The Coast Road, page 11
Colette had phoned several times a day since the trip to Bundoran. If James asked, Izzy told him it was her other most frequent caller, her friend Margaret Brennan. Sometimes Colette would use the pretence of discussing the workshop – she would ask Izzy if she thought the exercise she’d set had been effective, if the class had responded well to it. But always she would move the conversation on to her gratitude to Izzy for helping her, and the loneliness she was feeling as Christmas approached. When Colette suggested the shopping trip, she said that it might be the only opportunity she’d get to see Carl over the Christmas period, and Izzy had agreed to it with the addendum she placed on every discussion of the subject – that these meetings were not a solution to anything and they’d have to stop.
‘Turn off that television, Niall,’ she said as he walked through the kitchen door.
‘Leave it on,’ James said. ‘It’s good to know what’s going on in the world.’
She saw that the news had moved on and now they were showing a report on the ceasefire in the North. She blessed herself. Two months old and so far it seemed to be holding. But there was no end of talks between political parties and factions and paramilitary groups, and none of them ever seemed to be happy with the outcome.
‘Jesus,’ James said, ‘you never know when it’s going to all kick off again.’
‘Oh now, we have to be grateful for every bit of good news we get.’
‘They’ll never be satisfied – shower of bastards.’
Izzy watched Niall struggle to dislodge the ketchup in the bottle, then with one violent shake of his arm half the contents slid out onto his lamb chops.
‘Look at that waste, you could put most of that back in the bottle,’ she said.
‘It was an accident,’ Niall said, and already she could see tears in his eyes.
‘What does Colette want?’ James asked.
‘Sure, I don’t know, I didn’t speak to her.’
‘She phoned the other night too, when you were at bridge.’
‘You never told me.’
‘Ah well, she said she’d phone back.’
‘And she has done, several times. She usually phones me up to ask something about the creative writing class and then keeps me on the phone for hours. But it’s only an excuse. It’s sad really. She’s lonely.’
Niall was looking at her and she tried not to catch his eye. He had scraped up every morsel on his plate but had not run off to watch television like he did every other evening.
‘You may be excused, Niall,’ she said.
He stood up and began to walk slowly towards the door.
‘Niall,’ James said. He took a £20 sterling note from his wallet and handed it to him. ‘That’s for Enniskillen tomorrow.’
‘Thanks, Daddy,’ Niall said, slipping the money into his pocket.
‘Now don’t lose it,’ Izzy said.
‘I won’t.’
‘Do you want to give it to me to look after?’ she asked, but he was already running out of the room.
She glanced at James, who still had one eye on the television. There was a story on the Russian soldiers moving into Chechnya. Men in winter camouflage, guns propped on shoulders, marched in perfect unison through driving snow. It was a beautiful sight really, or beautiful and terrifying at the same time, and she thought she might include this image in some way in her writing. Her poems so far had so much to do with her own life and she was getting bored of herself.
‘It’d break your heart, the whole thing,’ she said.
‘Oh sure, the world’s in a terrible state.’
‘I’m not on about the news,’ she said. ‘I’m on about Colette.’
James lifted another pile of creamed potato from the pot, the spoon giving a loud clack as he brought it down on his plate. ‘Oh, you’d want to be careful there,’ he said.
‘How do you mean?’
‘I’d just steer well clear of that whole situation.’
‘Well, what am I supposed to do if she’s ringing up the house every day pouring her heart out to me? I can hardly hang up on her.’
‘No, but you wouldn’t want to get too involved in another family’s business like that.’
She was silent for a time. ‘And all the things you get involved with that have nothing to do with you.’
‘That’s my job.’
‘And you don’t know the half of it. Shaun won’t let her see the kids.’
‘Sure, I know that. Everyone knows that.’
‘But no one says anything. Did you know that she hasn’t seen Carl in six months? And did you know that he’s cut her off?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What else would I mean? Financially. The woman hasn’t a penny – it’s a disgrace. Why else do you think she’s living up in that cottage – for the good of her health?’
‘I still think that you’re better off staying out of it – leave the pair of them to sort it out between them.’
She laid down her knife and fork. ‘You could help,’ she said.
‘How in the name of God could I help?’
‘You could have a word with Shaun. You could say something like . . . like you think the reason Carl and Niall were fighting was because Carl misses Colette, and wouldn’t it be better for Colette to see a little bit of Carl. It could be very casual – you could make it brief, just next time you bump into him. Do it man to man. He might listen to you.’
James held a forkful of food, suspended in midair, just a few inches from his gaping mouth. ‘Casual?’ he said. ‘Casual? What would be casual about me bumping into Shaun Crowley and telling him how to conduct his marriage? And where exactly do you imagine this meeting would take place – would I casually arrive at his office or would I casually corner him on the main street? Shaun and I aren’t friends. That man doesn’t have friends.’
‘I don’t see anyone queuing up to be friends with you either. Anyway, you know each other professionally, your children are friends.’
‘Casual?’ he repeated, shaking his head. ‘That’s a good one.’
‘Oh well, don’t bother, I’ll ask Father Brian. That’s more his area than yours. Isn’t that what he does for us anyway – marriage counselling?’
‘Sure, isn’t he already trying to rehabilitate her, letting her read at mass? Let him get on with it.’
‘You’re just worried about upsetting Shaun Crowley.’
‘I would be worried about interfering in any man’s business.’
‘Bullshit. If he didn’t own most of the town you wouldn’t be long telling him his business.’
‘Look,’ he said, ‘there’s a lot of gossip going around and I’d like if we didn’t become part of it.’
She gave a loud tut. ‘Oh, some hope of that. It doesn’t matter what you do, people’ll still be talking about you.’
‘Are you that bored? Have you so little to do that you need to go sticking your nose into their marriage?’
‘Oh, would you listen to you – this is coming from the man who couldn’t stomach the idea of me managing that property on the main street, and now you’re worried I have too much time on my hands?’
‘Well, next time you come up with a hobby can you think of one that won’t cost us twenty thousand pounds? I’d stick with the painting and the yoga.’
‘I bet Shaun Crowley doesn’t leave his money lying around in the bank doing nothing.’
James threw down his knife and fork and they clattered against the plate. ‘Is this what you want? Do you want a fight before Christmas? Do you want us to fall out over Shaun and Colette Crowley like we haven’t enough fucking problems of our own?’
She folded her arms and looked at the back of his chair. ‘No wonder they wouldn’t let you be a minister,’ she said, ‘going around in an anorak like that.’
He placed his hands flat on the surface of the table with a loud clap and pushed himself up out of his seat. She followed the blank shape of his back as he walked towards the hallway. He would take himself off to the good sitting room and she wouldn’t see him again for the rest of the evening. She collected the plates and as she turned to the counter she saw, through the open door of the living room, Niall lying flat on his stomach, his feet kicked up in the air, swinging them back and forth. He always lay right in front of the television no matter how many times she told him to sit farther away. And she thought then of the trip to Bundoran, of how they’d stood watching Carl and Colette screaming at the sky, and she’d sworn to herself she’d never place him in that situation again.
She put the plates down and walked to the phone in the hallway. She’d tell Colette that she would be unable to help her tomorrow, or at any time in the future. She would not make excuses, or be mealy-mouthed; she’d simply put these facts to her and hang up the phone. She took her little phone book from the drawer and found Colette’s number, and when she looked up, she could see James through the glass doors of the sitting room, holding the newspaper wide so that the entire upper half of his body was masked by it. Each time he turned the page he threw out the spine with a great snap, like the entire world was an affront to him. She placed the phone book back in the drawer.
Chapter 13
Ann Diver picked up the red jumper for the fourth time. She held it out in front of her by the shoulders like she was about to dance with it. Another woman came along and grabbed one of the jumpers and did exactly the same thing, and Ann thought she’d best hang on to this one or there’d be none left. The shop was jammed. She checked there were no loose threads or holes under the arms. If she was going to spend good money on it, she wanted it to be right. She turned over the little cardboard price tag. She’d quickly given up trying to calculate the difference between the punt and the pound. There was nothing in it. You maybe got one extra penny for every punt you spent but anyway, that wasn’t the reason she’d gone to the North to do her Christmas shopping. She wanted to get something special for Ronan and Carl and Barry. There were brands you could get in the North that you couldn’t get at home, and they were that spoiled it would take the extra effort.
‘Do you need any help there?’
She turned around and swung the jumper into the face of a shop assistant. ‘Jesus, I’m sorry.’
The girl smiled at her.
‘Oh, I’m having trouble making up my mind,’ Ann said.
The girl’s neck was streaked with fake tan. She was pretty though, with bright eyes and a gleaming smile of perfectly even teeth. But too much make-up, Ann thought, and her eyes and mouth outlined in dark pencil. ‘BRONAGH’, her name badge said.
‘Is it the size you’re having trouble with?’ the girl asked in her strong Northern accent.
‘Oh, it’s the whole lot if I’m being honest. Would this be suitable for a fella of twenty?’ Ann asked, guessing the girl could be no more than sixteen or seventeen herself.
‘It’d be perfect – sure, I bought one for my brother, it’d go with anything. How tall is he?’
‘He’s around six foot.’
‘And is he . . .’ The girl puffed out her chest and cheeks and lifted her arms from her sides.
‘He’s broad on the shoulders but there’s not a pick on him.’
‘God, he sounds lovely,’ the girl said, ‘send him in to me. Is he blonde or brunette?’
‘Oh, he’s tall, dark, and handsome.’
‘That’ll do me grand,’ the girl said. ‘Take the large and if there’s any bother keep the receipt and he can just exchange it.’
Ann sighed and looked at the price tag again.
‘It’s lovely and Christmassy too, the red,’ the girl said.
In the atrium of the shopping centre was a fountain surrounded by plastic palm trees. Small children tossed coins into the water. Above the fountain hung a sign listing all the shops and what floor they were on. Ann craned her head back and read through the list to see if there was a shop that might sell wrapping paper. She thought it mean of that boutique to charge her £40 for a jumper and not offer to wrap it. A lot of shops were offering that now, the free gift wrap. She’d spotted some paper behind the counter, but she’d been too shy to ask and there was a queue building up behind her and so she’d taken it from them wrapped in a bit of tissue paper and placed in a stiff cardboard carrier with string handles, the logo of the shop, ‘Taylor’s’, emblazoned on the side. Still, the smart bag would look good under the Christmas tree and all she’d have to do was buy a bit of paper. But she couldn’t see a shop on the list that might sell gift wrap. She stared up at the three floors of shops that surrounded her.
Ann took a piece of notepaper from her handbag and unfolded it – eleven names. They were mostly nieces and nephews, a few of her friends who worked at the hotel, and now Shaun and his kids had been added to the list. Next to Carl she’d written ‘sketchpad and pencils’. Next to Barry, she’d written ‘aftershave’. Barry was the most difficult and surly of teenagers but he was certainly easy to buy for. He’d just started going to the disco in Glenties on a Friday, and whenever he left the house, the sweet, overpowering stench of cheap deodorant drifted off him. And then she spotted Shaun’s name at the top of the list with nothing written beside it.
When she’d spoken to him on the phone that morning, he’d told her he would invite Colette to the house for Christmas Day. She could come in the morning for a couple of hours, open the presents with the boys. By the time Ann came around three o’clock, Colette would be gone. He was doing it for Carl, he said. In the past couple of weeks, he had started playing up, crying at bedtime and agitating for a meeting with his mother. He had asked Shaun, ‘If you knew Mammy wasn’t living with that man in Dublin anymore would you let her come home?’ But of course Shaun already knew Colette and that man were no longer an item, it was the first thing she’d told him when she came back to the town. But it had gotten Shaun thinking. Carl’s questions were getting right to the heart of the matter, and Ann could tell Shaun was finding it more difficult to blame Colette when she’d told him herself that she’d made a terrible mistake.
He’d said he was sorry and he hoped this didn’t cause her any upset, but she told him that he had to do what he thought was right and it could only be a good thing to allow the boys to see their mother. She’d disagreed with his insistence on keeping Colette away from Carl, but didn’t feel it was her place to say anything. Whatever he decided, she would fall in with his plans, she said. And to her pat responses, he’d said, ‘I love you.’ It was the first time he’d said it. His tone was flat, with no pageantry to it, the way he might have made any plain statement of fact. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to believe it, angry that he had chosen this moment. All she’d offered by way of response was a lie. She’d told him that she was driving down to Mayo for the day to visit her aunt.
She loved him, she was certain of that. She would not spoil all of this with her need and jealousy and anger. She had too much to be grateful for. For the past twenty-five years her Christmases had been spent at the table of some relative or friend and now she had someone who cared for her, who was as good a man as she could hope to find, and she was going to spend the day with him or part of it at least. But she had spent so much of her life at the behest of other people that she knew how quickly things could change. His next call might be to tell her that he and Colette had reconciled. And then all the presents that she’d bought would stay huddled in the hall cupboard in her little house as a reminder of her foolishness.
Ann looked at the list again, then stuffed it back in her handbag. She would focus on the boys. Shaun would be happy with whatever she bought, but the right present could improve her standing with his children, who for the moment suffered her presence with a poorly concealed impatience. Carl was a talented artist. She saw the pictures he brought home from school. He had a real facility for drawing and yet he spent all his time playing computer games, and nobody commented on this. She checked the sign again and saw that there was an art shop on the second level, and she made her way to the bank of escalators that zigzagged between the floors.
Ann lifted her leg and withdrew it a few times before she felt confident enough to place her foot firmly on the escalator. She had difficulties with escalators, getting on them and getting off them – they gave her a kind of vertigo and she always felt like she was going to go toppling forwards or backwards. She held on firmly to the rubber banister, and as someone passed her on her left-hand side, she clutched the strap of her handbag. She wore the strap across her body. Claire from the hotel had been to Dublin and was minding her own business walking down O’Connell Street when some young fella grabbed the bag off her and tore a few ligaments in her shoulder while he was at it.
As she stepped off at the top of the escalator an announcement came over the loudspeaker and she felt her heart seize up for a moment. She swayed in place. ‘Could Hilary Carlisle please come to the main desk in the atrium, where her son is waiting for her.’ And then it was like everything steadied all at once and her mind was alert to each sound and movement happening around her. The danger had not arrived. Every time the loudspeaker went she was anticipating a bomb scare. You saw it on the news all the time – droves of people being ushered out of churches and cinemas and shopping centres. And not just scares, real bomb attacks that killed and maimed dozens of people. There was a ceasefire at the moment but usually if you listened to the radio or turned on the television at all you’d think the roads in Northern Ireland were ripped to shreds by bombs. All she could see when she looked around her were people going about their business, laden down with shopping bags. There were a lot more people than she was used to, and there might be a civil war of sorts going on but everyone seemed to be well off. And she supposed that fear was a thing you got used to in the same way as anything else. Like grief or anger or shame – you either moved past it or you lived with it for so long that you didn’t know the difference anymore.
