The Carmel Sheehan Story

by Jean Grainger

  Carmel felt a surge of hope. Maybe all was not lost.

  ‘It’s OK. We’ll talk again. I get it, I swear I do. Life can seem overwhelming sometimes, and you need to take it in small chunks just to get through each day. You’ve been so patient and kind, and I’m sure all my insecurities and craziness have tested your patience, but you’ve given me the space and time to figure it out, so I’m going to do the same for you, OK?’

  ‘I love you, Carmel Khan.’ He held her in his arms, and she felt safe. Whatever happened, they would be fine.

  After a light breakfast, they got up and on the road. As they drove, Sharif told her more about his life before she knew him, the things he and Jamilla had enjoyed, the experiences they had. Carmel felt she finally knew Jamilla more as a person than as just a girl who’d died. All the stories, reminiscences and pain were unleashed, and Sharif talked and talked. She was happy just to listen and let him relive that part of his life.

  As they sped along the motorway, she felt this new information had kind of balanced things up a bit. He wasn’t perfect, he didn’t get things right all the time, and he was a vulnerable, flawed human being like the rest of the world. He would have always said he was anyway, but Carmel realised she had put him on a pedestal of perfection that was hard to live up to. Now things felt a bit more even, and she felt herself growing a little more confidence. He needed her as much as she needed him. He always said as much, but she’d never believed it until now.

  They came off the motorway and stopped to buy some flowers in a small garden centre. Carmel didn’t consult Sharif but made her own selection.

  The Muslim cemetery was part of a large inter-denominational one, and Sharif led her to Jamilla’s grave. On it was a black marble headstone with a crescent moon and star and an inscription. Sharif explained that the inscription was in Urdu but read: Jamilla Khan, 1971 – 2000. Beloved wife and daughter.

  Carmel laid a beautiful wreath of yellow rosebuds and baby’s breath, because she remembered Nadia telling her Jamilla loved roses.

  As they stood there at her grave, Sharif spoke quietly.

  ‘Jamilla, this is Carmel. She’s Dolly’s daughter, who we searched so long to find. After you died, I could not keep my promise to live on. I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t. But then, I met this wonderful person. I love Carmel and she loves me, and we are really happy together. Sleep well, my darling sweet girl.’ He wiped his eye with the back of his hand, and Carmel linked her arm through his. When she spoke, her voice was husky with emotion.

  ‘I’ll look after him, Jamilla, I promise. We were both so lost, and now, we’re finding peace at last. I hope you have, too, and your lovely little baby. Say hello to my mam if you ever see her. I know she looks after us, and I think you do too. Rest in peace, Jamilla.’

  They stood together in silence for a few minutes, each lost in their own thoughts, and then they left, both feeling like something important had just happened.

  They went for a pub lunch in a lovely place with a garden on a canal, and the sun was shining. A family were sitting beside them, the kids throwing bread to the ducks who paddled along the canal. Just as their food arrived, the mobile phone on the next table started ringing. The couple were at the water’s edge with the kids, but the ring tone caused both Sharif and Carmel to smile amazedly. Elvis was crooning ‘Can't Help Falling in Love’ as the man dashed up from the canal bank to answer it.

  ‘Our loved ones have a habit of doing that.’ Carmel grinned. Her mother’s song was ‘Que Sera, Sera,’ and she’d heard it coming from a pub the first night she met Sharif. And then on the first night she went out with Joe, an old lady used the phrase in a conversation with them. Carmel knew some people would say it was mere coincidence, but she knew it wasn’t. Just as her mother communicated with her through a song, Jamilla was sending her blessing to them. She was sure of it, and she knew Sharif believed it too. He always said that nobody who had seen as many people die as he had could ever doubt the existence of life beyond the grave.

  As they munched on delicious sandwiches and tea, Sharif seemed so much more relaxed.

  ‘You look like you’re on holiday already,’ she observed.

  ‘It’s strange… I can’t explain it, but I feel like a weight has been lifted, one I didn’t even know I was carrying. I would have said last week that I was blissfully happy, and I was, but since we talked and after visiting Jamilla today, I don’t know... I’m just glad we did it.’

  ‘Me too.’ She watched the mother hold the toddler’s hand as she led him up from the canal bank to the table where their food had arrived.

  ‘We can try if you want.’ Sharif’s words were gentle.

  ‘We’d both have to want to, though,’ she said, never taking her eyes off the family.

  He put his hands on her shoulders and gently turned her to face him.

  ‘I won’t lie to you, Carmel. I’ve been thinking about this, and I could say nothing, just go along with it, but I’m going to be straight with you. Having a child isn’t something I have a burning desire for, especially now, as I’m getting older. My only experience of fatherhood was so heartbreaking. I’m worried about you, and your health, and all of that. But I want you to be happy. More than anything, I want that. So if having a baby would make you happy, then I’m happy to give it a go.’

  Carmel thought for a moment. Was that enough? That he’d do it for her but not because he really wanted a baby? She knew what it was to be an unwanted child, and while if she managed to get pregnant, she would want that child with all of her heart, what if Sharif didn’t?

  She knew that he would love the child, if she managed to have one, but what if he resented the baby for how it disrupted his life? What if he resented her? Was it better to leave well enough alone? They were happy, they wanted for nothing, and they lived fulfilled, satisfying days doing good in the world for people at the end of their lives. Did she have the right to bring a baby into all of that just because it was what she wanted?

  She needed time to work this out. It had been such an emotional roller coaster these last few days; she needed time to process. She still didn’t trust her own instincts, and even though she was getting better at it, she was unused to giving her emotions credit. Allowing herself to feel things without dismissing them as stupid was one of the exercises set by Nora. This was one of those times to practice it.

  ‘Let’s just see how it goes, OK?’ She smiled. ‘We won’t do anything for now, and let’s just go to Ireland and get that over with, and we’ll talk again when we get home.’

  ‘Of course, whatever you want.’ Did she detect a hint of relief in his smile?

  Chapter 11

  Carmel, Tim and Nadia were bundled into the back of Sharif’s SUV as he and Zeinab took their seats in front. Zeinab had made to open the passenger door and Sharif was just about to shepherd her into the back, catching Carmel’s eye as he did so, but Carmel gave a slight shake of her head. One thing she’d learned was to choose your battles wisely. Zeinab was going to be a trial, but they could not go to war on every tiny thing.

  Already, there had been words when he saw the size of her suitcases.

  ‘Zeinab, we are going to Ireland for ten days, not to the South Pole on an expedition. There’s no way I can fit all of that in the car. You’ll have to go through it and leave most of that stuff here.’ He was firm, and Carmel heard the frustration in his voice.

  Nadia and Tim were already in the car, their modest-sized baggage in the boot. Zeinab had looked traumatised, but Sharif was adamant so she emerged from the house twenty minutes later with still by far the biggest of all the cases—but at least there was only one of them.

  ‘What on earth was in them, anyway?’ Sharif asked as they pulled away from the kerb.

  ‘Well, I don’t know what it is like there, do I? I’ve never been somewhere so...well, somewhere so primitive. I was just trying to be prepared.’ She looked like a scolded child in the front seat.

  ‘Ha!’ Sharif scoffed.
‘Zeinab, that’s so funny. You come from Pakistan to Ireland, and you think Ireland will be primitive? I guarantee you won’t see the kinds of sights you would witness any day in Karachi. Extreme poverty, dangerous electricity wires, mayhem traffic, human life in all its rawness is to be seen in Karachi, and well you know it. We love it, of course we do, it’s home and there is nowhere like it, but I think you’ll be very pleasantly surprised at Ireland. It’s very beautiful and totally first-world.’

  Zeinab was fuming; she was well aware of the social divide between the haves and the have nots in her home country, but because she inhabited a beautiful home with lots of servants she tried to block the rest of it out. Sharif reminding her, especially in front of Tim and Carmel, was infuriating.

  ‘I’ve been to India, Brian and I went there a few years ago,’ Tim said, trying to mollify her. ‘It’s a marvellous place. The colours and the culture was fascinating.’

  ‘India and Pakistan are two entirely different places,’ she snapped. ‘India is filthy and corrupt, and they are no better than they should be.’ She then caught Sharif’s eye, and his look told her to rein it in or she would not be happy with the consequences.

  Carmel glanced at Nadia beside her. This was going to be a long trip, and they weren’t even at the airport yet.

  ‘So, Tim, tell us about County Mayo,’ Nadia said, trying to restore peace. ‘It is very different from Dublin, I believe?’

  ‘To be honest, Nadia, I haven’t been there for so long I doubt I’d recognise the place. I went online there a few days ago, to look at photos of the town I grew up in, Westport, and I was stunned. It looks so bright and colourful and full of prosperous businesses and lots of tourists milling about. It looks gorgeous, so I’m sure we’ll all enjoy visiting, but it looks nothing like what it did fifty years ago, and that’s the truth.’

  ‘Well, nowhere does, I suppose,’ Nadia said. ‘The Karachi I grew up in is so different now, so much busier, so many more people, but time is a funny thing—it plays tricks on us. I’m really looking forward to this trip, though. Khalid and I came to Dublin once with Dolly, on one of her quests to find you, Carmel, but it was just going to fruitless meetings with religious orders and state officials, and we saw very little really. We had thought of spending a few days, but Dolly was so distraught at the lack of progress we just took her back to London. It was like that every time. She went over every year at least, sometimes twice a year, but never with any success. She would come back and lock herself in her little flat for a few days, and then she’d emerge ready to start again. She never gave up.’

  ‘It is amazing how, with all the effort Dolly seems to have put in, she couldn’t find you, Carmel,’ Zeinab said, ‘and then Sharif does some internet search and there you are, ready and waiting to be rescued like a princess in a tower.’ She smiled beatifically.

  Sharif interjected, a slight steel in his tone, ‘The technology just wasn’t there, I suppose. It was really a fluke. I found her through a Facebook group, and I’m not even on Facebook. It was set up when the late Dr Wayne Dyer came to speak at Aashna, and Carmel was a fan of his so she was on it. IrishCarmel. it was a total long shot that it was the same Carmel, but it was. I did some investigating, some research on her based on her Facebook posts, and hey, presto! It was wonderful.’

  Everyone agreed how amazingly fortuitous the finding of Carmel had been, but Zeinab’s mouth was set in a hard line. Carmel was convinced Zeinab saw her marriage to Sharif as the only obstacle to her living happily ever after with her nephew. She was totally deluded, but deluded or not, Carmel was, from Zeinab’s perspective, a horrible Irish fly in the ointment.

  The trip to the airport passed relatively calmly, and then Sharif and Tim fawned a bit over Zeinab, just to ease the whole thing through the security gates. The last thing anyone wanted was a scene. Sharif had heard about the wheelchair when she landed from Karachi, but she didn’t request one this time, happy instead to have Tim and Sharif carry her luggage while Nadia and Carmel managed their own.

  Last night, Nadia told Carmel about a stunt Zeinab had pulled a few years earlier. She had been telling her sister and everyone else, too, that she’d had heart trouble and had a pacemaker fitted. Everyone rallied round, and even though Khalid and Nadia were not inclined to, they visited her in Karachi. She really went to town on the convalescence, apparently unable to lift a finger. She had minions running all over the city getting her obscure treats, and she nearly drove everyone daft. Any time it was suggested that she do something herself, or she wasn’t getting her own way, her ‘heart’ would start playing up. It turned out, several years later, when she was travelling to London, Tariq told the security staff at the airport that his wife had a pacemaker. They needed to see the paperwork to allow her to avoid the x-ray machine, and that’s when the truth came out. There had been no heart surgery, no pacemaker—the whole thing was a fabrication to garner sympathy. Apparently, Tariq was fuming when he arrived and told Nadia, Khalid and Sharif the whole story, much to the embarrassment of his wife.

  It had never been brought up since, but airport security was now a thorny issue. While Carmel could see Zeinab doing something that ridiculous, there was something very sad about it too. All she’d wanted was for her husband to pay her a bit of attention, but instead he told everyone the story, humiliating her. Carmel felt a pang of sympathy for her.

  The whole procedure went as smoothly as it could go, and soon they found themselves sitting on the Aer Lingus plane to Dublin.

  ‘Cead mile failte a dhaoine usaile, ar an turas seo go Baile Atha Cliath,’ the glamorous air hostess began.

  ‘What on earth is she saying?’ Zeinab asked in a loud voice.

  Carmel was seated beside her, and Tim on her other side.

  ‘It’s Irish, the Irish language. She’s just welcoming everyone aboard,’ Carmel explained.

  ‘Oh, for goodness sake, everyone speaks English here. Why must we listen to that gobbledegook?’

  ‘Fágamid siud mar atá sé.’ Tim smiled as he spoke. Carmel’s Irish was rusty, but she remembered what he meant: leave well enough alone. It was a well-used phrase in Irish. She realised that brushing up on her native language skills could be quite useful. Sharif and Nadia couldn’t speak it, obviously, but the rest of the gang could, and more importantly, to Zeinab, it was gobbledegook. That could prove very handy indeed.

  Carmel texted Joe, who was meeting them at the airport.

  Just boarding now x

  The wedding was in ten days’ time, at the end of the trip, so once they landed they were taking to the open road in the minibus he had hired.

  Brilliant. I’ll leave in ten minutes so I’ll be waiting for you all. Can’t wait to see you pet, Dad xxx

  She smiled. He always signed his texts Dad, even though she knew who they were from. It was like he wanted her to know how much finding her meant to him. She recalled the conversation they’d had last night, when she’d warned him just how difficult Zeinab could be. But he’d put her mind at rest.

  ‘I’m well used to dealing with females of a certain age and disposition, I’ve been doing it all my life,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry your head about it, my love. We’ll manage Zeinab grand. She’ll be eating out of my hand by tomorrow night, just you watch!’

  Carmel had felt a little better after speaking to him, but she was still nervous. It was the first time she would meet her full extended family. Several McDaids had come over for Brian’s funeral last year, but they didn’t know at that stage who she really was, so this was going to be what Luke jokingly called the ‘Carmel Launch.’ And the last thing she wanted was mad old Zeinab upsetting anyone. She was so racist about Ireland already, based on zero experience of anyone or anything Irish, apart from Dolly.

  Carmel knew whoever Sharif had married Zeinab probably wouldn’t have approved of, but the fact that she was Dolly’s daughter was certainly not helping. Zeinab was jealous of Dolly’s relationship with Nadia, and any time Dolly was mentioned, Zeinab did
this kind of irritating sniff. It drove Nadia mad. Carmel was dreading being associated with Zeinab in front of the McDaids. Joe’s siblings remembered Dolly and were sure to want to talk about her. Carmel wanted so much to savour these titbits of information to further fill in her mental picture of her mother, but the thought of Zeinab sniffing disapprovingly every time the subject was raised was just mortifying.

  Sharif had offered to stay right beside his aunt for the whole wedding to intervene before anything got too humiliating, but Carmel needed him at her side more. And Nadia seemed to exacerbate the situation unwittingly, Zeinab always trying to outdo her younger sister, reducing the normally able Nadia to a little mouse. Perhaps Tim could manage her? It was a lot to ask—she really was a tyrant in silks. She could be charm itself, or she could be a menace. The problem was she was so fickle, you never knew what you were going to get.

  Carmel gazed appreciatively out the window as the horseshoe of Dublin Bay, ringed by the purple mountains, came into view. The countryside beyond the city was a patchwork of green, and the Irish Sea glittered azure as the cabin crew instructed everyone to prepare for landing. She wished she was sitting with Sharif, she needed his reassurance, but when she glanced across to where he was sitting with his mother, she found him looking over at her, smiling, and she relaxed. Everything was going to be OK.

  She had not been back since the time she came to beg Bill to call off his horrible sister, who was trying to ruin Aashna and Sharif. Amazingly, she and Bill had talked more that day than in the seventeen years of marriage they endured before that. She had been dreading meeting him—things had ended so badly with her just running out and leaving him—but the conversation was actually very cathartic. He apologised for being a terrible husband, admitted that he still loved his first wife and that he should never have remarried, and said he understood why she left. All those years of being nothing more than a housekeeper, dusting the Waterford Crystal framed photo of him and Gretta on their wedding day, seemed to fade away that day and, with it, some of the pain of rejection. She’d wanted it to work, but she was so naive, thinking a girl raised in a children’s home, without a family or a bean to her name, could just slot into Gretta’s shoes and be Bill’s wife and Niamh and Sinead’s mother. It was never going to work.