‘Promise me?’ He caught my hand in his two big warm rough hands and held it tightly. ‘What about tomorrow?’
‘I’ll come, I promise.’ I felt nervous, as though I was putting on an old coat and wasn’t sure it was going to fit. But I wanted to be thatperson who wore that old coat so much. I hadn’t realised I still could.
We said our goodbyes and I walked into the darkening sky, towards the red lighthouse at the end of the pier. It hadn’t been just Red I’d missed, it was Christy too. And it was the person I used to be. I missed all of it and wanted it back.
*
There was no doorbell on the door, just the old lion head knocker, so I rapped,loudly, and stood back, holding a yucca plant. Christy was always growing things. Or he used to. There were always spider plants rooting in little plastic cups of soil or plants trailing up the pipes in the kitchen. The house was exactly as I remembered it. Large, Victorian and in one of the wrought-ironed railed squares in Dun Laoghaire, but shabbier and more run-down than its neighbours.
Andthen, something, a noise, a figure, materialising through the glass.
‘Just in time,’ said Christy. He always used to say that to us when we’d come home, me and Red. ‘In time for what?’ we’d say and he’d answer, ‘whatever you want.’
‘In time for what?’ I said.
‘Whatever you want,’ he said, making me smile.
‘These are for you,’ I said, handing over some biscuits and the plant. ‘I don’t knowif you still…’
‘Still eat shortbread?’ he said. ‘You bet I do. Whatever the doctors tell me.’
‘And still green-fingered?’
He nodded. ‘I feel like a matron on a ward sometimes, tending all my little plants, nursing them to bloom or to sprout. And this plant is a beauty. Like a tiny slice of jungle. You shouldn’t have. Now, tea. Come downstairs will you? I’ve just had my writers’ group and there’ssome fruit cake left over. I always say, if you’re going to have to listen to bad poetry – mainly mine, it has to be said – then fruit cake helps the situation enormously. Or we can open these fancy biscuits. You’ve missed Red, he’s gone for a walk.’
‘That’s okay,’ I said, following him into the large hall; with the staircase that led upstairs, the coving and celling roses, and I noticed thatnothing had changed: same paper, same paint on the walls, same tangle of vine twisting around the banister. ‘I came to see you.’ But I hadn’t realised how much I wanted to see Red until I knew he wasn’t going to be there and felt disappointment curl around my insides.
‘Red’s on at me to get the house cleaned,’ he said. ‘He’s starting one room at a time. Doesn’t understand how I live like this.I don’t see it, but he says the dust isn’t good for me.’ Christy leant heavily on the handrail as we descended into to the kitchen, his breath all wheezy. Maybe, I thought, Red had a point about the dust. ‘He’s done downstairs, so the kitchen is visitor-friendly.’
‘So you’re doing well, then,’ I said. ‘Apart from your son being on at you to dust more.’
He turned on the stairs. ‘Well, I’m notdoing too badly. Red is a one to worry… I’m not dead yet.’
Before
Laughing and giggling. Red carrying me on his back down these stairs when I thought I’d broken a leg. I hadn’t. I’d just sprained if after drinking too much cheap wine at a party. And then the next morning, Christy putting a fried breakfast in front of me, Red already tucking in.
‘You need to get some fat on those bones,’ he said,giving me a wink. ‘Get that into ye.’
‘Dad, enough of the personal remarks,’ Red had said. ‘You need to get some fat off yours.’
It was always such a comfort to be with the two of them in that lovely, quiet house.
‘What are you up to today?’ said Christy.
‘I don’t know,’ said Red, glancing at me. ‘What do you feel like doing?’
‘The boat to Dalkey Island?’ I said. ‘I haven’t been there sinceI was little. Mum took me.’
‘Now, that’s an island,’ said Christy. ‘It doesn’t belong to people at all, just the goats.’
‘How are we going to get there?’ said Red.
‘A boat.’ I grinned at Red. ‘Obviously. You can ask one of the fishermen to take you out. It might blow away our hangovers.’
‘I think,’ said Red, carefully. ‘I think you might be on to something there.’
And we did. For a fiver,one of the boatmen dropped us off on the island and once we were landed, and our seasickness quelled, we explored: walking the full perimeter, exploring the old ruins and sitting for ages, Red lying down, hands behind his head, me cross-legged making daisy chains.
