Читать книгу Pipe Dreams - Anne Schulman - Страница 7

Meany stood behind Julie at the graveside. His heart ached for her. When she could bear no more, she turned to Meany and hid her face in his shoulder.

Meany stood silently as she leaned against him. The nearness of her curled through him. He could smell her perfume. And feel the softness of her curls on his face. A blush stained his cheeks. This was neither the time nor the place to feel the way he did.

Later, as people paid their respects to Julie and her sister, Meany waited quietly by the bay window of the cottage. Julie, her mother and her sister, Katie, had done a good job of restoring it. It looked different now. Bigger. Brighter. All white with just splashes of colour. A real picture-book cottage. Meany gazed through the window at the garden. What would happen to the cottage now? Julie and her sister both worked in Dublin. Would they sell the cottage or keep it? But more importantly, would Julie return to Dublin and stay there if he didn’t ask her to marry him? With her mam gone and the cottage sold, Julie would have no reason to come back to Wexford.

Meany supposed that he and Julie had a kind of understanding. Nothing official. No engagement ring or anything. The thought of that made his blood run cold. The expense. God knows what a ring would cost. And then there was the farm. Julie would not live there as it was. She had thrown out enough hints about that. She had said so in lots of different ways. She was forever at him to modernise it. To have heating put in. Install a phone. Get a proper cooker and a washing machine. Buy comfortable furniture for himself. Clean up the garden. An endless stream of suggestions poured from those luscious, red lips.

“I’ll probably go back to Dublin next week,” Julie told a neighbour. “There’s nothing to keep me here now, is there?”

Meany’s hand shook. He wobbled the glass to his lips, his mind racing.

“Nothing to keep her here,” he muttered to himself. “What about me?”