PS If you change your mind please let me know.
Castle House,
Muirinish,
West Cork
11 January 1974
Dear Patricia,
Words can’t describe how wonderful it was to meet you yesterday. You are even lovelier in person and funny and kind.
Afterwards, on the drive home, I thought of all the things I wanted to ask you and what I wanted to say. Next time! I hope you want there to be a next time.
Sorry about your arrival. I was just so overcome by nerves. I wasn’t going to let you walk past without saying hello – just tongue-tied! I enjoyed it all – even the windy walk! I thought the lunch was good, though your chicken did look a bit dry, even if you said it wasn’t. You are too nice.
I hope you don’t think I’m being too forward if I say that my favourite part of the day was the goodbye kiss. I loved the feel of your lips. I wish I had held you for longer. I have been thinking about it ever since. When will I get to give you a hello kiss? I hope it is soon.
My mother says you are very welcome to come and visit us at Castle House. She will be there to supervise so there will be no chance of any scandal! She wonders would you like her to write to your brother to put his mind at rest?
I cannot lie. I haven’t felt this happy for a very long time.
Hoping to see you again soon,
Edward
*
Elizabeth put the pile of letters on the floor and leaned against the wall. Her father! Edward Foley. That name had been all she had ever known about her father. She picked the pages up again and her hand was trembling. The man her mother had never let her know had touched these bits of paper. She knew it was ridiculous but seeing the neat handwriting, the black ink soaked into the blue Basildon Bond, she felt connected to him. Had her mother put them here knowing that she would find them? Were they her gift to her from beyond the grave?
Elizabeth read on. Another visit to Cork. A weekend spent at Castle House. They became full-blown love letters. There was more kissing and even a blush-inducing reference to feeling her mother’s breasts. Maybe she hadn’t been meant to find them. Then at the bottom of the pile there was a page of the same fine writing paper but this one was marked with blue biro. Just five large letters spread across the sheet. They were scrawled in a thin spidery hand but Elizabeth was certain that the word they spelled out was SORRY.
THEN
1
The extra bowl mocked her. The neon strip of the kitchen light was reflected as a shiny toothless smile in the bottom of the dish and Patricia Keane resolved to leave her single life behind.
It had been almost five months since her elderly mother had died and still she found herself routinely setting the table for two or putting a pair of cups beside the kettle. Her mother had been ill for so long, barely there really, and yet her death had seemed so sudden when it finally came. The rasping breath of the old woman had become like the ticking of a clock or the rustle of leaves outside the window. You didn’t notice it till it stopped, and then the silence was as vast as it was shocking. Of course, the void had been quickly filled with the sound of people calling by with plates of sandwiches and strange women she hardly knew indulging in competitive cleaning in her kitchen. It was only after the funeral that the silence returned. But it was more than that. The rooms weren’t empty, they were filled with the absence of someone. The dead don’t vanish, they leave a negative of themselves stamped on the world. Patricia had read an article in the Reader’s Digest about how people who had an amputation still felt an itch in the severed limb. She imagined it must feel the same as when she shouted, ‘Tea, Mam?’ up the stairs, before remembering.
The idea of a Lonely Hearts advertisement hadn’t been hers. That brainwave belonged to her friend Rosemary O’Shea, the only other girl from her class in the convent to still be single. At the age of thirty-two Patricia and Rosemary were most definitely on the shelf. Everyone seemed to have found a man. Even greasy Annie and the unfortunate-looking Niamh Rourke, otherwise known as Beaky, had managed to march down the aisle. Rosemary was different. She seemed perfectly happy in her own company. She worked as a hairdresser in Buncarragh Beauty, though not even the kindest would have described her as the greatest ambassador for the salon. She had left her parents and four brothers out on the family farm and rented a small flat above Deasy’s the chemists. Last year she had even bought herself her very own second-hand Fiat. What use did she have for a man? Patricia didn’t really know why, but she trusted Rosemary’s judgement. She hadn’t seen that much more of the world but her certainty about things was infectious. It was Rosemary who had convinced her to cut her hair. The straight brown locks that she had worn at shoulder length for as long as she could remember had been turned into a short bob, with a side parting replacing her fringe. ‘You aren’t in the convent any more, you need hair for life,’ Rosemary had argued and somehow Patricia had known what her friend had meant. It was also Rosemary who had talked her out of shapeless pinafores. ‘You’re so lucky – you have a waist,’ she had said, indicating her own fuller figure. ‘Show it off!’ A pile of Simplicity patterns had been borrowed and Patricia had dusted off her mother’s sewing machine to make herself a few skirts that she had to admit did suit her. Rosemary made her feel as if life was possible, that you didn’t have to simply accept your fate. It was a lesson that Patricia badly needed.