Portstewart
Tommy sat at his kitchen table looking out of the window as a cup of coffee when untouched.
Widowed 3 year ago, his wife was a native of Malawi. The straw that broke the resolve of his children started with anti-migrant rhetoric that stirred up trouble of the “Your Ma is a Nigger!” type and ended with one of Tommy’s grandchildren in hospital with a broken arm, leg and skull after a particularly savage beating decided that enough was enough and they left Northern Ireland and sought refuge in New Zealand. By all accounts they were happy there. Tommy ran a builders yard, built up from just him to a work force of 10 and by all accounts it was successful, until Brexit and the rise of Reform. When they got a majority in the general election of 2029. Their first action was to deport all and every foreign national and as most of Tommy’s workforce were Czech or Polish he was left with himself and old Jimmy, and all he could do was make the tea.
Reform renamed themselves “Reformed” and with a wave of their hand dissolved Westminster, Holyrood, Cardiff and Stormont in favour of “Rule by Fiat” rather than democracy. Riots in Wales and Scotland as the the Y Ddraig Goc and the Blue Saltire were banned and torn from their posts by the grey shirted men of the Department of British Works.
Initially boats, planes and trains were full of migrants escaping “Stalag Nigel” to the more tolerant climes of the EU or Canada. The UK Health system stuttered and died. Food rotted in fields with no-one to harvest it, taxes rocked higher everyday as the gov coffers emptied, As the people left, so did the big companies, manufacturing and service sectors shrank overnight. Reformed took people’s minds off the spiralling trouble by planting mines in the English Channel and deploying the Royal Navy submarines to find and destroy the “little” boats. Truth be told there where precious few now. No-one wanted to come to the UK, where living was only possible if you had cash lots of cash. Multiracial tensions came to a head, and the rioters stormed a munitions facility in Manchester and soon the sound of gunfire was heard across the nation.
Reformed brought in more and more draconian measures to counter it. The UK seemed ready to split asunder. Scotland and Wales offered their citizens life in separate nations and had the manpower to do it. Border fences went up. Scotland declared independence and cut the oil pipeline to mother England. Wales likewise blew up the motorways into the principality and set up three very strict border controls. Both Scotland and Wales had elections, democracy and a modicum of decency slowly returned. England and Northern Ireland were the only bits left of the old UK and without British money to support it. Northern Ireland was the first to devolve into chaos. The paramilitaries roamed the streets, the police powerless to stop them as they had not been paid in 6 months and most of the remaining officers played cards and read the paper rather than stop the rampaging hordes of scum and nere-do-wells that had taken over control of the streets. Tommy sat in his kitchen looking out over Portstewart strand. There was nothing for him here, no-one needed him, his kids were gone The big house once full of laughter and smiles, now silent and glum. Tommy rose put on his coat, locked the front door and started to walk, he had no destination, he just walked.
Eventually deep in the Sperrins, near the dark waters of Lough Fea, he saw a cottage in the distance.
Curryfree – Night
The road narrowed as it climbed into the hills, grass creeping over the tarmac until there was none at all. Tommy walked between dry stone walls that had half-collapsed, fields gone to seed. Evening fell cold and slow. His breath came white.
He saw the light then, a small pulse of yellow against the dark. A candle, no mistake. He hadn’t seen a house lit up since Ballymoney burned.
The cottage sat crooked against the slope, one gable patched with tin, smoke rising thin from the chimney. He stood a long time before knocking.
A woman answered, lantern in hand. Grey hair pulled back tight, clothes patched and practical. She looked him up and down, no fear in her, just measuring.
“You’ll be cold,” she said.
“I am that” Tommy said. “Been walking since Portstewart. I saw your light.”
“Light is for me, not the lost,” she said. Then, softer, “But you’d best come in before the wind takes your ears.”
Inside smelled of turf smoke and wool grease. A kettle hissed on the range. There were shelves of jars, beans, oats, honey, all neat, all full. He could hear sheep outside, the low bleat of them like slow breathing in the dark.
She gave him tea in a chipped mug, bread still warm. “Moira,” she said, by way of introduction.
“Tommy.”
“You’re far from anywhere, Tommy.”
“I suppose there’s nowhere left to be near.”
She grunted at that, neither agreement nor argument.
Later he found her outside, wrestling a broken door against the wind. The hinge had gone. He took it from her without asking and steadied it against the jamb. His hands remembered work.
“You don’t have to,” she said.
“I’d rather be doing than sitting,” he said. “And I’ll not take charity”
When the door was hung straight, she nodded once. Approval enough.
“You’ll stay the night,” she said.
“If you’ve room.”
“There’s always room. Sheep don’t talk much.”
He smiled, the first time in months.
Curryfree – Morning
Tommy woke to the smell of frying bread. The light through the curtain was thin and blue, the kind of dawn that never quite makes up its mind. For a moment he forgot where he was, then the crackle of the range brought it back.
Moira was at the stove, hair loose now, humming something tuneless. A kettle steamed beside her.
“Didn’t think you’d sleep so sound,” she said without turning.
“It’s been a while since I’ve had walls around me,” he said.
“There’s work if you’ve the hands for it. Fences need mending. Feed wants spreading. You any good with sheep?”
“I’m good with a hammer,” he said. “And I can follow directions.”
“That’ll do.”
They ate in silence. The bread was coarse, the eggs small, but it tasted like a meal made on purpose , not scavenged, not desperate.
Outside, the world was still. Mist rolled low through the heather, and the hills crouched quiet around them. He could hear a stream somewhere close, the steady rhythm of it.
He found the tools in a shed that leaned against itself for balance. The spade handles were worn smooth; the nails sorted into tobacco tins. Everything had its place.
By midmorning they were in the upper field, the wire fence sagging under its own weight. Moira worked slow but sure, her movements practiced. He followed her lead.
“Never needed help before,” she said after a while.
“And now?”
She paused, testing the line’s tension. “Now I’ll take it.”
He nodded. “That’s fair.”
They worked until the sun burned through the mist. When they stopped, the fence stood neat again, straight as a drawn line.
Moira looked at it, then at him. “You’ll stay a while,” she said, not quite asking.
“If you’ll have me.”
“Two mouths are harder than one,” she said, then added, “but the work’s easier shared.”
He smiled. “Then I’ll earn my keep.”
She gave a short laugh, the sound rusty, unused. “We’ll see.”
As the day settled, he helped bring in wood, patched a hole in the byre roof. Moira cooked again , potatoes, onion, a bit of salted mutton. After they ate, they sat by the fire.
“Was there anyone left, where you came from?” she asked.
“Not really,” he said. “Not the kind you can go back to.”
She nodded. “That’s most of us now.”
Outside, the wind sighed across the hill, but inside the cottage the air was warm, steady. The candle on the sill flickered against the glass, a small, stubborn light.
Tommy watched it and thought , for the first time in a long while , that maybe staying wasn’t the same as giving up.
Curryfree – 4 months later
The days shortened, the hills turning the colour of rust. Frost came early that year, whitening the rushes and the roofs of the outbuildings.
Tommy had fallen into the rhythm of the place, feeding, mending, chopping wood. The silence no longer pressed on him; it filled him instead, like breath.
One evening, as they ate by the fire, he asked, “You ever get visitors up here?”
Moira investigated her mug before she answered. “Used to. Mr Patel from the wee shop in Draperstown. He’d drive up every month with flour, oil, a few tins. Good man, quiet. Always brought a packet of ginger snaps for the dog.”
She set the mug down, hard enough to rattle. “Stopped coming last year. Word in town was they took him and the family. Transit van, broad daylight. Nobody saw them after. Folk said the high bog’s got the Patels now. May the Lord and His mother have mercy on their souls.”
Tommy said nothing. There wasn’t anything to say. The fire popped and settled.
“Since then,” she went on, “I’ve no need of what passes for civilisation. World out there’s lost its manners.”
Flame, her sheepdog, padded over and laid his head on Tommy’s knee. Without thinking, Tommy tore his slice of bread in half and handed it down. The dog took it gentle as breath, then wolfed it in two bites.
Moira raised an eyebrow. “He’s not known for his friendliness. Seems he’s taken to you.”
“Maybe he just wanted the bread.”
“Maybe,” she said, smiling a little.
Outside the wind pushed at the door. Moira looked toward the window where the candle burned low. “It’s late October,” she said. “Time the mountain sheep were brought down. Weather turns fast up there.”
Tommy glanced at her, then at the dark beyond the glass. “All right,” he said after a pause. “How do we do that?”
Moira smiled again, this time with a spark of something lighter. “Boots on, rope ready, and a dog that minds. That’s how.”
She stood, took her coat from the peg. “You wanted work, Tommy. Tomorrow you’ll have it.”
He nodded, feeling the weight of the coming cold but also a small, steady purpose he hadn’t known in years.
Curryfree – the Next morning
Morning came sharp and hard. A skin of frost silvered the troughs and the grass crackled underfoot. The sun hadn’t yet cleared the ridge; the hills were washed in pewter light.
Tommy pulled on the old coat Moira had found for him, a heavy thing that smelled faintly of lanolin and smoke. Flame whined at the door, already restless.
Moira was outside, checking the rope coiled over her shoulder and the crook in her hand. “You’ll want gloves,” she said. “The wire bites when it’s cold.”
Tommy nodded, pulling his cap lower. “Where do we start?”
“Up the high pass,” she said. “The ewes scatter near the stones. They’ll move when Flame does.”
The climb was slow. The path twisted through heather and bog, the air sharp enough to sting the lungs. Mist hung in the hollows, shifting like breath. Every few minutes Moira would whistle, low and short, and Flame would dart ahead, a black-and-white streak against the dun grass and heather.
When they reached the crest, Tommy could see the valley open wide below — grey fields, thin fences, the line of the cottage roof catching the pale sun. He stopped a moment to breathe it in.
Moira scanned the ridge, eyes narrow. “There,” she said, pointing. A scatter of white dots moved along the slope.
She gave a sharper whistle, and Flame sprang to life, circling the sheep in wide arcs, pushing them down toward the lower ground. Moira’s voice carried clear over the wind, giving commands in a language half-whistle, half-word.
Tommy followed, doing what she told him, waving his arms to close a gap, pulling a straggler from a gorse bush, steadying the fence when they reached the gate.
By noon they had the flock penned, a hundred woolly bodies huffing steam into the air. Moira leaned on the crook, breathing hard but smiling, her cheeks raw with cold.
“Not bad for town hands,” she said.
“Not bad for mountain sheep,” he said back.
She laughed, a real laugh this time, bright and brief.
They stood there a moment, the dog weaving between them, tail high.
“You’ve done a day’s work,” she said. “You’ll eat well tonight.”
Tommy looked down the hill to the cottage, the faint trail of smoke rising already from its chimney. For the first time in years, he felt the tug of belonging, small, quiet, but real.
“Reckon I’ll sleep well too,” he said.
“Good,” Moira replied. “There’ll be fences to mend tomorrow.”
The wind came cold again, carrying the smell of peat and sheep and the faint salt tang from far-off sea. Tommy turned his collar up and followed her home.
Curryfree – Spring
Winter bit hard, but they weathered it.
The storms came howling off the Atlantic, turning the hills white and the fences brittle with ice.
They worked by habit and by faith, feeding, mending, keeping the fire alive. When the winds dropped, they’d sit by the range with mugs of tea, listening to the sheep shifting in the byre and the ticking of the cooling kettle.
By March, the thaw came. Water ran again in the ditches, and the fields softened to green. The air smelled of earth and lambs and smoke. Tommy felt something ease inside him, a knot that had been there for years slowly untying.
Moira’s way of life, the steady rhythm, the small satisfactions, had straightened out his soul. He’d come to think of her laughter as part of the house itself.
But one morning in April, the house was quiet.
Too quiet.
Flame was whining at Moira’s door, pawing gently.
Tommy knocked once, then pushed it open.
She lay still beneath the quilt, her face pale as linen, one hand on the coverlet. For a terrible moment he thought she was gone, then saw the faint rise and fall of her chest.
He let out the breath he hadn’t known he was holding.
In the kitchen, he made tea the way she liked it , strong, with three spoonfuls of honey “to honour the bees.” The smell filled the room.
He brought the cup to her bedside and pressed it into her hands. “Here, now,” he said softly. “Bit of warmth.”
Moira stirred, opened her eyes. She smiled, faintly. “So, I’ve arrived at life’s hard station,” she whispered. She took a sip. “Not a bad cup for a townie man.”
The question sat on his tongue , Are you dying? , but she saw it there and answered without hearing it.
“Before all this madness,” she said, “the doctor told me I had maybe a year. That was three years back so I gave it a good race. Guess the cancer’s winning the race now. It’ll reach the line before I do.”
Tommy’s eyes burned. “But, what about the farm? The dog? The sheep? What happens when…?”
Moira reached out, her hand trembling but sure. “When St. Jude sends you a helper, Tommy, you don’t question it. You were meant to come up that hill. Not perfect, but a safe pair of hands.”
She turned slightly, reached under her pillow, and drew out two folded pages of foolscap paper.
“My will,” she said. “Such as it is. The place, the stock, the bit of money , all yours now. And some instructions. Don’t spoil Flame. Don’t overfeed the hens. And when my time comes, bury me under the rowan on the hill. I’d like to keep watch over my kingdom.”
Tommy took the papers but couldn’t speak. His throat felt raw.
She looked at him then , really looked, and smiled the way she had that first morning when he’d asked how to round up the sheep.
“Thank you, Tommy,” she said, her voice almost gone. “For coming when you did.”
Her fingers tightened around his hand once, then relaxed.
The breath left her in a long, soft sigh.
Tommy sat there, her hand still in his, while the candle burned low on the sill and Flame lay quiet at his feet. Outside, the first swallows of spring traced their circles over the green fields of Curryfree.
Curryfree – 4 days later
The earth was soft from spring rain.
Tommy stood beneath the rowan, the spade head buried in the soil. The grave was neat; the turf laid back over with care.
He had made a simple cross from two lengths of ash. On the crossbar he had carved, with a shaky hand,
Moira O’Reilly
My Friend
He leaned forward and draped her rosary over the wood. The beads caught the light, pale against the grey grain, and stirred gently in the breeze.
Flame sat beside him, ears pricked, tail still.
“Just you and me now, boy,” Tommy said.
The dog gave a soft whine, as if in answer.
They stood together, looking out over the valley, green fields stitched with stone walls, lambs scattered like white stones in the distance.
The wind moved through the rowan leaves with a sound like quiet speech.
Somewhere far below, a ewe called to its lamb.
*** The End ***