Page 23 of Postscript

‘I haven’t told him yet, but I already know what he’ll say. He’ll say no.’

‘No?’ Sharon says, huffily. ‘You’re not asking him for his permission.’

‘I know but … I don’t even think it’s a good idea.’

‘Well then, there’s your answer,’ Sharon says in a final tone.

So why am I still asking the question?

I tune out of the rest of their conversation, my mind racing back and forth as it chases the options, grasping for a decision. I feel as though I should, I know that I shouldn’t.

We part, back to our lives, back to our problems.

To weave and unravel, to unravel and weave.

11

It’s 2 a.m. and I pace the downstairs rooms of my house. There aren’t many. Living room to dining room to small U-shaped kitchen that only has enough standing room for two people, a toilet and shower room under the stairs. Which is ideal for me because it’s only me, and occasionally Gabriel. His house is nicer and we stay there more often. Mine and Gerry’s was a starter home; a new build in the suburbs of Dublin for us to begin the rest of our life together. Everything was shiny and new, clean, we were the first to use our shower, the kitchen, our bathroom. How excited we’d been to come from our rented flat to our own home with stairs for the first time.

I walk to the staircase and look up.

‘Holly!’ Gerry calls me.

He was standing where I’m standing now, at the foot of the stairs, hand on the banister.

‘Yes!’ I yell from upstairs.

‘Where are you?’

‘In the bathroom!’

‘Where? Upstairs?’

‘Gerry, our only bathroom is upstairs.’

‘Yes, but we have a toilet downstairs.’

I laugh, understanding. ‘Ah yes but I’m in the bathroom upstairs. Where are you? Are you downstairs?’

‘Yes! Yes, I’m here downstairs!’

‘OK great, I’ll see you in a minute when I come downstairs, from where I am upstairs!’

‘OK.’ Pause. ‘Be careful on the stairs. There’s a lot of them. Hold on to the banister!’

I smile at the memory, running my hand up and down the banister, touching all the places he touched, wanting to rub him on to me.

I haven’t done this late-night room wandering for years, not since the months after he passed, but now I feel the house is owed my attentive farewell. My mind is whirring with ideas. Bert’s quiz, Ginika’s letter, Joy’s trees and flowers notions; I didn’t ask Paul what he wants to do. They had more questions for me than I for them, about the dolphins, the holiday, the sunflowers. Sunflowers. My October letter from Gerry. A sunflower pressed between two cards and a pouch of seeds to brighten the dark October days you hate so much, he’d written.

When Gerry was alive, I hated winters. When he died, I embraced them. These days, I simply take them at the natural rhythm they arrive. The seeds were included with Gerry’s eighth letter. I’d told everyone it was because sunflowers were my favourite flowers. They weren’t. I’m not really the type of person to have a favourite flower; flowers are flowers and they are mostly all attractive. But the sunflowers had a meaning, a story. They started a conversation. Gerry had managed to start a conversation from his deathbed, which was Gerry’s gift.

The first month in our house, we had very little furniture. Most of the furniture in our apartment had belonged to the landlords and so we had to start afresh, which meant we couldn’t afford to buy everything at once, but also we weren’t the best at managing delivery times, expecting couches to be available the moment we chose them from the shop floor, all the usual beginner mistakes. And so we had three months in the house without a couch or coffee table. We sat in the TV room, on bean bags, drinking wine, using our unpacked moving boxes as side tables.

‘Sweetheart,’ I say one evening when we’re snuggled on a bean bag with a bottle of red wine after eating steak and chips for dinner.

‘Uh oh,’ Gerry says, looking at me sideways, and I laugh.

‘Don’t worry, it’s not bad.’