The Prodigal Sister: An emotional drama of family secrets

by Laura Elliot

  He thinks I look like Kate Bush. I adore Kate Bush. I love how she sings my name Cat-he-ah…Cat-he-ah…but what I love most is the way Jeremy says my name. Catriona. I’ve always been Cathy since I can remember but he says I’m too precious to be an abbreviation. That’s what he says. Too precious to be an abbreviation. God! It’s time I went to sleep. Rebecca would go nuts if she knew what I was thinking. Thank God we have skin on our skulls to keep our thoughts from escaping.

  Love,

  Catriona

  * * *

  10 August 1991

  Dear Mum,

  I need to tell you something. It’s not bad or anything but I know Rebecca would be mad if she knew. I met Jeremy outside his office today. It wasn’t on purpose. I just wanted to find out where he works. I didn’t expect him to come out and see me. He brought me to a café on Baggot Street. It was very crowded yet it seemed like we were the only two people there. I was shaking so much I was sure he’d notice but he just talked about the awful ads he has to make, like the ones for toilet cleaners and constipation. He made a brilliant one about a woman sky-diving on the Curse days. I’ve seen it loads of times. When she falls from the sky laughing her head off and her arms out like a bird you’d never think she gets tummy cramp or be frightened blood will show on her dress. He said I’m growing into a beautiful young lady. No one ever said that to me before, only to Lauren. He’s going to be my brother-in-law. Every time I think about it my eyes sting as if someone blew smoke into them. God! It’s time I went to sleep. I hate being like this, my skin shivery every time I imagine them together.

  I didn’t tell her about meeting him. I was afraid she would get mad and say I was looking for attention again. I wasn’t!

  I found your copy of Wuthering Heights. It’s brilliant and cruel and so sad. I keep thinking about death and how it really messes up life for those still living. I hated and loved Heathcliff. I only loved him because he loved Cathy so much that it made everything else he did seem not so bad…almost.

  X

  Catriona

  * * *

  10 September 1991

  Dear Mum,

  Rebecca wants her bridesmaids in russet red. Julie thinks polka dots would be very original. Lauren wants us to wear ice-blue. They argue and wave bits of material at each other. My opinion is not sought. Who wants black at a wedding?

  He’s going to move into our house when they get married. Rebecca’s going back to college as a mature student to be a vet like she’d started doing when you died. After she’s qualified, she’s going to run the animal sanctuary on Gramps’ field with Lulu. Her dreams are no longer ash. They’re all coming true.

  I wish I was her. I can’t tell anyone except you. Even Melancholia wouldn’t understand.

  Catriona

  * * *

  2 December 1991

  Dear Mum,

  You and Dad would be proud of Lauren. Her first book of poems was launched tonight. It’s called Silverfish. She’s dedicated her book to you and Dad. Mr Moran made a speech and said she’s a new young voice dealing with difficult issues. My throat went really tight when she read the Silverfish poem. It’s awful. Sad and weird and very Lauren.

  I know what silverfish are. They look like commas and sometimes I see them flicking in the dark. Lauren’s wrists have healed up but I still see the marks, like she’s drawn little squiggles on her skin.

  Jeremy sat next to me. He must have known my thoughts because he said, stop frowning Catriona, you’ll ruin your beautiful face. His knee hit mine under the table and his smile went deep into my eyes when he whispered Oops! Sorry, Catriona. I love how he says my name…Catriona…Catriona…Cat-rio-na…like it’s a beautiful sound in a love song.

  Afterwards Mr Moran brought us for a meal to the Shelbourne Hotel. He knew everyone and kept introducing Lauren as his poetic protégée. Mrs Moran said she should stop depending on them for everything. But she said it so quiet that only me and Rebecca heard her. She’s such a bitch!

  Love you,

  Catriona

  Chapter Seventeen

  Rebecca’s Journal – 1991

  She couldn’t believe I’d collected her poems. I tried to persuade her to submit them to a proper publishing house but she refused. Afraid of failure, afraid of everything. Steve Moran took over. Vanity publishing. A big launch. What did it mean in the end? Another crutch.

  Silverfish

  In the moon skidding hours

  I collect silverfish

  Somersaulting silverfish

  Disco dancing silverfish

  Flick flash

  Across the ash

  And embers dead

  Of hearth and home

  Sliding in and sliding out

  In chink and eave

  In weft and weave

  Snug in a rug

  Smug bugs

  In crevices that bleed the night.

  Hurry scurry

  Playing hide but do not seek us.

  Silver scales

  Flick flash

  Slick slash

  Dancing lancing silverfish

  Thrashing, slashing twitch-blade runners.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Letters to Nirvana

  15 January 1992

  Mother,

  Seven years…did you ever exist??????? Where should I address these pathetic letters? Heaven…Paradise…Nirvana…Cloud Nine? Where are you?

  Cathy

  * * *

  9 June 1992

  Dear Mum,

  It’s over. He is now my brother-in-law. Rebecca walked up the aisle on Mr Moran’s arm. The way she smiled when she said, I Do, made me think about the nice times and how she loved me before you died. I kept remembering and remembering and it made me cry. We wore ice-blue with a shimmer when it caught the light. In every wedding photograph we’re smiling fit to burst a gut. Mr Moran made the Father of the Bride speech. Mrs Moran drank too much. Her mouth slid sideways when she was asked to lift her glass in a toast to the bridesmaids and she stayed sitting when everyone else stood up and shouted, To the beautiful bridesmaids.

  Jeremy danced with me. His fingers pressed into the small of my back. He said I looked beautiful in blue and that I’d emerged from a chrysalis. I went into the Ladies and stared at myself in the full-length mirror. An ice-blue butterfly emerging from a chrysalis. Flying from a dark place, afraid of my reflection.

  X

  Catriona

  * * *

  22 August 1992

  Dear Mum,

  I didn’t think I’d ever get used to it but I have. Jeremy eats muesli and croissants for breakfast. He put photographs of his best ads in frames all over the hall. I sleep with cotton wool in my ears and squeeze my eyes tight so that I won’t think about them in the next room. But I do…I do…In the morning I pretend not to notice when they touch every time they pass each other. I pretend not to hear when they giggle over stupid things I don’t understand. Rebecca looks so young again. A student now, jeans and a ponytail.

  I’m not going to write to you any more. What’s the sense in writing to a ghost? I ask myself that question every time I take up my pen. It’s stupid to keep looking for a sign that your fingers touched the paper when it’s obvious you don’t exist!!

  X

  Catriona

  * * *

  21 September 1992

  Dear Mum,

  Lauren’s gone to the University of Westminster to learn to be a proper writer. Mrs Moran organised it, the fees and all. Rebecca is furious. She doesn’t want Lauren to leave home but Lauren said it’s got nothing to do with her any more. We’re all growing up and making our own decisions. I haven’t told Rebecca about the night Mrs Moran rang and called me an ungrateful adulterous whore. Her voice was so squeaky and shaky, I didn’t know who she was, at first. When I said, you have the wrong number, this is Cathy Lambert, she hung up immediately. Every time I think about that squeaky voice on the phone something twists inside my chest. When I told Lauren, she stared
back at me with her haughty expression that shuts everyone out and never said a word. Mrs Moran is mental to think Lauren fancies her geriatric husband. Lauren doesn’t fancy anyone but herself.

  I wanted to tell Julie but I didn’t. I was afraid she’d laugh at Mrs Moran and call her a daft bat. She’s in rotten humour since she discovered she’s pregnant again. Why don’t they take up badminton or marathon running? Sex can’t be the only game they know how to play.

  It’ll be easier in the house without Lauren. Not quieter, she never made a sound, but calm like we can open doors without being afraid.

  Love you all,

  Catriona

  * * *

  1 Nov 1992

  Dear Mum,

  I’m in deep shit. Grounded for ever, as far as Rebecca is concerned. Remember I told you about Melancholia’s idea for the Halloween Goth party? My date with disaster, as it turned out!! Rebecca thought I was sleeping over at Melancholia’s house and had even checked with Leah, who pretended I was.

  We held the party in a warehouse down on the docks. It used to belong to Melancholia’s uncle. All the buildings around are empty too so it was creepy and perfect. We made a papier-mâché coffin and a tombstone and put black netting over the walls. We only invited Goths so it was hush-hush. Or so we believed. Melancholia sneaked vodka from Leah’s cocktail cabinet. Two bottles. Sharon had wine and Kevin brought beer. I drank vodka for the first time. It was like a volcano inside my chest. One of the Goths kept giggling ’cause you’re not supposed to drink it neat. It was easier going down with the orange juice…smooth and easy…easy and slow.

  More people came, gatecrashers, not Goths. We all danced together but not touching. Goths don’t touch or invade private space. The gatecrashers didn’t care. Jobbo Boland called me a vampire bitch and begged me to bite his neck. They started a fight and broke bottles against the wall and carried the coffin on their shoulders like it was a real funeral. When there was no drink left they went on to the next party. Most of the Goths went as well.

  My head felt fuzzy and my eyes were whirling around. Everything was dark and awful until I saw you. Yes, you, angel Mother, dancing on your own. You were as clear as a star in a jet-black sky. The music was so beautiful. I wanted to dance with you for ever. Kevin shouted at me to stop dancing with shadows but I couldn’t. I twirled around and around, and you twirled with me. The music played louder and louder until it seemed as if my head would explode. Then your face went spinning towards the moon outside the window. You were going away again. I wouldn’t let you. Not this time.

  I screamed and my fist went through the window. I don’t remember the glass breaking. Just the moon turning silver and your face vanishing into the night. I woke up in hospital with bandages on my hands. Not a good idea, said the doctor when he came to see me. Don’t do that again, young lady, unless you’re into blood sports.

  When I got home from the hospital Rebecca made me look at myself in the mirror. Black panda eyes and black smeared lipstick. I wanted to die. Black…black…black. She kept shouting and flinging my clothes on the bed. She looked at Daddy’s guitar and your perfume bottle shaped like a pyramid, still half-full, and my silver locket with your hair inside. She said my room is nothing but a shrine and it’s time I started living in the real world. She tore my posters of Bauhaus and the Banshees and The Cure from the wall and crumpled them in a ball. Tomorrow I have to paint your room. Primrose yellow or rose-petal pink, I have two choices.

  Alcoholic poisoning is what I had. My stomach was pumped. I’m going to stop writing to you for definite this time. Angels don’t read letters. They don’t even exist. Death is a black and bottomless sleep. I’m grounded for 6 weeks. Shit!

  Catriona

  * * *

  6 November 1992

  Dear Mum,

  Your room is painted primrose yellow. I have kitten posters on the walls. Jeremy painted the ceiling and I did the walls. When he did his Michael Jackson moonwalk across the floor, we laughed so much Rebecca came in to see what the joke was about. When I told him I was never going to drink again, he said alcohol is only disgusting when it’s handled recklessly. I was too young. I broke rules. I was heedless of my own welfare. I have to look upon this experience as a baptism of fire. He asked me why I did such a crazy thing. It’s dangerous and corrosive to keep bottling up your feelings, Catriona, he said.

  I began to giggle, a high awful giggle that I couldn’t stop. Take it easy…it’s all right…take it easy. His voice was sharp, then soft, like he was coaxing me over a dangerous place and I stopped as suddenly as I started. Goose bumps ran all along my arms when we sat on the bed and he leaned close to me. You should laugh more often, Catriona, he said. But not like that…not like that.

  X

  Catriona

  * * *

  15 Jan 1993

  Dear Mum,

  Lauren rang today. Eight years, she said. Who’d have believed it. She lives in one of Mr Moran’s apartments. Real plush, she says, with a view of St James’s Park. He brings her out for posh meals when he’s in London on business. I bet Mrs Moran doesn’t know! I asked who held his zimmer frame when they kissed and she said I was way off the mark on that one. He’s a father figure, kind and decent and nothing more. You’re forgetting rich, I said, and married to the teacher bitch. The teacher bitch has nothing to worry about, Lauren said. Her husband can obsess all he likes but I’m not interested.

  I wonder if she’s telling the truth. The boys in school used to call her The Ice Queen and put bets on who could get her to go out with them. They never won. She has lots of boyfriends now but their names keep changing: Louie, François, Colm, Toby, Saul.

  She’s OK again after falling off her bike. Rebecca flew over to make sure and said she’s living like royalty.

  Look after her and keep her away from blades.

  Love you all,

  XX

  Catriona

  * * *

  3 Feb 1993

  Dear Mum

  I have to write about this. Forgive me…forgive me. I never meant it to happen. This evening I met Jeremy by accident on Merrion Square. At first he didn’t recognise me in my Goth make-up. Goth coat and dress, lace over my face, my black cross.

  When I said hello he stopped like he’d run into a wall and said, Good God, Catriona, is that really you? You look amazing.

  He gave me a lift home. The rain started when we were leaving the city and was pouring down by the time we reached Broadmeadow Estuary. There’s a storm coming, Jeremy said. Even as he spoke, we saw lightning flashing across the viaduct. We parked by the shore. The waves raced under the arches and the ducks flapped their wings into the wind. We saw the heron standing as still as ever. Then the thunder rolled over the estuary and lit up the swans like ghosts on water. Jeremy put his arm around my shoulder and said it was nature at her proudest, showing off for all the world to see. Like Goths, he said. Showing off her darker side.

  I began to cry. Don’t ask me why. He lifted the lace from my face and laid it over my hair. He took off my net gloves and stroked my fingers. Nothing else. Just stroked and stroked until my whole body was shivering. My sweet innocent Catriona, he said. Are you a child playing adult games or a woman caught in a child’s mind? Why does such anger radiate from you? He talked about the accident. No one ever does but he asked questions and it was like drawing splinters out of my skin.

  Sometimes I wake from a dream and hear Julie screaming. I jump out of bed and crash into the wall because your room is different to the room I slept in then. Rebecca should have been minding me but she’d sneaked off to Sheila’s party. Jeremy explained how she feels guilty about disobeying you and not being at home when the police called to the house to tell us about the accident. He said that’s why she tries so hard to do what’s right.

  I wish she’d stop trying. She can’t make it different, no matter how hard we pretend. Then I told Jeremy the most dreadful thing of all. How my anger sometimes makes me hate you for being dead. It’
s not true. It’s me. I hate myself for thinking such awful thoughts but they go like a skewer through my brain.

  He said the line between love and hate is as fine as a wire vibrating. I don’t understand what he means but it sounds right. He understands how things can happen in a part of your mind you never knew existed.

  He kissed the tears on my cheeks and on my eyelids. When he kissed the tears on my lips he opened his mouth and pulled me closer. Then he was kissing me for real, tongue touching tongue, and even though I was frightened, I didn’t want to pull away, ever. I thought about Rebecca and all her dreams coming true. The wind nearly blew me over when I opened the door of his car. He said, Don’t be silly, Catriona. Get back in! I’ll drive you to the house. He feels as if he’s playing with fire when we’re alone. It would be the end of everything if Rebecca found out about his moment of weakness. She won’t…she won’t find out.

  Don’t warn me against him. Don’t remind me of his age, of Rebecca, a whole life I’m too young to understand. I’m in love with him. The age difference doesn’t matter. That’s nothing where love is concerned. I’ll dream about him tonight. And tomorrow I’ll daydream through the waking hours. His eyes are so piercing they can see right into my soul. Even now, when he’s not with me, I feel him beside me, feel his touch on my skin, his fingers stroking mine, and the thunder enfolding us. Is that how it was with you and Daddy? Tell me what to do!!