Valerie made the most of every second with Katie, trying not to dwell on the increasing guilt she felt about Lorcan and Tessa.
There was a time when she would have been furious at the thought of Briony making contact with her grandparents, now she felt relief. It was progress of sorts, she supposed.
‘You take care, Mom.’ Briony hugged her tightly. She had tears in her eyes.
‘I will, love. And . . . em . . . let me know how you get on in Rockland’s, won’t you, and put a pink rose on your dad’s grave for me? Remember, it’s half-way up the path and in to the right.’
‘I’ll do that and of course I’ll let you know, Mom. We’ll Skype you. Now please go and we won’t wave or say goodbye. I’ll text as soon as we land.’
‘All right. I’m going now,’ Valerie said, and turned and walked away so they wouldn’t see the tears stream down her face. Buying the villa had a lot of pros going for it, but it was moments like these that tore the heart out of her and made her wonder if she had made the right decision. She reached the door and turned round to have a quick peek, just as she caught Briony doing the same. She smiled in spite of herself and was answered with a grin and a big wave.
Valerie blew her daughter and granddaughter a kiss before walking out into the brilliant sunshine and striding across the concourse to the train station. They had parked in Fuengirola so they could take the train as a treat for Katie. The hum of chatter on the train as it trundled through the stations helped ease the dreadful loneliness she felt. She knew the villa would be deathly quiet when she got home and she dreaded it. Having Briony, Katie and Lizzie to stay had been such an unexpected treat.
She drove home utterly lonely and let herself into the silent villa, expecting at any moment to hear the rush of small feet on the marble floor and her granddaughter’s merry chatter. She dropped her keys on the hall table and wandered into the lounge. A folded pink art page lay propped against the vase of roses on the coffee table. A drawing from Katie, she thought, touched. Her granddaughter loved drawing and painting and had spent many happy hours engaged in artistic endeavours, which were now hanging all over the villa.
Valerie opened it and started to laugh. ‘Oh, Jeff, Lizzie is right. You are around, aren’t you?’ she said when she saw her granddaughter’s painting of a big white butterfly surrounded by dozens of childishly drawn kisses and ‘Thank You’ written in wobbly uneven letters.
Valerie held the drawing close to her heart. She knew the thing that would please her beloved Jeff most would be if she made her peace with his mother, but would Tessa want to make her peace with her? Or would that be a step too far?
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
‘I think I’d like to go and visit the grave, it’s the longest I’ve left it without making a visit and it bothers me. I’m edgy about it, for some reason. It’s a lovely day, and I’ll get back before dark. Would you mind?’ Tessa lays the mug of tea on the bedside locker and sits on the edge of her husband’s bed. Lorcan’s face is crumpled with sleep. He blinks a few times and hauls himself up into a sitting position. The maroon colour of the new pyjamas she bought him suits him. He’s still a handsome man. Pain and age have not diminished that, she thinks fondly as he reaches out for the tea.
‘There’ll be no rest on you until you go. Bring the doggy, and let him go for a run on the beach,’ he says before taking a gulp of the hot, sweet tea. ‘Lovely. You can’t beat a mug of tay.’ He always says that, every single morning when she brings him the first cup of tea of the day. If he didn’t say it she’d worry about him, Tessa thinks, amused.
‘I’ll take one of those Zanna Cookhouse chicken and ham pies out of the freezer for you,’ she says, taking a sip from her own mug. This is their ritual now: the mug of tea and then showers before sitting down to breakfast. Through most of their marriage when he was fishing Lorcan would be gone to catch the early tides and they rarely had breakfast together. Tessa enjoys sharing the first meal of the day if Lorcan is in good form. Her husband is always at his best in the morning. ‘You can have some peas with it. They only take a minute in the microwave,’ she adds.
‘Grand,’ says Lorcan. ‘There’s a lovely bit of pastry on those pies. They taste home cooked. Of course they’re from Wexford. A fine county.’ This is high praise. Lorcan is fussy, to say the least, about pre-cooked foods from the supermarket. He doesn’t know it but Tessa sometimes buys precooked turnip or carrot and parsnip mash. He likes turnips with his liver and onions but she hates peeling and slicing them. He doesn’t know either that she sometimes buys ready-made pastry. The less time she has to spend cooking and baking the better. She’s had enough of it. A lifetime of it. Men might retire but women never do.
How she would love to have a housekeeper, Tessa daydreams. She’s lucky she can still look after her home, she supposes. She shouldn’t be giving out. A few of her neighbours in Rockland’s are in nursing homes. She hopes neither she nor Lorcan will ever end up in one. There is always the fear of what old age will bring. She thinks suddenly of Carmel Harris, afflicted with Alzheimer’s, recognizing no one. Carmel, who had resisted her tearful pleas to give her Valerie’s address. ‘You were loyal to your son, Tessa, I have to be loyal to my daughter. Please don’t ask me again,’ Carmel had said tetchily after Tessa had knocked on her door for the third time in six months. She wonders did Briony ever get either of the letters that she wrote to her. She’ll never be able to ask Carmel now. She remembers nothing.
‘You’ll be seeing Lisa too, won’t you?’ Lorcan intrudes on her thoughts. He takes another draught of tea, relishing it.
‘Yes, I’ll ring her and let her know I’m coming.’ Tessa stands up and glances at her watch. It’s ten to nine. She could be on the road in an hour if she gets a move on. The morning rush hour and school run will be over. ‘I’ll go and have my shower. The porridge is made.’
‘Right-oh,’ he says.
She turns on the shower so that the water will be warm before she stands under it. She has mixed emotions about going home. Tessa still calls Rockland’s ‘home’ although it’s fifteen years since she and Lorcan moved up to the city. If anyone had told her that she’d end up in a semidetached house in a small cul-de-sac off the seafront in Clontarf she would have told them they were mad. But, ten years after Jeff’s death, Sally, Lorcan’s eldest sister, had died and had left her house to him. She was widowed with no children, and Lorcan had always been very good to her.
Lorcan had suggested they spend part of the week up in Dublin, to renovate it, with a view to selling it. He had decided to sell the trawler and Tessa was glad of it. Fishing was a hard life and he’d done it for long enough. They had enough put by to supplement their pensions, and the sale of Sally’s house would be an added nest egg.
The idea of living in Dublin part time for a little while appealed to her. Rockland’s was so full of sadness for her. Passing Jeff’s bedroom door every morning never failed to grieve her. The bedroom was still unchanged, despite Lisa and Lorcan’s exhortations.
‘We all need to move on. Jeff would want us to.’
‘It’s not healthy.’
She wouldn’t countenance it. Her sitting room, with its panoramic views, was no longer her haven. Tessa tried hard to banish the image of Jeff’s coffin resting in front of the French doors, but could not. She might go for a week or two and feel that she was returning to normal and then something would remind her of that awful time and she would have to seek refuge in his bedroom to try to heal the hollow dull ache that never left her.
Going to Dublin had been a help to her in that regard. There were no memories of Jeff in Sally’s house. It was a fine house: three good-sized bedrooms, a big kitchen, two reception rooms. But it was in need of modernization and redecoration. They had undertaken much of the refurbishment themselves, finding a new focus and common goal. The large garden too had needed a lot of work, and as the weeks rolled on they even began to spend weekends in the city. Tessa had enjoyed redecorating the house. Taking the Dart int
o town and foraging through furniture shops and department stores, before having lunch in one of the many bistros that lined the busy streets was a treat.
When Lisa’s third child was born, she had told her parents that she and Frank were going to look for a bigger house. Their small bungalow was bursting at the seams. ‘We could sell them ours and stay here, and then it would always be in the family,’ Tessa had suggested offhandedly, thinking her husband would never agree to it. It was a surprise and a relief when Lorcan said if it was what she wanted he would be happy to keep Sally’s house and live in Dublin. It was much easier to find distractions in the capital and they were still close to the sea. Lorcan liked fishing off the South Wall and often came home with some mackerel, pollock, and even occasionally a bass, for supper.
Tessa steps under the steaming jets of water in her ensuite. She can feel the knot of tension forming in her stomach. She knows it is because of her impending visit to the grave and home. It always happens. But she’ll be glad when she’s seen the grave and has put new bedding in the pots. That always brings comfort. She showers quickly. Now that she’s made the decision to go, Tessa is anxious to get on the road. She will buy polyanthus, pansies and cyclamen en route. Cleaning the headstone and tidying around the grave always gives her pleasure. It’s something she can do for her son. She cannot understand how some graves are left untended. She knows there are sons, daughters, grandchildren who could take an hour or two every so often to come down from the village and look after the last resting place of their loved one. How can they leave the plots to go to rack and ruin? Tessa takes pride in keeping Jeff’s grave looking pristine. In a strange way she enjoys spending time there. She finds peace in the graveyard. It is afterwards that the bitterness seeps back and the old memories come again to haunt her and she grieves for Briony as well as for Jeff. Her beautiful little Briony. Her first and most precious granddaughter.
‘Don’t think about it now,’ Tessa mutters, towelling her hair dry before finishing it off with the dryer. It might be different today. She always hopes that it will and that she will find that longed-for acceptance that Lorcan seems to have found.
Lorcan showers in the main bathroom. Tessa never uses it. All her lotions and potions are in the ensuite. They moved into separate bedrooms a few years back when he had a particularly bad bout of arthritis. He misses having her beside him in the bed. They still cuddle and she will spend the odd night or two with him, and occasionally make love, but she has her room now and he has his, and he misses the intimacy of sharing. Old age is a bugger, he thinks glumly.
She will be in bad form when she comes back from Wicklow. She always is when she visits the grave. He has let go of Jeff a long time ago. Acceptance brings its own peace. He wishes Tessa could do the same but she has found it impossible to do so. It was one of the reasons he agreed to leave their home and move to Dublin; a sacrifice he has made for Tessa. He misses his life on the sea sometimes, and the majesty of sky, sea and rolling fields. He had hoped the move would have helped more than it did. If Briony was in Tessa’s life, he thinks, she might have let go of their son and focused on her. The trip to Rockland’s will bring all the trauma of losing her back too.
He doesn’t like to think of Tessa driving back to Dublin on her own, sad and forlorn. He should go and support her. Since he had the cortisone injections into his shoulder two weeks ago, it has given him some relief. He’s certainly fallen on his feet with his new shoulder surgeon. The best in the country, he’s been told. Well, Mr Hannan Mullett has improved the quality of his life for sure. He can even raise his arm to his head to wash his hair in the shower, Lorcan realizes, pleased. Mr Mullett is going to do keyhole surgery on him after the October Bank holiday. He assures him it will make a great difference. Tessa has being begging him to get his shoulder seen to for months. He should have listened to her. He might even be able to cast his rod again. He’d love to do a bit of fishing.
It would do him good to get out of the house too, Lorcan decides, wiping away the last traces of shaving cream. He slept well the last few nights because pain has not kept him awake, tossing and turning. He feels a bit like his old self.
‘Tessa, I’m coming with you,’ Lorcan shouts impulsively down the stairs, looking forward now to the jaunt to Wicklow and home.
‘Damn!’ mutters Tessa, stroking Blackie’s head. Now she’ll have to watch her speed and listen to lectures about her lane discipline and Lorcan will want to go down to the boats. And then he’ll get into conversation with other fishermen and they’ll be there all day. She was looking forward to listening to Pat Kenny and Ronan Collins or playing Katie Melua loudly and singing along. Her granddaughters laughed at her singing in the car. It isn’t something ‘old ladies’ generally do. The thing is, she doesn’t feel old in her head. She can’t believe she is in her seventies.
‘My shoulder feels so much better, Tessa. I should have listened to you long ago. That young man has certainly made a difference.’
Lorcan’s voice has vigour in it. Not that flat tone she’s had to listen to these past few months. If he’d taken her advice about going to get himself seen to, he could have had pain relief months ago, she thinks, cantankerously pouring his porridge into a bowl.
‘It’s a cracker of a day. Pure autumn.’ He looks out the kitchen window. The sky is cobalt. The grass is covered in a carpet of gold and russet leaves, interspersed with a few apples that have blown down in last night’s wind. The last of the apples clinging to the branches are ruby, shiny, and ready for her fruit basket. The onions, and beetroot from their vegetable patch are safely harvested in their garage. Tomatoes still grow on the vine in the small glasshouse at the end of the garden. And two pumpkins are ripening for Halloween.
‘We could treat Lisa to lunch.’ Lorcan turns to her. Tessa wonders if she is hearing things. Her husband is actually suggesting that they eat out. The age of miracles is not yet past. ‘And we could stop in Avoca Handweavers or Mount Usher, and get some of that chicken and broccoli bake they do. We could have it tomorrow and then you wouldn’t have to cook. You’ll be tired after the drive.’ Tessa’s heart lifts. Perhaps it would be nice to have her husband with her, after all. It’s been a while since they had a day out together. She should make the most of this gift of wellbeing he’s feeling, she thinks, her heart softening. It’s the pain that makes him cranky and demanding. Now the real Lorcan is back with her, thanks to a kind young surgeon who is a credit to his profession. She kisses her husband’s cheek and when he puts his hand up to caress hers, she kisses his hand too. The love is still there. She has accepted that at last. They’ve had their ups and downs, God knows, but today is an up day. She will enjoy it as best she can.
‘Where is we going, Mom?’
‘Where are we going?’ Briony corrected Katie automatically, tucking into the inside lane on the M50 to allow a speeding car with a northern reg, who had been tailgating her, to pass.
‘Idiot,’ she muttered. ‘It’s drivers like him that cause accidents.’ Despite the fact that it was mid-morning there was plenty of traffic on the motorway heading south. ‘We are going to a place called Rockland’s, darling. When I was a little girl about your age I used to live there.’
‘Are there swings?’
‘There are, and a slide,’ Briony smiled, glancing at her daughter in the rear-view mirror. ‘It’s beside the seaside. There might be a train going past. And there’s a shop that has ice-cream cones for little girls who are very, very good.’
‘Is it like heaven where Holy God lives? Or is it like Spain where Valwee is?’ Katie couldn’t believe all these things were in the one place.
‘A bit of both, sweetheart.’
‘We are visiting Holy God. Be on your very best behaviour or you won’t get any ice cream,’ Katie instructed her dolls in her sternest voice. ‘And mind your manners.’
Briony grinned in the front seat. Her daughter was like a little parrot sometimes; she even had Briony’s inflection: ‘Manners!’
How would the day go? A day in her life like no other. Valerie gave her directions to the graveyard and to Tessa and Lorcan’s house where her cousin Lisa now lived. She had roses in the boot of the car to place on her father’s grave. It would be strange to see her dad’s resting place. She wondered if she would feel anything.
It really was a gorgeous day, Briony observed, driving past the glorious spectacle of autumnal splendour in the Glen of the Downs. It was hard to believe that she was free to drive down the country mid-morning on a weekday. Being unemployed had given her such freedom. Finn was on a trade initiative to South America and so the car was hers. Much as she missed her darling husband there were plusses to his being away. Briony grinned, thinking of nights lying spread-eagled in their big bed, with no rumbling snores in her right ear.
Fifteen minutes later she turned off the motorway and the three-lane highway became a two-lane road, and then a mile or so later a single lane running parallel to the coast. Her head swivelled from right to left as she drove past the granite sign that said Rockland’s in neatly carved letters, and she felt a sudden flash of memory and then recognition as she came to the crossroads that led to the graveyard. The house she had lived in as a child was just a few yards away up to the left. When she’d made her visit to the grave she would drive past it and stop, look in at it over the gate and see what memories it would bring. Briony felt a tingle of excitement. She was so glad she had put aside her reservations and finally made the trip to Rockland’s.
The sun was pouring its warmth and golden light onto the fields at either side of the road that led to the whitewashed stone-walled graveyard. She pulled into the wide gravelled entrance and cut the engine. There was one other car parked just in front of the gate.
With All My Love Page 38