Page 12 of A Part of Me and You
‘You are killing me,’ he said to me when I told him I was coming here. I couldn’t bear to tell him how ironic his words were. It’s not him who is dying, it is me and this is exactly the reason why I need to create some space between us. He can’t cope with my illness, he never could and the more he drowns his sorrows in drink and self-pity, the more I feel the need to run. I love him, I need him, but right now I don’t have the energy to prop him up when I need to focus on what will become of Rosie.
‘So, what do you think?’ I ask her as we stand in a puddle on the pavement.
‘It looks boring,’ she says. ‘I don’t understand why you wanted to come here to mark your birthday. Why couldn’t we have gone to Spain or Paris or even London like you said we would? Somewhere exciting! You’re such a weirdo.’
Weirdo I can live with. Boring I can definitely live with. I am just delighted I convinced her to come with me in the first place, because believe me, it wasn’t easy. There were so many more important things to do at home like hang out with Josh and Sophie and the new kid on our block, Brandon whose father does security for some Disney pop princess whose name I can’t remember. But I just know that Rosie will love it as much as I do, even if she never finds out the very important, but very much secondary, reason I decided on here over any other more exotic location.
Apart from the weather, I must admit that nothing seems very different about Killara from that summer all those years ago. I recognize the pubs of course – the bright pink exterior walls of O’Reilly’s with the nightly Irish trad music sessions’ the Beach House Café on the pier, that boasts the best seafood chowder in the country; and the bright blue Brannigan’s Bar and B&B, the place I met Skipper on that hazy, drunken night when my daughter was conceived.
I’m not staying in Brannigan’s this time but I decide I will pop in just for old times’ sake while we wait on our check-in time at our cottage, a funky little rental right by the harbour which is the only thing that Rosie seems excited about.
‘Aunty Helen has such good taste,’ she said when my sister emailed us a link to the cottage rental website last night. We couldn’t believe that it was available but the owner had had a last minute cancellation – a little whitewashed two bedroom cottage with a bright yellow door, fully equipped with surf boards and wet suits and the owner offers boat rides out to the famous Cliffs of Moher, which I’ve promised Rosie will be on our agenda. The very thought of doing even half of what I’ve planned to do here exhausts me but, as promised, my list is made and I can’t wait to get stuck in and make some memories with my girl.
We stop outside Brannigan’s and I take a deep breath and bite my lip.
‘Do you mind if we pop in here, just for a look around?’ I say to Rosie. ‘We have half an hour until our cottage is ready.’
Rosie shrugs and shivers a little, then follows me inside to the steamy heat of the bar and it really is like stepping back in time. Its interior smells like home-cooked dinners and alcohol, there’s a patterned navy and beige carpet on all the floors and despite being only just after lunchtime, there is already a crowd gathered in the poky bar, all glued to some sort of sport on the giant TV in the corner.
In my head it’s the summer of sixteen years ago, and despite the noise in the bar I can hearhisvoice, I can see Birgit dancing, I can smell the booze and the sweat and his aftershave on my skin and—
‘Sorry about the noise!’
‘What? Sorry, I was miles away,’ I tell the barman. ‘I’m just thinking how … it doesn’t matter. What were you saying?’
‘I was apologizing. About the noise. There’s a big game on today,’ he says to me with a smile. He’s cute and if I wasn’t so sick I might try and flirt with him. My sister would kill me if she could read my mind. He looks about twenty-five years old at the most.
‘Who’s playing?’ asks Rosie, who all of a sudden has taken an interest in Irish sport and seems to have forgotten how dull this place just seemed to her. ‘You’ll have to forgive my ignorance, being English. Foreign and all that.’
The man-boy winks at her and then smiles at me. Oh, how I wish I was in a position to flirt back – if my teenage daughter wasn’t here to compete with me of course. And if I was fit enough to even contemplate having some fun. I am wearing my favourite blonde bobbed wig on this trip and apart from my bloated, puffy face and slightly podgy frame from the steroids, to the outside world it’s not at all obvious that there’s anything wrong with my riddled body. I almost feel sorry for the lad who definitely has a twinkle in his eye and doesn’t realize the pitiful truth in front of him.
‘Galway are playing Mayo,’ he says but our faces tell him we’re clueless. ‘Gaelic football? A derby. A bit like Manchester United playing Liverpool, only a little bit rougher and tougher.’
‘Ah, I get it now,’ says Rosie. ‘I hope you win. My great-grandad is from Waterford. Is that near here at all?’
He shakes his head and laughs, then whispers.
‘I’m secretly cheering for Mayo, but don’t tell anyone in here that. If you’re around later, pop by and I’ll explain the rules.’
She glances at me and smiles back at him in a way I have never seen before. My daughter is flirting with this young man and she doesn’t care that I am standing here. She is growing up. Oh God, I am going to miss all of this and I won’t be here for her to turn to when her crushes don’t go her way. Who will be her first proper boyfriend? Who will break her heart? Who will she cry to when she doesn’t know how to understand all the feelings that come with falling in love?
But I have witnessed this moment, yes. We have only arrived here on our little vacation and already I am seeing new things in her, and I hope she does so with me too over the next few days. I have seen with my own two eyes, my darling teenage daughter catch the eye of a boy she fancies and if I never get to see it again, at least this is something I can carry in my heart until the end of my life. We are making memories already, but every one of them is going to remind me that I don’t have many left.
Damn you, sickness. This dying game is no fun at all.
Chapter 5
Shelley
‘I’ve been calling you all morning, darling,’ says Eliza, my mother-in-law, when I answer my phone on the way into the village after lunch. ‘Are you driving? Can you talk?’
‘I am driving but you’re on loudspeaker,’ I tell her. I’ve been avoiding her calls all morning but now that I hear her familiar voice I wish I’d answered earlier. Maybe I’d have avoided the meltdown that has caused me to be thirty minutes late to take over from Betty, my assistant, atLily Loves.
‘It’s okay to cry today,’ she tells me and I nod as I drive, feeling tears prick my eyes again. ‘Cry every day if you feel like it. It’s all part of your healing process. The colour blue is good for you today, darling, that’s what I am feeling. Look out for it today. It will be good for you. Look out for someone connected to the colour blue who crosses your path.’
‘I’m on my way to work,’ I tell her. ‘Did Matt tell you to call me? Please Eliza, I don’t want any fuss today. I need to just try and get on with things and keep busy. It’s the only way I can cope.’
I pass no remarks on the colour blue she refers to. Some of Eliza’s mystic words of wisdom are of great comfort, but some can’t get past the cynic in me and I push them away to the back of my mind.
