The Legacy of Lucy Harte: A poignant, life-affirming novel that will make you laugh and cry

‘I hope you weren’t making an eejit out of yourself in front of those people,’ he says in a fluster.

By ‘those people’, he means ‘a man of the cloth’. By ‘eejit’ he means going to what Catholics call ‘Confession’. There is no one my dad hates more in this world than the Clergy.

‘I wasn’t.’

‘You could say your piece in your own apartment and it would do the same good than telling ‘them’ boyos your problems. None of their bloody business. Nosey –.’

‘I didn’t even see a priest, Dad. I just said what I wanted to say to Lucy, lit a few candles and left. I’m about to walk into the office now, so I’d better go.’

That bit wasn’t a lie. I was standing outside our office block and Davey, the porter, was winking at me as he did every morning and checking out my boobs, legs, bum and everything in between. Davey loved a good old perv.

‘You’re a good girl, Maggie O’Hara,’ says my dad and I can hear his voice shake. ‘A really good girl and you deserve the best and you deserve to be here. God bless wee Lucy Harte, but you deserve to have a life too and a great one at that. Now, push those guilty feelings to the side and have a good day, do you hear me? And look at Princess Diana. Charles didn’t want her but it didn’t stop her finding a man again, did it?’

‘No, it didn’t, but then she died,’ I remind him.

‘Well you’re not going to die, are you? You’re even nicer than Princess Diana. You’re even nicer than Princess Diana and Elizabeth Taylor. You’re nicer than the whole bloody lot of them rolled into one and don’t you ever forget it!’

I turn my back on Davey. I feel his eyes burning on my backside.

‘I hear you, Dad,’ I say and feel tears sting my eyes. ‘I am absolutely fine and as much as I wish I looked like Lady Di or Liz Taylor or the whole bloody lot of them, believe me when I say that finding a man is the least of my worries. Now, stop worrying! I am thirty-three years old. I can cope with being dumped and having my heart broken. I’ve coped with a lot worse…’

I know that he is pointing his finger through the air in front of him as he speaks. I can just see him.

‘Well, I’m just saying that when the time comes to find love again, you’ll have no bother,’ he tells me, ‘so don’t be worrying that you are going to be on your own because you won’t be on your own for long. You’ve been through enough in your life and if I was talking to the man upstairs if there even is such a thing as the man upstairs I would be telling him that enough is enough and it’s about time he left you alone! Enough is enough!’

And at that I burst out crying.

‘Yes and that is well enough, Robert!’ my mother shouts in the background. ‘Enjoy dinner with Flo and send our love to her, Maggie. Is she crying?’

‘I’m not crying,’ I say, wiping black blobs of mascara onto the back of my hand. ‘I love you both, okay? See you soon. I will come visit really soon.’

‘Do. Yes, see you soon, love,’ says my dad and I can tell that he is crying too.

This makes me feel even worse because every time my second-hand heart breaks, I think my parents feel my pain even more than I do.

‘Morning, Maggie,’ chirps Bridget, our long-serving receptionist who caters for the six businesses who share our building, diverting calls and taking appointments and basically minding other people’s business. ‘My God, what happened? You look a mess. And you’re very late!’

Bridget is salt of the earth, but she couldn’t tell a white lie to save her own life. I know I look like shit. I don’t need her to remind me. I also know I’m late too! I fucking hate this place right now.

I stop in my tracks. I am not just late for work. I am late for a really, really important meeting. Oh shit!

‘Can you tell the guys I will be up in two? And give my apologies, please, of course. I’ve had a rough morning.’

Bridget looks back at me somewhat reluctantly.

‘A speedy two-minute fix-up in the bathroom isn’t going to make much difference, is it?’ I say.

She shrugs and lifts her phone while I quickly nip into the bathroom and see her honesty staring right back at me. I have a face that would scare babies, all blurred mascara, and I am as white as a ghost. Ah well, nothing that a hairbrush and some good old war paint won’t fix. Thank heavens for make-up. I need to compose myself and then forget what day it is.

Lucy Harte, just for now, I will have to try and let your sweet memory go.

A few minutes later I am in the elevator. My eyes are only slightly puffy but I’ve made a good job of looking as normal as I possibly can under the circumstances.

I’m half an hour late for a meeting with Will Powers Jr. I should be terrified. I urge the elevator to speed up. My heart begins to race. See, it works. It may be broken but it works and I am reminded of its presence every day as it breaks into tinier pieces over Jeff and that cat-loving smurf he is living with.…

But anyhow…Will Powers… the boss’s son … the smooth-talking, suit-wearing, stereotypical rich kid who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and was blessed with brooding good looks to boot is waiting for me and he is probably foaming at the mouth in temper.

Will lives in Spain most of the year but comes back and forth to deal with mainly human resources matters and is always tanned and tries his best to be nice but would stab you in the back if you didn’t watch yourself. You could say he has it all really… until he opens his mouth and talks the biggest load of shite you ever did hear in a fake American accent. He has it all, apart from a heart, that is. He could be doing with a transplant too, I often think. Swap his swinging brick for something that actually shows some compassion now and again.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ I say, trying to sound convincing but I’m not really sure that I’m sorry. I can’t feel sorry for anyone, only myself, these days.

Will looks at his watch, then, like a Mexican wave at a football match, the rest do too. Copy-cats. Five faces stare back at me and I feel my face flush.

They are waiting on my excuse. Their silence tells me so.

‘I… I was…’

‘Sit down, Maggie,’ says Will.

I wasn’t expecting such a gathering and I have no idea what this meeting is even about. I was probably informed in advance, but, surprise, surprise, I can’t remember.

The company directors, all of them, are here in one room. I bet I have big red blotches all over my chest, which always bloody happens when I’m under pressure, but, more importantly, what on earth is going on?

Will pulls out a seat and I do as I am told. I sit. He smells of posh cologne and flashes an uber-white smile. ‘I know this is a difficult day for you.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Just try and relax, Maggie. Thirty minutes late is not going to change the world. Have a seat and chill.’

Chill? Who does he think he is, Jay-Z? Who even says ‘chill’ these days?

Why is everyone staring? And what on earth does he know about my difficult day and its relevance to my life? I hadn’t told anyone that it’s my heart anniversary and I keep my private life very much private. No one even knows I broke up with Jeff. Well, apart from Bridget downstairs whose brother knows Jeff’s family and, yes, I told Diane who sits opposite me and… okay, so I may have told a few people. Maybe they all know more than I thought they do about me. But what the hell is going on?

‘I’m sure you have been wondering what this meeting is all about, Maggie,’ said Will. ‘I hope I haven’t been causing you sleepless nights.’

Sleepless nights? I haven’t had a full night’s sleep since Jeff dumped me. It’s not easy to sleep and stalk mutual friends on Facebook for clues on his whereabouts at the same time.

‘I haven’t been sleeping well lately but…’

The five faces are staring at me.

Will looks up at me from beneath dark knitted eyebrows that I notice are the exact same as his father’s. No, Will Sr’s are even thicker. But greyer. Why am I even thinking about eyebrows?

‘Maggie?’

‘I’m fine. Just the odd sleepless night, but yes. I’m… I’m fine,’ I say, screwing up my forehead. I think I have overused that word for one day but it’s all I can think of. I reach out my hands in front and clasp them together. I wish I had papers to shuffle, or a diary to check or something to do with my hands.

‘You don’t have to pretend you are fine,’ says Sylvia Madden, one of the CEOs, from across the table. ‘You have been through quite a lot personally lately and no one expects you to be fine.’

They are all staring at me. I need to get out of here. I don’t want to be here any more. I feel the room closing in.

‘I can’t do this any more,’ I say, but I barely recognise my own voice. I stand up. ‘I need to go… I need to quit. I can’t do it. Sorry.’

I am going to cry. Will shakes his head. He is smiling. Why is he smiling?

‘I understand why you would feel like giving it all up, quitting,’ he says. ‘But you’re not a quitter, Maggie.’

Now, I really am crying. Big sobs just like I was earlier when I was on the phone to my dad. I sit down again.

‘I have to… I just need some time to get through this.’

I manage to blurt out the words semi-coherently as Sylvia hands me a tissue across the table.

‘Yes, I can see that,’ says Will. ‘Your work has slipped since the promotion and having done some homework, we think you need a break, but only for a while, for health reasons.’

‘Slipped?’ I splutter. ‘I suppose that’s one way of putting it. I feel like a failure. I should probably go.’

I try to recall how my work has ‘slipped’ and I cringe at the realisation. Sure, I’d taken some days out after the break-up with Jeff and before that, when things weren’t going well with us, I’d had to leave early a few times and then there was the day when I broke down in the coffee room, but that was it really. Oh, apart from the day when I was showing a client around a property and I cried because he reminded me of Jeff and I might have flirted with him a bit more than was professionally advisable… crap. And that day last week when a potential buyer from America had to wait while I got sick in the bathroom of a boutique hotel I was showing him round after drowning the poor man in the stink of vodka from the night before. Oh shit.

‘Yes, it has been poor lately and not like the vibrant go-getter we know, Maggie,’ says Will, but he is still smiling. He is not mad. ‘Days off, working ‘from home’, late arrivals, missed appointments… but your health comes first and foremost and you are too big an asset to our team to take any chances on. You seem very stressed and upset so I’d like to offer you some time out, with a payment plan, of course, to get yourself together and when you feel like coming back, the door is always open.’

Stressed? Well, of course I am stressed. My husband left me for a younger model and seventeen years ago today I lay on an operating table and I’ve outlived any expectancy the doctors could have given me, and believe me, the reminder every year of another year of survival is a big burden and a huge heap of gratitude to carry around.

But time out… a payment plan? I think I am going to choke and the walls are moving towards me again. Why are they offering me this lifeline? I don’t deserve this.

‘Can I get you some water?’ asks Sylvia. I wish they would stop staring and smiling. Why do they have to be so nice? It’s making me worse.

I look up to see Will Powers Sr enter the room, apologising too for being late. Sweet Jesus, this really is serious. Very serious. To have both ‘Wills’ in the same room always indicates a crisis. In fact, it is a sight that’s enough to put the fear of God into any working member of staff.

Sylvia gives me the glass of water and I sink it in one. I didn’t realise I was so thirsty.

Will Sr pulls a chair out right beside me and clasps my cold, sweaty hand tight. I always admired him so much and he knows it and he has nurtured me through my whole time at the company, giving me opportunity after opportunity. I feel like I have let him down.

‘Maggie, we don’t want to lose you,’ he says gently, reminding me of my father. They are about the same age, but their lives are worlds apart. My dad drives a tractor while Will Powers Sr drives a Jaguar. My dad holidays in a caravan in Donegal while Mr Powers takes his wife on Caribbean cruises. Yet there is something about him that reminds me of old Robert back on the farm with his cows and sheep and love of a good old fry-up on the weekends and his current obsession with celebrity divorce.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Powers. I’m sorry if I’ve disappointed you in any way. I know I have missed quite a few days and my work probably has um, slipped, but I can assure you that I will make it up to you. To all of you.’

Here I am, almost thirty-four years old, in my fancy suit and expensive shoes, at almost the peak of my career and I feel like a schoolgirl who hasn’t done her homework or who has been caught cheating in an exam.

‘You have let no one down,’ says Mr Powers. The others move their heads like nodding dogs. ‘And don’t be panicking and thinking we have called a crisis meeting which is all about you. We have a few major projects to discuss today, which is why we are all here together, but it is because you are so special to us that we wanted to show you our full support in helping you get through whatever it is you need to get through.’

I think of other incidents; the car accident I almost had when I arrived at work a little tipsy from the night before… the days I had turned up so hung over I could hardly string a sentence together … there were many little things I had chosen to ignore and now they had all come to the forefront, like an abominable snowball rolling down a hill towards me. The day I sent an email to a wrong client and put ‘x’ like a kiss at the end of it, again due to a boozy lunch, and the time I called another a wrong name throughout an entire meeting because my head was too fuzzy and full of anger with Jeff to have done any preparation.

And they are giving me a lifeline. Instead of telling me to clear my desk and never come back, they are giving me a chance to put my life back together. Wow.

‘We were thinking of six to eight weeks, initially,’ says young Will Powers from the head of the table. ‘If this isn’t long enough, just let us know. We all need time out, Maggie. Hell, I know I do from time to time. I don’t want to see any of our staff burn out, least of all someone as valuable to the team as you are.’

My God, the Man of Steel does have a heart after all and a pretty big one at that.

‘I… I don’t know what to say.’

‘Do you agree it might help?’ asks Sylvia who sits opposite me. I always thought she was a bit of a self-absorbed snob and now I swear I can see her eyes fill with tears in empathy.

‘Yes,’ I mumble back to her and nod, wiping my nose. ‘Yes, I do. I didn’t think that things were so bad, but now that I’m here… well, yes, I do think it will help.’

‘That’s good,’ says Will Sr. ‘I want to see you get back in the hot seat here at Powers Enterprises as quickly as possible and if there is anything else we can do to help, just give me a call.’

I look at the business card he presses into my hand and flip it over to find his personal number written in his own handwriting. I am overwhelmed with a flurry of emotions, like a slow-motion movie is unfolding as I watch on in disbelief.

‘Thank you, Mr Powers,’ I whisper, still staring at the card. ‘Thank you. All of you.’

He walks me to the door but instead of stopping there, Will Powers Sr walks me through the open-plan office, past my colleagues, who don’t even lift their heads (no one ever does when he is around) and down into the foyer. Thankfully Bridget isn’t at the front desk. We walk outside and the rain has stopped and Davey the porter must be on a cigarette break, so I have a clear path to the car, but Mr Powers stops just before we reach it.

‘Sometimes, Maggie, life moves too fast and we can’t keep up no matter how hard we try. Before you know it, you’re facing retirement and kicking yourself, wondering how on earth you’ve missed out on the simple things in life. Take some time and breathe. Do at least one nice thing every day, something for yourself. Build yourself back up again and then I want you right back here where you belong. Do you hear?’

I nod back at him and smile. Carlsberg don’t do bosses …

‘You’re a very special and very kind man, Mr Powers,’ I tell him. ‘I will never forget you for this. Thank you.’

‘I’ll see you back here really soon,’ he tells me and for a second, I think he is going to give me a fatherly hug, but he stops and pats me on the shoulder and then walks off towards the tower block where I have spent most of my life for the past five years.

I sit in the car for a few moments and breathe right to the pit of my stomach, trying to digest what has just happened on today of all days. I feel a weight lifting off my shoulders, a pressure gone already and I take my time before I drive off and don’t stop until I reach the off license.

I need a drink.

Chapter 3

It’s almost ten at night and I am watching my wedding DVD all on my own and I keep rewinding it to the part where Jeff reads out the poem he wrote especially for me and there’s a big close-up on me and my eyes are stinging red from crying at his overwhelming love.

Now they are stinging red from overwhelming love for Sauvignon Blanc. Isn’t it amazing what a difference a year or two makes?

‘You lift me up when I’m feeling down. You light up my world when you smile. You are my one and only, the one I love and the one who I want to grow old with.’

Vomit…

I can see that it’s straight from Google, or else a Ronan Keating song, now that I have snapped out of my starry-eyed romantic honeymoon phase. I am now in a ‘bitch of darkness phase’ after my afternoon of sleeping and drinking and sleeping and drinking and ignoring more phone calls. (It’s Flo this time. She will be grand, as they say here in Ireland. Grand.)

I switch off the DVD, put on some eighties’ classics and sway to the beat of Rick Astley, then look out the window onto the city below me and I raise my glass to my freedom and my future. I have got to be positive. I am merry and positive and I am on a ‘career break’ – that’s what they call it these days. I have it all at my feet and the world awaits, starting with this city I call home.

Plus it’s still my heart anniversary, isn’t it? On this day, seventeen years ago I was at death’s door and then a miraculous gift of life from a little girl in Scotland and her totally amazing family gave me the chance to grow into adulthood. So what if I don’t have a husband any more. So what if I almost lost my job by acting the eejit lately. I still have life! I don’t know how much longer I have it, but for now I do and it’s for living!

‘I still have life!’ I shout out through my open window and a couple below me shout back at me to fuck off. I smile at them and wave. I am drunk again. And I am loving it! I love everything right now!

Mostly, I love Belfast. I love the buzz, the people-watching, the culture, the accents, the shopping, the night-life and the sense of community that still exists, even though it’s very much a big city to a country girl like me with its universities, cosmopolitan quarters and bloody dark history.

I think of all the men I have loved and lost since I moved here in my university days and I start to laugh and laugh and laugh at the memories.

There was Bob, the engineering graduate (or Bob the Builder, as we all called him), who moved to Australia when I was in the thick of my studies and who never returned. There was Martin, an accountant from Dublin, who said he loved me but that with my temporary tattoos and purple hair at the time, he could never see me being the ‘wife’ type; there was Andrew who worked in sales but who turned out to have a criminal record the length of my said long legs and more, and then there was Jeff, the teacher who, as already mentioned, left me for Saffron the Stewardess quicker than the shine wore off his wedding ring.

My love life has been, let’s just say, colourfully complicated.

‘I love being colourfully complicated!’ I shout out loud and continue dancing with myself.

‘Fuck off’, shouts Mr Smart Ass from below again. This time I give him the fingers, then laugh my way to the sofa, totally absorbed in Wham!, who are now playing on the music channel. This is fun. No work tomorrow, a white-wine buzz and Wham! What more would a girl want? Who needs a husband and a job anyway? I’m drunk and I’m on top of the world! I’ve got this! I’ve finally got this!

I see my mail on the coffee table. How exciting! I’ve got mail! Real snail mail. I lift it up and try to sort it while still dancing, but my vision is blurred and I have to set down my wine glass to focus.

A letter from my mobile-phone company, a credit-card bill… I fling them on the floor.

A list of offers from the local supermarket? A voucher with a pound-off washing powder. How exciting?! And it’s on the floor it goes too!

But then a handwritten letter catches my eye and it stops me in my tracks.

I study it, knowing almost immediately that this is of some sort of huge importance but the words are moving, dancing before my eyes. I squint to focus. No good. I close one eye. The writing is neat, all in capital letters and in blue biro. It reminds me of the letters I used to get from a pen pal I once had who lived in Brighton and who drew lines on her envelopes with a pencil and ruler and then rubbed them out when she had written the address in perfect symmetry. Weirdo.

I try to read the postmark on the letter and eventually it comes clear. It says the letter was posted in town of Tain, near Inverness in Scotland.

Scotland, right? Tain? Oh holy shit!

My heart stops. Quite ironic, really, but it literally skips a beat and when I find my breath again I reach for my wine and take a long gulp, draining the glass.

There is only one person I know from Tain. One person I know, but who I never have met and never will.

That person is Lucy Harte.

And Lucy Harte is dead.

Chapter 4

I wake up in daylight with the letter in my hand, still unopened. I must have collapsed into a drunken coma – again – or else from the shock of what could lie inside this envelope.

‘Just open it, Maggie,’ Flo tells me when I call her. She doesn’t even get mad that it’s just gone seven in the morning, but then again, her son has probably been awake for at least an hour so it’s like the middle of the day to her. ‘There’s no point staring at it and wondering. Are you sure you don’t want me to come over?’

I am still holding the letter and I try to sip the last glass of wine from last night which tastes like vinegar and makes me gag. I am not yet totally sober. But unfortunately Flo can’t just ‘come over’ – as much as I’d want her to. As a single parent, she can’t exactly up sticks and leave with a two-year-old on her hip at this time of the morning. He goes to school. No, he is only two so he doesn’t go to school. He goes to day care. I am such a crap friend.

‘Don’t be silly,’ I tell her, even though I would give my right arm for her to be sitting here with me now. ‘You have Billie to get sorted. Do you really think it’s from them?’

I can hear Flo inhale deeply and finally she replies.

‘Well, unless it’s some sick joke, yes I do think it’s from ‘them’. I mean, Tain is hardly the centre of the universe and from your description of the envelope, it’s not a bill or one of those random marketing leaflets or charity letters. It has to be them.’

‘Them’ are the Harte family. Lucy Harte’s family. I don’t know how many of ‘them’ they are or if they are men, women or children; her grandparents, her mother or her father and despite my efforts in my early twenties to find ‘them’ to thank ‘them’ by going through the official route via hospitals and social systems, this is the first correspondence I have ever had and certainly not the way I expected to hear from them.