Moving On

Danny

Danny

IN LATE SPRING OF THE FOLLOWING YEAR, DANNY emailed to say he was coming home for a while. I’ll explain when I see you , he wrote. I’ll take a trip to Galway . Tell me when you can take a break.

He didn’t say he was coming alone, but it sounded like he was. She told him he’d be welcome any time he liked. I’m already on a break, just handed over my first draft . If you want a bed for the night, I have it.

‘Mam hasn’t long,’ Danny told her when he came. His mother had been diagnosed with cancer a year earlier, and deemed not strong enough to withstand the severe treatment it would require. She lived now with one of Danny’s sisters. ‘I’m going to stay until her time is up.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

They sat in the sunroom. It was May, the air soft and kind, the garden coming into bloom again. Ellen’s father was lying down.

Danny had lost a little weight. Small pouches of skin sat beneath his eyes; hair slowly receded from his temples. She remembered the surprise of his long hair when they’d met again in Galway, the sideburns that were almost a uniform among young men then. He was still in the jeans they’d all lived in, except now they were narrower in the leg.

‘So tell me,’ she said, refilling their mugs with the Californian coffee he’d brought, ‘how are the boys doing? How’s Cormac getting on in college?’ At twenty-two, his elder son was following in his footsteps, halfway through his computer science degree.

‘He’s doing fine – but Matthew has just announced he wants to take a gap year with his girlfriend, much to his mother’s disapproval.’ Matthew was about to graduate high school.

‘Oh dear.’ Ellen told him about her reservations when Grace had gone to live in France. ‘It worked out fine,’ she said. ‘I worried over nothing. And travel broadens the mind.’ A brief flash of Ben then, giving the news that had broken her heart.

Danny sat back, cradling his mug. Ellen heard the soft call of a robin somewhere nearby, the only birdsong she was sure of, despite Frances’ patient attempts to teach her to identify others.

‘We’re kind of on a break,’ Danny said then. ‘Myself and Bobbi. No big bust-up, just . . . we’re gone a bit stale, I suppose. When Christine rang to tell me about Mam, it seemed like Fate was giving us an opportunity, a bit of time out for both of us.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s fine. It might be all we need. Tell me about this Christmas book you’re writing.’

He stayed a night in Frances’ old room, Ellen having finally commandeered the ensuite when Grace had gone to live in London. Over the weeks that followed he returned every so often, always staying over. One day he and Ellen paid a visit to the UCG campus, almost unrecognisable from his days there.

‘The student bar,’ she said. ‘Cheap drink every Wednesday night for us.’

‘Happy days,’ he said.

‘I’ll stay another while,’ he told Ellen after the inevitable funeral in October, after Bobbi and the boys had flown to Ireland and gone back without him. ‘I should stay to help sort things out,’ and the while turned into months, with him living alone in the family home, and the boys flying over at holidays to stay with him, and Ellen didn’t know what that meant for his marriage, or what it might mean for him and her.

The more time that passed without a sign of a reconciliation between him and Bobbi, the more she wondered if there was a possibility, even now, of her and Danny turning into something stronger than friends. Might they finally be the ones to grow old together? He was still married, and the last thing she wanted was to come between him and Bobbi. Nothing to be done but let events take their course.

As Christmas approached she went to the library, bringing her and her father’s books to exchange. She greeted Helen and Carmel behind the desk, both known to her from her many visits.

‘There you are,’ Helen said. ‘We were just talking about the new bookshop that’s opening up.’

‘I hadn’t heard – where?’

‘Where Music Station was, next door to Ryan’s pub. There used to be a different bookshop there, years ago.’

‘Piles of Books,’ Ellen said. She hadn’t been down that street in a long time. ‘I worked there for a while before I moved to London.’

‘Did you really? Small world. They’re opening in the new year – you’ll have to go in and introduce yourself, so they’ll be sure to keep you in stock.’

‘I definitely will.’

Nice to think it was going to be a bookshop again. No doubt it would be completely different to what had been there before, but it would still be interesting to look in and see what the new owners had done. And she might well drop into Ryan’s pub too, have a coffee for old times’ sake.

Christmas came, and with it Grace and Tom. He taught violin in a London music school by day and busked in underground stations at weekends. Grace ran her own small- animal veterinary clinic in a premises leased with a little help from her father, and she and Tom lived in the flat above it.

Juliet and Rosie seemed happy as ever, still living in Juliet’s grandfather’s house, making a little more money these days thanks to Juliet’s commissions, but in no imminent danger of being rich. They’d gone to Spain for Christmas, but promised to ring in the new year in Galway.

On Christmas evening, after dinner had been eaten and presents exchanged, after her father had gone up to bed and Grace had brought Tom out for a walk, Ellen sat in the sunroom listening to a carols concert on the radio and watching the lights she’d strung on Frances’ camellia winking off and on. When her phone rang she looked at the screen and saw Leo’s name. He’d been living in France, close to Henri and the others, since his retirement.

‘Hi. Happy Christmas.’

‘Happy Christmas, Ellen. How did it go?’

They spoke a little. He told her of the goose Henri had cooked, and the scarf Sabine had knit for him. She thanked him again for the Chanel perfume that had arrived unexpectedly a few days before Christmas. They hadn’t exchanged gifts at Christmas since they’d split up: she hadn’t known what to make of this one, and had texted her thanks.

‘I want to say something,’ he said. ‘Can I?’

‘. . . Yes.’

‘Ellen, I still love you. I never stopped, I just lost sight of it for a while. These last few years . . . I’ve tried to forget you, but I can’t. I probably shouldn’t say it, but life is too short, and if there’s any chance at all that you would – that we could try again, I want you to know that I would really like that.’

‘Leo,’ she said, and stopped. She watched the lights, off, on, off, on. She listened to the choir singing about shepherds and angels. ‘You hurt me so badly,’ she said. ‘You broke my heart twice.’

‘I know, I know I did. I’m so sorry. Give me a chance, and I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you.’

She couldn’t answer. Words literally failed her. Years after he had shattered her life, this.

‘Think about it,’ he said. ‘We could live anywhere you like, Ireland, France, wherever. Will you think about it, Ellen? Will you please just consider it?’

‘I’m hanging up now,’ she said, and did, and switched off her phone. She continued to sit, wrapped in a soft blanket, as the voices of the choir filled the air.

At length she heard the sound of the front door opening and closing, and the dull thumps of steps on the stairs. Grace and Tom going up to bed, probably assuming she was already in her room.

She sat on, remembering what she’d thought to be forgotten.