Forever Home, page 1
Dedication
For John and Martha
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Two Years Later
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Graham Norton
Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter 1
The Back Quay of Ballytoor was where things used to be. That grey building on the corner of Twomey’s Lane had been the Garda barracks long before it was upgraded to the glass and brick box up beside the hospital. Keogh’s hardware shop used to be housed in the big double-fronted stone premises, the name still legible above the large windows smeared with the mysterious milky wash of abandoned shops. Few could remember it but the tall thin building with the narrow door had been the town’s only bike shop; now it just seemed to be awaiting its own collapse. Cleary’s Garage remained open, an apron of oil and grease spreading across the road, but these days most car owners gravitated towards one of the newer garages further out on the Cork road.
Peering over the shabby patchwork of roofs along the Back Quay was a strangely genteel terrace of houses. It looked out of place, like a guest who was hopelessly overdressed for the occasion. Formal in a way that made it unlike any other street in the town, Stable Row ran between Twomey’s Lane and Barrack Hill. Just seven houses long, the small front gardens were all edged with the same metal railings, elegant rather than ornate. Most were well maintained. The people lucky enough to live in one of these houses took pride in their homes, aware of their good fortune. An ungenerous neighbour might have described them as smug. Doors were glossy, windows clean, the gutters weed-free. Originally built for the British officers who had come to the town as part of a small garrison, the short terrace still felt more Anglo than Irish.
At this time of the morning all was quiet. Mrs Buttimer, now widowed, from number one was away visiting her sister in Dublin. A poster for a missing cat, faded and damp, hung from the gate of number two, all hope now drained away. A bright plastic ride-on tractor toy was parked neatly on the path leading to the front door of number three, the children ferried off to school a couple of hours earlier. The morning light glittered as it struck the small crystals hanging in the windows of number four. Jenny and Arthur Beamish could never have been described as hippies – he was a retired accountant – but they embraced the trappings of middle-class bohemia. They had hung some wind chimes by their front door until Mrs Buttimer had complained of sleep deprivation. In number five, old Miss Cronin sat unobserved in the kitchen, a rug over her knees, the radio playing classical music she wasn’t enjoying. One of the carers would return later to give her some lunch. Number six had just been sold. No one could believe the price they’d paid. Madness. A young couple apparently. They had yet to move in. He was something to do with the chemical plant out by Creenor. Next door at number seven a woman was standing by one of the first-floor windows. At first glance, a passer-by might have described her as young, with her slim frame and loose denim shirt. Her hair was pulled up into a messy bun, two plastic pens sticking out of it. A closer look would have revealed her drawn face, the dark circles under her eyes, her hair streaked with grey. This was Carol Crottie, almost fifty. Her gaze wasn’t directed out of the window down towards the river, or across the roofs of the quays to the other side of town. Instead, she was bent over a folder, while she chewed the top of a third biro. Carol had lived in number seven for less than ten years and she wasn’t ready to leave.
Living in an old house had been new to her. She had begun her life on a neat, modern housing estate in a suburb of Cork City. Her parents had christened her Carol. ‘Were you a Christmas baby?’ people asked politely. ‘No,’ she would reply, vaguely aware that she should have some sort of follow-up, an alternative explanation, but she never did. When she was ten, Brian and Linda, her older brother and sister, along with herself had been put in the back seat of the car and driven away from the city. Their new home was an ultra-modern bungalow on the coast, west of Ballytoor. This was their reward. ‘Hard work, kids,’ their father had beamed at them from the driver’s seat. ‘This is what hard work looks like.’ He lunged across the car to give his wife an awkward kiss. She flushed, her eyes darting to the children in the back. Carol knew, as much as a child could, that her father’s business was doing well. Her mother regularly reminded the children of how busy Daddy was, and how much he’d like to be at home with them all but he had to work. The small chain of cafés he owned in Cork had expanded into train stations, then into Dublin and finally the airports. Crottie’s Cafés became well known, affectionately called Grotty’s. Carol had spent her school years being referred to as Grotty Crottie, even by her friends.
Later, as a student, her home had been a small modern flat in Dublin. Her father had bought it as an investment. She was reminded many times, particularly in the presence of Linda and Brian, that she was not to imagine the apartment belonged to her. ‘I know, Dad,’ she would sigh. ‘We all know. We get it.’
‘Just to be clear,’ her father would mutter.
What went unspoken was that Carol was indeed his favourite. Neither Linda nor Brian had gone on to university, and the fact that his youngest had made her a star in his eyes. But he hadn’t bought her a flat. It was very important that everything was fair when it came to money. In his will everything would be split three ways. It was just love she had got more of.
When Carol began teaching English, she had shared an apartment with two nurses. On the north side of the town, it wore its newness as a badge of honour. Brightly lit corridors, donkey-brown carpet tiles. The street door had a security buzzer and a little camera. Carol’s father had liked that. The two nurses shared one bedroom while Carol had the other. The three of them had got on well enough until they discovered that she was the daughter of the Crottie who owned all the Grotty’s. It was never the same after that.
Carol had fallen in love. Alex taught geography and coached various sports teams. He wore tracksuits on and off the pitch and had a dark, neatly clippered beard. He was not the sort of man Carol would have ever expected to ask a bookish woman like her out on a date. That wasn’t to say she hadn’t found him attractive. On the contrary, her eyes were often drawn to him in the school staff room. From behind a pile of uncorrected homework she had observed him flirt and laugh with the blonde history teacher. Carol had seen how the older female students would hang around the door of his classroom, trying to think of questions to ask him about oxbow lakes or glaciers in the hope that he would notice them. Then one evening in the staff car park, he had casually called across to her an invitation to go out. His tone had been so familiar and unforced it seemed to suggest that this wouldn’t be their first date. Carol had that feeling she got when she was watching a series on television and realised that she must have missed an episode, because the story had moved forward in unexplained ways. He had taken Carol to dinner, ordered wine without embarrassment, told her she looked beautiful. Her parents liked him. What more could she ask for? She married him.
They had bought a town house off plan when they became engaged. The large signs surrounding the development proudly declared that the homes were ‘Architect Designed’, as if most buildings were just constructed by builders using luck and a spirit level. ‘Don’t tell your brother and sister,’ her father had cautioned when he handed over the cheque to help with the deposit.
They had been happy. Really happy. All the furniture had been chosen and bought without arguments. Quite often when Carol was cleaning or carrying in groceries, she would stop and admire what they had made. It was a proper home. They would laugh, swapping tales about students or mocking the television shows they were watching while they curled into each other on the sofa they had found together. ‘Perfect,’ they had said almost in unison when they’d spotted it in Caseys up in Cork. Carol became pregnant. A cot to choose. The small back bedroom to decorate. They had a son, Craig. He was six years old when Alex left. It wasn’t the blonde history teacher, it was a new blonde French teacher. Carol hadn’t been quite as heartbroken as she might have expected when he’d walked out. There’d even been
Being single didn’t seem as bad as other people, certainly her parents, seemed to think it was. She found she preferred being with Craig in their little house without Alex in it. Then, just over ten years ago, after her baby boy had left home to work as an estate agent in London, she had met the second love of her life, her Declan. She felt almost ambushed by her newfound happiness. It was then that she had moved into this old house, with walls that swelled and floors that sloped. 1811 was the date embossed at the top of the long metal drainpipe that traced down the brick façade of number seven Stable Row. The terraced houses weren’t large but they had ideas above their station. Three storeys high, with two small rooms on each, it wasn’t really much bigger than a cottage but with its high ceilings, the delicate cornicing and imposing fireplaces, the house seemed convinced of its own fine breeding. The top floor was Carol and Declan’s bedroom and the bathroom. The living room on the first floor had been the main bedroom but Carol had insisted, and Declan after much persuasion had finally agreed, that they move upstairs. She didn’t want to lie with Declan where he had slept with his wife. Carol had also changed the small parlour on the ground floor into a dining room so that they no longer ate in the kitchen. She knew these changes irked Declan, but Carol felt it was important that she make her mark on the house. It was theirs now.
Declan’s former bedroom became her favourite room. It was at the front of the house. Two long, floor-to-ceiling, small-paned windows looked out over the town, each fronted with a plain metal Juliet balcony. Carol enjoyed sitting in this airy room as the afternoon sun moved the shadow of the window frame across the worn oak floorboards. She liked to imagine that others had sat here before her, watching the light on its slow journey to the bookshelves on the far wall. Sometimes when she was preparing for a new school year, leafing through a Jane Austen novel, or Dickens perhaps, she wondered if these stories had been read in these rooms before. It wasn’t creepy or unsettling to her. The thought of all the lives lived within these walls gave her a sense of comfort. No matter how busy or preoccupied she became with her life, it didn’t really matter. The sun cast its shadows, the heavy shutters kept it out, the stairs groaned oblivious to who was causing the strain. This old house was far more than the sum of the lives it had contained over the years. No one could ever really own it. Certainly not Carol. That much, now, had been made very clear.
Boxes of various sizes were stacked in every room. Carol’s handwriting was on most of them: Dining room #2 Glassware. Books. Pots. Miscellaneous. She held a folder where each box had a corresponding page listing the exact contents. The children were not going to accuse her of stealing anything. Not for the first time, she asked herself how she could love Declan so much yet have such an intense and visceral dislike for his children. She glanced at her phone. 10.45. They’d be here soon. It wouldn’t surprise her if they were early, hoping to catch her out. What did they think she was going to do? Clank out of the house with the canteen of silver cutlery sewn into the lining of her coat?
The living room, where she now stood, was empty, but by looking at the darker patches of wallpaper where paintings had hung, Carol could still see them. The marks on the floor where the two small sofas had sat opposite each other. She could see him too. His legs crossed, the Irish Times held aloft, covering most of his body. A grunt when she had offered him tea. How was it possible that he was no longer here? The strange chemical scent of his anti-dandruff shampoo was still in the air. How could Declan, her strong ox of a man, be gone when a mere perfume remained. She felt her eyes fill with tears but she brushed them away with her hand. The children would not find her like this.
She heard the slam of a car door. Glancing out of the window down to the street, she saw that it was Killian. He looked up. Carol turned away quickly but she knew that he had probably seen her. Typical that he would have claimed a parking space right outside when most evenings after work she found herself circling the block on a fruitless search. She chanced another glimpse out of the window. Killian was now looking the other way, down the street. His large overcoat flapped ostentatiously in the wind, but his carefully styled hair remained unmoving. To Carol, Declan’s eldest, now in his mid-thirties, still looked like a boy playing a businessman in a school play. He raised his hand to wave at someone. Sally, his younger sister, came into view. She was carrying a brightly coloured plastic bag with spray bottles and cloths protruding from it. Did she think she was going to clean the house? Was Carol not capable? She had never seen the inside of Sally’s home but judging from her unkempt mousey hair and the state of her – was it a long cardigan or a knitted coat? – she very much doubted her commitment to cleanliness. Carol watched the siblings hug briefly. They had a huddled conversation, no doubt about her, and then started walking across the street. Carol hurried down the stairs, her footsteps echoing through the carpetless house. She would open the front door to them before they had a chance to use their key.
Chapter 2
Declan had been an unusual figure at the school. The only single father bringing up children alone, he was usually referred to as poor Mr Barry. Carol knew him to see. Tall and broad-shouldered, his shock of silver hair worn a little longer than most of the other fathers, he would hover awkwardly at the edges of school events like sports days or parents’ evenings. He was the sort of man who looked like he might crush his cup and saucer without meaning to. She knew that he ran the yellow-fronted chemist shop between the post office and The Cat and Fiddle pub, but that wasn’t the pharmacy Carol used.
The first time they spoke was in the street. She had been standing outside Gallagher’s shoe shop trying to figure out what shoes on display were included in their heavily advertised sale when a shadow fell across the shop window. She turned to find poor Mr Barry. He was holding a rolled-up newspaper. Later she would learn that this was his regular habit, to buy an Irish Times in Cassidy’s on his way back to his car, having left Margaret or Orla to lock up for the night.
He lowered his head slightly and asked, ‘Mrs Lawlor?’
‘Miss Crottie,’ Carol corrected him.
‘Oh.’ Declan looked confused, unsure of what to say next.
‘I’ve gone back to my maiden name. I was Mrs Lawlor.’ She smiled to show she was not offended and then added, ‘For a while there anyway.’ She gave a light laugh.
‘I’m Declan Barry, Sally’s father.’ He held out his hand and she shook it.
‘Carol. Nice to meet you.’
This encounter was nothing out of the ordinary. Parents of pupils often stopped her to ask a question or just to say hello. Carol had taught both Killian and Sally, though in truth neither of them had made much of an impression on her.
‘Sorry to disturb you,’ Declan glanced at the window display with barely concealed disdain, ‘but I wanted to ask you something.’
‘Feel free. Ask away.’
‘It’s Sally. She says she doesn’t want to take Higher-level English in the leaving. I was just wondering what you thought? I don’t want to push her if you don’t think she’s up to it.’
Carol wasn’t quite sure what to say. Sally sat beside the window about halfway back. She had thick hair that never looked as if it had been cut or washed properly, but apart from that she was just one of those pupils who made up the numbers. Carol struggled to remember anything she had ever contributed in class or written in an essay. Perhaps she had never pushed her because of the whole ‘no mother’ thing.
‘Well, Mr Barry, I always think there’s no point forcing people, but she doesn’t have to decide now. She has the summer. I tell you what I’d do. Get her a copy of Wuthering Heights. That’s on the syllabus for next year. If she reads it over the summer and likes it, then I’d say she’d have no problem with Higher.’
