“Nothing fancy,” he said as starlings and thrush sang in full throttle overhead, “Just a small humanist ceremony at the house.”
“What? No priests or holy water or white christening gowns?”
He smiled. “Afraid not.”
“Heathen.” I stood up, brushed down my jeans and beamed at him. “Thank you,” I said, “I’d be honoured.”
As we walked back through the tree-lined avenues to the car, Dan said he was happy to see Tess among her own in the Irish part of the cemetery. The family plot was situated beside a copse of birch trees. Tess, Mikey and Dad had Connollys, McGraths and Dunleavys for neighbours and the surrounding graves were covered in the tricolour and Mayo and Galway football flags. Dan said she would have felt at home. Though I didn’t say so, I wasn’t so sure. I didn’t think Tess had thought of Ireland as home for a very long time. If anything her country had exiled her in shame and made her homeless.
People were starting to move outside into the garden as more guests arrived. I filled up my glass and joined Timothy who was sitting by the window at the far end of the room. He looked a little lonely and out of place. Elegant in a cream linen suit and grey silk shirt, he stood out among the crusties like an orchid in a bed of weeds. Stefano was in Italy at a family funeral and couldn’t make it.
The morning had not been kind to Tim. His face was pale and puffy-eyed. He’d asked me to take him to the grave and once there he’d wept at length. He’d sat in silence on the drive back. I suspected the realisation of what had happened to Tess all those years ago was hitting home. He was such a private man, I didn’t like to probe. But I did know that he was a good man and full of remorse.
I pulled up a chair next to him as shouts erupted from the garden. Younger children were flinging themselves across the bouncy castle and my nephew Archie and his friends were playing a game of rugby. Timothy and I turned to watch. Rosy-cheeked and tousled hair flying, as Archie darted across the lawn with the ball I thought of Mikey.
“I hear he’s captain of the school team.” I said.
Tim nodded, his face brightening as it always did at any mention of Archie. They were incredibly close. At the cemetery the day he asked me to be godmother, Dan told me he could never be estranged from Tim.
“It would kill him,” he said. “Archie too. They adore one another.”
Archie touched the ball down on the lawn and raised his arms in victory.
“Did I ever tell you Mikey played rugby for the England Under-21’s once.” I said.
Tim turned and looked at me.
“Are you serious?”
“Oh yes. He was a rising star. Then he had an accident and never played again. It broke him. Tess once asked him if he’d ever play for Ireland but he wasn’t having any of it. He said he was English. That he was no Tony Cascarino.”
Tim laughed. “Tony Cascarino. The fake Irishman.” He glanced out of the window “You never know. Archie might play at Lansdowne Road yet.”
“You never know. Do you know if the kids got their Irish passports yet?”
“They did.”
I frowned. “They aren’t really going to go back and live in Achill, are they?”
Tim looked at me and shook his head slowly.
“No. I think it was the initial anger of the Leave vote that made them talk that way. Ireland and the UK have agreements in place that mean we have the right to settle and work in the UK but there’s still a feeling of not being wanted. Spending half your life in a country, working hard and paying your taxes then to be told you’re not really welcome. Stefano feels it badly. The latest is that he has to apply for citizenship. He’s been here for fifteen years.”
I shook my head. “It’s so depressing.”
I wondered what Tess would make of us getting on so well like this. Would Timothy have won her over as he had me? Would she have forgiven him like I had? At times I felt guilty about how much I liked his company. We called each other weekly, emailed links to plays and literary articles and I’d been to stay with him in Battersea a number of times. Over wine and Stefano’s delicious fresh pasta dishes he entertained me with childhood tales of Tess and life as a gay father with a teenager in London in the 60s. He was a great storyteller with a quiet way of luring you in and a witty turn of phrase. I simply loved being in his company.
I looked out of the window at the other side of the garden where Joe was standing by the bouncy castle. Beer in hand, he was chatting to Damian, one of Ellie’s cousins. Damian’s son, a boy of two or three with a blonde pudding-bowl hair, suddenly appeared at their feet, waving an ice lolly in the air. Damian knelt down, unwrapped the lolly then kissed the top of his head. Joe looked on, his face a mixture of curiosity and deep sadness. When the boy had gone he raised his bottle and drank at length.
We started trying for a baby the minute Joe moved back in. We went at it hammer and tongs but despite having sex at every opportunity for five months, I failed to get pregnant. Knowing we had no time to waste, we booked into a BUPA fertility clinic in town for tests. Going private meant we could get everything done quickly and the results were back within weeks. As feared my age meant my eggs weren’t in great
