The Last Goodbye

by Caroline Finnerty

  I would go up to tidy her grave or just sit and talk to her. Sometimes I would bring Aoife with me because I knew Eva would want to see her. She had grown into a wobbly toddler with straight white-blonde hair. She was learning to talk and would walk around the place pointing to different things saying “Wat dis?” “Wat dis?” She was still staying with Josephine – it was a habit we had fallen into and neither one of us dared to address it. I knew she had grown very close to Aoife and I didn’t want to be the one to disrupt it, especially when she was still grieving for Eva. Plus, if I’m entirely honest, with the farm and everything, I wouldn’t have been able to cope with a small child – I was already struggling to look after the other three. The arrangement worked for us and I still saw Aoife every day – Josephine would bring her over to the house or I would call over there. She called me ‘Dadda’ – she knew who I was – she just didn’t live with us. The boys were so good with her. They would patiently lead her by the hand, showing her the flowers in the garden, or read stories out loud to her. They loved their little sister.

  Kate, on the other hand, didn’t want to know the child. If Aoife was crying, Kate would ask someone to make her quiet. If Aoife waddled over to Kate with her doll or something, Kate would get up and walk out of the room.

  The day I opened the bin to put a teabag into it and saw the pregnancy test sticking up from the top of the rubbish, my world stopped. In slow motion I took the stick out of the bin. It could only belong to Kate. I wasn’t sure how to read it so I had a look around the rubbish for the instructions but they weren’t with it. Did this mean that she was pregnant? Dear God, no. I was already in a delicate state but this would be the thing that would break me altogether. She was only sixteen – I knew that she and Aidan had been together for a while but they were too young to be having sex and unprotected sex at that.

  I was waiting for her when she came in the door in her uniform – tie missing, the top button of her blouse opened, her tatty army-green canvas schoolbag destroyed with black permanent marker.

  “Where were you?” I stood up and walked over to her.

  “School – where do you think?”

  “Don’t use that tone with me! What’s this?” I held up the stick for her to see.

  “Where did you get that?” she said quickly.

  “You didn’t do a great job of hiding it in the bin!”

  She wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  “Well, are you?”

  “What?”

  “Pregnant, Kate!” I was shouting now. “Are you pregnant?”

  “No, Dad – I’m not, actually, if you must know.”

  The relief washed through me.

  “Well, thank God for that!” I let out a long sigh, “What are you playing at, Kate? You’re only sixteen – you have your whole life ahead of you – why would you want to ruin it all?”

  “My life is already ruined.”

  “Kate, please, I know these last few years have been hard on you and I also know that you and Aidan are going to have sex no matter what I say but get yourself down to Doctor O’Brien and get the pill or whatever it is that girls take nowadays . . .” This was where I needed Eva.

  “I already have.”

  “Well, that’s something, I suppose,” I mumbled. “Look, Kate, just be careful, yeah?”

  From that point on something changed between us. We tolerated each other now. I had to respect the fact that my little girl was now grown up and having sex. I hated to think of it but I had to be realistic as well. I wished that Eva was here. She would have had ‘the talk’ with Kate – she would have done a far better job than I ever could. I knew I had to trust Kate to make the right decisions – I couldn’t be there to police her all the time. But although she still asked constantly about leaving school, I held firm. That was the bargain – she did her Leaving Cert and I left her alone. We both knew as the Leaving Cert came closer that it was going to mark a change but I never thought she would just up and leave the day after she had finished her exams. She never said goodbye or told me she was going. All there was left was a note saying that she would call me in a few days’ time and to tell her gran and Aidan that she was sorry.

  That was it – that was how it happened. Just like that, my daughter was gone as well.

  Kate 2012

  Chapter 45

  Ben had gone into the spare room after our argument. I lay there under the duvet reading the letter over and over again. The bedside lamp cast shadows around the room as I ran my fingers along the notepaper that was still slightly indented with the blue ballpoint words that she had written many years before. I traced my finger along the slope of her writing.

  For the first time in twenty years, I allowed myself to cry. It was like a dam had been opened, years of pent-up hurt and anger flooded out of me and once I had started I just couldn’t stop. The last time I had cried about Mam was the day that Dad had told me she was dead. The feeling of desolation and despair I felt that then, the physical pain of her loss, still haunts me now. I never let myself cry over her after that, I was too afraid of what might happen if I did. It was like my whole body had shut down emotionally after her death but now I lay there on the bed until my whole body was heaving with sobs. I couldn’t believe that the letter was able to do this to me – that the whole thing still had an effect on me. And as for Dad, why was he only giving this to me now? What did he think he was doing all these years by holding onto it? I was trembling with rage and scared at just how easily the words in that letter could transplant me back to those awful days in Ballyrobin and open up those wounds again, just like it was yesterday. So many painful memories were recalled – the last time I had seen her alive and we had fought. The weeks where I knew she was dying but just couldn’t get my head around it or face up to it. Dad asking me every day if I was going to go and see her in the hospital and that she was asking for me and me fobbing him off with my array of excuses. The terrible months afterwards when I just felt so lost and alone. And empty – that awful gnawing emptiness. How angry I was with her for not having the surgery to try and win her battle with cancer – how angry I still am. My fury at how selfish she was being. How I just wanted to be able to escape my own life. How everyone in the village whispered as I walked – “That’s the girl whose mother died” or the auld biddies who said “Her mother would be turning in her grave now with the carry-on of that one”. Or then there was the pity which was almost worse: “She’s a wild one that one but, God love her, isn’t she only after losing her mother?”

  How I had resolutely made a pact with myself to get the hell out of Ballyrobin as soon as I could, no matter who I was leaving behind me.

  Ben had stayed in the spare room that night and, when I got up the next morning, I saw that he had already left for school. My stride was fast and purposeful as I walked from the Tube. I heard my mobile ring and I fished it out of my bag. Dad’s number flashed up and I knocked it to voicemail. He probably wanted to see if I got home okay and whether I had read the letter but I was so angry with him I couldn’t talk to him.

  I reached the gallery and pushed the door open.

  “Hi there! So how did your weekend at home go?” Nat asked me as soon as I came in the door.

  I walked over and plonked my bag onto the desk and hung my coat over the back of the chair.

  “As expected, a complete and utter disaster. Ben’s not talking to me. I knew it was a bad idea to go and then Dad gave me this when I was leaving.”

  I pulled the letter out of my bag and gave it to her. I waited for Nat’s reaction as she finished reading it.

  “Oh my God, Kate!” She gasped as she looked up at me. “How come you only got it now?”

  “I’m not sure what Dad was thinking by not giving it to me for all this time.”

  “He was probably too scared that you’d rip it up or do something stupid with it.”

  “Well, he’s probably right, I would have.”

  The letter sat on the desk between us.

&
nbsp; “How do you feel about it?” She nodded at the piece of paper. Its stiff creases from years of being folded divided it in four.

  “I don’t know how to feel, to be honest – I’m angry at Dad for not giving it to me sooner and then when I read it, I’m angry at Mam all over again, y’know?”

  Nat nodded sympathetically. We were interrupted by a customer coming into the gallery.

  “I’ll go,” said Nat, getting up from the stool and walking across the floorboards. I folded the letter up again and slotted it back inside my bag. I watched Nat from behind as she went over to greet the woman. She still seemed so down since Will had left. I wished I could do something nice to cheer her up but, whether it was my baby brain or not, I just couldn’t think of anything really special. I had mentioned it to Ben and he had suggested taking her away for a spa day or something, but that wasn’t very original. I wanted to do something different that showed I had put a lot of thought into it so that she knew how much I valued her as a friend.

  The rest of day went past slowly – we only had a handful of customers in. We sold half the amount of photos these days than we did a couple of years ago. Outside of our exhibitions, if it wasn’t for tourists and middle-eastern collectors, there is no way we would survive on a day-to-day basis. Tabitha never mentioned the drop-off in business. Knowing the eccentric character that she was, she probably didn’t notice. Once the business wasn’t losing money she was happy to coast along because she was too busy enjoying life in her Tuscan villa.

  “Kate, you wouldn’t mind if I went to visit my mum for a few days, would you?” Nat said later on. “I’ve just checked and there are some cheap flights going at the minute.”

  “No of course not – that’s a great idea. You could do with the break. Our own summer isn’t up to much anyway.” Nat’s mum lived in Spain.

  “Yeah, I just want to get away from everything for a while – chill by the pool and get some sun on my bones.”

  “That sounds like heaven. I’d nearly go with you except Tabitha would have a fit.”

  “Thanks Kate, I’ll book the flights now then before the price goes up.”

  At six o’clock we set the alarm and turned the hanging window sign to ‘closed’. I said bye to Nat and locked the door behind me.

  Chapter 46

  As I walked along to the Tube station that evening, my phone rang again. I took it out of my bag and saw it was Dad again so I let it ring out. When it finally stopped ringing I was convinced that I could hear footsteps echoing mine on the pavement behind me. Their sound carried on the cool evening air. I slowed down to try to hear better and the footsteps behind me slowed too. I turned around but there was no one there. I started to walk quicker and the footsteps did too. I came up near the park perimeter. I was just giving out to myself for being a pathetic scarey cat when I felt an arm grab me around my neck from behind. I went to scream but nothing would come out. I tried to wriggle out but the grip tightened until I could barely breathe, so I stopped struggling. My heart was thudding in my chest. I could taste the bitter tang of the leather from his jacket in my mouth. He pulled my bag off my shoulder with his free arm before releasing me and running off.

  Then I remembered the letter.

  “Wait!” I screamed. I tried running after him but I couldn’t with my big tummy. “You can have the money and everything else in the bag!” I cried breathlessly. “There’s a letter . . . I just need the letter. Come back . . . pleeeease!” I was screaming after him but it was futile. He reached the end of the railings, rounded the corner and was gone out of my sight.

  I felt my mouth water and I thought I might be sick. A man crossed the street and came over to me. He was dressed in baggy jeans and a hooded top pulled up over a baseball cap. His clothes were what Ben would jokingly refer to as Boyz n the Hood gear.

  “You all right there?”

  “He’s taken my bag!” I gasped, pointing to nobody in the distance.

  “He’s well gone, love. Sick bruvver doing that to a pregnant lady and all!” he said in a thick London accent. “The name’s Terry by the way – what’s yours?”

  “Kate.”

  Terry rang the police for me then straight away. I never even thought about them. My whole body was shaking from the shock. I felt wretched. This letter, despite my feelings about it, had just come into my life and now it had gone out of it again just as quick.

  “Here,” he said, handing me his phone after he had told the police what had happened and where we were. “Do you want to ring someone?”

  I nodded, taking the phone from him, and with shaking hands I dialled Ben’s number. He said he’d be there as quick as he could.

  A police constable was on the scene within minutes. Terry had waited with me until he came and I thanked him profusely for helping me. From behind his jeans were desperately low and, as I watched him walking away, I found myself wondering how he kept them up.

  The constable took a statement and said they’d let me know if there was any CCTV footage in the area – I knew to him it was just another snatch and grab and, in the grand scheme of his job, wasn’t really worth the time or energy to spend investigating it but it was so much more than that to me. I told him that I didn’t care about the bag but that there was a letter inside it that I needed to get back. I could see it in his eyes that he thought I was raving mad but he said that he’d try his best anyway.

  Ben arrived on the scene soon after and came running up and put his arms around me.

  “Are you okay? Are you sure you weren’t hurt? I hope to God that they catch that bastard!”

  “I’m fine – but the letter, Ben – the letter Dad gave me when we were going yesterday – it was from Mam. She wrote it for me before she died. I had it in my bag!”

  “Oh no, Kate – fuck!”

  I nodded. The shock soon subsided and the tears started. I was distraught. The policeman went on his way again, promising he’d call me if they found anything.

  We went home and Ben made me a cup of sugary tea and then set about ringing the bank to cancel my cards while I sat on the sofa and cried.

  “I can’t believe I’ve lost her letter, Ben –”

  “But it wasn’t your fault –”

  “I never should have brought it to work with me –”

  “Okay, Kate, you’ve got to calm down. This isn’t good for you or the baby.”

  “But it’s all I had – the letter was all I had left!” I wailed. “I’ve lost her again, Ben . . . it has just come into my life and now it’s gone again.”

  He wrapped me into his arms and stroked my hair, letting me cry it all out.

  “I’m sorry for being such a bitch at the weekend,” I whispered.

  “What did she say in the letter?”

  “The date on it was the day before she died – she basically was saying goodbye to me and how hard it had been for her to make the decision about whether or not to have the surgery.”

  “Wow.” He was stunned. “But how come you’re only getting it now?”

  “I don’t know – I’m so mad at Dad – he obviously had it for all these years and never gave it to me.”

  “Well, I’m sure he had a good reason.”

  I glared at him.

  “Kate, I don’t want to go through this all again. After the weekend we’ve just had, the last thing I want is to have another argument with you.”

  “I know you’re still pissed off at me but you need to understand how hard all this is for me still.”

  “I’m trying, Kate, believe me I’m trying,” he said wearily. “I know the letter is irreplaceable but it was given to you for a reason and look at what has come from it – you’re finally opening up about your mum’s death. You never really talk about her.” His tone was softer now.

  “Well, that’s because it still hurts, Ben. A lot.”

  “Of course it does,” he soothed. “I know I can’t understand how hard this still is for you but I’m here, whenever you want to talk about it.�
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  “How about never?”

  He shook his head despairingly. “Why don’t I run you a bath, huh? You’ve had a really shit day.”

  “That’d be lovely.” I forced a smile onto my face. “Thanks, Ben.”

  Ben insisted on escorting me to work the next morning even though there were usually lots of people around in the morning rush-hour traffic so there wasn’t much chance of anyone mugging me then. I was okay, though I was still a bit shaken up. When Nat, who happened to be coming along the street at the same time, saw Ben kissing me goodbye outside the gallery she knew that something was up. She was in shock when I told her what had happened.

  “I’m so sorry, Kate, I should never have left you. It’s all my fault!”

  “But, Nat, I always walk to the Tube station on my own.”

  “But maybe they saw you locking up and followed you because they thought you had money?”

  “Nah – I was just unlucky – he saw his opportunity and he took it.”

  “Well, that’s it. I’m walking you to the Tube in the evenings from now on.”

  “You can’t do that, Nat, you live in the opposite direction and you’d have to walk back again on your own.”

  “I’m not letting a pregnant woman walk up there on her own again.”

  “But what happens if someone attacks you then on the way back?”

  “If someone attacked me they’d know about it. Now that’s it – end of!”

  I knew there was no point in arguing with her.

  A few days later PC Black had rung me with an update to say that unfortunately they hadn’t been able to find any CCTV footage in that area – if it had been a few metres further up the street, it would have been picked up but in the spot where I had been attacked, there was nothing.