The First Time I Said Goodbye (39 page)

She looked at Sam then, and at Niamh and she took a deep breath. She watched as Niamh fussed over Sam’s jacket and straightened the lapels and as Sam admired the jewel-like colours of her satin gown. I watched her and was sure I saw a twitch of something there. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

“They would make a lovely couple, don’t you think?” she said.

“Sam’s a good man,” I said. “He really is.”

Dolores sniffed and turned to leave the small room. My mother looked at me and I shrugged back at her. All the while Sam and Niamh were lost in some excited conversation while Uncle Hugh was pulling at the collar of his shirt as if it were a hangman’s noose and he had just been let drop.

My mother followed Dolores into the kitchen and I went after her. Dolores was already at the cupboard, taking out a bottle of brandy and pouring herself a shot.

She turned to look at us. “Medicinal,” she said abruptly. “Anyone else need one?”

To my surprise my mother nodded as I shook my head and she lifted the poured glass from Dolores and downed it in one while Dolores followed suit.

Both of them laughed, silly laughs born of nerves or excitement or both, but when the laughter subsided Dolores took yet another deep breath as if to steady herself.

“I know he’s gay, you know,” she said. “I know you think I’m in some sort of denial. But I’m not. Then again, maybe I am. I just . . . he’s my baby and I want his life to be easy. I don’t want him to be picked on or pointed at.”

I looked at my aunt, her sometimes harsh features softened by her make-up and feathered haircut. “He’s a grown man, Auntie. And a great man – with lots of friends and a successful business. He’s mostly very happy, except that he wants you to be happy for him to be the person he really is.”

“You have to be careful not to push him away,” my mother interjected. “Even if you have the best of intentions. If you push him away you may not get him back – and that is not the best place to be. Believe me.”

Dolores looked at the brandy bottle and for a moment I thought she would lift it to her mouth and guzzle back another few shots. But instead, slowly, she screwed the lid back on and put the bottle in the cupboard.

“I never wanted to make him unhappy.”

“Then just love him,” my mother said. “For who he is – be proud because you made that! You raised him to be a great boy – a great man. He’s compassionate and caring. He loves you and his family. He’s successful. No mother could want more.”

“You’re right,” Dolores said, softly. “You’re right. I know.”

She walked across to my mother and I watched her hug her, the pair of them locked together in a sisterly embrace and a part of me was instantly and totally grateful for my mother, my father, my trip to Ireland and where life had taken me, even if it the journey had been the toughest of my life.

In the days following my father’s death I had felt alone, and now I felt part of something much bigger – and that something much bigger would give me the strength to get through whatever would come over the weeks and months to follow. Wherever I would go and whatever I would do – whether I went back to my Bake My Day or moved on – it would be fine. It would be better than fine.

* * *

Stella knew him as soon as she saw him. She did not have to ask. She did not have to squint at the name badge he wore. She did not have to ask was it him, was it really him? She knew. Almost as soon as she walked into the bar in the elegant settings of the Beech Hill she saw him, standing at the bar, a glass of whiskey in his hand.

He was talking to some men – men she imagined he had served with – and she knew that he didn’t see her and she revelled in that moment. All the noise in the room faded away as she watched him. That wonderful moment of seeing his smile, the crinkle on his brow as he laughed, knowing that she was so close to him without him realising it. Being able to drink him in for those few moments. This was still so unreal – still with the possibility of a happy ending. These moments when she could hear his laugh and nothing else brought her back to all those days she had known and loved. They brought her back to the Bollies, to the flat, to the cinema, to the City Hotel, to Christmas dinner at the Hegarty household with her daddy there holding court. The years simply slipped away and she took a deep breath, closing her eyes and allowed herself to slowly breathe out again. How she had longed for this moment, in those early years! How she had dreamed of this moment – almost every night when she closed her eyes!

She opened her eyes and the noise of the room rushed back in again, Dolores asking had she seem him yet, Hugh asking would she like a drink from the bar, Niamh declaring everything to be gorgeous, and elegant and wonderful. She felt a touch on her elbow which jerked her back to reality fully and she turned to see Annabel looking at her, asking if she was okay. It seemed too much. So many emotions ran through her. He was there and she didn’t know whether to run to him or run away and keep running.

She closed her eyes and thought of Bob, willing her to be happy. She thought of Annabel, assuring her that she was with her. She thought of how she had missed him – how she had always felt connected to him.

“He’s there,” she said, her voice catching in her throat.

How do you do this? How do you swipe away all those years of love and longing, of missing and moving on, of wanting to say sorry, of wanting to explain? How do you tell someone you travelled to the other side of the world to find them? That you had never stopped thinking about them?

“Where?” Annabel asked just as Stella felt her nerve fail.

She turned and walked out through the lobby, through the covered porch and into the gardens where she tried to find the courage that had deserted her.

Her heart was thumping so fast she wasn’t sure it wouldn’t just stop – just give up with the exertion of it all. She was a foolish woman – a silly foolish woman, there in her fancy dress, with her brooch and her hair pinned up like she wasn’t a widow still grieving the loss of her husband.

Stella could hear the chatter from the hotel drift across on the evening breeze. She tried to focus on it – and not to let the sound of her heart, thumping against the inside of her chest drown out the other noises.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath then exhaled before repeating the process, steadying herself and forcing her breathing to settle. As she breathed in she caught the familiar smells of her home town on the air. The cut grass. The cool dampness, despite the summer months. She wrapped her arms around her, aware of how her waist had thickened over the years despite her best attempts to keep her eating healthy.

She tried not think of how much older she was since the last night she had danced with the Yanks in a fancy hotel – how much of life had slipped past in the years. She tried not to think of the man she had just seen inside. The man she had recognised instantly – who she would know anywhere.

For a second she longed to be twenty again. To have her daddy telling her he loved her – her mammy to reassure her that she wasn’t being foolish just to be here.

Would she have done it differently? It was a question she had asked herself over and over again.

Once she met Bob of course, it had been different. She’d had fewer regrets. She was happy. But a part of the jigsaw was missing. A part of her was missing. It had been from the moment she had kissed Ray goodbye and left their flat not knowing that she would never see him again.

Images floated past her. People she knew, people she loved. The places she had lived and the people who had formed her life. Her breath caught in her throat when she heard a familiar voice speak.

“Stella? Stella Hegarty?”

She turned, brushing a tear hastily from her cheek, to find a woman standing opposite her – a woman old like herself but who she would always recognise.

“Molly Davidson!” she exclaimed as her old friend crossed the courtyard and embraced her in a hug.

“Well, I never thought I’d see the day!” Molly said.

“I don’t think I did either,” Stella said as she pulled back and looked at her friend, taking her hands in hers and holding them. “I don’t know how we ever lost touch.”

“Things happen,” Molly said, shrugging her shoulders. “I just can’t believe I’m seeing you after all these years. Tell me you were happy, my friend?”

“I was. I was and I am,” Stella stuttered. “I had a good husband. We have had a good life. And I’m here now and . . .”

She stood, Ray’s name catching in her throat. She could not mention him. Even though he was so close that if she wanted she could speak to him within seconds. “And you?” she asked, diverting her thoughts from her very reason for being here.

“It all worked out in the end,” Molly said. “I married a lovely local man. I have six children, would you believe? And ten grandchildren now. I’ve been blessed.”

Stella smiled, pleased beyond measure that the friend who had returned from America broken had been pieced back together and had found love.

“Were we young and foolish?” she asked.

Molly shook her head. “We were young, yes. But we weren’t foolish. We just thought we knew it all. They were different times. It’s hard to think how much has changed – how much our wee town has come on. We just, we just went with our hearts. For better or worse. But we did okay? Didn’t we?”

Stella nodded. “We did. But, oh Molly . . . he’s here,” she muttered. “My Ray, he’s here.”

Molly nodded. “I know,” she said. “I spoke with
him. He seems fine. Happy.”

A sob left Stella’s mouth – relief that he was happy, that he had been okay. After all that had happened.

“Talk to him,” Molly said. “I’m sure he’d be happy to see you.”

“He would,” she heard her daughter’s voice say behind her. “I have someone here who does want to see you.”

Stella turned to find Ray facing her.

Time froze. Stella hadn’t really understood how that could happen before, but in that instant it made sense. Time could freeze. The world and everything around you could drift away to insignificance. For that moment she was lost in his eyes – in the gaze that had once looked at her with such love.

“I knew she was your daughter,” he said, his voice shaking. “As soon as I saw her, it was like being back in time. I knew she had to belong to you. I just asked her and she said yes and she called me Ray. Can you imagine that – she knew my name? So I knew, Stella, I knew you were here and I knew you still remembered me . . .”

His voice trailed off as Stella stood shaking. She wasn’t sure if she would be able to stay standing. Her legs went weak below her, and her head started to spin. This moment – the moment she wanted so much all those years ago – was here. She was with him again, breathing the same air. She felt her hands fly to her chest, as if to quiet the beating of her heart. She saw his eyes fall to the brooch on her dress and instinctively she moved her hand to it. Would he think her silly for holding on to it? When she had told him so coldly how she had never loved him, when the truth was she had loved him with all her heart?

“I had to c-come,” she stuttered.

“I know what you mean. I had to be here too.”

“I never meant to hurt you,” Stella said, longing to take the few steps to where he was – to touch him, to hold him. Yes, he was older but he was still her Ray.

He shook his head. She watched his eyes cloud. She saw that he was filled with emotion too and that had to mean he felt something. Did that make her feel better or worse for hurting him? She didn’t know. So many emotions were swirling through her at that moment that she couldn’t think straight.

“I’m sorry, Ray,” she blurted, aware of Annabel and Molly stepping away from the scene unfolding in front of them. “I tried to write again. I tried to explain. I wrote so many times! To tell you I did love you!” She heard a sob, echoing her own, from her beloved Ray. “I just couldn’t leave. My daddy . . . my daddy died and they needed me and I didn’t want to hurt you more.”

“I would have come back,” he said, his voice cracking.

“And I couldn’t ask you to do that. To come back here where we had nothing? And you, with all the prospects in the world laid out in front of you?”

She watched him shake his head and she reached out to hold his hand, to feel his skin on hers again. The warmth of that touch that she had missed so much.

He held her hand tightly and shook his head. “I never got any letters. None. I only ever received one letter. That letter. The one where you told me you had been using me.”

She released her hand and fished in her bag, pulling a letter out and handing it to him, their hands brushing.

He looked at the scrawly handwriting and let out a small gasp. “My mother,” he muttered.

The tragedy of what had happened hit her like a body blow. “I assumed the handwriting was your wife’s – your mother told me you were married,” she said. “I came to find you. To America. I came and you were married and I had to let you be happy. I came to your house, I spoke to your mother . . .” The sight of this marine, this man who she had loved, crying before her was breaking her heart.

He shook his head. “She never said. She never told me.”

“I’m sure she was protecting you. I’m a mother, Ray. I would do the same for my child. She thought I had used you.”