I’ve never wanted to bite my tongue so much, but I can’t stop myself.
I probably know a lot more about Aidan than he realizes I do, and my impression of him isn’t, let’s say, very honourable, despite his tragic upbringing and rags to riches story that Mabel swooned over.
‘Do you have anything else to fire at me, or are you done for now?’ he asks me, checking his phone as he speaks. ‘Looks like this place hasn’t changed much at all – Ballybray was always suffocating with nosey neighbours everywhere. You’ve just reminded me why I left in the first place.’
My mouth drops open and I sigh from the tips of my toes, realizing I am very much wasting my time and that in the bigger picture it’s probably not my place any more to interfere in Mabel’s business. But to call me anosey neighbour? Aidan is just as I’d imagined he might be. Arrogant, cold, rich, nonchalant, and far too good-looking for his own good, only unlike Mabel, I am not going to fall for his wolf in sheep’s clothing appearance. If he was as wholesome as Mabel had believed him to be, he’d have waited at least until some of her more personal belongings were out of the house before he advertised for a new owner.
In my state of distress, I hear echoes of my late husband Jude’s laughter ringing in my ears.
You need to learn to butt out of other people’s business, Roisin! Just who do you think you are? You’re always trying to save everyone else’s world when the one person you really need to save is yourself!
I feel tears prick my eyes as a ball of emotion sticks in my throat.AmI done? I probably am, if truth be told.
I’m so tired.
Mabel’s wake had been quiet but exhausting, and her funeral had wrung me out emotionally. I’ve had more than enough for one week, not to mention a young boy who has since declared to me that everyone he loves just ‘left and died’ and believes that I am probably next, before going silent on me for days.
‘Oh, just do whatever you have to do, Aidan. You’re right! It’s absolutely none of my business,’ I mumble in defeat and storm away wiping my eyes as I march through the slushy garden and back into the place I call home.
‘It was nice to meet you, Roisin!’ Aidan calls after me, threatening to really tip my emotions over the edge. ‘Keep warm! It gives this snow storm to get worse tonight!’
I don’t answer him this time, and I slam my front door behind me, the sound of it shutting giving me comfort just as it always does because I feel safe here, far away from my own past and from my own truths. I deliberately take a moment to inhale the familiarity that surrounds me,calming down in seconds. The photos of Ben on the walls at various stages of his tiny life so far and snapshots of this new chapter of my life surround me, soothing me, reminding me of how far I’ve come since I left the busy streets of inner Dublin.
I miss Mabel so badly already. She always had all the answers to my worries. She was a fiery New Yorker, a sharp-minded septuagenarian with an attitude to change the world, and a heart the size of the entire globe. She was Marmite, she was mysterious, and she was mine. She was the only person who believed that after all the hardship I’d been through, there was light at the end of the tunnel.
But now that light is out, I fear. The air has been sucked from within me and just like Ben, I feel like lying down in bed and shutting out the world, but I can’t. I have to keep going for my son’s sake, no matter how much I fear I’m crumbling inside.
I try to block out the sound of Aidan hammering in theFor Salesign that is still ringing in my ears, and I pledge to Mabel that I’ll find a way to keep going. I have no idea how, but I go back to making her stew in search of some divine inspiration. I take off my coat and boots, go to the kitchen, where I add some stock cubes to the stewing beef, some chopped up potatoes, carrots, salt and pepper, and I allow it to simmer. As it stews, I do too at the idea of a new owner moving in next door. It just seems all too final and way too soon.
The smell of the simple ingredients warms the air and when I peep into the living room to find Ben curled up on the sofa fast asleep, I put a blanket over him, turn off the TV, turn on the soft sounds of Ella Fitzgerald, and allow myself to shed a quiet tear in Mabel’s memory.
‘No weeping over me, my girl!’ I recall her telling me when I pushed her around the lakeside walk in her wheelchair just a few weeks ago. ‘I hope you know that I’ve lived a full and fruitful life, made even richer for having you and Ben beside me, so no tears please! Let there be laughter and smiles for miles and miles.’
It was easy of course to agree that there’d be smiles at the time when she was still here living and breathing, only a heartbeat away, but not so much now, when I’m empty and weak inside.
‘I mean it, don’t you dare fall on your knees again,’ she’d said sternly. ‘You’re not the person I found crouching in that corner any more. You’ve a whole lifetime ahead of you, and you’re made of tough stuff, Roisin O’Connor!’
I knew she meant business when she called me by my full name and not just Roisin. Remembering her doing so raises a smile and then my tears turn into laughter as I recall her in her glory days, out in the garden defying the elements, emphasizing that there was no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothes. She wouldn’t have cared that the heavens opened on the day of her funeral. In fact she’d probably have enjoyed that.
‘Put up an umbrella and quit moaning,’ she’d have told us mourners as we shivered and complained. ‘Button up your coat! It’s Ireland you’re living in, not the Bahamas for crying out loud.’
My reminiscing is interrupted by the faint smell of burning so I jump up quickly and add more water to the pot, stirring the stew frantically to try to save it.
Just in the nick of time, I salvage the dish and I swear I can hear Mabel tut-tutting at how easily distracted I am.
‘Where is your head, lady?’ she’d ask me when she’d find me daydreaming. ‘There’s time for dreaming and there’s time for doing. Which is it for you today, Roisin?’
A knock at my front door springs me back to reality and I put the lid on the pot and turn it down to the lowest setting, then play my usual guessing game as to who it could be as I walk from the kitchen through the narrow hallway. I’ve always hated the door knocking, especially at night, as it opens up old anxieties and fears from my life before I found peace here in Ballybray. I open the door and almost take a step back in surprise.
It’s Aidan Murphy.
A very cold, a very wet, and perhaps a little more humble-looking Aidan Murphy. What could he be looking for now?
4.
‘Yes?’ I say, opening the door just a little bit at first and wincing as the icy wind cuts through into my hallway.
I don’t know this man and I don’t need strangers calling at night, especially not him, and especially not after the way he spoke to me earlier.
