‘Did Michael know about the baby?’
I shook my head. ‘I never told him. He doesn’t know about you or anything. Rosie knows, though. I told her the other week.’
‘She’s dealing with a lot lately.’
‘Yes, yes she is.’ I thought of Rosie and how much she’d been through. She’d be all right though, I was sure of it. She was made of strong stuff. Like her great-grandmother. Like her grandmother. Like her mother. She was a Thomas after all.
‘It was horrible not knowing,’ he said. ‘You not taking my calls. I even sent Dad around to try and find out what was going on.’
‘I know…’
He shook his head. ‘You should have told me,’ he said. ‘Not because I had a right to know. That was your decision and I understand that. But because I was your friend. Your boyfriend. And I loved you. I loved you so much, Tab.’
‘I loved you too,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’
We looked at each other. ‘When did you meet Michael? God, that was horrible when I found out that you had got married. To Michael Fogarty. Jesus Christ!’
‘A year later,’ I said. ‘He seemed to suit who I thought I was, what I’d become. I thought it was the right thing to do. And it meant I could try and have another child.’
He took my hand in his. ‘I don’t know what to say…’
‘Nor do I.’ His hand was warm and smooth. Just like I remembered. ‘Why did you stay away so long?’
‘You. I was hurt. Lonely. Angry. Sad. All of those things. You were gone. You were with Michael… you had Rosie.’
‘Did you meet anyone?’
He nodded. ‘A few really nice women. All of them, I realise now, reminded me a little bit of you. You know, something about their hair, or the way they used their hands or the colour of their eyes.’ He shook his head, looking down. ‘But I just couldn’t get it together to be the man, the partner, they wanted, they deserved. I couldn’t stop thinking of you. And I wanted a child. I really wanted a child, but it seemed so wrong to have one with someone I knew that I would never love…’ He stopped again, as though he couldn’t quite form the words. He cleared his throat. ‘As much as you. I wish I had or could, and I tried, all these years to…’ He stopped speaking. He was scanning my face.
‘To what?’ My voice was practically a whisper.
‘To forget you, to find someone else to fall in love with. To move on.’
‘Me too.’ I blinked away my tears. ‘I didn’t forget you either. I thought about you every day. But I couldn’t turn back time. I’d made all these decisions and then I had Rosie. It was too late. I wanted her to have a father and to have a normal home.’
‘I don’t regret all of it,’ he said. ‘I haven’t spent the last 18 years wishing everything was different. I’ve been happy… I’ve loved living in the States, I have learned so much about the world. But I compartmentalised, you know? I kept you and Ireland and us tightly locked away. It didn’t stop me from having fun and being happy and content, but it did stop me from being fully who I am…’
‘Me too,’ I whispered. ‘Me too. That’s how I feel. I wouldn’t change a thing about Rosie, you know that. But I have felt the loss of you, the lack of you, for all these years. It’s like I cut off my own arm, I know it sounds ridiculous, but that’s what you were…’
‘Your arm?’ he deadpanned, defusing all intensity, and I laughed.
‘My right arm, does that make it better?’
‘A little.’ He smiled at me.
‘But it’s true…’
For a moment, we stood looking at each other, the gulf of all those years we hadn’t spent together, the fear of an unknown future, but the need to be close, to make up for lost time, the desire to touch each other was too much. And he felt the same. Strong arms pulled me into his chest and I fitted in exactly as I used to, my spot, tucked right in there, close to him, up against his body, the warmth of him.
‘Tabitha…’ His voice in my ear. ‘I never stopped.’
And maybe it was the way he sounded, or the smell of him, the heat of his body, the memories of long nights and days in bed, but something burned inside me that hadn’t for a long time. And it was Red who ignited me, always had… always would.
‘Nor did I. I’m sorry, Red.’
‘Me too,’ he said. ‘Sorry you went through that. But no regrets. You have Rosie and she is all that matters. You know, Tab?’ He gave my forehead a little tiny kiss. ‘You haven’t changed.’ And another one. ‘Not one bit, not in any way.’ Two quick ones, closer to my mouth this time. ‘When I saw you again after all those years in your office, it was as though I had stepped back in time.’ And again, on my cheek, edging closer. ‘The way you spoke, the way you looked. Your beautiful face, your lovely voice… it was all I could do to stop myself from throwing myself on you and refusing to let go.’ And he kissed me on the lips, a long and lingering and gloriously deep kiss. He was right, sometimes time does stand still, feelings can just stay there for years and years. There we were, Red and Tab. Together again.
And there was something I needed to say. ‘I love you, Red.’
‘And I love you, my darling Tabitha.’
Darling. It beat Mammy any day.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I’d finally made up my mind about the Copse. It was the last day of term and everyone was looking forward to eight weeks’ holiday, but I had one last decision to make. I wasn’t selling the Copse. Not to anyone.
Brian had repeatedly said the land was worthless, valueless, but it wasn’t. It was priceless. I saw that. The protestors had made me see it, the children themselves. When I met Red and his class down there and seeing how much the children blossomed outdoors. They needed more than classrooms and playgrounds. Walls and tarmacadam. They needed nature, the trees, the butterflies. The squirrels. When I thought of Rosie and how academically focussed her life had become, I had realised very clearly, that we needed to be very clear in what we were teaching children. There was more to life than exams and achievement. There was living and being in the world. The natural world. Something that might build greater resilience and strength as they grew up. It was the chance to sit and stare, the opportunity to be in nature, to daydream and to think, to make daisy chains and plait grasses, to climb trees and to lie on your back and hear the birds sing. Being outdoors, away from books and screens and pressure, like Rosaleen in her cherry tree or Nora in the Forty Foot.
As I drove in through the school gates, the protestors were still set up. They wouldn’t give up.
Nora was drinking a mug of tea. ‘Last day!’ she called, cheerily, utterly recovered from our dramatic trip to West Cork. There was the smell of sizzling bacon as Robbo fried it up while Arthur buttered the bread. ‘How are you?’ she said. ‘What happened with Michael?’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘he’s moved into the flat in town, we’re getting a divorce and Lucy’s going to have his baby.’
She whistled. ‘So he has lead in his pencil after all.’
‘Mum! How’s your headache?’ I said, pointedly.
She ignored me. ‘And you and Rosie?’
‘Doing remarkably well.’
She smiled. ‘Good. I’ll go round and see her later. She’s going to come for a swim with me. And what about himself?’
‘Who?’
‘Fella me lad,’ she said. ‘Redmond. Ah, you’re blushing. So something has happened?’
‘No nothing. Not yet. But I think it’s all there. Us. We’re still there, if that makes sense.’
‘Good for you, Tabitha. You deserve a bit of good romance in your life after Mr Stuffed Shirt. Me, I’ve had too much, but you, you haven’t had as much as you should.’
‘Thanks, Mum,’ I said. ‘I think.’
Just then, Arthur handed her a bacon sandwich – she was a fair-weather vegetarian – and she waved it at me. ‘And today’s the day, you’re making your big decision. You are not going to let me down, are you?’
‘You’ll find out,’ I said as I drove off, my hand waving to her from my open window.