Chapter 24 #2
‘Ah, that’s completely different, sometimes, I wonder if he’s trying to impress me or Pappy,’ Rae laughed again at this.
‘And Pappy doesn’t like Kip either.’
‘Don’t worry about Pappy, he always thought you’d marry into some hotel dynasty like the Four Seasons or the Hiltons.’
‘Oh God – and leave Pin Hill?’ Blythe began to laugh, because suddenly she felt so much better.
‘You need to go and support Kip, once this is over, you’ll see, everything will fall into place, Pappy might even take him more seriously, if he isn’t off playing that foreign game.’ She was imitating their grandfather, and it made them both laugh.
So, she decided she’d go. Maybe getting away might be good for her, after all. Rae was right, there were plenty of people to look after the hotel if she took herself off for one night.
Then, she saw the list of people travelling up on the bus for Kip’s final game.
Apart from a few of the long-committed supporters, it was all young girls.
Mainly from the convent, just out of leaving cert with an empty summer to pass until they headed off for the big world beyond the island.
Looking down along the list of names, she realised that anything could happen on that trip.
It was Kip’s final hurrah and she should be there. Blythe told herself, it was not so much marking out her territory as it was supporting him in what would be a very emotional game.
It reminded her, too, time was passing. They were all getting older. That idea came with a jolt of uneasiness. All her friends were already paired off or about to walk down the aisle. She was increasingly looking like the last woman standing.
So, she put her name down. Kip was even more delighted than she’d hoped for, but for far more reasons than she’d care to admit, she was determined to put legs into their relationship now his career was ending.
Perhaps she would shake off this feeling of lethargy and impending doom, perhaps she might just get her happy ending yet.
The trip was everything and less than she expected. Kip was carted off with an injury to his shoulder within six minutes of setting foot on the field, and she’d ended up in A it set the tone for the afternoon.
They had one more night in Dublin. A low-key drinks affair where one of the team managers hoped Kip might wrangle a job with a company that sponsored some of the matches.
Blythe had a feeling that at the end of it, the dry old stick who did the hiring and firing might have given her the job, but Kip would never fit in with the slick branding and fast sales-y speak that they valued. There would be no job.
‘It doesn’t matter. There’ll be other opportunities.
’ She tried to convince him when they got back to the hotel.
It was all a huge comedown; Kip’s career ended here in a room filled with gifts and mementoes from his rugby career.
A seven-foot-tall rabbit wearing the Irish strip, stood in one corner watching them critically.
He was part of an in-joke between the players.
Blythe looked at it and wondered how on earth it would fit into the tiny cottage Kip still shared with his mother on the edge of Muffeen Mòr.
‘We both know there won’t be, Blythe. My professional rugby career is over.
I’m all washed up. I have nothing to recommend me except that in years to come, people will remember that one time I was capped for Ireland and maybe I’ll get invited back to sit in the stands for the less important games to watch younger players do the only thing I was ever good at. ’
‘Kip, come on, you’re just feeling down. Alright, it’s the end of one chapter in your life, but another will open soon. You’ll have to go looking for it and…’ She tried to convince him, but it was hard, because over the last few days, she felt every bit as used up as he did.
The fact was, she felt as if she was the oldest woman in the room, every time she dared to think about it this weekend.
Suddenly, the lovely tea dress she’d worn earlier seemed primly Victorian compared to the skimpy tops and ripped pants the other girls favoured.
She was wearing her mother’s pearl earrings for heaven’s sake while everyone else was wearing leather strings on their wrists and delicate name charms at their throats.
In that moment, she wasn’t sure why, but she put her arms around him and pulled him close to her with a hunger that she’d never felt before. Even as they made love, she wasn’t sure if she wanted him or just wanted something. Something to fill a void that she still wasn’t brave enough to name.
It was her first time. Really. Because even though they’d been going out together for years, she’d always held back, waiting for the right moment, waiting for something, she didn’t know what, and so it had never arrived.
And later, as they lay in each other’s arms (she moving to the other side of the bed, so she was on his uninjured side) they both wept, moved by the experience of it.
This was NOT sympathy sex.
She knew it as it was happening, in those moments, she wanted this to happen with Kip, wanted him more than anything.
Whatever it was, somehow, it seemed to cement them.
They arrived back in Muffeen Mòr, standing closer together, finishing each other’s sentences, connected in a way they were not before.
There was no plan to meet up again. No asking her on a date or making any great declarations, but the following morning, Kip turned up at the hotel with two chocolate bars and the suggestion that they go for a walk on the pier during her tea break.
A fortnight later, when her period was late, Blythe knew she was pregnant before she even took the test.