The Things I Should Have Told You

by Carmel Harrington

  ‘That makes all the difference,’ Mae teases.

  With our food piled high on red trays, we sit down. Evie and Mae with their McChicken Sandwich meals, me with my Big Mac and Jamie with his Happy Meal.

  Jamie pulls open his cardboard box of happiness and rummages for the plastic bag, eager to find out what the toy is this time. Mid-slurp of my strawberry shake, I pause. I feel a hand on my knee and look down to see that Mae has clasped it.

  Time freezes again when I look up and see that Jamie is holding up in his hand a figurine of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

  ‘That’s freaky,’ Evie says, her eyes wide with surprise. ‘We were just talking about him.’

  ‘It’s cool,’ Jamie replies. ‘Look what he can do.’ He demonstrates his nodding head.

  ‘Just a weird coincidence, that’s all,’ Mae says, but her voice is trembling.

  Not ten minutes ago I likened Pops to Obi-Wan Kenobi, wishing he could come back and talk to me. And now Jamie is sitting here with his figurine held in front of my face.

  I look around and, I swear to God, I expect Pops to be standing there wearing a long brown hooded robe. ‘Fooled you,’ he’d say and laugh. Oh, how we’d laugh.

  I look at the Wi-Fi symbol flashing on my iPhone. That invisible thing that connects us all, no matter where we are. Was this Pops’ way of reminding me to have faith? He said he’d find a way to find me.

  ‘It’s just a coincidence,’ I tell my family, feeling stupid for even contemplating such nonsense. ‘Eat up, it’s getting late.’

  I don’t feel hungry any more. I play with my food a bit and wait for the others to finish up, then we continue our journey home. The mood has changed in the car again and we are all back in our own grief-stricken worlds. The welcome reprieve from our desolation, forgotten with the appearance of a small plastic toy from McDonald’s.

  As the distance to our home gets shorter, the greater my anxiety grows. So I slow down. I’m aware of the irony that an hour ago I thought I’d never get home so I could take my God-awful suit off. Now I am doing everything possible to delay that first entrance through our front door. I look down at my suit and make an impromptu decision about its fate.

  ‘I’m going to burn this tomorrow.’

  Mae nods. ‘That’s one option. Or you could give it to charity.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I say, but really, I want to be extreme. I feel justified planning a dramatic end to it, a symbolic burning of the pain I’ve endured today. Or something like that.

  ‘I burned a suit once before,’ I say.

  ‘When?’ Mae asks.

  ‘When I was a kid. My communion suit.’

  All at once I’m seven years old again and I see Mam’s face and remember watching her discuss at length with Pops about what my communion suit should look like. Pops would nod and tell her that she knew best. He’d then chance a conspiratorial wink with me and I’d wink back, delighted with myself.

  ‘Was it awful?’ Mae asks me.

  ‘A three-piece ensemble, kind of a biscuity pale brown in colour. But it had a contrasting chocolate-brown trim on the lapel and the pockets. Pops joked I looked like a chocolate hobnob. Mam didn’t like that one bit. She wanted me to look perfect and no slagging of the suit was allowed.’

  ‘Sounds lovely,’ Mae laughs.

  ‘I know it sounds brutal and, in truth, it was, but at the time I thought I was the dog’s bollocks in it.’ I glance in the rear-view mirror, checking the kids aren’t listening to my cursing. Unsurprisingly, both have their earphones on.

  ‘I can remember begging Mam to let me try it on at least once a day. But she would shake her head no and it remained in a plastic cover in her wardrobe,’ I say.

  ‘She wanted it to be in pristine condition for your special day. I get that. I was the same for Evie,’ Mae says.

  A pain so acute it makes me start hits me under my ribs. ‘In the end, I got my wish and wore it before the communion.’

  ‘When?’ Mae asks, smiling.

  ‘Her funeral.’

  ‘Oh, Olly,’ Mae says, and her smile freezes. I look away. If I see sympathy or pity, I’ll start to cry again. I chance a joke.

  ‘I don’t mind telling you, I didn’t feel in the slightest bit like the dog’s bollocks then. Took the shine off wearing it on my communion, too.’

  Neither of us laugh at my lame attempt to lighten the mood. She reaches over and places a hand lightly over mine for a moment. ‘I’ll help you burn it.’ Then we drive in silence once more.

  ‘If you go any slower we’ll be in reverse,’ Mae remarks after a while, but she’s smiling as she speaks, so I know she’s not having a go at me.

  I look at her and wonder if she has guessed why I am so reluctant to go home. These past couple of days, we’ve been kinder to each other than we have been for the past six months. It’s disconcerting and welcome all at once.

  ‘I watched Mam and Pops both die from that house. There’s a lot of ghosts at home for me,’ I tell her.

  ‘There’s a lot of great memories there too. It will be okay, you wait and see,’ she murmurs. ‘And remember, alongside the ghosts, you have us too. We’re right beside you.’

  I look at her again and smile, but wonder if she means that. I’m not so sure.

  Finally, we turn the bend and our house is in view before me. The house of my childhood that is both the same and also unrecognisable now, with the addition of our modern extension and conservatory at the gable end.

  ‘Holy cow!’

  ‘What the …?’

  ‘Wow!’

  The exclamations from my family come in fast unison as we all see it at the same time.

  ‘Olly?’ Mae says. ‘What on earth is that camper van doing parked outside our house?’

  Chapter Three

  OLLY

  I pull into our driveway with caution. For the life of me, I can’t work out why a thirty-foot camper van is sitting right in the spot where I usually park. That irks me, it feels like an affront, especially today of all days.

  I pull over to the side of the house and sit for a moment, taking in the spectacle.

  ‘That’s so cool,’ Jamie enthuses and already he has his seat belt off, eager to go explore. ‘It looks like a spaceship, Dad!’

  It’s funny how one word can send your memories shooting back in time. At once, I’m sitting beside Pops eating popcorn and slurping Coke, as we watch Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I try to remember what age I was then. Mam was dead, so I reckon it was around 1983 or 1984. I had to sleep with Pops for two nights afterwards, such was my fear that little green men were going to pay me a visit.

  I look up into the sky and half expect to see a spaceship hovering, ready to beam us all up. My imagination is on fire today. Between Obi-Wan and now this, I reckon I’m losing it. I start to hum the iconic five-note melody from that movie and Mae smiles as she recognises it and joins in.

  It’s only a small thing but that small act of camaraderie gives me further hope that Mae and I might be okay, when all of this is over. We are still on the same wavelength, at least some of the time. That has to be a good sign. I turn to the kids and tell them, ‘Stay where you are, till I see who this is.’

  The camper van looks quite modern, as they go. Not that I know much about the world of Winnebagos and motor homes. I once again rack my brains trying to work out who the hell I know owns one of these or would be most likely to drive one. But I come up blank.

  It’s quite big and has a curved canopy over the driver’s cab, which I know is quite common in a lot of the models. I can remember years ago when I was a kid, before Mam died, a cousin of hers and his wife called in to see us driving a huge camper van. They slept in a kind of bunk bed over the driver’s cab. I can’t even remember this cousin’s name now and I’m pretty sure they must be dead, because they seemed ancient back then. God, the smell in that thing! Toiletry odours covered up by headache-inducing air fresheners, that made me want to gag. Surely it can’t be those two again?
<
br />   I check out the van a little closer. It’s white in the main, but has blocks of silvery grey across the cabin. It also has a bright-red stripe splashed across both sides, in an attempt at frivolity almost.

  For fuck’s sake! I’m not sure why I’m so put out by its presence, but I am. It feels like the straw that is about to break my back. As I walk towards the driver’s door, I shout out, ‘Hello?’ but nobody answers me. My heart rate speeds up as adrenalin begins to pump into my blood. I can hear my heart begin to drum in my ears, getting louder and louder as I approach the cab. I’m not sure what I’m expecting to see sitting behind the driver’s wheel. But when I see it’s empty I’m both relieved and disappointed all at once.

  Confused, I turn around to wave to Mae and the kids. I want to signal them that there seems to be no one here, but the side door to the camper van opens with a clang, making me jump back, almost tripping over my own feet. In a pathetic non-hero-like manner, I squeak out a hiss of surprise.

  I’m grateful that Mae and the kids are not by my side to witness it. Not my finest moment. I stand up tall in an attempt at redemption and face a middle-aged man. He has neat mousy brown hair parted to the side, wearing a brown pullover and beige slacks. He doesn’t look in the slightest bit like an alien. Or dangerous.

  ‘Alright,’ his voice calls out to me. I can’t work out the accent, but it’s not Irish, that I know for sure. Scottish maybe? He steps down from the doorway and smiles at me brightly, like it’s the most normal thing in the world for him to be here.

  I nod back at him and try to work out if I’ve ever met him before. Nope, I’m pretty certain this is the first time I’ve clapped eyes on him.

  He holds his hand out and introduces himself, ‘Aled Davies.’ He then does this thing where he bows, almost Chinese-like. The lilting voice, singsong, along with the name, alerts me to where he’s from – he’s Welsh.

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ I say, lying. ‘I’m Olly Guinness. But you’ve got the advantage on me, Mr Davies, because I’m not sure why you are parked in my driveway.’

  ‘I’ll tell you for why,’ he replies with a smile. ‘I’ve come to deliver Nomad to you.’

  ‘Nomad?’ I repeat, feeling stupid, like I’m missing the obvious. ‘Who’s Nomad?’

  ‘Not who, what!’ he laughs and with glee points to his camper van.

  I’m baffled now and figure that this Welshman must have been smoking something, because he’s not making any sense to me. I look him up and down and he appears to be sober, lucid and harmless enough, but so was Keyser Söze and look how that worked out for Gabriel Byrne.

  I gesture to Mae and the kids to join me as I’m pretty certain that the brown-jumper-clad man before me poses no threat. I introduce each of them to Aled and his smile gets brighter and bigger with every passing name.

  ‘I’ve heard lots about you two!’ Aled tells Evie and Jamie when they stand beside me.

  ‘You sound funny,’ Jamie tells him, looking at him warily.

  ‘Don’t be rude,’ Mae scolds Jamie, but Aled just laughs.

  ‘Not the first time I’ve heard that, truth be told. Right, I know you must be wondering why I’m here, but one minute. Where did I put it?’

  He starts patting down his jumper and trousers and then exclaims as he pulls out a white envelope, ‘Ah, here it is. I’ve a letter to give to you, Olly.’

  It has my name on the front and I recognise the handwriting immediately.

  Pops.

  My heartbeat starts to do its loud hammer dance in my ears again. I can feel a line of sweat break out on my forehead. I’m cold, hot, clammy and can’t breathe.

  I feel a hand steady me – Mae – and realise that I must have faltered for a moment. I look at the figurine of Obi-Wan Kenobi clasped in Jamie’s hand and then at the letter in Aled’s hand. Wi-Fi. Fucking Wi-Fi.

  ‘I think we should go inside,’ Mae says, and she leads me towards the front door, gesturing Aled to follow us. ‘It’s been a long day.

  ‘Evie, can you make some tea for our guest, please,’ Mae instructs, sounding posh and proper and nothing like her usual self. Evie throws her a dirty look and for a moment I think she’s going to refuse. But then she glances at me and sighs loudly, scuffing her feet as she walks out of the room. Mae then motions Jamie to go into the den to watch TV. I realise that she is also thrown by the letter and trying hard to hold it together.

  ‘When did he give you this?’ I demand as soon as I find my voice again. The envelope feels heavy in my hand and a faint line of moisture from clammy fingers appears on the top right-hand corner.

  ‘Your father sent it to me last week, Olly. He gave me specific instructions that I was to be here on the day of his funeral. He arranged with the funeral director – Mr Larkin, I believe – to call me when he died, so I could get here on time.’

  I hold my breath as he explains the events of the past few days and start to sweat again. What the hell had Pops been up to?

  ‘I’m so sorry for your loss,’ Aled said to me. ‘Your father was a proper gentleman. But he wanted to do this. He was quite adamant that I should be here today.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’ve ever heard Pops mention you before,’ Mae says, the kids hovering behind her. There’s no way they are missing out on whatever this is.

  ‘I’m sorry to say that I didn’t meet him in person. But we’ve spoken on the phone a few times. As I said, he was a proper gent and I would have liked to have spent time with him, if things were different. I think we would have got along pretty well. Maybe it’s best you read the letter. I’m sure it will all become a bit clearer when your father explains what he has done. I’ll go wait in Nomad while you do. Give you some privacy.’

  Mae begins to make noises that he should stay where he is, but I usher him to the door saying, ‘Feel free to take your tea with you.’

  I don’t want to be a complete dick.

  Aled stands up and walks out, saying as he leaves, ‘Take your time. I’m quite comfortable out here.’ He gives me a look of sympathy and I nod back, but my attention is one hundred percent on Pop’s letter and I don’t want a stranger watching me as I read it.

  Part of me wants to rip the envelope open, but there’s another part of me that’s chicken. What if this message from the grave – or urn, I suppose – has something bad in it? I shiver. Jamie and Evie have joined Mae on the couch and the three of them watch me, waiting for me to get on with the task at hand. I feel fortified by having them by my side. My family.

  So steadied by that sight, with fumbling thumbs, I slowly open the envelope. The sound of paper tearing slices through the thundering silence.

  I look inside the envelope and enclosed are two sheets of paper. For a moment, my vision blurs as tears sting my already tired eyes. I blink twice, then once more to focus on the words below.

  Chapter Four

  Dearest Olly and Mae

  If you are reading this, it means that I’m gone. Ah, I’m sorry. I know you must have been through the ringer. There was only one thing worse for me than losing your mother, Olly, and that was watching you grieve and then grow up without her in your life. But grief is inevitable. So I’ll not tell you to stop crying.

  This letter … I’ve found it the most difficult to write. Over the summer you’ll get to see all of the letters I’ve penned. Some were easier than others, but this first one, well, I’m struggling …

  I can imagine you all sitting in the living room as you read this. Or maybe you are already in Nomad? Well, the main thing is, don’t be worrying, this is a GOOD letter. No nasty surprises, I promise you.

  So was it a good turnout today in the end? Charlie Doyle had almost a thousand at his mass and I can remember thinking that it must have made his family happy, seeing how loved he was. He was a good man, in fairness, even if he had a neck like a jockey’s you-know-what. It’s over ten years since he borrowed my drill. Not that any of that matters a blind bit now, of course.

  I hope you don’t mind that I orga
nised my own funeral. I didn’t want any of you to have the burden and, if I’m honest, partly I wanted to control how I leave this world. Beth never got that chance. I always regret that we’d not discussed what she wanted. Did I do right by her? That’s weighed on my mind a lot lately. Arra, sure there’s no point worrying about that now.

  Olly, all this talk about funerals sparked a forgotten memory. ‘Are you quite alright?’ Do you remember that day at your great aunt Celeste’s funeral? I cried with laughter all over again today when I thought about it. Tell the kids, they’ll like that story.

  Bet you have lots of questions right now. What’s with the letters? What’s with Nomad? I’m coming to that.

  All I’ve ever wanted in life was to see you happy, lad. And watching you and Mae fall in love and start your own family, well it’s been a privilege to be part of. I want to thank Mae, in particular, for letting an old fool like me live with you.

  I know that these past six months have been hard. My cancer, along with sucking the life out of me, seems to have sucked the joy out of our family, hasn’t it? Don’t try denying it, I know it’s true. We used to laugh a lot in this house, but the laughs seem far and few between lately.

  I can’t change the past, but I can help change what happens next. I’ve decided it’s time to inject some fun into the Guinness family.

  That brings me to Aled and Nomad. Does he look like Sir Tom Jones? He sounds just like him, at least he did on the phone. Decent bloke.

  Nomad is my gift to you all. Isn’t she a beauty? I’ve only seen pictures, mind you, and a video clip, but even so, I can tell she’s perfect. She’s all paid for, so don’t fret about money. And there’s a few bob extra for expenses. Aled has promised to show you all how she works before he goes. Now I can imagine that you are wondering what on earth possessed me to buy Nomad. Well, it’s simple. And the word simple is key.

  Olly, do you remember when I asked you recently what did you want from life and you said to me that it had all gotten complicated lately? Well, I couldn’t stop thinking about that. I decided that I’d find a way to uncomplicate things for you.