Darkhouse. Alex Barclay

designer and pitched an idea to Vogue Living to renovate an old building, bought by the magazine and shot in stages. The building she chose was Shore’s Rock, a deserted weather-beaten lighthouse on the edge of a cliff outside Mountcannon, the village she had fallen in love with when she was seventeen.

      When they got there, Joe understood how she felt. But he needed his New York fix. He would go to the local store and pick up USA Today or USA Two Days Ago. He’d say to Danny Markey, ‘If anything big happens back home, call me a couple days later, so I’ll know what you’re talking about.’ In New York, Ireland was Sunday afternoons and WFUV 90.7, Forty Shades of Green and Galway Shawls. But in an isolated lighthouse near a small village, the real Ireland was not all sentimental ballads … and it was far from simple practicalities. He could score a great pint and find a friend in any of Mountcannon’s three bars, but try renting a movie, ordering in or finding an ATM. For most people, Ed Danaher played banker and barman, always happy to refill his till with the cash he had just handed out.

      Joe stood up, slid some notes across the bar and said goodbye to the two men. He made his way home in fifteen minutes, enjoying the turn of the last bend when the stark, freshly painted white of the lighthouse would rise up from the dark. He pushed open the gate and walked the hundred metres along the lane to the front door.

      The site was sloping, carved into the cliff side, and made up of an almost jumbled collection of buildings, dating back to the eighteen-hundreds and added to over the years until it was finally deserted in the late sixties. There were three separate two-storey buildings, two of which could be used as living spaces. The first held the hallway, the kitchen, the living room and the den on the ground floor, and the main bedroom, guest bedroom and bathroom on the first floor. The second building was like a huge basement to the first, set lower into the cliff – a darker small-windowed space. The first storey was Shaun’s bedroom and the lower storey, a wine cellar. The third building was the round tower of the lighthouse, a separate structure to the rear of the main house. From the outside, it looked complete, but it was what lay inside that was the biggest challenge. Higher up on the site, above the house, a large shed had been transformed into a fully kitted-out workshop that Joe was still learning to use. He had made some of what Anna called the cruder furniture in the house, but she said it like a compliment, so that was good enough for him.

      By the end of the year, she wanted the house to be modern and comfortable, with as many of the original features as she could keep. She was in the right part of the country for that, with carpenters, ironmongers and builders easy to find, but she learned quickly not to be as exacting in her timings as she would have been in New York. And the usual enticement of a mention in Vogue was hardly likely to stir these guys. But even in six months, they had helped to transform the unfulfilled potential of the dank, crumbling rooms and battered exteriors. When the family had first walked into Shore’s Rock, it was as if everything had been deserted in a hurry, like some great tragedy had swept old keepers away. It stank of the sea, of damp, of rotting timber. It looked hopeless to Joe and Shaun, but Anna called it perfect dereliction.

      Now all the exterior brickwork had been repainted. In the house, underfloor heating had been installed and interior walls and floorboards whitewashed. Simple white wooden furniture with modern touches added minimal decoration to the rooms. Shaun’s bedroom was the first to be finished, but only after a satellite dish was installed. Anna had had to do something to stop the spread of his sixteen-year-old angst. For him, the culture shock had been intense, because he was young and his world was so small. He couldn’t bear the isolation that for Anna was heaven, removed as she was from the same old faces at the same old press launches and gallery openings, transported now to another era. In Mountcannon, you knew your neighbours, you left your car unlocked and no street was unsafe.

      Joe slid into bed beside Anna. ‘Assume the position,’ he whispered. She smiled, half asleep, and turned her back to him as he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her tiny body towards him. He pressed kisses into the back of her head and fell asleep to the sound of the sea crashing against the rocks.

      ‘Full Irish?’ asked Joe, smiling. He was dressed only in jeans, standing over the stove, pointing a greasy spatula at Anna.

      ‘No, no!’ She laughed. ‘I don’t know how they do this every morning: bacon, eggs, sausages, black pudding, white pudding …’ She shook her head and walked barefoot across the floor to the cupboard. She stood on tiptoes to reach the top shelf.

      ‘Makes a man out of you,’ said Joe.

      ‘Makes a fat man out of you,’ said Anna.

      ‘Everyone is fat to a French woman,’ said Joe.

      ‘Every American, maybe.’

      ‘That’s gotta hurt,’ said Shaun, sliding into his chair at the table, stretching his legs wide at either side. ‘Bring it on, Dad. I am proud to fly the American flag this morning.’ He grabbed his knife and fork and smiled his father’s crooked smile. The Lucchesi genes overrode the Briaudes’, but what made Shaun so striking was that against the dark hair and sallow skin of his father shone the pale green eyes of his mother.

      ‘Thank you, son,’ said Joe.

      ‘But it wouldn’t do you any harm to put a shirt on,’ said Shaun.

      ‘You’re just jealous. And I always fry topless,’ said Joe. ‘So I don’t stink after.’

      He dished the food out onto two plates and breathed in dramatically.

      ‘Your mother does not know what she’s missing.’

      ‘I do,’ said Anna, nodding at Joe’s belly. He slapped it.

      ‘One day of crunches, it’s gone,’ he said. She made a face. He was right. He had always been in shape.

      ‘C’mon, honey,’ he said. ‘How am I ever going to compete with a woman who shops in the children’s department?’ She smiled. He pulled a white long-sleeved T-shirt over his head and walked over to the kettle. He took the cafetière down from a shelf beside it, then poured in boiling water and shook it up the sides. When the glass was hot, he threw out the water and tipped four scoops of Kenyan grounds into the bottom. He filled it with water to the edge of the chrome rim. He rinsed the plunger in boiling water and put it on top, twisting it so the opening to the spout was blocked. After four minutes, he plunged gently, watching the grains being pushed slowly to the base of the jug. He rotated the top of the plunger so the grate was lined up with the spout and the coffee would pour. Joe could never watch anyone else make coffee.

      ‘Your father rang last night,’ said Anna suddenly. Shaun’s eyes widened, but he knew when to stay quiet.

      ‘Sure he did,’ said Joe, carrying the coffee to the table.

      ‘He did. He’s getting married.’

      Joe stared at her. ‘You’re shitting me.’

      ‘Watch your language. And I’m serious. How could I make that up? He wants you to go over.’

      ‘Jesus Christ. Is it Pam?’

      ‘Of course it’s Pam. You’re dreadful.’

      ‘Well, you wouldn’t know with that guy.’

      ‘He’s unbelievable,’ said Shaun.

      ‘Yup,’ said Joe. ‘Roll in the family so you’ll look normal to your new husband or wife. “See? My kids are here for my wedding. They’re pretty cool. I’m not an axe murderer.”’

      ‘Well …’

      ‘Well, nothing.’

      ‘Uh, Mom,’ said Shaun. ‘I hate to change the subject, but do you have any baby photos of me? I mean, did you bring any to Ireland?’

      ‘You know, you would think I wouldn’t bother,’ said Anna, ‘but they were so cute I put a few in my diary. Hold on.’

      She brought her diary from the bedroom and pulled three photos from an envelope in the back.

      ‘Look