Firefly Summer by Maeve Binchy

Jaffa sat still as a statue on the wall. Leopold was dreaming of beatings and his hard life. He gave a gentle whimper now and then in his sleep. From the hen house there was a soft cluck.
    John folded a sack and left it on an upturned barrel. ‘I was to ask you about the tortoise.’
    ‘No, no.’ Her eyes flashed with rage. ‘It’s not fair, John, really it isn’t. You’re always the lovey dovey one, ask poor old Daddy, he’s so soft, he’d melt as soon as he looks at you. Mammy’s the nagging old shrew . . . It’s not fair to let them grow up thinking that.’
    ‘They do not think that.’
    ‘They do, and they will more if you say they can have the tortoise back. Do you think I want the smelly old thing in the turf room looking at me like something out of one of those horror pictures they have in the picture house? I’ve wished a hundred times it would die one day and we could have a funeral and it would all be over, and all the fighting.’
    ‘They live for years, you know, you’re on a loser there,’ he grinned.
    She wouldn’t give in. ‘No, they can’t have it back, they broke all the rules coming into the pub like pictures of children you’d see when they’re collecting for charity. They’re worse than Leopold, they pretend they never got a meal or a bath in their lives.’
    Kate Ryan was very aggrieved.
    ‘Did I ever try to countermand any of your decisions?’ John asked.
    ‘No, but you try to get round me. We’ve got to be consistent, John, otherwise how do they know where they are?’
    ‘I couldn’t agree more.’
    ‘But?’
    ‘But nothing. I couldn’t agree more.’
    ‘So what about the bloody tortoise? What were you going to suggest?’
    ‘Come here, I want to show you something . . .’ He took her by the hand and pointed out where they should build a long hen run, with netting over it. The hens would have freedom, but within frontiers. The rest was going to be a garden. He showed where they could have a rockery. And how they would build a raised flower bed maybe and she could grow the flowers she had always said she would like.
    ‘You should have been writing your poetry.’
    ‘It’s not like making things in a factory, Kate, you can’t sit down in front of a conveyor belt and turn out bits of writing and in the end a poem emerges.’ He spoke quietly and with dignity.
    ‘I know, I know.’ She was contrite.
    ‘So when it didn’t seem to come, I thought I’d do something for you and plan you a garden.’
    ‘That’s lovely.’
    ‘I’ll have a word with Jimbo Doyle and he could do a couple of days and build up a few beds. Now wouldn’t that be nice?’
    ‘It would.’ She was touched, she couldn’t deliver her attack now. It would be ingratitude, flying in the face of God, to attack a husband who was so kind.
    ‘I was over in Fernscourt today, there’s heaps of stones lying round the place. We could get some nice big rocks, Jimbo could wheel them across the footbridge.’
    ‘I don’t suppose they belong to anyone.’ Kate didn’twant her voice to sound grudging . . . ‘That would be grand,’ she added.
    ‘And this thing about the tortoise, I wouldn’t counter-mand your orders. God, what would be the point? What I was wondering was now that the hens have a place of their own someone will have to feed them properly you know, mix up scraps with the bran . . .’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘So suppose we made those two scallywaggers do that? They’d be well able for it, and they’d give the hens a feed twice a day . . . and to encourage them maybe they could have some kind of access to that tortoise, maybe take him out of your way in the turf room, not have him looking up at you like a prehistoric monster. What do you think?’
    Kate tried to hide her smile. Unsuccessfully.
    ‘What do I think?’ she said, laughing in spite of herself. ‘I think I might be persuaded . . . but . . .’
    ‘But it would have to come from you. If you think it would be a good idea, then you