What Happened to Us?

by Faith Hogan

  *

  Luke was adamant, he needed to go and tell Jane. It did not matter that it was the middle of the night, he told Carrie, she would want to know. They spent what must have been hours at the nursing home, but it seemed to Carrie it was a timeless spell; such was the unreal quality of it all. It was hard to believe, only three short days ago, they’d spent Christmas night in her little sitting room, sipping drinks before a roaring fire. The funeral would be sorted out the next day, or even the day after, but the formalities of death and, more importantly, the formalities of death in Ballyglen could not be put off. Forms were signed, condolences given and the doctor arrived to call what they already knew and sign it off without delay.

  ‘Anyway, I have nowhere to stay, remember. I’ve checked out of the B&B until tomorrow.’ He smiled at Carrie and she knew Jane would not mind what time they called, especially with news of Conn having passed away.

  ‘Well, we wouldn’t see you without a bed,’ Carrie said gently and he squeezed her hand, an unspoken sentiment passing between them. She wasn’t sure if it was gratitude or fondness, but at this moment, it didn’t matter either way.

  Carrie had an ominous feeling as she was about to turn onto Finch Street. They’d heard the sirens in the distance, but everything about tonight was unreal, so it never registered that they might be here. Finch Street was a sea of wavering blue lights, two fire brigades lit up the buildings with their blue hue, intermittently meeting each other on the familiar buildings either side.

  ‘It’s Jane’s - The Marchant Inn is on fire,’ Luke breathed and Carrie pulled the car in where she could. The road was blocked off with police tape; an eager-looking youngster in uniform stood on high alert for nosey parkers who turned out no matter what the time. ‘That’s my aunt’s pub, is she there? Is she…’ Carrie heard the panic in Luke’s voice.

  ‘Your aunt?’ the guard shouted above the din of sirens and then registered the worry on their faces. He pulled back the barrier and led them closer to the bar.

  ‘What happened?’ Carrie asked.

  ‘We’re not sure,’ an older man turned to her. ‘We got a call from a private alarm company, they had an alert, but by the time we arrived, the fire had already started and…’

  ‘Could it have been a burglary?’ Carrie asked.

  ‘It’s possible, even from here, you see one of the doors has been shattered, but we couldn’t get close until the fire brigade arrived. Why?’

  ‘We were broken into too… a while back, but…’ Carrie said and then she pointed towards The Sea Pear, ‘I own the restaurant across the road.’

  ‘Right,’ the detective said and he wrote something in his notebook. ‘Anyway, we arrived and we were going to carry out a search of the building, but then one of the locals said that the old lady who lives there had closed up for Christmas and gone away for the holiday…’

  ‘Oh, no.’ Luke groaned, a low visceral sound that resonated with dread and terror in equal measure.

  ‘She could still be in there?’ the officer whispered emptily and Carrie could read a million different stories fade across his eyes as he cast them towards The Marchant Inn. ‘The fire-fighters took a quick look round, but they didn’t see anyone… the doors had been left open, so it’s possible that whoever was in left before the flames took off,’ he shook his head. ‘There’s no other way out, only…’

  ‘There’s a rear door, it goes out to an enclosed courtyard,’ Luke said. ‘My aunt, she’s still in there?’ his voice was a reedy echo.

  ‘Oh dear God…’ Carrie had the most terrible thought. ‘Do you think that she’s trapped?’

  ‘No,’ Luke said, but his voice was steel and the next thing Carrie knew, he was running towards The Marchant Inn, breaking past the fire-fighters, hurtling through the open doors and disappearing inside. Carrie felt her whole body dilute, as if some measure of herself had been watered down and stripped away. It was too much to take in, Conn passing away, The Marchant Inn in flames, perhaps Jane still in there and Teddy…

  She couldn’t think about what was happening, then she felt the strong arms of a policeman beside her, holding her back, making sure she didn’t leave the path. It seemed that the flames were licking harder against the upstairs windows, inside the bar itself, an occasional crash of fracturing glass, but the fire was only just rooting its way down, rather it seemed to prefer to dance about the upper rooms.

  ‘Can it hold?’ she whispered, thinking of the ancient beams that ran across the bar ceilings.

  ‘It’s not the fire that’s the danger at this stage…’ the officer breathed the words into her hair and, of course, she knew, that once that back door was opened, the air would only act as a fan, feeding the flames to make them fatter and greedier than before. Surely, Luke would know that, surely he’d remember the basics of keeping safe. But then, Carrie realised, he’d just run into a burning building without so much as thinking of his own safety.

  It seemed the seconds drew out like some extended terrible symphony, playing an opus that would only end in tragedy. Carrie covered her eyes; she couldn’t watch the fire anymore. She couldn’t witness the thwarted efforts of the hoses, like futile fingers on a burning pyre. And then she heard a roar from the scene before her, it was louder than she would have believed possible among the other emergency sounds. Surely, it was too late, but she felt herself propelled along the path, the officer behind her, half carrying her, half pulling her along until they drew up to a stop and she felt her hands being lifted from her eyes. In the distance she saw him stumble, run and falter, he’d cleared the door and made it to the path, and in his arms a tiny, balled-up bundle, at his feet, running, yapping, smoky, Teddy looked worse than he did on that first night. When he dropped to the path, it felt to Carrie as though the city shook like thunder and she ran towards them, half-afraid to reach their sides.

  ‘Oh thank God,’ she heard herself say over and over.

  ‘We’re okay, we’re okay,’ was all Luke managed to say, but when he found her eyes amongst the earnest faces, something in them connected and they both knew that there was a lot more saved tonight than just two people and a dog from a burning building.

  *

  Kevin woke the following morning to the sound of Valentina’s quickened shouts on the phone in Colombian. He knew, even before she mentioned it, that something was up with Simo and Reda.

  ‘They have nowhere else to go, Keveen, do you want my cousins sleeping on the streets.’ Valentina was pleading and it was hard to say no to her like this, but Kevin didn’t want his lovely apartment turned into a doss house.

  ‘Valentina, there’s an agreement in the lease I signed. We can’t have them here for—’

  ‘You, you have no humanity, Keveen. You know what their landlord is like, they should sue him, probably, but in this country only rich people can get any justice.’ Valentina threw her hands up in the air and Kevin thought she looked like a fishwife in a dress too expensive to allow her a position on the socialist side of any argument.

  ‘Maybe, but the same applies to Simo and Reda, if they broke their tenancy agreement, then the landlord has every right to turf them out.’

  ‘They are my cousins, Keveen, if they are sleeping on the street, how can I sleep in the comfortable bed here with you?’ she pouted at him and he knew he’d have to give in, a little anyway.

  ‘Tell them they can stay for two nights, then they need to move on, because, Valentina, I’m serious when I say they can’t move in here.’ Even as he said the words, Kevin was regretting it. He couldn’t live with Simo and Reda. If he was honest, it wasn’t just that they made him feel like an outsider in his own home, it was more that they scared him. There was no particular reason. They never actually threatened him, he never saw them lash out or even lose their tempers. It was more than that, something deeper, something feral. They were dangerous men, and no matter that they didn’t flaunt it, they could never truly hide it either.

  ‘They will be so happy. Can I tell them
a week?’ Valentina wheedled and he knew he might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. For the next week, he would be at work more than at home anyway; these days he virtually lived in The Sea Pear. He’d hardly see them if he left early and returned late. Simo and Reda had a habit of playing Xbox games until the early hours of the morning, but the truth was, he could let a bomb off in the kitchen behind them and the only thing they were likely to say was ‘pass us a beer, Kevin’.

  Still, he hated having them around. He wasn’t sure which was worse, Valentina being in a strop with him because he wouldn’t let them stay or feeling like an unwanted guest in his own home, such was their formidable presence.

  *

  Far from providing solace, as he made his way to Finch Street later in the morning, Kevin had a feeling The Sea Pear would just feel empty without Carrie. Once, she spent every spare moment between the restaurant, the house or his mother’s. These days it seemed her life was too hectic to turn up for much more than her shift, and then, Kevin was busy working in the kitchen to see much of her at all. With the place closed during the day, being here without her felt as if he was missing something from himself. It wasn’t that they even spoke to each other properly anymore. They hadn’t done that for a very long time. It was both more intangible and perversely profound than that. True, their relationship had for quite some time faded into something that was no longer passionate or vibrant, but it had matured into a penetrating embrace that fed both Kevin’s creative soul and shallow neediness. Carrie was more than a partner. She had become a nurturer, a protector. He could count on her for everything and he missed her. There, he could admit it, silently to himself; he needed her. He longed for their lovely little house and how she would talk to him; she had always encouraged and empowered him. He craved the safety of having her in his life and he ached when he remembered her familiar reassuring smile.

  As if she knew that he was thinking of her, his phone rang just as he was driving past the canal on his way to Finch Street. He answered with an unfamiliar optimism, glad to hear her voice, no matter why she rang. A fire, Luke, the old dear across the road, the words ran into each other and then he caught the last few sentences. A break-in, lucky Jane Marchant wasn’t killed, and somehow, for no reason he could name, Kevin knew, his foolishness was coming back to eat him whole.

  ‘Do they know who broke in? Is it connected to The Sea Pear?’ Kevin felt like a penny was dropping through a complex slot system in his brain and it made him cold in a way he couldn’t describe. He turned onto Finch Street, slowly, taking in the damage to the Marchant Inn.

  ‘Well, they don’t know yet, it’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it, but…’ she laughed then, a hollow empty sound to his ears. ‘We were probably lucky that they broke in to The Sea Pear when we weren’t about. The Police have descriptions, so it’s only a matter of the police tracking them down now,’ Carrie said.

  He was sitting in his car in front of the restaurant and looked across at the charred remains of the bar opposite – is this what they had come to? Him, feeling like he was outside the action of his own life and Carrie dating Superman?

  ‘And?’ Kevin heard the word, buried silently in that nervous sentence, but it was the only word that cut through all he saw before him. There was something she wasn’t telling him, he knew it and it wasn’t good.

  ‘Oh, Kevin, there is something else, but not on the phone, it’s not the time to tell you.’ Carrie’s voice had dipped to somewhere he had never heard it go before.

  ‘It’s about Valentina, isn’t it?’ Of course he knew it, how could he not.

  ‘I think – that is, I know, she’s robbing us blind, Kevin.’ It sounded as if she pushed the words out. She had every right to scream and shout and hate him, but somehow, it felt even worse that all he could hear was her pity for him. ‘For weeks, she has been taking money from the nightly cash-up, it’s why…’

  ‘It’s why you’ve insisted on staying on or turning up last thing at night,’ he could see it all now so clearly. Valentina hadn’t just taken him for a fool, she’d been stealing from the restaurant too. It was funny, but hearing it, this sounded far more personal than just running up bills on his credit card. ‘How much?’

  ‘It’s hard to say, obviously she couldn’t take any credit card payments and they make up a big part of the takings, but it could be thousands.’ She sighed, ‘The accountants are working their way through it, we’ll have a better idea in a few days’ time. Kevin, we’re going to have to do something about it…’

  ‘The police?’ It was the only way. Things with Valentina had got out of hand long before this; today was just about facing up to it.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Kevin.’ The words echoed in his mind long after he hung up the phone. ‘We’ll talk later, I’ll make an appointment with the accountants, we can go through it all there and then we’ll figure what’s best to do next.’

  Kevin pushed open the door of The Sea Pear, knowing he must shake these thoughts from his mind. He would have a cup of coffee; get things straight in his head. He must have been sitting there for an hour. He needed to brace himself for the storm ahead. Then something occurred to him, he had not asked if Jane Marchant was okay. It was like the opening of a dam, because suddenly he realised just how wrapped up he’d always been and how great the gulf had spread between himself and Carrie. The tears that flowed from his eyes were the first genuine outpouring of regret he’d experienced in years.

  Nineteen

  There was a funeral to be organised, but it would be a simple affair. A few brief words, non-religious, perhaps a piece of music from Chopin and then Conn would be buried alongside his mother. It would be a homecoming and so it felt as if, when they were making the arrangements, they were making things right, rather than saying goodbye. Luke knew his father wanted him to take care of Jane. Her hospital room was not unpleasant, they’d given her a private room and the nurses came and went quietly, so Luke managed to fall asleep for an hour or two.

  ‘We were lucky,’ Luke said when Jane woke, and of course, they were. They’d escaped without a scratch, apart from smoke inhalation and shock. They were lucky, the paramedics had brought Jane to the hospital for assessment because of her age as much as any fear of injury.

  ‘You’re very humble. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you. They’d never have realised that I was locked outside.’ She smiled at Carrie, ‘I think luck didn’t have half as much to do with it as your mad-hat bravery, Luke.’

  ‘You were amazing, I still can’t believe you ran into a burning building.’ Carrie shook her head, ‘Even if I wanted to murder you for being so daft,’ she nudged him affectionately.

  ‘I didn’t really think about it, I was in there, rattling at the lock, before I’d realised what I’d done,’ he said modestly. ‘Teddy was the one who kept you safe, barking away like a distress signal; I couldn’t have missed you if I tried.’ The little dog was a hero, but he was just happy to get back to his comfortable bed in Carrie’s kitchen and sleep off the drama of the night.

  ‘Well, it was very brave, all the same, and if it weren’t for you and Teddy…’ Jane whispered and it was only in her voice that there was really a residue of the night before.

  ‘I can’t believe that they’d do that,’ Carrie said, fixing a stray strand of Jane’s hair that was intent on falling forward. ‘I mean, surely it was enough to break into the place, setting a fire and leaving you there, they must have realised…’ she shivered, although the room was not cold.

  ‘Anyway, it doesn’t matter, the important thing now is that we’re all okay and they’ll be sending you home before you know it,’ Luke said brightly.

  ‘Home,’ Jane smiled sadly. ‘I don’t suppose The Marchant Inn will ever be home again.’

  ‘It’s really not so bad,’ Carrie said gently. For all the flames, the bar was hardly damaged at all. ‘Upstairs is a bit of a mess all right, but…’ Everything would smell of smoke, probably all her clothes and any soft furnishings w
ere for the dump, but there would be insurance, these things were not the end of the world.

  ‘We’ll have it right as rain before you know it,’ Luke said.

  ‘We will?’ Jane asked.

  ‘Of course we will,’ Luke said softly. ‘I’m staying in Dublin, after Dad is… well, you know, after the funeral, I’m settling here and…’ he smiled across at Carrie and then held Jane’s eyes for a long moment, ‘if either of you will have me, I’m looking for a room…’

  ‘Well, I have two rooms going spare at the moment, so perhaps while The Marchant Inn is being put to rights, I’ll go into the bed and breakfast business,’ Carrie wrapped her hand around Jane’s. ‘Not that I’m promising a fry-up every morning, mind…’ she pushed Luke fondly when he made a face.

  ‘Really?’ huge tears faltered in Jane’s eyes, and she rubbed them out as though they had no place there anymore. ‘I could stay with you until…’ She knew Ballyglen would never be a home to her, that much she’d figured when she’d visited Conn, Luke had been relieved to hear it. ‘I don’t know what to say…’

  ‘Just say you’ll stay for as long as you need to and when the pub is put to rights you can make your mind up then about what happens next,’ Carrie said softly

  ‘You know, I was thinking, last night…’ Luke said.

  ‘Yes?’ Carrie smiled, she had a feeling she was going to like this idea.

  ‘Well, The Marchant Inn, it’s very old, isn’t it? I mean, that whole area, it’s built over a Viking settlement, right?’ He set his head at a slight angle, ‘I could research its history. You never know, there might be a book in it?’