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4
For the first time in her life, Iris looked around the little church and thought there was something consoling about it. It seemed like everything else in Ballycove: nothing here had changed. Perhaps there had been a lick of paint, the walls were certainly a shade whiter than she remembered from her youth, and overhead the beams seemed blacker, stouter, lower. The pews shone too, as if an army of local women had spent all night polishing them. But apart from the surface trappings, everything was the same. A lingering scent of beeswax was a welcome relief to Nola’s sickly sweet perfume, which had wafted before and behind her this morning. Iris wanted to ask if she’d fallen into the bottle, but she knew that even the tiniest remark could have them all at each other’s throats.
‘So sorry for your loss.’ Anonymous locals shook her hand as she knelt and pretended to pray to a God she’d all but forgotten about. A couple who might have once been familiar told her what a decent man they’d known her father to be and far from being a consolation, it actually made her sad that she hadn’t appreciated him more when she had the chance.
Iris took a deep breath and sat back in her pew. She tried to pray, but it was no good. All she could do was sit here, letting the organ music wash over her. ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee’. It was meant to be consoling, but she suspected her father would have preferred ‘When the Saints Go Marching In’.
And then, the ceremony began, with the organ groaning out the final note and the ringing of a bell somewhere out of sight. The priest’s words washed over her. At the end, she could only remember fragments – but she may have just imagined those.A good man. A community man. A happy, if tragically short marriage. A family to be proud of.Seriously?
Iris’s footsteps, in line with her sisters, tapped out a thin staccato as they followed the rubber-soled men who had shouldered their father’s coffin. She couldn’t help but remember the day her father had walked her up this aisle – everything seemed to be full of possibility then.
Later, after what felt like one of the longest days of her life, Iris waited for the kettle to boil. She wanted a proper drink, but she was making do with tea for now. She had thought that if she could just get through the next few days, she could probably survive anything.
It was turning out to be even harder than she’d expected. It was obvious they were all on their best behaviour, but still the tension simmered too close to the surface to ever really relax. She felt it now, crawling along her spine, wrenching up her muscles, so when she spoke her voice was tighter, her words measured and sparse. She could see the others were feeling it too. Georgie, once generous and garrulous, had become measured and clipped, and Iris almost felt as if being in the same room as her was like waiting for a volcano to erupt. On the other hand, Nola, far from being the directionless dreamer who had once got on Iris’s nerves, had become withdrawn and sensitive to any remark about her life in London. At least it looked as if she was having some success. Iris supposed that brought its own pressures, but she could do without Nola taking it out on her.
Taking a mug from the cupboard, Iris automatically ran her finger round the inside rim, checking for spiders or cobwebs – just in case. She had a feeling that her father only used one or two mugs regularly. God, this place. She found her gaze travelling about the kitchen now she had it to herself for once. Nothing had changed here, and if she closed her eyes, she could imagine her mother standing in this very spot, making tea for her father or just gazing out the window at what had then been a flourishing kitchen garden beyond. She ran her finger along the cold glass of the window and it sent a shiver of anguish through her – regret? Possibly. And now, when Iris looked out that same window, she realised everything had changed. She sighed, weary of it all and knowing that there was more to endure yet.
Iris thought back on the funeral with a serene kind of sadness. It had gone off without a hitch. Their father had planned it down to the final psalm, with readers and pall-bearers picked out in advance. It was all taken care of so his daughters could turn up and leave if that was all they wished to do. They had stood for longer than he would have expected at his grave, trying to process the strange reality of being there together.
And there was more to come. A funeral lunch and then, in a day or two, the reading of his will. She hoped that Georgie wouldn’t be awkward about things. Her father would not have wanted them falling out any more than they already had – probably the worst way they’d all managed to let him down.
Iris would miss him. Although she felt she had no right to think that; after all, she hadn’t been back here in a decade. But she now knew, with a certainty that had never been there before, that she could have come back here to get away from the mess she’d made of things in London. Gerald Delahaye had been a decent man and he would have welcomed her back like the prodigal son – well, daughter –and given her time to heal.
What a pity she hadn’t realised it just a little sooner. She took her tea and moved towards the drawing room. At least there, she thought, she might be reminded of happier times. Unfortunately, her sisters seemed to have had the same thought. Georgie was sitting on one chair, eyes closed, and Nola was curled up on the other.
‘And then there were three,’ Georgie murmured, so there was no turning on her heels and pretending she’d been about to go upstairs.
Iris sighed, kicking off high heels that had grown too tight over the course of the day. Why on earth did they all wear dressy shoes to stand at gravesides when a solid pair of walkers would have been far more practical? She sunk gratefully into the deep sofa and stretched out her aching legs.
‘It seems unreal.’ Georgie looked around the room. She looked sapped, as if the grief of the last few days had wrung her out.
‘It’s being here, isn’t it? Maybe when we all get back to London, it’ll feel more… I don’t know…’
‘Oh, God. London,’ Nola moaned longingly, and Iris realised that she was the only one among them who was in no rush to go anywhere because, at this stage, there was nowhere else that really felt like home.
‘Well, don’t book your flight just yet,’ Georgie said drily. ‘Dad would want us all here for the reading of his will. I spoke to Stephen and he’ll be up to visit in a day or so and we can make some plans about it from there.’ Stephen Leather was her father’s solicitor and the executor of his will. It didn’t matter that he should have retired a decade earlier – they had always been friends and Stephen had been there to the very end.
‘It seems he’s thought of everything,’ Nola murmured.
‘In the end, he cared that everything was taken care of for us. I think he wanted to make sure that everything went off without a hitch, you know, in case…’ Georgie didn’t need to finish the thought.In case they let him down again with the ongoing feud that had almost broken his heart and wrecked the centenary celebrations a decade ago.The same old resentments had bubbled over and they were still hanging between them, like old ghosts waiting to come out again. They probably always would, Iris realised sadly. ‘He very much wanted us to have good lives and for this to be… as easy as possible on each of us…’ Georgie stopped for a moment, distracted by the unmistakable creak of the porch door.
Who on earth could be calling at this hour? The sisters glanced at each other, puzzled and slightly unnerved.
‘Hello?’ A deep voice came from the hall. ‘Is anyone home?’
‘In here,’ Iris called out and jumped up to open the door for Robert English. He looked different to when she’d seen him earlier at her father’s funeral. He had changed from the formal suit he’d worn as one of her father’s pall-bearers and was dressed to go walking instead. He had the air of a man who walked fast and stood at intervals to enjoy the scenery around him.
‘Sorry.’ He glanced at each of them and nodded his greetings. ‘Sorry, I don’t want to intrude, but I have this for you.’ He handed a box and card to Georgie, who was nearest to him.
‘A gift?’ she said confused and looking at it for a moment.
‘Yes. But not from me, I’m afraid. Your father left instructions that I was to bring this to you on the evening he was buried. It’s for all three of you. You’re to open it together and raise a glass to the future. I think it’s probably all in the note.’ He smiled at each of them and then turned back towards the door.
‘Won’t you join us?’ Nola asked. She’d tucked her feet beneath her on the armchair and was peering over the deep cushions, and Iris tutted. It seemed even in grief, she couldn’t help batting her eyelashes at any man who came her way.
‘Not tonight. I’m under strict orders from your father. It’s a very special gift, just for you three,’ he said. And then he was gone, pulling closed the porch door with a loud bang, and it felt as if the house echoed back a whole new sort of emptiness now it was just the three of them again.
*
