The Things We Know Now
Page 8
I reached for her hand across the table. ‘Happy?’ I asked. I stroked her fingers, admiring the way the gleaming wedding band nestled into the old simplicity of her mother’s engagement ring.
‘Completely.’ Her eyes shone. ‘And you?’
‘Yes.’ I looked around me at the low bungalows, the profusion of red and orange and purple flowers everywhere. All I could see was the vibrancy of their tropical colours, even after night had fallen. I didn’t know the names of any of them, not then. And I could just make out the roll of the sea in the distance. I felt content. ‘It’s another world, isn’t it? We were right to come here.’
She smiled. ‘A welcome break from reality,’ she said. ‘We’ll have to face it soon enough when we go home.’ She paused, not letting go of my hand. ‘I’m sorry about your falling-out with Rebecca, particularly with the baby on the way.’
I looked at her in astonishment. For a moment, I couldn’t speak. I’d decided not to divulge that piece of information until after our honeymoon. ‘How did you know?’
‘Frances let it slip, about a month ago. She thought I must have known.’ Ella smiled. ‘She was most embarrassed that I didn’t. I promised I wouldn’t discuss it with you until we were here, but she was very upset.’
I cursed myself. It seemed I couldn’t do right for doing wrong, as Cecilia used to say.
Ella watched me. She has always been able to read my face. ‘I’m telling you now, Patrick, on our wedding day, for a reason. I don’t want us to have any secrets. Secrets are toxic. Please don’t shut me out.’
I felt the familiar pain of loss all over again, mixed with a potent sense of relief. At least Ella now knew. She knew about the row and she knew about the baby. And it was all okay. I could see by the way she looked at me, the way she didn’t let go of my hand. ‘My own daughter forced me to choose,’ I said. ‘I had to choose you, choose our future. And I don’t regret it. But I’m sorry I kept it from you.’ I spoke quickly and then stopped, wondering if I was going to be able to continue. ‘What I regret, most deeply of all, is that I may never get to see my own grandchild.’ I shook my head, willing away the gathering storm of emotion.
Ella pressed my hand to her cheek. ‘Babies have a way of healing people, of bringing them back together again,’ she said. ‘We’ll have another chance to make things right when we go home. Either way,’ she made me look at her, ‘you will see your grandchild. Frances and Sophie are determined – let them work away in the background for now. If Rebecca continues to shut me out, I’ll deal with that. But you must make things right between you and her, independently of me. Don’t harden your heart.’
I could not speak for gratitude. ‘I won’t,’ I promised, eventually. ‘Thank you. Thank you for understanding.’
‘We’ll get there,’ she said, ‘we’ll get there. Keep believing that.’
We didn’t need to say any more, not that night. We returned to the topic, of course, more than once. But I grew in confidence that Ella and I would make our way through this minefield together, that Rebecca could not shut me out forever.
Those three weeks of our honeymoon seemed to me to compose the music of our relationship for all the years that followed. Piano, pianissimo. We rarely argued, never disagreed on fundamentals. We were serene together, peaceful. I almost believed in God again, almost thanked him for my undeserved good fortune.
Ella laughed at me when I told her this. ‘Go right ahead and pray,’ she said. ‘Let me know if you do, whether anyone is out there listening.’
In mid-June of that same year, we held a party to celebrate our wedding, in Ella’s beautiful garden. It thrilled me that this was now my beautiful garden, too: our own private Eden. Again, the gods of weather smiled down upon us. The magnolias and maples were in full, extravagant bloom, the river sparkling, the great sweep of green inviting and restful. Ella had no family left to speak of. Instead, her colleagues turned up in droves, her friends from university, neighbours for miles around. I recall Karen in particular, of course, and Christopher and Donna, and a woman called Maryam and her husband, whose name I always have difficulty remembering. They were an immigrant couple that Ella had recently got to know.
I saw Ella and Maryam embracing for a moment, set apart a little from the crowd. They looked so joyful that I remarked upon it afterwards to Ella.
‘Maryam is pregnant,’ she said. ‘She has just found out. It’s her first. Isn’t it wonderful?’
Wonderful, indeed. I watched my new wife closely for some time afterwards. I was concerned that Rebecca’s absence and Maryam’s pregnant presence might reopen old wounds for her. But her serenity that day was complete. She caught me looking at her more than once. Each time she smiled and blew a kiss in my direction. I relaxed into the blurring of goodwill that the afternoon became, surrounded by laughter, happy faces, animated conversation. I don’t remember the names of any more of Ella’s guests right now, but I know that she wrote them on the backs of all the photographs that I afterwards developed in my own new darkroom, tucked under the eaves of this rambling house.
Frances and Sophie were at the party, too, of course, and Martin and Peter. Frances had pulled out my old address book and contacted everyone she could. I was touched – no, moved, deeply moved – by people’s genuine delight at my marriage to Ella. It was a joyous occasion, one that made me grateful all over again for the depth of my happiness.
Cecilia’s sister, Lynn, was there, with Steve and their grownup children. At first, she and I had an awkward moment. ‘Congratulations, Patrick,’ she said, but her eyes filled at once.
I drew her towards me and we hugged. ‘Thank you for being here,’ I said. ‘It means a lot.’
She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue, tried to smile. ‘I’m sorry, Patrick,’ she shook her head, ‘we weren’t much use to you after Cecilia died. I was too wrapped up in my own grief at first, and then Mo’s illness just felled all of us.’ She paused.
I had learned shortly after Cecilia’s death that Lynn had her own troubles. Her teenage daughter – our niece, Mo – was stricken with some unknown disease that had taken months to diagnose, further months to treat. But I hadn’t absorbed that fact until it was too late. I left the burden of family communications to my girls – that is, if I thought about anyone at all beyond myself. I let things drift and then the chasm between me and everyone else had become too wide to fill. Or that was how it seemed.
‘Frances told us what a desperately difficult time you had,’ Lynn continued. ‘I feel we abandoned you.’
I was touched by her honesty. And, yes, I had felt abandoned, truth to tell. It seemed to me that a tinfoil army appeared at my door every day for a month after Cecilia’s funeral; I amassed enough casseroles to feed a regiment. Afterwards, Frances and Sophie had to trawl the neighbourhood, returning dishes and bowls and oven trays.
But that wasn’t the sort of sustenance I craved. I know, because my daughters told me, that people did continue to call for a while, that they tried to converse, that they issued invitations to their homes – none of which I accepted – but I remember very little of it. And Lynn, in particular, who had been a constant presence in our home whilst Cecilia was alive, seemed to disappear, magicked away almost at one and the same time. It felt that I had lost both of them: that Cecilia’s death had claimed not one, but both sisters.
‘You didn’t have your own sorrows to seek,’ I said, gently. Cecilia’s phrase: Lynn recognized it at once, and she smiled. ‘And I need to be forgiven for not doing something for Mo.’ I looked over to where she was standing with her father. Steve had a protective arm around his youngest daughter’s shoulders. ‘She looks wonderful.’
Lynn nodded, her face flushed with happiness. ‘She is. We were very lucky. There’s not a day goes by that I don’t count my blessings.’ She took my hands. ‘I want us to be friends, Patrick, as well as family. That’s why we’re here.’ She looked around her. ‘I’ve just spoken to Frances and to Sophie. They look wonderful. And I underst
and you are about to become a grandfather?’
I nodded. ‘Yes, it’s very exciting news. All of us are looking forward to the new arrival.’ I hated the false cheer in my voice. I could hear what sounded like a rasp of insincerity in everything I said when Rebecca was mentioned. The truth was that I had not discovered a formula of words that would embrace both my longing to see my grandson (I’d believed from the beginning that it would be a boy – this preponderance of females had to end sometime) and my sadness at the breach with my eldest child. Even to my own ears, as I spoke to Lynn, it sounded as though I was way too wrapped up in my own happiness to bother about my absent daughter’s. I regretted that, but I had no way of putting it right.
Lynn just smiled and looked over at where Ella was pouring champagne. ‘We’d love to get to know Ella, too, as well as the new baby. Let’s just forgive each other: life is too short.’
Of course, Rebecca and Adam did not appear. I had not expected them. Sophie had prepared me for their – to me – pointed absence from our wedding celebrations. Rebecca had used the excuse of her advancing pregnancy: a reasonable excuse. I must accept that. The heat, she said, the car journey. The fact that the baby was due at the end of July. But she sent a card, with her best wishes. I was grateful for that, at least. I wasn’t sure whether it indicated a softening of her attitude, or whether her two sisters had insisted on that small measure of appropriate behaviour around this happy occasion.
We stayed in the garden until well into the night, only moving inside when the air began to chill. By that time, there were some fifty or so guests left, all of whom seemed reluctant to leave. It was after midnight when Ella finally kicked off her shoes after we’d waved goodbye to Frances and Sophie. I watched as my daughters left with their partners and felt an almost overwhelming tenderness for the absent Rebecca. It was a feeling that was as sudden as it was unexpected: but it was so clear on that day how Frances and Sophie were almost two halves of the same whole. They were not identical twins, but they were indivisible, inseparable nonetheless. Now, along with Martin and Pete, they seemed to complete a contented universe of four. I suspected – indeed, I had seen with my own eyes – that there was no love lost between Adam and these two men. I felt sad just then to think of Rebecca on her own – I mean, without the company of her sisters, on a day like this. I decided to try again to reach out to her. I would not abandon her; nor would I let her abandon me. I followed my wife into the conservatory.
‘My kingdom for a cup of tea,’ Ella groaned, tucking her feet under her on the sofa. I made her a pot, just as she liked it. ‘Builders’ tea,’ she exclaimed, sipping in delight. ‘You are a little treasure.’
My abiding memory of that day is the brightness of all the women’s dresses against the vibrant green of the lawn. And something else, too: it truly felt like the beginning of a new life. New connections were forged on that day, old ones renewed, forgiveness had been given and taken. I felt a contentment that threatened to spill over into tears, and perhaps would have done, had Ella not taken the final glass of champagne away from me.
I was conscious, too, of a growing sense of anxiety and excitement as the date of Rebecca’s due date approached. I wanted above all to see her, to welcome the baby on behalf of Cecilia and myself. And I wanted, somehow, to give my eldest daughter a share of my own new happiness: a gift for the coming child.
But I had to resign myself to waiting.
I know now, of course, that in the meantime other events were already beginning to unfold. But back then I was completely unaware of them.
They were about to change my life – both of our lives – in ways I could not possibly have imagined.
Rebecca
WE DIDN’T GO, of course. Wild horses could not have dragged me there. I sent a card with Adam’s and my best wishes, and I’m sure I’ll get around to buying some sort of a wedding gift after the baby is born. Besides, I’m tired. Frances and Sophie were not impressed when I told them to count me out. I knew that just by looking at them, but at least I have a visible, swelling, lumbering list of excuses for not travelling. They can’t deny that.
My back, my feet, my neck. My inability to stand for long stretches of time. My inability to sit for long stretches of time. The heat, the car-sickness, the fact that the seat belt is torture. I marshalled all of these soldiers to my cause and, eventually, my sisters retreated and left me alone.
It was a strange day, I’ll admit that, the day of Dad’s party. Adam had to work, even though it was a Saturday. I wasn’t pleased – it has been happening a little too often lately for my liking. Now that I was on maternity leave, we needed to start getting things together for the baby’s arrival. But Adam has been infuriatingly vague recently. ‘Soon’, he keeps saying. Or ‘plenty of time’, or ‘maybe next weekend’.
At any other time, I’d have fought him. But I am more laid back these days than I have ever been, and I decided to let it slide. A small, superstitious part of me was strangely relieved, if I’m honest: better to wait, maybe, until the baby is safely here. Let’s not tempt fate. Let’s not even think about tempting fate.
And so I spent the afternoon in the garden, lying in the gauzy shade of the willow tree. I dozed and read and remembered. Perhaps it’s because all my hormones are wandering where they will these days, but I found it a very emotional day. I revisited so many places, so many happenings from my early life, so much childhood stuff; the clarity of all those memories was startling.
What Frances and Sophie do not realize is that Cecilia was my friend. They have always had each other: they have never needed to look beyond that complete, tightly contained, exclusive universe of two. I don’t think they even realize how indivisible they are. By the time they were born, I was very much the older sister – already separate, maybe even unreachable in their eyes. When they were seven, I was thirteen: already a bolshie teenager. I was at university while they were just starting secondary school. And now I was about to become a mother while they were merely girlfriends.
We inhabited different generations; we always had done.
I have never found it easy to make friends. And with Cecilia, I never had to. Occasionally, girls came and went throughout the years, but Mum was always there, always in my corner. She was barely twenty-four when she’d had me and, besides, her outlook was always younger than her age. I didn’t feel the need for friends: I already had all the closeness I could handle. And that is not to say that we didn’t argue, she and I: we did, but our disagreements never lasted.
Up to the morning she died, we phoned each other at least twice a day. It used to exasperate Dad: the fact that we’d have just left each other a couple of hours earlier and then we’d be on the phone again, chatting, planning, sharing.
On my wedding day, Sophie and Frances were my bridesmaids, naturally. It would never have occurred to me to ask anyone else. And even if it had, there was no one close to me that I’d have been happy with. Our cousins were scattered everywhere – Australia, New Zealand, Wisconsin. All of Dad’s older brothers and sisters – he was the youngest of a big family – had upped sticks and left Ireland in the fifties. And Aunt Lynn was so much younger than Mum that her children – the ‘baby cousins’, as we called them – hardly counted. And so we grew up without an extended family network. My sisters have always missed that, or so they say. I have not.
But while Frances and Sophie were my bridesmaids, it was my mother who arranged the day with me – down to every last detail. It was Cecilia who came to help me choose my dress; Cecilia who tried out make-up with me before the big day; Cecilia who helped arrange the posies for the guests’ tables. She even held my hand and soothed me through my pre-wedding jitters.
‘You’ll be fine,’ she kept saying. ‘It’s just nerves. Everybody feels like that.’
‘Did you?’ I asked. I could have bitten my lip. I didn’t want to rake up the past again, not when I was just about to get married myself.
She smiled. ‘Yes. Yes, I did.’
‘Your father and I worked things out a long time ago, Rebecca. We’ve been happy.’ She tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. ‘And you girls have made me happiest of all. I wouldn’t change anything.’
And then there was the time we spoke about my having children. We were squeezed into a changing room together, reflected into infinity by the long mirrors on every wall. ‘I want to wait,’ I’d said. ‘I want to give it five years at least. I need to get my career sorted, and then we’ll think about it.’ I remember I was struggling into a choice of going-away outfits – one of those dresses with the ridiculous way-too-short zips that barely reach your shoulder-blades. I pulled it off again and tossed it to one side. I hadn’t the patience for that. Mum was looking at me. ‘What?’ I said.
She didn’t answer at once. When she did, all she said was: ‘Don’t leave it too long.’
I remember teasing her. ‘You just want a gaggle of grandchildren.’ I pulled off another dress, placed it in the ‘maybe’ pile. I faced her, my hands on my hips, pretending challenge.
Her eyes lit up. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes. I can’t think of anything more delightful at this stage of my life. I’m really looking forward to it.’
‘What about Dad?’ I asked. After my earlier question, I felt the need to include him here, if only for her sake.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said, smiling. ‘Your Dad adores the three of you. But for him, a grandchild would be the icing on the cake.’
‘You mean a boy,’ I couldn’t resist.
She laughed. ‘You two are so alike,’ she said. ‘Always owning the last word.’ She reached over and handed me the next outfit: a silk dress, stunning in its simplicity. ‘Your father will take what he gets, but, yes, he’s been drowning in females all his life. You can’t blame him for wanting a bit of male company.’ She smoothed down the dress I’d just stepped into. ‘Now this is nice.’ Then she looked at me. ‘I’m happy either way. I’m just glad I’m still young enough to enjoy any grandchildren I might be lucky enough to have.’