Moving On

Crèche

Crèche

IN DECEMBER SHE SLIPPED A LETTER IN WITH Frances’ Christmas gift. Iris has become part of the family , she wrote. She’s great with the girls, so gentle and kind, and she babysits every now and again too . . . I hope you like the thermal vest. I know how you feel the cold, and this one has silk in it, so it should be lovely and soft . . . News from Cork is that Joan is expecting again, due in May . . . I’ll come and see you soon, when I can organise a weekend off. I’ll leave the girls with Leo and we can relax, just the two of us.

A few days later, Frances phoned.

‘The vest is the best thing I ever put on me, I’m as cosy in it. Thank you so much.’

‘I’m delighted to hear. How are you?’

‘ I’m slow but I get there, which is good going for eighty-one. I’ve been thinking about your idea to take in a student. I might do it next year.’

Ellen smiled. She’d come round to it in her own time. ‘I think you’d be right.’

‘Your father phones me,’ Frances said. ‘Now and again, just for a chat.’

‘Does he?’

‘He says you write to each other.’

‘We do.’

‘I’m happy about that, Ellen.’

‘I’m trying, Frances.’

‘Good girl.’

And three days before Christmas, an email arrived from California:

Hope life is good with you. News – we’re going to catch up with you and become a family of four in May, all going well. When are you coming to see us again?

She responded:

Wonderful news, congratulations! High time Cormac got a brother or sister. Hope Bobbi’s feeling OK. Joan’s going again too, due in May as well. Must be something in the water. I’ll be out to see you right after Grace’s 18th birthday.

Everything’s good. Long may it last. Sometimes late at night I’m scared that it mightn’t, but most of the time I’m OK.

And he came back:

Bobbi’s fine, sailing through pregnancy like she did first time around. Congrats to Joan and Seamus – we’ll race them to the finish line. Cormac says hello to Juliet. As soon as I teach him how to send an email he’ll be in touch.

I know it’s easy to say, but try not to worry. Understandable to be wary when it happened once, but I feel everything will work out this time.

Even though he had precisely no grounds on which to base this feeling, Ellen was comforted by it. Marguerite’s prophesy of Leo offending again haunted her, however much she tried not to let it. She resolved to put her trust in Danny, and believe him instead.

‘More babies on the way,’ Leo remarked when Ellen told him. ‘I hope it’s not giving you ideas.’ But he smiled as he said it, and she thought she could probably get around him if she wanted a third. Did she want a third? She decided that a family of four would do her nicely, at least for the moment.

In May Joan gave birth to a sister for Ivan and Trisha and called her Daphne, after the character in Frasier . Four days later Danny emailed to announce the arrival of their second son, Matthew, named for Bobbi’s grandfather.

‘Books,’ Leo said when Ellen wondered what she should send, so she parcelled up two Beatrix Potter collections and posted them off.

In September of that year, four-year-old Grace began attending a crèche, but kicked up so much they took her out again after three tearful days. ‘She’s not ready,’ the director told Ellen and Leo. ‘Give her another year and try again.’

They’d had no such problem with Juliet at the same age. The girls were very different, Grace more stubborn, more prickly and more prone to tantrums than her quieter big sister. They’d got off lightly with their first.

Ellen travelled alone to Galway the following Easter to spend a couple of nights with Frances. She’d already emailed the UCG Students’ Union, asking them to add her aunt’s address to their accommodation list for the following academic year. One female student , she’d written. It’s an old lady on her own, looking for a bit of company, and maybe some light housework in return for a reduced rent.

After lunch on Sunday, Frances went for a lie-down and Ellen strolled into the city centre. On impulse she decided to visit the bookshop, Sunday shopping now being a thing, to find to her dismay that it no longer existed. In its place stood a music store, pumping Thin Lizzy out into the street. The bar she remembered was still next door, but Piles of Books was gone. She wondered where Jasper and Edwin had ended up.

Inevitably she thought of Ben, who could be anywhere in the world now, or right back here in Galway. She imagined bumping into him on the street, seeing how both of them had changed in the years apart. Would they even recognise one another?

Yes, she thought. They would. They always would.