just like Ben, I feel like lying down in bed and shutting out the world, but I can’t. I have to keep going for my son’s sake, no matter how much I fear I’m crumbling inside.
I try to block out the sound of Aidan hammering in the For Sale sign that is still ringing in my ears, and I pledge to Mabel that I’ll find a way to keep going. I have no idea how, but I go back to making her stew in search of some divine inspiration. I take off my coat and boots, go to the kitchen, where I add some stock cubes to the stewing beef, some chopped up potatoes, carrots, salt and pepper, and I allow it to simmer. As it stews, I do too at the idea of a new owner moving in next door. It just seems all too final and way too soon.
The smell of the simple ingredients warms the air and when I peep into the living room to find Ben curled up on the sofa fast asleep, I put a blanket over him, turn off the TV, turn on the soft sounds of Ella Fitzgerald, and allow myself to shed a quiet tear in Mabel’s memory.
‘No weeping over me, my girl!’ I recall her telling me when I pushed her around the lakeside walk in her wheelchair just a few weeks ago. ‘I hope you know that I’ve lived a full and fruitful life, made even richer for having you and Ben beside me, so no tears please! Let there be laughter and smiles for miles and miles.’
It was easy of course to agree that there’d be smiles at the time when she was still here living and breathing, only a heartbeat away, but not so much now, when I’m empty and weak inside.
‘I mean it, don’t you dare fall on your knees again,’ she’d said sternly. ‘You’re not the person I found crouching in that corner any more. You’ve a whole lifetime ahead of you, and you’re made of tough stuff, Roisin O’Connor!’
I knew she meant business when she called me by my full name and not just Roisin. Remembering her doing so raises a smile and then my tears turn into laughter as I recall her in her glory days, out in the garden defying the elements, emphasizing that there was no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothes. She wouldn’t have cared that the heavens opened on the day of her funeral. In fact she’d probably have enjoyed that.
‘Put up an umbrella and quit moaning,’ she’d have told us mourners as we shivered and complained. ‘Button up your coat! It’s Ireland you’re living in, not the Bahamas for crying out loud.’
My reminiscing is interrupted by the faint smell of burning so I jump up quickly and add more water to the pot, stirring the stew frantically to try to save it.
Just in the nick of time, I salvage the dish and I swear I can hear Mabel tut-tutting at how easily distracted I am.
‘Where is your head, lady?’ she’d ask me when she’d find me daydreaming. ‘There’s time for dreaming and there’s time for doing. Which is it for you today, Roisin?’
A knock at my front door springs me back to reality and I put the lid on the pot and turn it down to the lowest setting, then play my usual guessing game as to who it could be as I walk from the kitchen through the narrow hallway. I’ve always hated the door knocking, especially at night, as it opens up old anxieties and fears from my life before I found peace here in Ballybray. I open the door and almost take a step back in surprise.
It’s Aidan Murphy.
A very cold, a very wet, and perhaps a little more humble-looking Aidan Murphy. What could he be looking for now?
4.
‘Yes?’ I say, opening the door just a little bit at first and wincing as the icy wind cuts through into my hallway.
I don’t know this man and I don’t need strangers calling at night, especially not him, and especially not after the way he spoke to me earlier.
‘I’m so sorry to disturb you,’ he tells me, peeping through the narrow slit in the doorway. ‘But do you have a minute?’
I open the door a bit more to respond.
‘Me? You mean you do want to discuss something with Mabel’s nosey neighbour after all?’ I say, enjoying my upper hand now. ‘You’re really digging a hole