Barefoot Over Stones (35 page)

‘We didn’t really talk about it. Once I had forgiven him, and I forgave him because I wanted him more than anything, we never really spoke about it again. He never went back to Leachlara, or Aughasallagh either, not for a single night after that, and that put Con’s nose seriously out of joint, but he had to learn to live with it or else never see us at all. When we settled here it was easy not to talk about it because it all seemed so distant. Dublin seemed like another life, as if it had happened to someone else.’ Alison’s expression was lonesome and it seemed to Ciara that she regretted how firmly she had closed the door on that previous life.

‘We were so green, but at least you were always just yourself, Alison, whereas I was going around furiously trying to pretend I was more sophisticated than I actually was. All that gear from the charity shops was my way of trying to create another Ciara, someone who could give a good old lash to the world. Still trying to give a good old lash to the world – with mixed results.’

Alison listened as Ciara unravelled the uncertainty at the heart of all her attempts at bravado.

‘You had me fooled. All I ever wanted was to have a fraction of your confidence, Ciara. In the beginning I never thought I deserved Dan. I thought he was so handsome and gorgeous that he was definitely going to get snatched away from me by someone better-looking or cleverer. You were the only one that buoyed my confidence and self-esteem about him. You kept telling me that he was the lucky one and I was so unsure of myself that I needed to hear that from you. That’s why I couldn’t bear it when you were the better-looking, clever one that I might have lost him to. I couldn’t think straight. I just knew that if I could banish you we might have a chance. I should have given him credit for loving me as I know now that he did. He never wanted anyone else. I found that out in the time we had together.’

Ciara moved from where she sat at the table to the vacant chair at Alison’s side. She felt like giving her shoulder a squeeze but thought some comforting words might be more appropriate. An awkward attempt at affection might ruin the shaky communication that they had just managed to open again. Besides, Alison wasn’t finished talking and Ciara was hungry for her conversation.

‘Do you ever see Leda now? Colm says you are in touch but wasn’t sure to what extent.’
Alison had thought about withholding the information of Dan’s trip to Leda, but if they were to attempt a reconciliation she knew that it was better to have everything out in the open.

‘I know where she lives and I know she is OK. I email sometimes just to check in with her but to be honest I absolved myself of guilt about her wayward behaviour a long time ago. I had to, because every stunt she pulled seemed to outdo the last and I had to admit that, try as I might, I had no control over her. What she did to Colm and to Tom was the last straw, walking away from them like they were of no concern. I told Colm that he was better off without her but that doesn’t change the fact that what she did was unforgivable. She seems to have settled a bit, met this rich banking guy in England and they got married in Mauritius a few weeks ago. Never met him but he sounds impressive – or should I say the width of his wallet does? Leachlara was deprived of a good gawk at a Clancy family wedding and I guess she was thoughtful in that regard, because I don’t think the Clancys are capable of squeezing out a respectable family occasion. The wedding feast of Cana wouldn’t be in it with the need for miracles to keep the drink flowing with my dad on the premises. I don’t intend testing them on it anyway, if I ever do take the plunge over that unlikely cliff.’

Alison got up and pulled two glasses from the painted dresser next to where they were sitting. She took a corkscrew from the drawer and a bottle of red from the racks that lined the side of a kitchen cupboard.

‘I suppose this should have been breathing, but I think a glass or two might help for the next thing I have to tell you.’ She poured a generous glass for Ciara and a meaner portion for herself. She still didn’t drink much, had never found the taste for it, though she had tried when an anaesthetic against heartache would have been a valuable discovery. Ciara listened rapt as Alison explained about Leda’s attempt to blackmail Con and how it had led to him being close to bankruptcy. She told her that was where Dan had been the night he had died, delivering money to her sister, attempting to buy her future silence.

‘Oh, sweet divine Alison, I am so dreadfully sorry. I had no idea. How much did she take him for?’ Ciara gulped the red wine that Alison had poured, grateful for its warmth, washing away the grit that seemed to have lodged in her throat.

‘Not much really in the scheme of things, one hundred and fifty thousand euros, but he is in the middle of a very large settlement with the Revenue for tax evasion, which includes massive penalties and fines that will see most of what he had disappear. He doesn’t seem to care, to be honest. He still has his TD’s pension – not sure what you would have to do to be stripped of that – so he is not exactly destitute, but he does worry that Leda will come calling again when this money runs out. Could you talk to her? It might make a difference if she knew you know everything. Whatever you think, it was plain she was always fairly terrified of you.’

Ciara promised to talk to Leda and threaten with every ounce of menace that she could muster to throttle her if she so much as picked up the phone to Con Abernethy again. She could still remember how much she hated the man, but Leda was now no better than him. Whatever high moral ground she once occupied as the wronged party had been levelled by her own bad behaviour, her willingness to sink to any depths to get her hands on some cash.

They talked while dusk fell stealthily outside, never bothering to switch on the kitchen lights. A lit lamp from the sitting room cast enough glow through the open door for them to see each other where they sat at the kitchen table. When hunger struck they plundered the well-stocked snack tin, with Ciara going into paroxysms of delight when she spotted Lucy’s favourite Macaroon bars in the bottom. ‘Jesus, I used to eat these by the lorryload in Leachlara. Let me see if they are still as good.’

She filled Alison in on a decade spent mostly outside of Ireland on the run from home, from boredom and from settling down. Her job at the language school was frustrating her and she was
thinking seriously of setting up on her own, finding a premises and doing up a website to canvas for foreign students.

‘To be honest, the teaching end of it is doing my head in. I’m not sure how much longer I can feign delight and pride when someone manages to conjugate a verb properly after months of trying. My patience, as you well know, has always let me down. I fancy a stab at running the show, and I’m sure I could get a loan to cover the rent of the premises if I do some creative accounting and perhaps change my name by deed poll. It’s worth a shot, and if I got good teachers, word of mouth would have the place up and running after the first batch of students.’

‘Sounds great, Ciara, and I know you would be brilliant at heading up your own business. You’ve got balls and even when you are terrified you still put on a brave front. You should go for it. If the name change and the creative accounting don’t come through for you, give me a call. I could help you out with some start-up money, maybe not all of it but some at least.’

‘Oh, there is no need for that! I really should be able to round it up myself. Thanks for the confidence boost though. I need a good kick to get me going.’

‘So any interesting men on your travels then? All you have talked about is work. Is there a special someone that keeps you in London?’

Alison knew it was a bit rude to ask such a direct question when Ciara had not volunteered any information about her personal life, but they had an abundance of time to make up for that bypassed the need for good manners.

‘No one at the moment and I have partially given up on men because I have such lousy luck with them. If I had met you six years ago I would have sworn on my life that I would be settled in Spain by now with this guy José that I spent nearly a year with there. He was gorgeous, sensitive and we got on great but at the end of the summer season he hightailed it back to his home village. Apparently I scared him. That was one amongst a veritable fucking bouquet of his reasons anyway. So I left Spain for London and have been over there since without anything much better happening to me. Maybe I
am
scary. What do you think?’

‘No, I don’t think you are scary. Formidable maybe, but not scary. I bet you someone will come along when you least expect them.’

‘I have been least expecting it for about five years now and, by the way, “formidable” is just the politically correct way of saying I’m scary as hell, but thanks for putting it so nicely. You were so very well brought up always.’

Just then the headlights of Colm’s car flooded the darkness of the kitchen. It was past seven and the movie would have been finished for hours. He had given them as much time as he could before interrupting their delicate reunion. He had rung Iris at Lantern Lodge to check if Ciara had arrived back there but she was alone fussing over what to make Tom and himself to eat when they returned.

‘Tell you what, Mam, push the boat out. Roast the chicken we were going to have tomorrow and throw on a heap of roast potatoes and your killer gravy. I’ll pick up Ciara and Alison on the way and we will have one of your feasts.’

‘God, you are not giving me much notice, Colm. Really, a phone call earlier in the day would have been polite.’ Iris’s tone was perfunctory but not brittle. She wasn’t really annoyed and Colm knew her well enough to know that.

‘I didn’t know earlier in the day and stop pretending you don’t like a culinary challenge because there is nothing you like more. We will be there in an hour or so. I’ll pick up some ice cream for dessert.’

Lucy and Tom were asleep in the back of the car, finally worn out from inhaling industrial amounts of popcorn and talking like lunatics through the film and after it. Just as well Colm had not been interested in the movie because he had barely heard a word of it, so overwhelming were the voices of his company.

He delivered the invitation to dinner to Alison and Ciara while he left the engine running to keep his young charges asleep. They seemed happy enough to fall in with his plans and he interpreted this as a sign that their day had gone well. Alison had a moment of conscience trouble.

‘Are you sure your mother won’t mind us all traipsing in looking for dinner, Colm? It’s hardly fair.’

‘She is out in the fields rounding up the fatted calf as we speak. She loves to cook and she loves to feed people. Not much call for it in her house any more so she will relish the chance to do it in mine. Pack a pair of pyjamas for Lucy in case she gets too tired. We can put her to bed in the lodge and I will drop her back first thing in the morning. Now, are we ready to hit the road? Because I am causing a hell of a lot of pollution out there with my engine running.’

Ciara was delighted that the invitation for dinner had withstood Alison’s good manners. She was ravenous because slim pickings from a lunch her nerves would not allow her to eat and a Macaroon had not filled her. Alison locked the house and they packed into the warm-as-toast car and straight into the arms of Iris Lifford’s feverish hospitality.

Caharoe train station was busy, with people milling around, leaving and being left. There had been talk of its closure or scaling down the decade before but its hinterland had prospered and its future had been secured for another generation. Goods moved in and out of town and people went on all sorts of trips from here that they’d never had money for before. They had all loaded into Colm’s car to bring Ciara to her evening train. She would be in Cork by about eight and on the last flight out of the airport headed for a London she had begun to think of as home and all she imagined that might be.

Colm took Tom and Lucy to get a parking-permit ticket in the station kiosk and to load up on the sweets they had been promised. He thought Ciara and Alison might need a moment alone as the house had been full all day and his mother hadn’t left until teatime. Iris Lifford had lost none of her ability to sway a conversation or steer a houseful of people in what she thought of as a proper direction. It left little time for silence or relaxation but her frantic need to control the proceedings was a habit she was unlikely to break now. It was one of the things he loved her for but also one of the reasons he was glad he lived in Cork and that she could not bring herself to leave Dublin to join them.

Ciara took advantage of the few short minutes she had with Alison to say some things that might cement their attempts at reconciliation. ‘You know where I am now and I am always there if you need me.’

‘We’ll be in touch, Ciara. Tom thinks you are the coolest aunty on the planet and he’s probably right.’

‘Well, he got the mammy short straw so I have a bit of compensating to do, I suppose. Seriously though, you know, I’ll never forget the years holed up in Jean McDermott’s upstairs in Ranelagh, much to our host’s constant drunken surprise.’

‘It was a pretty unforgettable time all right. I wonder if she is still there or is she dead by now. God knows she drank enough.’

‘She’s probably still there. You know these ones that pickle themselves in gin, they just go on for ever and a day. I mean it though, Alison. I haven’t forgotten it, because you meant so much to
me. You were my family when I had none to speak of.’ She fought back tears she didn’t want to shed. This was the first time in a long time that she had allowed herself to think freely about what she had risked and lost when she had betrayed her friend. All the other times she had let herself off the hook by saying to herself that these things happened but, if she were honest, she knew they didn’t just happen. You have to choose and she had chosen badly. ‘Thank you, Alison, it’s a pity it had to take us so long to try to work this out. I’m a better person now, you know. Different anyway.’