She considers this. ‘So there is something.’
He dips his head – is it a nod of acknowledgement? Why won’t he open up? What is there to hide between them?
She frowns. ‘Let me get this straight. I haven’t done anything to upset you, but you still won’t come back, and you won’t let me know why.’
He gives a shrug. ‘Emily, I can’t.’
It’s not good enough.
‘It’s not good enough!’ It comes bursting out of her, the force of it taking her by surprise. ‘It’s not fair, to just – turn your back on me, with no explanation!’
‘You’re the one who’s leaving,’ he points out mildly. ‘You’re the one turning your back on everyone.’ Hands dug into his pockets, still refusing to meet her eye.
‘What? That’s got nothing to do with it – you stopped coming in before I told you about that!’ Her face feels hot. Her breath catches in her throat. She must drag it out. ‘Look at me!’ she demands, and he does, he looks straight at her. ‘I thought we were friends, Bill Geraghty, but this is not how you treat a friend!’
She wheels away, giving him no chance to respond. He could call after her, he could make some attempt to defend himself – but he doesn’t. Let him off so. Let him stay away, if that’s what he wants. She’ll manage fine without him.
It takes her a few minutes, it takes her until she’s marching past the library to realise that her face is wet. She blots it with her jacket, not breaking her rapid stride. She shouldn’t have lost her temper. He wouldn’t intentionally hurt her, he’s too kind for that – but she does feel hurt by his refusal to explain. She feels let down, abandoned by someone she was fond of. Is fond of.
She crosses Main Street, setting her face into neutral, refusing to let more tears fall. You’re the one turning her back on everyone, he said. How could he be so cruel? How could he hurl that at her like an accusation, when all she’s doing is following her heart?
Except that her heart is being pulled in two opposing directions.
‘I had a row,’ she tells Heather that evening, when the American comes in for dinner. ‘With Bill.’
‘With Bill? Our Bill? I don’t believe it. Was he here?’
‘No, I went to the nursing home – and it wasn’t so much a row as me getting mad with him.’ And then someone at the other end of the table needs her, so she has to stop.
‘I’m trying to see it,’ Heather says, when she gets back. ‘You being mad with Bill. I can’t imagine it.’
‘I know, it’s awful—’ And then someone else needs her, so in the end she and Heather wait until much later, and talk on the phone.
‘I just wanted to know why he doesn’t call in any more. It’s bugging me.’
‘So did you ask him?’
‘Of course I did. I said I thought I must have upset him.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘He said I hadn’t, but that he couldn’t come back, and he couldn’t tell me why.’
‘So you got mad. Did you yell at him?’
‘Kind of.’ She sighs. ‘Bill, of all people. I feel terrible.’
‘So tell him,’ Heather says. ‘Write him a letter.’
‘A letter?’
‘Why not? Tell him you’re sorry. If you write it down, you can make sure it comes out right.’
‘I can’t write to him. I don’t have his address.’
‘Send it to the nursing home. Tell him we need him back in the restaurant. Tell him I miss him too. I’m sure he will come back, when whatever’s bothering him now is in the past. You’ll still be here.’
‘That’s the thing, though,’ Emily says. Might as well break the news to her too.
Heather doesn’t take it well. ‘What? You can’t be serious. You can’t move to Dublin – you can’t close the restaurant. I won’t allow it.’
‘Believe me, I hate the thought too, but I want to be where Ferg is.’
‘What about him wanting to be where you are? Why do you have to be the one to move?’
‘Because he wouldn’t get as good a job here in town. He’d have to take a serious cut in his salary.’
‘Oh for crying out loud, what has money got to do with it? Your heart and soul are in that restaurant – it’s your passion. What part of that does he not get?’
All of it.
‘Look, nothing’s sorted, we’re just talking. Anyway, it’s late and I’d better go – but thanks for listening.’
‘Thanks nothing. I know I’m giving you a hard time here, it’s just that I don’t want to see you go – but I guess you’ve got to look at the bigger picture, the happy-ever-after one. Just make sure you don’t spend your life doing what he wants, and forgetting about your own stuff, OK?’
‘Of course.’
‘Oh, and I need you to come shopping with me, for a dress.’
‘You want to buy a dress? What’s the occasion?’
‘No occasion, just figure I need a change from the jeans. Will you come?’
‘Of course I will. I’d love to.’
‘Great, we’ll set it up. And hey, write to Bill. Take it from me, it feels good to get things off your chest and down on paper.’
So the following afternoon, she does.
Dear Bill,
In the time you’ve been coming in to The Food of Love, you’ve become one of my most valued
Dear Bill,
We’ve known one another now for quite some time, and I thought
Dear Bill,
You have always been one of the people I look forward to
Dear Bill,
I shouldn’t have got angry with you yesterday. I feel very
Dear Bill,
I’m not quite sure how to
Dear Bill,
I’m sorry. It’s just that I miss you.
Love, Emily
Bill
SHE WROTE TO HIM.
Two short sentences, twelve words from start to finish, counting her name and his name. Dear Bill, she wrote. I’m sorry, she wrote. It’s just that I miss you, she wrote. Love Emily, she wrote.
The wallop in the gut he got when he walked into the lobby and saw her, turned in her chair to look out the window at Rory Dillon. The very last person he’d been expecting to see. Not that he’d had a clue who to expect: nobody ever called to his work.
Of course the first thing he’d thought of was the guards, coming with bad news about Christine, so Emily was a relief after that. But it had stopped him in his tracks all the same, the sight of her. He’d had to take a second to gather his scattered wits, to inhale a bit of calm before he said her name. Olivia behind her desk pretending not to notice, but no doubt taking it all in. Putting two and two together, and getting a wrong answer. Passing it on to Julie and Jean, next time she met them. Bill and his lady friend.
Emily’s face though, in the courtyard. Blotched with pink as she pleaded with him to tell her why he’d stopped eating at the restaurant. Clutching her jacket tightly, looking so bewildered and upset. It killed him, knowing he’d put that look on her face.
It’s not good enough, she said. It’s not fair. Every word piercing him like a dart, and him helpless to defend himself – because what could he say without giving the game away? The one thing he did say, about her turning her back on everyone, was out before he could stop it, like that time at the vet’s.
Fool, with his big mouth and his talent, his absolute genius, for putting his foot in it. And her parting shot: I thought we were friends, but this is not how you treat a friend. On the point of tears, and he’d sent her there with his thoughtless remark.
And then, two days later, the letter. Post for you, Olivia said, the first letter he could ever remember getting at the nursing home. The envelope plain and white, the handwriting on it unfamiliar. He should have guessed, but he didn’t. He brought it to his cubbyhole and opened it, and read it and read it and read it. He folded it and put it into his top pocket, and spent the rest of the day pulling it out again and crucifying hi
mself again.
For the first time since he’d begun it, he skipped the singsong at five o’clock, completely unable to face it. He told them he was sorry but he had a headache, and he’d see them tomorrow. He picked up a burger on his way home, and he opened a bottle of beer and sat on the back step with Sherlock, who had recovered from his bug, and he tried to think of nothing at all as he drank beer and gave most of the burger to the dog.
And now it’s the next night and Christine is here, her first appearance since he sent her to Astrid. And despite his determination not to bring up the subject he has to, because it’s been picking at him.
‘Astrid tells me you called to her without ringing beforehand. She said you just turned up.’
‘I didn’t think I needed to ring.’
‘I asked you to,’ he says, ‘so she’d have a bit of notice.’
‘… Sorry.’
‘And then you never went back.’
‘I did go back. I cut her hedge, but she didn’t like it.’
Oh God. ‘You went back? When?’
She looks at him. ‘A few days ago.’
‘Why didn’t you go when you said you would?’
‘I was sick.’
Sick. High. Away with the fairies. He swallows the words, not having the stomach for a full-blown row.
‘I cut her hedge,’ she repeats, ‘like she asked me to.’
‘And why didn’t she like it?’
A shrug that causes a twitch of annoyance in him. ‘She said it wasn’t good enough. She said don’t come back.’
Bloody hell. Astrid had sent her packing. The shame of it. The mortification.
He remains silent until she drains her can of Coke and pushes her beans on toast aside, and then he gets to his feet and goes into the utility room. He takes the filled toilet bag and hands it over. He doesn’t add the money he always adds. He asks nothing of her. He says nothing more, but waits silently for her to leave.
‘I went,’ she says, ‘like you told me to.’ Pulling on the jacket he has washed and dried. ‘You shouldn’t have sent me,’ she says.
He makes no response. She’s right, but he’s damned if he’s going to agree with her.
He sees her out silently, his hand on Sherlock’s collar. He waits until she’s out of sight, trying to remember what Eoin the paper boy had told him was Astrid’s house number. Ten it might have been, or twelve. He can ring both doorbells; he can find her.
She has his phone number, but she didn’t ring him when Christine finally returned. She didn’t ring because she didn’t want to admit that she’d had to send her packing. Sparing his embarrassment, even though he was the cause of all that disturbance.
He has to make amends.
After work the next day he crosses the canal and asks a man with a buggy for directions to Cedar Grove, which turns out to be a small narrow road with just a dozen houses, bungalows on one side and two-storeys across from them. Numbers ten and twelve are both on the bungalow side, divided from one another by the same style of low wall that runs between Bill and Mrs Twomey. Number ten has a red motorbike parked in the driveway, so he walks up the path to the front door of number twelve, the last of the houses on that side, and presses the bell beside the blue door.
‘Bill,’ she says in astonishment. She wears the familiar cardigan and skirt combination that he’s accustomed to seeing her in, but on her feet is a pair of pink and cream slippers. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’ve come to explain,’ he says, ‘and to apologise.’
She steps back to let him in. She closes the door and leads him into a little room that’s dominated by a large mahogany thing on legs, some sort of old music player, he suspects, for vinyl records, a turntable nestling in all likelihood under that hinged top – and yes, there on the shelf behind is a collection of vinyl.
The only other furniture in the room is a small tweed couch, an upright padded chair with a basket full of wine-coloured knitting on the floor beside it and a low table. No television, no knick-knacks, no photographs or any ornamentation on the mantelpiece above the fireplace.
‘Take the couch,’ she says. ‘I’ve gone beyond it. Shall I make tea?’
‘Not for me, thanks.’ He sits and opens his mouth to speak, but she, settling herself into the chair, gets there before him.
‘First of all,’ she says, ‘you have nothing in the world to apologise for, Bill. You were trying to help your child, and for that, no parent should be criticised.’
He attempts once more to speak, and again he’s beaten to it.
‘And as for an explanation, I don’t think that will be necessary either.’ She looks at him, her face softening. ‘I know, Bill. I know about Christine. I have seen the marks on her arms.’
She knows. The humiliation of it causes him to bow his head. ‘I shouldn’t,’ he says. ‘I should never have let her come to you.’
‘Please, you mustn’t blame yourself, I won’t have it. You saw a possibility for her, and you reached for it. Nothing bad happened.’
‘She told me you sent her away.’
Astrid nods. ‘She was not in a state to work. I had no option.’
‘Astrid, I’m so sorry,’ he says. ‘I wish I could turn back the clock.’
‘Well, you cannot do that, so put it out of your head.’ She pauses. ‘On a happier note, I found a man to work in the garden, and he is marvellous. He is Markus, from Poland, and he is making such a difference – would you like to see?’
He can hardly say no, so he follows her into the kitchen and through to the patio, and there he takes in the long, narrow garden with its neatly trimmed low hedge and clipped lawn, its shrubbery and presumably newly planted flowers, its climbers just beginning their ascent of the end wall. I cut her hedge, Christine said: he prefers not to know the full story there.
‘Bill.’
He turns to regard her.
‘I am sure, knowing the kind of man you are, that you were the best of fathers.’
He looks away again, folds his arms. ‘For all the good it did.’
Astrid sighs. ‘Bad things happen,’ she says quietly. ‘We do nothing wrong, we do our best, and still bad things happen. This is the way of the world. It is sad, but it is so.’
‘I sent an email,’ he says, his gaze still on the garden that the Polish man has brought back to life. ‘I wrote to that agony aunt in the paper. Claire. I asked her for advice.’
‘ … And what did she say?’
‘The same as everyone else, that nobody can help Christine until she wants it herself.’
‘Yes, I believe this is true. It must be so heartbreaking for you.’
He makes no response. A bird alights on the hedge, flits away again. The flowers in the bed are bright like jewels, pinks and reds and yellows, and smaller, softer ones whose petals are mixes of yellow and purple and blue. Betty would have been able to name every one.
‘Can I ask,’ Astrid says then, ‘if you will return to Emily’s restaurant? You don’t have to tell me why you stopped going there, that’s your business. I’m simply enquiring if you’re planning to come back.’
It’s unexpected, this change of subject. He casts about for something to say. He thinks of the letter, the words Emily wrote. It’s just that I miss you.
‘I don’t know, Astrid,’ he admits. ‘I don’t know if I’ll be back.’
‘She misses you,’ Astrid says. ‘Emily.’
He’s startled at the echo of his thoughts. Has she guessed? Can she have guessed? Was it written on his face every day he sat at the oval table? Did he give himself away without knowing it?
‘We all miss you, of course – but Emily …’ She lets it drift away.
‘She’s leaving,’ he says. ‘Did she tell you? She’s selling up, moving to Dublin.’
‘And you feel betrayed,’ Astrid replies, in the same thoughtful tone. ‘You feel abandoned.’
‘Don’t you? That she could just—’ He breaks off, afraid to let the rest out. He
sets his mouth and goes back to looking at the garden.
‘Bill, she’s trying to do what’s best. She’s torn – anyone can see that. She doesn’t want to go—’
‘Then she shouldn’t! He doesn’t deserve her! He left her on her wedding day! Did you know that? Did she share that with you?’
Too much: he realises before he’s got to the end of it. If she hadn’t guessed before, she knows now. Time to go.
‘Sorry,’ he says, ‘I’m just a bit— Look, I have to get going. You have my number if you need me.’ If Christine shows up again, he means, now that he’s given her access.
‘Actually,’ Astrid says, ‘I’m glad you mentioned that. I mislaid my phone and had to replace it, so I lost all my contacts. Let me get my new one, and you can add yourself again.’
She leaves him on the patio, leaves him kicking himself once more. He doesn’t deserve her – how could he blurt out something like that about a man he’s never met?
Astrid returns and hands him a phone that looks exactly like the old one. He inputs his number and hands it back, and then he puts hers into his own phone. ‘Don’t mind me,’ he says. ‘Take no notice. I’m a bitter, messed-up creature.’
‘You’re nothing of the sort,’ she says sharply. ‘I won’t have you talking like that, Bill. You’re a good, decent man and I’m proud to call you my friend. I can see you’re under pressure now, but stay strong. Everything passes. Everything passes,’ she repeats, looking intently at him.
Does it? He wonders what she knows of suffering. She escaped the war with her family, she got married, and she lives in apparent comfort now. No children to break her heart, no major trauma – at least, none that she’s ever spoken of, or even hinted at. On the face of it, she’s got off pretty lightly.
She walks him back to the front door. ‘Emily told me,’ she says. ‘About the wedding, I mean, the one that didn’t happen. I think it’s brave of her to try again.’
He says nothing. He can’t agree, not without sounding insincere. Best to keep his trap shut.
‘I know she’d love you to come back, even just once. Just so she knows you’re not angry at her for leaving.’
The Restaurant Page 25