Page 63 of Postscript

‘Would you like to come too?’ I offer.

She smiles and climbs into the back seat.

‘This is kind of like old times,’ I reply, looking at the three of us together.

‘Can I see the letters?’ Sharon asks.

Denise passes them back to her.

‘Are you in on this too?’

‘I’ve helped mind a baby while Holly teaches her mum to read and write,’ Denise explains.

‘You’re teaching a person to read and write?’ Sharon asks, surprised.

‘Trying,’ I reply, reversing. I wait for a smart remark. People get desperate on their deathbeds, don’t they? Something, anything to belittle what I’m doing, but it doesn’t come.

‘Nice presentation,’ Sharon says, sliding out the first limerick to read aloud.

There once was a boy at Chrysanthemum

Who paused for the National Anthem

He saw a vision in blue

It was you, always you

Till my heart stops I’ll live it verbatim.

‘How sweet,’ Sharon says. ‘Where does it lead to?’

‘The Chrysanthemum was a dance hall. They met in the sixties, the show band that night was called The Dawnbreakers. But it’s too early, the venue won’t be open, so we’re going to the second location first.’

Sharon flicks on to the next envelope and reads.

There once was a man on a date

Who used a woman’s love of poems as bait

They sat on the bench

Her lips he did quench

And the kiss sealed the love-struck fool’s fate

‘Their first kiss?’ she asks.

‘Bingo.’

The place of Bert and Rita’s first kiss in 1968 was on Patrick Kavanagh’s bench on the north banks of the Grand Canal on Mespil Road, where there’s a life-sized statue of Kavanagh sitting on one side of the bench, welcoming a stranger to sit beside him. We stand by the bench and I imagine Bert and Rita here all those years ago, sharing their first kiss, and I feel moved. I look up at the girls, tears in my eyes but Sharon’s expression couldn’t be more different to mine.

‘This isn’t where you leave the second envelope.’

‘It is.’

‘No, it’s not. The first limerick leads to the dance hall, then you leave the second envelope there, which leads here. This is where you leave the third envelope.’

Denise and I look at each other, wide-eyed. How the hell did we make that mistake? It’s not rocket science.