Rowan now had two clues. He opened the volume and started. He pushed aside feelings that chased his thoughts. This was wrong, blatantly wrong. This information should be private. Isn’t that what Sonia had said, information about adoptions in Ireland is closed. What does “closed” mean if not sealed? Shouldn’t it be inaccessible? To the public? Or something?

The first name was Aherne. Michael James. 16.05.84. It was going to take some concentration. He isolated the numbers by placing his left hand over the names and using his passport, still in the pocket of his jacket, as a ruler to scan each page for the year ’90. At the top of the third page, at Ballagh. Sean. 23.04.92, he suddenly closed the book. He couldn’t do it—it wasn’t right.

Liam approached when he saw Rowan had closed the book. “Are you finished?”

As he reached for the book, Rowan put a hand on his arm. “No. Wait. I’m not.”

“Okay. No problem. Just so you know, we close at half four.”

Rowan opened the book again and found where he had left off at Ballagh. He fingered his way down the years again: 82. 76. 94. 77. 92. 81. 90, passing names: Barry Becket Berrigan Bigley Blaney Bonfield Bowen.

His finger stopped. 30.06.90.

There she was. Bowen. Rose. 30.06.90 Dublin.

Her name was Rose Bowen.

Fourteen

“Well, that was a right bummer,” Conor says when Rose finally tells him why she left her violin on the tube. She talks about Roger and her confusion. About how he’d walked out of her rehearsal. About her humiliation and how she’d bolted from the master class midpiece. About her tutor’s bleached hair and the poster on his wall.

“What an arsehole. I promise you not all surfers are like that,” Conor says. “You should request a rematch with the Kiwi dude.”

“I don’t know…”

“Finish what you started. We can take Gerty for a spin.”

“A spin to London?” Rose laughs.

“Why not? We’ll get to know each other. Anyway, I’ve been meaning to take a few days off. Come on, it’ll be a blast, and your mum won’t be back from Boston for a couple more days. You don’t want to be all on your own, do you?”

After Conor’s cajoling and teasing that she owed it to him—after all, wasn’t he the kingpin in the drama of her violin? And didn’t he have a vested interest here?—she decides maybe it’s a good idea. She’s at loose ends and in a kind of limbo. Okay, she texts Roger, and writes she’s coming to finish the Bach sonata. And she’ll be there on Tuesday. And she’s bringing her own audience.

That Sunday morning, the day after Rose spoke with her mother in Boston, she and Conor set off across the Irish Sea. They drive from Clare to Rosslare, take the ferry to Pembroke, and arrive in South Wales. They talk about all sorts of things. How he likes to get up early and check the surf forecast. How she likes to eat only toast with almond butter in the morning. That he supports Arsenal and she doesn’t know anything about football except her dad rooted for Chelsea. That they’re both believers in Vitamin D, and sushi, and lovers of beaches, and Munster Rugby, and cats. In the late afternoon, they head for a funky B and B in Llangennith down the Gower Peninsula, a surfing spot Conor knows about from the surfboards.ie forum.

But on that midsummer evening, in high season, there is only one single room left. Conor insists Rose take it. He rightly senses she is feeling anxious about a hundred things: her mother, Roger, him, so he offers to sleep in the van with his surfboard. He’s done it before, sleeping up and down the west coast of Ireland, searching for surf. “Not to worry,” he says, “I’m kitted out for it.” Standing in the room, the window wide open and the curtains letting in a breeze full of sea scent, Conor corners Rose against the wardrobe. He raises his hands to brush away her hair and holds her face. He kisses her. Rose doesn’t resist. Her head is against the hard wood of the wardrobe. Her arms go loose and hang at her sides. She holds her face up as Conor kisses her, teasingly at first then temptingly and then no-holds-barred, full-throttle.

Abruptly, he stops and steps back.

“See you in the morning, Rosie.” He gives a swift flick of his head and goes out. She hears his footsteps until they disappear. A moment longer, she thinks, and she would have ripped her clothes off.

*   *   *

When she lays her head down later with the surf beating below, Rose thinks about her father. Luke hadn’t had the chance to talk to her about these sorts of things. Relationships with men. She is sure he meant to, but … she wonders when her parents first had sex. Sex? It’s the only thing on her mind. Should she, shouldn’t she? He’s out there in the van. She could go to him. She’s all at sea. Frustrated, she gets up from the bed and takes out her violin. She doesn’t play the Bach sonata, or a jazz piece, or a jig or a reel. Nothing fits her humor, so she practices her scales, pianissimo, in three octaves in the minor keys until her fingertips hurt and her bow arm tires. The scales give her form and content and she can practice style. She starts with single notes, then moves on to double notes. Separate bow. Slurred bow. Spiccato. Vibrato. Fast bows. Slow bows. Marcato in the upper half of the bow until somebody taps on the wall next door. “Quiet.” She puts the violin down and falls asleep.

The next morning Rose goes down to the beach. Conor has left a note on his van, he is already surfing. He is so easy in himself, she thinks, watching him ride the small waves into the shore. Calm and patient. Someone whom her father would have definitely called a free spirit. Wouldn’t Dadda have liked him?

“I’ve got an extra wet suit in the van,” Conor calls to her.

“I’m afraid of sharks!” she shouts back.

He laughs. “Okay, so, just one more and then we’ll get going.”

*   *   *

The Welsh countryside looks like a green velvet sheet has been thrown over it. Like it’s a setting for one of those BBC period dramas.

“Sorry about last night,” Rose says, not looking at him.

“No worries. Gerty and I had a lovely sleep.” She punches him.

After a four-hour drive, passing Bristol and Swindon and Slough, they arrive in the early evening at Rose’s flat in Camden. There is still light enough in the sky to walk along the canal and up into Primrose Hill. They eat pizza outside on a picnic table at the Lansdowne as the sun sets. When they get back to her flat she asks him to sit out on the balcony. She wants to practice, alone.

“Please don’t say anything. Good or bad.”

“Gotcha. Quiet as a church mouse.”

She can’t put her finger on it but somehow something about him makes her feel totally free to be herself. She feels like singing and does a little bow to herself in her room in front of the mirror. She plays brilliantly, she thinks. She plays the third movement like a Gypsy. Gets all the dancelike rhythms just right. Take that, Roger Ballantyne, and put that in your pipe and smoke it. She laughs out loud. “Where did that come from?”

When she finishes the sonata, through the open doors of the flat’s sitting room, Rose hears clapping.

“What?” Conor says when Rose comes out to him on the balcony, half smiling, half frowning. He leans against the railings. “I didn’t say anything.” She goes straight up to him and pushes up from her toes and grabs him around the neck and kisses him.

“Now, that’s more like it,” he says.

That night when they look at Rose’s narrow bed, she says, “I’m not ready.” She scratches around her eye as if shielding herself from him in some way.

“Me, either. I’m not as easy as I look.” He cups Rose’s chin in his hand. He touches her birthmark. “Look, I understand. First things first. Let’s get that other surfer dude in your life sorted.”