From Bray to Eternity Read online

  We learnt later that Carol and Tim did not go back again either and that Ann and Tony did not enjoy their second year as much as the first. Maybe things like that are only meant to be done once and trying to re-create the magic does not always work. Not going to France that year also meant we were there for David and Ciara’s wedding, and we did not have to fly home from France for it, which had been our plan. Also Annette’s mother’s condition got progressively worse that year and she was hospitalised in September. A few months later she was transferred to the nursing home where she is still living at the time of writing.

  My time in St. Enda’s proved to be a very interesting and happy time. Looking back on it now, I would not have liked to have missed it, as it took in the celebrations commemorating the 90th anniversary of the Easter Rising. I was very proud and honoured to play a small part in those celebrations by conducting tours of the house, including one tour with Fr Joseph Mallin, the son and last surviving next-of-kin of one of the executed leaders, Michael Mallin.

  It was while I was in St. Enda’s that I started to write. I had written a play after we came back from France called The Day the Commie’s came to Town. It was based on an incident that occurred in 1955 when Yugoslavia came to Dublin to play Ireland in a soccer match in Dalymount Park. The game had been objected to by the then Archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid. In St. Enda’s I was inspired to write another play. It turned out to be a very long piece, with a Pearse-like character as the central player. It was written in three parts, the first I called “Remission of Sins”, the second “A Nation Once Again”, and the third “Unity?”. I bundled them all under the title Mise Eire. Since then I have written five or six more plays and film scripts, but so far have had only one produced, a cabaret-style show called Nighthawks, the Musical. It was based on a famous painting by the American artist Edward Hopper and staged in the Plaza Hotel running during September/November 2008. I will be writing more about this later, as the strange incident which occurred on the last night of the show marked the beginning of Annette’s illness. I worked in St. Enda’s until it closed for renovations after the 1916 Commemorations in May 2006. I’d spent a very happy year there.

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  11 a.m. 22nd July, 2009

  I want to break the narrative of the story here. It’s 11 a.m. on the morning of July 22nd, 2009, my 64th birthday. It is the first time in forty-three years that Annette was not by my side when I woke up on my birthday. The first time she was not there to wish me a happy birthday, with a kiss and a hug. And I am missing that little ritual so much my heart is breaking.

  I have just come back from the cemetery where I laid a bunch of fresh flowers on Annette’s grave, and watered them with my tears. I am still crying as I write this. The words of the Beatles’ song are going around in my mind, “will you still love me will you still need me when I’m 64”. I know if she were still here she would, and I certainly love and need Annette now more than I’ve ever loved or needed her. I need to feel her presence around and near me because everything seems so empty and meaningless without her as I face into the latter part of my existence alone.

  I lived for Annette and now that she’s not here anymore I just stumble on from one day to the next without giving it much thought. Last night I went to a concert in Vicar Street with Annette’s brother Liam, not because I wanted to go, but because Liam thought he was being kind and I went just to please him. That’s how it is, I just stumble along and go where I’m asked with no real interest in where I am or who I’m with. My mind is never in the same place as my body, my mind is always thinking of Annette. So it does not matter where I am, only half of me is there.

  I’m 64 now and I can see nothing but an empty lonely life ahead of me, at a time when I thought myself and Annette would be relaxing into our latter years together, with the time to travel to new places and enjoy the pleasure of our children and grandchildren. None of those things will happen now. How cruel life can be. Oh I know I have my children and grandchildren, but the part of my life Annette filled, and only now that she is gone am I realising how big a part that was, nothing or nobody can fill or replace. We always celebrated each other’s birthday by going out, sometimes only for a few drinks in the Belgard, but no matter what we did, the night was always finished off by us coming home and having a glass of wine and a hug and a kiss on the couch. That’s what I’ll miss most about this, the first birthday without my beautiful wife, the love of my life, my Annette.

  My God it’s hard to write this, but I’ll keep going. It’s over three months since Annette passed away, over three months since I kissed and held her and I miss her more than ever. I want to hold her again, I want to kiss her again, just to touch her. The pain of missing her only gets worse with every passing day, and today it’s unbearable. I wish to God this day was over.

  I stood at the grave this morning and asked Annette not to forget me, where ever she is now. That’s a fear that has been running through my mind for the past few weeks, that she will forget I ever existed, and that thought frightens me. I know it’s irrational to think like that, but not having seen or held Annette for so long now and knowing she is still somewhere out there, the thought that she will forget me is tormenting my mind. I want to be with her I can’t live without her.

  When I broke off the narrative of the story I did not know what I was going to write, only that I wanted to record the fact that this was the first time in forty-three years that we would be apart on one of our birthdays. There was a lot I wanted to say but the words just would not come. Sometimes it’s not possible to translate the things that go around in your mind into words on a page, and that’s the way it is for me. My mind and thoughts are full of Annette but the words won’t move from there onto the page in front of me.

  This day will pass as all days do, and tomorrow it won’t be my birthday anymore, but I know that the pain of losing Annette will still be there, will always be there, no matter what day it is. I know that the fear I have of being forgotten by her will also be there and will remain with me until I can be with her again, to hold her and caress her and tell her how much I love her.

  I hope to God that day won’t be too long in coming.

  11.15 p.m. 22nd July, 2009

  All the family came over to celebrate my birthday and to give me presents. We had a Chinese take-away and tried to be as normal as we could, but there was a huge gap at the table which could not be filled. It was the first time we had got together as a family since Annette passed away, and it was painful. We talked about Annette a lot, which pleased me.

  After they all left I cycled up to the cemetery. When I got there I was surprised to see the tombstone had been erected as it had not been there this morning. It looks very well, but was also very shocking, as it confirms, beyond all doubt, that Annette is no longer with us. The final confirmation that she has passed on is now cast in stone for all eternity.

  My birthday is almost over and I’m very glad for that. Although the family tried to make a celebration of the day it could never be that for me. How do you celebrate not being with the woman you love? I cried a lot today thinking of other happier birthdays and missing Annette so much, but that’s the way it’s going to be from now on.

  When I came back from the cemetery I rang the family to tell them the tombstone had been erected and Gina immediately said that this was Mam’s birthday present to me. I had been very anxious that it would be erected before Annette’s birthday, and I was continually reminding the monumental people that it had to be it erected before the 13th of August. Gina said that her Mam had got it erected for my birthday. She could be right.

  It’s now midnight and the first birthday in forty-three years I’ve spent without Annette is over. I’m going to bed now, to the big, smelly, empty bed that I’ll fill with tears. I hope I’ll dream of Annette to night. My heart is breaking trying to live without her, but at least she still remembers me.

  The next big hurdle is August 13th, Annette’s b
irthday.

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  The year 2006 was the year Annette turned sixty, and the year she finally got to Brazil. Annette’s plans to go to Brazil when she was in the Legion of Mary had been scuppered when she married me and I had often said to her over the years that I would take her there some day, so what better time than her sixtieth birthday. And because she had to wait so long I threw in Argentina and Uruguay as well.

  This grand tour happened in September 2006, after we had a big dinner party in the Plaza Hotel for family and friends on the night of Saturday, 12th August, because her birthday fell on a Sunday. In the second week in September we headed off to Buenos Aires via London for our trip to South America. Our itinerary would take us to Buenos Aires for two days and then across the River Plate by ferry to the town of Colonia in Uruguay. After two days in Colonia, which lived up to it’s name as a very colonial type of town, we went to the capital, Montevideo for a few days, before travelling overland up through the country to a town called Salto and on to Iguaçu Falls. From there, again overland, we went up along the coast of Brazil to Rio, stopping along the way and staying in the beautiful old town of Parati and on llha Grande, a tropical island off the coast.

  We went with a tour company called Gap which catered for backpackers and stayed in small comfortable hotels and pensoes. Needless to say we were by far the oldest on the tour, but we wanted to do it that way. We wanted to see a lot more of the countries we were in than if we travelled by plane from destination to destination. The backpacking part of the tour lasted sixteen days and when we reached Rio, after two days with the group, we stayed a further six days in a hotel near the beach on our own.

  It was a wonderful experience for us and we fitted in very well with the younger people on the tour. On our thirty-eight wedding anniversary, which we spent on the llha Grande, they surprised us by decorating our cabin with flowers, and inside they covered the bed in roses and left chocolates and wine, with a picture of the island signed by them all, with lovely sentiments and good wishes for our anniversary. We were really surprised and delighted by the gesture and the trouble they had gone to for us. That night we all went to a little bar at the seafront and had a few Caipirinhas.

  The holiday was a wonderful experience and we both enjoyed it immensely, but the highlight had to be Rio. What a city. No pictures you will ever see of it do it justice. It has to be the most spectacular setting for a city in the world. The vistas are breathtaking, especially the views from the top of the Corcovado, the statue of Christ the Redeemer. The views have to be seen with the naked eye to go any way to capturing the magnificence of what lies below you.

  We did all the usual touristy things, the Sugar Loaf, Copacabana and Ipanema beaches, the Maracana Stadium and the Garota de Ipanema where Antonio Carlos Jobim composed the song The Girl from Ipanema. I think for Annette the highlight was when she went to the Favelas, high in the hills above Rio. For a day she did what she had been training to do when I first met her. She went loaded down with gifts and goodies to give to the children who lived in the tin and wooden huts high in the Hills. I did not go to the Favelas with her as I felt that it was something she would prefer to do on her own.

  The poverty that lived side-by-side with the wealth in Rio was astonishing, and nobody seemed to take any notice of it. You could be sitting in a restaurant enjoying a steak and across the road a young woman and child or a man might be lying on the pavement, fast asleep. We stayed in a four star hotel near the beach and on the corner there seemed to be a colony of people who lived there. One man in particular seemed to live on a kitchen chair, propped up against the wall. Every day when we went out he was there and when we came back late at night he was still there, sitting on his chair. One thing that struck us about the people of the street was that they never bothered you looking for handouts. Although they were poor they had a great dignity about them.

  On the day we visited the Garota de Ipanema I took a photo of Annette as she was walking on the piece of land which separates Ipanema and Copacobana beaches, near Forte de Copacabana. It’s a lovely shot of Annette, and it epitomises her to a tee. She is walking with arms swinging loosely by her side, her hair loose, with her sunglasses on top of her head, smiling and carefree, completely at ease and in the open air where she loved to be, with the peaks of Morro Dois Irmãos, Ipanema Beach and the Favelas behind her. I did not know when I took that picture of Annette, that two years later it would be the picture I would choose to be on her memorial card. When I look at it now, Annette is the girl from Ipanema. The beautiful girl Antonio Carlos Jobim composed his famous song about many years ago is personified for me in that photo of Annette.

  *********************************

  Friday, 24th July, 2009, afternoon.

  I’m going to divert from the narrative again, because I believe I’ve discovered the meaning of a message that was given to me in the Plaza Hotel on the night of November 2nd, 2008. It was the night of the twelfth anniversary of my mother’s death and the night my show “Nighthawks” ended. The content of that message has been puzzling me and the family ever since I was given it. But today I believe that message was fulfilled, and I now know what it meant. I will be writing in detail about that strange night later, but I want to put on record now, that this morning while I was in the cemetery I did something that, as I was doing it, brought that night back into sharp focus, and the words that were spoken to me that night took on a new meaning. I am certain now I know what the message was meant to convey. As most of what was conveyed to me in the Plaza has now come to pass I did something I had been thinking of doing for some time, I contacted the person who gave me the message and I am meeting her next Friday, July 31st. What will transpire at that meeting I have no way of knowing. It may be a complete waste of time, or it may shed more light and give more meaning to Annette’s passing, but as events have unfolded I felt it was necessary for me to contact that person again and if possible to get some clarification about what had been said to me in the Plaza in November. If I did not do so I would be forever wondering if there was anything anyone could have done that would have helped Annette, or was her death the preordained end of her journey here on earth.

  Since Annette passed away, on a number of occasions I have had what I call “thought intrusions” they are what I can only describe as sudden communications from Annette entering my mind. I will give a few examples. Annette was always on to me about the amount of clutter I gathered in the house and was forever telling me to tidy it up. Before the headstone was erected and the grave tidied up, I had vases of flowers, ornaments from the mobile in Dingle and pictures and candles on it. One day I brought down two small angel figures which had been on the wall at home. As I bent down to put the figures on the grave, I was almost knocked to the ground by the force of a thought intrusion which shot through my mind saying: “you have the grave as cluttered as the house.” On another occasion, as I sat in my accustomed position on the couch at home looking at the television, I threw my legs up on the couch to where Annette used to sit. All at once my mind received a thought intrusion, “get your feet off me.” Before starting to write this book I stood at the grave one day and told Annette what I was going to do and asked her to help me write it. All at once I could ‘hear’ shooting through my mind: “I’ll be your ghost writer”, said in a jocular way.

  As I have already mentioned Annette always blessed something new with holy water as soon as she got it and today as I stood at the grave I got a thought intrusion from her to bless the head stone with holy water. This thought came into my mind completely out of the blue when I was thinking of something else.

  I will bring holy water with me the next time I visit the cemetery and do what Annette wants.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  We came back from South America to the impending birth of two new grandchildren. Both Gina and Ciara were pregnant and due before Christmas. I also got a job as a sales assistant in Marks and Spencer’s supermarket. I was employe
d in the Dundrum store for training, in anticipation of the Tallaght store opening after Christmas.

  The babies were born within a few days of each other. David and Ciara’s Mina, was born on Monday, 13th November and Gina and Dave’s, Ella May was born on Friday, 17th November.

  Annette was delighted with her new granddaughters and could not wait to get to the hospital to see them. That year, for the first time since we had moved to Tallaght, we did not spent Christmas in our own home. Normally we had them all over on Christmas Day, but because the babies were so young David and Ciara wanted to stay at home in Rathvilly, likewise Gina, now that her family had doubled in size, wanted to have a family Christmas in her own house in Celbridge.

  Gina and Dave invited Annette and I and Robert and his wife Fiona to dinner on Christmas Day in Celbridge where we had a most enjoyable day with the grandchildren. It was a bit of a break not having to cook a big meal and just sitting down and enjoying it being handed up to you. The only drawback was coming home to a cold house that night.

  Things were pretty much routine for a while then. I was working in M&S and Annette was still doing a bit of part-time work, though not a lot. Then shortly after Christmas I drew Annette’s attention to a job I had seen advertised in a Sunday paper. It was for a Community Development Worker with South Dublin County Council. The offices of S.D.C.C. were only down the road from us so I suggested to Annette that she should get an application form and apply for the job as she had all the necessary qualifications. Annette thought she would not have a chance of the job because she had not worked in a ‘real job’ for so long and also she thought she might be too old to be considered. But I persisted in urging her to apply and I think I just might have gone and picked up an application form for her myself.

  Annette did apply for the job and after two or three interviews she was offered it on a two year contract, starting on 16th April, 2007. She was very nervous starting, and was afraid she would not be able for it, but once she got into it she loved the job. By all accounts she did very well at the work, and why wouldn’t she, hadn’t she been doing the same work for years for nothing. The only difference now was she was getting paid for it.