The Forgotten Secret. Kathleen McGurl
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‘I was fine. I found some candles and the oven runs off gas.’
‘Wow. Well done.’
‘What for?’
He hesitated before answering and I pictured him scrabbling around for the right words. ‘For doing it, Mum. For putting yourself first. For getting yourself over there and beginning to get things sorted out. It’s a big, brave step. I’m so bloody proud of you.’
There was a catch in his voice at the end, and I felt my own eyes begin to well up. Time to change the subject. I didn’t want to sit here, in the middle of Blackstown, blubbing. ‘Thanks, love. Well I’d better phone Jon, and then work out how to respond to your dad’s messages.’
‘Ignore them. Block his number.’
‘No, love. I need to talk to him. It’ll be all right. We’re grown-ups, after all.’
‘Hmm, is he? Well good luck then.’
I’d need it, I thought, as I said goodbye and hung up. All very well me sounding cool and grown-up about it when talking to Matt but inside I was quaking. I called Jon next, for more moral support, before tackling Paul. It would not be an easy conversation.
It wasn’t. There was ranting, from him, and crying, from me, despite my best efforts to stay calm. He’d thrown out the ready-meals I left for him in a fit of pique. He’d eaten nothing last night other than a tin of beans on toast and tonight he’d call for a pizza and he expected me home tomorrow. ‘You’ll be fed up of your little adventure by then,’ he said, the sneer in his voice loud and clear. ‘Something will go wrong and you won’t know how to get it fixed, and you’ll be on the next boat home.’
‘I’ve already got some things fixed and sorted,’ I said, not able to resist. ‘The electricity’s being reconnected. The oven works. I’ll be home soon – sure – my new home of Clonamurty Farm.’
There was more ranting about the car. I pointed out (again) that it was mine, my name was on the registration certificate, and that if Paul needed a car he could easily afford to buy himself one.
The conversation was going nowhere. I could feel myself beginning to want to make excuses, to apologise, to find solutions for his problems. This was not how it should be. I’d left him. I did not want to go back. I’d loved him once, at the beginning, loved all that he’d done for me. But over the years he’d begun more and more to control every aspect of my life. I’d become dependent, and stifled, and it was time for me to go. I realised I had to get off the phone before I caved in, before he set me back a few steps.
I interrupted him in mid-flow as he ranted about how there’d be no one in when the postman called and what if there was a letter or parcel that needed signing for? Had I thought of that when I’d done my flit and left him all alone?
‘Paul,’ I said, ‘I’m not coming back. You need to understand that. I know we need to talk about this, but not now. I’ve things to do. Goodbye.’
And I hung up on him. I’d never done that before to anyone. It felt strangely liberating, that I could simply press a button and switch him off like that. Arise and go now, I told myself. It was becoming a bit of a mantra.
But the phone rang again almost instantly, the display showing it was Paul. I pressed the red button to decline the call. Another first. And then I switched my phone off. Perhaps I should block Paul’s number, but for now, I decided the best thing to do was to control the times he could contact me, and only switch the phone on when I felt prepared to talk to him. Or rather, prepared to listen to his tirades.
I sat on the bench for a few moments longer to gather my thoughts. It was a blowy day; changing from bright April sunshine one minute to dreary grey the next. Above me, the oak was only just coming into bud. A nearby ash tree was in full leaf, vibrant green against the grey stone buildings behind. I tried to remember the old rhyme – oak before ash, in for a splash; ash before oak, in for a soak. Hmm. It’d be a wet first summer in Ireland for me, then. But from what I knew of Irish weather the summers were always wet. You’d get occasional sunny days, which if they fell at the weekend would have everyone rushing off to the nearest beach. Bettystown.
A memory surfaced of a long-ago trip to that beach, with Uncle Pádraig, Aunt Lily and the boys, and my parents and me. I’d have been about 10 years old. Dad had wanted a game of cricket on the wide, flat sand, but Uncle Pádraig had brought hurley sticks and we ended up playing some sort of made-up game, a cross between hurling and hockey, as I could only manage to hit the ball when it was on the ground. David had promised to teach me to play properly.
I remembered how later that day he’d given me a little talk on how the Gaelic games, Hurling and Gaelic football, had become a kind of symbol of Ireland’s independence from Britain. They played soccer and rugby too, but it was the traditional Irish games, played nowhere else, that drew the biggest crowds and evoked the most national pride.
It cheered me up, thinking about those times. I resolved to drive to Bettystown beach on the first decent day, and see if it was still how I remembered it.
I walked back up the high street, past the café where I waved at Janice. Opposite was the bookshop I’d noticed yesterday evening. It was open, and I decided to spend a few minutes browsing and perhaps buy a few books before I headed off to the supermarket. I smiled to myself as I crossed the road. How that would annoy Paul, if he was here – me prioritising reading over cooking and eating! But he wasn’t here, and this was my life, and if I wanted to buy books and go hungry I could do just that.
Inside, the shop was one of those wonderful little bookshops where you could spend hours. The front half was new books, with a corner for children equipped with a carpet and some bean bag seats. The adult section was enticingly laid out with the books displayed on pale wooden shelving. At the back of the shop, older, dark wood shelves held second-hand books, organised roughly by subject with hand-written labels sellotaped to the shelf edges. The shop had expanded into a few separate rooms at the back, and I was delighted to discover a cubby hole of books on Irish history. Something I knew not enough about.
There were posters up in the shop celebrating the 100-year anniversary of the Easter uprising, 1916. I remembered my mother and Daithí going misty-eyed whenever they talked about Pádraig Pearse, James Connolly and the declaration of the Republic on the steps of the General Post Office. Now that I was planning to make my home in Ireland, I wanted to understand more about the country’s history.
I picked up a couple of second-hand Maeve Binchy novels, and a new one by Barbara Erskine, and a worthy-looking overview of Irish history, and took them all to the cash desk at the front of the shop. The silver-haired man I’d seen locking up yesterday was there, sorting through a box of second-hand books and writing prices on their inside covers. He was younger than I’d thought, I realised, as he pushed his piles of books to one side to make room for my purchases. Probably around my own age.
‘Good morning!’ he said, as he punched the prices into an antiquated till. ‘That’ll be thirteen euros ninety. I’ll knock off the ninety as a discount, as you’re buying four books at once.’
‘Oh, thanks!’ I dug out my purse and realised with horror I only had a ten-euro note. I’d spent the rest of my cash over at Janice’s café. ‘Do you take credit cards?’
He shook his head. ‘Sorry, no. But you can pay me later. I’ll make a note of your name and the amount. It’s no bother.’
‘Really? Or if there’s a cash point nearby I could go there?’
‘There is, but it’s out of order, or it was about two hours ago when I was trying to get some cash out myself.’ He put my books into a bag, handed it to me and opened a notebook. ‘Thirteen euro, then, and if you could tell me your name?’
‘Clare Farrell. I’m new to the area but I’ll be back here tomorrow with the cash, I promise.’
He wrote down my name then held out a hand to shake. ‘Pleased to meet you, Clare Farrell. I’m Ryan McKilty.’