‘I mean it, Mum. No picking out china patterns or buying bridal magazines at the newsagent. If you can’t promise me that, then I can always go and stay with friends in Melbourne.’
Her mother’s quick in-drawn breath caused Sweeney’s own breath to hitch. It was a strange moment. Angry, grieving, frustrated teenage Sweeney would have made that threat without a second thought, but grown-up Sweeney was apparently a lot more squeamish.
Unfortunately she wasn’t done yet, either. ‘Fin and I are staying close to home for the duration. The club house is the only place we’re venturing. And we need you and Rhonda to make a concerted effort to downplay things, not encourage the gossip, especially on the WhatsApp group.’
‘We promise,’ Connie agreed quickly, not hesitating in including the absent Ronnie. ‘But…wecan still see you, right?’
Her mother’s tentative question made Sweeney feel lower than a snake’s belly. It was official, she was a truly terrible daughter. ‘Of course,’ she rushed to assure. ‘Fin and I will come to dinner every night and we can hang out when you’re not at work.’
Despite the threat she’d made, the last thing Sweeney wanted was to shut her mother out. And she knew Fin didn’t want to shut Rhonda out either. Coming home like this after so long had been surprisingly good. She’d been dreading it and, sure, the whole Feeney thing had been an added complication, but the Ballyshannon-shaped ball of animosity wound tight in her chest for so long had unravelled without her even being aware.
She wasn’t a teenager anymore, desperate to fly away from everything that felt big and hard and thorny. She was an adult with an adult perspective who’d lived and loved and forged enough distance to gain some perspective. An adult who had chosen—thanks to Fin, anyway—to fly back to familiar streets and familiar faces and that sweet familiar air.
To memories that ached now instead of cut. That were bittersweet, not just bitter.
‘I’d like that.’ The thick edge in Connie’s voice produced an answering thickness in Sweeney’s chest. ‘I’d like that a lot.’
Thirteen
Fin answered his phone the next morning to a hyper-excited Mai, who was calling to let Fin know an ABC news crew would be at the Banshees club house at three-thirty this afternoon for a pre-record set to go out tomorrow morning. ‘The national news breakfast programme, Fin! This is the kind of publicity you just can’t buy.’
She waspumped.
Also, she informed him in a rapid-fire prattle, they wanted Sweeney and a couple of kids in Banshees jerseys, who would, naturally, be Tori and Nellie, and they were beside themselves at the thought of being famous.
Yeah, Mai really knew how to turn the screw.
If it had been Donny calling, Fin would have told him exactly what he could do with his news crew, but he’d never been able to say no to Mai and she knew it.
In fact, despite her petite stature, no one said no to Mai.
And so, later that afternoon, he found himself ball under arm—as requested—standing in front of a camera man and a reporter. Sweeney stood beside him—her camera around her neck also as requested—and his two goddaughters standing in front of them in their green Banshees jerseys, beaming like they’d each swallowed a swarm of fireflies.
Mai, Donny, the mothers, most of the Murphy clan, all the team parents and grandparents and anyone else with a club association were gathered behind the camera in club colours and with various hand-scrawled banners, grinning like loons. He also saw a beret lurking there somewhere in the back.
Courtney Barrington, the reporter, efficient and clearly ambitious if how seriously she was taking this fluff piece was anything to go by, held a large furry microphone in hand as she ran through the usual questions. About the town and the team and the comp and the photo and the craziness of it all going viral. She’d also asked the girls what they liked about Gaelic football and whether they were going to win at the Gold Coast.
Then shit got real.
‘Fin, we understand that the decision to go into the competition was to honour your late father, who was the driving force behind establishing Gaelic football in this area and who almost singlehandedly built this club from the ground up.’
Fin wasn’t prepared for it. He hadn’t expected an emotionally charged question—he thought it was supposed to be a human interest piece that was going to be shoved in somewhere as a filler in tomorrow morning’s programme. So it smacked him hard and, for several beats, rendered him speechless.
It was impossible in this momentnotto remember just how much his father had loved this club. Oh, not as much as he’d loved his family or the bar or Ballyshannon, but probably next in line. He’d been passionate about it and proud of it and Fin swore he could feel his father standing beside him telling him for the thousandth time that the club was thegreen heart of town.
Fingers interlacing between his brought him back from the memory and, for a confusing moment, Fin thought his dad had taken his hand. Wished desperately it was the case, so he could touch him one last time.
So he could apologise for his angry words.
When he looked down, though, he realised it was Sweeney holding his hand. With the girls in front of them, it wasn’t visible to anyone but it was welcome. He met her eyes as she gave a little squeeze, a small empathetic smile touching her mouth. Fin squeezed back before tearing his eyes away and forcing himself to concentrate on the journalist.
‘Yes. My grandfather was a Kerry man, and although my father was born in Australia a month after my grandparents emigrated here, he was born with the blood of the most successful Gaelic football county in Ireland flowing through his veins. And he believed—’
Fin faltered, his feelings surprisingly raw as he caught his mother’s eye. Her eyes were bright with brimming tears despite the five or so metres between them. Another squeeze of the hand was delivered and he continued on autopilot.
‘He believed that sport played a vital role in small towns. That it gave the community something to root for and rally around. That it could be a vehicle for friendship and fellowship because it crosses all cultural divides.’
‘It sounds like he was a great man.’
