What Happened to Us?

by Faith Hogan

  ‘Oh, Keveen, sometimes, you can be so naïve, you are like a child. They look at me and then they look at you.’ She wrinkled her nose, as though she had only just noticed his greying hair and the dark circles that bulged beneath his eyes. ‘You have everything, all the money, this place,’ she waved her hand about the overpriced apartment they were leasing, ‘and then they see you have this very beautiful woman and she has nothing.’ She shrugged her shoulders and waved her hand about as though he really was holding all the cards in their relationship.

  ‘Well, if I go swanning off to some flash resort at our busiest time of the year, we’ll both have nothing and your friends won’t be saying much about us then, will they?’

  ‘Keveen, they are our friends.’ She moved closer to him, some new emotion crossing her features that he couldn’t read. ‘Ah Keveen, it is different for you. All of this, you are happy with this, with the seeting about the apartment and eating eggs for dinner, but I am young and I need excitement, otherwise…’ she raised her perfect eyebrows, and even though she didn’t finish that thought, he felt a tremor of fear rinse through him.

  ‘Very well, if you want to go and stay in their chalet for a few days over the Christmas holidays…’ Perhaps they could fly out after they closed up the restaurant. Actually, leaving Dublin for Christmas Day might be the best plan of all. He dreaded bringing Valentina round to his mother’s where already Penny had filled the fridge with her version of traditional Christmas fayre. Kevin knew that he’d be left with the cooking, and if they expected Valentina to do the washing up, he’d be left with that also.

  ‘Oh Keveen, I knew you’d see the senses. There is no reason for me to stay here when you are so busy in the restaurant.’ She pulled out her phone and began to text furiously, ‘There is just one seat left on Dean’s plane and Raleigh said it is mine if I can make it.’

  ‘So you’re going to leave me here?’ Kevin knew he was standing with a slackened jaw while the words fell across the marble floor between them.

  ‘Well, of course. You said, you can’t take time out of the restaurant and it’s not as if we have any plans for the holidays, is it?’

  ‘But, what about the wedding?’

  ‘Oh, I’ll be back for that, Dean is bringing the plane back for a meeting here in Dublin on the day after Christmas… I’ll be back before you know I’m gone.’

  ‘But…’ there was no use talking about it anymore, with a flourish of her red talons it was all organised and she was pulling out clothes and discarding most as unsuitable for the trip. It seemed there would have to be hours spent on getting ready.

  *

  It came as a total shock. Kevin had never had a call from the bank before. Thank goodness he was here, in The Sea Pear, not at home – it felt strange to think the apartment was home, it still didn’t feel like it. Tomorrow would be their busiest day of the year – although they would close early, Christmas Eve was a long, hard and joyless day in the restaurant trade when you worked in a busy kitchen. Even so, he came to the restaurant this morning, not to work, but to eat breakfast in peace. He wanted to sit alone for a while without Valentina’s two bullish cousins making him feel uncomfortable in his own apartment.

  It was almost Christmas and Kevin was tired. This time of year, it always felt as if the year’s stresses packed up on him, so he was just going through the motions, working, sleeping, eating, until he could close the restaurant on Christmas Eve and relax. He took the call while his coffee was brewing. A bored-sounding woman telling him he was overdrawn made him cross at first. Imbeciles – he thought, until she reeled off the list of payments. It was all retail, fashion and accessories. Valentina had spent a fortune in the space of a couple of weeks. Kevin slumped miserably into the stool he always thought of as Carrie’s. He was up to his eyeballs in debt, there wasn’t enough to pay the rent, never mind the price of accommodation in Sligo for this wedding or to meet the Christmas plans that Valentina was making with her new rich friends. That had been another row, before he caved in for the peace of it. Her venom still rang in his ears.

  He thought she had stopped spending. He had cut his credit card in two – how was this possible? Then he convinced himself, weakly at first, that it was some terrible mistake. Perhaps his card details were stolen, that was more like it. A trickle of anxious sweat crawled down from his forehead. He explained that he had decommissioned his card, he’d cut it in half and threw it in the bin, bravely, he thought at the time, in the face of Valentina’s filthy temper.

  ‘Our records show that all of those payments were made with your new card, Mr Mulvey.’

  ‘My new card?’ he wanted to be cross, but rather all he felt was that searing sense of defeat. He felt like his father, being put back for something his mother had once more set her heart on. ‘My new card?’ he echoed again.

  ‘Yes. According to your credit account here, a replacement card was sent to you after your old card was stolen.’

  ‘I see,’ Kevin said and, of course, he did.

  He hung up the phone and suddenly felt trapped; he’d been backed into a corner and he had no idea how to get out. Carrie would know what to do about this, but he couldn’t ask for her help, not now, not with this. He couldn’t face the humiliation. After all, Carrie seemed to have come out of this with so much more than he did – he should have expected that from the start. To top off the fact that all their friends so obviously preferred her to him, she had their little house tied up neatly. She was the toast of the Dublin restaurant scene; a brilliant reviewer and she seemed to be quite happy with that little dog and the odd assortment of friends she gathered about her.

  He tried to calm himself while his coffee cooled. He stared into space, trying to think of ways to make this go away. At least Valentina couldn’t get her hands on the restaurant card or any of the restaurant cash. That thought was some small relief. He would slowly begin to pay off the huge mountain of debt she’d built up and he would have to talk to her when she got back from this skiing trip. She would have to take some responsibility for this – that idea sent rivulets of something that lunged between fear and panic through him. No, he had to be a man about this. He would explain that the spending was over and… Oh, God. He was dreading this, perhaps it could wait until after the wedding in Sligo? It was the coward’s approach; he knew that. But then, he was also beginning to see he was more of his father’s son that he’d ever have admitted to before this. That was just a truth too much, Kevin felt a terrible weight of emotion well up in his chest and before he could stop himself, tears were running down his face. He was crying like a baby, couldn’t help it, how had he managed to make such a complete mess of everything? Despair leaned heavily upon him, it seemed to Kevin, at least, that there was nothing he could do – it was all so depressing and, worse, every bit of it was his own fault.

  *

  Luke walked up Finch Street, undecided if he should call on Jane or Carrie first. Tonight, the twinkly lights that adorned the street trees seemed to blink in time with some deep pulse that moved beneath his feet. It was almost Christmas and Luke had no plans, beyond spending as much time as he could with his father. All round him, it seemed there was a giddy excitement to people that he couldn’t quite tap into; it felt as if time and he had stood still, every second counting for something more valuable than it ever had before. Shop windows, filled with gaudy Christmas cheer didn’t touch him either; the holidays were going on around him, a commercial roller coaster, volleying towards its final checkout time.

  Probably, Carrie was so busy these last few days before Christmas, she may not have even given him a second thought – although, he suspected there was more to Carrie than that. He needed to see her. He had a feeling she could somehow set him straight, if nothing else, to just lay out before her all he’d learned and maybe make some sense of the tangle his emotions had knotted themselves into. Time was a much too precious commodity to waste it anymore. On the other hand, he wasn’t entirely sure how to go about what was sure
ly the most important thing he needed to do to set his father’s affairs straight. He stood outside the restaurant for a moment, looking across at The Marchant Inn. Of course, he could be completely wrong, although it did seem like all the cards were stacked against that.

  ‘Well, hello stranger, I didn’t think we’d ever set eyes on you again.’ Carrie came from the door at his back. Then she halted, looked at him, obviously taking in his dishevelled appearance, the fact that he hadn’t shaved since their night in Hoffa’s, nor had he been able to force down much more than a cup of tea and a dry biscuit to keep the staff at the nursing home happy. They were delighted to see the back of him today, he was fairly sure of that, perhaps his father was too.

  She pulled him into the restaurant. Luke couldn’t help but feel a racketing up of his own isolation and misery when he looked about at the tables filled with people content and oblivious to his grief. The restaurant was warm, ambient and welcoming. The gentle music worked to untie his already sagging hold on his anguish, so he felt like he might collapse into an emotional heap right there.

  ‘Come on,’ she said, dragging him upstairs to the office, where only the muffled sound of the packed dining room below could be heard. They were alone here, apart from the occasional snores of Teddy, sleeping peacefully in his tidy basket. He lifted his head lazily, his bloodshot eyes taking in Luke’s arrival; he managed a welcoming snort and then settled back into snoring once more. ‘What happened? You look…’ she guided him into a seat. She took a brightly printed Christmas gift bag from the corner, pulled open a bottle of brandy that had obviously arrived as a Christmas present. ‘Here,’ she said, pressing a large mug with three generous fingers of the amber liquid into his hands. She sat opposite him, a look of the deepest concern in her eyes. ‘I thought you’d left, I never thought… did you have an accident, was that it?’

  ‘No. Nothing like that,’ he managed. ‘No, I’m fine, I’ve been in the nursing home, I’ve been…’ Then it all tumbled out. The cancer, the secrets, how only days ago he’d learned the truth of it all and the fact that he had a feeling that his father had a lot less time to live than he would admit to Luke.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Luke. I’m just so sorry,’ she managed to whisper at the end of it all.

  ‘The thing is, I’ve spent the last few days out in the nursing home with him, but I’ve known all along that I would have to come back and say all of this to Jane…’

  ‘And you really think that her husband and your dad were brothers?’

  ‘Half-brothers,’ he corrected, ‘but yes, I mean, even the photographs would be enough to convince you, but how many Manus Marchants do you think there could be knocking about Dublin running a pub with the same name as the pub my father grew up in back in London?’

  ‘True.’ Carrie smiled. ‘You know, your father is right about one thing…’

  ‘Please, I don’t, I mean, I don’t think I have any room for a bright side, at the moment,’ he shook his head, then he felt something that might be a smile turn his lips upwards even though the last thing he felt was happy. ‘Oh, go on so…’ he said then, feeling her warmth infect him whether he wanted it to or not.

  ‘Well, you’ll have some family here, you’ll have something like roots and it’ll be something special for Jane,’ her voice was soft, ‘to have family to call her own.’

  ‘I suppose it will, I hadn’t really thought about that. This would make her my aunt.’ And that seemed like a strange thing, to have an aunt here in Dublin, but in other ways, when he thought of Jane Marchant, somehow it seemed to fit perfectly.

  ‘Come on.’ She pulled him from the chair.

  ‘What the…’ his mug almost tumbled from his hand. ‘I can’t go over there now, not at this hour of the night.’

  ‘Oh yes you bloody can and you must. I wouldn’t waste one more moment before telling her. There’s so much to be done…’ Carrie’s voice held an unmistakeable happiness and, suddenly, Luke realised, that in the time he’d known her, he’d never seen her like this. For all the time they’d spent together, she had been nursing her own broken heart, quietly and stoically, but this quality, this upbeat woman, was a completely different person to the dutiful Carrie he’d thought her to be until now.

  Before he quite knew what was happening, he was following her across the road, the little dog at their heels, pushing into The Marchant Inn and Jane Marchant had her arms around him while the whole story tumbled between them like a broken, faltering, half-finished saga that needed to find its happy ending.

  ‘I can’t quite believe it,’ Jane said and she took down a photograph of Manus. They studied it hard, really seeing the family resemblance that before just seemed like an odd likeness, one of those quirky coincidences that litter relationships sporadically, but commonly enough not to notice. The bar was empty now, the only customers gone home for the evening, the doors closed on the Dublin evening outside; it felt as if they were all three of them cocooned in a world so far removed from the reality of the dark December beyond. ‘I’d love to visit your father; do you think that would be all right?’

  ‘It’d be more than all right, I’d say nothing would make him happier.’

  ‘I can’t quite believe that you’re Manus’s nephew,’ Jane squeezed his hand again. It was just the two of them here now, Carrie had gone back reluctantly to the restaurant and promised to return as soon as she had closed up for the night. ‘You know, he talked about his brother, often, they assumed that he had died, eventually, when he never came back. I think their mother believed that he’d gone off somewhere and perhaps been involved in an accident and…’

  ‘It’s something that’s weighed heavily on my dad for most of his life. I never realised it, but since he’s told me, I can see, it’s always been there, colouring out all his happiest moments as though there’s always been something missing.’

  ‘Yes, I can imagine how that would be,’ Jane said sadly.

  They sat until the early hours, drinking tea and with Jane sharing what she knew of Manus’s life before she met him. Luke hung off her every word.

  ‘The thing is, I’m not sure that his father was all that nice to Manus either, I think that when they came back here, it was as much to leave behind whatever kind of life he’d given them as it was to be back in the old country.’

  ‘So, he died.’

  ‘I’m really not sure. I think he may have taken up with someone else and left them to it, but whatever happened, they arrived here, took on this place and it was only years later, Manus managed to actually buy the place.’

  ‘Perhaps if my father had stuck around…’

  ‘Well, who knows? The main thing is, he’s come back now.’ Jane smiled. ‘And we’ll make sure that for as long as he’s here he’s going to feel he’s come home.’

  *

  It was like looking at Manus, Jane thought when she first set eyes on Conn Gibson. He was older, of course, probably more than twenty years older than her Manus would be now. Even if he was still here, she suspected Manus would be taller, tougher, leaner – he had a harder set to him than this man who wore the signs of a trade much softer on his frame, but it was still there, the similarity, it was unmistakeable.

  It seemed to Jane, that time stood still while carol singers, decked out gaily in red hats and scarves, young and old, filled up the corridors with rousing choruses of hymns she had not heard in years. She smiled happily, as she listened to ‘Good King Wenceslas’ and ‘Come All Ye Faithful,’ through the open doorway. Luke invited the group in and as they listened to ‘Silent Night’. They all swayed silently to its simple words, brought closer by amity and a Christmas spirit that had for years been elusive to her. It seemed as if Christmas had been missing from her life for far too long.

  ‘It reminds me of Christmases years ago,’ Jane said as she wiped a nostalgic tear from her eyes, but she was not sad, rather, she felt at peace, as though somehow things were finally righting themselves.

  ‘So, you were happily marr
ied to Manus,’ Conn Gibson pulled himself up in the bed, his eyes inquisitive but full of warmth and welcome. She could feel the longing in him that she’d so often felt within herself, it was a deep need for connection, for people linked to you in some meaningful way; for family.

  ‘Indeed,’ she smiled fondly, ‘we were married over forty years ago.’ She held his hand, it seemed like neither of them wanted to let go, she moved in closer to hear his breathy words.

  ‘I thought about him and my mother, always, but it seemed there was no place for me…’ he took the mask.

  ‘He felt the same, his father was a cruel man, perhaps you just experienced it before he did, but all the same, he was never sorry to be away from him. His mother though…’

  ‘Yes,’ Conn’s voice held affection, ‘she was lovely, quiet and kind, but…’

  ‘They came back here, both of them together. She lived in the pub with us until she died. She never forgot you…’

  ‘Ah, I’m not sure if that makes me feel better or worse.’

  ‘It should make you feel better, even when she was dying, she insisted that we put the notice in the Irish and the English papers, just in case. Her grave is…’ Jane stopped, she wasn’t sure if she should talk about this now.

  ‘Go on.’ Conn tried to pull himself a little higher on his pillows, but then Luke bent in and straightened him so he seemed to be a bigger, stronger man than before. He was more like Luke than she had realised at first.

  ‘Well, she’s buried in a large family plot, out in Glasnevin. At the time, Manus thought she had left room in case you were ever found… she thought you had passed away, that perhaps…’