That Gallagher Girl. Kate Thompson

if I take a look?’

      ‘Sure.’

      Finn had fished a torch from the box. ‘Didn’t it freak you out, having to light candles here?’

      ‘I didn’t have any choice. Candles was all they had in the local store.’

      ‘I’ll get the electricity reconnected tomorrow. And we’ll take a drive into Galway – stock up on essentials. How do you manage for transport?’

      ‘I had a bicycle, when I was living on the houseboat. But it’s handy enough to walk into Lissamore from here.’

      ‘Was the bicycle banjaxed in the fire?’

      ‘No. Some gobshite threw it in the canal. Probably the same dickhead who was responsible for burning me out.’

      ‘I guess you can claim everything back on insurance.’

      ‘Nothing belonging to me was insured. The people who owned the houseboat will put in a hefty claim, but I won’t get anything. I think they’re kind of relieved that the place is gone, if truth were told. Too much responsibility.’

      ‘It wasn’t yours?’

      ‘No. I was houseboat-sitting.’

      ‘Of course. I forgot you held Marxist beliefs about property ownership.’ Finn aimed the beam of his torch at the kitchen door. ‘After you,’ he said.

      In the sitting room, dustsheets still shrouded most of the furniture, giving the place a funereal appearance. ‘What’s underneath all that?’ Finn asked.

      ‘Furniture. Very Terence Conran. Not my style at all.’

      ‘What is your style?’

      ‘I’m not sure I have one.’ Cat bit into her apple. ‘I’ve never cared enough about keeping up appearances to develop a sense of style. My stepmother deplored my lack of interest in fashion.’

      ‘You have a stepmother?’

      ‘Yes. A wicked one. She’s tried to poison my father’s mind against me.’

      ‘Has she really?’

      ‘Well, it was already pretty poisoned with hooch.’

      ‘You mean he’s an alcoholic?’

      ‘Yep. That’s why I ran away from home. I could write a misery memoir, except I can’t truthfully say I’ve ever been that miserable.’

      ‘How do you get by?’

      ‘Moneywise?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘I sell my paintings,’ lied Cat. ‘Wanna buy one?’

      Finn turned his attention to the paintings that Cat had fixed to the wall with masking tape. They looked better by candlelight, Cat decided. You couldn’t see the mistakes. The disadvantage of working in acrylic was that it dried faster than oil paint, so mistakes were harder to put right. But because acrylics were so much cheaper than oils, using them made sense to Cat.

      ‘Wow!’ said Finn, aiming the beam of his torch at the wall. ‘These are great! These are really fine. I mean, I don’t know much about art, but I can see that you genuinely have talent. Where did you train?’

      ‘I didn’t. My dad wanted me to go to the Slade, in London, but the last thing I wanted was to go back to school.’

      ‘I wouldn’t have thought that art college was much like school. I’d have thought art college might be quite a blast.’

      Cat shrugged. ‘I don’t like being taught things. I’d rather learn from my own mistakes. The only good teacher I ever had was my brother.’

      ‘Yeah? What did you learn from him?’

      ‘How to skip stones.’

      ‘Good skill to have.’ Finn resumed his scrutiny of Cat’s paintings. ‘How much do you ask for them?’

      ‘Five hundred euros each.’ What!? Where had that come from?

      ‘That’s a lot. My ma gets about two fifty a pop.’

      ‘Your ma’s an artist?’

      ‘An amateur. But she sells quite well during the tourist season. Her stuff’s on display in Fleur’s boutique in the village.’

      ‘Fleurissima? I wouldn’t dare go into that shop! How does she get away with charging those kind of prices?’

      He shrugged ‘Women are stupid when it comes to clothes. Izzy used to spend a fortune in there.’

      Izzy. Izzy! Why did Cat hate her so? ‘It’s the kind of place my stepmother would love, too,’ she remarked.

      Finn returned his attention to Cat’s artwork. ‘Five hundred euros a pop? Seriously?’

      ‘Three to you. Special price.’

      ‘Nice try, but no cigar. How much do you charge for your house-painting skills?’

      ‘I told you – will work for food.’

      ‘You mean it?’

      Cat nodded. She’d be glad to work in return for a roof over her head. Tomorrow she’d put in a call to her father, and see about getting some money from him. She wondered what she’d need to set up the poste restante thingy Raoul had talked about. She reckoned some form of ID would be required, and she doubted that her fake student card would cut any dice. Shit. Maybe she’d have to go legit and get herself a passport, after all. Oh! Just the thought of filling in the forms made her feel dizzy.

      ‘Tomorrow we’ll head in to Galway and pay a visit to B&Q,’ said Finn. ‘Stock up on DIY stuff. Anywhere else you need to go?’

      ‘Um. I wouldn’t mind getting to the art suppliers. I’d love to be able to start painting on canvas again.’

      ‘Is that what you usually paint on?’

      ‘Yes. But if I can’t get my hands on canvas, I’ll paint on anything. I found a roll of wallpaper in a cupboard here – hope you don’t mind. I even took to painting on old shards of slate once, when I ran out of funds. Most of my money goes on art supplies.’

      ‘Most of mine goes on dive gear.’ Finn moved toward the window, and turned off the torch. In the plate glass, Cat could see candles reflected and, beyond the glass, the dark hump of Inishclare island. ‘There was a dive outfit on that island once,’ he remarked. ‘That’s where I cut my teeth.’

      ‘What age were you when you started?’

      ‘Twelve.’

      ‘So it’s your lifelong passion?’

      ‘Yeah.’

      ‘What about your plans to turn this place into a dive outfit?’

      His smile was a little rueful. ‘Setting up a dive school here would mean infringing on Ma’s orchard.’

      ‘The orchard at the bottom of the garden belongs to your ma, does it?’

      ‘Yeah.’ He smiled down at her. ‘She has no Marxist scruples about owning property. Those two acres are her pride and joy.’

      Cat remembered the three women earlier that day who had enjoyed a fête champêtre in the orchard, and how carefree they’d seemed. It was an eye-opener for Cat to see women revelling in each other’s company: her mother had been the only woman she had ever trusted. And hadn’t she every reason to be mistrustful of her own sex? She’d been bullied at boarding school, set upon (on more than one occasion) by gangs of girl thugs (the ones who wore pink were the worst), and cold-shouldered by her stepmother.

      Her stepmother. She hoped to God that Ophelia didn’t pick up the phone tomorrow when she called the Crooked House to petition her father for cash.