Secrets Between Sisters: The perfect heart-warming holiday read of 2018

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‘Sorry I’ll shut up.’ Río returned to her bureau, absently leafed through an old notebook, then lobbed it onto the rubbish heap. Kneeling down and reaching randomly for something else to trash she said: ‘You should do this, Finn, in your room. Declutter your life. Isn’t it about time you got rid of a load of your old computer games?’

‘Funny you should say that. I was just thinking it was about time for me to do a blitz. I’ve been doing some thinking, Ma, and—’

‘Oh, look! One of your old school reports. Listen to this: “Finn is a popular and outgoing boy. However, he tends to concentrate overly on the physical aspect of his education. This is, unfortunately, to the detriment of his academic work, at which he could be very successful if he applied himself more rigorously.” I used to get that sort of thing in my school reports too. “Could do better. Must try harder.’”

‘Ma?’ Getting to his feet, Finn swept his hair back from his face, and the gesture reminded Río–as it always did–of his father.

‘Mm-hm?’

‘Carl’s decided he’s going to do the round-the-world thing this year.’

‘Good for Carl. When’s he going?’

‘In about three weeks.’

‘And he’s going for a whole year?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You’ll miss him. What do you fancy for dinner this evening, by the way? Or maybe we should forget about cooking and head down to O’Toole’s for chowder? My treat.’

‘I hadn’t really thought about it. You see, Ma, the thing is that Carl’s asked me to go with him.’

Río paused in her perusal of a mail-order catalogue. ‘Oh?’

‘Yeah. And I’ve really been thinking about it. It would be a really amazing experience, wouldn’t it?’

‘Yes. It would.’

‘He’s–um–planning on hitting Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, South America…’

‘That’s going to cost a lot of money.’ Río turned a page automatically. A garden gnome that was great value at only €22.99 winked up at her with unseemly cheerfulness. How could it wink at her when her world was about to cave in?

‘Well, yeah. But there are ways of doing it on the cheap. You can get a ticket with a certain amount of stops on it, and it works out pretty good, depending on how many stops you take. It actually costs less than you might think. And I’ve been saving.’

Río wrenched her attention away from the gnome and forced herself to meet her son’s eyes. ‘You were saving up to go to college, Finn. I thought that’s what we agreed.’

‘I’m sorry, Ma. But I don’t want to study Marine Biology. I want to dive.’

‘But a degree in Marine Biology can help you as a diver. It can—’

‘Ma–I’m not an academic. I’m a hands-on kind of guy. I don’t want to pootle about underwater collecting specimens for analysis. I want to dive deep, I want to dive hard, I want to experience—’

‘You sound like some stupid slogan on one of your dive T-shirts.’

There was a silence, and then Finn said, ‘Shit, Ma. Are we going to fall out over this?’

‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.’ Río chewed her lip, hating herself. ‘I don’t mean to rain on your parade, Finn–really I don’t–it’s just that you’ve taken me a bit by surprise, that’s all’

Finn shuffled his feet. ‘You probably think that I haven’t put very much thought into this, Ma, but I have. It’s not like it’s going to be a holiday. We’ll pick up work as we go, me and Carl. There’s always work for Irish in bars, and we can help out in the scuba resorts we visit. And if I pick up enough work, I might be able to afford further training. Maybe even get my instructor-ship certification at last.’

‘Your big dream.’

‘My big dream.’

Río closed the mail-order catalogue and added it to the heap of junk. ‘Then go for it, Finn.’

‘You mean it?’

‘Yes, I do.’ She gave a rueful smile. ‘If we were in a movie now I’d say something meaningful like: “Follow your dream, son. That’s the only thing that matters in life.” Blah, blah, blah…’

‘But we’re not in a movie, Ma. I want to know what you really think.’

‘It doesn’t matter what I really think.’

‘Yes, it does.’

‘OK. Here goes,’ she said, taking a deep breath. ‘This is what I think. I love you more than my own life, Finn. You are the best thing that ever happened to me. And because I was responsible for bringing you into the world, I am responsible for your happiness. At the very least I owe you that—’

‘But, Ma, I owe you too. I owe—’

‘No, no. Listen to me. I owe it to you to be happy because there is no point–no point at all–in bringing into this world a human being who is going to end up a miserable son-of-a-bitch who resents his mother for standing in the way of what he really wants to do and turns into a–a big seething ball of bitter and twistedness. Oh God, how crap am I at this sort of thing! Let me try again.’ Folding her hands on her lap, Río looked down, waiting for the right words to come. ‘I didn’t make you so that you could care for me in my old age, Finn,’ she resumed, ‘or because I wanted to mould someone in my image. I couldn’t have done that even if I’d wanted to, because you were always your own man, even as a toddler. And now that you’re grown, it’s time for me to start letting go. Oh!’ Río stood up briskly. ‘I’m sounding like a character in one of your dad’s schmaltzier pilots. This is where I should get out your baby pictures and gaze at them tearfully.’

‘Here.’ Finn held out his baby bootees. ‘Gaze at these, instead.’

Río laughed, even though she actually did feel very choked up.

‘You’ve always been able to make me laugh, you brat.’

‘Maybe I’ve missed my vocation. Maybe I should do stand-up.’

‘No. Being a stand-up is more dangerous than being a scuba-diver.’

Mother and son shared a smile; then Finn gave Río one of those self-conscious hugs that twenty-year-olds give their parents, patting her shoulder and depositing a clumsy kiss on her cheek before disengaging.

‘Thanks, Ma,’ he said.

And then the phone went.

‘Get that, will you, Finn?’ said Río, reaching for a packet of tissues. She wasn’t going to cry. She just needed to blow her nose. She had nothing to cry about. She had reared a beautiful, confident, gregarious son, and she had done it all by herself. She had nothing to cry about.

Finn picked up. ‘Hi, Dervla,’ he said. ‘Yeah. I’ll put you on to her.’

‘Dervla?’ mouthed Río, giving Finn a sceptical look. ‘Dervla?’

He nodded, and Río wondered, as she took the handset from him, if this was one of Finn’s jokes. What had started as a fissure, just after their mother’s death, had developed into a rift between the sisters as wide and unbridgeable as the Grand Canyon. Dervla rarely phoned, and if they happened to meet on the street they would cross to the other side to avoid each other–to the private amusement of the rest of the village. For two decades Río’s sister’s preferred method of communication had been via terse reminders sent in the post or dropped through the letterbox. These billets-doux bore such legends as: ‘When was the last time you cleaned Dad’s kitchen?’ (A major chore.) Or: ‘Your turn to organise a chimney sweep for that fire hazard of a house.’ Or: ‘Please defrost Dad’s fridge. I did it last time.’ Since the advent of text messaging, the reminders had become terser still. ‘Lite bulbs need replacing.’ Or: ‘Washing machine broken.’

‘Hi, Dervla,’ Río said into the receiver, assuming a bright, faux-friendly expression to cover her confusion. ‘What’s up?’

‘There’s no easy way to say this, Río,’ came Dervla’s voice over the receiver. ‘But then there never is a good way to break bad news.’

‘What’s wrong?’ Río asked, antsy now.

‘Daddy’s dead,’ said Dervla.