‘You know, if the wind changes your face will stay like that,’ he says as he goes to his overnight bag. I look away and when I look back he is holding what looks like an old biscuit tin.
‘I didn’t get you anything,’ I say, for a moment actually believing that he is giving me… biscuits?
‘It’s not biscuits,’ he explains with a smile. ‘It’s a biscuit tin with just a few things I want you to have. It belonged to… it belonged to Lucy.’
Oh, Jesus.
‘Are you sure…?’
‘Please don’t say anything,’ he interrupts. ‘Just take it and have a look and if you don’t want to have it you can maybe post it back to me, or give it to me when you come and visit.’
‘Come and visit? I would so love to come and visit!’
He smiles.
‘You better.’
I take the box.
‘My… okay… thank you, but I hope there is nothing of real value in here,’ I warn him. ‘I’m not very responsible at the minute and would die if I lost anything belonging to you.’
Simon shakes his head.
‘I think you should have it. I just thought it might let you get to know her a bit more, hold her closer or maybe even… maybe even let her go, if that’s what you feel like you have to do. I have a feeling, though, that it might help you more than you know.’
I stroke the box, feeling tiny dents along the side and along the rim. It is a decadent navy-coloured Cadbury’s tin with a Christmas design and it has her name neatly scored into the bottom-right corner. I want to open it now, right now, and get lost in Lucy’s child-like innocent world and forget about all my troubles and the mess that seems to follow me these days.
‘Are you sure you want me to have this?’ I ask him and my voice breaks as I stumble on my reply. He is giving me some very sentimental stuff and I am touched beyond words.
‘I’m totally sure,’ he tells me and our eyes meet and we both smile and sigh deeply at the same time.
We hear the taxi horn from the street and we both take a deep breath at the same time.
‘It’s been a rollercoaster but I have loved every minute of it, Maggie O’Hara,’ he says. He reaches out his hand and I hold it and then he pulls me in for a hug. ‘Come and see us really soon.’
‘I will,’ I sniffle, trying not to get tears or snot on his nice grey jumper.
I let go and clutch the tin to my chest.
‘Look after her for me,’ he says, nodding at the box and he takes a few steps back, delaying the inevitable. ‘I hope it helps you to get the closure you need and rebuild your life. You deserve the best, Maggie. The very best.’
‘You better go,’ I tell him. I open the door, wiping my eyes and he walks away. I hate goodbyes. ‘Text me lots!’
He makes a hat-tipping gesture and blows me a friendly kiss and we keep waving at each other until he is out of sight and I hear his footsteps on the stairwell that lead outside. I go to the window and watch him get into the taxi, but before he does, he looks up as if he knew I would be watching.
‘Goodbye Simon!’ I mouth and he blows me a kiss.
I hold the biscuit tin and Lucy’s heart aches inside me as I watch her brother go and I try to be positive. I feel so full up and I glow inside when I think of how I now have Simon in my life, but also an emptiness of the life I have to face alone without leaning on him or interfering too much in his world. He isn’t mine. He is just connected to me in the most surreal way and it’s great for what it is.
It’s time for me to get back to my own reality and start picking up the pieces of my broken existence. But first, I have some catching up and letting go to do with a little girl who has made my life, as messy as it might be right now, possible at all.
Chapter 11
I am looking at her for the very first time. I am in my pyjamas on my sofa (with pizza) and I am staring at her face from a newspaper clipping in which she has circled two spelling mistakes in red pen. I like that. I like that a lot.
It is a school photo in which she is proudly holding a shield that says ‘Most Improved Player – Girls’ Netball’ and beside her is a boy whose plaque reads ‘Player of the Year – Boys’ Football.’ According to the date, she is seven years old in the photo and her front teeth are missing and her strawberry-blonde hair is in pigtails. She looks like a little toothless rabbit with her freckles and cheeky grin and I want to shout at her please don’t get into the car when you are fourteen and your mother tells you to get a haircut! Please don’t die, Lucy Harte!
I want to warn her of what is going to happen, but then if it didn’t happen, if she didn’t die, I wouldn’t be here, would I?
This is crazy. It’s like looking back in time into a crystal ball. It’s like watching a movie that you’ve seen before and you know the ending but still want it to change until the ending comes and then you know that it was for the best. It was what was meant to be. It is painful, it is strange, but it is healing me in a way that I never thought I would ever experience.
The tin which Simon left with me has enough contents to keep me busy for days and I don’t want to rush it. I want to savour every picture, every scribble, every piece of her life and relish in this strange comfort that she brings me.
I check my phone and messages from earlier as I tuck into a steaming-hot slice of pizza heaven. One is from Simon, as I expected, telling me that he has arrived safely and I send a quick reply, but it is the other message that gets my attention. It’s from my brother, John Joe.
My mood dips.
‘I need to talk to you,’ is all it says.
I am not replying. I don’t need his negative energy, especially not now when I am clinging to Lucy for distraction on what is going on in my real life.
I have not heard from John Joe since he last told me in a message to stop drinking and get a grip, and I have no head space for his random interest in my life. Not today, anyhow.
It saddens me that I feel this way because as a very young girl, no matter how much he taunted, teased or ignored me, my brother was my knight in shining armour. He was the one I literally looked up to. My big brother. My flesh and blood. My hero.
But he isn’t my hero any more.
He is arrogant, he is flighty, he changes his mind as often as he changes his girlfriend and that is a lot. He appears on the outside to be overly ambitious, yet he doesn’t know what he wants to be when he grows up and he was always jealous of every single thing I do. Everything.
In a sickening and immature way, he never could give me credit and always brought me down as soon as I began to become a person and not just the little girl in the corner who happened to share the same home as he did.
‘Why do you hate me so much?’ I remember asking him once when I was about nine and his attitude towards me was becoming more and more horrible.
I had just won a prize for show-jumping and he hid the rosette but Dad found it in his room.
He looked at me in a way I will never forget, his black eyes staring from a face I no longer recognised.
‘I don’t hate you,’ he said. ‘Grow up, Maggie. You’re not the only one in this family.’
Since he moved to the States a long, long time ago, I have to admit that life at Loch Tara has been a whole lot easier – well for me anyhow. No more pretending we got along for Mum and Dad’s sake. No more awkward family dinners or Christmases when we would both rather stab each other than share a turkey. No more false ‘Happy Birthdays’ and exchanging gifts when we would rather exchange punches.
Yes, that bad.
I spilled my guts to a counsellor about our so-called ‘relationship’ years after my life- saving operation and we worked through all the nooks and crannies of our otherwise idyllic upbringing.
I wanted for nothing throughout my childhood, nothing that is, aside from a brother who loved me back and who wanted me instead of always seeing me as a threat, or worse – not seeing me at all.
John Joe never messages me. Never ever. The on
ly reason I have his number is because Mum insisted I put it in my phone in case something ever happened to her or Dad – and I assume she has done the same with him.
I just wish I didn’t miss him so much.
I have a hot shower and I use all my favourite toiletries so that I smell delicious in a bid to erase my old childhood memories and get back into Lucy’s world. I have lit candles in my bedroom and I have some soft music playing. I feel quite relaxed. I am being kind to me and it feels good.
I open the box again and lift out a bundle of notes and letters and photographs for me to look through and get to know better the little girl who saved my life. They are held together with an elastic band and I take it off, feeling a rush of warmth run through me when I see her face, her gorgeous face, staring back at me.
‘Hello, Lucy Harte,’ I whisper, running my fingers across her beautiful smiling face.
She looks like a Lucy, that’s for sure, if you know what I mean. She is petite and friendly and smiley and I know from her astute record-keeping that she was a very clever little girl. There is a photo-booth strip of her with a friend and they pull faces and laugh and pose as everyone does when they pull that little curtain across. Amy and Lucy, it reads on the back of the strip and a date that is faded, but I think it says 1997.
There is a picture of her in her school uniform, looking very proper. Another of her with her two brothers and I smile when I see Simon in his youth and little Henry. How my heart breaks for Henry – more than them all.
Another picture of the whole family this time and another lady whose name is Marilyn, according to Lucy’s very neat handwriting on the back of the photo. Their father was a handsome man and he looks proud with his arm around his wife but she looks desperately distracted, like a woman with a lot on her mind. I wonder, if she was around now would she have had more help to deal with her addiction and any other mental illnesses that she appeared to have battled with.
There are drawings in the box too and I giggle at Lucy’s interpretation of Van Gogh’s sunflowers and her caption, which indicates that, as creative as she was, visual art wasn’t her strongest subject.
Her humour is definitely her strongest point and her ramblings on paper make me laugh out loud. It is like reading your favourite book and not wanting it to end and I devour every aspect of Lucy, getting to know all the things she loved and loathed and the boys she fancied and those she would rather ‘stick pins in her eyes than kiss’.
She had lists of favourite foods, lists of favourite songs, lists of favourite movies, even a list of favourite teachers. Apparently Miss Davison, the pretty PE teacher needed to sort out her crush on Mr Thompson and just get a room together! I wonder if they ever did.
I text Simon.
Your little sister was a real hoot! Wise beyond her years, just like you said! Thank you for sharing this with me. It is helping a lot!
He texts back immediately.
I thought it would! Lovely to hear from you. I hope you are well. Thinking of you lots.
Hours pass and I am totally enveloped in everything I am finding. She certainly liked to record her feelings and what an amazing writer she would have made one day. I am almost at the bottom of the bundle when I come across a separate notebook and I lift it with the same anticipation as I did every other item she had stored in this box.
It is red in colour and it is neatly titled in Lucy’s distinctive handwriting, but this one is different from the others. This is not a memory book or scrap book from her past. This one stops me in my tracks because it is about her planned future.
This one is entitled ‘Things I Want to Do When I Grow Up’ by Lucy Harte. It is a diary of entries but she has summarised her thoughts with a list on the inside cover, each item written at different times with different pens but each referring to the diary that waits for me to read it.
I stop. I wasn’t expecting to get a glimpse into her non-existent future and my mood drops to the floor. All the warmth and excitement drains from my body at the thought of her wanting to do so much and planning it but never having the chance.
I read the list, slowly anticipating the sorrow and pain that I am set to experience by reading a little girl’s hopes and dreams that never were to come true.
I text Simon again, needing to communicate with someone who will understand my sadness.
Life is cruel. I just read Lucy’s list.
He texts back within a few minutes.
Would you do it, Maggie?
Do it? Do what?
Do the things that Lucy planned to do?
A cold shiver runs through me and Lucy’s smiling face stares up at me from a photo by my side. There is a cheeky look in her eye, one of strength and sheer will and determination.
Do it! I hear her whisper. Do it for me! Do it for you! Go on, Maggie. Do it!
I read again through the list of things to do and I feel a new energy run through my veins at the prospect of it all.
Find the world’s tallest bridge… learn to play guitar… spread your wings and travel far…
And so it went on…
Could I? Should I? It could be a challenging, crazy distraction to see it through. I certainly have the time. I have the money. It would give me something to do and take my mind from what has happened between Jeff and I, never mind his impending fatherhood with Saffron. Plus it would allow me to give something back to Lucy. It would let me do the things she never got to do and enjoy them and show my gratitude to her for giving me a second chance in life.
Is this what Simon had planned all along? It could help us all, really, couldn’t it? It all makes sense. I am excited. I can feel her with me, cheering me on, telling me to do it and have fun and do all the things that she never got to do.
Yes, I’ll do it! I am going to do it! I’m nervous, I’m scared stiff, but I won’t allow that to take over.
‘Let’s do this, Lucy Harte!’
I read the first thing on her list again, then I close the book, kiss its cover and I pick up my phone and text Simon.
Where is the tallest bridge in the world?
Tarn Valley, South of France, he messages back in the blink of an eye. I already checked that one out for you. Good luck, Maggie! Who knows where it will take you? Don’t be afraid to travel alone. I’m so proud of you x
I feel a new energy, new blood pumping through me as my whole insides take on a new lease of life. This is not just any old list of dreams and ambitions. It’s a story as well and it brings me right into the heart of the little girl who saved my life once.
Maybe she is going to do it again.
Lucy Harte, age 10½
~ April 1995 ~
I have a secret that no one knows.
Well, no one but Henry, but he won’t tell because if he does, I can tell that he ate some of his Easter egg the other day and then covered it up in the red foil and put it back in the box so that Mum wouldn’t notice.
Or I could tell that he says bad words when he thinks no one is listening. I saw him just this morning standing in front of the mirror in just his underpants and saying the ‘eff’ word like ten times as he wiggled his bum and made silly faces.
Or, last of all, I could tell that he picks his nose and eats it and Mum would go totally chicken-oriental mental if she thought he did that. It would, as Simon says, ‘gross her out.’
Anyhow, my secret is this (please don’t tell anyone or I’m dead meat)… my secret is that when I am sad, like when Mum and Dad are arguing and even when Simon turns the telly up and we can still hear it, and even when Marilyn says they are only playing but we can still hear it – well, my secret is that I go outside and away, way down the lane and across two fields where I sit on the edge of the stone bridge and I dangle my legs and I look at my reflection in the water for ages and ages and no one even notices that I am gone.
It’s a secret because I am not allowed on the stone bridge. No one I know is allowed on the stone bridge. Not even Simon is allowed and he is thirteen and a h
alf.
This may sound weird but I love bridges. If I am ever caught, if Mum finds out, then I would be grounded again and there is nothing I hate more than being grounded and stuck in my bedroom all day. Except frilly dresses. I hate frilly dresses.
Here are four reasons why I love bridges:
1) They are high up and you can see for miles, like you are on top of the world
2) They bring you to the other side of somewhere you don’t want to be
3) They can be a little bit dangerous, which is bad but cool
4) I just love them
If you are reading this (I am talking to you, Simon and Henry Harte) please do not tell because Mum says my grounding is becoming ‘a bit of a habit’ and she will either ground me again or else kill me.
I’d rather be killed than grounded sometimes.
The last time, which was only four days ago, was for bringing a mouse into the utility room. It’s not like I was going to keep it for a pet or anything. I just wanted to see how it liked sleeping in the warm laundry basket and it wasn’t my fault that Marilyn almost had a heart attack when she lifted it out thinking it was one of Dad’s socks.
I had to stay in my room and read books that I had read a hundred times before and it was a sunny day and Simon and Henry went swimming with Dad but I wasn’t allowed to (harsh!).
The grounding before that was on Sunday and it was just because I tore my horrible pink frilly new dress that Aunt Josie had bought me for my birthday. I hate that pink dress as much as I hate Aunt Josie. And that is a lot (another secret, so don’t tell. Aunt Josie thinks she is my favourite but she so is not).
The only tricky part about going to the stone bridge is trying to figure out when it is safe to go back home.
Too soon and they would still be fighting; too late and I would be noticed missing and that would be big trouble.
Sometimes Henry comes with me to the stone bridge but he is only eight and he really annoys me the way he hums and sings when he sits on the edge and then he gets scared and wants to go home. He doesn’t have any sense of adventure. I think I get that from my dad. Henry is like Mum. He likes sticking to the rules. I like breaking them.
The Legacy of Lucy Harte Page 8
