starts to laugh and I can’t help but laugh too. She does have a point.
‘Michael says I should go away for a few days to reflect, you know, a change of scenery,’ I tell her. ‘Somewhere quiet, away from reality if you like just to let this all sink in.’
‘What? Away where to?’ she asks. ‘Is he … is he sure you won’t …?’
‘He is pretty sure I won’t die in the next week or so,’ I say with a nervous laugh. ‘I’m thinking of going to Ireland, me and Rosie, what do you think? I want to go there and stay by the sea for a few days and think about … life and well, death I suppose.’
But there’s no pulling the wool over my sister’s eyes. She knows exactly what Ireland means to me.
‘No, Juliette, you just stop right there,’ is her adamant reply as she opens and closes my kitchen cupboards and drawers, but then I didn’t expect her reaction to be any different. ‘Don’t say that. You’re not thinking straight, Juliette. You’re in shock. Just stop.’
‘But I am thinking straight,’ I say to her. ‘Even Michael said it would be good for me.’
‘Michael doesn’t know your history there!’
‘No, well, yes, but actually he knows a lot more than you think he does,’ I try to explain. ‘But that’s not why I want to go back. It’s a spectacular place, Helen. It’s my favourite place in the world.’
‘Cornwall is a spectacular place,’ says Helen. ‘Scotland is a spectacular place. It has scenery and the sea and good food and it’s—’
‘Yes, and so does Barry Island and Weston-super-Mare and bloody Blackpool but it’s not where I want to go, Helen,’ I say. ‘I want to show Rosie the one place in this world I loved the most and I want to tell her how special it was and how it still is for us both. I want to go there and switch off, and if anything else happens, then that’s a huge bonus, but that’s not the only reason why I’m going, believe me.’
My big sister is going to take a lot more convincing than that, but I was expecting this. I didn’t think for one second that she would be helping me pack my bags and cheering me on my merry way to Killara, with Rosie in tow, to find a man who once sailed boats there – when here I am, back in the real world about to pop my clogs. No way.
‘So, what are your other reasons then? I don’t believe you for one second and have you thought about Dan in all of this?’ Helen is still rifling through the kitchen drawers.
‘Helen, Dan will understand,’ I try to explain. ‘I’ll give him a call and tell him everything.’
‘Juliette, you don’t need any stress and you certainly don’t need to be chasing unicorns and rainbows at this stage,’ she says to me. ‘At last, goodness, how can it be hard to find something to write on around here?’
She opens an old notebook of mine, and then licks her finger to flick through the pages until she finds a blank one.
‘Why do you need something to write on?’ I ask. ‘I just want to go there and spend quality time with Rosie. It will be great for us both, you know it will.’
She starts to write.
‘You’ll never find him,’ she says, still writing. ‘You hardly know anything about him. You said you don’t even remember his proper name.’
She has a point. Except it’s not that I don’t remember his proper name. I never knew his proper name in the first place.
‘I do remember the rest of him though,’ I reply, and it’s true. I remember his dark hair and his muscular back and the fumbling and laughing and urgency and the smell of alcohol – and the shame I felt when I woke up alone and the fear on the way home to Birmingham when sobriety kicked in and I realised how stupid we’d been not to have used any protection whatsoever.
I remember how I looked for him before I left the village the next day, just to see if he cared or wanted to see me again or would acknowledge what had happened between us but he had disappeared. I remember the hurt and shame I felt and then how Birgit and I had laughed and laughed at the very thought of me, a good Catholic girl from a convent school having a one night stand with a handsome Irishman when I didn’t even get his real name, never mind his number.
But most of all, I remember the emptiness I felt when I got on the plane home to Birmingham without Birgit to laugh about it with, and the feeling that my life had just changed forever. And oh, how it had.
All of that, I can remember loud and clear.
‘What are you doing?’ I ask my sister who is still making notes in front of me while I daydream down memory lane.
‘Nothing,’ she says.
‘You’re writing nothing?’
‘Okay, okay, I’m making plans,’ she says. ‘It’s my turn to make some plans. It’s not just you who makes plans in life, you know.’
I look across at my sister’s notes and let out a loud sigh that makes her jump when I see the latest entry on her ‘plan’.
‘What?’ she shouts, dropping the pen with panic. ‘Are you in pain? What, Juliette?’
‘No, I am not in pain,’ I tell her. ‘I’m just wondering why on earth you’re writing that stupid stuff in front of me. Make room for Rosie? At least wait until I leave before you try and plan your life after me. Jesus, Helen, you have as much tact as our mother sometimes.’
‘Don’t exaggerate, I’m not that bad,’ says Helen, tearing out then scrunching up the notepaper but it’s too late, I already saw it. ‘And don’t try to change the subject. You are not going to Ireland to track down this stranger after all this time. You’re not going. End of.’
I pull a funny face. She doesn’t laugh.
‘I think his nickname was Skipper,’ I remind her. ‘He was a captain on the boats so that sounds about right, doesn’t it? Skipper. Or was it Skippy? Something like that. Or Skip … No, it was Skipper. A captain. A boatman.’
‘Yes, you said he was a sailor or something. You dirty rotten stop out.’
‘A mighty fine sailor he was too,’ I say with a cheeky grin but my sister is disgusted. ‘I’m joking! Well, actually I’m not joking. Look, I swear, I don’t even know if he was from Killara! He was probably just ‘sailing’ through like I was. He’s not why I’m going back, I promise.’
But Helen has had enough of my jokes. She closes her eyes and then looks at me, not joking one bit right now.
‘Please, Juliette,’ she whispers. ‘Oh my God, please think of Rosie right now. She was so excited today to arrange your party. I couldn’t bear to watch her put the candles in the cake and wrap your presents. Did you like your presents? She was so proud of herself. And Dan? He left you a gift. Did you see it?’
I nod my head. A silver locket that he has known I’ve had my eye on for years sits on the worktop. It’s too hard. All of this is too hard.
‘I loved my presents,’ I tell my sister.
