The prize being the widow at the graveside, I thought. The dowager political wife.
‘Thank you, Celia,’ I said, edging her back to the door and holding it open. ‘I appreciate you coming round, I really do.’ I felt resolve and determination falling away. They were right, she and Michael. I was young and immature. I was asking for something that didn’t belong in real life. I had a daughter to think about. I had wanted marriage and I had got myself into this relationship. I couldn’t bail out of ‘us’, crying about love and tea, just because it wasn’t perfect.
‘You need to think very clearly about what you want to do, Tabitha.’ She was now standing on the doorstep. ‘And be clever about your life. Don’t just throw it away over a cup of tea.’
Chapter Twelve
One day, the following week, during morning lessons, I walked down to the Copse. It was a beautiful place, this triangular patch – on one side the school playing field, the other side high garden fences and, on the third side, the sea - however much it would have been more convenient for it to be a place barren of charm was blindingly obvious. A pair of blue tits happily flittered about, dipping up and down, having the time of their lives, tangles of honeysuckle and brambles now dotted with white flowers would later be black with berries. And, there were the trees; oak and birches and larches and a holly. With the sounds of the birds, the view of the glittering, sparkling sea, the soothing and restorative quality was undeniable.
A bench, I thought, would be good in the clearing between the trees. A place where the children could come in their lunch hour to get away from the noise of the playground. A space to think. We all needed quiet time and often we forget that children need it just as much as adults. We keep them so busy, so occupied, barking orders and ferrying them from school to home to classes. And then in school, it doesn’t stop. But here, down here, at the edge of the school, was the perfect place for quiet.
I wished there was another way to raise the money, I really did. We’d just have to create another place, just like this. Okay it might take a couple of years to mature. But the blue tits and butterflies would find their way back, surely.
Over at the other side of the playing field, the familiar two by two trickle of children singing a song, every one of them word perfect, caught my attention. They were signing Let It Go.
And leading this merry band of girls was Red. I watched as he turned to face them, as they reached the brow of the curve, his hands in the air, conducting them, their voices soaring into the crescendo, they meant every word.
They all paused, letting the sentiment infuse their spirits.
They shouted the words out, arms puncturing the air with emphasis, their tiny voices combined to carry into the wind and the world, their collective call to arms.
And there was Red singing it as hard and as passionately as the rest of them. He turned to check they were all still following behind, and then smiled at Grace and Jenny who were walking beside him as they shouted out the last line. For a moment, my heart stopped. And all my feelings about him being at the school stopped being so confused and became very clear indeed. He couldn’t stay. He would have to leave. I couldn’t feel like this and carry on and be normal and look after Rosie and deal with my mother and do my job and keep house for Michael. I realised I was in love with him. Always had been and always would. Nothing had changed. Nothing at all. I felt exactly as I did when he left for San Francisco. Deeply in love. I had just pretended I didn’t love him but I’d never fallen out of love with him. I’d just gone in a different direction. But love for him had been waiting, patiently, like a coat ready to be slipped on again.
And then he looked up and saw me. And I couldn’t smile or wave or even pull myself together for long enough to try and look pirate queenly or headmistressy. I felt a wretchedness spread through my body. He was a complication too far. He would have to go. I stood up and began to walk towards them, it was the only way back to the school.
‘Good morning, Mr Power,’ I said, stopping beside them. ‘Good morning girls.’
‘Good morning, Ms Thomas,’ they chorused, with far less enthusiasm that they had mustered a moment ago when singing ‘Let It Go’. They bustled around him, like a protective mob.
‘Still in fine voice, I’m glad to hear, Mr Power. You’re not teaching the girls songs from the 1980s?’
He grinned at me, blushing slightly. ‘Ah, yes… I’ve really got to stop. Or go for singing lessons. And Let It Go is song we all know. I don’t think Johnny Logan would go down well.’ He smiled at me. ‘Anyway, we thought we’d get out of the classroom and come down to the Copse…’
‘While we still can,’ said Molly.
‘It’s such a beautiful day,’ he said, ‘that I thought that we’d go and practise our story-telling outdoors. They were full of questions about the Copse and we thought it might be a nice idea to pay it a visit before… you know…’ He looked at me, searchingly. ‘If that’s all right?’ he added solicitously.
‘All the girls are working on their memoirs,’ he went on, ‘the story of their lives and they have to then perform it to the class.’
‘That sounds very interesting girls,’ I smiled at them all, wishing I had the easy charm of Red who would never make a child cry.
‘Find a place to sit down, girls,’ he said, as they avoided the nettles and stretched out under trees, doing handstands, making daisy chains, plaiting grasses. He turned back to me just as a leaf blew into his hair and I watched it flutter there until he brushed it away.
‘I’d better get back and let you go on with your lesson.’ I thought that if I stayed for much longer, I wouldn’t ever want to leave, and would sit down with the girls and gaze at Red as rapturously as they looked up at him.
‘How’s your daughter?’ he said. ‘How’s Rosie?’
‘Better,’ I said. ‘Much better. She seems really good at the moment.’
‘That’s good to hear,’ he said.
I walked back to school, wishing I could have stayed and made daisy chains with them and sung songs and hung out with Red. And the Copse. How could I sell it? Would it be really worth it?
Before
‘I wish I was there with you.’ Red’s voice was faraway, the line crackly. Our old red phone had a dodgy plastic receiver that used to fall off and had been sellotaped back on. It made even local calls sound faraway and crackly. ‘Can’t be helped,’ I said. ‘We’ll be fine.’
‘How’s Nora?’
‘Slightly manic. She’s cleaning the house from top to bottom… even polished the brass on the front door.’
He laughed, gently. ‘Everyone copes in different ways.’
‘She says Rosaleen wouldn’t like everyone coming if the brass wasn’t shiny. She’s even taken down all the net curtains and washed them, putting them back up while they were still damp. The house smells of washing powder.’
‘And, how are you?’
‘Fine…’ I put my hand on my stomach. ‘I’ll be fine,’ I said. My flight was booked for a following week. My suitcase was already half-packed, had been for months. ‘Anyway, I’ll see you in a few days. Not long now.’
Chapter Thirteen
‘Scrambled all right for you?’
Michael frowned, as he whipped through the Irish Times, eyes darting up and down rows. He’d arrived home from Brussels or Belfast, I wasn’t quite sure, at 7 a.m. and was experimenting with weekend casual. Not just the suit and no tie, this was a new departure. A chino. A V-neck sweater. A polo shirt. The slip-on trainer. I suspected the influence of Lucy the Marvel.
‘Fried, thank you, Mammy,’ he said, still expertly scanning the paper to see what might have been have said about him. Good or bad, he didn’t mind. That was the thing about politicians; hides so thick, they would survive a nuclear holocaust. A low day would be when he hadn’t been mentioned at all.
‘Tea? Coffee?’ I felt like a B&B lady. ‘Tinned prunes? Rice Crispies? A supermarket scone passed off as homemade?’