The First Time I Said Goodbye

by Allan, Claire

  In a small voice she answered him, “I’d like that,” and he felt her hand reach for his across the table. “I’d like that very much.”

  * * *

  It wasn’t much. Little more than a room really – a cold room, with a little damp in the corners when they first viewed it. It could do with a good clean so he and the boys had rolled up their sleeves. They couldn’t bring the girls back to the place as it stood – so they had spent a precious afternoon’s leave up to their elbows in soapy water, cleaning every surface.

  “Are we going soft?” Dusty had asked, a soapy sponge in one hand, while Ray set about stocking the small kitchen area with teacups, plates and a brand new teapot.

  The place was already looking spruced up and, once Ray had a fire burning, he could see how it could even be seen as quite cosy. Still he’d better hurry up and get changed if he was to get to the Hegartys’ in time for the big family gathering. He couldn’t believe how nervous it made him feel – then again the butterflies in the very pit of his stomach could have been down to his excitement at transforming this little flat into somewhere he could be well and truly alone with Stella.

  She had warned him all about her family – how her father was a great big bear of a man who would either take to him or against him, with no grey areas. Her granny, she said, would quite possibly have a Babycham and perhaps start singing. Her mother would have an air of calm about her but would go into a flap when she was in the kitchen – if he wanted to get on her good side he should offer to help even though she would refuse his offer. There would be little in the way of drinking, but he should take a stout to be sociable even though he didn’t really enjoy stout.

  Normally Ray was quite a confident man. Not arrogant – he had never been accused of that – but he could hold himself in a room of people. But he knew that this was a very different room of people – people he needed to impress. He didn’t want to make a show of himself in front of Stella – to embarrass her – and he knew he would have to work extra hard to try and take in the accents around him. Derry people, they sure spoke fast. And there was to be a whole room of them who apparently saw him as the guest of honour. He had gathered what he could at the Base – a tin of biscuits, some chocolate, even a bottle of whiskey for Stella’s father – determined to make a good impression.

  Stella was nervous too, she had confided. He supposed she knew that, if her family didn’t take to him, his time with her would be even more limited than it already was set to be. That was not something he wanted to contemplate. If things went well – well, if the bottle of Scotch went down well with her father – he had started to contemplate chancing his arm and asking her the big question. The thought of it made his hands clammy and his heart beat a little faster – but, he realised with a bit of a smile, in a good way. Just as the thought of spending time with her in the flat made him feel almost delirious with happiness.

  He brushed his hair, slicked on some Brylcreem and glanced in the mirror. That night, in Derry, there was everything to play for.

  * * *

  It was Dolores who answered the door. Ray sometimes wondered how they were sisters – they didn’t resemble each other at all, apart from perhaps having the same wide blue eyes. Dolores was shorter, a little plumper, and definitely more confident than her sister. He had seen how she would spend her nights at the Corinthian dancing – the two sisters laughing together but Dolores leading the charge when it came to starting the obligatory sing-song as the lights went up.

  She greeted him at the door with a huge smile before pulling him into a hug. “Good man yourself!” she cheered, eyeing the bottle of Scotch he had brought with him. “That will go down well with the relatives. You know how to get your feet under the table. Stella will be down in a minute – putting a few finishing touches to her make-up. She never bothered much before she met you.”

  Dolores winked, and turned to lead him into the front room, which Stella had informed him before was the ‘good room’. Yes, she had given him a crash course in Derry etiquette – telling him the good room was reserved for special occasions such as the visit of the priest, a family gathering or indeed a wake. He had shuddered at the thought of a wake – that was an Irish tradition he couldn’t quite understand, but Stella had assured him that a wake was actually quite healing. Still, as he walked into the room he couldn’t get the notion out of his head that her grandmother had been laid out there just a few months before – a corpse among the good china and with a semi-gruesome picture of the Sacred Heart staring down at her.

  There was a buzz in the room – the chatter of friends and family, laughing and joking, smoke thick in the air and the clatter of teacups and stout glasses. He wished Stella was by his side – it felt strange, alien even – to be led into this room when she was still upstairs. That’s not to mention the fact that he longed to see her – to tell her, when he could, when no one else was listening – how the flat was ready. The clatter of noise quietened as he walked in – all eyes were on him and he felt horribly self-conscious. Conscious of his height, his uniform, his accent. Conscious of the fact that when he thought about it he didn’t really fit in here at all and, if he had his way, he would take away one of their own – one who did fit in.

  “Well, well, if it’s not Yankee Doodle Dandy,” a gruff man in a flat cap and a tweed suit said, standing up and straightening himself before he walked across the room. “Here, everyone, here is the man who has been courting our wee Stella. Well, sure doesn’t he look smart?” Without introducing himself the man thrust a large, meaty hand in Ray’s direction, grabbing hold of his hand and shaking hard, his grip firm.

  Ray smiled back, feeling his bones crush. “Pleased to meet you,” he said, still unsure of who he was talking to.

  “Daddy, leave him down!” Dolores laughed.

  Ray realised he was face to face with Ernest Hegarty – the man who he most needed to impress in that room. Suddenly it was as if the cat had got his tongue and he could not find the right words to speak – so he stayed dumb, thinking it was better, perhaps, to have people think you an idiot than to open your mouth and confirm it.

  “Ray here has brought you something, Daddy,” Dolores smiled, while a small woman, in a floral dress with her hair just a little out of place, stepped forward to stand beside Ernest.

  “Dolores, that’s lovely of him,” she said, “but would you ever go and tell your sister her gentleman friend is here. I’m sure he feels as if he has been dropped in the middle of a war zone with not a friendly face to look at.” The woman smiled – and just like Stella that smile of hers crinkled her nose and extended to her eyes.

  “You must be Kathleen?” he said, offering his hand and not sure at all if he should be calling her ‘Kathleen’ or ‘Mrs Hegarty’. Immediately he cursed himself for being so informal. What a first impression he was making – standing gawping like some idiot and being over-familiar. His palms were sweating now more than they should and everyone in the room, although they were all pretending to have their own conversations in hushed tones, was clearly looking to see what faux pas he would make next.

  “Yes, I am indeed Kathleen,” the woman replied, putting her hand to her head to push back the loose curl which had fallen forward. “And it’s lovely to have you in our home. Stella has spoken very highly of you – she’s walking around with her head in the clouds these last few weeks. You’ve made your mark – she doesn’t give away her affection easily.”

  Kathleen’s words were warm and her tone soft. The smile remained on her face but he wasn’t blind to the implications of what she was saying. Treat Stella nice – she’s a gentle soul. He wished he could tell her there and then that the last thing he ever wanted to do, ever, was to hurt this girl who had stolen his heart. Instead, blushing and self-conscious, he replied simply that he knew and that Stella was a credit to both her and her husband.

  It was then he felt the gentle touch of her hand on his elbow and he turned around to see her before him – looking equally
nervous. Should he kiss her? Shake her hand? Say hello? The eyes of everyone in the room were boring into them and he didn’t know what to do and breathed a sigh of relief when she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him softly on the cheek.

  “You came,” she said, as if she had doubted that he would.

  He looked at her, confused. Did she really not know by now that he would be there for her? That she was so quickly becoming his everything?

  “Of course,” he responded. “And I’ve been made very welcome.”

  “Not that welcome,” Stella smiled. “Sure you don’t even have a drink in your hand.” She turned and called to her brother, a tall man two years her senior in a heavy jumper who looked him up and down suspiciously. “Peter, would you ever get Ray here a stout?”

  “Just the one,” Ray said, as Peter gruffly made his way out of the good room towards the kitchen. Ray made a mental note to keep his distance from him.

  “Now, take your coat off, pull up a seat and try not to look so terrified,” Stella smiled, taking the coat off him to put upstairs and directing him to one of the rickety-looking wooden chairs which had obviously been brought in from the kitchen for the occasion.

  He was introduced one by one to the remainder of her family – her eldest brother James and her two young siblings, Michael, just nine and the baby of the family, six-year-old Seán.

  The evening was fairly reserved. Stella sat beside him, drinking tea while he slowly made his way down his one stout. The room was warm with chatter and song, the tin of biscuits passed around with great glee. He offered to help when he deemed it appropriate – another shovel of coal on the fire perhaps or to carry the tray of teacups out to the kitchen, but he was told time and time again he was a guest and he was to take it easy. He guessed from conversation he had with Stella before it was more likely to be a case that outside of the good room, the Hegarty family didn’t have much to show off and didn’t want the Yank seeing that.

  “They think all Americans are really rich,” she had said.

  He had tried to reassure her that that was not the case – that he was an ordinary man from an ordinary family. His father worked for the post office, his mother was a homemaker. They lived relatively simple lives. But, she had pointed out, a relatively simple life in America was still likely to be more exotic than a life in Derry – where there were eight of them crammed into a tiny house with one phone to service the whole street, where voting was not necessarily a right and a coat constituted an eiderdown on a cold night. He had probably never woken to ice on the inside of his windows or put paper in the bottom of his shoes to keep out the damp.

  She had said all this light-heartedly, without a hint of bitterness in her voice. She was happy – her family was happy. There was always someone to talk to. He had his mom, his dad, his sister and that was it. And he couldn’t remember the last time their house had rung with laughter like the Hegarty house on that night. He had found himself vowing to learn the words to the songs they were singing – to brush up on his history to discuss what they were discussing, to think of ways to get his feet under the table a little further and, when he looked to his side, to see Stella there, laughing and joking, teasing her brothers and sister, he thought of how much he wanted to be a part of all this. Forever. How he wanted to create his own family with Stella. Christ, he loved her.

  As their evening drew to a close, Stella walked him to the corner of the street, delighted to be alone in his company after the evening that had passed. She had noticed how he had looked at her, a smile always on his face, his eyes filled with love. She realised she had been smiling back at him and felt just as in love. She realised, she supposed, though she pushed the thought to the back of her mind, that they were perhaps playing at romance – playing at house. Neither of them, she imagined, were ready for the talk about where this was all going – not really. They just knew how they felt – how they were in love and if they didn’t think about it too much – the miles that would separate them at some stage – they could imagine it would all work out.

  “Do I have the seal of approval?” Ray asked as they stood under the lamplight in the street.

  “I think so,” Stella replied. “You have mine anyway.” She reached out and touched his cheek, her breath catching at the warmth of his skin.

  “We’ll be happy,” he said, reaching for her hand and holding it to his cheek. “I will make you happy like this. Like your family. We will have a home ringing with love and laughter,” he said. “If you let me . . .”

  She silenced him with a kiss, her heart thumping at how she could be happy. How he could be her happy ending.

  Chapter 13

  Am I sounding desperate? If I am, it is because I am desperate. So very desperate. Please, please, let me know you understand. Let me know you forgive me.

  * * *

  Derry, June 2010

  Things I would have done differently if I could? Sure we all have regrets. Perhaps I would have tried harder at school. Perhaps I would have tried to persuade my father to stay in touch with his family more – but it was just his way that we were happy in our own unit. Perhaps I would have pushed him to come back to Ireland for a visit with my mother – perhaps she wouldn’t feel whatever longing she felt if she had been here before with him.

  Perhaps, I thought as I walked back to Second Hand Rose, mulling over Dolores’ words, I wouldn’t have held on to things so tightly that didn’t work any more. I would have, maybe, told Craig it wasn’t working and that while I loved him I wasn’t sure I was in love with him. I wasn’t sure I ever had been, if the truth be told. Yes, I had moments of affection, of what I thought was love. I had moments of obsession when it seemed like the lyrics of ‘Groovy Kind of Love’ were meant just for us – and moments of lust. But shouldn’t love be more? Shouldn’t it be, even though it pained me to think it, what my mother had with Ray – the need to chase him down after all these years – something which, even though she found happiness elsewhere, always stayed at the back of her mind – was always in her thoughts? I felt a surge of inner guilt, as if I was betraying both Craig and my father by even thinking this way, but the truth was there.

  Craig and I – we were trying to fit together. We were desperately trying to make it work, and only in the end making it seem more desperate than it needed to be. My daddy always said I was too loyal – and this was to my detriment in this case. My head, and my heart, hurt thinking about it – thinking of the messages I had sent to Craig telling him that I was happy here. Just thinking about it made me ache for him – but not in a physical way but more because I knew the hurt I was going to cause him.

  I pushed open the glass door into the warm, beautiful atmosphere of a shop that already felt a little like home.

  “Was she tough on you? Mum can be tough,” Sam said, looking up from his iPad and scanning my face for any sign of trauma.

  I imagined the running make-up would give it away, so I rubbed at my face as if that would make it better.

  “Not tough so much as, well . . . tough . . . but not in a bad way . . . I don’t think,” I jabbered. “But I’ll take a few minutes and fix my face if that is okay.”

  “Ah now, a lunch break and taking a few minutes to fix your face. You just can’t get the free staff these days,” he said with a wink as I made to walk past him to the small staff room.

  “Sam,” I said, turning back to face him, “do you ever think that you really have no idea what you are doing with your life?”

  “All the time,” he said softly. “I just plod on and hope one day it clicks. I figure if you do no evil then someday the Karma Fairy has to pay you back in a nice way.”

  “I hope you are right,” I said, walking on.

  “So do I,” his voice carried to me.

  I looked in the mirror – the calm collected 50s-siren look Sam had created for me had faded more than a little. I took a wet wipe from my handbag and roughly rubbed it over my face before smacking my cheeks to try and bring a little colour i
nto them. I quickly applied some very basic and not at all glamorous make-up, lifted my cell and sent my mother a quick message inviting her for dinner that evening – giving her the option of choosing where since I didn’t know a thing about my surroundings. I was pretty sure that Sam wouldn’t mind a night off from baby-sitting me. My cell bleeped back at me almost as soon as the message was sent – as if my mother had been sitting on it, waiting for me to message her. Of course she would love to see me for dinner. She was sorry. So sorry. And she would explain and make it up to me. And she loved me.

  I had to allow myself the time to think properly about how I felt, so I simply texted back that I loved her too and would see her at seven. Now I just had to tell Sam I wanted to leave work early to get home and fix my face properly.

  * * *

  “Look, you can get me on my mobile if you need me,” Sam said, typing his number into my cell so that I would have easy access to it. “I’m just meeting a few friends for coffee but if it all goes a bit tits-up, I can be there soon.”

  I thanked him and assured him that it was only my mother that I was meeting, but we both knew it was more than just a simple breaking of bread with a relative. We had chatted that afternoon in the shop – the mid-afternoon providing a lull in browsers and shoppers which freed us up to drink more coffee and gossip more.

  “She must have really loved him,” Sam said. “That’s not to imply she didn’t love your dad – but, wow, to come back to try and see him again, after all these years . . .”

  “Unfinished business,” I said, wondering would I ever feel so strongly about someone that even after 50 years I still felt as if a part of me was missing without them.