The winner of our current Short Story Competition is published in the May|June issue of Irish Country Magazine, out now. This beautiful story came in second place and was written by Paula Corcoran, from Co Kerry
Bridget really can’t pinpoint what has caused this headache; the clangs and bangs of the demolition all day, she supposes. Finally with the grandkids asleep, their parents elsewhere stealing back their own lives for an hour, and the builders gone until tomorrow, the house once again resembles hers.
Retreating to her living room, she takes stock of today’s mess. Buckets and planks beneath the window, a lifetime stacked into boxes in the corner and dust three inches thick on every surface. Through her adjoining double doors, what remains is a half functioning kitchen and the only surviving bathroom.
Sighing as she navigates through the construction, she assesses her couch; once part of an admired three piece settee, now demoted to hide beneath dirty white coverings for its own protection. She settles onto the sheet and thinks about the plans she and Shona had agreed.
“A granny flat. It’ll be lovely. You’ll have your own entrance and we won’t be coming in and out. Your own peace and quiet away from our madhouse.”
At the time, she didn’t care too much about the quiet but now that the work is really underway, peace, Bridget finds herself admitting, is exactly what she needs. She hadn’t considered just how big a job this was when she proposed it. She wants her daughter to have the house of course, a real family home. But six more months is a lot of headaches.
Bridget was still confident the renovation was a great idea. She understood downsizing was the easier option – oh, how the ladies at Wednesday Choir had sung praises for it. She knew her family home had been blessed with happiness and couldn’t stand to just sell it.
But in all that emotional rationalisation, she really hadn’t considered the noise. Or the dust. Pensively, her eyes seek out the discolourations on the wall; shadows of where her family photos would usually reside. Over the fireplace the largest memory etched – Shona’s Communion photo. Where the three of them stood proudly, Shona in her meringue of taffeta and Peadar looking sharp in that forest green shirt.
Peadar, god rest his soul, gone five years now. “Almost six,” she catches herself, surprised that a time frame that once seemed to be only measurable in weeks can now be easily rounded up by a year. What would he make of this building site? Of tearing down what they had created together?
She knows then, again, she’s doing the right thing. Peadar was a generous man and, despite his successes, he never saw much value in materials. She often suspected if he was born into another time that he’d have lived a far more exciting life in much more exotic locations.
Alas, 1960s Ireland was a different place to mature into a man and, lucky for her, he accepted the sensible family route. But his spirit never waned and her other great fortune in life was how it had rubbed off on her. They holidayed ‘out foreign’ when they could, as far as Turkey even. But there
was so much more out there he wanted to experience, and while she was cautious, she trusted him and his plan. They were going to ‘properly’ travel the world as he put it. Seeing the Pyramids and the Great Wall of China and all the other wonders reserved for hippies and pensioners.
“Is Angkor Wat one of the Seven Wonders of the World?” he’d puzzle aloud, more to himself than for her input.
“Encore What?” she’d reply, caught off guard, her head in a cupboard, never prepared for these musings.
“AN-KHOR-WAT, it’s in Cambodia…never mind, I don’t think it is. We’ll add it to the list anyways.”
The list, she recalls now. Looking at that tattered notebook over the last few years has been a gamble. Sometimes too much to take, reducing her to sobs in the shower, sometimes filling her with fondness, inspiring her to look up the exotic names online and imagine the two of them there. But her head is throbbing now, not with pain but with needing. She just has to lay her hands on his list.
Certain it’s packed away with the other trinkets of her life, she turns her focus to the corner of boxes, dropping to her knees to dig with urgency.
After a few minutes, with relief, she spots the worn blue leather. Dusting off the familiar cover, she studies it with awe, as if uncovering a divine relic. Flicking through the pages she stops a cry in her throat before it steals the momentum to make it to her mouth.
“What a life he should have lived,” she whispers, her eyes blurring. The tears are not just for him she knows, but her own guilt. A promise she made during those long days in the Hospice.
“I’ll travel, I promise. I’ll see them all for you.”
Her mind races, affronted with excuses. It’s not practical, I’m too old, I wouldn’t even know where to go.
Amidst the spiral, a flash of a memory finds her. This time from the Choir Gals. It was Babs Sheehan, wasn’t it? Talking about cruises? Yes. How you can travel the world on one.
“It’s perfect for the likes of us. Like a retirement home on the sea…apparently, it’s not the worst price either, if you compare it to the cost of living these days, that is.”
Surely not, Bridget thinks to herself. But then again, why not? And if not now, then when? Realising how odd a sight she must look, hunched in the corner on the floor amidst the boxes, she picks herself up with the notebook still firmly in hand.
“God, if the kids found me they’d probably think I had a fall,” she mutters, chuckling silently to herself, giddy with the excitement of her erratically forming thoughts. Making her way back to the covered couch, she picks up the iPad on the side table as she passes. Trawling through endless websites, dawn peaks through the temporary curtains, before she realises her mind is fully made up.
“23,000 for six months and it goes around the world. One leaves in two weeks, would you believe it? From France! They only go twice a year so it’s really a sign from your father, wouldn’t you agree?”
Shona is in shock, simultaneously trying to feed children and digest the information.
“Is Nana going away?”
“No honey, Nana is just being silly. Now, two more spoons of porridge, okay?”
“I know it sounds like an awful lot but we have…we had…money put away for something like this. All totally separate from the Build Fund of course. And it’ll cover all meals, I’ll see all the sights, meet new people like me…”
Bridget stops herself, realising she is sounding needy. She’s being silly because actually it is not a joint decision at all. She knows she is going to do this. She needs to take this leap of faith.
For Peadar.
For her.
Even for Shona. How much happier they’ll be with her out of their hair and she can come back when everything is done and, more importantly, dusted.
Confidently, she smiles at her grandchildren.
“Yes, she is, my dear. This Nana is seeing the world.
You can read the winning story in the May|June issue of Irish Country Magazine, in shops now. To enter our competition for the July|August, click here for details.
