No Way to Say Goodbye (8 page)

Ivan was the archetypal middle child, happy to blend in with whatever was going on. He experienced his first love at twelve with a fair-haired, blue-eyed whippet of a thing called Noreen. They kissed behind the dressing rooms on the football field, holding their lips together until he had counted to sixty. After that she wouldn’t talk to him, but the memory of her lips against his ensured he wouldn’t be behind-the-door about discovering someone else. He lost his virginity at fifteen, which was young in the 1980s, to a seventeen-year-old at an Irish college. He hadn’t learned much Irish but, as far as he was concerned, the three weeks he spent shagging on an island off Cork was money well spent.

When he wasn’t breaking hearts, he was hanging out with Mary. She was the only girl he ever shared his thoughts with. She felt like part of him and he could never accept that he’d experienced something unless he’d shared it with her. Luckily for her, she wasn’t one for embarrassment so when he described his first sexual experience it was without reservation and Mary, mesmerized, made mental notes for when she dared adventure as her cousin had.

When Ivan nearly lost his best friend and confidante he re-evaluated the world around him. He didn’t bother with his Leaving Cert, which, despite the year he had on Mary, he was due to take at the same time. He didn’t need it anyway, not for what he wanted to do with his life. His parents put up a battle but, with their niece in a coma and their son as stubborn as he was calm, they were forced to surrender. While the rest of his classmates studied, Ivan sat by his cousin’s bed day and night, sharing sentry duty with his broken uncle. He philosophized and recited her favourite song lyrics into her ear. He also read to her the books he thought she’d like and that he’d researched during the few hours he was apart from her. Her pregnancy came as a horrible surprise and he blamed himself for it – perhaps his confidences had led her to follow in his footsteps. He wondered if the baby that had survived tumbling down a mountain would suck the life out of its mother. If so, he would despise that child for stealing his best friend.

The baby surviving had been the first miracle. Mary waking had been the second. That she’d survived without brain damage, the third and final. Her skull was weakened and headaches would haunt her, but medication would keep them mostly at bay and she would be back to herself soon enough. There would be a wheelchair and physiotherapy, a wig to hide the hair loss as a consequence of the operation she had undergone to insert a metal plate into her skull. The baby would grow inside her and Ivan would be at her side through it all, yet they would never speak of her boyfriend’s death or her miracle child. That part of her was closed. But Ivan knew she’d come back to them and every time he made her laugh he knew he was a step closer.

It was during this time that he first fell in love with Norma. She was a quiet town girl, bookish and pretty. She would ask after his cousin and talk about treatments she’d read about. She planned to study medicine and he was falling in love with her. Mary had been out of the rehabilitation hospital a month when they announced their engagement and Norma’s pregnancy. Their child was less than a year old when Ivan first left his home town for a faraway oil rig that would earn him enough money to support his family, leaving his new wife behind with a baby. She never did become a doctor and it would be too late by the time her husband realized that she felt desperately cheated.

*

And then there was Penny – poor Penny – daughter to two solicitors and an only child. Her conception was deemed a mistake as children had never been on her parents’ agenda. They weren’t bad people – at least, not as far as she knew. They weren’t around much and their house was a base rather than a home. Both parents worked mostly in Cork, staying in their apartment there, only popping back at weekends. Their child was cared for by a series of live-in nannies until she was old enough to be sent to boarding-school.

“If it’s good enough for royalty, it’s good enough for you, darling!” her mother would say, smiling.

Mary had plonked herself beside Penny on that first train journey, taking them towards their new life in Dublin. They didn’t really know each other as they had attended different primary schools but Penny’s face was familiar – they had grown up in the same small town. Penny had been sad but Mary was excited at the prospect of a new school and a new world, and by the time they had reached Dublin she had managed to infuse that excitement into her new best friend. Penny and Mary were kindred spirits from the start. Mary might have been the child that the townspeople pitied – she was the one they whispered about as she passed, her dead mother never far behind – but Penny suffered from her parents’ rejection and Mary understood that. She had no mother but she did have a father, which was more than Penny had. From the day she sat down beside Penny, Mary would do everything to guarantee that she wouldn’t feel lonely again, including introducing her to one of Ivan’s best friends, Adam. Mary swore he was perfect for her. She was right: Adam and Penny were inseparable from the start.

When Mary nearly died, Penny thought she might just die with her. She returned to an empty house and spoke with Adam on the phone. He told her that her best friend might not live through the night. He was desperate to be with her but his parents wouldn’t let him leave the house, not after his friend had plunged to his death leaving his half-dead girlfriend with child. That night, alone in her big empty house, she opened her parents’ drinks cabinet and poured herself a whiskey. When she’d finished it, she poured herself a second and a third. After the fourth she passed out on the sofa, waking up the next afternoon, still alone.

The first time she’d seen Mary in hospital, she waited until they were alone before she stroked her bandaged head. “You’d better not leave me!”

She wasn’t allowed stay away from school, it being her Leaving Cert year, so she went back to study for a college place she didn’t want. Luckily for her she was clever, and even though she had spent four months without opening a book, she breezed through the exams, as her parents had before her. She wasn’t there on the day that Mary woke, but Adam called to let her know and she cried down the phone. She wasn’t allowed home until the weekend, four days after her best friend had come back to the living. When Penny entered the room Mary burst into tears and Penny’s heart soared because she was so happy to be recognized. That night, to celebrate, she and Adam drank three bottles of her mother’s Christmas wine stash. Penny knew emptiness, but no matter how hard she tried she could never fill it.

Adam was the kind of kid who would never set the intellectual world on fire, but if you put him in a field with a ball or a stick it was like watching genius. He loved his sports and would have been a much more suitable friend for Ivan’s brothers than the sport-shunning Ivan. But there was something about Ivan that drew Adam to him from the first time they met. He liked his calmness and admired his simplicity. Ivan didn’t care about appearances and Adam enjoyed his friend’s lack of ego – his easy ways relaxed him. If Ivan was the easygoing one and Robert the adventurous one, Adam was the funny one. He could make anyone laugh, even the sternest of his teachers, so he often talked his way out of trouble. Of course, his abilities on the field got him a place on the Kerry youth team and with this came a hint of celebrity – his capacity to pick up a cup and make a joke to a local TV crew had further endeared him to the inhabitants of his small town. But his heart belonged only to Penny.

A long time before his friend had introduced them, he had watched a young girl with the prettiest blue shoes sit on the wall that separated the primary school from the road. The school was empty, the bell having rung long before, but there she sat, alone, staring at her pretty blue shoes. He hid behind a bush that separated his friend’s father’s land from the road that lay between him and the girl. He was eleven and had been making his way home across the fields when he’d caught sight of her. Her pretty blonde hair shone in the evening sun, and when she eventually raised her cherubic face, he was reminded of an angel in the prayer book his mother had often made him read. He scrambled to hide in the undergrowth in case she caught sight of him.

The teacher came out, looking at her watch. “Well, Penny, there’s no answer at home,” she said, failing to disguise her annoyance.

“I’ll be OK,” Penny said. “I’m sure someone will be here soon.” Her voice was full of the kind of sadness that only kids can convey. Adam heard it, but her teacher didn’t.

“This is the second time this week, not to mention three times last week,” the teacher said. “This is not a baby-sitting service.”

“I’ll be fine,” Penny said.

“I can’t leave you here,” the teacher said. “I’ll try your neighbour.”

Adam watched the woman leave the girl called Penny on her own and he watched the fat tears roll from Penny’s eyes.
Don’t cry,
he thought.
Please don’t cry.
Every minute she sat there alone and in tears seemed like an eternity and each moment a lifetime. He was too scared to move, although he wanted to place his arm around her shoulders, so he just sat in the grass pretending he was beside her and willing her to be all right. Penny dried her eyes before her teacher returned to tell her that the neighbour was on her way. Twenty minutes later a car pulled up beside Penny, who jumped from the wall and silently slid into it. The teacher spoke with the woman in hushed tones as Penny stared straight ahead. Adam wondered what she was thinking and if he’d see her again.

He, too, was an only child but, unlike Penny, was smothered with his parents’ love. His every whim was catered for and it was a testament to all concerned that he didn’t end up a spoilt brat. He saw the joy he brought to his parents and it inspired him to attempt to bring it into the lives of those around him. He’d score a goal or a point or throw a basket or make someone laugh. Pleasing people came easily. He was no pushover, though. He was a winner, and all winners have the ability to put themselves over others when it really matters.

That was where he and his friend Ivan differed but it was a trait he shared with Robert. The first time Adam dressed up for Hallowe’en he was Superman, the next year he was Spiderman, the year after that he was Batman. Batman lasted three years because his outfit was way cooler than that of the tights-wearing Superman/Spiderman. At twelve he had fancied himself as some kind of hero like Westley in
The Princess Bride
, which was his favourite film (although if his friends had asked he would have told them it was
Rambo – First Blood
). But consumed by football, hurling, basketball, movies, Nintendo, music, friends and family, he had yet, unlike Westley, to find his true love Buttercup until the day he saw Penny crying on her school wall.

I’ll save you
.

Summer came quickly and the girl he had watched sitting on the wall, sometimes for five minutes and sometimes for an hour, vanished. He didn’t know that her mother’s mother had a house in France to which she was sent every year. He prayed they would end up at the same secondary school, but that September he was bitterly disappointed.

Three months later, Adam was formally introduced to Penny by his friend Ivan’s cousin Mary. The three boys, Ivan, Adam and Robert, had been sitting on a bench in the woods smoking cigarettes and drinking Coke when Mary appeared with Penny in tow. Ivan was preoccupied with the news that his favourite chocolate bar was being taken off the market. Robert had a thing for Mary, but he was still with Shauna Ryan – he was busy flirting with Mary anyway – and Adam was lost to the girl who reminded him of Buttercup in
The Princess Bride
. Ivan wanted to play video games at the chipper and Robert had to meet Shauna, but Adam was going nowhere. Mary tagged along with Ivan, leaving Adam to walk Penny home, talking about everything and anything along the way. He made her laugh easily and her eyes lit up. Later that night they sat on her wall and at last he got to put his arm around her. When he was leaving they kissed and for both it was a first.
My Buttercup.
The trouble was, Westley married Buttercup, not a Dutchman’s daughter.

Sam had taken his book to bed, falling asleep some time after two. Around the same time Mary emerged from the woods, frozen inside and out. Mr Monkels had forgone his usual fourteen-hour sleep and was standing to attention by the door, ready to welcome her home as if to remind her that, despite all she had lost, she still had him. She straightened the picture of her son holding Mr Monkels on a better day.
Goodnight, baby boy, your mammy loves you
. She rubbed Mr Monkels’s head and he followed her upstairs. She undressed quietly and fell into bed, exhaustion taking hold. At last sleep was inescapable.

Penny continued to slug from her tumbler of vodka while flicking through TV stations, propped up by pillows, feigning interest in reruns of bad sitcoms so that she could finish the bottle. Breaking up with Adam had been hard enough but losing him to Cork City was unbearable. The neat spirit flowed down her throat like water, and it was after three when the glass fell from her hand and her head lolled forward. When she vomited, it was messy but she was safe.

Ivan was restless. He wasn’t used to being uneasy – it clashed with his nature. He was worried about his kids – a phone call earlier had left him perturbed as his son, ten and usually a smartarse, had been subdued and his daughter, seven and a chatterbox, quiet and hesitant. His ex-wife had attempted to allay his concerns, noting that they were kids and being moody was part of the deal, but she, too, had sounded off form. He wondered if she was stressed – but then again, for five days out of any month she suffered with severe PMT, during which time she could take a man’s head off if she had a mind to. It was hard to forget that the slightest infraction would induce a tearful tantrum that had to be seen to be believed.

During their stilted conversation he had casually glanced at his wall calendar and surmised that, if the pattern remained unchanged, she should have another good week of sense in her. He knew she didn’t really like talking with him. He could hear it in her voice. She was friendly and polite but it was obvious she was glad to have escaped. Although, after a nasty patch, their eventual parting had been amicable enough, she was always quick to get him off the phone. He missed his kids, even if they were moody, and in truth he missed his wife – even if she had run off with some English tourist, taking his life with her. He had never been one for television so he listened to the ticking of an old clock.