Chapter 6 #2
She should be grateful to them. She knew that. They were doing what they thought was best for her, and they worried about her now, living alone here – but as always, it felt like she was being managed, not allowed to live her own life, make her own decisions.
She wasn’t happy here. She couldn’t be happy anywhere right now, but she had a connection with Chance House that she wasn’t ready to break.
Leaving it would feel like leaving Damien.
He would always inhabit her heart, that would never change, but moving back to Dublin would mean travelling miles from everything he’d loved, miles from all the people who’d loved him, and who’d shown her such kindness after his death.
It wasn’t even that she didn’t want to return to Dublin.
There was so much she loved about the city.
There was Caroline, who knew exactly how she liked her hair cut, and the Slow Brew, just two blocks away from her old apartment, best coffee and eggs Benedict in Dublin, and Wordsmith, the bookshop down the road, the perfect spot to while away a rainy afternoon, curled up in one of its many alcoves with a novel.
In Dublin there were shops for everything, and spas to relax in, and parks to walk or run in, and pubs to suit whatever night you wanted.
There was Friel’s bar in Donnybrook, with Chris who loved jam tarts on duty behind the counter, where the gang used to meet on the last Friday of every month for cocktails, and where the only rule was no work talk.
She used to look forward so much to Cocktail Fridays.
And, of course, in Dublin she had Brona.
So she would follow the plan. She would return to the city once Brendan had finished and Chance House was back on the market.
In time it would become a bittersweet memory, a place where she’d briefly lived and loved.
If she survived into old age, she knew the memory of the big house would always cause a soft pang.
She’d have to move back in with her parents until she found a new apartment. That could take a while. And depending on timings, she’d have to do as her father was suggesting and borrow to pay for a property if something came up before Chance House was sold.
But . . . A new thought occurred, halting her steps. Why not go on living here, rent free, mortgage free, until someone bought the house? Why borrow, either from her parents or from a financial institution, when she didn’t have to?
It seemed the most obvious course of action.
How had she not seen it until now? Even as the question occurred, the answer came: because it was taking everything she had to keep from giving in to the despair that threatened to crush her, and because she was listening to one or other of her parents repeatedly trying to persuade her to move back east.
No. Her mind was made up. She would stay here until she had to hand over the keys to Chance House, however long that took. Her head felt clearer than it had in weeks. Now all she had to do was break the news to them.
She phoned her father as soon as she got home, wanting to get it over with. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to snap.’
‘That’s OK, love. We understand.’
She took a breath. She told him of her decision – and got precisely the response she’d expected.
‘Lydia, love, I’m not sure you’re thinking straight right now.’
‘I’m sure I am.’
Silence.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I know you and Mum are looking out for me, and I’m very lucky to have you both, but Dad, I have to put myself first here. Please try to understand. Please just let me do what I feel is best.’
‘It could take ages to sell,’ he said. ‘How will you support yourself? What do you propose to live on?’
‘I have money, I’m OK . . . and if I need more, I’m sure I can get a part-time job here.’ She wasn’t a bit sure. ‘I’ll be OK, Dad.’ She searched for something more to say, but it was all said. ‘Thanks,’ she added, knowing how inadequate it was. ‘I’ll come to see you soon, I promise.’
After hanging up, wanting to run her idea by someone who might be more sympathetic, she went out to find Gareth forking seaweed from his barrow into the earth of the yellow rectangle.
‘I’m putting on the kettle,’ she told him. ‘Will you come in?’
He stabbed the fork into the ground and peeled off his gardening gloves. ‘Thought you’d never ask.’
He stepped out of his boots at the door.
His socks were thick, the colour of sand.
He washed his hands and opened presses till he found mugs, and took milk from the fridge while she scalded the teapot.
She remembered he preferred it to coffee.
He didn’t ask how she was doing, and she was glad of it.
People meant well when they asked, but she wished they wouldn’t.
Nobody wanted to hear how broken she was.
‘I’d like your opinion,’ she said, and told him of her resolve – and like her father, he made the point that Chance House mightn’t sell all that quickly, even fully restored.
‘I can wait,’ she said. ‘I’ll probably have to look for work at some stage, but that’s OK.
I can try the shops in the town.’ She remembered Damien saying she wouldn’t get a job over a local in the village, and she was still enough of an outsider for that to apply.
‘I don’t want to leave,’ she said. ‘Not until . . . everything’s done. ’
‘I get that,’ he said. ‘And you don’t mind being here on your own?’
She did mind. She minded very much. ‘I don’t have a choice, if I want to stay.’
He nodded, giving it some thought. ‘I’d say you should do what makes you happy,’ he said slowly, and then he heard the words and his face changed, and she told him quickly that she knew what he meant.
So careful everyone was, tiptoeing around her.
She was reminded of Andrew with his chicken soup, and his face when he’d realised his mistake.
They drank tea, and the talk changed to inconsequential things.
He spoke of the snowdrops on the lane; she said she’d seen them.
He commented on what was playing on the radio, and confessed his ignorance of classical music.
She asked what he preferred, and he said American country and told her of an older couple from Milwaukee who spent summers in their house up the coast and brought their guitars to the village pubs now and again.
He offered to light the fire, asked if she had enough fuel. Asked if she wanted him to take away the stack of newspapers.
‘How about a hug?’ he said, when he was leaving. They’d never hugged, apart from at the funeral. She wasn’t sure what to say so she said nothing, just nodded, and he wrapped her in his arms and she smelt the sea and the earth from him, and her eyes filled but she felt safe.
Her mother rang, of course. ‘Sweetheart, we know it’s hard for you now, and we want to do everything we can to help, but we really think you’re making a mistake, wanting to stay long term in that big house all on your own.
’ Lydia had to repeat everything she’d already said, and bat away the same arguments she’d already countered, and her mother was no happier than her father had been, but there was nothing she could do about that.
Next day, the sky holding no threat of rain, she walked into the village after breakfast, her first time to go near it since the accident, and rang the bell of the parochial house.
‘I hope you don’t mind my dropping in,’ she said. ‘I felt I should make the effort, since everyone’s been coming to me.’
‘I’m delighted to see you, and your timing is impeccable. I’ve just brewed up.’
She remembered the nutty aroma of his coffee from the day she’d first met him, when she’d called with Damien to fix on a wedding date.
She’d loved it then, asked him for the name of it, but today the taste and scent were too much for her.
Grief seemed to have altered her tolerances. She sipped it out of politeness.
‘It’s good to get out,’ Father Phil said. ‘You need roses in those cheeks again. I’m driving to the town this afternoon – want to sit in?’
‘I don’t, thanks.’ That level of social interaction was still beyond her. She was too fragile, too damaged.
‘Want me to pick anything up for you then?’
‘I have everything I need,’ she told him. It was true, with occasional food donations continuing, and everything else – groceries, toiletries – supplied by Marian, and anonymous bags of fuel left regularly at her door. ‘People are very kind.’
‘Kindness is built into the folk around here,’ he agreed. ‘How are you finding the time?’
‘Long,’ she admitted.
He nodded. ‘Hard to believe it’s March already. Is Gareth working on the garden?’
‘He is, whenever he can spare the time, and when the weather’s OK.’
‘He might be glad of some help, if you’re of a mind to.’
With a pang, she recalled herself and Damien helping out with the initial clearing, carting barrow loads of weeds and emptying them into a trailer. Yes, working in the garden would be something she could manage.
‘Look after yourself,’ he told her as she was leaving. ‘See you soon. My door is always open – even when I’m not here. Come in and make yourself a cuppa.’ He hugged her without asking. He was good at hugs, and gave them freely.
At the gate she turned back in the direction of Chance House, not wishing to meet anyone else, unable yet for the casual encounter, the bright small talk – or worse, the pitying enquiries – but she’d hardly left the village before a car pulled up beside her.
She would refuse the offer of a lift, pleading a need of fresh air, but when the window slid down, Susan was behind it.
‘I was coming to see you’ – so Lydia had little choice but to get in.
‘Nice that you’re out and about,’ Susan remarked, as they covered the short distance.
‘I called to Father Phil for a chat.’
‘Good for you.’
Back in the house Lydia took the lilac dress from its hanger and folded it into a paper bag. ‘Not cleaned,’ she said. ‘I was waiting to ask Marian to get it done, but I kept forgetting. Sorry it’s taken so long.’
‘No problem at all.’
‘Will I make tea?’
‘Don’t, I’m not staying. I just wanted to run something by you.’
The house was quiet, no workmen on a weekend, no Gareth in the garden. Through the window Lydia could see a tiny patch of blue in the sky. Spring weather on the way, for all the difference it would make.
‘You must find the time long,’ Susan went on. ‘I was thinking you might be glad of a diversion.’
‘. . . Oh?’
‘I wondered if you’ve ever taught yoga to young children.’
‘I have. There was a mother and toddler class in the studio where I worked.’
‘In that case, would you consider giving a class to Marian’s junior and senior infants?
There’s a hall you could use. For payment, naturally – and it could be a one-off, if you didn’t want to commit to any more.
I like bringing outsiders in, giving the kids new experiences, and the poor infants don’t get much. ’
‘Well . . .’ She was looking for something to fill her time, and yoga was what she loved, but a class of lively five- and six-year-olds?
‘You don’t have to decide right now, just think about it.
There are only fourteen children between the two classes, and they’re a sweet group.
Jack is in there, don’t forget, and Marian would stay with you all the time, and twenty minutes or so would be plenty.
Just think about it,’ she repeated, and Lydia promised she would.
‘Also,’ Susan said, ‘I wondered if you’d like a bike.’
‘. . . A bike?’
‘Owen got me a new one for my birthday, and my old one is sitting in the garage, and I feel bad that I’m not trying to find a home for it.
It’s working fine, just a bit ancient. And it’s not a bribe – it’s yours if you want it, whether you say yes to the yoga or not.
I thought it might be handy for getting you in and out of the village. Would you be interested?’
She would. She would be interested. She’d had one in Dublin and she’d loved it.
So satisfying to be able to whizz past a line of cars – but the apartment five floors up, and with a temperamental lift, had been the end of it.
She wasn’t comfortable leaving it in the communal storage space out the back, so she’d sold it, and had missed it right away.
A bike here would be most useful. It would bring her a lot further than the village, in any direction.
‘If you’re sure,’ she said, ‘I would like it.’
‘It’s yours. I’ll get Owen to drop it over. And have a little think about the yoga – no pressure, honestly.’
After she left, Lydia went into her studio.
Fully functioning since last weekend, Brendan had told her on Monday.
Just, he’d said, if you had a use for it, unaware that she’d been using it all along for her own sessions.
Lights and heat connected now, storage unit installed.
Plenty of room in it for all the equipment her old workplace had let her have at a special price – mats, blocks, belts, blankets – but everything was still piled up in her spare bedroom.
What was the point of moving it into a studio that was never going to host a class?
She wondered what would happen to it after the house was sold. It was a space that would lend itself to all manner of classes or workshops – or maybe the new owner would do something entirely different with it. A little bar maybe, if the restaurant idea went ahead.
Perfect for yoga, though. She missed teaching it, missed the energy a class always brought into being.
She missed seeing beginners discover the difference yoga could make, or taking improvers on to the next level.
She remembered all the questions she’d been asked about yoga on the night of Susan’s party.
The night her world had ended.
She shut off the thought. She considered the very different kind of yoga class Susan was proposing.
She couldn’t deny the enjoyment she’d got from the mother and toddler one in Dublin.
That they were young children wouldn’t make it any easier – they could be a lot more challenging than adults.
But maybe a challenge would be good for her.
And Susan had helped with the wedding, and lent her the dress, and was giving her a bike for nothing. And Marian would be with her in the hall.
One class wouldn’t kill her. One class wouldn’t commit her to anything more. And it would be a kind of a start, wouldn’t it? It would be the beginning of being able to plan a little beyond the day she was in.
She would definitely think about it.