The phone call had come two weeks earlier. Elizabeth’s voice had been watery, immediately conjuring memories of his childhood: the smell of the farmyard after the pigs had marched through it into the truck bound for the abattoir; digging in the undergrowth for conkers, their prickly exterior just how he imagined a landmine would look; and hanging over the farm gates sucking ice pops in the summer. With cheeks full of freckles and hair that refused to be tamed, Elizabeth was as close to a brother as Robbie could have hoped. Her knees were always grass-stained, at the age of eight she could stalk a fox, and her long skinny legs took her to the tops of trees in record time.
‘Wendy said you’d to make up your own mind whether to come back or not,’ she said. ‘But really, Robbie, I’m going to ask you anyway. Things seem to be falling apart and it hasn’t mattered until now that we don’t work so well as a family. It’s not right that you aren’t here.’
Hannah had been popping her head through the living room door intermittently and eventually wedged it open with a phone book so that she could eavesdrop better. He was cross about that. He had started to resent this lack of privacy, which had gradually seeped into their married life, along with urinating with the door open and wearing her mouth guard to bed. Did she like it when he scooped the dirt from beneath his toenails with the tip of a biro lid? What about his threadbare underpants or the days he skipped brushing his teeth? Two years in and he could not remember when those issues had been decided or how he and his wife had become so uncomfortably comfortable with one another.
Even as he told Elizabeth that he would think about it, his decision to go had been made. Whether his six-month-old daughter screaming in the background, or the raised eyebrows of his wife had anything to do with it he could not say, but the relief in his sister’s voice when he phoned her back the next day convinced him that he had done the right thing.
It was not until midday, when the sun was directly overhead and wisps of cloud lolled about the sky that Robbie had summoned the courage to visit his father. When he paused again at the crossroads, Robbie watched the tall stems of cat’s-tail that stood like toothbrushes in the grass at the roadside. He imagined his mother arranging them in one of her stemmed glass vases, reminding the girls never to buy flowers when so many beautiful ones grew wild. Robbie indicated right and pulled up to the farmhouse. The paint had peeled on the gate to show the bright green that his mother had hated so much, and the gate scraped along the ground when Robbie opened it. Once sandy in the summer and muddy when it rained, the driveway had been tarmacked when he was eleven. He remembered how old he was because it was his first year at the Academy and he had to catch the bus into Banbridge from the bottom of the road. His father used to shout at his mother for turning the steering wheel of her car when it was stationary; he said it tore up his good tarmac. Now the driveway was pockmarked, and water had collected in the ruts from the rain that had fallen overnight. The petals from the cherry blossom hid the worst of it, carpeting one whole side of the driveway where Robbie parked.
As he waited at the front door, Robbie could hear the rooster crowing out the back and the sheep had come to the fence at the sound of his car. Several minutes passed and his father did not appear, so he made his way through the small shed that led to the yard. The boiler roared to life and the oil fumes caught in the back of his throat. It was a warm, little, in-between room with a cobbled floor and lots of pegs in the stone walls on which to hang things. Old fishing nets that reeked of the sea were piled in the corner and a collection of rusty garden tools leant against the wall like weary old men taking a break. The back door of the house was locked and the curtains drawn to prevent him looking in. After scuffing his feet on the green lichen-like growth that covered the yard, he made his way to the barn with four small hens and a proud rooster at his heels.
He was forced to a halt when he saw that the three large greenhouses were overrun with weeds, and the wind had blown panes of glass onto the concrete. The irrigation lines were barely visible and ivy had wound its way up the trunk and branches of the peach trees. On closer inspection he could see where the herb garden had germinated to take over an entire corner of the first and largest greenhouse. Mint was the most dominant of the herbs and its smell hung in the air when Robbie rubbed the leaves between his fingers. Parsley and coriander had gone to seed, the latter tall and flowering between the broken glass. As he dug deeper, he found several tomato plants that had bent under the weight of their fruit and were all but buried beneath bright yellow dandelions and grass. All the signs of defeat prepared Robbie for the version of the man whom he found stooped on a stool beneath the huge body of a cow. He was in one of the pig sheds with a small table lamp powered by an electric cable from the house. His back was turned and Robbie watched him for a moment, slow as he tugged at the teats to send short bursts of milk into the silver pail while the smoke rose from his pipe. The green tweed coat he wore was too big for him now and his body looked shrunken and small inside it.
John paused without turning around. The cow exhaled. After wiping his hands on his trouser legs, John pushed the stool back and used the cow to steady himself.
‘I wondered if you’d come,’ he said, finally turning to face his son.
They observed one another.
‘I thought I should,’ Robbie said, looking away.
His father shrugged and moved towards the door. Robbie stepped aside and then followed him as he shuffled back to the house.
‘Staying a while?’ his father called over his shoulder.
‘A few days.’
‘I mean now. Will you have some tea?’
‘Yes, please.’
The kitchen was clean but a faint smell of sour milk lingered. It was cold inside and the linoleum on the floor was coming apart in places so that the old stone showed through.
‘You sit down,’ Robbie said, moving towards the kettle.
‘I will not indeed,’ his father said. ‘I can make a cup of tea just fine.’
He pulled a cord so that the blinds were lifted and more light could come in. Despite it being a good day outside, the kitchen did not get the sun until late afternoon when it shone orange and red through the side windows of the house.
‘You’ve kept the place well,’ Robbie said.
‘Yes, well, Wendy is always about, washing this, ironing that. If it weren’t for her …’
Robbie could see how Wendy had tried to keep the house as it was. In a chipped vase on the windowsill, switches of gorse blossomed yellow and, when the blind was lifted, he could see that there were no streaks on the glass. The furniture was the same, only stained more and glued together in places. Everything felt smaller and so separate from Robbie that he could hardly remember living there. He had not carried the details well in his mind and was glad of it.
The kettle shook in his father’s hand as he poured water into the teapot and Robbie fought not to feel sorry for him. With mugs of tea in front of them, they sat face to face at the kitchen table. Robbie had not noticed the yellow tinge to his father’s skin until then, spreading from the neck of his jumper upwards like a suntan. His eyebrows closed in on each other like two thick caterpillars and there was hardened sleep in the corners of his eyes. The psoriasis on his neck seemed to have worsened but Robbie could not be sure if that was owing to the absence of a shirt collar that had once hidden it better. He reminded Robbie of the old men in Dublin who walked to the post office once a week to get their living allowance. Layered with jumpers and dragging their feet in ill-fitting shoes, the men would make guttural noises to one another while rolling their own cigarettes or scratching their heads. Perhaps it was the few days’ old stubble on his cheeks or the torn edges of his clothing which made him appear similar, but Robbie found it difficult to believe that this was his father.
‘How are you feeling?’ Robbie asked. His father had not offered him any milk for his tea and he did not want to ask. Instead, he blew on the surface of it until he could take a sip.
‘Fine, considering.’
‘What’s the prognosis?’
‘It’s in my pancreas. You don’t last long if it’s in your pancreas.’
Robbie nodded.
‘Can they operate?’
‘Depends. I’ll have one of those scans on Wednesday – a CT I think you call it. They do that to see if it has spread. Doctor says it can get into your lungs. If it has, there’s nothing they can do.’
‘And if it hasn’t?’
‘They can operate, I suppose. There’s a name for the operation, funny-sounding. Can’t remember though – memory’s not what it used to be.’
He bent his head to his cup and sucked the tea through his teeth.
‘Are you in pain?’
‘Not from the cancer. Knees are stiff these days. Just old age taking hold of me. But nothing much to complain of besides that.’
The silence between them made Robbie uncomfortable and he started talking about Hannah and Amy, taking care to skirt around issues like the wedding his father had not been to or the baby pictures he had never got around to sending.
‘Amy?’ he said. ‘After my mother?’
‘Yes.’
His father’s eyes were wet and he started to speak but then stopped.
‘I’d better get on,’ Robbie said.
‘Aye, right you are.’
John did not stand up as Robbie poured the rest of his tea down the sink and backed out of the kitchen. With the front door closed behind him, Robbie breathed in the spring air and heard one of the sheep bleating.