As they took their seats on the busy flight, Lucy blew up her little air pillow and decided to try and sleep. Rory was already engrossed in the new Dan Brown, so she didn’t have to make conversation, for which she was grateful. As she dozed off, visions of babies, pregnancy tests and the horrified look on Rory’s face if he found out she was pregnant filled her mind. She tried to push these to one side, focusing instead on imagining his family, what they would be like, what they looked like, piecing together all the snippets of conversation she had overheard, all the stories Rory had told her and the photographs she had seen of them all.
Just an hour later the captain announced over the tannoy that they would soon be landing in Dublin. It was such a short and easy flight, nipping across the Irish Sea. The twinkling lights of Dublin sparkled in the twilight as they touched down, the plane bouncing off the tarmac before juddering to a grinding halt. They were going to pick up a hire car from Avis and then it would just be a short drive to the little village of Renwood in the Wicklow Mountains, where Rory had grown up and where Trina and Paddy still lived.
Unfortunately, the dim light of dusk did not display the countryside at its best as Lucy and Rory wound their way through Wicklow. She tried to make the landscape out as best she could, but she knew that she would have to wait until tomorrow to really see it in all its glory. Her excitement at having arrived and being so close to Rory’s childhood home and family had certainly acted as a good tonic to her sense of fatigue, she was suddenly buzzing with excitement. Doing his best as a night-time tour guide, Rory told her when they were passing the snow-capped Sugar Loaf peak that she would be able to see from the bedroom window. Lucy loved even the very sound of the names as they rolled off Rory’s tongue. His Irish accent seemed to have trebled in strength automatically upon touching down on home soil.
After an hour or so, they drove through the tiny village of Renwood, turning up a long curving road that climbed uphill and soon became nothing more than a dirt track. A hand-painted sign in the shape of an arrow read ‘Renwood Farm’ amidst the peeling white paint. They followed the direction of the arrow for a while longer, the track winding around a sharp bend to the left. Suddenly the rambling farmhouse appeared before their eyes, a mishmash of stone buildings with cheery, warm light flooding out of each criss-crossed window.
Lucy gasped in delight, ‘It’s so cute!’ she said, ‘I love it already!’
Rory laughed, a huge grin on his face at the sight of his home, clearly very happy to have made it.
Trina opened the front door, obviously having been listening out for the car. She cried, ‘Rory, my dear boy, you’re home!’ rushing over to fold him into her ample bosom, enveloping him in a homely hug. ‘Lucy dear, thank you so much for coming to visit us, how was your journey, darling? Terrible bore planes, aren’t they? Are you hungry? Tired? Come in, dear, come in!’ She rattled out sentences at the speed of light in her sing-song voice whilst simultaneously kissing her hello, giving her a hug, taking her bag from her hands and ushering them both into the house. Quite impressive, Lucy thought, seeing immediately where Rory got his warmth of character from, and his lovely gift of being able to put any newcomer at ease within seconds of being in his presence.
Trina had soft grey hair that had been set with rollers and bounced in gentle curls around her cheeks. This was coupled with a broad grin and a welcoming face, all smiles and dimples.
Lucy and Rory came into the warmth of the house; a little wood-burning range was doing a valiant job at blasting heat out into the hall. Several dogs of various shapes and sizes rushed around their feet, welcoming them with little sniffs and yaps and plenty of wagging tails.
Rory’s father, Paddy, a rosy-cheeked, roundish man with a waistcoat and a pipe, came to greet them. ‘Lucy, my dear, it’s a pleasure to meet you,’ he said as he kissed her on each cheek. ‘It really is,’ he repeated, smiling at her with great affection before turning to greet his son.
Rory’s older sister Trish, her husband Andrew, and their younger brother Dermot came out of the sitting room to join the welcome party.
‘The whole McCullan clan!’ said Rory. ‘Aren’t we spoilt!’
‘Well yes, except for Ronan, but he doesn’t count,’ said Dermot, giving his brother a bear hug.
‘What’s he doing again, the cheeky blighter?’ asked Rory.
‘Poor old thing’s at some big family do with the in-laws,’ explained Trina. ‘We barely see him these days.’
‘Unlike some people who we can’t seem to get rid of no matter how hard we try,’ laughed Paddy, gesturing towards Dermot with his pipe.
‘I thought you lived in Dublin?’ Lucy asked him.
‘I do!’
‘He just comes home pretty darn frequently for a bit of home cooking and Trina’s free launderette service!’ said Paddy.
As they made their way through to the sitting room, Lucy chatted to Trish. ‘You live in Dublin too, don’t you?’
‘Yes just south of Dublin, though sadly we rarely get the chance to make the most of it these days,’ said Trish. ‘We don’t get out much now we’ve got the three little ones.’
‘You should get Dermot to babysit!’
‘Hah, fat chance!’ laughed Trish. ‘Though all three of my brothers are excellent uncles, so I shouldn’t complain!’
‘Are they asleep? I’m dying to meet them,’ said Lucy.
‘Mercifully they are, though they will no doubt be hammering on your door in the morning at some ungodly hour, begging Rory to take them on one of his famous adventure treasure hunts. They’ve been banging on about it all day! I can only apologize in advance for my unruly offspring… especially the twins!’
Rory, having overheard their conversation, decided that it was a great idea. They would set up a trail in the woodland surrounding the house; it would be a good way to show it to her. The children could then follow the trail to the treasure later on.
As she watched the McCullans, Lucy decided that Dermot was a very handsome younger version of Rory, with slightly paler brown hair that was even more dishevelled. He looked like an Indie pop star and Lucy could imagine young girls swooning at his green eyes. Trish was more like Trina in appearance. With Rory’s hazel eyes and her mother’s dimples, she was a very attractive lady. They had clearly had a boozy Friday night dinner as they were all cradling glasses of red wine and tumblers of whisky. Drinks were quickly fetched for the new arrivals and the rest of the evening was spent catching up on all the family gossip, and the more important task of getting to know Lucy. She felt one hundred per cent relaxed in the McCullans’ presence, they were incredibly genuine, down-to-earth people and, as she had expected, made her feel like she was part of the family within minutes.
When the grandfather clock in the hall chimed midnight, their conversation finally paused and motions were made to start drifting up to bed. Trina and Paddy went up first, closely followed by a yawning Trish and Andrew, no doubt conscious of the fact that their children’s natural alarm clock would be waking them at the crack of dawn, and promising to try to delay the terrible twins’ exit into the rest of the house for as long as possible. Dermot, Lucy and Rory finished off their drinks as the last flickers of flame crackled and hissed before finally dying out, leaving a bed of embers glowing in the great open hearth beside them. Rory picked up the gilt fire guard and moved it in front of the fireplace before they heaved themselves out of their comfortable chairs to retire for the night.
As they climbed the creaking wooden staircase, Rory hauling both of their bags up with him, they whispered goodnight to Dermot, trying not to make any noise that might wake the little ones. They crept down to the room at the end of the corridor and dumped their belongings on the floor, collapsing in an exhausted heap on the hand-sewn patchwork quilt that Rory’s grandmother had once made him.
As Lucy’s eyes adjusted to the dim light, she gazed around Rory’s bedroom, imagining him as a small child, this view of the world being the one most familiar to him, and she felt a real pang of love for that little boy and the man that he had become. She suddenly had an overwhelming need to tell him that she loved him, though now was hardly the right time. If she was about to find out she was pregnant he might then feel pressured into staying with her, or worse he might leave her and then where would she be…how would she cope knowing that he loved her but that she had ruined everything? She had known for quite some time that she loved him with every single cell in her body and she simply couldn’t imagine her life going forward without him in it. She wondered if he felt the same way… she fervently hoped that he did. She had often felt sure that he was about to tell her, but so far neither of them had bitten the bullet. She knew that she would wait until he told her that he loved her first, it was such a big deal to utter those three little words out loud. There had been too much heartache in her life and for once she wanted to be sure that he wasn’t saying anything because he felt he ought to, or worse, as Alex had told her when they broke up, because he felt under too much pressure from her, her family or her friends due to their age.
