Chapter Twenty #2
‘Ever since Brian, my … ex,’ is the best way I can think of describing him.
I don’t know if he’s my ex-boyfriend, my ex-fiancé or my ex-husband.
‘We went on a sailing holiday. Greek islands. Thought it might be, y’know, exciting.
I’ve never been that good around water, not since I got swept under a wave on a beach in Folkestone when I was a kid.
Some woman dragged me from the water. I just remember the white foam all around me and then gasping for air.
The woman took me back to my mum. I was so relieved, but she was just cross.
She was always cross with me. She was with some new fella and told me off for spoiling her afternoon.
’ My throat tightens up and I have to swallow hard.
Sean doesn’t say anything. I still remember the white foam swallowing me up.
‘Anyway, Brian was booking our holiday. It was always the same. Usually in the UK. He’d spend weeks planning a route, various walks we could do, historical sights, and pub grub in the evening.
This one year, I thought we should try and do something different.
So I booked the sailing holiday. We had two days of tuition and on the third day they told us to travel, as a group, to this next destination round the island. ’ I sigh.
‘The long and short of it is, a storm got up. Brian was terrified and sat down in the galley. I tried to take down the sail but it jammed stuck and I couldn’t get it down.
We were being blown further and further out to sea.
Eventually a couple of guys from our group came to rescue us.
They got us to shore and poured us large brandies.
We decided to stay shore-bound from then on. ’
I remember telling Brian afterwards, in a mad moment, that I thought we should give up the five-year plan, buy the flat, get engaged, get married and try for a family.
I thought we should just go for what we wanted.
Life was too short, anything could have happened.
I remember how he looked at me, the lights going out in his eyes.
I decided to play it safe from there on in.
But things were never the same after that holiday.
‘We stuck to walking and pub grub after that.’
‘What about the guys who rescued you? Did you ever see them again?’
‘Oh yes,’ I say matter-of-factly. ‘One of them was our best man …’
We fall into silence. Finally he says, ‘Have you been into the city before?’ A line of traffic in front of us stops us by a harbour of small boats.
I shake my head. There are swans being fed by parents with children.
On the other side of the harbour is a row of brightly coloured cottages.
They look like something out of a children’s programme.
‘Where do you need to go?’ He sees a parking space and pulls in.
‘I need a pawn shop.’ I reach into my pocket and pull out my ring. ‘My back-up plan,’ I say with a tight smile.
‘That’s very sensible. Why haven’t you used it before?’ He reverses and straightens the van.
‘Because I wasn’t ready to.’ I put it back in my pocket.
‘And you are now?’ He pulls on the handbrake with a crunch.
I just nod.
‘Well, I have to go and talk to the bank, it’s on Shop Street. Then I’ll take you somewhere to sell it.’
‘How come you don’t go to the bank in Dooleybridge?’ I ask as we get out of the van.
‘I like to keep my business affairs private.’
He shoves his hands into his pockets and begins to walk towards a bridge over a fast-flowing river. I follow him. We fall into step side by side.
‘Y’know, English …’ He seems calmer now. ‘We’re all allowed to make one mistake.’
‘Is that when you made yours, when you went to prison?’
He throws his head back and laughs. ‘So the gossips have been at work.’ He pushes his hands further into his pockets.
‘I just heard you were in prison.’
‘I was. In America. For working without a visa.’
‘Is that all?’
‘I was working in an oyster bar. The owner didn’t want to pay me what he owed me and called the cops on me.’
‘How come they don’t know that, in the town?’
‘Because,’ he lights up a cigarette and blows out the smoke, ‘they never asked.’
We carry on over the bridge and then cross the road. In front of me is a cobbled street. It’s busy and there’s bunting strung across it from shop to shop. Sean heads up the middle in between the bars and cafés on either side.
‘Spanish arch,’ he says, pointing to an old stone archway on the other side of the road as if he feels obliged to play tourist guide. ‘And here we are.’
There are musicians playing in the street.
Everyone seems to have a spring in their step and there’s chatter and music everywhere.
People are outside the pubs and cafés, smoking and drinking.
I’m almost getting caught up in the Shop Street atmosphere, forgetting everything that has happened, when Sean stops halfway up the street and says, ‘I won’t be long,’ and heads into the big grey stone building of a bank without me.
A young girl is on the opposite side of the street playing the fiddle. She’s not very good, hitting wrong notes, but she keeps going and every now and then someone throws money into her case on the ground. I realise her mother is standing beside me, keeping a watchful eye.
‘She’s very brave,’ I say.
‘Well, she’s giving it a lash,’ says the mother, one foot against the wall. ‘It’s all yer can do, isn’t it, give it a go?’
The girl stops and smiles at her mum.
‘Keep going, love, you’re doing grand,’ her mum calls back. ‘Ya have to crack a few eggs to make an omelette.’
I remember nearly saying something similar myself. I think about the mess I’ve made of Sean’s farm. That was more than a few cracked eggs. Mortification burns my cheeks and I wonder whether to just disappear into the crowds. Leave without a trace.
I look up and down the street. There’s a jeweller’s on the other side of the road.
‘Have yer any change?’ A woman shakes a pot at me.
She’s wearing gold sling-backs and red fingerless gloves, and smoking a cigarette with a long length of ash hanging off the end of it.
She looks about eighty. Her thin dyed black hair hangs either side of her face.
‘I can tell yer fortune,’ she says, rattling her pot again.
I shake my head. She nods and drags on the cigarette, the ash falls onto her knee and she brushes it away. ‘Be lucky anyway,’ she says.
Sean comes out of the bank much quicker than I was expecting. The young girl is still crashing her way through her play list. I look at him. He sucks in his top lip and then shakes his head.
‘They won’t lend me any more money.’ He begins to walk and flicks a coin into the girl’s violin case.
‘In fact … they want some of what they’ve already lent me back.
They want me to start repaying the overdraft.
’ He lights another cigarette. ‘Anyway, like I say, not your problem any more. Let’s get you sorted out. ’
He heads off down Shop Street. My head is spinning. Do I go or stay? Would he want me to? Did he mean it when he said everyone was allowed one mistake? Besides, I seem to keep making mistakes. First the camper van, then not mentioning about me being scared of water, and now this.
‘Oh God,’ I say, following him. I made this mess, I have to help put it right in whatever way I can. I have to keep trying. ‘Wait!’ He’s striding out and I have to break into a run. ‘Sean, wait!’ I shout. And he stops and turns to me. I take a deep breath and rummage in my pocket.
‘Come on or you’ll miss the shop.’ He’s back to being his irritable self.
I open my hand and hold out the ring. ‘Here, take it. It should cover the cost of the damage, maybe get some new spat as well. I hope. Maybe it’ll be luckier for you than it was for me,’ I try and joke.
He frowns. People are passing on either side of us.
Young men in hoodies, smoking, are holding up signs pointing to restaurants and tattoo parlours.
There’s a woman playing the tin whistle to a backtrack on CD.
Beside her there’s a man on a chair all dressed in silver, as if he were a statue, waiting for someone to put money in his pot before he’ll move.
‘But that’s your …’ Sean looks gobsmacked.
‘Yes, I know, just take it.’
‘I can’t,’ he says, looking at me and frowning.
‘You can and you have to. I made the mess. Now I’m going to pay for the damage,’ I say firmly.
‘Are you sure?’ He looks from me to the ring. I take hold of his hand and put it there and close his fist.
‘Why? Why would you do this for me?’ he says quietly.
‘Because I need to put this right. Because …’ I say, trailing off. Because I care, I realise, and not just about the oysters and what I’ve done. I care about him. I turn him towards the jeweller’s. ‘Just make sure you get a good price for them.’
He turns back to me, his head bent over his fist.
‘Thank you.’ He quickly and briefly kisses my cheek and without thinking my fingers fly up to touch it where it landed.