Grace After Henry Read online

  ‘Where . . .? What?’ I shielded the sun from my eyes, moving my head back and forth in all directions. ‘Where did he go?’

  ‘Don’t worry, Grace, I set them right. Told them exactly how to get to Daniel O’Connell’s tomb.’

  ‘Not the tour group, the other man. There was another man . . .’

  I jogged a little further out of the gate, but could see neither the tour group nor the man.

  ‘Grace?’

  ‘Did you not see the tall man, Patsy? Broad shoulders? He was right here.’ The frustration started to prickle at my eyes. ‘Did you not see him?’

  ‘One of the Yanks?’

  ‘No! Not one of the Yanks. He was separate!’

  ‘I didn’t see anyone except the Yanks.’

  ‘I must have, I thought . . .’ I shook my head and swallowed hard. ‘Never mind.’ I strained my neck again.

  ‘It’s not him, Grace,’ said Patsy gently. ‘It’s never Henry.’

  I looked at Patsy. ‘I was certain.’

  He nodded in recognition. His smile was sympathetic.

  ‘Jesus.’ I threw myself down on the bench and put my head in my hands. ‘Jesus!’

  Patsy sat beside me.

  ‘I never know when it’s going to happen. Every time, it catches me off guard. I think I’m okay, I think it’s all fine, and then suddenly it’s like . . . I just lose all sense of logic.’ I took a couple of deep breaths before looking up. ‘Am I mad?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I know he’s six feet under ground,’ I said, afraid to raise my voice above a whisper. I was not going to cry over a ghost. ‘So why can’t I stop seeing him above it?’

  Patsy knitted his fingers together and stared out ahead of him. ‘It’s hope, Grace,’ he said finally. ‘That’s all it is. And I reckon hope is a good thing.’

  ‘Do you know how long we’ve been talking about this?’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Two hours, Grace. Two hours and almost an entire packet of biscuits spent hypothesising about what great parents we’d be.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with wanting the best for our unborn children. Multi-lingual, academically accomplished athletes with good manners and a modest disposition don’t just happen by accident, you know. One has to plan for these things.’

  ‘Well, that is very true. I must admit I’d never considered the benefits of a foreign nanny until you ran that particular plan by me. Although I don’t know how we’re going to afford her, this French wonder woman with ten years’ experience—’

  ‘At least ten years, Henry.’

  ‘At least ten years’ experience and an unbridled love of housework that just cannot be quashed.’

  ‘I used to spend my time daydreaming about men.’

  ‘Little off topic, but all right. Thank you for sharing.’

  ‘No wait, I’m not done. I used to daydream about men but now I’ve redistributed that mental space for this stuff. Like I used to watch movies and think, “I wonder how she got that body?”Now it’s like, “I wonder if I could afford those floors?” I think about what our kitchen will look like, Henry, and what kind of children we’ll have. I’ve sort of romanticised the whole juggle that comes with making that work. I have this gorgeous picture in my mind of Saturdays.’

  ‘Saturdays.’

  ‘Yeah. Up early, running here and there, bringing the kids to football and piano and drama, and then all of us eating lunch together. And you and me, in the evening when they’re all happily tucked up in bed. We’re sitting in our home, curled up on the couch, with wine maybe or popcorn, but just happy. I see this picture and it just makes me so . . . excited.’

  ‘You big sap, Grace McDonnell.’

  ‘I can’t help it.’

  ‘Come here and explain to me where this superhuman nanny will be while we’re smooching on the couch.’

  ‘Remind me of it, okay? When the day comes and we’re sitting there and the kids are in bed and it just feels like the end of another mad Saturday. Remind me that I wished for this.’

  ELEVEN

  Early Tuesday morning, I wandered into the park in search of Henry’s favourite tree. It took me a few minutes but eventually I found it, behind the deer, near the papal cross. It was gnarly and twisted with branches that went on for ever. Such was its weight, it had almost doubled over itself. Henry used to say it was sulking about not getting cast in The Lord of the Rings. It did look like an Ent. I took a few photographs with my phone and turned back towards home.

  There were enough joggers in the park to make you feel like you were under siege. What were they all running from? That was what I wanted to know. I walked on the grass just to stay out of their path, and the sound of the breeze in the leaves above made me jumpy. I kept thinking about what had happened at the graveyard and I was on constant alert. I didn’t trust my own mind. I was capable of seeing him anywhere.

  If I knew I was going mad, did that mean I was actually still sane?

  Henry was dead and buried. I repeated this to myself as I kicked my way back through the long grass. Most of his flesh had decayed or disintegrated; worms would be starting to digest it around now.

  I looked directly ahead and thought of the photographs. I needed to show that tree to the DIY man at the end of the road, I had a job for him. Only every time I passed his house he was out. No sign of the van on my way back from the park that morning either.

  So when I did call into my neighbour at noon, two Telly Bingo tickets in hand, it was mainly to get a phone number for him.

  ‘Did you bring biscuits?’ she demanded.

  I handed over the digestives and she inspected them with the hand not already holding the Telly Bingo tickets. She was checking the best-before date.

  ‘Pat said that was the brand you liked,’ I offered. Pat had also told me her name was Betty and that she lived alone. He delivered groceries to her house – or ‘messages’ as she called them – when the bags were too heavy. She had never once given him a tip.

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘So have you got a number for him?’ I asked.

  ‘Pat?’

  ‘No. The guy at the end of the road, the man with the van?’

  ‘Larry,’ she said.

  ‘Right. Have you got a phone number for Larry?’

  ‘What the feck would I have a number for? Doesn’t he live at the end of the street? Are you that lazy?’ Betty sighed, as if she’d been all chipper before she’d opened the front door but my arrival had gone and destroyed her faith in humanity. ‘It’s about to start. Get in quick or we’ll have missed the Home Phone Player. I hope you know how to play because I won’t be missing out just to explain it to you.’

  I had never played Telly Bingo, but I had the gist: it was bingo on television.

  ‘Don’t even have time to make tea first, for feck’s sake,’ she continued, closing the front door behind me.

  Her hallway was dark but I could make out some letters on the hall table, all of them addressed to Betty O’Toole. There were three framed photographs above the table: Pope John Paul II, John F. Kennedy and a man I presumed to be her husband.

  ‘Patrick,’ said Betty, shuffling into the sitting room. ‘God have mercy on his soul. Dead six years and I still expect the fire to be lit when I get home.’

  The man in the picture was a little younger than Betty and wearing a suit. He looked a lot cheerier than his widow.

  ‘Come on! It’s started! And it’s the feckin’ blonde one presenting it. Sure you never win anything when she’s doing it.

  ‘Come on, come on,’ she said. ‘Pick.’

  Betty was standing in the middle of a living room loaded with porcelain ornaments. Both her hands were behind her back. ‘Right or left,’ she said. ‘Which ticket do you want?’

  ‘Why can’t I see them?’

  ‘Because that’d be cheating,’ she retorted.

  ‘What? How? The numbers are allocated at random, and we don’t know what’s going to come up yet.’

/>   ‘Do you know, with all that lip, it’s a wonder there’s any room for the rest of your face.’

  I let out a heavy sigh. I just wanted to get a phone number for Larry. ‘Fine,’ I said and I poked her right arm.

  She gave a sly little snigger as she handed it over. ‘Good luck with that one.’

  I didn’t bother to argue.

  As it turned out, neither ticket was a winner. Betty blamed me and the stand-in presenter, who she only referred to as ‘The Blonde One’ even though her name appeared on the screen several times, for our lack of success.

  ‘Two little ducks, that’s twenty-two.’

  ‘Sigh.’

  ‘Coming up next, it’s forty-seven.’

  ‘Tut.’

  ‘Legs eleven – stairway to heaven.’

  ‘For feck’s sake!’

  ‘It’s down to chance,’ I finally snapped. But The Blonde One continued to call out every number that was not on our cards, and Betty continued to curse under her breath and throw daggers in my direction.

  ‘I am not unlucky.’

  ‘Didn’t your husband die on you recently?’ she said, hunched over her ticket. ‘You’re hardly a four-leaf clover.’

  I said nothing. Pointing out Henry had not been my husband seemed a bit beside the point.

  ‘It’s not all your fault,’ she finally relented. ‘It’s never any good with the Blonde One. What is she wearing at all? And the Angelus barely over.’

  I got up to put my crumpled ticket in the wastepaper bin when I spotted something moving from the window. I pulled back the net curtain and saw Larry’s van driving onto the road.

  ‘Larry’s here,’ I shouted. ‘I’ve got to go.’

  ‘What do you want from him anyway?’

  ‘A table.’ I grabbed my phone. ‘But I want him to use a particular kind of wood.’

  ‘Tell him I sent you. And that I need someone to clean out my gutters again.’

  ‘Right, bye.’

  ‘I’ll see you next Tuesday,’ she called after me. ‘Bring the same biscuits.’

  I didn’t stop to argue. I jogged down the road to see the van coming to a sudden stop in a manoeuvre that was more perpendicular than parallel parking. The driver disembarked. He was a little taller than me, dressed in stained overalls and holding a sandwich in his right hand. I introduced myself and showed him the pictures on my phone.

  ‘That’s an oak,’ said Larry, moving the thick ham sandwich closer to his mouth.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Positive.’

  ‘I know most of the trees in the Phoenix Park are oak but this one isn’t on the main thoroughfare.’

  ‘It’s an oak,’ he repeated.

  I studied the photograph of Henry’s favourite tree with its deformed branches and peculiar shape. ‘I thought it would be something more unusual. It’s . . . It’s someone’s favourite tree, you see.’

  ‘Ah.’ Larry took a bite. ‘It’s still an oak.’

  ‘Maybe look again?’ I said, turning the screen back towards him.

  ‘And . . . yep. Still an oak.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Larry gave me a smile as he continued to chew. Every time he took a bite, the butter bulged between the meat and bread. And every time he lowered the sandwich, it retreated. He was about my age, although his skin had that wind-beaten tan that made him seem a little older. His hands, given the dirt of his overalls, were remarkably clean.

  ‘So you want a dining table made of oak?’ He handed back my phone and I wiped the dust off it before putting it back in my pocket.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good,’ he said, butter advancing and retreating. ‘Any other type of wood would have been near impossible to source.’

  ‘So why’d you ask?’

  ‘It’s good for business.’

  ‘How long will it take?’ I asked.

  He finished a mouthful. ‘Depends. What are the measurements?’

  ‘Maybe . . . this wide?’ I spread my arms out. ‘And like two or three times as long?’

  Larry raised an eyebrow. The grin never left his face, I noticed, it just shrank and grew as required. ‘You got any concrete numbers? How wide is your door?’

  ‘I don’t . . . Well, I guess it’s the same as yours, right?’

  ‘Nope,’ he said. ‘This end of Aberdeen Street is older.’

  I turned towards my end of the road and realised the bricks were slightly darker.

  ‘I can call into you, get some measurements,’ he offered.

  ‘Okay, great.’ And I turned towards my house.

  ‘Not now,’ he said, still leaning against his gate. A small blob of butter fell onto his chest and was immediately lost in the dried plaster and paint of his overalls. ‘I’ve got a job on today. I just knocked home to get some tiles. I can call around Saturday, though.’

  ‘Do you have a sander I could use too?’ I said, remembering something Aoife had mentioned. ‘I’ve got some floors to do. And actually the boiler’s not heating properly, if you could take a look at that?’

  ‘I’d have to get a plumber to look at the boiler. But I have a sander you can use.’ The grin grew. ‘You know how to work it?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said with more indignation than it deserved. I hadn’t a clue how to work a sander. But Aoife had said I needed one so I presumed she knew what to do.

  ‘Okay. I’ll bring that around too.’

  ‘How much will I owe you?’

  ‘Ah,’ he said, squinting up at the sky. ‘We’ll sort it on Saturday.’

  ‘Great, thanks.’ And I started to walk back towards my own house.

  ‘Nice to meet you, neighbour!’ he called after me.

  And when I made it to the other end of the street and turned into my garden, he was still standing there, leaning against his gate, enjoying the sunshine and the last bites of his ham sandwich.

  TWELVE

  The days marched on and I went to the restaurant, worked on the house with Aoife and walked in the park. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was waiting. And I kept thinking I saw him.

  I fell asleep one night after reading right to the bookmark—

  ‘Have you had many brothers, Spirit?’

  ‘More than eighteen hundred,’ said the Ghost.

  ‘A tremendous family to provide for!’ muttered Scrooge.

  The Ghost of Christmas Present rose. ‘Touch my robe!’

  —and I woke in a sweat an hour later, convinced there was an army of Henrys marching through the Phoenix Park and that I was just sitting in the house, waiting for them.

  This was my reality now: waiting for someone who would never come. I went to see the wise men but half the time I was there I was looking out for the man who resembled Henry. I tried to tell myself that hadn’t been him either, but I couldn’t fully shake the feeling. It was like suddenly having to accept black as white. I knew that whenever I didn’t phone my mother for a couple of days, she’d get all maudlin and say how every young woman in skinny jeans reminded her of me. Was I experiencing the same thing? Was it just that I was craving him?

  I thought about what Patsy said, about it being hope. That made some sense.

  I’d taken to walking in the park a lot too, always ending up in the same spot.

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘Hey yourself!’

  ‘I love you!’

  ‘Well, that’s convenient. Because I love you too.’

  Most of the time I was fine, but then I’d wake in the middle of the night with a gasp, like it was the first breath I’d had in hours, like I was coming back from the dead.

  Larry called in to get measurements for the table and said he’d take a look at a bit of crumbling plasterboard while he was there. Aoife, who had been painting the kitchen when he arrived, took this as a challenge to her abilities.

  ‘You have a job,’ I said, placating her. ‘I can’t expect you to do everything.’

  ‘I just don’t want him to fleece you,’ she whispered back
, as Larry came into the kitchen.

  ‘That’s all done now,’ he said.

  ‘What did you say your name was?’

  ‘Larry.’

  Aoife gave him the kind of stare you wouldn’t get from the Special Branch. ‘Larry what?’

  ‘Larry Paul.’

  ‘You’re the chap who can’t parallel park?’ she said, arms folded. ‘Your van is an accident waiting to happen.’

  Larry responded with his signature smile before turning to me. ‘I’ve arranged for the plumber to come next week.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said.

  ‘And the sander’s in the hall. It’s forceful enough, so if you want me to do it I could call in some evening.’

  ‘Aoife said she knows how—’

  ‘I’ve been sanding since I was twelve,’ she said curtly. ‘Shocking as it might be.’

  ‘No.’ Larry marked something on the back of a receipt. ‘Not shocking at all. You look like a good, strong woman,’ he said, and I suppressed a grin.

  When he’d gone, Aoife gave me a look that said she was less than impressed.

  ‘I could do a lot of that stuff,’ she chided. ‘And my da would be happy to help.’

  ‘I don’t think he’s going to fleece me, Aoife.’

  ‘If a builder sees a garden path, he’ll say it needs paving and then he’ll lead you down it,’ she said. ‘Let me know how much he’s charging before you hand it over, will you?’

  ‘I will.’ I wouldn’t.

  ‘Larry Paul,’ Aoife mumbled, taking back up her brush and throwing some paint on the wall. ‘What sort of chancer has two first names?’

  I had started to open the cardboard boxes in the kitchen so I continued unpacking. There was a box of trousers that should have been upstairs. Not that I’d missed them. I’d been wearing the same two pairs of leggings for almost two months now.

  ‘Do you actually know how that sander works?’ I asked Aoife.

  ‘Yes. Well, I’m pretty sure.’