When All Is Said

by Anne Griffin

  In the end we bought a case for Noreen’s three special jars. There they sat, safely enclosed in bubble wrap, ready for any journey. Noreen would carry that case proudly across the car park to where I waited to bring her home for the weekend, with Sadie following on behind with life’s actual essentials, that Sadie, not Noreen, had packed. She was a ticket. Her own woman, as they say. She pretty much ruled our lives, but truthfully her burden was light.

  Noreen died in 2007, not long after the incident in the hotel. She was seventy. Fell on her way to her breakfast with the carer by her side, the one she liked the best, Susan was it? Collapsed into the woman’s arms. Blood clot in the brain. The loss hit your mam hard. She became lost in a silence I hadn’t witnessed since Molly had died. It was months before she smiled properly again or was able to laugh about the things Noreen got up to.

  You’ll remember it was a small ceremony, her funeral. Just us, you and Rosaleen standing each side of your mam, holding her hand, a few neighbours and some of the people who looked after Noreen from the home, and of course Jenny and May returned from England. We brought her home to Annamoe to be buried with her parents. I think Sadie found that bit the hardest, being parted from them all. At first we made the trip to their grave every second weekend and then it lessened as time went on and we got older. I know Sadie did her best for her all through her life, but I’m not sure she agreed with me on that. She was so self-contained that sometimes I think I missed the full extent of the hurt and guilt. I did my best to be on guard for it. But having spent half my life distracted by what was outside – my deals, my empire – I often forgot to see what lay inside and how precious it was.

  Chapter Five

  9.20 p.m.

  Fourth Toast: to you, Kevin

  Jefferson’s Presidential Select

  You’ve always been good at sending me the rare whiskies. On my birthday, I’ve been assured of an unusual beauty waiting for me on the kitchen table when I get in. When she was around, Sadie would stand there all proud, like she’d flown it over the Atlantic herself.

  ‘Look what’s arrived,’ she’d say. Always that. Her eyes dancing with joy – her smile as bright and warm as a day for foaling.

  She’d sit and watch me unpack it. And then ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’, once the wooden box was opened. Running her fingers up and down the bottle, over the label, her hands lingering on the silky material covering the plastic casing. She’d take it between her fingertips and rub it gently with her thumb. There was that one where the material was deep orange, you might remember it yourself.

  ‘Isn’t it lush, Maurice?’ she’d said. ‘You could bite into that and almost suck the goodness out.’ Sometimes I wondered what was going on in my wife’s head. Can’t remember which bottle it belonged to. She kept all of them, the boxes, would you believe? Piled up in the back of the wardrobe, apparently. I never knew until I came across them after she’d died. I sat on the bed the morning of their discovery, with the door open for a while, just staring. Fifteen in all. All that pride packed away behind her coats. Days and weeks it took me, to decide how to keep hold of what those boxes meant to Sadie. Ladders. That’s what I thought in the end – that they could make the nicest little steps for Adam or Caitríona. Up to those big bunk beds of theirs. So I took them out; sat on the old footstool, the one Sadie used to put her feet up on while she watched her soaps, do you remember it? An old wooden packing box that a spare part for the tractor came in one time.

  ‘Are you using that?’ she had asked, having come into the shed one day with a letter that had arrived for me.

  ‘That?’ I said, pointing at the wooden crate. ‘I was going to break it up for the fire.’

  ‘I’ll take it. I have a bit of old carpet that’ll do just the job to cover it.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘A footstool. The price of them is just ridiculous over in Duncashel. No, this will do nicely.’

  Forty years we’ve had that footstool. Still perfect. The carpet is a blue flower affair, offcuts from your bedroom. So I sat there on it, the night I cleared the wardrobe. Each box I took out I spent time over, trying to remember when you’d sent them. When I opened the box where the orange silk had been, I could see it was gone. Stripped of its lush lining. The inner plastic laid bare like a chicken picked clean. I couldn’t figure it out. I just sat looking at it, turning the box over as if the very act might give me a clue as to why Sadie had done it. And then it occurred to me, I’d seen that orange material somewhere different. But it took me a while to find it in my memory. In the end I only had to turn my head and lay a hand to the dressing table and there it was. A purse in which she held her hair pins. That’s what she’d made – something practical and something where she could touch the lush softness every night. I’ve kept it. Saved it from the storage boxes. It’s with me now, in my bulging pockets alongside my father’s pipe. If anyone were to frisk me now they’d wonder what in the blazes I was at.

  Francie is making the ladders for the children for me. He’s working his magic as we speak. They’ll be ready in time for when you come, which won’t be long now – a matter of days.

  For me, though, it wasn’t just the drink but the literature about the making of the whiskies that was important. Each leaflet I read from cover to cover. I wondered what it felt like to be a distiller and to have created such perfection. Master craftsmen, all. Creating beauties at which men sighed. I wondered at their lives, their names: Dan and Rust and Carter, I imagined. I saw them all as quiet men, contented in their simplicity, sitting on porches, rocking in chairs, listening to radios and crickets as evening turned to night. Hands as big as shovels but nimble as stonemasons’. Before I took that first sip, I always raised my glass to them, off there sitting on their stoops – men, alongside whom I’d have happily passed the time. ‘God bless the hands,’ I always said, when I held their creation up and watched it move with grace and balance around my Waterford cut-crystal glass, a wedding present from Sadie’s Aunt Maura, she was always at pains to point out in that worried voice of hers whenever I held it. ‘God bless the hands.’

  You gave me this bottle of eighteen-year-old Jefferson malt last Christmas. It’s been hiding in the bag at my feet all evening.

  ‘Here, put that behind the bar,’ I say, handing it to Svetlana, when she comes to clear my barely picked-at plate.

  She looks at me like I’m stone mad.

  ‘I’ll be wanting a swig of that, when I get back.’

  I attempt to jump down from the bar stool but it’s more like a slow motion topple. Still, I make it safely to solid ground and off I go. I look back at her still staring at the bottle looking very worried.

  ‘I cleared it with Emily, you’ll not lose your job.’ Of course, I never mentioned a thing to Emily, but I’m sure she’d have had no objections. And even if she had, well, I’d have done it anyway.

  She looks at me and smiles, a smile that says she knows I’m lying but she takes it anyway and puts it under the counter.

  ‘You know those people at the awards are on dessert, now? Seriously, how you Irish not all get indigestion. You eat too fast.’

  * * *

  It’s a funny thing walking these corridors. The place has changed a lot since my day – extensions and renovations heading off in different directions. But still there are parts I recognise. Like this corner here. There is the smallest of dents. If you weren’t watching out you’d miss it. That was me. One day when they were short-handed in the house they asked me to bring wood to the main drawing room. I had to take my shoes off before they let me through. Thankfully, my mother had only darned my socks the previous week so I didn’t make a holy-show of her. As I made my way down the corridors I became distracted by the furniture as big as myself, and pictures, great massive jobs spanning whole walls, with men in red coats on horses. There was a big grandfather clock in the main hallway that I couldn’t take my eyes off. I couldn’t believe clocks were made that big. We had a clock that sat over the range at home, s
mall thing that never made an impression on me. Not like that one. I watched the pendulum swing, ticking so clearly, so grandly – announcing its importance to the world. Possibly would’ve stood there all day had the basket not begun to weigh me down. As I hooshed it back up and moved off, didn’t Big Ben decide it was time to chime, it having hit the hour. Well, I jumped. The wall saved the basket from falling, but not before it made this little dent right here. I remember brushing at it as much as I dared. Not sure what I was trying to achieve, it possibly only made it worse. But I moved away quick smart before I was caught and hanged. That must have been the day I ended up getting lost, opening up Dollard’s library door by accident. I’d forgotten that.

  ‘Not here, next door, on the left,’ he said, lifting his eyes from his desk.

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ I managed, before backing out. And now that I think of it, it was the only time I remember him not scaring the hell out of me. He seemed almost normal and, if my memory isn’t playing tricks on me, I think I saw him get up in an attempt to help me with the door. But I was gone so fast, he didn’t need to. Well now, isn’t that a turn-up for the books? Isn’t it interesting what the mind chooses to remember, or forget, for that matter?

  ‘Well, Maurice, is all going to plan?’ Robert is sitting there at the bar waiting for me when I get back. ‘No, I’m not stopping,’ he says, lowering my hand that I raise in the lassie’s direction.

  ‘I can’t buy anyone a drink tonight, it seems.’

  ‘No, honestly, Maurice, I can’t,’ he continues when I give it another go. ‘Yvonne needs me home. Am just in for an hour or so at the awards. A bit of business you know, thought I’d catch some of those lads on the hop.’

  ‘Sure aren’t you every woman’s dream getting home and the evening only beginning.’

  ‘What can I say, Maurice? Have you not moved on to the champers yet?’

  ‘Not yet. You ordered it so for herself.’

  ‘I did. And tell me this, have they figured out it’s you?’

  ‘Figured out “it’s me” what?’

  ‘I reckon they think it’s someone turning up for this gig. I wish I could be here when they realise it’s farmer Hannigan and his mucky wellies who’s their VIP.’

  ‘Where’re you going with the mucky wellies, sure don’t I have my Sunday best on?’

  ‘You do and all. Very smart, altogether.’ I run my hand over the front of my green jumper. ‘Listen, have you the forwarding address of this nursing home of yours, for the files like?’ he asks.

  ‘Did I not give it to you? I’ll drop it over tomorrow before I head.’

  ‘Good man yourself,’ he says, stepping away from the stool he’s been half hanging off for the last few minutes. ‘Listen, enjoy the rest of the evening,’ he says, with a big wink. ‘We’ll be talking. Drop by tomorrow before you go, so. Good man.’

  And with a slap on my back he’s off.

  ‘Svetlana,’ he calls, knocking on the bar and then waving to her as she stands at the other end, doing something with her phone.

  She waves back before he disappears through the door.

  ‘Do you know that man, young Robert?’ I ask, nodding my head after him.

  ‘Oh Robert, yes, yes,’ she says enthusiastically, coming over to me, leading me to regret my question.

  ‘He helped me with problem I had. He is very nice, very kind.’

  ‘He is that. You’re not from here then?’

  ‘Me? No!’ she says, as if it were madness to think any sane person could possibly be born, bred and still live here.

  ‘Latvia,’ said so proudly, it makes me smile.

  ‘What do you think of working here then, at the hotel?’ I ask, determined that she will drag nothing else from me.

  ‘Yes. It’s nice. Busy. Emily, is very nice person.’

  ‘Ah, Emily. Yes, a lady.’

  ‘Yes. Emily is lady,’ she states, like she’s confused at how I could possibly mix up her gender.

  I smile more to myself than to her and think what an even richer man I’d be if I could bottle and sell that ballsiness of hers.

  * * *

  When you were small, no more than four, I came in late one evening. The kitchen was empty. Spick and span as it always was straight after the dinner. I knew Sadie would’ve been elbow deep in soapy water, scrubbing the kitchen back to order, not an hour before. My place lay set at the table. As I lifted the saucepan lid off my dinner and stuck it in the Aga, I could hear your voices from down the hall. I sat to the Meath Chronicle, perusing the market news. Try as I might not to let it, the laughter got the better of me in the end and I left the paper down and headed in your direction. The bathroom door was open, and as I passed it I could see the bath still quarter full, with a couple of surviving suds and a yellow duck floating among them. I held back in the hallway peering in at the pair of you next door in your bedroom.

  ‘Kevin, I love you. Your Mammy loves you,’ Sadie said, marking every word with a kiss to your tummy as you lay on the ground being dried. ‘She loves every bone of you, do you know that?’

  ‘Hmm hmm,’ you replied, happily watching puffs of white rise from the Johnson’s baby powder container every time you pressed its middle.

  ‘And does Kevin love Kevin?’ Puff upon puff of whiteness filled the air. Does Kevin love Kevin, I repeated in my head.

  You didn’t reply. Instead you turned the talcum powder upside down, shaking it vigorously on to your tummy and the floor.

  ‘Because if you love this wee boy,’ she continued, dispersing the powder all over you, ‘and are always kind to him and always try to understand him then I think he will be the happiest little man in the whole wide world.’ She used the corner of the bath towel to rub the white smatterings from the carpet. ‘Will you do that, will you love Kevin for me? Will ya? Ya rascal,’ she asked, administering another tickle that let loose more squeals of laughter.

  I never disturbed you but made my way into our darkened bedroom and sat on the side of the bed looking out at the silhouette of our trees and the hills against the night sky, brightened by one of the biggest moons I’d ever seen. It was too much even for me, a man of forty-three, to try to comprehend what Sadie had said, let alone a child of four. Loving yourself? The very thought. I reached for the bedside lamp, fumbling to find the switch under the shade. I pulled the curtains closed and stood looking at the brown flowers with their orange centres, one after another, row upon row. My finger rose to follow the pattern of the petals. My blackened nail and layers of hardened skin that had no hope of feeling the fibre circled anyway.

  ‘Oh, you’re home?’ Sadie said, from the door behind me.

  ‘Thought I’d change out of these,’ I said, my fingers pulling away from the flowers, pretending at taking off my jumper.

  ‘A first for everything, I suppose. I left the dinner for you.’

  ‘I saw that.’

  ‘This man’s off to bed.’ Her head nodded in the direction of your room. ‘Are you coming in to say good night?’

  ‘I’ll be in now.’

  How many times did Sadie talk to you that way, I wonder. And is that why you are the man you are? So sure and happy in your life?

  * * *

  You never wanted the land, not even one bit interested. I tried. Made you work alongside me, from early on, out in your rain gear and boots. She’d have had you in bubble wrap if I’d let her. Aren’t children supposed to love the mud and getting themselves dirty? Not you. There were times I got so frustrated. That moanie head on you. Miserable you’d be. Wet and feckin’ miserable. Picking at the straw with your fork, like it was diseased.

  ‘Come on. Give it a bit of welly,’ I’d say, demonstrating how it should be done. You’d stretch the fork a little further, but that would be it. Soon you’d be back to picking at the edges.

  ‘Go in,’ I’d say, ‘go in to blazes. I’ll do it me feckin’ self.’

  Off you’d go then, back inside, bawling. I’d see Sadie bend to comfort you through the
kitchen window, unfurling you from all of your protective layers.

  ‘Ach, Maurice, he’s only wee, can you not be a little kinder?’ I didn’t need to hear what she’d have to say on the matter. I knew it by heart. I knew to leave well enough alone and not go in straight away, even if I’d been inclined. I bulled on outside, cursing your softness. I gave up trying after a few years. Left you to your books.

  ‘How do you read them yokes?’ I asked you once. ‘The size of them.’ You must have been in secondary by then. Sitting at the kitchen table when I came in, always at the books.

  ‘I dunno. I just do,’ you said. ‘They’re interesting. This one’s about the Mongols. One of their greatest weapons was that they smelt. Seriously, it says that no one ever wanted to be fighting downwind of these guys. That’s just hilarious.’

  ‘Yep. Hilarious,’ I said walking away from you, wondering where I’d gotten you at all.

  Do you remember the time you came into the shed one evening and started mucking out? Fifteen, maybe you were. You stood right beside me and got stuck in. After years of hating muck and manure, you worked the whole evening in it. I looked at you out of the corner of my eye to see what you were at. Kept waiting for a question or something to explain this change of heart. But nothing came.

  ‘Will I start on them logs, Dad?’ you asked, pointing at the pile ready for chopping.

  ‘Go on so,’ I said, delighting in the idea of watching you struggle with the axe. On the other hand I was worried about what your mother would say when I’d tell her you’d lost a finger. But you fecker, you took up that thing as if you’d always worked one, a minor miracle. Lobbing the pieces into piles like you were some kind of lumberjack.