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‘Connie Hanlon,’ Caitlin replied. ‘Her husband is Robert Hanlon, the artist. He rents the old cottage up the loaney at our place.’
‘She’s damned attractive, Caitlin,’ said Seamus. ‘And a bit of a live wire, by the look of her.’ Seamus was watching Michael and the artist’s wife dancing the light-footed polka with a lot of laughter. ‘You’d best keep an eye on that one. Where’s her husband?’
‘He’s here somewhere.’ Caitlin looked around. ‘I can’t see him at the moment. Oh there he is. In front of the post office. He’s sketching away like mad. Fred Aspinall is bringing out a souvenir edition of the Drumard Chronicle, and he’s asked Robert to do drawings for it.’
Seamus saw the man Caitlin had referred to. A burly individual with a short, bushy beard, standing with a sketchbook held horizontally at his waist, drawing with rapid movements of the pencil in his hand and glancing frequently at whatever his subject happened to be. He wore a tweed sports jacket and a matching rimless tweed hat and baggy, brown trousers. ‘So that’s the Robert Hanlon I’ve been hearing about. Did he join up?’
‘No. Michael says he tried to enlist, but they turned him down because his doctor confirmed that he has angina.’
‘He’ll have to be careful with that,’ said Seamus.
‘It doesn’t stop him tramping the hills hereabouts,’ Caitlin observed. ‘And he joined the Home Guard in Belfast. Did his bit for the war effort that way. Like Liam.’
‘Well, that’s always something.’
‘Now he’s doing very well for himself as an artist, considering he’s only thirty-seven or thirty-eight. The Drumard Strand Hotel just bought one of his big watercolour paintings for their Slieve Corragh Room.’
‘Is he much older than his wife?’ Seamus was looking again at Connie and Michael. ‘She can’t be much over twenty.’
‘She’s twenty-six,’ Caitlin told him. ‘At least a year older than Nora. Older than she looks.’ ‘Do you recognise the man in the dark blue suit sitting behind Robert Hanlon?’
Seamus had returned his attention to the artist at work, but he switched to the short, grey-haired, well-dressed man, seated on the chair behind him. ‘He looks familiar, but I can’t place him.’
‘That’s Chucky Henderson.’
‘No. I don’t believe you.’
‘Oh it’s him all right. The overweight woman beside him is his wife.
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