Tessa holds out a cut of beef for Blackie and he scoffs it with relish before easing himself down into his basket beside Lorcan, to rest his head on his paws and observe proceedings.
‘Where did you go?’ Lorcan asks.
‘The usual, the South Wall and the Shelley Banks.’
‘Many there?’
‘A few. I saw a ship arriving. It’s a pity you didn’t come, you would have enjoyed it.’
‘Ah, I wasn’t up to it today.’
They have this conversation every time. She tries not to get irritated with him. She thinks he has given in too easily and made an invalid of himself. There is no equality in their relationship now that she has become the minder. She cannot help her resentment.
She needs minding, too, she thinks mournfully, imagining how nice it would be to have her meals handed up to her day in, day out. She’s fed up of cooking, after all these years: the sameness of it, the wondering what to have, the preparing of meat and vegetables, the dishing out and serving up – she could scream with the monotony of it. Lorcan won’t even come out and have lunch at a pub or restaurant any more. It’s all about him, now, Tessa thinks resentfully as she slathers mustard on the beef and lays the buttered slice of bread on top.
‘Aren’t you having any?’ he asks when she calls him to the table.
‘I’m not hungry.’
‘Is it the day that’s in it?’ He lowers himself onto the chair, grimacing as pain shoots through him.
‘I suppose.’ She pours his tea.
‘It’s hard to believe he’d be in his fifties if he was alive,’ Lorcan reflects, reaching out to squeeze her hand. That small gesture of unexpected tenderness is her undoing and the tears she has managed to suppress all day overflow. Her husband continues to hold her hand as she weeps. ‘Better out than in, Tess,’ he says gruffly. ‘Sit down here beside me.’
‘I can’t stop thinking of Briony.’ She hiccups, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hands as she sits down at the table. ‘She’s been on my mind all day.’
‘Mine too,’ Lorcan admits.
‘I hope that Valerie can live with herself,’ Tessa says bitterly. ‘It was the sorry day she set her sights on Jeff. May God forgive her for what she’s done to us.’
‘She might say differently. She might say may God forgive us for what we did to her,’ Lorcan says quietly.
‘Lorcan! How can you say that?’ Tessa pulls her hand away. She wants to pummel him.
‘It wasn’t all one-sided, Tessa, you know that; we played our part too.’
‘Don’t say that!’ She jumps up from the table and marches into the hall and climbs the stairs. Lorcan has overstepped the mark this time, she fumes. How dare he suggest they are to blame for being separated from Briony? It is that horrible girl’s fault that their grandchild has grown up not knowing them. Tessa might have told Valerie a few home truths when Jeff died but that was no reason to take Briony away from them in a fit of spite and malice that had left them doubly devastated after their son’s death. Lorcan had no business to say that to her, no business at all, Tessa rages as she bangs the door of the bedroom and sits on the bed. It was cruel, mean and unkind after all the goodness and kindness she has shown him over the past few years.
She opens the top drawer of her bedside locker and takes out an envelope containing an old colour photo curling at the edges. A young man with warm brown eyes and a wide grin is cuddling a little girl, who is squinting and smiling straight into the camera, pointing a chubby finger. Tessa smiles in spite of herself. She remembers as though it was yesterday that warm sunny Sunday and the Indian summer they were enjoying.
‘Gramma, Gramma, you didn’t tell us to say “cheese”,’ Briony had chided, and they had all laughed.
It’s the last photo she has of them. A few hours later her son is dead, and less than two months after that, Valerie Harris took Briony up to Dublin to live and she never saw her grandchild again.
Maybe she was a bit harsh when she’d spoken her mind to Valerie the day of Jeff’s death, but she was utterly distraught, and it was Valerie who had started the row, accusing her of terrible things. Tessa’s lips tighten as she remembers the vicious attack Valerie had launched on her as Jeff lay cold as marble in that hospital room. Some things could never be forgiven. Never. And Lorcan can say what he likes, it was Valerie who had taken Briony away, and Valerie who had made the decision never to allow them to see her again. And nothing would change that.
As dusk settles around the room, etching the treetops outside against a gunmetal sky, Tessa holds the photo to her heart and feels the jagged shards of grief that this day always brings.
Lorcan pours himself another cup of tea and stirs in an extra spoonful of sugar. He needs it today. The kitchen has grown dark and only Blackie’s snores break the silence. Tessa is upstairs, angry and resentful. She will never accept her part in what has happened to their family; she will never accept that what she said to Valerie started the chain of events that has brought them even more sadness than they should have endured. He has held his tongue all these years because he loves his wife.
But sometimes it’s been hard listening to her rant and rave and today he has finally said what has to be said. Living in denial for so long has warped his wife’s memory of events. She’d read an article some time back, about the Family Justice Review in the UK, ruling against giving grandparents automatic access to their grandchildren in the event of the parents separating, and that had set her off again, worse than ever: ‘One million grandchildren in Britain, and how many here, that have little or no access to their grandparents? It shouldn’t be allowed, Lorcan, something has to be done!’ For weeks she’d nearly driven him mad. He had wanted to say that Briony could have come looking for them once she’d turned eighteen, but that would have hurt her even more and given her another excuse to go off on a tirade against Valerie for poisoning their granddaughter’s mind against them.
He has tried, down the years, to tell his wife that the bitterness that consumes her helps no one, least of all herself, but she has never wanted to hear it. She has wrapped her grief and anger around her like a blanket, and found a strange comfort in it, until it now defines her. Poor Tessa, the woman who has lost her son and her granddaughter. The woman against whom a grave injustice has been done.
He decided, after giving it much thought, that he would not visit their son’s grave on this, the anniversary of his passing. He knows from experience that the grave visits are an excuse for Tessa to stoke up the bitterness again, to immerse herself into that darkness that she will not let go. He said that he wasn’t up to it, but that was an excuse; he would have gone if things were different. He has lost as much as Tessa has but he has dealt with it.
They are in the departure lounge of their lives now, and she needs to make her peace with the past. It has gone on too long, this war of attrition. It is time to bring it to an end. He is her husband and he loves her, he always has, although she has doubted that this is true sometimes. Since their son’s death he has been pushed aside from time to time because of her great sadness and he has had to live with that too. But he can see what she cannot and this is why he has said what he has said.
He has tried to soften the blow by saying ‘what we did’ instead of ‘what you did’. That would have been far too accusatory. That would have smacked of laying blame and he wouldn’t do that to her. But Lorcan wonders, as he sips the hot sweet tea and gazes unseeingly out at the dripping damson tree, if his wife will ever forgive him for what he has just said.
CHAPTER FIVE
Briony pulled the sheet gently up over Katie’s shoulders, bent down and gave her a butterfly kiss. Her daughter lay with her hand tucked under her cheek, her lashes a dark fan against the honey glow of her skin, her rosebud mouth curved upwards, even in sleep her sunny nature asserting itself. She looked almost angelic, Briony smiled. She had been asleep before Briony had read two pages of her bedtime story, deliciously exhausted after a day of play and su
n and fresh air.
Briony sighed wearily. How wonderful to be so innocent and free, with no concerns other than would they be going to the toyshop in El Zoco and could she spend her pocket money that her daddy had given her on anything she wanted.
Briony wanted to cry. She wanted to lay her head down on her arms and howl. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. This was meant to have been the most relaxing few weeks she had spent in years. A time of renewed closeness with her mother, a time devoted to Katie, and, an added bonus, time for her. Time to read. Time to sit and stare out to sea. It had been so long since she had had such a luxury. No following some mad timetable, squeezing in a few minutes here and there for herself. Now she had, in a strange sort of way, been gifted with time to live her life rather than racing through it at a mad gallop. This was to have been her silver lining. Now the discovery of her grandmother’s letter had blown her plans to pieces like one of those stealth bombs that come unseen and unheard, and suddenly life is changed for ever.
The sound of the sea brought back memories of another time, another place, of Rockland’s Bay, where she had spent the first four years of her life, so much of it in her grandmother Tessa’s house. The memory of her grandmother was stronger than her memories of her dad. Even to this day she could still remember them baking fairy cakes. They’d probably be called cup cakes now. She could remember Tessa singing nursery rhymes with her and reading fairy tales to her. ‘Rapunzel’, ‘Thumbelina’ and ‘The Snow Queen’ had fascinated her. Briony had pleaded with Valerie to let her grow her hair long just in case she got locked in a tower and needed rescuing. She recalled rainy days sitting at her grandmother’s kitchen table, a blazing fire crackling in the grate throwing dancing shadows on the walls, while she made houses from a deck of cards, groaning when they would inevitably come tumbling down. She remembered going out to the garden with her granddad to pick peas and dig carrots and potatoes, and plunder the raspberry and strawberry beds of their juicy offerings. The sweet taste of the peas fresh from the pod, and the luscious ripe berries that her grandfather would hand her as they filled the basket were as much a treat as the pocket money he would give her every week. She remembered her grandmother’s currant loaf, her steak and kidney pie, and – Briony’s absolute favourite – the crispy Yorkshire pudding that Tessa served with the Sunday roast. She still loved it now.
She remembered sticking her hands over her ears when she would go shopping with Tessa to the local butcher’s. Billy Kearney would bang and chop with his big cleaver, loud fearsome noises echoing around the shop. Sawdust would stick to her shoes as she hid behind her grandmother, terrified yet fascinated at the sight of the big carcasses hanging on massive steel hooks.
The memories kept flooding back. Unstoppable now, wave after wave of them. She could almost feel the comfort of her grandmother’s arms around her, remembering how frightened she had been of thunder and lightning, and Tessa telling her that it was just God moving his furniture around in heaven, as sheets of lightning rippled across the sea and the sky seemed to crash and crumple above them. That sea could be so benign on a balmy summer’s day, yet so treacherous when the weather turned. The fishermen’s wives would pray fervently and watch the entrance to the harbour for their menfolk’s safe return. Her granddad had been a fisherman, and her dad had often worked on his trawler, the Lady Tess. Briony had a sudden memory of her dad jumping onto the quay after a fishing trip and lifting her up in his arms, saying to her, ‘How is my best girl?’ as he nuzzled his nose into her neck, making her laugh.
She hadn’t thought about Rockland’s or her dad or grandparents in such a long time, but in her mind’s eye now, as clear as day, she could see the blue and white house with the wisteria growing over the front door and downstairs windows, and the big clumps of rhododendron and hydrangea shrubs that filled the front and back gardens with vibrant colour. She could remember the small wooden gate that led to the vegetable patch, protected by a neat evergreen hedge, and then beyond that the red swing gate that led out to the top of the bank, below which was a sandy crescent beach separated by rocks from the pier, which curved out protectively around the harbour.
The sound of creaking masts, the jangles of rigging, the thrum of the trawler engines and fishing boats as they made their way in and out of the harbour were so much a part of her life back then that she never noticed it, and now, it was only on the rare occasion when she took a trip to the Sunday market in Howth that the sounds and smells evoked memories of her idyllic childhood. A blissful childhood that had been sundered with brutal abruptness the day her father died.
She had been too young to absorb it all. Her recollections of the event and the following days were mostly of her mother weeping inconsolably and the terror she felt when she saw her grandmother and grandfather crying. She had never seen an adult cry until then. She’d only been a little older than Katie when her life had been turned upside down and all the security she had known, which had been such a safety net for her, had been destroyed.
Life was so arbitrary, she thought with a sudden dart of fear. What if anything happened to her or Finn? Katie’s life would be irrevocably changed just as her own had. ‘Stop that!’ Briony said aloud, banishing the notion from her mind. It was too terrifying to think dark thoughts like those. Sitting on the side of the bed, she took the letter from her tote bag and smoothed out the pages again. Her grandmother’s script was so elegant, so neat and clear, unlike her own untidy scrawl. She read:
My Darling Briony,
I am giving this letter to your Granny Harris to send to you as I don’t have your new address in Dublin. I hope that you like your new house and that you make lots of friends when you start school. Your granddad and I miss you very, very much and wish you could come and visit. We are very lonely for you. Maybe when your mammy has settled down in Dublin she will be able to bring you down to Rockland’s some day. I will cook your favourite dinner for you with loads of Yorkshire pudding, and a cream sponge with raspberries and strawberries from the garden for dessert.
I have a great book to read to you. I found it in your dad’s bedroom when I was tidying it up. I used to read it to him when he was small. It’s called The Grey Goose of Kilnevin and it’s about a little girl called Sheila who has a little goose for a pet called Betsy, and a little boy called Fergus. They have great adventures getting away from a horrid woman called Fat Maggie! You will love it so much, we will have a great time reading it together some day.
When you learn to write I will look forward to getting a letter from you telling me all your news.
You know I love you very much and so does Granddad. I say a prayer for you every night before I go to sleep. You are my beautiful girl.
With all my love,
Gramma XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Tears prickled Briony’s eyes. What must it have been like for her grandmother, waiting for a response to her letter? Waiting for a phone call that never came. A visit to or from Dublin would have taken only an hour and a half on the train, an hour by car. What bitter history had Valerie and Jeff’s parents that Valerie would deprive them of the comfort of their grandchild, and Briony the comfort and love of her paternal grandparents? Valerie had told her after they had moved to Dublin, when she had pestered her day in, day out about going to see Gramma, that her grandmother didn’t want to see them any more because she was too sad about Jeff going to heaven.
‘But why, Mom? Why does she not want to see us? We’re sad too,’ she’d protested. ‘Please can we go home? Please! Please! Please!’
‘No, Briony, this is home now and we’re not going back there. Don’t ask me again!’ Valerie had said sharply. Her mother rarely used that tone with her. She’d never asked to go back to Rockland’s again. Soon her life had filled up with playschool and then she had started school and made friends with other children and gradually the memories of those early years had slipped away to the back of her mind.
Briony stood up, slid open the doors to the terrace an
d stepped out into the clement evening, upset at the painful recollections that she had buried deep for all these years. The more she thought about it the more devastated she felt. How could a mother do that to a child? She could never do something like that to Katie. Even the beauty of the scene that she gazed out on could not soothe her. Flamboyant orange and purple slashes streaked the sky and she looked over to the west to where the sun was sinking behind the high sierras, their jagged outlines silhouetted sharply against the multihued firmament. Venus glimmered in the indigo sky south towards Gibraltar, and out on the inky sea, small lights were beginning to flicker in the deepening dusk from the fishing boats that had sailed earlier from various villages along the coast. Cicadas chattered, breaking the stillness of the night, and the perfume of the flowering shrubs scented the air around her. Africa materialized, enigmatic and alluring on the horizon, the high Atlas Mountains darkly engraved against the dusky sky. It was the best time to see the coast of that neighbouring continent and the sight usually thrilled her, but tonight Briony could see nothing of the beauty laid out before her.
She had sat on the terrace the previous evening and felt she was in heaven as she’d sipped chilled wine and nibbled on olives and cheeses and a selection of crackers, while catching up with all her mother’s news. Tonight, though, she felt she was in hell knowing that she was going to have to confront Valerie and hear things that would grieve her sorely. She couldn’t stay after today’s events. Her mother’s betrayal was unforgivable. She’d have to book a flight home. If Valerie’s internet had been set up she would have gone online immediately and booked a flight. She’d deal with it tomorrow, she thought wearily, making her way along the terrace to the wide open doors that led to Valerie’s elegantly designed lounge. Her mother was seated on one of the pastel-covered sofas, flicking through a photo album.
‘Is Katie asleep?’ Valerie raised her head and Briony could see she had been crying.
With All My Love Page 3