We sit in silence for a few seconds, saying nothing, but at the same time, saying it all as we digest Mabel’s words and her mission for us this springtime. I want to reach out and touch him, to tell him I’m glad that he wasn’t in the car on the night his parents were so tragically killed, and I’m so grateful for Mabel’s intuition that night, and honoured that he felt he could share his story with me.
And so for the first time since I met Aidan, I do just that. I reach across and I touch his hand to show him that I do care about all he has been through and all he is going through now as he tries to figure his life out, both his past here in Ballybray and his future in America, whatever that may hold.
‘Thanks, Roisin,’ he whispers to me as we sit here hand in hand with Mabel’s words still echoing in our ears. ‘You’ve been good for me lately.’
‘And you’ve been good for me too, Aidan,’ I tell him, feeling a tiny bit awkward now, and so I let go and fix my hair, then stand up wondering what I can do to shift the energy around us. ‘Look, I’m sure Camille will understand if I take a bit of time out this morning. Do you fancy a walk on the beach to clear our heads and try to make sense of this all?’
He looks up at me and smiles with so much gratitude in his eyes it touches me in a way I wish it wouldn’t. The more I get to know him, the more attached I feel we are becoming, and in my heart I know that is very wrong andwill only end in tears. I keep telling myself that one of these days I’ll create some distance between us to save all the pain that is inevitably coming my way when he decides to pack up and leave and go back to make amends with Rachel.
‘I’d love to walk on the beach,’ he says, standing up tall beside me, so closely I imagine I can hear his heart beat. ‘I’ll just get my coat.’
I walk barefoot along the sand, carrying my shoes. The spectacular Killahoey Strand is one of the area’s majestic Blue Flag beaches and, when I look ahead at the glorious backdrop of Muckish Mountain as it meets the sea, it doesn’t take a psychologist to know why being here always fills me with good feelings.
Aidan strolls along a few feet away from me in a routine we normally save for a Sunday morning when Ben usually leads the way and dictates the pace, yelling at us to keep up as the wind blows in his face and the sea air gives him a healthy glow, but today it’s just the two of us and it feels very different.
‘I can’t stop thinking of how close my dad and Peter once were when they were young and carefree in that little town on the far side of the country,’ he says to me when our footprints meet along the water’s edge in a natural rhythm. ‘And I can really see now why Mabel and my own grandmother preferred to remember them both from those times, rather than the bickering mess they became in their laterlives. Imagine only having one sibling and to lose them after a stupid row. It just doesn’t bear thinking about.’
We walk along the golden sand on auto pilot to a sand dune where we have sat so many times in recent months, watching the waves lap along the coastline.
‘I think you only feel the loneliness of being an only child when your parents are both gone and you realize you need someone to lean on or turn to in their place,’ he tells me, pulling some grass from the sand as he speaks. ‘Not that I even remember what it feels like to have a parent to lean on. Both my mum and dad are just blurry faces in my memory now or smiling distant strangers in a photograph. It pains me to admit that, but it’s true.’
He lifts a stick from beside him and makes shapes in the sand as the waves crash in the near distance, a sound that I will never tire of.
‘Me too,’ I tell him, knowing that although our stories are so very different, they both make us feel the exact same way. ‘I always wanted a big sister or brother to replace the parents I never had in real life. Someone to guide me along the way, or to tell me off, or someone to call when I’m in need or just to vent to when I’m feeling sad or angry. Mabel filled so many gaps for me in the short time I knew her. I trusted her. I could tell her anything and she, in turn, could tell me the truth right back.’
The truth – I remember again her emphasis in her message on how important it is for us always to be true,and it almost makes my head spin at how often I’ve refused to be true, particularly in all the time I pretended to be happy when I was really stuck and trapped in a soulless and destructive marriage.
‘You know, I once overheard a conversation my grandparents had when I was a young teenager, one that I wasn’t supposed to hear,’ Aidan tells me as he looks out onto the dark blue water in the distance. ‘They were whispering one night in the kitchen, which was always a cue for my young ears to tune in, but they were saying how they believed my mum and dad loved each other so much that sometimes I got in the way, so it was maybe a good thing they never had any more children to fight for their attention.’
My mouth drops open and I look his way, but he just keeps staring ahead as the pain of this memory replays in his mind like a broken record.
‘Ah, Aidan, I’d doubt if that was true,’ I try to reassure him, touching his arm briefly to show some support. ‘Your grandparents were probably trying to deal with their own grief and were thinking out loud for the sake of it. Grief can make us act in many strange ways and say many strange things, believe me.’
He turns his head around to face me at last – his strong, handsome face that has become so familiar to me by now. I know every crease when he smiles, I know the way his eyes light up when he is winding me up, I know how his voice cracks when he wants to scream but chooses togrit his teeth instead, and I know how his brow furrows when he needs space or some time alone. And most of all I know when he laughs during our lengthy conversations on random topics that often lead to arguments or disagreements that he’s someone I could never fall out with, no matter how hard things got.
‘Do you really think so?’ he asks me, and I realize that whatever I tell him now is enough to change a mindset that has lived within him for ever.
‘I know so,’ I say, nodding with no doubt in my mind. ‘Your parents sound like wonderful people and it would take two wonderful people to make someone like you, Aidan Murphy.’
He throws the stick away and our eyes both follow it as it lodges into the sand below.
‘Ah, you’ve a way with words, Roisin O’Connor, and you always know when to say the right things,’ he says, unable to mask his smile now at my attempt at a compliment. ‘But you’ve been a good friend to me lately, despite our rocky start, and I’ll never forget it.’
I smile too now in return, and we sit here on the sand dune, shoulder to shoulder, feeling a little bit lighter in our hearts and minds.
Wearegood friends now, and I don’t think we’ve acknowledged that officially until this moment, but we are really growing very close, and the more time we spend together, the more evident it’s becoming, and the more evident it’sbecoming, the guiltier I feel inside at how his wife is so oblivious to the connection and bond we share here in Ireland.
‘So, will you come with me to Breena and see what sort of journey Mabel wants to send us on this time?’
‘Of course I will,’ I tell him, as if it was ever going to be a question. ‘I’ll come with you, and I’m sure Ben will love to as well. We’ll make a day of it and go there in Mabel’s memory.’
20.
‘Are you sure you don’t mind?’ I ask Camille on Saturday morning when I drop Ben off with her at the shop. ‘I’d really love him to come with us but he’s determined to ditch me for a better offer with Gino.’
It’s only gone 10 a.m. but Ben has already locked heads with Camille’s son Gino and they’re swapping football cards in a state of excitement, their bags packed alongside them as they await her husband Paddy’s arrival to take them on a very last-minute camping trip and horse riding expedition in County Sligo. Well, it’s last-minute for Ben, but not so for Gino who has been looking forward to this for ages.
Camille reaches out and fixes the button on my dress. I’ve chosen a royal blue maxi dress, my favourite gold wedges, and I too have a bag packed for my day away to Breena with Aidan.
