The Last Four Days of Paddy Buckley by Jeremy Massey Read Free Book Online

thoughts started to trace back to Lucy, Brigid broke the silence with so soft a voice that it was bordering on a whisper.
    â€œWhat do you call this?” she asked. Instinctively, I leaned in a little, as she’d said it conspiratorially, and also because I hadn’t a clue what she was talking about. She realized this in an instant and broke into a little laugh, bringing her hand to her nose to stifle it, making me smile.
    â€œSorry,” said Brigid, “that silence was so nice I didn’t want to offend it, and you don’t know what I’m talking about anyway, do you?”
    I shook my smiling head.
    â€œWhat do you call it when there are two funerals together, like my parents’?” She was still smiling. I was surprised at how at ease she was. I’d been expecting her to be devastated, but she appeared to have great acceptance of her parents’ deaths.
    â€œA double funeral,” I said. “I hope you don’t mind me saying that you seem to be taking all this very well.”
    Her smile disappeared but the expression of calm and contentment remained.
    â€œIt’s because they died together, Paddy,” she said. “In a funny sort of way, I was sadder this morning before Mum died because I felt for her so much, having to be alone after them being with each other for most of their lives. Even though my father was very sick the last few years, they were still together and she was devoted to him: soul mates, completely. And now that she’s followed him, I’m just so happy that they’re together. It’s the perfect ending to their romance. It gives me solace, great solace. I’ll still miss them, of course I will, and I am grieving, but there’s a smile between my tears.”
    I nodded as I listened to her, forgetting momentarily my experience with her mother and my part in her demise. When I’d been sitting at this same table with Lucy, I could have listened to her accent all day. But now, sitting here with Brigid, even though her accent was remarkably similar to her mother’s, it was her voice that I found comforting.
    â€œHave you had experience with this kind of thing before?”
    â€œThe McKinleys,” I heard myself saying.
    â€œWho were the McKinleys?”
    â€œWell, the circumstances were quite different, really, but it’s the case that springs to mind. The McKinleys were a couple, an old couple, who were well known in Dublin. They were inseparable. He was a watchmaker with a place on Dawson Street, a little man who was always impeccably dressed—he’d have his hat and black mac on even in the summertime—and anytime you’d see them around town, they’d always be holding hands: soul mates, as you say. And then she got a brain tumor and was given no hope. Months, they said. So, they sealed the windows and doors in their house, turned on the gas, got into bed, and died together, holding hands. Their children found them three days later and we looked after the funeral.”
    Brigid sat listening with tears filling up her eyes.
    â€œThat’s so romantic,” she said.
    â€œAnd tragic,” I said. “Unlike your parents, which is purely romantic.”
    Brigid nodded while still looking at me, stirring in me something I thought had died with Eva: a yearning. I looked back at her and felt my heart swelling a little. There was also a strange absence of something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. And then I realized what it was. I hadn’t thought of Eva once since sitting down with Brigid. It was as if she were forgotten.
    I straightened the arrangement sheet in front of me and shifted on my seat, bringing us back to the task at hand.
    â€œYour mother had agreed to arrive at the church at half past five on the evening of the removal and have ten o’clock Mass on the morning of the funeral. Okay with you?”
    Brigid nodded slowly with the faintest hint of sultriness in her