The Bone Clocks

I wait for the story, but Great-aunt Eilнsh smiles like a sweet old dear. “ ’Tis grand meeting you in the flesh, Ed, at long, longlast.”

“Sorry I’ve never come over with Holly and Aoife. It’s just …”

“Work, I know. Work. Ye’ve wars to cover. I read your reportage when I can, though. Holly sends me clippings from Spyglass. Tell me, was your father a journalist as well? Is it in the blood?”

“Not really. Dad was a … sort of businessman.”

“Is that a fact now? What was his line, I wonder?”

I may as well tell her. “Burglary. Though he diversified into forgery and assault. He died of a heart attack in a prison gym.”

“Well, aren’t Ithe nosy old crone? Forgive me, Ed.”

“Nothing to forgive.” Some little kids rush by our table. “Mum kept me on the straight and narrow, down in Gravesend. Money was tight, but my uncle Norm helped out when he could, and … yeah, Mum was great. She’s not with us anymore either.” I feel a bit sheepish. “God, this is sounding like Oliver Twist. Mum got to hold Aoife in her arms, at least. I’m happy about that. I’ve even got a photo of them.” From the band’s end of the room comes cheering and clapping. “Wow, look at Dave and Kath go.” Holly’s parents are dancing to “La Bamba” with more style than I could muster.

“Sharon was telling me they’re after taking lessons.”

I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t know. “Holly mentioned it.”

“I know ye’re busy, Ed, but even if it’s just a few days, come over to Sheep’s Head this summer. My hens’ll find room for ye in their coop, I dare say. Aoife had a gas time last year. Ye can take her pony trekking in Durrus, and go for a picnic out to the lighthouse at the far tip of the headland.”

I’d love to say yes to Eilнsh, but if I say yes to Olive, I’ll be in Iraq all summer. “If I possibly can, I will. Holly has a painting she did of your cottage. It’s what she’d rescue if her house was on fire. Our house.”

Eilнsh puckers her pruneish old lips. “D’ye know, I remember the day she painted it? Kath came over to see Donal’s gang in Cork, and parked Holly with me for a few days. 1985, this was. They’d had a terrible time of it, of course, what with … y’know. Jacko.”

I nod and drink, letting the icy gin numb my gums.

“It’s hard for them all at family occasions. A fine ball of a man Jacko’d be by now, too. Did ye know him at all, in Gravesend?”

“No. Only by reputation. People said he was a freak, or a genius, or a … Well, y’know. Kids. I was in Holly’s class at school, but by the time I got to know Holly well, he was … It’d already happened.” All those days, mountains, wars, deadlines, beers, air miles, books, films, Pot Noodle, and deaths between now and then … but I still remember sovividly cycling across the Isle of Sheppey to Gabriel Harty’s farm. I remember asking Holly, “Is Jacko here?” and knowing from her face that he wasn’t. “How well did you know Jacko, Eilнsh?”

The old woman’s sigh trails off. “Kath brought him over when he’d’ve been five or so. A pleasant small boy, but not one who struck you as so remarkable. Then I met him again, eighteen months later, after the meningitis.” She drinks her Drambuie and sucks in her lips. “In the old days, they’d’ve called him a ‘changeling,’ but modern psychiatry knows better. Jacko at six was … a different child.”

“Different in what way?”

“He knewthings—about the world, about people, all sorts … Things small boys just don’t—can’t—shouldn’t know. Not that he was a show-off. Jacko knew enough to hide being a dandy, but,” Eilнsh looks away, “if he grew to trust ye, ye’d be given a glimpse. I was working as a librarian in Bantry at the time, and I’d borrowed The Magic Faraway Treeby Enid Blyton for him the day before he arrived because Kath’d told me he was a fierce reader, like Sharon. Jacko read it in a single sitting, but didn’t say if he’d enjoyed it or not. So I asked him, and Jacko said, ‘My honest opinion, Auntie?’ I said, ‘I’d not want a dishonest one, would I?’ Jacko said, ‘Okay, then I found it just a little puerile, Aunt.’ Six years old, and he’d use a word like ‘puerile’! The following day, I took Jacko to work with me and—not a word of a lie—he pulled Waiting for Godotoff the shelves. By Beckett. Truth be told, I assumed Jacko was just attention-seeking, wanting to amaze the grown-ups. But then at lunchtime we ate our sandwiches by the boats, and I asked him what he’d made of Samuel Beckett, and”—Eilнsh sips her Drambuie—“suddenly Spinoza and Kant were joining our picnic. I tried to pin him down and asked him straight, ‘Jacko, how can you know all this?’ and he replied, ‘I must have heard it on a bus somewhere, Auntie—I’m only six years old.’ ” Eilнsh sloshes her glass. “Kath and Dave saw consultants, but as Jacko wasn’t ill, as such, why would they care?”

“Holly’s always said that the meningitis somehow rewired his brain in a way that … massively increased its capacity.”

“Aye, well, they do say that neurology’s the final frontier.”