1
Lou stepped off the bus, then turned and took Jack’s hand to help him down. He jumped onto the pavement, announcing their arrival with a decisive thud. She ruffled his hair, then strapped her pack to her back and took her phone out of her pocket, pulling up the maps app.
‘Okay, let’s find our new home,’ she said, taking Jack’s hand again. She kept her eyes trained on the map as they walked away from the bus station and headed towards the centre of Dingle, occasionally glancing up to look around her as they wended their way through the quaint, narrow roads. She was grateful that they’d arrived on a dry, sunny day. It made travelling so much more comfortable and gave her a sense of optimism about their new start here on the west coast of Ireland. The brightly painted shops and cafes had such a cheery, welcoming vibe, only adding to her sense that this would be their happy place.
When she knew they were almost there, she stopped. ‘I need a drink.’ She handed her phone to Jack and took a bottle of water from the pocket of her backpack. She took a long slug. ‘You want some?’ She offered the bottle to Jack, who shook his head.
‘Okay. You can take us from here.’ She nodded to the phone still in his hand. ‘Which way now?’
He screwed up his eyes, focusing intensely on the screen. ‘Go to the corner and turn… that way.’ He pointed left with a confidence that gave her a glow of pride.
‘Great, let’s go.’ She was relieved that he’d chosen the right way and they weren’t going to be walking around in circles, but she’d have gone along with whatever he said and let him figure it out. She took sporadic sips of water from the bottle as they walked, to demonstrate that her hands weren’t free and there was a valid reason she wasn’t doing the navigating. She wanted Jack to feel he was being genuinely helpful and this wasn’t just a lesson she was teaching him.
‘Watch where you’re going, though,’ she said, steering him out of the way of a passer-by he was about to bump into.
When they came to a small roundabout at the top of a long, hilly road heading out of town, she stopped at the edge of the pavement with a hand on his shoulder as they waited for the crossing signal to change. ‘Which way now, kiddo?’
Jack frowned down at the map. ‘I think… over there.’ He pointed across the street. ‘I’m not sure. We could just ask somebody?’ He looked up at her.
‘Let’s try to figure it out ourselves,’ she said as the pedestrian light turned green.
They walked a few yards in the direction Jack had pointed. Lou wasn’t sure but she had a feeling they were getting further away when Jack came to an abrupt halt.
‘We’re going the wrong way,’ he said.
‘That’s okay, I’m sure we’re not far.’
They turned around and retraced their steps to the roundabout. ‘I think we’re lost,’ Jack announced, looking up from the phone. ‘I’m going to ask someone.’ He promptly trotted up to an elderly woman with a supermarket shopping bag ineach hand. Lou watched as he spoke to her, showing her the map on the phone.
‘It’s our new house,’ Jack was saying to the woman, who was smiling at him.
‘Well, I hope you’ll be very happy there,’ she said, looking up at Lou as she caught up to them. ‘It’s the bottom of that road,’ she said, pointing, ‘first turn on the right.’
‘Thank you.’
‘No bother,’ she said as she moved away. ‘Good luck.’
‘It was a good idea of mine to ask someone, wasn’t it?’ Jack beamed up at her proudly as he handed Lou back her phone.
‘Yeah.’ She put a hand on his head. ‘Good thinking. It was a brilliant idea.’ It may not be her style of self-reliance, but it was still a sort of resourcefulness – maybe even a better kind for Jack. His way of navigating the world didn’t have to be her way. The important thing was he’d figured it out for himself. It didn’t matter if it was by asking a stranger or by looking at a map. He’d get where he needed to go either way.
Lou’s heartbeat picked up as they got closer to their destination. She had no idea what they were going to find, and she second-guessed the wisdom of bringing Jack before she’d checked the place out for herself. She’d been caught up in the bewildering, heady excitement of suddenly inheriting a house out of the blue from someone she hadn’t even known existed and she’d wanted him to share in the adventure of it. It was only now occurring to her that the fairy-tale cottage she’d been fantasising about could just as easily turn out to be a tumbledown wreck with holes for windows and overgrown creeper blocking the door – more wicked witch’s abode than somewhere Goldilocks might go for a lie down. Maybe bringing her five-year-old son along for the ride was just another example of the kind of stupid, reckless behaviour her father had always said was typical of her. What an idiot, she thought, her sense of foreboding mounting with everystep. After all, what were the chances this would turn out to be the unbelievable stroke of good luck it seemed? Since when did things like that happen to her?
There was nothing wrong with the location anyway, she thought, as they turned down a narrow lane off one of the main streets right in the centre of town.
‘This is it,’ she said, relief surging through her as they stopped outside a pretty little, blue-painted cottage.
‘Sea Hav— Haven.’ Jack read the sign on the wooden gate hesitantly.
‘Very good.’
‘What’s “Haven” mean?’
‘It means a refuge, a place where you know you’ll be safe.’ Lou was surprised to find tears springing to her eyes, suddenly overwhelmed with relief and gratitude. ‘This is going to be our haven.’ She put an arm around Jack and squeezed him to her side, then pushed open the gate.
The cottage looked a little neglected, the blue paint flaking and faded, the small garden an overgrown jungle of weeds. But it was intact and solid, there was a roof and glass in the windows, and it was all theirs. Nevertheless, her heart was in her mouth as she fumbled in her bag for the keys, and her fingers shook as she unlocked the door.
It opened straight into a small living/dining room. She walked to the centre of the space and looked around. Jack followed her and did the same. It was a small room and had obviously been left exactly as it was whenever Noreen Plunkett, her father’s godmother, had died. There was a lot of clutter, every surface covered in a jumble of knick-knacks. But the furniture looked sturdy enough and Lou was glad she wouldn’t have to fork out for everything right out of the gate. There was a wooden table and chairs, an old-style dresser, and a set of shelves on either side of the fireplace. The faded, threadbarecarpet that covered the wooden floorboards probably just needed a thorough clean, and the red two-seater couch had seen better days, but looked comfortable. Lou could already envision how cosy it could be with some cheery soft furnishings and a fire blazing in the hearth.
