‘I’m glad you think so,’ he muttered, and looked away.
I waited for my nervous giggle to disappear.
‘What’s the thing you were going to tell me?’
‘I went to see Mary today.’
‘Mary Keegan?’
I nodded. ‘I had a proposal for her. From you. Everyone’s in agreement she’s your dad’s right-hand man, yes?’
He agreed.
‘I wondered if it would work if you were chairman of the board, still in full control of the company – which meets the wishes of your grandfather legally – but Mary stepped in as managing director. That way she could run it while you maintain control by signing off on whatever it is that needs to be signed off. Then you could talk to your boss about getting your job back at the coast guard. You can be on boards and have other jobs at the same time, can’t you? I’m sure he’d be understanding.’
‘So I’d be on the board of Basil’s and keep my job.’
‘Like Batman.’
He thought about it.
‘Hey, don’t go overboard with happiness.’ I studied him, intrigued. I had solved his problems and yet there was still the battle there. He was wrestling with some inner turmoil. ‘You agree it solves the problem?’
‘Yeah, absolutely, thank you,’ he said, distracted.
Usually, the more you keep pushing in the same direction and to no avail, the more it proves you’re doing the wrong thing. I started to think perhaps I was pushing in the wrong direction. I’d spent a week trying to think how Adam could get away from the job he said he loathed but the solution still didn’t fit.
‘Let’s play a game,’ I butted into his thoughts.
‘You and your games,’ he groaned.
‘What do you do when you’re on your own and no one’s looking? And don’t be disgusting,’ I said quickly, sensing by his look where he was going.
‘Well then, nothing,’ he said.
I laughed, happy he was back. ‘I mean, do you talk to yourself? Sing in the shower? What?’
‘Where is this going?’
‘Just answer.’
‘Will this save my life?’
‘It will absolutely save your life.’
‘Fine. Yes, I sing in the shower, that’s it.’
And I knew he was lying. I cleared my throat. ‘For example, when I’m bored, in a waiting room or whatever, I pick a colour and I try to find the number of things in the room with that colour and then I pick another colour and find a number of things in the room with that colour, and whichever colour has the most items in the room wins.’
He twisted around to face me. ‘Why the hell would you do that?’
‘Who knows?’ I laughed. ‘People think weird things all the time but never admit it. I also have a thing where I run my tongue along my teeth and I have to count each tooth as I do it. In car journeys, listening to people talk, you know?’
He gave me a weird look.
‘Or I try to come up with ideas for my book.’
He looked interested. ‘What book?’
‘The book that I’ve always wanted to write. The book I shall some day write.’ I got embarrassed and pulled my legs up, tucked them under my chin. ‘Or I probably won’t. It’s just a silly dream I have.’
‘That’s not silly. You should do it. What would you write? Erotic fiction?’
I laughed. ‘Like your friend, Irma? No … a self-help book. I don’t know what exactly to write it about though.’
‘You should do it,’ he said encouragingly. ‘You’d be great at it.’
I smiled, my cheeks pink, appreciating the encouragement I never got from Barry, and immediately I knew that I’d try it.
‘I like to rhyme things,’ he said suddenly.
‘A-ha, do tell.’ I turned my body to face him.
‘Not small words,’ he said shyly. ‘I can’t believe I’m telling you this. Maria doesn’t even know this.’
Score one to me, I thought childishly.
‘Not fat cat, but complicated words like …’ he looked around ‘… deciduous immediately says to me fastidious.’
‘God, you’re so weird.’ I threw him a look.
‘Hey!’
I laughed. ‘I’m joking. That’s cool.’
‘That’s not cool.’
‘Hey, the secret mind is a very uncool place.’
‘Is that the message?’
I looked out at the lake. ‘What about “Never Ever Have I Ever …”? My sisters and I used to play it while in the car on holidays.’
‘You all must have near destroyed your dad.’
‘I actually think we kept him alive. Okay, you start. Never ever have I ever …’
‘You know, this sounds remarkably like one of Elaine’s “How to Fall in Love” techniques.’
‘Well, maybe I do want you to fall in love.’
I felt his eyes searing into me.
‘With life,’ I clarified. ‘I want you to love life. So go,’ I nudged him.
‘Okay, never ever have I ever …’ he thought about it for some time ‘… had a lollipop.’
‘What?!’ I exploded. ‘Explain!’
He laughed. ‘We were never allowed to have lollies as kids because they were dangerous. Every day we were told of the dangers: we’d choke, we’d break our teeth, we’d lose an eye or we’d cause someone else to lose an eye. And then finally we were told we could have them, but we had to sit down and eat or else we’d choke and die. I mean, why would any kid want that? So I never had one. It put me off for ever. I can’t even stand to watch kids eat them.’
I laughed.
‘Your turn.’
‘Never ever …’ I knew what I wanted to say but wasn’t sure whether to say it or not. I swallowed. ‘Have I ever … been in love.’
He looked at me in surprise. ‘But your husband?’
‘I thought it was. But I’m beginning to think that it wasn’t.’
‘Why?’
We looked at each other and I silently said to him in my head, Because it’s nothing like this but instead I said, ‘I don’t know. Do you think that unrequited love is real love?’
‘The answer is in the question, isn’t it?’ he said slowly.
‘Yeah, but if it’s not reciprocated, is the person experiencing the full, proper thing?’
He thought about it, he really thought about it and I waited for an answer that would represent all that thought, but he simply said, ‘Yes.’ He was obviously thinking about Maria, though I was sure Maria loved him dearly, despite her mistake with Sean.
‘Christine, why are we talking about this?’
I really didn’t know, I could barely remember how we got on to the topic. I had been trying to distract him and instead I’d ended up wandering into my own thoughts.
‘I don’t know,’ I shivered. ‘Let’s go inside before we freeze.’
Since we were in Adam’s territory I asked him to show me around. I wanted to get a feel for his life as a child and what his life would be if he moved back from Dublin, I wanted to know what it was that freaked him out so much that he became a different person down here. Adam took a car from the garage, which housed a selection of classic cars and sports cars in storage, and he drove us to the Basil’s factory twenty minutes away, pointing out landmarks and sites associated with stories from his childhood.
‘One of my ideas was to arrange tours of the factory. We could make money from it,’ he said, thoughtful. ‘I brought it to Dad, but he wasn’t too keen.’
‘What were your other ideas?’ I asked. Mary had said he had some good ideas, which intrigued me. He’d given the impression he didn’t care at all about the business, but being here had opened my eyes to the reality that he had cared, only his father had shut him down time and time again.
‘An adventure park.’
‘Seriously? Like Disney World?’
‘Not that elaborate, but maybe a petting zoo, playgrounds, a restaurant, that kind of thing. It’s being done else
where, I know that, and I thought it would be good for the area as a whole.’
‘What did your dad say?’
His face darkened and he didn’t respond. He indicated to pull into the factory and Mr Basil’s – now Adam’s – car space, but there was a car already there.
‘What the hell?’
‘Whose car is that?’
‘I’ve absolutely no idea.’
He parked elsewhere and we made our way inside, Adam with a worried expression on his face as the weight of the world had once again landed on him and only him. I had a feeling I wasn’t going to get my tour when I saw what was happening in the office. A meeting was in progress. An entire table filled with men in suits, no sign of Mary, and a strange woman in a trouser suit holding court. The woman looked out of the boardroom window, saw Adam and excused herself from the room. All the heads followed her, then turned back to each other to utter quiet words in ears before she returned.
‘Ah, Adam, nice of you to join us.’
‘Lavinia,’ he said, shocked. ‘What are you doing here?’
They didn’t embrace, there was no warmth.
‘A little birdy told me our daddy died. Hadn’t you heard?’
He glared at her.
‘I’m running the company, Adam, what do you think I’m doing?’ she said firmly.
‘You live in Boston. You can’t run the company.’
‘We’re moving back. Maurice has agreed to face the music. He’s co-operating with the gardaí, or at least he’s going to. We’ve a few things to tie up first.’ She smiled tightly but it didn’t reach her eyes.
‘You mean you talked in him into taking the fall,’ he accused.
She looked at me. ‘Is this a new girl or has Maria finally changed her lipstick?’
He ignored the question. ‘What do you think you’re doing, Lavinia?’
‘Everyone knows Daddy wanted me in charge, so I’m in charge. I’m merely obeying his wishes. God knows you wouldn’t.’
‘He was leaving that job to me.’
‘Adam, let’s not have one of your dramas. I’m back now and everything is going to be under control, so you can toddle off to Dublin and get on with your life. Everyone knows you don’t want anything to do with the company.’
He looked at her coolly. ‘That’s where you’re wrong.’
And I felt the direction shift, and in that moment everything clicked into place and I knew this time I was on course.
That night we lay in the same bedroom, me in the large bed, Adam on the couch at my feet. I was holding my breath while I listened to his breathing, which was solid and rhythmic. I listened and hoped; hoped that he would keep breathing for a long time, that his heart would keep pumping. It was as if I was relishing the sound of him living. It became so relaxing to me that I finally let go and breathed easily. I wasn’t sure who fell asleep first, but the sound of his breathing near me carried me off delicately into a blissful sleep for the first time in a very long time.
21
How to Dig a Hole to the Other Side of the World
‘Our brother has gone to his place of rest in the peace of Christ. May the Lord now welcome him to the table of God’s children in Heaven. With faith and hope in eternal life, let us assist him with our prayers.’
The congregation were standing at the Basil plot in Terryglass – Tír Dhá Ghlas, meaning the land of the two streams – at the north-eastern shore where the River Shannon entered Lough Derg. The world and its wife had turned out for Dick Basil’s funeral; not because he was a popular man, no, they knew that wasn’t true, but because of what he had brought to the community, to the communities, to the country. With a factory employing more than eight hundred people there were many families wondering and worrying about their jobs and their children’s jobs now that Mr Basil had passed away. Hundreds of families survived on Basil pay cheques. He may have been a rude, arrogant man who took no prisoners and thought little of friendship, but he was a loyal man, a patriotic man who had been born and bred in North Tipperary. Though he travelled the world in his private jet, he always came home to the place he loved and did his best to help the people and its villages and towns. In the midst of a recession, with rising industrial, labour and energy costs, he’d held strong to keep production in this place he loved when the cost-effective option would have been to move it overseas. Now the future of the factory was in jeopardy. Dick Basil had his own personal reasons for keeping the business close, and locals feared that whoever came after him wouldn’t feel the same loyalty to the area, particularly if either of his children, Lavinia and Adam, who were standing by the graveside, both looking cold – and only one of them from the icy weather – took over. Two kids who had moved out of North Tipperary at the earliest opportunity; one who regularly graced the society pages hosting glamorous charity dos and lunches in designer dresses, the other out of public view, rescuing others in the Irish Coast Guard. One had a kindness, the other was selfish. They hoped for Adam but knew Lavinia was the business brain, though there had been accusations implicating her in a foul Ponzi scheme. Now it was rumoured her children had been enrolled in a nearby boarding school, adding fuel to the fire. And then there was their cousin Nigel, hiding among the black suits by the graveside, who since taking charge of Bartholomew’s had closed down the Irish factory and moved production to China. Everyone hoped that if he got involved and the two companies merged, as rumour suggested, he wouldn’t close down the Tipperary factory as well. They were keeping an eye on him. They watched everyone’s faces, looking for signs of what was to come, until it was time for the congregation to bow their heads for the rite of committal. Change was ahead, they all knew it and were readying themselves. It was imminent and it was inevitable.
I felt awkward, standing between Lavinia and Adam at the graveside. Lavinia was wearing large black bug-eyed glasses and a severe black coat that looked like something from the Victorian era. Her blonde hair was perfectly coloured and coiffed, her forehead unnaturally wrinkle free, her lips nicely plump and freshly injected. Her husband appeared significantly more aged than she. They were actually the same age, but recent problems and the looming threat of imprisonment had reduced him to a grey-haired, white-faced old man. The children stood beside him, ten and eight, their faces showing little sign of grief for their loving grandfather, because that man did not exist to them.
In the distance the cameras continued to snap. Click click click. Paparazzi and news photographers were competing for the best photo of the disgraced businessman who had returned to Ireland to bury his father-in-law. People like Lavinia frightened me. Cold, calculating, emotionally stunted, undefeatable, they were cockroaches skilled in survival, even if it meant destroying their adversaries in the process, even if those adversaries were their nearest and dearest. Their thinking was unnatural, their ‘love’ unnatural. Having seen her in action, I shared Adam’s conviction that his sister was involved in the Ponzi scheme, yet somehow she had convinced her husband to fall on his sword and absolve her. It was a calculated move that had nothing to do with guilt and penance and everything to do with the legal block on Lavinia receiving her inheritance until she’d been working at the company for ten years.
I had read my piece as Adam had asked and when the Mass came to an end Lavinia had lifted her chin and looked down her nose at me.
‘Lovely reading. Very moving,’ she’d said with a smirk, as if the very idea of her being moved by anything other than a court order amused her.
The funeral, the whole day, was nothing other than awkward for me. I’d been rudely ignored by some while others had offered sympathies for a loss I couldn’t feel. Old women with pinched, sympathetic faces had clasped my hands and squeezed them in an effort to convey their understanding of my pain, when the only pain I felt was in my fingers and knuckles as a result of their iron grip on me.
As the coffin was lowered into the ground I felt a shift in Adam’s bodyweight, I felt his shoulder shake, his hand go to his face. I knew he??
?d want this moment to himself but I couldn’t help it, I reached out and took his free hand in mine. He looked at me in surprise and I realised his eyes were completely dry. He was grinning from ear to ear, his hand trying to cover his smile. I looked at him in shock, my eyes widening, warning him to stop. People would see, cameras were pointed at him, but knowing this only made me want to laugh too. Laughing as his father’s coffin was being lowered into the ground and earth was tossed on top had to be the number one most inappropriate moment, but that just made the laughter all the harder to suppress.
‘What was that about?’ I asked as soon as the crowd began dispersing and we were free to make our way through the well-wishers to the car. There was no limousine for the family; Lavinia and Adam had no intention of sharing a car. As chief mourner, Lavinia rode in the front car with Maurice and the children, while Pat, silent as usual, drove Adam and me in his dad’s car, which was now nominally Adam’s though Lavinia had announced her intention to challenge that.
‘I’m sorry, it was just a thought that came into my head.’ He smiled again, a laugh bubbling under the surface. ‘I’m not going to pretend to be sad, Christine. I mean, I am genuinely sad that my father has passed away. It’s a sad day, a sad thing, but I’m not going to mope around, acting like my world has fallen apart. And I’m not going to apologise for that. Believe it or not, you can be a fully functioning human being after the death of a loved one.’
I was surprised by this display of strength. ‘So tell me what you found so funny as they lowered your father’s body into the earth for eternity?’
He bit his lip, and shook his head, the smile forming on his face again. ‘I was trying to remember him. I was trying to recall something moving, a moment we shared together. It’s a big deal, seeing your father lowered into the ground, I was trying to feel the loss, honour him … I thought having an appropriate memory would be fitting for the moment, respectful.’ He laughed again. ‘But all I could think about was the last time I spoke to him. The last time I saw him, you know, in the hospital.’
‘Of course I remember. I was there.’