“Yeah, he sounded happy all right. And he’s really looking forward to meeting Ben.” My stomach knotted just thinking about it.
The bell tinkled just then as a rain-soaked tourist came into the gallery.
“Look, you’ll be fine.” Nat took my hand and clasped it in between her own. “You’ll have to face up to it eventually, especially now that you’ve a baby on the way. You’re doing the right thing, Kate.”
“I hope you’re right,” I sighed wearily. I wrapped the sandwich back up in the greaseproof paper and put it in the fridge. Maybe I would want it later.
Chapter 21
It was the night before our trip home and Mr Organised was taking down his suitcase and folding clothes neatly before putting them into it. I had spent the last few days in an anxious mess because of the impending trip. I was snappy with him because he had put me into this situation.
“I’m really looking forward to meeting your family,” he said.
“Look, Ben, just don’t get too excited, okay?” I found myself saying this a lot lately. He was like a child waiting on Santa and I was trying to rein in his enthusiasm.
At my hospital appointment the day before we were just going out the door when Ben stopped dead in the hallway. Two midwives who were walking down the corridor towards us had to separate and walk around him.
“We forgot the letter,” he had said. “You might not get on the flight without it.”
“It’ll be fine, come on,” I said, grabbing his arm to go.
“No, Kate, I’m not taking any chances.”
“Right,” I sighed and went back in and requested the ‘fit to fly’ letter from the doctor.
I was absolutely dreading the trip. I had palpitations just thinking about it all. I had tried explaining it to Ben but he just didn’t get it. He was going around with his big cheery head on him, thinking that I would go home and play happy families with them all and everything would be forgotten about. Well, he was very wrong.
“What do you think I should pack?” he asked me.
“Rain gear.”
“What?”
“It always rains at home.”
“Don’t you think you’re exaggerating ever so slightly?”
“Well, when you’re getting pissed on don’t blame me.”
“Okay but, besides rain gear, do you reckon I’ll need to pack a shirt and some proper trousers? Will we be going out over there, do you think?”
I nearly choked with laughter except this situation wasn’t funny.
“I’ll take that as a no then, will I?” he said impatiently as he hung the shirt he had taken off the hanger back up in the wardrobe. “Aren’t you going to pack, Kate? We’ve an early start in the morning and we don’t want to miss our flight.”
“Heaven forbid,” I muttered under my breath. “Sure all I have to do is just grab my raincoat on the way out the door.”
“Seriously, Kate, I’m not going to be late tomorrow – so if you’re not packed then, tough – you’ll be wearing my clothes all weekend.”
“All right,” I said sulkily, swinging my legs over the side of the bed.
I opened my drawers and took out a few things. I stuffed them into my hold-all before zipping it shut, all while Ben was busy neatly rolling a pair of boxer shorts together and stuffing them inside a shoe.
“There, happy now?” I said.
On the train to the airport the next morning my heart was beating in my chest and the palms of my hands were sweaty just thinking about what lay ahead. Ben seemed oblivious to how I was feeling and chatted away to me even though I wasn’t talking back. He actually seemed to be excited. Well, he was going to be seriously disappointed. Here we go, I thought. I took a deep breath and climbed the steep stairs and walked across the tarmac until we were inside the terminal.
“Can you see our check-in desk?” I asked impatiently.
My case rattled as the wheels bumped over the gaps in the tiles as I pulled it along the concourse.
Ben checked the ticket and then looked up at the board. “It’s desk number seventeen.”
We walked over and got in the queue.
“I’m really looking forward to meeting them all,” he said for what felt like the zillionth time since he had bought the tickets.
I gritted my teeth. After we had checked in, Ben bought a paper in WHS and I tried reading the magazine that came inside it but I couldn’t concentrate on it. I would start reading the first paragraph and then realise that my mind had wandered and I would have to reread it. Finally our flight was ready for boarding and I stood up and got into the queue.
We boarded and of course ours were the seats at the very back of the plane so we had to wait while every other person put their case up in the overhead bins and then realised they’d forgotten their sucky sweets or something equally useless and had to go back out into the aisle and reach up to take their bag down again. Why they couldn’t just stand in until everyone else had boarded and then go out into the aisle to take down their bags was beyond me.
When we finally took our seats I buried my head in my book but it didn’t stop Ben from chatting away incessantly throughout the whole flight. A rosy-cheeked baby in the seat in front of me was playing peek-a-boo with me. She would throw her toy over the seat and I would pick it up and give it to her and she would do it over and over again, never getting fed up of the repetition until it was time for the parents to put her seatbelt on. I couldn’t believe that in less than three months’ time Baby Pip would be here with us, all going well. I thought about Pip and tried to imagine us with a baby doing the same thing but I couldn’t no matter how much I tried. The turbulence, due to high winds, did nothing for my mood.
“See, I told you this was a bad idea,” I said, turning to Ben as the plane lurched once again.
“It’s only a bit of turbulence, Kate.”
It wasn’t long before I could see Dublin Bay in the distance. I looked down through the small window as we swooped in over it. A patchwork of velvety green fields was knitted together with seams of dark-green evergreen trees. The wispy clouds were perfectly suspended as if hanging from invisible strings between us and the ground below. The stewardess went along picking up any rubbish and checking to make sure seat belts were closed and tray tables were up.
“This is amazing.” Ben peered out the window over my shoulder. “Where is that?”
“Howth Head.” It looked lusciously green from up above. I had forgotten what a magnificent sight it was.
“I can’t believe I never made you bring me back here before now.” There he was again, all excited, like we were on a mini-break ready to explore a new country, not a country that held nothing but bad memories for me. The plane descended. The landing gear dropped down and soon after we came to a juddering halt on the runway.
“Tá fáilte libh go léir go dtí mBaile Átha Cliath . . .” The familiar Aer Lingus greeting welcomed us to Dublin.
In the terminal we headed for passport control. It felt so strange to my ear now, hearing the soft Irish lilt all around me. We had brought our cases as carry-on luggage so we didn’t need to go near the cattle mart that was baggage reclaim.
As we walked out through the doors that would lead us into the arrivals hall my stomach somersaulted. If I had been nervous before, it was nothing compared to how I was feeling now. All I saw were a sea of faces as I tried to find Dad’s. I had looked from left to right and back again when finally I saw him step forward.
“Kate, Kate, over here!”
“Dad!” I said, forcing myself to sound happy.
He looked smaller now than I had remembered and his hair, instead of being salt-and-pepper-coloured, was now entirely grey. He was wearing glasses now too – he didn’t have them the last time. He was still dressed the same as always – a beige anorak covered a pullover with a shirt underneath and brown slacks.
“Kate – how are you, my love?” He wrapped me into a big hug before pulling back and holding me in his arms, taking m
e in.
I could smell the farm off him. Even when I had lived there it was hard to ever really get the smell off your skin. I felt self-conscious and wriggled a little so he dropped his arms. I felt bad then.
“Dad – this is Ben. Ben – this is my dad.”
“Pleased to meet you.” Ben pumped Dad’s hand enthusiastically.
“Kate, are you . . . expecting?” Dad asked.
“Yep.”
“Well, I’m shocked! Congratulations! So this was the news you wanted to tell me! Isn’t that fantastic? When are you due?”
“September.”
“Lovely time of year for a baby to be born – it won’t be too hot or too cold.”
“We’re very excited,” Ben said, taking hold of my hand, but I pulled it away from him.
“Right then, let’s go,” I said.
“Oh yes, this way – follow me,” Dad said.
Outside, we walked along, ducking our heads in the rain.
“I’m sorry for the weather – it’s desperate,” Dad said. “We had a few days of sun in May and it’s been raining since.
“Well, shame on you for not having the sun out for us.”
But he didn’t get my sarcasm and I just sounded mean and bitchy.
I let Ben sit in the front of Dad’s Nissan Micra because of his height. I took the back seat and we set off for Mayo.
“So Kate tells me you’re a teacher, Ben?”
“I am indeed.”
“Great job, teaching! Sure with the paid holidays and a pension you couldn’t go wrong.”
Our parents were poles apart. I think Dad was more impressed by the fact that Ben was a teacher than if he had been the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. In my dad’s eyes, nothing compared to the security of having a state-protected job. I suppose he had seen Ireland in far worse times than I had, but they were back again by all accounts – you only had to lift a newspaper or watch the news to hear tales of Ireland’s woes.
“Are your parents teachers too, Ben?”
“No, my parents are both barristers actually. Well, Mum was – until myself and my sister arrived on the scene.”
“Barristers no less – well, isn’t that something? It’s always good to have a few legal eagles in the family, eh, Kate?”
“It sure is.”
I couldn’t believe there was a motorway practically the whole way home. The last time I was home there was a bit of motorway then the road would go into a single carriageway before coming back to a dual carriageway again. It would chop and change depending on which County Council had had the funds to upgrade their road network. But now it all had been completely transformed. The motorways were all joined together and, instead of getting caught in Friday-afternoon traffic in villages along the way, we cut the journey time in half almost.
As we drove into Ballyrobin village I couldn’t believe how much the place had changed since I was last home. Huge warehouses greeted us on the approach road as well as a red-blue-and-white-box Tesco. There were sprawling new housing estates everywhere.
“Wasn’t that where the paint factory used to be?” I asked, pointing out the window to what was now a half-finished housing estate. The walls were up but there were no roofs and the gate was padlocked. There were huge puddles all along the roadway. It was a depressing sight.
“It was but McCarthy sold out to a developer at the height of all the madness and six months later the whole thing crashed. It’s a ghost estate now – the place is littered with them! This country is gone to the dogs, I tell you – we’ll all have to get off the sinking ship. The last man out may turn out the lights!”
I had seen this kind of thing on the news whenever there was a piece about Ireland but seeing it in reality in the village where I grew up really brought it home to me.
I wasn’t sure if Ballyrobin could be even called a village any more. It was no longer the same sleepy place that I had known as a child. Finally we turned onto the familiar road where I grew up. All the bungalows on this road were the same, our own house included – the front door was on the left-hand side and there were three windows to the right of it. I think their design came from a book of plans that did the rounds in the seventies. When Seán was born Dad had built on a flat-roof extension at the back of the house. That was the only thing that distinguished our house from our neighbours.
As we turned into my childhood home, I almost felt sick. Unlike the rest of the place, here it was like time had stood still. Nothing had changed. We drove past the small lawn to the front where there used to be flowerbeds full of pansies and dahlias in the summertime but I didn’t think they flowered any more.
“There you are now,” Dad said as he turned off the engine, the wipers coming to an abrupt stop.
We followed him in the back door and into the kitchen.
“Sit down there at the table and I’ll put the kettle on. I’m sure you’re parched after the journey.”
He made a pot of tea and put it on the table with three mugs. Coffee wasn’t an option so I had warned Ben not to bother asking. Dad laid down a plate of buttered brown bread in front of us.
“It’s lovely to finally see where Kate comes from,” Ben said as if I wasn’t in the room.
“Well, it’s great to have you here – we don’t get to see her often enough – but I know you’re busy over there, love. Patrick and his gang will be over soon and Seán will be down to see you this evening. You haven’t met little Daniel and Mia.”
He was referring to my niece and nephew, Patrick’s children. I felt an acute wave of guilt wash over me.
“Yeah, I’m really looking forward to that. What age are they again?”
I could see Ben looking at me in disbelief.
“Well, Daniel was six last month and Mia is three.”
“Wow, time flies.” I could feel myself reddening under Ben’s glare.
All the same ornaments and figurines were on display in the glass cabinet. There was a china doll, with pale skin, rosy cheeks and a lacy petticoat, that I had been mad about as a girl. I used to beg to be allowed to play with it.
After we had finished our tea I got up from the table. “We should bring our bags down to the room.” As we walked down the hall to the bedroom, I noticed the navy carpet with its green flecks had been replaced by laminate wood flooring. I glanced briefly at the old family photos that still hung on the wall. I remembered when one large family photo had been taken. We had all been marched to a photography studio in Ballyrobin, dressed up in our Sunday best. Our clothes and hairstyles looked so old-fashioned now. With my blonde pudding-bowl-style haircut I could easily have passed for a boy except for the corduroy dress with the embroidered trim that I was wearing. Ben had a right laugh when he saw it.
“So you’re a natural blonde then!”
It was the first time he had ever seen a childhood photo of me.
“I told you I was.”
“But I can’t understand why you need to fork out a hundred quid every few weeks getting highlights then?”
“And that’s because you’re a man.”
“What do you mean?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
I held my breath as I pushed back the bedroom door. The same cream floral wallpaper was still on the walls. It was all a bit dusty and the air was musty even though Dad had opened the window to air the room before we came. All my old books with yellowed pages – from Enid Blyton to Judy Blume and right up to Stephen King – were still on the shelves. My rosettes from my horse-riding days still hung on the wall. But the bed was a double one instead of my old single.
A poster of Jared Leto hung down by one corner.
“What is it about that guy? My sister Laura was mad about him as well.” Ben picked up the corner and tried resticking it with the Blu-Tack that was the still on the wall but it just kept on folding back down on itself so he eventually gave up.
“I was obsessed with him as a teenager – I was convinced we would have been so suited if only I cou
ld have met him in real life.”
“People say I look like him, y’know?”
“Yeah, Ben, about as much as I resemble Angelina Jolie.”
“Harsh.” He shook his head.
The rain hopped off the flat-roof extension where my bedroom was in staccato beats.
“I never knew you could play the violin?” He was pointing to my Grade Two exam certificate that hung on the wall.
“I can’t. Well, not now anyway. I hated practising so I didn’t keep it going.”
He continued poking and examining stuff as he went around the room.
“Here, what’s this?” he said as he grabbed something off the bookshelves.
I recognised it straight away.
“Here, give it to me, Ben!”
“No way.” He held it over my head and started flicking through the pages as I tried to reach up and take it back off him. This was where his height came in handy for him.
“Ben, give it to me now!”
And he knew by my tone that I meant it. He handed the diary to me.
I looked at the orange cover, practically covered with inky blue doodles. I sat on the bed and opened it up. I read the date on top of the page: 2nd September 1994. I did a quick mental calculation. I would have been fifteen. As I read through the entry it all came rushing back to me. Suddenly I felt like I was back there again in that exact moment, sitting under that mountain of hurt. I could remember exactly how I had felt when I had written it. I may have escaped it all in London but all it took was something small like this and I was right back there again. Tears brimmed in my eyes.
“I’m sorry, Kate – I thought it was just a silly teenage diary. If I had known I never would have picked it up like that.”
“God, this is ridiculous – I can’t believe the effect all this still has on me.” I wiped my eyes with the backs of my hands.
He came up beside me and draped his arm across my shoulders. “Sorry, Kate, I didn’t realise. C’mon, please don’t cry, this isn’t good for you or the baby.”
“Well then, you should never have made me come back here.”
The Last Goodbye Page 12