a hot summer on a farm when they were young men in their twenties,’ she explains, recalling Peter with such joy as always. ‘We had the most wonderful time there. We walked the pier, we sipped a beer and we dined on the finest foods overlooking the ocean. Peter said it was the happiest times he and his darling only brother spent together and he cried to me that day over a fear he had of a truth never told, but one he never could tell even to me, not even on his dying day.’
She stops again. She pushes a strand of hair out of her eyes, closes them and then continues her story with her hands clasped to her chest as if in prayer.
All I can hear is the ticking of the clock in my living room and eventually the intake of breath as Mabel lifts her fine, porcelain hand and wipes a tear from her eye. She was seventy-nine years old when she died, but to me she was eternally youthful, wise and beautiful. And she always knew the right things to say.
‘Aidan, I’d love you to go there and follow your father’s footsteps he took when he was such a young and carefree man,’ she says, her eyes brightening at the very idea. ‘Go with him, Roisin. It’s a gorgeous place, and when you’re there, have a pint in Sullivan’s Bar and reflect on his short and beautiful life. Connect with him there if you can.’
I grip the cushion and bury my chin into it, as so many thoughts run through my head as to what Mabel might be up to this time. It’s a much more cryptic message than before, and I have no idea why she might want us to take such an adventure together.
‘Enjoy a day away this spring and I’ll see you again in summer, OK?’ she says with a little wave, and then she blows us a kiss with a smile. ‘In the meantime, please look after each other, now and for always, and remember always, always be true.’
19.
The TV screen goes blank and I wait for Aidan to react before I say a word, but he doesn’t speak at all. He just sits there contemplating, rubbing his chin in deep thought.
There’s a lot to take in this time in a very different way than there was from Mabel’s winter message. I know how much she always emphasized to me about being true to myself down the years, but I think for Aidan this was a much more deliberate personal message which has many layers of meaning for him.
His shaky marriage in America, his job over there, and all the pressures it entails from what I’ve gathered through snippets and hints along the way, and now a hint to his past that there may be a truth untold with his father and his uncle Peter … And why the expedition to this place called Breena? What is she hoping we’ll find out there?
‘I’ve no idea what you must be feeling right now,’ I say, struggling to find the right words to make him feel better or want to talk, ‘but I do know that what Mabel just said has got me thinking of all the times I could have made my life better by telling the truth. I think that was what she wanted to say most of all. She really wants us both to be true.’
He rubs his lightly stubbly face with his hands now, then sits forward again and pushes his dark hair back off his face, holding it there until when he lets go. It doesn’t flop into place like it normally does, but instead falls down slowly like dominoes until he pushes it away again, lost in thought.
He breathes out. And then he speaks at last.
‘The secret … I knew it. I remember a lot of whispering and hushing when my parents were killed,’ Aidan tells me, leaning his head now in one of his hands. ‘I was so young, only ten years old, so I’d no idea what was going on, but in the years that followed, I’d heard about Peter and my dad working on a farm together from my grandmother. I guess she was trying to reinforce to me just how close they once were and that’s how she wanted to remember them, as brothers in arms rather than the rivals they become in later years.’
Rivals? Surely not. I had no idea, but I nod,