Contents
About the Author
Also by Graham Norton
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Before
Now
Then
Now
Then
Now
Then
Now
Then
Now
Then
Now
Then
Now
Then
Now
Then
Now
Then
Now
Then
Now
Then
Now
Then
Now
Then
Now
After
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Graham Norton is one of the UK’s best loved broadcasters. He presents The Graham Norton Show on BBC1, has a weekly show on BBC Radio 2, and writes a column for the Telegraph. He is the winner of nine BAFTA awards. Born in Dublin and raised in West Cork, Norton now lives in London. His debut novel HOLDING was a commercial and critical success, winning Norton the Irish Independent Popular Fiction award at the BordGáis Irish Book Awards in 2016.
Also by Graham Norton
NON-FICTION
So Me
The Life and Loves of a He Devil
FICTION
Holding
www.hodder.co.uk
First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Hodder & Stoughton An Hachette UK company Copyright © Graham Norton 2018
The right of Graham Norton to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library Hardback ISBN 978 1 473 66497 5
Trade Paperback ISBN 978 1 473 66498 2
eBook ISBN 978 1 473 66500 2
Hodder & Stoughton Ltd Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
www.hodder.co.uk
For Jono
BEFORE
He longed for silence. The roar of the wind churned with the rasping rhythm of the waves and filled his head. Every morning Edward woke to these sounds and when his aching arms pulled the blankets up at night the same wall of noise filled his dreams. When would he find peace?
Edward Foley was hunched on the small promontory of rocks that marked the border between the front paddock and the sea. Clouds had robbed the night sky of stars or a moon, which made the dark hood of sounds feel even thicker. His tears had dried but now his face was wet once more with the salty mist of spray from the pounding surf. Behind him he heard occasional voices and the thin slam of a car door.
If only he could think. He had to consider the future. What to do next? He wasn’t what anyone would have called young, but still, at forty-one you couldn’t declare your life was over. He thought of his brother James, claimed long ago by the waves. He didn’t have the luxury of giving up, but that was precisely what Edward wanted to do. To sit and hug his knees till the tide came to take him.
Through the wet crackle of the wind and waves he heard an engine start and the damp grass around him glowed red, then blue. He turned his head and watched the ambulance making its way slowly down the lane, past the orchard towards the road. He felt so foolish. What right had he to expect happiness? This suddenly seemed like the ending of the story that had been written for him all along.
He stood and looked back towards the house. Every light was burning, or so it seemed. A boat out at sea might have thought they were having a party. Behind the bright grid of windows, he could just make out the looming shadow of the castle ruins that gave the house its name. The countless decades of Foleys that had lived on this land. All that history, now hanging on to the future by a thread.
He knew he should go back, but he couldn’t bear the thought of seeing his mother. He pictured her sitting at the kitchen table. A cup and saucer in front of her. His mug of tea on the opposite side. Her endless stream of words would fill the silence, but it would be her face that told him what she really thought. Somehow this was all his fault. It would be the same look she had given him when James had died. An expression that told him that she still loved him but that she could never forgive him.
His mother was not the sort of woman to bounce you on her knee or pull you into the comfort of her breast when everything seemed too much, but she was strong, resourceful and determined. He knew that if he was to get through this he would need her. He lifted his collar against the howl of the night and started across the field towards the lights of the house. Of one thing, he was certain.
His mother would have a plan.
NOW
1
Two strands of Christmas lights sagged across the main street. Some red, some green, mostly spent, they swayed forlornly in the driving rain.
Elizabeth Keane sighed as she drove her small rental car over the bridge into the town. Partly because she was weary from her overnight flight from New York to Dublin, but mostly due to the memories conjured up by the sight of Buncarragh on a wet afternoon in the first week of January. The shiny gifts long forgotten, the last few unwanted Quality Street sweets being poked listlessly around the bottom of the tin, the novelty of films being on the television in the afternoon well and truly over, each house was just a waiting room for school to reopen. She wondered if anything had changed in the twenty years since she’d lived here. Probably not. The kids were no doubt stabbing at their phones, and though they had hundreds of television stations she could almost feel the overheated boredom oozing from the terraced houses leading down from Bridge Street.
She was surprised by how fast her journey had been. Growing up here, Dublin had seemed like some distant metropolis, but now with the gleaming new motorway, Buncarragh was just a couple of exits north of Kilkenny. Had the country shrunk or had America changed her sense of distance? The crisp blue road signs, with their bright reflective lettering and kilometres, seemed at odds somehow with the places they led to. Sleepy grey market towns that remained rooted in the past.
Would this be the last time she ever made this trip? Now her mother was gone she had no real ties to the place. Of course, there were a few cousins and her uncle and aunt but they had never been close, and once the house was sold what reason would she have to return? Ahead of her on the left just past the railings of the small Methodist church, she could see the family shop: ‘Keane and Sons’. The name was picked out in ornate plaster on the façade that had been painted, for as long as Elizabeth could remember, in an insipid colour that reminded her of uncooked chicken. She slowed down to look in the windows. To the left of the doors was a copse of artificial Christmas trees, while the display on the right consisted of some flat-screen televisions and a trio of gleaming black and chrome baby buggies.
Her car was just passing the doors when they opened and an incongruously glamorous woman stepped out. Shit. It was Noelle, her cousin Paul’s wife. They ran the shop now. Had she seen her? Elizabeth glanced in her rear-view mirror and saw a long thin arm waving. Christ, she must have the eyes of a hawk. Elizabeth groaned. She had hoped to make it all the way to Convent Hill unobserved
, but knew she would have to stop now. That whole side of the family already thought she was a stuck-up bitch. She put the car into reverse and pulled up alongside Noelle who was holding a plastic Keane and Sons bag aloft to protect her bright blonde hair from the rain. Elizabeth took in Noelle’s skin-tight jeans and short padded jacket that allowed people to fully appreciate her trim figure. How was it possible that this woman had produced three babies? Elizabeth considered her own forgivingly loose hooded sweatshirt and her cropped dark hair with streaks of grey which her son Zach delighted in telling her was less of a hairstyle and more of a haircut. She prodded ineffectually at some buttons till the passenger window went down. Bravely trying to banish her concerns about just how bad her make-up-free, sleep-deprived face might look, she leaned across and called out.
‘Hi, Noelle! Terrible day, isn’t it?’
‘It is. It is. I thought it was you! It was the hair I noticed first.’ Noelle emitted a small shriek, to indicate how pleased she was by her perceptiveness. ‘You must have had a fierce drive. We didn’t know you were coming back.’ There was a slight accusatory tone in her voice.
‘I didn’t know myself,’ Elizabeth lied. ‘Zach has gone to see friends so I thought I’d come back and sort out the house before term time starts up.’ This was also a lie. Her son had gone to visit his father on the west coast. She wondered why she hadn’t just told the truth. Was she saving herself from embarrassment, or Noelle?
‘You should have let us know. We’d have put the heating on for you. You’ll come down for dinner now, won’t you?’
‘You’re very kind but I won’t. I grabbed a few bits and pieces on the way out of Dublin and all I really want to do is sleep. I’ll call down tomorrow. You should get in, Noelle, you’re getting soaked.’
‘Well, if you’re sure, and if you get up there and change your mind just come down. We’re still eating Christmas! We missed having your mother this year of course.’ Noelle pushed the corners of her bright red lips down to indicate the sort of regret you might show a toddler that had banged their knee. ‘Anyway, welcome home!’
Elizabeth forced a smile and waved. Judgemental bitch. Did Noelle not understand that she could never make Elizabeth feel any guiltier than she already did? The horrible tug of war between being both the single child of a dying woman and a single parent living thousands of miles away was finally over and she had to admit she was glad. Elizabeth put the car into gear and drove on.
The road opened out into what was known as The Green, even though it was just a narrow wedge of paving in the middle of the road with a park bench and two litter bins. Just beyond that the town’s only set of traffic lights turned red. Elizabeth stared out at the wet, deserted street, the windscreen wipers wearily slicing away, and a strange fury bubbled up in her. She slammed her hand hard against the steering wheel. Not five minutes back in Buncarragh and all the feelings that had made her flee the place had come flooding back. It didn’t matter how hard she had studied or who she had invited to her birthday parties, she was always made to feel less in this town. Poor Liz Keane. Growing up with no daddy. It was surprising how often the word ‘Father’ came up in a convent education and every time it did she had felt all eyes on her.
Now she was a single mother herself – worse, Zach’s father refused to do anything as useful as disappear – she understood how strong her mother must have been to endure all the sideways glances and wagging tongues that stopped abruptly as she pushed her pram along the streets in the 1970s. She sometimes wondered if the humiliation of her own married life was a form of punishment for being so judgemental of her mother when she was a girl. Oh, how she had hated her mother for not having a husband! What sort of woman couldn’t manage to get a man? She examined her friends’ parents. These women weren’t as pretty as her mother, with their unkempt hair and sometimes not even a smear of lipstick, and yet they had all managed to find someone to say ‘I do’, someone to hold their daughters’ hands as they walked in large broods after mass. The memory of her and her mother clicking along the pavement from the chapel to their house while car windows stuffed with sweaty small faces gawped at them still brought back a deep pang of loneliness. That feeling of being somehow incomplete. No daddy, no siblings, no sense of being a real family.
Christmas. No wonder Elizabeth hated it so much. Knowing that everyone else was surrounded by boisterous clans squashed around tables on mismatched chairs while she and her mother sat in Sunday silence scraping at plates. Of course, her aunt and uncle had issued invitations to join them and her three cousins but her mother always refused. ‘We’ll just have a nice quiet family Christmas. The two of us. Let them get on with it.’ As an adult Elizabeth understood her mother’s pride and all the guilt she must have endured, but as a child she felt she was being punished. She always thought her mother had put appearances – the house, her hair, new school shoes – above her actual happiness.
Nobody, certainly not her own mother, had ever sat her down and told her the story of her father in detail, but over the years she had gleaned the main thrust of the tale.
Her mother, Patricia, had nursed her grandmother until she died, at which point most people considered her to have missed the boat when it came to men. She was the spinster sister and aunt, nothing more. But then, out of the blue came news that she was dating and almost before people had time to absorb that fact came word of a wedding. Her mother had left Buncarragh to begin her newly married life. However, within a suspiciously short space of time she had abruptly returned, carrying the baby Elizabeth in her arms. There was no sign of any husband. The rumour mill went into overdrive. The husband had beaten her, the mother-in-law had driven her out, there had never been a wedding. The fact that she had retained Keane as her surname only added to the mystery and scandal. Nobody knew the truth. When Elizabeth was older she had tried to talk to her mother about what had happened to her father but was always given the same stock answer: ‘He died very young, but he was a lovely man, a kind man.’ If Elizabeth persisted her mother assured her that he had been an only child and that there was no other family. She imagined her family tree as a couple of bare branches with an ancient vulture perched on one of them.
It was only three months since the funeral and yet the sight of Convent Hill still seemed strangely unfamiliar. The size of the houses increased along with the gradient until she reached number sixty-two. The street lights spluttered on as she pulled up outside the home where she had been reared. Lots of spaces. People must still be away, she thought. Getting out of the car the rain felt good on her face as she looked up at the house that still managed to appear imposing. Three storeys tall and double-fronted, it had been built for a bank manager but her grandfather had bought it when the shop had started to do well. She remembered her mother telling her how Uncle Jerry and especially his wife Auntie Gillian had tried to get it after her granny had died. But their mother’s will had been very clear: Jerry got the shop and Patricia got the house.
The rain streaked down the dark glass of the windows and dripped off the windowsills. Elizabeth struggled to remember ever being happy here and yet she knew she had been. Balloons had been tied to the black railings that separated the house from the street and small girls in candy-coloured dresses had been deposited by mothers in heavy winter coats. One of her earliest memories was her mother taking her by the hand across the street so that they could admire the lights of their own Christmas tree through the dining-room window. So long ago. Elizabeth felt as if these were the memories of another person, her life was so removed from this house, these people, the town of Buncarragh.
She thought of where she lived now. A cramped two-bedroomed walk-up apartment above a nail salon on Third Avenue. Her own and Zach’s lives stuffed into a space not much bigger than her childhood bedroom. She was glad her mother had never come to visit. Seeing it through her eyes would have ruined it for her because, despite its many limitations, Elizabeth loved her little nest. The warm glow of lamps in the evening, the morning
sun that squeezed through the gaps of the surrounding buildings to fill the tiny kitchen, Zach sitting proudly at the rickety desk he had found on the street and inexpertly painted himself, but most of all the sense of achievement it gave her. Life after Elliot hadn’t been easy and there had been sleepless nights when she thought her only option might have been to return home to Buncarragh, so every time she turned the key in her own Manhattan front door, it felt like a victory.
Now she was searching for the keys to Convent Hill in her overstuffed handbag. Around the worn stone steps outside she noticed the green trim of weeds. She hoped the lock wouldn’t be too stiff but the key turned easily. Probably Auntie Gillian sniffing around for what she wanted to take. Elizabeth was considering what her aunt might have coveted when she noticed the absence of the two rose bushes in pots that had stood sentry on either side of the shallow porch. That bloody woman. She pushed the door open with a small grunt of irritation and felt for the hall light switch. An untidy mound of post lay on the ground in front of her and more had been placed by someone on the thin hall table. Everything looked the same: the gold and green patterned carpet runner going up the stairs; Cinderella herself had fled from the ball on those steps, pop stars had greeted adoring fans as they made their way from jumbo jets down to the tarmac. The framed Chinese prints still hung on either side of the living-room door; the narrow passage still led past the stairs to the kitchen, which had been her first port of call every day returning from school. So familiar that it was like looking at her own face in a mirror and yet something had changed. Mixed in with the comforting smells of furniture polish and coal fires were the unfamiliar scents of damp and neglect. Nobody lived here and that realisation struck Elizabeth with a greater force than she had expected. She felt as if something had been stolen from her.
The car unpacked, Elizabeth sat at the kitchen table with a bowl of tomato soup in front of her. She felt oddly self-conscious as she raised the spoon to her mouth but of course there was no one here to watch her. Nobody would walk in. It occurred to her that she had probably never been alone in this house before. Babysitters, neighbours, school friends and of course her mother meant that there had always been another heartbeat. She put down the spoon and looked around the kitchen. Every surface was piled with ancient crockery now coated in dust and grease. Behind each pine-door-fronted cabinet she knew there were more plates and pots and pans. Jars of chutney and cans of marrowfat peas that were probably older than she was. So much stuff and this was just one room. A heavy wave of fatigue swept over her and she felt defeated by the enormity of the task ahead of her. She checked her watch. Only eight o’clock. She didn’t care. She was going to bed with the hope of waking up fully motivated. She grabbed her small carry-on case and headed up the stairs.
A Keeper Page 1