The First Time I Said Goodbye (5 page)

“I’m fine,” I lied, because I didn’t want to embarrass her in front of Auntie Dolores by shouting at the top of my lungs that it might just be the dead dad in my recent past which had put me in, as she would put it, ‘bad form’. “Just tired . . . must be jetlag.”

“Look, if you want to just shoot the breeze here today, that’s fine. Dolores and I were going to go for a drive around Inishowen anyway. You should see the coastline – stunning. Well, I mean, you should see it, but if you are still feeling tired you can see it another day. Go back to bed, get a good rest. Get yourself well mended for tomorrow.”

“I’ll get Sam to look in on you at lunchtime if you like,” Dolores offered. “And I’m sure he has a hot-water bottle somewhere if that would help – or did he give you one last night?”

I looked at them blankly, fussing like mother hens around me, my mother’s usual stoicism lost in a haze of childhood remembering.

“I’m fine,” I said. “Honest. I’d love to come with you. Just give me a chance to get properly ready.”

“Ah grand so,” my mother said and I looked at her strangely. She didn’t even sound like herself any more.

Walking out of the room I heard Dolores whisper, “I see what you mean about a ‘bit intense’,” and I bit back the urge to adopt the best Irish accent I could and tell them both to shag off.

Chapter 5

I will always remember the blueness of your eyes. Even in the dark I could see them. And I see them now, every time I close my own.

* * *

My aunt’s car was small. I didn’t want to be all-American but this car was
small
. I don’t consider myself to be overly tall but I felt cramped in the back seat while my mother and Dolores sat up front. Beside me was a cool box, which my mother told me was filled with leftover sandwiches from the day before’s celebrations. I tried not to think of how long they had sat out in that too-warm room and plastered a fake smile on my face.

“That’s lovely,” I said and my mother beamed.

“It is, isn’t it? Just lovely. A proper picnic.”

Dolores launched into the chorus of some god-awful song about going on her summer holidays, even though it was raining and, in my opinion, very cold indeed. Dolores didn’t seem to feel the cold though – she was wearing a T-shirt and a light rain jacket and said she was “melted”. Compared to the Florida sunshine, nothing felt very “melted” at all about this.

“Let’s get this show on the road,” I said, and my mother turned to smile at me.

Let’s see if Ireland and all it had to offer really was worth travelling all this distance for. I would call Craig later when I had something to tell him – something positive perhaps that made me sound a bit more like my old self. He was always telling me how I didn’t sound like my old self any more and I had been doing a merry dance on and off over the last few months – making great big efforts to be all old-self-y to try and make him happy. Maybe this would actually make me genuinely happy, or if not happy then at least generally less miserable.

We drove for an hour, up back roads which dipped and rose like rollercoasters. I’m pretty sure I suffered a mild concussion as my head battered off the back window on one unexpectedly mammoth dip.

“I bet you don’t get roads like this in Florida,” Dolores chimed.

No, we have roads generally without potholes and with enough room for two cars to pass safely side by side whenever they so desired. “We sure don’t,” I said with a smile and she laughed wildly.

“I love that,” she cheered, nudging my mother before putting on her best faux-American accent and laughing. “‘We sure don’t’ – brilliant, just brilliant!”

There was a comfort in listening to them chat as we drove. They didn’t exclude me from their conversation but I was more than happy to sit back and enjoy the easy way they spoke with each other, occasionally clasping hands and exclaiming it had been much too long since they had parted and apologising to each other for not making the effort to get in touch more often.

When we stopped, at a sandy bay down a very steep hill, we all stepped out of the car. Okay, this was not Malibu Beach. There wasn’t a hope of getting a suntan and the wind as it came off the coast would have cut straight through anyone not suitably layered up, but there was a calmness and a stillness there that made me breathe out and relax just a little.

My mother, Dolores holding her hand, was staring out to sea.

After a while I noticed her brush a tear from her eyes and as the waves crashed into the shore, one after the other, the tears fell from her eyes one after the other too. I stood and watched as Dolores wrapped her arms around my mother’s hunched shoulders and I wanted to wander over and stand there beside her, my own arms wrapped around her, but it felt in that moment as if they were having their own private moment so I walked on through the sand, letting my feet sink into the soft grains and walking so close to the water’s edge that when the waves crashed in I had to dash from them. Was it daft that I felt momentarily free – even though I was jetlagged half to distraction and concerned about my mother who was sobbing? I pulled my cellphone out of my bag to phone Craig and tell him of this little moment of freedom – and cursed at finding I had no signal. Wondering if it was simply down to my cell being American, I turned and walked back towards my mum and Dolores, and a whisper of their conversation caught me on the wind.

“There is no point in having regrets, Stella,” I heard Dolores say, clearly unaware I was making my return up the beach. “So much has happened since then – good things. You’ve been happy, haven’t you? That’s real life – not some fairytale.”

I probably should have alerted them to the fact that I could hear their conversation carry on the wind but I was intrigued. My mother was wiping at her eyes as Dolores held her. Perhaps I should have walked right up and asked what exactly wasn’t a fairytale – approached the whole situation casually as if I hadn’t been excluded from any part of the conversation even though I had wandered down the beach and away from them. After all, this was a family day out and this was my trip to Ireland with my mother; surely I was entitled to ask what exactly they were talking about? But there was something about my mother’s demeanour and the way Dolores shook her head, her short curls blown almost straight in the breeze off the sea, that made me realise this conversation was definitely not for my ears. So I stopped and turned to stare out to sea, trying to catch every second or third word as they spoke. Occasionally whole sentences came to me. “You can’t go back in time,” I heard Dolores say as my mother muttered something to her, her voice too low to be carried on the breeze. And then a few moments later: “You would be best to leave the past in the past.”

I turned to watch as my mother turned on her heel and walked back towards the car on her own, leaving Dolores standing there running her fingers through her hair. I’m pretty sure I heard a swear word as well before she too turned and followed my mother, calling her name. I went back to staring at the sea, and then at the phone in my hand, wondering if I would ever get round to calling Craig . . . but more than that, wondering what on earth that had been all about.

* * *

“Tell me you take a drink?” Sam said as he pulled a delicious-smelling lasagne out of the oven.

“I take a drink,” I answered with a smile. In fact, after the day I’d had with my mother I was tempted to take a very big drink indeed.

“Well, what’s your poison, cousin of mine?” he said, as he fished about his drinks cabinet. “I have Coors, I have wine – both red and white. I have vodka. I have a rather suspect-looking tail end of a bottle of Drambuie and I’m sure there’s some god-awful kind of a schnapps knocking about in the back of this cupboard somewhere.”

“Red wine would be perfect,” I said, already dreaming of the smoothness of the liquid as it slid down my throat.

“Grand job,” he said. “I have a Rioja that is just out of this world.” He opened the bottle with ease and poured two rather large glasses.

We had worked quite well together. I hadn’t wanted to come across as a bossy American, nor did I want him to think that he had to wait on me hand and foot. To be honest, having felt like a spare wheel for most of the day, I was delighted to do something practical. When my mother had said that the jetlag was finally catching up with her and she was going to have a quiet night in, I had been glad of it. I had been even more glad of it when Sam came in from work, announcing he was going to make me a decent welcome-home dinner with not one hint of an egg-and-onion sandwich or slightly stale cupcake.

The car journey around the rest of Inishowen had been fraught with tense moments. When I arrived back at the car my mother had adopted the same stoic stance as she had at Dad’s funeral. Her arms were crossed, her eyes straight forward.

Dolores had plastered on a forced smile as I approached the car. “Salt fair gets in your eyes,” she said, glancing quickly at my mother and back.

I decided just to pretend I knew nothing of their conversation even though I was dying to ask them what it was all about. What part of my mother’s past did she want to relive again? Why should she leave the past in the past? Surely Dolores had not been telling her she should be well over my father so soon after his passing? I had a feeling she was the kind of woman who would speak her mind but surely she wouldn’t be that lacking in compassion?

My mother thawed a little as we drove. She even occasionally tried to include me in her reminiscences. She pointed out the beach they used to visit as children – the shorefront at Buncrana which seemed to them like the most exotic place in the world. But she would drift off into her memories and Dolores engaged in a game of births, deaths and marriages, listing off the fates of each of their acquaintances from their younger days – names that meant nothing to me but had clearly meant a lot to my mother in her time.

By the time we were back at Sam’s – and Dolores had made us yet another cup of tea and filled us with yet another soggy scone – I found myself wilting. It wasn’t as if I didn’t want to be there – Ireland certainly had its charms, but a day crammed in the back of a small car while tensions ebbed and flowed between my mother and aunt had not been the best of fun.

“We’ll get some time, just me and you, tomorrow,” my mother whispered as she left. “Maybe we could hire a car? See the place in comfort?”

I kissed her cheek and wanted to tell her it would all be okay, that we always had each other, but Dolores was already hauling her down the pathway, telling her she was going to make her a “good old Derry stew” for dinner.

After they left I allowed myself a thirty-minute lie-down on the bed – now dubbed ‘the most comfortable bed in the world’ – and attempted once again to call Craig. He didn’t pick up at work, nor did he pick up his cell so I left a semi-garbled message about how sorry I was for not getting in touch sooner, that I was fine, that Ireland was strange but lovely – and I added a quick “I miss you” at the end even though, if I was honest, I didn’t really. Not much anyway.

By the time Sam came back I felt a great deal brighter, my power-nap having done me a world of good, so while he browned the steak mince for the lasagne I chopped the onions and mushrooms. While he made his sauce, I prepared a salad. He was easy to chat to. I felt somehow safe in his company, which was nice. I hadn’t felt safe for a long time – not with everything that had been going on at home.

As we worked he apologised several times for his mother. “I know she can be a bit full on. She has been so excited by your mum’s visit – it’s all she has talked about since she found out. I get the impression she and your mum were very close at one stage.”

“They do seem close,” I agreed. “The whole family seems close. I grew up pretty much on my own with Mom and Dad – no family around us at all. So it does feel strange.”

“Your dad’s family? Were they not close by?”

“He only had the one sister and she lives in California – they weren’t close. She sent flowers of course, when he died, and a card – but she didn’t fly out.”

He could barely disguise the hint of horror on his face. “She didn’t come to the funeral? That’s a bad show.”

I bit my tongue to stop myself from pointing out that none of my mother’s family had made the trip either. Somehow that had seemed more acceptable as they had been on another continent. As I didn’t know them it hadn’t really hurt me, but I imagine my mother had felt it.

“Things are different in America,” I said. “I think it’s all done differently with us. He was gone anyway – the moment he passed he was gone. He didn’t look like himself – I didn’t much see the point of people coming and sobbing over something that bore no resemblance to the man I loved so much.”

Sam stopped stirring his sauce and pulled me into a hug without warning. I hadn’t been crying. I had spoken very calmly. It was how I felt – I didn’t need a big turnout of a funeral to let me know my father had been loved. If me and Mom had been the only two mourners, I would have still been confident that he had known more love in his lifetime than many people do.

But the hug was nice. It came with no expectations. It came with no agenda – it was just a hug from one cousin to another – an expression of sympathy.

When he pulled away and wordlessly went back to his sauce as I continued preparing the salad, I smiled to myself. So when he offered me a drink and poured those two large glasses of wine I felt myself relax completely in his company. Sam was on my side.