Her Husband's Mistake

by Sheila O'Flanagan

  I take a seat at the back, and as I listen to the priest, who clearly never knew Mr Lehane, I remember how Father Kaminski spoke warmly about Dad – a family man, kind and generous, loved by all who knew him. To be fair, Father Kaminski didn’t know Dad that well himself; he was new to the parish and Dad wouldn’t have been a regular at the local church, but he visited him a number of times at the hospice and, according to Dad, he was ‘broad-minded enough for a cleric’. Those words about Dad were true, though. His family – Mum, Aidan and me, along with our own families – was the most important thing in his life. Everything he did was for us. Everything.

  But I suddenly think of Estelle and the money he gave her, and I have to accept that maybe not every single thing he did was for us. That not every single thing could be. I also think of the photograph in the car that I’ve ignored for these last weeks and wonder what more Dad might have done without telling Mum. Why did he give Estelle the money if he didn’t believe, on some level, that she might be telling the truth? Why did he keep her photograph if he didn’t care, at least a little? Is it possible he might even have met her on one of the days he left the house early and didn’t return until late at night? Could he have met her child, too?

  I shiver in the chill air of the church as I tell myself that even if it’s true, it hardly matters any more. Neither Estelle nor her son has ever tried to contact us. The past is behind us and it’s probably better that way. But it has marred the memories I have of my dad and of the sort of person I thought he was, and that’s still hard to accept.

  I’m lost so deep in my thoughts that I hardly even realise Ivo is walking to the lectern to give the eulogy. I’m surprised he’s doing it, but he keeps it very short. He says that his father lived the kind of life he wanted to live and that he will be missed by many people (though clearly not that many, I think, given the numbers in the church). Then he thanks everyone for coming. He says that his father is being buried in the local cemetery and that there will be refreshments for all the mourners in Kielty’s pub on the Monasterevin Road afterwards.

  I stand along with the sparse congregation, partly shielded by the woman in front of me, as the coffin is wheeled out of the church. I feel like an intruder. I came out of a sense of obligation, yet it’s hard to be part of another family’s grief. The chill wind whistles through the open doors and I wrap my green scarf more tightly around my neck.

  I’d like to make a quick escape, but the tradition after the funeral mass is for those who attended to express their condolences to the family, and I hang back as the strangers in the church approach Ivo and Lizzy. Annabel is a little apart, out of place both because she isn’t part of the family and because she’s a splash of Continental glamour on a grey Irish day. Beneath the clearly expensive jacket, she’s wearing an elegant black and white houndstooth dress that comes to just above the knee; and I recognise her black shoes with the gold stiletto heels – they’re Kurt Geiger and I saw them in Arnotts when I was buying my polka-dot dress. They’re new this season.

  The man who’s been monopolising Ivo and Lizzy walks away. This is my opportunity to go over and tell Ivo once again how sorry I am.

  He thanks me and introduces me to his sister. She’s very pretty, with wide hazel eyes and a warm, open manner quite at odds with the irate woman I overhead on the phone to him before.

  ‘You’re very good to come.’ She gives me a hug. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Indeed,’ says Ivo. ‘You didn’t have to be here. I appreciate it.’

  I don’t really know what to say to them. To him.

  ‘Will you be joining us in Kielty’s afterwards?’ asks Lizzy.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think—’

  ‘Please do, if you can,’ she says. ‘There aren’t going to be many people there and I’d like . . . well, I hate to think that he wouldn’t have anyone . . .’

  We hired a private room in Dad’s local for after his funeral. It was packed with people. Aidan had put together a montage of photos of him, which were projected onto a giant screen, and we used a soundtrack of his favourite music to accompany them. Later in the evening, Dessie, one of Dad’s closest friends, played guitar and we sang lots of the songs he’d loved.

  I can’t bear to think of a sparse gathering for Mr Lehane.

  ‘Well, of course,’ I say.

  ‘You don’t have to come to the cemetery,’ Ivo tells me. ‘Head straight for the pub. That’s what the others are doing.’ He nods in the general direction of the small knot of people I saw in the church.

  ‘I’ll see you a little later, so,’ I tell him.

  I walk away and get into the car. I don’t know the pub he’s talking about, but by now I’m very familiar with the Monasterevin Road. As I start the engine, a woman in a blue coat knocks at the driver’s window and I roll it down.

  ‘Are you going to Kielty’s?’ she asks. ‘Could you give us a lift?’

  What can I do but agree? The woman, along with two others and an elderly man, gets into the car.

  ‘Very nice.’ She pats the leather upholstery approvingly. ‘Do you know the family?’

  ‘I know Ivo,’ I say.

  ‘Very glamorous woman he’s got with him,’ says the elderly man. ‘Dressed for a wedding, not a funeral.’

  Which is a little harsh on Annabel. Like me, I’m sure she dressed well as a mark of respect.

  ‘The pub is about a mile down the road,’ he says as I pass the Tesco where I used to pick Ivo up. ‘On your right. There’s parking.’

  I follow his instructions and a minute later pull up in front of Kielty’s. My passengers pile out, heading straight inside. I’m not in a rush to follow them, so I sit in the car and check my messages. Melisse Grady is looking to book me for another author visit next week. A company I do a lot of work for also wants me for a number of pickups and drop-offs. Baz Cadogan, one of the people I met at the workshop in the Convention Centre, wants me to drive him to an event. And I’ve got an enquiry from a retired judge in Howth, who’s asking about transport to his regular hospital appointments on the other side of the city. I can’t drive any more , he’s written. But I want to travel in comfort.

  I respond positively to all of them and add them to my schedule.

  The skies above me have turned a deeper shade of grey and the wind has whipped the trees into a sudden frenzy so that their remaining leaves scatter and whirl around the car park. Even as I think it might rain, hailstones begin to fall, clanging onto the roof of the Mercedes and smashing against the windscreen.

  The sun shone on the day of Dad’s funeral. I was too hot in my black dress and jacket, and I’d developed a blister from my feet sweating into my tight black shoes. I recall Julie Halpin saying to me, as I did to Ivo Lehane, that she was sorry for my loss. And then I remember her blue sundress, a bright pool on the floor of my bedroom, and her sparkly flip-flops twinkling merrily in the early-morning light.

  If I hadn’t gone home that morning, I wouldn’t be here now, sitting in the almost-empty car park of a country pub, a hailstorm raging around me. I’d be at home, or maybe at Mum’s. My life unchanged and unchanging. All the drama of the last few months would never have happened. Everything would have been so much simpler. I would have remained the Roxy I was before. The Roxy Dave still wants me to be.

  And then I tell myself that’s not necessarily the case. I’d still have had to make decisions about driving or selling the Mercedes. And that decision would have changed our lives anyway. But it would have been made without the constant backdrop of Dave’s betrayal. Maybe without that I would’ve chosen differently. Or maybe I would have made the same choice and still be here in the pub car park, in a hailstorm.

  Life is random. And short. And sometimes it throws you curveballs you never expected.

  As abruptly as it started, the hailstorm ends, and almost unbelievably the clouds part to reveal a bright blue sky. I loosen my scarf, get out of the car and walk into the pub. The other mourners are already on refills of tea and munchin
g on the sandwiches.

  In the forty minutes or so before the Lehanes arrive, my head is almost melted by the incessant gossip about the late Mr Lehane (a troubled soul, according to most of the women), Lizzy (a saint) and Ivo (a bit above himself). I’m relieved to see him finally walk into the pub with Annabel, followed by Lizzy, the older woman and the two men. There are some general introductions, and I learn that the older woman and one of the men are distant relatives, while the other man is a neighbour.

  Ivo is immediately cornered by one of my passengers, the woman in the blue coat. Annabel holds back and talks to the relatives. Lizzy herself comes over to me, a cup of tea in her hand.

  ‘Did you get anything to eat?’ she asks.

  I nod. Although I wasn’t particularly hungry, I had an egg sandwich along with coffee.

  ‘Ivo told me all about you,’ she says, and I wonder what that actually means. ‘He says you’ve been great about driving him here – and collecting him,’ she adds with a grin. ‘Idiot that he is.’

  ‘Oh well.’ I shrug. ‘Clients have their preferences.’

  ‘He also said that you were responsible for making him keep in touch.’

  ‘I’m not sure that—’

  ‘After that weekend when there was a crash on the motorway and we rowed because it wrecked my evening.’ She sips her tea. ‘He said that he brought you for restorative coffee afterwards and you told him to cop on to himself.’

  ‘I didn’t quite put it like that!’ I exclaim. ‘And I haven’t driven him to Kildare since, so . . .’

  She smiles. ‘I was paraphrasing. And I know he hasn’t been over, but he called me every day. So you’ve been good for him. Thank you.’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s down to me,’ I say.

  ‘Maybe not. But at least he was able to talk to me about Dad’s care without making it obvious that he hated him.’

  I’m dying to know, but don’t want to ask. However, Lizzy seems eager to chat. She’s clearly decided that, as Ivo’s driver, I’m not a complete stranger.

  ‘Ivo always blamed his mum’s death on Dad, which I accept is a tough thing,’ she says.

  ‘His mother? Not yours too?’ I look at her in surprise.

  She shakes her head. ‘My mother was Dad’s second wife. Ivo was very young when they married.’ She scrunches up her eyes. ‘The first Mrs Lehane was killed in a hit-and-run when he was small.’

  ‘Oh, how awful!’ I exclaim. ‘But why would he blame your dad? He . . . he wasn’t driving the car, was he?’ It would be unsurprising that Ivo would have issues with him if that was the case.

  But Lizzy shakes her head. ‘No, no. She was walking along one of the unlit back roads near the house when she was hit. The driver didn’t stop.’

  ‘The poor woman. And poor Ivo, too.’

  ‘He was devastated. He blamed Dad because she’d gone out after an argument.’

  ‘What a horrible thing to have happened.’ I’m picturing Ivo as a boy, younger maybe than Tom, knowing that his mother would never come home again. It’s no wonder he had issues as an adult if his tragedy wasn’t dealt with properly when he was younger. My heart constricts with sympathy and I glance over at him. He’s still in conversation with the woman in the blue coat, although Annabel has now joined them. She’s listening, but there’s a glazed look to her eyes, which isn’t surprising given that Blue Coat was the most gossipy of all the mourners and peppered her conversation with allusions to people nobody from outside the town could possibly know.

  ‘From what I can gather, Dad’s first marriage wasn’t great,’ continues Lizzy. ‘Ivo told me about it when we were older, but of course he always painted Dad in the worst possible light. Every single row between them was his fault, not hers. From my point of view, though, he was talking about a completely different person. Dad was always lovely to me and Mum, although the truth is that they were seeing each other while he was married to Ivo’s mum, and I completely understand that that’s hurtful to Ivo too. But it doesn’t make Dad a bad person,’ she adds. ‘Lots of marriages break down.’

  ‘I got the impression that Ivo’s feelings towards your dad are very deep-seated.’ I can’t quite believe Lizzy is being so open about their family. Ivo is like a locked safe by comparison.

  ‘They certainly didn’t get on,’ agrees Lizzy. ‘Like I said, Ivo blamed Dad for all the problems with his mum. They had to get married, that was part of it. She was pregnant with Ivo, and back then it would have been a massive source of shame for her to have the baby as a single mother. So maybe it’s not surprising that Dad’s relationship with Ivo, not to mention his mum, was a bit patchy.’

  ‘It’s harsh to take it out on your own son, though,’ I say. And then I recall Estelle and my dad, and how she was also pressurised into getting married and couldn’t stand it and ran away. Women were treated badly by society in the past. Blamed and shamed for things that were the fault of men too. It’s good that it has improved, although probably not as much as we’d like.

  Lizzy makes a face. ‘Apparently during one of their rows he told Ivo that his mum had been with loads of other men before him and that she was “loose”. That he took her on as a favour. That his dad could be anybody. As far as Ivo was concerned, he could never love him after that. I know,’ she says as I open my mouth to speak. ‘I know it was cruel and hurtful and I’m not defending him, but people can say some awful things when they’re angry. All I know is that while he was married to my mum he was a good man. Easy to rile up,’ she continues. ‘But certainly not the monster that Ivo likes to paint him.’

  ‘I guess we all see things from our own perspective,’ I say, though honestly I’m completely on Ivo’s side. His dad sounds awful no matter what Lizzy might say in his defence. ‘Was he telling the truth? About Ivo not being his?’

  I glance over at her brother. Though he’s actually only her half-brother, unless the late Mr Lehane was right when he made his hurtful remark that Ivo’s dad could be ‘anybody’. Yet he and Lizzy both have the same way of tilting their head to one side when they’re thinking. And when Lizzy smiles, her eyes crinkle up just like his. Anyhow, her story explains a lot about Ivo. His reluctance to come home. His insistence that he’s bad with people. His desire not to be like his father. Most of all, in fact, his desire not to be like his father. He catches me looking at him and grimaces slightly as he nods at the woman in the blue coat.

  Meanwhile Lizzy shakes her head as she answers my question. ‘Not as far as I know. It’s possible, I suppose, but I don’t think his folk would have agreed to the marriage at all if she’d had a reputation.’

  And now my sympathies shift entirely to Ivo’s mum. The idea that women have a ‘reputation’ while men can put it about and be thought of as studs has always enraged me.

  ‘Anyhow, when Ivo went to college, we pretty much lost touch,’ says Lizzy. ‘We hardly spoke again until a few years ago, when my own mum passed away.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘She must have been very young too.’

  Lizzy nods. ‘Cancer.’

  Despite everything, I feel sorry for Ivo’s dad, who buried two wives and was left alone in his old age.

  ‘Dad never got over Mum’s death,’ says Lizzy. ‘He started drinking heavily, and gambling too. I didn’t know because I’d moved out by then and was living in Dublin. Even when Dad sold the farm and moved to Banville Terrace, I didn’t twig there was anything wrong. It wasn’t a big farm, but I assumed that as he was getting older, he’d had enough of it and had been made a good offer. But actually he sold it to pay his debts. Online gambling. It’s a bloody curse.’ Her hand shakes and a splash of tea washes over the side of her cup into the saucer. ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I get so angry on his behalf.’

  ‘Did Ivo know about the gambling?’ I ask.

  ‘Not until Dad tracked him down and asked him for a loan,’ replies Lizzy. ‘Ivo said no.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘In retrospect, he was right,’ admits Lizzy. ‘But w
hen I heard, I was furious. Ivo has done well for himself. He could’ve paid off Dad’s debts. When we argued about it, he said that Dad would’ve started gambling again anyway. I know he was right, but still – to refuse straight out. He didn’t even talk it through with Dad. He put the phone down on him mid-conversation. It was a lot of stress and pressure and eventually Dad had the stroke . . .’

  ‘Do you blame Ivo for that?’ I ask.

  She sighs. ‘It probably would’ve happened anyhow, but there was a time when I felt it was partly his fault and so I was really angry with him. I told him he had to come home and face up to what he’d done.’

  No wonder Ivo’s feelings about coming to Kildare were so mixed. The picture Lizzy is painting of him as hard and uncaring is very different to the man I’ve driven. I look across at him again. He’s smiling at the woman in blue now, his head bent towards her as she continues to talk. I wonder who the real Ivo is. The man who needed therapy to get over a difficult childhood. Or the man who’s hard enough not to want to help his own father.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m babbling away and I’m sure you have better things to do than listen to other people’s family histories,’ says Lizzy. ‘It’s just . . . since Dad fell ill, I haven’t had the chance to talk to people. So it all kind of came spilling out of me. Ivo would be furious if he knew. He likes to keep things to himself.’ She suddenly looks anguished. ‘You won’t tell him I’ve said any of this, will you? He already thinks I’m a terrible chatterer. He’d go mental.’

  ‘That’s OK,’ I say. ‘Sometimes it’s good to share with a stranger. Anyway, I won’t be seeing him any more, will I? He’ll hardly be coming back.’

  ‘Who’ll hardly be coming back?’ Ivo has finally escaped from the woman in blue and joins us.

  ‘You,’ says Lizzy. ‘Now that Dad has died, I won’t see much of you.’

  ‘I’m sure I’ll be back from time to time,’ he tells her. ‘It would be nice for us to meet up. Maybe you’ll visit me in Brussels, too.’