Look into the Eye

by Jennifer Barrett

  Ed laughed. “Even the mighty Richard Blake isn’t that powerful.” He glanced at me for a second again. “No Rich, I’d been planning to break up with Sonya for some time before all that happened back in May. I hadn’t been happy with her for a long time. I mean it was fun for a while at the start but we weren’t ever suited really. And she was right when she said it was my fault. You see, I wanted more – something deeper. I suppose you could say the argument that day was the turning point. I mean, it was tough. I couldn’t believe you and Sonya would do something like that.”

  “I’m sorry, man. I didn’t mean –”

  “It’s all right. To be honest, Rich, you did me a favour. I mean I’ll admit, for the first few weeks – perhaps months – afterwards I hated you. I was miserable and it was easy to blame it all on my evil brother. I felt like I’d always lived in your shadow – at home, at school, on the rugby pitch. Travelling around Africa a few years ago was brilliant, but when I got back to Ireland I just more or less fell back into my old routine of trailing around in the wake of my big, popular brother.”

  “I didn’t realise . . .”

  “It’s not your fault, Rich. Once a bit of time had passed after that lunch, I finally realised that it wasn’t about you, or about Sonya, or about anyone or anything else for that matter. It was about me, and about the young people I want to teach. So I went to talk to Jangler and he helped me to work through my anger, to forgive you and Sonya – and eventually to do what I felt was right for me.”

  “Sounds like he brainwashed you into moving down to Ashvale!”

  Ed laughed. “No, nothing like that – it was all my idea. When I qualify next year, my plan is to go to Zambia. I want to teach out there for a few years at least, work in the small missionary school I volunteered in when I was travelling a few years ago. There’s a whole world out there, Rich, and I want to do my bit towards making it a little bit better. Okay, so I’m only a rookie teacher, but if I can make a difference to the lives of a few children who really need an education, well hey – I’m a happy man.”

  I listened to my brother talk about his plans for the future. I could hear the enthusiasm in his words, could see the spark in his eyes. It was almost like a whole new person had emerged from inside the shell of the man I’d known just six months ago. It was clear he was happy – happier than I’d probably ever known him. I found myself almost impressed by him. Nah . . . definitely impressed by him. Perhaps even a bit envious too if I was being honest – he seemed to have it all worked out.

  We pulled up into the driveway of the house in Richmond and Ed turned off the engine. “So there you have it. Now you know everything.”

  “Yes, now I know.” I undid my seatbelt, then turned to look at him. “I hope it doesn’t sound patronising, Ed, but I’m proud of you, man.”

  Ed looked down and nodded his head a few times. He had tears in his eyes when he looked back up at me. “Thanks, Rich, that means a lot.” He opened the car door, but I stayed seated and looked ahead up at the house.

  “It’s going to be strange going in.” I looked round at him. “You know – without her being there.”

  Ed sat back in his seat. “I know. It is strange. Sheila and Derek are here though, and they’re looking forward to seeing you. Come on, we’ve got a lot more to talk about. Let’s go in.”

  Sheila was sitting in my mother’s armchair by the electric fire when we got in. For a split second I thought it was my mother sitting there.

  “Welcome home, love,” she said, jumping up and giving me a quick hug. “Was the flight on time?” she asked Ed.

  “Bang on,” said Ed, sitting down.

  Derek got up from his own seat and shook my hand.

  “How are you both holding up?” I asked as I took my coat off.

  Sheila just nodded a few times, and blew her nose. She looked tired.

  “We’re grand, son,” said Derek as Sheila took my coat from me and went to hang it up in the hall.

  “Sit down there now.” Derek pointed to my mother’s chair.

  I sat down, but in the armchair opposite my mother’s.

  “You’ll have something to eat?” said Sheila, coming back in.

  “No, I’m all right, Sheila, don’t worry. Why don’t you sit back down?” I just wanted to talk to my aunt, see how she really was.

  “Ah now, don’t be silly!” she said, moving towards the kitchen. “You’ve come all the way from Australia, you must be starving.”

  “New Zealand. And they do feed you every now and then, Sheila. Even on airplanes.” I smiled over at Derek who winked back at me.

  She turned back to me. “Airplane food? Sure that wouldn’t fill a big man like yourself. I have a roast to cook for dinner later on, but you’ll have a cup of tea and a sandwich at least now, Richard? You will,” she answered her own question, then disappeared into the kitchen before I could change her mind.

  “Everything okay with you boys?” Derek asked after she’d gone.

  I nodded, and looked over at Ed who nodded too.

  “Did you tell him about you moving down to Ashvale? And about Africa?” Derek asked.

  “I did,” said Ed, pulling up a chair beside me.

  “What do you make of it all then?” Derek asked me.

  “I think it’s great.” I looked at Ed. “I’m sure you’re a big hit down at Ashvale, bro, and at least you won’t be moving back in with me any time soon! Who knows, I might even come out to visit you in Zambia next year – I’ve never been there.”

  Derek smiled, then picked up a large brown envelope from the floor beside him.

  “Ah, the will,” said Ed. “I haven’t had a chance to tell him about it yet.”

  Derek handed me the envelope. “Have a look at that, lad.”

  I took out a bundle of legal papers, and quickly scanned through them. Then I looked back up at Derek. “Two houses?”

  Derek nodded. “Yes – she’s left you and Edward this place, and the family home in Wicklow.”

  “What family home in Wicklow?” I asked Ed. He just nodded me back to Derek.

  “It’s the house where your mother and Sheila grew up,” Derek said. “It’s on the coast road, not far out of Wicklow town. Their father, your grandfather, inherited it from his own parents. It’s been in your family for generations.”

  I’d never heard my mother speak about her childhood home, or about her father for that matter. I knew he was a solicitor, that they were from Wicklow, and that her own mother had died when she and Sheila were young, but that was about it.

  “I’d say the house and the grounds are in a pretty bad state now,” Derek went on. “Nobody’s lived there since your grandfather died just before you were born, Richard. Your mother inherited it in his will, but she never did anything with it.”

  “That’s crazy – she should have sold it,” I said. “She could have done with the money – they weren’t exactly rolling in it back then.”

  “Yes, why didn’t she ever sell it, Derek?” Ed asked.

  “I think because it brought back bad memories? She probably just wanted to forget the place even existed.” Derek pulled his chair a bit closer to the fire. “Sheila and your mother suffered a lot at their father’s hands, lads. He got very depressed after their mother died – he drank a lot, and I think he raised his hand in anger to them on more than one occasion. It wasn’t easy. Sheila left when she was eighteen to marry me, and on the very next day your mother packed her bags and left for Dublin. I think she’d only stayed so long in Wicklow to keep an eye on her younger sister. She met your father soon after. Anyway, I don’t think she ever set foot in the place again – almost denied that part of her life had ever happened.”

  “How come we never knew any of this?” I looked at Ed.

  “Well, I knew she’d had a rough childhood,” he said. “She told me once after Dad left, but I didn’t realise how bad – she never talked about it again after that.”

  The mention of my father brought up all of t
he old familiar feelings of anger and resentment. I turned to Derek. “He really messed her around, didn’t he?”

  “Who?” Derek asked, “Your father?”

  “Yeah, who else? She could have done without marrying him, after such a crap childhood.”

  “No, Richard. Your father’s not to blame.” Derek glanced over at the kitchen from where we could hear Sheila moving about preparing the food. “Close the door over there, Edward.”

  Ed went and shut the door, then sat back down.

  “I love your aunt, lads, but she’s not always, eh –” He glanced back at the door, then looked at Ed. “Definitely shut?”

  Ed nodded. “Shut tight.”

  Derek went on. “Your mother and Sheila had to be tough to get through their childhood, and I think perhaps that made them quite hard. Over the years I’ve managed to break down some of your aunt’s defences, but it hasn’t been easy. Most of the time, I just let her have her way, but I’ve had to stand up for myself on more than one occasion. I get by, but I can’t say I haven’t thought about leaving myself a few times.”

  Ed and I looked at each other in shock.

  “Don’t worry,” Derek said. “I’m not going anywhere. Not now. We’ve found our own way of being together – Sheila and I – we’re happy enough now. In our own way.”

  Thank God, I thought. I definitely could not handle another family break-up.

  “I don’t think your father found it at all easy though,” Derek was saying. “Let’s just say your mother wasn’t the easiest of women to live with.”

  I snorted. “Understatement!”

  “Stop, Richie, this is important,” Ed said. “Go on, Derek.”

  “She loved you two boys,” Derek said, “but she found it very hard to show it. God bless her, she hadn’t been shown much love in her own childhood – certainly not since her mother died. When she married your father and had you two I think that was the happiest she’d ever been in life. She loved you two boys and your father very much. But as time went on, after you moved over to London and your father’s building business picked up, he had to spend more and more time working. You were still both young, and I think the pressure of raising two children almost on her own eventually got to your mother. She lost a child around then too – a girl. I think that was the final straw – it broke her heart.”

  “I never knew that,” said Ed.

  Neither did I, but it explained a lot. How the hell could my father leave her after something like that?

  “All the more reason for Dad to stand by her,” I said.

  Derek shook his head. “She completely shut your father out after she lost the baby. He was grieving himself, but they didn’t give each other any comfort. In those days we didn’t really talk about these things so much – we were just expected to get on with it. Sheila and I know only too well, we’ve had our own difficulties in that area over the years.” He looked into the distance for a moment.

  “I’m sorry Derek,” I said. “I didn’t realise.” Of course I knew Sheila and Derek couldn’t have children of their own, but I hadn’t really thought much about it before, never considered how hard it must have been for them.

  “Thanks, lad,” said Derek. “Anyway, your father turned to the drink as a result of everything. It was a very bad time for them both.”

  I had a flashback to the late-night rows when we were back in London from Ashvale for the Christmas holidays the year before they split. My father would come home drunk most nights and sleep on the sofa, while my mother would cry herself to sleep. They hadn’t been getting on well in some years, but I remember the year before they split as being particularly bad – I couldn’t wait to get back to Ashvale after the Christmas holidays.

  “Louisa saved him really,” said Derek.

  “What do you mean?” asked Ed.

  “She was his secretary, and over time I think they just fell in love. That’s what it was.”

  “Bullshit!” I stood up. “There’s no excuse for abandoning your wife and kids. No matter how bad things are, or what slapper bats her eyelids at you!”

  Derek shook his head. “It wasn’t like that, Richard. I met your father in Dublin shortly after he left your mother. I had to tell Sheila I was going to the dog races – she’d have had a fit if she’d known where I was really going. Your father was a broken man at the time.”

  I sat back down.

  “He admitted that he and a woman at work had feelings for each other,” Derek went on, “but at that stage nothing had happened between them. He’d clearly fallen for her, but he couldn’t bring himself to be with her. He was crushed knowing that he’d hurt you boys and your mother, you see? He felt so guilty about leaving you, and he missed you all. But, as he said, he had to do it – he was miserable with your mother, and if he’d carried on like that he’d probably have drunk himself into an early grave. He hasn’t touched a drop of the drink since he and Louisa got together.”

  “So he wasn’t with her before they split up? Before he left us?” Ed asked.

  “No,” said Derek. “They were friends, and she helped him through that time, but it was another year or so before they got together. I knew about it at the time, but I didn’t tell Sheila or your mother. I regret that now. I should have found a way to tell them so it didn’t come as such a shock the following year when your mother did find out – that day when they showed up together at your school.”

  Ed stood up and put his hand on Derek’s shoulder. “It’s all right, Derek. You weren’t to know how hard she’d take it.” He looked at me. “Hey, are you okay, Richie?”

  But I wasn’t at all okay. In the last few minutes, Derek’s words had turned everything I’d believed to be true about my parents upside down. For the first time in my life I started to see them as real people – people who had struggled, suffered, and made mistakes – just like me.

  “Why didn’t you tell us all this before?” I asked Derek, struggling to keep the anger out of my voice. “Or more to the point, why didn’t our mother tell us? Why all the secrets?”

  “I’m sorry, Richard. I did try to talk to you about it a few times,” he said, his own voice starting to quiver.

  “Leave it, Rich, it’s not Derek’s fault – he said he tried,” said Ed.

  “Well, he should have bloody well tried harder!”

  “You’re right, of course,” said Derek, “but it wasn’t easy to bring up. Especially after your friend Ben died – it was very hard to get through to you at all after that, Richard.” He looked very upset.

  But I couldn’t handle any more. “I need to get some sleep,” I said, standing up.

  Just as I did, Sheila opened the kitchen door and came through with a huge plate of sandwiches. “Sit up at the table now, all of you.”

  “Sorry, Sheila,” I said. “I’m going to sleep for a few hours. I’ll look forward to that roast later though.”

  “What? No, no, no. Sit up there at the table and have something small to eat now. Come on!” She waved me over to the table.

  “Leave the lad go, Sheila,” said Derek. “He’s been travelling for over a day, he needs to sleep.”

  “No, he’ll be hungry,” she said.

  Ed went over, sat down and picked up a sandwich, followed closely by Derek who also reached for a sandwich.

  “Sure can’t he sleep all day tomorrow?” said Sheila. “The funeral isn’t till Saturday. Come on now, Richard, sit up at the table –”

  “Leave him!” Derek spat out breadcrumbs as he spoke. He swallowed his bite, then glared up at his wife from the table.

  Sheila just stared back at him, holding firm. It was a battle of wills.

  Eventually Sheila pursed her lips and frowned, then went back into the kitchen without another word.

  I think it was the first time I’d ever witnessed Derek stand up to his wife – he looked drained by the exchange.

  I put my hand on his shoulder. “I know you did your best, Derek, thanks.”

  He smiled
sadly at me.

  I glanced over at Ed, who nodded.

  Then I went upstairs and slept for the rest of the day, and the whole night.

  Chapter 24

  RICHARD

  “Richard, the car’s here!” Sheila shouted up the stairs.

  I was sitting on the single bed in my old bedroom, staring at the tightly rolled black tie in my hand.

  This is really it, I thought. We’re about to bury my mother.

  I was still exhausted from the travel and emotionally drained from everything I’d learned over the previous days, but right at that moment the main thing I felt was a rising wave of nausea. I made it to the bathroom just in time to be sick.

  A few seconds later there was a light knock on the bathroom door. “Richard, are you okay?” Sheila asked.

  I washed my mouth with some water from the bathroom tap, and opened the door. “Yes, sorry. Let’s go. Is Ed down there?”

  “He’s already in the car with Derek. Come on.”

  Sheila went ahead of me down the stairs. When we got to the bottom, she reached out and took the tie out of my hand. It was the exact same spot where I had last spoken to my mother, where she’d wrapped my scarf around my neck.

  “There now.” Sheila said, tucking my tie into my jacket after she’d finished doing it up.

  “Thanks.”

  “Not at all.” She looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, “You know she loved you very much, Richard, don’t you? She may not always have been able to show it. But she did love you two boys, and she was very proud of you – both of you.” She paused. “And I am too.”

  I nodded, willing myself to believe it all.

  I was surprised that so many people had travelled over from Ireland for the funeral. There was a big crowd from the paper – Edith, her husband and most of my own team from the economics-and-business desk were there. The Ashvale crowd were also over in good numbers. It was good to see the familiar faces in the crowd as we drove into the church grounds.