The Last Goodbye (36 page)

“That’s enough now, Aoife. This is not the place.” Dad stepped in. “This won’t help your gran. You’ve had a rough day. I think you should go home and get a few hours’ sleep – you’re exhausted.”

“Don’t worry, I’m going.” She stood up and kissed Gran gently on the forehead before storming out of the room.

“I’ll go after her,” Seán said. He bumped into a nurse on his way out the door.

“What’s going on in here?” The nurse looked at him and then to the rest of us for an explanation.

We all avoided eye contact with her.

“You can be heard out in the corridor!”

We stared down at the floor.

“Well, whatever it is, it certainly isn’t doing Josephine any good – it’s very important that she gets her rest. I think she has had enough visitors for today.”

I instantly felt guilty.

“Sorry – we’ll go now and leave her in peace,” Dad said.

The nurse nodded. “Visiting time tomorrow is between twelve and two.”

“Right so. Look, sorry again about that.” Dad said getting up from the chair and putting on his coat. “It’s been a long day – I think we’re all a bit tired.”

She nodded.

We got outside the door.

“We should all head on home and get some rest, yeah? There’s nothing more we can do here,” Dad said.

We walked down the corridors until we were back at reception. We went back through the sliding doors and out into the cold evening air. We stood chatting for a few minutes under the amber glow of the car park lights before we said our goodbyes.

“We’ll see you back at the house,” Dad said.

We followed Dad’s car back to Ballyrobin. We went across back roads that I wasn’t too sure of. I would definitely have got us lost.

It took almost an hour before we turned in our gate. We followed Dad into the kitchen where he automatically turned on the kettle. He had left the radio on in the kitchen as usual – he never bothered to turn it off when he was going out.

I felt my stomach rumble and then I remembered that I hadn’t eaten anything all day.

“Do you want a cuppa?”

“No, thanks,” Ben said.

“No, thanks, Dad, not for me. I might just grab a slice of toast if that’s okay?”

“Of course it is. There’s bread in the press. Sorry I haven’t anything organised for dinner with everything going on.”

“Don’t worry about it, toast is fine.”

“So how was the flight?” Dad asked as I pushed two slices of bread down into the toaster.

“It was fine – a bit bouncy on the way down though.”

“Well, you were lucky to get on a flight with such short notice.”

I went to the fridge and took out the butter.

“She’s going to be okay, isn’t she, Dad?”

“Well, they said, we got her to the hospital in time so hopefully she’ll be alright but she is nearly ninety, Kate, and this will take a lot out of her. Luckily Aoife was there with her and noticed something was wrong – if she had been on her own, well, I don’t even want to think what might have happened.”

I felt a shiver run through me at the thought.

The toaster popped and I took out the bread and started to butter it. I offered Ben a slice but he declined. He had eaten a sandwich on the plane but I hadn’t been able to.

“I didn’t have a chance to make up the bed for you with everything going on.”

“Don’t worry about that, sure I’m just glad to have a bed to fall into. I’ll get fresh sheets in the hot press.”

“Well, try and get some sleep, you’ve had a long day.”

We said goodnight and then Ben helped me to make the bed.

The weight of my body sank into the soft mattress. I lay there and stared at the shadowy ceiling. Even though my bones were aching with tiredness, my head was buzzing. The day just started to hit me and I felt wired. I tossed and turned but sleep wasn’t coming. I heard Ben snore softly beside me. Eventually, knowing there was no chance of me sleeping, I gave up and got out of bed. I threw on a jumper over my pyjamas and went along to the kitchen.

I was surprised to see light filtering out from under the doorway. I opened it and saw Dad sitting at the table with his head in his hands. At first I thought he was asleep but then he raised his head up to look at me.

“Ah, Kate! Can you not sleep?”

I shook my head.

“Me neither. What a day, eh? It’s only starting to hit me now.”

I pulled out a chair and sat opposite him at the table.

“Do you reckon Aoife was all right after?”

“I rang Seán a while ago and he said she’s fine. She went straight to bed when she got home.”

“Does she normally flip the lid like that?”

“Honestly? No. I’ve never seen her lose her temper like that before. She’s just tired and the stress of the last twenty-four hours is taking its toll on her.”

“She’s right though.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, I did avoid your calls. Only that you left that message at the gallery, I wouldn’t be here . . .”

He looked across at me.

“To be honest, I was so mad at you for not giving me the letter after Mam died like you were supposed to.”

“I figured as much. So you read it then?”

I nodded. “Why did it take you so long to give it to me?”

“I don’t know. I suppose I just never really thought the time was right.”

“Well, what about the time when you were supposed to give it to me? After Mam died?”

“I’m sorry, Kate – but you were so angry, I was afraid it would make everything worse or you’d tear it up or something!”

“Things couldn’t have been much worse than they were, Dad!”

“I know, Kate, I know,” he sighed. “There just never seemed to be a good time. I’ve been waiting for years to give it to you. After she died, I was afraid you would destroy it without opening it or do something you would regret with it. Then you left home and, well, I suppose it just didn’t happen. And then the years went by and I didn’t want to drag it all up again for you, especially when you seemed to be making a new life for yourself over in London. But I thought . . . well . . . now that you’re in the family way yourself that the time was right.”

“Well, it was mine – it was meant for me. You should have given it to me when you were supposed to.”

“I know, Kate, I’m sorry, love. I really am. Do you think if I had given it to you earlier, it would have helped?”

“Probably not if I’m honest. It still wouldn’t have changed what she did.”

“Your feelings haven’t mellowed to her at all after all these years, have they?”

“Well, have
yours
?”

“Staying angry with her about her decision won’t change anything, Kate.”

“So you’ve forgiven her then?”

“I can see you’re still angry – Lord above, so am I, but it won’t change anything now. She made her decision. She did what she thought at the time was best and we can’t undo that now, can we?”

“I guess so. I have something to tell you, Dad.”

“Oh – what is it?”

“Well, I was mugged a few days ago –”

“You were not! Are you okay? You weren’t hurt, were you?”

“Sure can’t you see yourself that I’m fine? But the letter – it was in my bag. It’s gone, Dad. The police have been checking for CCTV or something in the area but there’s nothing.”

“Sure it wasn’t your fault.”

“But I feel like I’ve let you and Mam down – you’d only just given it to me.”

“You haven’t let me down at all. It was your letter – your mother wrote it for you.”

“I’ve tried to write down the bits of it that I remember but it isn’t the same – it’s not her voice.”

“Look, you know what your mother was like – she wasn’t one for the sentimental stuff.”

“She was great, you know . . . she had a real wry sense of humour.”

“She did, love.”

“Do you miss her, Dad?”

“Every day. Every single day when I come in the door I always think how empty the house feels without her – even after twenty years.”

“Me too. It was so unfair, wasn’t it?”

He nodded. “I still get angry about it all, to be honest, Kate, and when I feel it coming on me I take off into the fields and it helps to calm me down again. This sounds silly but when the wind is swirling around my ears it’s like I can hear her voice wrapped up inside it telling me to cop myself on and to stop being a bleddy eejit!”

“That’s exactly what she would say!” I said, laughing. “What was it like at the time, Dad – was she scared?”

“Well, I suppose she was – it’s only natural. Although she didn’t let on . . . she was a desperate woman for putting on a brave face. When they first found the mass, she was sure it would all be grand – she never thought for a minute that she was in any danger. And you have to remember it was nearly twenty years ago and things weren’t as advanced then as they are now. But after Aoife was born and we knew things weren’t looking good for her . . . then, I think, yes . . . she was a bit frightened by what lay ahead. And angry too. I said so many Novenas and had asked Father Ball to mention her in his Masses but they all went unheard. I think the way she saw it was that it was her job to get Aoife here safely and then she would start her treatment and get better for all of us . . .” He let out a heavy sigh. “But it didn’t work out that way . . .”

“I regret so much not talking to her during her last few weeks.”

“I know you do and, don’t worry, she knows it too – that’s why she wrote the letter for you. She didn’t write one for any of the others, by the way. You were a teenager – she knew that it was hard on you. But you know your mother thought the world of you, don’t you, Kate?”

I smiled at him. “We were very close in our own way – I know we fought a lot but I always think that if she had lived longer and I had outgrown my awful teenage years and stopped being such a bitch then we would have been best friends.”

“Your mother knew you were just being a headstrong teenager.”

“If it were now things might be different,” I said.

“Who knows?” Dad said. “But I’m sure medicine has moved on a lot from those days. God, it was a horrible thing, that chemo – it killed everything in her body – the bad stuff and the good stuff with it. Thank God nowadays it’s a lot more targeted. Your mother would be so ill after her sessions but she put a brave face on it.”

“I remember it.”

“Do you?”

I nodded. “I wish I didn’t but I can remember those days coming home and she was like a ghost blending with the white sheets on the bed. She would try to force herself to smile but I could see it in her eyes. The sickness.
The fear
. So then I just used to leave her alone. I didn’t want her to think that she had to put on a brave face for me.”

“It was hard on the three of you – probably more so for you. You were that bit older, you were at that awkward stage between girl and woman and you needed your mother, not some auld farmer who didn’t have a clue.”

“Ah Dad, you did well!” I laughed and placed my hand over his on the table.

“Not initially I didn’t – sure I went to pieces. I was never around – I was always out on the land – or if I could get Josephine up to the house to mind you at night I was down in the pub sculling pints and just making myself feel worse. If it wasn’t for Josephine, well . . . I don’t know what would have happened. She was busy with Aoife and trying to keep an eye on the rest of ye. She was nearly seventy as that stage and she was grieving for her daughter but she never once complained. The whole place would have fallen apart if it wasn’t for her. She was very good to us – I’ll never forget that.”

“I’ve always wondered how come you never took Aoife back to live with you?”

“I’ve thought about it myself from time to time but I suppose it just never happened, Kate. I don’t know why . . . I think your granny had grown very attached to her . . . she had just lost her daughter and now she had this newborn baby that reminded her so much of her own daughter as a baby . . . so I think having Aoife helped her to grieve. And it suited me as well because I was so buried under my own grief that I could barely manage the three of ye and run the house and the farm. So it was an unspoken thing that just went on. Then as the years went by, it was just the way it was. I know to most people it’s an odd arrangement but it worked for us. Aoife always knew that I was her dad and that Patrick and Seán were her brothers and that you were her big sister living in London. I saw her every day and we would all eat our dinner together in the evenings – but at the end of the day your granny raised her and that’s where her home will always be.”