Home Stretch

by Graham Norton

  This was even more unexpected. Caroline had assumed this had something to do with the meals on wheels or the fundraising for the new defibrillators.

  ‘Of course, of course. Come in. She’ll be thrilled to see you.’ Caroline hoped this was true. When she had checked in with Linda earlier, she wasn’t in one of her blackest moods but that was no guarantee she would be pleased to see Ellen Coulter coming through the door with what looked like a bottle of wine.

  ‘Just through here.’ Caroline led her visitor into the front living room. ‘If you want to wait a moment, I’ll just make sure she’s …’ The words Caroline were thinking of were ‘civil’ and ‘safe’ but the one she used was ‘ready’. ‘Just make sure she’s ready.’ She slipped through the sliding double doors.

  Linda was in her wheelchair by the window. A book lay pages down in her lap. She looked at her mother expectantly. ‘Who’s that?’ Her voice gave nothing away.

  ‘It’s Ellen Coulter come to see you.’ Caroline gave a smile to suggest that this was marvellous news.

  ‘Ellen Hayes to see me? Why?’

  ‘I’ve no idea, pet.’ She lowered her voice to a whisper and pointed behind her to the doors. ‘She’s just there.’ And returning to normal volume, ‘Will I send her in?’

  Linda sighed and shrugged her shoulders. ‘I suppose.’

  Caroline slid open the doors.

  ‘Here she is now.’ It wasn’t clear which woman she was speaking to.

  Ellen stepped forward and approached Linda. She held out her gift bag.

  ‘I got you a little something.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Linda said, taking the gift. She peered inside the long glossy bag. ‘Wine. A bit early for me.’

  Caroline winced. ‘That’s very nice of you, Ellen. I’ll just put it in the kitchen.’ She reached forward and took the bag. ‘You’ll have a cup of tea. Linda? Another cup?’

  Linda gave her mother a look that made Caroline fear she had inadvertently done the wrong thing. ‘Sure. Why not? Live a little.’

  ‘Sit down there.’ Caroline indicated the low armchair she usually sat in herself and hastily left the room, grateful to escape for a few moments.

  ‘Your mother looks great,’ Ellen said as she sat down.

  ‘Mammy’s Mammy. Never changes.’

  Ellen wasn’t entirely sure if that was a good or bad thing, so she chose to ignore it.

  ‘How are you yourself, Linda?’ Ellen had crossed her hands in her lap. She felt very middle-aged.

  Linda patted her thighs. ‘Great, thanks. They say I’ll be walking by Christmas.’

  Ellen beamed and burst out with a ‘That’s great!’ before she realised that Linda was being sarcastic. She had been in her chair for nearly twenty-five years. Things were not about to change. Ellen must have looked stricken because Linda took pity on her.

  ‘Sorry. I’m just being stupid. This is how I am.’ She indicated her wheelchair.

  ‘Well, you look well,’ Ellen said with an exaggerated degree of caution.

  ‘Thank you.’ Linda smiled and so did Ellen.

  ‘How have you been? Your kids must be all grown now?’

  ‘Yes. Aisling is up in Dublin. Final year of uni this year. Finbarr is over in New York working, but just for the summer. God knows what he’ll do after that.’

  ‘It’s so odd. I still think of you as a young one going around the town in your school uniform.’

  Ellen laughed. ‘That was a while ago now.’

  ‘The world keeps turning. It’s just that in here nothing really changes.’

  Linda turned her head away and the light from the window cast a shadow, hiding her face.

  ‘You don’t get out much?’ Ellen asked.

  Linda turned back and flashed a smile.

  ‘In the beginning I didn’t want to and now, well, it’s too late. They offer, but trying to get me in and out of the car would kill them.’

  Ellen wasn’t sure what to say. She didn’t want to contradict Linda, but at the same time, it seemed so final.

  ‘They could get help?’ Ellen knew someone came in to get Linda in and out of bed.

  ‘They could.’ Linda pressed down on the arms of her wheelchair and shifted her weight. ‘It just seems a lot of trouble to go to so that I can see the new café at Lawlor’s garden centre or drive through the Jack Lynch Tunnel.’

  Ellen nodded. The two women sat for a moment in silence, but it wasn’t awkward. They knew each other, had an unspoken shared history: teachers’ names, the boys that everyone had fancied, the girls that would go all the way, the blow-ins, what shop used to be where … These things mattered. They might look different, with streaks of grey and wider frames, but in the quiet of the room, they recognised each other.

  The door opened and Caroline returned carrying a tray. She placed it on a side table beside an overly enthusiastic spider plant. Ellen noticed a photograph in a dark wooden frame that was also on the table. It was Linda and her sister Carmel. They were both wearing bright summer tops and the sky was an endless blue behind them.

  ‘Milk?’

  ‘Just a drop, thanks.’

  ‘There’s a biscuit there if you want one.’ Caroline took a plate off the tray. ‘Help yourself. Have you got everything you need, love?’ Linda nodded.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it so.’ She stood for a moment but neither of the younger women spoke. ‘To catch up.’ Her voice trailed away as she left the room.

  ‘That’s a lovely photo of the two of you.’

  Linda turned and glanced towards the table.

  ‘That was taken the day of the crash,’ she said matter-of-factly.

  ‘Really?’ Ellen couldn’t disguise her surprise that anything worth remembering had survived that day.

  ‘Bernie took it. They found her camera in the car and Mrs Bradley had the film developed.’

  ‘I wonder if she had any of Connor,’ she pondered out loud and immediately regretted it.

  ‘She might have. God knows where they’d be now though. That house has been all packed up.’

  Ellen nodded in agreement and took a sip of her tea. The mention of her brother’s name didn’t seem to have caused any obvious upset. She knew that she should come to the point or it would just be a repeat of trying to talk to her parents. At least Linda had brought up the crash herself and it didn’t seem to be taboo. She cleared her throat.

  ‘It was sort of that day I wanted to talk to you about.’

  Linda put down her cup. ‘Oh.’ Did she sound defensive? Ellen continued, ‘It’s just that, well, I’ve found Connor again.’

  Linda seemed entirely composed. ‘Found him?’ she asked, her head at a slight angle.

  ‘Well, you knew he was missing?’ Surely the whole town knew that Connor Hayes had vanished?

  ‘Sorry. Yes, of course I knew you lost track of him, but …’ Linda hesitated. ‘I just thought that he must have made contact again at some point. Sorry. I don’t know why I thought that. Where is he?’

  Ellen was trying to gauge Linda’s reaction but couldn’t.

  ‘New York. My Finbarr bumped into him.’

  ‘Amazing.’ It seemed as if Ellen was telling Linda a story that had nothing to do with her.

  ‘Listen, I haven’t told anyone this. I didn’t say anything to Mammy and Daddy yet. My plan, and this is why I wanted to see you, my plan is to talk him into coming home.’

  ‘Right.’

  Ellen felt she needed to explain further. ‘It’s just my parents, well, they aren’t getting any younger, and if they could see him again …’ She stopped speaking, hoping that Linda might be forthcoming with some form of agreement, or sign that she understood. The only expression on Linda’s face was one of puzzlement.

  ‘That sounds lovely, but what did you want from me?’

  ‘Well,’ Ellen began to speak but then wondered how to phrase the question. How did you ask someone if they’d mind the idea of confronting the person who’d killed their sister and left them paraly
sed?

  ‘I just didn’t want you to be upset.’

  ‘Upset?’

  ‘It might be hard, I don’t know, knowing that the person who was driving that car will be walking around the town. I suppose I just wanted to warn you. I wouldn’t want you hearing it from someone else.’

  Linda sat back in her chair. She took a deep breath and then spoke very slowly.

  ‘Connor? You think Connor was driving the car?’

  Ellen felt uneasy. She knew that something was shifting. ‘Yes,’ she replied because it was the truth.

  Linda’s mouth twitched. A hint of a smile. Of sadness? Of pity? Both?

  ‘Connor wasn’t driving that day.’ Her voice was soft.

  Ellen was so surprised she assumed she couldn’t have heard correctly.

  ‘What?’ She swallowed hard. She clutched the arms of her chair.

  ‘Your brother. Connor. He wasn’t driving. I thought you knew.’

  Ellen felt as if she didn’t know anything any more. Connor had killed people. He had been punished. Their lives had been blighted by his crime. How could that not be the truth? She was suddenly very frightened. She opened her mouth to ask a question, but she had an awful suspicion that she already knew the answer. She craned forward and almost whispered, ‘Linda, who was driving the car?’

  ‘You don’t know?’ Linda was incredulous.

  ‘No,’ Ellen snapped but in that moment she did.

  ‘It was Martin.’ Now it was Linda who looked apprehensive, frightened of the reaction this news might provoke. ‘I’m sorry. I always thought you knew.’

  Ellen could feel herself begin to shiver. Martin. Could it be true? Had Linda received some brain damage they didn’t know about? But just as quickly as her thoughts searched for ways to make this news untrue, they had added together the pieces of her life and confirmed Linda’s story. Of course it was true.

  ‘Why, why didn’t you say anything at the time?’ She couldn’t stop shaking.

  ‘I was in a coma up in Dublin. When I came round, it seemed too late. Everything had been decided. Connor had gone.’ She shrugged her shoulders. Ellen looked at her aghast.

  ‘I tried to tell my parents,’ she added, defensively.

  ‘But why wouldn’t any of you come forward?’ Ellen was remembering her brother leaving home with his towering backpack, her sobbing mother slumped by the door. Her own eyes now filled with tears.

  Linda was squirming in her chair. ‘You’ve got to understand. My speech wasn’t very good back then and they just thought I had got things mixed up. Later when I was clearer, they still didn’t believe me. Connor had taken the blame so that was the only story that made sense to them. Nothing was going to bring Carmel back and … they just thought … we were busy dealing with this.’ Her voice had risen as she indicated her wheelchair. With a flash of anger she added, ‘We had our own problems!’

  ‘But Connor, he was innocent.’ Ellen allowed her tears to flow freely. ‘Why would you let an innocent man take the blame?’

  Linda was looking very distressed now, but Ellen didn’t care. She wanted answers.

  ‘I thought you’d made some sort of deal. It was none of my business.’ Linda’s voice sounded high-pitched, childish.

  ‘Deal? What do you mean deal?’

  ‘You know. Don’t make me spell it out!’

  ‘Tell me! What deal?’ Both women were shouting now.

  ‘You and Martin. I thought that was the arrangement. Connor took the blame and you …’ Linda sank back in her chair.

  Ellen gasped as if she’d been struck, the full horror of what Linda was saying slowly dawning on her. She stood, breathing heavily. She wanted to defend herself, to shout at this woman who had been locked in a room for decades. How could she understand? How could she presume to know what had gone on between her and Martin? But then she realised that she herself didn’t know. She had never known. Her life. Martin’s. Connor’s. All built on a lie.

  ‘Everything all right?’ Caroline peered around the door and looked shocked at what she found. She rushed to her daughter. ‘Are you all right, pet? What is it?’

  Before Ellen could hear Linda’s answer, she picked up her coat and stumbled to the front door through a blur of tears. Outside, she held on to the railing of the wheelchair ramp, bent almost double. She was gasping for air. Why had she walked? How could she get home without the whole town seeing her in this state?

  Finally, she understood that her humiliation was complete. She had thought it was a private thing contained within the walls of her home, but now, with a mounting sense of shame and horror she realised that it was entirely public. Ellen Hayes and her whole life was just some sort of bargaining chip. She was a get-out-of-jail-free card and nothing more. Her feelings, her happiness, not worthy of consideration. Standing upright, she wiped the tears from her eyes and tentatively walked out to the road. Head bowed she put one foot in front of the other, heading back to the house she had thought of as her home, to wait for the return of the man who had married her.

  1987

  XI.

  Bernie was panicking. Her wedding was the next day. She pulled at the straps of her light cotton top.

  ‘Is there a mark? Carmel, will you look? Am I after burning myself?’

  Her friend and bridesmaid-to-be gave a cursory glance.

  ‘I put factor fifteen on you, you can’t have burnt.’

  Bernie sank down on the low wall by the parked car.

  ‘Why did I come? This is pure stupid. If I have tan lines with my dress tomorrow, I …’ She waved a hand in front of her face. David, her fiancé, knew that this meant tears were not far away. He sat on the wall beside her and put a protective arm around her neck.

  ‘You’ll be perfect, Bernie. Perfect.’ He kissed her shoulder and was slightly disconcerted to see the skin turn momentarily white where he had pressed his lips against it. ‘Maybe slip on my T-shirt just to be sure.’ He took off his top and Bernie wriggled into it.

  A bit late for that, thought Linda, Carmel’s sister and non-bridesmaid, watching as the sun sank towards the horizon.

  ‘Thanks, Dave.’ The couple looked into each other’s eyes and kissed.

  Carmel sighed. This was supposed to be a fun day out, a last hurrah for the old gang, but really she was sorry she had come. Bernie and David all over each other, her sister Linda with a puss on her all day, and Martin, well, he was the worst of all. She knew the only reason he had been included was because he had a car. He had never really been part of their old gang, but David had insisted that they should accept the offer of a lift. Bernie had been nearly as bad – you’d have thought that they’d never been in a car before, so excited were they at the prospect. Now, Carmel was having to fight the urge to say that she’d told them so: Martin might look cooler now with his car and his floppy hair, but he was still an oddball. Why had he dragged along the kid from the pub? And then refusing to stop in Schull so they could get ice creams. He had sworn blind there was a shop with a freezer in Trabinn but there was no such thing. She was starving, and there was no sign of Martin with the keys to the car.

  While the lovebirds were crouched on the low stone wall that surrounded the car park opposite the caravan park, the two sisters leaned on either side of the blue estate car. Small drifts of sand were daubed haphazardly around the dusty tarmac. For once there seemed to be no breeze and the flag announcing the entrance to the caravan park hung limply by its scratched and faded pole. Linda kicked one of the tyres. She had thought this invitation was some sort of olive branch from Bernie and Carmel, but they’d both been right cows ever since they left Mullinmore. Barely a word out of them.

  ‘Look, should we start walking over to Crookhaven? There’ll be a pub or something.’

  Bernie was bent over, her hair cascading around her face like a curtain. ‘I can’t walk all that way!’ Her voice came from beneath the hair and had an edge of hysteria. ‘In case you didn’t know, I’m getting married tomorrow.’


  Linda looked away towards the caravan park, and almost under her breath said, ‘Oh, we know you’re getting married all right.’

  Bernie’s head sprang up. ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’

  Her face did look quite red.

  David stroked Bernie’s arm and muttered calming words into her ear.

  Carmel suddenly lifted both of her arms into the air triumphantly. ‘Thank fuck. Here comes Martin.’ She was pointing now across the dunes where a single dark-haired figure was silhouetted against the setting sun.

  ‘Thank Christ,’ Bernie said and lowered her head once more beneath its screen of hair.

  ‘Where’s young Connor?’ David asked.

  Carmel had almost forgotten the Hayes lad. He had been so quiet in the car and then followed Martin to some spot where you could dive. None of the girls had wanted to get their hair wet so they had all stayed on the beach and of course David had been glued to Bernie’s side.

  ‘There he is,’ said Linda, spying someone slightly shorter trailing about fifty yards behind Martin.

  ‘The car is going to be like an oven,’ Bernie lamented.

  As Martin reached the far edge of the car park and made his way towards them, Linda studied him. He was undeniably good-looking and there was a confidence in the way he walked that was appealing, but at the same time there was something else. He acted as if he was older than the others, or thought he was better than everyone else in the town. Linda wasn’t sure she even liked him very much.

  Martin’s shirt was flapping open and he had his bag slung over his shoulder. In one hand he was swinging a large nearly empty bottle.

  ‘Is that cider?’ David called to him.

  ‘Where did you get cider?’ Bernie had re-emerged from under her hair.

  ‘Brought it with me.’ Martin grinned.

  ‘Thanks for telling us,’ David said. ‘We’ve had warm Fanta and a packet of crisps from the shop across the road.’

  ‘Are you all right to drive?’ Carmel asked.

  ‘Of course I am,’ Martin replied dismissively and drained the last of the bottle before throwing it with a clank into the bin by the wall.

  By now Connor had reached the others. He looked as if he had caught the sun. He just re-joined the group without saying anything. It was a mystery to everyone why Martin had bothered to invite him to tag along. Maybe he had supplied the cider from the pub, thought David.