The First Time I Said Goodbye (38 page)

Dolores looked indignant but Stella couldn’t help but laugh.

“Don’t worry,” Sam added. “We will find you, both of you, something that makes you look stunning.”

“I have to say,” Stella said, “this shop is a real treat. I can see why you love it so, Sam.”

“It’s fab, isn’t it?” Annabel interjected. “And the people who come in here – the stories we hear, it’s just humbling.”

“Have you had the poor girl working here her entire holiday?” Dolores asked.

“She has demanded it,” Sam said, with a smile. “So yes, and I’ve even had her baking cupcakes for the customers. Tonight, she bakes muffins. I’m a slave driver and don’t you forget it.”

Annabel laughed. “Pay no heed. I’ve loved every moment. And baking a few muffins is the very least I can do.”

“I have to say, it’s nice to see you smile again,” Stella said, her heart warmed.

“I’ll smile even more when we get you kitted out for this reunion of yours,” Annabel said.

Chapter 34

“He’s on the list,” Niamh said, as the five of us sat in a council of war at Sam’s house. “I went out to the Beech Hill today and got the list from the organisers. Said I was doing a bit of research into family history, that kind of thing. Anyway – he’s on the list. Or at least an R Cooper who served at NAVCOM Derry in 1959-60 is going to be there so I guess that narrows it down more than a little! And, get this,” she was almost beside herself with glee, “there is no ‘plus one’ listed with him. See!” She thrust the letter at us.

A list of names of officers and marines and their guests. R Cooper was on his own. I didn’t know whether to faint or cheer. Did I want my mother to come face to face with the man whose heart she had broken and the partner who had helped him heal it, or did I essentially want them to meet on even terms?

I steadied myself. If I was feeling this nervous, I could only imagine how my mother was feeling. I looked at her and sure enough she had gone a funny shade of white – although Niamh, who had thrown herself into our family drama with gusto, seemed undeterred.

“Things like this don’t really happen, do they?” she said. “You know, these big happy endings?”

I watched my mother get up and walk out to the kitchen.

But Niamh still continued. “Can you imagine? How romantic!”

I looked out the door, to where my mother was, and to Sam who was looking at me and Dolores who seemed to be enraptured with what Niamh was saying. I nodded my head at Sam who nodded back. We didn’t need to speak. We knew it was code for my going after my mother and him shutting Niamh up and reminding her that this was real life and a delicate situation.

I walked to the kitchen where my mother was standing, her hands clasped around a cup of tea, her face still white.

“He might tell me to go to hell, right there in front of everyone. He would be well within his rights to do so.”

“He won’t,” I soothed.

“You don’t know that,” she said softly and of course she was right.

I didn’t know, so I shook my head. “Look, Mom. You may be right. I may not know that, but I do know if he does I will be there to pick you up. And Dolores will too. And Sam. Even Niamh with her misguided notions of romance. We all will be.”

My mother smiled, a weak smile but a smile nonetheless. “Tell me this,” she said. “Who is that Niamh one anyway? She seems a bit . . . well . . . crazy?”

“Her heart is in the right place,” I said. “Even if she does come across as a bit full on and in your face from time to time.”

“Dolores has her eye set on her for Sam,” my mother said. “I think I might need to have a word with her about how she treats him – how she assumes he’ll change his mind someday and start looking for a woman. He’s too long in the tooth to be hiding his true self.”

“Aren’t we all?” I answered.

“Whatever we may say of this time away,” my mother said, draining her cup, the colour slowly returning to her face, “it has been an adventure.”

“I’m glad we did it. Even if I thought you were clean mad.”

“Part of me still thinks I’m clean mad,” she laughed.

“You know, Mom, maybe I am running away from everything but here I feel I’ve been able to breathe out for the first time in years. Does that make sense? I think I was just so caught up in trying to make everything work for so long that I forgot who I was. I forgot to have fun. Strange, isn’t it? Daddy dying has made me realise that I need to live.”

My mother nodded. “Grief makes you do strange things. It teaches you strange lessons – who would have thought I would find myself here again? Who would have thought back then my life would have taken the path it did? But the fact is, I’m better for it. Stronger for it and you will be too.”

“I don’t want to go back,” I said, voicing what had been growing in my mind the last few days. “Not yet anyway. Not now. Maybe I need to be somewhere else for a while and I will be ready to go back someday – but not now. Am I running away, do you think?”

“No, pet, I don’t think you are running away at all. You are running in exactly the right direction – towards what makes you happy. That’s all I ever
wanted for you. All your father and I ever wanted for you.”

“And he wanted
you
to be happy too,” I said and she simply nodded.

She had known that all along.

Chapter 35

Derry, July 2010

Ray Cooper stood in front of the mirror in his hotel room, putting on his tie. He could barely believe he was back in Derry. He had arrived the day before and had tried to retrace his steps – places he had visited, streets he had walked. Tillies was gone now – an empty hole in the landscape where it once stood so majestically. The quay, transformed – now filled with families out walking, or cycling or stopping to chat or drink coffee from one of the riverside cafés. The smell of smoke was gone, the air was clear. There was an air of optimism, a sense that the city had changed, and yet to him a part of it would always feel like home.

He had walked past the old Hegarty home, almost tempted to knock on the door just on the off-chance she would be there. He wondered, as he had done over the years, what had become of Stella. Who had she married? Had she stayed all her days in Derry – close to her family? Had she really only been using him? Even now, all these years later, he could not quite bring himself to believe it. He knew how she kissed him – how she held on to him so tight, as if she never wanted to let go – that what they shared had been love. The letter had come as a bolt out of the blue – and he had gone on a bender which had almost ended in a court martial.

Thankfully his commanding officer had enough faith in his good character to take him aside and give him a stern talking-to instead – telling him not to lose his head over a woman. “Marines are made of sterner stuff,” he told him.

And although he didn’t feel that way at the time he decided to act as if he was. So he closed himself off and made it through each day as best he could, trying not to let the daily realisation that she wasn’t coming wind him.

When he left the Marines and returned home, his mother took him in and assured him it would be okay. He would settle and move on. He took up a job in the family business, married the girl next door – who would be a good friend to him. They rubbed along together nicely but, in the back of his mind, he knew she was never the one. That theirs had been a marriage born out of convenience and expectation rather than any grand love affair. When she had left him, after thirty-five years of marriage, to be with someone who truly did love her, he couldn’t even bring himself to be angry. Jealous, yes, because she had what he wanted so badly – but not angry. They remained friends and it had been Marilyn who had persuaded him to come back to Derry for the reunion.

“You never know,” she said. “She might be there.”

It was a long shot, he knew. If her letter had been genuine she would hardly want to have anything to do with the returning marines. And yet, he still felt a nervous flutter in his stomach. There was a feeling there that he would see her again. Perhaps it was just foolish hope – the dreams of a silly old man. But he hoped that he would see her and ask her to her face if she had meant all those things she had written. If she had – if he heard it from her – then he would deal with it . . . but how he longed to see her face just one more time! He straightened his tie and ran his fingers through his hair.

“You are an old fool, Ray Cooper,” he said aloud. “A silly old fool.”

* * *

I pinned one last curl into my mother’s hair. She had been transformed – she stood before me in an elegant cream dress, her skin soft and dewy, her white hair pinned and curled. There was a softness to her features that had been missing in the last few months – she credited it to good home cooking, Derry style – I credited it to finally being free of the stress and grief of nursing my father. You know when people use that expression that someone looked as though a weight had been lifted off their shoulders? She truly did. She carried herself differently even if she said she wasn’t sure about the height of her heels or the soft string of pearls around her neck.

“Is it not too much?” she asked me as she looked at herself in the mirror.

“No, Mom,” I replied softly. “I don’t think it’s too much at all. I think it’s just perfect. You look beautiful.”

She brushed down her dress and stood tall. “Should I take the brooch off? Is that too much?”

“Nothing is too much, Mom. Please don’t worry.”

It seemed fitting she wore the brooch. Dolores had told her that it would be one sure-fire way to make sure Ray would know who she was, but I knew that he would know her as soon as he saw her. The years may have passed, but her eyes were still as bright, her smile still as warm. If they had been as in love as it seemed they were, he would have no doubts when he saw her.

“Oh God, are we really doing this?” she asked, nervously giggling.

Dolores had offered her a glass of champagne as we got ready but she said she very much wanted to keep her wits about her. I was glad she had said no – she was giddy enough, her nerves clearly getting to her.

“We are,” I said, stepping back. “And it’s the right thing to do.”

“You look stunning too, Annabel, really,” she smiled.

I glanced at myself in the mirror and had to agree. I didn’t think I knew I could ever look this elegant and yet here I was, wearing a beautiful gown, my hair behaving itself, my make-up tastefully applied – more than the usual stroke of a blusher brush and slick of mascara. I had cheekbones! I looked feminine and dainty. There wasn’t a pair of Converse anywhere near me and I didn’t mind one bit. I stood, cheek to cheek with my mother, and smiled into the mirror.

“We clean up pretty well, Mom,” I said.

She kissed my cheek and looked back at our reflection. I could see it then, how we looked similar. I’d always considered myself a daddy’s girl but there in the mirror I could see how I and my mother were so intrinsically linked.

“I’ll be right there beside you,” I whispered. “I’ll be there for you.”

She nodded. “You always have been, Annabel. I know that. And I hope you know, tonight aside, I’ll be there for you too. Trust in yourself, girl. Follow your heart. Take chances – but not chances such as these, years after you should have . . .”

“You took your chances then too, Mom,” I said. “Life just got in the way.”

“A good life got in the way.”

We stood enjoying each other’s company in silence for a while until a knock on the bedroom door interrupted us.

Opening the door, I saw Sam there, dapper in his black suit and sharp white shirt which showed off his naturally swarthy skin. He smiled and I couldn’t help but smile back.

“Ladies, you look magnificent and it is high time we were making our way. The taxi awaits.”

“I’m nervous,” my mother said.

Sam tutted. “Now, now, Auntie Stella, nothing to be nervous of – except showing up every other woman in the place! This will be brilliant. I feel it in my water and tomorrow we will have yet another amazing story to tell. Just think about it!”

He linked his arm in my mother’s and guided her down the stairs to where Auntie Dolores and Uncle Hugh were already waiting.

I looked at them, standing there in the living room where so much of my family’s life had played out, and I felt a lovely warm glow, which I was sure hadn’t come from the glass of champagne I had sipped from.

When Niamh arrived at the house just then I could sense Auntie Dolores almost explode with excitement. This vision – in her usual bright colours, bright make-up and brighter smile – walked in as if she were gliding.

“I am so unbelievably excited about this,” she said, and it wasn’t clear whether she was focusing on the party ahead or the emotional significance of what might or might not happen. But then we were all trying to hide our true feelings at that stage, trying to keep whatever stiff upper lip we had as stiff as possible.

This was a night out, with friends, with family. I had to stay as calm as I could to stop my mother from melting down completely. So we focused on the pretty dresses and the smart suits even though Uncle Hugh looked as if his suit might choke him at any moment.

“He normally only wears suits to funerals,” Dolores confided. “How Sam here got his sense of style growing up with your man as his influence is beyond me!”