by Laura Elliot
‘Jake, stop thinking like an outraged father. Being in that play was a big deal for Ali. She wouldn’t have left without a good reason. I’ll ring you as soon as I get in touch with her. How’s the tour going? Any sign…you know?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Okay. I’ll be in touch.’
We’re incapable of a normal conversation. Just brief exchanges that break under the burden of an unspoken name.
CHAPTER 59
On Monday morning I travel by tube to Islington. I’m not sure if it’s my anxiety that makes Ali’s flat look even more dilapidated than on my previous visit. I ring the bell three times before the front door is opened by a man who looks as if I’ve dragged him away from tinfoil and a syringe. He stares blankly at me and shakes his head. He’s never heard of Ali or Christine. I suspect he may have forgotten his own name. My anxiety since Peter’s visit has turned from nagging to acute.
I edge past him and mount the stairs to the flat. At first, there’s no reply. I hear movement inside, the scraping of a chair, faint voices. This time I knock more persistently. The peephole in the door bulges like a suspicious eye. I’ve a feeling I’m being observed before Christine opens the door.
‘How nice to see you, Nadine.’ Her English is perfect, just enough of an accent to suggest it’s not her first language.
‘You too, Christine. I’m looking for Ali. Is she in?’
‘Alysia is not here.’ She steps into the corridor and closes the door behind her. ‘I will let her know you called.’’
‘Please tell me what’s going on.’ My antennae is on full alert. I sense Ali within, her tense, wary posture. ‘I heard she’s dropped out of the play. Have you any idea why?’
‘She has her reasons.’ Christine’s expression is as closed as the door behind her. ‘It’s not for me to discuss her personal life.’
‘I’m simply asking if my daughter is okay. I’m worried about her.’ I raise my voice in the hope that Ali is listening. ‘Ask her to ring me. Also, ask why she didn’t meet Peter Brennan as arranged. It’s not like her to disappoint her friends. That’s why I’m so anxious to talk to her.’ I try one last time to pierce Christine’s cool Danish composure and there is a shift, a slight puckering between her pale eyebrows.
‘Alysia is okay, Nadine. She just needs time alone to sort out her feelings.’ She steps back behind the door and closes it. I feel as if it’s been slammed in my face.
I fight back the urge to return to the flat and barge into the room. Nothing will be gained by such a confrontation. At least I know Christine is looking after her.
Jake’s phone goes to message. He’s probably still asleep after last’s performance but he rings back shortly afterwards and listens without interruption when I tell him about Ali’s decision to leave the play.
‘Did you talk to her?’ he asks.
‘Not yet. Christine says she’s okay. I suspect it’s to do with Mark. He must have ended their relationship.’
This piece of information adds to his relief and his tone lifts immediately. He detests Mark Brewer but I know that’s not his real reason. Karin Moylan cleaves to us like a caul.
Ali rings as the day draws to a close. ‘I’m in a taxi on my way to you.’ Her voice is a shrill whimper, almost unrecognisable. ‘Are you at home?’
‘Of course. Did Christine tell you I called this morning?’
‘Yes,’ she sobs and the phone goes dead.
Has Mark Brewer’s wife confronted her, revealed that her cheating husband has no intention of getting a divorce? Or perhaps Mark himself administered the cut and she’s found it impossible to continue working alongside him. One way or the other, I’m glad. Broken hearts mend, as she’ll discover.
I stand on the walkway overlooking the wharf. The breeze from the Thames is cool on my cheeks. A cyclist, wasp-like in Lycra and a helmet, dismounts and carries his bicycle into one of the containers. When the taxi arrives I walk down the steps to greet Ali. Her face is blotched from weeping. She runs past me without speaking. By the time I return to the container, she’s coiled on the settee, her face turned to the wall.
‘Can I have a tissue?’ She snuffles loudly and grabs tissues from the box I pass to her. After blowing her nose she pushes her head deeper into the cushions.
‘Turn around and tell me what’s going on.’ I speak with a calmness I’m far from feeling. Reluctantly, she sits up and faces me. The sheen and swish have disappeared from her hair. It hangs limply over her shoulders and needs a wash. She winces back from my touch.
‘Mark has left me,’ she says.
‘I’m so sorry, Ali.’
‘No, you’re not.’ She glares at me through bloodshot eyes. ‘You never liked him. Neither did Dad.’ She scrunches the tissues in her hand and pushes my sympathy aside with an impatient toss of her head. ‘You were both right, as it happens. Does that make you feel good?’
‘No, it doesn’t. I hate seeing you so unhappy. But I was afraid for you… the age difference – ’
‘We were supposed to move in together. We’d even picked out our apartment. He promised… what am I going to do… how am I going to manage...’ She bangs her fist against her lip and sobs violently, her thin shoulders shaking.
‘You’ll manage, Ali. You’re strong. You have a whole new future in front of you.’ I stop, knowing these are not the words she wants to hear. But they are the only ones that come to mind. ‘Why didn’t you tell me what was going on? I’d no idea you’d left the play until Peter – ’
‘I didn’t leave the play. I couldn’t perform any longer.’
‘Why not?’ I draw her close and she, weeping more freely, relaxes against me. My hand rests almost intuitively on the hard swell of her stomach. Suddenly, I understand why she’s been avoiding me. It seems impossible. It doesn’t happen these days. Not to street-wise young women like Ali with their pills and coils and diaphragms.
‘Ali… how far along are you?’
‘Six and a half months.’
‘Oh my God, so long. Why didn’t you tell me?’ I hold her pale, tear-streaked face between my hands. How had I not noticed? Even now, it’s hard to tell, the swell barely noticeable. I was the same when I carried her, slim as a rake until the last two months.
‘I don’t want it.’ She groans aloud. ‘I was going to have an abortion. But I couldn’t go through with it. I kept thinking I wouldn’t exist if you’d aborted me. You should have, you know, you definitely should have aborted me because my life is shit… shit… shit… and I wish I’d never been born.’
‘You don’t mean that – ’
‘I do… I do,’ she wails. ‘I had the opportunity to get rid of it and I didn’t and now it’s too late. I’m stuck with it. End of story and I don’t want it... I don’t want – ’
‘Ali, stop… stop. You’re talking about my grandchild.’
‘Grandchild. How great does that sound? I bet you want to be a grandmother like you want a hole in the head. And Dad too. Oh, God, what’s he going to say?’
‘The same as me. This is our first grandchild. I won’t have another word said against him or her. Where does Mark feature in all of this?’
‘He doesn’t want to know.’ She grinds out the words. ‘I kept thinking he’d change his mind when the baby was born. But, now, he won’t even be here. He’s been offered this brilliant opportunity to run a theatre in New York and he couldn’t care less about me or the baby or anyone except himself.’ She dries her eyes but her tears keep falling. ‘I hate him and I love him. How is that possible? He dropped me from the cast. He said sylphs don’t become pregnant. How can sylphs not become pregnant when they don’t exist anywhere except in his stupid play?’
She rages on and on. She’s exhausted and has probably forgotten what it’s like to have a good night’s sleep.
‘Ali, listen to me. That decision you made, for whatever reason, to keep this baby was a choice between Mark and your child. You chose your baby. Now it’s time to start respecting t
hat decision.’
I make tea, toast crumpets, cover her with a duvet, and talk… talk… I’m dragging memories from the deep recesses of another time, recalling my father’s fury when he discovered I was pregnant, how his words on that night cut as deep as any blade I ever wielded. This memory strengthens me. I know that Ali has made the right choice.
‘I want to go home to Sea Aster,’ she says. ‘I can’t bear to be in London any more. Everything reminds me of him.’
‘This is a big city. Mark Brewer shouldn’t fill the width of it.’
‘But he does, Mum. He’s leaving on Wednesday. I’ve got to get away from here before then. I won’t be able to bear it… I won’t.’
‘But your father’s in Berlin and the house is locked up. He won’t be back for another week.’
This admission brings on another outburst of tears.
‘I’ll go with you and stay at Sea Aster until he returns.’ My mind is made up. ‘We’ll get through this together. Believe me, when this baby is born you’re love it as deeply as I loved you. And that feeling will never change, no matter what life throws at you.’
Jake’s shocked silence when I phone him sweeps aside the last residue of tension between us. He speaks to Ali for a long time. Afterwards, she falls into a deep sleep. I ring him again when our flight has been organised.
‘I don’t have the new key to Sea Aster. How will I get in?’
‘I’ve organised that,’ he says. ‘Eleanor has a spare one. Cora has agreed to pick you up at the airport. I wish I could be there to meet you.’
‘Don’t worry about us. We’ll be fine until you get back.’
‘Grandparents, eh?’ He pauses, as if he’s still trying to come to terms with the idea. ‘How do you feel about that?’
‘Adjusting. How about you?’
‘Quite chuffed, to be honest. I just wish it was under happier circumstances.’
Ali is still sleeping, the first time in weeks, I suspect. I think of Daveth. It seemed possible, for a short while, to imagine moving to Alaska with him. Ali would be in New York, I believed. Brian also has plans to travel. He talks about moving to Arizona and opening a pottery in Sedona or, perhaps, somewhere on the South Island of New Zealand. He’s inspired by space and magnificent scenery, as Stuart once was, and the twins will settle in California. But Alaska is out of the question now. My place is here with Ali. I’m not going to repeat history and be a grandmother in another continent.
I awaken during the night, our bodies spooned, and I feel something… a patter as strong as the throb of a heart beating hard against my spine.
CHAPTER 60
It’s dark by the time we land in Dublin airport. If Cora suspects why Ali is returning so suddenly to Ireland she gives no sign of it when she greets us in arrivals.
‘We can take a taxi,’ I accept the key from her. ‘I don’t want to drag you out of your way.’
‘It’s no trouble at all,’ she insists. ‘It’ll give Eleanor some time on her own. She thinks I fuss too much over her.’
I suspect Cora is the one who needs some free time and this suspicion is confirmed when she drives from the airport. Eleanor’s recovery is almost complete. Her dominant personality is coming to the fore again and Cora is looking forward to moving back to her apartment in Clontarf. I wonder about her quiet life and how she became involved with First Affiliation. What drew her to their certainties and intolerance? The need to belong, to be part of something greater than herself? My curiously dies away as quickly as it came. I’m tired and overwrought, exhausted already from Ali’s outbursts, her violent weeping.
The car judders as we approach Sea Aster. Mallard Cove needs resurfacing. The earlier tide overflowed the road and puddles remain in the hollows. A swan ambles towards the car, its wings flapping in the headlights. Cora slows, nervous as water splashes against the tyres.
‘It’s okay.’ I open the window and look down at the road. The wind fans the rank smell of seaweed into the car. ‘The water’s shallow and the swans are well used to avoiding cars.’
‘I was bitten by a swan when I was a child.’ Cora sounds uneasy. ‘Nasty things. I’ve never liked them since.’
Ali has fallen asleep in the back seat, her head awkwardly angled against the headrest. The boundary wall of Sea Aster comes into view, the square gatepost visible on the curve. The overhanging branches soften the hulking remains of the barn but I’m still shocked at the sight of the blackened walls and collapsed roof.
A car emerges from the gates and swerves onto the road without slowing down. Water aquaplanes from its tyres. To avoid the swan Cora has moved too far over to the wrong side of the road. Headlights clash. She utters a high, frightened shriek and instinctively brakes when she sees the oncoming car. She pulls frantically on the steering wheel and her car waltzes as if the road has turned to ice. A scum of decaying seaweed, strewn under a layer of tidal water. The second car veers past without slowing, dazzling and blinding before it disappears into the engulfing darkness of Mallard Cove.
Cora’s wrists are so skinny. I never noticed them before. Frail and skinny as she struggles to control the skid. The gable ends of the barn protrude like ancient pyramids. Above the trees, the moon is a pale shimmer in the black sky. It casts down my mother’s face and my terror is reflected in Sara’s stricken features. Her awareness in that instant before the collision that there was no going back, accordion pleats imploding and crushing the life from her. She’s there now, with me, smiling before she turns away in all her loveliness… and I am suspended between the random nature of existence and the shrouded certainty of death. The screeching night and the shock of steel and stone as the car hits the wall. It overturns in a slow-motion roll before coming to rest. My eyelids flicker. I see the swan scuttling back to the water, its fat bottomed waddle, so ungraceful out of its natural habitat. My eyes close and all is forgotten.
PART FIVE
CHAPTER 61
JAKE
When Rosanna died, the members of First Affiliation filled the church. They walked respectfully in the rain behind her coffin as she was laid to rest. Today, there were no representatives from First Affiliation. No rain, just bright sunshine as Eleanor headed the small procession making its way towards the open grave. Her grip was talon-tight on Jake’s arm and those following slowed their footsteps in acknowledgement of her shuffling walk. She had wept openly throughout the service but, now, she was more in control as she took her place by the edge of Cora’s grave.
After the burial, she mingled at the reception with the mourners, Cora’s widowed sister and her family, a few friends from Cora’s schooldays and from the department in the civil service where she worked until she retired. They were a small group, just two tables drawn together in an alcove of a suburban pub. Eleanor’s hand shook, as if affected by a palsy, when the group raised their glasses to toast Cora’s memory. Since her friend’s death she had shrunk, or so it seemed to Jake, and the effects of her stroke were more pronounced. He too felt shrunken, caved in, bereft.
He drove her home from the pub. The young Nigerian woman who had become her carer took one look at Eleanor’s face and gently coaxed her to bed. Jake drove along the Howth Road towards the city centre and found a parking spot close to the hospital.
Ali was sitting on the edge of the bed when he entered the ward. He studied her drooping neck, the fall of her hair. She had been crying again. Her bruises were even darker than yesterday. One eye was completely closed and the other, swollen but partially open, revealed the dark brown slit of her pupil when she looked at him.
‘Was it awful?’ she asked.
‘It was a nice send off.’ A platitude but true. ‘How are you?’
She made a rueful moue and pulled her hair back. ‘What do you think?’
He cupped her face and kissed her swollen lips. ‘You heard the doctor. It’s only superficial. You’ll be surprised how quickly you’ll recover.’
‘Don’t.’ She shook her head distractedly. ‘I can�
��t bear it if you minimise what happened.’
‘I’m not minimising…’ Jake stopped, helpless before her grief. ‘I don’t know what to say, Ali.’
‘I know, Dad. Neither do I.’ The swelling on her ankle had reduced, he noticed, but her right knee, when it peeked through her dressing gown, was still bandaged. ‘Dr Fisher says I can be discharged tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow?’ Jake was shocked. ‘It’s only four days since – ’
‘I know… but, like you said, my injuries are superficial.’ She linked his arm and leaned heavily on him as they walked along the hospital corridor. He had no idea how she had managed to remain conscious enough to ring the help line that sent the emergency services racing to the scene of the accident. Primal instincts stronger than terror. Instincts that allowed her to ignore her injuries and concentrate on the only pain that mattered.
They stopped outside the incubation unit. As always, when Jake looked at his granddaughter with her tubes and patches, and the tiny cap on her head, he was dazed by the strength of his love. Her wrinkled monkey face, the thread veins mapping her tiny frame, her fingers, slivers of bone, sinew and muscle, he loved every part of Sara Saunders with a primal and protective passion.
Tears streamed down Ali’s face. ‘How can she ever love me?’ He had to bend close to hear her. ‘I never wanted her and now I can’t imagine an instant when I won’t want her. Do you think she’ll make it, Dad? Do you…do you?’ She leaned against him and wailed softly into his neck. ‘They won’t give me any hope… I don’t know what I’ll do if – ’
‘No ifs.’ His confidence was brash and overloud in this place of quietness. He wondered how they do it as he watched a male doctor bend over a tadpole baby who could rest easily in the palm of his broad hand.
