He may not feel it’s right interviewing Joe on the day of his brother’s funeral but he does have some of his own questions he’d like answering. Despite his frustration with Bo for overstepping boundaries, he always benefits from her doing so.
Solomon takes off on his own to record. Now and then Bo points out an area, an angle, or an item that she would like Rachel to capture, but mostly she leaves them to their own devices. This is what Solomon likes about working with Bo. Not unlike the Toolin twins, Bo, Solomon and Rachel understand how each member of the team prefers to work and they give each other the space to do that. Solomon feels a freedom on these jobs that is lacking in the other work he takes on purely to pay the bills. A winter spent filming unusual body parts for a TV show Grotesque Bodies, followed by summer shooting at a reality fat fit club that sucked the life from him. He is grateful for these documentaries with Bo, for her curiosity. What irritates him about her are the very skill sets that help set him free from his regular day-jobs.
An hour into their filming, the funeral car arrives, closely followed by Joe, eighty years old, behind the wheel of the Land Rover. Joe climbs out of the jeep, wearing the same dark brown suit, sweater and shirt that they’ve seen on him hundreds of times. Instead of his Wellington boots he wears a pair of shoes. Even on this sunny day he wears what he’d wear in the depths of winter, perhaps a hidden layer less. A tweed cap covers his head.
Bo goes to him immediately. Rachel and Solomon follow.
‘Joe,’ Bo says, reaching out to him and shaking his hand. A hug would have been too much for him, not being comfortable with physical affection. ‘I’m so sorry for your loss.’
‘You didn’t have to come,’ he says, surprised, looking around at the three of them. ‘Weren’t you in America when I rang you?’ he asks, as if they were on another planet.
‘Yes, but we came home straight away to be here for you. Could we film, Joe? Would that be okay? People who watched your story would like to know how you’re doing.’
Solomon tenses up at Bo’s nerve but she also amuses him, he finds her gutsiness, her honesty, remarkable and rare.
‘Ara go on,’ says Joe, waving his hand dismissively as if it makes no difference to him either way.
‘Can we talk to you afterwards, Joe? Is there a gathering planned? Tea, sandwiches, that kind of thing?’
‘There’s the graveyard and that’s it. No fuss, no fuss. Back to business, I’m working for two now, aren’t I?’
Joe’s eyes are sad and tired with dark circles. The coffin is removed from the car and is placed on a trolley by the pallbearers. Including the film crew, there are a total of nine people in the church.
The funeral is short and to the point, the eulogy read by the priest, who mentions Tom’s work ethic, his love for his land, his long-departed parents and his close relationship with his brother. The only movement the stoic Joe makes is to remove his cap when Tom’s coffin is lowered into the ground at the graveyard. After that, he pops it back on his head, and walks to his jeep. In his head, Solomon can almost hear him say, ‘That’s that.’
After the burial, Bo interviews Bridget the housekeeper, though it’s a title that’s used loosely as she merely delivers food and dusts the cobwebs from their damp home. She’s afraid to look at the camera in case it explodes in her face, looking defensive as though every question is an accusation. Local garda Jimmy, the Toolin twins’ animal feed supplier and a neighbouring farmer whose sheep share the mountainous land with theirs, all refuse an interview.
The Toolin farm is a thirty-minute drive, far from anything, deep in the heart of the mountainside.
‘Are there books in the Toolin house?’ Bo asks out of nowhere. She does that often, blurts out random questions and thoughts as she slots the various pieces of information that come from different places together in her head to tell one clear story.
‘I’ve no idea,’ Solomon says, looking at Rachel. Rachel would have a better visual image and memory than any of them.
Rachel thinks about it, re-runs her shot-list in her head. ‘Not in the kitchen.’ She’s silent while she runs through the house. ‘Not in the bedroom. Not on open shelves, anyway. They have bedside lockers, could be in there.’
‘But nowhere else.’
‘No,’ Rachel says, certain.
‘Why do you ask?’ Solomon asks.
‘Bridget. She said that Tom was an “avid reader”.’ Bo scrunches her face up. ‘I wouldn’t peg him as a reader.’
‘I don’t think you can tell if someone’s a reader or not by looking at them.’
‘Readers definitely always wear glasses,’ Rachel jokes.
‘Tom never mentioned books. We lived their entire schedule with them for a year. I never saw him read, even hold a book. They didn’t read newspapers, neither of them. They listened to the radio. Weather reports, sports and sometimes the news. Then they’d go to bed. Nothing about reading.’