When All Is Said(31)

I’m not sure what she expected of me. My head struggled with the various words I might offer, but I could settle on none. The door opened behind her and in came a waiter, again no one I knew, with two plates and laid them before us. A second waiter followed with a bottle of both red wine and Bushmills. He poured the red for Emily and the Bushmills for me, leaving the bottles down on the table. Emily smiled at them as she laid a napkin in her lap.

‘Thank you,’ she said beautifully, to the lads as they departed.

‘It’s steak.’ Her attention turned back to me as the rich aroma did a good job at enticing me. ‘I decided against a starter. I thought if I could hold you here for one course I’d be doing well. Please,’ she said, gesturing towards my plate.

I reached for my glass. And drank down a hefty portion, settling myself. I played with the food. I had little room given the scrambled egg Sadie had handed up to me not an hour previously. But it seemed rude not to have something so I cut into the steak. The blood ran from it, the meat near bouncing at the touch. It wasn’t charred to a crisp like you get in some places. I’ll never understand the Irish obsession with burning the goodness out of a good hunk of beef.

‘There’s something there for you,’ she said, breaking the silence. ‘Just this once I wanted you to see what you have done. Open it,’ she added, dabbing her mouth with the napkin and watching me.

I put down my fork, lifted my head briefly and reached for it. Her eager eyes followed my fingers as they fumbled to open it. At one stage I thought she might grab it from me, my progress obviously slower than she’d hoped. Finally, I pulled the contents free. It was a cheque.

‘Our best year yet, Mr Hannigan. That’s your share.’

I looked at her before replacing the cheque in its envelope and laid it down beside my plate. I moved uncomfortably in my chair and then sat back to consider it.

‘I thought you’d be happy. It’s a sizeable amount. I mean I’ve worked so hard and, well, I—’

‘Emily,’ I finally said, ‘this whole thing,’ I said gesturing to the room, ‘the investment, it was never about the money.’ I surprised myself. It was like I was listening to someone else, someone who genuinely didn’t care about wealth. I sat there wondering how I could ever explain the many truths of it all, the motivation behind what I had done ten years prior when I didn’t understand it fully myself. How would it have sounded?… I did it because you reminded me of a ghost.

‘It was the wedding,’ I said, instead. ‘If you’d shut up shop there and then, Kevin would’ve been left without a wedding. I’d never have heard the end of it. Probably would’ve ended up with a bloody marquee in the front garden.’

I smiled at her. She seemed to relax, buying the half-truth of it. She began to eat again and laughed a little, at what I wasn’t quite sure, as she worked through the deliciousness of everything on her plate. When we finished the meal, with which I had surprised myself, finishing the entire thing, I took the envelope and handed it back to her.

‘I don’t want it.’

She took it, considering me and this madness that had come over me. It didn’t seem right to take what had never been expected nor wanted.

‘But you can’t,’ she said, ‘you can’t not take it.’

The waiters arrived once more and her bewilderment disappeared and was replaced by a gracious smile. They refilled our glasses before taking the plates and leaving. She held the envelope in her hand like it was a bad school report she could not bear to open.

‘Listen,’ I said, ‘why don’t you invest that back into the place.’

She lowered it, looking baffled and a little sad. A daughter hurt when her father hasn’t given enough praise for a picture she’s worked so hard on. Well, what can I say, that sent alarm bells going in my head. I was afraid of what I might do or say just to appease her and make her smile that magnificent smile again. I needed to nip my vulnerability in the bud quick smart or God knows what I would’ve bought this time.

‘OK, the truth is someday I may need you to buy my share back,’ I lied, ‘so it would be best all round if you kept that, just in case,’ I said nodding at the cheque.

‘Why? Are you in trouble?’

‘I’m just saying, you never can tell what’s around that corner.’

I watched her and wondered was she swallowing any of this. She laid the cheque down where her plate had been, still looking at it like none of it made sense. I wanted to put her out of her misery, to offer her something she could do for me, to take the weight from her. I thought quickly and in the end this is what I asked:

‘There is something you could do for me, though. In recompense, if that’s what this is about.’ She lifted her head then in hopeful expectation that the puzzle I had presented could finally be solved. ‘You could tell me about why Thomas Dollard lost out on his inheritance because of that coin that went missing all those years ago.’

Her face dropped so quickly that it took me aback.

‘Seriously?’ she asked.

‘Well, yes,’ I said in return. ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you about it for years. None of it ever made sense to me.’

She breathed deeply. Took a long sip of her drink and held the glass in front of her for a bit, staring at the remains. I didn’t know where she or her smile had gone and I sat there wishing I’d never turned up at all. I’d been tempted to do just that, of course, to stay at home for once, with the feet up, beside my wife. Nothing seemed more inviting now than an episode of one of those soap operas she watched. I took a gulp of my own drink, still holding my tongue and waiting. After a while Emily put down hers and looked at the table edge, along which she ran her finger. Her nails a deep, rich purple.