Chapter 34
PATRICK
Patrick was about to change for the evening when there was a knock on his bedroom door. It was Sandra, her small suitcase at her feet, her handbag strapped across her body.
‘Sorry to disturb you,’ she said. She looked hot and bothered, a slight sheen of sweat on her forehead, her white blouse crumpled, her hair flat as though it had given up any pretence of life.
‘That’s all right.’ He spoke gently to her, this woman he’d once blamed for why his mother became so ill and who he thought had destroyed their family life.
But over the years, while he’d been away, a reckoning had taken place.
It wasn’t her, she wasn’t remotely to blame, she’d been caught up in it all, like him and Seán, and like his mother.
They were all managing an impossible situation, as well as an unstable, volatile man.
Seeing her now, all he felt was compassion.
She gave a small smile. ‘I’m leaving,’ she said. ‘I’m going back to Cork now. And I’ve told your father that he is no longer welcome in my house.’
‘Would you like to come in for a moment?’
She nodded and Patrick stood to one side as she walked inside. She seemed resigned, a look on her face that people have when they have reached rock bottom and are yet to gather themselves.
‘How are you?’ he asked, gently. ‘Dad behaved appallingly. As always. He was always a drinker. He used to give Mam hell. And us too. I thought he’d knocked it on the head.’
‘No, he hasn’t.’ Sandra spoke quietly.
‘Would you like to sit down?’ He handed her a glass of water, which she took with a slightly trembling hand, and perched on the edge of the window seat.
‘I’m sorry.’ Sandra nodded. ‘That’s all I can say. I am sorry for any hurt I caused you, your brother and your mother.’
He nodded. ‘It’s okay. And I’m sorry too. But it’s not your fault. It was him.’
‘I believed him when he said he needed me. I was foolish. I see that now.’
‘I’ve been stupid too, holding on to all this resentment…’
‘It’s understandable.’ She placed the glass on the table beside her and stood up. ‘I want to wish you well. And Seán. Your mother did a very fine job with you two boys. She was a wonderful woman.’
He managed to nod. ‘We were lucky to have her.’ Unlucky to have him, however. ‘How are you getting home?’
‘I’m going to get on the train into the city centre and then the bus to Midleton,’ she said. ‘No doubt I will see your father when he comes to pick up his things. I’ll have them all boxed up ready for him.’ She sounded resolute, as though she was gathering strength by the minute.
‘I’ll get you a taxi.’ He carried her case downstairs and just as they turned from the stairs into reception, he put the case down.
‘I’ll see if we can get one straight away.
’ He smiled at her and turned, but then Rosie appeared from the office, quickly walking towards them.
She took one look at Sandra, standing with her small case, and seemed to understand the whole situation.
‘I’m leaving,’ said Sandra. ‘I hope that’s okay. To leave early and all that…’
‘I was going to call her a taxi,’ said Patrick. ‘To the station in Sandycove.’
‘I’ll drive you,’ said Rosie, immediately. ‘Let me go and get the car.’
In a few minutes, she pulled up in the Land Rover and Patrick placed Sandra’s suitcase in the boot, while Sandra climbed into the front, and without hesitation he hopped into the back. He and Rosie locked eyes for a moment through the rear-view mirror.
‘How are you getting home?’ Rosie asked Sandra.
‘I’ll take the bus to Cork and then change for Midleton,’ said Sandra. ‘I’ll be grand. Want to be on the road, you know?’
They rattled down the hill and soon they were pulling up outside the station.
Patrick stepped out and retrieved the suitcase from the back and he waited while Sandra checked she had her phone and her purse.
She looked up at him, holding out her hand to shake his, but instead he put his arms around her.
‘You mind yourself, okay?’ he said, hugging her.
‘If there’s anything I can do, let me know.
’ He understood what it was like to live with a charming bully like Brian, to be taken in by him, to want to impress him, and then to ultimately realise that you were on a fool’s errand.
‘And if he gives you any bother, just call me or Seán and we will help.’
For a moment, he thought he saw tears in Sandra’s eyes, but she gave her head a small shake and plastered on a smile and then, with a last look at Patrick and a quick, resolute nod and a wave to Rosie, she set off.
Back in the Land Rover, Rosie beside him, he tried to focus, pulling on the seat belt. ‘Thanks for that.’ For a moment, he wondered how all this had happened. You came back to Ireland and your entire emotional history was read back to you. It was a lot.
‘Okay?’ she asked gently.
He nodded. ‘I don’t think I ever told you how much of a waste of space my father was.’
‘No. But I guessed.’
‘Did you?’
‘You never spoke about him, and yet you told me about your mother and about Seán. You never shut up about them…’ She grinned at him.
He smiled back. ‘Silence speaks volumes. But what do I say to him? How do I end this?’
‘I think you stand up for the boy you were. Work out what you want from him.’
‘Nothing?’
‘Maybe that’s what you need. You don’t owe him anything.’
‘But my poor mother. Sandra. Seán…’
‘You all deserved so much better.’
‘We did. We really did.’ He never did this, emoted, his voice wobbling and all that. ‘I feel,’ he said, ‘a little better.’
‘Good.’
‘I really do.’
‘All in a day’s work.’ Rosie looked back at Patrick. ‘Did Lucinda ever say anything to you about me, or about us?’
‘Why?’
‘I just wondered. Because… well, she meddles in things and it just struck me that she might have said something to put you off me.’
‘Put me off you?’ He gave a short laugh. ‘It didn’t put me off you but it…’ He sighed and ruffled his hair.
‘So she did say something?’
He nodded. ‘I was insecure, I suppose…’
‘What did she say?’
‘That I wasn’t good enough for you. My background, farming and all that. No money. And at the time, perhaps I didn’t think I was either.’
‘Are you serious? What the actual…?’
‘When I came to the hotel that day… remember?’
‘Of course I remember…’ Rosie was frowning. ‘She spoke to you, then?’
He nodded. ‘When you weren’t there. She said that I wasn’t good enough for you and that she was going to find someone who was. Now I think she might have been jealous of you.’
‘Jealous of me?’ Rosie was still trying to compute this information.
‘You were so happy,’ he said, feeling awful at the memory of just how happy she had been, laughing and talking, holding his hand as they walked up from the station in Sandycove, excitedly pointing things out to him, telling him about her plans for the hotel.
But now Rosie was silent. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘Did what she said affect your decision to leave?’
‘Partly. I was insecure. And it triggered me. I thought that I wasn’t good enough for anyone.
I had a confident front, but I’d grown up in a home where my father bullied me and put me and my brother down.
And he’d just left us all for Sandra… and I was immature.
And… well, what Lucinda said helped me make a difficult decision.
’ He longed to take her hand, to feel her skin on his, to let her know how desperately sorry he was.
But Rosie was completely still. ‘I’m really sorry,’ he said again.
She shook her head. ‘It’s not your fault. You were so young. And so was I. If Lucinda couldn’t control us, she didn’t want us to be happy. I just can’t work out if it’s malevolent or just meddling.’
‘I wish I’d talked to you, explained everything. But I was full of confusion at the time,’ he went on. ‘But I was happy too. As happy as you were.’ He looked at her, holding her gaze. ‘It was the best summer of my life.’
She smiled. ‘Mine too. And if it helps, I thought you were definitely good enough for me.’
‘I had to grow up a bit,’ he said. ‘Lose the chips on my shoulder. But at the time, I took what she said to heart. And I was leaving anyway and I made a rash decision to just end things.’ He paused. ‘I’ve had to live with that decision for the last ten years…’
‘Me too.’ She spoke softly.
He began to speak and then stopped. ‘Sometimes…’ He stopped again.
‘Go on.’
‘It’s just that sometimes… I don’t know.
Sometimes I wonder if we would have been okay.
If you’d come with me or I’d stayed here, then we would have worked out.
There were times in Boston, I was so lonely that I’d imagine an alternative universe, one where you were with me.
Coming home and making dinner together. Going for walks.
The beach.’ He shook his head, smiling. ‘There’s this little place called Rockport and it reminded me of Sandycove and sometimes, the loneliness was so bad, that I’d drive out there and almost, in my head, I’d feel you with me.
Or every autumn, I’d walk in the public garden and look at the leaves.
The colours are unbelievable and I don’t know… I just thought you’d like to see them…’
‘I would.’
‘So I’d imagine you with me. I mean, I don’t still imagine…
’ He looked at her searchingly. He felt foolish, but he had to speak, this was his chance to apologise, to make right that wrong, his behaviour of leaving with no explanation was unforgivable.
Whatever happened, he wasn’t going to leave her again without telling her the truth.
He was done with pretending he was okay.
He’d been lonely without her and no one he had met had filled the Rosie-shaped gap.
‘I know I sound like an idiot and we can’t change the past, I just wanted you to know that it wasn’t done lightly, and I didn’t forget about you. ’
She nodded, silent for a moment, lost in her thoughts. ‘I was lonely too.’
‘You’re not still, are you?’
‘Oh no. I’m far too busy to be lonely. I mean, the hotel keeps me from thinking about too much.’
So she was fine, then. He was happy that she was fine.
She had been lonely and now she wasn’t. But he still was.
‘That’s good that you’re okay. And I have to congratulate you on the hotel.
It’s so beautiful…’ He paused. He wanted to tell her that she was beautiful and that, in the last ten years, she’d only become more so. ‘And you look really… really well.’
‘Thank you.’ She smiled at him and started the engine. ‘Come on. You’d better get ready for the rehearsal dinner. The drinks will have started already.’ And she turned the Land Rover around and headed back to Cliff Top.
The windows were down and Patrick switched on the radio and hung one arm out as though he was on holiday.
Rosie glanced at him and laughed. ‘You look happy,’ she said.
He grinned at her. He did feel happy. Just being in this old Land Rover. ‘I feel as though I’m on holiday. Just for a moment. Before the wedding all starts up again.’
An old song came on the radio, some guitar-heavy noodling.
‘Remember Smoggy?’ Patrick said. ‘He used to always play Led Zeppelin, didn’t he? I wonder what happened to him.’
‘I bumped into him and his five children a year or so ago,’ said Rosie. ‘His wife runs some kind of beauty salon and he’s a stay-at-home dad. Had them all colour co-ordinated and lined up in a row.’
Patrick laughed again. ‘Good old Smoggy. Glad it all worked out for him. If it hadn’t been for him and that houseshare, we would never have met.’ He looked at Rosie, to see what she was thinking.
She smiled at him. ‘Turn the music up,’ she said. ‘And let’s get you back to the wedding.’