The following morning the house that’s filled to the brim with people, every bedroom full, every couch being slept on despite Marie’s planning, is completely silent. It was six a.m. when the party finally ended, and though Laura went to bed after her discussion with Solomon, so annoyed with herself for saying what she’d said, and him embarrassed for trying to be her knight in shining armour, he had stayed up for a few more hours, watching Rory, watching the stairs to make sure she was safe. Rory had given Solomon a wide berth – physically but not mentally, Rory never could avoid that. Whenever they would catch eyes he’d wink or give him a cheeky grin that was enough to send Solomon spiralling into a silent jealous rage. He’d gone to his room around two a.m. and then been kept awake by the singing and shouting downstairs, and by Donal, who collapsed on him somewhere around five a.m., snoring as soon as his head hit the pillow.
Solomon could quite gladly have stayed in bed all day, or taken off somewhere quiet with his guitar to play or to write: he feels something stirring in him. The feelings of inspiration are rare these days, but he knows he won’t settle. He reckons Laura will more than likely rise early, and he doesn’t want Rory to take her off anywhere again. He isn’t planning to act like her bodyguard the entire time, but he certainly isn’t about to let it be his baby brother who gets his paws on her.
He showers quickly and goes downstairs. Every single window of the house is open to air the stench of stale smoke and drink. Marie is sitting at the kitchen table in her dressing gown, with her neighbours, drinking Bloody Marys.
‘Will you have a fry?’ she asks, her voice tired. The festivities have taken it out of her.
‘I’m grand, thanks, Mam. Have you lads not been home yet?’ Solomon jokes, pouring milk into his cereal.
‘Yes, but we came around again for round two, ding ding!’ their neighbour Jim laughs, lifting his Bloody Mary. ‘Sláinte.’ Despite his cheer, the mood is calm as they dissect the goings on of the night. ‘Your Lyrebird is a real treasure,’ he says.
‘How did you know she’s called Lyrebird?’
‘She told us. Said you’d named her that. Not familiar myself, but sounds like a fascinating bird. Nowhere near as fascinating as the girl, though. My word, that’s some set of organs on her.’
‘A great set of organs all right,’ Rory says suddenly, shuffling into the kitchen sleepily and scratching his head.
‘She went across to the beach,’ Marie says, watching Solomon closely, trying to hide her knowing smile as he suddenly throws heaped spoons of cereal into his mouth in an effort to finish quickly and get outside to Laura.
‘Mind if I—’ He stands up and dumps the cereal bowl in the sink.
‘Go.’ She smiles. ‘But don’t forget you promised your dad you’d go shooting today.’
Laura is standing at the water’s edge in another of her interesting fashion concoctions. It looks like she’s wearing a man’s shirt, probably Tom’s, but using her alteration skills she has adjusted it to fit as a dress, added clashing fabric of another shirt along the bottom for length, with a leather belt knotted around her waist, a pair of black Doc Martens with woollen socks pulled up to below her knee, which work on her long lean legs, and a denim jacket. Solomon doesn’t know much about fashion, but he knows she’s certainly not following any trends. Even so, she looks cool. She looks like the kind of woman he’d chat up in a bar, the kind of woman who’d turn his head. The kind of woman who could turn his heart.
Laura feels like she could stand at the water’s edge for ever; it has been years since she has been near the sea, since her last family holiday with Gaga and Mum in Dingle. She could easily stay standing here, but that was the problem with Laura, she could stay anywhere she set her mind to, for ever. Full days spent in the forest, leaning against a tree trunk, gazing up through the leaves at the sky. An entire day, lost in her mind, in her memory, in her daydreams. But not any more; she has to stop this, she needs to change with the change, prepare for a new direction.
She closes her eyes and listens to the water lapping gently, she almost starts to sway with the relaxation. The seagulls sing overhead and she relishes the beauty and perfection of the moment. It’s made even more perfect with the arrival of him. She smells him before she hears him.
‘Hi, Solomon,’ she says before he says anything, before she even turns around.