‘In case I forget to say it to you,’ he says, his yellowing eyes looking into mine. ‘Try and make it up with your da, for goodness’ sake, David.’
I pay the barman and then look back at him.
‘Ah, Peter, I don’t know,’ I tell him, shaking my head. ‘I think that bridge has been well and truly burned by now.’
‘Never.’
‘I’m afraid so,’ I tell him. ‘He and I will never see eye to eye, so it’s probably for the best we stay apart. It’s more peaceful that way for all involved.’
But he isn’t letting it go so easily.
‘My God, I only wish I could have a chat with my old man again,’ he says, shaking his head as tears fill his eyes once more. ‘It sucks the guts from me every time I think of how stubborn we both were, when beneath it all, all we wanted to do was reach out and understand each other. Sometimes, the people we love most are the hardest to reach, but it’s so worth finding their hand when you do.’
I sit here and try to imagine how I’d feel about my own father should he ever fall into ill health, which I know is inevitable as the years tick by and he grows older and slower on his feet. I try to think if that will change the way I feel about him.
I think about my fancy family home in all its splendour,tucked away from the nearby town; I see my mother tiptoeing around inside it as she lives on the edge of her nerves and worries about her up-and-down health issues. I hear my father play from the pulpit the role of the great saviour and leader that everyone believes he is. I recall the good times before all that power and inheritance went to his head – times when he was just my dad who loved the simple things in life and not the great Reverend Bob Campbell who felt he had to rule the world.
I take a sip of my beer. As much as I respect and admire Peter’s efforts and intentions, I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one.
‘Go and enjoy your cigarette, Peter,’ I say, taking another gulp and enjoying the taste as it hits the back of my throat. ‘I’m really enjoying your company today, so let’s leave my dad out of it for now. He will always be my father, but he stopped being my dad a long time ago.’
MARCH 2012
20.
KATE
David has been on the phone to an estate agent for the past twenty minutes, and I can’t help but laugh hysterically as he communicates with me via rather dodgy sign language to describe the conversation that is going on between them.
We have been in deep negotiations recently about a three-bedroom detached residence with its own garden that has had us salivating for weeks now since we first viewed it, and as I walked around the house with its modern decor and cool white interiors, I dreamed of how I’d put my own stamp on it with a more countryside feel, almost cottage like. I’d buy an Aga and a Belfast sink, and I’d insist on a free-standing bath with claw feet, just as I’d always dreamed of one day having since I saw one in a hotel in Donegal as a very young child.
David is talking numbers now, and although we’ve agreed to place an offer based on the budget we’ve spent weeksworking out, the excitement of it all is something else as I listen in to him chatting to the estate agent about local amenities, future market value and a question about a plumbing issue that was flagged up the surveyor.
‘OK, I think we’re ready to make an offer,’ he says, giving me a ‘thumbs-up’ sign as I nod like a giddy pup and do a silent crazy dance in the kitchen of our little apartment. ‘Yes, we’d like to offer the asking price, please, and we’ll keep that offer on for seven days.’
He hangs up the phone and swings me around in delight, and just as we’re lost in celebration of taking this first big step, I get an awful sinking feeling that this is all too good to be true.
‘What’s wrong?’ David asks as he pours us both a cold sauvignon blanc straight from the fridge. ‘You look like you’re having second thoughts?’
It’s a bright spring Friday evening. We have a little balcony that shoots out of our kitchen, with just enough room for a round table and two chairs. I follow him out there to enjoy the sunshine.
‘No, no, it’s very much the opposite, David. I’m just so happy,’ I tell him as I take in my surroundings. ‘At last everything is going so well for us both. You are flying in your job and the students adore you, I’ve made some great friends here and I love the hospital and all the challenges it brings, and now it looks like we’re a step closer to owning our very first home together. I’m so happy.’
He lifts his glass and we clink our drinks together, then he picks up a bridal magazine that sits on the balcony table.
‘And then we have all this to look forward to,’ he says, pulling a funny face.
‘What’s the face for? Is it all a bit déjà vu for you?’ I ask him jokingly. ‘I keep forgetting you’ve been through all this before.’
‘Never with you,’ he says, leaning over for a kiss.
His phone rings from the kitchen and he goes to pick it up, leaving me again with an awful fear of everything going wrong. This is not like me, but lately I feel as though I can sense something really bad is going to happen to tip our whole world on its axis again, just when we are getting on so well.
It’s not like me to think like this, but for nights now I’ve been lying awake in bed or else letting thoughts cross my mind when I’m on a night shift that fill me with dread. I think of my mother and how I noticed when we were home a few weeks ago to check in on David’s mum that there were a lot of empty wine bottles stashed away under a blanket in the garden shed, as though she’d been hiding them from us all. I’ve been trying to pluck up the courage to address it with her, but I’m too afraid of what I’m going to hear. And then there’s Mo and the whole Sean McGee saga, as he sneaks around and bullies them all from both near and far yet still holds on to Mo with an iron grip. I know she’s been spellbound by him again while I havebeen away. He creeps me out, reminding me of darker times when my mother was in prison and when he lorded it over our community, and I shudder to think of the hold he might have on them now.
‘Why is he around so much?’ I asked my mum, who rolled her eyes in despair. ‘Is Mo seeing him again?’
‘Don’t mention it to her, for God’s sake, Kate,’ Mum had said to me. ‘There’s no talking to her and you’ll only end up annoying yourself more. You know what Mo’s like when it comes to him. He moulds her like putty and then leaves her out to dry, but it’s the way it’s always been. Without you here to keep her straight, she’ll just do her own thing when it comes to him.’
