‘I sometimes wonder if she had a brother or a sister, would it be easier on her, you know?’ I say to Shelley. ‘Did you have anyone to lean on when you lost your own mum?’
Shelley shakes her head knowingly.
‘I would have given my right arm to have a sibling, but no, I’m an only child too and it was horrendous. I think you are doing exactly the right thing by taking her on this holiday, Juliette,’ she says. ‘You have made a very conscious decision to give her the very best of you before you go and I don’t think there is anything more you can do than that. I wish I’d had that time with my mother.’
I feel a lump in my throat at the reminder that this is all really happening. I am here, in a stranger’s house in Ireland, asking for advice on how to prepare my daughter for my death.
‘And after I go?’ I manage to whisper.
Shelley’s eyes are glazed now and I’m afraid I may be probing too much.
‘Make sure she is with the people who love her most,’ she tells me. ‘Make sure she has someone to watch over her every step of the way – an aunt, a friend her own age, a father figure, anyone you can trust to make sure she has someone to turn to when she needs to. That’s really all you can do.’
I look out at Rosie as my heart breaks into millions of pieces.
‘And I suppose,’ says Shelley, ‘depending on whether you believe in it all, I think a reassurance that you will be with her in spirit, as clichéd as that may sound might help more than you know.’
Oh God.
‘I do believe in that,’ I tell her. ‘I have so much I want to do and say to her and I just hope that I have time to pack it all in.’
‘Do you know how long?’ she asks me.
I shake my head.
‘I don’t have a specific timeframe, but I know I don’t have long left,’ I tell her. ‘Weeks, maybe. Who knows? A few months, if I’m lucky.’
Shelley looks me in the eye and then looks away again.
‘Oh my goodness, I don’t know what to say to you,’ she whispers. ‘That is just heart-breaking for you both.’
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to burden you with all this on a Sunday morning,’ I tell her, remembering that we have totally interrupted her morning with my doom and gloom. ‘I’m sure you are used to much more jolly visitors than us! We really should be making tracks and leaving you to get on with your day.’
I go to stand up.
‘No, it’s okay, honestly,’ Shelley tells me. That pain again on her face. That deep, deep pain. Desperation, almost.
‘We should go. I’m sorry.’
‘No. Look,’ she says. ‘Yesterday was a tough day for me and I wasn’t expecting to have that kind of conversation with anyone, so I hoped that I had helped Rosie just a little, and to see that I have means a lot to me. You have no idea what it means to me, actually. It’s really nice of you to pop by. I’m glad you did and you really don’t have to go yet, not on my account anyway.’
She looks at my seat and I sit down again.
‘I’m glad we called too,’ I say to Shelley. ‘You’ve been through it all yourself so I guess you really do understand.’
I want to ask her what it is that she is going through now though, not out of nosiness, but out of concern. This young woman is in turmoil and full of angst and I have no doubt that she has not had a visitor in this beautiful cold house in a long, long time. I try to lighten the mood.
‘On a more positive note,’ I say, straightening up in my seat, ‘we are going to have a lovely time here in Killara. The best time, ever. I’ve always meant to come back here and never did, so when my doctor suggested some quality time out from city life, I knew I’d have to do exactly what I was told and come here again to see what I’ve been missing.’
Shelley takes a sip from her tea, holding the cup with both hands.
‘There’s something about this place, isn’t there?’ she says to me, her eyes filled with wonder. ‘A lot of people don’t ever leave when they come here. It gets under their skin so much – the food, the sea, the art, the music, the friendly locals, not to mention the pubs. There is always something happening to cater for all tastes. I love it here, I really do. I can’t see Matt and I ever living anywhere else but here. I wanted to move away from this house, but when it came to it, how could I? How could I leave something that we put so much of ourselves into?’
And I can see exactly what she means. Shelley is like a young woman who has it all with her big house and her own business, yet her eyes are vacant and I really do get the impression that she is only living life in first gear right now. I’m obviously wrong in my divorce assumptions. Oh, what I’d give to be in her shoes with her whole life ahead of her. She speaks fondly of her husband, she has the most magnificent home and works in that gorgeous, quirky shop, so what on earth more does she want in life? What is she missing at such a young age?
‘Look, I know you haven’t lived around here forever,’ I say to her, not knowing where I am finding the courage to actually ask this question or how it has entered my head out of the blue. ‘But can I ask you something?’
My bold streak that has run through my veins since I was just a young girl has sprung to the surface and I can’t help myself from asking her my burning question.
‘Of course,’ she replies. ‘Go ahead.’
I want to stop myself but I can’t.
‘I wanted to ask you …’ I begin, then pause. ‘Look, I’m going to just cut to the chase. Do you know of a man who might live around here, well, he might not live around here at all but – oh actually, just forget it. I sometimes think I’m losing my mind going down this road at all and—’
‘Tell me,’ says Shelley, shifting on her seat. ‘Are you looking for someone?’
I pause.
‘Not actively, no,’ I manage. ‘I’m just being curious and opportunistic of your local knowledge since you’ve lived here a while, but ignore me. I could be asking for trouble.’
But Shelley isn’t letting me away at that.
‘If I don’t know of him I can guarantee that my husband will as he has lived here most of his life,’ she says to me. ‘Is it someone you have a history with? An old flame? Oh, is it an ex-lover?’
She looks excited, but I can feel my face flush slightly and I shrug, trying to play it down though I can’t help but smile at the thought of those hazy drunken days here all those years ago.
‘Oh please, go on!’ she says, and her face is suddenly, dare I say, animated, like she has forgotten for just a moment what it is that is constantly on her mind and preventing her from smiling these days.
‘I can’t believe I’m asking you this,’ I say, putting my hands to my cheeks like an embarrassed teenager and my voice drops to a whisper. ‘You see … I’m looking for someone I haven’t seen since we met here all those summers ago, way back in 2003. I don’t know if he lived here or if he was just passing through like I was back then, and I don’t have a proper name for him but I would so love to get some closure. I’d just like to know where he is, or even better, let him know about Rosie if the vibe from him was right. You see … Rosie is his. I must be losing my mind to be telling you this. It’s a secret I’ve kept from almost everyone since the day she was born.’
Now, Shelley is really interested.
‘About Rosie?’ she says in a whisper. ‘Oh my goodness, Juliette, that’s a lot more serious than I thought. Tell me what you know of him and I’ll ask Matt or Eliza if I can’t help you myself. That’s if you definitely want to find him. It’s a big decision under the circumstances, isn’t it?’
She waits in anticipation for his name and my urge to say it lingers in the air. She has stopped twiddling her hair and doesn’t seem so robotic now that I have given her this information. It is pretty serious when you think about it, that somewhere nearby might be a man who has the same flesh and blood and genes as my daughter and whom I have never yet told of her existence – but here I am, fifteen years after her conception, when lo and beho
ld, I am just about to die. It’s serious alright. It’s crazy perhaps. Me and my big mouth.
‘Actually, just forget I ever mentioned it,’ I say, sliding off my stool and lifting my purse. ‘I shouldn’t have told you that, Shelley. I’m really sorry. Rosie and I should be on our way – gosh, is that the time? I really wanted to get a long walk in and then take her for lunch. At least the sun is out today and I don’t have to worry about clothes. Yesterday was a strange one. Thanks for the—’
‘Please don’t go.’
Shelley stands up as well and looks me in the eye.
‘Please don’t leave yet,’ she says. ‘I would really like you to stay and chat. Tell me about your mystery man. I may not have a clue who he is but I’m enjoying our conversation and you have no idea how long it has taken me to do this.’
I have no idea what she is talking about.
‘Do what, Shelley?’
‘This. Talk. Chat. Get excited. Have a conversation with someone about life and the ups and downs we all have to encounter and how the world doesn’t just revolve around me and this empty house and my misery and grief. I never do this. I never let anyone in. Just talk to me about him. Please. It’s exciting and it’s new and I haven’t been moved by anything in three years and I really don’t want you to go. And if you decide when you leave here this morning that you want to keep our conversation top secret I can assure you my lips are sealed. I promise you, I really do. Would you have another cuppa?’
I am totally taken aback by Shelley’s outburst and the plea on her face has melted my heart. She is a young woman living in a big empty shell of a house, wracked with the worries of the world when she surely has her whole life ahead of her and here she is, begging me, me on death’s door, to stay and talk more about my whimsical dream of a man who I know nothing of. I am strangely honoured and let’s face it, I don’t have much to lose, so I sit back down on the stool and she does the same.
‘His nickname was Skipper,’ I whisper to her with a shrug and a smile. ‘There, I said it out loud. Skipper. He was a boat man, and what a fine and handsome boat man he was. Skipper. And that’s all I know.’
I wait.
‘Do you know him?’ I ask, wondering what on earth is going on in her mind. I wait and watch for her reaction as the name sinks in. And it does. Her mouth has dropped open.
‘Oh my God,’ she says, her hand slowly going to her mouth.
Is that a good oh my God or a bad oh my God? I can’t tell.
‘I do know him,’ says Shelley and she swallows and gulps as if I have just delivered the worst news ever. ‘Skipper the boat man … I know Skipper for sure. Are you sure he’s Rosie’s father?’
I nod my head and look outside at Rosie.
‘I’m totally sure,’ I tell her. ‘There’s no way it could have been anyone else.’
Chapter 11
Shelley
I can’t believe what I’m hearing from this stranger in front of me. Jesus, I do not know what to say.
Skipper?
I get up to make more tea as promised and I can feel my hands shaking as I do so.
‘I knew I shouldn’t have told you this,’ says Juliette and I feel so bad for not being able to hide what I’m thinking. ‘Maybe we should just leave, after all.’
‘No,’ I tell her. ‘You don’t have to.’
‘Is it bad that it’s him?’ she asks me. ‘Is he a bad person or is he someone I should avoid?’
‘No, he’s not a bad person.’
‘Oh my God, is it your husband?’
‘No!’ I tell her quickly. ‘God, no! It’s not my husband.’
Her pale face relaxes just a little.
‘Matt wouldn’t know the first thing about working on boats,’ I explain. ‘But he has told me so much about Skipper. Oh Juliette, I am so sorry to be the one to have to tell you but—’
‘What then?’
‘I’m sorry,’ I tell her, glancing out at Rosie, then looking back at Juliette in pity. ‘He’s … he’s not here anymore.’
I can’t say it. I really can’t say it but then Juliette says it for me.
‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’
I nod. She’s right. Skipper is dead. Oh Christ, this is awful. She sits back down on her stool and puts her head in her hands and she starts to cry.
‘Oh, Juliette I am so, so sorry,’ I say to her. I go towards her and I want to touch her shoulder and make her feel better but I don’t. ‘I wish I had much better news for you and it was so brave of you to tell me but—’
‘What the hell am I crying for?’ she whispers and sniffles, glancing all the time out towards the balcony in case Rosie comes back in. ‘I barely knew him. I don’t know why I am getting so upset. I know nothing about him, only what I see every day through my daughter. Why am I so upset?’
‘Of course you’re upset,’ I say and then I do something that until yesterday, I haven’t done to anyone since Lily died, apart from Matt, or my dad when I see him. I reach out to her and I give her a hug, just like I did with Rosie yesterday evening on the beach. She hugs me back tightly and I try to squeeze away some of her pain and some of my own pain too.
‘I swear to God I wasn’t expecting him to be dead,’ she tells me when we part. ‘I had myself all prepared for him being a married man who didn’t want to know me or Rosie, or even someone who didn’t remember me and denied it all and demanded some sort of DNA test to prove it. I had so many scenarios go through my head but never did I think he would be dead. He was only my age or thereabouts. Maybe a bit younger. How can he be dead? When?’
‘Skipper, or Pete which was his real name, was only about twenty-five when he died, I think,’ I tell her, trying to explain this as gently as I can. ‘I didn’t get the chance to ever meet him in person, but Matt speaks so fondly of him and his death was a big shock to everyone who knew him.’
She looks out the window, her face furrowed in pain.
‘How did he …?’
I swallow. I only ever heard this story second-hand through Matt but it’s one of those stories that everyone around here knows.
‘He was killed in an accident,’ I tell her. ‘A boating accident, which makes it even more tragic as he was one of the finest captains around here, or so they say. I’m ever so sorry.’
I can’t bear to think what must be going through Juliette’s head right now at the news of Rosie’s biological father being dead all this time. The thought of leaving her child behind with no consolation of finally meeting her biological father must be truly devastating for her.
‘I had so many silly hopes and dreams for what might come out of this trip, even though I denied it to everyone, including myself,’ Juliette says. ‘I had hoped so much in my heart that Skipper would remember me instantly and would recognize Rosie as his own the moment he laid eyes on her, and even if he had a wife and family of his own, he would slowly welcome her into his life … so that when I go, I would know that she at least got to meet him and that I’d done my bit instead of all these years of telling her that her father had never known I was stillpregnant with her, and that I’d never been able to find him to tell him about her.’
‘Oh you poor thing. Is that what you told her?’
She shrugs and nods. ‘I’m not proud of it, but I had to come up with something to answer her questions,’ she said. ‘That worked until she was about ten and then I met Dan, my husband, and she forgot about what she didn’t have for a while. But recently, well since Dan and I split up actually, she’s been asking me about him again and I’ve found letters that she has been writing to him, telling him all about her life so far and it just tore me up inside when I saw her longing for him in black and white. I really hoped this would all be different, just for her sake, but my sister was right. I shouldn’t have come here. I should have let sleeping dogs lie. I should have just gone to Scotland or Cornwall or somewhere that isn’t here, somewhere with no memories.’
I want to phone Matt and ask him what I should do or
say in this situation. He would know exactly what to do. He is so much better at this type of thing than I am, plus he would be able to tell her so many stories about Skipper and some of the funny times they spent together which would maybe ease Juliette’s pain. He knew him so well and I know that when Matt hears there is a little girl alive in Skipper’s memory, it will be bittersweet for him and all who knew the legendary Skipper around here.
‘Look, I know there must be so many “what ifs” going through your head right now,’ I say to Juliette, ‘but I think you were right to come here. I do still think it was meant to be.’
‘You really do think that?’ she asks me, dabbing under her eyes with a tissue. ‘Oh, I really hope you’re right because right now I feel like such a failure, a romantic fool.’
‘Yes, I really do think so,’ I say, not knowing where or how I am finding the words. ‘You have got answers. They may not be the answers you were hoping for, but at least you have closure in your own mind and you can tell Rosie the truth. Tell her that this is where you met her biological father all those years ago and about the fun you had and how this is the place she can come to when she wants to feel close to him. And maybe close to you too, after this time together here. This has always been a special place for you and it’s now even more special for your daughter, Juliette. Focus on the days ahead with Rosie. In time, she may want to look up some of Skipper’s relatives and who knows what she will discover, but you’ve made the move you always wanted to. You’ve come here and I don’t think you’ve done so in vain, not for a second.’
Rosie and Merlin arrive back into the kitchen which is perfect timing as only moments before the situation may have been a little hard to explain, but Juliette has perked up now and she beams when her daughter enters the room.
‘Do you have an iPhone charger by any chance?’ she asks me, holding up her phone as if I need to see what an iPhone looks like. ‘Mum, I swear I want to live here. There are even sockets to plug in your phone out on the balcony. This is so my dream house. I feel like Kendall Jenner hanging out here. My friends are so jealous.’
A Part of Me and You Page 10