Excerpt
Long Island

"That Irishman has been here again," Francesca said, sitting down at the kitchen table. "He has come to every house, but it's you he's looking for. I told him you would be home soon."

"What does he want?" Eilis asked.

"I did everything to make him tell me, but he wouldn't. He asked for you by name."

"He knows my name?"

Francesca's smile had an insinuating edge. Eilis appreciated her mother-in-law's intelligence, and also her sly sense of humor.

"Another man is the last thing I need," Eilis said. "Who are you talking to?" Francesca replied.

They both laughed, as Francesca stood up to go. From the window, Eilis watched her walk carefully across the damp grass to her own house.

Soon, Larry would be in from school and then Rosella from after-school study and then she would hear Tony parking his car outside. She finished work at three so she could be there when they came home each day. It was something she did not want to miss. This would be a perfect time for a cigarette. But, having found Larry smoking, she had made a bargain with him that she would give up completely if he promised not to smoke again. She still had a packet upstairs.

When the doorbell rang, Eilis stood lazily up, presuming that it was one of Larry's cousins calling for him to come and play. However, from the hallway, she made out the silhouette of a grown man through the frosted glass of the door. Until he called out her name, it did not occur to her that this was the man Francesca had mentioned. She opened the door.

"You are Eilis Fiorello?"

The accent was Irish, with a trace, she thought, of Donegal, like a teacher she had had in school. Also, the way the man stood there, as though waiting to be challenged, reminded her of home.

"I am," she said.

"I have been looking for you."

His tone was almost aggressive. She wondered if Tony's business could owe him money.

"So I hear."

"You are the wife of the plumber?"

Since the question sounded rude, she saw no reason to reply. "He is good at his job, your husband. I'd say he's in great demand."

The man stopped for a second, looking behind him to check no one was listening.

"He fixed everything in our house," he went on, pointing a finger at her. "He even did a bit more than was in the estimate. Indeed, he came back regularly when he knew that the woman of the house would be there and I would not. And his plumbing is so good that she is to have a baby in August."

He stood back and smiled broadly at her expression of disbelief. "That's right. That's why I'm here. And I can tell you for a fact that I am not the father. It had nothing to do with me. But I am married to the woman who is having this baby and if anyone thinks I am keeping an Italian plumber's brat in my house and have my own children believe that it came into the world as decently as they did, they can have another think."

He pointed a finger at her again.

"So as soon as this little bastard is born, I am transporting it here. And if you are not at home, then I will hand it to that other woman. And if there's no one at all in any of the houses you people own, I'll leave it right here on your doorstep."

He walked towards her and lowered his voice.

"And you can tell your husband from me that if I ever see his face anywhere near me, I'll come after him with an iron bar that I keep handy. Now, have I made myself clear?"

Eilis wanted to ask him what part of Ireland he was from as a way of ignoring what he had said, but he had already turned away. She tried to think of something else to say that might engage him. "Have I made myself clear?" he asked again as he reached his car.

When she did not reply, he made as though to approach the house once more.

"I'll be seeing you in August, or it could be late July and that's the last time I'll see you, Eilis."

Excerpted from Long Island by Colm Toibin. Copyright © 2024 by Colm Toibin. Excerpted by permission of Scribner. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.