“I have to say I agree with you, Mum.”
“That will be lovely,” Betty said. “How’s your father coping?”
“Dad’s up on the site in Lusk – he’ll be in to you sometime this afternoon and Philip will be in this morning.”
“You don’t all need to keep visiting, I’ll be home soon,” Betty said.
“We miss you, that’s all.” Kate was choking as she spoke.
“You have a lovely day, and if you don’t get in to see me don’t worry,” Betty said firmly.
“Okay, Mum, bye!”
“Bye, love!” Betty smiled to herself as she hung up the phone. There was little would give her more pleasure than to see her daughter with Shane Gleason. Hindsight is twenty-twenty vision and it was unfortunate that her daughter didn’t realise all those years ago how suited she was to the tall gangly youth.
Kate went down to the kitchen and fixed some toast and a cup of coffee. Her father had left a copy of The Irish Times on the kitchen table for her. He was being considerate but Kate still felt awkward around him as she continued to get flashes of him with Annabel.
She checked her watch and it was a few minutes past ten – Shane would be here soon!
* * *
Annabel’s head ached as she opened her eyes. The bottle and a half of red wine followed by copious glasses of Moet had helped her get through the night but she would have to get through today with the consequences. The company she had kept the night before had left her feeling depressed. She had been living in a cocoon for years and it took two days in Biarritz with Kate to show the gaps that needed to be cracked open. From the outside her life seemed fulfilling and complete but deep inside she realised that she had been selling herself short for years. She was capable of much more.
She jumped out of the bed and threw on her pink silk dressing-gown.
“Rosa!” she called.
“Si!” Rosa replied. She was already downstairs in the kitchen feeding Rebecca.
“I have to do some research on the internet this morning – could you mind the kids for an extra couple of hours?”
“Of course!” Rosa called, stepping out of the kitchen.
Annabel pulled a cream fitted jumper over her head and her skinny jeans over her legs. She zipped her knee-high boots up and went straight for the study.
She hit the Google website as Rosa came in with a cup of tea.
“Do you work, Annabel?” she asked.
“After I get myself educated, Rosa,” Annabel replied.
The young Spanish woman looked at her curiously as she left the cup down on the desk.
“Thanks, Rosa,” Annabel smiled.
She felt genuinely good for the first time since leaving Biarritz.
Chapter 8
Kate looked up at the clock on the wall. Ten minutes past eleven. She was feeling restless when the doorbell rang. She jumped to her feet and rubbed the palm of her hands along her thighs. She straightened her back and walked anxiously to the hall-door, then opened it briskly.
“Hi, Kate,” he said nervously.
He looked gorgeous.
“Hi, Shane, come on in.” Kate stood back into the hallway.
He hovered for a moment, unsure whether he should kiss her or not. Kate made the decision for him and opened her arms ready for an embrace. Shane leaned forward and kissed her gently on the cheek. His hands rested carefully on her shoulders as if she were too fragile to get any closer. She got a strong whiff of his pheromones and breathed them in deeply.
“Do you want a cup of tea or would you like to go out?” Kate asked.
“Let’s go into town – fancy going to Bewleys like we used to?”
Pink blushes appeared on Kate’s cheeks. She always thought of Bewleys as their place. In the eighties there was nowhere else in the city to get a good cup of coffee.
“That’s a great idea,” she grinned. “Just let me get my coat.”
Shane waited in the hallway, studying the new wallpaper and finely polished wooden floorboards.
“Betty keeps this place well,” he commented on Kate’s return. “Still as house proud as ever?”
“Absolutely,” Kate sighed. “But in all these years she has never wanted to move – despite numerous attempts by Dad. He built that lovely new development overlooking Howth Beach –”
“The Oaks?” Shane interrupted.
“That’s the one,” Kate nodded. “But Betty wouldn’t move. She’s very sentimental about this house.”
“I can understand that,” grinned Shane. “I’m sentimental about it myself!”
Without answering, Kate gave him a knowing glance. They had spent many a summer’s day fumbling and groping each other’s bodies in every corner of it.
Kate picked up her keys. “I’m ready,” she declared.
He opened the door and they stepped outside. She slammed the front-door shut and followed him to a sporty black BMW convertible that was parked outside the driveway.
“Very nice,” said Kate.
“I love it, I have to admit.” .
“Can we have the roof down?” she asked, like a child being presented with a new toy.
“Why not? It’s not a bad day,” Shane smiled, opening the car door for her.
They whizzed by the towering chimneys that bellowed smoke over Dublin Bay. The water was a deep ultramarine and lapped high along the promenade where people were jogging and walking in the spring sunshine.
Kate looked over for a brief moment at Shane’s strong profile. The breeze was skimming off the top of his sandy hair and causing it to ruffle. He had changed little in over twenty years. He threw her a fleeting look that acknowledged he was in a time-warp too.
“What’s the parking like around Grafton Street?” she asked.
“We’ll get a space in BT’s – it’s so damn expensive nobody stays there for long.”
Kate had been in the car park once before on a flying visit some years back. Shane parked the car and ushered her towards the shiny aluminium lift. When the doors closed they jigged around nervously, watching and waiting for the other’s next move.
“Do you ever get freaked out in lifts?” Kate asked, breaking the silence.
“I wouldn’t want to be claustrophobic in my profession, would I?” he grinned.
“Dah! How silly of me!” she grinned.
“I wouldn’t mind getting stuck in a lift right now though!” He raised his left eyebrow as he had a habit of doing after a roguish suggestion.
“You’re a married man, I’ll have to remind you,” Kate berated him.
The doors opened and they ambled slowly down Wicklow Street, taking a right turn onto Grafton Street. Street-sellers bedecked the footpath with handcrafted jewellery and mobile-phone covers.
“This city is thriving, isn’t it?” Kate remarked. “So different to the one I left in the eighties.”
“It sure has changed, but not always for the better,” Shane said enigmatically.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean people are far more materialistic, more rushed. And as for the Land of Welcomes . . .”
“I do read The Irish Times on the internet – I know what you’re saying,” Kate nodded.
“Do you ever regret leaving, Ireland?” he asked, his eyebrow raised again.
“Do you ever wish you had left?”
“I asked first!”
“Touché! I don’t think so, not really. I’ve met a lot of interesting people over the years and I enjoy the French way of life but then again . . .”
“Yes?” Shane felt a revelation was coming.
“I seem to like the familiar around me at the moment. The past is more important, more relevant in some ways when I assess what I need to be doing next.” Kate sighed after such a profound statement. “Does that make any sense?”
“It does – and it’s just as well we’re here – I need a coffee. Wait until you see what they’ve done to this place – it’s cool.”
They were greete
d by a slender blonde girl – probably Polish but definitely Eastern European – who showed them over to a quiet table in the corner, underneath the newly refurbished stained-glass window.
“This is gorgeous!” Kate nodded approvingly as she sat down on the plush velour seats.
“What are you having?” Shane asked, his eyes skimming the menu card on the table.
“A latte and a Danish, even though I probably shouldn’t!”
“What is it with women? Why the hell shouldn’t you have a cake?”
“A moment on the lips – a lifetime on the hips,” Kate grinned, clicking the roof of her mouth with her tongue.
“Fellas put weight on too,” Shane observed. “You should see me jogging for Ireland, a couple of weeks before my medical.”
The mood was buoyant and Shane didn’t want to ruin it, but he felt the need to ask the question that was hovering over them like a thick sea mist.
“How’s Betty today?”
“Doing well,” Kate nodded. “Her spirits are high. It can’t be easy after losing both of her breasts like that. She’s up to her eyeballs in morphine of course so that helps!”
“Is there anything they can do for her?"
Kate shrugged her shoulders. “Dad’s going in to talk to the doctor this afternoon. They will have the results of all the tests today.”
Shane looked longingly into Kate’s milk-chocolate eyes. He wanted to dive in and touch her soul, massage any hurt and take away any grief that she might be hiding deep inside.
“How long will you stay here?” he asked, partly in reference to her mother’s illness and partly out of self-interest.
“I might make a flying visit back to France next week to get some stuff and collect some of my references – although I doubt I’ll get much work done over the coming weeks. I intend to stay here for the duration of Mum’s illness. I discussed it with Dad and he wants to bring her home.”
“I think Damien would need some help alright,” Shane agreed. “He could build a skyscraper but finds it difficult to change a bed.”
“Exactly. It won’t be easy but I can always delay my exhibition by a couple of months.”
“I’d love to see your current work.”
“It’s changed considerably since you last saw it.”
“I loved the series of lilies.”
“When? How did you see them?” Kate asked in surprise.
Shane tapped the side of his nose with his index finger mysteriously.
Kate frowned. She hated it when he teased her.
“After we met in Toulouse, I visited that Gallery in the Bastille that you told me about,” he revealed. “It was sensational. I wanted to buy them all!”
Kate was flattered.
“I have the catalogue still.” He grinned like a schoolboy telling too much and embarrassed by his own obsession.
“I am surprised,” Kate beamed. “Art was never your thing.”
“I know talent when I see it,” he said with a wink.
“Now that’s more like the Shane Gleason I know,” Kate quipped.
* * *
Annabel took a break from her web-surfing to make a sandwich. After buttering a roll in the kitchen, she tried Kate’s mobile again but it was switched off. She wanted desperately to ring her parents’ house in Clontarf but didn’t want to make matters worse by speaking to Damien. Kate really would be mad if she thought they had spoken to each other.
She felt frustrated too about her web-search. She had flicked through so many degree courses all morning, without finding something that enthused her, that she was beginning to doubt whether she wanted to go back and study at all. A pattern had emerged though: every time she hit a website that interested her it had something to do with food. Eventually, as she went from site to site, she realised she wasn’t looking at colleges and universities at all but restaurants. She had certainly accumulated a vast knowledge of food while doing those weekend cookery courses in Ballyasger over the last few years.
Now, her buttered roll in hand, she glanced over her shoulder at the stack of books by Jamie and Nigella and all the other gods and goddesses of cooking that rested on her kitchen shelf.
She took a coriander and lemon humus that she had made the day before out of the fridge and spread it generously on the roll.
It was then that it hit her like a bolt out of the blue.
Why was she going back to college when she could start a little business doing something that she really loved?
Her mind went into overdrive as she looked around her fridge at the quiche she had made a couple of days earlier, and the crisp salads she had neatly arranged and packed into the shelves. It had been staring her in the face for ages. She felt a rush of excitement run through her. And she wouldn’t have to go too far to find a place to sell her goods either – the Farmers’ and Fishermans’ Market in Howth was the perfect point of sale for her homemade produce.
She grabbed her bag and set off for Supervalu. She had pricings to do.
For the first time in years she was truly excited about something that she was doing for herself. Maybe it was true that life begins at forty!
* * *
Damien pulled up to the doors of Cornhill Hospital. He slammed the door of his Saab and strode through the clinical glass doors to hear of his wife’s fate.
Dr Harrold opened his office door as he heard Damien’s boots tread heavily on the linoleum. He held his hand out to Damien as the two walked over to his desk and the two shook.
“Take a seat,” he said gesturing at the chair in front of his desk.
He cleared his throat before speaking, as was his habit when he was about to break bad news.
“I’m afraid your wife has come to us very late in her illness,” he began. “The cancer has spread to her liver and has made serious inroads. We could have done more if –”
“I know what you’re going to say,” Damien interrupted. He wasn’t one to pussyfoot around when something had to be said and he knew that advanced liver cancer was very serious. Realistically, how long are we talking about, now that you have had time to do the tests?”
“I was going to say there is the possibility of a liver transplant but we are concerned that the cancer may be in some other organs also.”
“I don’t think Betty is going to want another operation,” Damien said with a shake of his head. “Especially since there is no guarantee it would do much good.”
“Well, if we don’t go down that route we are looking at six months maximum,” Dr Harrold said, nodding solemnly.
“And minimum?”
“She is in severe pain – we are administering drugs every four hours.” He hesitated before giving the worst-case scenario. “It could be considerably less if her system doesn’t react well to the drugs.”
“I want to take her home,” Damien insisted.
“Of course,” Dr Harrold agreed. “But you may need some help.”
“I have discussed this with my children already and we are getting a full-time nurse.”
“That’s a good idea,” the doctor nodded. “We strongly advise that you tell your wife immediately about the severity of her condition.”
Damien nodded. He couldn’t keep it from her any more and it was something he had to do on his own. “When can I take her home?”
“Tomorrow?” the doctor suggested.
“Can you arrange for a nurse?” Damien asked, his voice now quivering.
“My secretary can give you the number of an agency on the way out – it is probably the best thing to do.”
Dr Harrold escorted Damien to the door and bowed his head before shaking Damien’s hand.
“Thanks,” Damien said gravely, and started the short walk down to Ward 3C.
Betty was sitting up in the bed reading a recent copy of Woman’s Way. Her powder-blue cardigan was draped loosely around her shoulders and covered a satin nightie dappled with roses. She looked serene and pretty for her sixty-two years. Her face brightened as Dami
en entered the tiny ward – she put her magazine down and patted the bed.
“Hello, love,” she smiled, holding out her arms as he leaned forward to kiss her gently on the cheek.
Damien propped himself on the edge of the bed, careful not to sit too far back on the mattress and crush his wife’s legs.
“So when am I going home?” Her face beamed for the first time in months.
“Tomorrow,” Damien grinned.
Betty propped herself up higher against the pillows on hearing the news.
“Fantastic!” she said, clapping her hands in delight. “The staff are lovely, but I really need to get home to my own bed to get better.”
Damien gave a shallow smile. “You are still very sick, Betty.”
“Don’t go all morbid on me,” she chastised. “I’ll be fine when I get home.”
Damien looked deeply into her sharp cat-like eyes. There was no talking to Betty once she had her mind made up about something. She had bulldozed her way through life but now she would have to succumb to the ravages of the cruellest illness.
“Of course you will,” he agreed. “But Betty,” he went on with difficulty, “I was talking to Dr Harrold just now and it looks like the cancer may have spread.”
Betty’s mouth opened slightly, her lower lip quivering. “I will be alright when I get home,” she replied adamantly.
“There is a chance that with more operations they could prolong your life . . .”
Betty pressed her index finger up to his lips. “It has spread, that’s all I needed to know.”
Damien swallowed hard. “We all want you home but you have to consider the opportunities you are missing by not letting them operate again.”
“Bah!” Batty patted down the bedspread. “I don’t want any more operations. They’ve taken my breasts – there’ll be nothing left of me if I stay here any longer!”
Damien hadn’t the strength to argue. The next few weeks were going to be difficult enough. He reached out and took her skinny hand in his. He clasped it tightly with his other hand on top. “We’ll get through this,” he sighed.
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