The Last Goodbye (32 page)

When we went back to the house, I noticed that the neighbours had made trays of sandwiches and cakes and were serving up endless cups of tea to everyone. People were busying themselves in my house opening presses and drawers trying to locate things. Someone asked me where we kept the teabags and I got up to show them. It all seemed surreal. It didn’t seem like this was my wife’s funeral. Even though I had known she was dying, it still came as a shock in the end if that makes sense? I would be okay for a few minutes and I would drink the tea that was poured for me and talk to someone and then I would remember it all again. Someone told me that the meat factory was going to be closing after over fifty years in business and I remember thinking that I must tell Eva, but then I remembered I couldn’t. And it hurt as bad every time I remembered. I just wanted her back – this wasn’t what we had signed up for. We were meant to be raising our children together and then when they had flown the nest, it was time for us. That was the way it was supposed to be – not me watching as her coffin was lowered into the ground. The boys played with their friends, which I was grateful for – it was a distraction for them. Kate stayed down in her room with Aidan. I could hear her music blaring through the door but I let them at it.

Everyone cleared out that evening until there were only a few left behind doing the washing-up. The neighbour brought Aoife back home and said that she had never seen such a good-natured baby. Josephine took her into her arms and sat cradling her for the rest of the evening.

“She looks so like her mother at that age, Noel,” Josephine said to me wistfully as she stared down at the sleeping baby in her arms.

I knew her heart must have been breaking. The natural order of life had reversed itself – she shouldn’t be burying her daughter.

After a few days everyone was gone. Anna and her family had caught their flight back home – the neighbours had left us alone and stopped bringing dinners in the evenings. Josephine told me to send the kids back to school, that it would do them good to try and keep routine and some sort of normality in their lives. Kate had withdrawn into herself completely. She never mentioned her mother – it was as if she had never existed at all – and I wasn’t strong enough to bring it up with her. I didn’t trust myself to talk to her without falling to pieces.

I would go out into the fields and not want to go back and face the house because it felt so empty without Eva’s presence. I hated those first few minutes when I would come in the door and acutely feel her absence. She could fill a room just by being in it. I always used to love coming home to her after a day on the farm and now I just felt lost in my own life and I didn’t know what to do about it.

And I had so many questions about Aoife. Although Josephine came over every day to help out with her, once I was alone, I realised that I wasn’t sure of so many things like how many bottles Aoife should be having? Or how was I supposed to know when she needed more? What age did you start them on food? And even then what do you give them? When she was cranky one day, I didn’t know if she was sick, teething or if it was just a bad day. This was all stuff that Eva knew and I desperately missed her and although I had always helped Eva out when the kids were babies, it was always with Eva’s instructions. It was only now that she was gone that I realised how on top of everything she had been. She just got on with things and everything ran smoothly in the house when she was around. Now the school uniforms weren’t even washed, let alone ironed. The house was filthy. A layer of dust ran along the surfaces and the white enamel bathtub had a grey scum along the waterline. Josephine was great and tried to take over Eva’s role in the household as best she could but she couldn’t do everything. And it wasn’t fair on her. She was nearly seventy. But I knew she wanted to do it. She needed to do it. She said it helped her to feel closer to Eva. She had decided to take Aoife to her house to give me a hand, at least take that pressure off me, but I still struggled to look after the other three as well as run the house and the farm.

“What will we do for lunch, Dad – there’s no bread?” Patrick would stand looking into the empty fridge and I would root around for some money in my pocket and tell them to buy something in the town. I knew Eva would be turning in her grave at the thought of them buying their lunch in the chippers.

Josephine made our dinner in the evenings but she already had a full-time job in minding Aoife. And she had her own house to run as well. We were so tight financially too – I had let things slide on the farm a bit over the last few months with Eva being in hospital and everything, so now we had very little to live on.

And I was starting to drink. Not much by some people’s standards but I was never a big drinker and I knew it was too much for me. Instead of coming home at lunchtime for a sandwich, I would go to Doyle’s and have a pint. Sometimes I would go down after work too if Josephine was able to take care of the children. She didn’t say anything at first but I could see her looking at me with her eyes narrowed or she would say “You’re going down again” and it wouldn’t be a question – it was a statement.

“I won’t be long,” I would offer, both embarrassed and disgusted with myself at the same time.

And all the time in the background were reminders that Christmas was coming and the sight of all that tinsel and those baubles everywhere just made it all the more painful. Eva had loved Christmas – it was her favourite time of the year. She would go to great efforts to make sure it was special for the kids – Santa letters were written well ahead of time and posted to the North Pole. Decorations were handmade. The tree was put up in the first weekend of December. We would all go to visit Santa and go for a bite to eat afterwards – it was a tradition now. The house would be full of the smell of mulled wine and mince pies and she would bake gingerbread men and decorate them with the kids. She had special Christmas plates and a tablecloth that got taken down just for the day and were put away again for the following year. The house would be stocked high with tins of sweets and biscuits so that we would be eating them for months afterwards.

Christmas Day was hard for everyone – her presence was sorely missed all day long. I had bought the wrong Nintendo game for Patrick and, although it wasn’t said, we all knew that Eva wouldn’t have made that mistake. I had bought Kate a make-up set full of colourful shades of pinks and blues – the woman in the chemist had assured me that she would love it. But her look told me that it wasn’t what she had wanted at all. Josephine had cooked Christmas dinner for us and, although it was a fine meal, the table lacked its heart.

Aoife and Josephine had grown very close. Josephine always seemed to have her cradled in her arms. And when she did give her to me to hold, I always felt slightly awkward doing it. I would have the position or the angle wrong and Josephine would gently suggest that I try to sit her forward a bit more but she would cry and then Josephine would say “Oh, she must have wind”. She always knew what to do with her and I had to admit that I would be lost without her.

Kate was my biggest problem. There wasn’t a week that went by where she wasn’t on detention for something after school. She got suspended for giving cheek to her history teacher. Then I had been called in because of her absenteeism. I was shocked because as far as I was aware she was going to school every morning but then I learned she had been spending the day sitting watching TV in Aidan’s house while his parents were at work. I was at my wits’ end with her. She wanted to leave school but there was no way I could let her go without doing her Leaving Cert. The thing was, she was bright and intelligent but she had lost all interest somewhere along the way and now she saw school as something to fight against. I knew Eva wouldn’t have wanted her to leave before completing her education either though what she chose to do after that was up to her. So I held firm on it, no matter how much she acted up. She ignored Aoife completely. I knew she blamed her for the fate of her mother, but she was only a tiny baby and couldn’t be held accountable for it all. Even Aidan, in fairness to him, would go over and look at her or tickle her under her chin at least. Kate still had so much anger inside her and I didn’t know how to help her. God knows, I had anger too. This was where I needed Eva.

Chapter 44

The time went by somehow, although I don’t really remember much about it now. I often wondered, if she’d had the surgery before the cancer had claimed her whole body, would she still be with us? But she was caught between a rock and a hard place – maybe Eva might still be with us but little Aoife may not have been – or maybe neither of them would be? Who knows how things might have turned out? And it was futile going over it all again – it still wouldn’t change the outcome.

I felt her presence everywhere – a song would come on the radio that reminded me of her and the day of her Month’s Mind there was a documentary on the TV about
My Fair Lady
. And call it a coincidence or whatever but the sun had shone brightly at Patrick’s confirmation – just as she had promised.

I would go up to tidy her grave or just sit and talk to her. Sometimes I would bring Aoife with me because I knew Eva would want to see her. She had grown into a wobbly toddler with straight white-blonde hair. She was learning to talk and would walk around the place pointing to different things saying “Wat dis?” “Wat dis?” She was still staying with Josephine – it was a habit we had fallen into and neither one of us dared to address it. I knew she had grown very close to Aoife and I didn’t want to be the one to disrupt it, especially when she was still grieving for Eva. Plus, if I’m entirely honest, with the farm and everything, I wouldn’t have been able to cope with a small child – I was already struggling to look after the other three. The arrangement worked for us and I still saw Aoife every day – Josephine would bring her over to the house or I would call over there. She called me ‘Dadda’ – she knew who I was – she just didn’t live with us. The boys were so good with her. They would patiently lead her by the hand, showing her the flowers in the garden, or read stories out loud to her. They loved their little sister.

Kate, on the other hand, didn’t want to know the child. If Aoife was crying, Kate would ask someone to make her quiet. If Aoife waddled over to Kate with her doll or something, Kate would get up and walk out of the room.

The day I opened the bin to put a teabag into it and saw the pregnancy test sticking up from the top of the rubbish, my world stopped. In slow motion I took the stick out of the bin. It could only belong to Kate. I wasn’t sure how to read it so I had a look around the rubbish for the instructions but they weren’t with it. Did this mean that she was pregnant? Dear God, no. I was already in a delicate state but this would be the thing that would break me altogether. She was only sixteen – I knew that she and Aidan had been together for a while but they were too young to be having sex and
unprotected sex
at that.

I was waiting for her when she came in the door in her uniform – tie missing, the top button of her blouse opened, her tatty army-green canvas schoolbag destroyed with black permanent marker.

“Where were you?” I stood up and walked over to her.

“School – where do you think?”

“Don’t use that tone with me! What’s this?” I held up the stick for her to see.

“Where did you get that?” she said quickly.

“You didn’t do a great job of hiding it in the bin!”

She wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“Well, are you?”

“What?”

“Pregnant, Kate!” I was shouting now. “Are you pregnant?”

“No, Dad – I’m not, actually, if you must know.”

The relief washed through me.

“Well, thank God for that!” I let out a long sigh, “What are you playing at, Kate? You’re only sixteen – you have your whole life ahead of you – why would you want to ruin it all?”

“My life is already ruined.”

“Kate, please, I know these last few years have been hard on you and I also know that you and Aidan are going to have sex no matter what I say but get yourself down to Doctor O’Brien and get the pill or whatever it is that girls take nowadays . . .” This was where I needed Eva.

“I already have.”

“Well, that’s something, I suppose,” I mumbled. “Look, Kate, just be careful, yeah?”

From that point on something changed between us. We tolerated each other now. I had to respect the fact that my little girl was now grown up and having sex. I hated to think of it but I had to be realistic as well. I wished that Eva was here. She would have had ‘the talk’ with Kate – she would have done a far better job than I ever could. I knew I had to trust Kate to make the right decisions – I couldn’t be there to police her all the time. But although she still asked constantly about leaving school, I held firm. That was the bargain – she did her Leaving Cert and I left her alone. We both knew as the Leaving Cert came closer that it was going to mark a change but I never thought she would just up and leave the day after she had finished her exams. She never said goodbye or told me she was going. All there was left was a note saying that she would call me in a few days’ time and to tell her gran and Aidan that she was sorry.

That was it – that was how it happened. Just like that, my daughter was gone as well.

Kate 2012