatting and smiling again after days of silence?’ I say, convincing myself I’m doing this for my son’s benefit only.
But I can’t get too close to this man in any way, and neither can Ben. We are all raw, we are all vulnerable, and when the dust settles on whatever business Aidan is attending to here in Ballybray, he is going to leave again. As much as Mabel has pledged us all to be family, I know my son’s inner pain will want more and more of the beautiful moments we shared today.
Aidan Murphy has a life and a wife in America, I repeat to myself. He is not ours, and he never will be.
9.
‘Mabel was the best at drawing cats,’ announces Ben, giving his tuppence worth as he waits for his pepperoni pizza. We sit