With All My Love (39 page)

‘Please come back to me, Jeff. Please don’t be dead,’ she said urgently, frantically, half expecting his eyes to open at any moment and a big grin spread across his face. Seeing him like this, so motionless, but yet so himself, lying in a coffin, sent emotions rushing through her. He couldn’t
really
be dead. He was too young, much too young. He was her Jeff, her healthy, vibrant sweetheart.

‘Oh, Jeff, I’m scared. I can’t do this without you. Please come back to us,’ she pleaded.

But his eyes never opened and his smile never changed.

‘You just talk to him and I’ll leave you to have some privacy,’ Lisa said, unable to bear it, imagining how she would feel if her young husband was lying in a coffin. She left the room and closed the door so Valerie could have Jeff to herself one last time.

As Valerie stared down at him, stunned and shocked, it finally began to sink in that he would never come back to her. ‘I love you, Jeff, I always have,’ she said fervently, and began to talk to him of all that he had ever meant to her. She opened her bag and took out Briony’s drawing of a gleeful mermaid with a huge red crayoned grin, and slipped it and the conch into the coffin beside him. She kissed her letter before placing it on his chest. She didn’t kiss his face when she said goodbye; instead she put her lips to his hair so she wouldn’t have to feel the coldness of him. Her heart was thumping so loud she was sure it could be heard in the rest of the house.

A dazed numbness settled on her as she walked into the kitchen. She could not bear to think that this was the last time she’d ever see Jeff. But she could not sink into the hysteria that threatened to overwhelm her. She had a child to think of. She couldn’t frighten her daughter.

‘Will you get Briony for me?’ she asked Lisa, who was sipping tea. ‘I’ll be out in the car. And thank you for making me welcome,’ she said shakily.

‘Valerie, you’re family, you were Jeff’s partner – why would I not make you welcome?’

‘Thanks, Lisa. You were always very kind to me.’ Valerie gave her a hug and walked out into the evening sun.

A lark was singing its heart out. The muted drone of a combine harvester gathering the last of the harvest, and the cooing notes of a pair of doves in one of Tessa’s apple trees, drifted along on the breeze. Everything seemed so normal. But nothing was normal. Nothing would ever be normal again, Valerie thought, raising her face to the sun as she waited for her daughter.

‘It’s time to go now, darling,’ Tessa said sadly, watching as Briony studied herself in the dressing table mirror. She wore two necklaces, bangles, a hat and some lipstick, and she had spent the last twenty minutes clip-clopping around in a pair of her grandmother’s high heels. Lorcan and Tessa, despite their despair, had smiled at each other as she put on a show for them, thrilled with herself in her finery.

‘Let me wipe that lipstick off,’ Tessa said, pulling a tissue from a box on the dressing table.

‘Please, Gramma,
pleeeease
can I leave it on?’ Briony begged.

‘Mom might not like it,’ Tessa demurred.

‘She won’t mind. She lets me wear lipstick,’ her granddaughter assured her confidently.

‘I don’t think Valerie will mind,’ Lisa said as she removed the necklaces and hat and put Briony’s little shoes back on.

Tessa held out her arms and Briony snuggled in tight. ‘I love you, Gramma,’ she said, wrapping her small arms around Tessa’s neck.

‘And I love you.’ Tessa’s lip quivered and Lisa, fearing her mother was about to dissolve into tears, took Briony by the hand and led her from the bedroom.

When she was gone, Tessa burst into tears. Silently Lorcan took her in his arms and she rested her head against his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart. The doorbell rang downstairs. More people were arriving to offer condolences. ‘Stay here for a while,’ Lorcan said, handing her a tissue. ‘I’ll go down and see to the neighbours.’

‘Thanks,’ she gulped, wiping her eyes. She had a thumping headache. She rooted in her bedside locker and found a carton of paracetamol and shook two out in her palm. She looked at the pile of white tablets nestling in their container and for a brief, mad moment thought how easy it would be to take them all, to end this nightmare of grief and despair and join her beloved son wherever he was. Regretfully she put the cap back on. Life would have to be endured. She couldn’t do that to Lorcan or her other children.

Tessa took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and went downstairs to meet a group of Jeff’s teammates who were completely stunned and devastated, and hardly knew what to say to her. Most of the village had been through her door, she reflected. Jeff was very popular and that gave her some solace as she led his friends in to him to say their last farewells.

‘Where did you get the lovely lipstick?’ Valerie asked Briony when Lisa led her out to the car.

‘Gramma let me put it on an’ I was wearing hee hiles too,’ she said proudly.

‘Hee hiles, lucky you!’ Valerie exclaimed, sharing an unexpected smile with Lisa. ‘See you tomorrow then,’ she said to Jeff’s sister after she’d secured Briony in her car seat.

‘Will you come for the closing of the casket?’ Lisa asked.

Valerie shook her head. ‘No. I don’t want to see that. I’ll meet up with you at the church,’ she said as another car arrived at the gate. A man and woman got out and there was something familiar about them, Valerie thought as she squinted against the sun. And then she recognized Lizzie and she was running to her, calling her name. ‘Lizzie! Lizzie! Lizzie!’

‘It’s all right, I’m here,’ Lizzie said, wrapping her arms around her, holding her tightly.

‘Oh, Lizzie, I’ll never get through this,
ever
,’ Valerie whispered.

‘You will, Valerie, you will,’ Lizzie said steadily, struggling not to cry. ‘You have Briony. She’ll get you through it, I swear to God she will. And I’ll be with you for the funeral. One day at a time is all you have to deal with right now.’

‘Oh, Lizzie, wait until you see him. You’d just think he was asleep but he’s cold. So cold.’

‘I’ll go in now with Dara and pay my respects, and then I’ll go home and say hello to Ma and Da, and then I’ll come and stay the night. And we’ll talk about him all night for as long as you want, all right?’ She smiled at Valerie.

‘Thank you, thank you so much, Lizzie. I’d love that,’ Valerie said, utterly relieved that she was with the one person in the world who truly understood how she felt.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY
-S
IX

When Valerie stood with Lizzie by her side and watched Jeff’s coffin being carried by his father, brother and male relatives and friends, into St Anthony’s the following evening, it was as though she was completely detached. She couldn’t understand it. It was as though someone had flicked a switch to ‘off ’.

She walked up the aisle behind Tessa and Lisa, wishing she could slip into a seat at the side where no one would take any notice of her, but Lorcan had driven over to her that morning to see how she was and to ask her if she would sit in the front seat with the family. ‘It’s what Jeff would want, Valerie, and it’s what I want,’ he said firmly. ‘Your place is with us.’

She hesitated. ‘But what about Tessa?’

‘Family is family,’ he said, lifting Briony into his arms for a hug and a kiss, and Valerie felt she couldn’t deny him.

She never heard a word of the service. All she could think about was the bittersweet pleasure of the previous evening when she and Lizzie had sat beside the fire she had lit because the early autumn nights were chilly, and they had talked and talked and talked. She had relived all of her relationship with Jeff, and Lizzie had listened patiently and even reminded her of a few things she’d forgotten.

The sound of the Rosary being recited jolted her back to reality and she said the prayers to the Blessed Mother, thinking that she had never until now appreciated the words of the response to the Hail Mary.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
How glibly she had uttered that response thousands of times in her life –
now and at the hour of our death
– and now it was
Jeff’s
death that she called on the Holy Mother to pray for. Whenever she said those words again it would be Jeff she would think of.

She glanced over to the gleaming mahogany coffin that Tessa had selected, and caught the other woman’s eye. Tessa, white as a sheet, her hands clutching her rosary beads, turned her head away sharply. There would be no reconciliation with Jeff’s mother, no matter what Lorcan might wish, Valerie realized forlornly. At one level she didn’t care. They’d never liked each other. They’d made the effort when Valerie and Jeff had come back to Rockland’s but it had been superficial, just for family’s sake. There was no affection between them, never had been and never would be. But she did like the rest of Jeff’s family and that was where the difficulty lay.

Father O’Shea concluded the ceremony and then the congregation moved forward as hundreds of mourners lined up to shake their hand and offer murmured words of sympathy. When it was over, Tessa walked out of the seat without a backward glance towards Valerie. Lizzie, who had been sitting a few pews behind, waiting for her, hastened to her side.

‘Let’s get you home,’ she said. She’d seen Tessa blank Valerie and was disgusted. ‘Just tomorrow to go and then you can collapse in a heap and cry your eyes out and stay in bed with your head under the pillows, and I’ll mind Briony.’

The thought of a day in bed, crying her eyes out with no one to worry about got Valerie through the Mass and burial the next day. ‘I can go home and go to bed and cry when this is over,’ she repeated to herself like a mantra.

‘Look, Mommy, there’s a treasure chest. Why is that there?’ Briony asked, astonished, pointing to the coffin as they walked up to the front seat for the funeral Mass. It was the first time she’d ever seen one.

‘Because it’s treasure for Holy God,’ Valerie explained, thinking how wonderful her daughter’s innocence was. Jeff was treasure for his creator, she supposed, and that thought comforted her as she sat through the Mass, trying not to cry when the choir sang ‘Nearer My God to Thee’ and the Folk Group sang ‘Here I am Lord’. Lorcan had asked if there was any hymn she wanted and she had chosen that one.

Briony, feeling bored, clambered over Lisa and Lorcan to get to Tessa to play with her pearls. ‘Gramma,’ she called, ‘did you see the treasure chest for Holy God?’

A smile crossed her grandmother’s face. ‘I did, darling. Now hush, love, be a good girl and don’t make a noise.’

Valerie bristled inwardly. Briony wasn’t making noise. She was only a little girl, for God’s sake, asking an innocent question. Her indignation helped get her through the rest of the Mass. Who did Tessa Egan think she was, bossing Briony around? Was this what it was always going to be like? This stress? This pull and push? Was she going to have to put up with this woman for the rest of her life? Her thoughts rampaged through her mind as Father O’Shea read the epistle and gospel.

And how was she going to manage when she went back to work? She had to leave home by seven thirty a.m. to drive to Dublin to get to work on time, and Jeff had always dressed Briony and given her breakfast, then driven her to Tessa or Carmel’s, before going to work himself. She would be up at six, and Briony too, if she had to take her daughter to either of her grandmothers for minding.

And could she afford to, and did she want to stay in that house she and Jeff were renting? There were too many memories. Too many memories in Rockland’s too. Everywhere she went she would see him or remember something of their past. Would she be better off making a fresh start somewhere else? She closed her eyes and listened to the strains of ‘Ave Maria’ float through the church as the congregation took Communion. So many questions. So many decisions.

‘Mommy, why are you dripping water from your eyes?’ Briony asked, tugging at her sleeve.

‘Sorry, darling, I have something in my eye,’ she whispered back, utterly relieved when the priest finally began the last part of the ceremony by asking the Angels to accompany Jeff to paradise.

Outside the church Jeff’s teammates formed a guard of honour, and it was just as well that Carmel had taken Briony to go and get an ice cream because the sight of his friends and teammates, all strong young men, with tears streaming down their cheeks, undid Valerie and she wept onto Lizzie’s shoulder with broken-hearted sorrow.

When she emerged into the sunlight she was immediately surrounded by a cluster of friends and colleagues who had travelled down from Dublin for the funeral. Their kindness and care was something she would think about often in the future. That all of them would take the trouble to be with her in her hour of need was a source of great comfort, as were the many messages, including a lovely note from Mrs Maguire, that Valerie had received since news of Jeff’s death had filtered out.

As she watched Jeff’s coffin being lowered into the grave, gripping Lizzie tightly by the hand, seeing Lorcan with his head bowed, craggy face creased in anguish, and Lisa and Tessa sobbing brokenly, Valerie knew she had to get away from Rockland’s. There was nothing here for her now. Just pain and grief and strife. If she never came back again it would not bother her, she thought disconsolately as Tessa threw a rose onto the coffin and glared at Valerie as she did the same.

It was over and the house was strangely silent. The sitting room that had been dominated by Jeff’s coffin was full of vases of slightly drooping blooms, and Tessa fetched a jug of water to revive them, glad of something to do. Lorcan had gone to take an elderly relative back to his nursing home. Lisa had gone home to her own house, but had assured Tessa she would be back to help tidy up. And Steven had gone back up to the graveyard to bring back the name cards on the wreaths so she would know who to thank when she sent out her acknowledgements and memory cards.

Tessa felt dead inside; flat and dispirited and more lonely than she had ever felt in her life. Empty and hollow couldn’t even begin to describe it. She refreshed the flowers, put the jug back on the counter top and went upstairs. She walked into Jeff’s bedroom, still with its teenage posters of racing cars and Farah Fawcett Majors, decorating the pale blue walls.