All it was now was a blanched and pallid canvas that would in a matter of only weeks have children frolicking in the recreation room, while outside would be a cocoon of calm. Perhaps she should have sound-proofed the walls. She had no idea what she could add to these walls to bring a smile to the children’s little faces when they walked in feeling nervous and upset at being taken from their parents. She knew about chaise longues, plasma screens, marble floors and wood of every kind. She could do chic, funky, sophisticated and rooms of splendour and grandeur. But none of these things would excite a child, and she knew she could do better than a few building blocks, jigsaw puzzles and beanbags.
She knew it would be perfectly within her rights to hire a muralist, ask the on-site painters to do the job or even ask Poppy for some guidance, but Elizabeth liked to be hands-on. She liked to get lost in her work and she didn’t want to have to ask for help. Handing the brush over to someone else would be a sign of defeat in her eyes.
She laid ten tubs of primary colours in a line on the floor, opened the lids and placed the brushes next to them. She spread a white sheet on the floor and, making sure her jeans, which she wore only as work wear, wouldn’t touch the dirty floor in any way, she sat crosslegged in the centre of the room and stared at the wall. But all she could think of was the fact she couldn’t think of anything but Saoirse. Saoirse, who was on her mind every second of every day.
In time she wondered how long she had been sitting there. She had a vague recollection of builders entering and exiting the room, collecting their tools, watching her in puzzlement as she stared at a blank wall. She had a feeling she was suffering an interior designer’s version of writer’s block. No ideas would come, no pictures could be formed and, just as the ink would dry in a pen, the paint would not flow from her brush. Her head was filled with … nothing. It was as though her thoughts were being reflected onto that drab plastered wall and it was probably thinking the very same thing as her.
She felt someone’s presence behind her and she turned round. Benjamin was standing at the door.
‘I’m sorry, I would have knocked but,’ he held his hands up, ‘there’s no door.’
Elizabeth gave him a welcoming grin.
‘Admiring my handiwork?’
‘You did this?’ She turned back to face the wall.
‘My best work, I think,’ he replied, and they both looked at it in silence.
Elizabeth sighed. ‘It’s not saying anything to me.’
‘Ah.’ He took a step into the room. ‘You have no idea how difficult it is to create a piece of art that doesn’t say anything at all. Someone always has some kind of interpretation but with this …’ he shrugged, ‘nothing. No statements.’
‘A sign of a true genius, Mr West.’
‘Benjamin,’ he winced. ‘I keep telling you, please call me Benjamin; you make me sound like my math teacher.’
‘OK, you can keep calling me Ms Egan.’
He caught the sides of her cheeks lifting into a smile as she turned back to face the wall.
‘Do you think there’s any chance at all that the kids will like this room just as it is?’ she asked hopefully.
‘Hmm,’ Benjamin thought aloud, ‘the nails protruding from the skirting board would be particularly fun for them to play with. I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘You’re asking the wrong guy about kids. They’re another species to me. We don’t have a real close relationship.’
‘Me neither,’ Elizabeth muttered guiltily, thinking of her inability to connect with Luke like Edith did. Although after meeting Ivan she found herself spending more time with him. That morning in the field with Ivan and Luke had been a real milestone for her, yet when she was alone with Luke she still couldn’t let herself go with him. It was Ivan that released the child in her.
Benjamin went down on his haunches, placing his hand on the dusty floor to steady himself. ‘Well, I don’t believe that for a second. You’ve got a son, don’t you?’
‘Oh, no, I haven’t …’ she started, then stopped. ‘He’s my nephew. I adopted him but the last thing in this world I understand is children.’ Everything was blurting out of her mouth today. She missed the Elizabeth who could have a conversation without revealing the tiniest part of herself but it seemed that lately the floodgates to her heart had been opened and things rushed out of it of their own accord.
‘Well, you seem to have a pretty good idea what he wanted on Sunday morning,’ Benjamin said softly, looking at her differently. ‘I drove past you when you were dancing around that field.’
Elizabeth rolled her eyes and her dark skin pinked. ‘You and the rest of the town, apparently. But that was Ivan’s idea,’ she said quickly.
Benjamin laughed. ‘You give Ivan the credit for everything?’
Elizabeth thought about that but Benjamin didn’t wait for the answer. ‘I suppose in this case you just gotta sit here like you’re doin’ and put yourself in the position of the kids. Put that wild imagination of yours to use. If you were a kid what would you want to do in this room?’
‘Other than get out and grow up quickly?’
Benjamin moved to get up.
‘So how long do you plan on staying in the big smoke of Baile na gCroíthe?’ Elizabeth asked quickly. She figured the longer he stayed, the more she could put off admitting to herself that for the first time in her life she had absolutely no idea of what to do with a room.
Benjamin, sensing her desire for a conversation, lowered himself to the dusty floor and Elizabeth had to ignore what she could imagine were millions of dust mites crawling all over him.
‘I plan on leaving as soon as the last lick of paint is on the walls and the last nail has been hammered in.’
‘You’ve obviously fallen head over heels in love with this place,’ Elizabeth said sarcastically. ‘Don’t the stunning panoramic views of Kerry impress you?’
‘Yeah, the views are nice but I’ve had six months of good views and now I could do with a decent cup of coffee, a choice of more than one shop to buy my clothes and to be able to walk around without everyone staring at me like I’ve escaped from a zoo.’
Elizabeth laughed.
Benjamin held his hands up. ‘I don’t mean to be offensive or anything – Ireland’s great – but I’m just not a fan of small towns.’
‘Me neither …’ Elizabeth’s smile faded at the thought. ‘So where did you escape from then?’
‘New York.’
Elizabeth shook her head. ‘That is not a New York accent I hear.’
‘No, you got me; I’m from a place called Haxtun in Colorado, which I’m sure you’ve probably heard of. It’s well known for a great number of things.’
‘Such as?’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Absolutely nothing. It’s a small town in a big dust bowl, a good strong farming town with a population of one thousand.’
‘You didn’t like it there?’
‘No I didn’t like it,’ he said firmly. ‘You could say I suffered from claustrophobia,’ he added with a smile.
‘I know how that feels,’ Elizabeth nodded. ‘Sounds like here.’
‘It’s a bit like here.’ Benjamin looked out the window. He relaxed then. ‘Everyone waves at you as you pass. They haven’t a damn clue who you are but they wave.’
Elizabeth hadn’t realised it until now. She pictured her father in the field, cap on, covering his face, holding his arm up in an L shape to passing cars.
‘They wave in fields and on the streets,’ Benjamin continued, ‘farmers, old ladies, kids, teens, newly born and serial killers. And I’ve studied this to a fine art.’ His eyes twinkled at her. ‘You even get the one-finger wave with the index finger raised off the steering wheel as you pass traffic. Man, you’d leave the place waving at cows if you’re not careful.’
‘And the cows would probably wave back.’
Benjamin laughed loudly. ‘You ever think of leaving?’
‘I did more than think about it.’ Her smile faded. ‘I
went to New York too but I’ve commitments here,’ she said, quickly looking away.
‘Your nephew, right?’
‘Yes,’ she said softly.
‘Well, there’s one good thing about leaving a small town. They all miss you when you’re gone. They all notice it.’
Their eyes locked on one another. ‘I suppose you’re right,’ she said. ‘It’s ironic, though, that we both moved to a big city where we were surrounded by more people and more buildings than we’d ever known, just so we could feel more isolated.’
‘Huh.’ Benjamin stared at her, not blinking. She knew he wasn’t seeing her face; he was lost in his own world. And he did look lost for a moment. ‘Anyway,’ he snapped out of his trance, ‘it was a pleasure talking to you again, Ms Egan.’
She smiled at his address.
‘I’d better go and let you stare at the wall some more.’ He stopped and turned at the doorway. ‘Oh, by the way,’ she felt her stomach turn, ‘without running the risk of making you uncomfortable, I mean this in the most innocent way possible, maybe you’d like to meet up outside of work sometime? It would be nice to have a conversation with a like-minded person for a change.’
‘Sure.’ She liked this casual invitation. No expectations.
‘Maybe you’ll know some of the good places to go. Six months ago, when I just arrived, I made the mistake of asking Joe where the nearest sushi bar was. I had to tell him it was raw fish before he directed me to a lake about an hour’s drive away and told me to ask for a guy called Tom.’
Elizabeth burst out laughing, the sound, which was becoming more familiar to her these days, echoing around the room. ‘That’s his brother, the fisherman.’
‘Anyway, I’ll see you again.’
The room was empty once more and Elizabeth was faced with the same dilemma. She thought of what Benjamin had said about using her imagination and putting herself in the place of a child. She closed her eyes and imagined the sounds of children hollering, laughing, crying and fighting. The noisy clatter of toys, feet pounding on the floor as they ran around, the sound of bodies falling, a shocked silence and then wails. She pictured herself as a child sitting alone in a room, not knowing anyone, and it suddenly occurred to her what she would have wanted.
A friend.
She opened her eyes and spotted a card on the floor beside her, though the room was still empty and quiet. Someone must have crept in when she had her eyes closed and left it there. She picked up the card, which had a black thumb print on the side. She didn’t even need to read it to know it was Benjamin’s new business card.
Maybe imagining had worked after all. It looked like she’d just made a friend in the playroom.
Sliding the card into her back pocket, she forgot about Benjamin and continued staring at the four walls.
Nope. Still nothing.
Chapter 28
Elizabeth sat at the glass table in the spotless kitchen surrounded by gleaming granite worktops, polished walnut cupboards and shining marble tiles. She had just had a cleaning frenzy and her mind still wasn’t clear. Every time the phone rang, she leaped at it, thinking it was Saoirse, but it was Edith checking up on Luke. Elizabeth still hadn’t heard from her sister, her father was still waiting in her old bedroom for her mother; sitting, eating and sleeping in the same chair for almost two weeks now. He wouldn’t speak to Elizabeth, wouldn’t even let her come as far as the front door so she had arranged for a housekeeper to call round to cook him a meal a day, and tidy up now and then. Some days he let her in, others he didn’t. The young man who worked with her father on his farm had taken over all the duties. This was costing Elizabeth money she couldn’t afford, but there was nothing else she could do. She couldn’t help the other two members of her family if they didn’t want to be helped. And she wondered for the first time if she had something in common with them after all.
They had all lived together – the girls had grown up together – but separately, and still they stayed together in the same town. They hadn’t much communication with one another but when somebody left … well, it mattered. They were tied by an old and fraying rope that ended up being the object of tug of war.
Elizabeth couldn’t bring herself to tell Luke what was going on and, of course, he knew there was something. Ivan was right, children had a sixth sense for that kind of thing, but Luke was such a good child and as soon as he sensed Elizabeth’s sadness he retreated into the playroom. Then she would hear the quiet clatter of building blocks. She couldn’t bring herself to say more to him than to tell him to wash his hands, fix his speech and order him to stop dragging his feet.
She wasn’t capable of holding her arms out to him, her lips couldn’t form the words ‘I love you’, but she tried in her own ways to make him feel safe and wanted. But she knew what he really wanted. She had been in his position, knew what it was like to want to be held, cuddled, kissed on the forehead and rocked. To be made to feel safe for just a few minutes at least, to know that someone else is there looking out for you and that life just isn’t in your own hands and you’re stuck living it all alone in your head.
Ivan had provided her with a few of those moments over the past few weeks. He had kissed her on the forehead and rocked her to sleep, and she had fallen asleep not feeling alone, not feeling the urge to look out the window and search beyond for someone else. Ivan, sweet, sweet Ivan was shrouded in mystery. She had never known anyone have the ability to help her realise just exactly who she was, to help her find her feet, but she was struck by the irony that this man who jokingly spoke of invisibility actually did wear a cloak of invisibility. He was putting her on a map, showing her the way, yet he had no idea where he was going himself, where he came from, who he was. He liked to speak of her problems, help heal her, help fix her, and he never once spoke of his own. It was as though she was a distraction to him and she wondered what would happen when the distraction ended and the realisation dawned.
She got a sense that their time together was valuable, as though she needed to hold on to every minute as if it was their last. He was too good to be true, every moment spent with him magical, so much so that she presumed this couldn’t last for ever. None of her good feelings had lasted; none of the people who lightened her life managed to stay. Going by her previous luck, from pure fear of not wanting to lose something so special, she was just waiting for the day he would leave. Whoever he was, he was healing her, he was teaching her to smile, teaching her to laugh, and she wondered what she could teach him. With Ivan, she feared that the sweet man with the soft eyes would reach a day when he would realise she had nothing to offer. That she had simply drained him of his resources and had none to give.
It had happened with Mark. She just couldn’t give him any more of herself without taking away the care she had for her family. That’s what he wanted her to do, of course – cut the strings that connected her to her family – but she couldn’t do it, she would never do it. Saoirse and her father knew how to pull those strings and so she remained their puppet. As a result she was alone, raising a child she never wanted, with the love of her life living in America, a married man and a father of one. She hadn’t heard from him or seen him for five years. A few months after Elizabeth had moved back to Ireland he visited her while on a trip home to see his family.
Those beginning months were the hardest. Elizabeth was intent on making Saoirse bring up the baby herself and as much as Saoirse protested and claimed she didn’t care, Elizabeth wasn’t about to let her sister throw away the opportunity of raising her son.
Elizabeth’s dad couldn’t hack it any more; he couldn’t take the baby’s screaming all night while Saoirse was out partying. Elizabeth supposed it reminded him too much of the years before when he was left holding the baby, the baby he subsequently passed on to his twelve-year-old daughter. Well, he did the same again. He threw Saoirse out of the bungalow, forcing her to arrive on Elizabeth’s doorstep, cradle and all. The day that all happened was the day Mark decided to take the tr
ip over to visit Elizabeth.
One look at the state of her life and she knew he was gone for ever. It wasn’t long before Saoirse disappeared from Elizabeth’s home, leaving the baby with her. She thought about giving Luke up for adoption, she really did. Every sleepless night and every stressful day she promised herself she would make that phone call. But she couldn’t do it. Maybe it had something to do with her fear of giving in. She was obsessive in her strive for perfection and she couldn’t give up on trying to help Saoirse. Also there was a part of her that was intent on proving she could raise a child, that it wasn’t her fault for the way Saoirse turned out. She didn’t want to get it all wrong with Luke. He deserved far better.
She cursed as she picked up another of her sketches, scrunched it in a ball and threw it across the room to the bin. It landed short of it and, not being able to cope with something out of place, Elizabeth walked across the room and delivered it to its rightful position.
The kitchen table was covered in paper, colouring pencils, children’s books, cartoon characters. All she had succeeded in doing was drawing doodles all over the page. It wasn’t enough for the playroom and it certainly wasn’t the whole new world that she aspired to create. As usual, the same thing happened that always happened when she thought of Ivan: the doorbell rang and she knew it was him. She rushed to her feet, fixing her hair, her clothes, checking her reflection in the mirror. Gathering her colouring pencils and paper, she jogged on the spot in panic, trying to decide where to dump them. They slid from her hand; swearing, she dived down to pick them up. Her papers flew out of her hands and floated to the floor like leaves in an autumn breeze.
While on the floor, her eyes fell upon red Converse runners casually crossed one another at the doorway. Her body slumped, her cheeks pinked.
‘Hi, Ivan,’ she said, refusing to look at him.
‘Hello, Elizabeth. Have you ants in your pants?’ his amused voice asked.
‘How good of Luke to let you in,’ Elizabeth said sarcastically. ‘Funny he never actually does that when I need him to.’ She reached for the sheets of paper on the floor and got to her feet. ‘You’re wearing red,’ she stated, studying his red cap, red T-shirt and red shoes.
If You Could See Me Now Page 20
