Chapter 20
It was late by the time Liam pulled back the sheets and clambered in beside Nora, whose shoulder-length chestnut hair tumbled over her face as she buried her nose in a book. He could smell the rose scent of the hand cream she kept on her bedside table and applied liberally each evening as he stretched out and flexed his toes. His feet ached, and his head ached, too. The feet were down to having been run off them tonight with the pub. As for the headache, well, that was down to Grace and her fraternising with that Dorrance boy, but if he were to speak these thoughts aloud, he knew Nora would tell him he sounded like an overbearing Victorian-era father and to wind his neck back in. Which was precisely why he was keeping them to himself.
Out the corner of his eye, Liam saw Nora reach for her bookmark. She slotted it into place, shut the book with a snap and sighed as she set it aside. Then she rolled over onto her side, propped herself up on her elbow and studied him expectantly.
He didn’t meet her gaze, instead staring up at the shadowy ceiling puddles caused by the lamp Nora favoured over the main light for reading. The tick of their bedside clock was audible in the silence, broken only by the distant flushing of the toilet and the soft pad of footsteps. In the end, Nora spoke first.
‘You need to let go of the past, Liam. Because that’s what it is. The past. It can’t be changed, and nor should it be. It’s what makes us who we are.’
Liam let out a whistling exhale, knowing once he got started, he’d be hard-pressed to stop the things that had been bottled up inside him since Grace had told him about Chris from fizzing over. ‘How can I let things go when it’s just reared up and bit me on the arse?’ He turned his head to face her. ‘Why him, Nora?’
‘Christopher?’ Nora asked – unnecessarily in his opinion. She knew full well who he was talking about.
‘Who else?’ He stewed on what was bothering him the most. He’d always prided himself on Grace, knowing she could tell her auld dad anything in the knowledge he’d understand. What he hadn’t realised was it was conditional. ‘London’s a big city, Nora, and yet it’s his son she winds up bumping into and sharing a house with. What are the odds?’
‘Maybe it’s fate’s way of telling you it’s time to move on.’ Nora’s voice was soft. ‘The rest of us have. You two used to be friends, remember?’
He shot her a sharp look, not ready to be placated as he moved on. ‘And I don’t know about you, but for all Grace’s talk of her and this Chris just helping each other out, it’s written all over her face that it’s more than just sharing the expenses Ava left her with. She’s taken with him.’ He’d five daughters, hadn’t he? It was a look he knew well.
Nora reached over and placed her hand gently on her husband’s arm. Her touch was warm on his bare skin as she said, ‘They grow up, Liam. They lead their own lives. We don’t get to dictate who they fall for.’
Aha, he thought. Nora had picked up on Grace’s sappy expression each time she said the lad’s name, too.
‘Look at us,’ she added, making Liam flinch.
He recalled how Nora’s mam, Ellen Nolan, had disapproved of her daughter’s choice of husband. She’d had her heart set on Nora marrying his pal Mark and living a comfortable life as the wife of a man who ran a successful business, albeit one who still got his hands dirty. Mark hadn’t been ready to marry, though – something Ellen hadn’t grasped.
If he thought about it, he’d always had a grudging respect for the man he used to get up to hi-jinks with when they were still in shorts. Mark came from money. Not old money, granted, but the hard-earned money of his father. His family’s story was successfully incorporated into the branding of his company, Dorrance Dreamscapes, and the tale of how his grandfather had once worked as a gardener at grand old Benmore House on the edge of their village had resonated with his wealthy clientele. His grandfather had passed on his love of tilling the soil to his son, who’d branched out with a successful regional landscaping business. A business, Mark, as the oldest son, had then taken over as a young man when his father got sick. He’d guided it through the lean times when gardens and landscaping weren’t a priority by finding a niche market in the large country estates stretching the length and breadth of Ireland, securing contracts for these grand homes and expanding with a team of contractors countrywide.
Money talked, at least for Ellen, who’d grown up in a tumble-down fishing cottage. It talked so loudly that she’d not attended the wedding of her only daughter to the son of a publican. Nor had mother and daughter spoken again after things had been said that could never be taken back. It was too late now, as well, because Nora’s bitter mam, who’d missed out on so much, including her grandchildren, was now six feet under.
‘Listen to me now, Liam Kelly,’ Nora said in a voice that made him do just that. ‘Chris clearly has a good heart on him. It was his idea to hold this music festival Grace’s on about for Clara. And sure, you know yourself Mark’s not a bad person.’
Liam did know. Sure, he’d known the fella since they were in short pants, and they’d been thick as thieves until Nora had come along. She’d upset the applecart, all right. None of which changed the fact that Mark could upend his and Nora’s life if he chose to ask one simple question. A question that saw Liam unable to look the man in the eye. ‘The apple doesn’t fall far, Nora.’ He sniffed piously, contradicting his own thoughts.
‘Cop yourself on! That’s a remark Mrs Tattersall would make about one of the village’s so-called hooligans.’
That hit home – he knew Nora was right.
‘You have to trust in Grace to make decisions that are right for her, Liam. It’s her life, not ours. Besides, you’re getting ahead of yourself. Did you not hear her saying your Chris wan is after getting about with some Finnish model?’
‘I did hear her, and I saw her face when she said it. Like she was sucking on a lemon, it was, and that’s what’s got me worried. I don’t want things being dredged up, and you know what this place is like. People have long memories. They’ll start whispering.’
A gleam of understanding lit Nora’s eyes. ‘It’s not worry, though, behind all of this, is it?’ She squeezed his arm gently. ‘You’re frightened, love.’
He didn’t deny it. Fear had lanced his heart with its ice-tipped spear when Grace had brought up the Dorrance name.
‘It’s time you faced your demons, because I can’t change what happened. You knew that back then, and you told me you accepted it when we got married. There’s never been anything but the truth between us.’
Liam studied his wife’s face, and the years were erased as he saw her as he had the first time she’d walked in the door of the Shamrock, her cheeks flushed pink from the chill outside, a red scarf wound around her neck. He’d been unable to take his eyes off her, with her soft brown eyes and shiny chestnut mane. She’d been laughing about something, her smile wide and bright as she flung her gaze back over her shoulder, and that’s when Liam had realised who she was with.
Mark Dorrance.
Nora flicked the light out and cuddled in next to Liam as was their habit. Until she’d start with one of her hot flashes, which would leave a man freezing as she kicked the covers off the bed. Liam listened to her breathing as it slowed into a rhythmic pattern, and she slipped into sleep. It was a sound that generally soothed him, but even though his eyes were closed, his mind was buzzing, and he knew he’d not be joining his wife in the land of Nod any time soon.
As he saw it, he had two choices. Lie here stewing or go downstairs and make himself a cup of tea to stew over. Option two was the more appealing, and, doing his best not to disturb Nora, he climbed out of bed.
The night light was on in the deserted hallway, guiding him toward the stairs, which creaked despite his efforts to be stealthy, and upon reaching the bottom, his hand found the light switch for the kitchen with practised ease. The illumination made him blink, and he took a second to adjust to the sudden brightness before pulling the door behind him and setting about making himself a milky, sweet brew. Some shortbread would go down well, too, he thought, helping himself to a piece from the tin Nora had forgotten to tuck away out of sight. Then, mug in hand, biscuit in gob, he sat himself down at the table and let his mind drift back through the years.
Like attracts like, or so they say. And while Mark Dorrance came from a different background, what with him living in a house you could fit three Shamrock pubs into, they’d had mischievous energy in common. On that first day of school, sitting outside the classroom, having been sent out for being disruptive, they’d found in each other kindred spirits. The Dorrance lad and the Kelly boy were double trouble, their teachers would say, shaking their heads and insisting on separating them during class. When the holidays rolled around, however, with their parents busy working and no one to keep them in check, they’d got up to all manner of hi-jinks. Harmless fun it might have been, but the wet-around-the-ears Gardai Officer Badger, not yet a sergeant, had made it his mission to nip the first signs of delinquent behaviour in the bud. More than once, he’d dragged them home by the ear to report their latest shenanigans!
They’d not been much different as they’d moved into their teenage years, although that had seen the advent of their goth phase. The memory of the pair of them taking turns bent over the laundry tub, rinsing the black dye out of the other’s hair, made him smile over his teacup. What with the trench coats they’d pilfered from their fathers’ wardrobes, black hair teased and spiked into hair-sprayed nests, they’d been a right pair. A line had been drawn over ear piercing, though, on account of the butcher’s job Mairead Mahony had done with the safety pin on poor Dee Nugent. Dee’s infected ear had become the stuff of urban legend, with the parents of Emerald Bay’s youth warning that unless they wanted to wind up like poor Dee Nugent with an elephant ear, they’d do well to leave their earlobes intact. And, sure, if the good Lord had intended for them to get about the place with holes in their ears, they’d have been born with them in the first place!
Ah, the early eighties, Liam thought as nostalgia soothed his rattled nerves. A time when he and Mark had been rebelling without a cause as they mooched about the village looking miserable, blaring the Cure from Mark’s ghetto blaster and sharing sly smokes down the back of the park. He could still hear his mam telling him Father Seamus was after praying for them, and could he and Mark not have gone through a Springsteen phase like the Quigley and Molloy lads? Singing about being born in the USA with a red bandana wrapped around his head would have been much more preferable.
Liam’s eyes were still crinkled as he got lost in his memories. They’d been good times, even if some had been spent looking like their pets had just died!
Those experimental days of adolescence had duly transitioned into manhood, with both lads having to step up for their families. Liam was needed at the pub, and Mark had to take over running his father’s business when he lost his health. Such was the stuff of life, and it was only natural they’d not seen so much of each other, too busy getting on with their lives. Girls came and went, with Mark having a different one on his arm whenever he did manage to call in at the Shamrock to catch up with his old mate. He’d been considered quite the catch, given his family’s affluence. Still, he wasn’t ready to settle down and confided in Liam he intended to play the field, because you were a long-time wed. Besides, he had big plans for Dorrance Landscaping, starting with a name change. Looking back, Liam could see he’d been jealous of his friend’s popularity with the ladies.
The moment he’d first laid eyes on Nora as she’d breezed in the door of the Shamrock, Liam had known with lightning-bolt certainty that she was the one. She deserved better, he’d thought, observing the cavalier way Mark treated his new girlfriend. There was a saying about treating ’em mean and keeping them keen, and that was how Mark operated. He didn’t deserve Nora. She was far too good for him, but the heart wants what the heart wants, and hers wanted Mark – at first anyway.
‘Dad?’
Liam snapped back to the present, but for a split second, he didn’t see Grace as she was now but rather the little girl she’d once been, trailing the blankie she refused to go to bed without behind her. ‘Daddy, I need a glass of water,’ she’d say. That or, ‘I’ve a terrible tummy ache.’ Anything to delay going to sleep. She’d driven him and Nora potty at times, but her insistence on him being the one to tuck her in had always melted his heart.
‘You’re a softie, Liam Kelly,’ Nora would say, smiling fondly as he herded his daughter back up the stairs to bed.
This time, it was him making the excuses. ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ he muttered gruffly, swigging the remains of his tea.
‘Me either.’ Grace moved to the bench.
‘It’s not long boiled.’
Grace made herself a hot drink and pulled out a chair opposite him. Neither spoke, the atmosphere between them strained with the hundred and one things that needed saying. Then Liam jolted in his seat on hearing a barn owl’s haunting cry, and Grace raised her chin to smile at him.
‘It’s an eerie sound, all right. Did I tell you about the foxes that took up residence down our street? When they’d go at it, the noise was like a person screaming. The first time I heard it, I nearly sha—’
Amusement flickered at the corners of Liam’s mouth as he watched Grace wrestle the word she’d been about to say back after remembering whose company she was in.
It was replaced with a chaste, ‘I was terrified.’
Liam gave her a weary smile but could think of nothing to say that wouldn’t wind back to Chris Dorrance, and he was too tired to get into all that again with her. But Grace had other plans, because she launched straight into it.
‘Dad, Chris is here in Emerald Bay. He’s after coming over for the weekend to help me organise the festival.’
There was a breathy excitement in her voice, which Liam knew wasn’t just down to the festival planning. His daughter might not be aware of it yet, but she was head over heels for the Dorrance boy.
‘He’s already secured some big-name bands to play and’ – Grace hesitated – ‘his dad’s after stumping up the cash to get the whole thing up and running.’
So, Mark was putting his hand in his pocket to sponsor this festival, was he? Liam rubbed his stubbly jaw. What did he make of his old friend’s daughter’s connection to his son?
Grace carried on talking, and he knew by the jut of her chin it was her way of telling him that no matter what he thought, this festival was happening, and he’d better get over himself. But then her tone softened. ‘Dad, can’t you see past whatever happened between you and Chris’s dad? It’s ancient history. I don’t like being at odds with you.’
There were times when you reached a crossroads, Liam thought, tapping the side of his mug. He could get behind his daughter’s idea and do what Nora and Grace were telling him to do by putting the past behind him once and for all, or he could push his chair back, get up from the table and go back to bed.
Liam did the latter.