It wasn’t long before he came to a halt, his breath too short to allow him to go any further. He crouched down under a tree, his head in his hands.
‘Oh, Jesus,’ he panted as he rested on his haunches.
Sorcha...New York...the new album...and now these threats. The pressure was intolerable. Con had a burning urge to disappear to where no one would find him.
He wiped his forehead and stood up, taking some deep breaths.
The option was always there if he wanted to take it. He was amazed at how much the thought comforted him. Maybe he was just tired and worn out from the punishing schedule of the past four years.
Con looked at his watch. He was already late for rehearsals.
Feeling calmer, he walked slowly back home across the heath.
35
Sorcha stood next to her mother at the graveside as they watched Seamus’s coffin being lowered into the earth. She glanced at Mary’s face. Her mother was pale, but dry-eyed. Seamus’s sister was sobbing, but then Sorcha remembered that Orla cried buckets at weddings and christenings too.
‘All right, Mary.’ Father Moynihan spoke softly. ‘You can go forward now.’
Mary took a couple of steps, knelt down, and picked up some earth from the pile that would eventually cover her husband for ever. She threw her handful into the hole and it splattered on top of the highly polished cedarwood coffin. Sorcha found herself thinking what a waste of a hundred pounds it had been, and that a shroud really was much more practical.
Stop it, stop it!A voice in her head told her she should feel remorse –something– but in truth, she was empty. She squeezed her eyes closed.
Forgive me, God. I can’t pretend I loved him when I didn’t.
She opened her eyes and watched as the rest of Seamus’s relations filed by the grave, each throwing in a handful of earth.
‘Will you?’ Mary whispered.
Sorcha acquiesced to please her mother.
‘Right. That’s all over now, Mary,’ said Father Moynihan. ‘I’ll escort you and Sorcha back to your car.’
‘Thank you, Father. You’ll be coming back to the house for a glass of sherry, I hope?’
‘’Twould be grand, Mary.’
Sorcha followed her mother and Father Moynihan through the crowd of mourners. There were certainly many familiar faces. She kept her head down, not wishing to make contact just yet. After all, most of them would be coming to the house for the wake.
A photographer from the local paper stood by the entrance to the graveyard. He’d been hovering when the cortège had pulled up in front of the church and had watched hopefully as Sorcha and Mary climbed out.
‘Is your husband not here with you, Mrs Daly?’ he’d asked Sorcha as the driver had closed the door of the car behind her.
‘No.’
Sorcha had hurried past into the church.
Now he came forward, aimed his camera and took a photograph of the three of them walking towards the car.
Sorcha turned in anger. ‘Have you no scruples?’
‘Pardon, Mrs Daly, but we don’t get many wives of world-famous pop singers in the vicinity.’
Sorcha did not reply as she followed Mary and Father Moynihan into the back of the funeral car, which pulled off on the start of its short drive to the square. Mary reached for Sorcha’s hand and squeezed it.
‘Okay?’
‘Yes. You?’
