by Faith Hogan
‘Well, it can’t be easy, not for any of you, but especially not for Carrie.’
‘Carrie’s fine.’ Bloody typical of Jim to weigh in on Carrie’s side, Kevin thought, but of course, he wasn’t surprised, Jim had always preferred to Carrie to him anyway.
‘Yeah, sure she is.’ Jim shook his head. ‘It’s not going to be doing you any good either, mate. After all, you can’t expect Valentina to be playing second fiddle to Carrie forever. You need to get it sorted, if that’s what you want.’
‘I know all this, Jim, can we talk about something else, okay?’ So they sat in silence, until Jim drained his pint.
‘Night, Mick,’ he nodded towards the barman who looked positively disappointed that he was leaving.
‘See you Tuesday,’ Mick said.
‘Must be getting back to the wife and mortgage,’ Jim said, but there was a trace contentment dug deep into his cynicism that Kevin had never noticed before.
The problem with Jim, as Kevin saw it, was that he was stuck. He couldn’t see beyond what he had in his own house. The other big problem with him was that, like Carrie, Jim could read him like a book. Kevin wasn’t sure he wanted to be read like a book anymore. He liked that Valentina couldn’t see right through him.
He decided he would put Carrie out of his mind as he headed for work. Damn Jim anyway, with all that talk of Carrie, it seemed as if somehow she managed to invade his mind even as he should have been bragging about how great things were now that he’d moved on. Valentina was working harder than ever, perhaps trying to prove herself. Kevin had a feeling that now they were officially an item, she felt a little more proprietarily about The Sea Pear. It wasn’t a bad thing, as he saw it. It took the swagger out of Andrew’s walk, for one thing. Carrie was starting to take more time off too. That made things easier for everyone. She was still working all week, but now she was just clocking in her forty hours, she was there when she needed to be, not like before, not all the time. When she was on shift with Valentina, if things were quiet, she left them to it and retreated to her office upstairs. God alone knew what she was at up there, cooking the books or perhaps playing on the computer with that blog thing. His mobile phone pulled him out of his thoughts.
‘Hi Penny,’ he said automatically. His sister rarely rang him unless she needed something.
‘Kevin, thank God you answered. It’s Mum, she fell earlier. I’m only after finding her.’
‘Is she okay?’ He could hear a note of panic in Penny’s voice, but then she was married to an Italian, and she’d always been a bit of a diva before that.
‘For heaven’s sake, of course she’s not okay, Kevin. She’s an old woman, living on her own. We’re at the hospital, you’re going to have to come. When did you last drop in on her, Kevin?’
‘Ah, it was, let me see now.’ Of course, he hadn’t gone near his mother. He’d visited that once, then he’d organised a taxi and hoped that by the next time they saw each other there’d be no more talk of Carrie.
‘Seriously, haven’t you been to see her at all. At least when Carrie was around I knew she was being dropped in on. Really, Kevin, you’re worse than useless.’ Penny cut him off before he had a chance to defend himself. The thing was, she had a point.
*
Kevin hated hospitals. They were full of sick people and, to Kevin at least, they always seemed so hazardous. There were alarms, constant floor-washing and he could smell day-old stewed beef as he passed the stairwell. There were far too many people rushing about, really; he often wondered how anyone survived the place.
They’d put his mother in a six-bedded ward. Kevin muttered about health insurance and private rooms and the nurse gave him a withering look that only just compared to the daggers Penny gave him when he sat at his mother’s side.
‘Ah, Kevin,’ she said, but her voice sounded reedy, too thin, like her best china that they never used and he always suspected wouldn’t survive a scalding, never mind a good scrubbing. ‘Can you believe it? I fell in my front door? I feel such an old fool.’
‘Don’t say that, Mum, it could happen to anyone,’ Penny soothed her.
‘It’s that step, isn’t it?’ Kevin said. ‘We could get someone to come and put in a ramp, if you’d like.’
‘Oh, Kevin, if it was that easy.’ His mother shook her head sadly. ‘You’re just both so busy and now with Carrie gone… I…’ a small tear rolled down his mother’s cheek.
‘Carrie used to pop in every other day with milk and bread and anything Mum needed. It was on her way to work, you see,’ Penny said archly.
‘I didn’t know, did I?’ Kevin could feel his hackles rise.
‘Today, I was out of butter. I asked along the road, but there was no one.’ She sniffled again and Kevin felt cruel for imagining she was actually enjoying this. ‘I set off with my bag. It took a while, I’ve slowed down a lot, you see.’
‘Oh, Mum.’ Penny looked as if someone had shaken the spirit from her.
‘And I don’t mind that, I mean, that’s to be expected, after all, you can’t go on forever. I made it back to my own front door, I was a little puffed out, but nothing that a nice cup of tea wouldn’t set to rights and then bang. Before I knew it, I was on the ground.’
‘The doctors are running tests, don’t worry, Mum,’ Penny soothed.
‘Oh, tests. There’s no medicine for old age. I suppose, you’ll want to put me into one of those homes now, no good to anyone anymore.’ Maureen Mulvey started to cry again as though her heart might break.
‘Mum, we’d never put you anywhere,’ Kevin said, his voice strong and sure. His mother needed him to be strong now. ‘There’s no need for that kind of talk.’ He sighed deeply. ‘All it is,’ he looked across at Penny, ‘it just means that we have to drop by every day. And sure, Penny, that’s no hardship, is it?’ She wasn’t wiggling out of this.
‘Well, it would appear that it is for some people,’ Penny shot at him. ‘Really, Kevin, you’re the one that’s free and easy and you haven’t so much as checked that your mother is alive in weeks.’ She was fuming and he had a feeling that she was only saying words that their mother was biting down.
‘I’m sorry, it’s just been very busy.’ He smiled now at his mother, older and more fragile than he’d ever seen her before. ‘What with work and moving…’
‘You’ve moved?’ his mother suddenly seemed to get some of her old fire back. ‘You’ve moved house and you never told your own mother?’
‘Well, I…’ he squirmed uncomfortably in the seat, caught the satisfied look on Penny’s face.
‘And what about that lovely little house you had with Carrie, that’s gone too, I suppose,’ his mother had always, not too quietly, fantasised about her grandchildren growing up there. ‘Did she throw you out?’
‘No, Mother, I wanted to leave. It seemed only fair, since we…’ Kevin bit his lip.
‘We?’ Penny was in like a vulture. ‘Who’s we?’ She already knew, he could tell, but then lots of people knew. All of their friends knew and Penny wasn’t exactly a recluse.
‘I…’ God, this was even harder than he thought. ‘I’ve met someone.’
‘Holy mother of the divine.’ His mother blessed herself piously. ‘As if it wasn’t bad enough, deserted by my own family, and now this…’ she shook her head sadly.
‘It’s not what you think.’ Kevin said.
‘And she was so good to you,’ his mother lamented the loss of Carrie, then softly, as though it just dawned on her, ‘she was good to me too, not that I ever…’
‘Did you meet her before or after you had finished up with Carrie?’ Penny was never one to hang about. Kevin cursed her under his breath. Maybe if he’d come clean with her from the beginning she might have covered for him.
‘I’ve known her for a while. But, if you’re asking me…’ he couldn’t lie, could he? Silence was his best option, then inspiration struck. ‘Carrie has met someone too,’ he said, quickly, perhaps a little high-pitched.
‘Are you trying to give me a heart attack as well as letting me fade away by neglect?’ His mother gasped. ‘Who on earth did Carrie “meet”? And more importantly, what kind of a woman did you meet up with that would have you moving out of your perfectly comfortable home, away from a girl like Carrie who was so kind and solicitous of your mother?’
‘It’s not like that.’
‘Well, I’d very much like to hear what it is like,’ his mother said impatiently, waving away a nurse who arrived with a vase for the tragic flowers Kevin had picked up in the shop downstairs. ‘Close those curtains, Penny,’ His mother elbowed her way higher in the bed. She may want them to think she was at death’s door, but there was no way the other patients were getting an earful of her son’s uncommon domestic arrangements.
*
The brochures were the first thing Luke spotted when he arrived to visit Jane that day. ‘Ballyglen?’ he said, nodding towards the open brochure on the bed. ‘My dad lives there, although…’ he didn’t finish off the sentence. He wished that his father had not settled into Ballyglen and seemed, with it, to have given up on living the full life that Luke believed still stretched out before him. Luke didn’t want that to happen to Jane as well.
He didn’t tell Jane that he’d worked so hard to make the pub feel as though it was welcoming her back. He didn’t say that something niggled him about the place, as if it felt lonely without her. It was a little peculiar, even in his own head, but he felt there was something about the place that resonated with him. Perhaps it was those faded photographs that hung on the wall and oddly resembled his father and indeed himself. The Marchant Inn could be home to him, if he’d ever known what a home was, or if he gave it half a chance.
‘Does he like it?’ Jane asked and he had a feeling that, unlike his father, she might actually listen to his opinion and so he trod far more carefully than he might have otherwise done.
‘You’d have to ask him that, it’s… not the same as living in your own house, but I suppose…’ Luke faltered. ‘Anyway, that’s a decision for another day,’ he said, because maybe he could see that Jane might actually enjoy being surrounded by other people, especially when he thought of her alone in that big empty building with people like those two yobs who’d dropped in on him.
‘Hmm,’ she said, gathering up the pamphlets and placing them in a neat bundle on top of her bag. ‘Well, as you say, we’ll see…’ and she fingered the collar of her cardigan, pulling it around her in a habit Luke had quickly picked out as nervous.
‘My landlady says she knows you,’ he said lightly. ‘Mrs Peril.’
‘Of course, Winnie, she’s been running that bed and breakfast for as long as I can remember.’ Jane shook her head. ‘I haven’t seen her in an age; her family must be all doing for themselves now.’
‘Well, she told me that she has a son on every continent except the one she’s living in.’ He couldn’t help feeling that there was a bitterness to Mrs Peril’s words as she’d pronounced this curious fact. ‘Mind you, the more time I spend in her company, the more I can understand why they’d want to put a bit of space in between them,’ he said conspiratorially. ‘She’s an awful woman for giving out. If it’s not the weather, it’s the price of things. I can’t help but think that she probably gives out about her guests too,’ he said then, shaking his head.
‘Probably, but once you realise it’s just her way…’ Jane smiled wisely. Perhaps it was good to know some things didn’t change. ‘What will you do for Christmas, does she keep guests over the holiday?’
‘I don’t know, to be honest, I never thought to ask,’ he mused, because, really, he hadn’t given much thought to Christmas, it hadn’t particularly featured in his plans, usually it came and went. He made his way to whatever city his father was living in and they cooked steaks, watched TV and either caught up with each other over a few beers or caught up with sleep to hijack the jet lag that was an inevitable part of living from a suitcase. ‘I suppose I’ll have to ask.’
‘You should, while there’s still time to make some kind of a plan.’ She looked at him then, thoughtful for a moment. ‘You know, if you needed a room, well, you’ve seen what my spare rooms are like, they haven’t been slept in, not in years, but…’
‘That’s really kind of you, but I couldn’t do that, really, it just wouldn’t be…’ He didn’t finish off the sentence, because in some ways, he felt no matter what the conditions of the rooms, he’d rather stay with Jane than Mrs Peril any day. The only thing stopping him was the idea that it might feel as if he was taking advantage of her loneliness. He was almost certain that when he moved on, the loneliness might be sharper that it was already, because there would be one more voice to miss. ‘Do you know?’ he said then, leaning towards her, ‘that’s the best offer I’ve had in years,’ and he winked at her. They both laughed so much, the woman in the bed opposite looked across at them suspiciously as though she’d just missed an important joke and she was not one bit pleased about it.
Nine
It was as she was tidying away her laptop, having written up her blog post, that she came across a bundle of receipts and Kevin’s credit card. She couldn’t help herself. The receipts alone were overwhelming. It was all there, detailed in black and white – and almost red too by the looks of things. The deposit on his apartment was more than they earned each year in wages. He was paying a fortune on the lease for his swanky new love nest, but she could have guessed that anyway. Panoramic views in Dublin don’t come cheap. It was the other spending. Jewellery from Grafton Street, designer shoes and bags from the Dundrum shopping centre, clothes from shops that Carrie wouldn’t be brave enough to enter, never mind brandish her credit card in. He was spending a fortune on Valentina. For a minute, she wondered if he realised, but of course, this was Kevin. Kevin had all but receipted his confirmation money and kept a close eye on every penny since. He must be worth a fortune, Carrie reckoned now. When they were together, everything was paid from her account, from the mortgage to the weekly shopping for his mother. She had always assumed he never thought of those practical things, and they were a couple anyway. Well, he was certainly paying the bills now. She folded them all up together, left them on a worktop where, hopefully, Kevin would be first to see them, then she left the kitchen and headed back upstairs until she heard him switch on the radio when he arrived in for the evening shift.
‘We need to talk,’ she said to his back. He was busy pulling food from the cool cupboard for prepping by one of the junior chefs later.
‘We do,’ he said calmly, ‘but is this really the place?’
‘I think it is. At least while we’re here alone. I don’t want you coming back to the house, Kevin. Don’t take that the wrong way, but… I need the space.’
‘Yes, so I hear.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Oh, I think you know exactly what it means,’ he said, his voice was low. Kevin didn’t ‘do’ angry, not that he had any right to be, anyway.
‘Well, whatever it means, I’m going to rise above it. We need to be practical, Kevin. You have moved on with your life and I know that it hasn’t been very long, but we both know you’re not coming back.’
‘You say that as if I don’t have a choice?’ He turned to look at her now, his expression one of mild bewilderment.
‘Well you’ve made your bed and it’s one you seem to be more than content to lie in.’ It would do no good now having a blazing row, and anyway, Carrie wasn’t sure she had a blazing row in her, fighting with Kevin had always been like going ten rounds with a wet teacloth. She’d cried plenty already, shouting at Kevin wasn’t actually going to make her feel better. There was only one thing that would do that. ‘I want the house, Kevin. I haven’t decided about this place yet, but I want to buy you out of the mortgage.’ She dropped to the high stool that Kevin had always objected to but Carrie insisted on because somehow it gave the kitchen a homelier feel. ‘Will you do that for me, let me have that one thin
g,’ she didn’t add that she felt he’d taken her dignity, he’d taken her future and, perhaps, her opportunity to have what every girl dreams of. Carrie was under no illusions. She’d given Kevin the best of her twenties and her thirties too. They’d ploughed their time into building up the restaurant when other women were setting about selecting bridesmaids and getting married. ‘Please, Kevin, you know, Valentina wouldn’t be happy there, it’s not like you’ll ever settle down somewhere like that and it’s my home.’
‘I’ve never had any real attachment to the place, you know that, Carrie. I’m more concerned about The Sea Pear.’ He stood opposite her and for a moment she wondered if perhaps he didn’t regret not conceding to a second kitchen stool. ‘I think we should prioritise the restaurant, I think…’
‘I can’t think about that until I know my home is secure.’ She had the forms for the bank and the solicitor upstairs, he could sign them now and she knew it wouldn’t mean a thing to him. ‘You’ve set up a new home, I know that…’ she nodded towards the bundle of statements and receipts. ‘I have no interest in the kind of high-society life you want, Kevin, all I want is my own little house, it is all I ever wanted.’
‘Okay, okay.’ Kevin looked past her, the front door of the restaurant opening signalled the arrival of some of the staff, early for shift. ‘Okay, but I don’t want to talk about it in front of anyone here.’
‘Fine,’ Carrie said, knowing that Kevin would die of mortification rather than have people know the ins and outs of his domestic arrangements. ‘I have the forms in my bag; perhaps before Valentina comes in you’ll come up to my office and sign them?’
‘Yeah, sure,’ he said, moving away quickly at the sound of voices in the restaurant outside.
And, so it was done. Carrie left the restaurant that night, feeling, if not elated, certainly secure in the knowledge that she’d sorted out the mortgage at the value they purchased rather than the newly inflated prices of the current property market. It was only fair after all, when she looked back on their time in the house, she had paid the mortgage and selected every piece of furniture they had. Kevin knew it too, and so long as they kept Valentina out of things, it should all be fair and square.
