Liam arrived half an hour later, a six pack in hand. Mixed Australian craft beers. An old pleasure, sitting on their back veranda with their father, sampling brews. There hadn’t been a right moment for shooting the breeze since Niall had moved back to Sydney.
The only time Liam had visited this place was Niall’s housewarming party months ago. Liam had arrived late, circulated for about twenty minutes, then claimed work as an alibi for an early escape. The yearning to stay had been a drumbeat in his blood, and he hadn’t trusted himself to keep his mouth shut about their father’s debts. Letting himself sink into that Irish-maudlin-tipsy stage was a risk he couldn’t take. He’d likely have danced barefoot in the fresh-cut sawdust to truly absorb the reality his brother was home. The next step would’ve been singing folk songs together until dawn and sobbing out all his secrets over breakfast.
Niall’s workshop was behind the house. The smell of wood and teak oil wafted towards Liam as he approached. He caught a glimpse of large pieces of timber and his brother through the door. He knocked loudly. “Can I come in?”
They’d connect more easily in this hallowed place. Niall gestured for him to enter.
Liam’s hand hovered over a finished table. Cedar. Secondhand because Niall only used recycled or recovered timber. Beautiful enough to make the saints weep. His palm ran across its smooth surface, soaking up the care his brother brought to his craft. “Is it for sale?”
“You can have it, if you want it.”
He lifted his head to stare at eyes identical to his own, looking more deeply to assess Niall’s implication. “That simple?”
“If you want it to be.” Niall took the proffered six pack. “Have a look around. I’ll be on the deck outside when you’re finished.”
Liam spent a few more minutes circling the workshop. He traced his hand down a cabriole leg supporting a delicate hall table, tested the strength and comfort of some upright chairs and stood in front of a full-length mirror on a stand. More cedar but it was decorated with the Gumnut Babies from May Gibbs’s stories. Ambling out to the deck, he shucked his jacket and loosened his tie. Niall sat on a step, his back against a post, two beers open beside him.
“Peanuts or crisps?” Niall popped the packets open.
“Who’s the lucky kid who gets the Gumnut Babies mirror?” Picking up a beer, Liam took the other end of the step, his back against a matching post.
“That stitched-up client you recommended me to, would you believe?” Niall shook his head as if not quite believing it himself. “Wants his daughter to dream.”
“Nice.” Liam swallowed a mouthful of beer. Ate a handful of nuts. “Dad gave away every penny he had in the weeks before his death.”
His mother had accepted his decision to tell Niall now, not that he’d exactly sworn her to secrecy. After Liam discovered the debts, they’d had the kind of conversation where nothing was made explicit, but they’d both loudly agreed that while Niall was in Ireland, he deserved to wallow in the joy of being mentored by one of his idols without worrying about what was happening at home.
Niall spat his beer onto the dirt. “Feck! Who to?”
“A cousin. Or maybe a second cousin, twice removed. Roisin Quinn, a traditional family name. Had the right credentials. She’d had a setback that graduated to a hard-luck story over a few months. She bled him dry. A very sophisticated scam, the police said. Neither I nor the detective I hired could find her.”
Niall was staring at him, but Liam kept his gaze on the gate at the end of the path. Lopsided, Liam noticed. For all his precision in his own work, Niall’s temperament would be comfortable with a bit of ramshackle in his rented surroundings.
“Were you planning on telling me?” Niall snapped a slender piece of wood in two, the sharp sound heightening the tension stretching between them.
Liam swivelled to face him. “When I had it under control.”
“How bad was it? Is it?”
“I thought Mum would lose the house.” Liam took another pull on his beer as a weight slid off his shoulders. Home mattered to his mum, especially the Newcastle house she’d shared with his dad since they’d been forced off her parents’ farm. He’d have sold his soul before he’d let her lose it. “That’s covered. There are a few more bits and pieces still to sort. A few more months.”
“I didn’t know.” Niall stared at his hands. “Da asked me to ring a number, ask about Roisin the day after I arrived in Dublin. I couldn’t reach her.”
“No one could reach her.”
“Did you put a trace on the money?” Niall demanded.
“Moved through several bank accounts, and we lost track in the British Virgin Islands.” Liam tilted his bottle in his brother’s direction.
“Did Mum know?”
“She told me their joint account was empty.” He swallowed the last of the beer. “Allowed that maybe we’d been a little bit high-handed to keep it from you.”
“Ualach sé chapall de chré na h-úire ort.” Niall’s lilt turned fierce.
“I never heard Dad use that expression. What’s it mean?”
“Six horse loads of graveyard clay upon you,” Niall muttered. “Or close enough. Can be used in more company than shite. A favourite of my Irish mentor. Does Mum know the full extent of the debt?”