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The spell is cast.
She’s like a mythical creature, he can barely see where the tree begins and she ends. The leaves that act as their ceiling flutter in the breeze, causing rippling light effects on her face. They’re seeing each other for the first time, two complete strangers, unable to take their eyes off each other. It is the moment his life splits; who he was before he met her and who he becomes after.
PART 1 (#ud08f68fc-7a60-5cc7-b87a-6c70946ca5e7)
One of the most beautiful and rare and probably the most intelligent of all the world’s creatures is that incomparable artist, the Lyrebird … The bird is extremely shy and almost incredibly elusive … characterised by amazing intelligence.
To say that he is a being of the mountains only partially explains him. He is, certainly, a being of the mountains but no great proportion of the high ranges that mark and limit his domain can claim him for a citizen … His taste is so exacting and definite, and his disposition so discriminating, that he continues to be selective in these beautiful mountains, and it was a waste of time to seek him anywhere save in situations of extraordinary loveliness and grandeur.
Ambrose Pratt,
The Lore of the Lyrebird
1 (#ud08f68fc-7a60-5cc7-b87a-6c70946ca5e7)
That Morning
‘Are you sure you should be driving?’
‘Yes,’ Bo replies.
‘Are you sure she should be driving?’ Rachel repeats, asking Solomon this time.
‘Yes,’ Bo replies again.
‘Is there any chance you could stop texting while you’re driving? My wife is heavily pregnant, the plan is to meet my firstborn,’ Rachel says.
‘I’m not texting, I’m checking my emails.’
‘Oh well then.’ Rachel rolls her eyes, and looks out the window as the countryside races past. ‘You’re speeding. And you’re listening to the news. And you’re jet-lagged to fuck.’
‘Put your seatbelt on if you’re so worried.’
‘Well, that’s reassuring,’ Rachel mumbles as she squeezes her body into the seat behind Bo and clicks her seatbelt into place. She’d rather sit behind the passenger seat where she can keep a better eye on Bo’s driving, but Solomon has the seat pushed so far back that she can’t fit.
‘And I’m not jet-lagged,’ Bo says, finally putting her phone down, to Rachel’s relief. She waits to see Bo’s two hands return to the wheel but instead Bo turns her attention to the radio and flicks through the stations. ‘Music, music, music, why does nobody talk any more?’ she mutters.
‘Because sometimes the world needs to shut up,’ Rachel replies. ‘Well, whatever about you, he’s jet-lagged. He doesn’t know where he is.’
Solomon opens his eyes tiredly to acknowledge them both. ‘I’m awake,’ he says lazily, ‘I’m just, you know …’ He feels his eyelids being pulled closed again.
‘Yeah, I know, I know, you don’t want to see Bo driving, I get it,’ Rachel says.
Just off a six-hour flight from Boston, which landed at five thirty this morning, Solomon and Bo had grabbed breakfast at the airport, picked up their car, then Rachel, to drive three hundred kilometres to County Cork in the southwest of Ireland. Solomon had slept most of the way in the plane but it still wasn’t enough, yet every time he’d opened his eyes he’d found Bo wide awake spending every second watching as many in-flight documentaries as she could.
Some people joke about living on pure air. Solomon is convinced that Bo can live on information alone. She ingests it at an astronomical rate, always hungry for it, reading, listening, asking, seeking it out so that it leaves little room for food. She barely eats, the information fuels her but never fills her, the hunger for knowledge and information is never satiated.
Dublin based, Solomon and Bo had travelled to Boston to accept an award for Bo’s documentary, The Toolin Twins, which had won Outstanding Contribution to Film and Television at the Boston Irish Reporter Annual Awards. It was the twelfth award they’d picked up that year, after numerous others they’d been honoured with.
Three years ago they had spent a year following and filming a pair of twins, Joe and Tom Toolin, who were seventy-seven years old at the time. They were farmers who lived in an isolated part of the Cork countryside, west of Macroom. Bo had discovered their story whilst researching for a separate project, and they had quickly taken over her heart, her mind and consequently her life. The brothers lived and worked together all their lives. Neither of them had ever had a romantic relationship with a woman, or with anyone for that matter. They had lived on the same farm since birth, had worked with their father and then taken it over when he passed away. They worked in harsh conditions, and lived in a very basic home of humble means, a stone-floored farmhouse, sleeping in twin beds with nothing but an old radio to keep them entertained. They rarely left the land, received their weekly shopping from a local woman who delivered their meagre items, and did general housekeeping. The Toolin brothers’ relationship and outlook on life had torn at the heartstrings of the audience as it had the film crew, for beneath their simplicity was an honest and clear understanding of life.
Bo had produced and directed it under her production company, Mouth to Mouth productions, with Solomon on sound, Rachel on camera. They’d been a team for the past five years since their documentary, Creatures of Habit, which explored the falling number of nuns in Ireland. Bo and Solomon had been romantically involved for the past two years, since the unofficial wrap party of the documentary. The Toolin Twins had been their fifth piece of work but their first major success, and this year they had been travelling the world going from one film festival or awards ceremony to another, where Bo had been accepting awards and had polished her speech to perfection.
And now they’re on the way back to the Toolin twins’ farm which they are so familiar with. But it is not to celebrate their recent successes with the brothers, it is to attend the funeral of Tom Toolin, the younger brother by two minutes.
‘Can we stop for something to eat?’ Rachel asks.
‘No need.’ Bo reaches down to the floor on the passenger side, dangerously, one hand still on the wheel as the car swerves slightly on the motorway.
‘Jesus,’ Rachel says, not able to watch.
Bo retrieves three power bars and throws one to her. ‘Lunch.’ She rips hers open with her teeth, and takes a bite. She chews aggressively, as if it’s a pill she must swallow, food for fuel, not food for enjoyment.
‘You’re not human, you know that?’ Rachel says, opening her power bar and studying it with disappointment. ‘You’re a monster.’
‘But she’s my little inhumane monster,’ Solomon says groggily, reaching out to squeeze Bo’s thigh.
She grins.
‘I preferred it when you two weren’t fucking,’ Rachel says, looking away. ‘You used to be on my side.’
‘He’s still on your side,’ Bo says, in a joking tone but meaning it.
Solomon ignores the dig.
‘If we’re going to pay our respects to poor Joe, why did you make me pack all my gear?’ Rachel asks, mouth full of nuts and raisins, knowing exactly why but in the mood to stir things up even further. Bo and Solomon were fun like that, never completely stable, always easy to tip.
Solomon’s eyes open as he studies his girlfriend. Two years together romantically, five years professionally and he can read her like a book.
‘You don’t actually think that Bo is going to this funeral out of the goodness of her heart, do you?’ he teases. ‘Award-winning internationally renowned directors have to be receptacles for stories at all times.’
‘That sounds more like it,’ Rachel says.
‘I don’t have a heart of stone,’ Bo defends herself. ‘I re-watched the documentary on the flight. Do you remember who had the final words? Tom. “Any day you can walk away from your bed is a good day.” My heart is broken for Joe.’
‘Fractured, at least,’ Rachel teases, gently.
‘What’s Joe going to do?’ Bo continues, ignoring Rachel’s jab. ‘Who can he talk to? Will he remember to eat? Tom was the one who organised the food deliveries and he cooked.’
‘Tins of soup, beans on toast and tea and toast isn’t exactly cooking. I think Joe will easily be able to take up the gauntlet,’ Rachel smiles, remembering the men sitting down together to shovel hard bread into watery soup in the winter afternoons when darkness had already fallen.
‘For Bo, that’s a three-course meal,’ Solomon teases.
‘Imagine how lonely life will be for him now, up that mountain, especially in the dead of winter, not seeing anyone for a week or more at a time,’ Bo says.
They allow a moment of silence to pass while they ponder Joe’s fate. They knew him better than most. He and Tom had let them into their lives and had been open to every question.
While filming, Solomon often wondered how the brothers could ever function without each other. Apart from the market, and tending to their sheep, they rarely left the farm. A housekeeper would see to their domestic needs, which seemed an inconvenience to them rather than necessity. Meals were taken quickly and in silence, hurriedly shovelling food into their mouth before returning to their work. They were two peas in a pod, they would finish each other’s sentences, move around each other with such familiarity it was like a dance, but not necessarily an elegant one. Rather, one that had been honed over time, unintentionally, unrealised. Despite its lack of grace, and maybe because of it, it was beautiful to see, intriguing to watch.
It was always Joe and Tom, never Tom and Joe. Joe was the elder by two minutes. They were identical in looks, and they gelled despite the difference in personalities. They made peculiar sense in a landscape that didn’t.
There was little conversation between them, they had no need of explanation or description. Instead their communication relied on sounds that to them had meaning, nods of the head, shrugs, a wave of the hand, a few words here and there. It took a while for the film crew to understand whatever message had passed between them. They were so in tune they could sense each other’s moods, worries, fears. They knew what the other was thinking at any given time, and they gave the beauty of this particular connection no thought whatsoever. They were often bamboozled by Bo’s depth of analysis of them. Life is what it is, things are as they are, no sense analysing it, no sense trying to change what can’t be changed, or understand what can’t be understood.
‘They didn’t want anybody else because they had each other, they were each enough for one another,’ Bo says, repeating a line she has said a thousand times in promotion for her documentary but still meaning every word. ‘So am I chasing a story?’ Bo asks. ‘Fuck yeah.’
Rachel throws her empty wrapper over Bo’s shoulder.
Solomon chuckles and closes his eyes. ‘Here we go again.’
2 (#ud08f68fc-7a60-5cc7-b87a-6c70946ca5e7)
‘Wow,’ Bo says as the car crawls towards the church in its stunning surroundings. ‘We’re early. Rachel, can you get your camera set up?’
Solomon sits up, wide awake now. ‘Bo, we’re not filming the funeral. We can’t.’
‘Why not?’ she asks, brown eyes staring into his intently.
‘You don’t have permission.’
She looks around. ‘From who? This isn’t private property.’
‘Okay, I’m out,’ Rachel says, getting out of the car to avoid being caught up in another of their arguments. The tumultuous relationship is not just with Solomon, it’s anyone who comes into contact with Bo. She’s so stubborn, she brings the argument out in even the most placid of people, as though the only way she knows to communicate or to learn is by pushing things so far that they spark a debate. She doesn’t do it for the enjoyment of the debate; she needs the discussion to learn how other people think. She’s not wired like most people. Though she’s sensitive, she is more sensitive to people’s stories, not necessarily in the method of discovering them. She’s not always wrong, Solomon has learned plenty from her over time. Sometimes you have to push at awkward or uncomfortable moments, sometimes the world needs people like Bo to push the boundaries in order to encourage people to open up and share the story, but it’s about choosing the right moments and Bo doesn’t always get that right.
‘You haven’t asked Joe if you can film,’ Solomon explains.
‘I’ll ask him when he arrives.’
‘You can’t ask him before his brother’s funeral. It’s insensitive.’
She looks around at the view and Solomon can see her brain ticking over.
‘But maybe some of the funeral attendees will do an interview afterwards, tell us stories about Tom we didn’t know, or get their opinion on how they think Joe’s life will be from now on. Maybe Joe will want to talk to us. I want to get a sense of what his life is like now, or what it’s going to be like.’ She says all this while spinning around, seeing the view from 360 degrees.
‘Pretty fucking lonely and miserable, I’d imagine,’ Solomon snaps, losing his temper and getting out of the car.
She looks at him, taken aback, and calls after him. ‘And after that we’ll get you some food. So that you don’t bite my head off.’
‘Show some empathy, Bo.’
‘I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t care.’
He glares at her, then having enough of the argument he senses he will lose he stretches his legs and looks around.
Gougane Barra lies to the west of Macroom in Co. Cork. Its Irish name, Guagán Barra, meaning ‘The Rock of Barra’, derived from Saint Finbar, who built a monastery on an island in a nearby lake in the sixth century. Its secluded position meant St Finbar’s Oratory was popular during the time of Penal Laws, for celebrating the illegal Catholic Mass. Nowadays, its stunning surroundings makes it popular for weddings. Solomon is unsure as to why Joe chose this chapel; he’s sure Joe doesn’t follow trends, nor does he go for romantic settings. The Toolin farm is as remote as you can imagine, and while it must be part of a parish, he’s not sure which. He knows the Toolin twins were not religious men; unusual for their generation, but they’re unusual men.
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.’
‘Maybe Bridget made it up. She was very nervous about being on camera,’ Solomon says.
‘She was very detailed about buying books for him at second-hand shops and charity sales. I believe she bought the books, I just can’t figure out why we never saw one book in the house and neither of them reading. That’s something I would have wanted to know about. What did Tom like to read? Why? And if he did, was it a secret?’
