What Happened to Us?

by Faith Hogan

  *

  It seemed to Luke that his father had become a smaller man since he’d come to live at Ballyglen. It wasn’t a gradual shrinking, as he’d seen in other men of his age, this was something more than just losing two inches off his six foot frame. It was beyond simply the bend that made his back a little more crooked than before, or the fact that these days he leant forward to hear more clearly. Conn Gibson had shrunk in a way that was much more profound and, for that, Luke found it hard to put a finger on where that change had started or how he might put some kind of stop to it.

  ‘But you never got chest infections,’ he said when he saw his father propped up in bed wearing an oxygen mask.

  ‘No. But, I’m not as young as I used to be, am I?’ he said sadly and those familiar green eyes seemed heavy with more words than he could convey.

  ‘And you’ve seen a doctor? I mean, they didn’t just pop this thing on you and decide that…’

  ‘Yes, I’ve seen the doctor. They’re very good here, I know you forget that I’m not forty-five anymore but, Luke, this is just a chest infection.’

  ‘Well, I want to see the doctor.’ Luke stood up; even to himself, he knew, he filled the little room.

  ‘No. I absolutely forbid it,’ his father pulled the mask from his face. ‘I mean, really, when did you turn into such an old woman. It’s a chest infection, if it makes you feel any better I’ll put on some clothes and we’ll go out somewhere together, but you’re not going to take up their precious time here when I know they have to attend to really sick people.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll take your word for it, but really, Dad…’ Luke dropped into the chair beside his father’s bed. ‘These places, I’ve said it a million times, they make people old before their time.’

  ‘Come on, tell me about The Marchant Inn and your latest run-in with the local Colombian mafia, or were you just taking on the ironing today?’ Conn Gibson smiled and perhaps it hid the concern in his eyes. He wanted to see Luke getting on with his life, taking up a new university post, getting back out on a dig, forgetting about his old man and letting him age in peace.

  ‘Ah, I’m afraid I might have scared off the Colombians,’ Luke smiled easily, but he had the strangest feeling that he’d missed something important in their shared banter.

  *

  ‘Wasn’t Castro from Cuba?’ his mother said as they were driving back to her house.

  ‘Indeed he was, Mother, but Valentina is from Colombia.’

  ‘Well, Cuba, Columbia, it’s hardly Ballybrack, is it? Can this creature even speak English?’

  ‘Mother, her name is Valentina and she’s a very smart lady. She’s university-educated.’ That was true, in that she was taking language classes in a room in Trinity College. It turned out, that Valentina had enrolled in English language classes only as a way of securing a work visa.

  ‘Poof, they are all doing eet, Keveen,’ Valentina had said when he finally realised that she wasn’t studying to be a doctor, lawyer or engineer.

  ‘So, why is she working as a waitress?’

  ‘We all had to start somewhere, Mum.’ He could feel a headache beginning to throb at the back of his eyes. The doctor had made the right decision telling his mother she was fit to go home. She was lucky. She fractured her wrist; it could have been much worse. By the time, he did his rounds, she’d all but moved in with Penny – though she soon changed her mind at the thoughts of screaming children and an Italian husband who liked to sing opera at seven in the morning. She had just about fixed herself into Kevin’s new apartment when the doctor told her she was fit to go back to her normal life. Although he’d cast a severe look in Penny’s direction, when he suggested that she’d need to be checked up on every day.

  ‘Well, more in her line to start in Colombia and finish there too,’ Maureen Mulvey sighed loudly and Kevin thought he could actually hear her raise her eyes to heaven. He was being patient, but this was unfamiliar territory. Normally, his mother vented her dislike and enduring hostility to Carrie, while Kevin remained her golden boy. Now, without the foil of Carrie, it was Kevin’s turn to get the brunt of his mother’s critical charm. To be fair, Carrie never rose to the bait. In all the years that Maureen Mulvey had commented, sighed, rolled her eyes or insulted her, never once had Carrie said a bad word about his mother. Kevin had a feeling his mother knew this too. He had a feeling that it annoyed her, probably far more than any other part of their relationship did; even more than the secretly held belief that Carrie was at least half-responsible for the success of The Sea Pear. The truth was, that as far as Kevin could see, behind all the barbs, Maureen Mulvey had developed a grudging respect for Carrie. He hadn’t realised that until recently, but it was quite apparent now that not only was there respect, Maureen had actually become fond of Carrie.

  In the car park, Penny devised a roster of sorts for keeping an eye on their mother. Kevin was doing mornings, except Sundays. Neither of them could face Sunday mass, an hour of droning sermon and then another hour standing by while Maureen crowed to all her old biddy friends about the general superiority of her brood. Penny would check in on their mother in the evenings.

  ‘I suppose we can’t expect Carrie to help out?’ Penny said and Kevin thought for a minute she might be actually serious.

  ‘No. We can’t expect Carrie to help out,’ Kevin said flatly.

  ‘And, Valentina?’

  ‘Well, if we’re scouting about, how’s Nanni fixed for weekends?’ Kevin knew it was low. Nanni had as much time for his mother-in-law as she had for him. To be fair, he was probably afraid of her. His own mother was one of those women who was born to be a granny. She had silvery white hair, eyes that were creased by smiling more than frowning and a warm heart that didn’t judge or criticise. Kevin thought his own mother could take a leaf out of her book.

  So they agreed to take responsibility for their mother and rather than feeling relieved that she was well enough to go home, they both felt disgruntled that suddenly their days had shrunk by at least an hour. Kevin didn’t exactly regret that Carrie was no longer in his life to carry on as she had before, but he certainly knew he wouldn’t be asking Valentina to take over any time soon.

  *

  Honestly, Kevin felt a little relieved to be out of the mortgage with Carrie. He wasn’t keen to buy, certainly not that pokey little semi that Carrie was so fond of. It reminded him too much of where he grew up. The last thing he wanted was to feel he was turning into his father. Carrie had only talked him into it because it was such a bargain. Still, even with the rising cost of Dublin housing and the obvious difference in what they’d paid for it, he didn’t like the place. It was little more than a two-up, two-down, surrounded by hipster neighbours who no doubt would have to leave as soon as their squawking kids arrived on the scene. Carrie had spent ages doing the place up. She seemed to actually enjoy doing manual labour like tiling and painting and potting up summer plants for window boxes that would die anyway. So, he hummed and hawed for almost a week, but then, he signed the place over. No doubt an accountant would tell him he was a fool. If they sold the place now they’d make an obscene profit on the buying price.

  As much as Carrie loved the place, Kevin disliked it. He’d lived there because it was convenient, easy. He loved the anodyne emptiness of the apartment. There wasn’t a distressed pine board in sight and it was unlikely that Valentina would begin to collect pottery or cultivate an interest in fairy lights, solar panels or indoor plants – ever.

  Of course, in other ways the apartment was not as convenient. It was not as easy as living with Carrie. In his new home, he was expected to take care of all the bills. He knew this without it being explicitly agreed. Already, a pattern had been established. Kevin paid and Valentina spent. Valentina did not buy things like milk or coffee. No. She believed in buying her coffee fresh from the perennially empty coffee shop that leaked the heavy aroma of an expensive Colombian bean onto the courtyard beneath his balcony. It wafted up towards him while he made do wi
th the jar of instant from his sparse kitchen.

  When Simo and Reda visited, they too had to make do with instant coffee. Kevin tugged his collar from his neck, thinking of the frequency of their visits. He didn’t like them ‘popping in’. He didn’t like them sitting on his lovely corner sofa, whiling away the afternoon with Valentina while Kevin felt obliged to either leave or make do with perching on an uncomfortable chrome and leather high stool that vaguely resembled a deckchair.

  ‘How come they’re always here?’ he asked Valentina after one of their marathon visits.

  ‘They are my cousins, Keveen, of course, they must come and see me. You would prefer that they veeseet the restaurant?’ She sighed in that way she had of making him feel as if there was a gulf between them that was vaster than the ocean and it was caused by his stupidity. ‘Of course, they would love to come to The Sea Pear, they would love to eat your expensive foods, perhaps even…’ It was wearing a bit thin, so Valentina didn’t mention it anymore. Kevin was not going to be feeding her cousins for free at his restaurant; there were perfectly good supermarkets all over the city with deli counters if they didn’t feel like cooking for themselves. ‘No, they’re better to come here.’ Kevin knew what was coming next, Simo had hinted often enough already. He didn’t need security, not the kind that Simo was offering anyway.

  Sometimes, Kevin left them to it. They spoke mostly in Colombian anyway, so it wasn’t like he was missing much.

  Occasionally, Kevin thought he was just being stupid. After all, what had Simo and Reda ever actually done to him? True, they didn’t like him, but the feeling was mutual. Perhaps he’d started to dislike them first. He reasoned, that they had every right to be jealous of him, but secretly, he knew that they made him feel aware of his own stuffiness. They made him feel like an old man, compared to their evident vigour and robustness. Ultimately, they made him feel like his old man – and that was the one thing Kevin never wanted to be.

  ‘You can’t get away from it mate,’ Jim said one evening when Kevin had been turfed out of the apartment. ‘What you’ve done to Carrie is no different. Those Colombian boyos, they’re just keeping an eye out for Valentina, in case you throw her over for some young one from…’ Jim scratched his head. They both knew the idea was ridiculous. Already, Kevin was punching far above his weight. ‘Well, you see blokes, don’t you? Internet Brides, that’s what they’re called,’ he said it into his pint. ‘Internet Brides,’ he said thoughtfully, as if confirming it for himself at least.

  ‘Valentina is nothing like an internet bride,’ Kevin spluttered, spraying Guinness across the bar counter. ‘For your own sake, don’t ever say anything like that again,’ Kevin wasn’t so sure who’d do Jim more harm, Valentina or her cousins, if she thought anyone saw her as something cheap and for sale.

  ‘No, well…’ It was hardly an apology, but Jim’s mouth had turned upwards, so perhaps he’d reaped what he’d hoped for. ‘What I mean is, you have form. After all, you’ve cast a perfectly good woman aside, just to take up with someone else, whose charms are more obvious, granted, but it’s doubtful she’s really a patch on Carrie. To anyone’s money, that’s a bit like the situation with your dad.’

  ‘There’s a big difference between me and my father. He kept up the pretence for years, he never had the gumption to come home and tell my mother.’

  ‘Yeah, well, fair’s fair, Kevin. There wouldn’t be too many people who’d be jumping at the idea of confronting your mother.

  ‘True enough.’ Kevin had to concede. He was happier at that. It made him feel a little more confident to think that the two Colombians might see him as a player, better that than an easy mug from whom they might score protection money. ‘I’ve signed over the house to Carrie.’

  ‘What the…’ Now it was Jim who gulped down a mouthful of Guinness before it splattered the bar. ‘You what?’

  ‘She wanted it. I think she’ll let me have The Sea Pear,’ Kevin looked up at the TV over the bar. That wasn’t what she said, exactly, but Kevin had a good feeling about it. ‘She’s lost the drive for The Sea Pear. The place, with me there and Valentina, it’s like she’s not so bothered anymore. She spends most of her time up in that office, fiddling with her computer.’

  ‘But the house, Kevin?’ Jim was still spluttering. ‘Do you know how much it’s worth?’

  ‘She’s giving me half of what’s paid on the mortgage, which is fair, actually, it’s probably more than fair, she’s paid it mostly over the years anyway. It’s better than her wanting to drag it out and sell it. You know the way estate agents and solicitors can smell out a good fee.’ He hadn’t seen the figures yet, but he’d signed the papers in good faith. The last thing he wanted was to have Valentina being part of that too. He knew, whatever chance he had of holding onto some peace, he had to keep Valentina out of things. ‘To be honest, it was always more hers than mine, Jim.’

  ‘Maybe, but…’ Jim drank from his pint, swallowed with it whatever words he was about to say. ‘Yeah. You probably did the right thing there, mate. Save yourself a lot of aggro.’ All the same, he shook his head as if he couldn’t believe Kevin could be so stupid.

  Ten

  Already, Carrie had managed to make Sunday mornings her own. Teddy snored contentedly on the floor beside her bed and she slept until she knew her body had picked up the slack of all those early masses. Still it seemed like a decadent luxury to wake without an alarm. Last Sunday, she and Teddy wandered to the corner shop and then she sat reading the papers while she drank tea from a pot that had once belonged to Maureen Mulvey. Teddy sat at her feet, chewing happily on a bone rescued from the restaurant stockpot the night before. Sometimes she would look at the teapot and wonder how the old witch was getting on, truth be told, she still worried about her occasionally. Kevin mentioned that she’d fallen and injured her wrist and Carrie had felt the automatic pull to go and visit the old girl.

  ‘Don’t you bloody dare,’ Anna warned and, of course, she was right. Maureen Mulvey had disliked Carrie since the first day they met. She’d spent years griping and sniping at her, but the truth was, Carrie could see right through her. She was a lonely and bitter old woman who didn’t know how to handle what life had thrown her. She was her own worst enemy. Carrie settled on a bunch of flowers, she ordered specially, all old-fashioned country garden blooms: sweet williams, foxglove, hollyhocks, peonies and carnations. On the card, she wrote a simple message with her best wishes and thought, perhaps one day, she’d go to visit, but not yet. Definitely, not yet.

  Instead, she made an appointment with the hairdressers, it was time to overhaul her tired hair, maybe get a pampering facial too. Perhaps she was motivated when she saw the fortune Valentina spent on herself. Since the splitsville diet had kicked in, or perhaps it was just not having any wine each night, or maybe just the extra walking that Teddy put her way, Carrie knew she’d lost weight. Her clothes were looser, a lot looser, and she had places to go these days. Turning up in the swankiest of restaurants looking like she’d ridden backwards on a motorbike just didn’t cut it anymore. She deserved a little indulging, now that she was not spending all her time indulging others. For the first time in years, she wanted to look as well as she felt and she was happy to invest in looking good.

  *

  ‘A penny for them,’ Luke murmured one afternoon as he sat in the visitors’ room with Jane. He’d been watching her, for a while, lost in thought as she looked out across the snow covered grounds where two children scrambled happily about while their father occasionally bent down and picked one or the other up and swung them high over his head much to their delight. There was a lingering discrepancy in her expression, as if she might have been sad, but it was pushed out by something unfamiliar.

  ‘Oh, I’m not sure they’re even worth that now,’ she smiled easily as she said the words and nodded towards the family beyond the glass. Glazing prevented the shrieks and laughter that must be filling the air outside from penetrating the aseptic buzzing silence of the
day room.

  ‘You never know, they might be,’ he chided.

  ‘To tell you the truth, I’m lost so far in dreams and memories, I’m not sure what I’m thinking about.’ She nodded towards the action outside, ‘there was a time when seeing children like that and knowing that I’d never have a family of my own would have made me sad. I’d almost forgotten that, the awful heaviness that I carried about with me for years, even Manus felt it.’

  ‘You couldn’t have children?’

  ‘We almost did, but then... Manus would have been a great father,’ she broke off wistfully.

  ‘I’m sure that you’d have made a smashing mum too.’ Luke squeezed her hand gently.

  ‘Well, it isn’t everything, is it?’

  ‘No, I suppose it’s not.’ Luke said. He’d never given it much thought, marriage, kids all that. They didn’t really fit with moving from dig to dig.

  ‘What about you?’ Jane asked, almost reading his thoughts.

  ‘Me?’ he laughed. ‘Oh, I’m just a confirmed old bachelor, a drifter in some ways, I suppose.’

  ‘You might want to settle though, some day?’ She looked at him now, something far more behind her eyes than she’d ever put into words, probably. ‘Don’t leave it too late, will you? Don’t leave it until you’re thinking that there’s nowhere else for you, or nobody who…’

  ‘Hey, you’re making it sound as if…’ he moved closer to her, put his arm around her shoulders.

  ‘If I tell you something, you won’t laugh, will you?’ She looked up at him now and he felt as if his heart might melt, such was the fragility to her.