Rob Flanagan looked out across Dublin Bay. From the bay window of the sitting room of the large Georgian house on Clifton Terrace where he lived he could see the magnificent spread of water that ran between Dun Laoghaire Harbour and Howth Head. There was a strong breeze blowing, and he watched as the sails of the yachts caught the wind and gathered pace, skimming lightly as they raced each other. In the distance the large Seacat ferry, bringing passengers and cars from Holyhead in Wales to Dublin, slowed as it approached Dun Laoghaire Harbour. He sighed to himself, watching the constant flow of traffic below and the groups of people walking along the seafront. Mothers and fathers with strollers, elderly couples, joggers in tracksuits, young lovers hand in hand. Nowadays he seemed to spend hours up here, people watching, wondering what was going on in the lives of others instead of trying to get on with his own. It was still too painful … too raw; and today, like some days, he didn’t see how his life could ever return to a semblance of normality and happiness again. When Kate had died, it had felt as if part of his life had ended too.
The large sitting room was full of family photos in polished silver frames. A family photographic history displayed for all to see. Their wedding, their silver wedding anniversary. Proud young parents with new baby sons; birthday parties for their two boys; first communions; graduations; holidays in Donegal and Spain and Florida; and one of those expensive family portraits with them all wearing pale blue and trying to pretend that they weren’t posing, Kate laughing at the fun of it all as they stared at the camera. That happiness caught for ever. He touched her face through the glass. She’s beautiful, he thought … was beautiful. He searched his memory, trying to recall the last time he’d told her … actually said to his wife that she looked beautiful. To his shame he couldn’t remember. He must have said it last year when they were going to his sister Brigid’s son’s wedding in Wicklow. He surely had admired Kate’s outfit, at the very least. All the things he could have said to her, should have said to her … to let her know just how much she meant to him, and he had never bothered … never taken the time to talk to her, to talk to his wife. Now the time had gone, all run out, and it was too late. Too much had been left unsaid.
Downstairs in the kitchen he made himself a mug of coffee and toasted a slice of bread. He was almost out of the rich roast blend he liked, and there was hardly any milk left, either.
Pull yourself together! he told himself. Go out and do something! Grabbing his car keys he decided to head for his local supermarket. He needed to stock up on a few things.
Rob stood in the aisle of Supervalu utterly bewildered, his trolley in front of him. Shopping should be simple, the purchase of essential nutrients and cleaning products easily accomplished; but standing here, trying to avoid colliding with his fellow shoppers, he had to admit he felt totally out of his depth.
Kate had shopped here weekly, year in, year out, without complaint or fuss. He’d never given the slightest consideration to her purchases, and their connection to the daily meals and good food she produced and the seamless smooth running of their home. He might have helped her the odd time to lift the boxes and bags from the car and pack them away in their kitchen, but choosing what they should eat had always been his wife’s prerogative.
Kate used to consult him if they were having a dinner party or a crowd for supper, about the menu or wines, but otherwise the pleasure of sitting down to the table to a good hot meal was something he had just taken for granted. He studied the rows of tins of tuna, trying to recall which brand they had used. Usually Kate had opened the tin and put the fish in a salad, or made a toasty tuna melt.
Ahead of him there was tuna in brine, tuna in sunflower oil, tuna in water, tuna in mayonnaise, tuna in a tomato sauce, tuna with pasta, tuna with curry, tuna chunks, tuna flakes. Tuna was a minefield … He had no idea which one to buy, so he grabbed four different tins and threw them in the trolley. He stood for a second, overcome, trying to control himself, missing Kate. He would never get used to this aloneness, this absence. It had been nearly five months since she had died. Everyone kept saying it would get easier but it hadn’t. If anything her death was affecting him more acutely with each day that passed.
How did a woman of fifty-nine just die? No illness, no health risks, no strange medical history. Leave home to buy a dress for a friend’s daughter’s wedding and end up collapsing and being rushed by ambulance to hospital. An aneurysm, the post-mortem had said … a balloon that grew and grew in her brain and just suddenly burst as Kate paid for the expensive silk two-piece. No pain, no consciousness, the medics had reassured him. Alive one minute, warm and breathing. Lifeless and still, by the time he had got to St James’s Hospital. He didn’t want to think about it. Like Groundhog Day it replayed and replayed in his head, continually on a loop. He kept wondering if he had gone into town with Kate, or if she had stayed home, or gone with a friend, would the outcome have been any different?
He took up a can of organic ratatouille, studying the ingredients as if his life depended on it before slowly lowering it into the trolley. He consulted the list he had made: coffee, milk, bread, butter, marmalade, soup, cereal, sausages, cheese, apples, toilet paper, washing powder, shower gel and shampoo. There had to be more he needed. What about a nice bit of brie or the West Cork cheese that the girl on the delicatessen counter offered him to sample on a cracker with a small blob of quince? Different … he liked it.
‘Where are the crackers?’ he asked. The pretty dark-haired girl pointed him to the far aisle. Recognizing his favourite brand, Rob grabbed them and also a packet of fancy biscuits with cracked black pepper flavouring. Up at the busy meat counter at the back of the shop he picked out two large pork chops and a piece of steak before going to the cold section and stocking up on some frozen pizza and five microwaveable dinners. He added some potato wedges and potato gratin, easily reheated judging by the instructions. As he pushed the trolley towards the checkout he chose a tub of ice cream, six doughnuts and some Cadbury’s chocolate. He deliberated at the drinks section, opting for a bottle of a decent looking Burgundy and adding a twelve-pack of Heineken cans.
A harried mother whose toddler was sitting in the trolley in front of him piled enough groceries to feed an army on to the moving belt. Meanwhile, the toddler, angel face smudged with chocolate, turned her attention to nibbling the tip of the crusty baguette in her mother’s trolley.
‘She’s so pretty.’ The blonde student operating the checkout smiled.
The mother was pretty, too, in a messy unkempt kind of way. Tracksuit bottoms and a zip-up fleece-lined fitted pink jacket. She smiled at Rob as she pretended to chastise her tow-headed daughter. Instead, she gave her a kiss as she bent over to pay and punched her credit card number into the keypad.
Kate had always wanted a daughter, well, for them to have a third child. He’d been happy with their two boys, Gavin and Luke, two great sons! They were good kids, never caused them trouble: bright and strong and happy, independent and grown-up now, Gavin working in Seattle, and Luke doing his master’s at Oxford. A third child might have unbalanced things … another son? A daughter who looked like Kate? Pretty and dark with those blue eyes and her mother’s dimples! They had argued about it. Two is enough, he had insisted, persuading Kate to put motherhood aside and agree with him.
He flinched when he saw the cost of his groceries, aware of the irritated expression of the middle-aged woman behind him in the queue. Flustered, he finished packing his bags and tried to manoeuvre the trolley towards the busy exit.
At home, he contemplated his purchases, cutting himself a wedge of cheese and opening the peppered biscuits for lunch. He hated Saturdays. He’d read the paper, have two mugs of coffee and some chocolate, and then go out for a walk. It was overcast, but if he was lucky he might escape the threatened showers. He’d take a rain jacket and head over towards Killiney. Walk for a few hours and then come home and cook those chops.
His brother Johnny had left a message on his phone to say himself and his wife Maeve were going to Finnegans in Dalkey for a few drinks later if he wanted to join them. Johnny and Maeve had given him stalwart support since Kate had died, but he couldn’t keep living in their pockets. He’d had so many dinners in their house it was embarrassing, and generous-spirited Maeve always sent him home with something for the freezer. He texted Johnny saying that he’d see how he felt later.
Kate and he had loved Saturdays: dinners and drinks, meeting up with friends or having people in; lying in bed the next morning with the Sunday newspapers doing a post-mortem on the restaurant they had visited, or how the meal had gone, and chatting about stupid things, planning for the future. They’d been going to have a trip to California in May, spending a few days staying with Gavin and that American girlfriend of his, Joanne, and then hiring a car and driving down the Pacific Highway, Monterey, Carmel, San Francisco, San Diego. There were so many other things they had planned to do: Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, South America! Why hadn’t they done some of it? Why had they put it off for another few years? Why had he made her wait?
Kate had looked disappointed when he had told her that perhaps it would be better to wait until he was retired in three or four years’ time to do the big trips.
‘Sydney Harbour and the Barrier Reef will still be there, Kate! Table Mountain is not going anywhere.’
‘Well, retirement or not, we are going to see Gavin soon,’ she had insisted, booking the tickets herself over the internet. ‘I want to see my son.’
He thought about Gavin and Luke now, about phoning them from the hospital to tell them to come home immediately, lying and saying that their mother was ill and needed them. How could he let them go through the torment of knowing that they would never see her again until he had them back on their home ground, here in Dublin?
The boys had stayed home for two weeks while the funeral took place. Rob was glad of their support and love, and realized what wonderful young men he and Kate had raised. He wished Kate had got the chance to meet Joanne Miller, the tall blonde American with the long legs, sparkling teeth, a big, kind heart and intelligent mind that their eldest son had fallen in love with. She had flown over to Ireland for four days, holding Gavin’s hand, making endless pots of coffee and sitting up late listening to stories about a woman she had never met, before having to return to work back in Seattle when the funeral was over.
The boys had adored their mother, and Rob had firmly rejected any talk about either of them coming back home to stay with him. Kate would have wanted them to continue with their careers and studies.
‘There’s no question of coming back here for the moment,’ he’d insisted. ‘There is far more opportunity for both of you overseas. Your mother and I knew that. She’d turn in her grave if either of you threw up the chances you’ve been given and came back just to keep me company. I’ve Johnny and Maeve and the rest of the family, plus all my buddies. They’ve been great, not to mention your mother’s friends, who’ve been flapping around the house like a load of hens. Anyway, I’m well able to manage on my own,’ he’d assured them.
He’d driven them to the airport, the wrench as they said goodbye in Dublin’s new busy air terminal harder than he could have imagined. He’d sat in the car park for an hour afterwards, too upset to drive back home.
All the groceries packed away and his lunch finished, Rob pulled on his jacket and some walking shoes and called Bingo, their ten-year-old Labrador. The dog looked up from his red basket in the corner of the kitchen. Even he missed Kate.
‘Here, boy, time for a walk,’ Rob said, heading for the Volvo Estate parked in the driveway. Bingo lumbered along behind him and jumped into the rear seat. ‘It’s just you and me, Bingo,’ Rob said, as he slipped the car into reverse and took off for the rest of the afternoon.