Together Forever

by Siân O'Gorman

  ‘I’m not saying that,’ she said, ‘but it’s about the popular vote, isn’t it? She’s going to win that easily.’ See, a politician’s child always thinks about things like this.

  ‘Sometimes you have to make difficult decisions,’ I said. ‘It would be much easier to spend one’s life at protests and saying no to everything. Try doing a nine-to-five job and have two hundred parents breathing down your neck every day. I know I’m the Dalkey equivalent of Amazonian loggers destroying the rainforest. I wouldn’t be surprised if your grandmother invited Sting down to sing about trees and squirrels.’

  Rosie laughed.

  ‘You’re on her side,’ I teased, pleased to hear her lovely laugh again. ‘Oh, I see where your loyalties lie.’

  ‘I’m on yours, obviously,’ she insisted. ‘But I can also see Granny’s point.’

  I thought back to Red and Mary’s duet earlier. ‘Or Johnny Logan. He might be cheaper than Sting. Although I don’t think Johnny sings much about tree felling and environmental destruction.’

  ‘Johnny who? What are you going on about?’

  ‘Nothing.’ But I smiled, thinking of the two of them. Red always brought out the best in people. Long ago, I would have been singing along with him, not being the pursed-lip buzzkill.

  ‘The problem is,’ I said, ‘but don’t tell anyone, okay, but I see her point too. But it’s bloody infuriating that she’s doing this. I need to make the decision about whether to sell the land or not without the pressure of a protest outside the school gates. It might be a very good idea to sell it. We can create another wildlife area. But she’s not giving me the space to make this decision.’

  ‘They won’t be there much longer,’ she assured me. ‘They’ll find something else to protest against.’

  ‘Shhh… there’s Bridget.’ I waved a hand to shush her.

  ‘Thanks, Clodagh, a-may-zing.’ Bridget was looking particularly sexy this evening, wearing a dress which was skin-tight with one long zip from the top to the bottom which she had pulled tantalisingly low around her cleavage. ‘So, how’s it going with you, everyone?’ She looked straight down the camera. ‘Hope you’re all nice and comfortable, I know I am. Let’s see what the weather was like around the country…’

  We watched as she spoke about rain in Donegal, strong winds on the Aran Islands, scorching sun in Co Kerry and intermittent showers on the East Coast. Just another day of perplexing Irish weather. ‘And now back to Clodagh… over to you Clodes!’

  ‘Thank you… er, Bridget. And finally,’ said Clodagh, her face a mask of professionalism, ‘a local County Dublin school has found itself embroiled in an interesting domestic drama. Head teacher Tabitha Thomas of Star of the Sea primary in Dalkey, Co Dublin, had to confront a group of protestors who have vowed to protect a plot of land which the school wishes to sell to raise money. The protestors claim that the plot contains ancient oak trees, as well as being the habitat of birds and squirrels. And one of the protestors is the mother of the head teacher, Tabitha Thomas, herself. Our reporter Barry Whelan headed down to Dalkey to find out what was behind this unusual mother-daughter scrap…’

  And there was Nora, speaking brilliantly about the importance of standing up for those things that would otherwise remain undefended. She was sorry that I was involved, but she was compelled to act in this case. Nellie, Arthur, Robbo and Leaf, all had their turn and were entirely sympathetic and convincing. And then there was me, at a weird angle, looking as though I was looming at the camera. My eyes kept flickering to one side (towards Mary), which made me appear slightly shifty and untrustworthy.

  ‘Not one of my best professional moments,’ I said to Rosie after we had both sat there in stunned silence for a few moments.

  Chapter Eleven

  Dun Laoghaire has two piers which reach into the sea in two curves forming an almost complete circle. And it’s along their limestone flags, either on the West or the East pier, most of south county Dublin stretch their legs. And it was where I went when I needed to clear my head. The sale of the Copse was bothering me, the money seeming less and less important as different issues clouded what I had once thought an obvious and simple issue.

  The pier was full that summer evening, dog walkers, couples, small children on trikes weaving precariously close to the edge as we made our way to the lighthouse and back again. But just as I reached the bandstand, halfway along, I saw Red with his dad; the two of them, like everyone else, taking an evening stroll in the pink-tinged dusk.

  For a moment, I panicked. It was one thing dealing with Red every day; we’d transcended awkwardness and were easing into a grey area of not friends but not acquaintances. But Christy was different. I’d let him down as well, rejecting him when I ghosted Red. I’d managed to avoid Christy all these years, our paths and worlds never colliding. Until now.

  I thought I might get away with pretending I hadn’t noticed them, but Red saw me and said something to Christy, who looked up, bright-eyed, like an elderly meerkat. And I had no choice but to lift my hand in a wave and they both waved back. There was nothing for it but to go over. I felt a burning shame at my cowardice but also a loss for these two good men. My life, I realised, had been poorer without them.

  ‘Hello Tab,’ said Red. ‘Lovely evening.’

  ‘Yes it is,’ I said and leaned towards Christy and kissed him on the cheek.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ he said. ‘Where have you been hiding, Tabitha?’ He peered at me, wonderingly, as though I was some great unsolved mystery. ‘Now you’re a sight for my old eyes. We haven’t seen you in some years. And you’re looking all the better for it. Red told me he was teaching in your school.’

  ‘Hello Christy,’ I said, ‘nice to see you too. After all this time… and Red, lovely evening.’ I smiled at them both without actually making eye contact.

  ‘Red insisted we came down,’ said Christy, the same eyes as Red, I remembered, and the same smile. ‘Says I’ve been stuck inside so much, twiddling the old thumbs. I don’t come down to the pier. I like to shuffle about the town instead.’

  ‘How are you feeling? Red told me you’d been ill.’

  ‘Still kicking. It’ll take more than a stroke to knock me over. Like an ancient oak, I am. But then this fella here turns up…’ he nodded at Red, ‘…as though I’m on my way out. So I says to him there was no need, no need at all, but he insists on sticking around.’ He looked at Red affectionately. ‘Who’d have thought it?’ went on Christy. ‘You two in the same school.’

  ‘I know, small world, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s only to the end of term, though,’ said Red, as though he didn’t want to give Christy any ideas of a great reunion. ‘It’s been… nice seeing Tab again.’

  ‘Well, it must be!’ said Christy. ‘Lovely girl like Tabitha. Head teacher at the school. I’ve been following your progress, young lady. And married. To Michael Fogarty. Well, I didn’t see that coming… but maybe there’s more to him than the stuffed shirt.’

  For a moment, I wanted to laugh. Trust Christy to cut straight through the awkwardness and put everything out there. But Red looked annoyed.

  ‘Dad…’ he warned.

  ‘What? Statement of fact, is it not. Tabitha, statement of fact?’

  I nodded. ‘No, that is true.’ But I wanted to tell them both that it had been a mistake, that to the outside world, it must seem as though Michael and I were happy. After all, we were still together. I wanted to explain why I hadn’t left, or why I’d married him in the first place. ‘And a daughter,’ I said instead. ‘Rosie.’

  ‘Ah! The rose of summer. Lovely,’ said Christy, smiling, oblivious to Red’s shifting from foot to foot, itching to get going again and away from me and all I represented. It was one thing being polite to me in school but he obviously didn’t want to socialise with me and chatting on the pier would definitely qualify as socialising.

  ‘Now, the school,’ went on Christy. ‘I saw on the news. The protest. Nice to see some of the old faces again
. I recognised Arthur Fitzgerald. Haven’t seen him for years now. And your mam, of course. Might have a wander down myself and say hello.’

  ‘Dad,’ said Red. ‘Please don’t you join the protest? It’s enough that one parent of the teaching faculty is involved. Another would be a parent too far.’ He smiled at me, apologetically, shaking his head.

  ‘They look like they are in for the long haul,’ continued Christy, ignoring him. ‘You’ll find it hard to shift that type, you know, the ones with the Primus stove and the camping chairs. They’ll be there next Christmas with the oil barrel fire, the tents.’

  ‘It’ll be fine,’ I told Christy. ‘I’m sure of it. There’s no way this’ll still be going until Christmas. We have to make a decision one way or the other.’

  ‘And which way are ye leaning? Trees or no trees?’

  ‘Dad, you make it sound like a game show,’ said Red. ‘Ignore him Tab. Dad, it’s a difficult decision. Tabitha is already going through enough without anyone poking and prodding.’

  ‘I’m only asking,’ he said, innocently. ‘Anyway, Tabitha here doesn’t mind, do you, loveen? She’s not the type to take umbrage and offence… She’s one of us.’ He smiled at me, confident in his pronouncement. But there was a slight puzzlement in his eyes as if to say, she was one of us but something happened and now… now she’s married to a Progressive Conservative.

  ‘I haven’t made a decision yet, Christy.’ I managed to keep my voice steady. ‘But when I do, you will be the first to know.’

  He nodded. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I want to see you sometime. Come over to the house. Cup of tea and a chinwag. We haven’t had one of those in quite a few years. Time to stop being a stranger.’

  For a moment, I didn’t think I was going to be able to get the words out. For years, I thought that they both hated me and I would never be forgiven and here he was being so lovely. ‘I’ll call in,’ I managed.

  ‘Promise me?’ He caught my hand in his two big warm rough hands and held it tightly. ‘What about tomorrow?’

  ‘I’ll come, I promise.’ I felt nervous, as though I was putting on an old coat and wasn’t sure it was going to fit. But I wanted to be that person who wore that old coat so much. I hadn’t realised I still could.

  We said our goodbyes and I walked into the darkening sky, towards the red lighthouse at the end of the pier. It hadn’t been just Red I’d missed, it was Christy too. And it was the person I used to be. I missed all of it and wanted it back.

  *

  There was no doorbell on the door, just the old lion head knocker, so I rapped, loudly, and stood back, holding a yucca plant. Christy was always growing things. Or he used to. There were always spider plants rooting in little plastic cups of soil or plants trailing up the pipes in the kitchen. The house was exactly as I remembered it. Large, Victorian and in one of the wrought-ironed railed squares in Dun Laoghaire, but shabbier and more run-down than its neighbours.

  And then, something, a noise, a figure, materialising through the glass.

  ‘Just in time,’ said Christy. He always used to say that to us when we’d come home, me and Red. ‘In time for what?’ we’d say and he’d answer, ‘whatever you want.’

  ‘In time for what?’ I said.

  ‘Whatever you want,’ he said, making me smile.

  ‘These are for you,’ I said, handing over some biscuits and the plant. ‘I don’t know if you still…’

  ‘Still eat shortbread?’ he said. ‘You bet I do. Whatever the doctors tell me.’

  ‘And still green-fingered?’

  He nodded. ‘I feel like a matron on a ward sometimes, tending all my little plants, nursing them to bloom or to sprout. And this plant is a beauty. Like a tiny slice of jungle. You shouldn’t have. Now, tea. Come downstairs will you? I’ve just had my writers’ group and there’s some fruit cake left over. I always say, if you’re going to have to listen to bad poetry – mainly mine, it has to be said – then fruit cake helps the situation enormously. Or we can open these fancy biscuits. You’ve missed Red, he’s gone for a walk.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ I said, following him into the large hall; with the staircase that led upstairs, the coving and celling roses, and I noticed that nothing had changed: same paper, same paint on the walls, same tangle of vine twisting around the banister. ‘I came to see you.’ But I hadn’t realised how much I wanted to see Red until I knew he wasn’t going to be there and felt disappointment curl around my insides.

  ‘Red’s on at me to get the house cleaned,’ he said. ‘He’s starting one room at a time. Doesn’t understand how I live like this. I don’t see it, but he says the dust isn’t good for me.’ Christy leant heavily on the handrail as we descended into to the kitchen, his breath all wheezy. Maybe, I thought, Red had a point about the dust. ‘He’s done downstairs, so the kitchen is visitor-friendly.’

  ‘So you’re doing well, then,’ I said. ‘Apart from your son being on at you to dust more.’

  He turned on the stairs. ‘Well, I’m not doing too badly. Red is a one to worry… I’m not dead yet.’

  Before

  Laughing and giggling. Red carrying me on his back down these stairs when I thought I’d broken a leg. I hadn’t. I’d just sprained if after drinking too much cheap wine at a party. And then the next morning, Christy putting a fried breakfast in front of me, Red already tucking in.

  ‘You need to get some fat on those bones,’ he said, giving me a wink. ‘Get that into ye.’

  ‘Dad, enough of the personal remarks,’ Red had said. ‘You need to get some fat off yours.’

  It was always such a comfort to be with the two of them in that lovely, quiet house.

  ‘What are you up to today?’ said Christy.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Red, glancing at me. ‘What do you feel like doing?’

  ‘The boat to Dalkey Island?’ I said. ‘I haven’t been there since I was little. Mum took me.’

  ‘Now, that’s an island,’ said Christy. ‘It doesn’t belong to people at all, just the goats.’

  ‘How are we going to get there?’ said Red.

  ‘A boat.’ I grinned at Red. ‘Obviously. You can ask one of the fishermen to take you out. It might blow away our hangovers.’

  ‘I think,’ said Red, carefully. ‘I think you might be on to something there.’

  And we did. For a fiver, one of the boatmen dropped us off on the island and once we were landed, and our seasickness quelled, we explored: walking the full perimeter, exploring the old ruins and sitting for ages, Red lying down, hands behind his head, me cross-legged making daisy chains.

  ‘You know, Tab?’ he said, waking up. ‘I think this is all I need in life. Us on an island. Where no one and nothing can reach us.’

  *

  ‘Sit yourself down there, Tabitha,’ Christy said, pointing to his old armchair and faded cushion beside a wood burner. ‘And I’ll make the tea.’

  ‘How is the writers’ group going? How many are you?’

  ‘There’s the six of us now. The stalwarts. All the way from Peggy who’s going on eighty-seven, down to Charles who’s a mere stripling of 67. Poetry isn’t bad at all. But you know something, Tabitha? I don’t know what I’d do without my poetry. Writing my little verses keeps me sane. I seem to have become more prolific as I’ve got older. It’s like I have to put everything down, make sense of everything, before I can’t anymore. Don’t stop, actually.’

  He was wiping out two mugs with a tea towel and he unwrapped a large, almond-topped fruit cake, the kind of cake no one makes anymore. ‘Peggy’s this is,’ he said. ‘We get all the reading and critiquing over and done with and then we have our reward.’

  He handed me a mug of tea and a slice of cake. If I closed my eyes I could be twenty all over again. Our last year at college, Red and I practically lived in the room upstairs.

  ‘Now, there’s something I’ve been wondering, and before Red gets back I had better get it off my chest. So, tell me this and tell me no more,’ he sa
id. ‘Why did you marry someone like Michael Fogarty? I thought you were one of us. And well, they’re the ones getting rid of the bowls club here in the town and cutting the winter fuel allowance. And a friend of mine, his daughter, well, she’s living in a bed and breakfast, grotty place it is, with three children, because they’ve run out of council houses.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘But I’m still the same. I still vote the same way. Michael is…’ Christy was exactly the same as he used to be but I was mortified he was asking about Michael. Michael who I’d married only a year after ending it with Red. Michael the father of my child. Christy never minded asking you the awkward questions if he needed to know something. He needed to fully understand everything about the world until he was satisfied.

  ‘I couldn’t believe it Tabitha,’ said Christy, ‘when I heard. Not one of them, I thought to meself. That right shower with their shiny cars and shiny heads and shiny suits, doing nothing for the working man or woman.’

  ‘Michael isn’t that bad,’ I said, compelled to defend Michael. I didn’t want him to think I had married some right-wing lunatic. Michael was a moderate. And a good person. ‘Actually, he was against the bowls club closing.’

  ‘I saw your mam at the protest,’ he said, letting Michael go. ‘She’s a mighty woman, isn’t she?’

  I nodded. ‘That’s one way of putting it.’

  ‘And your daughter? Rose of summer… what age is she now?’

  ‘She’s doing her Leaving. Working hard you know. A bit stressed but…’

  ‘You were just the same, working hard, a good brain, all that,’ he said, taking the lid off the teapot and pouring in more hot water from the kettle.

  ‘Was I?’ I couldn’t remember being like that, but I was touched by how he remembered me. We chatted for a long time, about Christy’s coming and goings, my life at the school. I told him about Rosie and about Nora. We talked about films we’d seen and books read. It was like the old days. And then, a noise upstairs.