by Oliver Sands
She sat for a moment, then got out again, the rain lashing her face, stronger and colder than a minute ago.
‘Damn it, damn it, damn it.’
Peeling the wet sheet of tissue from the box, Breeda balled it into her pocket, then reached her numb fingers towards the soaked cardboard base on the ground. She stopped, mid-bend, noticing something pale, something a lighter shade than the color of the box. Shielding her eyes from the rain, she squinted in the gloom. It was an envelope. She stooped, the hem of her mother’s coat now touching the rain-slicked ground. Her eyes scanned the black ink on the front of the envelope, already patterned by the rain. Breeda picked it up, and stood, angling herself towards the artificial overhead light above the trolley bay. The envelope was addressed to her. It was addressed to Breeda, but at her old address in Dunry, a place she left at the age of twelve. In the top right corner was a stamp and a faded, illegible postmark. There was nothing written on the flip side, but the thing had been opened.
Breeda looked off towards the shop, as if the back-lit poster in the window announcing this week’s specials would bring some clarity to the situation. She looked at the envelope again and pulled out the contents with her clammy fingers. It was a birthday card. A picture of two pink balloons looked up at her from the front, a one and an eight in thick orange print. She flipped open the card, and bent over it, trying to shield it from the pelting rain. Inside were some scrawled words, the handwriting tugging at the recesses of her memory.
Dearest Darling Bree, Happy birthday.
It’s hard to believe you are now a proper adult!
I wish I could be there with you, but you know how things are. Maybe someday I’ll be able to buy you your first grown-up drink. How nice would that be, you and me having a proper natter down the local!
I hope you’ve been getting on OK. Write back if you can. Good girl.
Lots of love. Dad x
Breeda flipped the card over, then back again, and re-read it twice more. She leaned her back against the car and let the rain soak through the wool of her coat, making it heavy, tempting her downward. Her eyes read the words once more, the scrawls now jumbled and dancing on the card. Her eyes narrowed and searched the puddles in front of her.
She felt herself slide further down the outside of the driver’s door, and as her backside came to rest on the wet pavement, the earth began to shift beneath her.
This didn’t make sense.
It wasn’t possible.
He died when she was twelve.
Breeda pulled her knees up towards her chest, and closed her eyes, trying to ignore the icy shakes which had crept up and seized her body. The rain plastered her hair to her skull, and rivulets of cold water blagged their way through her collar and down onto her back and chest. Inside her head the white noise was back, her brain muddled, her thoughts rendered useless.
She leaned to her right and punched the ground, again and again, harder and harder still. The pain in her left knuckles became her singular point of focus. But no sense came to her. She watched her blood cloud a small puddle of rainwater and felt her shoulders heave against the tightness of the coat. She sat back against the car once more, and gulped the wet air, raising her face to the sky and letting the rain meet her confusion of tears. There just had to be an explanation for this.
And suddenly she knew what she had to do. Only one person could make sense of it all. Aunt Nora.
Chapter 9
Nora Cullen’s two-storey townhouse sat back from the road, in the middle of a row of five similar houses. The neighbors had filled their modest front gardens with bursts of color - climbing rosebushes, window displays and hanging baskets of pansies and peonies. But Nora’s stood apart. A simple pathway of plain brickwork cut between two squares of maintenance-free gravel. Two grey pots holding shoulder-height olive trees stood guard on either side of the steps which lead up to the black front door. A polished brass knocker caught the mid-morning sun.
Across the street, Breeda sat in her car and frowned at her aunt’s house. She fiddled with the radio and found the nine o’clock news, but then flicked it off again. She attempted a half-hearted stretch in the tight confines of the car but felt the exhaustion from her night without sleep suck her body back into the seat. At least she’d had the good sense to change into dry clothes before coming here. But now she rubbed distractedly at her sore knuckles. What she really needed at this moment was a new brain, one with an ability to think coherently. She looked back over at the house, silent and brooding, and thought of Nora inside. Her aunt would no doubt be sitting in her rollers in the kitchen out back, having her poached egg ‘just so’, with a slice of buttered wholegrain. She’d be tutting her way through the opinion page of the Irish Times and listening to the radio on low in the background. Nora Cullen did not take well to unexpected guests.
A movement caught Breeda’s eye – a window blind in the neighboring house being opened.
Myra Finch.
The bloody busybody was looking straight at Breeda, and for a split second the two women froze, Myra’s hand holding the cord of the blind, Breeda’s body in mid-slink down her seat. Breeda felt her face flush, and she grappled for the car door and got out, hoping to appear as if she’d just pulled up and had not been sitting there like a fool for twenty minutes. Myra disappeared back into the shadows of her living room, no doubt lurking and watching from a safe distance.
Breeda grabbed her leather shoulder bag off the seat and strode purposefully across the road and in through Nora’s gate. She rapped the brass knocker twice – louder than she’d meant to – and winced as the noise assaulted her tired brain. The street was quiet for a Friday morning, and Breeda cocked her ear to the door, part of her dreading hearing any sign of life inside. Another few seconds and she could turn around, drive home, pop a sleeping pill, and crawl into the welcoming warmth of her bed.
As she stepped back down onto the brick pathway, she could feel Myra Finch’s eyes on her, and she imagined how delicious it would feel to turn and give the old biddy the finger. But instead she kept her eyes on Nora’s door, and held her chin high, doing her best to channel some nonchalance.
Footsteps echoed up the hallway, and Breeda stood up straight, shoulders back. She looked down at the tote, slung over her shoulder, its wide mouth gaping, the birthday card in its envelope wedged in amongst the jumble of contents. It looked so innocuous, so silly in the daylight, a million miles away from the murk and madness of the car park a few hours earlier. She wanted to bolt, to take her foolishness and scarper. But it was too late. She could hear Nora’s hand sliding the chain. Without knowing why, Breeda pulled the birthday card out of the envelope and put it in her back pocket. She stuffed the envelope back down deep into her bag and hid it with a balled-up scarf. When she looked back up again, she found the door open, and Aunt Nora regarding her coolly.
The good room, like the olive trees out front, was perfectly symmetrical. Two beige sofas faced each other across a glass coffee table, upon which sat a perfectly-angled collection of books on Vatican artefacts and topiary. Breeda sat perched at the end of one of the sofas, her ankles crossed and her bag at her feet. Across the room Nora stood at the fireplace with her back to the mantelpiece, her fingers drumming lightly on the tweed skirt of her two-piece suit. Her grey hair was recently out of its rollers and below it her blue-grey eyes regarded her niece unblinkingly. She was most definitely put out at her unexpected visitor.
‘So, should I even bother to ask?’
Nora sucked on her cheek and nodded to her niece’s skinned knuckles. Breeda hesitated; this wasn’t going to be easy.
‘I tripped. On my driveway …’
Breeda looked up from her bruised hand but her aunt had already turned to face the large mirror over the mantelpiece, tutting her disapproval while she wrangled an invisible wisp of hair back into place.
‘Honestly, Breeda. A drunk woman is never attractive. But at your age? You need to wise yourself up.’ Nora tilted her head in th
e mirror, then smoothed down her tweed jacket. ‘Your friend Oona Mahon dragged me out of bed on a wild goose chase last night, while you were no doubt three sheets to the wind, doing God only knows what.’
Breeda dropped her gaze to her chipped fingernails and fidgeted as she remembered last night’s missed calls on her phone. Later on she’d no doubt be slamming around her own kitchen, coming up with countless smart retorts in her head, and firing off a volley of them at Nora. She hadn’t come here for a lecture. She’d come for answers, something to clear up this riddle so she could get home to her bed. The wave of tiredness rolled over Breeda once more and she sighed deeply.
‘Sorry, am I boring you, Breeda?’
Breeda adjusted her bum on the hard sofa and felt the birthday card poking into her from her back pocket.
‘Sorry, no. It’s not that Aunt Nora. But there was a reason for me coming here …’
Nora turned to look at her.
‘Well, I assumed there was a reason for you turning up unannounced. Lunch isn’t for another three hours, Breeda. If you don’t mind, do spit it out. I’m due over at Saint Colmcille’s to help set up tomorrow’s fete. I’m helping Father McFadden with the bookstall. And if you don’t mind me saying so, it would do you no harm to volunteer a few hours … only if you’ve time, of course.’
Breeda ignored the undisguised sarcasm. She held out the birthday card, face down.
‘Aunt Nora, have you seen this before?’
Nora squinted, and groped for the pair of glasses hanging around her neck.
‘Show me …’ She took the card and flipped it over.
Breeda watched her face closely, unsure what she was expecting to see. Nora studied the front of the card, then opened it and read it slowly. Her face remained devoid of expression. As Breeda looked on, she remembered that Nora played Bridge every Tuesday at the community center.
At last the little blue-grey eyes, slightly rheumy, looked up over the bifocals and locked onto Breeda’s.
‘What is this?’
‘I found it. In amongst Mam’s stuff …’
Nora looked back at the card in her hands and turned it over again.
‘Was there an envelope with it?’
Those cool eyes again, regarding her steadily. Breeda struggled to hold her gaze, the gravitational pull towards her open bag almost too strong. Was the envelope poking out from beneath the balled-up scarf? She kept her eyes on her aunt.
‘No. Just the card.’ Breeda had a desperate urge to swallow but resisted.
Nora mulled this over for a moment, then came and sat down beside Breeda on the sofa. She continued to look at the card in her hands, and when she next spoke her voice was mellow, and tinged with sadness.
‘The thing is Breeda – and we’ve never talked about this – but your mother had a hard time of it when you were younger.’
Nora clasped her hands together, and Breeda could see the thin blue veins through the papery skin.
‘You’ll remember your father being away, of course. He had to go where the work took him. Well, back in the day it was laboring work in London, that’s where his contacts were. Your Mam would take it hard sometimes, him being away so much. I think for whatever reason it brought stuff up, rejection, and whatnot.’
Breeda sat stock still, afraid of breaking the spell and losing this unexpected and rare moment of candor from Nora.
‘Anyway, the lower her mood went, the less time he’d want to spend at home. He couldn’t really deal with it. Men weren’t equipped in those days …’
Breeda turned to look at her aunt and noticed the lines around her downturned eyes. She wondered where all this was going.
‘Remember the times she went into hospital?’
Breeda did remember. Margaret had had women’s issues, as they’d called them back then. Something to do with her pelvic floor. Breeda recalled Margaret disappearing off to her room for hours at a time and remembered being given strict instructions by Nora about the need for absolute quiet in the house. On those evenings Breeda would grill a small plate of fish fingers and sit with her homework in front of the muted TV. And now, as she sat on Nora’s sofa, more memories came to the surface. Her tenth birthday, when Margaret had had to go for a lie down and their long-planned day trip to Funtasia never happened. That afternoon, Breeda had been standing by the living room window, bored out of her brains, when she’d quietly asked Auntie Nora if they might go to Funtasia some other day. Nora had snapped at her, causing young Breeda to jump. She’d told her in an angry whisper that it was her own birth that had caused her poor mother’s condition in the first place, and that Breeda should just shut her spoilt little mouth. Young Breeda had gone and sat quietly on the edge of her bed that afternoon, stewing for the rest of the day in a confused shame.
‘I do remember, yes, of course.’
‘Yes. Well, in all honesty those episodes weren’t strictly of a gynecological nature …’
Nora paused and raised an eyebrow at Breeda.
‘What do you mean?’
Nora sighed.
‘Your dear mother sometimes found the world a little … overwhelming. There were a couple of times when things just got a bit too much for her …’
The grandfather clock in the hall tocked loudly in the stillness of the house.
‘Do you mean …?’ Breeda’s voice trailed off, her lips not ready for the words.
‘Yes. The worst episode was just before your father died. She was really struggling – some very black days indeed …’
‘How …?’ Breeda’s voice sounded dry and reedy, and the word hung in the still air.
‘Pills.’ Nora said, matter-of-factly, before standing and walking back over to the fireplace.
‘You see, Breeda, we all cope with life’s challenges in different ways. After Mal died it all took a strange turn. Your mother was in a dark place. I walked in on her talking to him once – this was months after he died – blathering away to an empty chair. When she saw me she went silent. Would never admit it. Would never talk about it. This …,’ Nora held up the card now, ‘This was just your mother’s way of coping. Oh, it wasn’t a one-off,’ she turned back to face Breeda, ‘I found others over the years too. I even caught her writing a Valentine’s Day card to herself one year – from him! I stood at her bedroom door and watched her sign it at her dressing table. She barely held it together. But then, thank goodness, not long after we moved over here, she discovered painting. She seemed able to slowly work through things. The episodes occurred less often. It grounded her. Art therapy, I suppose they’d call it these days …’
Nora turned back towards the mantelpiece and left Breeda to sit with the news, to absorb the fact that her poor mother had been so depressed that it had brought her to the brink. But her aunt’s words jarred. This woman Nora was describing sounded more like a stranger, not Breeda’s Mam. Not her mother who made the world’s best Irish stew, and who could identify every wildflower on the Northwest coastline on their brisk weekend walks. Could Breeda have been so ignorant of her torment, so unaware of what was going on within the same four walls? An image came to her now, of walking into the kitchen back in Dunry. It would have been around the time of Mal’s death. Nora and Margaret had been sat at the big table, talking in hushed tones, stopping when Breeda walked in. And her mother had tried, but failed, to appear chipper behind her bloodshot eyes. Breeda had hated the two sisters for it at the time, for locking her out. But hadn’t they just been trying to protect her at the end of the day?
A ripping noise came from over at the fireplace. Breeda tried to stand, but her body froze. She watched from the sofa, stunned, as Nora prodded the pieces of the birthday card with her poker.
‘So, let’s leave the past in the past. Let your poor mother rest in peace, shall we?’
Nora hung up the poker, wiped her hands on each other, and turned back towards Breeda.
‘Now. About yesterday …’
Breeda wanted to grab the smoking pieces from t
he grate, but she continued to sit in shocked silence. That was her card.
‘Yes, no need to play dumb. I heard. Sure, half the village witnessed it …’
‘What do you mean?’
Nora walked over to the window now and surveyed the street.
‘Crawling around on your hands and knees in broad daylight? In the middle of Main Street! I mean, have you no shame at all, Breeda? Are you the village drunk now?’ Nora smoothed her net curtains with the back of her fingers. ‘I don’t know what to say. And your poor mother not long in the grave. Is it a cry for help? Is it?’
Breeda’s left leg had started the smallest of tremors. For a fleeting second she considered telling her aunt all about the blackness and the power it held over her. But something told Breeda to keep it to herself. Instead she rubbed her face. She needed her bed, to let her poor head settle. She focused on a picture of the Sistine Chapel on the front of the coffee table book.
‘I think you should move in here.’ Nora had turned from the window to face her.
‘What?’ Breeda did look up now.
‘Well, why not?’ Nora was back at the fireplace again, standing tall with her hands behind her back.
‘I’ve been thinking about it. I could do with the help – this place is getting too big for me on my own. And the house you’re in is too big for you – with your mother gone.’ Nora blessed herself and continued. ‘I’ve got the spare room lying empty. And anyway, I promised your mother I’d keep an eye on you.’ She paused for a moment and nodded at Breeda’s skinned knuckles. ‘And God only knows you need someone to keep an eye on you, Breeda …’
Breeda looked up at the ceiling and pictured the poky dark box room above it. She thought of the creaky bed and the fusty chenille bedspread, the framed picture of Saint Brigid, and the scary crucifix hanging over the bed head. There was no way in hell she’d have Nora guilt-trip her into moving in here. Breeda was perfectly happy in her own home, and she’d be damned if she’d let Nora scupper her dreams of running her own guest house one day.
