I looked around at the basin and kitchen roll and various foods I had to put back in the fridge once it dried a little. I couldn’t feel anything, not like before. I had no sense of how near or far he was.
‘Do you think he’s all right?’
I pictured her biting her lip, knitting her brow until the crease in the middle needed time to smooth out.
‘I’m sure he’s fine.’
‘I bet you Conor has something to do with it. I bet he said something, told him not to come. He just sat watching me pack all morning and then when he didn’t show up Conor didn’t seem the least bit surprised. He keeps telling me to leave it, puts on he’s only thinking of me but he’s delighted, of course. Conor never wanted him here in the first place. I know this is down to him. It has to be.’
Embarrassed by the gap in conversation, Isabel gave a half-laugh.
‘I shouldn’t be bothering you with this,’ she said with a breeziness forced to the point of audible strain. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing. He probably just slept in. He’ll be along any minute. I’ll let you go, Grace. I’ll get him to phone you from Wexford, let you know how we’re getting on – if there’s a minute. We’ve a lot to fit in, you know. It is quite the packed itinerary.’
‘Oh, I’m sure,’ I replied, but my own breeziness was even faker than hers and it proved too great an ask for both of us.
‘He’s gone, isn’t he?’ she said quietly, as the pretence fell away.
‘I don’t know,’ I told her truthfully.
‘I have this awful feeling, Grace. I think he’s gone.’
When the call was over, the stereo came bellowing back in. I turned up the volume two more notches and it stayed like that for the rest of the day. I scrubbed and swept and washed, and listened to music from the time when I first knew Henry. It was the only kind I had on CD.
On Sunday, I went to see my parents. I phoned ahead to check they’d be in and Mam said there was some reality TV love rat opening a hardware store in Celbridge and Dad was considering going to give the chap a piece of his mind and also to avail himself of the half-price offer on all new mops. I told her to ask him not to, that I was calling around and I had news. She said she’d try but, as I could no doubt appreciate, she couldn’t promise anything.
When I arrived, Dad was there. ‘Arra it’s grand,’ he said, serving up a bowl of stew and insisting I eat it. ‘He’s opening another place on Tuesday.’
He was batch-cooking dinners for the week and Mam was watching some English murder mystery. I waited for her to come into the kitchen. She was wearing Dad’s glasses, probably because she couldn’t find her own, which were sitting on top of her head.
‘Go on so,’ she said, removing one set of spectacles. ‘What’s the news?’
‘I hope it’s good news,’ clarified Dad. ‘And if it’s good and bad news, maybe you could start with the good?’
I looked at them both, standing there, waiting. Then I took a deep breath and blurted it out.
‘I’m pregnant!’
I said it with such gusto that the silence that followed seemed particularly deafening.
Mam hesitated. ‘Are you sure?’ she said, glancing at Dad.
‘You know it takes two people to make a baby,’ he added helpfully.
‘Oh, for God’s sake! Yes, Father, I am aware. The baby is Henry’s. Will you stop looking at each other! I’m not making it up. I’m almost sixteen weeks’ pregnant.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes! If you look . . .’ I turned to the side and pulled my top tight across my belly. There was almost a proper tiny bump now. ‘See?’
‘Oh!’ said Mam, suddenly coming alive. ‘Oh Grace! Oh! We’re going to be grandparents! Arthur! Oh oh oh!’ Her excitement continued to escalate as she started clapping her hands and hurrying towards me.
‘Oh Grace, this is the best news! This is absolutely the very best news in the entire world!’ She threw her arms around me and the emotion in her voice radiated from her body. She let go of me almost as quick. She was hopping about on the spot. It was not unlike her moth assassination dance. She was shrieking and laughing and hopping and clapping. She pumped her arms in the air in an infinitely superior version of Claire Maguire’s silent ‘happy days’ cheer. There was nothing silent about what my mother was doing.
‘Mam,’ I said, laughing, as she continued to whoop and holler, ‘calm down. It’s not your baby!’
‘But you’re my baby, Grace! Oh, I’m just so bloody delighted! This is brilliant!’ And she was laughing again now, laughing and crying and hugging me tight.
‘Dad?’ I said, when Mam had loosened her grip slightly. He was still standing where Mam had left him, at the counter in his I Taught Mary Berry apron.
‘Arthur? You’re looking a bit pale.’
‘I. . . I just—’ He put the ladle down and frowned. I knew he was giving himself a good talking-to. I looked at Mam and the two of us started to grin.
She let me go and I walked over to him.
‘Dad . . .?’
He held up an arm as I got close, telling me to stay back. ‘I think,’ he said, still frowning at the stew. ‘No,’ he rebuked himself, speaking purposefully. ‘I know. I know, that this is the best thing that has ever happened.’
‘To me, to you, to . . .?’
‘To anyone,’ he clarified, his tone as serious as I’d heard it. ‘This is the best thing that has ever happened. Ever. This . . .’ He started to wag a finger as he reached his point. ‘This is the circle of life, love.’
I threw my arms around him and Mam skirted back around the worktop too. We stood like that, in a circle of happy, communal tears, until the alarm went on the oven, and Dad removed his chicken and broccoli bake.
‘You’re home early. I haven’t done a thing about dinner before you ask— Henry? What’s up? What is it?’
‘I saw a drawing in this book at work and it made me so homesick, I had to come back.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘This new kids’ series we’re doing the design on. I was trying to get the proportions right. Then I stopped and looked at the image and it gave me such a fright, Grace. It was us.’
‘In the book? How? Come here to me, you funny man.’
‘It was a love story about a boy and a girl. It never said they were in love, they were best friends, but I knew that one day they were going to grow up and fall madly in love with each other.’
‘How did you know?’
‘Because they were you and me. The little girl looked just like you and the little boy was me, and they were riding their bikes home from school and he was trying to hold her hand.’
‘Sounds dangerous.’
‘It could have been us riding home from school.’
‘But Henry, we didn’t know each other when we were children.’
‘That’s what gave me such a fright. All those years before I met you, all that time wasted talking to everybody else.’
I laugh then, because I can’t help it. ‘Well, I’m flattered, but it was hardly wasted . . .’
‘That’s how it felt, when I saw the picture. I thought of all the years you existed in the world and I didn’t know you. It made me feel sick. I had to come home. I didn’t want to waste any more time.’
‘Well, I’m glad you’re here.’
‘What are you doing this evening?’
‘Nothing. Why?’
‘Can we go to the park?’
They wanted me to stay the night, but I knew if I did they’d never let me leave. Mam was going to join me for my first scan the following day and I let Dad drive me home. But as soon as he had pulled out of Aberdeen Street, I turned away from the house and headed for the park.
I would never, I accepted as the sky grew dark and the number of cars began to diminish, walk through the Phoenix Park and not think of Henry. These trees belonged to him, the cycle paths mapped our journey. I walked through the soft grass, shivering sympathetically as the wind rustled the leaves
overhead. I had a photograph of him, standing somewhere here, mimicking me with a cheesy smile. I was glad there was a place where he still resided. Somewhere I could bring his son or daughter to show them a bit of their father’s soul, when a box of bones buried among thousands of other boxes of bones couldn’t quite suffice.
It was after eleven when I started to nod off. I was sitting on the couch with the blanket at my feet and A Christmas Carol open on my lap. I whispered the dialogue, making a stab at the voices, but the rest I read in my head. The Ghost of Christmas Past had brought Scrooge back to his childhood home when my head started to droop. I jerked myself awake again. Just another page or two and I’d take myself off to bed.
‘You recollect the way?’ inquired the Spirit.
‘Remember it!’ cried Scrooge with fervour. ‘I could walk it blindfold.’
I used my finger to keep my place as I looked up from the page. Apart from what the reading lamp provided, the room was dark, and there was no noise outside. But still I knew I was waiting. I sat like that a moment longer. And when the doorbell went, coming up to midnight, I was already on my feet.
FIFTY-EIGHT
He stood at the doorway, almost the reverse of how I’d first seen him two months before. Back then it was the light, and disbelief, that stopped me from viewing him properly. Now his face was obscured by darkness.
‘I’m sorry it’s so late,’ he said, as my vision adjusted to the night sky and his silhouette developed features. I marvelled at how that accent had grown on me.
‘Come in.’
I stood to the side to let him enter and remembered how when he first came here, I could barely move.
Perhaps it was the witching hour, the time at which Scrooge’s ghosts came calling too, or maybe because a version of it had already happened, but the whole thing felt like a particularly wonderful dream.
‘I know you’re usually in bed by now,’ he said, and I left the door open so we’d have the street light as I felt around for the hallway switch. ‘I wanted to say goodbye.’
The light snapped on overhead and he closed the door. I could see him clearly now. The skin, the hair, the nose. The mouth, the pale eyes, the heavy eyebrows, the whole face. He was wearing the trousers he’d had on at the coroner’s court.
‘Your trousers,’ I exclaimed. ‘And your shoes! You’re covered in muck, Andy!’
Andy looked down at his feet. ‘Heck!’ he grumbled, and began to pull off his trainers. He left the shoes by the door, two lumps of encrusted dirt falling from the soles as he placed them side by side. Then he began to roll up his slacks. As he folded the material, the muck that had dried in cracked slightly. ‘You don’t get this problem with shorts,’ he muttered.
‘Where were you?’
‘I had a couple of things to take care of before I head off. All done now. I just have to drop Mrs O’Farrell’s car back to the guesthouse. And I guess give her back these trousers, if she wants them. I’m leaving tomorrow.’
He’d said that already, hadn’t he? But I heard him this time.
‘For home?’ I asked. ‘For Australia, I mean?’
‘Nah.’ He looked at me as a smile slowly formed. It was the same mouth. God, I still loved that mouth. ‘I’m going to travel the world,’ he said.
‘Good for you,’ I told him, trying to work out if I meant it. ‘I’m happy for you.’
‘Are you?’
‘I think so.’
He nodded. ‘Good.’
We walked through to the sitting room.
‘This place smells like a hospital,’ he remarked.
‘I’ve been cleaning.’
‘Removing all trace of me?’
I tilted my head at him but his face seemed to say he was kidding.
‘Isabel was looking for you,’ I said, remembering. ‘She phoned yesterday when you didn’t show up for the Wexford trip.’
‘I know. She phoned the guesthouse too.’
‘Have you told her you’re leaving?’
Andy shook his head. ‘Can’t,’ he whispered. ‘You were right, Grace; I shouldn’t have met them. I was only thinking of myself.’
‘No,’ I said emphatically. ‘I was only thinking of myself. She should have met you. And even if they never told Henry the truth, I’m glad they had to tell someone. I’m glad I know.’
‘I’ve done my best to make it up to her, anyway.’
‘How?’
‘Just something.’ He shrugged, pulling at his rolled-up trousers. ‘You’ll see, probably.’
‘I’m sorry, Andy.’
‘Don’t, Grace. There’s no need. We said it all the other day and I’m not here to rehash that. I just wanted to say goodbye, and to thank you.’
‘Thank me?’ I gave a little laugh. ‘For what?’
‘For showing me what home is.’
I grabbed my right wrist with my left hand and told myself I could not touch him. We stood in the centre of the sitting room, the reading lamp shining only over the couch and a halo of brightness on the floor by the door to the hallway. I liked him best like this, in the half-light. He could be whoever he needed to be.
‘I’m glad I came here, and that I met you,’ he said. ‘I’m glad I got to see all this. I don’t regret one path untaken, only that I could not walk them both.’
He smiled then, making light of his poetic solemnity, and I sat down on the couch and patted the spot beside me.
‘I’ve got my first scan tomorrow,’ I said, smiling now too.
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Yeah. I’m excited. Aoife’s coming.’
‘Great!’
‘And my mam.’
‘You told them. Awesome. Were they thrilled?’
‘Yeah.’ My heart swelled at the thought of Mam’s celebratory rain dance but I didn’t want to say too much. I didn’t want to rub it in.
‘Go on,’ he insisted. ‘Tell me!’
And if there was pain in his eyes, then there was pleasure there too. It was a great thing, how this baby could exist in spite of everything.
‘They were delighted,’ I confirmed. ‘Dad said it was the circle of life, which is just about the best way to view the whole thing. I know it seems ridiculous, because I didn’t do anything except fail to take contraception seriously, but they were really proud.’
‘Of course they were,’ he said with a smile that could break my heart. ‘I’m so happy for you.’ He put a hand on my lap, palm upwards, and I covered it with mine.
I stifled a yawn. ‘Sorry,’ I mumbled, biting it down. ‘Long day.’
‘I’ll go. I wanted to say goodbye and I’ve done that. I have the car to return anyway.’
‘No! Don’t!’ I pleaded, suddenly aware of the finality of this. ‘Not yet.’
‘Is there anything I can do? Any last little jobs, maybe show you how to grout the shower?’
‘I’m good for grouting,’ I said as the panic seeped away.
I allowed a silence to descend and I set about committing him to memory. I took in the width of his hand, the callus on his left index knuckle, the rough terrain of his skin. I breathed in, deeply, and closed my eyes. I made an imprint on my body, in my nostrils, on the underside of my eyelids. Then I opened my eyes slowly and looked. I took in the face, feature by feature, fine line into deep line, and I locked that away too. This face that was almost Henry’s. This person who had been there in the beginning, long before Henry had ever known me, had ever known anyone, even himself.
Then, when I had tattooed the 3D image onto my brain, I picked back up the book from the other side of Andy, and put it on his knee. ‘You could read?’ I said tentatively, allowing him to say no. ‘If you have time.’
‘I have all the time in the world,’ he said and squeezed my hand tightly. I closed my eyes before any tears could escape. He cleared his throat and he began to read.
‘Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that.’
I felt him glance up from the page, but I kept m
y eyes shut. I nodded my silent encouragement, then curled my legs under me, leaned my head back and allowed the story, and with it the night, to bundle me up and carry me away.
FIFTY-NINE
Iwas walking in the park and it was snowing. We’d had a lovely Christmas dinner, roast potatoes and the prize turkey from the poulterer’s around the corner. Aoife was up ahead, wearing a top hat and calling my name, only the closer I got she started shrieking. It was a high-pitched song like a piano scale or a car alarm or a ring tone. It was a ring tone. My phone was ringing.
I was awake now, on the couch, all alone, and my phone was ringing. I shook myself, and the blanket I didn’t remember being on me fell to my waist. There was no sign of Andy where he had been, beside me on this couch, just a moment ago . . . Only it wasn’t a moment ago. It was morning now. Had he been here? Had he called last night, or was that a dream too?
The phone was still ringing. Ringing and ringing and ringing. I felt down the side of the couch. I looked on the floor. There, at the foot of the sofa, beside the overturned book.
‘Hello!’ I shouted into it, still trying to lift the fog of sleep and looking at the caller ID before I put it fully to my ear. ‘Isabel?’
‘Oh Grace, Grace! Where have you been? I’ve been phoning you! You’ll never guess what has happened!’
My first thought was that Andy had called to her. That he had left here and gone there . . . If he had been here at all. I shook the blanket off myself completely and clambered to my feet. I rubbed at my eyes as I made my way into the hallway.
‘I’ve been asleep.’
‘Yes I know, sorry, sorry. It’s very early, it’s just’ – I pulled the phone away from my ear to check the time: 7.09 a.m. – ‘phone call at six o’clock this morning. At first I thought it was something terrible, that there’d been an accident and someone was dead only Conor was in the bed beside me . . .’ her excitement died away momentarily. ‘And well, there isn’t anyone else.’
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