Page 89 of Postscript

I enter Malahide village, and take a left at the church, down Old Street and towards the marina and the boat-repair facility where his dad still works. After Gerry’s death, I used to meet with his parents a few times a year; they were still family to me, I was still their daughter-in-law, but over time as the middleman to our connection had passed, so too did our relationship. Conversation was sometimes forced, sometimes awkward, hard work and draining because though we were joined by love, it was impossible to avoid the fact we were also joined by loss. As time is no one’s friend, and in my effort to move on and let go, to face the light, I suppose that fraction of my life got bumped. Christmas cards, birthday presents, at first were hand-delivered and then mailed, and so we drifted further from one another.

Gerry’s dad isn’t expecting me; even when married to Gerry I never visited his workplace, but it must be done and it must be done today. Being involved in the PS, I Love You Club has given me new insight into why Gerry wrote his letters, and part of that lesson has been in discovering that Gerry wasn’t always right, and I wasn’t always right to follow them.

I arrive at the boatyard and, naturally, the steel gates are shut. Behind the barrier men are busy at work cleaning, repairing, maintaining boats of various sizes mounted on steel legs. I finally catch the attention of one bare-chested worker, sweating in the sun, and I wave at him.

‘I’m looking for Harold,’ I call. ‘Harry?’

He opens the gate and I follow him in. Harry is fully dressed, thankfully, hard at work by the propeller of an enormous vessel.

‘Harry!’ my guide yells, and Gerry’s dad looks up.

‘Holly,’ he says, surprised. ‘What brings you here?’ He puts down his tool, and walks towards me, arms open.

‘Good to see you, Harry,’ I say happily, examining his face for a trace of his son, the Gerry I knew and a glimpse of the aged Gerry he never became. ‘Sorry to drop in unannounced.’

‘It’s great to see you. Come to the office for a tea?’ He places a hand on the small of my back and starts to guide me.

‘No thanks. I’m not staying long.’ I feel the emotion gathering, as it does anytime I’m with a physical reminder of Gerry. His dad brings him to life, his life emphasises his death, and an actual acknowledgement of his death is always crushing.

‘What is it, love?’

‘I’ve taken on a new project this year. Something inspired by Gerry.’

‘Go on,’ he urges me, fascination in his tone.

‘I’ve been helping terminally ill people write letters to their loved ones. They call it the PS, I Love You Club.’

Unlike the majority of my family who hated the idea, he immediately grins, his eyes dewy. ‘What a wonderful idea, Holly. And a lovely honour to Gerard.’

‘I’m glad you approve. They’ve got me thinking about his letters again, about what was right, about what was wrong.’

The PS, I Love You Club has been a treasure trove of valuable lessons for me. I guarded the experience of the letters with my life for the past six years, but as soon as I said the words aloud for the podcast, holes appeared and questions surfaced. Were his letters for me as I assumed, or were they for his own benefit? Did I always want them to continue? Did he always get them right? Were there any letters that I would have changed? In order to help the club curate their own, I had to be honest about what worked for me and what didn’t, and that didn’t mean being disloyal to Gerry as I’d feared it would.

‘Anyway.’ I reach into my bag and retrieve a box, which he recognises immediately. A pained sound escapes from the back of his throat. He takes it from me and opens it. It’s the watch he gave Gerry on his twenty-first birthday; a valuable timepiece Gerry wore every day.

‘Gerard left this to you,’ he says, and his voice cracks.

‘He made the wrong decision,’ I say. ‘It was a gift between father and son. Father should get it back.’

He pauses then nods his thanks, eyes filled, head lost in I don’t know what, but perhaps the memory of him giving it to his young son, the great moment, and all the moments they spent talking about it, huddled over it, the bond that connected them.

Gerry left it to me because it was valuable, but it’s worth more to his dad.

Harry takes the watch out of the box, hands the box to me and slides the watch onto his wrist, securing it closed. He wipes the tears from his eyes.

I remember the moment the watch stopped, two days after Gerry’s death. I had it on the nightstand, I was hidden beneath the duvet, in the dark world, eyes peering out to the other world, not wanting to be involved but keeping an eye out anyway, listening to his watch tick, watching the hands go round, the face I saw on my husband’s wrist every day of our lives. And then just like that, it stopped.

Harry turns the crown a few times and it starts again.

33

‘Pull in here,’ Ginika says suddenly, sounding panicked, as I drive her home from a lesson.

I indicate quickly, and swing into a hard right on Drumcondra Road, thinking she’s ill, that she needs to vomit, or pass out.

I stop the car. ‘Are you OK? Have some water.’

‘I’m fine,’ she says quietly, distracted. ‘Drive down the lane.’