A Gift to You Read online

  When she’d found out that she was pregnant after two years of marriage she’d been over the moon.

  ‘That’s nice,’ Jim said when she’d told him the news.

  ‘Oh, Jim! Can’t you be a bit more enthusiastic! We’re going to have a baby!’ She’d been desperately disappointed at his reaction.

  ‘I am enthusiastic. It’s good. I’m glad for you that you’re having the baby,’ he’d replied, leaving the unspoken words, it will give you something to keep you occupied and you won’t have to be bothering me hanging in the air between them.

  Her daughter, Beth was the most placid, beautiful baby and she had become the focus of Irene’s attention, a situation that suited her taciturn husband down to the ground. He was as emotionally guarded with Beth as he was with Irene and any hopes she’d had that their little daughter would break down his reserve soon faded as he left the rearing of her to his wife, and life went on as before, only now, Irene gave the love she’d had for her husband to her blonde little beauty and this time it was returned in full.

  Irene felt sad listening to the rain and wind, as the heat from the electric blanket warmed her and the sound of car engines starting signalled the exodus of the Close’s inhabitants to their jobs in the city. Jim should never have married. He wasn’t cut out to be in a relationship. He had controlled her for a long time by withholding his love and affection, until she’d wearied of the game and ceased to play it. Resentment had turned to indifference. She’d stopped banging her head against the brick wall of his emotional selfishness. If it weren’t for Beth she’d have been a very lonely woman.

  When her daughter had left home at the age of eighteen to go and work in Dublin, Irene was bereft. She missed her bright, sparky daughter and longed for her infrequent visits home. Beth married a lovely man who had no trouble telling her that he loved her, and they bought a beautiful home in Blackrock after the birth of their first child. Irene visited frequently.

  She adored Dublin. It was a whole new world and she would sally forth into the city and spent the day shopping and exploring to her heart’s content. Jim never minded her sorties to the big smoke. She knew quite well that he was as happy as Larry on his own once she left a few meals prepared for him. He would rarely accompany her, although he got on well with Derek, Beth’s husband.

  Jim had died as he had lived, quietly, unobtrusively, collapsing in his beloved shed three days before their fiftieth wedding anniversary, sanding down a piece of wood for a cabinet that he was making. She had given up asking him to slow down and retire. But even though he promised he would, he was in thrall to his work and even in his mid-seventies he had worked in his shed every day except Sunday. She had found him slumped over his workbench, a small smile curving his mouth. It had been so shocking and unexpected that Irene couldn’t take it in. It had been the grace of God that her best friend, Eileen, happened to cycle past just as she ran out onto the road to run the quarter mile to her nearest neighbour. Eileen had phoned the doctor and the priest and taken charge, while Irene went back to the shed to Jim, to wait for the undertaker to arrive.

  As she’d sat with his body when he was waked, her strongest emotion was anger. They could have had such a lovely life together if only he’d nurtured the love that had been there at the beginning. Instead, he’d let it fade until there was nothing but a wasted lifetime of resentment and regrets on her side and God only knew what on his, because she surely did not know. Her bitterness was stronger than her grief in those early months of widowhood and she had cursed Jim and God for her misery.

  ‘You can come and live with us if you like, Mam,’ Beth had offered kindly in the weeks following Jim’s death. Irene was tempted. But she valued her independence and she didn’t want to be a nuisance to her daughter. There was nothing in the world to stop her moving up to Dublin and buying a place of her own, though, she thought with mounting excitement. She would be close to her daughter and beloved grandchildren but she wouldn’t be a burden to them. Jim had left her very well provided for. He’d inherited his parent’s farm and leased it to a local farmer. It was worth a lot of money and it was hers now, as was their own house and the acre of land that it stood on. In fact she was a relatively wealthy woman now at the age of seventy-four.

  Over the following months, she and Beth had scoured the property pages and estate agents’ windows looking for just the right place. And then, one day, she’d seen an advertisement for a small, exclusive, housing development off the Strand Road in Sandymount. Eight detached houses, a mixture of two-storey and dormer bungalows. Sea View Close. It was perfect. Five minutes from the Dart. Across the road from the sea front, yet in off the main street, and protected from the noise of the unremitting pounding of the traffic. Best of all, Beth’s house was just a mile or so up the road.

  Irene had bought from the plans. A two-bedroomed dormer, with a fitted kitchen and dining room that led into a conservatory which opened onto a patio and small private south-west-facing garden.

  The sitting room to the front of the house looked big and open, even on the plans, compared to the small square parlour of her home in Waterford. The main bedroom was ensuite, an undreamt of luxury.

  Beth was as excited as she was and they read magazines on decor and interior design and visited fabric and furnishing shops, changing colour schemes every second day. Over the months that followed, as Irene put the farm and her house on the market, she travelled regularly to Dublin to see the progress of her dream home.

  Her whole life was changing completely and she felt exhilarated and optimistic as she was carried along on the tide of excitement that swept through her the first time she put the key into her new front door. The house smelt so fresh and new, even if outside was still a mucky, dusty building site.

  She had the downstairs rooms painted a warm, buttermilk yellow and as the sunlight poured in through the big bay window of the sitting room, gleaming on the shiny polished maple floor, Irene felt a rare surge of happiness. This was going to be a house of joy, she decided. A bright, light happy home for her. It was time to let go of all the unhappiness of the past and start afresh. She was still hale, hearty and sprightly, she had a few good years left, and she would make the most of them.

  She had stood at Jim’s grave and said firmly, ‘I’m going up to be with Beth and the children, there’s nothing to keep me here. You were happy to be left alone when you were alive, and now that you’re gone I’m sure it won’t bother you one bit not to have me here. I’m paying Gerry Reilly a stipend to maintain the grave. I haven’t decided yet whether to join you or be buried in Dublin when my time comes. Rest in Peace, Jim.’ She emphasized the ‘peace’ her tone tinged with bitterness as she turned on her heel and marched out of the small, well-tended graveyard, her shoes crunching on the gravel path, breaking the ethereal silence. She wondered if he had heard her. Wondered how he would feel at her threat to be buried in Dublin. He had told her once that his father had proposed to his mother not by asking her to marry him but by asking if she would ‘like to be buried with his people’. It was no wonder, Irene supposed, that Jim hadn’t a romantic bone in his body if that was what he’d been reared to. Well, eternity was a long time to be in a grave and she wanted to be at peace. There had been no peace in her marriage, but there would be peace and a happiness of sorts in Dublin, she assured herself as she closed the iron gate of the graveyard with a resounding, defiant, clang.

  And she had been happy since moving to Dublin, Irene reflected, as she lay, drowsy and warm, in her bed. Her three grandchildren were the joy of her life, her bond with her daughter could not be stronger, her son-in-law was a kind man, and she bloomed in the shelter of their love. She had recently joined the local active retirement group and she was on nodding terms with all her new neighbours. It was a good life, Irene acknowledged, as her eyes closed and she fell into a dreamless, contented snooze as thunder rumbled out to sea and great flickers of lightening streaked the leaden horizon.

  ‘I’ll stay put today, pet,�
� Irene said to her daughter on the phone as the Angelus bell rang at midday. She was sitting at the breakfast counter eating scrambled eggs on toast, with a few fried mushrooms and tomatoes on the side, watching the rain sluice down the French doors that led out to the patio.

  ‘I’ll pop in with the girls on the way home from piano practice,’ Beth said kindly.

  ‘Right then, I’ll bake a cream sponge for us and we’ll have a cuppa.’ Irene said happily.

  ‘Mam, I’ve put on half a stone since you came to live in Dublin,’ Beth protested, laughing.

  ‘Good, you were too scrawny, miss,’ her mother retorted as the doorbell rang. ‘There’s a ring at the door. I’ll see you later,’ she said, hopping down off the stool and hanging up.

  ‘A parcel for you, ma’am. Sign here, please,’ a young man said, thrusting a docket at her, impatient to be gone. So different from home, she thought, remembering how the chat would be had at the back door when the postman called. Dublin was home now, she chided herself, closing the door and wondering who would be sending her something in a thick padded envelope that wouldn’t fit in her narrow letterbox. She saw Denis Finlay, her solicitor, named as the sender and, perplexed, she opened the large brown envelope and drew out a bubble-wrapped parcel and a letter:

  Dear Mrs O’Shaughnessy,

  The new owner who purchased your house found this down behind Jim’s workbench in the shed and he asked me to forward it on to you.

  I hope you’ve settled in well in your new home in Dublin.

  Kind regards,

  Denis.

  She unwrapped the parcel and gave a little gasp when she saw the perfectly carved figures of an angel enfolding a woman and a man in his embrace. It was smooth and polished, the grain of the wood rich and textured as she studied it, stunned. Her breathing quickened as she turned it upside down and saw that Jim had inscribed the base:

  To My Dear Wife, Irene, on our Wedding Anniversary. The Angel of Love has held my love for you always and will hold it for all eternity. Love Jim.

  ‘Oh, Jim, Jim!’ Irene cried, as an ache twisted her heart and she held the carving close. ‘Oh, Jim, you did love me in spite of the distance between us,’ she wept, filled with sadness, regret and a strange kind of joy.

  She walked back into the kitchen and sat down beside the stove, the flames dancing orange and yellow around the logs burning in the grate, brightening the gloom of the winter’s day.

  Her husband had not been gifted with eloquence and she had never been able to accept that, Irene thought with an unwelcome deep sense of shame. The more she’d nagged him, the more he’d withdrawn; she was as much to blame as he was. She stood up and went to a drawer in her dresser and took a tissue-wrapped square from underneath a pile of folded tea towels. She unwrapped the layers of tissue and gazed at her wedding photo. They had been married on Valentine’s Day and the crocuses and snowdrops had lined the pathway to the little country church, great splashes of colour after the gloom of winter. They’d been married surrounded by family and friends and had a wedding breakfast in the local hotel before getting the train to Dublin to spend their honeymoon in the Gresham Hotel. Three days of absolute joy and happiness as she and her new husband ravished each other after all the months of pent-up longing. She studied the photo of herself and Jim, beaming with delight, and remembered how happy she had been on that special day of love. Getting married on St Valentine’s Day had been a good omen, she’d felt. Irene sighed. She hadn’t displayed the photograph in her new home, unwilling to be reminded of the past.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jim,’ she murmured, tenderly polishing the glass until it sparkled. She placed it gently on the mantle, and stood the angel carving beside it. ‘And I’ll be buried with your people,’ she said to her husband’s image, and felt a great relief as the angel seemed to smile at her and a peace and contentment took the place of the anger and resentment that had blighted her life for so long.

  A Woman in Her Prime

  ‘Mummy, my bottom pirped,’ seven-year-old Andrew Finn announced matter-of-factly, as he, his mother and his elder sister stood on the coast road at Clearwater Bay, talking to a glamorous blonde who was leaning nonchalantly against her BMW coupé, twirling her keys.

  ‘Andrew!’ exclaimed Ella Finn glaring at her son.

  ‘But it did, Mum, it went pirp, pirp, pirp,’ he informed her gleefully.

  Ella groaned silently as she noted a flicker of distaste trying to create a wrinkle across Paula Nolan’s Botoxed forehead.

  ‘I guess I should be going,’ the blonde said crisply. ‘I’ll see you at the bash?’ One perfectly plucked eyebrow arched as she paused from the key twirling momentarily.

  ‘Sure,’ Ella agreed, glad the encounter was over.

  ‘Is Maggie coming to the Lifeboat Fundraiser?’

  ‘As far as I know.’

  ‘And . . . er . . . is Daniel coming, or will he be milking cows?’ The tone was acerbic.

  ‘It was his dad that used to have cattle. We own a stables,’ Ella murmured, thinking, You haven’t changed, you sarky mare.

  ‘Of course. I’d forgotten. My mother regales me with the village gossip when I phone but I never remember any of it.’

  ‘Really?’ Ella smiled sweetly as a breeze blew her copper curls around her face. ‘I suppose the goings-on of us boggers wouldn’t be of the slightest interest to a City Slicker like you. Anyway I’d love to stop and chat but Daniel’s meeting us for lunch so we must get our skates on.’

  ‘We’re having a picnic with my dad; do you want to come?’ Andrew invited gaily.

  Oh, hell! Ella thought. She didn’t want her husband’s ex-girlfriend joining them for lunch, now or ever.

  ‘I don’t think Paula’s quite dressed for the beach; it would be a bit hard going down the ninety-nine steps in those high heels,’ she pointed out to her kind-hearted son.

  ‘What happens if it rains? Does your car get flooded?’ Andrew enquired, staring at the convertible.

  ‘Err . . . no, I put the roof up.’ Paula gave him a supercilious glance.

  ‘Do you have to build it?’ he persisted.

  ‘No, you press a—’

  ‘Andrew, we have to go. Daddy will explain it to you,’ Ella said firmly.

  ‘Give Daniel my regards. I expect I’ll get to see him; I’m here for a few days,’ Paula purred silkily.

  ‘I’m sure he’ll be delighted to see you.’ Ella kept her tone neutral, as a burst of jealousy swept through her. She wanted to smack the cold-eyed woman in front of her. How Daniel had ever had a relationship with Paula was a mystery to her. ‘Bye.’

  ‘Cheers,’ drawled Paula as she slid gracefully into the cream leather interior of her sports car. She started the engine and roared off with a nonchalant wave.

  ‘Cool car, Mum. Let’s tell Daddy about it.’ Andrew grinned up at her, the sprinkling of freckles across his nose so endearing she wanted to lift him up in her arms and smother him in hugs and kisses. There would have been uproar had she done so. Andrew did not care to be kissed in public any more and she had to restrain her urges to cuddle him until bedtime, when he endured them . . . and, she hoped, secretly enjoyed them. But he wouldn’t admit it; he was a ‘big boy’ now was his constant refrain.

  ‘Let’s go and meet Dad.’ Ella smiled down at him. ‘Lead on Macduff.’

  They walked along the winding path until they came to the ninety-nine steps that led down to a golden slice of beach that curved in the direction of a small pier further on, where fishing boats danced up and down on the rippling, glittering sea and nets and lobster pots lay strung along the quay, and old anchors lay rusting in the sun. Gulls wheeled and circled and swooped and dived. cawing raucously. The chugging and throbbing of a boat’s engine added to the seaside cacophony, melodic on the breeze.

  She saw her husband waving and her heart lifted. She loved Daniel Finn with all her heart and always had done, even as a spotty teenager, and even through the heart-stinging days when he’d romanced the beautiful Pa
ula and then been left high and dry when she’d shaken the dust of Clearwater Bay off her stilettos and headed for the bright lights of New York.

  Ella had gone to work in Dublin and share a flat with her best friend, Maggie; and one weekend, when she’d come back home for the annual Lifeboat Fundraiser Dance and Barbecue, Daniel had asked her to dance as the evening drew to a close. To her surprise, she’d found him very easy to talk to. He’d confided that he was thinking of buying land to open a stables and she’d offered to help out in the yard on the weekends she was home. She was mad about horses and mad about Daniel. And soon, it became clear that he was equally keen on her. They’d married two years later and built up a livery and horse-riding business, which was now thriving.

  Paula had come back to Dublin the previous year and had secured herself a top-notch job in PR, but she’d never come back to Clearwater Bay to visit, until now.

  How chic and sophisticated she’d looked in her sports coupé, her taupe linen trousers crisp and sharply creased, her cream, figure-hugging vest showing off her toned, sculpted body.

  Ella sighed as she followed her children down the wooden steps. Typical of her luck to be caught in her faded-denim shorts and the black V-top that was speckled with white paint. It had splashed on her earlier when she’d been whitewashing the yard. She hadn’t even a slick of lipstick on, she thought, glumly, as she remembered Paula’s full, glistening lips. Her husband waved and loped towards them in his rangy, long-legged stride.

  ‘Come on, dear woman, what vitals have you got for your starving hunter-gatherer?’ Daniel planted a firm kiss on her unlipsticked lips, before kissing their daughter, Sally, and swinging Andrew up in the air.

  ‘Am I your dear woman?’ She looked up at him, drinking in the sight of him, so lean and rugged, his blue eyes crinkling up in the most attractive way when he smiled, his teeth white and even against his tanned weather-beaten face.