The Stone House (28 page)

Kate nodded. Funerals were bloody awful things, a test to be endured to see if you could still walk and talk and stand and eat while absolutely paralysed with grief. It was late when the last visitor left, Danny sprawled on the couch asleep, Patrick lifting him upstairs to bed. Fiona had spent her time talking to her cousin Billy who was only a few years older than her, the two of them laughing and telling each other stupid jokes and stories. It was the first time she'd smiled in days.

‘Mammy. We have to go to bed,' urged Kate.

‘Maybe I'll just sit in the armchair for a while yet.'

Maeve often sat up in the chintz armchair beside the fire waiting for their father to come in after a late night out or for one of them to arrive home safe from a party or a disco.

‘Not tonight, Mammy, you're exhausted,' pleaded Kate. ‘You need to lie down and sleep. We're all here. I'll lock up and turn off the lights.'

Reluctantly Maeve Dillon climbed the stairs, Moya helping her to get ready for bed. Unable to sleep, Kate listened in the silence of the house to the clock ticking in the hall as her mother's sobs gave way to regular breathing and her usual snores. Moya in her old room was comforted in her husband's arms, while she lay alone in the dark.

THE STONE HOUSE
was strangely quiet without her father. Kate hadn't realized how much noise he'd always made, a big man with heavy footsteps on the stairs in the hall, listening to the radio, watching the news constantly and the racing results, making coffee for himself and banging about in the kitchen, or on the phone, raising his voice because he was slightly deaf. His huge presence suddenly gone!

Her mother had slept solidly for sixteen hours without budging, Danny, afraid, asking if his granny was about to die too.

‘She's just very tired and sad, pet,' Moya reassured him, hugging her little boy close.

They were all concerned for her. Kate had always imagined her parents growing old and crabby together, her father retired, bossing her mother like he always did, as they went away on weekend trips and holidays. They had never considered their mother alone and vulnerable, nervous for the first time ever in her life of being on her own.

‘Mum, would you like to come and stay with us in Richmond for a while?' offered Moya.

‘Or my apartment in Dublin?' asked Kate.

‘No, I'd prefer to stay here,' admitted Maeve, honestly. ‘This is my home and I don't want to leave it.'

In the house she felt safe, surrounded by familiar things and memories of years of married life, Frank's presence everywhere. She couldn't leave the house!

They all sat in silence when Pat Hayes, the local solicitor, called to the house a few days later with a copy of the will. Maeve had been left almost everything.

‘You already own the family home, Maeve, but Frank was keen for you to realize some of his property investments,' he explained carefully as he put on his reading glasses. ‘There is a three-storey office building in the centre of Waterford on the quays, a single-storey office building in Rossmore, five apartments in the Old Mill development, four holiday homes on Harbour Road, two shops on Harbour Road, three cottages in the Cove, and an eight-bedroomed converted house on Tramore Strand being in use as a bed and breakfast. Four racehorses and a portfolio of shares and a number of small farmland plots.'

‘Oh my God,' sighed their mother.

‘To Moya, Kate and Romy, each of my daughters, I leave a half-acre of land in Woodstown overlooking the sea for their own use or the use of their families. My wedding ring with the sapphire stone I leave to my eldest grandson Gavin Redmond, my gold watch to my grandson Daniel Redmond and my gold chain to my granddaughter Fiona Redmond.'

Moya's eyes welled with tears. Her father had adored his grandchildren. Kate and herself held hands as Pat Hayes finished off.

‘Thank you, Pat,' said Maeve when he'd finished. ‘We appreciate it.'

‘There is extensive property but as far as I'm aware there may be some borrowings against them,' he warned.

‘Some borrowings!' pressed Patrick. ‘What do you mean?'

‘Bank loans, heavy mortgages. Frank had mentioned to me recently that he was hoping to offload some of them and pay off the loans.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘Aye, I spoke to him after he came home from Dublin last week.'

‘Perhaps we should talk to his bank manager, then.'

Two days later found them sitting in Rossmore's Bank of Ireland branch close to Frank Dillon's offices as Niall Brady explained the situation to them.

‘On paper it all looks very rosy and good, but in reality it's not as healthy as we'd ideally like. Everything is heavily borrowed, with interest payments just being met but no decrease in the actual capital sum from month to month.'

Patrick groaned. Kate stared at the family photos on the bank manager's desk, trying to control herself.

Patrick was like a terrier dog with a bone and although their father was only dead and buried a few days he insisted on putting all the information together.
Following a phone call to Rory McWilliams, they drove up to Dublin to meet him.

Everything was itemized and listed. The holiday cottages were part of a designated tax scheme and for the present could not be sold without inviting huge penalties. The B&B in Tramore was in need of extensive refurbishment before the start of the summer season and one of the tenants of the shops was in arrears on his rent and had given notice he intended retiring.

It was all a huge mess and Kate could feel tension gnaw at her jaw and shoulders as she listened. There was only one good thing: the council investigation into her father's affairs was over, as without his evidence it could go no further. The Revenue Commissioners were less forgiving and even with Rory and Patrick's input, the final sum arrived at seemed an absolute fortune.

Most of what their mother had been left would have to be sold to cover the amount.

‘I just want to clear it off, pay them all what they are due,' insisted Maeve Dillon angrily. ‘Frank did his best during his lifetime to provide for us all. I couldn't ask for more.'

‘We could sell the land Daddy left us too,' suggested Kate.

‘Your father wanted you to have it,' Maeve reminded her.

‘But Mammy, if you need it more, that's what we'll do. I'm sure Moya would agree.'

‘There is no question of any of you selling the piece of property your father gave you!' she exclaimed angrily. ‘The money will be found to pay off his debts.'

A discreet valuation of the plots showed that without planning permission the land would only fetch a fraction of what it was worth. Reluctantly, Maeve Dillon gave instructions to one of the large auctioneers in Dublin to realize as much value from her husband's properties as possible. Everything except for the holiday cottages and his old office in Rossmore would have to be sold, not a penny of it benefiting his widow. Her father had not believed in pensions, trusting his investments in land and bricks and mortar to be a sounder proposition.

‘How will you manage, Mammy?' Kate asked.

‘Don't worry, pet, I'll be fine.'

‘Would you think of moving?' she suggested gently. ‘Maybe the house will be too big for you with all of us gone and the gardens to manage.'

‘I love this house,' she replied, affronted. ‘My grandfather built it and Vonnie, Eamonn and I were born and grew up in this house, your father and I raised all of you here. How could I possibly ever leave it!'

‘I just meant maybe somewhere smaller, a bungalow or an apartment might be easier.'

‘And where would Moya and the children stay when they come home for the summer, or Eamonn have a bit of space for himself when he gets a break from his parish?'

‘Mum, I know what you're saying.'

‘And what about Romy? Do you think I'm going to have your sister come back to Ireland and find her family home sold? No. I'll manage. There's your father's shares and the rents from the cottages and the office. Don't you worry, Kate pet, I'll get by.'

Kate sighed to herself. She loved the Stone House just as much as her mother but she could see the struggle it might become to maintain it.

WHEN KATE RETURNED
to work the week after the funeral, Bill O'Hara surprised her by taking her to lunch in Dobbins and actually being kind.

‘There's a massive fucking backlog,' he admitted, ‘but I know you'll get through it in your own good time.'

She had thrown herself in at the deep end, working late and scheduling early-morning meetings for the next few weeks as she worked on a number of mergers including the complicated takeover of an Irish publisher by an English rival. She felt tired and drained, her father's death obviously taking its toll.

Derry had phoned her out of the blue, asking her to go for a drink with him later that night.

‘I can't,' she explained. ‘I have to work.'

The managing director of the UK publisher was flying into Dublin to meet the other principal in her office and discuss terms, before the contract-signing in the morning.

‘Don't work too hard then!' he'd said sarcastically,
not offering her an alternative. Too shattered to care, she put him out of her mind.

She was working day and night, crawling home to bed in the apartment. Stressed out, she felt rotten and even got weak while standing at the photocopier. Jilly, one of the secretaries, had to get her a glass of Ballygowan water before she stepped into a meeting. The next day she felt no better and dialled the number of the doctor with an office closest to where she worked for a late appointment.

Two hours later she was shocked to discover that she was pregnant!

Everything logically clicked into place as she thought of herself and Derry not taking the slightest precautions the first time they made love.

Standing up, she thanked the doctor for the good news. She had thought about it, and after all the shitty things that had happened over the past few months it
was
good news. Her biological clock was, she supposed, ticking away as it said in those articles she read in women's magazines so perhaps it was the right time for her to have a baby. It was somehow comforting to know that she was at least fertile and would experience motherhood and have a child of her own. At home making hot chocolate and munching a Goldgrain biscuit she wrapped herself up in the cosy comfort of her duvet and fell asleep dreaming of a stroppy toddler stomping along in wellington boots as she tried frantically to keep hold of its hand.

A few days later, trembling with nerves, she finally had enough courage to phone Derry.

‘So are we going for that drink then?' he teased.

‘I need to talk to you.'

He mentioned a bar in town.

Telling him of her father's recent death and explaining she was not in form for a raucous night in a crowded bar, she instead invited him to the apartment.

Derry was busy on the Saturday night but agreed to come over on Sunday when she promised to cook pasta for them both.

He arrived with a bottle of Chianti, pouring her a glass as they sat down on the sofa. Kate pushed it aside, trying to find the right moment to tell him as he excitedly talked to her about the large catamaran he'd been commissioned to design.

‘That's great.' She smiled, nervous.

‘I'll be back and forth to Belfast a bit but it's really good news. The client is an American and he races boats, can you believe it!'

‘I've a bit more news,' she said, taking a deep breath.

‘Work – you got promoted!'

‘No.'

‘You got fired!'

‘No, different.' She tried to control her voice, all the time watching his face. ‘I'm going to have a baby.'

‘A baby?' Derry looked puzzled.

‘Our baby.'

‘What! Jeez I don't believe it. You're pregnant! When did you find out?'

‘A week ago.'

She could see his uncertainty.

‘It is yours,' she affirmed. ‘Definitely.'

Giddy and nauseous, she awaited his reaction.

‘Should we get married, then?' he said very slowly. ‘It's the right thing to do.'

Kate sat back against the cushion, the breath almost leaving her body. What! Was he mad? Get married when they hardly knew each other. She looked into his eyes. He'd said what he meant, that was the kind of guy Derry was. She'd known that right from the start. He hadn't said ‘I am madly in love with you and want to get married' or ‘I can't live without you, let's get married'. He had simply faced the obvious: that she was single, unmarried and expectant and getting married might be a solution.

‘Did you hear what I said, Kate? You're having my baby and I think we should get married.'

‘It's a nice thought,' she said, trying to remain calm, ‘but it's a big decision, one not to be rushed into.'

He sat up, hurt.

‘For Christ's sake, you're carrying my child, Kate! There is absolutely no question of me not being involved or being part of it, do you hear me?'

‘Of course! But I wasn't sure what way you'd react when you heard about the baby. You could have run a mile, told me to piss off. It's great that we both want the baby. He or she will be totally loved and that's all that matters.'

‘What about marriage?' he insisted.

‘Maybe we should just see how things go. Not rush into anything until we are sure.'

‘Is that what you really want?' he said, taking her hands in his.

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak as he
hugged her in his arms. If he had asked her to marry him down in West Cork when their bodies were screaming for each other and she wanted their four days to last for ever she would have said yes. But now this proposal! She had no intention of using the fact that she was pregnant to get him to marry her. This wasn't the 1950s and she was no silly young girl, she had a good job and a career, and was quite capable of raising a child on her own like lots of other single parents.