The First Time I Said Goodbye (19 page)

She ran towards Carlisle Road where she would see Ray. Her smile was as bright as the Christmas lights sparkling in the windows of her neighbours’ houses.

Running up the stairs to the flat, her heart beat fast at the thought of spending just a few illicit moments with Ray. She smiled as she turned her key in the door and pushed it open.

But the flat was in darkness – not even a hint of an ember in the fire or a note to say he had been called away. Just a cold dark room, and her heart sank to her boots. There had to be a reason, she told herself. She never doubted him, not a minute, but she couldn’t help but feel sorely disappointed. All day she had hoped for this moment and now he wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

Despondently she left, heading to the shop to buy the yeast her mother would be waiting for and as she walked she decided to call the Base just to see what had happened. He would never let her down, there had to be an explanation. Something must have come up. She would settle herself if she could just speak to him and hear he was okay – and for him to tell her he would still come to Christmas dinner with the family.

She walked to the phone box, dropped a coin in the box and waited to be connected. When a friendly voice answered she asked to speak to Ray.

“Is that Stella?” the man on the other end asked.

“Yes, yes, it is.”

“Hmm. I was sure he said he was going to be with you. Or, you know, at least to try and see you. He was quite keen.”

Flustered, Stella wondered who she was talking to and asked the marine who he was.

“It’s Dusty, ma’am,” he said with his Southern drawl. “And as I’ve said, Ray’s not here. He said he was going to, you know, the love shack.”

Dusty laughed a full and filthy laugh which made Stella feel as if she was part of some dirty secret. This on top of the news that Ray wasn’t even to be found at the Base made tears spring to her eyes.

“But he’s not there,” she said through her embarrassment.

“I don’t know, ma’am. I know he was very flustered leaving. I probably shouldn’t tell you this – I know he would have wanted to tell you himself – but we got our shipping-out orders. We leave in six weeks. He was in a state when he left. Said he had some business to sort out – but we kinda thought you were that business.” The dirty laugh followed again.

Stella had to steady herself to avoid falling to the ground. Six weeks. Six weeks was no time – it wasn’t enough. And where on earth was Ray? Where could he be? Why had he not come to her? She put the phone down without so much as saying goodbye and turned to walk home, her mind racing as fast as her heart was breaking. She was grateful for the evening closing in – that it hid her face and the tears that were sliding down her cheeks. Her feet were no longer light, her step no longer carefree. She felt as if she had the weight of the world on her shoulders and as if she might drop to the ground at any second and weep at the injustice of it all. He had come into her life, changed it in ways she could never have expected, and now he could be walking out of it again. Was it not too soon to make this work? Despite their love for each other. Was it not just too much – and if he wanted it – wanted her – where was he?

Her head hurting, she pushed open the front door to her house and slipped her coat off, the smells and sounds of Christmas Eve no longer comforting but now irritating her.

Her mother walked out of the kitchen, dusting her arms on her pinny. “Have you the yeast, love? I need to get this bread proving or I’ll be at it all night.”

Stella fell to the bottom step and shook her head. “I’m sorry, Mammy,” she muttered through her tears. “I don’t. I forgot. I’m sorry.”

She sat there sobbing until she felt the soft hands of her mother around her shoulders. “Dear Lord, child. What’s the matter? And it’s only yeast, for goodness’ sake. Sure I can probably borrow some from Mrs McGlinchey. What on earth has you in this state?”

“Oh Mammy!” she wailed, feeling a raw grief bubbling up from within her and making her very skin hurt. “I’m scared. I’m scared I’m going to lose him!”

Chapter 17

Perhaps there is nothing more to say, except always and forever. Always and forever will never change.

* * *

Derry, June 2010

I woke to light sneaking in through the blinds and to the sound of the street outside coming to life for the day. The traffic hummed along while the chatter of neighbours calling to each other reminded me that I was a long way from home. I lay there for a while with my eyes closed just trying to ground myself – remind myself where I was, why I was there and how it was turning out
to be a very different vacation from the one I had envisaged.

I had slept pretty fitfully. My dreams were filled with a love story that until recently I hadn’t even known of. I tried to piece together the notion of my mother with the woman who had written the letters. I don’t think I had ever seen my mother write anything other than a note to my gym teacher to ask her to give me a pass from dodgeball for the day. And yet for an hour when I got home the previous night I had seen a different woman reveal herself to me – one who was so very deeply passionate. Who so wanted her love affair to work. Who had, by her own admission, made grave mistakes. I thought of the picture of my mother which hung in our den at home – a picture taken when she must have been no older than eighteen or nineteen. Her eyes were bright, her smile wide. She was a beauty. She still was a beauty, even at seventy. Elegant, assured if a little reserved, as if the world had broken her heart in some way and she never quite managed to piece it back together. Of course, now I knew that was the case. And I understood and my heart ached for her.

I prised my eyes open and stretched in the bed, my hand brushing against the letters I had been reading the night before. There were still five more to read but for now I supposed I needed a little break from the emotional intensity of what was before me. This tale of love, and him having to leave. And my poor mother heartbroken.

My head hurt and I wasn’t sure if it was from the wine I had drunk or the crying I had done or just the internal game of volleyball I was playing in trying to make sense of it all and how I felt about it. As I had read my mother’s words and become engrossed in her story I felt a nagging guilt that somehow I was betraying my father even though Mom had assured me time and time again that what she felt for Ray pre-dated how she felt for daddy. Was I to believe that really all she wanted was closure and a chance to explain? Could you feel that deeply for someone and ever really push it away?

I didn’t know, I realised as I sat up and pulled the comforter back, because I didn’t think I had ever felt that strongly in my life.

* * *

People often wondered why Craig and I had never married, or even got so far as to get engaged. When my father was diagnosed with cancer and especially when we knew it was terminal, people had started to get extra edgy around us. I had called into Bake My Day one afternoon – just to check over the books with Elise and make a few plans for cover. She had been working on a wedding cake – a three-tier affair, each layer a different flavour, and she had looked at it and then at me.

“Would you not consider it?” she asked as I sat down on the stool across the workbench from her.

“Consider what?”

She nodded towards the cake and perhaps I’m particularly dense or exceptionally stupid but I didn’t catch on.

“Cake?” I offered. “I consider cake all the time. Sure cake is my business.”

“Wedding cake,” she offered again and still, because I am a dumb-ass, I didn’t catch on.

I looked at her blankly.

“A wedding,” she said, the frustration in her voice obvious. “You and Craig. Would now not be the perfect time?”

“While my father is fighting to stay alive just a little bit longer?” I asked, eyebrows raised a little, hackles raised even more. “I can think of better times.”

“But don’t you think that maybe he would like to see you settled? That it would give him a boost to see his only child marry? Do you not think he would get some joy out of it? He doesn’t have long left.”

She said ‘he doesn’t have long left’ as if it were news to me. As if that hadn’t been the only thought to cross my mind, over and over and over again, since his diagnosis. I had thought of all the things he wouldn’t see. He would never get back to California or see the Grand Canyon again. He would never write the book he always wanted to write. He would never hold any of his grandchildren. And among those thoughts was also the fact that he would never be there to walk me down the aisle. It had never occurred to me to make that happen – to arrange a wedding just for him. Something, I guess, had been holding me back. Still and all, I walked away from the bakery that day with nothing but thoughts of a wedding in my mind. We could do it – something simple, in Mom and Dad’s back yard with a pergola decked in flowers, a wooden dance floor hired in. White chairs lined together for our guests – a red carpet laid for me to walk on. I could get a dress, something simple. I wouldn’t quite go down the whole ‘hippy in the back yard in her bare feet’ routine but there would be no fuss or flounce or excessive frills. I would have a champagne fountain with old-fashioned champagne glasses – no fancy flutes – and I would bake my own wedding cake – or better still, cupcakes, just like Daddy liked.

I ran the thoughts through my mind and back again all the way home, trying to convince myself that it would be a good idea. And sure Craig and I were as good as married anyway so we might as well take the next step.

I was sure it was a great idea as I padded up the stairs to our porch and pulled open the screen door. I was almost, almost convinced – until I saw him.

I didn’t think anyone actually did it. I didn’t think anyone actually,
actually
, ever came home unexpectedly in the day to find their partner in bed with someone else. I thought it was something you saw in movies but was such a huge, massive cliché that it didn’t actually ever happen. And I suppose, to be fair to Craig, he wasn’t in bed with her. And thankfully both were, almost, fully dressed but the way they were kissing each other, grabbing each other and the way in which he was pressing her against the wall left me with no doubts whatsoever as to what their intentions were.

It was strange. I stood there for a moment and the world seemed to freeze-frame. My immediate feeling was not of disgust, or horror, or anger. My immediate thought was, there is Craig, passionately kissing another woman. Imagine that? I looked at the scene and it was as if my brain was trying to process what I was seeing. My second thought was not disgust, or horror or anger either – it was, Was this my fault?, and my brain strained to find some sort of acceptable explanation for it all and in doing so tried, in the passing of mere seconds, to see if there was any immediate way to make this all okay.

My thought process then segued quickly and painfully into a searing, almost physical pain of betrayal. I couldn’t speak in this time so I watched them – I watched him push her against the wall, watched his hand grope at her breast, heard him gasp and moan, saw him thrust his groin tight towards her showing her what he wanted. I saw her fingers entangle themselves in his hair, pulling him towards her, and I thought of all the times we had kissed like that – all the times I had thought those kisses were only, and would only ever be, for me. Something in the very pit of my stomach lurched and I felt myself stumble backwards, still unable to speak, still unable to tell them I could see them. Still unable to scream “Stop!”

I thought of the wedding I had been planning to spring on Craig – me walking through the yard in my simple dress, the simple bands we would buy – and I watched him move to unbutton her blouse and groan that he wanted her.

And still I couldn’t find the words, so I turned and walked out – careful for some reason I’ve yet to understand not to make any noise and not to disturb them and what they were at. I climbed into my car and drove until I reached the lake – the lake where we picnicked each and every summer when I was a child – and I sat on the grass, watching the water ripple and listening to the sound of people around me – enjoying their lives, getting on with things, just being together. I don’t think that I have ever before or ever since felt as utterly alone as I did in that moment and yet still I didn’t cry. My head swam and I played the scene I had just witnessed over and over again in my head but I didn’t cry. I had other things to cry about – bigger things. Was it numbness or indifference? That question, as it crossed my mind, shocked me more than seeing my boyfriend grinding against another woman. Did I have the strength to deal with this right now? And if I’m honest, did it provide me with some sort of get-out-of-jail-free card?

I sat, picking strands of grass and running them through my fingers, wondering when life would start to make sense again, and then, when it was a time when I figured Craig would actually expect me home, I walked calmly back to my car, drove home and walked through the door and, as if nothing had happened, made us dinner and sat down to eat. If he noticed I was quieter than normal that night, he said nothing. He just ate his dinner and talked about his day – leaving out the obvious details – and after we finished eating I told him I had a migraine and so that I wouldn’t disturb him with my tossing and turning all night I was going to sleep in the spare room if that was okay.

He nodded, asked if I needed anything from the drug store and cleared the table for me. I told him I was fine, I just needed to sleep and then, without addressing any of what I had seen or any of the wedding plans that had seemed so important just
hours before, I poured a glass of water, walked past our bedroom without even going in to get my pyjamas or my toothbrush or as much as looking through the door, and straight on to the spare room where I closed the shutters, pulled back the covers and lay down and wished a real migraine on myself to distract me from the multiple conversations going on in my head.