“They’re about boats, mainly.” Joey grinned.
“He’ll miss them when we’re at the cottage.” She would miss them, too. Joey’s gentle voice calmed her.
Joey turned back from showing Denny the model boat once again. “I can drop in any time and read to him. And if you need me to watch him for a while in the evenings, I can help out. It’ll take you a while to get into a routine.”
Marianne would need to take Joey up on that offer. She had no idea how she’d juggle everything. She would need to focus on her new kitchen. The last thing her career needed was for her to mess up in this low-key holiday establishment.
“Is that everything?” Joey took the large holdall that held most of Marianne’s worldly possessions. Now she had a new base, she would need to go back and pick up some extra belongings from storage. Amira may have taken the furniture and their joint belongings from the flat, but she’d made sure to pack away her knives and kitchen equipment. Other than that, she really was starting from scratch at age thirty-four, and that felt hard.
“Are you okay? Joey was watching her. “It must be difficult to have to jump into a new life without any time to mourn your old one.” They were way more intuitive than they let on.
“It’s what I have to do, for Denny.” But she knew it was as much for herself. She wondered if the best thing she could do for Denny in the short term might be to go back to Dublin and face her peers, but she was determined not to do that.
It probably wouldn’t be a good move for Denny, either. She’d end up staying with her mum and Marianne didn’t want her child to witness that kind of parent/child relationship. She picked up Denny and pulled him close, but the sharp edges of the model boat dug into her shoulder. “You’ll need to leave that here. It’s Joey’s.” When she tried to pull it from his grip, he let out a howl.
“It’s fine, he can have it. I only built it out of boredom.” Joey reached over and took the boat from Denny’s grasp. To Marianne’s annoyance, Denny let go immediately.
“Denny, you can have the boat but it’s for looking at, not for playing, okay? You’ll need to put it on a shelf where you can see it.”
Denny nodded and carefully took the boat. “Boat.”
“Oh, Denny.” Marianne buried her face in his soft hair. “Will you ever say mama?”
“Joey,” Denny shouted, and she pulled back in shock.
Joey’s eyes opened wide. “Oh. Sorry.”
“It’s okay. You have a boat. I can’t compete with that.”
It did sting though. She’d always worried Denny would say “Mummy” to Amira first. Now here he was saying the name of someone he’d only known a few days. She hoped she wasn’t causing him irreparable harm.
She sat silently as they drove back to the Waterside and hopefully, at least for now, their new home. Could she make this work? The dread of going back to her mother’s house would have to work as incentive enough.
THIRTEEN
Joey pulledup the straps of their weatherproof pants and looked around the rest of the crew. Tierney’s cousin, Aoife, was pulling on her kit, too. She was the best radio operator Joey could wish for and they’d been volunteering together so long it was effortless.
The other two crew members were new; a young man called Peter who’d recently arrived on the island as a seasonal ferry worker and Tomás, a local who’d returned after living in the US for many years.
They both had previous experience as lifeboat volunteers, but Peter’s, at least, was recent. He’d crewed a lifeboat further down the coast in his hometown. He sat now, smiling and relaxed, knees spread across the bench, while Tomás was crowded in the corner, fussing with his zippers, his forehead shining with sweat. He was close to the cutoff age for inshore lifeboat crew, and while Joey appreciated the islanders who put their own discomfort and safety aside to play their part in this lifesaving service, nervousness could be as much a danger as overconfidence. They hoped the work in training these new recruits would be worth it.
But this was an initial training drill in partnership with the Coast Guard. The weather conditions were good, and the exercise should be simple to carry out. It was just an opportunity to get the measure of the new recruits and start to write up their development plans, which Joey would develop with Aoife’s husband Seán, the lifeboat operations manager.
“Let’s go.” Joey led them to the briefing room where Seán was waiting, ever-present clipboard in hand.
“I’m not going to go over the details of the drill again. You all understand the scenario?”
“A Coast Guard report of a small boat drifting off the north coast,” Tomás muttered, not making eye contact.
Peter stepped forward. “Unknown craft, but we haven’t received any distress calls.”
“That’s right. I’ll let your helm take it from here.” Seán stepped back after a quick hug with Aoife.
Joey led them at a jog to the lifeboat shed, where Jacky had already opened the wide doors and was backing the tractor up to the carriage that carried the inshore lifeboat into the sea. They could’ve had the boat outside already, but the intention of the drill was to reenact an actual shout as realistically as possible, without having to worry about real people at risk.
They got onboard and Joey turned from their seat at the front to check on the rest of the crew. “Tomás, where’s your life jacket?”
The volunteer looked down and his face reddened. “I’m sorry.” He jumped down from the boat and hurried out.
