The Gravity of Love

by Noelle Harrison

  The knock came again.

  ‘Come in.’ His voice sounded gruff. He didn’t mean it to, but he was still half asleep.

  Cait’s red hair then her green eyes appeared as she popped her head round the door. ‘Sorry to wake you,’ she said. ‘But I have to get going. The train to Dublin leaves in half an hour.’

  This was his daughter. This beautiful young woman, this marvel, was actually related to him. It took his breath away, and for a moment he was unable to speak.

  ‘So I can’t leave you here. You’ll have to go,’ she said, sounding a bit abrupt.

  ‘Of course,’ Lewis replied, sitting up. ‘But why don’t I drive you to Dublin? I’m heading back that way today.’

  Cait looked surprised. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I’d like a chance to get to know you more.’

  She shrugged. ‘Okay.’ He could see that behind her nonchalance, she was pleased.

  ‘Cait, you’re my only family.’

  ‘And I guess you’re mine.’

  They looked at each other for a moment, and Lewis could almost see the stretch between them begin to shrink like the tide creeping up the shore. It would take time. But she was his child. Irrevocably they were drawn together.

  ‘There’s just one detour I want to take on the way, if that’s okay with you,’ he said. ‘What time is your flight to London?’

  ‘Not until this evening,’ she said. ‘We’ve all day.’

  ‘There’s someone I need to see,’ he told her.

  He couldn’t leave it. He knew he should. By now Joy and her husband had probably made up. And that was a good thing, he tried to convince himself. How could he want Joy to walk out on her marriage, make a mockery of twenty-one years of her life?

  On the other hand, Lewis didn’t like the look of her husband. He had met plenty of guys like him in Arizona over the years – macho cowboy types who patronised their wives and cheated behind their backs. He told himself he wanted to spare Joy the misery of this. But really, if he was honest, he just couldn’t let her go, not now that he had come to understand his own failed marriage. He had held on to that dream of Marnie because it had explained how unhappy he and Samantha were for too many years, but it had also given him an excuse to do nothing about it. Marnie was unattainable. He had loved her once, of course. But they had been so young. He would never know if things could have worked between them, but it didn’t matter in the end, because she was not, never had been, the woman he really wanted. He knew now, with surprising conviction, that the woman he loved was Joy. Deep down he had known it from the first moment she’d stepped inside Langely Art Gallery. There had been this pull towards her, as natural and understandable as if they were two magnets. That was the only way he could explain it.

  On the drive from Strandhill to Ballycastle Lewis told Cait a little about Joy’s search for her birth mother, being careful to leave out his own feelings about her.

  ‘I want to check she’s okay,’ he said. ‘She might need a lift back to Dublin too.’

  ‘It’s a little like me,’ Cait commented. ‘She’s looking for her mum, and I was looking for my dad.’

  ‘And you found him . . .’

  ‘Well, you found me.’

  ‘It was you who sent the postcards, Cait.’

  Lewis glanced at his daughter. She was slouched in the passenger seat, her legs up and her booted feet pressed against the dashboard. He didn’t tell her to put them down. He rather liked her spiky attitude, and her punky look, from the purple Doc Martens, black PVC trousers and leather biker jacket to the cat-like kohl around her eyes and her black nail varnish. If Lizzie were young now, it would be exactly how she’d dress. His daughter was no square, and this pleased him.

  The rain hit them just as they approached Ballycastle. He drove down the length of the main street until he reached Mrs McIntyre’s B&B, where he pulled in, and they sat in the car, waiting for the shower to pass. Cait offered him a stick of chewing gum, but he refused. He felt tight with nerves. What exactly was he going to say to Joy, especially with her husband there too? He could be about to completely humiliate himself. He clenched his fists. No, he had to listen to his instinct. Joy had feelings for him. He was sure of it.

  ‘What the hell,’ he said under his breath, and Cait gave him a curious look.

  ‘I won’t be long,’ he said, opening the door and plunging into the deluge. He ran up the garden path and knocked on Mrs McIntyre’s door.

  But he was too late. Mrs McIntyre had told him about the Americans staying at the Coffeys, but by the time he got there, he found they had left not half an hour before.

  ‘The husband told me that they’re flying home to America tonight,’ she said.

  He had missed his chance. He fought the disappointment in his heart. Just as well, he told himself. What exactly was he going to say to make Joy leave her husband anyway? There could have been a fight. And by the look of her husband – shorter than him but well built – Lewis knew who would have come out of that the worst off. He wouldn’t have wanted Cait’s first impression of her father to be as a brawler and marriage wrecker.

  Would he never see Joy Sheldon again? It seemed wrong, unbelievable. Yet he had no intention of ever returning to Arizona. So how could their paths ever cross again?

  ‘Has your friend left already?’ Cait asked him as he got back into the car. The rain pounded on the metal roof like a thousand hammers banging in a thousand nails.

  ‘Yes, I missed her,’ he said, wiping his rain-spattered face with a tissue.

  ‘Sorry,’ Cait said.

  He shrugged. ‘That’s life, I guess. Mine has been remarkable for bad timing.’

  ‘You know, if you’re meant to be together, the universe has a way of bringing you together.’

  Lewis looked across at his daughter in surprise. How did she know about his feelings for Joy?

  ‘You do know that’s a load of baloney,’ he said. ‘Besides, Joy and I are just friends –’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Cait interrupted, her eyebrows arched. ‘I believe we’re meant to meet the people we’re supposed to in this lifetime . . . at the right time. Maybe if you and Mum had married it would have been a disaster. You would have fought all the time, and my childhood would have been miserable. Pete was supposed to be my dad when I was little. He and Mum were happy – therefore I was happy. I wasn’t supposed to meet you until after my mum was gone. Now is our time, Lewis.’

  He considered his daughter, her words so clear, so direct, so wise. He knew he would never be able to lie to her.

  She looked back at him with those searching green eyes.

  ‘How would you feel if I came to London with you?’ he asked.

  London, 28 March 1989

  I had never stopped thinking of you. In all these years, I couldn’t let you go. Every time I was on the Tube, sitting opposite a woman around the same age as you, with black hair, and blue eyes, I wondered if it was you. Would fate one day find a way to bring us back together? If I wanted you badly enough, would my love for you pull you to me?

  I had begun to give up. So much time had passed. My whole life nearly lived. A husband and two sons to occupy me, but still I couldn’t forget you. I kept you secret, like a tiny garden in my heart. A place I would go and hide and remember small things about you. The tinkle of your laughter. The scent of your skin. The way your little hand felt in mine.

  To the world outside, I was Eva Miller, the designer’s wife. The mother of George Miller’s children, the dazzling socialite, ignoring her genius husband’s black moods and his many affairs because I could not face the alternative. In those early years, I would never have left George, for I would have had to step into the howling abyss of my grief.

  And yet it never went away. I would dream about the house in Ballycastle night after night. Running up and down its grand staircase, tearing at the flock wallpaper as I looked for something I had lost. I would see my parents walking out the door, their backs turned to me, as th
ey glided across the meadow towards the sea, a trail of yowling cats in their wake. I felt the heat of my black stallion between my thighs as I rode those fields, and still I was searching for what I had lost.

  On your birthday every year, I lit a candle for you. It was the only time I ever prayed, because I had long stopped believing in God. But for you I slipped back into my childhood rituals and asked baby Jesus to protect you, even though you had long stopped being a baby. I had no photographs of you, no mementos to help me, but I could still summon your scent. Different from my boys. It was the smell of home, the turf on the fire and Josie’s apple pie steaming on the kitchen table. The innocence and joy of our first year of your life together.

  Now I lived alone. I had been losing all those I loved, slowly, over the years. My husband first, his heart attack so sudden that, even ten years later, I found it hard to accept the brutality of his end. He never knew about you. And your two brothers, who had long since flown the nest, settling on the other side of the world. I didn’t tell them either. I was afraid, you see. Not that they wouldn’t accept you. Of course they would have. No, I was ashamed that I had given you up. What would my sons think of me? To know I had rejected their sister?

  I missed Marnie. She was the only one who knew about you. Every morning we had spoken on the phone. Around eleven – just a quick hello. I love you. I care. But the phone hadn’t rung at 11 a.m. in over six months.

  I had promised Marnie I would look after Cait. She had trusted me, despite the fact that I had told her about you, and she still wanted me to mind her daughter. Cait was a lot younger than you would be now, but we could have pretended she was your little sister. I think you would like her. Everyone loved Cait.

  Today Cait was due back from Ireland, and at 11 a.m. as usual, I came in to make a cup of tea. I looked at the last photograph I had taken of Marnie, Cait and I sitting in my garden, the cats all over us. Marnie was wrapped up in a blanket, despite it being summer. She was already ill.

  ‘Hello, I love you. I care,’ I whispered to my lost best friend. I imagined Marnie’s soft lilt.

  Eva, darling, how goes it?

  The telephone rang. How did you know that was the best time to call? I answered it without thinking. I thought it was Cait. But it wasn’t her voice on the other end. You had an American accent, and you pronounced my name all wrong.

  Can I speak to Aoife Martell? you said, the final ‘e’ flat. I couldn’t answer you I was so shocked. You asked to speak to me again, and I slammed down the phone. I was shaking like a leaf in the hall. You kept on ringing and ringing. I was so frightened to answer, but then it was as if I felt a hand on my shoulder, a whisper in my ear. It was Marnie. Answer it, she said. You know this is what you’ve always dreamed of.

  You asked me for Aoife Martell again, and I told you that you were speaking to her. You told me your name, Joy Sheldon, and your voice was shaking. There is no easy way to say this, you told me.

  But I already knew what you were going to say. Marnie had been right. I had been waiting for your phone call my whole life.

  We met at 3 p.m. in a café by South Kensington Station. As soon as I walked in, I knew who you were. The woman sitting in the corner, clinging to the edge of the table. You had my father’s dark hair and my mother’s blue eyes.

  You stood up and shook my hand. Your palm was hot; your cheeks were flaming pink. You looked as terrified as I felt.

  You showed me your birth certificate and I read it: the truth of my life, buried all these years. I looked up at you and I could see you as Joyce.

  ‘Are you my mother?’ you asked.

  I said yes, and we looked at each other, stunned. Neither of us able to speak. I was at a loss. Undone. My sons would say that I was somewhat controlling. I’d had their childhoods organised down to the very last music lesson; every single football practice. I had taken my job as their mother seriously. I had tried to make up for what had happened, you see. Yet here I was with you, not knowing what to do or say, drowning.

  I asked you how you found me, and you told me that you had gone to Ballycastle. You had met Josie Whelan, and she had given you my address in London.

  ‘A lady visited Josie last year and gave her your address. Josie didn’t know her name – just that she came from Sligo.’

  Marnie. Dear Marnie.

  ‘I saw the house. It’s derelict.’

  I clutched my napkin. Of course my parents were dead. How could they still be alive after all this time? And yet a little part of me had hoped one day, maybe, my mother and I could have seen each other again. And even my father too. It had taken me years to forgive him.

  You talked about the views of the sea from the old house. I was haunted by a wisp of memory from my childhood of those western shores. The call of the gulls, the constant beating of the waves, sounds I had never fully been able to silence.

  ‘Josie told me what happened.’

  What happened . . . My throat was tight with dread. Had you come to London to accuse me? What had been Josie’s version of that dark, desperate night?

  ‘Why did you give me up?’

  Your voice was low, and sharp with anger, your meekness gone now as you glared at me. I could feel myself crumbling from the inside. It was for the best, I told you, casting my eyes downward. I couldn’t provide for you in the same way that a proper family could, I tried to explain, but it wasn’t enough. Of course not. Why had I agreed to meet you? What good had I imagined it might do?

  ‘I have two children and nothing in the world would have forced me to give them up. Did you not love me?’

  My heart was beating tightly in my chest. ‘Of course, I loved you.’

  ‘Why then?’

  I could see the desperate look on your face. You needed to understand. Yet I had been asking myself the same question ever since I had given you up, and I still didn’t know the answer.

  I tried the best I could. I told you that the thought of being separated from you had made me want to die. I had wanted to escape from the reality of our lives, torn apart. I had tried to run away with you, on my horse, because I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you.

  Your anger dissipated. You looked at me with compassion, and that hurt me even more than your rage.

  I admitted it. I had wanted to ride my stallion off that cliff edge, just you and I forever lost in the deep blue sea. I had been possessed, but my horse had had more sense. He had thrown us before we even came close to the edge.

  You were silent, looking at me, but I could not bear to meet your gaze.

  I told you that I had been a danger to you. I had run away to London, for otherwise I would have ended up in the local asylum.

  And still you said nothing.

  ‘I am sorry,’ I told you, feeling utterly broken.

  You reached forward and touched my hand. Your fingers curled around mine. I never wanted to let you go.

  We began to peel away the layers. The hours passed as minutes. I told you things I had told no one before. My first few weeks in London back in 1953 and how I had been driven almost insane with loss. The day I had taken the train to Cheltenham and walked all the way to Richard Lawrence’s house. I had planned to confront him, hoping that once he saw me he would remember how much he had loved me. I told you how I had wanted him to help me get you back.

  It had been a fool’s dream. I had hidden behind a tree on the street in front of his house, waiting, until finally I had seen him step outside his front door with his new wife. My hope, and my heart, had shattered as I watched him take her arm. She was clearly pregnant. He had helped her into his car with such solicitude, and I had known he would never give this woman and his unborn child up. I had watched him drive away and the heartache had been so deep and intense that I had thought I might faint right there on his street.

  I told you about slipping my engagement ring through his letterbox and taking the train back to Paddington. All I had wanted to do was stop the pain. The gaping hole of the loss of my baby. How m
y body ached for you. That was when George found me, the moment I was about to step in front of a Bakerloo-line train at Paddington Underground station. He’d grabbed the sleeve of my coat and pulled me back into life. His life. I told you how my husband saved me yet never knew my deepest secret.

  I asked you more questions. I wanted to know about your life in America. You spoke about growing up in a town called Scottsdale in the American west. It was odd to listen to your American accent. We sounded so different, yet we shared the same blood.

  *

  I brought you back to my house. We were nervous together. Careful not to say the wrong thing. Gently we tugged information out of each other as you helped me prepare dinner. I asked you if you always knew you were adopted. You shook your head. Told me you only found out last year. Your father had told you the day he died. You paused in the middle of chopping onions, your eyes loaded with tears, wiping your arm across your eyes.

  ‘I believe my dad wanted me to find you.’

  I sent a silent thanks to your father. Watched you as you chopped. Your hands were just like mine. Small, neat and square palmed, with short fingers like a child’s and narrow wrists. The visible connection between us shook me. It made me want to cry.

  You sat on my couch with a glass of wine in your hand. I was in a daze. Yesterday we had not met, and yet today here you were, in my home, with my cats climbing all over you. You asked me how many cats I had. Five, I told you. I love cats, you confided, but my husband can’t stand them.

  I spoke about your grandmother, my mother, and how she loved cats as well. There had always been so many of them in the house in Ballycastle. Open a drawer in the hall and you’d discover three tiny kittens mewling inside. You asked me if I would ever go back to Ballycastle. I told you that I didn’t know if I could face it, but you suggested that we could go together, speaking so quietly I almost missed your words. I was astonished by your generosity.