Chapter 22
Later that evening Patrick and his wife Luisa called over. Luisa was Brazilian and had moved to Ireland to work in a local factory over ten years ago. She had met Patrick in a bar and the two of them had teamed up and got married. I hadn’t seen them since their wedding day and that had been my first time to meet Luisa.
Patrick looked older now. Even though I was a little over a year older than him, he looked years older than me. He had flecks of grey in his hair near the temples. His skin was more lined too, from working the farm in all weather I supposed.
I went to give him a kiss on the cheek but he went for the other side and we awkwardly bumped heads.
“And Luisa – good to see you again!” I gave her a hug.
Her black curly hair was longer now and her figure was a bit curvier but I supposed kids do that to you. I would know soon enough.
I introduced them to Ben and everyone shook hands politely.
“And this must be Daniel and Mia!” I bent down to the children. They were beautiful exotic creatures – I’m sure their Brazilian darkness meant that they stood out from the usual pale-faced children around these parts.
“Say hi to your Auntie Kate.”
But the children remained rooted to the spot. Daniel stared at me open-mouthed and Mia started to hide behind her mother’s skirt, pulling it over her head as an embarrassed Luisa tried to yank it back down again.
“Hi, guys, I brought you presents.”
I gave Daniel a Ben 10 watch, which seemed to do the trick – it was hard to know – but Mia didn’t mask her true feelings when I gave her a Dora the Explorer torch.
“I no like Dora,” she said, her huge brown eyes looking up at me.
“Don’t be silly, Mia!” said Patrick. “Say thank you to your Auntie Kate.”
I could see he was embarrassed.
“No!” she said defiantly.
“She’s grand – don’t worry about it,” I said. “I probably should have asked you what she is into first before I bought anything.”
There was a pause.
“Why don’t you all sit down,” Dad said.
“So I see you two are having a baby then?” Patrick said.
“We sure are.” I placed my hands on my rapidly growing bump.
“When are you due?” Luisa asked me in an accent that now had a tinge of Mayo in it.
“September.”
“Nice time of the year to have a baby.”
“Yeah, not too hot or too cold,” I said, repeating what Dad had said earlier on because it was all that I could think of to say. “How’s the farm going, Patrick?”
“Grand – we’ll be starting the harvesting next week if we get a dry spell at all.” He paused. “How long are ye home for?”
“We’re heading back Sunday morning – Ben has school on Monday.”
“You’re a teacher, aren’t you, Ben?”
“Yes – I teach Year Two.”
“I wouldn’t know what that is.”
“Oh sorry, of course – six-year-olds, like himself there.” Ben gestured at Daniel.
“You talk funny!” Daniel piped up.
Ben started to laugh.
“Daniel!” Patrick chastised him. “You have a bit of the accent yourself, Kate.”
“Do I?”
“Well, I suppose fifteen years will do that to you,” Patrick said.
“Wow! Am I gone that long?” Even though I knew that I was.
He said nothing. He didn’t need to. The words hung there in the air between us.
“Who’s for tea?” Dad said, breaking the silence.
He placed the teapot down on the table with the mugs that he had looped through the fingers of his other hand.
He poured the tea and we all added our own milk and sugar.
Soon after, Seán stopped by on his way home from work.
“Hiya, Kate!” He stuck his smiling head around the back door.
“Seán!” I stood up and walked over to hug him. I was four years older than him but he was still my baby brother.
Was I imagining it or did I catch Patrick rolling his eyes?
“And this must be Ben?” He walked over and shook hands with him. “And what’s the story with this?” He pointed to my bump.
“It’s a baby – duh!”
He laughed. “Well, fair play to you! Congratulations.”
“I hear you’re working in Acton’s?”
“Yeah, for my sins, but it’s grand.”
“Are they still as stingy as ever?”
“Worse. They’re tighter than a camel’s arse in a sandstorm, the miserable gits. Ah, sure it’s handy for the time being – but I’ll give myself a couple of more years and then see where I end up. Who knows, I might even head to London!”
“Well, you’re very welcome any time, you know that.”
“So what are yeer plans for the weekend?”
“I’m not sure really, to be honest.”
“Well, I’m meeting a few of the lads in Doyle’s later – will you and Ben join us?”
Doyle’s was the main pub in the square in Ballyrobin. There were three pubs in the village – one was a tiny old-man pub and the other had a reputation as a rough spot, so Doyle’s was the place where everyone went.
I was just about to make an excuse when Ben interrupted me, “That’d be great thanks, Seán.”
I could feel butterflies in my tummy instantly – God only knew what old faces I would bump into there.
“How about you, Patrick – fancy a few drinks?” said Seán.
“I won’t, Seán – I’ve an early start in the morning.”
“Dad?”
“I might go for one so – it’s not every day that Kate comes home to visit us.”
After dinner, we got changed and walked down to the pub. I took a deep breath as Seán pushed open the door and we followed in behind him. We got a seat in the corner. Seán asked us what we wanted to drink and went up to the bar to order the round. I watched as he chatted easily with a man sitting up on a stool at the bar. He was such a friendly type of guy – everyone loved him. He had been like that as a child too.
“Pity Patrick couldn’t join us,” Dad said.
“Yeah,” I said but really I was glad because I couldn’t handle any more of his disapproving looks, laced with guilt trips. I picked up a beer-mat and started fiddling with it idly.
The pub started to fill up a while later. I recognised a few faces of people from around the village.
As the others drank their drinks I stuck with the sparkling water. Seán entertained us with stories about Mr Acton and we were actually having a bit of a laugh. I could tell that Ben was enjoying himself anyway.
Whatever way Baby Pip was lying, she seemed to be sitting on my bladder constantly these days. Seán laughed at me as I moved past him on the seat to go to the toilet again.
I had just come out of the cubicle and was washing my hands when the girl at the basin beside me looked across at me.
“Kate – Kate Flynn, is that you?”
I turned to look at her – she was vaguely familiar.
“Yeah, hi.” I desperately tried to remember her name.
“Jane – Jane Dwyer. We were in school together.”
“Oh yeah, it’s great to see you again, Jane.” I tried to pretend that I remembered her but I knew she wasn’t fooled.
“I haven’t seen you round these parts in a while?”
“No, I’m living in London now – I’m just home for the weekend.”
“Very nice! What are you up to over there?”
“I’m working in a photography gallery. And you?”
“I’m in the bank – it’s grand – close to home so it only takes me five minutes to get to work.”
“That’s handy.”
Her clothes aged her – even though she was only my age she could easily have passed for a forty-year-old. I suppose Ballyrobin was hardly Fashion Central.
“And you’ve
a baby on the way.” She nodded at my bump as she turned to use the hand-towel. She jerked the roll down and dried her hands on it.
“Yeah.”
“Your first?”
“Yeah. How about you, do you have any yourself?”
“I’ve three actually. Gary is four, Luke is three and Danielle one.”
“Well, you’ve been busy.”
“Tell me about it. So when are you due?”
“September.”
“Nice time of year to have a baby –”
“Not too hot or too cold,” I said impatiently.
“Yeah . . .”
I could see her looking at me, as if trying to figure me out. There was an awkward silence between us.
“Well, nice seeing you again, Kate and I hope all goes well in September.” She turned quickly and walked out of the bathroom.
Chapter 23
“What’s the story with the shower?” Ben shouted out from the bathroom the next morning.
“Oh, I should have remembered! I’ll have to turn on the immersion for you. But it’ll take some time.”
Dad still hadn’t progressed to an electric shower. I went and flicked the immersion switch.
Ben came back into the room. “Your family are great, Kate. I’m so glad to have finally met them.”
I said nothing and continued typing the text message that I was sending to Nat to see how she was doing.
The water still wasn’t very hot when Ben finally went to shower and he used up most of it – when it was my turn it changed from lukewarm to cold intermittently so I had to keep jumping back out and then I would stand under it again when it warmed up a bit. When I was finished I climbed back out over the bathtub – the shower head was rigged up over the bath – and wrapped myself in a towel which was rough from years of being washed with no fabric softener.
As I went back down the hall to the bedroom, I could smell the fry that Dad was cooking for breakfast. Ben was lying back on the bed with a towel wrapped around his waist, reading the newspaper he had brought over on the plane with him the day before.
“C’mon, Ben – get dressed. I’m going to show you a real breakfast.” There was nothing like the sausages and black pudding from home. They were probably the only things that I actually did miss.
We got dressed and went along to the kitchen.
“Morning,” I said to Dad.
“Good morning. Did ye sleep well? That bed is a bit springy.”
“Well, I slept great,” Ben said.
“Me too – apart from Ben snoring.”
“Was I? Sorry, love.”
“You’re always the same after a few pints.”
I devoured the breakfast that Dad put on the plate in front of me: rashers, sausages, egg, black and white pudding, and fried potatoes. When Dad saw me getting stuck into it he put a few more sausages into the pan for me.
I buttered a slice of soda bread generously, put a slice of pudding on top and ate it. “Mmmh.”
“I got them in Reilly’s specially for you.”
Reilly’s was the butcher in the village.
“These are great – I can see now why you always moan about the sausages in the UK!” Ben said, laughing.
When he was finished cooking, Dad sat down beside us at the table.
“What are you two at today then?” he asked.
“I don’t know – we might take in the sights around Ballyrobin,” I said, laughing.
“Well, I thought you might like to go and visit Granny and Aoife today?” Dad said seriously.
I groaned inwardly. I didn’t dare to do it out loud. I had thought that I could avoid this one.
“Great idea,” Ben said enthusiastically.
“Well, I –”
“What?” Ben cut across me.
“Well, I thought maybe we might head off for the day. Y’know – I could show you around the West?”
“You can’t come home after eight years and not visit your grandmother, Kate!”
“Right, okay.” I knew I was fighting a losing battle. “We’ll go . . .”
After lunch, Dad drove us to Granny’s house down the road. I was more nervous about this visit than anything else. Dad pushed back the tiny wrought-iron gate and we followed him around towards the back of the cottage. He stopped to pull up a few weeds that had grown up through the cracks on the path. He pushed open the door and I followed him into the kitchen.
Granny was dozing in her chair by the range. She had sat in that chair ever since I could remember. The smell of turf filled the air. I noticed the worn lino had small burn marks from where the sparks had jumped out on to the floor.
“Look who’s come to see you, Josephine,” Dad said softly.
“Hi, Gran.”
“I didn’t hear ye come in!” she said as she woke with a start.
“Sorry! We didn’t mean to scare you,” I said. I knew by her that she was embarrassed to be caught sleeping.
“How are ye?” she said, using her stick to lever herself up out of the chair. She didn’t have a stick the last time I’d seen her.
I rushed over and held onto her elbow to help her up.
“It’s great to see you, Granny.” I gave her a big hug.
She held my face between both her palms and kissed me on the forehead. Once again the guilt caught up with me. The woman was nearly ninety. The soft mushy skin on her face smelt warm and comforting.
“And are you with child?”
“I am, Granny.”
“Oh, that’s great news. Great news altogether.” If she was put out by Ben and me not being married she didn’t show it. She fished around in the pocket of her dress, took out a relic of Padre Pio and started to bless my bump with it. “That’ll keep you safe.”
I turned to Ben. “Granny, this is Ben.”
“You’re welcome to Ballyrobin, Ben,” she said, shaking his hand vigorously.
“Is Aoife not home from college yet?” Dad asked.
“She’s on her way – she rang me before she left – she had an exam today, y’know, Kate. God love her, that course of hers is very hard.”
“She’s well able for it, Josephine,” Dad said.
“Oh, don’t I know it, but my fingers are nearly down to the bone from saying the rosary for her. She wasn’t nervous at all going off this morning – I was worse.” She started to laugh.
The back door opened then and a tall girl dressed casually in a hoody, blue skinny jeans and fake Ugg boots came in. Her white-blonde hair was parted in the centre and it went down dead straight past her shoulders. You could see that it was her natural hair colour. It made her look very innocent and childlike still. She was beautiful in a Timotei-ad sort of way. She had enviably clear skin, no freckles or blemishes. It was like staring back at my reflection. Only then did I realise it was Aoife. The last time I saw her she had been eleven.
“Ah, Aoife, you’re back!” Dad said.
The surprise at seeing me there was written all over her face.
“Kate,” she said but I knew she wasn’t happy to see me.
“Hi,” I said nervously.
“This is Ben,” Gran said then because I seemed to have lost the power of speech.
Ben stepped forward and shook her hand.
“Nice to meet you, Ben.” Her voice was so soft that it was barely audible.
“How did you get on, love?” Gran asked.
“It went well, I think, Gran. I got stuck on a small part but other than that everything that I had studied came up.”
“Well, thank God for that – you see, all those rosaries worked after all!” she said triumphantly.
Aoife smiled indulgently at her.
“I’m sure you did great – she has brains to burn, doesn’t she, Josephine?” Dad said.
“Ah, she does, Noel.”
Redness crept upwards on Aoife’s cheeks.
“Did you have your lunch yet, Gran?” Aoife asked.
“I did, thanks, love. Do you want me to make som
ething for you?”
“No, I’m grand – a few of us got a sandwich in the canteen afterwards.”
“Ah good.”
“I’ll make a pot of tea then.”
“Good girl, Aoife,” Gran said.
When Aoife had made the tea, we all sat down around the table. The Sacred Heart lamp glowed red on the wall above us.
“So, Aoife, what are you up to at the moment?” Ben said.
I shot him a look.
“Well, I’m in university in Galway – I’m studying architecture. I live up there during the week and then I come back home here at the weekends.”
“She takes great care of me,” Gran said. She put her hand over Aoife’s on the table and patted it. “I’d be lost without her.”
Aoife blushed and looked down at the cup of tea in her hands.
“Well, you couldn’t have picked a worse thing to study!” I said. “You’ll probably have to join the dole queue when you graduate.”
I could see Dad and Ben glaring at me but I didn’t care. “I’m just saying that every architect I know is unemployed at the moment.”
But instead of standing up for herself, Aoife just said nothing.
“Well, Aoife will land on her feet, I just know she will. Won’t you, love?” Gran said.
Aoife smiled back at her.
I felt a small twinge of jealousy.
“So when is your baby due, Kate?” Aoife asked timidly.
“September.”
“That’ll fly in.”
“Hardly! It’s already starting to drag.”
I noticed that her eyebrows, even though they were fair, could do with a plucking. She could also have done with tinting them. They were more like two sheens across her forehead.
“So how come we didn’t see you in Doyle’s last night?” Ben asked Aoife, obviously trying to change the conversation.
“I’m not a big drinker actually,” she said quietly.
We drank the rest of our tea without saying much. Granny asked me about my job and we talked about the weather until Dad said that we had better make tracks.
The whole way home in the car I had to listen to Ben singing Aoife’s praises.
“She’s lovely, isn’t she?” Ben, in the front seat, said to Dad.
The Last Goodbye Page 13