Chapter 29
‘I MIGHT HAVE A CAR FOR YOU,’ ANDREW SAID. ‘A neighbour’s mother has just gone into a nursing home. She has an old Golf that the son is selling. Want to check it out? I can pick you up on my way home from work any day.’
‘That would be great. Maybe tomorrow?’ She’d been out in the red Mini with Tessa a few times, still quite nervous but gaining a little confidence. The following evening she waited for him at the top of the lane, and sat into the van.
‘He’ll probably look for more than it’s worth,’ he said on the way. ‘He knows you live in Chance House, so he might assume you’re loaded. If you like it, I’d advise you to tell him you’ll think about it. Ask what price is on it, but I wouldn’t be inclined to make an offer on the spot.’
‘OK.’
The Golf was dark blue, with no visible damage. ‘Her mileage is low,’ the son said. ‘Mam was never a big driver, in and out to the village mostly.’
Andrew popped open the bonnet and inspected the engine, peering and frowning and pursing his mouth. ‘Just the one owner?’
‘Just the one.’
He folded his arms. ‘She’s old enough all the same.’
‘Mam minded her though. Regular services, that kind of thing.’
Andrew nodded doubtfully, closing the bonnet.
‘Sit in,’ the son said to Lydia, and she opened the driver’s door and got in. There was a little plastic bottle with Holy water written on it in the driver’s seat pocket, and a very old road map of Ireland. She placed her hands on the steering wheel and tapped the horn.
‘How much do you want for it?’ she asked, and the son told her eight thousand.
She adopted a look of disappointment. ‘Oh. Way above my budget, I’m afraid. I thought when the car was as old as it is, it wouldn’t be so dear. Pity.’
‘She’s in good nick for her age.’
‘Maybe, but still an old car.’
‘I could go down to seven.’
She shook her head regretfully. ‘I really can’t offer more than five thousand five hundred. I’ll have to leave it, I’m afraid.’
‘Six thousand five hundred,’ he said.
Another rueful head shake. ‘Five thousand eight hundred would be my absolute maximum. Doing up Chance House was very expensive.’
She was conscious of Andrew standing nearby, affecting disinterest as he scratched at something on his sleeve.
‘Thanks for showing it to me,’ she said. ‘I appreciate it.’ She got out and made to walk away.
The son stuck out a hand. ‘Six,’ he said.
‘Five thousand eight hundred,’ she said. ‘It really is as high as I can go. Higher than I want to go, really. Look, let’s just forget it.’ She turned again. ‘Five thousand eight hundred,’ the son said flatly. ‘Cash.’
Lydia let a beat pass. ‘OK,’ she said. They shook, and she promised to return with the payment in the next few days, and left him the hundred she’d brought as a deposit, and took a photo of the log book so she could arrange insurance. Andrew took off smartly before the son could change his mind.
‘Where did you learn how to do that?’ he asked when they were well out of earshot.
‘Melanie, one of my Dublin friends. We went to Lanzarote on holidays, and she was lethal at the markets.’
He changed gear. ‘And there was me telling you what to do.’
‘Is it worth five-eight though? What does the engine look like?’
‘Haven’t a clue – I know nothing about cars. But the body looks in good shape, and if Ber was the only owner I’d say you’re safe enough. I’ll bring you back when you’re sorted with insurance and cash, and you can drive it home.’
Two days later the Golf, wearing the L plates Marian had picked up in town, sat in the driveway of Chance House.
It had been transported there very slowly and carefully by Lydia, with Tessa sitting next to her and Andrew crawling along behind them in the van, while Kathleen and Brendan babysat their granddaughter.
‘Don’t forget,’ Andrew said, ‘to put your name down for the test. Drive safely. Take your time. Don’t let anyone rush you.’
‘Nice man,’ Tessa said after he’d left. ‘Considerate.’
In the weeks since Tessa’s arrival, she and Lydia had been growing closer.
Now that Naomi’s routine was settling a little, they could eat together more often.
Sometimes they brought the baby down to the little beach and dipped her tiny toes into the water, and occasionally they got Kathleen or Marian to come and babysit while Tessa led Lydia into the sea for a swimming lesson.
On warm afternoons they strolled to the village with Naomi in the sling, carried by one or other of them, and treated themselves to ice creams. They swapped books, both readers, and Lydia introduced Tessa to yoga, Naomi kicking on her playmat in the studio while the adults stretched and balanced and breathed.
On the evening of the new car, Tessa told Lydia that her husband had been in touch, a couple of weeks after she’d left the marital home. This was the first time she had mentioned him.
‘He wrote to me,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘It may well have been the first letter of his life. He said he’d like me to come home, and he was willing to overlook my – what did he call it? – tomfoolery.’
‘Oh dear. Did you respond?’
‘I did. I was perfectly polite. I thanked him for his offer, but said I was very happy where I was, and I had no plans to move back home.’
‘Did you hear any more?’
‘No. Stephen calls in to him about once a week, just to make sure all is well. He says the house is in a mess, which doesn’t surprise me.’
‘You did the right thing,’ Lydia said, and Tessa agreed, but for the rest of the evening she was quieter than normal.
Towards the end of September four of Lydia’s Dublin friends, headed by Brona, arrived with a cocktail shaker and various bottles.
They stayed for two nights, and marvelled at the house, and caused quite a stir when Lydia brought them to McMonagles pub on the second night.
We’re making this an annual event, they promised as they were leaving, and she really hoped it would happen.
A few days later, her parents came to view the fully furnished house. Although they’d spoken often on the phone since their reconciliation, Lydia felt nervous before their arrival, wanting them to approve. She prepared her favourite room for them, the one with the nicest four-poster bed.
The day they were due she dressed Naomi in her prettiest Babygro – too small still for any of the outfits she’d been gifted – and dressed herself in layers that hid the leftover pregnancy weight. She cooked the courgette lasagne they liked, and opened a bottle of wine.
‘Relax,’ Tessa said. ‘They’ll love everything’ – and in fact, they did.
They exclaimed at how much Naomi had grown in the weeks since they’d seen her. They chatted with Tessa, who told them over dinner how Lydia had given her daughter a wedding to remember.
‘This house is special,’ she said. ‘I feel so lucky to be living in it.’ Lydia could have hugged her.
Her parents loved their room. ‘Look at that bed,’ her mother said. ‘Magnificent.’
‘Very nicely furnished,’ her father said, as Lydia walked them through the rest of the upstairs. ‘Different, not quite what you’d expect in this kind of house, but it works.’
‘And it’s so bright,’ her mother added. ‘What colour paint is that on the walls?’
‘Calico.’
‘Very nice.’
They gave the Golf in the driveway a cautious nod of approval. ‘Just be careful,’ her father told her. ‘Eyes peeled at all times. Expect the unexpected,’ and Lydia wondered if they thought of Damien then, as she did.
In the morning she took them on a tour of the area, wanting them to see what she saw: the gold and green patchwork of fields, the distant purple hills, the farmhouses and barns, the splendour of the ever-changing sea. ‘It’s a picturesque spot,’ her father acknowledged. ‘No doubt about it.’
‘You might find a holiday home around here,’ Lydia joked, and they laughed at that.
In the evening they dined at Kathleen and Brendan’s with Marian and Tom.
Kathleen served roast chicken, with a cheese omelette for Lydia.
‘Getting there slowly now,’ she said, when Lydia’s parents asked how she was feeling, and Lydia’s mother said she wished they lived closer to Naomi, like Kathleen and Brendan did, and again Lydia felt a pang for settling their only grandchild so far away from them.
‘Good luck with everything,’ they said, on their departure from Chance House the next day. ‘We’ll be hoping for some wedding enquiries. Let us know.’
It was generous of them. She knew they still had reservations. She would invite them to spend Christmas here. She would ask Andrew, closer to the time, if he had something ready stuffed that she could just pop into the oven for them.
It would be a different Christmas. Emptier and sadder without Damien, but also one to cherish, as Naomi’s first. She would do what she could to make it happy.
Time passed. October brought a return of Lydia’s yoga classes, and her students reappeared, and new enquiries trickled in until she introduced a Thursday morning class. ‘Are you coming back to the infants?’ Susan asked, and Lydia said she’d be happy to do that too.
On the day when Damien would have turned thirty-five, Lydia’s parents returned, and a small party of Foleys and Cotters drove to the graveyard. Lydia walked up the hill with them, her daughter nestling in the sling.
It was over nine months since she’d lost him.
She thought about all that had happened since then, all the changes to Chance House and its surrounds.
The renovations complete, the house furnished, the garden an ongoing delight.
The ginger cat and the birth of the kittens, the yoga classes for children and adults, and the second business she was hoping to coax into being.
New friendships formed, and rifts healed; a car bought, and a driving test looming.
And of course, the arrival of their daughter.
She gazed into the beautiful sleepy face that she would never tire of looking at, the face of the child who had come to save her. She descended the slope with the others, and they drove in convoy back to Chance House, where Cathy waited with dinner in the big dining room.
As the month wore on, she tried not to check the website every day, then tried not to be disappointed when she did check and found nothing. Lots of views, Gareth reported, but no enquiries.
Until the last day of October, when the first email arrived.