Chapter 28 #2
We looked at each other. ‘Somehow,’ I echoed.
I might have had too many drinks by this point, but I needed to know what he thought and perhaps he might be able to reassure me that the contentment I was feeling about Caitlin was normal, that she was up there, looking down at me.
‘What happens to us when we die?’ I said.
‘Wow. Is that your small talk?’ His face was deep in thought, as though relishing this existential query.
‘I mean, do we just disappear? Or do we exist in the stars?’
He paused, contemplating me. ‘Everyone we love doesn’t disappear entirely.
Because they still exist here…’ He patted his heart.
‘We still talk to them, think about them, have conversations with them, like we do with people who are alive. How many conversations do you have with someone in your head?’
‘Countless. I’m in constant conversation with my Granny Annie, especially being in Ireland, I am thinking all the time about what she’d like, what she’d say about everything and everyone. I want her to come over. But it’s Caitlin I’m thinking about.’
He nodded, his eyes soft and sympathetic. ‘She can be in the stars if you want to imagine her there, if it helps you. But really she’s in your heart.’
‘It’s just talking to her makes me sad because with Granny Annie I know that our real conversation will pick up as soon as I see her. With Caitlin, it’s all imaginary, it’s not real.’
‘But it is real. It’s as real as any conversation because it’s all in here.’ He patted his chest again. ‘I felt like that after Dad died. And I still talk to him.’
‘That stars thing,’ I said, ‘you could work it into your next motivational speech. You know, something about feeling it in your heart and all that. Although when I say it, it sounds cheesy. When you say it, it sounds perfect.’
‘You’re only a little way through the process,’ he said.
‘I’m years down the line. I’ve thought about it a lot.
But when I did my sail across the Atlantic, the reason why I wasn’t lonely was because I was having conversations in my head with people – Mam, Gran, Eddie, Jules, Lucy, other friends.
People I barely knew. Colleagues. Or even arguments with people.
’ He laughed. ‘And they were all alive. So why can’t you do it with people who are dead?
It’s the way our brains work, they don’t just shut down if we can’t physically eyeball someone. ’
I nodded, taking it all in.
‘Oh, by the way… have you ever been sailing at night?’
‘Can you go sailing at night? How do you see?’
‘There’s a full moon tomorrow and the forecast is clear. We used to go out to the island when we were young at night. Sail across and then have a party and sail home.’ Henry looked at me. ‘I was going to ask Jules, Lucy, Ellie, and my friend Cormac. You on?’
We grinned at each other, and my heart felt full, of life really, and the sense that I was lucky to be here, at this moment, in this universe, at this point of time, and for the first time in my life I felt truly lucky to be alive.
It was about time I stopped wasting time, and started living properly.
More than anything, I didn’t want to live by anyone’s rules but my own.
Caitlin would hate to know I had been even contemplating marriage to someone who had set out so many rules.
Henry turned to go, before smiling again at me, and giving me a wave. ‘I’m so looking forward to it,’ he said. ‘I don’t know why but I can’t wait.’
I laughed, enjoying his boyish enthusiasm for life. ‘Me too.’
‘Yeah…’ He was still smiling at me. ‘I feel… I don’t know… just so happy.’
I giggled. ‘You need to go home. It’s the Sandycove Slings talking.’
‘Probably.’ He gave me one last wave and walked away, Patch scampering beside him, his tail wagging.
Now, there were two very happy souls. But I had to phone Milhouse, someone who didn’t exude the same kind of happy-go-lucky spirit.
In fact, I couldn’t remember ever seeing him smiling. His mouth just didn’t work like that.
He answered, sounding annoyed. ‘Where the hell are you, Kerry-Anne?’
‘Ireland. I told you.’
‘But when are you coming home? Jesus, Kerry-Anne, you think it’s normal to just leave like that. I mean, it’s embarrassing.’
I sat for a moment, listening to him ranting on, walking into the hotel, waving to Hugo on reception, and climbing the stairs to the top floor.
He said that it was irresponsible of me to just leave like that, and that it made him think I was the type of person who wasn’t to be relied upon and how he’d seen another side to me.
I had reached my room, and was trying to open the door and hold the phone.
‘People keep asking me where the hell you are,’ he went on, ‘and I have to say Ireland, and they say why and I say I don’t know…’
‘Mil, may I stop you there?’
He stopped. ‘Yes?’
‘Just tell them it’s over between us.’
There was silence. ‘Why would I say that?’
‘Because it’s the truth.’
‘But you wanted to be married.’
‘I know. And I still do. But not to you.’
Silence. And then, ‘Have you met some Irish guy? Someone who looks like a leprechaun?’ He laughed, as though he’d amused himself.
‘No. But I’m having a nice time, and you’re bothering me.’
‘I’m bothering you?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ve been bothering me for two years. And I supported you when Caitlin was ill… I came to the funeral. And I bring you out for dinner. Honestly, if it wasn’t for me, you would survive on salads and bananas.’
‘I like salads and bananas. But that’s not the point. Milhouse, I don’t want to marry you any more. You can go and marry the nice girl from Bloomingdale’s…’
Silence again. ‘She’s met someone else.’
‘Right. Of course she has.’
‘Look, do you want to marry me or not? Have you thought about my stipulations? Or are you confused and whatever? Early menopause. My mother went through it and, my God, she was an absolute bitch. Hated me and my father with a vengeance.’
‘Milhouse, I have thought about your stipulations…’
Without realising it, I’d made my decision the moment Henry had looked so appalled when I’d told him about the rules.
I knew I wanted nothing to do with Milhouse.
Perhaps I’d always known it, but it was now I could actually feel my power rising once again, a kind of energy forcing me upwards.
I remember this feeling, I thought. This is how I used to be.
‘And it’s a no deal.’
‘It’s a what?’
‘It’s a no deal.’
‘So, you don’t want to get married, and you were the one who pushed for it?’
‘I made a mistake. Sorry. But it’s a no. A very definite no.’
‘Are you being sarcastic?’
‘No, not at all. Look, I’m not leaving you for someone else, I’m leaving you for me. I want to spend more time with me, I want to get to know me, and I want to love me. And, frankly, I don’t have any time left over for you.’
‘You know I have to tell my father about this, don’t you?’
‘Slán, Milhouse.’
‘Slawn what?’
‘It means goodbye.’
He made a squeaking sound, and then he found his voice. ‘Well, fuck you, Kerry-Anne, fuck you and everything you do. And another thing—’
I put the phone down. I was busy. I needed to get back to creating the life I really wanted. And the life I was so lucky to get to live.