From Bray to Eternity

by Andy Halpin

  We both took time out from our jobs that summer to go on a holiday to Bulgaria. In my case it turned out to be on a permanent basis as I did not relish working most weekends which were required in M&S. Annette was happy to go back to her job.

  With Annette now working full-time I started a phase in our relationship that I got to love. I was cooking Annette’s dinner every evening and having it on the table for her when she came in around 5.30 p.m. each evening. From my last experience of home cooking I had learned what not to cook for Annette, so this time the fare was conservative, fish, chicken, fish, chicken more fish, more chicken, and so on. After dinner each evening we developed a routine, we went into the front room, and as we watched the news, with Annette’s head resting on my shoulder, we’d fall into a lovely relaxed sleep for about an hour. I’ll always remember the smile of contentment on Annette’s face when she woke up from those little snoozes.

  I miss those times now, how much a part of our lives they had become and how quickly they were taken from us. I ‘dine’ alone most evenings now, usually on microwave meals, and never fall asleep afterwards as I’m too preoccupied thinking of Annette, and how it used to be. My mind does it’s best to conjure up those times again, as I sit on the couch alone looking at Annette’s picture over the fireplace and wishing she was with me still. It’s the simple things I miss most, just sitting together or holding hands as we went for a walk after our little snooze some nights, or me clearing up as Annette got ready to go to her prayer group meeting on Tuesday nights, or driving over to see Annette’s mother in the nursing home, and sometimes stopping at the Belgard to get a bottle of wine on the way home. And then on Friday night, after Annette’s week’s work was finished, she unwound, put on something comfortable and settled down to watch The Late Late Show with a bottle of wine and a snack of some kind. And when it was over we’d put on Later with Jools Holland a show Annette loved to watch as she loved music, all kinds of music. Little inconsequential things like that we did without thinking about and took for granted, but now things I would give a king’s ransom to be able to do again.

  Those evenings were what Annette called our happy times and they were just that, simple, happy times in the company of the person you love have no equal, and no amount of money could ever buy the happiness we knew then.

  What we did not know was how soon and how suddenly it was all going to end. One day, that’s all it took to upend our lives and forever change the way we lived. And we did not see it coming.

  One of the worst things about being alone in the house is eating on my own, particularly breakfast. Breakfast was one of the times I loved most to be with Annette. Right from the start of our marriage we began a habit of having breakfast in bed. When I worked for Neasden Distributors at the very beginning of our marriage I got a large silver hot tray. I used to cook breakfast and bring it into Annette on the tray. I’d get back into bed with her and we’d have breakfast together under the warmth of the sheets. Most mornings, breakfast was only coffee, toast and sometimes an egg. On weekends I’d cook a full breakfast of rashers, sausages and eggs. No matter how early we had to be up, we always made time to have breakfast in bed, and when it was finished a little hug and cuddle, and at weekends something more. It was always hard to get out of bed when Annette was in it. I always thought Annette was at her most beautiful first thing in the morning. Her skin was so soft and relaxed after a night’s sleep and her eyes and face looked so serene. I never failed to tell her how much I loved her and how great and sexy she looked first thing in the morning, and I’m so glad now that I did.

  Those mornings in bed went a long way to making our marriage as happy and as fulfilling as it was. They went a long way to keeping the spark of love alive between us for so long. Apart from the physical aspect of being in bed together, we also had some great discussions and debates about all kinds of topics, from religion to nature, family matters to politics, with both of us pressing our point of view vigorously and not giving an inch. This is another part of Annette’s character that I miss so much. She was a really strong woman with strongly held views on all kinds of subjects and I loved arguing my point with her. Although we disagreed about a lot of things and held different views, particularly on religion, we respected each other’s point of view. (Annette is interjecting with a thought intrusion here to say it did not seem like that at times.) We always finished our discussion or argument on a light note and never with any bitterness.

  Apart from sleeping alone in an empty bed, these are the things I miss so much now. Like breakfast time, the evening meal was always such a happy time as well. When Annette came in every evening she would be so anxious to tell me about her day and the things she was doing in the council. She took such pride in her job, and always wanted to do the best she possibly could for all the groups she worked with.

  Now mealtime means nothing. It only serves to remind me of what I once had and have lost. Now I just eat something when I feel like it, and a lot of the time I don’t feel like it at all.

  After we came back from Bulgaria in the summer of 2007 we only went to Dingle on two weekends. As Annette was now working full-time we could not spend as much time down there as we would have liked. When we did go it was always great to have the time alone and do the things we liked to do, even if only for a few days.

  Life went along quite normally that year, we visited the children and occasionally baby sat for Gina. Annette was happy in her work and I was happy to be at home cooking and writing. Life could not have been more normal.

  Around this time I was also trying to get my show, Nighthawks The Musical, up and running. Together with a few friends, Alan Fitzpatrick and Tom Quinn, we were planning a production early in 2008, but difficulties arose so it did not happen until near the end of the year. Christmas 2007 was to be the last Christmas we were all together as a family.

  Early in the New Year Robert and Fiona’s marriage began to unravel and they separated before the year was out. I’m not going to speak about that, as that’s their story, but I will say that the hurt Robert went through caused Annette and I a lot of pain, particularly Annette as she was much more in tune with Robert’s feelings than I was. She was also very fond of Fiona and regretted losing her as a family member and friend.

  As Robert and Fiona’s marriage was breaking up after five years, myself and Annette were getting ready to celebrate forty years together since we had first said “I do,” back in 1968. It was a cause of sadness to us that it coincided with Robert and Fiona’s break-up. But there was nothing we could do about that as they did not want to be reconciled. We knew from our own experience that for difficulties to be overcome both parties must want that to happen, this was not the situation with Robert and Fiona.

  For our anniversary we went on a cruise to Alaska. Annette knew that I had always wanted to see Alaska since reading James Michener’s novel of the same name many years before and she was happy to fall in with my plans for our anniversary when I suggested that’s where we should go. We flew from Dublin to Amsterdam on Saturday, the 16th of May and from Amsterdam to San Francisco to catch our cruise ship for what turned out to be a fantastic holiday. We booked an ocean view cabin and it was a dreamlike experience to make love moving to the rhythm of the waves as the sea whished by the window.

  We stayed in San Francisco for two days before boarding the ship The Millennium for our voyage through the Inside Passage from Vancouver to Alaska. San Francisco was a great experience. We stayed in the Hilton Hotel near Union Square, right in the heart of the city. Although we were only there for two days we managed to see a lot of the city, cross the Golden Gate Bridge, ride on the little cable cars that climb half way to the stars and dine on Fisherman’s Wharf.

  From Frisco we sailed to Astoria in Oregon and on to Seattle, before entering the Inside Passage from Vancouver. We visited Ketchikan, Juneau and Skagway. While in Skagway we travelled on the White Pass and Yukon railway deep into the Rockies.

  Alaska was to be our last b
ig holiday together. We had now both got to see the places we had wanted to visit for a long time, Annette had seen Brazil and visited the Favelas as well as other parts of South America and I had got to see Alaska, which turned out to be not quite the Alaska depicted by James Michner, but well worth the journey nevertheless.

  Our journey together, which had started on Bray Head in 1965, was nearing its end, although we did not know it then as we enjoyed the luxury of the cruise and the Captain’s formal dinners at which Annette looked so beautiful, even more beautiful than she had been when I first met her over forty years before. She had matured into a stunningly beautiful and sensual woman who I was so proud to call my wife and walk into the ballroom of the cruise ship with arm-in-arm. She looked so young and healthy and showed no signs nor had any symptoms of the changes that we now know were happening inside her body. We had a picture taken at one dinner on the cruise that now adorns Annette’s head stone. Looking at that picture now it’s hard to imagine how someone who looked so beautiful and healthy then could be dead ten months later.

  Our Alaskan holiday was to celebrate our fortieth wedding anniversary, but when we came home we had a family celebration on the actual day, the 24th of September. The family took us out and treated us to a meal at the Avon Ri restaurant in Blessington. Annette loved family get-togethers, especially when the grandchildren were there. In the photographs taken that day you can see how happy Annette is as she holds the children. We really enjoyed that day with the family, little knowing it was to be the last anniversary we would share.

  When we came back from the cruise in early June I immediately got working on Nighthawks which was to open in the Plaza Hotel in September. It was full speed ahead. We assembled a cast and hired a director and set about working towards an opening in September.

  I did not know it then but what happened on the last night of the show was to play a crucial part in what was to transpire around Annette’s passing and the events after it, events which are, even as I write this, still unfolding. I am coming to the most fantastic part of this story, and I will be totally honest here and state if anyone had told me what I’m about to tell you a year ago, I would not have believed them. But I know what happened on the last night of Nighthawks is true and I’m well aware of what followed. There is just one more thing I will say about that night before I get on with the story, and it’s this, I’m very glad now I told people on the night what had been said to me, as it is proof that it did happen. If I had not said anything until events had unfolded I could now be accused of making it up. But it’s my misfortune that what was said and what happened that night had consequences for our lives.

  The events of that night and the subsequent events have caused me to change my views and beliefs on very fundamental aspects of how I now look at life and death.

  Nighthawks opened in the Plaza Hotel Tallaght on Thursday, 4th September and ran that weekend and the following weekend 12th, 13th and 14th September. We brought it back for one more weekend, from 31st October – 2nd November.

  Annette helped us out each night by manning the door and selling and collecting tickets. I was helping out on the sound desk so I usually left the house about an hour before Annette. On the last night, 2nd November, I went down to the Plaza before Annette as usual. When Annette arrived we spoke for a few minutes and she said to me:

  “You’ll never guess what happened before I left the house.”

  “What?” says I.

  “While I was upstairs getting ready I heard a crash downstairs and when I went down our picture and your mother’s memorial card were on the ground and there was a big crack in our picture, right down the middle. We must be going to separate” she laughed.

  “How did they fall?” I asked.

  “I don’t know; I just heard a crash and they were on the floor when I went down.”

  “And the glass is broken?” I said.

  “Yes, right down the middle” she replied.

  We were interrupted after that as preparations were being made for the show and said no more about the incident. The show went on and it went down very well.

  As it was the last night most people stayed back afterwards for a drink. I was sitting at a table with about seven or eight people including Annette, the hotel manager Karl Walker, his parents and a cast member Shirley Whelan. I was talking to Shirley, who was sitting facing me. Annette was sitting beside me talking to Karl’s parents who were sitting to her right. After a while Shirley left to speak to someone else. I was sitting facing an empty chair when a lady whom I never saw before in my life sat down. She proceeded to make small talk for a while, saying how much she liked the show and such like. Then she said I’d have great success with it and I’d be on The Late Late Show. I laughed and said something like, that’s hardly likely as the show had ended its run. She then said no, I’d be on The Late Late Show not for Nighthawks but for a book I would write, a book about the past. Again I laughed and tried to pass it off by making some comment or other.

  The lady’s demeanour then changed and she asked if I knew anyone named Mary. I laughed and said: “Everyone knows someone named Mary.” She then said: “She is saying there’s something about a throat.” When she said this I looked at her and said: “My mother’s name was Mary, she died of throat cancer and today is her anniversary.” The lady said: “Yes I know, and she is here with you, she says she is looking after you, that she has helped you before and will do so again.” I must have looked somewhat puzzled by this as the lady then said: “I’m a medium and I have no control over this, I was directed to you.” I then said something like, “What do you mean my mother is here?”

  She replied, “She is here with you now. She says she has taken you out of tight spots before and she will do so again.” She then spoke about how she’d had this power since she was much younger and had no control over what information came through her. She went on to say “Your mother is now standing behind you and she is holding up a watch. Does a watch mean anything to you, did your mother ever give you a watch or you give one to her?” I replied, “No, as far as I remember my mother never wore a watch in her life.” She then said a few more things about being a medium and how she was sometimes directed towards people she did not know, people that someone on the other side wanted to contact or give a message to. There was a bit more conversation and then she asked, “Are you a gardener?” “No” I replied, “not at all, why?” She said, “Because your mother is now holding a rose over you and she is plucking the thorns from the rose.” I told her this did not mean anything to me. “I think it might have a meaning you’re not aware of” she said and continued, “If anyone gives you a rose, it will not be from the person giving it to you, it will be from your mother.” At that point someone called me and I turned away for a moment or two. When I turned back she was gone. I looked around the room but I could not see her anywhere. She seemed to have vanished.

  I sat alone for a while and then people started to leave and I turned to Annette who had just said good night to the people she had been talking to. I told her what had just transpired with the lady who was now nowhere to be seen. Annette said she had not noticed her as she was talking and was unaware who I was talking to. I reminded Annette what had happened earlier on, our picture falling, and it being my mother’s anniversary, but she just laughed and said not to take it too seriously or something like that. She was not perturbed in the least by it. I thought it was most peculiar and mentioned the incident, including the picture falling, to a few people who laughingly asked if anyone had given me a rose. I put the incident out of my mind and joined in the after-show sing song.

  When we got home later that night I saw the picture which had fallen off the bookshelf. It was a picture of myself and Annette which had been taken in Italy a few years before. It was cracked from the top of the frame to the bottom, separating us completely. From the large crack ran a smaller crack, right across my heart. I thought little more about this incident until after Christmas when Annette
was diagnosed with throat cancer. Then I tried to find out the identity of the lady who had approached me that night.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  Annette developed a sore throat in July after we came back from Alaska, nothing serious, just a normal sore throat that most people get from time to time. She went to the doctor who examined her and prescribed antibiotics. After she’d finished the medicine the sore throat persisted so she went back to the doctor. Annette was given more antibiotics and sent for an X-ray in Tallaght Hospital at the end of July. The X-ray did not show anything unusual and Annette continued working. She thought the sore throat would go in time as at one point it did seem to be less sore than it had been.

  During all this time Annette seemed quite healthy apart from the nagging sore throat. In August we went to Dingle with Gina, Senan and Ella for a few days and Annette was fine. We also went to Spain for a week at the end of September, where we met up with Ciara’s parents, Martin and Marie Byrne. They were friends of Annette’s long before David and Ciara ever met. It was while we were in Spain that Annette first displayed a slight discomfort in eating, but nothing serious, she could still eat her meals.

  When we came back from Spain Annette went back to the doctor, who examined her again. He found nothing out of the ordinary and prescribed another course of antibiotics which failed to clear the sore throat. She also had another X-ray, this time at the Charlemount Clinic. Again nothing unusual showed up.

  Towards the end of November Annette began to have a bit more difficulty in swallowing her food but she was still able to eat a full meal. She still felt well and was continuing to work and do all the things she normally did. I asked her once or twice to go back to the doctor, but she said there was no point as she’d had two X-rays, taken the antibiotics and it would probably go in time.