I hadn’t wanted to go to the bloody meeting at all, but Sadie insisted, nearly pushing me out the door. And then there was the weekend she decided to visit her father to stay for the couple of days. I dropped her off with the intention of heading back after a cup of tea. But I couldn’t make myself start the car. I ended up staying too.
And as for the doctor’s visits, I made every one.
‘Maurice! Back so soon?’ Doctor McRory said, on another of our weekly visits that I insisted on.
You made it in the end. Strong as an ox. Screamed your way into our life on the 20th of February 1969, like you were screaming for two. Maybe Molly had left a small bit of her breath in there for her baby brother. That’s what Sadie said, and she laughing in the bed, holding you to her. I watched Molly grow, alongside you. With each of your milestones, I have imagined hers also. Her first step. Her first word. First day at school. Her debs. ’Course I never told Sadie a hint of the fact that her daughter has lived in my head all this time, loving her life; the picture of her mother. Blonde hair, though, with a little wave in it that Sadie would have envied. Slight but not too dainty, just the right side of it. Determined. Doing whatever she set her mind to. A great sense of what’s right and wrong in the world. No middle ground with her. No grey area in between. I like that in her. But, for all her bravado, she has a vulnerability that’s made me want to make the world just right for her.
Mad isn’t it? There you were, my living son right in front of me, waiting to be noticed, but my head lingered with a ghost. My heart, missing a small beat of its rhythm. Not so unlike my mother after all.
It wasn’t just me I blamed for Molly’s death, you know. Our maker had to answer the charge also. It’s true my faith was tested when Tony was taken but when He decided on Molly too, well, I called it a day. Your mother still believed. I’d walk her to the door of the church for Mass and there we’d part ways. I’d hang around outside or go back to sit in the car. I couldn’t go inside. I wouldn’t give Him the pleasure.
I made my peace with Him, in a manner of speaking, after you were born. He never received my full forgiveness, though. My faith never felt quite the same again. I know the theory: these things are put here to test us, with one hand He taketh and so on. But all the words in the bible and the placations of Father Forrester could never smooth the injustice of Molly’s death. I’ve only crossed over the threshold of His house for funerals – Noreen’s, not to mention your mother’s but that’s different. I did that for Sadie, that’s nothing got to do with Him. We have an unwritten rule now, Him and me. He lets me live my life as I see fit and in return I say the odd quiet prayer in my head. Our gentleman’s agreement works. We’ve made a new one of late, His greatest test yet. But I can’t be getting into that yet. There’s an order in which I want to do this. Bear with me just a little longer.
Emily reminds me of Molly. Small, fair haired, precious looking. When she stood before me on that first day, all I could see was my daughter. Floored, I was. Could barely get the words out of my mouth, to book the rooms. Did I tell you that bit yet, about the first day I met Emily?
You see, true to his word back well after you were born, Jason Bruton, Hilary Dollard’s husband and Emily’s father, did the hotel conversion. It opened in 1977. We were invited to the opening but I purposely hid the invitation from your mother. She’d only have wanted to go. I’d seen Jason around the village over the years since our showdown. He’d nod in my direction or mouth a very curt hello. Always in a rush somewhere. In return I’d raise my index finger, not too high mind. Regret is too strong a word, but I wish I’d made an effort to know him. There was something trustworthy in his bravery the night he’d stood at our front door asking me to give more money for the Dollard land. But even if I had reached across the divide and stopped for a chat on those days we passed each other by, I doubt he’d have given me the time of day. I wouldn’t have, had the shoe been on the other foot. In the end, he possibly came out the better man. It was your wedding, nineteen years later in ninety-six that did that.
‘Mr Hannigan, it’s my absolute pleasure to welcome you to the Rainsford House Hotel,’ he said, standing at his reception, holding out his hand once more to me on the day of the viewing. ‘We’ve had our doubters, but here we are, defying the odds, ready to spend your money,’ he said, a big grin on his face.
Oh, he was good. It was like he’d been waiting for that moment for years. I couldn’t help but smile. But it was you who shook his hand and drew him away. As I stood there looking over at the pair of you, I noticed his ill-fitting suit and the sunken cheeks. When I’d first met him he was a young man, handsome and strong, but now he wore more than signs of age. He held his hollow body, like it might cave in if someone were to grab his shoulders and push down. Cancer, not that I knew it then. He died three months later.
‘The wedding! What about the wedding, Maurice?’ Your mother shrieked at me the day she heard the news of Jason’s passing. ‘They’ll still go ahead with it. I mean Hilary will still keep the hotel going won’t she?’
‘Might we let the man rest first, Sadie? Give his wife a chance, before you start badgering her.’
‘Thank you, Maurice. Thank you for pointing that out to me because I was just about to march up there to ask her about it. What kind of woman do you take me for, Maurice Hannigan?’
When my full name was used, I knew to shut up.
‘I’ll ring Kevin. What time is it over there? I can never figure this out. Maurice? Maurice, what time is it over in the States?’
There was a deluge of calls back and forth. All sorts of scenarios were discussed between the pair of you from the hotel closing down permanently, to, the Lord preserve us, marquees – in our garden no less. I fairly shifted in my chair at that one. But after three weeks of speculation and worry and a massive phone bill, it all died down. The hotel went on as normal, much to my despair.
‘Maurice, do you not care about your only child’s wedding? It’s like as if you wouldn’t mind if the whole hotel went up in smoke.’
‘If only dreams could come true, Sadie.’ A clever man would not have said that. Instead, he would have protested at such an injustice being levelled, proclaiming his unquestioning support for his son’s wishes.
‘You and your stupid feuds. You’re a petty little man, who can’t see what he has in front of him. Your son, our beautiful boy, is getting married and wants to do so in that hotel and all you can think about is how mean they were to you when you worked for them. Well get over it. Bosses aren’t meant to be nice. But you know who is supposed to be? A father. Yes, loving and kind, apparently. You’re doing a grand job of that one now, aren’t you?’
She rose from the chair, threw her knitting on the sofa, walked past me, slamming the sitting-room door. There was no dinner, or tea, or supper to be had in our house for seven long days thereafter. No stews, no scones, no freshly baked soda bread, although I did arrive home one day as its aroma wafted through the air. But as I could find no evidence of its existence I assumed my longing was playing tricks on me. As it turned out, however, while I ate shop-bought bread and butter sandwiches on the sofa, she enjoyed the soda bread in our bedroom. For it was there she was holed up in protest. Door locked and radio on. I slept in your room. How she had survived without the telly I’ve no idea. Although, I suspect, her being a dab hand with the VCR, she was taping everything in the evening and watching it during the day when I left. A clever woman. A woman in whose hands a grudge was respected and played out to its fullest potential. On day seven, I waved the white flag.
It had taken me the full week to think of something that would end the war. I ruminated on it in great detail, thinking through the pros and cons of each option with both Tony and Molly. Flowers and Dairy Milk chocolate wouldn’t cut it this time. But after a glass of whiskey at Hartigan’s, we had it. I slipped the envelope under our bedroom door, leaving a corner sticking out on my side so I’d see when she picked it up. And when I saw it disappear, I left her to it and went to my refuge on the sofa. She was down in less than a minute. Sat beside me and laid her head on my shoulder. We didn’t say anything for a while, but our hands found each other. In silence, we looked across at the family photo of the three of us over the fireplace, soon to be replaced, I had already been told, once Rosaleen said ‘I do.’