The One I Was by Eliza Graham Page B

though.’
    His shoulders stiffened slightly and I knew he was thinking about Dad and how much he missed him.
    I went downstairs again. Smithy was stirring another saucepan of bubbling fruit and sugar. Cathal came in with a colander of raspberries. ‘Thought you’d like these, Miss Smith.’
    Smithy blinked slightly at the title. ‘Thought you were doing the bindweed this morning?’
    ‘I like to move between tasks,’ he said. ‘I find it makes the work more interesting.’
    She looked at him in a way that suggested he wasn’t expected to find the work interesting. Cathal reached out to place the colander on the kitchen table. But before it reached the table, his hand twitched slightly. The raspberries trickled down to the lino. Smithy gasped. Cathal stared at the raspberries as though uncertain as to what they were doing on the floor.
    ‘Well don’t just stand there.’ Smithy slapped her spoon down on the worktop and crouched on the floor. ‘Give me that colander.’
    ‘What a mess I’ve made.’ He pulled the colander back from her outstretched hand. ‘I’ll sort it out, Miss Smith, never you mind.’ She straightened herself, leaving him to pick up the spilled fruit. ‘They’ll probably need rinsing.’
    He handed the colander to her and walked out.
    ‘Don’t worry about wiping the floor over,’ she called after him. ‘I’ll do it myself.’
    I listened to Cathal’s footsteps walking across the flagstones. They stopped. I went to peep out of the doorway. He stood at the table by the front door, examining the base of a blue vase, eyes screwed up in concentration. He replaced the vase on the table and made for the grandfather clock, reading the words on the face.
    He turned.
    I jerked myself back into the kitchen, but not before I’d seen him wink. He made me feel as though I’d sided with him, which was strange because until then I’d always really got along with Smithy; she let me help her make jam and tied old dusters to my feet when she was polishing the floor so I could skate on the surface and buff it.
    But Smithy could make you feel you weren’t living up to her high standards, as though you weren’t living up to the shiny surfaces and perfectly dusted ornaments. Cathal seemed to suggest that it might be more fun not to try to be perfect.
    *
    Cathal came to Fairfleet most days. Mum would take him out a mug of tea, chatting to him while he drank it. Sometimes she smiled at his jokes. Seeing the lines crease around her eyes made me smile too.
    ‘You’ll grow roots if you keep standing at that window,’ Smithy warned me, as I stood watching the pair of them. ‘Go outside and play. Shame to waste the weather.’ But she watched Cathal too. He was replacing stone slabs on the wall that separated the vegetable garden from the lawn. The slabs were large, but he moved them into place as though they were pieces of Lego. ‘Bit of a navvy in that one,’ Smithy said. ‘I hope we haven’t made a mistake, letting him ease his way in here.’
    ‘What’s a navvy?’
    ‘An Irish labourer. They do heavy building, roads, railways, that kind of thing.’
    But I couldn’t imagine Cathal building roads.
    Smithy was still frowning at him. ‘There’s more to that one than meets the eye.’
    I felt as though she was accusing me of something. ‘Mum was so tired,’ I said. ‘And the garden was becoming a mess.’
    She put a wrinkled hand on my arm. Smithy wasn’t usually one for making physical gestures. ‘You’re a good girl, Rose, you care about your family. But there are some in life that aren’t as good.’
    I went out and rode my bicycle around the lawn a few times, watching Cathal. Mum had left him with his mug of tea. He was preparing the lawnmower. The catch connecting the fuel container to the mower seemed to be causing problems. He swore gently, then turned as he heard me on my bicycle.
    ‘Ah, Rose. You find me the victim of a recalcitrant piece of machinery.’
    I didn’t know exactly