The Spinning Heart

“There’s a red metal heart in the centre of the low front gate, skewered on a rotating hinge. It’s flaking now; the red is nearly gone. It needs to be scraped and sanded and painted and oiled. It still spins in the wind, though. I can hear it creak, creak, creak as I walk away. A flaking, creaking, spinning heart.”

The decorative heart that hangs on the gate of Frank’s house represents the shared heartbreak of the people in the village. Once economically vibrant, the village fell apart after Pokey fled, taking with him the main source of revenue in the town. As a result, many of the people living in this small, rural village have no job, little money, and even less hope in their future.

“My lovely, lovely Triona […] She could have gone with any of them smart boys that got the real money out of the boom: the architects, solicitors, auctioneers. […] She saw more in me than I knew was there.” 

Bobby describes Triona and also reveals that, before the economic crash, the economy was booming because of real estate. Massive amounts of land had been sold, and Pokey and his crew began building luxury estates on the land. Many people in the village, like Bobby, thought that the boom was permanent, that people would always need new houses built. However, once it all collapses and Pokey leaves without paying his workers their pensions, it’s clear that the only ones who came out ahead were the architects, solicitors, and auctioneers, because they made their profits before everything went under.

“I had a right swagger there for a couple of years, thinking I was a great fella. Foreman, I was, clearing a grand a week. Set for life. Houses would never stop going up. I’d see babies like our own being pushed around the village below and think: lovely, work for the future, they’ll all need their own houses some day too.” 

Bobby explains why he got swept up in the illusion that the economic boom was permanent, and why everyone was so devastated when it crashed. Bobby was making presumably more money than he ever had before, and from that vantage point, it seemed like people would always need the services that he and Pokey’s crew provided.