by Alison Walsh
She extracted a tiny silver nail file from the case and, turning his left hand gently in hers, began to clean under the nails, paring away all the dirt, which she wiped onto a tissue which she’d spread on the bed. She filed away for a bit and then she said, ‘Do you remember what you used to say to me at the gate, Daddy?’ rubbing a little of the hand cream she’d found at the bottom of his washbag into his hands, smoothing the cream along his fingers, once slender, now distorted by arthritis, which had made his joints swell. ‘“Don’t let the bastards grind you down.” Handy.’ She smiled as she turned his hand and rubbed cream over the palm, which was cracked. ‘You knew what they could be like. Small town,’ she continued. ‘Small minds.’ She could see him then as she stood at the school gate, tipping his invisible hat and announcing, ‘Time to head to the office, Doodlebug. See you after school,’ and then he’d be gone, a little saunter up over the bridge, Colleen the dog trying to keep up, before the two of them would make a quick right turn, as if Daddy had only just thought of it and not planned it carefully, into Prendergast’s. There, Daddy would drink one pint of Guinness and smoke one cigarette and read the Irish Independent. He never drank more than one pint in the morning and one in the afternoon: the benders, he kept for Friday and Saturday nights. He regarded it as a sign that he was a man of discipline. Could control himself. Just like any other man, he’d use routine to structure his day, except instead of car and office and home for dinner, his was pub and bookies and only then home to do a few jobs around the house.
Of course, she hadn’t seen it then, that this routine wasn’t quite like other fathers’, wasn’t something to be proud of, she supposed. She’d heard it more than once, the slightly-too-loud comment from one of the teachers or one of the girls in the minimarket about ‘that fellow, dossing around the town. Sure he’s a good for nothing, so he is.’ Rosie’s cheeks would burn, but with indignation, not shame. How dare they say things like that about her daddy. She knew her daddy. And he was always there for her. Always. How she’d missed him, even though he’d never once written. ‘Ah, sure, I’m no good at that kind of thing,’ he’d said when she’d pushed him once. ‘I’m hopeless with words, you know that, Rosie-boo.’ Instead, he’d made a ‘trunk call’ as he still called it, every second Sunday, never forgetting to reverse the charges, the roar of the punters at Prendergast’s in the background, the clink of pint glasses as he brought her up to date with the going at Kempton Park, the favourite for the 3.45 at Leopardstown racecourse – never anything personal, just ‘ráiméis’, as he called it. He probably felt safe with that, with nonsense, and she did too – the two of them carefully skirting any difficult subjects.
Rosie had made sure to hide the phone bills from Craig, paying them every month from her credit card. He was very careful about expenditure. And then, just after Christmas this year, the calls had stopped, and when she’d rung Pi, he’d told her that Daddy was ‘tired’, and then he was ‘in for a few tests’. Why had she not guessed? Maybe all the wedding stuff had distracted her, made her forget what was really important. ‘You’re here now,’ Pi had said to her earlier, but that didn’t make her feel any less guilty.
‘I didn’t know Prendergast’s had closed,’ she said now. ‘Although I suppose you haven’t had cause to go there for a while anyway. Pi tells me that Blazers on the Dublin Road is the place now. Might try it some time.’ She grinned. ‘Sounds like my kind of place. Not.’ She paused. ‘Not now that I’m a reformed character anyway. You’ll be glad to know that I don’t drink any more, can you believe it? I’m very well behaved, Daddy. I know I led you all a merry dance, didn’t I? Mary-Pat used to say I had her heart broken. That’s why she pushed me onto that bus to Dublin. I suppose I can’t really blame her.’
She could see herself still, looking out the window of the bus, in that big hairy coat she’d found at the back of Daddy’s wardrobe, the one that smelled godawful but that she wore to annoy Mary-Pat because her sister had taken one look at her the first time she’d appeared in it and had screamed, ‘Take that bloody thing off, or I will personally rip it off your back, do you hear me?’ It had been an invitation: Rosie had made a point of wearing it to breakfast, dinner and tea, ignoring her sister’s look of disgust, because she was so pleased to have rubbed her up the wrong way. That was her mission in life then: to cause Mary-Pat as much hassle as she possibly could, because she knew she could get away with it. Because she thought her sister would love her anyway, no matter what she did. She’d been wrong about that.
Which was why she’d said not one word to her about coming home. The only person she’d told was Pius, because she knew he’d keep his mouth shut. To his credit, he’d said he wouldn’t breathe a word, even though he’d written that her two sisters would be ‘surprised’. That was one word for it. ‘They’ll be thrilled to see you,’ he’d added at the bottom of the postcard he’d sent her of St Munchin’s Cistercian Abbey. He sent a postcard every week, often with nothing more than a scribbled line in his spidery handwriting, or some silly quote from the local newspaper that had caught his eye, but now, he’d written a full paragraph, ending with: ‘They miss you, Rosie.’ Rosie knew that her brother was just being kind. If they missed her that much, why had neither of them visited, even once? Pi, she could understand, what with his … illness, but Mary-Pat and June? Apart from the polite letters at Christmas and on her birthday, she’d heard hardly a word from either of them. But then, she hadn’t left them on the best of terms, had she?
She could still remember that June had pulled her aside during one of her sister’s visits home. Rosie had been wearing the coat for a few weeks, and Mary-Pat had more or less stopped speaking to her. She’d said gently, ‘Rosie, love, will you take the coat off? It’s upsetting everyone.’
‘Why?’ Rosie’s chin had jutted out stubbornly, her hand on her hips. Truthfully, she was only dying to get rid of the awful coat – it made her itch like mad – but she wasn’t about to give in to Mary-Pat.
‘It was Mammy’s,’ June explained patiently. ‘It makes people remember her, you see, every time they see you in it. It’s … awkward,’ she finished.
Rosie had wanted to pull the coat off then and hurl it as far away from her as she possibly could, but because she was young and stubborn, she continued to wear it, shuffling in and out of the sitting room, making sure that she walked in front of the TV when Mary-Pat was trying to watch Coronation Street, making a point of brushing her teeth in the bathroom at night in her T-shirt and shorts and that coat, even though it made her feel sick to wear it. Sick and sorry and embarrassed. But she wouldn’t give in, she’d decided, no matter how much it cost.
Rosie blushed as she remembered what she’d been like, the rage that had propelled her forward, out of Monasterard forever, or so she’d thought. ‘You needn’t fucking bother waiting,’ she’d spat at Mary-Pat as she’d pulled her bags out of the Pajero, ‘unless you want to make sure I’m going.’
‘Sure, there’s no need for that, no need at all,’ PJ had said, hopping down from the driver’s seat and gently taking a bag from her, his big, red face a picture of sorrow. Poor PJ, stuck in the middle of it all, announcing loudly that he was taking the babies for a walk every time herself and Mary-Pat kicked off. John-Patrick and Melissa must be fifteen or sixteen by now.
‘It’s none of your fucking business,’ she’d yelled, yanking the bag out of his hand and turning on her heel. She’d caught a glimpse of Mary-Pat then, sitting bolt upright in the passenger seat, tears streaming down her face. ‘What the hell are you crying about?’ she’d screamed. ‘Haven’t you got what you wanted? Haven’t you been trying to get rid of me all this time? Well, guess what? It’s your lucky day,’ and she’d stomped up the steps of the bus, ignoring the muttered tuts of Mrs Delaney. She could just hear her: ‘There go the O’Connors again, lowering themselves, but, sure, what else could you expect.’
She’d stomped onto the bus, throwing the money at Paudy, who had driven the 6.15 to Dublin ever since
she could remember, barely muttering a ‘thanks’ and thinking that Mary-Pat would have killed her if she could see her. She’d thrown herself into her seat and glared out the window, her arms folded tightly across her chest. She’d looked at the square, at the monument to the war dead, at the little Celtic well which had had ‘Up the ’RA’ graffitied on it – by Jim Prendergast, because she’d seen him do it – at the little row of shops: the chipper, at Moran’s, with the lovely window displays that spoke to the genteel ladies of the county, at Maggie’s general stores, with all the holy statues in the window, and she’d wanted to spit on them, to spit on the whole damn place. And then she saw the Jeep roar off up the road towards the house, a belch of smoke coming from the exhaust, and she’d wanted to hug herself tight and give in to the big, ugly sobs that she knew were waiting. But she didn’t. She gritted her teeth and pushed them down, because she wouldn’t give into them, she just wouldn’t. That would be saying that it was all her fault somehow, when she knew it wasn’t.
Of course, she’d had an attack then, a squeezing in her chest, her breathing so tight she thought she’d suffocate. She needed her inhaler, she’d thought, beginning to panic. Where was it? She’d rummaged at the top of the backpack and found it in her washbag, in a special compartment, along with a travel toothbrush and a miniature-size toothpaste and soap. A note had been wrapped around the two inhalers, one brown and one blue, in shaky green biro: ‘TAKE TWO PUFFS X 2 TIMES PER DAY, MORE IF NEEDED.’ She hadn’t packed the washbag, she thought, pulling the inhaler out with shaking hands and sucking on it twice. Mary-Pat must have done it. She’d weakened then, just for a moment, before reminding herself that she hated her sister, really, truly hated her, and that she hoped she’d never see her again as long as she lived.
And then the bus rumbled into life, and the doors of the baggage hold were banged shut, and she found her gaze pulled to the window and down the main street. She kept looking, in case she might see him. He’d come, she was sure of it. It was the least he could do. And if he came, she’d stay. Even though she hated the place and everyone in it, hated what had happened there, she’d stay for him.
She’d kept hoping until the bus pulled away, slowly, past the Protestant church and over the bridge, the water falling glassy underneath. And then it was too late.
Rosie closed her eyes, and the dappled sunlight flickered across her eyelids. She didn’t want to think about him now. It was bad enough that she was stirring up everything else after all this time, but not him. Not Mark.
‘I’m sorry, Daddy,’ she said, holding his hand, which was now slippery with cream. ‘I’m sorry for everything.’ As she gripped his fingers, the light caught the single solitaire on the platinum band on her finger. It was too big, and it slid around, the diamond jabbing the soft skin on the inside of her fingers, which were milky-white and covered in freckles. ‘I’m getting married, did I tell you that? Can you believe it?’ And then she continued, as if he’d spoken, ‘Oh, I know you think it’s all a load of rubbish, but I suppose I had to grow up some time and a wedding is as good a way as any, isn’t it? I know, it doesn’t sound very romantic, but it’s all good, honestly.’ As she said the words, she wondered quite why she felt she needed to tell Daddy this, why she needed to justify herself. She loved Craig and he made her happy – it was as simple as that. ‘But don’t tell the others, will you? I’ll have to break the news to them myself and I haven’t seen any of them yet. I wanted you to be the first to know.’
She paused for a second, twiddling the ring on her finger before pulling it off, feeling her finger lighten as she did so. God, that stone weighed a ton. She’d told Craig that she didn’t want a big, silly diamond that made her look like a footballer’s wife, but he’d insisted. ‘What kind of a guy does that make me, if I can’t buy my wife-to-be a proper engagement ring?’ And so Rosie had found herself being carried along with the whole exercise, visiting a blingy out-of-town jewellers with Craig and his mum, full of fawning staff, obsequious because they knew serious money was going to be spent.
She’d swallowed her protests because she knew how much it mattered to Craig, and as she oohed and aahed over the outsize stone, she tried not to think of the red piece of string she’d worn on her ring finger for one whole summer, years before. They’d been nine years old and got married in the old gazebo in the garden, with Colleen and Morecambe and Wise, the two goats, in attendance, and she’d thought that it was impossible to be any happier than she was right then, on that hot summer’s day. She’d been heartbroken when she’d lost that piece of string – she hadn’t even known how; she’d just looked down at her finger one morning and it was gone.
That wasn’t why she’d come back, she thought now: to dig it all up, to let it all come spilling out after all these years. Not when she’d worked so hard to forget that angry girl on the bus, to make herself into the kind of woman who’d wear a huge solitaire, who’d come back to Monasterard on the arm of her husband to be, to get married ‘in the old country’, as Craig called it. His grandparents had come from some little village in Donegal and, to him, her home was a mythical, mystical place where you could have the kind of fairy-tale wedding he wanted. He’d spent months planning it all, looking at photos of country piles, co-opting her oldest friend Daphne into helping out. It was funny how romantic he was about the whole thing, how much of a production he wanted to make of it all – he was out in the car now on his phone, busy hunting down a Norman castle for the wedding photos – when she’d just as soon have gone to the register office downtown in Rivertown and then to Marty’s Steakhouse, or the Little Chapel of Elvis in Vegas. She’d tried to put him off, ‘forgetting’ to send the forms for the posting of the banns home, only to discover that he’d found them under the sofa and sent them off himself. ‘Honey, don’t you think you’re a bit … forgetful sometimes? Honestly, you’d think you didn’t want to get married,’ he’d chuckled.
If only he knew. She’d never dared tell him, but she wasn’t bothered about marriage. She hadn’t exactly had a shining example in her parents, but she also knew that she’d do it to please him. She’d do anything to keep him happy, because he’d saved her and, frankly, it was the least she could do. So what if, some days, she woke up and wondered who on earth she was and how she’d fallen into this life. It was a small price to pay, she reckoned, for a quiet life, a peaceful life.
She leaned over and rested her head on Daddy’s chest, feeling the bones of his ribs digging into her cheek. His heartbeat was steady, a solid thump-thump, and it made her feel better somehow that a part of him was still strong, even though he couldn’t put his arms around her and give her one of his famous bear hugs that would squeeze the life out of her. She was able to draw strength from him, strength that she knew she’d need when she saw her sisters.
She thought she could stay like that for a long time, just resting with Daddy, the picture of the Sacred Heart looking regretfully down at her, until a noise behind her made her jump.
The nurse was Filipina, dressed in a pink candy-stripe top and black trousers. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know there was anyone here,’ she said.
‘It’s OK, I was just leaving.’ Rosie quickly pulled her bag onto her shoulder and stood up. She had no idea why, but she felt as if she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t. Flustered, she dropped her inhaler on the floor and had to scrabble under the bed to find it.
The nurse held out a hand, as if to steady Rosie. ‘There’s no need …’ But Rosie leaned over and pecked Daddy on the cheek. ‘I’ll be back soon, Daddy,’ and then she was gone, bolting for the door and then half-running up the corridor and out into the warm air of the summer and the lovely shade of the huge copper beech.
She felt dazed as she walked over to the shiny new hire car parked under a tree, as if the ground was sloping away from her as she walked. She could see Craig inside, programming the sat nav. He’d insisted on doing that, even though she’d told him that she knew perfectly well how to find her way ar
ound. ‘It’s my home,’ she’d told him. ‘I know where I’m going.’
She took a deep breath and opened the car door, getting in and slumping down onto the passenger seat.
‘Everything OK?’ Craig’s blue eyes caught hers, then slipped away to the screen of the sat nav. When she didn’t reply, she could feel him still beside her, waiting. She leaned her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes for a second, seeing herself and Daddy in that room, feeling the warmth of his hand, looking at the rise and fall of his chest. Why had nobody told her, she thought. Why had no one said it was that bad?
And then she felt Craig’s hand on hers, the briefest of touches. ‘Honey?’
She shook her head and pushed his hand away, her eyes filling with tears.
‘You shoulda let me come in with you.’ He looked at her, his pale blue eyes flicking over her nervously, before looking away. He didn’t like emotion, Craig, because he didn’t know how to respond to it. It was too messy for him. Too alarming. He cared, Rosie told herself. He just didn’t know how to show it.
‘I’m fine. I just needed a moment with him. I’ll introduce you the next time when he’s better.’ If there would be a next time.
‘Where to next?’ His finger was poised over the sat nav to programme it, and she hesitated for a moment. It’s not too late, she thought. I can just call the whole thing off and the only person who will know is Daddy. Daddy and Craig. But then she thought of Daphne, who’d thrown herself into the planning, the organising of food and flowers, the booking of the church, with such enthusiasm, it was as if she were getting married herself. Craig and Daphne had been like two old women, clucking and tutting on Skype over place settings and name cards and favours, insisting on creating a Facebook page, so that the whole town now knew about the wedding, and was inviting itself along to the festivities. Maybe it was too late after all.