O'Mara's

by Michelle Vernal

  Aisling smiled gently. ‘Una, I hope your story’s going to have a happy ending.’

  ‘You asked me, why I’ve come back?’

  Aisling nodded.

  ‘Aideen wrote to me not long ago. It was the first letter I’d received from her in years. She’d long since given up on contacting me and I suppose I was curious as to why she was getting in touch after all this time. I felt compelled to read it and once I had, well I had no choice but to come back.’

  Aisling was on the edge of the seat.

  ‘Leo passed a few years back, a heart attack. It was a terrible shock by all accounts. No warning one minute he was standing in the kitchen talking to her about the early peas in the garden, the next he’d keeled over and that was that. It’s strange to imagine him gone. To know I’ll never see him again. I suppose I always thought I might one day, that somehow, we’d all come back together, but time marches on. That wasn’t what she wrote to tell me though. She wrote to say she’s sick herself. It’s breast cancer.’

  ‘Oh I’m sorry, is she having treatment? What’s her prognosis?’ She might never have met Una’s twin, but she felt now as though she had, privy as she’d been to the sister’s past.

  ‘She didn’t get into any of that. She didn’t write so as I’d feel sorry for her or anything like that. She got in touch because she wanted to tell me to go and get checked myself.’

  ‘You should Una, things like that can be hereditary and if it’s caught quick enough, well the doctors can work wonders these days.’ She shivered thinking of her own dad’s fight with stomach cancer. It was still an open wound. She knew he’d been unwell for a long time before he’d gone to the doctor. He’d always had an aversion to medical practitioners. There was no reason for this so far as Aisling knew, other than he thought he knew better. A glass of Guinness could fix anything. ‘Sure,’ he’d say, ‘the black stuff is a meal in a glass. It’s loaded with goodies.’

  Aisling couldn’t help but wonder if he hadn’t been so pig-headed whether his cancer might have been caught sooner. Things may have had a different outcome.

  She knew right enough that the disease was hard to detect in the early stages. She’d heard all the jargon, but they’d never know for sure whether it might have been picked up had he been checked. She’d never voiced these thoughts out loud and she didn’t know if anyone else in the family shared her sentiment. It would be pointless to bring it up now, achieving nothing because he was gone and as Una had just said, that was that.

  ‘I started thinking after I read her letter and I couldn’t stop thinking about what Aideen was like when we were young. She looked out for me. I was the wilful one who skirted the edges of trouble, but she always had my back.’

  Her eyes, Aisling saw were glazed with faraway memories of the past.

  ‘There was an occasion I couldn’t get out of my head. It was the day we met Leo for the first time and I insisted on wearing my new cardigan despite Mam specifically telling me not to, not when looking for eels. She’d knitted identical blue cardigans with the prettiest of flower trims for Aideen and me. I knew I should do as I was told but I didn’t. I wore it because I wanted to impress him, even then there was something about Leo Greene. Somehow as we were getting up to go home Leo’s stick got snagged in it and when he freed it, there was a gaping hole. He told me the day he broke it off between us, he’d felt so terribly bad all those years ago about that. There he’d been homesick and missing his mam, going to the canal with Aideen and I was the tonic he’d needed. He said he’d been grateful I’d taken the time to talk to him, and then he’d gone and spoiled it. He’d been making it up to me ever since.’ Una shook her head. ‘Fancy him feeling like that, I had no idea. At the time it happened I was sick to my stomach because it meant I’d miss out on our annual trip to the zoo. Aideen said she didn’t want to go without me and took the cardigan from me, wearing it home herself. She told Mam it was hers and that she’d been showing off to the lad who’d come to stay with Mrs Greene down the road. I don’t think Mam believed her, she knew me too well, but she had no choice and you see that’s the way Aideen was. She wasn’t cruel and spiteful or selfish as I tried to convince myself. The enormity of all these lost years hit me then.’ Una’s voice cracked for the first time. ‘So, that’s why I came back.’

  Aisling got up and put her arm around her shoulder. They stayed like that for a few minutes and she couldn’t help but think what an incongruous sight the pair of them made in their nightwear spilling their secrets in the dead of the night.

  ‘Have you been to see Aideen, Una?’ Aisling asked assuming that this was where the woman had gone each day since she’d come to stay at the guesthouse.

  ‘No, not exactly.’

  Aisling was puzzled. ‘But I thought that was why you’d come to Dublin?’

  ‘It is, and I’ve caught a taxi to the street where she lives every day since I arrived, but I haven’t been able to walk up her front path and knock on her door. I’ve been sitting across the street on a bench in the park opposite.’

  It was a good job the weather had behaved itself, Aisling thought. Then again, maybe if the heavens had opened Una might have been forced to shelter inside Aideen’s house.

  ‘I don’t know how I’ll be received you see. She never asked me to come back. She might hate me Aisling. She might be angry with me for leaving and not trying to work things out. She might think me a selfish old fool, and I have been.’ Una’s voice rose several notches and she looked small and vulnerable absolutely nothing like the cantankerous woman Aisling had encountered each morning.

  ‘I don’t think so, Una. You said she was your other half.’

  Una nodded.

  ‘Well, I think you’ll find she understands why you couldn’t stay. You were hurt badly by her and Leo, what they did even if it was done out of love for each other and not with the intent of hurting you, is not something most people would find easy to forgive.’

  Una wasn’t listening. ‘I’ve come to realise I’m a coward. I ran away when I couldn’t face what had happened and now I can’t summon the courage to knock on my own twin’s door.’

  Aisling didn’t need to compose one of her letters, the answer was simple. ‘You’re not a coward Una! I think you’re very brave for coming here. You’ve just got to take the next step. Do you think it would help if we went to Aideen’s house together?’

  Una looked at the pretty young woman opposite her. That glorious red blonde hair of hers was sticking up here there and everywhere, the result of all the tossing and turning she must have done before making her way downstairs. ‘You’d do that for me?’

  ‘I would gladly come with you but I’m afraid you’re going to have to do something for me in return first.’

  Una felt her guard go up. She should have known there was nothing for nothing in this life.

  ‘I want you to tell Mrs Flaherty how much you enjoy her white pudding. She’s a little temperamental our cook, and a little praise goes a long way with her. It’s her day off tomorrow but she’ll be back on board Monday morning and it would get the week off to a good start!’

  Una looked at Aisling in disbelief and her lips curved into a smile, mirroring the girl opposite her. ‘I think I can do that.’

  Chapter 28

  On Sunday morning the run of good weather decided it had had enough and when Aisling woke, she could hear the rain pelting against her bedroom window. The sound of it hitting the panes of glass was something she’d always loved. To lie in bed warm and cosy knowing outside was cold and wet, was a snuggly treat and she burrowed down under her covers.

  Marcus’s handsome features floated in front of her and she conjured up the warmth of his body and the way in which he used to press himself up against her. She could almost feel his breath on her neck and the tingles it would send up and down her spine. They’d fitted together, slotted in to place like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle.

  ‘He’s a selfish eejit. A spoiled only child used to getting his own
way and when he doesn’t he throws his toys out of the cot.’ Moira’s words reverberated in her ear. Would he flounce off to another city the next time he felt she didn’t have his best interests at heart? People did make mistakes though. Listening to Una’s sad story last night had opened her eyes to that. Nobody was perfect, but did people change?

  The birds had been chirping by the time she and Una had made their way back to their respective beds, exhausted and spent. Neither woman had any wish to be caught out in their nightwear by an early rising guest so they’d said goodnight or good morning, unsure what was appropriate. They’d arranged to meet in the guest lounge once more. This time however it would be at the respectable hour of eleven am, and with that they’d hugged each other tightly. Aisling had climbed the stairs, let herself quietly back into the apartment and fallen into bed, drifting off into a dreamless sleep almost straight away.

  It was quite amazing she thought enjoying the weight of her bedding on her that she should form such a strong bond in such a short space of time with a woman she’d dreaded bumping into these last few mornings! Who would have thought?

  Still waters run deep she mused, then realising that was exactly the sort of thing Mammy would say changed the sentiment to you could never judge a book by its cover. That was worse! She decided to abandon the train of thought and risk a peek at the clock. It was nine forty-five and she felt a stab of guilt at having lain in so late.

  Normally she would have been up and about making sure O’Mara’s morning routines were playing out as they should be. The guesthouse under her watch ran like a well-oiled machine or at least she liked to think it did, Ita’s face floated to mind. The exception to the rule. Still, she was off today, and it would be Geraldine humming as she stripped beds and vacuumed.

  It was a pity Geraldine and Ita didn’t swap places. Geraldine had no interest in working more than the four hours she did of a Sunday morning though. Not with three littlies running around at home. Her Sunday morning job she’d confided in Aisling was a welcome break from the routines of being Mam to her trio, but by the time one o’clock rolled around she was ready for the off, eager to see them all again.

  James would have been stationed at the front desk for well over an hour now too Aisling knew. He’d have already demolished the enormous plate of eggs, bacon and sausage Mrs Baicu foisted on to him every Sunday morning not long after he let himself in. She had son’s herself she said and knew how much they loved to eat. She’d come to Ireland with her husband from Romania many moons ago and would be in the kitchen cooking up a storm. Her roots might not hail from here, but she could still whip up a full Irish fry up to rival Mrs Flaherty’s with her eyes closed. Not that Aisling would ever tell Mrs Flaherty that!

  They were all more than capable of doing their jobs without Aisling peering over their shoulders. And while they might wonder where she was this morning, O’Mara’s would not grind to a halt without her. Nevertheless it was time she got up if she were going to be ready in time to meet Una. She needed a strong cup of coffee, followed by a shower after her broken night.

  She hoped Una had managed to catch a few hour’s solid sleep too. She’d need it. They had a big afternoon planned. This time she would walk up the front path and knock on Aideen’s door. She tossed her blankets aside and shrugging into her dressing gown and slippers once more padded through to the kitchen.

  Moira was already up. Her dark hair was tied back in a loose ponytail and she was lounging on the sofa in her pyjamas. The television tuned into a soap opera where everybody on the screen looked hard done by. She was engrossed in their problems and didn’t hear Aisling enter the room as she spooned cereal into her mouth.

  ‘Good night was it?’ Aisling called as she set about making herself a cup of coffee. ‘You were snoring like a train, I could hear you through the walls.’ At least she was up and about and looking a lot brighter than she had yesterday morning, she retrieved the coffee jar.

  ‘I don’t snore and yes it was a good craic, we met up with some friends and carried on until late. Copper Face Jack’s was going off,’ Moira mumbled through the sugary frosted flakes she insisted on buying. ‘Oh before I forget Roisin rang earlier. Mammy’s been on to her with the breaking news Marcus fecking coward McDonagh’s sniffing around. Anyway she said she’ll ring back just after ten. How come you’re not downstairs telling everybody how to do their jobs?’

  ‘I fancied a lie in for a change.’

  ‘You haven’t got anyone in there have you?’ Moira put her spoon down and turned her narrowed eyes in her sister’s direction.

  ‘No!’

  ‘Just as well, because if you did then I’d have no choice but to ring Mammy and tell her you had Marcus fecking coward McDonagh holed up in your bedroom. Then you’d be for it.’

  ‘Ha-ha.’ Actually it wasn’t funny, the wrath of Maureen O’Mara if she had indeed spent the night with her ex would not be a pleasant thing to bear witness to at all. She sighed, it was clear even if she decided to give Marcus another chance—perhaps take things slower this time around without the pressure of a big white wedding looming, her family weren’t going to let him off the hook lightly.

  Aisling poured the boiling water into her cup, stirring it as she debated confiding in Moira or not. She wouldn’t tell her about her conversation with Una last night. That was between the two of them, but she decided she might as well own up to Marcus having been here where she got back yesterday. If she didn’t Moira would hear it through the O’Mara’s grapevine anyway and be suspicious as to why Aisling hadn’t said anything. ‘Marcus called around yesterday.’

  The cereal bowl was placed down on the coffee table, the television muted as Moira swivelled around to stare at her sister, she was all ears.

  ‘And?’

  ‘He wants us to put the wedding business behind us and start again.’

  The noise Moira emitted would have been more at home in a farmyard than in the apartment of a Georgian manor house.

  ‘Charming,’ Aisling muttered taking a much-needed swig of her coffee.

  ‘What did you say? I hope it began with an ‘f’ and was followed by an off.’

  ‘No not exactly.’

  ‘Ash!’

  Aisling banged her cup down on the bench sending a slop of the brown brew over the side of her mug. ‘He’s genuinely sorry Moira! Not everything’s black and white in life, sometimes there are shades in between. It’s alright for you. You’re twenty-five, you’ve got plenty of time left to make mistakes and meet Mr Right. I’m nearly thirty-five and I wanted to settle down and hopefully start a family in the not too distant future. What if Marcus was the ‘One’? What if I send him packing once and for all and down the line realise it was the worst mistake of my life?’

  ‘He’s not.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because ‘the One’ would never do what he did to you and the worst mistake of your life would be taking him back. What would Mammy say?’

  ‘I don’t know!’

  ‘Yes you do.’

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘Do too.’

  Aisling knew she wasn’t going to win. ‘A leopard doesn’t change his bloody spots,’ she muttered.

  ‘Exactly and she’d be right. You get back with him Ash and somewhere down the line when the going gets tough he’ll leave you in the lurch again. Only this time around you might have a couple of kiddies to worry about too.’

  The sisters glared at each other and the phone ringing was a welcome diffusion. Aisling pounced on it.

  ‘It’s me. You’re up.’

  Aisling rolled her eyes, she’d forgotten Roisin was calling back. She’d had more than enough familial lecturing for one day as it was without her bossy older sister getting on the bandwagon. She sighed down the line, ‘Hi Rosie, how’re ya keepin?’

  ‘Grand here. You could at least sound pleased to hear from me though Ash.’

  ‘She’s all mardy because she’s had feck face around!’ Moira shouted f
rom the sofa, Aisling wasn’t quick enough to cover the receiver.

  ‘You never!’

  ‘She did!’

  ‘Shut up Moira.’ Aisling hissed carrying the phone out of the room and into the privacy of her bedroom. She pushed the door shut with her foot before flopping down on her bed.

  ‘He was here when I got back from lunch with Mammy yesterday, Rosie. I didn’t ask him to come.’

  ‘Mammy says he’s been writing to you for months. You kept that quiet. Noah go and do some colouring or something. You can have a word in a minute, I’m talking to Aunty Aisling first.’

  ‘Because I knew what you’d all say that’s why.’ Aisling caught sight of herself in the dressing-table mirror and grimaced. Her eyes were like two pee holes in the snow. She was in desperate need of mascara and getting up she rummaged through her cosmetic purse sitting beneath the mirror.

  ‘You can hardly blame us Ash. We saw the state you were in when he left. It was us who had to pick up the pieces. I tell you he’s got some nerve thinking he can waltz back in to your life. Mammy says he wants you to give him another chance.’

  The O’Mara women’s bush telegraph was in fine fettle it would seem, Aisling retrieved her tube of Lustrous Lash.

  ‘He does, and I think he means what he says, he made a mistake. We’re all only human Rosie, and he felt like he was being steamrolled by me where the wedding was concerned.’

  ‘Bully for him, Colin had to deal with mammy hijacking ours, but he still stuck around and said I do. You remember Ash, the poor man had to watch me walking down the aisle looking like I was wearing one of those crochet toilet roll cover dresses Nanna Dee used to make. She crocheted eleven of the bloody things, one for us and for every loo in the guest house. Mammy would only put them out when she came to stay. Ugh, they used to give me the willies, horrible doll eyes staring at me while I was sat on the throne.’