Free The Lost Garden by Kate Kerrigan Page A

sister, Claire, was after him.
    Iggy was sweet on Noreen Flaherty, and while the others werehard men for the work, Iggy and he enjoyed an unspoken camaraderie in their wiry, somewhat romantic appearances.
    ‘I’ll be off for the morning tomorrow,’ said Mick. ‘I’m away into town. I’ll be relying on you to keep an eye on the younger lads,’ he said across to Sean.
    ‘Aye, boss,’ Jimmy’s father said.
    Jimmy believed his father to be the hardest-working man he knew, but he had never seen Sean work for another man before in this way. Everyone on Aghabeg pulled their weight – that was a given if you wanted to survive on an island. However, you chose how and when you worked – there was no one there ringing bells telling you when to start and finish. The fishermen worked as a team, and although that could be said to be true with the tattie-hokers, there was nonetheless a pecking order and Jimmy found this difficult to fathom at times. There was a queue for who got first pick of the hot bacon straight from the pan and the tea still steaming hot at the midday dinner break. As newcomers, Sean made sure that he and Jimmy held back and kept themselves at the end of the line.
    It wasn’t in Jimmy’s nature to be compliant and hang back, but when he complained to his father about this, the older man explained, ‘We are not just earning a wage, son; we are earning our right to be here. The Lord gave you luck in being born a fisherman – the island and its waters give us all the fish we can eat and a bit besides to sell. It’s a great life surely.’ Then his face hardened and he became deadly serious. ‘Working for a wage is a different story altogether. You must have humility, keep the head down and work hard for pride as much as money, son. When you work for another man, he gets your respect as a given, but you have to earn his respect back by doing his bidding. It’s a challenge for every man, Jimmy, but it’s what makes the working man great.’
    Their working day started early. At first light, all of them would go straight outside, where the fore graipe already had the fire going and was waiting with a mug of tea and a hunk of lavishly buttered bread to keep them going through the morning. If they dilly-dallied or were last in line, as Sean and Jimmy were, they ate their bread on the truck.
    On their first day out, having secured a kiss from Aileen the night before, Jimmy had waited to see where she would sit on the cart into the fields. She had thrilled him beyond belief by cocking her head high in the air past her brothers and sitting next to him on the cart. Paddy, her father, sat directly opposite them and held Jimmy’s eye as Aileen, ignoring her father, flirtatiously hooked her arm into his coat and rested her head on the young fisherman’s shoulder. Paddy made no move to stop this, which was in itself a sign of approval, but his mere presence nonetheless made it clear that his tolerance was limited to Jimmy behaving with propriety towards his daughter. So Jimmy sat every morning like a statue, smelling the sharp tang of his new lover’s breath on his neck, knowing that while he could not kiss her in view of all the company, the wait made the want in him all the sweeter because he looked forward to the moments they would steal together later.
    Their days developed a routine. Jimmy and Aileen worked alongside each other for the first few hours. He dug and turned the soil with a shovel as Aileen followed behind. Her slender body bent, her shoulders arched so that her small breasts tucked themselves into her waist – picking the hard muddy orbs and throwing them into her bucket with surprising agility and speed.
    ‘She’s like a machine,’ Iggy remarked on their first day out, as Jimmy carried his belle’s bucket over to the trough for her.
    ‘She’s a natural,’ Mick said, as he weighed the bucket. ‘Some people have the land in them – she’s a great asset to the crew.’
    ‘She’ll keep