Chapter 9
IN THE MORNING THE GINGER CAT WAS BACK IN THE garden, sitting close to the patio. Was he waiting to be fed? Lydia put more food into the bowl and brought it out. Again he ran away at her approach.
Back inside, she called her mother. ‘Just for one night,’ she said, ‘to catch up.’
‘That’s wonderful, love. We’ll have your room ready. Text when you’re on the train and Dad will meet you – he’s on a half day today.’
As she was returning it to her pocket, her phone rang. When she saw a number with no name attached, she hit the red button – but less than a minute later, it rang again.
‘Greta is trying to call you,’ Marian said. ‘I gave her your number – I hope that’s OK. She wants to talk to you about something.’
She was wondering about the outcome of their conversation in the little yard behind the café. Lydia should have let her know. She went to retrieve the call she’d cut off, but Greta beat her to it.
She received Lydia’s news with the same equanimity she’d shown when she’d taken the wedding cake order. ‘How do you feel about it?’
‘Shocked. Sad. Frightened. Not sure I’ll be able to do it alone.’
‘But you won’t be alone here.’
‘I can’t stay, Greta. I’m going to Dublin this afternoon to tell my parents, and I’ll be moving back there before the baby is born. I was leaving anyway – I’ll just be going sooner than planned.’
‘How are you travelling to Dublin?’
‘Train.’
‘I will drive you to the station. Tell me the time of your train.’
‘There’s no need. I can get a bus from the village.’
‘You will not get a bus. I will drive you.’
Having learnt that argument was futile with Greta, Lydia gave in, and arrangements were made.
Cycling through the village an hour or so later she passed the Saturday market stalls with their organic offerings, their home-baked goods and barn fresh eggs and honey from local bees and just-picked vegetables.
She nodded at familiar faces – there was Greta with her eggs and cheese – but kept going, not wanting to be diverted from a task she wasn’t exactly looking forward to. Better get it over with.
The Cotter family home was located down the road from Damien’s old house, and around the corner from Tom and Marian’s.
All the Cotters close together, until Damien had made the break.
It must have been hard, she thought now, for Kathleen to see Damien selling the house his father had built for him.
It might have seemed to her that he was splitting up the family, even though he was only moving a mile away.
She had to pass his old house to get to theirs.
It had a new red front door, and curtains had replaced his blinds.
An older couple had bought it, downsizing after their family had moved out.
They’d planted flowers in the front garden where only grass and dandelions had grown.
She was glad it looked different. It made it easier to pretend she’d never been inside it, never spent happy times there.
When she reached Brendan and Kathleen’s house she saw his van in the driveway. She propped her bicycle inside the garden wall, careful to keep it well away from Kathleen’s rose bushes, and walked around to the back of the house, like she and Damien had always done.
It felt strange, coming here without him. Strange and sad. She rapped on the kitchen door, avoiding the window, not wanting to be seen looking in. She hoped Brendan would answer, and he did. In shirtsleeves and unshaven, looking concerned at the sight of her.
‘Is anything wrong?’
‘Nothing’s wrong, Brendan. I just wanted to give you and Kathleen some news.’
‘Come in, sit down. Kathleen’s upstairs – I’ll get her.’
Lydia didn’t sit, not yet. The kitchen was as she remembered it, dated and cluttered and warm.
A smell of toast hung in the air. A newspaper lay open on the round table, a half-filled mug and Brendan’s reading glasses next to it.
A familiar brown teapot sat on a trivet.
Plates were stacked on the draining board: no dishwasher for Kathleen.
Two eggcups in the sink, still holding their empty half-shells.
When had she been in this room last? A day or two before Christmas, wasn’t it?
Brendan had been working at Chance House, so it had been just the three of them.
They’d sat at the table and been given cups of tea, with whatever Kathleen had baked – mince pies?
– and Lydia had let mother and son speak, keeping a determined smile on her face.
She remembered that Kathleen hadn’t brought up the wedding, less than a week away.
She heard voices, steps descending. She felt suddenly uncertain of her reception, of Kathleen’s reaction to the news. She stood by the table, feeling a rising heat in her face. Her hands curled around the back of a chair as the door opened.
‘Kathleen – there you are.’ A small fluttering in her gut. ‘I’m sorry, I should have called in to check how you were before this.’
Kathleen didn’t respond. Like Brendan, she’d aged.
The furrows around her mouth had deepened; new lines were scored in the skin between her eyes.
She’d stopped colouring her hair, an inch of greying roots visible.
Her top, green with a lacy collar, one that Lydia didn’t remember, had a small dark stain near the neckline.
As ever, she looked slightly past Lydia.
‘I have something I need to tell you both. Do you want to . . . will you sit down?’
Again, there was no reaction from Kathleen.
It was as if Lydia hadn’t spoken. Brendan pulled out a chair and put a hand on his wife’s arm to steer her in its direction.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘Here, Kathleen, have a seat. Would I make tea?’ he asked, the question directed at Lydia, and she shook her head.
Poor man, trying to manage his wife’s grief as well as his own.
She waited until they were both seated before taking a chair. Brendan, she saw, had pulled his closer to Kathleen’s. Was he nervous too of what was to come?
Now that she must tell them, Lydia found herself tongue-tied.
She decided to be direct, get it over with – but it didn’t come out very direct.
Instead, it stuttered out in little jumps.
‘I discovered yesterday – that I’m . . .
pregnant.’ Looking from one of them to the other.
‘I did a test – actually I did two, just to be . . .’
She let it trail away. There was a dead silence. She saw how her words changed their faces, the astonishment in Brendan’s, the hardening in Kathleen’s. Outside, a bird began a sudden loud chirruping.
Brendan was the first to speak. ‘Well,’ he said slowly, ‘that’s . . . it’s . . . a surprise.’
The calmness in his voice encouraged her. ‘It is. I – I must admit I got a shock. I’d been feeling – a bit off, a bit sick, but I just put it down to . . . everything.’
‘It’s a good thing,’ he said, doing his best to look happy. Making an effort for her sake, and she loved him for it. ‘And how are you feeling now? Are you still sick?’
‘Not too bad,’ she said. She looked at her mother-in-law and gathered her courage. ‘What do you think, Kathleen?’
There was another silence, a longer one. Brendan dropped his gaze to the table, looking weary.
‘Will it bring him back?’
The words were uttered in a hoarse half-whisper. Lydia couldn’t speak, couldn’t think how to answer.
‘Kathleen,’ Brendan began, and she rounded on him.
‘Don’t!’ she cried suddenly, making Lydia’s heart jump. She pushed her chair back roughly, rising to her feet and turning to glare at Lydia, face splotched with angry red. ‘Thanks to you, he’s gone! I wish he’d never met you!’
Lydia stood too, and found her voice. ‘Thanks to me?’
‘He was going to collect you that night. It’s your fault!’ Jabbing a finger at Lydia, her face contorted. Looking right at her, maybe for the first time.
Lydia stared back, dumbfounded. Brendan, on his feet now too, placed a hand on his wife’s arm – ‘Kathleen,’ he began again – but she shook it off angrily.
‘Don’t!’ she repeated sharply, before returning to Lydia. ‘And now you come to tell us of a baby, as if that will help! Where will you raise it, let me ask?’
‘I’ll be moving back to Dublin,’ Lydia admitted, ‘but I’ll bring—’
‘Dublin!’ Kathleen spat. ‘That’s right, run away, now that you’ve done all the damage! Run away, and don’t bother coming back – I don’t ever want to set eyes on that child!’
She turned and swept from the room, and they listened to the angry thump of her feet on the stairs, echoing the thumps of Lydia’s heart, and the slam of a door.
‘Sorry,’ Brendan said. ‘She’s not herself. Sorry, Lydia. She doesn’t know what she’s saying.’
He looked utterly woebegone, and Lydia wanted to weep for him. She wanted to speak some words of comfort, but was too dazed by Kathleen’s outburst. It’s your fault. How could she say such a cruel thing? Was it possible that she believed it?
‘She’ll come round,’ Brendan said. ‘It’ll be good to have another grandchild. Don’t pay any heed to what Kathleen said.’
Lydia crossed to the back door, her legs trembling.
‘You’ll be back to see us,’ Brendan said, ‘when the baby comes?’
She nodded. She’d bring the baby as far as Tom and Marian’s house, and he could meet them there. She would probably never set foot in this house again. Her child would grow up without one of its grandmothers. How would Damien have felt about that?
‘Does Tom know?’ Brendan asked. ‘Have you told them?’
‘I’ll give them a ring when I get home.’ She was in no state to call to them now.
All the way back to Chance House, the harsh words followed her. She’s not herself, Brendan had said – or maybe this was exactly who she was. Maybe this was Kathleen laid bare by grief, saying what she normally kept hidden, not caring any more.