With All My Love (3 page)

She likes to come and watch the activity in the port: the toing and froing of ships and liners, the big ferries, regular as clockwork, the arrow-swift little pilot boats that race towards the open sea, always an indication that a ship is coming. And then, as the new arrival appears on the horizon, the sturdy dependable tugs chugging down the river, preparing to take charge, reassuring, she imagines, for a weary captain and crew at the end of a voyage.

This is her favourite place now. The place she comes to be peaceful and still. The place that she comes to escape.

The wind whips her grey hair around her face and she inhales deeply, enjoying the salty, bracing air. Great banks of leaden black clouds loom up over the trees and rooftops of Clontarf and Sutton across the bay. Howth is shadowed and grey. It will be raining soon. The ship ploughs past, churning up the water, almost home. The white caps of the wash slapping hard against the seawall and, as the ship heads up the river, soon to disappear from view, she turns and makes her way, with some difficulty, down the rocks and sand to the shelter of the beach that faces the Southside.

‘Blackie!’ She calls the black Labrador who has his nose stuck in a cleft trying to get at some buried treasure, a dead crab or fish head or some such. Tessa smiles as he lopes towards her, tail wagging furiously. ‘Good boy, good boy,’ she says, leaning down to stroke his dear face as he gazes at her with brown-eyed adoration. ‘What would I do without you?’ she murmurs, grateful beyond measure for his unconditional love, especially today of all days.

Even after all these years the memory of that warm September day is still clear and present whenever she resurrects it. Time has dulled the sharp edges of the pain, but it is always there in the background. She glances at her watch. It was around this time . . . She gazes unseeingly towards the mountains and Dun Laoghaire, lost to her memories.

The wind’s keening and Blackie’s bark at a plastic bag flying past him brings her back to reality and she pulls her parka around her. ‘Come on, Blackie, come on, boy.’ She hurries across the sand to where she has parked the car. Once she would have been able to run, she thinks ruefully. Her left knee aches and stiffens and she is glad when her dog is plonked on his rug on the back seat, chewing on a treat before settling for a snooze. He knows the routine; knows that she will pour herself a cup of tea from a flask and take out her pen and pad, and for a while his beloved mistress will be immersed, her pen flying over white paper, interspersed with mouthfuls of hot sweet tea and gingernut biscuits.

Tessa pours the tea into a plastic cup, looking forward to that first taste of the warming golden liquid. What is it about tea from a flask? she wonders as she screws on the white top and lays the flask on the passenger seat. She savours that first sip, holding the cup between her hands, the steaming heat a comfort as she stares across the sea to where rain has blotted out Sandymount and Dun Laoghaire, a sombre impressionist painting that does not have the glorious light of a Manet or Monet.

Tessa sighs and nibbles on her biscuit. She should go home, she has spent longer that normal walking Blackie. Lorcan will be querulous on her return, annoyed with her for being gone so long, especially today of all days. But she needs this break from him. She is the only one he can take his frustrations out on now. Chronic arthritic pain has turned him into an angry, frustrated old man. He was so vibrant and vigorous, even into his late sixties, and then came the grinding pain – like ivy strangling a tree, he’d once told her – and the slow, unremitting descent into decrepitude. Old age was the cruellest stage of all, the real test of ‘for better, for worse’. She still loves her husband, and understands his frustration, but there are times now when she sometimes doesn’t like him. She has pleaded with him for months to see a shoulder specialist and he has finally let her make an appointment. He could have saved himself a year of pain, and made her life much easier if he had not been so stubborn. Men can be so
irritating
, she thinks.

She finishes her tea, wipes the crumbs from her lap and hesitates, hand poised over the key in the ignition. The rain has reached her little haven and spitter-spatters blur the windscreen. Tessa glances at the clock on the dash. She really should be going; she doesn’t want to get stuck in traffic. People out for a Sunday afternoon spin, dog walkers like herself, parents with kids who still have homework to do, will head for home now that the rain has come. She can see mothers on the beach, urging children to hurry as the rain grows heavier. It is dancing in fury on the roof of her car, a steady tattoo that increases her sense of being in her own safe little world.

Her notepad is sticking out of her bag; she pulls it out and roots for her pen. She settles herself more comfortably, shifting her weight to ease her knee and flips over the cover to a blank page.

‘
My Darling Briony
,’ she writes, yielding to her reluctance to go home, oblivious to the rain battering the car.

‘
Today I think of you more than ever . . .
’

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

‘Briony, there is so much you don’t understand. We’ll sit down and talk about it when we get home. Let’s not upset Katie.’ Valerie Harris laid a placatory hand on her daughter’s arm, trying not to panic at the realization that one of her greatest fears had come to pass.

Briony shrugged it away. ‘I’m booking a flight home,’ she said coldly, busying herself with packing up the picnic things.

‘Are you cross, Mom?’ Katie paused from feeding her doll and glanced up at them, a little frown furrowing her brow.

‘No, no. How about a last swing before we go back to the villa?’ Briony suggested brightly.

‘Yessssssss! Valwee, will you mind Millie?’ She thrust her doll into her grandmother’s hand. Valerie looked down at her granddaughter and her heart contorted with love and pain at the sight of the innocent little face raised trustingly, with its cornflower-blue eyes and an adorable smattering of freckles across her nose.

‘Of course I will, darling.’ Valerie stroked Katie’s flushed cheek.

Katie danced gaily over to the swing. ‘Come on, Mom,’ she called over her shoulder.

‘We have to talk, Briony, on our own. At least let me—’

‘Are Gramma and Granddad still alive?’ Briony was stony-faced. Valerie felt she was being punched in the stomach when she saw the contempt in her eyes.
‘Are they?’
her daughter persisted.

‘Yes,’ Valerie sighed. ‘As far as I know both of them are still alive, yes.’

‘And Dad, did you lie about
him
, too?’ Briony fixed her with a hard, cold stare.

‘
No!
No, of course
not
, Briony!’ Valerie’s voice shook. She struggled not to cry, appalled that her daughter would think that she would ever lie about Jeff.

‘I will never forgive you for this, Mum,
ever.
And I won’t be coming out here again with Katie. Let’s see how
you
feel, knowing you’ll never see
your
granddaughter again!’ She marched across the grass, bristling, and Valerie watched her go with a sickening lurch to her stomach, and had to sit down on the rug. Her heart had begun to pound and she felt faint. She adored Katie. Katie had given her more joy than any other relationship in her life had. Even her relationship with Briony could not compete with the absolute, unconditional love she felt for her only grandchild.

For years she’d worried about this moment of reckoning. There had been a few close shaves, notably when Briony was getting married and had wanted to try to reconnect with Jeff’s family, but Valerie had managed to put her off, and Briony, caught up in the wedding preparations, had accepted all she’d told her at face value.

Over time Valerie’s anxiety had eased, and she didn’t give the past too much thought. Today, of course, was different, she thought sadly. What an irony that Briony would discover her grandmother’s letter on this, the anniversary of her father’s death. It was so long ago, she thought distractedly. Twenty-six years today. Briony had been almost four and a half when her mother’s life had been shattered.

She couldn’t think straight. Valerie’s mouth quivered and she had to stifle the sob that escaped as the memories of that dreadful day came roaring at her like a tsunami, enveloping her in wave after wave of grief and regret. Just when she’d finally thought life was good, and she could relax, the past had come back to confront her with a crushing intensity. The decisions she’d made, the lies she’d told, had returned to confront her and this time there was no avoiding them. Briony was so hurt and angry she would never listen to her mother’s side of the story. And she
had
a side, Valerie thought sorrowfully. Everyone would think she was the worst mother in the world when it all came out, but she had her reasons, no matter what Tessa would say. And Tessa would have a lot to say, Valerie thought bitterly, remembering Jeff’s mother.

Tessa had despised her. Behind the façade of motherly concern, Jeff’s mother had only been nice to her because of Briony, not because she’d cared anything for Valerie. She had always known that Tessa had felt that she’d trapped Jeff by falling pregnant. Tessa had never felt that Valerie was good enough for her precious son.

It was partly thanks to Tessa that she had had to leave home with her young daughter and make a life for them far away from all that she had grown up with, Valerie thought bitterly. What would her life have been like if she had been able to stay in her home village with Briony? But Tessa had put paid to that, and when fate had intervened that glorious September day when Jeff had been taken from her so cruelly, and the future she had planned had been snatched away, all her dreams had been left in tatters.

C
HAPTER
F
OUR

‘You’re very late,’ Lorcan says crossly, lifting his head from his crossword. ‘Lisa phoned. She’ll be up tomorrow.’

‘The traffic was heavy. The rain . . .’ she sighs, stifling a rush of irritation. She’s seventy-five, for God’s sake, and she has to account for her time like some schoolgirl!

‘How is Lisa?’ she asks, wishing she could sit in her favourite chair and read the paper, but Lorcan’s tea has to be got before she can relax.

‘She’s fine. She got a Mass said for Jeff. She said she’d ring later.’

‘Did she put flowers on the grave?’ Lisa, their eldest, is a loving, caring daughter who tries hard to support them as best she can, despite having three children in college and running her own crèche.

‘I’m sure she did.’ Lorcan lowers his glasses. ‘You should have gone down to the grave yourself today. I know it gives you comfort. I just didn’t feel up to going.’

‘We’ll go together one of the days.’ Tessa pats his hand, and feels a pang of sympathy as she sees how mottled red, stained with liver spots, and knotted, twisted and swollen they are. Before arthritis distorted them, her husband’s hands were firm, his long fingers capable of surprising tenderness. Those fingers had brought her much pleasure, she remembers, as a distant memory of joyous, abandoned lovemaking one stolen afternoon suddenly surfaces. Where did that come from? she wonders as she fills the kettle and takes the remains of the Sunday roast beef from the fridge to cut thin slices for a sandwich for her husband’s tea.

Once, she and Lorcan had lived full, busy lives. They had been young, confident, resilient, and the future held no fears for them. They’d embraced parenthood enthusiastically and enjoyed their children until fate had taken their youngest son from them. Now there’s always fear lurking, fear that Lorcan will be taken from her, fear that something will happen to her remaining children and grandchildren. Death has taught her that peace of mind is a myth.

Tessa holds out a cut of beef for Blackie and he scoffs it with relish before easing himself down into his basket beside Lorcan, to rest his head on his paws and observe proceedings.

‘Where did you go?’ Lorcan asks.

‘The usual, the South Wall and the Shelley Banks.’

‘Many there?’

‘A few. I saw a ship arriving. It’s a pity you didn’t come, you would have enjoyed it.’

‘Ah, I wasn’t up to it today.’

They have this conversation every time. She tries not to get irritated with him. She thinks he has given in too easily and made an invalid of himself. There is no equality in their relationship now that she has become the minder. She cannot help her resentment.

She needs minding, too, she thinks mournfully, imagining how nice it would be to have her meals handed up to her day in, day out. She’s fed up of cooking, after all these years: the sameness of it, the wondering what to have, the preparing of meat and vegetables, the dishing out and serving up – she could
scream
with the monotony of it. Lorcan won’t even come out and have lunch at a pub or restaurant any more. It’s all about him, now, Tessa thinks resentfully as she slathers mustard on the beef and lays the buttered slice of bread on top.

‘Aren’t you having any?’ he asks when she calls him to the table.

‘I’m not hungry.’

‘Is it the day that’s in it?’ He lowers himself onto the chair, grimacing as pain shoots through him.

‘I suppose.’ She pours his tea.

‘It’s hard to believe he’d be in his fifties if he was alive,’ Lorcan reflects, reaching out to squeeze her hand. That small gesture of unexpected tenderness is her undoing and the tears she has managed to suppress all day overflow. Her husband continues to hold her hand as she weeps. ‘Better out than in, Tess,’ he says gruffly. ‘Sit down here beside me.’

‘I can’t stop thinking of Briony.’ She hiccups, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hands as she sits down at the table. ‘She’s been on my mind all day.’

‘Mine too,’ Lorcan admits.

‘I hope that Valerie can live with herself,’ Tessa says bitterly. ‘It was the sorry day she set her sights on Jeff. May God forgive her for what she’s done to us.’

‘She might say differently. She might say may God forgive
us
for what we did to
her
,’ Lorcan says quietly.