Postscript(39)

‘You should soak it immediately in cold water for twenty-four hours. Wet the scorch mark with hydrogen peroxide, wet a clean white cloth with peroxide then place it over the scorched fabric and iron it lightly. Should get rid of the burn.’

‘Thank you.’ I have no intention of doing any of that. This T-shirt is now officially a bed T-shirt.

He notes that I don’t do anything he has suggested. He sighs. ‘I told Gabriel that it’s a very courageous, giving and valiant thing for you to do.’

I smile.

He lifts and removes the picture frame. ‘But that’s what I told him. I think you should tread carefully. Everyone seems to be afraid you’ll lose yourself, but you should consider it being him you lose as a result of doing it.’

I look at him, surprised by this rare display of emotional intelligence, and then realise conversations about me are being had behind my back. Everyone is afraid I’ll lose myself. And which is more important, finding myself or losing Gabriel?

The moment has passed and Richard’s looking at the wall.

It’s covered in deep, ugly holes from where the screws punctured the wall, the paint colour darker than the faded paint that surrounds it. It also seems that my photographer had made several other attempts to get a screw through and failed.

Six ugly scars in the surface.

I place the iron back in its holder and stand beside Richard.

‘That looks awful.’

‘The photographer appears to have struggled. He hit the lath a few times – the wooden strips behind the wall.’

There are four more frames to be removed; in our failure to cull mementos of our magnificent wedding day from the hundreds of options, they cover the entire alcove.

‘The holes need filler and then to be sanded and painted. Do you still have the same paint?’

‘No.’

‘Would you choose another paint for the wall?’

‘Then that would be different to all the other walls. We’d have to paint the two rooms.’

‘The two alcoves, maybe. Or you could wallpaper over it.’

I ruffle my nose. Too much effort for a house I’m selling for the new people to move in and repaint anyway. ‘The buyers are going to want to repaint anyway. Do you have filler in your toolbox?’

‘No, but I could get it this afternoon and come back tomorrow.’

‘I have a house viewing tonight.’

He leaves it up to me.

I look at the scars on my wall that had been hidden beneath our happy, smiling, wrinkle-free glowing faces. I sigh.

‘Can you put it back up?’

‘Indeed. But I suggest hanging it on one nail. I don’t trust drilling it back into the holes, and I don’t want to make new ones,’ he says, rubbing his fingers over the enormous gashes.

I give up on the ironing and watch as Richard hammers in a nail and then hangs the photo in the alcove, back where it was. Gerry and me, heads together, beaming. Posing by the sea on Portmarnock beach, across the road from the house I grew up in, beside the Links Hotel where we had our reception. Gazing into each other’s eyes. Mum and Dad beside us, Mum grinning, Dad caught mid-blink, the only one where he didn’t have his eyes closed. Gerry’s parents too, his mum’s stiff smile, his dad’s awkward feet. Sharon and Denise as bridesmaids. The same archetypal photos from so many wedding albums all around the world, and yet we thought we were special. We were special.

Richard steps back and surveys his work. ‘Holly, if you’re worried about balance, you could leave Gabriel’s photograph out on the mantelpiece. It would be considerably easier to make that amendment than the former.’

I appreciate his suggestion. He cares. ‘Me cuddling up to two different men, Richard; what would that say about me?’

I wasn’t really looking for an answer. It was implied in the question, but he surprises me.

He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his forefinger. ‘Love is a tenuous, rarefied thing. Something to be prized and cherished, displayed for all to see, not hidden away in a cupboard, or to feel ashamed of. The photographs of both men would perhaps say to others – not that you should bother your mind with those thoughts – that you are considerably fortunate to have the indubitable honour of safeguarding the love of not one, but two men in your heart.’

He goes to his knees to tidy the contents of his toolbox.

‘I have no idea who you are or what you’ve done to my brother, but thank you, strange being, for visiting us here and departing these wise words from the shell of his body.’ I hold out my hand to him, professional, businesslike. ‘Please be sure to return him to his original state before you leave.’

He gives me one of his rare smiles, his solemn face creasing, and shakes his head.

Later that night, when I’m in bed, I hear a smash. With Gabriel’s phone number ready to dial, terrified the house has been broken into, I grab my crutch, intending to use it as a weapon, and try to make my way quietly downstairs in the dark, which is difficult and turns out to be clumsy and noisy as the crutch whacks against the wooden bars of the banister. By the time I’ve reached the bottom of the staircase, I’m sure my sleuthing has been audible from the end of the street. Heart pounding, I flick the light switch in the living room.

Turns out the photographer knew what we didn’t. His flimsy string wasn’t strong enough to carry the weight of his heavy frame and glass. Gerry and I lie on the floor covered in broken glass. Gerry and I are all dolled up, me covered in layers of make-up, posed, with limbs placed at awkward but meaningful angles. My hand on his heart, ring on display, his eyes looking into mine, our family surrounding us. If I was to do it all again, I wouldn’t do that. We were more real than that, but it wasn’t captured.