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  Laura cannot lose doing the documentary. Without the documentary crew, she has nobody, she needs to cling to them as she would a life raft.

  ‘Doing the talent show to help the documentary seems like a great idea of Bo’s,’ she says.

  He nods. ‘I suppose it is.’

  She smiles. ‘You don’t always like Bo’s ideas.’

  He looks relieved to be able to tell the truth. ‘No, I don’t. And, Laura, to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure about this one. This is completely your decision.’

  ‘What do you think of this talent show?’ she asks.

  He screws his face up, squeezes his eyes shut while thinking about an answer. ‘I used to work on it,’ he says. ‘Sound.’

  ‘That’s not an answer.’

  ‘Nothing gets past you.’ He smiles. ‘It’s a risk. You could do the audition and not get through to the next round. The crowd could love you, the crowd could for some unknown reason take a dislike to you. You could audition and be booed off the stage. You could audition and possibly win. If that happens, your life could go in a myriad of directions. It depends on what you want to do with your life.’

  ‘And if I don’t win?’

  He thinks about it. ‘You’ll be forgotten almost immediately.’

  She gives it careful thought. Directions, Laura thinks. Options. Different directions sound good because she can’t go back. If she makes a fool of herself she’ll be forgotten, that’s not so bad. That’s almost a perk.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ she says firmly, to Solomon’s surprise.

  From one bridge to another.

  That afternoon, when Solomon’s brothers have risen from their beds and come to life, they make their way to a clay pigeon shooting range nearby. Competition is the name of the game and always has been between the siblings and their dad, Cara excluded; she chooses to stay home and catch up with her mother. A keen poker player, Finbar always has his eye on winning and has instilled this into his children. Every year they go hunting; pheasant, woodcock, pigeon, game, whatever is available, and the amount they hit is the mark of the man. As it’s out of season for bird hunting, they have to settle for clay pigeon shooting, and already Finbar has devised a method of scorekeeping and rules.

  Solomon and Laura plan to follow the others in Solomon’s car, but as they are moving out, the car door opens and Rory jumps in. Solomon feels rage but buries it. Laura’s eyes light up and she politely giggles away at the ridiculous jokes and stories Rory tells on the way in. Solomon tries to compose himself while ignoring most of the things his brother says, but he’s unable to ignore how animated Laura has become in Rory’s company.

  Laura walks with Rory to the shooting range, which consists of a series of wooden cabins in a row. Solomon stays protectively beside her, though not too close. He’s not sure whether she wants him to leave but he chooses to stay regardless. Five cabins, all holding groups of six, are full. A weekend of good summer weather has brought the groups out.

  Laura is content to sit on the bench and watch them fight it out. To Solomon’s irritation, Rory sits beside Laura. Solomon stands nearby feeling like a spare part, trying to hear their conversation. She likes him, he knows that much, and so as the game goes on he moves away, gives them space, feeling pushed out and resenting his brother, and himself, the whole time.

  Solomon concentrates intently on hitting the clay pigeons while Rory talks behind him. He feels that Rory is doing it deliberately, a ploy to put him off his game, and then again realises the arrogance of that thought. Solomon misses the first clay.

  ‘Shut the fuck up, lads,’ he barks, and they quieten. Finbar shushes Rory, which pleases Solomon and he hits every one after that. Five in a row, but that’s only a warm-up round. Rory is up next and Solomon is pleased to have the bench.

  Laura holds her hand up for a high-five.

  Solomon smiles and meets her hand, allowing his fingers to cave in and join with hers. She smiles at him. They let their hands fall down slowly, still linked. Then he thinks of Bo and wonders what the fuck he’s doing and lets go.

  Rory hits every single one.

  ‘That’s what you get for missing Christmas,’ Finbar teases Solomon, who missed the Christmas hunt.

  ‘Ah, don’t be too hard on him,’ Donal says, picking up the gun and taking his place. ‘These award-winning documentary makers are jet-setters now.’

  ‘It wasn’t me getting the award, lads, it was Mouth to Mouth that was receiving it.’ Solomon folds his arms and stands next to Laura. He thinks about sitting down but there’s no room on her side, and he doesn’t want to sit beside Rory, who’s taken his place again.

  ‘You were receiving mouth to mouth?’ Donal asks before pulling the trigger.

  Solomon explains to Laura: ‘It’s the name of Bo’s production company. She sees documentaries as a way of breathing life into stories. Helping them come alive.’

  Rory makes a vomiting sound.

  ‘Grow up, Rory.’

  ‘Wawwy,’ Laura says, in Solomon’s perfect impression of himself.

  She’s not teasing Solomon and hopes he doesn’t feel that, but she’s assessing the atmosphere between him and Rory and puts it down to that. A simple word explains how Solomon feels. Though Rory doesn’t see it that way, neither do the others. The lads laugh thinking she’s mocking him. Solomon folds his arms and looks into the distance. ‘Come on, get a move on, we’ll be here all day.’

  Laura looks at him apologetically.

  They each have a turn. Their dad is in joint lead with Rory, who always works best when he has somebody to show off in front of. Cormac is last. Intense Cormac who thinks too much before he takes a shot.

  ‘Cara shoots better photos,’ Solomon teases him.

  Solomon likes it when Rory takes his turn because it frees the bench beside Laura. He thinks about sitting in Rory’s place, but then thinks it might be petty, that perhaps they’ll jeer him, they’ll read too much into it. So he remains standing and Laura is more interested in watching his shots anyway. Rory never misses one. As the only son who still lives at home with his parents, he has more time to go hunting with his dad.

  To everybody’s amusement, Laura mimics the shotguns, the clay pigeon machine, the sound as they’re released, the sound as they’re hit. It’s interesting to Solomon how quickly everybody gets used to her sounds, and they continue without turning to watch her after every sound. Now and then a sound will rouse a chuckle from one of them, a ‘Good one, Laura!’ from his dad, an impressed, surprised cry of delight, never of jest, and Solomon could kiss them all for this.

  Rory is now in the lead. Finbar and Solomon are tied. Cormac and Donal are lagging behind. If Solomon gets six out of six, and his dad misses one, then he’ll tie with Rory. He steps up to the mark. Places the shotgun on his shoulder.

  ‘Good luck, Solomon,’ Laura says, and this softens him.

  Behind him, Rory picks up his own shotgun and motions for her to follow. She frowns, but stands quietly and follows him. He moves to the side, out of his family’s eyeshot, but they’re not watching him anyway because they’re all facing the other way, watching Solomon. Rory points at something a little way away in the grass and Laura smiles with delight. It’s a beautiful hare. A silly thing that has wandered off and found itself on a dangerous battlefield. It leaps wildly, trying to find a way out, the shotguns going off around him from the five cabins. Laura smiles and watches it. She hasn’t seen a hare for years, there were none up on the mountain, badgers and rats being the largest mammals, neither of which were something she wanted to see around her home.

  While she’s watching it, Rory raises the rifle to his shoulder. Takes aim.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asks.

  He fires immediately, causing the others to jump at the sound so close to them, that hasn’t come from Solomon’s gun.

  Laura screams. Solomon gets a fright and his finger pulls the trigger. He misses the clay pigeon, not that he cares because he’s so concerned abou
t Laura. He turns around and sees her duck under the wooden rail onto the grass.

  ‘What’s she doing?’ Donal asks.

  ‘Laura, no!’ he yells, putting down the gun and running after her.

  ‘Get back here!’ Finbar yells after him, as do the others, but he ignores them. People are firing all around them, Laura could be hit.

  The owner spots them, yells for everyone to hold their fire but word doesn’t reach them instantly, and a few shots are fired as both Laura and Solomon run across the field.

  ‘Laura! Stop!’ Solomon yells, angry that she has put herself in such danger. He reaches her and wraps his arm around her waist, pulling her towards him, tight to his body. She pushes his arm away, as she looks around the ground in a panic as though she’s searching for something. He lets her go and watches her circling the area, trying to find something, making noises, sounds he can’t decipher. Animal sounds, gunshot sounds.

  ‘Laura what are you doing?’ He’s calmer now that everybody in the cabins has put down their guns, but they’re all lining up at the rails to watch the spectacle. He doesn’t want her to become a spectacle, part of a circus.

  She circles the same patch in the field, eyes down, panicked, making sound after sound, almost in an effort to track it down.

  ‘Laura,’ he says calmly. ‘I’ll help you. What are you doing?’

  He feels his brothers beside him. His dad. He looks at them confused, sees that Rory is hanging behind, looking guilty.

  ‘What did you do?’ he asks him, roughly.

  Rory ignores him.

  ‘He shot something,’ Cormac says, annoyed with his baby brother. ‘Rory, Jesus, you could have hit one of us. You don’t fire from the cabin.’

  ‘This isn’t fucking Platoon,’ Donal says.

  ‘What did you shoot?’ Solomon asks. ‘Did you shoot a bird?’

  ‘There aren’t any fucking birds,’ Rory says, annoyed that everyone is turning on him now. ‘Why would a bird fly over here?’

  ‘Ah, don’t touch that, love,’ Finbar says suddenly as he spins around to see her on her knees, on the grass, beside a hare. A hare that has been shot but isn’t yet dead. Laura sobs, tears gushing down her cheeks, as she mimics its dying sounds.

  ‘Jesus,’ Rory says, looking at her as if she’s weird. ‘It’s only a fucking hare.’

  ‘You can’t kill fucking hares here,’ his dad snaps at him, trying to keep his voice down with so many eyes on them. ‘Christ, what are you thinking, you’ll have us all banned, Rory.’

  ‘He was showing off, that’s what,’ Cormac says, annoyed.

  ‘We really should get back to the cabin,’ Finbar says to Solomon, eyeing Laura worriedly, conscious of the stares they’ve attracted.

  ‘I know.’ Solomon rubs his eyes tiredly. ‘Just give her a minute.’

  He watches as Laura kneels next to the dying hare, mimicking its sounds, sobbing with such sadness. While the others might think she’s crazy, he understands her pain, her loss.

  The owner starts to walk towards them, a red, angry head on him.

  Solomon goes to Laura, hunches down and puts his arm around her shoulder. ‘It’s gone now, come on let’s go.’

  He feels her body tremble as she slowly stands and looks around. At all the eyes on her. At the sniggering, at the frowns, at the raised camera phones. Even Rory won’t meet her eye now, hanging back and starting to head to the cabin without them. She wipes her cheeks and tries to compose herself.

  Rory is gone by the time they reach the cabin, he’s hitched a lift with somebody else. The mood ruined, they’re a man down and the game is over, so they return to the house.

  Marie and Cara look at them questioningly as they arrive home earlier than expected to shrugs and awkward grumbles. Solomon leads Laura upstairs to her bedroom, he stands at the doorway.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  She lies down on her bed, curls herself into a ball, continues crying. Solomon wants to lie alongside her, wrap his body around hers, protect her.

  ‘Do you want to leave?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes please,’ she says through a sob.

  It’s a quiet goodbye to Finbar and Marie. Marie gives her a gentle hug and tells her to mind herself, but Laura is silent, aside from a whispered thank you. She insists on sitting in the back seat of the car while Solomon drives to Dublin, and at first it’s because she doesn’t want to be near him, but then he sees her lie down, facing away from him. He plays the radio lightly, a Jack Starr song comes on the radio and though he usually turns it off, he turns it up a little.

  ‘That’s Jack Starr,’ Solomon says to her. ‘The lad who’ll be judge on StarrQuest.’

  She doesn’t respond. He looks in the rear-view mirror and sees her back still turned to him. He turns the music down, eventually changes the station and then decides to turn it off completely. Occasionally she whimpers like the dying hare and the sound merges into Mossie’s whimpers of a few days ago, on the same back seat as they headed to the vet.

  He keeps the music off for the remainder of the journey as she deals with yet another loss in her life in the same week, in the only way she knows how.

  Laura lies across the back seat of Solomon’s car. Her head is pounding, a migraine that pulsates behind her eyes; her sinuses throb, as if the pain has been transferred and now she’s feeling the pain from the organs that saw it. She can’t make it go away; the best she can do is to close her eyes, fixate on the darkness.

  The darkness flickers with images of her mother, Gaga, Tom; all the things she could have and maybe should have said to him. At the beginning, when she moved to the cottage, things between them had been awkward. He was less used to human company than she was. She was gentle with him, took some time to observe his ways; read when he wanted to stay with her longer, read when he wasn’t in the mood to converse. As the years went by, he would often sit with her and eat a meal she’d cooked. She would spend extra time preparing a special meal on Thursdays in case he had time to stay. Sometimes they sat in complete silence, him in his head, her observing him, trying to pick out all the parts of her that she recognised in him. Sometimes they talked constantly throughout his visit, about nature, about sport, about something she’d read in a magazine or heard on the radio. Despite her being the hidden one, she felt she was the one who provided him with more information about the world. His world was his farm, and while hers was the cottage, she listened to the radio, and she read, so she was always connected to what was happening. She just needed him to bring the batteries. She felt that he liked listening to her talk. Maybe he was picking the parts of himself from her too. He wasn’t someone to laugh easily, he was simple-minded, good-natured, a good listener and a keen observer. They were alike that way. She thinks of the last time she saw him, disappearing through the trees with a wave, Mossie at his heels. He was going to return later to fix her window. It needed sealer. He’d walk around the cottage tapping things, banging things, kicking things. At first she felt he was rude, never able to focus on her, then she realised it was his way of helping her, of showing he cared. For so many years he was all she had and she loved him.

  She thinks of Mossie, of Rory and the cheeky smile on his handsome face before he shot that hare. The sound it made as it went down. It was far away, and the gunshot echoed in her ears, but she was sure she heard it. The sound it made as it left the world.

  Cruelty.

  What is she doing in this world? Where is she going?

  She knows that she has so much further to go than the distance she has come. She could always go back. Her bridge is wavering, a rope bridge at best, its fragile supports are close to snapping if they take any more weight. She thinks of Joe, who looked so like Tom she thought it was him. She hears his angry shouts, directed at her, the wrong tone coming from his mouth, and her eyes are forced open. She feels Solomon in her space, imagines that his eyes are on her, feels his body pressed up against hers on the clay pigeon field as he tried to pull her to safety, his strong arms
around her waist. Even when he’s not physically touching her, he has that presence in her life. His arm around her waist, pulling her away from danger.

  She’s not sure about where she’s going, but she knows she can’t go back.

  17

  It’s evening by the time Solomon and Laura arrive in Dublin. She still hasn’t spoken a word to him during the entire trip, despite him calling out to her a few times, softly checking to see if she’s okay or if she’d like him to stop the car. He thinks she may be sleeping, because the sounds have stopped. If that’s the case, he learns she makes no sounds in her sleep, and there’s an intimacy in knowing that about her, in even wanting to know that about her. He’s never felt he’s wanted to know so much about a person before. He watches her again in the rear-view mirror and then sighs, and settles into his seat.

  Solomon’s apartment is on Grand Canal, a newly developed area among swanky office blocks. Beneath each apartment block is a hive of restaurants and cafés, so that the first summer months Solomon moved in, he sat on the balcony with a beer, listening to the conversations of strangers below his balcony. He used to listen to everything, was interested in everything, then one night when the drink-fuelled arguments began, he was stupid enough to go downstairs and try to intervene. Instead of peace, he received a black eye. Those conversations eventually grew irritating. Nothing that anybody said was of any interest to him: prattle, small-talk, gossip, nagging, awkward first dates, silent settled couples, raucous groups of friends. So he avoided the balcony, or he’d cough loudly, clear his throat, turn up his music to alert them to the fact somebody was above them who could hear.

  And then he stopped hearing them. He doesn’t know when it happened, but it occurred to him during the first week that Bo moved in. She couldn’t sleep one night because of the talking outside. Then she couldn’t concentrate on her paperwork during the day because of the noise from the wakeboarding in the water outside. And while he was telling her a story over lunch, he could see she wasn’t listening.