Chapter 10 #3
By the time the funeral was over, Blythe had already missed her final exams. And a lot more too, that she couldn’t even begin to process, much less tell anyone about.
Marcus Johnson was like a dream she’d had, but not real.
In her mind, he became her Sir Galahad, a point of safety when she felt so close to danger, it had almost paralysed her senses.
Nothing had happened, she tried to tell herself that, but even that day, coming home on the bus, when she heard a foreign accent in the seat behind her, it made her shiver.
Her fear was compounded with shocked grief, so her whole body trembled at the proximity of an accent she couldn’t place.
The woman opposite her made the bus driver stop so she could gather herself with a cup of tea from a garage on the side of the road.
Her life before that phone call from Pappy, all of it felt as if it had happened to someone else.
‘I’m not going back to Dublin,’ about that she was adamant.
In the days and weeks that followed that terrible night, she’d only just managed to cover over a rising sense of panic at the thought of being in the vicinity of strangers.
She needed to be surrounded by the people she loved.
Occasionally, she thought about Marcus Johnson.
He never called to see what had happened to her.
She covered over the fact that he’d just walked off that night, hadn’t made sure she was okay.
At this distance, it was easier to remember how it felt when she’d run into his arms and suddenly the world felt safe.
She sometimes wondered what her fellow students had said when she didn’t turn up for her exams. Did they care?
Did they even notice? She figured someone would have told them, but it didn’t matter then, only later when her head began to clear.
It was afterward, too, that she realised Marcus hadn’t cared very much for her at all, which was a shame, she had really liked him, maybe even thought that they might end up together.
Silly stuff, she pushed him firmly from her mind.
Maybe she was better off without him. That thought had somehow lodged inside her.
It stopped her from going slightly mad, from calling or texting him.
It was perhaps the punctuation mark she needed; a small pause in falling head over heels for someone when there was that doubt that he might not be everything she’d built him up to be in her fantasies.
In the confusion of everything, she hadn’t applied to do resits, so it felt as if she’d thrown away her years in college. ‘Anyway, what more do I need to know?’ she asked her grandfather late one evening after she had returned from another long day at her mother’s side in the hospital.
‘Nothing, meine Kleine, you were already a better hotelier than any of us before you left for college.’ He said it so plainly, as if it must be true.
‘So, you’d trust me with this place one day?’ She smiled at him now.
‘Let’s just say, I hope to be around for a long time yet,’ he said softly. Oh, how he’d aged since the accident that had whipped away his only son. The last few weeks had changed everything Blythe held close.
‘Then I don’t have to go back and sit those exams next year?’
‘I don’t see how you could, even if you wanted to.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Your mother will need a lot of care when she eventually comes home and Rae, well…’
‘I know.’ Since their father’s death, Rae had completely altered.
For the first few days, they’d hardly said a word – either of them.
They were, of course, in deep shock, in mourning.
Blythe felt as if beneath the grief, she had turned into something as arid as the desert.
That first night, curled up beneath the faded counterpane, Blythe had put her arms around her sobbing sister.
Rae had cried all night through, there was no stop, only an occasional hiccup where she’d run out of tears but turned instead to swallowing down her grief.
It had been like that for days. For her part, Blythe could make no sound – she had passed to a place beyond grief.
The day of their father’s burial something shifted.
Blythe wasn’t sure exactly what, but Rae disappeared for hours, so much so, that Blythe worried that she wouldn’t be back in time for the mass which was due to start at midday.
‘Oh, my God, Rae, where were you?’ she said when she spotted Rae sashay through the front doors of the hotel. Her hair looked as if she’d been crawling through the boglands, the knees of her pants, mud covered. ‘Is that…’ She stared at the dark red love bite on her sister’s neck.
‘Can I not go out for five minutes without someone on my case, seriously Blythe?’
‘We’re due at the church in fifteen minutes.
’ Blythe tried to keep her voice even, but she felt as if she was standing on a ledge, beneath her was a yawning emptiness that scared her with its capacity to swallow what was left to them.
She had to get a grip. She was meant to do a reading; she didn’t want to be one of those girls who went to pieces on the altar, making everyone feel uncomfortable. Pappy would hate that.
‘The funeral isn’t going to start for half an hour.’
‘Yes, but we have to be there early, people will want to give their condolences, and Pappy doesn’t want us traipsing in the door at the last moment.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake. I’ll be ready in plenty of time.’ She pounded up the stairs. It was only then that Blythe realised, for the last few weeks in Dublin, she’d had hardly any letters from Rae – what was going on with her, exactly?
Later, at the funeral, Blythe put her arm around Rae.
She could hardly process that right there, in that honey-coloured coffin, her father was being taken away from them.
Suddenly, it washed over her like an icy tide that almost sent her off balance – she’d never see her father again.
Rae shrugged her off unexpectedly, making her stumble.
Blythe felt ten times more alone than she had before.
It was confirmed, even if she could talk about what she felt she’d left behind in Marcus Johnson, she couldn’t tell the only person she would have confided in.
The next few weeks, felt to Blythe as if they were living on a roundabout of hospital visits, hotel duties and trying to keep what remained of their family and her sanity together.
Pappy was great – although nearing his ninth decade, he made his way into the belly of the hotel daily.
From his vantage point midway between reception and the bar, he looked after locals and guests, with a welcoming word for everyone and a good finger on the pulse of village goings-on thanks to the morning mass brigade and the evening crew, dropping in for a quiet pint to finish off their day.
Rae on the other hand was a completely different story.
‘She’s acting out,’ her grandfather said when Rae snapped at Blythe and then slammed the kitchen door behind her.
‘I know, she adored Dad, but we all loved him, and we have to stick together, it’s not going to be easy when Mum comes home.’
‘I’ve been thinking about that…’ her grandfather said softly. ‘You know I’ve loved having you both here? But a hotel isn’t the place for a convalescent woman, who’s trying to heal not just physical scars but emotional ones too…’
‘I know, Pappy, don’t worry. We’ll go back to Still Water House when she’s discharged…
’ It was the only solution. Blythe was dreading it.
There was a silence in their great old Georgian home that no radio could wash out; it would not be so easy to push unwelcome thoughts from her mind there.
The hotel was at its busiest now; it made it easier to convince herself that everything would be okay than facing up to the reality that was panning out before her.
‘It’ll be good to get back, maybe that’s what Rae needs, to get back to some sort of normal? ’
‘Maybe,’ her grandfather said, although he didn’t sound too convinced.
The problem with Rae, it transpired, was not that she was unsettled, but rather a long-haired heavy metal biker called Danno who had more attitude than horsepower and a temporary hold over Rae that Blythe hoped would lessen as soon as someone new came along.
It turned out that it was also about Marcus.
Yes.
Marcus Johnson above all people.
The truth came out one evening when they were in the middle of a screaming row over something so small, Blythe couldn’t remember halfway through the argument what had started it.
‘You stopped answering my letters,’ Rae spat at her.
‘I what?’
‘My letters. You met some dude – you didn’t even tell me his name. You made him dinner and drank wine with him and that’s the last letter you sent me.’
‘Rae? I…’ Blythe was gobsmacked. Had she really forgotten to return Rae’s letters once Marcus came on the scene?
True, she’d fallen crazily head over heels for him – obscenely so, maybe as much because of his restraint and his detachment – he remained unavailable to her to a large extent.
Oh, they met for study and went to college events together, she sat next to him in the college canteen, but they hadn’t slept together; obviously.
There was no formal girlfriend–boyfriend arrangement.
Somehow, without seeming to try, he managed to keep her on tenterhooks – not on purpose, she was certain it wasn’t intentional – wasn’t she?
Now, in hindsight, with everything so undiluted and raw, Blythe wondered if she’d ever have been able to take things further with him.
Had he loved her? Or even liked her? Or had he just been interested in her because one day, she would own a hotel, the one thing he seemed to want more than anything else. Maybe, if he just reached out…
These days, so far as she could gather from others in their class, he was working in a hotel on the continent, improving his languages, building up his CV – probably, still working to some internal plan to make a great success of his life.
‘Anyway, none of that matters now,’ she said then, seeing Rae on the verge of tears. ‘This Danno – what’s he done?’
‘It’s not what he’s done… it’s what I’ve done for him…’
‘Oh, no, Rae, you’re not…’ Pregnant. That was the one thing she wasn’t equipped to cope with now, not with the prospect of caring full time for their mother as well as everything else.
‘Of course not, but it’s…’ She started to cry, sob as if her heart might break. ‘He needed money and… No one is going to notice, but I just feel so badly about it now…’
‘What did you do?’
‘I…’ Rae and Blythe might have been sisters, but they were completely different people. Rae wore her heart on her sleeve. Instead of a poker face, she had a window to her soul.
‘Did you steal money?’ Dear God, please let her not have done something completely stupid.
‘No. No, of course not, but I promised Danno I’d get him two hundred pounds from the hotel to fix his bike.
’ It came out in interrupted blurts, but at least, if that was the worst of it, well, maybe it wasn’t so bad.
‘And today I saw him with Adele O’Regan and if I don’t get him the money, I know he’s going to choose her over me and I simply can’t bear it…
’ And she was off in heartbroken sobs again.
‘Oh, Rae…’ Blythe pulled her close. ‘Sweet, sweet Rae, he’s not worth it.’
‘You don’t know him, he’s… he’s…’ She stopped, wiped the tears from her cheeks with a force that was almost like a slap. ‘I’m in love with him.’
‘You’re not in love with him.’
‘How do you know? What would you know about love anyway, all you ever loved was the hotel – you’ve never once fallen madly, truly in love with anyone apart from the hotel.’ She spat the words out.
‘That’s not true.’ Blythe tried to keep her voice level, but she wanted to cry.
She’d thought she was in love with Marcus, she’d been utterly infatuated with him, that was true, but had she ever loved anyone blindly enough to want to go out and steal to hold onto them?
She wasn’t sure that was in her DNA – maybe Rae was right, the thing she loved most was the Hope Square Hotel, maybe it would always be the love of her life.
What did any of that matter now? All that mattered was that Rae was hurt – she’d bloody well put that Danno boyo in his box first thing tomorrow morning and that would be an end to it.
‘Listen to me now, Rae Scott – you’re worth a thousand of that old Adele O’Regan and if Danno Kelly can’t see that, well then, he’s not worth the spikes on his biker jacket.’
‘Oh, Blythe,’ Rae sobbed, and she threw herself against Blythe, holding onto her as if she was life itself and Blythe prayed hard that everything was going to be okay.