Chapter 43
PATRICK
The day was getting hotter, the sun scalding the sky, the guests clutching their water bottles, glad of the shade to the sail canopy.
Patrick stood at the top of the altar with Seán.
The guests had taken their seats on the be-bowed and beribboned chairs, the musicians were playing ‘Danny Boy’ and standing beside them was the celebrant, a small woman who told them that her day job was working as an IT help-desk manager for a large company in the city centre.
‘It’s a nightmare,’ she’d said to Patrick and Seán, when they were chatting before the ceremony.
‘I should have “turn it off and turn it on again” tattooed on my forehead.’
Patrick had never had a quicker shower or shave.
He wasn’t sure if he had two black socks on or one black and one navy, but he was here, present and practically correct, standing beside his younger brother.
He was feeling surprisingly emotional today, but then he’d been feeling on the emotional edge since the flight from Boston when he had to have the whiskey to calm his nerves.
It had been an intense few days. He thought of Rosie and what he could say to her.
He had thought he was over her, that the last summer they had spent together was just one of those memories you file away, only to be taken out again when you are old and grey, and you remember that beautiful young woman who set you on fire. Except he still felt the same.
The easiest thing to do was to get on the flight with Kerry-Anne and go back to his Boston life, where there wasn’t all this emotion, where he was allowed to live his life, no one saying ‘I have you now’ and trying to place you, no one questioning you.
And no fire.
Patrick felt again for the rings in his inside pocket and his folded-up speech and then turned to Seán. ‘Nervous?’
Seán smiled. ‘When you’ve seen off a bullock or two, you don’t tend to do nerves.’
Patrick nodded. ‘Do you remember that bull that Seán-John Finnegan used to have? God, he was pure evil, wasn’t he? You couldn’t walk past the field without him charging at you.’
‘When you work in the corporate world and you have some manager getting all hot about spreadsheets and the like, you think to yourself, they wouldn’t last two minutes on a farm.’
They grinned at each other. ‘Very few would,’ said Patrick. ‘It’s been good seeing you, Seán.’
‘I wouldn’t have done this without you being here, Paddy. You know that. I miss you, you know?’
‘I miss you too.’ They weren’t used to saying such things to each other. Their mother would tell them that she loved them, and they’d mumble it back, but to each other, never.
‘Would you ever come back to Ireland?’
Patrick shrugged. ‘I don’t think so. I have a life over there. Looks like we could be opening up another restaurant next year. It’s working out for me.’ He paused. ‘I ran away though, I think.’
Seán turned to him. ‘From what?’
‘Ireland. Dad. Me. Everything. I was so determined, so stubborn. Nothing would stop me. Not even…’
Suddenly the musicians launched into an orchestral version of ‘Celebration’ by Kool & the Gang, and from the top of the lawn, Niamh appeared in a white strapless dress, her mother on her right side looking happy and tearful, her father on her left, looking fixedly in front, as though trying not to cry.
Kate was walking behind, wearing what looked like a dress you might wear to a particularly glitzy awards ceremony. Her teeth glinted in the sun.
‘Not even…?’ asked Seán.
‘I’ll tell you later.’
The two brothers faced Niamh, as the guests all began to turn around, the musicians were now playing a beautiful slow air, the fiddle soaring around the notes, the box accordion swooping alongside, like two birds out for a fly.
Niamh was looking straight at Seán, a big smile on her face, and when Patrick turned to Seán, he saw his eyes were red.
‘Don’t say anything,’ said Seán, under his breath, ‘or you’ll make me worse.’
‘I was only going to say that Mam would have been proud of you.’
‘Shut up!’ Seán hissed.
‘And that you scrub up well… Not bad for a lad from the farm.’
Seán suddenly grinned. ‘I’ve never scrubbed up as well as you. I’ve always been trying to keep up.’
Niamh and her parents had now reached the chairs, still making their stately procession, the music still soaring.
Guests were dabbing their eyes with handkerchiefs and taking photographs.
Their father was sitting in the third row, his tie a little skewed, but he was here, he had stayed, which was something, thought Patrick.
And it was for Seán, his baby brother, the boy who did everything with him when they were growing up.
They’d shared a bedroom together, woken up before dawn to milk the cows, walked to school together.
He had loved their mother as much as Patrick had.
He turned back to Seán. ‘And the last thing I want to say is that I think Mam is here,’ he said. ‘She’s with us now. I know she is.’
Seán turned to look at his brother. ‘I know she is too.’
And then Niamh joined them. She kissed Seán, the two of them saying their ‘I love you’s and him saying how beautiful she was and her telling him how handsome he was, their eyes shining with tears.
And then she turned to Patrick, smiling up at him.
‘Thanks for being here. You’ve made it for both of us. ’
He held her hands for a moment, looking at her face, this woman that his brother loved and was his new sister. ‘I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.’
And he wouldn’t have missed it, any of it. He was going back to Boston, changed in some way.
‘And now everyone be upstanding for the bride and groom,’ said the IT manager-turned-celebrant.
‘And doesn’t she look a picture on this beautiful day…
I can see you all are dabbing the old eyes, wiping the old foreheads, and drinking down the water…
well, I often think that the sun is the light that this young couple are walking towards, their new life together, and the water, well, that’s the thing that will sustain them… ’
Seán and Patrick made the most infinitesimal eye contact.
‘The old song goes that love is a many-splendoured thing…’ went on the celebrant, ‘and I have to say that I agree with the words of the late, great Andy Williams, a great hero of my father…’
Patrick looked around at the guests who were all listening intently, as well as fanning themselves with the order of service.
Standing at the back of the chairs, beside the table with the water bottles and fresh napkins, Grace was looking on happily at the proceedings, the canopy flapping in the slight breeze.
His eye moved up past the marquee and to the hotel, which shimmered in the haze. And there was Rosie, talking to the man from the other night, the one who had left. They were laughing, it looked like Rosie was happy, in her beloved hotel, in her beloved village, living a good life.
Patrick turned back, his heart hardening, his resolve sharpening.
What was he doing, allowing himself to imagine a life with Rosie?
They were ancient history, they’d been just kids back then.
And they’d both moved on. The thing was it hadn’t been good to see Rosie.
It had, in fact, been heart-wrenching. He’d known her so long ago, thought he’d forgotten her, moved on and then, a decade later, it was like going back in time, his feelings had just been preserved in amber.
He was that young man, the untried, untested, naive boy who didn’t know where he was going but knew he wanted to get out of Ireland.
He didn’t know how to love himself, never mind anyone else, and he had so many regrets.
The main was being so far away when his mother was so ill.
Being away from Seán. And… despite himself, missing Ireland.
He should come home more often. See Seán and Niamh, go back to Midleton and meet up with old friends. Check on Sandra, make sure she was doing okay. See Dad. But he just had to get himself back to his life in Boston, and put this weekend behind him.