by Penny Feeny
‘You looked as if you were in difficulty,’ Julia told Bel. ‘I was worried.’
‘Not at all! You must be seeing things.’
‘I think we ought to go.’
Bel rattled her bracelets. ‘But we’ve hardly been here five minutes and you haven’t even been introduced.’
Tom’s linen shirt, much creased, was hanging half in and half out of his trousers. Stealing his hand from Bel’s torso, he held it out. ‘Tom Farrelly,’ he said, in a throaty lilting voice. ‘Pleased to meet you.’
‘Is that so?’ Julia would not be mollified. She’d spent too much of her life succumbing to hollow charms; besides, she enjoyed a fight. And, even allowing for the fact that Bel might like rough sex, the whole scene was distasteful. ‘And do you think your behaviour is appropriate?’
‘Excuse me?’ His hand fell back to his side.
‘Mum,’ hissed Bel. ‘Please!’
At the corner of her vision she was aware of Kieran shuffling his feet, as if about to intervene, but then deciding to back away. They were left in a triangle – Bel, Tom and Julia – while the accordion spun out its rhythms, the children skated on the parquet, and the guests balanced glasses and sandwiches and regrouped, oblivious to the three figures at the edge of the room.
‘I know it’s old-fashioned,’ said Julia, ‘the idea of decorum in a public place but I thought this man was threatening you, Bel, and somebody had to stop him.’
Tom’s pupils were dark and dilated. Whether from fear or defiance, she couldn’t tell.
‘This wasn’t what I had in mind,’ she went on, ‘when I heard we’d been invited here. I guess that shows how many mistakes have been made along the line.’ She almost choked on her tongue and had to clutch herself tightly to stay upright.
Bel moved swiftly to her side. ‘Tom’s just as anxious as you are,’ she whispered. ‘It’s a big deal for him too. That’s why he’s been drinking. Probably.’
‘Probably?’ echoed Julia.
‘I don’t know what you think you saw.’ Bel’s cheeks were stained pink. ‘But there’s nothing between us.’
‘You were struggling.’
‘No I wasn’t.’
‘Are we upsetting you, Bel’s mother?’ said Tom. ‘I have terrible trouble maintaining my reputation you know, but we’re getting on grand, isn’t that so, Bel?’
‘You should call my mother by her name: Julia.’
‘Julia, will you forgive me?’ He tried to clasp her hand again and this time she let him, though his fingers felt clammy and slippery as fish.
From the corner of her eye, she could see a woman in a red dress advancing. Tom rocked on his heels and Julia snatched her hand back. Could he not even stand up straight?
The woman in red, an older larger version of her daughter Anna, joined them.
Julia said to Bel, ‘I think we should get our coats.’
‘Surely you’re not leaving!’ exclaimed the woman. ‘Before we’ve had the chance to get acquainted. I’ve heard so much from Teresa and I want to say how pleased we are you could join us tonight. I’m Ronnie Farrelly and – oh my goodness!’ She spotted Julia’s empty glass. ‘Do you not have a drink now?’
‘I’ve had enough, thank you.’
So had Ronnie, as far as she could see. She had heightened colour and a sparkle about her, courtesy of the gin and tonic fizzing in her grasp. ‘Tom will get you a fresh one,’ she insisted. ‘White wine, was it?’
‘I don’t want Tom to get me anything,’ said Julia.
‘Ah, go on now. A mineral water at the least?’
‘No, truly. I shouldn’t have come in the first place.’
Unexpectedly her shoulders heaved. Ronnie put down her gin. Bel was extending her neck, flapping her hands, making clucking noises like someone trying to calm a chicken. Ronnie’s perfume, floral, intense, was too close and Julia had to fight to breathe.
‘What are you doing?’ she said, as the other woman’s arm encircled her.
Ronnie took an ungainly step back as if she were unaccustomed to wearing heels. Her brows knotted in a puzzled frown. ‘I only wanted to welcome you.’
‘Thank you, but I’m not sure your family is one I want to be welcomed by.’
Julia’s mind was fixed on the beach at Doonshean, the negligent teenage girls and the mother who’d left them in charge of the miscreant. She saw Matt as a small boy, starting school, having to tell strangers he had no father. ‘My dad was a hero,’ he would say proudly. The other parents, in ignorance, assumed he was fantasising.
‘I had hoped,’ she admitted, since Ronnie was staring at her with her jaw slack, ‘that things would have turned out better than this.’
‘How do you mean, better than this?’
‘I’d rather spare you the details.’
‘Oh really,’ said Ronnie, puffing her chest forward, her eyes blazing in a mixture of indignation and self-pity. ‘How is it that you are so magnanimous towards us? Have you heard perhaps that my husband was critically ill?’
‘Yes I did. And I’m sorry.’ There’s no dignity in pain, Julia allowed; sometimes the sufferer just needs to scream. ‘But your son has been violent to my daughter and—’
‘Violent? Tom?’
‘Show her your arm, Bel,’ said Julia.
Bel hid it behind her back. ‘Look, this has nothing to do with him.’
‘You told me he shut it in a door.’
‘That’s not exactly what happened.’
Tom’s lips twitched but he didn’t manage any explanation. It was the drink. Julia knew precisely how alcohol dulled the senses and the reactions. She guessed he’d been drinking when he battered Bel’s arm. ‘Show her,’ she said again.
‘I already know about it,’ said Ronnie. ‘He brought her to me for an ice pack.’
‘That doesn’t mean he didn’t assault her. It’s not uncommon for attackers to bring their victims to A&E and say they fell downstairs.’
‘She tripped over a ladder in the barn.’
‘That’s not what I heard.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ exclaimed Bel. ‘Stop talking about me as if I’m not here. I’m sorry I misled you, Mum. It was an accident. It did involve a ladder. I fell off one, as it happens. But it wasn’t Tom’s fault.’
‘I don’t suppose anything is ever Tom’s fault,’ said Julia. Ronnie’s discomfort was palpable, but she was beyond empathy. Crushing disappointment wasn’t the half of it.
It was Tom who broke the stalemate. His hand curled into a fist, which confirmed Julia’s suspicions. But he didn’t swing it. He made a curious strangulated sound and charged bull-like out of the room. Ronnie started after him, but her daughter Anna waylaid her.
‘Leave him,’ Julia heard her say. ‘Let the fresh air sober him up. He’ll be back when he’s ready.’
‘Oh, Mum, what have you done?’ said Bel in anguish.
‘I can’t think why I ever agreed to this. Come on, we should cut our losses. Leave.’
‘But that’s so rude, when everyone’s been so generous…’
‘Sometimes things don’t work out,’ said Julia. ‘This was one of those ideas that was misconceived from the start.’
Even so, she hesitated. If they left now they might find Tom Farrelly among the smokers in the doorway and she would do anything to avoid a second confrontation. The room was aglow with coloured disco lights and it was hard to make out another exit. As she searched for one she saw Tom return, plunge into the festive crowd and scoop Clemmie up from the dance floor. The girl was too stunned to protest but Anna called out. When he ignored her, she tried to chase after him but those high strappy sandals were treacherous and one flew off, impeding her. Tom didn’t break step; with Clemmie riding high on his shoulder he swaggered into the night.
26
The Morning After
Bel woke to the sound of drumming. The insistent beat echoed the throbbing in her arm and her head. She knew what it was without opening her eyes. Rain. The Irish ha
d so many types of rain: the soft misty drizzle that hung in the air, the wind-whipped sheets that infiltrated every garment, and the steady downpour that was pelting past her small window, stealing the light.
She wasn’t ready to get up and face this new day. The events of the night before weighed heavily, raw and disagreeable like undigested food. Tom’s drunken behaviour had been a nuisance, true, but nothing she hadn’t dealt with before. It was her mother who had tipped everything over the edge. It made her shudder to think about it. And Tom storming off with Clemmie, as though he were taking her hostage. Bel could still see the astonished open circle of her mouth as her father hoisted her up. She’d no idea what was happening – whether this was a game, a thrill or a punishment – and he hadn’t even stopped to put her shoes back on. Their last sight was of her feet waving in pink socks.
Bel and Julia had left immediately afterwards, Julia stalking ahead while Bel threw apologetic goodbyes to their hosts. Bel doubted she’d done it deliberately – sabotaging the get-together – but she couldn’t help wondering whether her mother was feeling a satisfying twinge of revenge. Which was why she didn’t want to get out of bed and face her. A row was almost inevitable. She toyed with the idea of ringing Matt, but that was likely to be problematic, given his warning yesterday. She didn’t want to allow him the satisfaction of ‘I told you so’. She eyed her phone, which lay just out of reach on the chest of drawers, then pulled the duvet over her head and burrowed beneath it. Maybe later.
The second time she woke, her mother was hovering at the end of the bed in a cagoule. ‘I’m going out,’ said Julia.
Bel shifted into a sitting position. ‘Where? And why? It’s pissing down.’
‘I can’t stay indoors. It’s too claustrophobic.’
She couldn’t help bursting out, ‘So, are you going to go and apologise to the Farrellys?’
‘Am I what?’
‘We were guests, Mum, at quite a significant birthday party. And you buggered it up.’
‘I broke up a fight. I didn’t break up a party.’
‘That’s not true! Look at the way you went after Tom. And his mother. I know you think that me and Dad are the mortifying members of our family, but last night was just awful to watch. Kieran was being really sweet and considerate; okay Tom was lashed, but so what? That’s what parties are for – to go a bit over the top and, yeah, act disgracefully too. You’re not usually such a spoilsport. And anyway, we were the visitors; we were the ones who should have been on our best behaviour. And then, what about Clemmie? The poor kid was enjoying herself, having a whale of a time and—’
‘Have you finished?’ said Julia.
‘Oh, Mum, please don’t go all formal and doctor-knows-best on me. Can’t you see it through their eyes?’
‘Can’t you see it through mine?’
Bel couldn’t backtrack. It was a failing she recognised in herself, but once she’d launched into something, even though she knew it could be hurtful, she had to see it through. ‘Last night was meant to be a celebration and we ruined it.’
‘Frankly, I don’t believe you and I are that important to those people.’
‘Are you sure? What about the memorial stone they put up? That seems massively important to me.’
‘The memorial was for William.’
‘It doesn’t mean you don’t matter too.’
The cagoule crackled, as if static electricity were building beneath it, like the grief in Julia’s voice: ‘I was wrong to come here. I can agree with you about that.’
‘Do you want to go back home then?’ said Bel, glancing at the window. ‘It’s real going-home weather, isn’t it?’ She made the suggestion as a peace offering, but she didn’t feel ready to leave. It would be a bit gross to walk out before trying to smooth things over. Like doing a midnight flit.
Julia said, ‘Let me think about it. D’you want to come out with me now?’
‘No thanks. I’ve got some calls to make. Phone calls,’ she added in case Julia thought she was going to steal the car, though in fact her mother was holding the keys.
‘I’ll see you later then.’
Julia didn’t say where she was going, but Bel guessed she would drive to the promontory overlooking the beach. She might not even get out of the driver’s seat. As the windscreen wipers carried on clacking from left to right she’d gaze at the grey swell of the ocean. And weep. Bel hardened herself against this image. She knew that if Julia was going to have a crying jag she’d rather do it in private. And it was probably what she needed: a good bout of wailing the way that women in other cultures considered perfectly normal. Cathartic.
It would be up to Bel to repair the damage done to relations between the two families. As soon as she heard the car engine start, she hopped out of bed, rescued her phone and returned to her nest of sheets. She clicked onto Tom’s number. It rang awhile before the answerphone kicked in but she was reluctant to leave a message or send a bald text. Mightn’t he be sleeping off a hangover?
She didn’t have the number of the farmhouse or she’d have rung Ronnie. It wouldn’t have been an easy conversation, but Bel would have managed it because, unlike her mother, she didn’t have too much pride. She wasn’t sure why, exactly. But she had discovered during school and adolescence that she didn’t mind making a fool of herself and that people who didn’t have an inflated sense of their own dignity generally had more fun. Obviously for anyone in authority – doctors, teachers, whatever – this could be a problem, but Bel had never wished for authority of any sort.
She tried Tom again and was greeted directly by his voicemail. Perhaps, if his phone was engaged, he was at this very moment trying to call Bel herself. She liked the idea of such a neat coincidence but knew it was far-fetched. She’d no choice but to get washed and dressed and have breakfast as slowly as possible before redialling. If she didn’t get hold of anyone, she was going to be marooned until her mother came back with the car.
Once parcelled into leggings and an outsize jumper, she sat at the table with a mug of steaming black coffee. The yellow tulips bowed from their vase in front of her in a sunny arc. They brought Kieran to mind and her pulse skipped a little faster. Was that a crack of blue in the sky? Could the clouds be lifting? She clicked open her phone and rang Tom a third time. A voice said, ‘Hello?’
‘Tom?’
‘No, this is Kieran.’
‘Oh, Kieran, wow, I’m so glad to get hold of you. I don’t have your number but I’ve been trying this one for ages. I wanted to say how sorry I am about last night. I hope we didn’t screw things up too much…’ Suddenly she thought, why is he answering his brother’s phone, what’s going on? ‘So where are you? Is Tom there too?
‘Is that Bel?’
‘Oh Lord, I should have said. Yes, it’s me. I’m all over the place this morning, but you should know I didn’t mean to run out on you. You mustn’t think we were ratting off. I hope you were able to carry on with the party?’
‘In a manner of speaking. My dad was having grand craic with his cronies and he wasn’t going to be interrupted by a bit of bother between your mother and mine.’
‘So what happened to Tom?’
‘Well we didn’t realise it until too late, but he didn’t get far.’
She’d been taking a sip of coffee but it scalded her tongue and she set the cup down. ‘Meaning?’
‘He should have taken a taxi,’ said Kieran, a weary resignation in his voice. ‘He was a danger to himself and other people.’
‘He didn’t try to drive your car?’
‘No. But it turned out he still had the keys to my mother’s old crock. He’d brought her over in it and we’d planned to pick it up in the morning. It’s not fit to be driven in the dark, even if you’re sober. He lost control when he swerved to avoid an oncoming car and ran off the road into the ditch.’
‘And… and is he all right?’
‘They don’t know yet.’
Bel felt a terrible chill. There had been a
n accident. How could she not be responsible? If she hadn’t gone to the party, if Julia hadn’t thought she was fighting Tom off when in fact she was just trying to calm him down, if she’d been upfront about her fall instead of trying to gloss over it, if… ‘So, are you with him? I mean, if you have his phone…’
‘I’m in Tralee,’ said Kieran. ‘The doctors are doing what they can. I’m outside the hospital having a smoke before I go over to the garda to give them a statement. They tested his blood for alcohol and they’ll be getting the results shortly. And if I’m sounding tired it’s because I haven’t slept all night.’
She deduced from what he was saying that Tom was unconscious, his injuries not yet quantified, but if the police were gathering the evidence for a prosecution they must be expecting him to pull through. She heard the snap of a match, a sharp intake of breath and then a tinny beep.
‘Either that,’ he was saying, ‘or the battery on this phone is going.’
‘I’m stuck here right now,’ Bel said, ‘because Mum’s gone out in the car, but when she gets back, what do you think, should we come over to the hospital? I’d like to do something useful. To help out.’
She couldn’t catch his reply; the words were indistinct. She was full of remorse and self-righteousness, preparing to make amends, to spur Julia into action when she returned. Then she realised there was a question she hadn’t yet asked. ‘And Clemmie? You didn’t say anything about Clemmie. Is she there too? Kieran…? Kieran…’
She took the mobile from her ear and shook it but it made no difference. She had lost him.
27
The Beach
Vince was responsible for frying the rashers and sausages, the black pudding and the white. He stayed in the kitchen while Teresa waited on the breakfast table, making sure the guests had coffee and toast the way they liked it. When they’d run the bar it had been the other way around. Teresa had boiled up the soup and put together the sandwiches while he had drawn the Guinness and chatted to his customers about the rugby or the racing or the hurling.