by Oliver Sands
‘This way, Breeda …’ She was smiling at the curious onlookers and rolled her eyes in her best ‘Oh dear, what has Breeda been up to now …?’ expression. With her smile locked in place, her eyes gave extra crinkle to Father McFadden, as she turned from her book stall, and walked off down the side path of the church yard.
‘Nora, slow down, for goodness sake. I want to talk to you …’
But Nora moved swiftly. Breeda could see her hands were balled into fists. She powered on, taking them deeper into the graveyard, towards a bank of Ash trees near the crumbling stone wall. Breeda knew about the old unmarked graves on the other side of that wall – the graves of paupers and babies born out of wedlock.
‘Nora. Stop!’
She reached for her aunt’s shoulder, and Nora spun. Breeda flinched and stopped in her tracks. Inches in front of her Nora glared with devil eyes and a pulsing temple from beneath her perfect blow-dry. Breeda, unnerved, cast a glance back the way they’d come, but the two women were alone among the headstones.
‘Aunt Nora, I don’t understand what’s happening? You can’t sell the house.’ A brief pause as Breeda watched the rise and fall of her Aunt’s shoulders in their tweed armor. She decided to push on, ‘Anyway, it’s not yours to sell.’
Nora’s eyes widened at the challenge and when she spoke the words came clear and controlled.
‘Oh, but you see Breeda - the house is mine to sell.’
The eyebrows raised now, inviting Breeda to contradict her.
‘That house is indeed most definitely mine to sell. It’s in my name. I bought it when we moved here and charged your mother a nominal rent. A pittance. She was my tenant, I was her landlord. I looked after her. That’s what family do, did you know that Breeda? They look after each other.’
Breeda dropped her eyes from Nora’s hawk like stare. She wracked her brain for some proof, something – anything – to disprove what Nora was now telling her. There would be deeds, or bank statements, or some damn thing in the back of a drawer somewhere. There had to be. Breeda felt a cold sweat on the back of her neck. This couldn’t be happening.
‘But Aunt Nora, you can’t do this.’ The statement came out more as a question and Breeda hated the whiny desperation she could hear in her own voice. She lowered her gaze to her aunt’s shoes, ‘I’ll have nowhere to go …’
‘Well, you probably should have thought of that before you disobeyed me.’
So she had seen the online ad. Breeda looked up now. Nora nodded at her, unblinkingly.
‘Oh yes, Breeda. I know you think I’m a daft old biddy, but nothing gets past your Aunt Nora. I have my contacts.’
‘But Nora, what will I do?’
Nora leaned in towards Breeda now.
‘Here’s what you’ll do. You’ll leave the past in the past – as I instructed you to do. You’ll pack your bags tomorrow. And you’ll unpack them in my spare room on Monday.
A show reel flickered to life in Breeda’s mind now, her future plotted out so clearly. The stifling spare room, the front door bolted at ten each night, the snippy comments, the tuts and sighs - death by a thousand put-downs. She couldn’t do it.
Nora was giving her a dry bath.
‘Would you take a look at yourself!’
Breeda looked down at her faded purple dressing gown, patchy with mud from her earlier run-in with the For Sale sign. She couldn’t really think of anything to say to that.
‘If you can’t behave like an adult, then I have no choice but to keep you on a tight leash.’
‘Nora, I’m not a dog!’
‘I told you! I told you to drop this whole thing,’ the eyes were blazing again. ‘How could you do this to your poor mother? Raking up the past like that …’
Nora turned towards the grave at her side and blessed herself. Breeda followed her gaze, and a bitter taste of sick arose from her stomach. She had been so distracted, so rushed, that she’d not even registered that they were standing by her own mother’s grave. Mere weeks ago she’d stood at this very spot, and laid a small bunch of native flowers on the coffin. And now, here she was, standing in her dressing gown, having a row with her only living relative. She lowered her eyes in shame. Nora had turned back to her now.
‘Your poor mother. If she knew what you were up to she’d be turning in her grave.’
Nora closed her eyes and made the sign of the cross. The laugh left Breeda’s mouth before she could stop it. Her whole life had flipped upside down, every aspect now so bloody surreal. Nora’s fist was fast. The whack to Breeda’s face was sharp. Her right ear stung and Breeda staggered backwards. Her hand grappled for something to steady herself, but she stumbled over a small lip of concrete and landed heavily on the grave.
‘Pack your stuff. Vacate that house. Be at mine by 5pm Monday.’
Breeda looked up from where she was sprawled on her mother’s grave, but Nora had already turned and marched off, leaving her alone under the eerie stillness of the Ash trees.
At the end of the path – the last part in shadow – Nora stopped for a moment. Breeda watched as she smoothed down her jacket, patted her hair, and then walked around the corner to her awaiting parishioners.
Chapter 19
Westerly light bathed the front of Breeda’s house in a surreal pink chalkiness. Oona twisted the screw cap off a bottle of pinot gris as Breeda walked towards her, unwrapping two wine glasses from newspaper cocoons.
‘Rookie mistake, my friend. Always pack the wine glasses last.’
‘I know. I know. Wine glasses, loo roll, teabags, kettle …’
Oona poured them both wine, then shimmied her backside onto the hood of her car to sit beside Breeda. A few swifts wheeled and divebombed in the side garden and the two friends watched them in the twilight. In front of them, the For Sale sign stood by the front door, like a joykill bouncer.
Breeda had spent the last few hours in a frenzy of packing, trying not to think too much, as she emptied out kitchen cupboards, then pulled boxes of god-knows-what from the attic. But a heaviness had clung to her as she’d walked from room to room, slowing her down so that she’d moved like a wounded animal looking through resigned eyes for somewhere to lay down and die.
In the weeks following her mother’s death, Breeda would experience a blissful few moments of ignorance each day — first thing, as she’d awaken — before the sad reality of her new life would thud heavily into her awareness. And each morning, she’d find herself staring vacantly at the crack in her bedroom ceiling, as the deafening quiet of the house would forcibly shoulder her heart into a clumsy realignment. She’d lie there, unmoving, and make herself pull up a fresh memory of her mother, a simple cognitive exercise to stop Margaret from running off and forever hiding in the shadowy corners of her mind. In those first few weeks a deluge of images had readily presented themselves — Margaret putting candles on cakes, or draping tinsel, or whispering a chuisle mo chroí as she’d tucked young Breeda in at night. But over the past few mornings Breeda had found her archive condensing, shrinking in on itself, so that she struggled to find anything other than recent memories with Margaret gaunt, bed-bound, half-gone. To make matters worse, Breeda could no longer remember her mother’s voice — the subtle drawl of her Dunry accent or her off-key singing as she’d sat at her easel. She cursed herself for not having had the wherewithal to record her, to capture something, anything, on her phone. And it frightened Breeda, this fading — it frightened her, and it saddened her to her very core. But when she’d experience those struggles in conjuring the younger Margaret back, she’d simply stand at the kitchen counter, or open the cap on the shampoo bottle or plonk herself on the back step, and those distant memories, those ones from more carefree times, would come tumbling back to her.
This house, which has been Margaret’s refuge from the world, and where they’d begun again after fleeing from Dunry, it was Breeda’s key to those million memories which echoed in its bricks and mortar. And now Nora was cruelly prising it from her grip. Breeda
took a long sip from her wine and looked down at a patch of grass.
‘So, what are you going to do?’
Breeda turned to her friend and shook her head.
‘I have no clue, Oona. Finish packing everything tomorrow. Look for somewhere else. I can’t go to Dunry on Monday morning. I’ll just have to knock that whole thing on the head. I don’t know what I was thinking.’ Breeda looked back up at the house and tried to ignore the lump in her throat. ‘Nora wants me to move into hers on Monday. But I can’t face that. Not after today.’
‘Bree, you do know you can always crash at ours for a while? You have a spare key. I mean it.’
‘Thanks Oona. I appreciate that, really. But I think it’s time I stood on my own two feet.’
Oona sighed beside her.
‘Christ, Bree, that’s your home right there. You’ve lived within those four walls since you were twelve years old …’
As the two friends sat on the warm bonnet of the car and watched the setting sun reflect in the windows Breeda knew her heart was breaking. She’d made an absolute mess of things. Her shoulders began to shake.
‘Ah, love. It’s OK. Come here. You’re not on your own …’
Breeda felt Oona’s arm around her shoulders. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Oona’s sentiment was sweet, but she was wrong. Breeda was on her own. There was no knight in shining armour, no rich relative, no hero who was going to ride into town and save the day for Breeda Looney. She needed to fix this mess herself.
Oona tilted Breeda’s face to get a better look at the red marks.
‘I can’t believe Nora did that to you …’
‘Yep.’
‘Friggin’ nutcase.’
‘Yep. I was lucky she didn’t take the head off me.’ Breeda took another sip of the chilled wine. ‘I’m still in shock. I’ve never actually seen such vitriol in another person’s face. It was like she was possessed.’
‘And your Aunt Nora of all people … you just can’t tell. A lot of these devout old ones are fierce into their threesomes and whips and stuff.’
Breeda started to choke on her drink. ‘Would you stop! I do not need that image of Nora right now, thank you very much.’
The two friends nestled their wine glasses against their bosoms and regarded the ugly For Sale sign as the first of the evening stars appeared overhead. Breeda realised that this would be one of her last ever sunsets here. Part of her wished she’d never found that damn birthday card.
‘Well, you know my theory, Bree …’ Oona wiggled her bum on the car, preparing herself for lecture mode. ‘In Western society anger is often the go-to emotion for people not able to deal with other negative, more painful, emotions. Anger’s addictive. It can feel empowering. But it’s usually a way of avoiding something difficult. You know – shame, hurt, anxiety, sadness …’
Breeda’s mind often wandered when Oona quoted self-help books, or talked about her visits to ashrams, and unblocking her third eye. But something in her words was calling at Breeda’s attention, like ginger cat hairs drawn to a black evening dress.
‘Say that again, Oona.’
‘Well, I just mean, what else might she be feeling if it wasn’t anger? I mean, is it possible that you’ve done something that is making her feel threatened? Or scared?’
As Oona expounded on her theory Breeda raised the wine glass and tapped it gently off her bottom lip. Her pulse started a subtle quickening. Nora wasn’t angry. She was bloody terrified. She was hiding something, and she was determined to stop Breeda from meddling. The birthday card from Mal Looney had been the trigger. At that moment a chill ran over Breeda’s body.
‘Bree?’
‘Hmm?’ Breeda looked up. Oona had hopped off the car and now stood waiting.
‘I just said we could go in if you’re getting cold?’
But Breeda sat for an extra moment, staring at the front of the house. She knew now what she had to do on Monday morning. She shimmied off the car, linked her arm through Oona’s, and the two friends ambled towards the front door of number one Bayview Rise.
‘You know what, Oona? I actually think I’m getting warmer.’
Chapter 20
On Monday morning, under a clear sky, Breeda’s car clipped along the deserted roads in an Easterly direction. She had set off a little before eight, not long before the Nora Cullens and Myra Finches of the world would be flicking on their kettles and riffling through their post. She had filled the cat’s bowl to overflowing (‘Ginger, you don’t need to eat it all now’) and shoved a last-minute note under Finbarr’s front door asking him if he’d kindly mind her for a little while.
A little while.
How long was a little while? She’d love to know, herself. There was no reason she wouldn’t be on her way back home from Dunry before teatime. Surely her lunch with Rita O’Hanlon would only take an hour or so – but who knows what she might find out, and where it might lead?
Breeda geared down into third as she overtook a refrigerated van. She looked at the stretch of country road ahead of her, the odometer on the dash ticking slowly but steadily. With every extra kilometer she put between herself and Carrickross, she was getting one kilometer closer to a place she never thought she’d return to. She had no clue what awaited her in Dunry. All she knew was that if Nora wasn’t going to tell her the truth about her father she had no choice but to meet Mrs O’Hanlon.
Breeda’s thoughts turned to Nora and she remembered how the woman had stood in the graveyard on Saturday, wound-up like a tight spring in her tweed two-piece. A woman who’d always had so much control and discipline, now reduced to a desperate bully. Breeda nudged the accelerator. She glanced at herself in the rear-view mirror. A graveyard-brawling, soon-to-be-homeless stranger blinked back at her. Was this the start of her slow descent into madness? Or was it something else? The finding of a missing piece – a piece that, deep down, Breeda had always sensed was missing?
She flicked on the radio, and turned up Smooth FM.
Chris deBurgh. The Lady In Red.
Breeda settled back in the seat and allowed herself to hum along. At least she still had Oona. And her job. Speaking of which … Breeda needed to call Mister Sheridan to tell him she wouldn’t be coming in today.
Up ahead she could see a quiet petrol station and Breeda pulled off the road. It was one of those places where a chap would still come out in overalls to fill her up and squeegee the windows. It was just before nine, and the forecourt was devoid of any other cars. Breeda parked, pulled out her phone, and scrolled through to Cork! It would be better to call the shop directly – Mr Sheridan wouldn’t be in until ten-thirty or so – so she could just leave a message. Besides, she didn’t want to speak to him. Breeda knew she was the world’s worst liar. He answered on the first ring.
Shit.
‘Oh hi, Mr Sheridan!’ Double shit. She’d forgotten to sound sick.
‘Breeda? And a very good morning to the wonderful Miss Looney. And for the umpteenth time will you please call me George …’
She could hear him set his mug of tea back down.
‘Now, I’ve made a start on those Nebbiolos. I’ll wait until you get in before I get those Fianos shelved – you know me and ladders when I’m on my own …’
Breeda closed her eyes, pictured herself in a hospital gown, and dug deep for an Oscar-winning performance. She forced a slight croak into her voice.
‘Ah, Mister Sheridan. I’m really sorry. I won’t be in today. I’m coming down with something.’
Silence down the line. Breeda pressed on.
‘Yeah, I think it’s a viral thing. It’s doing the rounds.’ Should she attempt a cough? Probably best not. ‘I reckon I picked it up at yoga …’
Breeda opened her eyes. She knew she was wincing at the pisspoor lie. She pictured the birthday card he had gone to the bother of sending her the other day. She slithered further down into the car seat and heard him sigh down the line.
‘Well, Breeda. You better re
st up. No point coming in here and spreading germs. Do you need me to bring you over anything?’
‘No, no. I’m just going to sleep it off, hopefully. I’m really sorry, Mister Sheridan…’ And she was. He was a decent man, and he deserved better. She’d make it up to him when the whole thing had blown over. Breeda pressed the phone closer to her ear. She could already hear the forgiveness in his tone.
‘Just you focus on getting yourself shipshape, Breeda Looney, and we’ll see you in a day or two.’
A sharp rap on the car window. Breeda jumped and let out a high-pitched whinny. The attendant in his oily overalls was motioning for her to wind down the window.
‘Breeda - are you OK there?’
‘I’m fine, Mr Sheridan. It’s just the cat.’
‘That front tyre’s a bit flat. D’ya want me to put some air in it for ya?’
‘Breeda?’
Breeda scrunched her eyes closed, trying to block out her reality. She shook her head violently, hoping the guy on the other side of her window would shut the hell up.
‘It’s just the radio, Mr Sheridan. OK. Speak soon.’
She jabbed at the Call End button, then turned with a fixed smile to find the interrupting attendant staring brazenly at her tits.
By the time Breeda commenced her slow descent into Dunry the sky was dark and hanging low. She shifted in her seat and felt a pointy ache across her shoulder blades. A few drops of rain patterned her windscreen and as she rounded a bend in the road the township in the valley down below opened up before her like a grey patchwork quilt. Breeda’s eyes flitted over the concrete jumble of slate roofs and old steeples – at once depressingly familiar, yet alien. The bread factory, the leisure complex, the shopping center and the schools, all seemingly unchanged from twenty-five years ago. There were no modern high rises, no flyovers, no churches re-imagined as destination Michelin-starred restaurants. It was as if the town had warded off the eye of any investors or developers. It was exactly as she remembered it. Maybe greyer. Maybe smaller. All Breeda knew was that she felt not one ounce of nostalgia, no heart-string pulled, no misty-eyed yearning in her bones for this place; just a sense of tightness at her throat, a pressing need to turn this car around, before descending any further into the valley.
