Forty-seven years earlier…
Mostly, Tess tacked through life – making her way to and from work without looking up from the cracked Dublin footpaths. She became a shoe studier – one of those women you’d never recognise if you met them straight on. The problem with that is that sometimes you can walk straight into the last person you would want to meet. And so it was that one day, cutting through St. Stephen’s Green, she almost tripped when she heard a familiar voice call from behind her.
She had walked right past Nancy and Douglas. The so familiar voice that called her back sounded much younger than her own. As though it was still bouncing through the first flush of youth Tess had cast aside for Douglas. Tess found herself halted stubbornly on the path, her feet would not move forward, but nor could she turn to face them. Instead, Nancy stood before her, heavily pregnant; her face much fuller than before, her eyes so filled with eager anticipation for all that surely lay ahead.
‘How have you been?’ Nancy asked almost shyly, it seemed to Tess.
‘You know.’
‘No, Tess, we never hear from you these days, apart from the occasional phone call to Mamma and, even then, she can’t tell us much of what you’re up to.’
‘Well, I’m sure it’s not half as interesting as your lives,’ she hated that she sounded so bitter.
‘You’ve left the music behind, then?’ Douglas moved forward.
‘Yes. I… thought it best.’ The words slipped from her tongue. She tried not to think about that time now, it was all wrapped up in the cost of losing Douglas and Nancy too. She couldn’t find any more words to sing, she doubted there was anyone who would listen even if she could.
‘But, that’s such a shame…’ Nancy said now. ‘You can start again, perhaps, try another way… perhaps in the club?’ She let her hand rest upon Tess’s arm and Tess feared she might disintegrate beneath the weight of guilt within it.
‘I don’t think so,’ Tess said flatly, moving her arm away. She didn’t want their pity and even less their remorse. Instead, all she wanted was to get away from them. It was overwhelming, seeing them, knowing how much everything had changed and knowing too, when she looked down at Nancy’s stomach, that soon she would have the happiness that had might have been Tess’s if things had worked out differently.
‘Oh, Nancy, can’t you see, Tess has no interest in singing or in having anything to do with any of us and it’s probably just as well,’ Douglas said coldly now and there was no mistaking the hatred in his eyes. ‘After all, what is there in Ballycove for a girl like Tess?’ He said it as though she was nothing to anyone, but of course, she was worse than that, because she was a reminder of his past weakness and maybe if she did go back, she’d cause more harm than good.
‘That’s not right, is it, Tess, you’ll come back for Christmas, perhaps, won’t you?’ Nancy’s voice was brittle as though she knew that the rift had widened too far to bridge it with the social niceties of holidays or birthdays or anniversaries. ‘It’s your home, Ballycove will always be your home…’ her voice petered off.
‘Goodbye, Nancy,’ she said and then she turned before they saw her tears.
That day, she walked for miles; heedless of the concerned looks of people she passed by. Her face, when she got home, looked as though she’d taken four rounds with Cassius Clay. Its tenderness almost bruised through from crying – Tess had rubbed it viciously to dry the salty tears away, but it did no good because they just kept streaming down her cheeks.
It was funny, but she’d never thought that far ahead. A baby, but now, it consumed her – the idea that someone could cement two people even more. The emptiness did not go away, if anything it dug into an even larger gulf within her, so everywhere she went and everything she touched seemed laden with a gloom that was all her own. In the end, she hardly noticed, it was only when she caught sight of her reflection without warning, unrecognisable and jaded compared to her old vivacious self, that it would strike her once more that she had somehow jettisoned her life on a whim for Douglas Buckley.
Did she love him then?
As the months went on, after that day in Stephen’s Green, she really wasn’t sure. What would have happened if things had turned out differently? Could she have been happy as Mrs Douglas Buckley? Living in Ballycove, looking out over the Irish Sea for the rest of her days?
Soon, that thought began to haunt her too – she knew it was a way of putting aside the other demons that threatened to overtake her and throw her body and soul into frightening depths.
Then, one sunny May Tuesday morning she woke – the early rays skipping across her eiderdown from the streets above. She somehow felt lighter, as though there was the promise of something better ahead today. Perhaps, she thought, she’d visit her mother? Or just walk along the beach at Ballycove?
She pulled herself from the bed, with slightly less force than she had to employ most other mornings. Applied a tint of blush to her cheeks and brushed her hair back so it sat a little higher on her head. She drank a cup of tea and left the cup deliberately on the drainer, perhaps to remind herself that she would have to return to wash it at the very least.
She walked to the bus stop – if not light of step, but certainly with a surprising sense of expectation, as though she might deserve to hope, just a little more than she had in quite a while.
Today was going to be a very special day. She could feel it in her bones. As though she was coming home, but not so much to Ballycove, rather, in some feverish way, it felt as if she was coming home to a girl she used to know.