Secrets in the Snow

‘Wow,’ I mutter, in total disbelief. ‘For my family? She always told me we were like her family, but … and she’s left us a message!’

Reading her words already has me choked up and I feel my heart fill up at how she considered me family, never mind the effort she must have gone to, recording a special message just for us. I lay the envelope down carefully again on the table, stuck for words for once.

‘Was she always so mysterious in her later years?’ Aidan asks me in a tone that suggests he doesn’t share my sentimentality. ‘I mean, I knew she was capable of meddling and giving her opinion to anyone who would listen, but I never thought she’d be so meticulous in her planning for after she left this world.’

My memories of my love for Mabel change quickly to anger in her defence. Meddling? Oh, I could say so much to him right now! I could ask him why he chose to abandon and ignore her in her final years, why he didn’t come to visit, knowing she was ill for months, why he had turned his back on the woman who loved him like a second mother, just the way she loved me.

‘I guess when your days are numbered, all sorts of notions go through your head,’ I tell him, holding the envelope once more and doing my best to remain neutral and diplomatic. ‘We talked a lot about death over the past few months. She had no fear of dying even though it was staring her in the face, and I thought she’d told me all she’d wanted to, so I have absolutely no idea what this is about.’

We stare some more, and then I push the envelope across the table towards Aidan. I catch his eye, wondering how surreal this moment might be for anyone looking on right now. Here we are … me – a widowed, single mum with so much emotional baggage it almost makes me slouch sometimes and who’d come to this village to find solace from a life of trauma, and Aidan Murphy, a married man of great fortune and style, who’d escaped his own many years ago to make a life of huge financial success away from his own pain.

We are worlds apart in every way, from the shiny Merc that sits outside adjacent to my battered old pick-up truck, his designer clothes to my vintage second-hand dress, and his life of glamour to my humble struggles. We have simply absolutely nothing in common except the love of an old lady who for some reason wants to push us together in some sort of quest from beyond the grave.

And wedged between us is the fact that neither of us can feel any connection to each other at all.

‘Open it,’ says Aidan, handing me the envelope in a tone that suggests he is used to doing things his way.

I almost give in, but for some reason it doesn’t feel like it’s my place to do so.

‘You’re her real family,’ I say, pushing it back towards him. ‘Your name is first on the label.’

He runs his fingers under the neck of his shirt, bites his lips, and looks me right in the eye. He curls his lips and smiles for the first time since our hasty introduction.

‘You’re feisty, just like Mabel said,’ he tells me, tearing open the envelope while holding my gaze.

I can’t answer as I inhale deeply, waiting to see what might lie inside. I can feel her breath in the air. I can hear her voice in my ear. I can smell her perfume all around me, and most of all I can feel the intensity of Aidan Murphy’s hypnotic stare.

He pulls out a silver DVD and my eyes divert towards it.

‘She’s left us a video message?’ Aidan says in disbelief. ‘God no. I can’t watch this. It would be far too—’

‘Soon,’ I say, interrupting him before he says what we’re both really thinking.

Sore may have been a better word in Aidan’s case. It’s sweet of Mabel and it’s surprising, but I do agree that it’s also going to take a lot of courage and strength to watch her talking directly to us when she’s not with us any more, especially when one of us mightn’t like what she has to say.

My own heart thumps at the thought of watching it. I’m totally lost for words and the idea of hearing her voice again, addressing me directly with whatever it was she wanted to share at this stage fills me full of wonder and disbelief at her doing this all behind my back. Mabel and I had made a pact that we’d never have any secrets. It was all or nothing between us. My mind races at the thought of what might be coming next from her.

‘Yes, soon,’ says Aidan, standing up before I can suggest we see this through right now. ‘I’ll leave it with you. I hope whatever she has to say brings you comfort and closure.’

My face falls into a frown.

‘But you mean?’ I stutter, looking up at him. ‘You mean you’re not going to watch it at all?’

He puts his hands in his pockets and shakes his head. He swallows so hard I see his Adam’s apple move and, if I’m not mistaken, I think there might be a hint of tears in his weary eyes.

‘No, I’m not going to watch it at all, Roisin. Look, I’m really sorry, but I’d better get going,’ he says, shuffling as if he needs to escape from here immediately. ‘My business here is just that, business. I don’t have any inclination to allow for any emotional attachment to Mabel or to Ballybray get under my skin.’

‘This is unbelievable,’ I mumble. ‘How could you just choose to ignore this? From your own aunt?’

I am floored by this package, but also alive with the anticipation of hearing from her again, while he, in turn, is stiff, bitter and sore.

He fidgets, pauses, and then heads for the hallway as if he can’t wait to get away from here quick enough.

‘It’s a bit of a surprise all right, isn’t it, but I’m sure it will be positive?’ I call after him, realizing that if he doesn’t watch what she has to say with me, Mabel’s efforts aren’t being received in the way she intended.

I walk after him to the door, but I don’t want him to go so quickly, leaving me hanging like this. I want to talk about it, or at least to get this over and done with and hear it so we can start building our lives without her. I want to talk about Mabel with someone who knew her as well as I did, but he’s leaving and can’t wait to do so.

‘I can’t and I won’t watch it, Roisin,’ he tells me, meeting me at last in the eye. ‘I need to get back to New York in a day or two to my … I’ll leave it with you.’

He needs to get back to New York to his wife and his big business and polar opposite luxury lifestyle.

‘Aidan!’ I call as he walks down the path towards my garden gate. ‘If you change your mind—’

‘I won’t,’ he tells me without looking back, and then he disappears into the snowy, dark night, taking a tiny piece of my heart and the chance of a final connection to Mabel with him.

I clutch the envelope to my chest, wondering if I should go ahead and watch it without him, but I can’t. It’s not what she wanted.

‘Oh Mabel,’ I mutter to myself as I make my way back to the kitchen. ‘Whatever are you planning now and what the hell is his problem?’

I run my fingers over her writing, bewildered at Aidan’s attitude, but content in knowing she hasn’t gone too far from us at all just yet.

In fact, she is very, very near.

5.

I find Ben hard at work in Mabel’s back garden the next morning, rolling a snowball into a huge mound across her tiny lawn that is now unrecognizable under the thick snow. Aidan was right about the storm. It snowed all night long and there’s a chill in the air that hints at more, though for now the sky is blue, and the white on the ground makes everything look bright and magical.

Ben is humming to himself, just as he always does when he is busy, and on the small stone table in Mabel’s garden where we used to share breakfast, lunch and lots of conversation, I see he has laid out a scarf, a hat, a carrot and some obligatory pieces of coal for his final masterpiece.

There has always been a tangible solace in Mabel’s garden and if Ben is finding comfort from being here, then that’s good enough for me, so I stand in silence watching him, delighted that he’s keeping busy in his grief.

‘The garden is like your mind,’ Mabel used to tell me when I’d find her fixing and planting at all times of the year. ‘Find the time to weed your garden and you’ll find the time to weed your mind. Believe me, Roisin, it works.’

A bird table that Ben once could barely reach is now almost shoulder high beside him as he stands back to admire his work so far, lost in a world of his own. Watching him play there with such ease, so at home, makes my heart pang for days gone by. This is the life he had grown so comfortable with; the peace, the love and the kindness. I pray every night that he never ever remembers the contrasting darkness of the times with his father before we came here.

This is his entire world, going from house to house, from garden to garden, and instead of the shouting and name calling from our life before, all he ever heard here was the sweet sounds of Mabel singing along to her old favourite records from her own heyday. She introduced us to the sounds of Etta James, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Dusty Springfield to name a few, and Ben spent so much time with her that he knows almost every word to every song.

Mabel had made a little hole in the hedge that ran between our back gardens soon after we moved in to Teapot Row. The hole had grown over the years into a ‘Ben sized’ opening so he could come in and out to her at his leisure, and the sight of him so hard at work now and busy in mind takes my breath away. Mabel’s garden, despite the battering rain and snow of the past few days, still looks like a palette of colour from an artist’s canvas, with various shades of green scattered around an immaculate little square of grass, framed with a salmon stone patio where my son used to sit and chat to her for hours on end.

‘You know, we won’t always be able to come in and out of Mabel’s garden like this,’ I try to break to him gently when he finally catches me watching him play. ‘It won’t happen for a very long time, I hope, but when there are new neighbours living here it won’t feel like ours any more.’

He looks up at me and pauses, then goes back to his snowman.

‘It’s OK for today, though,’ I assure him. ‘You can stay here as long as you want today.’

He ignores me and continues polishing up the snowman, so I leave him to it, having made my point.

I cross back into my own patch of nature next door and I hear Mabel’s words in my ear at the contrast of the two gardens – my unruly jungle versus her wondrous masterpiece.

‘You’ll never believe it, but lawn mowers are on offer in town right now,’ she told me one day, dropping a clanger of a hint in a way only Mabel knew how to. ‘Or you could always borrow mine? It’s really light and easy to use. You can have it any time.’

There was no doubt about it, my back garden was sometimes an overgrown mess, but there was always something else more pressing for me to do and I just never found the time to take care of it properly. I eventually did buy a lawnmower, but its outings were few and far between.

I let out a deep sigh. Without Mabel to push me into things, I realize how little I’d have done around had she not always been in my ear. I was at my lowest ebb when she came into my life, and now she’s gone, I worry I might be sliding down that same slippery slope already. I can feel it in the air. It’s a sense of fear that is so overwhelming, like a tidal wave approaching from which I can’t escape. It’s hopelessness, it’s loneliness, it’s a huge cloud, and it’s coming to get me fast.

I go inside and boil the kettle, then lean against the worktop and let the tears flow, but unlike the past few days when I’ve cried silently when Ben is around, this time I can’t help but sob from the tips of my toes for her loss. I throw my head back and let it all out, all the frustration of what brought me here in the first place and how far I’ve come since then with her help. I’m so frightened again and I don’t know what I’m going to do without her.

‘There’s a man in Mabel’s house, Mum! I swear there is! He’s in the kitchen! He knocked the window at me!’

I jump and wipe my tears, not knowing if I’m more in shock at Ben’s revelation or the fact that he has finally uttered a few words to me at last.

‘He looked cross!’ he says, out of breath and full of drama. ‘Maybe it’s the new neighbour? Is he going to sleep in Mabel’s bed? Oh Mum, I hope he isn’t angry at me! I left the carrot and scarf for the snowman over there on the table!’

I dab my eyes with the back of my sleeve and feel my heart rate slow down when I realize that it’s probably Aidan back again and not some intruder or some keen new occupants looking around. Or is it? Just in case, I race to the front door and look outside, ignoring how my face must look, like a swollen, puffy mess.

Aidan’s car is there, just as I’d suspected, and there doesn’t seem to be anyone else parked outside.

‘It’s fine, honey,’ I tell Ben, who stands alongside me, looking outside. ‘That’s Aidan, Mabel’s nephew. He’s looking after all of Mabel’s things and he doesn’t realize who you are. It’s OK. It’s all OK. Go finish your snowman, don’t worry.’

‘Aidan Murphy?’ says Ben, wide-eyed. ‘From New York City? Can I meet him, Mum? Can I?’

‘Not right now,’ I say, hushing him gently. ‘In fact, maybe we should just build a new snowman in our own garden, is that OK?’

He looks up at me, puzzled. It seems that even Ben couldn’t escape from Mabel’s tales of her wonderful nephew, but unlike how I’d chosen to imagine him with my cynical hat on, Ben had shared Mabel’s view that Aidan was some sort of real life mysterious superhero.

I feel my young son’s shoulders relax when I pull him in to me for a quick hug and the warmth of his touch soothes me instantly. A glimpse of sunshine peeps out from behind a fluffy white cloud above us, showing that maybe a break from the bleak weather might be just around the corner. Maybe if the weather changes for the better, our moods will too. I pray fervently for something to lift us from this sense of despair.

‘I just miss her,’ says Ben when we finally let go. He looks upwards, blows a kiss towards the sky and then goes upstairs to his room, and I know I probably won’t see him or hear from him again until at least lunchtime, the snowman abandoned for now.

‘I know you miss her, honey,’ I whisper after him. ‘I do too.’

She told him to do that, I remember with a smile. She told him to blow her a kiss up to the sky and that she’d catch it every time. I want to hold on to those simple connections, but since she died, so far every day is like a scene from Groundhog Day. Every day is a drag.

Ben will go back to school on Monday and I need to get back to work to keep food on the table, but I don’t know if I can. I need Mabel. Oh God, I need Mabel.

I need to hear what she has to say. I need to hear her message.

‘Ben!’ I shout to my son, who probably has headphones on by now and isn’t able to hear what I have to say. ‘I’m just popping next door quickly. I won’t be long!’

I race to the kitchen, pull open the second drawer to find the envelope that Aidan left with me yesterday, grab it and make my way next door to him. I slip and slide my way up my own pathway, race through mine and then Mabel’s gate, negotiate her path, and then I knock on Mabel’s yellow door with a sense of urgency as adrenaline pumps through me now at the thought of hearing her voice again.

‘Roisin!’ says Aidan, as if he wasn’t quite expecting to see me again. ‘I’ve told you I—’

He’s wearing a white T-shirt which is splattered with paint, and is holding an old rag in his hand. I’ve obviously interrupted a man at work.

‘You frightened my son!’ I tell him, unable to let that one go before I get down to business. ‘Do you always have to be so cold and arrogant? We were so close to Mabel, closer than you’ll ever understand, so how dare you be so rude to him when he’s struggling so badly to let her go!’

‘I beg your pardon,’ he says, wide-eyed and taking a step back from the doorway. ‘I had no idea who the kid was. I was just letting him know I was here, that’s all.’

I take a deep breath.

‘Look, Aidan, I know you can’t be bothered with me or anything to do with life here in Ballybray, but I can’t wait any longer,’ I tell him. ‘I need you to watch this, like Mabel would have—’

We both talk over each other with the same breathless urgency.

‘But I told you already I’ve no intention of—’

‘We need to watch this together, Aidan, please!’ I tell him, unable to listen to his excuses on why we should put it off again. ‘Please. I don’t want to go against her wishes by watching it without you, but I also can’t just keep wondering what she has to say. I need to hear her voice, Aidan, and then we never have to see each other again. Ever!’

Aidan guards the front door of Mabel’s house with his arm leaning on the doorframe and his other hand on the door itself. He looks as though he hasn’t slept a wink in days.

He also looks a bit spaced out with it, but I’m on a mission and I need to pin him down to do this once and for all. After we watch Mabel’s message, I don’t need to see him or disturb him or interrupt his work, nor will I ever want to.

‘It might help us both a little?’ I continue, not budging from the subject at hand, holding up the envelope as I speak. ‘Look, we can put it on and if it’s all too much we can press stop. It’s probably only a few minutes long. Please?’

He shakes his head.

‘I’m sorry, Roisin, I can’t right now,’ he explains to me. ‘I’ve a lot on at the minute and I’m not sure if I can take this all in right now. I’ve a lot going on in here.’

He points to his head and then to the paint on his T-shirt.

My heart sinks.

‘But – but it might be good for you, whatever you’re going through?’ I suggest. ‘This message is for you as much as it is for me.’

His hand drops from the doorframe and he folds his arms.

‘Roisin, I’m busy, I’m sorry!’ he tells me, shouting now. ‘Watch it for yourself. I’m sure if there’s anything in there that’s totally life changing you can shout across the fence to me before I go. Now, that’s enough. Go about your own business and let me go about mine!’

I shake my head in disbelief and put the envelope under my arm. I can’t believe what I’m hearing. He really doesn’t want to hear from Mabel? He doesn’t have time to see through her very simple wish for us to watch this together? My eyes widen. My throat goes dry and I feel tears prick my eyes.

‘You … OK, you do your thing then, Aidan, whatever it is,’ I manage to mumble in his direction. ‘And then you can swan off in your fancy car back to your fancy life and sail on without giving Mabel as much as an afterthought, but for me it’s not as simple as that. I live here and I loved her! I’m surrounded by her loss and I know yes, she was perhaps a batty, crazy old lady to some people around here, but to me she was so much more. So much more!’

I can’t stop the tears now, and once again I realize how hideous I must sound with too much to say, not to mention how I look in my denim dungarees, my hair in a messy long ponytail, and my puffy eyes that haven’t seen make-up for days.

I stomp away, deciding to do as he wishes and leave him to it, when he calls me back, his voice cracking as he does so.

‘Do you even have a DVD player?’ he shouts when I’m halfway down the path. ‘I mean, who has a DVD player these days? I don’t know anyone who does.’

I pause. I turn to face him again.

‘I do actually,’ I tell him, wiping my tears with the back of my hand. ‘We’re a bit behind the times here in Ballybray.’

I squint now under the sun as it breaks through a little more cloud and Aidan manages a faint smile beneath his tired eyes.

‘Why am I not surprised to hear that?’ he says, rolling his eyes in surrender. ‘OK, OK, Roisin! I’ll do it.’

‘You will?’

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I’ll get changed and will be over as soon as I can. And that’s it, OK? After this we move on. We get practical. I’ve a lot to be getting on with and I’m sure you do too. Mabel wouldn’t want either of us moping over her.’

‘Yes!’ I reply, almost punching the air. ‘Oh, you won’t regret this, Aidan, I just know it! Thank you! I’ll go get it all set up! Yes!’

I slip and slide, feeling his eyes watch me for a few seconds before he closes the door, but I don’t care how hideous I might look right now. I just need to hear what Mabel has to say.

Half an hour later, Aidan still hasn’t arrived, and although I’m afraid he may have changed his mind, his lateness gives me time to chat to Ben about what Mabel has left behind for Aidan and me on this DVD. Despite my revelation, Ben has gone back into his reclusive state and is happy to sit it out and play on his Xbox in his bedroom rather than watch any of Mabel’s message.

‘Don’t you at least want to come and meet Aidan like you said earlier? Maybe he’d like to meet you too?’

He ignores me, his fingers focused on the controls and his eyes fixated on the graphics on the screen in front of him. It’s like someone has flicked a switch in him once more and it freaks me out as to how long this will last. I know his stand-off can’t go on for ever, but I also know that I need to allow him space to get used to how life is going to be very different from now on.

‘I’ll just be downstairs if you need me,’ I tell him, kissing his forehead before I head down to wait for Aidan.

I’ve pulled up my two armchairs close to the TV, I’ve pulled the curtains, I’ve lit the fire, and I have the envelope sitting, ready and waiting for Aidan’s arrival. This is a massive moment for me and I’ve never felt butterflies like it in my entire life.

My heart jumps when I hear a knock at my front door.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ he says to me with no further explanation. He has changed out of his working clothes and looks casual and cool in a pale blue hoodie, jeans and trainers.

‘That’s OK,’ I reply. ‘Can I get you anything? Tea? Coffee?’

I try not to stare. After all I’ve heard about him from Mabel over the past few years, having him here now in the flesh is slowly sinking in that he is a real, live person and not just a figment of her imagination.

‘Just water is fine.’

I show him into the living room and invite him to have a seat while I go to the kitchen and fetch two glasses, unable to stop my hand from shaking as I fill them with water from a jug. When I come back face to face with Aidan, I see his eyes full of pain and lost in memory as he waits for what might lie ahead. He may have found the last few days just as tough as Ben and I have, even though he chooses a very different way of showing it.

‘OK, let’s do this,’ I say, feeling the tension in the air like a thick fog, knowing he is keen to get this over and done with. He nods and bites his lip, still a tad unconvinced, and I press play, noticing how he grips the cushion beside him. I look at my own hands and realize I’m doing the same.

‘Oh God, there she is,’ I whisper.

And there she is. Mabel’s oh so familiar face fills the TV screen and we both gasp at the same time. It’s her. It’s our Mabel, in all her glory. Our beautiful, soulful, thoughtful friend with her soft lilac silky hair, her rouged cheekbones, her cerise lipstick, and a cheeky twinkle in her turquoise eyes. I fear I might choke as a range of emotions rushes through me – sadness, happiness, relief, joy, and a heart that’s smashed into pieces at her loss.

She looks as if I could reach out and touch her. She looks like her old self. She looks alive. Oh God. She is wearing a T-shirt that says ‘I’m back, bitches’, which makes Aidan and me laugh out loud.

I shake my head. This is mad. This is so Mabel.

She clears her throat dramatically, and then she speaks, which makes us both catch our breath again.

I don’t care so much for what she has to say now. I just want to hear her voice.

6.