They’d visited Sandycove at the end of August because she’d wanted him to meet her father, Teddy, and see the hotel, and they had walked up from the station and she showed him around. The hotel was lovely, a little shabby, a little overgrown, but charming and comfortable. She showed him a small cottage Teddy was having renovated for her to live in. But Teddy had been called away that day and the only person he met was her aunt, Lucinda. They had tea in the lounge together, Rosie being so sweet and happy, squeezing his hand and smiling. But Lucinda had taken an immediate dislike to him and, when Rosie was away from the table, told him he wasn’t good enough for her niece.
‘I promised my dying sister that I would find good matches for her two daughters and a dairy farmer just isn’t it,’ she had said. ‘We’re of a different breeding. Rosie has her sights set much higher than you.’ She had looked him up and down. ‘I am sure she’s had fun with you, but I think you both maintaining a long-distance relationship is not a good idea. You…’ and she smiled at him, her nose wrinkling, ‘can go and find someone far more suitable.’
At the time, he was mortified because Lucinda had discovered his Achilles’ heel. He didn’t think he was good enough. He was yet to find his place in the world, and he could still smell the cowsheds off himself. Lucinda had warned him off Rosie, as though he was beneath them. He didn’t mention it to Rosie, but it had fixed everything in his mind. He was going and he wasn’t coming back.
And it cemented something in him, the need to get away, to not be labelled or dragged back, pigeonholed, looked down upon. Now, of course, after living for ten years in America, he was so grateful for a childhood on a farm, the fresh smell of milk, the beauty of those cows, the way they’d wait for the gate to be opened at dusk and he’d drive them home, their old dog Pete at his heels. Mam would be in the kitchen with dinner on and, as long as Dad wasn’t there, there was nowhere he’d rather be. But it took him a few years to really see the value, the privilege of his rural childhood. Back then, he had wanted to get away. And the evening after being warned off by Lucinda, he’d made an excuse to Rosie about being tired. He’d spent the night mulling it over. He was a dairy farmer, and always would be. And however many degrees or qualifications or success he had away from the farm, he would always be essentially a dairy farmer. And so he had protected himself, and rejected Rosie before he could be rejected.
Heartbroken, ego in tatters, he did what he always did and internalised the hurt and indignation, and decided to press on with his life and go to Boston and not look back. But then Rosie was equally determined to press on with her life. If she’d shown him a moment’s hesitation about coming with him to Boston, perhaps he might have found the strength to refute the vain, snobbish social climber Lucinda. He wondered that perhaps Rosie secretly agreed with Lucinda and he was hurt she never even considered coming to Boston and giving it a try.
‘Tired?’
They had turned off the main road and were heading up the hill towards Cliff Top. Patrick looked back at Seán. ‘I’ll be grand… don’t worry about me. Good night’s sleep and I’ll be right…’ He smiled at him. ‘The most important thing is the wedding…’ He paused. ‘Nervous?’
‘Sometimes. But excited mostly. And the hotel is beautiful. We stayed there in January and I proposed…’
‘Was it all planned?’
‘Ah, you know, I had the ring in my pocket and I was thinking to myself, if it’s not perfect, I won’t do it. And I was sweating all weekend. Every time we went for a walk, I couldn’t relax. And then we sat outside, in our coats, wrapped up, and we both had a hot whiskey and we looked at the sea and there was a lighthouse, it kept flashing…’
‘They do that, you know…’ He was smiling at Seán, proud of him for everything he had achieved.If Seán is okay, he had always thought,then everything is okay.
‘And so I thought, feck it, this is as good a time as ever and I dropped to one knee and Niamh thought I had passed out or something, but I managed to croak it out…’ Seán smiled, shyly. ‘And she said yes and it was the next morning, after breakfast, we got talking to the woman who ran the place…’
Patrick braced himself.
‘Grace, that’s it,’ said Seán. ‘Anyway, so she had to check if they would do a wedding. And she called back on Monday afternoon and so here we are.’
‘Here we are.’ He felt slightly disappointed not to hear Rosie’s name but of course it made sense that she’d moved on, to bigger and better things, and was possibly married now with a family.
‘In a way, I just want the wedding to be over,’ Seán was saying. ‘Wake up married, you know? Without all the rigmarole and bells and whistles. I suggested having a small do, registry office, pub lunch, you know, and Niamh looked at me as though I was mad. We can’t do that! We can’t not celebrate with everyone…’
‘Including Dad…’
‘Yeah…’
They were both silent.
‘Niamh thought we should. And I thought he wouldn’t accept. But he did and so there you go…’
‘There you go.’
‘I couldn’t not ask him,’ said Seán, as though answering his own question.
‘I know…’
Seán had obviously been wrestling with this. The two brothers had always tried to be the bigger person, to try to differentiate themselves from their father, to be dignified, to hold themselves well. And so of course he had to be invited.
‘It would have been too… final…’ Seán said. ‘Niamh doesn’t really get it. She doesn’t understand families who don’t talk, fallings-out, that kind of thing…’
‘It wasn’t exactly a falling-out,’ said Patrick. ‘More of an ethical decision.’
‘Anyway, he and Sandra don’t get here until tomorrow afternoon. So that gives us a breather.’
The car turned into some gates and into a gravel driveway, the pink hawthorn trees hanging over the entrance, the honeysuckle running wild through the bushes, tangled up in the roses and the shrubbery, to reveal a beautiful house, two-storey, a large porticoed entrance, built from soft golden limestone, and beyond was a long lawn and, in the distance, the sea. Before, he recalled the tangled garden and the faded grandeur of the house but now there was the perfect balance between nature and nurture, and even as though the pink valerian growing up from the wall had been artfully placed.
They rattled over the gravel, heading behind the house to where there was a small car park. Beyond which there was a small entrance, room for one car and some kind of garage. And then on the left was a rose garden and what seemed to be a walled garden. He could see the tops of what looked like apple trees. They’d had them on the farm and, in the autumn, he and Seán would have to collect the windfalls and they’d give them to Paddy-Joe next door for his pigs, and any perfect apples their mam would make a tart for them and they’d have it with cream and brown sugar. Sometimes, he could still taste the tang, the sharp-sweet comfort of them. He’d do anything to have one of Mam’s apple tarts.
‘We’re here,’ said Seán. ‘Welcome to Cliff Top.’
