Always You (16 page)

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ she said, thinking of the girls she’d met at school. She was still in touch with most of them – they met once a year for a reunion. But they had all been middleclass girls like her – the daughters of respectable people, doctors, lawyers, high-ranking policemen, bank managers. She saw with sudden clarity that Cahal’s alienation from his kinsfolk was the cruel price he’d paid for his success.

A car came up behind Cahal and tooted angrily several times before driving on past, making them both and Aunt Vi turn to look. She shaded her eyes from the sun with her hand and stared.

He said, ‘I don’t remember so much traffic on this road.’

She glanced up at the blue sky. ‘When the sun comes out, everyone makes a dash up the coast.’ As if to prove her point, another car overtook without slowing down. Across the road, Molly snapped at Lewis’ heels with the litter picker, the sound of his shrieks carried on the breeze.

‘Those your kids?’ he said.

‘Yeah.’

He nodded thoughtfully, watching them for a few short moments with a wistful smile on his lips. Aunt Vi was still watching, as if frozen to the spot.

‘Well,’ she said, snapping the tips of the litter picker together. ‘I suppose I’d better get on.’

‘Okay, I’ll see you,’ he said, slipping the car into gear. She watched the car round a bend in the road and disappear. Then, tilting her face to the sun she inhaled a deep lungful of the fresh sea air. But it did little to calm the giddy feeling in her stomach. The last time she’d felt like this she’d drunk too much champagne at a cousin’s wedding.

Aunt Vi was walking towards her, litter picker and bin bag abandoned on the pavement where she’d dropped them. Sarah crossed the road and the women met on the pavement. Aunt Vi glanced in the direction Cahal’s car had gone.

‘Who was in that car?’ she said, her expression rigid. And when Sarah did not answer, she brought her gaze to bear on her and said, more urgently, ‘Who were you talking to, Sarah?’

Sarah looked in the direction Cahal had gone, a lump forming in her throat like a lie. She hated the way her aunt made her feel. As if she was a girl again. As if she had done something wrong.

She pulled herself up to her full height and told herself sternly that she was an adult now. She could talk to whom she liked. She would not be intimidated. She looked her aunt levelly in the eye. ‘Cahal Mulvenna.’

‘Oh,’ said her aunt, a single, desolate cry and she cupped both hands over her mouth and stared at the bend in the road as if Cahal’s car might round it any moment and mow them both down. Sarah’s hackles rose. She’d never thought of her aunt as a drama queen but wasn’t this reaction a bit over the top? After a few long moments of silence, Aunt Vi looked back at Sarah, her face all crumpled up with confusion. ‘I thought I was seeing things. But I … I don’t understand. What’s he doing here? I thought he lived in Australia now.’

‘He does. He’s over here on business.’

‘You don’t seem surprised to see him.’

‘That’s because this isn’t the first time we’ve met.’ Sarah explained about the Australian consultants sent over to assist in the merger of the two telecommunications companies. ‘Cahal’s the senior consultant.’

‘I see,’ said Aunt Vi, bringing a hand up to her neck. ‘And is he … has he brought his family with him?’

‘No. The job’s only for six months.’ Aunt Vi’s face relaxed. ‘They’re with his ex-wife in Melbourne,’ she added and Aunt Vi blinked rapidly, like she’d something in her eye.

‘And you never thought to mention this before?’

Sarah shrugged indifferently. ‘I didn’t think you’d be particularly interested. You were never interested in Cahal Mulvenna before.’ She locked eyes with Vi. ‘Except to break us up.’

Aunt Vi broke eye contact and looked out to sea. ‘I only ever did what was for the best.’

Sarah swallowed. They had not spoken of this subject for two decades. She remembered how hard Aunt Vi and Dad had made it for her and Cahal. And how hard she’d fought back, only to be defeated in the end. ‘Best for whom?’ she said quietly but there was no answer.

‘What’re you talking about?’ said Molly, appearing suddenly beside them and squinting into the sun.

‘How much litter there is!’ she said brightly. ‘Come on, back to work. There’s loads more to be done.’

After the uncomfortable exchange with Aunt Vi which had left a slight coolness between them, Sarah left the kids at her father’s house and slipped out to see Evelyn. Her spirits lifted when she entered Evelyn’s room and found her sitting up in bed watching the too-loud TV. Cold April rain lashed the window, but inside the nursing home it was unbearably hot and stuffy.

Shrugging off her coat, Sarah walked over to the bed and smiled. ‘Hello Evelyn. You’re looking well. Haven’t seen you watching TV in a while.’ She draped the coat over the chair and patted Evelyn’s hand. Her skin was dry and papery, her hand cold as ice, even though she was bundled up in yellow blankets.

‘Sarah, darling, how good to see you. I am feeling a little better.’ Evelyn looked at the TV and peeled off her wire glasses with a trembling hand. Her eyes were watery and red-rimmed. ‘Turn that off, would you?’

Sarah flicked off the TV and the room fell silent, save for the distressing sound of someone shouting further down the corridor. It was probably Nancy Magill, a resident who was half-mad. She spent her days loudly accusing anyone who happened by – staff, residents, or visitors – of stealing her handbag, even when it was sitting squarely on her lap. Sarah shut the door, muffling the sound.

‘Thank you, darling,’ smiled Evelyn. ‘Where are the children?’

‘Up at Dad’s.’

‘You should’ve brought them.’

‘Ian’ll bring them on Sunday.’ The children’s visits to see their Gran were confined to weekends now, carefully orchestrated to take place in the late morning when she was at her best. Evelyn tired easily and the children were bored by the visits, and unsettled by the changes in their bedridden Gran who had once been so active.

Sarah noticed a photograph on the windowsill. It was an old black-and-white one of Evelyn in a silky evening dress smiling happily at her husband Harry, portly and bald in suit and tie. She picked it up. ‘I haven’t seen that photo before. It’s lovely.’

Sarah placed the plain silver frame in Evelyn’s frail hands and sat down on the chair beside the bed, sweating in the over-warm room. ‘Ian brought it in,’ said Evelyn, clutching the photo between both hands. ‘He found it in a box of old photographs. It was taken at the police annual dinner. 1973, I think. Quite a swanky affair in those days. The dress was emerald green silk. And do you see that pendant around my neck?’ She pointed. ‘It was an oval emerald. Harry gave it to me on our first wedding anniversary. Doesn’t he look handsome?’

Sarah’s throat tightened. ‘Yes.’ How difficult it must be dealing with each day without him.

Evelyn touched the glass in the frame with the tips of her fingers, as if connecting with the picture might in some way enable her to connect with Harry once more. ‘I loved him very much. We met when I was eighteen and were immediately inseparable. After we were married we never spent a night apart. He was the love of my life, you know. We were so very happy together.’

Sarah thought immediately of Cahal, her first and only true love, lost to her. The unfairness of it made her eyes prick with tears.

‘I had a good and happy life,’ Evelyn went on. ‘More children would’ve been nice but that wasn’t to be … but really I’m very thankful for the life I had. Don’t be sad for me, Sarah.’

Sarah sniffed back the tears and shook her head. ‘It’s not that …’

‘What then?’

‘I guess I’m crying for myself,’ she said, as a single tear slid down her left cheek. Hastily she wiped it away and fought to get her emotions under control. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t bring my troubles here.’

Evelyn let the photograph rest on the bedspread and waited. Sarah, who had always been able to confide in Evelyn and valued her counsel even above Becky’s, was unable to resist the urge to unburden herself. ‘Do you remember … did Ian ever mention a Cahal Mulvenna to you?’

Evelyn frowned and folded her thin lips in on themselves.

‘He’s from Ballyfergus. His family lived on the Drumalis estate.’

Evelyn licked her lips. ‘Mulvenna. I do recall that name.’

‘He was the love of my life.’ Sarah looked at her hot and sweaty hands clasped in her lap. ‘We met at university, in my first year, but it … it didn’t work out.’

‘So, why are you thinking about him now, all these years later?’

Sarah looked up. ‘Because he’s back in Ballyfergus, Evelyn. He’s taken a house on Grace Avenue.’

Evelyn nodded slowly but said nothing.

Sarah stared out the window. The rain had ceased, though the sky was still a solid block of grey. She told Evelyn the tale of her and Cahal, how her family had been so set against him and how he’d gone to Australia and she’d never heard from him again.

‘And now he’s back.’ Said Evelyn.

‘Yes. And the thing is … well, I find I still have the same feelings for him. I just don’t know if it’s wise to act on them.’

‘I don’t think wisdom has got much to do with it, Sarah. I think you have to follow your heart.’

‘But I don’t know if I can trust him. And then there’s the problem of distance. His ex-wife and three boys live in Australia. And I live here.’ Sarah inched forward onto the edge of the seat and laid her hand on the bed. ‘You do know that I’d never take the kids away from their father.’

‘I know you’d never do anything intentionally to hurt Ian,’ said Evelyn, patting the back of her hand. There was a short pause and she went on, ‘You can’t jump hurdles till you get to them.’ She looked at the photograph once more. ‘And the future has a funny way of taking care of itself. There’s something I’ve never told you about me and Harold.’ She leaned back on the pillows and stared out the window. ‘My parents were strict Baptists and they expected me to marry a boy from the Church. When they found out about Harold, they banned me from seeing him. They told me that they would cut me off if I persisted. That I would be cast out by my family and the Church.’

Sarah, astonished, said, ‘What did you do?’

‘We eloped. We got married in Antrim registry office. I had just turned nineteen. His sister and brother stood as witnesses. There was no one else there.’

Sarah stared, trying to imagine Evelyn as a young girl packing a suitcase and slipping out into the night, placing all her trust and her future in the hands of a man only two years older than she. ‘That was a very courageous thing to do.’

‘I loved him, that was all,’ smiled Evelyn. ‘I would’ve done anything for him.’

Sarah blushed. Had she loved Cahal enough? Should she have run away with him like he asked her to? But she’d had more than just her father and aunt to consider. There was Becky too.

‘It all worked out in the end. My family didn’t speak to me for years but eventually we patched things up.’ Evelyn smiled at the picture. ‘I never regretted it for one second.’

Sarah swallowed, her admiration for Evelyn growing by the second. ‘You were very brave.’

Evelyn smiled. ‘I don’t know about that. But it taught me that sometimes in life you have to take a chance. Or you risk losing the thing you love most.’

A thoughtful silence settled between them and then Evelyn said, ‘How’s Becky?’

‘Oh, she’s fine. She’s met a guy. She seems really keen on him.’

‘That’s nice.’

Sarah sighed heavily and wished she could tell Evelyn the truth about Becky’s new man. ‘I worry about her. She doesn’t have a very good track record when it comes to men. She seems to have fallen for him really quickly and I’m worried that he’ll let her down.’

‘You worry about her too much, Sarah.’

Sarah looked at her hands and said quietly, ‘But I feel responsible.’

‘I know you do,’ said Evelyn kindly, ‘but she’s a grown woman now. She has to make her own choices – and you have to let her. All you can do is be there for her if it doesn’t work out.’

‘But I can’t help but feel as if it’s my job to ensure her happiness.’

‘No one can make someone else happy. And I think that when your mother asked you to look after her, Sarah, she only meant for the time that Becky was a child.’

The muscles around Sarah’s heart tightened. ‘Do you think so?’

‘Yes, I do, Sarah.’ Evelyn reached out and patted the back of Sarah’s hand. ‘It’s time you let go, Sarah. It’s time to let Becky live her own life.’

‘But –’

Evelyn put her finger to her lips and smiled kindly. ‘No buts. She’s quite capable of looking after herself, you know.’

Back at her father’s house, Molly and Lewis were curled up on the sofa with Becky in the lounge watching a Mr Bean DVD. Peals of laughter came from down the hall, temporarily relieving Sarah’s anxiety, and bringing a smile to her face as she started to empty the dishwasher with her father.

‘I shouldn’t have stayed so long with Evelyn. I think I over-tired her.’

‘I’m sure she was very glad to see you,’ said Dad, lifting a cup out of the dishwasher.

Sarah picked out the cutlery. ‘The doctors say it’s her heart. It’s just slowly packing up and there’s nothing they can do. That’s why she’s always cold – her circulation’s bad.’

‘God bless her,’ he said, pausing for a moment with the cup in one hand and a dishtowel in the other. He couldn’t be persuaded from his habit of drying the dishwashed dishes, even though, bar the odd pool of water on the base of a mug or glass, they were dry already. ‘But we all have to go sometime. Tough for Ian though. She’s all he’s got left.’

‘Yes, I think he’ll take it very hard,’ said Sarah, taking a cloth to the greasy splashes behind the cooker that Dad and Becky had overlooked, but which Vi, when she returned, would not. ‘But at least he has Raquel,’ she added a little feebly. Based on recent conversations with Ian, she wasn’t sure Raquel would be of much comfort to him when the time came.

Dad said nothing and they worked in companionable silence for a little while. When the dishes were all dried and put away, he closed the door to the hall softly and came and stood beside her, the damp tea towel still in his hands. ‘I want to talk to you about something, Sarah,’ he said, in the grave tone of voice she knew so well and which had always inspired anxiety in her. Her stomach tightened.

‘Vi told me that Cahal Mulvenna’s back in town.’

She busied herself rinsing the basin under the tap. ‘That’s right.’

He folded the tea towel carefully into four and laid it on the kitchen counter. ‘And he works with you, is that right?’ he said, smoothing the folded cloth with the palm of his hand.

She stared at her reflection in the black kitchen window – beyond, the garden was in pitch darkness. Standing here, in the house in which she’d grown up, with the man who’d been the most dominant influence in her life, she was a child again. ‘We work in the same building.’

She wiped the basin carefully with the dishcloth and set it on the draining board.

‘I see,’ he said coolly.

She squeezed out the dishcloth and set it by the sink.

Dad sniffed. ‘And you don’t have … er … any feelings for him still, do you?’

Sarah blushed. ‘Really, Dad, I don’t think that’s any of your business. I’m thirty-eight years old.’

‘You’re my daughter, Sarah,’ he said evenly. ‘Your happiness is my business, no matter how old you are. I don’t want that man hurting you again.’

She touched his arm. ‘Don’t worry, Dad. I won’t let him.’

He folded his arms and leaned against the counter. ‘So you do still care for him?’

Sarah shrugged. She would not deny it outright.

The corners of his mouth twitched. ‘You met his parents, didn’t you?’

She could not pretend to her father, or herself, that she’d felt comfortable in that environment. ‘It’s not Cahal’s fault that he was born into a family like that. And frankly, I think it’s incredibly old-fashioned to judge someone by their background. We live in the twenty-first century, Dad, not the nineteenth.’ She offered an olive branch in the form of a smile. ‘Haven’t you heard of upward mobility?’

‘I believe he’s done well for himself,’ he said glumly. ‘And I suppose he’s to be congratulated on that. Given the background he came from.’

‘Yes, he has done well. And I admire him for that.’

‘Well,’ said Dad and he lowered his head a little so that he was looking at her from under his eyebrows. ‘You should know that Aunt Vi and I don’t feel any differently about him now than we did twenty years ago.’

‘Well, it’s comforting to know that some things never change.’

Just then Becky burst through the door, chuckling, in grey joggers and battered slipper boots. Sarah smiled grimly, her face reddening. She couldn’t look at her sister these days without an image of Tony springing to mind. By all accounts the romance was going swimmingly. They were even talking of moving in together. Sarah felt sick at the thought.

‘It’s not over yet,’ announced Becky, clutching a red plastic bowl to her large chest. ‘Mr Bean has just destroyed this priceless painting. It’s hilarious.’ She opened a cupboard door and peered inside. ‘I’ve been sent in to forage for supplies. Any more Tayto cheese and onion, Dad?’ She paused and looked from Sarah’s red face to her father’s grim one. ‘What’s up with you two? You look like someone’s died.’

‘Nothing’s the matter,’ said Sarah brightly, her instinct to protect Becky from anything unpleasant as honed as it had always been.

‘I think there’s some more crisps in that cupboard there,’ said Dad, pointing. ‘At least that’s where Aunt Vi normally puts them.’

‘Becky,’ came Lewis’ voice from up the hall, ‘you said you’d only be a minute.’

‘I’m coming,’ she hollered back, pulled crisps out of the cupboard and said to both of them, ‘You coming to watch the end of this movie or what?’

‘Sure,’ said Dad and he walked into the hall.

‘I’ll maybe give it a miss tonight,’ said Sarah, pulling her smartphone out of her bag, and concentrating on the screen. ‘I could do with catching up on a few emails.’ And time alone to think.

Becky ripped open three crisp packets and tipped the contents into the bowl. ‘Oh, come on. It’s Friday night, Sarah. Take a break.’

Sarah shook her head and tapped the screen of the phone. ‘No, you go ahead.’

Becky gave her a peculiar look. ‘Sarah, what’s wrong?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Are you sure? You’ve been acting weird for a while now, ever since Isabelle’s party.’