Barefoot Over Stones

by Liz Lyons

  Garda records would show that no other vehicle was involved. Daniel William Abernethy GP, aged 38, of Michaelmas House, Caharoe, Co. Cork, had momentarily lost concentration and control of his car as he travelled the dead-straight, tree-lined road that would lead him from the edges of his native Tipperary into Cork. He had made an eight-hour round trip to Dublin and exhaustion was cited as the most likely cause of the accident. He was within twenty miles of home when his car careered off the road at around 11.30 p.m., upturning into the low-lying land below the road and causing him fatal injuries. A passing motorist alerted the emergency services but Dan was already dead when their help arrived. Alison was nudging life into the open fire when the doorbell of Michaelmas House rang at two minutes past midnight.

  CHAPTER THIRTY - THREE

  People meant well and Alison knew that, but the constant company of her parents, relatives and friends around Caharoe that she had clung to for survival in the first days and weeks after Dan had died had now become suffocating. She was having no time alone with Lucy and she was finding it difficult to know how her little girl was coping with the loss of her father. She seemed to be getting a little better as every day passed, but with people around all the time fussing about everything from what she was eating to the toys she was playing with they were inhabiting an unreal world. Alison knew she would have to pluck them from these false surroundings and see if the two of them could build something from the fragments they had been left. She knew it would take courage that she didn’t know if she possessed for the two of them to set off alone, a pair where once there had been three. Dan had wanted more children, he used to joke that he would settle for five, but Alison had delayed, hoping to get the post of Assistant Principal in the school. Maternity leave would not have helped her cause, she felt, and she persuaded Dan that they had plenty of time because she was only thirty-three. ‘We have years left,’ was her standard response when he raised the issue of not wanting Lucy to be an only child as they themselves had been. He agreed because of course they had, and then he would ask her a few short weeks later if she had changed her mind. Now she had taken extended leave from her teaching post and wasn’t even sure if she could ever go back. Going out to work had always been followed by coming home to Dan. It had been the rhythm of her life and she was at a loss without its comforting pattern. Michaelmas, full of people all the time, only echoed with reminders of what was missing: with his empty chair, the surgery running without him, rows of suits hanging in the wardrobe and the vacant space beside her in their bed. She thought of Lucy, who loved to walk between them, holding each of their hands, when they went on their walks through Bracken Woods at the weekend. It cut her right to the bone that her little girl would never again experience the absolute security of a parent at either hand, listening to every word and sharing every step.

  First she would tackle her father-in-law, who had more or less taken up residence in Lovett’s Hotel, hoping to find something in his daily visits to Michaelmas that would mend what had been broken the night he lost his son. He broke down every time he was with Lucy so on top of losing her father she had to cope with a grandfather who couldn’t stop crying when faced with the fact that she was the only precious remnant of his dead son. When he returned to Lovett’s at night he drank whiskey in his room until he fell asleep or passed out; whichever happened first. His face had aged dramatically and his features struggled against the dead weight of unimaginable heartache. His suits hung from his frame loosely and tauntingly as if pain would soon hollow him out completely and leave only a shell ruined by loss. He blamed himself for sending Dan on a journey when he should have gone himself and he felt sure Alison blamed him too, or if she didn’t she had every right to do so. He hung around Caharoe thinking that if anything were to change the way he was feeling it would surely happen here where Dan had called home.

  Three months after Dan’s death Alison found herself alone with Con in the kitchen at Michaelmas. Her mother had taken Lucy for a day out at Fota and her father had resumed his old role as the town GP. Alison knew that his heart was no longer in the job. The break in France and the fact that he no longer had Dan to pass the practice on to had shaken his devotion to medicine totally. He was doing it now just to keep himself busy and to stop himself thinking. Her mother had admitted as much to her. She would have to get her parents to resume their life too but that was another day’s work. Firstly she felt responsibility to put her father-in-law back on an even keel.

  ‘You know, Con, we can’t really go on like this, you living in Lovett’s and being here every day. Don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t mind you being here if I thought it was doing you any good, but you seem to be getting worse with every passing minute. Don’t you miss Leachlara, your home, your friends, people like Columbo?’

  ‘I miss Dan, Alison, that’s what I miss.’ He bowed his head and she felt bad for talking to him when he clearly wasn’t ready. Yet there was nothing to be gained from him sulking around the house drunk or well on his way to getting there. Moving on was imperative for all of them.

  ‘We all miss him. Dan was at the heart of everything for all of us.’ Alison fought back the tears that were gathering at the corners of her eyes. She knew she had to be strong for her own sake and for Con’s too. ‘Why don’t you go home to Leachlara every few days and then come back here to spend some time with Lucy and myself? You have such a lot of people there that care for you. People who would look out for you. Sure there is no one in Lovett’s that you know really. It’s miserable to be in that place drinking on your own when you could be in Shanahan’s with a few people to talk to while you had your pint.’

  ‘I didn’t realize I wasn’t wanted. I’ll go tonight.’ His tone was one of petulant self-pity and because the gentle approach hadn’t worked Alison had no alternative but to deliver a few home truths.

  ‘Listen, Con, you are not being fair. I have made it abundantly plain that you are welcome in this house but what kind of example are you setting for Lucy? She has been through things a little girl should not have to see and I won’t have her look at you rot over in Lovett’s and turn into someone she doesn’t even recognize. We are all she has left, you and me and my mam and dad. We have to keep things together and you are not doing that right now. That has to change.’ She was winded after her spiel and she hoped she wasn’t being too cruel but her well of mothering had enough calls on it minding Lucy. It did not have reserves to protect Con from himself too.

  ‘OK. I will go back to Leachlara during the week and maybe call to you and Lucy each weekend. Is that all right with you?’ He eyed her uncertainly, unsure of his ground. In his heart and soul he knew he needed a good shake-up but he didn’t feel able to resume normal life. Nothing would be the same without Dan – but he would have to try. He couldn’t hide out in Caharoe any longer.

  ‘We would look forward to that, Con. We really would. I’ve been thinking about moving out of Michaelmas. There doesn’t seem to be much point in staying here without Dan. To be honest I am fairly sure that my father has lost interest in the practice and there is no point in me living here when a GP and his family could take over the place on a lease. I can let the decision of what to do with Michaelmas in the long term wait for a while. I won’t move far though. Just a few miles out the road because I want Lucy to stay in Caharoe School with her friends. Nor would I want to live in another house in the town because not one of them could compare to Michaelmas.’ She looked around the kitchen as she spoke. Something in the place had died with Dan and she knew she could not stay here. ‘But wherever we go, Con, there will always be a bed for you and I mean that with all my heart.’

  Con reached his hand to her across the table where they had shared a pot of tea. He had so many things he needed to say, mostly about the guilt that racked him because Dan had died on his way back from Dublin after seeing Leda on his account. He needed Alison to absolve him of some of the responsibility because he couldn’t bear its weight much longer. He gripped her hand tig
htly but words had a habit of failing him since all this had happened. Alison knew pretty much what he was thinking.

  ‘You know, Con, I tried to persuade Dan to stay the night in Dublin. We have plenty of friends that he could have called in on and stayed over or he could have booked a hotel. I told him he could ring a locum agency and get someone to stand in for him on the Tuesday morning surgery but he was having none of it. He wanted to be home here with us. What happened is one of those awful tragic things that happen every day to other families. I just never thought it would happen to us or to Dan. He was such a careful driver, too. I always loved travelling with him. I felt so safe whenever I was with him. I don’t feel safe any more. I think now anything can happen.’ She looked at Con, who seemed more depressed than ever listening to her. ‘God, listen to me. I will have us both in floods of tears if I don’t stop and we both know Dan would have wanted us to buck up and be strong for Lucy.’

  ‘He would. He wanted everything for you and Lucy. He was so proud of you both. I think he was a bit ashamed of me, and who could blame him? I handed over that folder of stuff from Leda to Robert Lalor a few nights ago in Lovett’s. I could tell that he was shocked at the extent of the mess I had gotten myself into. To be honest, I couldn’t recall some of the stuff myself. I ignored it while it all simmered away in the background.’

  ‘What did he advise you to do next?’

  ‘I don’t have to do a thing. He is going to approach the Revenue on my behalf and say I want to make a full settlement of everything I owe. He has an accountant attached to the firm who will estimate the final total for me. There will be fines and all sorts of penalties of course but there’s plenty of property to sell, so even if it takes every cent then so be it. My name will be in the paper of course as a tax dodger but I couldn’t give a damn now. The party will distance itself from me but sure they have done that already. Counted votes are soon forgotten and I mean nothing to them any more. I was important once but I don’t matter an iota in the end.’

  ‘It will be good to get it sorted once and for all. It’s what Dan would have wanted you to do.’

  ‘Yes. Dan was always strictly honest and maybe I made him that way with all my crooked little schemes. The only good thing about all of this is there won’t be a bit left for Leda Clancy if she decides to come calling for more. She has nothing on me now and there’s a small bit of comfort in that. I’ll get my stuff together in Lovett’s and I will tip off back to Leachlara. Will you tell Lucy that I will see her in a few days?’

  She saw Con to the front door of Michaelmas and watched him as he gingerly picked his steps across the square. She hoped he wouldn’t knock back a whiskey for the road but she couldn’t stop him. It was the first break she was consciously making with the past. Dan was gone. Every day from here on in would be spent coping with that heartbreaking fact.

  Ann Baxter, a neighbour and good friend from two doors up, was passing by the door and greeted Alison with a smile whose meaning she had come to decipher over the past number of months. It was part pity mixed with several parts of not having a clue what the best thing was to say.

  ‘How are you, Ann?’ offered Alison in order to bypass the awful awkwardness she felt when people treated her as if she might shatter into a million fine pieces under their gaze.

  ‘Oh, everything’s grand with us, but tell me how are you feeling? We all find it so hard to think Dan is gone.’ She bit her lip then, thinking that she shouldn’t have mentioned Dan’s name, and her face flushed at her slip-up.

  ‘I’m not great, to be honest. It’s very hard but for Lucy’s sake I will have to manage it somehow. I have no choice. I miss him terribly and there is not a minute of the day that I don’t think of him and I’m not sure I want that to stop. What if I start forgetting him, Ann? What will I do then?’

  Ann stepped up to where Alison was standing and wrapped her in a solid hug. ‘Everyone on this street cares about you and we all cared about Dan. We will pull you through all of this if you let us.’

  Alison was at once grateful and overwhelmed by all the kindness she had been offered. She and Dan had led a very private life and now everything from her tears to her and her daughter’s future was a public commodity. She felt, in spite of all the kindness, as if she were thoroughly unprotected, that she had been skinned alive and every contact was sharper and deeper than she could cope with.

  Ann made her promise to call in for a cup of coffee some morning and to talk if she wanted. When she was gone Alison closed the front door of Michaelmas behind her. She leaned against its solidness for support. Tears fell, as they did every day. ‘I miss you, Dan,’ she said aloud in the empty hallway and for a moment she imagined she could see him smiling and walking towards her. When she wiped away the tears he was gone.

  Lucy and Alison’s mother would be home soon and her father would be finished in the surgery. Maybe she would fix something for them all to eat. It had been ages since she had attempted even the smallest task for herself and Lucy. Making dinner would only be a small attempt at normality, but she had to start somewhere.

  CHAPTER THIRTY - FOUR

  ‘I think, Mam, that you and Dad should go back to France so that Lucy and I have somewhere to go on holidays. It is senseless you both staying on here running a surgery that neither of you are the slightest bit interested in any more.’

  Alison had brought her mother out for an early-evening walk while Richard Shepherd had looked after seeing Lucy to bed and reading her a bedtime story. Caharoe was quiet at that hour of the evening. Shoppers had gone home, schoolchildren had retreated to dinners and attempts to unravel homework and the pubs had yet to empty of the after-work drinkers. They headed for the Bracken river walk that would bring them out on the Mountainacre Road; from there they would trace the loop home that would bring them down the lane that linked Earl Street with the main street in Caharoe. It would take them a good forty minutes, time, Alison hoped, to get everything she was struggling with off her chest. She knew that approaching her mother and not her father was the best way to get them to reconsider their decision to stay in Caharoe indefinitely.

  ‘I mean, Dad got back up on the surgery treadmill because he feels it is the most practical thing he could be doing. But he has not stopped to think that the surgery means nothing to me now that Dan is gone. If you are not running it for yourselves, which I think you most definitely are not, please, please, Mam, don’t be doing it on my account.’

  Cathy Shepherd was taken aback. She had to admit that they had thrown themselves into running the surgery automatically after Dan had died so that Alison would not have to worry about it. It had not occurred to her or to Richard that their daughter had already finished with the Michaelmas family practice.

  ‘Do you not think it a bit soon, Alison? I mean too soon after Dan for you and Lucy to be alone? I understand why you had to see off Con. The man was going to drink himself to death outside your door if you didn’t take him in hand, but Dad and myself are different, surely? We are trying to help even if we are making a bags of it.’

  ‘Oh, Mam, I don’t mean to be thankless and I am sorry if I came across that way but alone is exactly what Lucy and I will be. I have to see if we can find our feet without being propped up at every turn. I know you and Dad mean well and, believe me, a huge part of me wants you both to stay here for ever, standing between me and everything difficult that will come up. That won’t solve anything in the long run though. I owe it to Lucy to make things work out all right for the two of us. I owe it to Dan, because he would do the same for her if I was gone.’

  Cathy was not convinced that her daughter knew what was good for her on this occasion. It had been such a short time since her son-in-law had died and although she took her daughter’s attempt at bravery as an encouraging sign that she was making progress in dealing with her grief, she couldn’t help but think that it was too much too soon. She waited until they were out of earshot of Betty Linehan, who was walking her dog. Betty had greeted them
warmly and yet again Alison felt the X-ray gaze that attempted to work out exactly how she was doing. Betty was a lovely woman but she was a vessel made for news and Cathy didn’t want her knowing any of her family’s business.

  ‘We want to help, Alison. We want to deal with the difficult things that will arise so that you don’t have to. Running the surgery is one less thing for you to worry about, no?’

  Alison was close to total exasperation. She felt strangled by all the help; her parents convinced that even in her thirties she was next to incapable of doing anything for herself. ‘Mam, just think about what you have just said for a minute. Dan is gone. Running the surgery for me is a waste of your time and you said yourself it is driving Dad up the wall—’

  ‘No, what I said was that he is finding it difficult to adjust to the workload after all the relaxation in France, but it’s nothing he can’t get used to, honestly.’

  ‘Dad is burnt out, Mam. Can’t you see? The place needs a young GP to cope with all the new patients. Dan was even thinking of taking on a junior partner because the patient list had almost doubled in a couple of years. Dad and yourself are struggling and for what?’

  Cathy was having difficulty imagining another GP in Michaelmas House. She still thought of the place as home even though she hadn’t lived in it for more than a decade.

  ‘I don’t think it would be very pleasant for you and Lucy to have tenants on the middle floor. It would break up the house entirely. It’s not a good idea to have strangers sharing your home.’

  Alison took a deep breath and ploughed on. ‘That’s the other thing. I don’t really want to live in Michaelmas any longer. The big gap that Dan has left there is too painful for me. Without him the place doesn’t feel like home and if I am not happy there I won’t be able to make Lucy happy either. We could lease the place to a GP and his or her family. I have enough money set aside that I can buy another smaller house for myself and Lucy, and in the future you, me and Dad can decide what should be done with Michaelmas in the long run.’