The Things I Should Have Told You

by Carmel Harrington

  ‘What about Pops’ ashes?’ Olly asks and I flush once more. I take a steadying breath and compose myself.

  I’d already thought about that. ‘Why don’t we wait for his instructions on where he wants them scattered and we can head off in Nomad for a weekend to do that. That way we do the camping thing, but only for a few days. Everyone is happy.’

  Olly nods, but he looks anything but happy. He closes the door softly behind him as he exits the room.

  It appears I’ve gotten my own way. The trip is off. Why then do I feel so bad? A voice a lot like Pops’ jumps into my head. Mae Guinness, sometimes being right is lonely.

  Chapter Ten

  EVIE

  Watching Jamie perched on top of the canopy bed in Nomad, swinging his legs back and forth, can only end one way. Before I get the word ‘Don’t!’ out of my mouth, he shouts, ‘Robo Jamie!’ and jumps.

  I hold my breath, sure the daft eejit will break his legs, but he lands on his feet and laughs, delighted with himself.

  ‘Mam will go mad if she sees you throwing yourself off that,’ I say, but I’m grinning. That was kinda cool.

  He ignores me. But I’m glad to see him having fun. He’s been miserable for ages over Pops. And as if he can read my mind, he walks over and sits down beside me on the sofa.

  ‘I miss Pops,’ he sighs dramatically, just to really punch home how much. I move a little closer to him on the sofa and nudge his shoulder with mine. He nudges back.

  ‘Me too, dude,’ I say.

  We sit for ages, both lost in memories of Pops, I suppose. At least, that’s where I am.

  ‘Will you help me get Pops’ urn down from the shelf? I want to see what the ashes look like,’ Jamie asks.

  ‘Ewww. That’s gross, and no I will not,’ I say. Besides, I’ve already had a sneaky peek and I’m sorry I did. It’s so far removed from Pops that it is a head-wreck. I don’t want that for Jamie.

  ‘Paddy Moher says that the ashes look like cigarette ash,’ Jamie says.

  ‘Don’t mind Paddy Moher, they do not,’ I reply.

  ‘Well, I didn’t believe him, because he also said that our teacher, Mr Holt, was a werewolf,’ he sighs again. ‘He is really hairy, but I don’t think that’s true either.’

  An image of Mr Holt howling at the moon pops into my head and won’t go away. Thanks Jamie.

  ‘Mam is being a meanie saying no to the trip,’ he complains. ‘And you know something I’ve noticed? They always fight when they go into their bedroom. I’d stay out of there if I was them.’

  ‘Funny guy,’ I say, and nudge his shoulder again.

  ‘Nothing is fun any more.’ Jamie’s eyes are locked firmly on his feet, which are kicking the floor over and over.

  I place my hand on his legs to quieten them. ‘They miss Pops too. Mam’s busy with work …’ I think she gets a bad rap around here sometimes, working ridiculous hours most days. And she’s not been uncool these past few weeks with me too.

  But that doesn’t excuse what’s going on right now. She needs to be more understanding with Dad. I mean, his Pops is dead. If we are in bits, he must be falling apart inside.

  ‘Do you want to go on this trip?’ Jamie asks.

  ‘I think so,’ I say. ‘I know I want to get away from here.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because here sucks right now.’

  ‘Yeah. It sucks,’ Jamie agrees, making me laugh again.

  It feels like the walls around here are closing in on me. Both Mam and Dad keep suggesting a ‘talk’. I don’t want to ‘thrash it out to move forward’ as they keep saying, I just want to forget about the whole thing. And maybe if we head off on this crazy trip, it will take the heat off me.

  ‘We have to find a way to change Mam’s mind,’ I say.

  ‘What are you guys up to?’ Dad’s voice calls in.

  ‘We demand a family meeting,’ Jamie declares. He’s such a drama queen.

  Dad looks kind of amused by this. ‘Go on.’

  ‘We heard you and Mam fighting – again – about Nomad,’ Jamie says. ‘We know that Mam doesn’t want to go.’

  Dad now looks a bit emotional. Oh God, don’t let him start to cry again. I can’t cope with his boohooing.

  ‘I’m sorry you heard us having a heated discussion,’ he informs us.

  Yeah, right!

  ‘Okay … well it’s like this, we er think, like that as Pops went to a lot of trouble to organise the trip, it would be disrespectful not to go ahead and follow his wishes, wouldn’t it?’ I say.

  ‘I don’t think Pops would want us to go ahead if it meant that your mam was unhappy,’ Dad tells us.

  ‘But we could go ourselves,’ Jamie says.

  ‘Without your mam?’ Dad asks and Jamie nods.

  I can feel hives beginning to pop up all over my arms now. I must look them up in my records annual. I must be breaking records as quick as I’m breaking skin here.

  ‘It doesn’t work that way, guys. I wouldn’t do it without your mam or you guys, for that matter. We’re a family and we stick together. If your mam doesn’t want to go, then we must respect that.’ His face is set.

  ‘I think you’re wrong,’ I tell him. ‘Pops had a dying wish and he said that he wants us to go to Europe and scatter his ashes and stuff. We owe him that much. You have to tell Mam, change her mind.’

  ‘A family meeting and nobody thought to invite me?’ Mam says, walking into the room. She looks pissed. Awkward.

  I itch my legs now, wondering how soon before all the red bumps blend into one and I turn into a strawberry blob.

  ‘No, nothing like that,’ Dad reassures her. ‘The kids are just talking about Nomad and the trip, that’s all.’

  ‘I heard. You all want to go to Europe and would be happy to leave me behind.’ Mam looks upset. Oh for God’s sake, now she’s going to cry. What is it with my blubbing parents?

  ‘I’ve told the children we don’t go without you,’ Dad says. ‘We are not splitting the family up! We’ll go for a long weekend to wherever Pops wants his ashes scattered. That way we’ll still get to have a small trip in Nomad, Jamie.’

  ‘You’re a big meanie and I hate you!’ Jamie screams at Mam. I feel a bit of vomit hit the back of my throat again.

  ‘Nice. Turn the pressure up with emotional blackmail from the kids,’ Mam hisses at Dad.

  ‘I didn’t say a word,’ he hisses back.

  I’ve had enough of this shit, I’m out of here. But the ragged breath of Jamie beside me as his body heaves with tears makes me pause.

  ‘It’s n-n-not f-f-fair,’ he stammers out.

  No it isn’t. ‘Would you both stop!’ I scream. ‘Look what you’re doing to Jamie with all your fighting! I can’t take any more of it either. I wish Pops was here. He was the only one who really cared about us two. All you both care about is yourselves and scoring points off each other. We can’t take any more!’

  Silence.

  Jamie clasps my arm and I pull him into me. My heart is hammering so hard, my face is flushed and I hold my breath when Mam stands up. ‘Don’t say a word,’ she says to Dad and then walks out, leaving the three of us alone, with just the sound of Jamie’s tears breaking the silence. None of us move, we just stand there like statues. But then Mam walks back in, with a bundle of rucksacks in her hands. She tosses them towards our feet and they land with a dull thud and the statues jump in fright.

  ‘I’ve seen the storage in here and no matter how much yer man Aled dresses it up, it’s miniscule. So if we are going to last eight weeks cooped up in this thing, you get one small bag each. If it doesn’t fit in that bag, it’s not coming. Got it?’ Mam states.

  Jamie stops crying. Dad looks confused. I don’t blame him, so am I. Is she saying we’re going now? Jamie jumps up and runs over to her, flinging himself into her arms, shouting, ‘We’re going? For real?’

  ‘Yes, for real,’ Mam says, kissing his hair.

  He mutters something that sounds a bit like Robo Jamie. Th
at boy gets weirder and weirder.

  ‘You want to go? You’re not just saying it?’ Dad asks.

  ‘I won’t lie to you. I don’t want to go. But as Evie says, Pops wants us to go. And my family all want to go. So we should go. But I reserve the right to come home at any stage if it doesn’t work out. Without any complaint from you, Olly. That’s my condition. Non-negotiable,’ Mam says.

  ‘Agreed,’ Dad says. Ah shit, he’s gone all emosh again.

  Mam disentangles herself from Jamie’s embrace and walks over to me, kissing me on my cheek. ‘I’m so sorry for everything, Evie.’

  She grabs Jamie’s hand and says, ‘Your dad and I owe you both an apology. We shouldn’t be letting our silly arguments creep into our family. We’re under a lot of stress and sometimes that makes us do things that we’re not proud of. Maybe Pops is right. Maybe we do need to simplify our lives.’

  ‘I’m so sorry that we made you feel that way,’ Dad says.

  ‘S’alright,’ I mumble.

  ‘This is important. Know this, we love you. More than anything else in the world. Never ever doubt that,’ Mam says, holding our hands so tight she’s hurting me.

  ‘Are we really going on a super, epic adventure?’ Jamie cries, wriggling away from her.

  ‘Yes, I think we are,’ Dad replies looking at Mam, smiling.

  I can’t quite believe the turn-around. I’m still shaking from my outburst, I thought Mam would go ballistic. But she changed her mind because of something I said. And now we’re going off around Europe in this camper van! Wait till I tell Ann.

  I pick up the rucksack and realise that my summer reading alone will fill it. ‘There’s no way that I can fit everything into that one little bag, Mam,’ I say.

  ‘We get two, just don’t tell the boys,’ she says with a wink. ‘Right, how about we all go inside, pick a movie and order a pizza?’

  She’s smiling really, really brightly, more manic than happy. Maybe we’re wrong to force her to come. But Jamie is running around in circles, delirious with delight, so to hell with it, I’m going to shelve my niggling doubts. Watch out world, the Guinnesses are going on a trip.

  Chapter Eleven

  My dearest Olly and Mae

  How are you both? How many times does that question just trip off our tongues without us really wanting to know the answer? Well I have to tell you that I’m fretting about you both all morning. I hazard a guess that you are both in a world of pain. When Beth died, I thought I’d never recover from it. It’s physical pain too, not just emotional. I felt like my insides had been ripped out through my throat. And I’m heart sorry that you might be feeling a fraction of that. But I learnt that my hurt was worth bearing, because it was physical proof that I had experienced love.

  Love hurts, but it’s the most exquisite gift we can receive and give in life. Try to keep that to the forefront of your minds and you’ll get through anything that life tosses at you. Olly, it was my love for you and the love that I got back in return that made me get out of bed in those early days after Beth died. So do me a favour and work hard to be the reason that your family get up every day.

  You know, as I plan this trip using the atlas as my guide, with every page I turn forgotten memories echo around in my brain. I keep smelling stewed apples. Isn’t that funny? Sugary with a kick of cloves. And brown bread, fresh from the oven, earthy and sweet. I fancy that these smells of Beth are infused into the very fabric of the atlas. It makes me happy to imagine you all, heads bent close, looking at a world as yet unexplored.

  Arra, enough of my ramblings. You want to know where you’re off to, don’t you? Get to the point, Pops, I can hear you scream. Well, I thought about sending you around Ireland for a week to ease you into the world of camping, but, sure, you can do that yourselves some other time. It’s time to brush up on your bonjours and au revoirs because you’re going to France!

  Tickets are in the envelope, along with all the details of where you are staying. All you have to do is get yourself to Rosslare and then you are on the overnight ferry to Cherbourg.

  Don’t be tearing around those French roads, now, Olly. Take it easy and enjoy the drive. This trip should be fun, so no sweating buckets about it all. I know what you’re like. Oh, by the way, remember, they drive on the other side of the road over there, haha!

  Your first stop is Bayeux, Normandy. By my reckoning, it’s only an hour’s journey, or thereabouts. I’ve booked you into Les Castels Chateau De Martragny. It’s an actual chateau. Thought Mae would like that. You will be staying three nights there. Will you both do me a favour and try to kick back a bit? Remember that life doesn’t have to be a race. It’s okay to stop and smell the roses, or the smelly cheese, sometimes. I’m looking at you here Mae. You never seem to relax lately.

  I thought it might be fun to set you a challenge for each part of your trip. For this first destination I want you to bring the children to the D-Day landing sites. I’m worried that Evie and Jamie don’t realise that there is more to life than their iPads and X Factor. You both have to show them that life can be so much more. I went there with your mother before you were born and it stayed with me. When you get there, talk to them about what happened on the beaches. Will you do that for me?

  It’s crossed my mind that maybe you could all decide NOT to go on this trip. Maybe as you read this, Nomad is already sold. Oh, I hope that’s not the case. I won’t lie, I’ll be heart sorry if you don’t do as I have planned. Don’t ask me why, but in my very core, I know it’s the right thing for you all. Please trust me on this. Life is not meant to be lived in one place, you must travel.

  I’ll be in touch, but au revoir for now,

  Pops x

  Chapter Twelve

  OLLY

  English was my first exam during my leaving cert. I can remember walking into the test hall with great trepidation. My usual strut and swagger gone and it felt like the green mile, making that walk to my little wooden desk. I placed my pencil case and a bottle of water in front of me, feeling awkward, my knees kept banging under the table no matter how I sat. And then I began to panic. Because I knew I was ill prepared. I had done feck-all studying for it and I’d be lucky to scrape a pass.

  Well, as I walk around Nomad for the third time in the last five minutes, I have the same feeling. I am ill prepared for Pops’ adventure. I’m about to head off for eight weeks in a camper van with the most precious people in my life. And I haven’t a clue what I’m doing. Nomad seems to have grown overnight. I’m going to be playing chicken with the oncoming traffic as it will fill the roads we live on around here. I wonder if it’s too late to back out.

  ‘Come on, Dad!’ Jamie shouts, impatient to start this ‘epic’ adventure. Everything is ‘epic’ right now with Jamie. I hope I don’t ‘epic fail’ and hit the ditch before we even get out of Wexford. Nomad is almost unrecognisable now. Mae stated that if she was going to spend eight weeks in it, she needed colour. So bright cushions and curtains are now welcome additions in what she’s told me are ‘jewel’ colours. It looks great, I do know that.

  The kitchen is also stocked with cutlery and cooking equipment, the larder presses jam-filled with non-perishable foods. We won’t go short on baked beans or spaghetti hoops is all I’m saying.

  Our neighbours have agreed to call into home every week and make sure it stays in one piece while we are gone. It’s locked up now and we are ready to leave.

  So why am I standing here like a gobshite, staring at the back of the van, looking for goodness knows what?

  Mae, Evie and Jamie are all in their seats, buckled in, ready for the off. The kids are charmed with the idea of travelling ‘in a sitting room’. Mae is up front beside me – my somewhat reluctant co-pilot.

  I don’t know what is going on with us. We seem to take two steps forward, then three back. Like yesterday, one minute she’s asking me about dinner, the next minute she’s storming out of the room. I asked her what I did wrong and she said, ‘nothing’. Of course that ‘n
othing’ was loaded and meant I’d fucked up royally again. The ironic thing is that just before that we’d shared a moment. Sitting side by side, Googling France, chatting, laughing, with no passive-aggressive bullshit from either of us. It was easy. Like it used to be in our marriage. Back before it all went wrong. I go over it in my head, trying to understand the unfathomable destruction of our marriage.

  ‘I miss this.’

  ‘Miss what?’ Mae answers, twisting her body towards me.

  How do I answer that? The warmth of her body next to mine makes me ache with loneliness. Do I tell her that I miss the intimacy of long chats late in the night about everything and nothing as we lay naked in each other’s arms? That I miss her smell, her touch, being her best friend, her ally. Us against the world, we used to say. I miss watching her undress, I miss being the one to make her smile.

  ‘I miss us.’

  She doesn’t answer at first. Then, ‘I know.’ What does she mean by that? Does she miss us too? I feel like an unsure teenage version of myself, trying to get the nerve up to tell a girl that I like her.

  ‘What happened to us?’ Mae asks.

  Like a slideshow, images that shame me crawl out of the recesses of my mind and I feel humiliation and guilt. Telling Mae that I’d been fired. Rejection letter after rejection letter from accountancy firms. Mae’s face when she realised I’d gone soft while I was inside her, and then the ongoing horror of the next few weeks as we both tried to get past my impotency. And failed. Yep, my bad. Staying up late, my head in the iPad, avoiding eye contact so that I don’t have to go to bed at the same time as her, because I can’t bear to lie beside her, knowing that my stupid fucking body has let me down in every way possible.