All That I Leave Behind (38 page)

Mary-Pat had thought for a long time, eyeing the little letters on the table, before saying, ‘Do you think you could put them away, please? I don’t want to look at them.’

‘Sure.’ June had tried not to look too hurt as she picked them up and pushed them into her handbag, like a bundle of used tissues, soiled and manky.

‘The thing is, June, we did lose Mammy for ever. The day she left us. She was gone. And we had to come to terms with that in whatever way we could. You know what it was like, Junie.’

June had nodded silently, twirling the wedding ring round and round on her slender finger. ‘It was awful.’

‘It sure was. Worse than awful. It wasn’t just the wondering where she was, the worrying, but also thinking over and over again about what we’d done to make her run away like that. I thought it was my fault, that I hadn’t looked after Rosie well enough or something, or that I hadn’t taken sides when that woman came to live with us. I should have sided with Mammy. I should have. She probably felt she had no one to turn to—’

June interrupted, ‘But that wasn’t our responsibility, MP. It wasn’t our fault, surely you knew that. Look what Daddy was like. If it hadn’t been Frances O’Brien, it’d have been someone else. She probably just couldn’t take any more.’

‘So she left her children,’ Mary-Pat had said flatly.

‘Yes, well …’

‘You and I both know that she could have taken us with her or booted him out. The law was on the woman’s side in those days. No judge in the land would have argued otherwise. But she chose to leave us with him and go off and make a new life for herself.’

‘And she’s blamed herself ever since,’ June had interjected. ‘I can’t tell you how many times she’s said sorry—’

‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Mary-Pat had barked. ‘Sorry, sorry. Who gives a shit about her sorries. It’s far too late for that, Junie, and you should have told her that. After you’d told us, your flesh and blood, about the letters and let us all decide what to do. It was your responsibility to us, to tell us. But you chose to keep it to yourself. And I don’t think I can forgive you for that, I really don’t.’

‘I’m sorry—’ June had started to whine again.

‘Oh, will you just quit, Junie?’ Mary-Pat’s hands had been shaking as she’d lit a cigarette and took a deep pull. She needed a moment, she’d thought. She needed to weigh the enormity of it all in her mind, to decide whether she wanted to lose another family member after everything else that had happened that afternoon. After all of those years holding it all together, through thick and thin. All those years with Daddy in this house, all the years in which what had happened in her own family had sunk deep inside of her. And Mary-Pat knew with a sureness which she’d never felt before that she’d had enough. She knew that she couldn’t erase the past, but she could stop it taking a grip on her now. She could stop it poisoning her family, the family she’d created with PJ. They were what mattered now, not the others.

‘Don’t you want to find out where Mammy is? What she’s doing? Aren’t you even a little bit curious?’ June’s voice had sounded faintly accusatory.

Mary-Pat had shaken her head. ‘I’m with Pi on that, June. Thanks all the same. And now,’ she’d pushed herself up from her chair and looked around, ‘this place is a mess and PJ will be back from the pub quiz any minute.’ She’d taken a deep breath, her decision made. ‘I’d like you to leave, Junie. I’m sorry.’

June had nodded and sniffed, picking her expensive handbag up off the floor. She hadn’t looked at Mary-Pat as she put on her jacket, but when she got to the hall door, she’d turned around. ‘Are you sure …?’ and she’d pulled the wad of paper out of her handbag.

Mary-Pat had hesitated for a second too long. At that moment, she’d have given anything to know where Mammy was and what she was doing. But as June had come back towards her, taking the creases out of the crumpled mess of paper, Mary-Pat had found it within herself. ‘No. Please, Junie. No.’

June had looked as if Mary-Pat had hit her. Then she’d nodded, stuffing the letters back in her bag and marching promptly out the front door, shutting it behind her with a loud bang. Mary-Pat had waited until her sister was long gone before breaking down. It was as if a dam had broken inside her, and it all came pouring out, the pain and resentment of it all. For the next hour, she’d held herself and howled until she could howl no more and then she’d looked at the clock on the wall and realised that she’d have to stop, because PJ and the kids were due home at any minute. By the time John-Patrick had come in, she’d been standing by the cooker, turning fried eggs over in the pan. ‘Tea’s ready,’ she’d said.

‘Thanks, Mum.’ John-Patrick had pulled out a stool and sat down, pouring himself a cup of tea. ‘Any news?’

‘No. Quiet day,’ she’d lied, putting the eggs on a plate and sliding them across to him. ‘Eat up.’

She’d sat down beside him and lit a fag, before remembering that the child was eating, and she’d put it out on the ashtray on the kitchen windowsill, wincing as she noticed all the butts. He’d looked up and had given her a half-smile and she’d noticed that his eyes were their normal blue, not those scary black marbles.

‘What?’ She put her hands on her hips.

‘Nothing.’ He gave a faint smile.

‘What is it, John-Patrick?’

‘You normally don’t stop smoking when we’re eating,’ he said politely, crossing his fork and knife on his plate and wiping his mouth with the cloth napkin she’d provided for him. She’d trained him to do that and she felt proud of him now.

‘Yes, well, I’m trying to be a bit more considerate,’ she’d muttered.

He’d nodded, as if her being considerate was the most normal thing in the world. ‘Is everything all right, Mum?’

She didn’t know what came over her, but she’d told him, her lovely son. It had all come out, everything, about Mammy and Daddy and Rosie, all of it, and, being John-Patrick, he hadn’t interrupted or offered advice she didn’t need. He’d just listened, and even though Mary-Pat had felt guilty about burdening him, she’d also felt glad, glad that it was all now out in the open and that she wasn’t passing the guilt on to the next generation; the notion that you had to keep things secret. It wasn’t good for anyone.

‘You know, I remember the very first time I saw Auntie Rosie,’ she’d said, pouring a thick brew of tea into two mugs and shoving one across the table to him. ‘I’d come home from school. It was February, I remember, because there was ice on the canal and the rushes were all covered in frost. And there was a carrycot in the hall. It was like an alien had landed in the place, I can tell you. I crept over to it and just saw her, moving under her little crochet blanket, and she let out this tiny cry. She was such a scrap, all scrawny and wizened; she didn’t look like I thought a baby should look. I thought they were always plump and bonny, with big rosy cheeks. Anyway, of course, your Auntie June nearly wet herself with excitement, eejit that she is. “MP, look, there’s a baby!” God almighty. She always was dim.’ She’d rolled her eyes to heaven then, before catching herself on. ‘Sorry, that was a bit much.’

‘Did you know who … it … sorry, Auntie Rosie belonged to immediately?’ John-Patrick had said quietly.

Mary-Pat had nodded. ‘Of course I did, because I’d met her in the minimarket when she was about six months gone and it didn’t take a genius …’ She’d hesitated, biting her lip. ‘As far as I know, I was the only one that did know, apart from Daddy and Mammy, of course. And it made me feel anxious inside, that I had to keep it to myself, you know? And the way they made excuses for it, for her, I mean.’ Mary-Pat had shaken her head. ‘Mammy told us it was her sister’s and they were minding the baby because she hadn’t been feeling well. I never did understand that: not the excuse, but why Mammy put up with that. I can’t think it was because she wanted another baby. For God’s sake, they could hardly manage to feed and clothe the three of us as it was.’

John-Patrick had cleared his throat and shuffled in his chair. ‘Ehm, maybe she loved him,’ he’d finally said, blushing bright red at the idea.

‘Maybe you’re right, love. Maybe she did,’ Mary-Pat had said. She’d taken a deep breath, ‘Don’t think badly of Grandad, love, will you?’ Mary-Pat had said. ‘I don’t want you to think badly of him.’

‘It’s kinda hard not to, Mum,’ John-Patrick had said, looking surprised. ‘He doesn’t come out of it well.’

‘Maybe not, but he was weak, John-Patrick, not bad through and through. Just a weak man trying to pretend that he wasn’t. Maybe try not to be hard on him, will you? Not that he’d notice if you were, but you get my drift. You’ll see that when you get older, love, that it’s not always easy to be strong or to do the right thing. Sometimes it takes more than we’ve got.’

John-Patrick didn’t say anything, just put a hand over hers and gave it a squeeze. ‘You did the right thing, Mum, by Rosie. She knows that.’

Does she? Mary-Pat thought. ‘It’s good of you to say it, love, but I doubt it. I think she blames me for everything that’s gone wrong in her life, but anyway …’ She squeezed his hand back. ‘You’re a good listener, son. There’ll be some girl out there who’ll like that.’

‘Thanks.’ He’d shifted uneasily in his chair, not meeting her eye.

‘There already is,’ she said. ‘Why didn’t I cop on sooner? Your mother must be losing her touch.’

He’d blushed then, the poor thing. ‘She’s an au pair for the MacNamaras.’ And then he’d coughed nervously. ‘She’s Swedish.’

‘Oh, lovely,’ she’d said nervously. ‘She must be into saunas and all that.’ ‘All that’ meaning ‘taking their clothes off all the time’. The Scandinavians were awfully free like that.

He’d snorted with laughter then. ‘Mum, for God’s sake – talk about stereotyping. And no, she doesn’t eat reindeer or listen to ABBA all the time either.’

‘Sorry. Maybe I haven’t changed that much, after all,’ she said ruefully.

‘That’s good to hear,’ he’d replied, carrying his plate over to the sink and carefully rinsing it, before turning his head and saying, ‘Because I like you the way you are, Mum, believe it or not.’

‘Cheeky bugger,’ she said, accepting the brief squeeze he’d offered her, his hands damp on her shoulders, leaning her head against his chest and thinking how funny it was that only a few years before, he’d used to come to her for hugs, leaning into her tummy and resting his head there while she wrapped her arms around him.

‘Love, will you promise me one thing?’ she said into his jumper.

‘What?’

‘Don’t tell your father. He’s had enough of all that and he doesn’t need any more of it, the burden of it, do you know what I mean?’

John-Patrick hadn’t answered her directly; he’d just shrugged and muttered something about playing
Devil May Cry
. ‘Later, Mum.’

Now, she dipped a finger in the hollandaise, wondering about how the roles had been reversed and if it was inevitable that the children become the parents in the end.

‘Mary-Pat?’

She screamed and dropped the wooden spoon, where it clattered to the floor, sending a yellow spray of hollandaise over the floor and cupboard doors. ‘Oh, shite,’ she yelled, clutching her chest. ‘PJ, don’t sneak up on me like that. You gave me an awful fright.’

He was standing at the kitchen door, a copy of
The Sun
under his arm, looking at her warily, as if she were a wild animal he’d cornered. Compared to her, he was overdressed, in a thick sleeveless gilet and a fleece which zipped up under his chin and she suddenly realised how cold she was and how unattractive her mottled blue skin must look. She looked down at the two rolls of fat around her belly, over which she couldn’t see the knickers with the ribbon detail. What had she been thinking – how on earth would he think she was sexy in this rig-out?

‘Why are you in your underwear?’

‘Ehm, I … well …’ she stuttered. For a second, she couldn’t think of a single word to say.

‘Mary-Pat?’ He was beside her in a second, but she couldn’t help noticing that he didn’t touch her. He just stood beside her, looking worried. Eventually, he said, ‘Will I fetch your dressing gown?’

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

When he came back, he draped the dressing gown gently over her shoulders and tied the cord around her waist, like a little child. Then he busied himself making a cup of tea, putting one teaspoon of sugar in hers, the way she liked it. And then he handed it to her. ‘Will we sit down?’

She shook her head, pulling the collar of her dressing gown tightly around her, feeling the warmth of the thick cotton surround her like a fluffy blanket. She felt glad to be covered
up, not to be exposed like that, even to her husband.

He cleared his throat. ‘I think we might take the sauce off the heat.’

‘Oh, Christ,’ she blurted and turned around to see a sticky brown mess bubbling away in the pot. She whipped it off the stove and threw it into the sink, dousing it with a jet of cold water so that it hissed and spat.

‘I was making venison steak for dinner,’ she eventually managed. ‘I thought the sauce might be nice.’

‘Steak? Are we celebrating?’ He tried to joke, but when she didn’t reply, just bit her lip and looked at her tea, he said, ‘Mary-Pat, tell me what’s wrong. Is it the others?’

She’d been about to tell him, to let it all out the way she had with John-Patrick, even though she’d asked her son to keep it quiet. The temptation was almost too much for her, but at the tone of his voice, she stopped herself. He sounded so weary, so tired of it all, and she knew that if she told him, if she fed him another morsel about her family, it would drive him even further away. He’d had enough. God, she wanted to unburden herself, but she wouldn’t, because she knew that it wouldn’t do any good. And she also knew that if she told PJ about Mammy, he’d only encourage her to get in touch with Mammy again, because he was a good man and because he believed in family. He just wouldn’t understand why it would cause her more pain than she could deal with.

‘It’s not the others. It’s us.’

PJ said nothing, just blew on his tea, his eyes fixed on the activity. Mary-Pat wanted to rip the mug out of his hand, and she would have done had it not contained near-boiling liquid. Instead, she said, ‘I know about your one up at the minimarket. I’ve seen you there.’ She looked directly at him as she said this, daring him to deny it, to say that she was just imagining it. When he didn’t immediately reply, she opened her mouth to say something else to him, something like – ‘Well? Have you nothing to say for yourself?’ But she stopped herself. She didn’t need always to be the first to speak. Graham and she had been working on that recently. So she just waited.