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‘I preferred it when you two weren’t fucking,’ Rachel says, looking away. ‘You used to be on my side.’
‘He’s still on your side,’ Bo says, in a joking tone but meaning it.
Solomon ignores the dig.
‘If we’re going to pay our respects to poor Joe, why did you make me pack all my gear?’ Rachel asks, mouth full of nuts and raisins, knowing exactly why but in the mood to stir things up even further. Bo and Solomon were fun like that, never completely stable, always easy to tip.
Solomon’s eyes open as he studies his girlfriend. Two years together romantically, five years professionally and he can read her like a book.
‘You don’t actually think that Bo is going to this funeral out of the goodness of her heart, do you?’ he teases. ‘Award-winning internationally renowned directors have to be receptacles for stories at all times.’
‘That sounds more like it,’ Rachel says.
‘I don’t have a heart of stone,’ Bo defends herself. ‘I re-watched the documentary on the flight. Do you remember who had the final words? Tom. “Any day you can walk away from your bed is a good day.” My heart is broken for Joe.’
‘Fractured, at least,’ Rachel teases, gently.
‘What’s Joe going to do?’ Bo continues, ignoring Rachel’s jab. ‘Who can he talk to? Will he remember to eat? Tom was the one who organised the food deliveries and he cooked.’
‘Tins of soup, beans on toast and tea and toast isn’t exactly cooking. I think Joe will easily be able to take up the gauntlet,’ Rachel smiles, remembering the men sitting down together to shovel hard bread into watery soup in the winter afternoons when darkness had already fallen.
‘For Bo, that’s a three-course meal,’ Solomon teases.
‘Imagine how lonely life will be for him now, up that mountain, especially in the dead of winter, not seeing anyone for a week or more at a time,’ Bo says.
They allow a moment of silence to pass while they ponder Joe’s fate. They knew him better than most. He and Tom had let them into their lives and had been open to every question.
While filming, Solomon often wondered how the brothers could ever function without each other. Apart from the market, and tending to their sheep, they rarely left the farm. A housekeeper would see to their domestic needs, which seemed an inconvenience to them rather than necessity. Meals were taken quickly and in silence, hurriedly shovelling food into their mouth before returning to their work. They were two peas in a pod, they would finish each other’s sentences, move around each other with such familiarity it was like a dance, but not necessarily an elegant one. Rather, one that had been honed over time, unintentionally, unrealised. Despite its lack of grace, and maybe because of it, it was beautiful to see, intriguing to watch.
It was always Joe and Tom, never Tom and Joe. Joe was the elder by two minutes. They were identical in looks, and they gelled despite the difference in personalities. They made peculiar sense in a landscape that didn’t.
There was little conversation between them, they had no need of explanation or description. Instead their communication relied on sounds that to them had meaning, nods of the head, shrugs, a wave of the hand, a few words here and there. It took a while for the film crew to understand whatever message had passed between them. They were so in tune they could sense each other’s moods, worries, fears. They knew what the other was thinking at any given time, and they gave the beauty of this particular connection no thought whatsoever. They were often bamboozled by Bo’s depth of analysis of them. Life is what it is, things are as they are, no sense analysing it, no sense trying to change what can’t be changed, or understand what can’t be understood.
‘They didn’t want anybody else because they had each other, they were each enough for one another,’ Bo says, repeating a line she has said a thousand times in promotion for her documentary but still meaning every word. ‘So am I chasing a story?’ Bo asks. ‘Fuck yeah.’
Rachel throws her empty wrapper over Bo’s shoulder.
Solomon chuckles and closes his eyes. ‘Here we go again.’
‘Wow,’ Bo says as the car crawls towards the church in its stunning surroundings. ‘We’re early. Rachel, can you get your camera set up?’
Solomon sits up, wide awake now. ‘Bo, we’re not filming the funeral. We can’t.’
‘Why not?’ she asks, brown eyes staring into his intently.
‘You don’t have permission.’
She looks around. ‘From who? This isn’t private property.’
‘Okay, I’m out,’ Rachel says, getting out of the car to avoid being caught up in another of their arguments. The tumultuous relationship is not just with Solomon, it’s anyone who comes into contact with Bo. She’s so stubborn, she brings the argument out in even the most placid of people, as though the only way she knows to communicate or to learn is by pushing things so far that they spark a debate. She doesn’t do it for the enjoyment of the debate; she needs the discussion to learn how other people think. She’s not wired like most people. Though she’s sensitive, she is more sensitive to people’s stories, not necessarily in the method of discovering them. She’s not always wrong, Solomon has learned plenty from her over time. Sometimes you have to push at awkward or uncomfortable moments, sometimes the world needs people like Bo to push the boundaries in order to encourage people to open up and share the story, but it’s about choosing the right moments and Bo doesn’t always get that right.
‘You haven’t asked Joe if you can film,’ Solomon explains.
‘I’ll ask him when he arrives.’
‘You can’t ask him before his brother’s funeral. It’s insensitive.’
She looks around at the view and Solomon can see her brain ticking over.
‘But maybe some of the funeral attendees will do an interview afterwards, tell us stories about Tom we didn’t know, or get their opinion on how they think Joe’s life will be from now on. Maybe Joe will want to talk to us. I want to get a sense of what his life is like now, or what it’s going to be like.’ She says all this while spinning around, seeing the view from 360 degrees.
‘Pretty fucking lonely and miserable, I’d imagine,’ Solomon snaps, losing his temper and getting out of the car.
She looks at him, taken aback, and calls after him. ‘And after that we’ll get you some food. So that you don’t bite my head off.’
‘Show some empathy, Bo.’
‘I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t care.’
He glares at her, then having enough of the argument he senses he will lose he stretches his legs and looks around.
Gougane Barra lies to the west of Macroom in Co. Cork. Its Irish name, Guagán Barra, meaning ‘The Rock of Barra’, derived from Saint Finbar, who built a monastery on an island in a nearby lake in the sixth century. Its secluded position meant St Finbar’s Oratory was popular during the time of Penal Laws, for celebrating the illegal Catholic Mass. Nowadays, its stunning surroundings makes it popular for weddings. Solomon is unsure as to why Joe chose this chapel; he’s sure Joe doesn’t follow trends, nor does he go for romantic settings. The Toolin farm is as remote as you can imagine, and while it must be part of a parish, he’s not sure which. He knows the Toolin twins were not religious men; unusual for their generation, but they’re unusual men.
He