Second Hand Jane by Michelle Vernal Page B

liked to think was a cowgirl sort of a fashion. Her brown
leather ankle boots, although reminiscent of the 80s, were a
practical choice because there wasn’t much call for owning a pair
of wellies in the city.
    “Er, yes,
that’s me. Hello—you must be Owen. It’s nice to meet you.” She
decided to repay the favour by giving him the once-over before
peering up at him. His hair was dark brown, almost black, with a
smattering of grey around the temples and his eyes were a light,
almost luminous grey. It was a disarming combination—one that took
you unawares, she thought, holding her hand out to him. He looked
surprised by the gesture and for a split second as he took it, she
thought he was going to raise her hand to his mouth and kiss it but
instead he shook it like he meant business.
    Jessica Baré,
here you go again, she told herself sternly; one of these days you
are going to have to stop behaving as though you have just stepped
out of the pages of a romance novel every time you meet a man. At
least he didn’t have sweaty palms. That was a good sign, she
decided, as he let her hand drop from his firm grasp. She could
never trust a man with sweaty palms. It conjured up all sorts of
unpleasant connotations. Unaware of her scrutiny, Owen followed the
direction in which she had been looking so disgruntled a moment
earlier and said somewhat formally, “Welcome to Ballymcguinness.
You didn’t just encounter Mad Bridie, did you?”
    “If you mean
that bad mannered elderly lady making her way down the street like
the Bionic Woman, then, yes, I did. She pushed me over on the
bus.”
    Owen omitted a
low, throaty laugh. “Ah, pay no heed to her; she’s mad as a hatter,
poor old thing. Besides, that’s mild by Bridie’s standards. She
once chased Teddy O’Shea the postman down the street with her
walking stick. Waving it around like a woman possessed, she was,
shouting at him for being a Peeping Tom. All the poor sod had done
was to push some letters through her door. So there you go; think
yourself lucky she only gave you a bit of a push.”
    She had to
raise a smile at the mental picture he had invoked of Bridie and
the postman. She was relieved, too, that underneath his bluster, he
had a sense of humour.
    “So did you
have a good trip up?” he asked, heading across the road to where a
battered and mud splattered Land Rover was parked.
    “Let’s just say
it was a bit of a bouncy ride,” she replied, deciding not to
elaborate further as she clambered up into the passenger seat.
    “The farm’s
about a ten-minute ride from here and it will be another bouncy
ride, I’m afraid.” Owen jammed the gearstick into first and
muttered something under his breath about the old bloody beast as
the jeep set off with a judder back through the village. The flash
of humour she’d seen a few minutes earlier had disappeared.
    Damn this
bloody bra, she thought, feeling her own short-lived good humour
dissipate as quickly as Owen’s apparently had as at the juddering
of the jeep her boobs began a wobbling all over again.
    Considering the
place had been devoid of street life five minutes earlier, it
suddenly seemed to have come to life, she noticed, as they drove
past an old man sitting on the low wall outside the drinker’s pub
she’d spied on her way in to town. He was wearing the requisite
tweed jacket and cap and his nose was a bulbous red. As Owen raised
his hand in acknowledgement, the old man raised his walking stick
in greeting.
    “That’s Ned; he
was a great mate of me Da’s in their day. He’s waiting for the pub
to open. You can set your watch by him. He’s there perched on that
wall every day at ten forty-five a.m. come rain or shine even
though the pub doesn’t open until eleven o’clock.”
    Outside the
hairdresser’s, a woman with a plastic cape and a headful of tin
foil stood chuffing on a cigarette. She nearly dropped her fag as
Owen scowled out at her. “Katie Adams—she’s our local busybody