Nobody would have known there was anything urgent in the transaction. Finbarr had the lightest, smiling air about him. As if everything – even life and death – was easy. He hoisted the puppy under his chin and handed over the bucket, knowing he’d have to pay his father back for the fish.
‘The man was about to throw the puppy away,’ Finbarr’s father scolded. ‘Do you really think he expected to be paid for it?’
Finbarr named the dog Alby, first bottle feeding then training him. Uncle Jack was glad to hire Finbarr to bicycle over to the farm on his days off the boat, to help move sheep from one pasture to the other. Jack said Alby was the best herding dog in County Cork.
‘It’s because of the boy,’ Aunt Rosie said. ‘He’s got a way with creatures, hasn’t he. He could turn a goat into a champion herder. You can’t tell me another handler would have the same results with that dog.’
My uncle’s collie was a passable herder but nothing to Alby. I thought that dog – small, slight and graceful – was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I thought Finbarr – hair black and silky, gleaming nearly blue in the summer sun – was the second most beautiful. He had a way with creatures, as Aunt Rosie had said, and after all, what was I? Finbarr was a few years older than me. When he rode by, he’d pretend to tip the hat he wasn’t wearing. I have never liked people who constantly smile, as if they think everything’s funny. But Finbarr smiled differently, not out of amusement, but happiness. As if he liked the world and enjoyed being in it.
‘It seems a wonderful thing,’ I said to my Aunt Rosie that evening, while we did the washing up, ‘to always be happy.’
Right away she knew who I was speaking of. ‘He’s been like that his whole life,’ Aunt Rosie said, with deep fondness. ‘Sunny. Proves rich or poor doesn’t matter, if you ask me. Some people are just born happy. I think that’s the luckiest thing. If you’re sunny inside, you never have to worry about the weather.’
One evening after supper, Finbarr bicycled over to the house when Seamus and I were playing tennis. I’d learned to play in my first week and now won every game. ‘I don’t know where you get the energy after a full day of work,’ Uncle Jack had said to us, shaking his head in fond admiration.
‘Where’s Alby?’ Seamus called to Finbarr. He was ten then and as dazzled by the dog as I was.
‘I left him at home. I thought you’d be playing tennis. He’ll chase the balls and spoil the game.’
My uncle’s collie, Brutus, lay under the porch, tired after a day of herding, uninterested in playing.
‘You can play with Nan,’ Seamus said, handing over his racket. ‘Win one for me, will you?’ His red curls drooped from the failed attempt to best me.
I bounced the ball on my racket, recognizing it as showing off but not able to help myself. Finbarr smiled as usual, blue eyes turned grey by fading evening sunlight. ‘Ready, then?’ I hit the ball over the net before he could answer. We goofed like that a bit, sending the ball back and forth to each other. Then we played in earnest. I won two games before Alby came crashing over the hills. Running straight for Finbarr, then changing course, leaping to snatch the ball from the air.
We threw our rackets down and chased him. There were other balls but it seemed the natural thing to do. Laughter filling the sky. Uncle Jack and Aunt Rosie came out to the porch to laugh along with us. Finally Finbarr stopped running, stood stock still and yelled, ‘Alby, stop.’
The dog halted so immediately, so precisely, it was clear Finbarr had this power all along.
‘Out,’ Finbarr commanded, and Alby spat the ball onto the grass. Finbarr approached him with measured steps, scooped the ball up and held it in the air. ‘Nan,’ he said, ‘make a wish.’
‘I wish I could stay in Ireland forever.’
He threw the ball, a long arc, and Alby went rushing for it, catching it mid-air, paws miles above the ground.
‘Granted,’ Finbarr said, and turned to me. Magical enough to make it so.
A few days later, he came by the house after helping Uncle Jack. I had finished mucking out the stables and lay on the hill in a pocket of clover, still reeking of manure, reading A Room with a View. Brutus lay beside me, resting his head on my stomach.
‘Your uncle will need a new dog before long,’ Finbarr said. Alby stood at his side, ears perked. ‘You can tell they’re getting old when they’re tired at the end of the day.’
‘Doesn’t Alby get tired sometimes?’ I shaded my eyes to see him.
‘Never.’ Finbarr said it with a confidence so firm it had to be wishful.
‘Well, Brutus will never get old,’ I said, also wishful, patting the dog’s narrow, tawny head. From somewhere nearby a skylark chirruped, continuous and complaining. Of course, there were birds in London but I’d never noticed them much. Since coming to Ireland I’d learned the sky was its own separate universe, just above our heads, teeming with its own brand of singing life.
‘I brought you something.’ Finbarr held out a four-leaf clover. I reached for it without sitting up and straight away the fourth leaf fluttered away. He’d been holding it there with his finger.
‘Fake luck.’ I flicked it away with a laugh, still delighted.
Finbarr flopped down beside me. He never minded being contradicted, just like he never minded me winning game after game of tennis. He never minded anything.
‘I hope I don’t smell like fish,’ he said.
I thought about lying and saying no. Instead I said, ‘Well, I smell of sheep and horse shite, so we’re a good match.’
‘I smell of those things too.’ He wove his fingers together, arched his arms over behind his head and made a pillow of his hands. ‘You like to read, do you?’
‘Yes.’
‘I could read that book when you’re done.’ He stared straight up at the sky, not at my book. ‘Then we can talk about it.’
‘Do you like to read?’
‘No. But I could start.’
‘This one’s mostly about a girl.’
‘I don’t mind reading about girls.’
I turned my head and stared at him, and he tilted his head towards me. Long black eyelashes framed eyes of layered blue. Soon Uncle Jack would come up over the hill and he wouldn’t like to see us, lying side by side, even though we were a good two feet apart.
‘I think I’d like to be a writer,’ I said. It was nothing I’d ever thought of before. I liked to read but had never tried my hand at stories or poems.
‘You’d be a grand writer,’ Finbarr said. ‘You’d be grand at anything.’
He put a strand of grass between his teeth and turned his eyes back to the sky. Legs crossed at the ankles. Alby tugged at his trouser legs, dissatisfied with a full day of running, or else eager to get home for the evening meal.
‘Nan O’Dea,’ my aunt called from the house. ‘You get up this minute, please, and wash for supper.’
I knew the sternness in her voice was over me and Finbarr lying down together, not my need to wash. We jumped to our feet, both of us with mussed hair, sun from a day working outdoors rosying our cheeks.
‘Stay for supper, Finbarr?’ Aunt Rosie called, forgiving him, as no one could ever help but do.