“You look shit, by the way,” I said, going into the kitchen and moving his laptop off the worktop to make way for my dishes. “You need to eat something.”
I heated up the lasagne in the microwave, put the salad on plates and poured two glasses from the half bottle of Viognier I found in the fridge. We ate on the sofa with our food on our knees, listening to Radio XFM on the digital radio on the table. Joe asked how my meeting with Dan had gone. I told him I’d been disappointed, that I’d built my long-lost brother up too much in my imagination.
I scooped up my lasagne. “He’s finding it all a bit too much. I’m not sure we even get on. I thought meeting him was going to be this amazing happy ending. I suppose subconsciously I thought he’d replace Mikey. But he’s much more complex. They’re very different people.”
“He seemed nice enough at the fundraiser.” Joe cocked his head to one side and grinned. “Not that you'd remember much about that night.”
“Stop it.” I felt myself redden and slapped his knee playfully.
Joe wolfed down the last of his food, placed his empty plate on the coffee table and sat back on the sofa.
“Mikey was unique,” he said. “He and I had our differences but even I could see what a lovable scoundrel he was. Nobody could ever replace him in your eyes, Carmel.”
“I know,” I said, sighing and putting down my fork. “He was far from perfect though. I’ve been thinking a lot about something you said outside Karen’s house that time.”
Joe winced.
“Something about me enabling Mikey and Tess.”
He held up a hand.
“I didn’t mean –”
“No. Let me finish. I think you had a point. Well, maybe not Tess so much, but Mikey, yes. I bailed him out a lot of times when it would have been better to let him deal with the consequences of his actions. But I always had this idea it was my duty to step in and protect my naughty kid brother all the time because we didn’t have functioning parents. Even when he was a grown man.” I looked Joe in the eye “And you were also right about the day of your dad’s funeral. I should never have left you to go and see Mikey in court. That was very wrong of me.”
He sighed then slowly slid his hand along the sofa cushions and put it over mine. It was febrile to the touch and I left it there for a few seconds before pulling it away.
“None of that excuses what you did, though.”
His head dropped forward onto his chin. “I get it, Carmel. I really do. I didn’t just sleep with anyone, I slept with your best friend and it was something you can’t forgive. I know I’ve blown it. But you have to know this. What happened with Karen was only ever about sex. Nothing else. With you it was only ever about love. And sex.” He stood up slowly. “I’ve loved you since the day I met you and I always will. Now if you’ll excuse me I need to go for a slash.”
As he disappeared down the narrow corridor into the bathroom I got up and went over to the sliding door that led onto a tiny balcony. I opened it and stepped outside, clenched by the cold night air. Frost shimmered everywhere and the lights from the Millennium Bridge reflected in the dark water, forming a turquoise shape like a giant peacock feather. A tall thin woman in a long coat was walking her dog along the canal bank.
I turned at the sound of voices. On the balcony to my right a young couple were pouring something from a bottle into glasses and laughing. For some reason I thought of Billy O’Hagan. We’d sat on the rooftop terrace bar that evening after the conference on a night not too dissimilar to this one, huddled in coats and drinking tequila shots. I was warmed by the memory. I looked back at the woman walking her dog. She reminded me of Lowry’s matchstick figures. She was looking out over the river and there was something desperately lonely and sad about the way she lingered with her head bowed.
I looked back into the room. Joe was shuffling back through the piles of boxes in the direction of the sofa. As I stepped back inside The Cure’s “Friday I’m in Love” was playing on the radio. It was our song; we used to listen to it on the Friday train to Euston or Piccadilly when we first met and were travelling to visit each other. Joe caught my eye briefly then bent down and turned the radio off.
I started picking up plates and glasses from the table.
“You off then?” he sighed, lying down on the sofa and tucking the blanket around him.
He closed his eyes and I stared at him as I’d done so many times over the years as he slept next to me.
“Why don’t you go and pack a bag?” I said. “Then we can go home.”
Chapter 41
There’d been showers on and off all morning but they’d stopped just in time. A mild September sun crept out from behind the clouds, honey-coloured rays dropping through the side window onto the worktop. I picked up my champagne flute. A mountain of gaily wrapped presents, cards and gift bags were piled high in the corner and a pink balloon saying “On Your Christening” was floating above the hood of the stove.
“See you’ve tidied up at last,” I said, holding up my glass to my brother.
“Cheeky.” Dan grinned and topped me up from the bottle in his hand. He was wearing a crisp white shirt and blue polka-dot tie that Ellie had forced on him. With his hair neatly greased back, he looked like a schoolboy uncomfortable in his Sunday best.
The large open-plan kitchen was humming with Dan and Ellie’s bohemian friends and Ellie’s family who were over from Achill. They were a garrulous lot, a mixture of hoteliers, academics and musicians. We’d spent the previous night carousing in the bars in the Northern Quarter in town and I was slightly the worst for wear. Dan and Ellie’s seventies pre-fab was tucked in a cul-de-sac behind an industrial park in Altrincham. The house looked much healthier now than when they’d moved in. I’d helped them paint a couple of the rooms including this one. Gone were the piles of Ellie’s score sheets and cello cases, sample paint pots and brushes. The boxes of books lying everywhere had found shelves, the baby toys had found a home in a lovely oriental trunk, and the posters and prints stacked by the door had been mounted on the sunflower-yellow walls. My favourite, a splash of vivid greens and yellows called Achill Horses, hung over the bright orange sofa that Ellie and I had found in a charity shop in Chorlton. Neither Dan nor Ellie were particularly enamoured with the house. Ellie earned very little as a jobbing cellist and with Dan’s teaching salary it was all they could afford in the catchment area of the local grammar where they hoped Archie was heading.
Dan headed to the door to greet a woman with dreadlocks carrying a baby in a sling. She was wearing hiking boots despite the heat. They hugged and she handed him a cloudy bottle of something home-made which he put in the fridge. Children ran in and out of the garden barefoot and I’d detected a faint whiff of dope from the front room earlier. The talk all around the room was of Brexit and the EU referendum. Three months on after the June vote, everyone was still reeling with the shock and uncertainty of it all.
Ellie’s cousin Declan picked up his guitar and started singing Elvis Costello’s “Oliver’s Army”. He had a great voice and everyone stopped talking and listened. I was immediately transported to Karen’s living room in Hillingdon Road when we were in our teens and a wave of sadness and regret dropped over me. It was in her top five all-time favourite songs. When Dee was at the pub she’d put it on and we’d drink Merrydown cider and pogo around the room singing at the top of our voices. I sighed heavily as I recalled our recent encounter in town.
It was mid-August and Joe and I had just come from an appointment at the baby clinic. He’d taken the bus into his office and I was heading to my car I’d parked in one of the roads behind the university. I was popping in to work afterwards to pick up some research papers and have a coffee with Mary.
I was halfway across Oxford Road and there she was standing twenty or so feet away on the pavement edge, facing me.
She was surrounded by a river of students in gowns and hats who were flooding out of the university buildings with their friends and family. She l
ooked stunning in a grey figure-hugging dress and heels, her hair braided. Her arm was placed proudly around Alexia’s shoulders and they were posing for a photo. The man taking it was the same man I’d seen in Alexia’s Instagram post some weeks previously.
Though I’d deleted both Karen and Alexia from my Facebook and Twitter accounts, I hadn’t deleted Alexia from my Instagram. I rarely used my account but I was bored one day in the clinic waiting room and I started scrolling idly through when I saw the photo of Karen. She was sitting on the thick knees of a rugged-looking man with salt-and-pepper hair and stubble. They were smiling at each other, surrounded by lemon trees, bougainvillea and blue skies. He had a look of Idris Elba and she was wearing a yellow sundress, her bare arms entwined around his neck. I tried to remember the last time I’d seen her looking so happy. Underneath Alexia had written.
Mum and George in his plush pad in the hills. Guys, get a room.
By the time I’d crossed the road my heart was about to implode in my chest. I looked around for an escape route but it was too late. Karen had already seen me. Alexia moved away to talk to another student and Karen said something to George and quickly made her way towards me.
I felt the panic rising and my flight instinct kicked in. I was about to run back across the road but instead I rooted my feet to the ground. No, you don’t, Doherty, I said to myself. This time you stay.
She stood about a foot away from me, searching my face. A flicker of something crossed hers, pain, pity, regret. Maybe all of those things or perhaps none.
“Carmel,” she said with forced cheerfulness. Then she raised her arms as if she was about to molest me in some kind of embrace. I was enraged. How could she think she could hug me as if nothing had happened? I wanted more than anything to give her an almighty whack across the face. But how could I? Behind her Alexia’s face was smiling and laughing. She was enjoying her big day, I was her godmother and I was never going to ruin it despite what Karen had done. Instead I turned and hurried away, tears pouring down my face.
I was still shaking when I got into work. Mary got me a coffee from the vending machine in the staffroom and took me outside to calm down. We sat on the low wall outside our building in the sunshine.
“Do you think you’ll ever be able to forgive her?” she asked.
I shook my head and sipped. “I really don’t know, Mary. It’s not just because she had sex with Joe. Sometimes when I look back over our friendship I wonder if it only worked because she was in charge. In many ways I think I’ve always been Karen’s lackey and done what she wanted. Julia said as much when I was in Ireland recently. I think Karen was a bit of a control freak and took advantage of the fact that I was angsty and needy and manipulated me sometimes.”
But, as the months passed, I started to regret not speaking to her that day. I regretted not asking her to meet up for a coffee and not giving her a chance to make amends. And it’s a feeling that’s chipped away at my heart ever since. She was in my life long before Joe and we’ve been through too much together to throw all those years of friendship away. So I contacted Alexia on Instagram and asked for her mum’s address. It’s taking me a while but I am composing a letter.
Declan finished his song to loud applause. Ellie whistled and clapped from the table in the middle of the room where she was handing out slices of pizza. I caught her eye and we raised glasses.
I’d found a near perfect sister-in-law in Ellie Lavelle. Razor-sharp with a heart of gold, she was one of those women who did a million things at once and never complained about her lot. Dan and I had her to thank for the relationship we now had. Without her it might never have happened.
The day after our awkward reunion at the Whitworth, Dan emailed and apologised for his sudden departure. He said he was emotionally all over the place and wasn’t sure he was ready to have a sibling relationship. Then, with Kissinger-like diplomacy, Ellie took charge. Over the next few months she encouraged and coaxed us together, organising coffee mornings, birthday dinners and days out with the kids. It worked. Over time the unease Dan initially felt melted and we started to bond.
It felt good to have a brother again but Dan was no Mikey. Joe was right when he said Mikey was special. He had a charisma and easy-going way about him that charmed people within minutes of meeting him. Dan, on the other hand, was more cerebral and reserved, a much more difficult nut to crack. He was very different to the man I met at the fundraiser. And yet I was grateful to have him in my life. He, Ellie, the kids and Timothy had restored to me the sense of belonging I had lost after Tess and Mikey passed. They’d filled the black hole around me and made me feel tethered again.
On a sunny April afternoon in Southern Cemetery on what would have been Tess’s seventy-first birthday, Dan asked me to be godmother to my beautiful niece. We’d just finished tidying the leaves around the headstone and I was replacing the dead roses in the metal vase with the fresh lilies we’d brought.
“Nothing fancy,” he said as starlings and thrush sang in full throttle overhead, “Just a small humanist ceremony at the house.”
“What? No priests or holy water or white christening gowns?”
He smiled. “Afraid not.”
“Heathen.” I stood up, brushed down my jeans and beamed at him. “Thank you,” I said, “I’d be honoured.”
As we walked back through the tree-lined avenues to the car, Dan said he was happy to see Tess among her own in the Irish part of the cemetery. The family plot was situated beside a copse of birch trees. Tess, Mikey and Dad had Connollys, McGraths and Dunleavys for neighbours and the surrounding graves were covered in the tricolour and Mayo and Galway football flags. Dan said she would have felt at home. Though I didn’t say so, I wasn’t so sure. I didn’t think Tess had thought of Ireland as home for a very long time. If anything her country had exiled her in shame and made her homeless.
People were starting to move outside into the garden as more guests arrived. I filled up my glass and joined Timothy who was sitting by the window at the far end of the room. He looked a little lonely and out of place. Elegant in a cream linen suit and grey silk shirt, he stood out among the crusties like an orchid in a bed of weeds. Stefano was in Italy at a family funeral and couldn’t make it.
The morning had not been kind to Tim. His face was pale and puffy-eyed. He’d asked me to take him to the grave and once there he’d wept at length. He’d sat in silence on the drive back. I suspected the realisation of what had happened to Tess all those years ago was hitting home. He was such a private man, I didn’t like to probe. But I did know that he was a good man and full of remorse.
I pulled up a chair next to him as shouts erupted from the garden. Younger children were flinging themselves across the bouncy castle and my nephew Archie and his friends were playing a game of rugby. Timothy and I turned to watch. Rosy-cheeked and tousled hair flying, as Archie darted across the lawn with the ball I thought of Mikey.
“I hear he’s captain of the school team.” I said.
Tim nodded, his face brightening as it always did at any mention of Archie. They were incredibly close. At the cemetery the day he asked me to be godmother, Dan told me he could never be estranged from Tim.
“It would kill him,” he said. “Archie too. They adore one another.”
Archie touched the ball down on the lawn and raised his arms in victory.
“Did I ever tell you Mikey played rugby for the England Under-21’s once.” I said.
Tim turned and looked at me.
“Are you serious?”
“Oh yes. He was a rising star. Then he had an accident and never played again. It broke him. Tess once asked him if he’d ever play for Ireland but he wasn’t having any of it. He said he was English. That he was no Tony Cascarino.”
Tim laughed. “Tony Cascarino. The fake Irishman.” He glanced out of the window “You never know. Archie might play at Lansdowne Road yet.”
“You never know. Do you know if the kids got their Irish passports yet?”
> “They did.”
I frowned. “They aren’t really going to go back and live in Achill, are they?”
Tim looked at me and shook his head slowly.
“No. I think it was the initial anger of the Leave vote that made them talk that way. Ireland and the UK have agreements in place that mean we have the right to settle and work in the UK but there’s still a feeling of not being wanted. Spending half your life in a country, working hard and paying your taxes then to be told you’re not really welcome. Stefano feels it badly. The latest is that he has to apply for citizenship. He’s been here for fifteen years.”
I shook my head. “It’s so depressing.”
I wondered what Tess would make of us getting on so well like this. Would Timothy have won her over as he had me? Would she have forgiven him like I had? At times I felt guilty about how much I liked his company. We called each other weekly, emailed links to plays and literary articles and I’d been to stay with him in Battersea a number of times. Over wine and Stefano’s delicious fresh pasta dishes he entertained me with childhood tales of Tess and life as a gay father with a teenager in London in the 60s. He was a great storyteller with a quiet way of luring you in and a witty turn of phrase. I simply loved being in his company.
I looked out of the window at the other side of the garden where Joe was standing by the bouncy castle. Beer in hand, he was chatting to Damian, one of Ellie’s cousins. Damian’s son, a boy of two or three with a blonde pudding-bowl hair, suddenly appeared at their feet, waving an ice lolly in the air. Damian knelt down, unwrapped the lolly then kissed the top of his head. Joe looked on, his face a mixture of curiosity and deep sadness. When the boy had gone he raised his bottle and drank at length.
We started trying for a baby the minute Joe moved back in. We went at it hammer and tongs but despite having sex at every opportunity for five months, I failed to get pregnant. Knowing we had no time to waste, we booked into a BUPA fertility clinic in town for tests. Going private meant we could get everything done quickly and the results were back within weeks. As feared my age meant my eggs weren’t in great shape. I had about a five to seven per-cent chance of getting pregnant with IVF treatment. What we weren’t expecting were Joe’s results. His sperm showed up abnormalities. This, combined with my age, meant our chances of conceiving with IVF were even lower. When we told the consultant about our earlier pregnancy he shrugged and said it was probably a fluke, the way things were looking now it was going to be extremely difficult. When we left the clinic, Joe cried like he had all those years ago outside that other clinic when the scan showed we had lost our baby. But this time I cried too. I’d left it too late. Fear and indecision had kept me lingering too long.
My Mother's Children: An Irish family secret and the scars it left behind. Page 21