This Is How It Ends (21 page)

They covered miles and miles of country. They saw places they never would have seen otherwise. They got lost over and over again. They spent whole days working their way through the back roads. A blind corner in the middle of the fields, a potholed road up and over a quiet hill, below them more narrow tree-lined country lanes. Until eventually they would chance upon the main road again.

As they drove they listened endlessly to Bruce Springsteen. Bruce was the sound track of their car journeys.

The lakes of County Cavan, the lonely hills of Laois. The woods of west Wicklow. All of those unremarkable inland places Addie had been so quick to write off, she had to admit to him now, they had been well worth the visit. The midlands and the heartlands and the badlands, in Addie’s mind, they all blended into one. She was thinking like Bruce Springsteen now. Sometimes she would even join Bruno in singing along.

If you’d told Addie just three months ago that she’d be spending her weekends driving around the midlands with her new love, singing along to Bruce Springsteen on the car stereo, she would have told you that you were cracked in the head.

The three of them were singing together now. It was Bruno, herself, and Bruce, in perfect harmony. Addie looked out the window at the wet fields as she sang:

Just weeks to Christmas, and they were both of them alive with a sense of possibility. The possibility that Addie might put all that fear and doubt behind her, that she might show her swimming pools to someone, that they might hang in a gallery somewhere, that someday somebody might even buy one of them. The possibility that Bruno might be a writer after all, that he might start by putting one word in front of another on a page. That together those words might weave themselves into a story. All of those things seemed possible now. More than anything, in those in-between winter weeks, there existed for both of them the possibility of happiness.

E
VERY CHRISTMAS,
Simon and Hugh have a few pints together. It’s an annual ritual that’s quietly encouraged by Della. And never more so than this year.

“It would do him good to have a chat.”

“About what?”

“About whatever it is that you two talk about.”

“Grand,” said Simon. “But I know what you’re up to. Just so you know that I’m not thick. I know what you’re at.”

“He trusts you, Simon. He might even confide in you.”

“You think?”

“He has to be worried. He’d be too proud to admit it to me, of course. But he wouldn’t be human if he wasn’t worried. Everything he’s worked for is on the line. His whole life, it’s hanging in the balance.”

“I don’t see how I can help.”

“You’re his only friend,” said Della.

“Ah, don’t say that.”

“But you are. Sure who else would he have to go for a pint with?”

“YOU WERE SENT,”
said Hugh.

He sat down heavily into the corner seat. He paused for a moment to catch his breath before he started to wrestle his way out of his jacket. Unwrapping the scarf from around his neck, he deposited it on the seat beside him.

Simon was untangling himself from his own scarf and hat, stuffing his gloves into the pocket of his coat.

“Well,” he said, “I wouldn’t put it quite like that.”

Hugh gave an impatient snort.

They sat in silence for a moment until the barman arrived with the pints. Hugh delved into the pocket of his cords and pulled out a fifty-euro note. He always insisted on paying and Simon always conceded to him after a slight protest. A gesture of kindness on Simon’s part, he knew it would only make Hugh feel old if he wasn’t allowed to pay.

Hugh picked up his glass and took a long gulp. The head of the pint left a thick white mustache across his upper lip.

“That Guinness has been refrigerated,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“The barman swore to me it wasn’t.”

“Well, he’s lying.”

“I think a lot of people prefer it cold nowadays.”

“Everyone except old farts like me. It’s America is what it is, it’s not Ireland anymore. I should just accept it for what it is.”

Chance would be a fine thing, Simon was thinking.

“So,” said Hugh, looking Simon straight in the eye. “I’ve a court date for January. And a Medical Council inquiry as the icing on the cake.”

“So I hear.”

“My reward for a lifetime of service.”

Hugh even mustered a little laugh. He was trying to be jovial.

“No good deed ever goes unpunished,” said Simon companionably. “Sure we both know that.”

They each of them reached for their pints.

Hugh tried out a more general opener.

“I don’t know what to make of it all anymore.”

Simon didn’t attempt to say anything. He just raised one eyebrow to show he was interested in what was coming next.

“I’ve had a bit of time on my hands lately, Simon. I’ve been giving it all a bit of thought.”

He paused for a sip of his pint.

“The more advances we make in medicine, the further we seem to be moving away from any kind of an understanding of life. It’s as if the science of it is taking over. There’s no room for philosophy anymore. Religion is long gone of course.”

He was shaking his head, his forehead furrowed, feigning an air of confusion.

“It worries me, Simon. It’s a worrying development.”

Simon knew exactly where this was going. But he lied a little, out of politeness.

“I’m not sure I follow you.”

“What I mean, Simon, is that death is no longer a natural part of life. There’s no such thing as death by natural causes anymore. If someone dies, someone else must be to blame, someone has to be sued. And in our game, that’s very bad news.”

He shook his head in despair.

Simon gestured to the barman to put on another round before turning his attention back to Hugh.

“My fear is that death is becoming a bit of an aberration. Every death now is a death that could have been prevented. I don’t know where it’s all going to end.”

“We’re becoming victims of our own success,” said Simon. “They think we can fix everything. They get angry with us when we can’t. I agree with you, Hugh, it makes things very difficult.”

And he did agree with Hugh, to a certain extent. Everything Hugh was saying, you couldn’t argue with it. He was right. And yet at the same time he was wrong. How could you even begin to explain it to him? At a fundamental level, Hugh was so utterly and completely wrong.

Simon didn’t interrupt him. There was no point in even trying.

“Delaying the inevitable, that’s all we do. That’s what people can’t accept, Simon, they don’t want to accept it. But we know. We know because we deal with it every day. We know that death is just a natural consequence of life.”

Simon nodded in agreement.

“This kingdom of ours,” Hugh was saying. “It is not eternal. And yet. People are starting to get the notion that it is.”

“No,” said Simon. “None of us is here forever.”

“Do you understand it, Simon? The anger! It’s a rage they have, and it’s directed straight at us.”

“It certainly feels that way sometimes.”

“Where does it come from, all that anger?”

“Denial,” said Simon quietly.

But Hugh wasn’t listening to him.

“Grief,” said Simon, his voice tapering off until he was barely talking out loud.

He was looking Hugh straight in the eye. And Hugh was looking back at him. But you could tell that he wasn’t listening. His expression was glassy.

“Love,” said Simon softly, just for his own benefit.

“You needn’t have worried,” he said when he was alone with Della again that evening. “He’s not even contemplating defeat.”

W
ITH DELLA, SIMON,
and the girls away, it was just the three of them for Christmas.

Bruno had suggested that they cook dinner in the apartment, but Hugh wanted them to come to the house. In Hugh’s mind an apartment was not somewhere you could have a Christmas dinner. An apartment was somewhere you served cocktails maybe, but not proper food. “Let’s humor him,” said Addie, for the umpteenth time in her life. “That way we can escape whenever we want.

“We’d better order the turkey,” said Addie. “Do they even make turkeys that small?”

Hugh looked at her over the rim of his glasses.

“Oh, I think a chicken will suffice.”

They were all of them nervous. They’d left it too long, the meeting. It was crazy to have left it so long. A head of steam had built up behind it. And now it had all the emotional weight of Christmas with it too.

“Do I buy him a gift?” Bruno had asked.

“Oh Lord no,” said Addie. “Sure you’ve never even met him.”

She had visions of Bruno browsing the menswear department in Brown Thomas. She imagined him holding up scarves, the salesperson helpfully sliding open drawers of leather gloves. Outside it was snowing, like Christmas in the movies. Bruno was walking down the street, his face obscured by the stack of gift boxes he was carrying.

“But I can’t go to his house at Christmas without bringing him a gift,” said Bruno. He seemed shocked at the thought.

A bottle of wine was settled upon. Addie even allowed Bruno to gift wrap it.

“I wish we didn’t have to go. If only we could stay in bed all day, we could have cereal for our Christmas dinner and not get dressed and not see anyone.”

“But we could do that any day,” said Bruno. “This is Christmas.”

There was something childlike about the way he said it. She was sad for him that she couldn’t offer him more. For Bruno’s sake, she found herself wishing that she was the kind of girl who had a Christmas outfit all planned. She imagined herself in a cream lace blouse and a black velvet skirt with a cummerbund and black tights and high heels. She pictured a traditional family reunion, a big gaggle of old people and young people and children, all of them going to Mass together. Afterwards there would be a ritual present giving around the tree, champagne in flutes and the smell of turkey roasting in the oven.

“We couldn’t leave him alone at Christmas,” said Bruno.

“And anyway,” he said, “I’ve been waiting to meet him for months. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

NEEDLESS TO SAY,
they got on like a house on fire.

Despite all of Addie’s worst fears, despite all of Hugh’s prejudices, they hit it off right from the start.

Addie and Bruno had arrived a little early. She gave a ring on the doorbell, just to warn him they were there. Then she leaned in to open the door with her key.

He must have been waiting for them. Just as she stuck the key into the lock, the door swung open and Hugh emerged out of the shadows. Addie nearly lost her balance. Lola shot past her through the open door.

“Good God,” said Hugh. “That bloody dog! Hold on a minute,” he said, his voice coming out of the darkness. “Let me throw some light on the situation.”

He delved behind the door and found the switch. Then he swung back around to face them, like a sumo wrestler preparing for a fight.

Bruno stepped forward, holding his hand straight out in front of him. “It’s very nice to meet you,” he said. “Sir.”

And that was all it took. Just that one little three-letter word and, as if by magic, Hugh was defused.

All his life, he’d been waiting for someone to call him sir.

HE WASN’T AT ALL
what Bruno had been expecting.

He was taller, for one thing. For some reason Bruno had assumed he would be small and solid. Perhaps because Addie and Della were both so tiny, Bruno had assumed he would be a stocky little man.

He was younger too, in his demeanor he was young and vibrant. All those weeks Addie had been caring for him, Bruno had pictured an invalid. He had imagined him as an elderly person. But there was nothing elderly about Hugh. He was almost boyish.

He had a spring in his step, a bounce about him that spoke of youthful energy. He was self-possessed. An air of certainty emanated from him, an aura of innate authority. This was a man who liked to be in command of things.

But it was the eyes that disarmed Bruno the most. As he stood on the doorstep holding out his hand to Hugh for that first handshake, Bruno was taken by surprise. He hadn’t been expecting to see his own father’s eyes looking right back at him.

“I MUST SAY,
I’m delighted to meet you, Bruno. At long last.”

He had settled into his wingback chair, his whiskey glass balanced nonchalantly on his corduroy knee.

“For some reason Adeline has been determined to keep us apart.”

He was at his most devilishly charming. It was quite unnerving.

“Revisionism,” muttered Addie, narrowing her eyes at him. But he didn’t see her. He had his face resolutely turned towards his guest.

“Addie tells me you’re a banker. So you come to us from the eye of the storm.”

“Yes, sir, I’m afraid you could say that.”

“You don’t have to call him sir,” said Addie testily. “You can just call him Hugh.”

And she looked to Hugh for agreement. But he just gave her a gloating smile before turning his attention to Bruno again.

“Is it New York you’re from, Bruno?”

He seemed determined not to acknowledge the family connection, intent on treating Bruno like a stranger.

“No, sir, I grew up in New Jersey. Spring Lake, New Jersey. The Irish Riviera, they used to call it. All the Irish used to vacation in Spring Lake. A lot of them had holiday homes there. In the old days, it was the place all the rich Irish used to go.”

Hugh didn’t say anything. But Addie knew exactly what he was thinking. Maybe Bruno guessed it too, because he answered the question without being asked.

“My dad worked for them. He looked after their homes for them. You know, painting and general maintenance, keeping an eye on things when they weren’t there. That’s how he made a living. He turned it into a pretty good business.”

Addie noticed the unabashed pride in his voice. She cringed a little for him. He sounded so American, even the way he was telling the story was so unashamedly American. She was worried for him, dreading a backlash from Hugh.

But Bruno sailed on, oblivious to the danger.

“Actually, it was a guy from home that gave him his break. When my dad first came to the States, he let him stay in his house in Spring Lake that first winter. All he had to do was paint the place and fix it up a bit. That’s where he got the idea. All those guys, they needed someone to fix up their homes for them. And my dad was one of their own. They trusted him.”

Hugh was listening with interest.

“What a very American story,” he said, his tone a little scathing.

Addie was on the edge of her seat now, on red alert. She was about to jump in when Bruno answered. Either he hadn’t noticed the edge to Hugh’s voice or he had chosen to ignore it.

“Yes,” said Bruno cheerfully, “a very American tale.”

Hugh seemed fascinated by Bruno. Addie had never seen him show so much interest in anyone.

“I understand you were the only son,” he said convivially. “There must have been some pressure on you to join the family business?”

“Oh, there was, sir, there most certainly was. But Spring Lake is a pretty small town. To be honest with you, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.”

“Ha,” said Hugh with a chuckle. “I know how that feels.”

ADDIE LEFT BRUNO
sitting in the front room with a glass of wine while she went down to the kitchen to check on Hugh.

He was standing in front of the oven, a tea towel slung over his shoulder. He was peering in through the glass panel in the oven door. “I parboiled the potatoes before I put them in to roast,” he said, “a little tip from your sister.”

The way he was standing, she could see the bald patch at the back of his head. His shirt had slipped out over the waistband of his cords, probably because of his exertions. It gave Addie a pang, to think that he’d sought out Della’s advice. Her heart suffered a little jolt, as if she’d been hit from behind, memory after memory piling up on top of each other.

He never used to cook. Before their mother died, he never had to. And even after she was gone, the housekeeper used to prepare the supper before she left for the day. She would leave the potatoes all peeled and sitting in a saucepan full of cold water. Three lamb chops set out on a plate, or maybe three pieces of salmon, with cling film laid carefully over them. Simple fare, it was all he could manage.

How Addie and Della had longed for a mother’s cooking. God forgive them, that was the thing they missed the most about her. Sometimes they would come home from a friend’s house, talking about some hearty meal they’d had. A casserole, perhaps, prepared by a stay-at-home mum whose heart broke to see those brave little motherless girls, how they enjoyed her food. Sure they probably never get a decent dinner, she would say to her husband that evening. He can’t have much time to be cooking, when he gets home.

Hugh tried. He really did try. He would get the girls to describe those motherly meals in minute detail. He would try to work out the component parts, uncracking the recipe like a secret code. Addie remembers him standing at the cooker in his pinstriped suit, a confused look on his face as he struggled to reproduce a chicken and broccoli bake the girls had eaten at someone’s house. Of course it was never the same. But Addie and Della would eat it anyway, for fear of hurting his feelings.

“Anything I can do for you, Dad?”

“Let me see. Yes, you could set out some of that brown bread. I have a platter ready for it.”

And he pointed at an ornate china plate, one of his auction-house finds no doubt. Beside the plate was a packet of supermarket brown bread, ready sliced. Addie took a handful of slices and fanned them out.

Hugh was behind her now. They were back to back. He was stooped over the kitchen table, trying to extricate slivers of smoked salmon from a plastic pack. The slivers kept tearing as he lifted them out, and he was forced to prize them away from each other with a knife.

He motioned with his head towards the kitchen door.

“I thought I’d better put up something traditional for our transatlantic friend.”

“BRUNO?
”

He’d disappeared. The chair she’d left him sitting in was empty. Addie looked all around in a panic. It was hard to get used to the room without Hugh’s bed in it. It was disorienting. The couch had been moved back in and the double doors were open again onto the dining room. Addie walked through and found Bruno standing at the back window, looking out into the garden.

“There you are.”

The dining room table had been set, a linen tablecloth spread out. Places had been laid for three. The silver salt and pepper cellars were out, and there was a battered silver coaster ready to receive the wine bottle.

“Just like America,” Addie said, and Bruno turned round.

“What?”

“Oh, it’s an old family joke. My dad used to say it apparently, when my mum would put a tablecloth out. He would say it was just like America. She used to tease him about it. It became a bit of a catchphrase.”

“Why America?”

“Oh, you know, sophisticated. Don’t tell me you don’t use tablecloths in America?”

“Oh we do, we most certainly do.”

“Oh good,” she said, “you had me worried there for a second.”

 “SO,” SAID BRUNO.
“You’re a small-town boy yourself, sir.”

Addie snapped her head up to catch Hugh’s reaction.

She held her breath, expecting at the very least a withering silence. But she couldn’t have been more wrong. Hugh was smiling, beginning to unfurl under the warm glow of Bruno’s attention.

“Yes,” he said. “Except that the use of the word town implies there was some form of civilization.”

They were sitting at the table now, eating the smoked salmon. Hugh had produced a bottle of white wine from the fridge, a crisp Sancerre. It was delicious.

“You’re looking after us very well, Dad,” said Addie. But he hardly looked at her. All his attention was focused on Bruno, like a child with a new friend.

Addie felt the first stirrings of jealousy. They were both of them ignoring her. She might as well not be here.

“I’ve been there,” said Bruno enthusiastically. “With Addie. We paid a visit.”

Hugh swung round to look at Addie. On his face, an expression of surprise. Why had she never mentioned the trip?

Addie was incredulous. The cheek of him.

“And what did you make of it?”

Bruno paused before he answered, searching his mind for the precise words he wanted to use.

“It’s hard to say,” he said. “I think I was looking at it through my father’s eyes. Everywhere we went, I was imagining what it must have looked like to him. My father spoke of it so fondly. I suppose I was looking for something that would explain why he left.”

Hugh was listening intently, his attention almost aggressive.

“Maybe you can explain it to me, sir. Maybe you understand why he might have left?”

Hugh’s expression was a mixture of contempt and pity.

“Jesus, son,” he said, spitting out the words. “You wouldn’t ask me that. If you’d seen the place fifty years ago, you wouldn’t ask that question. Why anyone stayed, that’s the bloody mystery.”

Bruno nodded, drinking it all in. And Addie should have been pleased that they were getting along so well. She should have been relieved.

Instead she felt betrayed by both of them.

“DO YOU THINK
this is cooked?” Hugh was stooped over the kitchen counter. He was peering down at the serving plate, a carving fork in one hand, the knife in the other. The chicken was laid out already in slices on the plate, the legs and the wings arranged to one side. It did look a bit pink to Addie, but it was clearly too late to do anything about it now.