A Keeper(5)
Dear Patricia,
Thank you very much for your letter. I was very happy when I got it. Thank you also for your photograph. You are as lovely as I had imagined. Well guessed about my photo – yes, it was taken at a steam rally in Upton!
My sympathies for the loss of your mother. It must be very hard for you especially with Christmas coming. It is a shame your brother has not been more help to you. I didn’t mention in my last letter but I live with my mother. Don’t worry! If I find a wife we have planning permission for a bungalow so you would be the lady of the house! Not that I’m counting my chickens of course!
I am very happy that you want to meet up in the new year. My mother says the Metropole Hotel do a nice carvery and it is almost beside the station. Does that sound suitable? To tell you the truth I am very nervous about it and I hope I’m not too quiet for you.
I hope you have a good Christmas and you aren’t too sad.
With every good wish,
Edward
Castle House,
Muirinish,
West Cork
3 January 1974
Dear Patricia,
Thank you for your card. Was the town on the front Buncarragh? My mother says thank you as well.
I am very excited about next week. I’ll meet you off the train. Hopefully we will recognise each other from our photographs but just in case I’ll be standing by the Cork Examiner kiosk just by the entrance. I’ll be wearing a tweed jacket, because to be honest I only have the one decent jacket!
It’ll be a bit early for the lunch but maybe if the weather isn’t too brutal we could go for a walk along the river first. If I am a bit quiet please don’t think it is because I don’t like you. I’m just not sure how I will be with the nerves.
See you on the 10th – oh and if your train is delayed don’t worry, I will wait.
With every good wish,
Edward
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.