The Walls of Jericho

Foretalk

A pall hangs over the both of us as Channing navigates the route to Bushmills. I’m not certain what he’s thinking, but I know it has to have been hard to come to grips with what he saw at the Dark Hedges. With what he heard there.

Assuming, of course, that he has actually come to grips with it.

In general, he’s fond of the moderately admirable personal philosophy: 'believe none of what you hear and only half of what you see'. Which is commendable on the one hand, in that he has to seek actual evidence and is resistant to outside influencers, but on the other, it also means he discounts and even disregards some information that might be crucial to his decision-making.

You know, critical stuff like your pal and elite fighting henchman, Ferdi, who trains the bulk of your werewolf army, is out to get you, and the dragon you think is your enemy is so disinterested in your politics that he doesn’t know you exist.

That kind of fairly important thing.

By comparison to Ballintoy near Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge with its population of one-hundred and ninety-five, the village of Bushmills and its population of thirteen hundred is a veritable metropolis. The state access road becomes Main Street as it passes through the small town along a long stretch of businesses and cute shops on either side.

At the junction of what I would argue are the two roads through it—Main Street and Dunluce Road, there’s a traffic circle that marks the Market Square. Beautifully done in the circle’s center is the Bushmills Cenotaph, a war memorial to the men of Northern Ireland who lost their lives during the Great War, or World War I. It feels timeless here. Grounded.

And slow.

Here, we find the Copper Kettle that our rescuers at the Dark Hedges recommended, and not far beyond, the local ‘chippie’ or fish and chips restaurant, The Hip Chip, at the junction with the road that leads to Portballintrae on the coast which is only 2 miles away. Channing parks at the curb not far from the restaurant, then walks to the door and enters to place an order to go while I wait in the car, look around, and try to think.

The Gallery 1608, which is owned by the world renowned Bushmills Distillery, is located here, and not far in both directions are a few more restaurants, some shopping that interests me, two butcher shops, a florist and fruiterer, and the local post office. Absent are the mega-conglomerate department stores and Americanized fast food joints, the sleaze, the hawkers and the fear.

People leave their cars at the curb, parked and running, to handle quick errands in the quaint shops. They make small talk on the sidewalks with their neighbors instead of keeping their heads down and refusing to make eye contact.  

All in all, it’s a cute place and I get why my mate has an interest in living here. By comparison with the bustle and noise, the crime, the manipulative marketing and the self-serving politicking of Crossroads, this place is a paradise of peace and tranquility.

Except, of course, for that whole sticky thing about dragons and werewolves that keeps coming up.

The fact that Channing keeps asking me to tell him everything I know, even when the basic premise is so simple as to be obvious, means he’s struggling to reconcile himself to it. Sighing, I anticipate a fight once we get our food and settle in at the cottage, then startle when someone knocks on the window, drawing my attention.

“I think it might be best if you come inside,” Channing tells me when the glass rolls down. He seems a little annoyed but resigned. "It's going to be a while."

“Don’t they do take-out?”

“Oh, they do,” he replies. He points to the keys in the ignition, his way of asking me to retrieve them, then opens my door for me. “It’s just going to take between thirty and forty-five minutes, which took me the last ten minutes of chitty-chat to get out of the very pleasant and exceptionally gregarious waitress inside.”

Yanking the keys from the ignition, I drop them in his outstretched hand. He stares down at me while he stuffs them in a pocket of his well-fitted jeans, tempting me sorely to stick my hand into it immediately as his withdraws on the pretense of retrieving them, but I don’t. I stare back up at him. It takes about ten long ticks of the clock before a begrudging grin starts to split his handsome face.

Then he huffs a laugh and shakes his head. “Is every important conversation with you going to be like this, Jinks?” he asks. Despite the way he phrases it, there’s no irritation in his words.

I giggle and my mate’s grin gets wider. Then he takes me by the hand and pulls me up into a generous hug. We both laugh heartily for several long seconds at the absurdity and the tension eases. In fact, the delay seems perfectly suited to the laid back Bushmills.

As he locks the car door, he tells me, “Wait until you see this place. It’s total déjà vu.”

“Well, you’re not wrong,” I reply as he opens and holds the door for me. Inside, The Hip Chip is almost the mirror image of the hostel restaurant we just left this morning in Belfast.

Naturally, we’re both drawn to a corner table where we can watch the whole room when we take a seat. A roundish woman with a generous smile and cheery way hurries over and provides menus. She starts the curious string of introductions to the entire restaurant, which happily is only a single family of four. In a way that’s still a mystery to me, introductions become small talk and we learn about each of the children and what they’re doing, both in school and extracurricularly. That the missus works in Portballintrae and owns her own housekeeping business and the man of the house is a proud employee of the distillery, “all these last ten years.”

By the time we get through all of this polite Irish rigamarole, another fifteen minutes has slipped by. Channing and I can both see this is going to be its own adventure, so he orders a round of Guinness for the adults which is very well received. We settle in to wait another half hour at least for two orders of fish and chips straight off the menu and prepare for it to be filled with more remarkably soothing small talk.

During the course of conversation, we learn that our little cottage is only four miles from the Bushmills Distillery, where we can take a steam train along the coast to Londonderry to visit the Giants Causeway, the Antrim coast and Glens country park. We’re within a fifteen minute drive of the stunning beaches of Whitepark Bay. And the small seaside resort town of Portrush, built on a mile–long peninsula. And Ballycastle, which we’ve by-passed on our way to Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge but where we could take a ferry across to Raithlin Island, which is great for bird watchers.

“Do you feel like you’ve been living here your whole life and know everything about it now too? Or it just me?” I ask, when we take our leave two hours later to head for the car.

“It’s not just you,” Channing tells me, lifting my hand in his and kissing the back of it as he starts the ignition and we pull into the non-existent traffic to head to the cottage. “I kind of like it—the feeling like you belong somewhere. I know Northern Ireland has a bad reputation, but I sort of get the impression that’s like the local Belfast incendiaries stirring up dissent over stuff nobody else really cares about anymore. I know there’s more to it, but everyone’s so polite and pleasant despite the conflicts. It’s not passionless like Crossroads.”

He’s definitely right about that. Only the worst of the historical violence here compares to the nightmare of life on a daily basis in Crossroads, particularly on the south side of the river.

The place Channing’s rented is a deceptively spacious bungalow-type cottage. It’s in a quiet, rural setting and has off-road sheltered parking, which is oddly uncommon here despite all the rain. I explore as my mate hauls in our luggage, and find the place is spotlessly clean and cozy. It has a generous great room with a wonderful view across the lush and green countryside, with the odd cow, donkey or horse dotting the landscape nearby. There’s also a vast selection of books and some board games provided. The décor is a quirky mix of modern and antique, but somehow, it all works with the tranquil vibe.

After wandering through the bedrooms, I find Channing in the well-equipped kitchen. The place is stocked with plenty of crockery and cleaning items, and he pre-paid for a small delivery of groceries from the local markets and shops to tide us over if we don't want to go out. He checks the refrigerator, then the grocery bags, and pleased with what he finds, turns to me.

“Well, babydoll? What do you think? Oh! Check this out!” He pivots, and in two long strides, reaches the little kitchen nook and conservatory. Drawing the drapes aside, he gestures between them and through the floor to ceiling windows. “Ta-da!”

The conservatory looks out over the well-landscaped and maintained, enclosed garden behind the cottage, and beyond that, yawning vistas span the countryside. The place was thoughtfully designed, and the conservatory will obviously provide a spectacular view of the sunset, should the weather deign to provide one.

“I’d say I like it here,” I reply, stepping closer and wrapping my arms around his sexy narrow waist and his delectable abs and mouthwatering V. “But I don’t.”

Channing’s great blue eyes meet mine and he’s clearly disheartened. “Really? With three bedrooms, it’s way bigger than we need, but it’s well-stocked—bed linens, towels, cleaning and toiletry items, even outdoor loungers—and the furniture and beds are comfortable. And we can’t do much better on the view.”

“No wi-fi or internet access,” I reply simply. "I can't even open the windows with my technomagic."

He sighs dejectedly and it just makes me want to kiss him all over that gorgeous face of his. “Do you hate it? We’ll go somewhere else if you do.”  

I grin, shaking my head, then press those kisses I’m itching to give him into the space between his sculpted pectorals and against his sternum in a little line. “It’s not an issue at all. In fact, I kind of love it. Let me help you with the groceries. Then we’ll bust out the backgammon and you can lose while we talk.”

“What makes you think I’ll lose?” he challenges.

“Because I am a backgammon master,” I reply confidently.

That scarred brow of his arches over his gorgeous blue eyes. “Oh yeah? Care to bet on it?”

“Sure.” Releasing him, I step away, leaning back on one hip and crossing my arms over my chest. “If I win, you do all the cooking and cleaning for the rest of the trip.”

“You do know this is my vacation too, don’t you?” he fires back. “And I already do all the cooking at home.”

“No you most certainly don’t! I do all the cleaning—not just for you and me, but for Adriani and Her Royal Rudeness Rebecca too. Between the various schedule delays, you’ve been home less than half of every week for the last two months, which means I cook most of the time too while you’re lounging around in Ireland with Nora delivering plates heaped with hot Belfast baps to your table!”

Channing lifts his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Okay, okay, Jinks,” he soothes in that buttery smooth tenor and with one of his smoldering cover-boy grins. “Don’t get a bee in your bonnet. I agree to your terms. Now, what do I get if I win?”

“What do you want?”

In the span of a blink, his gaze and his smile turn predatory. The tip of his tongue makes a slow,  purely seductive pass over his upper lip and his eyes rake me from head to toe and back.

“Seriously?”

That scarred brow flicks. “Oh yeah.”

“You have a one-track mind,” I sigh.

“No deal then?”

“Fine. If you win—,” I step close, resting my palms on his delicious holy abs and standing on tiptoe so I can whisper my s****l suggestions in his ear.

When I step back, Channing’s expression is a mix of scandalized surprise and lecherous eagerness. It reminds me again of how pathetically subservient the male thinking-head is to their non-thinking-head.

“Well?”

I swear the smile he gives me meets at the back of his head. “Babydoll, you got yourself a deal. Get ready to have your backside handed to you over backgammon because I have no intention of losing. Now come over here and take another vacation selfie with me.”