Chapter 12
12
Nevertheless, Finn felt his stomach crunching with tension as the three of them walked into the Cock and Bottle that evening, just before seven, and were shown to a table in the restaurant part of the pub by a smiling waitress.
Talking about the past – especially the bit that included his mother – had always been a definite no-no in their family. This was all uncharted territory. Ever since he’d spoken to Caitlin he’d been torn in two. Half of him had wanted to shove the past right back in the Pandora’s Box and get the lid on and sit on it. Bury it deep where it had always been and avoid any more emotional turmoil. Because turmoil summed up exactly what had been going on in his head since that phone call.
The other half of him had wanted to open it wide, whatever the consequences were. He needed to know what had happened. He needed to know what his father knew. Had Bridie really said she was going back to Ireland or had that been what Ray had decided to tell him? The need to know was like a burning hot coal within him.
Once he knew the facts, he could talk to Jade too. He was sure he could find a way to tell her what had been going round and round in his head lately, explain why he’d been slightly distant. Trust was hugely important to both of them.
‘What’s on your mind, lad?’ Ray’s voice cracked into Finn’s thoughts and he looked up.
‘Sorry, I was miles away.’
‘That’s obvious. I’ve asked you what you wanted to drink twice and I’m still none the wiser.’
‘I’ll stick to orange juice. But it’s OK. I’ll get them.’
‘Pint of Guinness for me then, and a white wine for Dorrie. Cheers.’
Finn escaped to the bar. The Cock and Bottle was a popular pub not far from the River Trent. It had wooden tables, comfy seats and was full of light. It did good food, but was also big enough so you could usually get a table, which was why his father and Dorrie favoured it.
It was a far cry from the spit and sawdust old working men’s club with its tatty seating that Finn and his father had frequented in the past. Finn could see why Dorrie wouldn’t have wanted to go there.
He set up a tab and took the drinks and some menus back to the table.
When they’d all ordered and were settled again and had established there might be a fair wait for the food, which was all cooked to order, Finn decided that now was as good a time as any.
‘I spoke to Caitlin Neale the other day, Dad…’
‘Oh, aye.’ Ray’s face tightened and his eyes shadowed a little. It wasn’t much but Finn, who’d always been adept at reading faces, knew that despite his father’s apparently casual words, he wasn’t keen on having this discussion.
‘Did she say owt interesting?’
Dorrie leaned forward, putting her elbows on the table and her chin on her hands. She clearly knew who Caitlin Neale was and Finn’s impressions that it was Dorrie who was driving this excursion into the past, not his father, were reinforced.
Finn took a deep breath. ‘She did say something that shocked me a bit. She said Bridie had never gone back to Ireland, which was what I’d always thought had happened.’
‘Aye.’ The word was noncommittal and Finn felt as though the whole world had stilled and gone silent and there was just him and his father in a locked gaze moment, staring at each other across the table. No one else existed.
‘Did you know that, Dad? Did you know she hadn’t gone back?’
‘I did know.’ Ray sighed deeply, took a slug of his pint and stared at the table. ‘But not at the time. It was true what I’d told you. I thought she’d gone back to Ireland. Fled to her family. That was what I thought.’
Finn closed his eyes. He felt as if the past was like shifting sands in his head. Being rewritten, taking on a different narrative, one that was alien and confusing.
‘So when did you discover she hadn’t gone back?’
‘It was a few years later. I don’t know. Maybe five – you were about ten or eleven when I got a phone call from her.’
‘From Bridie? From my mother?’
‘Aye, from Bridie. But she had no right to call herself your mother. Not then, Finn. Not as far as I was concerned. She’d abandoned you without a word. Vanished without trace. Left us to get on with it. She didn’t care about us.’
There was a hard edge of pain in his voice. Finn could hear it, even after all these years. He fought with himself not to react. This was not the place. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea to talk here. Maybe there was no such thing as neutral territory – not with a subject as explosive as this.
Sound had rushed back in again – he could hear the buzz of chatter from the tables around them, the smells of food from the kitchen. If anything, these things were intensified now, not deadened. He became aware his father was speaking again.
‘I was trying to protect you. You were settled down, Finn, doing well at school. The last thing we needed was Bridie coming back into your life. Stirring it all up again. Least said, soonest mended. That’s what I thought.’
‘Did she say she wanted to see me then? Was that why she phoned?’
‘She wanted to visit. Yes. And I said she couldn’t. I told her you thought she had died. And it would be too much of a shock if she just rocked up on the doorstep large as life.’
For a second, Finn didn’t think he’d heard right. It was a while before he could formulate a sentence. ‘But you didn’t tell me that. I knew she was alive. All those years you let me think she didn’t care, Dad. Why would you do that?’
‘Because it was for the best, Finn. I had no way of knowing she wouldn’t disappear permanently again once she’d seen you. I couldn’t risk it.’ Ray’s voice cracked. His face was white. ‘She’d already broken your heart once. And mine.’
It was too much to take in. Finn shoved back his chair from the table, the legs scraping on the wooden floor. He couldn’t stay listening to this. His head was spinning and he felt sick. He needed to get out.
He heard Dorrie’s voice calling after him, but he didn’t turn. He couldn’t bear to be near his father a second longer.
He was back in his car before he realised he couldn’t just leave the two of them sitting there either. Well, he could, but he wasn’t going to. A tiny thread of sanity was working its way into his brain. Like an earworm that wouldn’t be banished. Despite the shock of it, there was some grain of truth in what his father had said.
What if Bridie had come back and then she’d vanished again? Perhaps that would have been worse. He’d always known on some level that his father had been as heartbroken as he’d been when Bridie had left. Ray had never said this out loud. But neither had he ever badmouthed her. Ray wasn’t the type of man to do either of these things. He was the type of man who got on with it. And he’d got on with bringing Finn up alone.
Finn had come to understand that this was unusual. There were lots of single-parent families at his school, but it was always the dad who had left. None of his mates were being brought up by single fathers. There was one boy who’d lost his mum to a car accident, but he had a stepmum and a stepbrother – and he’d told Finn on more than one occasion that he wished he hadn’t.
Finn had grown up to realise that Ray was something of a one-off, and the older he’d got the more he’d come to value this as something precious.
But he still couldn’t bring himself to go back into the pub and so he stayed where he was as the light slowly dimmed and long shadows of dusk began to fall across the carpark.
Eventually, it was Dorrie who came out to him. She knocked on the driver’s window and Finn lowered it slowly.
‘I know you must be hurting like hell, my love. But your dad’s hurting too. He only did what he thought was best for you.’ She hesitated. ‘Will you come back inside or shall I tell Ray to come out? Would you prefer it if we got a taxi back home?’
He met her anxious eyes. ‘There’s no need for a taxi. I’ll take you both home. Of course I will.’
It was an awkward journey, with Dorrie sitting silently in the passenger seat and Ray in the back but with his head turned slightly so that every time Finn glanced in the rear-view mirror he didn’t have to meet his son’s eyes. When they arrived, Finn was tempted to say he’d find somewhere else to stay, but Ray pre-empted him.
‘I know you’ll be thinking you don’t want to stay under my roof and I don’t blame you, but it’s too late to drive back down south.’ He paused. ‘I really am sorry, Finn.’
‘I know you are.’ Finn climbed out and stretched his limbs, which felt stiff from sitting in the car for so long. His stomach rumbled and he realised he was hungry too.
‘At least come in and have something to eat,’ Dorrie added. ‘You must be starving. We are.’
‘We cancelled the food,’ Ray said in explanation.
Again, Finn hesitated. He didn’t want to go inside and eat with them. He still felt too betrayed and confused. But he knew they couldn’t leave it like this. If they did then this rift would grow bigger and bigger between them. And he had questions. So many questions.
It was time he knew the whole truth, and Ray must think that too, or he would never have prompted them onto this path. He would never have sent that news article. He must have known this might be the outcome.
Inside the house, Dorrie bustled about heating up Stilton pie before serving it up to them in the back room. ‘I’ll leave you boys to it,’ she said, closing the door behind her.
When she’d gone, they ate in silence, with plates on their knees, Finn in the armchair where he’d sat earlier and his father on the sofa opposite. Finn found his appetite had returned enough to eat every crumb, but his father got halfway through his before putting down his knife and fork and pushing the plate to one side.
‘Ask me anything you like now, Finn. And I’ll tell you the truth.’