He tells me how Peter and Mabel were treated like movie stars when they’d come to visit his grandparents in the little house on Teapot Row, and how the excitement that led up to their homecoming was second to none.
‘My grandfather would start rearranging furniture and polishing every surface so that the smell of the house was like something from an ad for Mr Sheen,’ he says with a spark of nostalgia, ‘and as for my gran, she put all her energy into fixing up the spare room, making it cosy and shopping for a list of food and drink only found in Ireland in the hope that it would make Peter want to bring his newAmerican wife home for good sooner rather than later. Everyone was in awe of Mabel, but my grandmother just wanted her son to come home.’
I listen to him open up so much about his childhood as we sit there, cross-legged on the floor, our minds drifting from the past to the present in a comfortable flow. His parents, Jean and Danny, were always on the road for work, travelling the length and breadth of Ireland with their two-man show, which meant that Aidan spent more time than others may have with his grandparents. He chokes back tears as he skims past the hole his parents’ deaths left in his life, and I don’t dare pry any further, then he laughs out loud as he remembers a family wedding where someone turned up in the same outfit as Mabel, and how his grandmother said it would take her down a peg or two.
‘I realized when I was very young that the mythical Irish mother who thinks no one is good enough for their son just might be true,’ he says, as I put Mabel’s clothes on hangers and file them into our railing system.
‘Guilty!’ I say, holding my hands up for effect. ‘Having a son is like having your heart slowly broken, one day at a time.’
Aidan laughs at my analogy.
‘I’m not sure my grandmother ever thought Mabel would fit in here in Ireland,’ he says, ‘but she proved them all wrong, didn’t she? It’s not everyone who prefers life here to the buzz of New York City.’
‘Like you?’ I ask, unable to skip past this one.
He thinks for a moment.
‘I love both places,’ he says, ‘but this will always be the place I’ll call home, even if I am hard on Ballybray sometimes. It has a much gentler pace, and that reflects in its people.’
‘Even nosey neighbours like myself and old Margaret Madden?’
He tells me fondly about how he used to run home from school when he was Ben’s age, grab a football and go straight back outside for a kick with his friends, and of the time his uncle Peter bought him his first pint in Cleary’s and how he got drunk on gin there and hasn’t touched it since.
And all the time as I fold and listen, one minute my guts will burn with envy at how idyllic his memories of growing up here are in comparison to the topsy-turvy childhood I’d had, and the next my heart is broken and sore for the sudden loss of his parents in a tragedy that Mabel told me should have been prevented.
Aidan stops, as if he’s come to the end of his memories that both move him and pain him in equal measure.
‘Are you sure you really want to cut the cord with Ballybray by selling the house?’ I ask him, hoping I’m not overstepping the mark. ‘It all sounds very final to someone who loved it here so much. Like, wouldn’t you prefer to still have a base here in your home village in case, like Peter and Mabel, you might like to return here one day?’
He shakes his head, brushing fine dust from the flooroff his jeans. His black shirt is covered in white marks from the chalky floor, and I have to fight my instinct to help him wipe it down.
‘It’s not quite as simple as that, Roisin,’ he whispers, scrunching up his nose as he speaks. ‘I wish it was, but it isn’t, because my life is very different now to what it was like when I lived here … things have changed immeasurably.’
I lick my lips and brace myself, feeling my words tripping on my tongue, but I need to know.
‘Has Rachel,ahem, I mean, has your wife ever stayed here?’ I ask, unable to help the stutters and stammers that come out. ‘She might like it? It’s so lovely here in summer, as you know of course, and—’
He laughs and totally interrupts my big speech.
‘Yes, and the lake is a treat on a summer’s day and the woods light up on top of the hill when the sun shines through the trees and you’ll never find a welcome as warm as the one down in Cleary’s where the sounds of the fiddle and the whistle fills your senses. And sure Dunfanaghy with its golden sands is just around the corner.’
‘Are you taking the piss?’
‘I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t resist,’ he says in apology. ‘You sound just like my grandmother used to when she was trying to convince Peter to stay at home for good. Gosh, my gran could have got a job in the tourist board for how she used to sell Ballybray before he’d board a plane back to the States!’
‘Oh …’ I say, admitting defeat. ‘I’ll take your word for it and say no more about it then.’
He changes the subject back to the clothing and I remember his honesty from before about his marriage. I wonder why Rachel couldn’t have stayed with him after the funeral to help him through these final moments in Ballybray. Maybe she had work commitments, or family stuff to get back for, or maybe she just didn’t like it here in Ireland. It is a direct contrast to what she was used to, but wouldn’t she enjoy a change of pace, like most people do from time to time?
Somewhere in my heart of hearts I’ve a feeling that no matter how much Aidan protests and denies that there is any other way around selling a house that’s been in his family for generations, there’s a lot more to his decision than he is letting on. And that something just might be to do with his marriage in America.
14.
The keepsake for each of us has still to come our way, and in true Mabel fashion she leaves it to the last, right at the bottom of the bag she had so elegantly packed with every single item folded and presented with the care they deserved.
‘Do you think this is it?’ Aidan asks me, watching as I lift the very last item from Mabel’s bag of clothing. I can feel my heart rate rise as I peek inside and I look back at him in bewilderment.
‘Oh my …’ I mumble, totally overwhelmed. ‘Oh, Mabel! This is just—’
