Page 72 of Rewrite the Stars
‘I sat here with Tom three years ago,’ I confess to her. ‘It’s probably why I wanted to sit here again tonight, just to make totally sure I’m ready to let him go.’
Tom and I spent a wondrous afternoon here. We stopped at this bench, ate too much ice cream and fed the gulls with wafers and bread. I look over at the bar in the distance where he is still drinking with his friends, masking his feelings and sacrificing true love for a life on the road that he knows will never truly fulfil him. I feel sorry for him now. I feel sad to finally let him go.
‘Goodnight, Bouncer,’ I say to the dog. ‘You’ve given me a lot to think about this evening, Peggy. I’m going to try and get some sleep.’
She strokes the dog’s head and looks up at me with eyes that have seen the world and all it has to offer.
‘Don’t beat yourself up about coming here to see your old friend again,’ she says to me. ‘Nothing, or no one, ever goes away from us until they’ve taught us all they were meant to. You’ve learned enough now to make your decision, haven’t you?’
Her words fill me up. I feel so much better already.
‘I have, thank you,’ I tell her. ‘Thank you, Peggy.’
The old lady bids me farewell and I walk towards a bed and breakfast in the near distance, which thankfully has a sign advertising vacancies. It has been a long, draining day and I know that I’ll be asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.
Tomorrow Tom will leave for London, having asked me once more to join him on his flight at 12.15. The note still lies in my handbag, not wanting for some reason for me to let it go, but I’m delirious from exhaustion and I’m emotionally drained. I check in to the bed and breakfast, climb the two sets of stairs with my legs dragging like lead beneath me and I fall into a much needed slumber.
I’m looking forward to tomorrow and all it will bring.
I awaken to a message from Jack with an update on his trip, sent to me a few hours ago while I was out for the count. His news makes me jump out of bed and I take the opportunity to spill out all my thoughts to him in return.
I open my heart and tell him all about coming here, about meeting Tom and how he asked me to go to London with him today. I tell him how I felt when I was coming here to see him in Howth, of all the anticipation and expectations I had of what a reunion with Tom might be like as I was driving here and how it reopened all the ‘what if’ thoughts I’d harboured since I last laid eyes on him three years ago in Pip’s Bar. I tell Jack how I was met with a very different scenario, of how I found a man caught up in a very surreal lifestyle but one that he was born for and that I have learned now to respect for what it is and the person he has become.
I tell him how Tom gave me a note and how he reminded me of my talent and that I should start writing again, even if I was never to be with him. I tell him of the sadness in Tom’s eyes, how I could see behind his façade and how I know that inside he is just the same as all of us. He is just an ordinary human being longing for someone to love and to love him in return.
I know that Jack won’t pick up my messages for another while, but I know that when he does receive them he will read them through with the patience and understanding he promised me. Before he left he asked me to be honest, so I tell him what I’ve learned about love from seeing Tom again.
I tell him how I’ve learned that true love doesn’t have to be a strong, fiery passion that makes us wail from the pits of our souls in pain. It can be calming and deep, unconditional and pure. I’ve learned that love can be feeling comfortable and safe with someone, but still going weak at the knees when they look at you in a way that only you know. I’ve learned that love is knowing someone’s imperfections, their weaknesses and their failures, but still wanting to be with them more than anyone else in the world. I’ve learned that when two people are meant to be together, nothing and no one can come between them. They might get lost along the way, they might make mistakes or the wrong decisions, but in the end, two people in love will always be together.
I’ve a new understanding of what love is, and I’ll never doubt it again.
Then I get dressed into my jeans, trainers and jacket and I head for Dublin airport.
Chapter Twenty-Six
When I went to bed last night, my plan for this morning was to go home and turn on some music, change into my comfy clothes, open the windows and get ready for Jack coming home tomorrow but all that has changed now. I’d planned to shop for some of his favourite foods, maybe steak and chips and a bottle of Merlot, and to welcome him home wearing something special.
We’d spend tomorrow catching up and making plans, we’d talk about all the usual things we like to discuss, like work and food and drinks, like his parents and mine, of Matthew’s progress, of Emily’s pain, of Harry and Sophie’s latest escapades, and we’d snuggle up on our very own sofa in our own little world as we locked the rest of the world outside.
Instead I’m standing in a terminal at Dublin airport, trying to find my way round through the hustle and bustle of students heading off for a new term at university, families and couples taking last-minute deals on September holidays and in the distance I see a commotion that can only mean one thing. Blind Generation have been spotted and a mob of fans have circled round them to try and get a glimpse of their musical heroes.
Tom is here, just like he’d told me, for a chartered flight at 12.15. My stomach is in knots.
I don’t see Ana or Eva with them but then I didn’t expect to either. It’s not like Tom would invite me along to join him on his chartered flight if his fiancée and bit on the side were there too. Even Tom Farley would know that was beyond inappropriate when he was trying to win me over. I’m better than that, I reminded myself. I’m not going to join a queue for anyone and I’m glad he has realized that.
I see him glance around and check his phone while crazed, screaming, lust-filled women corner him for selfies and autographs. He is wearing dark glasses and I can tell he is exhausted and dying to get away from it all. The rest of the band is attacked too by the fans but it’s obvious there’s only one main man, and that’s the very rugged, very sexy and very charming Tom, of course. A burly security guard tries to call some order on the gathering crowd and I wonder when I should make my move. I don’t even think he has seen me standing here, watching on like I’m looking in through a window on his crazy, wild life of women, music, travel and partying.
I fold my arms and keep watching. It’s just gone eleven a.m. and I hear my tummy growl with hunger, even though I’d managed to eat a small breakfast at the B&B. The flight will be leaving soon. I’ve no idea where in the airport a chartered flight might leave from but I imagine that where Tom and the guys are standing might be a clue.
‘Did you get to see your Dublin girl?’ I hear one of the fans shout in his direction. He doesn’t answer but just shyly dips his head and keeps writing as he leans a piece of paper on a fan’s back.
It’s been a strange yet very awakening number of days since Jack left for Canada and I felt I was leaving much more than Howth behind when I drove off this morning. As I reversed out of the car park by the marina, I saw Peggy and Bouncer walking along the pier, taking their usual seat at the bench without anyone to disturb them. Routine and habit, comfort and familiarity – all the things we often take for granted, but oh how we’d miss them if they were gone from our lives.
I spent the journey to the airport reminding myself of who I am as a person and taking the very best of what I could from seeing Tom again. In such a short time, I’ve come to realize so much.
I’m a great teacher, I know that from how the children and parents used to heap praise on me when I’d change just one child’s day with a comforting word or even a song.
I’m a risk-taker, a chancer, and sometimes those chances don’t always go my way. I know that by the decision I made to go to Howth yesterday and how I told Miss Jean Brady exactly what I thought when I knew I wasn’t being used for my full potential in her horrible school.
