A Keeper(13)

‘Will you have a cup of tea?’

‘No thanks. I’m just after a cup of coffee.’

‘Ah, you will.’ Gillian heaved herself back out of the sofa. ‘I’m making one anyway. Jerry will be gasping.’ She made her way towards the kitchen and Elizabeth noticed the way her aunt leaned on the backs of chairs and rolled slightly from side to side as she walked. How many more years had Aunt Gillian got? A whole generation slipping away like a crumbling cliff face into the sea.

Left alone, she looked around the room. A new flat-screen TV was really the only noticeable change from when she had spent time here as a girl. The white horses were still galloping out of the surf in the large print hung above the brown and beige-tiled fireplace, electric bars now glowing orange where coals had once burned. A faded tapestry map of Ireland, which she was fairly sure her mother had made, was in a thin brown frame next to the corner cabinet where Aunt Gillian kept her Waterford crystal, so special that it wasn’t used even for special occasions.

A shadow fell across the room and turning she saw her Uncle Jerry in the doorway. Another hug, but this one not trying to compensate for the months and years of silence between them. He seemed smaller than he had been but the manly scent of hair oil and cigarettes was as strong as ever.

‘Jerry? Is that you?’ came Gillian’s voice from the kitchen. ‘Can you give me a hand with the tray?’

Like a well-trained dog, Jerry turned and walked away. His trousers hung loose around his legs and seemed too long. Elizabeth wondered if she should volunteer for tray duties, but then reminded herself that this elderly high-wire act probably happened on a daily basis.

The tea poured, the three of them sat and talked of the mundane. How retirement was going, what a great job Paul and Noelle were doing with the shop, the grandchildren growing so fast and there were even a few questions about Elizabeth’s life in New York and how her son – ‘Zach,’ she reminded them – was doing. Any mention of her marriage or Elliot was delicately avoided.

When the small talk had talked itself out, Elizabeth put down her cup and cleared her throat.

‘I wondered what either of you could tell me about Edward Foley?’

Gillian pursed her lips in thought and Jerry simply stared at his wife and rubbed his slick head of thinning hair because this was the sort of question that was more suited to her.

‘Foley? I don’t think I know a single Foley. Jerry?’ Her husband shrugged his shoulders and gave her a look that suggested she might as well have asked him to perform open heart surgery.

‘Why do you ask?’

‘My father? Edward Foley,’ Elizabeth prompted.

Cups were put down. ‘Oh, that Edward Foley,’ said Gillian slowly and deliberately. She threw a glance at her husband.

‘Your father,’ Jerry repeated unhelpfully.

‘What, well, I’m not sure, what sort of thing, what did you want to know?’ Her aunt seemed uncharacteristically flustered.

‘Well, it’s just that up in Convent Hill last night I found some letters, quite a few letters, from Edward Foley.’

‘Letters?’

‘Yes, from when they were courting. It’s just that I know so very little. Mammy never spoke about him.’

‘I don’t know if we should …’ Jerry began and turned to his wife for assistance.

‘Sure, Jerry, Patricia is gone, God rest her, what harm is there in talking about it now?’

‘Well, we know so little.’

‘What?’ Elizabeth just wanted answers.

‘Tell her, Jerry.’ Her aunt had granted permission.

‘Well, to be honest I don’t know a lot. Your mother was doing a line with this farmer down in Cork somewhere, we didn’t even know his name at the time, did we?’

‘No clue,’ his wife confirmed.

‘Anyway, she visited him down there a couple of times and then out of the blue, no word of warning, the next thing we hear she’s married. That’s right, isn’t it?’ He turned to his superior for confirmation.

‘Just a notice in the paper, wasn’t it, Jerry? No letter, nothing, not a note, not a phone call. It was all very peculiar.’ Gillian had taken over the story and her husband sat back, relieved of his duties.

‘We wrote to her of course, but nothing. Eventually, we did get a letter, didn’t we, Jerry? From the mother-in-law explaining that your mother wasn’t well but she would be sure to write when she felt better. I probably have it somewhere.’ She looked around as if she might notice it framed on the wall. ‘Anyway, about a year later, not even that—’

‘A few months,’ Jerry chimed in.

‘Well, again no warning, no phone call, your mother was back here and she had you wrapped in a shawl. We never asked any questions and you know your mother, she never apologised or explained. We were never any the wiser. Isn’t that right, Jerry?’ Vigorous nodding. Gillian picked up her cup to indicate the story was over.

‘You never asked her anything?’ Elizabeth was incredulous.

‘Well, you asked her if she was back for good, didn’t you, Jerry? Would she be staying? She said she would. And that was that. Now a few other people did ask her about the husband and apparently, he had died. I assume he must have left her some money though, because she never worked.’