Chapter 34
AND NOW IT IS JULY, AND THE DINING ROOM, WHICH has hosted several more weddings since the ruby anniversary, is being prepared for a different celebration, with giant floating foil balloons, and a large corkboard filled with photos on a wall, and a banner saying Happy Birthday Naomi! in bright primary colours.
Jelly is setting in the kitchen larder, and ice-cream is in the freezer, and a cake made by Greta is sitting on the worktop under a dome, and Cathy is preparing cocktail sausages and homemade chicken nuggets for the younger guests, and grown-up finger food for the older ones, and the last two bottles of Jason and Barney’s expensive champagne, saved for this day, are chilling in the fridge.
‘Mama!’ Naomi totters in, with Tessa following. The little girl’s red raincoat is still on, and Sissy dangles from one hand as she generally does.
Lydia sets down her handful of cutlery and bends to sweep up her daughter. ‘Hello, sweetheart. Did you have fun in the garden with Tessa?’
A nod. Naomi opens her free fist. ‘Mama,’ she says again, and Lydia inspects the daisy head.
‘That’s lovely, darling. Will we put it in your blue bowl?’
Pebbles, feathers, leaves and twigs she brings in, everything (including the odd dead insect and empty snail shell) added to the small plastic bowl on the sitting-room windowsill that Lydia or Tessa furtively culls every now and again.
The ginger cat, named Fanta by Gareth, has been seen scrambling up trees at Naomi’s excited approach, after some enthusiastic tail pulling and ear grabbing on their earlier encounters.
Every day, weather permitting and time allowing, they walk down to the sea, Naomi holding tightly to her mother’s hand as they negotiate the steps.
They take off shoes and socks and dip their toes into the water.
Sometimes, if it’s warm enough, they get into swimsuits, and Lydia carries her daughter in, and dunks her little by little in the water, and Tessa, who has turned Lydia into a swimmer, has promised lessons to Naomi as soon as she’s ready.
Tessa swims nearly every day, regardless of the weather, often arriving back up to the house with blue lips and white fingertips, but always with a light in her eyes. Lydia is glad that Chance House helped put it there.
Watching her daughter grow is a constant delight, every milestone a little miracle, every new development a reason to rejoice.
Her first smile, the first time she grabbed her toes, rolled over, sat up, crawled, clapped her hands, pulled herself to standing.
Her first step, just over a month ago. The first time she wobbled across the kitchen floor without plopping down on her padded behind.
Wherever Lydia brings her, she’s fussed over. Her cousin Jack kicks a sponge ball around the garden for her to chase. Her aunt Marian shows her how to turn her fingers into Incy Wincy Spider. Her uncle Tom scoops her up so she can touch the top of the garden wall.
Her granny Kathleen feeds her toasted cheese cut into fingers. Her granddad Brendan helps her to open the door of the playhouse he has built for her, where they make jigsaws and construct brick towers, over and over.
Her godmother Greta brings her to look at the ducks in her pond, and lets her slap the water with her hand to make a splash, and sings a little song in German to her.
Her godfather Andrew drops to hands and knees so she can clamber on his back, grabbing his collar and shrieking with glee as he trots around the lawn of Chance House, destroying the knees of just about every pair of trousers he owns.
Susan borrows giant picture books from the school, Chicken Licken and The Pig in the Pond and Guess How Much I Love You, and reads them to her with great gusto.
Gareth brings her fat sticks of coloured chalk so she can squat with him on the patio and scribble.
When she tires of that they stretch out on the grass and he makes up stories about the clouds, and promises they’ll plant sunflowers when it’s the right time, and teaches her to love spiders and field mice and earthworms.
Sometimes Celine from Clifden comes with him, and Lydia is happy that a chance meeting on a pilgrim path is turning into something more.
She suspects they may be booking a wedding with her in the not too distant future.
She looks forward to exacting her revenge on him by refusing to take his money.
Finally, she’ll be able to reward all his hours of unpaid dedication.
Father Phil retrieved his old train set from the attic of his family home and set it up in a corner of his kitchen – and seeing him sprawl on the floor with Naomi while it runs around on its track, Lydia is well aware that her daughter was a convenient excuse.
She and Naomi take trips to Dublin when they get a chance, Lydia parking the Golf at the railway station in the town and making the rest of the journey on the train, not quite confident enough yet for city traffic.
Her father has opened a post office account for Naomi. He jiggles her on his knee as he sings endless verses of ‘Old MacDonald’, inventing animals when they run out of real ones. He lets her listen to his heart with his stethoscope, and she insists on listening to Sissy’s heart too.
Her mother is happy for Naomi to wreak havoc in her kitchen when they make Rice Krispie buns, Naomi in a high chair, and an apron that matches her grandmother’s, and Lydia has heard her mother sing ‘You Are My Sunshine’ very softly as Naomi falls asleep.
They’re house hunting in the west. A holiday cottage, her mother said. Just something small for when we can get away, but Lydia suspects they’re really planning for their retirement, gravitating towards their daughter and granddaughter. It would be very good to have them nearby.
Brona, who’s expecting her own baby in the autumn, continues to visit Chance House every so often.
She brings finger puppets and toy telephones and books and a xylophone.
She and Naomi conduct marvellous garbled conversations on the telephones.
‘Your daughter,’ she’s told Lydia, ‘makes more sense than a lot of adults I know.’
Naomi, loved by so many. What a childhood she’s having.
After the party, after they’ve all helped the birthday girl blow out her single candle, after the guests have left and Naomi has been put to bed, Lydia sends the Cotters and her parents up to the guest lounge, and tells them she’ll follow with the champagne.
On her way to the fridge, her phone beeps with a text.
Hope you’re not too tired after the day.
Not too tired – just about to open the bubbly.
Go handy now.
She laughs. Go handy yourself. I don’t have to wield sharp knives in the morning.
Good point. Enjoy it, see you soon. A
A. Andrew.
He’s grown on her, so slowly it took ages for her to realise what was happening – and even when she did, she resisted, because he wasn’t Damien. How could anyone but Damien make her happy?
And yet he does. He does make her happy. She looks forward to seeing him. She enjoys his company, loves seeing how gentle he is with Naomi, how dryly funny he can be. He slips into her head when he’s not around.
Nothing has been said between them. He’s confessed to no feelings, hasn’t asked her out, hasn’t said anything that might suggest romantic interest in her.
He doesn’t have to.
She can see it in the look he sometimes gives her that squeezes her heart.
She can hear it in his voice when he speaks to her of the most mundane things.
She knows love when she encounters it, because it’s not her first encounter.
She has revelled in the wonder of love, and she hardly dares hope that it will visit her again.
He’s waiting for her to be ready; she knows this.
And soon, she thinks, she will be. It might take a few more months, till the second anniversary of Damien’s death in January, or it might happen sooner.
When the time feels right, she’ll take a deep breath and suggest something small like a walk together, just the two of them.
And he’ll say yes, and they’ll see where it takes them.