What Happened to Us?

by Faith Hogan

  She pulled out an emerald wrap dress she’d bought in New York a few years earlier. It was made of the softest wool and always garnered a compliment when she wore it. It worked quite well with patent heels and her black lacy bolero. She needed a splash of Manhattan in her life now. The wrap top managed to hold in her ample boobs. The skirt though narrow didn’t make as much of her peasant thighs as some clinging skirts did. It was the best she could do, and she wasn’t sure who she was trying to impress anyway, she could never match Valentina for looks.

  ‘Right, Teddy, how do I look?’ she quizzed the little dog when she went back into the kitchen. He looked at her curiously, she was not sure if she passed the appearance test, but she had a feeling he saw something in her that went deeper than her figure. She bent down and scratched his head gently. He seemed content to slumber in the same spot in her kitchen, so she left him there.

  She was dreading going into The Sea Pear. There, she’d said it. How long had she felt like that? She shook her head, not long, probably only since Kevin made his announcement. God, it was almost a full fifteen minutes since she gave him a thought. Now the dread filled her again. There was no point going through the thoughts that were cramming her mind: What was she supposed to do now? What was Kevin going to do? Was he going to shack up permanently with Valentina? Carrie couldn’t allow her mind to go there, not yet. For now, she had to get through working in the same building as the pair of them. For now, that would be as much as she would demand of herself.

  The restaurant felt warm and fresh when she arrived. It wasn’t four hours since she walked through here with Teddy and Luke. Yet, knowing that Kevin was going to be here now, the place felt different. As though its familiarity was jarring with what it should be. She hadn’t been at work since yesterday evening, when she’d run out of here distraught. No one had checked up on her and the business had not come crashing down without her. Actually, the place looked fine. Everything was exactly as it should be.

  The smell, familiar, trailing before her was Kevin – a mixture of Calvin Klein and hair products to make his wiry hair appear sleek. They had not spoken, not really, since he had trotted out of her office with Valentina at his side. Oh, they’d exchanged orders from the kitchen to the front of house. They’d worked around each other in careful silence for almost two days, until finally the hollowness inside her had given way last night. He, she knew, was much more cowardly than she. Had she always known that? Was he actually spineless? She thought about it for a moment, then she threw her shoulders back, her ample chest out and marched into the kitchen. She was not afraid. Broken, but not afraid.

  ‘I can’t believe you left my mother high and dry.’ Kevin’s voice reached a pitch she hadn’t heard in years.

  ‘How are you Carrie? How are you doing? I was worried about you?’ Carrie said the words sarcastically; after all, they were what she imagined she would say to him if things were reversed.

  ‘Of course, I was worried about you, we both were, but…’ He ran his long fingers through his thick hair and she noticed it seemed greyer now than it was before. Could he have aged overnight or was it really so long since she’d actually properly looked at him? ‘But still, what was I supposed to do, drag you back to work. Valentina said you probably needed some time to get your head around things. We managed fine, by the way,’ he nodded towards the restaurant.

  ‘Really,’ Carrie said and she let the hurt of him talking to Valentina about her slide sideward on her consciousness. She couldn’t think about all the times they’d probably spoken about her these last few weeks or maybe months. ‘Well, good news for both of you. But I’m back now, so…’

  ‘Well, of course,’ Kevin bit his lip, a nervous habit he had worked hard to kick in college. ‘And…’

  ‘Yes?’ she said. Had he thought about the restaurant, had he thought about the house? She’d bet Valentina had thought of it.

  ‘Well, it’s just…’ He was too weak to move things forward and for that, perhaps, she was glad; she had enough to cope with for now.

  ‘You’ll need to tell your mother, Kevin. From now on you’re going to be bringing her to mass every Sunday.’ She grabbed an apple from the top of a newly delivered box and took a satisfying bite. God, but she’d love to be a fly on the wall when he told Maureen Mulvey about Valentina.

  Working in the restaurant that evening was hard. There was no point lying to herself. Carrie sidestepped Valentina when she could, but they couldn’t avoid each other. Perhaps she could ask some of their friends to give Valentina work in their restaurant. Jim McGrath ran a little bistro on the north side; she’d make a bomb there in tips. She could suggest it to Kevin, maybe, in a few weeks, when they had time to cool down, all of them.

  That was the funny thing though; they were all very cool about this. She hadn’t lost her temper, she hadn’t screamed or shouted, or thrown plates. Today, at least, she didn’t want to hit him or hurt him in any way and, maybe, that meant something. Maybe it meant something more than she’d have realised if this hadn’t happened. Oh, she was hurt. She was hurt beyond description, the kind of pain that goes deep into the core of you. Even when she thought she’d cried herself out, she felt a new current of grief rise within her, bringing waves of tears to her eyes that there was no stopping. Poor Teddy had leant against her leg, lapped up the tears and occasionally rested his head on her lap, as if to offer her his own brand of sympathy. It was a funny thing; there was something in the dog that made her feel he actually got her pain, he, by his very wish to console her, somehow made things better. She was so glad to have him in the house with her.

  She looked up at the clock, almost ten p.m. She walked to the door. Across the road, The Marchant Inn was in darkness and its emptiness thrashed like a wave of lonesomeness through Carrie. She thought of Jane, so fragile and alone in the hospital. Through all those tears, Carrie had made a promise of sorts, even if she hadn’t put it into words – she was going to look out for Jane from now on. Somehow, she was going to help that lonely woman get back to a life that meant something. She sighed, perhaps it would do her good to think about someone else for a while and take her mind off Kevin and Valentina.

  Sunday night was always quiet, very few bookings this evening and generally, everyone was seated by nine or half past and they managed to clear out by twelve. She was looking forward to getting out of here now. Funny, but she’d never felt like that before.

  Carrie slipped upstairs to her office and turned on the computer. She logged into her Facebook account to catch up with what was happening with people she knew who were flung all over the world these days. For one more time, she could pretend that everything was normal. Then she’d call Anna and tomorrow she’d go and see her mother.

  *

  ‘I have been thinking Keveen, thees place, you are right, it ees not good for us,’ Valentina pouted at him the following day.

  ‘Of course it’s not, we should be…’ he wasn’t sure what to say next. Did he want to set up home with Valentina? Of course he did, he’d be mad not to, wouldn’t he? ‘We should look for somewhere to live, properly, a nice place, just the two of us.’ He’d had enough of Reda and Simo.

  ‘Yes, just the two of us. We should go hunting houses, ees that what you call it?’

  ‘House hunting, of course,’ he hated the idea of having to find somewhere, but equally, having seen how Valentina was content to live, he wasn’t sure he entirely trusted her judgement around the bigger issues in life. ‘Er, what kind of place would you like?’ It was worth asking.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, not too big. But somewhere nice, maybe close to the restaurant?’

  ‘Well, that all sounds very sensible.’ He was trying to rack his brains for houses in the outlying areas of Dublin, ‘Perhaps the Liberties?’ It was a reasonable area, certainly not posh or glamorous, but it was safe and very affordable.

  ‘Oh, no, Kevin, that is just grotty and we would want to be in a safer part of the city, especially for parking your car, non?
’ she shrugged, threw her eyes up towards heaven and snorted a feminine little sound that made him smile. ‘Maybe, I go looking, I pick something nice and then you decide? Non?’

  ‘Well, there’s no harm looking, I suppose.’ Kevin wasn’t sure. Carrie took care of all the domestic issues for him and before Carrie his mother had made sure that life was just tickety-boo. His mother. He would have to talk to her. He would not be telling his mother about Valentina. Wasn’t she always saying she had a delicate constitution? What good was there in giving her too many shocks at once? He’d managed to avoid Penny, by the grace of God, she’d rung up his purchases in advance, so all he had to do was swipe his Mastercard while she talked to some smart young buyer they’d foisted on her from head office. Maureen Mulvey, his mother, would not be so easily distracted. He would bring flowers. Flowers were always good for women of a certain age.

  *

  ‘Kevin, you know I hate flowers. I’ve been allergic for years,’ she sniffed as she put them in a vase and left them in the front porch for all the neighbours to admire. ‘Anyway, I don’t need flowers from you, all I ask is a lift to mass on Sundays and an occasional phone call during the week.’ She was still miffed at having missed mass. Honestly, sometimes women could be so unforgiving.

  ‘Yes, Mum, about mass.’

  ‘What about mass?’ she whipped around, far faster than he thought possible for a woman of her age.

  ‘Well,’ Kevin moved towards the kitchen, ‘Carrie, didn’t collect you?’

  ‘You’re not telling me something I don’t know. She didn’t even have the decency to ring. Not so much as an apology and me sitting here in my Sunday best and no mass. I mean, if she’d said. If she’d had the manners to ring and let me know. Well then, maybe I could have gone with the Brownes next door, or even a taxi.’

  ‘Yes, Mother, the thing is…’ this wasn’t easy, he knew it wouldn’t be. ‘Well, we’re not actually, I mean, she’s not actually my…’ God, he was making a complete bags of it.

  ‘Kevin, for goodness’ sake, out with it,’ his mother spat angrily in his direction.

  ‘That is to say, we’re not actually…’ he chewed his lip, could feel a salty rise in his gums, he had to say it. ‘We’re not together anymore. We’re finished, I mean, she’s not my girlfriend anymore.’

  ‘She’s not your girlfriend?’ His mother shook her head. ‘Really, Kevin, that’s ridiculous. You’re not fifteen anymore, either of you. You don’t just go breaking up with your girlfriend when you’re forty-something and you’re living together with a business. It’s the other way you’re meant to be going. Booking the day, I should be buying a new hat.’ The news was sinking in; she fell into the reclining chair Carrie had bought her a few Christmases earlier. It was deep and plush and the most comfortable chair she could find in Dublin. It was from them both, of course, but his mother always called it Kevin’s chair. She placed a hand, smaller and older than he remembered, on the arm and held it tightly. ‘No, Kevin, you have to do something. You’ve been living together…’she shook her head, ‘in sin.’

  ‘Mum, it’s not like that nowadays.’

  ‘Sin is sin. It doesn’t matter if you’re about to walk across the Red Sea or boarding a spaceship. In the Lord’s eyes, a man and a woman, living together like that… Well, it’s just not right.’

  ‘People don’t actually see it like that these days; it’s not how things work now.’

  ‘Well, how things work now isn’t always the right way round.’ She went silent for a moment, digesting perhaps the reality of her newly single son, or some greater question about the lost morality of a whole generation. ‘So?’ She met his eyes and there was no looking away.

  ‘So?’ He wasn’t sure what she wanted him to say. Did she want him to tell her that he would go and try to win Carrie back or was there some more awkward question settling on her lips.

  ‘So, did you ask her to marry you?’ She nodded, perhaps believing that all would be well if he popped the magic question.

  ‘No. It’s not like that, Mum. Getting married doesn’t fix things. For some people it only adds more complications.’

  ‘Of course, we wouldn’t want to complicate it by doing the right thing, now would we?’

  ‘Oh, Mum.’ He slumped down opposite her at the table. He didn’t like this. He was normally the apple of his mother’s eye. Sometimes, even with all the giving out and the sarky remarks, he used to think she liked the idea of him not having married Carrie. It was no secret – Maureen Mulvey believed the woman good enough for her son had yet to be created. Carrie was as good as they could manage, although perhaps not good enough to marry. ‘Mum, I didn’t ask her to marry me because I’m not in love with her anymore.’

  ‘What kind of a reason is that?’ She looked completely perplexed.

  ‘I think it’s a very valid reason. And, maybe, if you asked Carrie, she might feel the same way.’ Well, he reasoned, she might very well feel the same way now that she knew he was playing away with Valentina.

  ‘Young people, I don’t know.’ She sighed. ‘Do you think I was “in love” with your father every day of our lives? Don’t you think for one minute that any marriage is all roses and light, because it’s not. No, but it’s the determination to stick with it, that’s what gets you to the end.’ She was tapping her fingers on the armrests, as though playing out a complex piece of music and Kevin had a horrible feeling it was moving towards a crescendo.

  ‘Well, it’s important to me, Mother.’ He kept his voice low; he couldn’t manage to meet her eye. He was willing himself not to let Valentina’s name slip onto the brewing disapproval between them.

  ‘And what about the restaurant? What about that lovely little house you bought together? What about all the years? You’ve taken that girl’s best years from her; do you know that? Have you thought about that, Kevin?’

  ‘It’s not like that,’ of course he hadn’t thought about that. He’d fallen in love with Valentina and she was dark and dusky and beautiful. She did things to him that had nothing to do with best years or The Sea Pear or the smart little detached house that he’d bought with Carrie when prices were low and they had money flowing in. ‘Carrie never mentioned kids or marriage or any of that. She wanted what I wanted, she wanted the restaurant and to be a success. We’ve achieved a lot together, but things change.’

  ‘It wasn’t up to Carrie to mention marriage or kids,’ Maureen Mulvey sighed, and in that lament, Kevin caught a whole lifetime of discontent blown into the kitchen. A whole raft of frustration and disillusionment fell heavily on his shoulders. Suffocating silence cloyed about them, but there was nothing to say. To Kevin’s mind, his mother’s ideas were outmoded – best years indeed.

  Later, on his drive back into the city, he would find the words he needed to say. He’d given Carrie as much and, to his mind, more than she’d given him. The truth was, they slept in separate beds, in separate rooms and that had suited Carrie every bit as much as it had suited him. They had stopped being a couple and fallen into something platonic long before Valentina had arrived. Carrie might have encouraged him to sleep in the spare room because she had a sinus infection, but she’d never suggested he return when medication cleared it up. It seemed to Kevin that the only thing holding them together was the restaurant.

  *

  Luke hated the nursing home. It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with it exactly, but it was that overriding feeling, that everyone here was standing in line. They were all in a waiting room and nobody particularly wanted to be first called. It was unfortunate that the place backed onto a graveyard. The original building started out as a convent, the graveyard had long been decommissioned, the nuns buried elsewhere and two lines of small black crosses now weaved evenly along a narrow path. It was cruel too, to think that even the people here made him feel just a little anxious. Would his father become just like the old man who wandered the corridors always searching for Emily?

  ‘Dad, are you ready?’ Two mont
hs ago, Luke would have said that his father was probably the fittest man here, if not the youngest. But it seemed over the last few weeks his father had very quickly fallen into old age, as though he’d taken a giant leap and bypassed several years where he might have just slowed down more gradually. Still, he had a mop of strong snow-white hair that truculently misbehaved when it grew a little too long. Like Luke, Conn Gibson had spent most of his life travelling. He had pulled his only son to the four corners of the world in the name of research and archaeology. There was no doubt he had lived a full and interesting life, but the downside was that when it came to retire, nowhere really felt quite like home. He had chosen Ballyglen, over other equally available options, but lately, Luke wondered if even Conn was beginning to realise he’d chosen in haste.

  ‘Always ready, you know me,’ Conn quipped. Still, he kept a compass by his bed and a penknife in his pocket. ‘Where are we off to today?’ and it seemed to Luke that there was fatigue that hung about his father and it went far beyond his years, to something deeper that couldn’t be papered over for much longer.

  ‘I don’t know, where do you fancy?’

  ‘Well, they put up dinner here at five,’ Conn looked at his watch, but they both knew that it would take more years than he had left to become a man who worried about mealtimes or regular hours.

  ‘Should we skip out of here and make dinner my treat?’ Luke offered and they made their way out of Ballyglen without a backwards glance.