The Last Goodbye (20 page)

“Well, I’m fine – thanks for asking.”

“I didn’t.”

“Look, Ben, I know why you are annoyed with me but I told you that coming back here wasn’t a good idea.”

“Listen to yourself, Kate – it’s all about you as usual. I’ve spent the last two hours chatting to your dad who was worried out of his mind about you and God knows you don’t deserve his worry.”

Just then there was a knock on the door.

Ben answered it. Dad stuck his head around the pine doorframe.

“I thought you would like some dinner, love – Ben and I have already eaten but I kept a plate for you?”

“Thanks, Dad. I’ll be along in a minute.”

He closed the door softly again.

“That man is a saint to put up with you!” said Ben.

“How dare you!” I said as I walked out of the room. “You don’t know anything!”

Dad made no reference to the afternoon’s events as I ate the dinner of mashed potatoes, pork chops and carrots.

“So what time is the flight tomorrow?” he asked, setting down a mug of tea beside me.

“Around eleven.”

“Well, we’d want to be on the road for seven so, just in case. You never know what the traffic up in Dublin will be like.”

“Thanks, Dad.” I couldn’t wait until I was sitting on that flight and getting the hell out of this place again.

“Well, it’s been good to have you home, Kate.”

I looked up at him, wondering if he was taking the mickey out of me but his face was serious.

“I just bring trouble, Dad.”

“Will you stop saying that? This is your home, we are your family and we would love to see more of you – and Ben. He’s a grand fella, Kate.”

“Hmmh.” I wasn’t so sure, given that we were not on speaking terms.

“He is, Kate – we had a good chat while you were gone earlier. He’s mad about you, you know.”

“Well, he certainly isn’t acting like it,” I muttered.

“He’ll calm down – he just wants the best for you.”

I said nothing.

“Seán called over earlier to see you again before you left.”

“Oh really? That’s a pity. I would have liked to have seen him before we head off.”

“Well, you’ll just have come home again soon – bring the baby back home to Ballyrobin to see us all.”

“Maybe.”

I wasn’t promising anything.

We all sat and watched Saturday night TV but by nine I was exhausted after the day and I said that I was going to bed. Ben stayed up a bit longer with Dad and I felt him getting into the bed beside me a while later. I waited for him to put his arms around me like he always did whenever he got into bed after me but he just rolled over so we were facing away from each other.

I stayed awake for a while thinking over everything – what a disaster the whole trip had been from the moment we had arrived – and now Ben and I weren’t even talking. The sooner we both got home and away from here the better. It couldn’t come quick enough.

Chapter 26

The next morning the sun had finally decided to come out – it was like an omen. We drove most of the journey to the airport in silence. I think we were all exhausted from the strain of the weekend. It was a relief to be a step closer to being home. Ben still wasn’t talking to me – he had said a polite few words over breakfast but I knew it was for Dad’s sake rather than my own. Once we got home though I knew we could sort it out. That was the problem with this place. It brought nothing but trouble for everyone.

At the airport, we pulled into the set-down bay and Dad pulled the boot lever and got out of the car to help us take out our luggage.

“Well, it’s been lovely to meet you,” Dad said, shaking Ben’s hand firmly. “And we’d love you to come over again soon.”

“I’d like that. I’ve really enjoyed meeting all of you. And be sure to tell Granny and Aoife and the rest of them that we said goodbye.”

I cringed as he pretended they were all best friends now – he had just met them once!

“I will, of course.”

“Don’t leave it so long the next time!”

“Well, safe journey home, Dad.” I hugged him close.

“Before you go, I want to give you this –” He took an envelope from the inside pocket of his jacket and handed it to me.

“What’s this?” I said, going to open it.

“Don’t open it now.” He put his hand over mine on top of the envelope. “Better to wait until you get home.”

“But –”

“Look, I’ve debated for years whether to give this to you or not, but maybe now is the right time. I hope it might . . . well . . . help you to make sense of it all.”

I clutched the faded envelope in my hands and watched Dad get back into the car. We waved goodbye to each other and suddenly I could feel tears in my eyes. I wiped them quickly away before anyone could see them. Wordlessly Ben and I went inside the airport terminal.

High winds and heavy rains delayed our flight by a few hours – the sunshine from the west had yet to make it across to the east of the country. Winds howled and rain hit the runway in diagonal sheets, making takeoff and landing unsafe. There was now a backlog of flights waiting to leave Dublin. We went for lunch while we were waiting. Ben read the newspaper at the table while I sat people-watching. I couldn’t recall a time when Ben had stayed mad at me for this long. Finally, the winds died down and we got word that our flight was ready to board.

I took the envelope back out of my bag after I had taken my seat on the plane. I was so curious to know what was inside it but I had a heavy feeling that it was something big. I knew by Dad’s manner and the way that he had told me to wait until I was at home before opening it, that I should listen to him. Whatever it was, it was important.

Back in Heathrow, Ben hailed a taxi. I was secretly glad we didn’t have to criss-cross London on the train and Tube to get home.

When we arrived at the flat, he left the bags in the hallway and went straight into the kitchen. I followed straight behind him. Pulling back the fridge door, he took out a beer.

“You’re going to have to talk to me sometime, you know?” I said, blocking his path from our galley kitchen back to the sofa.

“Leave it, Kate.”

“You’ve no right getting mad with me – it was your idea to go to Ireland in the first place.”

“You’re so arrogant, do you know that? Your family are all lovely people – I don’t know what I was expecting, to be honest, after everything you’ve told me about them over the years – but it certainly wasn’t to come away not liking my own girlfriend!”

His words stung me to the core. I stood to the side and let him pass. He walked by me, turned on the TV and sat on the sofa with his back to me. I took the envelope that Dad had given me out of my bag and went to our bedroom.

I kicked off my shoes, sat back against the cushions on the bed and studied the outside of the envelope once again. It had a worn look and I guessed that it was originally white but had faded over time. I turned it over and saw that the flap was open. I felt along where the gum should be but the stickiness was long gone as if someone had opened it many times before. I was afraid of what I might find inside. There was something about Dad’s behaviour that made me hesitate.

I didn’t have to open it. Best to let sleeping dogs lie and all that. I briefly thought about throwing it in the bin – I didn’t want any more upset in my life, especially if it was something to do with my family. I’d had enough of that over the weekend and even now I was still putting up with the repercussions of it – I had never known Ben to stay in a huff with me for so long. I knew I could just throw it in the bin now and be none the wiser but I also knew that Dad wouldn’t have given it to me unless it was important. So I took a deep breath and pulled the letter out of the envelope. The paper was neatly folded in half. I opened it up and, as soon as I saw the leaning handwriting, I knew who it was from.

Eva 1992

Chapter 27

We both watched as the test turned positive.
Sweet Mother of Divine Jesus, Mary, and all the saints in heaven what was I going to do?

I had just spent the last half an hour convincing Doctor O’Brien that there was no way, no way whatsoever that I could be pregnant. I had sat down opposite him and listed off my symptoms. He had asked me to do a pregnancy test “just as a precaution” but I had laughed and told him there was no way that I was pregnant and not to bother wasting his time.

“It’s a tummy bug, I’m telling you,” I had said.

Because I’d had it for over a week now Noel had talked me into getting it checked out. Never in a million years did I think that I could be pregnant. After three of them. I thought I would have known the symptoms. We were done – our youngest, Seán, was ten years old now, for God’s sake!

“I’m sorry, Doctor, but is there any way – any way at all that these things . . . well, you know . . . can get it wrong sometimes?” I waved my hand at the test, which rested on the desk in front of him.

“I’m afraid not, Eva. There are no false positives.”

I looked at all his medical certs hanging on the white wall behind him, willing him to be wrong. I had been coming to Doctor O’Brien since just after I got married, when I was pregnant with Kate. I had trusted him with my life, especially when Patrick decided to arrive in a hurry and I didn’t have time to get to the hospital – if it wasn’t for Doctor O’Brien, I don’t know what might have happened. I always brought my children to him now as well. He was a man of few words. It was like words cost him money so he chose them carefully and saved whatever was unnecessary. He would often fix his eyes on you, entertaining a long silence as he mulled things over in his head. Sometimes you would wonder if he was even listening but then he would come out with a diagnosis or treatment and you knew he was on the ball once again.

“What am I going to do?”

“Well, there’s not a lot you can do, Eva – there is a baby growing away inside you there whether you like it or not!”

“But I’m almost forty!”

“Yes, it’s obviously a riskier business at this age – the odds of complications go up immeasurably. Down Syndrome, Edwards Syndrome –”

“Jesus, will you stop! I’m barely getting my head around it without worrying about what might come with it!”

“Obviously this has come as a shock to you, Eva, but go home and talk to Noel – you’ll work through it.”

“I’m not so sure,” I mumbled as I rooted around in my handbag to get my purse.

“I’ll see you back here for your check-ups.”

I paid him the money and with that I found myself back outside the door again.

I walked out of the surgery and onto the street in a daze. How had it happened? I was racking my head, trying to think. I thought we had been very careful since we’d had Seán but obviously we were not careful enough. We had purposely had the three of them close in age so that they would all grow up together – ‘steps of the stairs’ people called them. As I walked along I wondered how on earth I was going to break the news to Noel. I felt like a schoolgirl that had gone and got herself into trouble, except that it was my own husband that I was afraid of telling instead of my parents. I was tempted to buy a packet of cigarettes but I had given them up years ago so I knew having one would just make me sick and dizzy. And then there was Mam, what would she think of me having a baby at my age? I walked down the street, locked inside my own thoughts. I passed miserable Mr Acton the accountant putting the canary-yellow steering-wheel lock on his Mercedes even though it was parked right outside the door of his office, the fool! He wouldn’t spend Christmas, that fella!

I nearly tripped over a dog on a lead as I walked. The owner glared at me.

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

I didn’t recognise him at all – he was probably a blow-in.

My mind flipped back to Noel then. Things were tight enough already – he was constantly stressed about money. We didn’t earn enough off the farm to raise three children on, especially with Kate in secondary school now and Patrick due to follow her soon. He picked up whatever odd jobs were going around the town – turkey-plucking at Christmas time or getting a few days here and there in the meatpacker’s whenever they were a man short. He had even let out a field last year to another farmer because at least it would be a bit of a steady income for us. It had killed him to break up the small bit of a farm that had been passed down from his own father but he didn’t have much choice.

“Well, how did you get on?” Noel asked as soon as I came in the back door, a gust of wind rushing in behind me.

With force, I shut it closed.

He was sitting at the table, his two hands on either side of the newspaper.

“What? Oh yeah, grand.” I couldn’t tell him yet.