Chapter 49

The next day in the gallery, I couldn’t help smiling when I thought of how happy Nat had looked last night. I was dying to see her to hear how her night had gone after. I went into the kitchen and made myself a cup of tea. I came out and sat down at the desk. I switched on the computer and, while I was waiting for that to start up, I pressed the button on the answering machine to listen to the messages. Instantly Dad’s hesitant voice filled the air

“Eh . . . Kate, it’s me, Dad . . .” I was just about to press the delete button but there was something about his tone that made me listen to the rest of his message. “Look, I’ve been trying to get you all day on your mobile and I didn’t want to leave a message for you in work like this . . . but eh . . . it’s your gran – she’s not well. She’s been rushed to hospital. We think it might be a stroke. Give me a ring me when you get this, yeah?”

I picked up the phone on the desk straight away and tried phoning Dad back but his phone kept ringing out.

I rang Ben next. Luckily he wasn’t yet in class so he hadn’t switched off his phone. I told him what had happened, the words spilling out of me like I was watching the situation from afar. I couldn’t think straight about what I needed to do to get back to Ireland and be with Gran.

“Right, Kate, get in a cab and I’ll meet you back at home, okay?”

On autopilot I locked up the gallery and went out to flag a taxi.

When I got home and saw Ben, it all hit me and I fell apart. I tried Dad again but I only got his voicemail. I rang Patrick and Seán’s phones too but neither answered. Ben did a quick search on his laptop to see which airport had the next scheduled flights. He reckoned Stansted was our best bet – there was a Ryanair flight to Dublin leaving soon. The flights to Knock, which would have been closer, had already departed for the day. He ran around and put a few things in a bag for the both of us then I followed him down the stairs and into the car. We drove to the airport in silence. My mind was whirring with worry. I felt so guilty when I thought back to the last time I was home in Gran’s kitchen when I was mean to Aoife. Is that what had caused the stroke?

Occasionally Ben would reach across and rub my hand and tell me it was going to be okay. But I wasn’t so sure.

Chapter 50

It took four sets of traffic lights, one overtaken bus, three loops of the multistorey car park, one queue at the wrong ticket desk, one queue at the right one, two tarry coffees, five cartons of UHT milk – and one embarrassing scene where I tearily begged a flight attendant to let me board without a doctor’s letter before Ben and I were sitting on a flight bound for Dublin.

I prayed even though I’m not religious. I bargained with God. I would take the stairs instead of the escalator every day for the next month. Year. I would stop swearing. Whatever it took, I would do it. I would visit home more often, I would ring Dad weekly without fail, I would even try to make amends with Aoife. Whatever it took to keep Gran with us, I promised that I would do it.

As we descended into Dublin, my heart started up again. The man beside me had claimed our shared armrest so I sat with my elbow leaning on the left and my head resting against Ben’s shoulder. I looked out the window as we made our descent into Dublin.

We caught a thermal stream coming down and the plane jolted before steadying again and then we were down on the ground. The sounds of the engines roared as we landed, the wing flaps popping up to slow us down.

As we hadn’t checked on any baggage we were able to go straight through to security and then out to the Arrivals hall. I tried Dad again as soon as my phone picked up the Irish network but there was still no answer. The not knowing was horrendous. Horrible scenarios were spinning around inside my head.

“They’re all probably at the hospital,” Ben offered, giving my hand a reassuring squeeze. “They probably have to switch them off in case they interfere with any of the machines.”

I nodded. I belatedly texted Nat to tell her what had happened because I knew she would be worried when she arrived at work to find the gallery closed.

Ben followed the signs for the car-hire desks and I followed behind him. We were given a Fiat Punto with an apologetic smile from the woman manning the desk and we set off.

As we drove along the M4 I continued my bargaining with God – I would be nicer and more patient with people. I wouldn’t watch television for a whole year.

Finally Dad phoned me back. She was in intensive care but stable. They were still waiting to hear from the doctor.

It was nearly six o’clock in the evening by the time we pulled up in to the hospital car park. I felt my blood run cold when I thought about the last time that I had been here. I hated this place. Everything about it reminded me of Mam. The grey pebble-dashed walls, the hospital-perfect neat grass verges. The way people spoke in low hushed tones. The sterile smell. The orderly politeness of the other people you met there – the forced camaraderie because you were all in this together. Like everyone was trying to be on their best behaviour. The anxious relatives you met in the corridors as they waited on their loved one to come out of surgery or the lucky ones smiling as they came through the doors, ready for home.

“You okay?” Ben said, turning to me as he took the key out of the ignition and turned off the headlights.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. C’mon, let’s go inside,” I said sighing. I unbuckled my seatbelt and stepped out of the car. I walked up to the sliding doors and went up to the reception where they directed me to her room.

I met Dad, Patrick and Seán in the corridor outside. They were all standing around clasping polystyrene cups.

“Kate, Ben!” Dad exclaimed when he saw us. “You got here!”

I nodded hello at Patrick and Seán.

“How is she?” I asked.

“Well, she’s come round and she knew who we were but we won’t know the full extent of its effects until they assess her tomorrow. They said that if Aoife hadn’t noticed the signs and acted so fast, things could have been very different.”

“Where’s Aoife?”

“She’s sitting with Gran. We just came out here to get a cup of tea and stretch our legs for a few minutes.”

“Can I go in?”

“Of course. We were just going back in ourselves.”

I pushed open the door and we all filed quietly into the room.

I got a shock when I saw Gran lying on the bed looking so frail. She was sleeping. I watched her chest rise and fall in shallow beats. She seemed to have shrunk since last weekend. Her shoulders had narrowed and the blue hospital gown dwarfed her. Aoife was sitting up near her head, stroking her hand. She was pale and darkness shadowed her face.

“How’s she doing?” I said to Aoife.

She turned to look at me and turned back towards Gran again. Her eyes were red-rimmed and she looked wretched.

“So you were able to come then?”

“I got here as fast as I could –”

She cut across me. “How many times did Dad have to ring you before you phoned him back?”

“Well, I –”

“Dad rang you yesterday evening, Kate – yesterday evening – and you only bothered to call him back today! And yet he still makes excuses for you ‘Oh, Kate’s very busy in London’ or ‘She has a lot on her mind with a baby on the way, y’know’. Gran could have been dead and you would have been oblivious to it because you’re too far stuck in Kate Flynn world. Well, I’m sick of it – everyone pussyfooting around you like you’re the bloody Queen of England returning home and we should all roll out the red carpet because Kate Flynn has decided to grace us with a visit!”

“That’s enough now, Aoife. This is not the place.” Dad stepped in. “This won’t help your gran. You’ve had a rough day. I think you should go home and get a few hours’ sleep – you’re exhausted.”

“Don’t worry, I’m going.” She stood up and kissed Gran gently on the forehead before storming out of the room.

“I’ll go after her,” Seán said. He bumped into a nurse on his way out the door.

“What’s going on in here?” The nurse looked at him and then to the rest of us for an explanation.

We all avoided eye contact with her.

“You can be heard out in the corridor!”

We stared down at the floor.

“Well, whatever it is, it certainly isn’t doing Josephine any good – it’s very important that she gets her rest. I think she has had enough visitors for today.”

I instantly felt guilty.

“Sorry – we’ll go now and leave her in peace,” Dad said.

The nurse nodded. “Visiting time tomorrow is between twelve and two.”

“Right so. Look, sorry again about that.” Dad said getting up from the chair and putting on his coat. “It’s been a long day – I think we’re all a bit tired.”

She nodded.

We got outside the door.

“We should all head on home and get some rest, yeah? There’s nothing more we can do here,” Dad said.

We walked down the corridors until we were back at reception. We went back through the sliding doors and out into the cold evening air. We stood chatting for a few minutes under the amber glow of the car park lights before we said our goodbyes.

“We’ll see you back at the house,” Dad said.

We followed Dad’s car back to Ballyrobin. We went across back roads that I wasn’t too sure of. I would definitely have got us lost.

It took almost an hour before we turned in our gate. We followed Dad into the kitchen where he automatically turned on the kettle. He had left the radio on in the kitchen as usual – he never bothered to turn it off when he was going out.

I felt my stomach rumble and then I remembered that I hadn’t eaten anything all day.

“Do you want a cuppa?”

“No, thanks,” Ben said.

“No, thanks, Dad, not for me. I might just grab a slice of toast if that’s okay?”

“Of course it is. There’s bread in the press. Sorry I haven’t anything organised for dinner with everything going on.”

“Don’t worry about it, toast is fine.”

“So how was the flight?” Dad asked as I pushed two slices of bread down into the toaster.

“It was fine – a bit bouncy on the way down though.”

“Well, you were lucky to get on a flight with such short notice.”

I went to the fridge and took out the butter.

“She’s going to be okay, isn’t she, Dad?”

“Well, they said, we got her to the hospital in time so hopefully she’ll be alright but she is nearly ninety, Kate, and this will take a lot out of her. Luckily Aoife was there with her and noticed something was wrong – if she had been on her own, well, I don’t even want to think what might have happened.”

I felt a shiver run through me at the thought.

The toaster popped and I took out the bread and started to butter it. I offered Ben a slice but he declined. He had eaten a sandwich on the plane but I hadn’t been able to.

“I didn’t have a chance to make up the bed for you with everything going on.”

“Don’t worry about that, sure I’m just glad to have a bed to fall into. I’ll get fresh sheets in the hot press.”

“Well, try and get some sleep, you’ve had a long day.”

We said goodnight and then Ben helped me to make the bed.

The weight of my body sank into the soft mattress. I lay there and stared at the shadowy ceiling. Even though my bones were aching with tiredness, my head was buzzing. The day just started to hit me and I felt wired. I tossed and turned but sleep wasn’t coming. I heard Ben snore softly beside me. Eventually, knowing there was no chance of me sleeping, I gave up and got out of bed. I threw on a jumper over my pyjamas and went along to the kitchen.

I was surprised to see light filtering out from under the doorway. I opened it and saw Dad sitting at the table with his head in his hands. At first I thought he was asleep but then he raised his head up to look at me.

“Ah, Kate! Can you not sleep?”

I shook my head.

“Me neither. What a day, eh? It’s only starting to hit me now.”

I pulled out a chair and sat opposite him at the table.

“Do you reckon Aoife was all right after?”

“I rang Seán a while ago and he said she’s fine. She went straight to bed when she got home.”

“Does she normally flip the lid like that?”

“Honestly? No. I’ve never seen her lose her temper like that before. She’s just tired and the stress of the last twenty-four hours is taking its toll on her.”

“She’s right though.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, I did avoid your calls. Only that you left that message at the gallery, I wouldn’t be here . . .”

He looked across at me.

“To be honest, I was so mad at you for not giving me the letter after Mam died like you were supposed to.”

“I figured as much. So you read it then?”

I nodded. “Why did it take you so long to give it to me?”

“I don’t know. I suppose I just never really thought the time was right.”

“Well, what about the time when you were supposed to give it to me? After Mam died?”

“I’m sorry, Kate – but you were so angry, I was afraid it would make everything worse or you’d tear it up or something!”

“Things couldn’t have been much worse than they were, Dad!”

“I know, Kate, I know,” he sighed. “There just never seemed to be a good time. I’ve been waiting for years to give it to you. After she died, I was afraid you would destroy it without opening it or do something you would regret with it. Then you left home and, well, I suppose it just didn’t happen. And then the years went by and I didn’t want to drag it all up again for you, especially when you seemed to be making a new life for yourself over in London. But I thought . . . well . . . now that you’re in the family way yourself that the time was right.”

“Well, it was mine – it was meant for me. You should have given it to me when you were supposed to.”

“I know, Kate, I’m sorry, love. I really am. Do you think if I had given it to you earlier, it would have helped?”

“Probably not if I’m honest. It still wouldn’t have changed what she did.”

“Your feelings haven’t mellowed to her at all after all these years, have they?”

“Well, have yours?”

“Staying angry with her about her decision won’t change anything, Kate.”

“So you’ve forgiven her then?”

“I can see you’re still angry – Lord above, so am I, but it won’t change anything now. She made her decision. She did what she thought at the time was best and we can’t undo that now, can we?”

“I guess so. I have something to tell you, Dad.”

“Oh – what is it?”

“Well, I was mugged a few days ago –”

“You were not! Are you okay? You weren’t hurt, were you?”

“Sure can’t you see yourself that I’m fine? But the letter – it was in my bag. It’s gone, Dad. The police have been checking for CCTV or something in the area but there’s nothing.”

“Sure it wasn’t your fault.”

“But I feel like I’ve let you and Mam down – you’d only just given it to me.”

“You haven’t let me down at all. It was your letter – your mother wrote it for you.”

“I’ve tried to write down the bits of it that I remember but it isn’t the same – it’s not her voice.”

“Look, you know what your mother was like – she wasn’t one for the sentimental stuff.”

“She was great, you know . . . she had a real wry sense of humour.”

“She did, love.”

“Do you miss her, Dad?”

“Every day. Every single day when I come in the door I always think how empty the house feels without her – even after twenty years.”

“Me too. It was so unfair, wasn’t it?”

He nodded. “I still get angry about it all, to be honest, Kate, and when I feel it coming on me I take off into the fields and it helps to calm me down again. This sounds silly but when the wind is swirling around my ears it’s like I can hear her voice wrapped up inside it telling me to cop myself on and to stop being a bleddy eejit!”

“That’s exactly what she would say!” I said, laughing. “What was it like at the time, Dad – was she scared?”

“Well, I suppose she was – it’s only natural. Although she didn’t let on . . . she was a desperate woman for putting on a brave face. When they first found the mass, she was sure it would all be grand – she never thought for a minute that she was in any danger. And you have to remember it was nearly twenty years ago and things weren’t as advanced then as they are now. But after Aoife was born and we knew things weren’t looking good for her . . . then, I think, yes . . . she was a bit frightened by what lay ahead. And angry too. I said so many Novenas and had asked Father Ball to mention her in his Masses but they all went unheard. I think the way she saw it was that it was her job to get Aoife here safely and then she would start her treatment and get better for all of us . . .” He let out a heavy sigh. “But it didn’t work out that way . . .”

“I regret so much not talking to her during her last few weeks.”

“I know you do and, don’t worry, she knows it too – that’s why she wrote the letter for you. She didn’t write one for any of the others, by the way. You were a teenager – she knew that it was hard on you. But you know your mother thought the world of you, don’t you, Kate?”

I smiled at him. “We were very close in our own way – I know we fought a lot but I always think that if she had lived longer and I had outgrown my awful teenage years and stopped being such a bitch then we would have been best friends.”

“Your mother knew you were just being a headstrong teenager.”

“If it were now things might be different,” I said.

“Who knows?” Dad said. “But I’m sure medicine has moved on a lot from those days. God, it was a horrible thing, that chemo – it killed everything in her body – the bad stuff and the good stuff with it. Thank God nowadays it’s a lot more targeted. Your mother would be so ill after her sessions but she put a brave face on it.”

“I remember it.”

“Do you?”

I nodded. “I wish I didn’t but I can remember those days coming home and she was like a ghost blending with the white sheets on the bed. She would try to force herself to smile but I could see it in her eyes. The sickness. The fear. So then I just used to leave her alone. I didn’t want her to think that she had to put on a brave face for me.”

“It was hard on the three of you – probably more so for you. You were that bit older, you were at that awkward stage between girl and woman and you needed your mother, not some auld farmer who didn’t have a clue.”

“Ah Dad, you did well!” I laughed and placed my hand over his on the table.

“Not initially I didn’t – sure I went to pieces. I was never around – I was always out on the land – or if I could get Josephine up to the house to mind you at night I was down in the pub sculling pints and just making myself feel worse. If it wasn’t for Josephine, well . . . I don’t know what would have happened. She was busy with Aoife and trying to keep an eye on the rest of ye. She was nearly seventy as that stage and she was grieving for her daughter but she never once complained. The whole place would have fallen apart if it wasn’t for her. She was very good to us – I’ll never forget that.”

“I’ve always wondered how come you never took Aoife back to live with you?”

“I’ve thought about it myself from time to time but I suppose it just never happened, Kate. I don’t know why . . . I think your granny had grown very attached to her . . . she had just lost her daughter and now she had this newborn baby that reminded her so much of her own daughter as a baby . . . so I think having Aoife helped her to grieve. And it suited me as well because I was so buried under my own grief that I could barely manage the three of ye and run the house and the farm. So it was an unspoken thing that just went on. Then as the years went by, it was just the way it was. I know to most people it’s an odd arrangement but it worked for us. Aoife always knew that I was her dad and that Patrick and Seán were her brothers and that you were her big sister living in London. I saw her every day and we would all eat our dinner together in the evenings – but at the end of the day your granny raised her and that’s where her home will always be.”

“I hated her, you know – I couldn’t look at her without blame.”

“It wasn’t her fault, Kate – she was only a helpless baby that didn’t know a thing about the world she had been born into.”

“I know that, Dad – logically, I know that, but I resented her because the way I saw it was that Mam chose her over the rest of us.”

“Your mother had a horrible decision to make and she didn’t see that she was choosing Aoife over the rest of you because in her heart she truly believed she’d recover after the surgery. She didn’t choose Aoife over you or your brothers, Kate – you know that, don’t you, love?”

“I guess it must have been an awful decision to have to make . . .”

“Yeah, it wasn’t very nice and we fought a lot about it at the time and your mother and me never fought but I wanted her to have the surgery but she wouldn’t do it. She could be very stubborn when she wanted to be.”

I smiled. “Ben says the same thing about me.”

“Well, you didn’t lick it off the ground!” He grinned at me.

“Was Gran really pissed off with me after my last visit home?”

“No, you know your gran – she loves you no matter what you do, you know that. She knows that it’s still hard on you.”

That was another thing. Because I’d been her only granddaughter I had always been Gran’s favourite. My Auntie Anna who lived in New York had had two boys and Gran had only met them a few times in her life. But then when Aoife arrived, it seemed that Gran always had her in her arms. Suddenly, I felt pushed aside. Although I know it was probably only in my head that that had happened.

We both fell quiet then. The condensation from the milk carton had pooled on the table between us.

“Dad?”

“Yes?”

“I think I’d like to go and see Aoife in the morning.”

“Well now, Kate,” he was hesitant, “I don’t think that’s a good idea, do you? I don’t think any of us want a repeat of what happened at the hospital.”

“Don’t worry, Dad, neither do I. I just want to talk to her. Properly.”

I could see him raise his eyebrows and he studied my face for a minute.

“Okay – we’ll go over there in the morning.” He sat back in his chair and swallowed back the last mouthful in his mug.

Chapter 51

The next morning I gently woke Ben and told him where I was going.

“Do you want me to come with you?”

I shook my head. “No, you sleep on – I won’t be long.”

Dad drove us over to Gran’s house. It was only across the fields as the crow flies but it was still damp and drizzly out so neither of us fancied walking. I followed him into the kitchen where the TV was on. It was showing a rerun of some eighties quiz show. The presenter was a skinny guy in a faded brown suit. I thought I recognised him from when I was a child.

Aoife came into the kitchen with a white towel wrapped around her head. She looked startled when she saw Dad and me in the kitchen too.

“Aoife, you look much better!” Dad said. “That sleep did you the world of good.”

She nodded. “Well, I’m nearly ready and then I just want to gather up a few things for her before we go. Can you drive me in?”

“Of course I’ll drive you but the nurse won’t let us in until twelve. They’re strict about visitors. They don’t want us to tire her out.”

“Oh, right. I see.” She sounded disappointed as she sat down on a chair.

“While I’m here, I’m going to have a look at that door handle that your gran was giving out about last week.” It was obvious that he was making an excuse to leave us on our own.

Aoife nodded. “Yeah, she’s afraid that if she goes into the bathroom that she might never come out again.”

Dad went down to the bathroom and it was just the two of us left on our own together then. I tried to think back. I didn’t think I’d ever been on my own with her before. Even when she was a baby I had always managed to somehow avoid it. She unwrapped the towel from her hair and put it over her shoulders.

To look at us, you could tell that we were sisters. Our appearances were similar, although unlike me, her childhood white-blonde hair had never darkened and she didn’t have an expensive highlight habit to maintain. She didn’t even have any frown lines – at eighteen I’d had a few wrinkles, probably from all the smoking and drinking that I used to do. But even though we were sisters, we were effectively strangers – I didn’t know anything about her.

There was an awkward silence and I wasn’t sure what exactly I was going to say to her. I pulled out a chair from the table and sat down opposite her.

“Looks like you were right earlier – I was avoiding Dad’s phone calls,” I said eventually.

“Well, I’m sick of everyone making excuses for you, Kate. Gran was in Intensive Care and you were too busy swanning around London to care.”

“That’s not true – as soon as I heard what had happened I came here as quick as I could.”

“But why would you ignore Dad’s calls? Why would you do that? All he does is say how great you are!”

I squirmed in my seat. “The reason I was ignoring Dad was because the last time I was back Dad gave me a letter.”

Aoife’s clear blue eyes opened wide. “What was in it?”

“It was a letter that Mam wrote for me the night before she died. It was her way of saying goodbye – you see, we had fought for weeks before she died and I refused to go and see her in hospital. I regret it so much now – believe me if I could turn back the clock I would . . . but Dad never gave it to me until I was home the last time.”

“But why would he do that?”

“I don’t know, he said he wasn’t sure how I’d react. He was afraid I’d tear it up or something. He’s right though, I probably would have.”

“Well, then, maybe he was right to hold on to it. You know, you think you were the only one affected by it all. Myself, Patrick and Seán lost our mother too – Gran lost her daughter, Dad lost his wife. We all lost her, Kate, not just you!”

“Yeah, but you didn’t know her.”

It was probably the worst thing I could ever have said to her.

“Do you not think I wish I had?” Her eyes blazed and her voice climbed higher. “Do you know how hard it is to grow up not being able to remember your own mother?”

“But you didn’t have to watch her die!”

“I know that and it must have been an awful time for you all but will you stop feeling sorry for yourself! You’re lucky you can remember her. I would give anything to even just have one memory of her.”

I had never thought of it like that before. I had always just assumed that she was the fortunate one because she couldn’t remember any of it. Because she was too young to experience the pain.

“Look, Kate, this isn’t a Top Trumps competition about who misses Mam more.”

“You’re right, Aoife,” I sighed. “You’re right. Look, this isn’t an excuse for my behaviour. But this whole thing – well, I still find it very hard, to be honest. That’s why I never come home to visit. I find it too upsetting and I get all uptight and end up rubbing everyone up the wrong way – but it’s because I’m nervous.”

“I know.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, I was talking to Gran after you went back.”

“I think I owe you an apology. I’m sorry about the last time I was home,” I blurted out. “I really am – I was rude, arrogant and out of order. I’m sorry for blaming you for all these years. I suppose I never tried looking at it from your point of view before.”

“It’s okay – sometimes I blame myself too.”

“You do?”

“Well, sometimes.” She took a deep breath. “At times, y’know, like when it’s her anniversary or at Christmas and I know that everyone is missing her and finding it tough going . . . well, I feel a bit left out at times like that because I have no memories of her, I can’t join in and reminisce about her.” She lowered her voice. “And sometimes I wonder if secretly they are thinking that it’s all my fault . . .”

“They don’t think that!”

“How do you know? You do, so why shouldn’t they?”

“I don’t, Aoife – not really. I just wanted someone to blame and you were the easiest person. You couldn’t even fight back. Sure no one knows – even if she had taken treatment earlier she still might not have made it.”

“Maybe. And we’ll never know now, will we?”

I shook my head. “It’s not fair – life isn’t fair. I spent so many years being angry about it all but I had a big chat with Dad last night and I can now see that I’m only wasting my energy – it won’t bring her back.”

“What was she like, Kate? Sometimes Dad or Gran will mention her in passing but I’ve always been afraid to ask too much about her in case they get upset.”

“You would have loved her – she was a great mother. She had this great big smile – she was one of those people who smiled with her eyes. She had wild curly blonde hair and she was forever trying to tame it. I used to think she was the most beautiful woman in the world. She had to put on her mascara every morning, even if we weren’t going anywhere – she said she felt naked without it. I would stand beside her at the mirror and she would hand it to me then and I would put it on too. I’m sure I must have looked a fright going to school as a five-year-old with mascara on me but she never said anything – just how I looked so pretty.”

“You’re so lucky to have memories of her. I only have the photos that Dad gave me. Sometimes I try to imagine the woman in the photos talking or doing stuff but it doesn’t work.” She smiled sadly. “I don’t really feel that you and Patrick and Seán are my sister and brothers. I feel removed from it all and I’m afraid to show emotion in case I’m accused of being fake. It’s like you’re all wondering how I could understand what you’re all going through because I didn’t know her.”

“No one thinks that – Patrick and Seán think the world of you, and Dad and Gran too – if I’m honest the reason I was such a bitch to you last weekend was because I was jealous of you and how much they all think of you. If anyone is an outsider, it’s me! They all know you and love you – you belong in this family.”

“Thanks, Kate – it means a lot to hear you say that.”

“Look, Aoife, I know we don’t really know each other very well and I take full responsibility for that – I never really gave you any time – but I was fourteen when Mam died and, even though I knew she was sick, I never thought that she would die so it came as a huge shock to me when she passed away. Sometimes I still can’t believe that she is actually gone, y’know . . .”

“I can only imagine.”

“I was angry for a long time – very angry. I still am, to be honest. But . . . well . . . maybe it’s time for me to let it go.” I sighed. “I have to accept that that was the decision she made at the time and we’ll never know what way things might have been if she had chosen to get the surgery. I know there’s years of old ground and it can’t all be changed overnight but if you’ll let me . . . then maybe we could get to know each other properly?”

“I’d like that,” she smiled at me.

Chapter 52

By the time Aoife and I had finished talking, it was time to go back in to visit Gran.

I had a quick shower to freshen up back at Dad’s but the lack of sleep from thinking about it all meant I felt like I was dead on my feet. I nodded off in the car as Ben drove us back to the hospital. Dad and Aoife were travelling together. I felt as though I had literally closed my eyes when Ben was gently shaking my shoulder to tell me we had arrived.

“C’mon, love, I know you want to go and see your gran.”

We met a nurse coming out from her room.

“How was she overnight?” Dad asked.

“She’s doing okay. I have to warn you though that her speech has been quite badly affected – try not to be alarmed when you try to talk to her. Although sometimes speech and language difficulties can rectify themselves in stroke victims, so try not to worry just yet.” She lowered her voice. “It also looks as though she might have some paralysis in her right arm.”

“Oh no!” Aoife’s voice broke and she dissolved into tears.

“Come here, love,” Dad said, wrapping Aoife into a hug.

“You need to be aware that because of her age and after an incident like this, there is a possibility that she won’t regain her full functionality and she may need full-time care.”

Aoife shrieked in horror.

Dad rubbed Aoife’s shoulder brusquely.

“As in a nursing home?” Dad said.

The nurse nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“I see.” He exhaled heavily.

We went inside and sat down on the various chairs around Gran’s bed. She was sleeping.

“There’s no way I can let her go into a nursing home, Dad,” Aoife said as she dabbed at her eyes with a tissue.

“Don’t worry, love, we won’t let that happen. We’ll look after whatever care she needs between us all.”

Aoife nodded. “She’d hate it – I couldn’t do it to her.”

“And we can look at getting a home help too,” Dad said, “Y’know, maybe for a couple of hours a week? We’ll work it out anyway.”

I looked at the swirly pattern on the grey vinyl floor, feeling even guiltier if that was possible. I knew that no matter what care options they decided on for Gran, I wasn’t going to be a part of it.

Patrick and Seán came in a while later. They were visibly upset when Dad relayed what the nurse had told us.

Gran struggled to talk when she woke and what the nurse had warned us about soon became obvious. Her speech was difficult to understand. Her muscles were too weak to articulate what she wanted to say. I tried hard not to let my sadness at hearing her voice sound like that show in my face. I looked over at Aoife who had tears in her eyes. We sat chatting amongst ourselves and Gran fell in and out of sleep.

“Make sure you don’t tire her out now,” the nurse warned, coming back into the room.

“We’ll head on shortly,” Dad said.

Outside in the car park I said goodbye to Patrick and Seán before getting into our car.

“I hate seeing her like that, Ben.” My voice broke and gave way to tears.

“I know, love, I know it’s horrible seeing her looking so feeble – but you heard what the nurse said – it’s still early days. She might still make a recovery.”

“But she’s nearly ninety, Ben!”

“I’m sorry, Kate – I wish there was something that I could say or do to make it better.” He reached across for my hand.

I turned my head and looked out the window, where crumbling stone walls and knobbly fields zipped by outside and prayed that Gran would be okay.

When we got to the house Dad started to put on dinner for all of us. Aoife was there. She was helping to peel potatoes and carrots so I took a knife out of the drawer and started to chop them.

“Are you on your holidays now?” I asked.

“No, I still have one more exam left.”

“Ah right, well, nearly there now.’’

She nodded.

“What are you planning on doing for the rest of the summer?”

“Well, Seán said that Acton’s are looking for someone to do a bit of filing and other admin work so I might try and get a job there. The girls in college are all going off to Boston on their J1’s but I couldn’t leave Gran after all that has happened.”

We both fell silent then but there was a closeness in just peeling and chopping together – something we would never have done before.

Patrick brought Luisa and their children over. They seemed to have warmed to me a bit more. We all squashed in around the table, keeping our elbows tucked in neatly to make room for everyone, and helped ourselves to the food that Dad had served up for us. We chatted about the recession and Dad was giving out about politicians that never seemed to change. “Different face, same arrogance,” he said. We didn’t talk about Gran. Her presence was missed and it was like we were all too sad to speak about her. We sat watching TV for the rest of the evening.

Ben booked flights home for the following day. He was able to get one from Knock, which was a lot closer than driving back to Dublin. I hated walking out on Gran when she was like this but Dad told me I had to go, he was nervous of me being so heavily pregnant. And Ben had to go back to school. But I felt guilty all the same knowing that when Gran came home from hospital, the reality of the situation meant that Dad and Aoife were going to have to be her carers.

I woke up early the next morning. I couldn’t sleep in at all lately, which I thought was ironic because every second person kept advising me to sleep now while I still could. They meant well but, my God, it wasn’t like I could store up the sleep to tide me over for when the baby was born and giving us sleepless nights. I think this early-rising lark was the body’s way of preparing me for the lack of sleep that lay ahead.

Eventually, I decided to get up. I tiptoed past Dad’s bedroom door so that I wouldn’t wake him. I went out to the kitchen. Aoife had stayed over last night too but she must have been sleeping in. I flicked the switch on the kettle and waited for it to boil for what seemed like ages. I popped a teabag into a cup. While I was waiting I looked out across the fields. The grass was silvery with dew. It looked like it was going to be a nice day – the sun was out and it was one of those days that lifted you up and made you feel all was well with the world and you would forgive the weather gods for the poor summer that we’d had up to now.

I opened the back door and let the kitchen fill with fresh morning air. Walking over to the dresser, I picked up the family photo of my Confirmation off the dresser. I was wearing the hickest matching jacket and dress in an orange floral fabric – I will never forget how much I had hated that outfit. Mam and I had rowed for weeks beforehand because I did not want to wear a dress. You never would have guessed though with the smiles that we all had plastered onto our faces. Mam stood behind me with her arm on my shoulder – her candy-pink lipstick looked so dated now but she still looked good. I did a quick calculation and guessed that it was probably taken shortly before she had found out that she was expecting Aoife and then had the tumour.

There was something I needed to do before I went back to London. The last time I was home I still wasn’t ready to do it but now, as I found myself alone in the empty kitchen, I knew that I had to. I went back down to the bedroom. I would be lying to you if I said that I wasn’t nervous – my heart was racing in my chest.

I scribbled a quick note for Ben and threw on a pair of jeans and a jumper and set off.

The roads were quiet at that time of the morning as I walked along. At least I didn’t have to worry about bumping into anyone. I noticed more this time – things I had missed the last time. It was still raining though. I walked through the square, crossed the bridge and finally I reached the graveyard. The iron gate groaned as I pushed it back and let myself in. The last time I had been here was for my other granny, Dad’s mother’s funeral. I knew Mam was probably buried nearby. Overhead oak trees shaded the path beneath it and the lower branches wafted gently on the breeze. I walked along the path, cracked from the roots trying to push up underneath it. I had watched a documentary once where the roots of a tree had grown so large that they caused all four walls of a house to separate.

I finally came upon her headstone. I was glad to see it was neat and well kept. Flowers were planted and I could see someone had weeded it recently when I looked at some of the other graves whose plants were overgrown by weeds. Seeing her name there etched in gold paint on the cold granite slab made it very real. There it was written in front of me.

I began to speak to my mother. The words, although whispered, came out loud in the quiet graveyard.

“I’m sorry I lost your letter. I tried my best to get it back. I really did. I’m so glad you wrote it for me, Mam. It meant a lot to have that little piece of you. And I’m sorry I was such a bitch before you died – I regret it so much. If I could take back those words, believe me I would.” My bump was starting to weigh me down so I lowered myself on to the edge of the kerbing. “I miss you, Mam. Every day. Even the Hoover banging off the bottom of the door on a Saturday morning – I’d let you do it every day for the rest of my life, if it would bring you back.”

I looked around at the other headstones, each with their own story and loved ones left behind. The cycle of life, it was the one thing guaranteed, but human nature was a funny thing because even though we knew it had to happen sometime, we still found it so hard to accept when someone belonging to us passed over to the other side.

“I wish you could be here to meet Ben – and Baby Pip. Can you believe I’m having a baby, Mam? Sometimes it scares the life out of me that I’m going to be entirely responsible for a little person and that they’re going to call me ‘Mammy’. To be honest, I’m a bit scared, Mam – a lot scared actually, so please stay close to me, yeah?”

I stayed like that for a while, listening to the birdsong on the cool morning air. It was such a peaceful place. I now understood why people liked to visit graveyards. I always thought, whenever I had heard someone saying that before, that they were loopers, but there was something soothing about being here and for some reason I definitely felt closer to her.

When I went back to the house everyone was up eating breakfast.

“Kate, where were you?” Ben said.

“I just went for a walk to get some fresh air – it’s a beautiful morning out there.”

“Well, pull up a chair – get some breakfast into you, love,” Dad said.

I sat down at the table and helped myself to the fry that Dad had cooked.

We headed into the hospital then. It was hard saying goodbye to Gran. I leant in to hug her and I could feel her trying to hug me back as best she could but it was obvious she wasn’t able to. The good news was that they said she’d be able to come home soon.

We had a few hours to spare before we drove to Knock to catch our flight. I chatted with Dad and Aoife and we pored over old photo albums together and recalled long-forgotten anecdotes from my childhood. I felt at ease in their company. It was such a relief, after years of tension, to finally just relax together. I could see Aoife was enjoying hearing more about the mother she never had the chance to know. I noticed that she and I had some of the same mannerisms – she would scrunch up her nose when she smiled broadly and she had the same habit of wrapping her hair around her index finger and rolling it onto the middle finger and back and forth again too. I invited her over to stay with Ben and myself for a weekend to do some shopping or maybe even to catch a show. It was a big step in our relationship. I hoped we were ready for a whole weekend with each other but she said she might and I really hoped that she would.

They made me promise to bring the baby back to see them when she was born and I knew that I would – it wasn’t just an empty promise. I had decided that I was going to be a regular face in the house now and Pip would know where her mother came from.

“Dad?” I said with a lump in my throat as we said goodbye.

“Yes?”

“I love you.” And for once I didn’t cringe as I said it.

Chapter 53

I was exhausted when I sat down onto our sofa that night. The emotional rollercoaster of the last few days was after catching up with me. Seeing Gran like that, then talking things through with Dad and then Aoife had taken its toll. Twenty years of emotions had been thrashed through in one weekend. Although I was glad to finally have talked to Dad and Aoife properly, it had been difficult dredging it all up again.

Ben plonked down beside me so the sofa gave a little poof under his weight.

“I’m proud of you Kate, you know that?”

“Thanks Ben . . . look, I think I owe you an apology for how I’ve acted over the last few weeks.”

“Don’t worry about that now – I’m sorry for not really getting how hard all this still is for you. Your mum sounds like she was a lovely woman.”

“She was, Ben – I loved her so much. I know I might not show it, but I miss her every day. Every single day. There is not a day that goes by where I don’t wish that I could talk to her just once more. Even just for five minutes.”

“Oh Kate, of course you do, love. But why didn’t you talk to me about her before?” He hugged me close against his broad frame so I could smell the fabric softener on his T-shirt.

“And especially now that I’m pregnant – that’s when you really need your mum to ask her all those questions, y’know, about her own pregnancies or how her labours were. And then when the baby is born I’m sure I’ll have millions more to ask her.”

“Well, you know my mum thinks the world of you and she would be delighted if you ever needed her help or to ask her something.”

“I know that, Ben, and don’t get me wrong – your mum is great – but it’s not the same as having your own mum there, is it?”

“No, I suppose not.”

“Do you think she knows that I was hurting and that I just didn’t know how to express how scared I was?” I regretted so much not seeing her before she died and that our last words were words full of anger. It was something I could never make up for. I could never take those words back.

“Of course she does – I bet she’s watching you right now with a big smile on her face.”

“She was so much fun as a mother. She always spoke her mind. I remember one time in school when my teacher in third class, Mrs Maloney, sent a note home in my journal because I hadn’t learnt my nine times tables off by heart. I thought Mam was going to go through me for a shortcut but she came into the classroom behind me the next day and told her off, saying that in all honesty weren’t there more important things in life than nine times tables and sure couldn’t I always use a calculator if I ever found myself in the unfortunate situation of having to multiply something by nine when I got older! You should have seen the look on Mrs Maloney’s face. It was priceless.”

Ben started to laugh then. “Your mum sounds like a right old character. I’m glad the pupils I teach don’t have parents like that!”

“You would have loved her, Ben – she didn’t suffer fools gladly,” I said wistfully.

“This is the first time you’ve let me in, you know,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Let me right in close, let me get to know the real you.”

“But you’ve known me for seven years!” I said, drying my eyes with a tissue.

“Yeah, but only up to a point. There was always this . . . I don’t know . . . wall or something around you that I couldn’t get past. You were always so guarded with your emotions.”

“Jesus, Ben – a wall – you’re not half dramatic, are you? I never knew you had such depth!” I picked up one of the cushions off the sofa and playfully hit him over the head with it.

I rang Dad on my way to work the next morning. He said Gran had done well overnight and they were hoping she would be allowed home later that day. She would be going to stay with Dad, and Aoife was going to move in with them too. I hoped the arrangement worked out for them because it would be really hard to see Gran going into a nursing home. I told him I’d ring him later to see how she was.

As I walked along the street, I felt so much lighter. I can’t explain it but I felt a huge weight had been lifted off me. All the years that I had been running away and I was now finally ready to step up and face it. I didn’t care when people wouldn’t make room for me to get on the Tube – I just let it go and waited for the next one. Or when the escalators were out of order yet again so that I had to climb a mountain of stairs to get out of the Tube station it didn’t make me mad like it usually would. Although I hadn’t realised it, those years of being angry and carrying all that guilt around had taken their toll on me.

Nat was in first when I reached the gallery. I told her about Gran and about Dad and Aoife.

“I’m so proud of you, Kate – I know it can’t have been easy dealing with everything you’ve gone through over the last few days.” She handed me a cup of coffee.

She was slowly coming back down to earth from her exhibition. Cards sat on top of the counter, thanking her for a wonderful evening. She had been overwhelmed by the feedback to her work and she was buoyed up and encouraged to go out and take more photos. I was delighted to see that the old Nat was slowly returning.

We decided to tackle the dusting – we tried to do it once a week – one of us would do downstairs and the other would do the mezzanine although sometimes it must be admitted that neither of us could be bothered. But today I didn’t mind doing it. As I ran the cloth over the tops of the frames, up along the banister, across the desk and the computer screen, I was able to switch off and get my head around everything that had happened over the last few days.

I suggested to Nat that we should go to Portobello Market the following Saturday. I thought it was something that she might enjoy – she used to love going there for a browse. It had been ages since we’d been – we used to be regulars, scouting around the stalls and then grabbing something to eat afterwards. She agreed, so the following Saturday afternoon we took the Tube down to Notting Hill Gate. The street was already thronged when we got there – it had got really popular over the last few years with tourists. Since it had featured in the film Notting Hill they would come in their droves, photographing themselves in front of the pastel-coloured buildings or standing beneath the Portobello Road street signs as the fed-up locals walked around them impatiently. We browsed through some of the antique stalls, which I loved. Old trunks and suitcases stacked on top of each other stood beside a stand of leather rugby balls and cricket bats. There were tables full of cloth-covered books with their old inked inscriptions from loved ones. Other stalls displayed antique china sets and silverware.

I always said that if Ben and I ever managed to afford to buy a house, I would come here and fill my house full of stuff from this market.

“Remind me never to come here again on a Saturday,” I said as a wall of people pushed me to the left as we walked along.

We stood and listened to a girl sing in French and play an accordion before strolling along until we came to the food stalls. The smell of fresh cheeses and baked goods filled the air. Nat was sampling the foods on offer from the different stalls and taking photos. At least she had started taking photos again, which was a good sign. Another man was shouting, “Peaches three for a parnd, three for a parnd!” from behind his table of fresh fruit. We sampled some delicious baklava from another stall.

“Hello, darling. It’s a sunny one today, innit?”

The sticky sweetness was delicious so I bought a few to take home with me.

We continued on to the clothing stalls. Fashion students displayed their designs, trying desperately to stand out from the rest of the stalls and to make a name for themselves.

Soon we were at the cheaper end of the market. These were the tacky stalls selling plastic toys from China and offering 2 for 1 deals on washing powders.

“Kate, isn’t that your bag?” Nat said suddenly.

She was pointing at a stall claiming to sell ‘vintage’ handbags. There were lots of stalls here claiming to sell vintage clothing, some of it was genuine, some not so.

I swung around from the rail that I had been thumbing through on a nearby stall. My eye was immediately drawn to the bright yellow of my satchel, which was sitting on the table amongst all the other bags. I would know it anywhere. I ran over towards it.

“That bag – where did you get it?” I asked the Asian guy manning the table.

He shrugged his shoulders at me. I wasn’t sure if he understood me.

“I think it’s mine.” I went to lift it up but his hand moved across my arm to block me.

“No try – you must buy.”

“How much?” I said quickly.

“Twenty pounds.”

I rooted in my purse but I only had a ten-pound note.

“Here, I have money,” Nat said taking another ten-pound note from her pocket and putting it with mine to give to the stallholder. “I can’t believe you’ve got to pay to get your own bloody bag back!”

He handed me the bag then. I took it from him and examined it – it was slightly scuffed on one of the corners, exactly like my one had been. It was definitely mine. We stood to the side of the stall, out of the way of people.

My heart started beating wildly. Nervously, I opened up the bag. There was a small zipped pocket inside the bag, disguised against the turquoise lining. That was where I had last put the letter. I begged Mam, if she was listening, to let the letter be still inside it. With trepidation, I pulled back the zip and saw the white envelope was still there. I carefully took the letter out of it and unfolded it. I held her letter in my two hands, studying her familiar words once more. I felt tears come into my eyes. Oh thank you, thank you, thank you!

Nat and I both started jumping up and down. People in the market started to look at us but I didn’t care, I was so elated. It felt as though I was somehow closer to her by touching the paper that she had once touched too. It was like a little part of her was still living.

“She’s looking down on you, Kate,” Nat said.

And she was right – I could definitely feel her presence around me right then. It was like what Dad said – there was a sense of her whispering in the breeze around me.

Chapter 54

A few weeks later, Gran and Aoife were settling well into Dad’s house. They had a routine worked out and Seán, Patrick and Luisa took turns to help out. The health board had approved a home help for a few hours each day too. Gran’s speech, although still affected, was starting to improve but the power in her right arm never recovered. Aoife had installed Skype on Dad’s computer and I called them on it after work every evening. They were all delighted when I told them that I had found the letter and we laughed together that I had to buy back my own handbag.

The bell tinkled and I looked up to see the man who had been acting strangely at Nat’s exhibition come in through the door again. He shook the rain off his umbrella before folding it down. He nodded in acknowledgement to us before heading upstairs. He was starting to make me nervous.

“Oh my God, what is he doing here again?” Nat said.

“I’m starting to think that he has a screw loose. What do you think he wants?” I whispered as I observed him over the balcony.

“I don’t know but he’s really freaking me out!” she hissed.

He came back down the stairs a while later and walked over towards me. Nat was in the storeroom out the back, looking for a frame. I felt myself tense up.

“Does she have any more?” He opened his satchel and took out the photo of the woman on the bench that he had bought a few weeks ago.

“Yes, there’s some more of her work upstairs,” I said, confused. He was after spending the best part of thirty minutes staring at it all.

“No, I mean more photos of this woman.”

“Okay, well, I’ll just go and check with the photographer.” This was such a strange request. He was really creeping me out. I left him standing there and went out the back to Nat. She was bent over, pulling out frames and examining them.

“Nat, strange one for you – that man wants to know if you have any more photos of this woman?”

“The woman? What, is he stalking her or something? I’ll have to check through the shots from that day.”

She followed me back out to the front.

“If you just want to hang on for a minute, I’ll check through the other photos from that day,” she said to him.

“Thank you,” he said.

He stood at the desk while Nat clicked through files on the computer. She brought him around behind her, to show him what she had. “I just have a few more of the same shot, I’m afraid.” In one the woman’s eyes were closed, caught mid-blink. “Sorry, that’s all I have.”

“Can you check what date they were taken on?”

“Okay . . . em . . . hang on a sec and I’ll see . . .” She clicked on the photos. “March third last. Look, do you know her or something?”

“She’s my sister.”

“Oh, I see. Well, I hope she likes the photo.” I could hear the nervousness in Nat’s voice.

“She died last month.”

We both stopped what we were doing and looked up at him.

Nat’s hands flew towards her mouth. “Oh God, I’m so sorry – I’m so, so sorry. I had no idea.”

“You weren’t to know.” I could hear the emotion in his voice, which threatened to break at any moment.

“Well, you are most welcome to have any of these other shots, if you’d like, although they’re all pretty much the same, I’m afraid.”

“Thanks. It’s the way you’ve shot her – she looks so beautiful, so pensive. She was a painter and she would often go to the park and sit there lost in her own world. Hours could pass her by and she wouldn’t feel it. Look at it . . .” He held the photo back for us to see. “She doesn’t even notice the birds around her feet.” He started to laugh then. “Even as a child her head was always stuck up in the clouds. You’ve captured everything that I loved about her in that photo.”

“How did she die?” Nat asked softly.

“A car accident on the M25. There was a pile-up in bad fog.” He lowered his voice. “She didn’t stand a chance.”

“I am truly sorry,” said Nat.

“She was only twenty-nine. The family, well . . . we’ve all taken it pretty badly actually.”

“I can only imagine.”

“That’s why, when I came in here and saw this picture, I just felt it was a sign, y’know, that she’s okay wherever she is out there . . .”

I of all people could relate to everything he was saying and I felt awful for misjudging him as some psychopathic weirdo when really he was just lost under a mountain of grief, trying to make sense of a needless tragedy like I had done for so long.

“Sorry, I never asked your names?”

“I’m Nat and this is Kate.”

“Well, it’s lovely to meet you,” he said, shaking our hands. “I’m Richard.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said, shaking his hand. “And I’m so sorry about your sister.”

“Thanks, Kate.” He turned to Nat. “Your work is really good, Nat, by the way – you’re very talented. I’m so grateful you took this picture – you will never know how much this means to me and my family.”

“I’m just glad it might give you all some small comfort.”

The next day a bouquet of sunflowers arrived for Nat with a note to say thank you. His name and number were scribbled on the bottom of the card. Nat called him to thank him and they chatted away easily on the phone. It turned out he had his own graphic-design business just up the street. They decided to meet for a coffee and I listened as they made arrangements.

“What?” Nat said at my smile when she had hung up the phone.

“I said nothing!” I put my hands up in mock defence.

“Yeah, well, it’s just a coffee.”

As I looked around the gallery walls that afternoon I couldn’t believe that it was almost time for me to finish up work. I was starting my maternity leave the following week and although I was counting down the days, it would still be weird not coming to work every day. But I wouldn’t miss standing on the Tube during rush-hour while people pretended not to notice that I was heavily pregnant so that they wouldn’t have to offer me their seat. And I wouldn’t miss traipsing up and down the gallery stairs any more either. I was going to miss Nat of course but I knew that we would see each other all the time anyway. We had found a temp to replace me, a young photography graduate who was looking to get some experience, so it had worked out well.

I had another hospital appointment at four o’clock so I kissed Nat goodbye before I left and walked on to meet Ben.

“I don’t think I have ever seen you look more beautiful,” Ben said as I came up towards him.

I reached up and gave him a kiss on the lips.

“Well, I must have looked really awful before I was pregnant then!”

“No, you really are radiant.”

“Oh here we go, the usual tell the pregnant woman she’s ‘glowing’ because you can’t think of anything else to say to her!”

“I never said ‘glowing’ – that’d be pushing it now.”

I punched him playfully on the arm and we strolled along with my arm looped through his.

We reached the hospital and climbed the steps to the antenatal unit. We sat in the waiting room waiting to be called in for our appointment. Finally I heard my name and we went into the darkened room, which was unnaturally warm from all the humming equipment. The sonographer performed a quick scan but the baby was too big to see all in one and now we could only get a view of different body parts: a leg, the top of the head or a foot.

“Okay, now look away if you don’t want to know the sex.”

I looked towards the door but Ben was still looking at the screen.

“Ben!” I said.

He dutifully turned away. “It’s killing me, Kate! Don’t worry, I couldn’t see anything anyway.”

“All looks good, guys – your baby certainly seems very happy in there. You’re having a textbook pregnancy.”

It was like getting a gold star for getting all my spellings right in the weekly spelling test but it always put a smile on my face to hear that Pip was happy. I know it sounds ridiculous but I often wondered if she was lonely in there – Ben laughed at me when I told him this. “Not everyone is like you, Kate,” he would say. “Some people don’t mind being on their own. Pip is happy growing away and doing his or her own thing until he or she is ready to come out into the big bad world.”

“It’s definitely a girl,” I said when we were outside of the room.

“Oooh, you’re very confident, Kate!”

“I’m telling you Ben – I just know she is.”

“Well, I take your girl and raise you a boy.”

“Well, we’ll see soon enough,” I said confidently.

“Well?” I said when Nat came back in the door a few days later after meeting Richard.

“It went well – we talked and talked. I could have stayed there for hours.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Well, I couldn’t leave you fronting the gallery all day on your own.”

“Of course you could have. Did he talk about his sister?”

“A little bit but it’s still quite raw – we have a lot of things in common actually.”

“Like what?”

“Well, The Catcher in the Rye is his favourite book too, we both love live gigs – and photography of course.”

I couldn’t help but think how suited they would be together.

“Are you going to see him again?”

She smiled. “Stop it, Kate! I’m not looking for anything right now and neither is he – he has just lost his sister.”

“Yeah, I suppose.” But there was a smile on her face all the same. Slowly my friend was returning.

Chapter 55

I strolled down the street on the crisp autumn morning. The sun was low in the sky and I had to put my sunglasses on to stop the glare. I was wearing my woollen winter coat and a scarlet beret but I could no longer close the coat across my huge bump. It was only September but it was a chilly morning that served to remind us that winter was on its way. I was on my way to yet another hospital check-up. I was now five days overdue and the hospital had me in every few days to keep an eye on Pip. This time Ben wasn’t able to come with me because there was an important staff meeting in the school that morning.

I had arranged to meet Nat in the deli close to Jensen’s first. She was going to nip out of work for half an hour to meet me. I went in and ordered a coffee.

“Oh, you’re not still here, are you, love?” The woman who had been telling me from twenty-weeks that I was ‘nearly there now’ looked at me pityingly.

I gritted my teeth. I took my coffee and sat down at a table to wait for Nat to arrive. She came in soon after and I was glad to see that she had put a little weight back on. After Will had left her, she had almost stopped eating and I had been worried about her but she looked a bit healthier today. She was wearing a huge green patterned scarf over a grey woollen dress with tan leather riding boots. She ordered a coffee and sat down opposite me and we chatted away.

“So how’s my replacement?”

“She’s nice but she’s no Kate Flynn.”

I’m ashamed to say that this made me feel good. “She has big shoes to fill.”

“She does.”

“So have you seen Richard since?” I tried to sound nonchalant.

“Well, we went to the Tate Modern last Saturday.”

“Fancy!”

“Yeah, I got some great snaps there.”

“I suppose it helps that he’s easy on the eye.”

“He is, isn’t he?” she said, smiling at me.

I was relieved that she seemed to be in good form and her SLR was back around her neck wherever she went. We chatted some more before hugging goodbye and then I headed on to the hospital.

“Your baby is very happy in there,” they said to me yet again after they had done a scan to check fluid levels.

I sighed. They had said the same thing to me last week and I had hoped it would have budged by now.

“Why don’t you go for a big long walk – sometimes that helps to kick-start things?”

I knew the midwife meant well but I had tried everything. I had never walked more in my life. I was exhausted – I felt I had done my part of the deal. I had carried this baby to term but it was like the goalposts had been moved out on me. As the days went on and the more overdue I became, it felt like an eternity. I was too big to go anywhere and I couldn’t go too far anyway in case labour started. I did not want to be out in public when my water went and make a scene. Ben had his phone glued to him just in case and he would ring me every hour on the hour to ask if there was “any news yet”. “No,” I would reply testily. All the well-meaning calls and texts from friends, my family and Ben’s family were beginning to get on my nerves. Even Gran was on my case when I talked to her on Skype in the evenings. I knew they were just excited but I wanted this baby out as much as any of them and if one more person suggested some other ‘guaranteed’ way to kick-start labour, I might just punch them.

Deflated, I came out the door of the hospital and just walked. I kept on going, feeling dozens of pitying eyes watching every step that I took. That made it all the worse. I was starting to feel very sorry for myself. I passed by the steps of St Paul’s and came up to a little park gate nestled amongst all the offices. I was tired so I decided to go in and sit down in there for a while. Although tall buildings loomed overhead, once inside the gate it was like a tranquil oasis. The noise of the city instantly quietened, replaced instead with birdsong ringing clear on the air. That is another one of the things that I love about London: whenever you need a break from the madness – you are never too far from a park. You can escape the hustle and bustle in seconds, making you forget you were in the thick of one of the world’s busiest cities. I walked around by the small fountain with its giant goldfish. A grey squirrel ran out in front of my path and scooted up into a nearby tree.

I noticed some people standing under a wooden awning so I walked over to have a look. The wall underneath the canopy was covered in small ceramic plaques, all with blue-and-green fonts on cream backgrounds. One by one, I started to read them.

HENRY JAMES BRISTOW AGED EIGHT – AT WALTHAMSTOW ON DECEMBER 30 1890 – SAVED HIS LITTLE SISTER’S LIFE BY TEARING OFF HER FLAMING CLOTHES BUT CAUGHT FIRE HIMSELF AND DIED OF BURNS AND SHOCK.

FREDERICK ALFRED CROFT, INSPECTOR, AGED 31, WHO IN 1878 ATTEMPTED TO SAVE A LUNATIC WOMAN FROM SUICIDE AT WOOLWICH ARSENAL STATION BUT WAS HIMSELF RUN OVER BY THE TRAIN.

Another was more recently erected:

LEIGH PITT, REPROGRAPHIC OPERATOR, AGED 30, SAVED A DROWNING BOY FROM THE CANAL AT THAMESMEAD, BUT SADLY WAS UNABLE TO SAVE HIMSELF, JUNE 7 2007.

Entranced, I kept reading one after the other: people who had drowned saving others from canals or the Thames, people who had sacrificed their own lives to save people from burning buildings and train wreck.

I read the information post. It was a memorial to heroic self-sacrifice and all the plaques were erected in memory of someone who had died while heroically trying to save the lives of others.

Plaque after plaque told another heartbreaking story, each with an ending just as sad. Tears came into my eyes. All were courageous people who had put another person’s life before their own, just like Mam had.

I took a seat on a nearby bench and put my hands across my bump and felt Pip stretching out a leg or an arm, I wasn’t sure which. I tried to imagine how I would feel if I was told that I had cancer while I was pregnant with Pip – how would I feel having to make the same decisions as her, knowing that my baby’s fate was in my hands? And at a time when surgical methods wouldn’t have been as advanced and specific as they are today? Maybe I had been too harsh on her, too quick to judge her without really trying to see it from her point of view? Maybe it wasn’t as black and white as I was used to thinking and she wasn’t being selfish, just trying to do what she thought was her best in unfortunate circumstances.

I wondered if she had led me here.

I told Ben about it all when he came in from school.

“Yeah, I remember learning about that place in school . . . what’s it called . . . Postman’s Park, isn’t it?”

“Why is it called that?”

“The General Post Office used to be nearby and the postmen would sit out there on their lunch-breaks. God, I’m wrecked.” He sat wearily down on the sofa.

“Eh, in case you’ve forgotten, you’re not carrying another human around in your stomach.”

“That baby is going to need an eviction order – do you hear that, Pip?” He bent down and spoke to my bump. “We’re serving notice that you have to vacate your home – there are people out here waiting to meet you.”

“She’s not listening.”

“Or he.”

“It’s a she.”

“Well, he or she takes after their mother – already showing signs of stubbornness.”

“Oi, less of that, cheeky!” Then I sighed. “When is she going to come out, Ben?”

“When she is good and ready.”

“But I feel like I’ve been waiting for forever to meet her.”

“Look, she’ll be here in a matter of days and then you won’t remember any of this.”

“I’m not so sure. Oh God, Ben, what if I’m a rubbish mum?” And tears that I don’t know where they came from started up. My hormones had gone into overdrive over the last few days.

“You’re going to be great, I just know you are.”

“But I don’t know any nursery rhymes or fairytales.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“I don’t know – but I don’t even remember the words to ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ or how The Three Little Pigs ends!” I wailed. “I’m going to be useless. I need Mam. I miss her.”

“Kate, you’re just starting to get nervous, it’s only natural. It’s a big step becoming a parent.”

“I just don’t know if I’m going to be any good at the motherhood lark.”

“You’re going to be just fine, Kate. I know you will. The fact that you’re even worrying about it shows that you will be.” Ben put his arms around me. “And you’ve got me too – we’ll get through it all together and, besides, I know the ending to The Three Little Pigs.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, the pigs get the wolf in the end.”

“They do? Well, good for them. I like a happy ending.”

Baby Pip entered the world exactly eight days late and I instantly forgave her for her late arrival. When the midwives in the hospital told me it was a girl, I said, “I know.” Ben and I were overawed by how perfect she was. He was a natural with her and helped the midwives give her her first bath and I knew they had already formed a bond. It was surreal to see him cradling her on his chest while I sat back on the bed taking the scene in.

“Happy birthday, baby girl,” he whispered to her. “You have a perfect blank canvas on which to paint.” And I thought that I might just burst with love looking at the two of them.

Chapter 56

I rang home to tell Dad that she had arrived. When I told him that we would like to call her Eva, he had cried down the phone. He put Gran on the phone and her speech, although still not as clear as it once was, had improved a lot. He passed me to Aoife then and we had an emotional phone call too. It was nice to have my family back in my life again, especially to share something like this.

Ben’s mum had driven up to see us the day after I came home from hospital. She was so excited and I watched her as she held her first grandchild with tears in her eyes. Geoff didn’t come. No one mentioned it though. It wasn’t a big surprise but I knew that Ben was disappointed, as was Edwina. I think they both thought that the arrival of Eva, as the start of the next generation of the Chamberlain family, would have been the catalyst to thaw the frost between them.

Although we were managing surprisingly well, Edwina was going to stay for a few days to give us a hand. I was glad to have her there in case I had questions to ask – questions that you might normally ask your own mother.

Ben’s sister Laura took the train down from Manchester a few days later.

“Congratulations, you guys!” She hugged us and then Edwina. “So where is my new niece?” she asked giddily.

I brought her over to the Moses basket where Eva was sound asleep. That was one thing – she slept a lot. I knew it was a good complaint to have but sometimes I would hover beside her crib just to make sure that she was still breathing. She was lying back with her hands clenched in little fists at either side of her head.

“Oh my God – she is just so beautiful!” There were tears in her eyes. “You guys are so lucky.”

“Thanks, Laura.”

“So when does she wake up so I can get a hold?”

“I’ll be due to feed her soon.”

“Are you breastfeeding, Kate?”

“Yep, it’s like Cravendale Dairies here.”

We sat down on the sofa and Ben made the coffee for everyone.

Eva started to stir then and Laura rushed over to her.

“Can I pick her up?” she asked me excitedly.

“Of course you can.”

“Come here, little one.” She delicately lifted Eva out from her basket and sat back onto the sofa with her in her arms. “Oh, she is just divine! I’m Auntie Laura. Yes, I am. And I’m going to spoil you rotten and let you do all the things that your mummy and daddy won’t let you do, isn’t that right, little lady?”

“Don’t worry, we’ll get our own back when you have kids of your own,” I said.

“I want one of these!” She was stroking Eva’s silky hair.

“Well, you’ll have to get Tim Templeton on the case then.”

Laura looked thoughtful at this. “By the way, why isn’t Dad here?”

No one answered her.

“Would anyone like another coffee?” Ben asked.

“Go on, I’ll have another cup,” Laura said. “That muck they serve on the train really shouldn’t be allowed to be called coffee under the fair trade descriptions act. I must complain – I think I’d have a pretty strong case.”

Ben got up, walked over to the kitchen and flicked the switch on the kettle. He took down four clean mugs and opened the fridge to take out the milk again.

“Damn! We’re almost out of milk!” he called from the kitchen. “I’ll just run down to the shop.”

We were lucky there was a corner shop just up the street from us. It sold one of everything, whatever you needed – you were guaranteed to find it in the shop and if they didn’t have it on the shelf, they definitely would have it in the stock room out the back.

“So Dad is still being pig-headed I take it then?” Laura asked me as soon as Ben was gone out the door. “I thought Ben was going to have a fit when I asked where he was. When is he going to stop giving him a hard time about being a teacher?”

“I ask myself the same question every day,” Edwina sighed resignedly.

“I think Ben’s a little disappointed that under the circumstances he couldn’t just let it go and come and meet his granddaughter,” I said.

“Well, Geoff Chamberlain is a very thick man,” Edwina said. “He will not just swallow his pride and apologise to Ben.”

“I can’t believe what a cantankerous old fool he is being! Well, it’s his loss – if he wants to miss out on this gorgeous little pudding then so be it.” Laura was cradling Eva up against her shoulder.

Motherhood was insane – I actually missed her already. I was jealous of Laura holding her in her arms and I wanted her back in mine again.

“But I know it kills him that he still hasn’t seen his first grandchild,” Edwina said.

“Do you think?” I asked.

“He’s not completely made of stone, you know. I know he wants to meet Eva – I can see that he is thrilled to be a grandfather – he just doesn’t show it in the conventional way.”

“He is such a dinosaur,” Laura said angrily. “Well, his stubbornness is going to be the ruination of him – he’s going to miss out on all of this if he doesn’t learn to move on and let bygones be bygones.”

“I’ve tried talking to him but he just won’t listen to me. I’m wasting my breath at this stage.”

Ben returned a few minutes later with a litre of milk and we all quickly changed the subject again.

Chapter 57

After Edwina and Laura had gone home we were left on our own as a family. We were settling well into parenthood but no one could have prepared us for how we would feel about her. She literally was the best thing to ever happen to either of us. Everyone tells you before you have a baby how amazing and special it is but I don’t think you can really understand it until your bundle arrives and then . . . well, it is the best bloody feeling in the world. I could spend hours just staring at her and snuggling her neck, the feeling of the silkiness of her skin under my fingertips. I could plant a thousand kisses on her head every day for the rest of her life and it still wouldn’t be enough – I would always want to give her another one.

I would often ask Ben what was it we did before Eva arrived. We must have spent so much time just doing nothing and not appreciating the free time when we had it because now there was always something to be done. I would get up to put on a load of washing and then get distracted by ten other jobs that needed to be done along the way. As soon as we brought her home from hospital it became obvious that our flat was way too small. It was already cramped before when it was just the two of us and now there wasn’t the space for all of us, let alone the amount of stuff that came with Eva. Plus the washing was a nightmare. I had a clotheshorse stuffed into our bedroom and every radiator in the place was taken over with tiny babygros and vests. We needed somewhere with a small garden where we could hang out laundry and where Eva could play when she got a bit bigger. We had started house hunting but, although the property market had supposedly taken a nosedive, prices were still far beyond our reach. At this rate, we would have to move out to the countryside but, as we both worked in central London, we didn’t fancy long commutes. Especially with Eva – we didn’t want to have to leave her for long days in childcare. Plus, as Ben had pointed out, what we might save on the cost of the house, we would be spending on train fares in the long run. So we kept on living as frugally as we could and saving every penny we could manage to put away.

Nat was great with Eva. She would take her off out for a walk and let me go back to bed for an hour or she would call over and cook dinner for Ben and me. She had given me a framed picture she had taken of me staring down at Eva as she slept in my arms. I hadn’t even seen her taking it but she had somehow managed to capture exactly my feelings for this wondrous little person. I knew it would always be one of my most treasured possessions. She was doing well and was slowly coming round to the Nat that I knew. Things were going well between her and Richard – they were taking it very slowly and getting to know each other properly. The romantic in me loved the fact that her photo had brought them together and that his sister, although no longer still with us, had led them to one another. They came into each other’s lives when they were both at a low ebb and needed someone. For me it was another sign that our loved ones who had gone before us were definitely somewhere out there watching over us.

We were just clearing up after dinner one evening when Ben’s phone rang. He answered it and I knew by his tone that he was uncomfortable talking to whoever it was. He was giving yes and no answers before he got up from the sofa and went out of the room and finished the rest of the conversation out in the hall.

“Who was that?” I said when he came back in.

“Dad.”

“What did he want?” I lowered the volume on the TV with the remote.

“He says that he’s in the area and he wants to stop by and see Eva.”

“Well, I hope you told him where to go?”

“Eh no, not quite . . .”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s on his way over here now.”

“Dear God, no.” I wasn’t in the mood for a confrontation or his snide and cutting remarks.

I’m sure he’d have plenty to say about our flat and the area that we lived in. He had never come to visit us before. I hopped up and started tidying up, picking my breast pump off the side of the sofa and stuffing it into a press in the kitchen, gathering up muslins belonging to Eva, folding newspapers and fluffing cushions. I hated the way Ben’s father had this effect on me.

The buzzer went a few minutes later. Ben went out to let him in.

A few moments later he followed Ben into the living room. He was dressed in a long navy woollen overcoat and had a yellow-and-grey striped scarf wound around his neck several times. He was wearing a suit underneath so he was obviously in London on business. He was carrying a bunch of lilies.

“Kate,” he said, giving me a kiss on the cheek.

“Geoff.”

He handed me the flowers. I took them from him. I noticed that the petals were starting to brown at the tips. He’d obviously picked them up hurriedly.

“Thanks.”

“My car – it will be all right out there, won’t it?”

“Well, we’ve never had any trouble in the four years we’ve been living here,” I said tersely.

“Yes . . . I suppose it will be okay.”

But I knew he was still nervous about it.

“Would you like to see Eva?”

“Please.” He was being very polite now that he was on our patch.

Ben led him over to the Moses basket. He peered in over the top and put a hand in to touch her little hand.

“I’d forgotten how small they are. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a newborn.”

“Well, we think she’s got really big in the last two weeks,” I said, emphasising the ‘two weeks’.

“She is very beautiful – just like her mother.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled, embarrassed by the unexpected compliment.

“I’m sure everyone is telling you to enjoy her – it goes by all too quickly,” he said wistfully.

I looked at Ben – he seemed to be as shocked as I was by the uncharacteristic emotion in his father’s voice.

Ben excused himself to make the coffee.

“So were you working down this way today then?” I asked, making conversation.

“Yes, I was in the Supreme Court all day – the Blanchford extradition case – you’ve probably seen it on the news?”

I hadn’t. I barely had time to go to the loo these days let alone keep abreast of London’s legal scene. We lapsed into awkward silence then until Ben came back. I was relieved. I had nothing to say to the man and I was still so angry after the last time.

“How’s school, Ben?”

“Great.”

“That’s good.”

I was waiting for the belittling remark but it didn’t come.

“And I presume you’ll be off for a few months, Kate?”

“Yes, I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to leave her though to go back.” I looked towards the wicker basket.

If he thought of making a comment about being able to afford to stay at home if Ben had pursued a career in law, he didn’t. He kept his mouth shut even though it probably killed him. I could imagine the words all piling up and crashing against his clenched teeth as they came up his throat.

We chitchatted awkwardly for a while longer before Geoff said that he had better start making tracks back to Surrey before Edwina sent a search party out for him. I stood up straight away as soon as he went to leave. I was eager to have him gone and have the atmosphere returned back to normal again. I wasn’t into Feng Shui or any of that kind of hocus-pocus stuff but I was pretty sure that if there was such a thing, then Geoff’s visit had knocked it completely off balance. We kissed goodbye and Ben saw him out into the hall.

Eva was just starting to stir, her tiny mouth making little sucking motions, so I took her up to feed her. I could hear Ben and Geoff talking in the hallway.

“Look, before I go . . .” Geoff cleared his throat nosily in a way that made me want to get sick, “I think I owe you an apology – my behaviour on your last trip home was out of order. Your mother is still very angry with me . . . and rightly so.”

“It’s okay,” I could hear Ben mumbling.

“I can see you’re clearly very happy and why wouldn’t you be? Don’t you have a beautiful girlfriend and a darling baby daughter? To be honest, Ben, I’ve probably always been a bit jealous of your courage to go and follow your dreams.”

“But why would you be jealous of me?”

“Well, believe it or not, I always wanted to play rugby – I was good at it too. Who knows, maybe if I had committed to it, I could have gone all the way . . . but it didn’t go down too well arriving into a courtroom with a black eye or bandaged hand so my father said that I had to give it up altogether. I was upset at the time but he had my best interests at heart, I suppose . . .”

“I never knew that.”

“That’s life, son.”

“Well, thank you, Dad . . . it really means a lot to hear you say that.”

“Well, I’m sorry it has taken me this long to say it. Don’t make the same mistakes I did, Ben – if anything good is to come out of this, learn from my mistakes. Be there to enjoy your children when they are small – it goes by in the blink of an eye. I was always working when you and Laura were little and I wish I had kicked back a little more – the world wouldn’t have ended if I had taken a half-day to watch you in the school play or gone to your school sports day. Let little Eva do whatever makes her happy.” Then he laughed. “And, of course, if she wants to follow in the family tradition of law then I will welcome her with open arms!”

Ben chuckled. “Well, we’ll just have to wait and see . . .”

There was a small pause. “Look, I don’t want to speak out of turn and please tell me if I am, but well . . . I can’t help but notice how tight for space you are here.”

“We manage,” Ben said tersely.

I felt myself tense up again. I really hoped Geoff wasn’t just about to undo his apology with another below-the-belt dig at Ben.

“Of course you do. You mother said that you and Kate are saving to buy your own place. I promise I’m not trying to stick my nose into your affairs but as you know I have a rather large property portfolio around the city and most of it is mortgage-free at this stage. I can talk to my agent and see if any of the leases are due to expire soon. You wouldn’t have to pay any rent and it would help you save faster to buy your own place. If you like . . . I mean there’s no pressure . . . I know I can never undo the past but it would be my way of attempting to make a proper go of it this time for little Eva’s sake.”

I was stunned.

“Well, thanks, Dad, I’ll talk to Kate.”

They said goodbye then and I heard Ben shut the front door.

“Wow!” I said when he came back in. “Did I just hear what I think I heard?”

“The man apologised, he actually apologised. I’m glad you heard it too or no one would ever believe me. Did you hear him offer us one of his houses too?”

I nodded.

“What do you think?”

“Well, if he’s offering then why not? It makes sense. I mean, we’re cramped here and it would mean we’re not wasting any more money on rent.”

“Okay, well, I’ll talk to him and see what he has.”

“Do you reckon Laura had a word with him?”

“Maybe. But I think becoming a grandfather has made him see what really matters.”

“Well, I’m glad, Ben, I’m really glad for both you and for Eva.”

Ben lifted Eva out of my arms. “Do you hear that, little one? You’re only two weeks old and you have already managed to thaw your old grandfather’s heart! You see, you already have the men in your life wrapped around your little finger!”