‘Sounds good to me,’ I reply and as we walk back across the famous bridge. ‘I’ll give you a squealy rendition of ‘Songbird’.’
‘Since when did you like soppy love songs?’
‘Since never,’ I reply with a giggle. ‘But this one is growing on me. It brings back special memories.’
Tiernan Quinn and our day of passion runs through my mind and my stomach whooshes at the thought. I beam a huge smile and I can feel Lucy smile down on me too. Or maybe it’s just her heart smiling from inside me. Maybe it’s the unconditional love between a brother and a sister that has lain dormant for too long.
Whatever it is, it feels as good as I have felt in a very long, long time.
Chapter 21
‘Are you sure you are up for this?’ I shout over the honky-tonk music in a downtown bar later that night. ‘You have been host with the most for long enough today! You must be exhausted!’
John Joe is sipping on water while Vivienne and I slurp on beers and we can barely hear ourselves think over the music, but the atmosphere in Nashville by night is so absorbing, I want to come back here already.
‘You two girls go and dance and leave this sick guy to people-watch,’ my brother tells me, and before I know it, Vivienne and I are on the sawdust dance floor and a stranger puts a cowboy hat on my head and twirls me round the floor.
‘Ever danced with a cowboy before?’ he asks in an authentic Southern tone. At least, I think that’s what he is saying! I am being spun around like a rag doll by a six-foot- something all-American hunk of burning love and if I wasn’t laughing so hard at my attempt to keep up, I would probably chicken out and run for cover.
‘This is my first time!’ I shout back, over the steel guitar and drums. ‘But it’s fun!’
‘What’s your name, princess?’ he asks and I catch a glimpse of Vivienne, who is clapping along from back at her seat beside John Joe. They seem to be enjoying this as much as I am.
‘It’s not ‘Princess’, anyhow!’ I reply and I’m not sure he gets my humour. ‘I’m Maggie! What’s yours?’
‘Justin,’ he tells me, still twirling me, still dancing. ‘But they call me Big J.’
The song ends and I thank him and go back to my family, who are whooping with delight.
‘That must be one for the bucket list,’ says John Joe. ‘You can now say you were danced by an all-American cowboy!’
‘And not just any cowboy!’ I reply. ‘They call him Big J!’
We almost choke on our drinks laughing.
‘You could have had the night of your life with him,’ says Vivienne with a wink. ‘Big J!’
‘Oh stop! He’s probably a tourist from England or somewhere but I’ll note it down as an achievement anyhow!’ I reply over the music.
It’s hot in the bar and I know that both Vivienne and John Joe would much rather be tucked up in bed than being my tour guide for the evening. John Joe takes a gulp of water and Vivienne and I exchange knowing glances.
‘I think we’d better get this big guy home,’ says Vivienne and I totally agree.
‘Yes, of course,’ I reply. ‘Thanks so much. That was so much fun.’
‘It’s so good to see you smiling and laughing like that,’ says John Joe. ‘I hope you do that a lot.’
‘Not as much as I should,’ I tell him. ‘But I will from now on, that’s for sure.’
We take a taxi back to their little wooden house and I fall asleep on the way, feeling so full up and content and so grateful for making amends with my own flesh and blood. I will go home tomorrow a very different person. Plus, I have one more destination to see for Lucy Harte and I can’t wait to see what adventures it brings.
John Joe and I share a late brunch as I wait for my taxi to the airport for my connecting flight to Belfast via New York City.
‘You better come back really soon,’ he keeps saying between munching croissants and cheese on toast: a craving he apparently developed when he was sick.
‘I actually want to come back here forever!’ I tell him. ‘I have had such a great time, even though it was a flying visit, but I have to pack in as much as I can before I go back to work.’
‘Are you really going back there? To the real-estate place?’ he asks and I sense his disapproval.
‘It’s a job, John Joe. I can’t live on fresh air. These few months are flying by, but some day I will have to be back in the real world of bills and routine and work.’
He shrugs and pours more coffee.
‘I just think you are much more creative than what you do there,’ he tells me. ‘But if it makes you happy… does it make you happy?’
I feel like I am wearing a tight collar around my neck or a tie that needs loosening when he asks me that.
‘I wouldn’t say happy, no, but it’s fine. They are nice people and it’s… yes, it’s fine.’
John Joe raises an eyebrow and chews and then he speaks.
‘Maggie O’Hara, fine is fine, yes,’ he tells me. ‘But fine ain’t good enough for you. You’re too special for fine, do you hear me?’
‘You’re only saying that because you’re my brother. You’re becoming so like Dad.’
‘Maybe I am, but I want you to promise me something,’ he says emphatically and I dare not agree. ‘This list you are working from. Add your own things to it. Make the most of it. I don’t want to see you wasting these precious years of yours just doing fine.’
By precious years… my final years is what he means. It’s no secret that my heart is really not my own and that one day it will stop beating, content in the work it has done to give me a longer life than I should have had. Fifteen years, they told us back then. After that, every year is a bonus. I’m on borrowed time with a borrowed heart and I should be living every day like it’s my last.
‘I’m already doing that,’ I tell my brother with a smile. ‘I’m doing a mini marathon with my neighbour Kevin and I’ve always wanted to do more song-writing and you have encouraged me to do that, so that’s a start. Plus I’ve this trip to France to see Lucy’s favourite bridge, and who knows what that will bring.’
‘Great,’ he says with a look of sorrow and he reaches over and takes my hand. ‘You have no idea what your visit has done for me. I am all the better for seeing you. I really am. I worry about you, but only like any big brother should and I want you to be okay. You are okay, aren’t you?’
‘I am absolutely fine,’ I tell him and he has to laugh. ‘You know what I mean. I’m doing good and a lot better now having seen you too.’
I feel like apologising again but we’ve already crossed that bridge, pardon the pun.
‘Now can you do something for me?’ I ask him.
‘Shoot,’ he says.
‘Please tell Mum and Dad you’ve been sick but that you’re on the mend,’ I say to him. ‘And introduce them to your wife. They will be so hurt if they hear from someone else that you are married. You don’t need to run away any more.’
He laughs and squeezes my hand.
‘I fully intend to, don’t worry,’ he replies. ‘In fact, Vivienne and I are planning a good-old Irish knees-up with a blessing back home, so that’s something for them to look forward to. I just need a wee while to mend and to get my head around what I’ve just been through, is that okay?’
My eyes widen with excitement. I love a good wedding celebration, even though I’m almost officially a divorcee.
‘That is the best news ever!’ I tell him. ‘Make sure you tell them soon because I’m not sure I will be able to keep that to myself!’
‘I will,’ he assures me. ‘Now, I think that’s your taxi. You look after yourself, Maggie O’Hara. You mean the world to me – I hope you know that now.’
We stand up and he gives me the tightest squeeze I’ve ever had. Sick or not, he is still as strong as an ox, my big brother.
‘I do. You’re my hero,’ I tell him and he loosens his grip.
‘Get outta here,’ he says and ruffles my hair just like he
used to when we were little.
‘And, by the way, your eyes are sweating,’ I tell him as I take one last good look at him.
‘So are yours. I’ll see you real soon back home at Loch Tara, Maggie.’
‘You will, John Joe. I love you.’
‘I love you more, little sister.’
I walk out the door, down the pathway and out through the gate of my brother’s American home and I feel a rush of blood pumping through my veins and filling my heart so much I could scream with joy.
I give him a final wave and get into the taxi and we keep waving until he disappears.
‘You had a good visit?’ asks the taxi driver and I recognise him as the one who brought me here. What are the chances?
‘The best,’ I tell him and I take out Lucy’s diary and write a short note at the back. I love to give her little updates on the progress of our list.
I danced again Lucy and I am going to keep on dancing, I tell her in my neatest handwriting. I danced and I sang and I laughed and I travelled and I even crossed a bridge, in more ways than one, but most of all, I have forgiven, and doing that has allowed me to feel real unconditional love again.
Thank you, once again, my dear little friend. You’ll be pleased to know that your big heart, which I really thought was broken for good – well, you have helped me fix it.
And it still works just fine.
Chapter 22
I spend the next few days resting after my impromptu trip to Nashville and as I rest I reminisce on the wonderful time I had, however brief it was, with my brother. I tell Flo over endless coffees, I tell Kevin as we train for our run, I tell anyone who will listen to me how glad I am to have him back in my life and how much I am going to make up for lost time by being a much more attentive, loving and caring sister to the one sibling that I have been blessed with in my complicated, second-hand life.
And then I think of Simon and of Lucy and how she was his only sister, just like John Joe is my only brother, and for the first time I truly understand just how painful it must have been to lose her and never get her back. I lost John Joe but I got him back. Simon never had the chance.
I open my laptop and start to write him an email.
Dear Simon
I’d like to say I’m sorry.
I’m sorry for being a self-centred cow to you when we last spoke. I could use all sorts of excuses, like wine or a bad day or feeling sorry for myself, that other people are happy in relationships and having babies, or that the world is turning and mine had stopped, but none of them would be good enough.
That bubble of self-pity has well and truly burst, Simon, and I hope you can forgive my teenage, or should I say toddler, fit of throwing my toys out of the pram and saying I’m not playing any more.
I did what Lucy said. I took a big step, one I thought I never would do and I went to visit my brother in the States and, boy oh boy, you were right. Everyone was right. He didn’t hear me that day, he couldn’t have. He is not jealous or bitter or any of the things I have accused him of being in my clouded head and he is not just womanising his way around America.
He is a sweet, caring, loving person and it’s my loss that I had chosen to ignore that for so long.
So, really, I just wanted to let you know that as much as I denied it the last time we spoke, Lucy’s legacy is very much living on in me and will always do so as long as her heart keeps me taking one step forward at a time in this thing we call life.
I know that as long as I have her on my side, I can keep going in the right direction. The songbird is still singing…
Please give my regards to your beautiful wife and her precious growing baby bump – I truly wish you both all the love and light from my heart to yours and I hope we can still keep in touch.
Your friend,
Maggie.
I press ‘send’ and feel that itch again, but I won’t scratch it. I will not give in to using alcohol as a crutch every time I have to apologise, or feel lonely or feel like the world is against me. I have so much to look forward to. I go to France in just two days and my brother has asked me to help with some logistics for his forthcoming celebrations, which we will have at Loch Tara in late June. I will use the next two days to make a start with a marquee, some catering, a jazz band, the works. My mum is insisting the parish priest gives a blessing, which nearly gave my dad a coronary, but he gave in because he knows he will never win that argument.
There are lots of fun times ahead.
The mini marathon with Kevin is just around the corner and I will keep up the training regime we have both worked out for me when I’m in France and then when I come back we will really get stuck in until the big day comes. When I say ‘stuck in’, I mean stuck in as far as I am allowed to because any heavy stress on my seventeen-year-old heart could do me serious damage and I owe it to Lucy to stick within our limits.
I focus on the future, on France and all the avenues that she has opened for me with her little list of dreams. I wonder about Tiernan Quinn and his whereabouts and even the thought of his name makes me smile. We really did click and maybe some day I will pick up the courage to get in touch with him again and see how it goes. I could be too late by then, but I will find out if the time ever comes.
Then, just as if it’s the most natural thing in the world, I do something that I haven’t done without forced thinking or someone asking me to do.
I pick up my old guitar and I start to strum and sing and I feel alive from the very tips of my toes.
‘The Boy Next Door’, that song I wrote when I was just a spotty teenager, might not be as bad as I thought it was. And if it is, I have lots of material for some new ideas. I might even buy a new notebook.
In fact, I just will.
I don’t hear from Simon Harte until the morning I am due to fly out to France and it has greatly worried me that he might have decided he wanted nothing more to do with me after our last conversation, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Dear Maggie,
Andrea and I send you lots of love right back! The bump is growing beautifully and we are very excited indeed as the weeks pass by and the sleepless nights begin, so we are trying to take it easy as much as we can for now.
It was so good to hear from you and I am thrilled that you have made peace with your brother and now have some wonderful times ahead with him. That was a brave step for you and it’s great that you have your family on your side. I bet you feel like a different person for it!
On the other hand, I think I should probably say sorry too for being so caught up in my own feelings with this all and not thinking of what you are going through as much as I should have.
Perhaps I am grasping at everything I can just to keep some part of my immediate family alive, but if I am I hope you can forgive me.
Andrea thinks, or rather hopes if she admitted it, that when our baby comes in just a few weeks, that I will be able to move on in a new direction and maybe she is right. I’m told a new baby kind of does that to its parents, so you may only have to bear with me a little longer! Soon I will be drowning in nappies and baby-talk and won’t have as much time to think about the things that Lucy wanted to do and how you are out there doing them.
However I have a feeling that we will always be friends. You’re a great person, Maggie.
Have a ball in France, or should I say ‘bon voyage’ and thank you from the bottom of my own heart for keeping Lucy’s wishes alive.
Only a very special person would do that and you are very, very special to me.
With love from my heart to yours and Lucy’s,
Simon x
Hearing from Simon at this moment, when I am about to make this final big journey on his sister’s list feels even more right than before.
Let’s do this, Lucy. Let’s go and see if this bridge is as big as you hoped it would be.
Chapter 23
The flight and its connections in London are uneventful, with a long wait in between, but I feel rel
axed and the evening Mediterranean heats my bones when I step out of the plane at Montpellier, near the southern French coast, a grand total of nine hours later.
‘Au revoir et merci,’ I say to the stewardess, whose name is Brenda and who lives in inner-city Birmingham, but she smiles at my enthusiasm. I won’t be so smartly bilingual when an actual French person speaks to me, but I plan to make an effort even if I haven’t a clue what they are saying. It’s only manners to attempt the native language when in a foreign country, so I will do my best.
Je m’appelle Maggie.
My old school lessons come back to me and I like it.
I find my credit card in my purse and my driving license and swiftly and smoothly I arrange my car, which will be my only definite companion for the next few days. It’s both exciting and scary to be here on a one-way ticket with no idea really where I am going (apart from the bridge), what I am going to do (apart from see the bridge) and where I will be staying (definitely not on the bridge!).
I am suddenly quite exhausted and I yawn as the car-hire people get me all sorted with a groovy little cream-coloured Fiat 500, which is ideal for just me on my travels. It is 9pm and I haven’t arranged anywhere to stay yet. Somewhere near the airport will do for now and I will set off on my travels in the morning.
I start the ignition in the car and wobble a bit at first when French radio blasts in my ears and I hear a horn beep while I try and get my head around driving on the right side of the road. I park just a short drive away, much to my relief, at the Aeroport Hotel and to my luck they have a room available for the night.
A milky hot chocolate, a quick look on Facebook later and I am tucked up in bed, relaxed, eager and ready for what the next day will bring.
But the next morning I wake up in the sparse hotel room with an entirely opposite mind set.
What the hell am I doing here? Where the actual hell am I? There is no John Joe to seek out, no familiar face to make me feel welcome, no one to show me the sights or take me for lunch or tell me I’m doing the right thing.
The Legacy of Lucy Harte Page 17
