What Happened to Us?

by Faith Hogan

  He spent almost an hour on the phone and, at the end of it, he was no better off than when he started. It seemed that every hotel and guesthouse within a fifty-mile radius of the wedding venue was booked up or closed for the Christmas holidays.

  When Valentina came into the kitchen, he moved away from her. He could feel sweat dripping down his back, his face blotched from the stress of it all; the last thing he wanted was to have to tell Valentina that they had nowhere to stay for the wedding. He went outside the back door of The Sea Pear to think and to breathe. In the end, the best thing was to ring Ben. Surely, his friend, the groom, could pull some strings and get them a room somewhere in the castle. After all, Kevin reasoned, the best man needed a room in the same hotel as the wedding.

  ‘Sorry, mate. The village is booked solid since last year. We sent out a list of accommodation with the invites, but most people booked straight away. Carrie booked the suite before we even sent out the invitation, that’s why she got such a good room.’

  ‘Great. Bloody great.’

  ‘Blast, didn’t mean to rub it in, it’s just, you and Carrie, it doesn’t feel real that you’re not together. You’ve been a couple as long as me and Melissa. I’m sure I’ll be putting my foot in it all day with this new girlfriend you’re bringing along.’

  ‘Oh, no Ben. You won’t put your foot in it with Valentina,’ Kevin said with complete assurance. What he meant was, you won’t put your foot in it if she’s in the kind of dark mood I’ve been seeing these last few days.

  ‘The best thing I can think of is the caravan park. It’s run by the hotel, it’s like glamping. Melissa’s brother and his kids are staying in a converted horsebox and it has everything you need… it’s all the rage apparently,’ Ben enthused.

  ‘Hm, maybe.’ Kevin couldn’t see Valentina being impressed with a bed in a horsebox. She’d hardly look at eggs because they were peasant food, she certainly wouldn’t sleep in a trailer, not when she realised that Carrie had a suite overlooking the lake.

  ‘Seriously, mate, it could be fun. A bit of rough and tumble in the hay… I wouldn’t mind it if I had a young Colombian…’

  ‘Yeah, well, you’re getting married, so there’ll be none of that for you.’ Kevin tried to sound serious, but really he loved the idea of Jim or Ben or any of his friends thinking he’d scored a better looking girl than any of them were every likely to have.

  ‘Ah, I suppose so. Sure, over here, there’s South Americans at every turn. All the older men are shacking up with them, they’re looking for visas.’ Ben cleared his throat quickly, ‘Of course that’s not to say that’s the case with you and the lovely Valentina.’

  ‘No, it’s certainly not the case,’ Kevin said and he tried to keep the anger from his voice. Was that what they thought of him? That he would be taken in by some money-grabber? Or that the only reason someone like Valentina would be interested in him was because she wanted Irish citizenship? Well, he’d show them. ‘You better give me that number, I’m not sure that Valentina’s going to be very impressed with a horsebox; she’s not some cheap piece like you’re used to seeing over there. She has real class, but we’re in love, so it won’t really matter where we stay, I suppose.’ Kevin could feel his blood pressure rising.

  *

  ‘Keveen, I can’t believe you theenk, I will sleep with you in a horsebox.’ Valentina was livid. To be fair, it wasn’t helped by the fact that she had learned about the luxury suite that Carrie booked in the castle for three nights, while she would be staying in what was basically a campsite, no matter how you glossed it over.

  ‘But, Valentina, it will be romantic.’

  ‘There is nothing romantic about it. I want to stay in the castle. I am not staying in a horsebox.’

  ‘It’s the only accommodation available and it’s costing a bomb. It may not be as obvious as a castle, but it is very charming. We can always go back and stay at the castle again. We could go there for our honeymoon if you like.’

  ‘Keveen, people don’t go to Sligo on their honeymoons, have you not heard of the Seychelles. Really, you are the disasters, you men.’ She threw her hands up in the air, and even if she couldn’t get her diction quite right, he knew from her expression what she meant. She flung the magazines from the chair beside her and, for a moment, he thought she looked like a petulant child who was not getting her own way.

  ‘Of course we’ll go wherever you want on honeymoon, Valentina, but first we have to go to Ben and Melissa’s wedding. I’m sorry about the room, but I’m so looking forward to showing you off.’ Kevin knew that if all else failed, flattery might just work with Valentina.

  ‘They will say you are a lucky man.’ Valentina laughed throatily. ‘Especially when I stand next to Carrie for the photographs, everyone knows that bridesmaid dresses are always made to help the bride shine brighter than anyone else.’ She cackled at this and Kevin caught a cruelty in her eyes that he hadn’t noticed before. True, compared to Valentina, Carrie was plain, but then Kevin knew that in many ways, in terms of physical attractiveness, he would rate probably behind Carrie, and so maybe that made the barb hurt a little more. ‘Yes, so, I weel stay in your glamping horsebox, and we weel make them all jealous with how much you are in love with me and we can tell them all about how much better our wedding will be one day soon.’

  ‘Maybe we should keep our own plans under wraps, just for now.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, with the robbery and everything. It’s all been very…’

  ‘Yes, I have felt it too, Keveen. I have felt it too.’ She sighed dramatically. She hadn’t wanted to talk to the police. Eventually, Kevin convinced her she’d have to answer their questions. In the end, she told him, it was not for her own sake, but rather for Simo and Reda’s. ‘They are illegal, here. If the police find that out, they will send them back and there is nothing for them in Colombia, only trouble and ends that are dead.’ Kevin had convinced her that she didn’t have to mention them and that all she had to say was that she was Kevin’s fiancé. He didn’t add, they couldn’t but notice her ring, it was the size of the Dublin Mountains on her slender hand.

  ‘How did you get on with the police, by the way?’ Kevin asked her, as much to change the subject as anything else. He’d seen her, chatting away happily to them, all her worries about being illegal or Simo and Reda evaporated.

  ‘Very well. I think they liked me,’ she said, throwing her head back and laughing that dirty laugh that had until so recently seemed like an invitation to seduce her. Funny, but these days he wasn’t sure if he was too irritated or plain worn out, but seducing her was at the bottom of his list of priorities.

  *

  Jane had a feeling that there was something Carrie wasn’t saying. It felt, to her at least, that since the break-in, something was weighing heavily on her mind and whatever it was darkened her eyes far more than any troubles caused by Kevin Mulvey. ‘Is everything all right?’ Jane asked, reaching out to touch her arm in a silent act of solicitude.

  ‘Oh yes, I’m probably just a little shocked, you know, don’t worry, the break-in has only temporarily knocked the stuffing out of me.’ She laughed, but her mirth didn’t reach beyond the sound that carried across the fireside rug between them.

  Carrie was as attentive and genuine as ever and when they spoke about the robbery, she tried to put Jane’s mind at rest, thanking her for contacting the police, after all, any information she had would help. The details seemed to fade between them, such was the extent of Carrie’s distance, Jane wondered if perhaps something had happened with Kevin. The stress of the robbery might be enough to push them back together again.

  ‘You have something on your mind,’ Jane said eventually.

  ‘Ah, no.’ Carrie was defensive, ‘just this whole break-in business, you know, it’s thrown me out of sorts.’

  ‘Well, I can understand that,’ Jane said sadly. ‘And Luke, has he been in touch?’ She didn’t want to hit any raw nerves, but it was at a time like th
is they should all be rallying around Carrie.

  ‘To be honest, I’ve hardly had time to bless myself until now.’ She bent down, patted Teddy on his head. He was sitting in the soft winter sunlight that faded across the quarry tiled floor. ‘He rang after, but… not a dicky bird since,’ Carrie smiled sadly, ‘perhaps he’s ready to move on to pastures new.’

  Later, when Carrie went back to the restaurant and the bar echoed heavy with memories, the only sound a struggling fire in the grate, Jane dialled Luke’s number, she hadn’t seen him since he’d left to visit his father in the nursing home. It rang out and for some reason, its numb tone resounded gloomily in her. She sat for a long time, thinking over the last few weeks. It seemed for a while as if there had been a glimmer of hope in her world, but today, on this grey afternoon, she could feel that flicker dying slowly.

  Sixteen

  ‘I don’t expect you to understand,’ Luke’s father struggled for breath and he placed the oxygen mask before his face, sucking in air as hungrily he had drawn on tobacco over the years.

  ‘Well, we have all day.’ Luke smiled, trying to keep himself away from that quarry of despair that threatened to pull him into its core.

  ‘I didn’t want you to worry,’ Conn smiled sadly. ‘I know, I know, it sounds stupid now…’ his eyes closed as he drew from the mask again and, for a moment, Luke wondered if he hadn’t fallen asleep. ‘I’m not even sure if I can explain… I’ve always had this emptiness, I’ve carried it around with me; it comes from long before I met your mother. You were the only thing that managed to fill it for me, but then, when I knew I was dying, I had… questions to answer, I knew I had to put things right.’

  ‘What kind of things?’ His father had told the matron that he wanted to be buried with his mother. ‘Your family? Your mother?’ They never talked about Luke’s grandparents. He knew that his grandmother had been widowed, that she had married a second time and shortly after that, Conn had set off on his travels. That was as much as Conn would ever say.

  ‘My mother had a second son. I had a stepbrother, but there was over ten years between us and my stepfather did his best to make sure that I knew this new family was not mine. We never got on, maybe, looking back, it was just one of those things, but when you’re young, well, your perspective is…’

  ‘A little underdeveloped?’

  ‘I left London with the clothes I stood in and a hunger to see the world. I decided that I’d never see any of them again, but then, when you arrived and I knew what it was to have a child, I went back to where my mother owned a pub in London and it was gone. The neighbours were still there and they told me she had moved back to Dublin.’

  ‘She would be very old now.’ Luke knew she’d be well into her hundreds. ‘Is that why you came back here?’

  ‘Don’t worry, the drugs haven’t completely robbed me of my mind yet,’ he chuckled a throaty, chesty sound that borrowed too much oxygen and demanded that he place the mask before his mouth again. ‘She is the closest thing I have to home, or she was, and I thought if I tracked her down…’

  ‘Yes?’ Luke prompted.

  ‘Perhaps I could be buried next to her?’

  ‘Except, you have no idea if she’s even buried in Dublin or she could have been cremated…’ So that was his request.

  ‘I have a feeling that she is here, in Dublin.’ Conn said with conviction. ‘And I thought…’

  ‘So, let me get this straight, you were going to send me on my way, to the furthest part of the world, while you died slowly on your own and then I would come back here for a funeral that I would have to research first…’ he shook his head in disbelief. ‘You’re something else Dad,’ he laughed then and he wasn’t sure why, because in all of this, the only funny thing was this whole ridiculous notion of his father’s.

  ‘I know, it sounds a bit… unconventional.’

  ‘You can say that again.’ Luke shook his head slowly, but now, it felt as though so much of their lives together was beginning to take on some new meaning. It was why his father always returned to Ireland at the end of each contract. The fact that he’d insisted on Luke going to university in Dublin and even their jaunts since he’d come here. Luke had thought it was such an odd thing to want to visit old graveyards every time they went out together, but he’d put it to the back of his mind as another of his father’s unusual quirks.

  ‘I thought you could go on having a normal life and that when I… passed,’ he made a face as if the idea was farcical, ‘well, I thought you might find some family to fill that vacuum when I’m not around anymore.’

  ‘Oh, Dad.’ Luke shook his head. ‘No one, not a tonne of Gibsons, could replace you.’

  ‘Well, that’s the thing Luke, my brother wasn’t called Gibson – he was called Marchant, just like my stepfather.’

  ‘Marchant, you never mentioned that name before,’ Luke said thoughtfully and suddenly so many wheels began to turn in his mind and he had a feeling that they had come full circle and they had ended up exactly where they were meant to be.

  *

  Christmas would be different this year. Usually, Carrie cooked a big family meal back at the restaurant, with her mother and Maureen Mulvey each at an end of the table, Penny and her family squabbling and fussing, Kevin getting quickly sloshed and Carrie serving up the dinner she had begun preparing the night before. She wasn’t entirely sure how the tradition had evolved, but it had become their ritual, whether she liked it or not. Funny, but a year ago, she hadn’t considered whether she did like it, nor had she ever thought about changing it. This year, though, she was actually looking forward to Christmas. She had bought a small bird, frozen, and packet stuffing. She filled her cupboards with food from the supermarket and she had absolutely no intention of making anything that didn’t come from a box or a jar. This was going to be her Christmas. Her mother was in complete agreement and when she mentioned the idea of asking along Jane Marchant it seemed only fair to warn her that it was going to be an extremely relaxed day all round.

  ‘Oh, it sounds just lovely,’ Jane said. She had hung some tinsel about her little upstairs sitting room and a tragic miniature Christmas tree sat on a sideboard to mark the holidays, otherwise, you’d hardly know Christmas was approaching here. ‘And you’re sure you don’t mind, I won’t be in the way?’ she said then, a little stain of worry streaking across her features.

  ‘My mum is looking forward to meeting you,’ Carrie said as she emptied out a huge bag of old decorations that had been hers and Kevin’s. There were Christmas stars, angels complete with harps and gifts, and enough holly and ivy to bring Christmas right into Jane’s living room.

  ‘It would be lovely if Luke could come,’ Jane said softly, she was patting Teddy’s head, hardly noticing his adoring gaze. They hadn’t seen Luke in days; Carrie was convinced he’d left Dublin without telling them.

  ‘Well, he’s welcome if he’s still around,’ Carrie said lightly, although she did wonder if he’d fallen out with her. He hadn’t come near her since Hoffa’s, not that it mattered, not really in the greater scheme of things. She had enough on her plate trying to stay sane while all the time, at the back of her mind, she worried that her life’s work might be slipping from her. ‘Of course, he might prefer to spend it with his father…’ She looked at Jane who seemed to be just a little crestfallen. ‘Go on, ring him, invite them both if you’d like, the more the merrier,’ she said, not really expecting to see either Luke or his father.

  Now that he wasn’t around, Carrie realised, she liked Luke, a lot. Of course, it was hard to really see it, with everything else that was happening, but there was no denying she’d missed having him around these last few days. She might have told him about Valentina if he was. He seemed like the kind of person she could talk to; he wouldn’t judge or want to rush in and put things right. When she thought about it now, in the grey light of everything else around her, she should have asked him to Melissa’s wedding. Really, the room she’d booked could easily hav
e been made up so he could have stayed in the sitting room and he certainly would have been good company. It was a funny turn of events, but now, she no longer cared about making Kevin jealous, or thwarting the pity of their friends. Rather, she knew that after the Christmas rush was over she would have to spell out the extent of Valentina’s deception to Kevin and that heavy dread just made her feel sad. Kevin, for all his faults and for all he’d done to her, she knew, didn’t deserve this.

  *

  ‘You are such a bore,’ Valentina screamed at Kevin, ‘you never want to have fun.’

  ‘Don’t you understand? We can’t just go skiing – this week, it’s our busiest time of the year… Any other time, but I can’t just walk out of the restaurant and expect Carrie to keep everything going, not this week.’ Kevin wasn’t sure if the dread in his stomach was anguish or rage – it made no difference, he bit down on it either way.

  ‘Well, I’ve promised now, you weel make me look like I am stupid or, worse, like some sad waitress who is nothing more than…’ her face was thunderous, ‘your… your… you know what they weel say, that you bought me from Colombia, Keveen.’

  Suddenly, he filled with panic. ‘Don’t be daft, of course they wouldn’t say that, they know we’re a team, a…’ There was no point, he’d never win an argument with Valentina and then he realised that the things he wanted to say would not make any difference to her. Was it so terrible to want the things he’d taken for granted every other year? A roaring fire in the grate, an advent calendar peeling off the days to Christmas and mince pies that smelled of childhood memories he wasn’t even sure were his. Carrie made a big deal out of Christmas for the family, everyone got a thoughtful gift, wrapped and ribboned and receipted, although they never were returned. Carrie would have the gifts all sorted by now. Kevin had a feeling that the only present he’d see from Valentina this year was a basket of dirty clothes to be washed and a credit card bill to keep him working hard in January.