Holding

by Graham Norton

the dusty black and white collie dog that belonged to the Lyons from the garage looked up, satisfied himself that everything was as uninteresting as he had assumed and put his head back down between his paws.

No one living could recall a time when it had ever looked any different. Time didn’t pass in Duneen; it seeped away.

Two people lying in the dark full of love but both thinking they had failed the other. Some marriages combust, others die, and some just lie down like a wounded animal, defeated.

When her mother had died, she had been sad, but there was another feeling, too. An energy and strength that flowed through her as she prepared to be her father’s partner. Together they would run Ard Carraig. When she howled into her pillow in the days and nights after Evelyn found the body, what hurt her the most was that her father hadn’t shared her vision of their future. It was the first time in her short life that she had realised she was alone.

She had glanced in the direction of Ard Carraig and suddenly no time had passed. It was all so real. The light was the same, the heavy clouds moving across the sky, the shadows racing around the street as if the whole village doubted itself.

The house almost seemed to sense it was empty. A single heartbeat wasn’t enough to fill it, and Brid felt as if it were shutting down around her.

The sun was high and bright as Brid drove towards Ballytorne. It felt good to see the unbroken blue sky and feel the warmth of the light hitting her face through the windscreen. Everything seemed possible.

Florence had wondered if the village would come given the circumstances, but she needn’t have doubted them. A funeral was always going to be more important than the person who was being buried.