Something You Should Know

by Melissa Hill

  *****

  He’s gone … he’s gone … he’s gone. For the next few hours, Aidan’s words echoed through Karen’s brain like some crazy mantra. She could barely remember what happened next – she vaguely remembered picking up the phone and calmly telling Nellie that her youngest son had today died in a head-on collision on the M50, at the same time that Nellie and the rest of the country were happily tucking into their supper, couldn’t remember Nellie’s racking sobs on the other end, and hysterical accusations of Karen forcing him to work so many extra hours, that Shane was so tired he mustn’t have been concentrating on his driving, couldn’t remember Jenny and Mike getting here, couldn’t understand why they all wouldn’t just leave her alone.

  He’s gone.

  Shane was gone.

  Her Shane.

  Why him? Why not her? She was the one that deserved to die in that crash – not Shane. Shane wouldn’t harm a fly. All that time they had spent arguing over the wedding, all the time they had spent arguing over stupid things, all the time she had spent resenting his family – Karen would have given anything in the world to have all that time back. She would give anything just for someone to wave a magic wand, and take it all back, take the nightmare away.

  Why? Why would someone let this happen?

  Was God punishing her because she hadn’t been to Mass in over twelve years? Was He punishing her because she had been so determined not to get married in His church? Or was it simply because she was a twisted, bitter, resentful bitch who didn’t want to share Shane with anyone else? She had made no secret of her dislike and resentment towards his family. Was this her punishment for trying to keep him to herself?

  Karen couldn’t find any answers. All she knew now was that she would never again feel Shane’s arms around her, never wake up beside him in the bed, and never feel his kisses on her lips. They would never again laugh together, never share a moment of happiness or share another moment of sadness. They would never be able to do all the things they had planned to do after the wedding, like visit Las Vegas or New York like Shane always wanted, or Rome and Paris, like Karen did.

  There would be no wedding, no new life together, no nothing.

  Nothing.

  He was gone.

  Chapter 38

  From across the room, and with growing concern, Jenny watched Karen. She cut a very lonely figure slumped in the armchair, directly in front of the TV. She had barely uttered two words to anyone since the gardai left the house, and seemed not to notice the arrival of more and more sympathisers as the night went on.

  A still-devastated Aidan was sitting in the kitchen with Gerry, deeply affected by the evening’s events. Jenny knew that Karen was undoubtedly in shock, but she was becoming more and more frightened by how terribly introverted, and isolated she was at the moment. She took a tissue from a box on the table, and blew her nose into it, all the time watching Karen, who was still staring at the television, seemingly oblivious to everyone around her.

  Jenny hoped that Nellie Quinn would stay away at least for a night, and give Karen some time to herself before the funeral. She had to take the telephone away from Karen earlier, upon hearing Nellie’s sobbing and ranting on the other end. Jenny knew it was just a shock reaction to the news of her son’s death, but the last thing Karen needed right now was recrimination and conflict with Shane’s family. Karen had said nothing afterwards; she had just taken to the armchair – Shane’s armchair – and wrapped her cardigan tightly around her. Offers of coffee, tea and invitations to talk had been rejected with a slow shake of the head.

  Jenny had never felt so helpless in her entire life. How could she possibly even imagine how Karen must be feeling at the moment? The sheer magnitude of the day’s events must be completely overwhelming, and Karen’s way of coping, at least for the moment, was to shut down and pretend that it all wasn’t happening, that it wasn’t real.

  Karen stood up from her chair. “I’m going to bed,” she said softly, heading towards the stairs.

  “Do you want me to … ?” Jenny’s words trailed off as Mike shook his head

  “Leave her, Jen. She probably needs time on her own.”

  Jenny felt her eyes quicken with tears. “I don’t know what to say to her, Mike, I don’t know what to do. How can I help her?”

  “You can’t,” Mike said simply. “Just leave her be, let her grieve in peace.”

  Jenny nodded. “I just can’t believe that all of this has happened. I mean, they were getting married next month. How could this happen? It’s not fair.”

  “I don’t know. It’s never fair in any circumstance, love,” Mike said, sighing as he took her hand in his. “All you can do now is be there for Karen and be her friend, same as always.”

  “My heart is breaking for her, though – and for Aidan. Imagine him being called to the accident that resulted in the death of his best friend .. .”

  Upon discovering Shane’s demise, Aidan had insisted on accompanying his senior fire officer and the garda to the house on Harold’s Cross. Although his own heart was breaking, he knew that he didn’t want anyone else to break the news to Karen. Although protocol demanded that a senior fire officer, or a member of the gardai should inform family members, Aidan’s colleague had bent the rules in view of the circumstances. The driver of the car that caused the accident had also been killed. Jenny knew that there was no doubt but that another household somewhere in the country equally as shattered as this one.

  “I know it was tough on Aidan, but at least Karen had someone she knew with her at the time,” Mike said. “Wouldn’t it have been a lot worse if the gardai had turned up on their own with the news, and asked Karen to identify the body?”

  “Maybe,” Jenny sniffed. “Mike, this is such a nightmare, and all so sudden. How can she possibly ever get over this?”

  “It won’t be easy, and she’ll need people around her. What about her parents? You said before that they lived abroad?”

  “In Tenerife, yes. I wonder has anyone told them yet? They’ll need to come back for the funeral.” As far as Jenny was aware, the only people Karen had spoken to tonight were the Quinns. Aidan had telephoned her and the others soon after he had broken the news to Karen. Jenny resolved to contact Jonathan and Clara Cassidy first thing the following morning, as they would no doubt need to make flight arrangements to come back for Shane’s funeral.

  “Look, I know it’s probably not the best time to be thinking like this, but what will happen to Karen now – with this house, I mean?” Mike asked.

  “Well, it’s her house now, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t think so, Jen. She and Shane were never married. Remember they used to joke about the fact that the mortgage was solely in his name? And because his brother guaranteed the debt, and everything was arranged by him and Shane, then as far as I know, Karen has little or no rights over the house, in the event of Shane’s death.”

  “What? Then who does?” Jenny was puzzled.

  Mike sighed deeply. “Shane’s next of kin.”

  *****

  That same night they sat up with Aidan, and Shane’s workmate Tony – a distraught Aidan trying to make some sense of the sudden death of his closest friend. Jenny stayed on the next morning to be with Karen, should her friend need her.

  She hadn’t reappeared from her bedroom since retiring the night before, and Jenny hoped that she’d been able to get some sleep. She’d managed to catch a few hours herself on the sofa when Aidan and the others had gone home, and Mike had left for the office, despite his protests to stay with her. It didn’t seem at all real to Jenny, not at least until Tessa called and produced a copy of the morning paper. A huge banner headline proclaimed that Shane and the other driver were the eighty-sixth and

  eighty-seventh victims of road accidents in Ireland that year. Displayed underneath the headline was a huge colour photograph of the car in which Shane had died, the silver Astra’s chassis bent and twisted beyond recognition.

  “How is she
?” Tessa asked, enveloping Jenny in a huge hug.

  Jenny shook her head. “I’m worried about her. She hasn’t come out of her bedroom, or spoken a word since last night.”

  “God love her, she’s probably still in shock.”

  “I know, but I wish she’d do something – cry, scream, kick the walls, just something.”

  “She probably has – in her own mind, at least,” Gerry said softly, from behind his wife, “everyone copes differently when faced with news like that, Jenny. Some of us grieve openly, sobbing and crying like you’d expect; others like Karen just want to be away from everything and everyone else. And who’d blame her?”

  “I know, I know, I just wish I could do something for her,” Jenny said, filling the kettle. “I don’t know how many times I’ve been up to the bedroom today, but she still doesn’t want to talk.”

  She heard the telephone ring and went out to the hallway to answer it, leaving Tessa and Gerry sitting in silence at the kitchen table. The caller was Nellie Quinn letting them know that arrangements had been made for the removal from the hospital that same evening, and the burial to take place in Rathrigh the following morning. Apparently Jack had organised everything. Jenny smarted at the fact that they hadn’t consulted or included Karen in the arrangements, but judging from what she had heard about the Quinns, it didn’t surprise her. And maybe Karen didn’t want to be included. She telephoned the others to let them know and then went upstairs to break the news to Karen.

  She knocked softly on the door. There was no answer, and she could hear no movement inside. She tried the door handle and walked in to find the room in darkness, and Karen lying on the bed with her eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling.

  “I’m not going to the funeral,” was all she said.

  “Karen, honey – ”

  “I’m not going, Jenny,” she repeated, an edge to her tone. “I heard you on the phone downstairs. I know that it’s tomorrow and I’m not going. Don’t try to change my mind because you’ll be wasting your time.” With this she turned onto her side, facing away from Jenny.

  Jenny sat down and put a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “I have no idea how you’re feeling, Karen. I can’t even begin to imagine it, and it’s up to you to decide what you want to do. But don’t you think that Shane would think it’s important that you go?”

  “No,” she answered simply.

  “I know it’s been a terrible shock, but –”

  “No, you don’t know!” Karen shrieked, turning back to face her, her eyes flashing with anger. “You haven’t got a clue Jenny! Do you know what I did yesterday morning, when Shane was leaving for work? I was still in bed when he was leaving, and he called in to give me a kiss goodbye. I groaned and turned away from him, annoyed because he had woken me up. Imagine! It was the last time he would ever kiss me and I turned away, because I was too damned lazy to bother with him. The very last time.”

  “But you couldn’t possibly have known … ” Jenny knew it was a waste of time trying to soothe her – Karen was in full flight now.

  “And then – yesterday evening, I left a message on his mobile phone. I said, ‘Hurry up – I’m starving – don’t forget the spring rolls.’ Can you believe that? Don’t forget the fucking spring rolls! That was very last thing I said to him. I didn’t tell him I loved him, or that I missed him, or that he was the most important thing in the world to me. I just said something so bloody trivial!” Karen thrashed on the bed, thumping her fists on the covers.

  “Karen, you didn’t know what would happen – ”

  “And when he was sitting mangled in that crash, maybe even still alive and crying out for help, I was sitting here annoyed with him for being late, and worrying about my bloody dinner. What sort of a person does that make me, Jenny? What? Why am I the one that’s still here, and he’s the one that’s gone? What’s the point of that?”

  “That’s not the way it works, love,” Jenny said eventually.

  Karen was crying now, the tears falling rapidly down her cheeks.

  “To think that I spent all that time trying to delay our wedding, resenting his family, and making him miserable. Well, I got what I wanted, didn’t I? Now there’ll be no wedding, they’ll never be a wedding, because I was too damned selfish.”

  “You never made him miserable, Karen – you’re being too hard on yourself. It could just as easily been you or me in that crash. Don’t eat yourself up with guilt over this – you’ve enough to deal with now. If you start blaming yourself for what happened, then you might as well have died in the crash with him.”

  “I wish I had.” Karen sank back heavily on the pillows and again turned away, wiping her eyes with the quilt cover. “I have nothing now, Jenny, nothing or nobody. Shane was my life, my entire future. Where do I go from here?”

  “The first thing you can do is go to the funeral. I’m sure – no, I’m certain that Shane wouldn’t want you sitting here miserable, on your own. You need people around you, Karen. That’s all part of it, it’s the right thing to do.”

  As she listened to her own words of supposed advice, Jenny wondered if she believed them herself. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how she herself would feel, if someone she loved had been taken from her like this. Maybe Karen was right to shut herself away from the empty platitudes, and tired comforting clichés, that would be no doubt offered at the funeral. Who knew whether going to the funeral and facing everyone was the right thing to do?

  “Look,” she said softly, “if you really don’t want to go, then I’ll stay here with you. Don’t argue,” she said, seeing Karen stir, “I’m not leaving you on your own. I’ll stay downstairs, and if you want to talk, then talk, but no one will force you to do anything you don’t want to.”

  Karen nodded, her eyes brimming with fresh tears. “Thanks. I just can’t face getting dressed up and facing all these people, most of whom I don’t know. I don’t want to have to face the Quinns. They hate me enough as it is – don’t tell me otherwise, I heard every word Nellie said last night.”

  “Don’t forget that she was in shock too, Karen. He was her son.”

  “Maybe she was right about a few things. I did give him a hard time, you know that.”

  “Karen, you and Shane were two of a kind. You argued more than any other couple I’ve ever come across, but it was obvious to all and sundry that you loved one other deeply. I’m sorry, but you shouldn’t turn yourself into a martyr over this. You didn’t force Shane to work late, or to do anything he didn’t want to. Anyway he was coming home early, wasn’t he?”

  Karen winced.

  “Look, if it had happened on the road to Kilrigh, do you think that Nellie Quinn would have blamed herself because Shane was coming to visit her? Don’t take to heart what she said yesterday, Karen. She was upset, in the same way that you are now. She probably has her own regrets too, you know. Everyone does when they don’t get the chance to say goodbye properly.”

  Karen sat up against the pillow, her face red and tearstained.

  “Will you stay with me tomorrow, Jen?” she asked in a child-like voice.

  Jenny laid a hand on top of Karen’s. “I’ll stay here for as long as you need me.”

  Chapter 39

  It was to be the warmest May-day in Ireland for over fifteen years, and midday temperatures were predicted to rise to above twenty-five degrees in the midlands.

  That was according to the weather forecast coming from his radio, but as the taxi driver reiterated to his passenger, Met office predictions – particularly in this country – couldn’t always be trusted.

  The sun had not yet begun to burn through the early-morning blanket of haze that obstructed Roan’s first view of his homeland. He thought that the pilot had made an excellent landing, considering the fact that, to him, Dublin Airport seemed completely invisible from the sky.

  An old road sign told Roan that Rathrigh was another twenty miles away. It was odd, but strangely comforting to him, that the old black-and-white r
oad signs, which showed distance in miles, and not kilometres, were still prevalent throughout the Irish countryside. He hadn’t seen any green-and-white kilometre signs since they turned off the N3. Not that he had travelled on too many roadways, or freeways as they were called in the States – in fact, he had barely ventured out of the city since arriving nearly a year ago. As thrilling as the city had been, when he caught his first glimpse of the famous Manhattan skyline on the journey in from JFK, Roan soon decided that living in New York with a crowd of Irish lads in Yonkers wasn’t that different from living in Rathmines. His goal was to make enough money to afford a place of his own in Manhattan, Chinatown, The Village – anywhere would do.

  He was on his way to achieving that goal too; in fact, he was still at the office when he opened the email from Aidan at 9.30 New York time, telling him about Shane’s accident.

  He had been in the process of debugging a computerised filing system the company had designed for a New York publishing company. It was a huge undertaking, and Roan had been originally transferred from the Dublin office to oversee the project in its final stages, and ensure that the system was completed on schedule. There had been a few hiccups along the way, but Roan knew that a good job on this would be an almost guaranteed stepping-stone to greater things. He was determined to stay on in the New York office after the project, and if things went according plan, he’d be first in line for a promotion. For the first time in his life, Roan knew exactly what he wanted.

  Despite himself, the news of Shane’s death had shaken him. It wasn’t that the two of them were particularly close. Roan had never been that close to anyone in his life but, to his surprise, Shane and Aidan had made a particular effort to stay in constant contact with him since he left Dublin. Never a week went by when he didn’t get a chatty email or corny joke from one or the other of them. None of his other so-called mates had ever bothered even telephoning to see how he was. For some reason, he had expected them all to be madly envious of his big-city job, expecting to be bombarded with requests to come and visit. To be honest, he had been looking forward to a little showing-off. But no visits had ever materialised. Roan hadn’t thought that something like that would ever have bothered him and, in fairness, he wasn’t the best himself for keeping in contact, but after a while he found that he appreciated the interest and effort from Aidan and Shane. It was important to him that somebody back home gave a shit about what happened in his life.