Together Forever

by Siân O'Gorman

  ‘Dad?’ Red’s voice from above our heads caused beads of sweat to ping all over me, fear and excitement and delight at his imminence.

  ‘Down here! With a special visitor.’ Christy winked at me, indulgently.

  ‘Oh yes?’

  Footsteps coming down the steps into the kitchen … and there was Red.

  ‘Hello Tab,’ he said, looking a little taken aback, as though he’d forgotten all about Christy’s invitation to me. ‘I thought Dad meant the writers’ group. I was hoping to hear a bit of Heaney…’

  ‘Well, maybe Tabitha will oblige, said Christy. ‘Tea Red?’ He filled the kettle. ‘What will you give us, Tabitha?’

  ‘Oh God,’ I said. ‘You’re not going to make me recite something…’ Christy had a terrible habit of forcing people to do things, be someone they didn’t quite think they were. And when you’d done it, you realised that you were better for it. But today, with sweat prickling my back and my mouth dry, and brain gone, I knew I wouldn’t be able to rise to the challenge. ‘What about some Pam Ayres,’ I said. ‘O I Wish I’d Looked After Me Teeth?’

  Red laughed but Christy said, ‘and what’s so funny. Poetry is poetry. Don’t tell me Redmond Power that you are a poetry snob. We don’t allow them in this house, do we Tabitha?’

  I shook my head and winked at Red. ‘No, Christy, no we don’t.’ Red was smiling broadly. It was like the old days. ‘It’s just like the old days,’ said Christy.

  ‘I was just thinking that,’ said Red, glancing at me. Me too. Me too, I thought. ‘How are you feeling, Dad?’ he said. ‘Did the poetry group tire you out?’

  ‘Not at all. Strong as an ox I am.’

  ‘Dad, you had a stroke six months ago. You have to face your own…’

  ‘Decrepitude.’

  ‘No,’ said Red, but he was smiling. ‘Limitations. We all have them.’

  ‘Limitations are all in the mind. So, I need a stick but that’s not going to stop me. And if you have an active mind, you’re more than half-way there.’

  ‘I was asking Tabitha about the bowls club,’ went on Christy. ‘It was quite the blow for us oldies when it closed. But I know it hasn’t got anything to do with her. But we still haven’t found a place to convene. I suppose that’s why we enjoy the writer’s group so much. Oldies United.’ He chuckled.

  ‘The last thing Tab needs is you banging on about things. Anyway, it’s not good for you, getting excited. And you should stop watching the news.’ He turned to me, making proper eye contact for the first time. ‘He just shouts at it. Thought he was going to have another stroke last night.’

  ‘It’s keeping me going,’ said Christy. ‘I’d go to an early grave watching Cash in the Attic or Pointless.’

  I shouldn’t have come, I thought, suddenly, a wave of nostalgia washing over me, and loss, loss for the person I once was. And by coming here I was trying to recapture. But it had been a mistake. You don’t just drop in on your old life and you can’t just be the person you once were.

  ‘I’d better go,’ I said, standing up. ‘I’ll be back in to see you, okay, Christy?’

  ‘But you’ve just got here,’ said Christy. ‘Stay for some more of Peggy’s cake. You can have an even bigger slice this time.’

  ‘No, I’ve got to go. But I’ll come back.’

  ‘Promise?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Well, then, I’ll see you out.’ Christy began to stand up. ‘And you’ll take some of the cake, won’t you? She’ll be delighted when I tell her that a slice went to Michael Fogarty’s home. She’ll like that, she will.’ He chuckled again. Peggy obviously wasn’t someone Michael could rely on for her vote.

  ‘Sorry,’ mouthed Red as Christy wrapped up a large slice in greaseproof paper.

  ‘Michael’s more of a Mr Kipling man,’ I said. ‘He’s suspicious of home-made.’ We all laughed, and I thought how a receptive audience always made disloyalty easier.

  ‘You haven’t changed, Tabitha,’ said Christy, passing me the package. ‘Not one little bit. Still got that beautiful smile.’

  ‘I’ll see her out, Dad,’ said Red. ‘You stay there, you have enough going up and down as it is.’

  As he followed me up the stairs, his body close behind mine, the closest we had been, physically, for years and I could feel this magnetic tug that in a moment I would turn around mid-step and we would touch as though some kind of bodily memory compelled me to. At the front door, I stood aside while he opened it.

  ‘He’s looking well,’ I said.

  ‘When I first got home, he wasn’t his usual self. Tired, thin, that kind of thing. He was doing strange things. In hospital, I found him reading a copy of the Daily Mail.’

  ‘That must have been quite a shock. Which was worse, hearing he’d had a stroke or seeing him reading the Daily Mail?’

  ‘The Daily Mail, obviously. I mean for a life-long, actual card-carrying socialist, a man who writes poems about the unequal tax systems of this country and wrote an epic poem based on a night in an A&E department, to see him reading a right-wing paper was the far bigger scare.’ And he grinned right at me. And for a moment there was Red again. My Red. ‘But I think it did him the power of good. Like electric shock treatment. He had to get well. Put the world to rights again. Write his poems. Give out about things.’

  ‘I hope he’s onto more edifying newspapers these days.’

  ‘Yes, it’s grand. The doctor prescribed him a combination of the Irish Times and the Guardian, so he’s on the road to making a full recovery.’

  ‘Let me know if Christy wants a copy of the New Statesman. I hear it’s like EPO for socialists.’ I was rewarded with that grin again, the one that brought me right back to a different age. ‘He must be happy you’re back?’

  He nodded. ‘Yeah and I’m glad to be back. Didn’t think I would be. But it’s good to be home.’

  ‘So, what did you miss?’ I knew I was stalling, not wanting to say goodbye. ‘When you were away?’

  ‘Barry’s tea. That was my number one. And proper chocolate. Irish Cadbury’s. A nice quiet pub. With no television on and an auld fella at the bar.’ He smiled. ‘The usual expat longings. And having a laugh.’

  ‘Have you not laughed in all the time you’ve been away?’ I said, pretending to be shocked.

  ‘There’s a particular way of having fun that we Irish do. I missed it.’ We made eye contact for a moment but he looked away, quickly.

  ‘So…’ I said. ‘Nice seeing you both together.’

  ‘And you, Tab. It’s nice seeing you.’

  I walked down the path to my car feeling a sense of emptiness that I hadn’t felt in years.

  Before

  Christy was standing there on the doorstep when I opened the door. ‘Are ye all right? Red was waiting…’ His face changed as he looked at me. ’What’s wrong?’ he said. ‘We’re all fierce worried about you.’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong,’ I said. ‘Nothing. I just want…’ What did I want? Just to be on my own. It seemed like the only thing that might keep me going was if I just didn’t see anyone. ‘Tell Red I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘But I don’t want to see him.’

  Christy’s eyes were full of empathy. ‘Tabitha, I think…’

  ‘Please, I don’t want to,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to see him again.’

  Christy, bless him, tried again, more desperately this time, for Red’s sake, I knew. But also for mine. He was such a good soul. ‘Tabitha, you don’t look well,’ he said. ‘Who’s here? Is your Mam here? Who’s looking after ye?’

  ‘Everything’s fine Christy. Everything’s fine.’ And I closed the door on him and after a few weeks, the phone stopped ringing and there were no more knocks on the door. And I got what I wanted, to be alone.

  *

  When Rosie was six, I left Michael and we moved into Nora’s house, my old home, and Michael arrived home to find me pushing boxes into a car.

  It was then or never. Any later and Rosie would have been too aware, the r
epercussions of divorce too hard for her to deal with. It was a miserable marriage, the loneliness of two people sharing a home and a daughter but nothing much to say to each other.

  ‘Michael, I’m not happy,’ I said. ‘Let me go.’

  ‘It’s not a question of happiness,’ he said, shaking his head at me, as though I hadn’t grasped something fundamental, as though I was slightly stupid and he had to explain what life is all about. ‘It’s a question of just staying married. That’s all people have to do. We don’t have an awful marriage. We have a daughter. How bad is it, really?’

  ‘I want to be loved. Taken care of…’ My words sounded immature and stupid.

  ‘Taken care of? Whatever do you mean? I thought you feminists didn’t want that kind of nonsense. I thought you could stand on your own two feet.’

  ‘I do and I can. That’s not what I want…’Oh God, what did I want? I was beginning to lose confidence in everything. I didn’t know what was the right thing to do? I had been so sure and now… now, it felt like I was the last person to make the right decisions as to my and my daughter’s future happiness.

  ‘So you don’t want to be taken care of?’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I’m confused. I have no idea what you want or what you are even asking for. And you don’t even know.’

  ‘I just want you to bring me a cup of tea,’ I said, lamely. ‘I want you to know how I like it, how much milk I like in it and which is my favourite mug.’ I felt tears welling up at the corners of my eyes.

  ‘What?’ He almost laughed. ‘You’re joking? But how would I know those things?’ he went on, angry at me for crying, and my confusion and what he saw was weakness, ‘You don’t even know how I like mine.’

  ‘I do!’

  ‘How then?’

  ‘Full-fat milk, in second, colour of dark toffee, served in your Royal Tara bone china mug.’

  ‘Yes, well… but tea is just tea… it doesn’t actually matter how you like it. You can’t expect me to go to Mammy and tell her that you have ended our marriage because I didn’t know how you liked your tea?’

  ‘It’s a metaphor! A symbol,’ I said. ‘A boiled-down microcosm of our marriage.’

  He shook his head and spoke quietly, ‘Mammy was right when she said I shouldn’t marry you.’

  And so, I picked up my case and I went and he didn’t stop me. But Celia did. She knocked on the door.

  ‘Tabitha,’ she said icily.

  ‘Hello, Celia.’

  ‘I was wondering…’ Her tone was icy, imperious, ‘…when you were going to return my granddaughter to her father?’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘But you can’t do that,’ she said, looking at me as though I was faintly disgusting. ‘The child belongs with her father. All children need fathers, did you not know that? Well, it depends on the father but in this case, I think we can all agree that Michael is a good father, the best kind of father to a little girl like Rosie. You didn’t have one so you don’t understand how elemental they are. Do you want Rosie to grow up without a proper family, the two parents… a normal, loving home?’

  ‘But we’re not happy…’

  ‘Correction,’ she said. ‘You’re not happy. Michael informs me that he is happy. He was perfectly happy with you and your life together. You’ve just got to get yourself happy and stop asking for too much. Life isn’t about trying to be happy. It’s about sacrifice, tenacity, keeping going. There will be moments of happiness and pleasure, yes. But that is it not daily life. And nor should it be. When will you see sense?’ She looked around, worried in case any neighbours were nearby, listening. ‘And we can’t have this discussion on the doorstep,’ she said, shoulder barging past me.

  ‘Celia,’ I said, ‘we can’t have this discussion at all. It’s between me and Michael.’

  ‘Yes,’ she tried a softer approach, ‘but he’s incapable, you know that. But, Tabitha, he’s not a bad man. Not a serial killer or murderer. He told me about the tea.’

  ‘It’s not about the tea…’

  ‘And I understand,’ she said, ‘I really do. It’s the little things. The thoughtful things. Michael Sr wasn’t good in terms of affection, remembering my birthday that kind of thing. Michael is just like his father. But I realised that there was a bigger picture. And you should too.’

  ‘Is everything all right, Tabitha?’ Nora was hovering in the background.

  ‘Yes, thanks, Mum.’

  ‘Hello, Nora,’ said Celia, trying to smile, ‘how lovely to see you again. And you are looking… splendid. That cardigan. It has a hand-knitted quality that is very charming. I think I saw something very similar in Brown Thomas last week. Yves St Laurent perhaps?’

  ‘Nearly,’ said Nora. ‘St Vincent De Paul.’

  ‘It’s all right, Mum,’ I said. ‘I just want to talk to Celia for a moment.’ I gave Nora a reassuring smile. I could handle this.

  ‘Tabitha,’ Celia began again, ‘he needs you. He can’t become a politician, like his father, if he is divorced. No one would trust him. They’d all wonder why his wife left him and no one would believe it was because of the silly matter of a cup of tea…’

  ‘It’s not about the tea!’ Why didn’t these people just get it? It wasn’t the tea, it was something deeper, something that said about how I wanted to be loved, deeply and properly for who I was. Not be in some working partnership. I wanted more.

  ‘They’d imagine terrible things about him. That maybe he had, oh I don’t know, predilections, peccadilloes, partialities. Perhaps, they might think he was homosexual…’

  ‘I don’t care what people think.’

  ‘No, dear, you obviously don’t. But I do. And Michael does. And that little girl who is going to grow up without a father, she does too. Think of Rosie, her needs. Her rights. And, Tabitha, marriage is not meant to be fun. You’re not supposed to actually enjoy it. Hard slog is what it is. But worth it in the end. When you are standing by the graveside, dressed in black, and you look back on a long marriage, you will think it worth it.’

  ‘I can’t wait that long,’ I said, wanting to laugh at the weird turn the conversation was taking. ‘Celia, he calls me Mammy.’

  ‘Tabitha, that’s nothing. Michael Senior used to call me Mrs Fogarty. What is in a name?’

  ‘But we just aren’t compatible…’

  ‘Now, you’re just being silly. Think of it as a business, and Michael is your colleague. You don’t expect compatibility and passion and superb tea-making skills from someone you work with, hmmm? That’s just naïve.’ She smiled at me, sensing victory. ‘I was married to Michael Senior for thirty-five years. And all that mattered was the team. I mean, there were a few incidents I had to turn a blind eye to. There was one woman who wouldn’t stop phoning the house. And then there was that columnist that developed quite the crush… but I ploughed on. Eyes on the prize.’

  The prize being the widow at the graveside, I thought. The dowager political wife.

  ‘Thank you, Celia,’ I said, edging her back to the door and holding it open. ‘I appreciate you coming round, I really do.’ I felt resolve and determination falling away. They were right, she and Michael. I was young and immature. I was asking for something that didn’t belong in real life. I had a daughter to think about. I had wanted marriage and I had got myself into this relationship. I couldn’t bail out of ‘us’, crying about love and tea, just because it wasn’t perfect.

  ‘You need to think very clearly about what you want to do, Tabitha.’ She was now standing on the doorstep. ‘And be clever about your life. Don’t just throw it away over a cup of tea.’

  Chapter Twelve

  One day, the following week, during morning lessons, I walked down to the Copse. It was a beautiful place, this triangular patch – on one side the school playing field, the other side high garden fences and, on the third side, the sea - however much it would have been more convenient for it to be a place barren of charm was blindingly obvious. A pair of blue tits happily flittered about, dipp
ing up and down, having the time of their lives, tangles of honeysuckle and brambles now dotted with white flowers would later be black with berries. And, there were the trees; oak and birches and larches and a holly. With the sounds of the birds, the view of the glittering, sparkling sea, the soothing and restorative quality was undeniable.

  A bench, I thought, would be good in the clearing between the trees. A place where the children could come in their lunch hour to get away from the noise of the playground. A space to think. We all needed quiet time and often we forget that children need it just as much as adults. We keep them so busy, so occupied, barking orders and ferrying them from school to home to classes. And then in school, it doesn’t stop. But here, down here, at the edge of the school, was the perfect place for quiet.

  I wished there was another way to raise the money, I really did. We’d just have to create another place, just like this. Okay it might take a couple of years to mature. But the blue tits and butterflies would find their way back, surely.

  Over at the other side of the playing field, the familiar two by two trickle of children singing a song, every one of them word perfect, caught my attention. They were signing Let It Go.

  And leading this merry band of girls was Red. I watched as he turned to face them, as they reached the brow of the curve, his hands in the air, conducting them, their voices soaring into the crescendo, they meant every word.

  They all paused, letting the sentiment infuse their spirits.

  They shouted the words out, arms puncturing the air with emphasis, their tiny voices combined to carry into the wind and the world, their collective call to arms.

  And there was Red singing it as hard and as passionately as the rest of them. He turned to check they were all still following behind, and then smiled at Grace and Jenny who were walking beside him as they shouted out the last line. For a moment, my heart stopped. And all my feelings about him being at the school stopped being so confused and became very clear indeed. He couldn’t stay. He would have to leave. I couldn’t feel like this and carry on and be normal and look after Rosie and deal with my mother and do my job and keep house for Michael. I realised I was in love with him. Always had been and always would. Nothing had changed. Nothing at all. I felt exactly as I did when he left for San Francisco. Deeply in love. I had just pretended I didn’t love him but I’d never fallen out of love with him. I’d just gone in a different direction. But love for him had been waiting, patiently, like a coat ready to be slipped on again.