The Last Goodbye (18 page)

“Oh yeah, it’s great to see you again, Jane.” I tried to pretend that I remembered her but I knew she wasn’t fooled.

“I haven’t seen you round these parts in a while?”

“No, I’m living in London now – I’m just home for the weekend.”

“Very nice! What are you up to over there?”

“I’m working in a photography gallery. And you?”

“I’m in the bank – it’s grand – close to home so it only takes me five minutes to get to work.”

“That’s handy.”

Her clothes aged her – even though she was only my age she could easily have passed for a forty-year-old. I suppose Ballyrobin was hardly Fashion Central.

“And you’ve a baby on the way.” She nodded at my bump as she turned to use the hand-towel. She jerked the roll down and dried her hands on it.

“Yeah.”

“Your first?”

“Yeah. How about you, do you have any yourself?”

“I’ve three actually. Gary is four, Luke is three and Danielle one.”

“Well, you’ve been busy.”

“Tell me about it. So when are you due?”

“September.”

“Nice time of year to have a baby –”

“Not too hot or too cold,” I said impatiently.

“Yeah . . .”

I could see her looking at me, as if trying to figure me out. There was an awkward silence between us.

“Well, nice seeing you again, Kate and I hope all goes well in September.” She turned quickly and walked out of the bathroom.

Chapter 23

“What’s the story with the shower?” Ben shouted out from the bathroom the next morning.

“Oh, I should have remembered! I’ll have to turn on the immersion for you. But it’ll take some time.”

Dad still hadn’t progressed to an electric shower. I went and flicked the immersion switch.

Ben came back into the room. “Your family are great, Kate. I’m so glad to have finally met them.”

I said nothing and continued typing the text message that I was sending to Nat to see how she was doing.

The water still wasn’t very hot when Ben finally went to shower and he used up most of it – when it was my turn it changed from lukewarm to cold intermittently so I had to keep jumping back out and then I would stand under it again when it warmed up a bit. When I was finished I climbed back out over the bathtub – the shower head was rigged up over the bath – and wrapped myself in a towel which was rough from years of being washed with no fabric softener.

As I went back down the hall to the bedroom, I could smell the fry that Dad was cooking for breakfast. Ben was lying back on the bed with a towel wrapped around his waist, reading the newspaper he had brought over on the plane with him the day before.

“C’mon, Ben – get dressed. I’m going to show you a real breakfast.” There was nothing like the sausages and black pudding from home. They were probably the only things that I actually did miss.

We got dressed and went along to the kitchen.

“Morning,” I said to Dad.

“Good morning. Did ye sleep well? That bed is a bit springy.”

“Well, I slept great,” Ben said.

“Me too – apart from Ben snoring.”

“Was I? Sorry, love.”

“You’re always the same after a few pints.”

I devoured the breakfast that Dad put on the plate in front of me: rashers, sausages, egg, black and white pudding, and fried potatoes. When Dad saw me getting stuck into it he put a few more sausages into the pan for me.

I buttered a slice of soda bread generously, put a slice of pudding on top and ate it. “
Mmmh.
”

“I got them in Reilly’s specially for you.”

Reilly’s was the butcher in the village.

“These are great – I can see now why you always moan about the sausages in the UK!” Ben said, laughing.

When he was finished cooking, Dad sat down beside us at the table.

“What are you two at today then?” he asked.

“I don’t know – we might take in the sights around Ballyrobin,” I said, laughing.

“Well, I thought you might like to go and visit Granny and Aoife today?” Dad said seriously.

I groaned inwardly. I didn’t dare to do it out loud. I had thought that I could avoid this one.

“Great idea,” Ben said enthusiastically.

“Well, I –”

“What?” Ben cut across me.

“Well, I thought maybe we might head off for the day. Y’know – I could show you around the West?”

“You can’t come home after eight years and not visit your grandmother, Kate!”

“Right, okay.” I knew I was fighting a losing battle. “We’ll go . . .”

After lunch, Dad drove us to Granny’s house down the road. I was more nervous about this visit than anything else. Dad pushed back the tiny wrought-iron gate and we followed him around towards the back of the cottage. He stopped to pull up a few weeds that had grown up through the cracks on the path. He pushed open the door and I followed him into the kitchen.

Granny was dozing in her chair by the range. She had sat in that chair ever since I could remember. The smell of turf filled the air. I noticed the worn lino had small burn marks from where the sparks had jumped out on to the floor.

“Look who’s come to see you, Josephine,” Dad said softly.

“Hi, Gran.”

“I didn’t hear ye come in!” she said as she woke with a start.

“Sorry! We didn’t mean to scare you,” I said. I knew by her that she was embarrassed to be caught sleeping.

“How are ye?” she said, using her stick to lever herself up out of the chair. She didn’t have a stick the last time I’d seen her.

I rushed over and held onto her elbow to help her up.

“It’s great to see you, Granny.” I gave her a big hug.

She held my face between both her palms and kissed me on the forehead. Once again the guilt caught up with me. The woman was nearly ninety. The soft mushy skin on her face smelt warm and comforting.

“And are you with child?”

“I am, Granny.”

“Oh, that’s great news. Great news altogether.” If she was put out by Ben and me not being married she didn’t show it. She fished around in the pocket of her dress, took out a relic of Padre Pio and started to bless my bump with it. “That’ll keep you safe.”

I turned to Ben. “Granny, this is Ben.”

“You’re welcome to Ballyrobin, Ben,” she said, shaking his hand vigorously.

“Is Aoife not home from college yet?” Dad asked.

“She’s on her way – she rang me before she left – she had an exam today, y’know, Kate. God love her, that course of hers is very hard.”

“She’s well able for it, Josephine,” Dad said.

“Oh, don’t I know it, but my fingers are nearly down to the bone from saying the rosary for her. She wasn’t nervous at all going off this morning – I was worse.” She started to laugh.

The back door opened then and a tall girl dressed casually in a hoody, blue skinny jeans and fake Ugg boots came in. Her white-blonde hair was parted in the centre and it went down dead straight past her shoulders. You could see that it was her natural hair colour. It made her look very innocent and childlike still. She was beautiful in a Timotei-ad sort of way. She had enviably clear skin, no freckles or blemishes. It was like staring back at my reflection. Only then did I realise it was Aoife. The last time I saw her she had been eleven.

“Ah, Aoife, you’re back!” Dad said.

The surprise at seeing me there was written all over her face.

“Kate,” she said but I knew she wasn’t happy to see me.

“Hi,” I said nervously.

“This is Ben,” Gran said then because I seemed to have lost the power of speech.

Ben stepped forward and shook her hand.

“Nice to meet you, Ben.” Her voice was so soft that it was barely audible.

“How did you get on, love?” Gran asked.

“It went well, I think, Gran. I got stuck on a small part but other than that everything that I had studied came up.”

“Well, thank God for that – you see, all those rosaries worked after all!” she said triumphantly.

Aoife smiled indulgently at her.

“I’m sure you did great – she has brains to burn, doesn’t she, Josephine?” Dad said.

“Ah, she does, Noel.”

Redness crept upwards on Aoife’s cheeks.

“Did you have your lunch yet, Gran?” Aoife asked.

“I did, thanks, love. Do you want me to make something for you?”

“No, I’m grand – a few of us got a sandwich in the canteen afterwards.”

“Ah good.”

“I’ll make a pot of tea then.”

“Good girl, Aoife,” Gran said.

When Aoife had made the tea, we all sat down around the table. The Sacred Heart lamp glowed red on the wall above us.

“So, Aoife, what are you up to at the moment?” Ben said.

I shot him a look.

“Well, I’m in university in Galway – I’m studying architecture. I live up there during the week and then I come back home here at the weekends.”

“She takes great care of me,” Gran said. She put her hand over Aoife’s on the table and patted it. “I’d be lost without her.”

Aoife blushed and looked down at the cup of tea in her hands.

“Well, you couldn’t have picked a worse thing to study!” I said. “You’ll probably have to join the dole queue when you graduate.”

I could see Dad and Ben glaring at me but I didn’t care. “I’m just saying that every architect I know is unemployed at the moment.”

But instead of standing up for herself, Aoife just said nothing.

“Well, Aoife will land on her feet, I just know she will. Won’t you, love?” Gran said.

Aoife smiled back at her.

I felt a small twinge of jealousy.

“So when is your baby due, Kate?” Aoife asked timidly.

“September.”

“That’ll fly in.”

“Hardly! It’s already starting to drag.”

I noticed that her eyebrows, even though they were fair, could do with a plucking. She could also have done with tinting them. They were more like two sheens across her forehead.

“So how come we didn’t see you in Doyle’s last night?” Ben asked Aoife, obviously trying to change the conversation.

“I’m not a big drinker actually,” she said quietly.

We drank the rest of our tea without saying much. Granny asked me about my job and we talked about the weather until Dad said that we had better make tracks.

The whole way home in the car I had to listen to Ben singing Aoife’s praises.

“She’s lovely, isn’t she?” Ben, in the front seat, said to Dad.

What was he doing? What had got into him?

“Ah, she is – she’s a gentle soul all right,” Dad said.

I was pretty sure that that was a dig meant for me.

“There are not many young people who would have the patience to take care of an old person like she does,” said Ben.

“She’s hardly Mother fuckin’ Teresa!” I snapped from the backseat.

“That’s enough, Kate!” Ben said sharply.

“Well, she’s not!”

He turned around and glared at me.

No one said anything for the rest of the journey.

When we got home I could tell by the way that Ben was huffing and puffing that he was pissed off with me. He didn’t wait for me to get out of the car and he walked straight into the house ahead of me. Ben rarely got annoyed with me but today it just got my back up even more. This was nothing to do with him!

He stormed down to the bedroom and I marched down after him. Who did he think he was? How dare he just come home for one weekend and think that he knew it all!

I walked into the room behind him and slammed the door shut.

He swung around to face me. His eyes were on fire with anger.

“What has got into you, Kate?”

“How dare you – it’s none of your business!”

“Yes, it is actually – when I’m there watching my girlfriend being so rude to the point that I’m embarrassed by her behaviour then, well, yes, I think it is my business!”

“You don’t have a clue. You can’t just breeze in here for one weekend and think that you know it all and everyone will be all happy families again!”

“No, but you could at least try. That was the whole point of the trip – to try to build some bridges with your family – but I think you have just burnt whatever chance was left of that!”