‘That looks good,’ he says to me, nodding at my plate. ‘I can see why my dad and Peter liked coming here, though I’d say it was a different vibe back then. I can only imaginethe shenanigans they got up to around here in their early twenties! Can you picture it?’
I take a moment to remember Aidan’s father and Mabel’s husband Peter to whom our little expedition today has been dedicated, and I thank them for bringing us to such a magical little place where we’ve bonded in a way I’d never have imagined possible.
‘To Danny and Peter and all their shenanigans when young, free and single,’ I say, raising my glass of wine, and Aidan clinks me back with his pint of Guinness. ‘And to Mabel Murphy who always has the best ideas, even when she’s not with us any more.’
‘To all the Murphys of Ballybray!’ says Aidan joyfully, ‘and to Roisin and Ben O’Connor too!’
We lift our glasses to have a drink, and as we do I can’t help but notice how a lady behind the bar stops and stares our way as she overhears us. She’s a bit older than we are, mid-fifties, I’d guess, and she looks over a pair of stylish winged spectacles in our direction.
I’m sitting directly in her eye-line and as she goes about her business for the next half hour or so, wiping down her counter and polishing glasses behind the bar, I can’t ignore the look of disbelief and shock on her now ashen face. Maybe I’m imagining things. Maybe I’m overthinking in the way my mother used to tell me off for so often, but there was something about how the woman’s ears pricked up when Aidan spoke that stays with me until it’s almost time to leave.
I’ve a feeling Mabel may have sent us here for more reasons than we have yet discovered, but I decide to take my time to find out. The woman behind the bar definitely stopped in her tracks when she heard the Murphys of Ballybray mentioned. Did she know them? I want to go and ask her, but something about the look on her face tells me to leave it at least for now.
Aidan finishes his meal, oblivious to what’s going through my mind, and I don’t want to change the mood of what has been the most charming day together so I say nothing and soon I’m enraptured again by his conversation. He has me in stitches with his tales of settling into New York when he was just twenty-one and very wet behind the ears to life in a big city.
‘Can I get you anything else?’ our waitress from before asks us when she comes to clear our table. ‘Dessert? Tea or coffee?’
‘Roisin?’ he asks me. ‘Go on.’
I shrug, but he nods at me convincingly.
‘OK, yes, we’ll see the dessert menu, please.’
‘That’s my girl,’ he says and my stomach gives a leap. ‘We may as well go the whole way, no half measures!’
He winks at me when he says it and I wonder if there was a double meaning in his words just now. Our knees accidentally touch beneath the table and my head spins a little at the very possibility of what could probably only happen in my dreams.
Aidan has already told me how much he values my friendship, and I won’t allow any distraction to get in the way of that, no matter how appealing it might be in my overactive mind.
As Aidan sorts the bill, I make my way to the Ladies before we begin our journey home, filled to the brim with elation and satisfaction at what has been such a fruitful day on such a simple level.
We didn’t change the world as we sauntered around admiring the scenery and talking so much I’m surprised we didn’t run out of things to say. And that’s the thing about Aidan and me when we’re together. We never run out of things to say, always finding a topic that needs to be covered and discussed, or a funny story that needs to be told, or a secret from our past that we feel the need to share with each other.
Maybe it’s the wine going to my head as I walk away from him, or maybe it’s because I can feel his eyes on me with every step I take in the opposite direction, or maybe it’s the way there’s a tug in my heart for him that I can’t deny, but something has changed today between us and I think he knows that too.
I go into the tiny bathroom that’s located at the far end of the bar, noticing how the decor in here is so different to that of the main restaurant we passed through when we first arrived. It’s like stepping into a different time zone with its beige and brown tiles on the walls, one small cream-colouredsink and two cubicles and, although impeccably clean and tidy, I can tell that this part of the bar is probably from an era that Peter and Danny Murphy would have known much more than the cosmopolitan feel of what must be an extension to the original bar.
I hear a shuffle in one of the cubicles and the flush of a toilet, and when I come face to face seconds later with my company, we both freeze and stare at each other. It’s the woman who was staring at us earlier from behind the bar. She goes to the basin to wash her hands and I greet her with an awkward smile, then nudge past her to use the ladies myself.
‘Excuse me?’ she says just as I’m about to enter the cubicle, and I can’t say I’m surprised at all to hear her try to make conversation. ‘I know this is going to sound very strange, but – but I couldn’t help but overhear you and your husband earlier.’
She glances at my hand, I assume for a wedding ring, and I hide it deliberately.
‘Yes, I noticed,’ I say, waiting for an explanation. ‘Do you know him?’
She shakes water off her hands now and dries them on an old-fashioned towel that sits on an oversized bulky radiator attached to the wall. It reminds me of a brief spell in a state foster home in Dublin, which sends a shiver down my spine.
‘I can’t claim to know him, no, but I have to ask,’ she says, ‘is he a Murphy? From Ballybray in Donegal?’
I nod, wondering now how much I should give away and how much I should hold back so I can hear more.
‘He is, yes. He’s Danny’s son, Aidan Murphy,’ I say, our eyes locked now as we play a game of cat and mouse, without me knowing what’s at stake. ‘Would you like to meet him? You seem to know his family?’
‘No, no, I don’t want to meet him, not now,’ she says, her face draining of colour. ‘Look, I’ve said enough for now. I’d better go. Forget I even mentioned it. Sorry.’
‘No, wait!’
She goes to leave and I can feel my heart thumping in my chest. My skin prickles and I walk towards her, but she makes for the door.
