Chapter 18 #2
Marianne nods in agreement and takes another sip of her tea.
‘It certainly was.’ She chuckles softly, shaking her head fondly at the memory of Mick’s antics.
‘As bare as the day he was born – standing up stark naked as happy as Larry, like it was the most natural thing in the world! Not a bother on him. I called out to him – “Mick, you’ve lost your marbles! What will the neighbours think?” But he just laughed, waved and said, “They’re used to it, Marianne!
And don’t bother looking for my marbles – I know exactly where they are.
” I shook my head at him, though I couldn’t help but laugh.
And then he beckoned me over – “Don’t be shy, Marianne,” he said.
“There’s just about room for two.” I told him I wasn’t getting in the water with him.
His only modesty was his silly cowboy hat and big red beard!
He laughed and said, “Suit yourself, Marianne. But remember: To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that’s all!
” And then he went back to splashing about in the lake like a big kid.
Anyway,’ she says with a sigh, ‘that was Mick – wild and free as only he could be.’ She shakes her head and blesses herself.
‘And God have mercy on him, three weeks later he was dead. In the water no less… wanted to test out a boat James O’Connor had helped him build – of course, it sank like a stone… ’
‘I’m so sorry for your loss,’ I say with a heavy heart, finally understanding what Fintan had been trying to tell me about James and the tragedy.
I’m in shock that Mick lost his life due to this ‘awful accident’.
Connecting the pieces makes me feel queasy.
I hadn’t expected it would be this bad, that such an accident directly caused his untimely death.
James was clearly involved somehow, but I don’t want to delve in too deeply.
I don’t want to delve at all. I recall how intrusive people were when my mother died; demanding grisly details and gory specifics as if those mattered more than her heart-shattering loss.
The weight of the matter is palpable, and the little kitchen feels smaller, suffocating even.
‘Yes, well. He was lucky the whole lifeboat rescue team weren’t drowned along with him,’ Marianne sighs. ‘As for James O’Connor, he should just stick to his own business and leave everything else be – stop bringing trouble and tragedy.’
‘Was James in the boat also when it capsized?’ I ask.
Marianne shakes her head. ‘No, James was probably sleeping off pints of ale! He might have saved Mick if he had been with him!’
‘So he wasn’t even there?’ I ask, bewildered by James’s connection to Mick’s death.
She snorts, her opinion of the situation extremely clear.
‘Make no mistake, James is the one to blame for this catastrophe: a good lawyer should know all about liability, and he was helping Mick build this stupid boat, and then Mick set off with it before it was sea-worthy – and we all know what came after that.’
We sit in silence, each lost in our own thoughts.
The atmosphere is fraught with an uncomfortable quietness as I try to make sense of all this.
I sip my tea slowly. It sounds to me like it wasn’t his fault at all, sounds like Mick had taken the boat out on his own, of his own free will.
But clearly some people feel James was responsible.
Perhaps even James feels responsible. Is that the reason he went to such ends to seek me out in London? Is he trying to atone for something?
‘James was a friend of Ciaran. They were born the same year. And from such a good, respectable family, not to mention James’ poor mother… Bad luck follows him around like a curse.’
Suddenly, Oscar screeches and lashes out, taking a swipe at Marianne’s wrist.
‘Oh, another feisty fella here,’ she says. ‘Two-faced as they come! One moment we’re best friends, the next sworn enemies – you never know what to expect from this one!’
I can’t help but laugh, and the tension in the room dissipates a little.
‘Anyway,’ she continues, ‘what I’m trying to say is that we must live and let live.
No one knows what tomorrow will bring so you must take the bull by the horns and make things happen.
Do what you can, when you can.’ Marianne’s eyes mist over, and she takes a sip of her tea.
‘He was a good man, the likes of which we’ll not see again. ’
For a moment, she seems to recognise something in me, looking on every feature as if she’s trying to remember something.
Her eyes peer more closely at me, as if she knows me from another time.
But then her expression changes and her eyebrows narrow with confusion.
She shakes her head quickly, as if trying to erase that thought from her mind, and I feel a ripple of anxiety trickle through my body.
Am I imagining things or is it possible that Marianne also thought she’d seen Rose Clarke’s ghost?
Every fibre of me wants to ask everyone I meet in this town what they know about my mother, who she really was, what they think happened that made her leave…
but I’ll watch my step. Not everyone wants the past stirred up, a stranger asking questions about years before.
A bright beam of light pierces through the kitchen window, leaving behind a searing white line in the night. The crunching of gravel and the rumbling of an engine follows as a car pulls up.
‘That’s my daughter Grace,’ Marianne says to me as she turns away.
‘She’ll be home from one of her gigs. She sings and plays the guitar all around town – if you hear singing in the shower, it’s not a banshee, just her.
She’s the adventurous sort – loves everything creative, wants to travel the world and throw away her future – bright as a button in school and has been accepted into university to study primary-school teaching.
A safe, secure job that comes with summers off and a nice retirement plan – but no one can get through to her about it.
Anyway, I better get her some dinner – she’ll be starved. ’
‘Oh my, I hadn’t noticed the hour… it’s so late!’ I say, glancing at the clock on the wall. ‘I should let you get back to it.’
‘Yes,’ Marianne says. ‘Grace wouldn’t want to hear me going on about old times.’ She looks me in the eyes sadly. ‘She’s heard my tales a thousand times. Well, most of them…’