The Story of Our Secrets, page 10
With that, she snapped the cracker and got a round of applause from her audience of two.
My turn. I really didn’t want to do this. My situation was different from the others. There was no duplicitous break-up. No fault on either side. Our marriage ended because of biology, because of a bastard cancer that took my husband’s life. There was no need for reproach, at least, none that I was going to talk about in the middle of a restaurant in Chiswick.
So instead of seeking some kind of justice or closure, I took another approach – I decided to articulate the thought that had been going around in my mind since the day he left us. ‘Hey, Colm,’ I began.
‘Prawn cracker,’ Jess hissed, interrupting me.
I decided to humour her. What was the harm? We were already far too close to Bizarreville to turn back now. I held up the cracker and started again.
‘Hey, Colm…’ In my head I could hear him reply with his usual ‘Hey, m’darlin’.’
‘Your ex-wife… no wonder you divorced her by the way, because she’s way too bossy.’ That earned a raised eyebrow of disdain from Jess, but I carried on, ‘Anyway, she is making me do this thing where I have to say something to you. Thing is, if you can see me down here, then you know that I talk to you all the time. And if you can’t, well, I’m not sure there’s any point.’
The eyebrow was up again, so I hastily added, ‘But I’m going to go along with it because she’s a wonderful person who has been a great support since you… left us.’ Even five years later, every time I talked about Colm dying, it still chipped off a piece of my heart.
‘I guess the thing I don’t understand, Colm, is why we didn’t talk about the future. You know, I’ve never said this before, but I’m bloody furious about that. Why didn’t you map out your plans and wishes for Beth, for Davie and Joe? Why didn’t we talk about the mistakes we made, the things we were never brave enough to discuss, so that we could forgive each other and get closure?’
If he could hear me, he’d know what I was referring to. Across the table, Jess’s pained glance told me that she did too.
I left it there and went back to my dead husband, having genuine concerns about the future viability of Jess’s life coaching service. If this was an example of her process, I didn’t think there were going to be queues around the block. ‘Maybe it’s because, right up to the end, you thought you’d still have more time, and I wasn’t brave enough to make us face it. Anyway, my love, I just want you to know we’re doing okay. Beth is incredible and she’s so like you that it breaks my heart. I so wish I could talk to you, hear your voice. Jess and Dan want me to open myself up to the possibility of another relationship, but how can I, when I still feel married to you? I’m still Shauna O’Flynn, Colm’s wife, and I don’t see how that will ever change. If this is the way it always is, that’s okay with me. We had everything. And I don’t think anyone is lucky enough to get everything twice.’
Jess’s sniff snapped me out of the place that my mind had gone to, that quiet, peaceful spot in my head where Colm and I lived, where he was still with us and I could think about him, talk to him, watch his reactions to the twists and turns of life. Damn.
One look at Jess and Dan’s expressions of devastation and I felt terrible for opening up their Colm-sized wound too. I hadn’t meant to do that and felt an irresistible need to lighten the mood.
I snapped my cracker. ‘Oh, and by the way, Colm. I can’t believe you lied to me for all those years about the king prawn curry.’
11
Colm – 2016
Right. This is probably the last of these videos that I can make before I get to the tough stuff. And I don’t know how much time I have left to get them done. Every day, I’m finding it more difficult to keep my thoughts in my head for long enough to make them count. The last MRI showed that despite all the treatment, despite the fact that I’m still having this chemo pumped in to me, the brain tumour is still growing and everything is becoming… I don’t know the best way to describe it. Detached.
Yeah, that works. It’s like I’m half asleep and watching a movie, and it’s getting more and more fuzzy round the edges. Sometimes my eyes close and I blank out altogether, then realise that I’ve missed something important. That happened last week when Beth was telling me about her sports day at school. My brain zoned out, I just couldn’t grasp the words I was hearing, and I had no idea whether I should congratulate her on winning or commiserate her on losing. Shauna saved the day on that one. In she came with a cake, with a candle on top, right next to the medal Beth had won for the high jump. I understood it just in time to make a huge fuss of her. I hope she’ll remember that day.
I press ‘record’ on my phone while that thought is still on my mind, and manage to get it out just before it disappears.
‘Hey, m’darlin’, I’m back. Listen, before I forget, remember Beth won the medal at sports day last year? I’m just thinking that she’s too young to remember how proud I was of her. Truth is, I’m proud of her whether she’s winning medals or not. I need her to know that, so can you show her this? Or maybe… Maybe I’ll make a video for her too. Nothing too crazy. Just something that she’ll have, so she’s in no doubt about how I would react to the things that will come her way in the future. Yeah, that’s a better idea. In fact, bugger it, I’ll do it now. I’ll be right back.’
I flick the camera off and lie back on my bed. It’s not my own bed though. It’s not even the hospital ward that I’ve spent so much time in over the last year. Nope, I’ve been moved into a hospice for a week or so, because this latest round of chemo is brutal and if the cancer doesn’t slay me, the fecking chemo will do the job. I made Shauna promise that this was temporary. I’m not dying in here. I want to be home, under the same roof as my girls. Or sitting in a pub with a cold pint, preferably watching the rugby, and I’ll happily keel over right after Ireland scores a try to beat whoever they’re playing.
As I’m making more notes on the back of a magazine that someone has left on the bedside unit, one of the nurses, Kristen, comes in with some meds. I take so many now that I’m rattling. These are the anti-nausea ones that I take an hour before chemo. An hour. Right. Better get cracking then.
I lie on my side, too knackered to hold the phone up. Instead, I balance it against the water jug that’s next to the magazine pile. I’m about to press ‘play’ when I stop myself.
No. This isn’t what I want for Beth. She’ll have this for the rest of her life, and I don’t want her watching her old da’ lying here like a sack of spuds.
I push myself up, grab a brush from the cabinet on the other side of the bed, and run it through my hair. I give my cheeks a bit of a slap to get some colour back in there and then I force myself out of bed and over to the chair at the window. It’s a nice room, this one. Thank feck for the NHS.
Christ, I’m exhausted. Ten steps and my legs are giving out.
I make it to the seat but only just. I manage to turn myself so that the room is behind me and I’m facing the window. Lulu taught me that. She’s the queen of those selfie things. ‘Always have the light source in front of you,’ she said, then she added some variation of, ‘Although, with a face like yours, you might want to keep it in shadow.’ The woman was pure cheek and she drove us all mad, but, God, no one made me laugh like Lulu did. She was the strongest of us all. Bloody bulletproof. Even when I was diagnosed and given a terminal prognosis, she didn’t miss a beat. She just shows up every single day, thrashes me at cards and tells me I’m beating this, so there’s no point worrying about it. I didn’t think the gods would be brave enough to argue. Between Lulu’s fight, my fecking optimism and my gorgeous Shauna’s determination, I reckoned we still had an outside chance. I’m not so convinced now, but I’m not giving up – not while there’s a breath or a bad joke in my body.
I check the screen. Okay, I don’t look too bad. Decent T-shirt, bit of colour in my cheeks and I tell myself that the weight I’ve lost is giving me a chiselled jaw for the first time in my life. It’s one of the Unintentional Consequences of A FBT (Fecking Brain Tumour) that I can live with.
I balance the phone on the windowsill and press play. I want Steven Spielberg here shouting ‘action’, because this might top my last performance. Best Oscar In The Category of A Dying Dad goes to…’
‘Hey Bethy, how ya doing, love?’ I get an image of her watching this in one year, five years, ten years, and I have to stop because the tears are suddenly blinding me. For feck’s sake.
Stop. Rewind. Dry yer eyes, ya useless lump. You’ve got this. It’s for Beth. And for yer girl, there’s nothing you can’t do. Deep breath. Record.
‘Hey Bethy, how’re ye? I bet you’re great, because you’ve been spectacular since the day you were born. In a way, I hope you never see this, because that means they’ve come up with some way of curing me, but just in case, there’s a few things that I want you to know.
‘Och, darlin’, I don’t know where to start. Okay, I’ve got this. The most important thing. Since the minute you were born, yer mum and I have loved you more than anything or anyone on God’s earth. Don’t tell your brothers I said that though,’ I say with a wink. ‘For a long time, me and yer mum thought we would never have children of our own, but now I know the reason we had to wait a while was because we were getting a special one. You and your brothers are the loves of my life, an’ yer mum is my soulmate. That’s a lot of love in that wee bubble. Don’t ever forget you have that. And if you do, ask your mum about her childhood and compare the difference. Actually, if you’ve any questions ever, then ask your mum, because she’s the smartest woman I’ve ever known. Right now, you look like me, but inside, you’re all your mum – and I wouldn’t have that any other way.
‘Okay, ma love, the big stuff…
‘I can’t stand the thought that you’ll feel a day of pain in your life, or that you’ll come across people who won’t treat you well, but that’s life, m’darlin’. The important thing is that you spot them and ditch them and don’t look back. Everyone makes mistakes, so have some forgiveness for the folk you love, but if someone doesn’t see you for the incredible girl you are, and the mighty woman you’ll become, then cut them loose, because that’s the only way you’ll find the people who deserve you.
‘Can I just say here, that I’m talking about friends, because you’ll not be doing any of that love stuff until yer at least forty-five. Nope, not having it, and don’t argue with me, young lady.’ I try to keep a straight face when I say that, but I fail and crack into a laugh.
‘I want you always to be you. If you’re watching this when you’re still young, don’t worry, you’ll understand what that means when you’re older. I want you to laugh every day, to seek out things that make you happy. Love whoever you choose to love, and don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t. But like I say, make sure that person deserves you. It’ll take someone pretty special to match up to that heart of yours.
‘Okay, what else? Don’t drink alcohol until you’re old enough that you won’t do something completely stupid after a few jars. I never mastered that – yer mother will confirm that point – and if you don’t believe me, you can ask yer brothers who broke the kitchen window with a football a couple of months ago.
‘What else?’ I think for a minute. Brain fog is closing my thoughts down. One last burst of effort required.
‘Don’t post anything dodgy on the internet – that stuff stays there forever. Don’t take drugs, you don’t need them and they’re pointless, because happy comes from inside. And from Ireland winning the rugby.
‘If someone wants you to do something and it doesn’t feel right, then don’t do it. If that person is a true friend, or a true love, they’ll back off and respect your decision. If not… back to what I said earlier. Cut them loose.
‘If ever you feel you need help, ask for it. You have the best people in yer world. Like I said before, your mum is the person you want by your side in your life. Your brothers would do anything for you. So would your Uncle Dan. And if something happens, or you make a mistake you don’t want to share with them – and darlin’, we all do it – go to your Aunt Lulu. There’s nothing that could shock her, there’s nothing she won’t do for you and she’ll keep your secrets forever. Just don’t go on a night out with her, because she’ll probably get you arrested.’
I’m starting to feel really crap now and it’s getting harder to keep the smile on. Time to wrap this up.
‘Most of all though, just remember how much I love you and know that even if I’m not there, I’ve got you, darlin’. I’ll always have you. And you’ll always have me. Just listen to your heart beating and know that I’m in there.’
With that, I wave, I blow her a kiss, and I stop the recording, then I slump in my chair. Blinding lights make me squeeze my eyes shut and I feel my chest getting so tight I can’t get another breath.
That’s when the world fades to black.
12
Shauna – July 2021
‘Hey, Beth, can you tell your mum that I’ve left the pressie I brought her from my honeymoon over there on the kitchen worktop, next to the coffee machine?’
Over at the kitchen table, Beth giggled, then leaned forward so that her head was almost touching Lulu’s. ‘Auntie Lu,’ she said in a stage whisper, ‘she’s right there. She can hear you.’
‘Yeah, but I’m not talking to her. I like you much better, so I’m only talking to you.’
Over at the sink, where I was washing salad for lunch, I shook my head. My best friend was infuriating. Ridiculously petulant. Completely incorrigible. But all those things were reasons that I loved her. She was an irritating, cheeky, infuriating child, trapped in a forty-something, designer-clad, size-ten body.
Most Saturdays, Lulu would take Beth to her ballet practice in the morning, then they’d come back to our home for lunch. Of course, this was so much more straightforward when Lulu lived downstairs with Dan. Now she lived twenty minutes or so away, I wasn’t sure that she’d still want to drag herself out of bed early on a weekend morning, but this morning, almost a week after she’d stormed out of my house, she showed up, right on time, just before I was about to take Beth myself. Off they went, giving me a morning of solitude.
I could have slid back into bed and had a decadent couple of hours of TV and magazines, but I’d have been restless after ten minutes, and my brain would switch on to fast-spin, running through all the things I could be doing. In truth, though, my aversion to a long lie-in was more than just my chronic inability to switch off. Weekends made Colm’s absence so much more vivid. From the time we met, as long as I wasn’t working, lazy Saturday mornings were one of our favourite guilty pleasures. Now, I couldn’t bear to see the flat duvet and the empty pillow on his side of the bed. If I closed my eyes real tight, sometimes I could imagine that I could see him, or hear his laugh, but then came the pain of returning to reality. No. I could do without that little nugget of psychological self-mutilation, so on my rare free mornings I kept myself busy.
This morning, by the time Lulu and Beth came back from her dancing class, I’d already planned my work diary for next week, put in all my stock orders, updated the company Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages, cleaned the house and got two lots of washing done. The phone had rung twice, and both times my heart stopped, only starting again when I heard that it was two of those spam sales pitches for windows. Not Vincent. I was doing my best to forget that he’d called. No good could come of it. None. I just wished I could stop thinking about it, stop playing the words back in my head, stop wondering what he wanted. Vincent and I were a closed chapter in a regrettable book. Yet… it was Vincent. Arrgh! The only good thing about the spat with Lulu was that it was distracting me from wondering why he’d suddenly got in touch after years of silence. I had seen him once in the last decade and that was at Colm’s funeral, and I’d asked him not to contact me again. I thought he understood. Maybe not.
It was a relief when Lulu and Beth came back and distracted me.
I’d just tossed the washed lettuce in the colander, when Lulu pulled her little charade, but Beth was having none of it. ‘My mum always says that the only way to solve a problem is to talk it through, Aunt Lu. She says if you care about the person, and they care about you, there will always be a way to work it out.’
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lulu sigh and lean over to kiss Beth’s forehead. ‘I hate that you’re always the most mature person in the room, kiddo.’
‘Yup,’ Beth said nonchalantly. This wasn’t news to her. She’d been told this many times before. It was incredible how balanced and secure she was given that she’d lost her dad at such a young age. We both chose to believe that Colm was with her every day though, both on the inside and on the outside. There was the unmistakable likeness, but more than that, she had his fearless spirit and easy, irrepressible joy. Something that was definitely lacking in my best mate’s demeanour right now.
For the first time, Lulu glanced over in my direction. ‘So are we okay or not?’ This was another of Lulu’s versions of an apology: an olive branch, wrapped up in about six words. She’d never been one for dragging things out. Fight. Make up. Move on. I was happy to go with it but that came with conditions.
‘That depends. Are you going to charge back in and take a wrecking ball to Dan’s life?’
She squirmed in her Gucci jeans. ‘Noooooo.’
I didn’t believe her for a second. I could see the truth written all over her stunning face. Her hand was on the lid of the cookie jar, and she was desperate to lift it off.
‘Have you spoken to him?’ I asked. Dan had mentioned that she’d called, but I didn’t want her to think we’d been talking about her and set her off on another defensive rant.
‘Barely got two words out of him. You’ve clearly brainwashed him and convinced him that seeing me would be a terrible idea because I’m some kind of deranged woman who will subject him to a hostage situation until he bends to my will.’
