“Can you tell me what happened?” I ask.
“A bad thing happened,” she says.
I feel a thrill of fear. Then I remember what I said to Brian: I don’t want to live in a house where anything really bad happened. Maybe she’s just repeating that. I feel again how elusive she is, how she seems to slip through your hands.
“The man we talked to—Brian, the policeman,” Adam says to her. “He told us about the people who lived in that house. He said the people disappeared. He said they may have died . . .”
Sylvie nods slightly. “Yes, Adam. People died.” Her face is quiet and composed.
“Can you tell us about them, the people who died?” I ask her. My voice is thick in my throat. I feel uneasy speaking like this to a child, talking about death like this. I still feel the shock of what Brian said.
“Who were they, sweetheart?” I say.
Her eyes are on mine. She’s rather cool and remote.
“I died, Grace. I died in the water,” she says. Her voice so calm and matter-of-fact. I feel the lurch of my heart.
“Can you tell us what happened?” I ask her.
But it’s hard to speak, my breath has been snatched away.
“The water was red,” she tells me. “I saw the bubbles go up from my mouth.”
She fastens her seat belt. She turns away from us, looking out the window. She has her closed face.
“Can you tell us more about it?” Adam’s voice is urgent, eager. I can hear his rapid breathing.
“I told you, Adam,” she says.
“Can you remember anything else?” he asks her.
But she can’t, or doesn’t want to. I know that she’s withdrawing from us, she won’t say anything more.
I realize I am shivering. There’s gooseflesh all along my arms.
I glance at Adam. His eyes are wide and amazed.
He drives us back by a different route that to start with follows the coast. It’s a narrow, twisting road, the bright sea to one side of us, to the other side fields of rocks and black cattle and reeds, and shallow blue pools full of waving grasses turned to gold by the sunlight. In the distance, the mountains have cloud shadows skimming across them. I watch the many colors of the mountains, always changing and shifting, gray, then tawny, then purplish blue like damsons. I feel fragile, insubstantial, as though the slightest breath could blow me away.
“I want my family, Grace,” says Sylvie suddenly, her voice very clear and definite. “I want my family back. I want them.”
“I know you do, sweetheart,” I say.
It hurts, as it always does.
The road turns inland. We come to a place where it forks, where you can turn left for Barrowmore or right to go south toward Coldharbour. There’s a big old oak that leans across the road, and a broken barbed-wire fence with gorse and bramble bushes behind it, and a few bent, battered conifers twisted away from the sea. Up here, they must take the full force of the wind.
“Grace.”
Sylvie’s voice is small and panicky.
I turn quickly, see her face. Her skin is white as wax.
“Stop the car,” I tell Adam. “Now.”
He hears the urgency in my voice, pulls rapidly off the road.
I jump out, open her door, pull her out. I hold back her hair as she vomits onto the side of the road.
“You poor old thing,” I say when it’s over.
I stroke her hair. She has a greenish pallor, and she’s trembling.
Adam brings me a box of tissues. I wipe Sylvie’s face and her hands. I feel guilty—that we wanted too much of her, asked too many questions.
“We’ll just stay here for a moment,” I tell her. “We’ll take some deep breaths. You’ll be better out of the car.”
The sun is fully out now, but there’s no warmth in the sunlight. Above us, gulls flap emptily through the blue wide air.
“No,” she says. “I want to get back in the car, Grace. I want to go back to St. Vincent’s.”
“You need some fresh air, sweetheart. That’ll help you feel better.”
A bird calls with a sound like a pot being scraped, and the leaves of the bramble bushes sigh and whisper together. There’s a coconut smell from the flowering gorse.
“No,” she says.
She clambers back into her seat, sits there, waiting, expectant.
“I really think we should wait for a moment,” I tell her. “I’m worried you might be sick again.”
“I want to go, Grace.”
She’s implacable. Her mouth is set and tight.
I know there’s no point in insisting.
“Well, all right. But you must promise you’ll keep looking out of the window. That helps you not to feel sick.”
“Yes,” she says.
She folds her hands precisely in her lap. She turns to look through the window, rather pointedly, like I told her to. We drive away from the fork in the road, through the yellow glare of the flowering gorse.
“Is she often carsick?” says Adam softly to me.
“No, not carsick. But if she’s been crying a lot, she can sometimes make herself sick.” I remember the evening with Matt; it seems an age away.
“So it could be because she’s upset? Something could be troubling her?”
“Yes.”
I think, It was our fault, we pushed her too hard. But I don’t say anything.
We drive down the hill into Coldharbour. The tension has left her face now. She’s pale, almost translucent, but she doesn’t have that panicked look. Her fingers are carefully folded together, as though she’s frightened of breaking something, as though there’s some precious, delicate thing she’s holding in her hands.
39
IT’S BRIGID’S MUSIC night. Once Sylvie is settled, I go to knock at Adam’s door.
Brigid has found him a folding table for his laptop. He’s moved the table in front of the window, he’s put a lamp on the table, he’s sitting there in a circle of amber light. He’s been pushing his hand through his hair, so it’s ruffled and disorderly, and the sleeves of his Guernsey sweater are raggedly rolled up, and he has two half-empty coffee cups beside him on the table. He’s chewing the end of a pencil.
I think, This is how he looks when he’s working—disheveled, messy, preoccupied. I like knowing this.
“Did you used to smoke?” I ask him.
He gives a slight, puzzled smile. “Yes. Why?”
“The way you’re chewing that pencil . . .”
“I gave up last summer,” he tells me. “Heroic feat of willpower. Horrible for everyone around me. They hid when they saw me coming.”
I go to the table, stand beside him, looking at the screen. I can see my name and Sylvie’s there. This jolts me, though I know I shouldn’t be surprised. I understand that our quest here has a different purpose for him, that he hasn’t come just to help us. That he’s come here looking for something, an answer, a hint of meaning, wanting to find a way of living with his brother’s death. I wonder if he will find that.
“Do you make notes on us?” I say.
“Yes. D’you want to read them?”
“No, it’s okay. I trust you to be nice about us. Are you?”
He looks up at me for a moment. He’s so intent, so serious.
“How could I not be?” he says.
A wave of heat moves through me.
He holds my gaze for a moment more. Then he turns from me and closes down his laptop.
“Grace! Adam! Let me buy you a drink,” says Brigid.
We sit at a table near the fire. The four musicians are setting up—two violins and a flutist, and a heavy man in a crumpled shirt who has a bodhran, an Irish goatskin drum.
Brigid comes over to us with a tray of whiskeys.
“I hope you don’t mind if I join you,” she says.
“That would be great,” I tell her.
She sits and sips her whiskey.
“Now, tell me, how do you all like Coldharbour?” she says.
“
It’s a beautiful place,” I tell her.
“It is that,” she says. Her gaze rests on me a moment. Her thickly powdered face looks floury in the firelight. “And I gather you have an interest in our history round here?”
I nod.
She leaves a little pause. The flutist plays a brief bright flurry of notes.
“They tell me that you’ve been asking about Alice. About her disappearance. That you went to see Flag Cottage and you were asking about her.”
“Yes,” I tell her.
“Alice Murphy. Well, that’s been our one big story, of course. And such a mystery.”
It’s an invitation to confide. I glance at Adam. He nods slightly.
“We went to talk to the gardai in Ballykilleen,” I tell her.
“Brian Ennis?” she says.
“Yes.”
Her mouth is set and tight, as though she doesn’t quite approve of Brian Ennis.
“Brian thinks Alice killed herself,” she says.
“Yes, he told us. Did you know Alice?” I say.
“Yes. I knew Alice.”
“And what did you think? Did you think it was suicide?”
She sits there for a moment, not saying anything.
The musicians start to play. It’s a vigorous hornpipe, rather repetitious, the kind of thing you could probably hear in any Irish bar. The drummer in the crumpled shirt beats out an insistent rhythm.
“Let me tell you about Alice,” says Brigid then. The flickering red of the fire is in her eyes. “Alice was gorgeous. A bit like one of the Corr sisters, that dark-haired Celtic look. Clever, too—brilliant with figures. That was why Marcus took her on—because she had such a good brain on her.”
“Marcus?” I remember the man I saw in the hotel lobby. I’m startled. “You mean, Marcus Paul? Alice worked for him?”
She’s amused by my surprise. “She worked as his assistant when he was staying at Kinvara House. Did his accounts and everything.”
I’m baffled by what we’re hearing—this image of Alice, this pretty, competent woman.
“But Brian told us she’d been depressed,” I say. “That she’d been in hospital.”
“Yes, sure, she had, poor woman. But I bet he didn’t tell you why she was depressed.”
“No. Not really. Though he hinted it wasn’t the happiest marriage.”
Brigid nods slightly. “Sometimes you’ll look at a couple, and you’ll think, Now, how did that happen? Those two don’t belong together. You know what I mean?”
“Yes, I think so,” I say.
“They’d come in here for a drink sometimes. He’d be telling one of his long, rambling jokes, and there’d be this look on her face—her eyebrows raised, mouth tight, like she despised him. And sometimes there’d be such an edge in his voice when he spoke to her,” she tells us. “Kind of threatening.”
The music changes. The man in the crumpled shirt is singing in Gaelic. His voice is rough, untutored, midway between speech and music, and there’s a dark silk thread of sadness stitched into the song.
“I did wonder, to be honest, if he hit her,” she goes on in a hushed voice. “Gordon has quite a temper on him. There was one time when he stormed right out of the bar. She was talking to one of his friends and getting a little too cozy, and that kind of thing could set him off. And at times she’d wear her sunglasses even though it was dull, and I’d wonder what she was hiding. It worried me, but of course you don’t like to ask . . . So when it happened, well, I did wonder if Gordon had found out something—” She hesitates. Her voice has a flicker of excitement running through it. “If Gordon had discovered there was something going on . . .”
We wait. My heart pounds.
“Sexual jealousy is a terrible thing,” says Brigid then. “And it can drive people to terrible, desperate deeds.”
For a moment, no one says anything.
“You think that Alice was having an affair?” Adam says carefully then.
“To be honest, I wouldn’t have blamed her if she was,” says Brigid. “She was a beautiful woman who married a bit beneath her. And Marcus, of course, he’s a very attractive man. Well, you’ve seen him, Grace—wouldn’t you say he was attractive?”
“Yes, I can see that. You know, that women might think that . . .”
Adam looks at me curiously. I’m cross to feel myself flush.
“I thought you liked the look of him.” She has a fat, satisfied smile. “I can tell, you see, I can always tell.” She takes her glass and drains it. Her exactly manicured nails gleam palely in the firelight. “So there you have it—that’s what I’ve wondered. And so did a lot of people. Whether it was Gordon’s doing—”
“But Brian said Gordon wasn’t at home.”
“True enough,” says Brigid. “Gordon was off in Limerick. But let’s face it, there are ways and means, if you’re willing to pay. That’s the way the world works. If there’s something you want doing, you’ll find a person to do it.”
“And Jessica?” I ask her. “Why was Jessica killed—if she was?”
“Maybe it didn’t work out as they’d planned,” says Brigid. “Jessica maybe wasn’t supposed to be there . . . So that’s what we thought—what we all thought. Look, your glasses are empty, and I didn’t even notice. I’m so sorry.”
She goes to get more whiskey.
I must be drunk already. I have a hot, blurred feeling. The bar is filling up now, and faces loom toward me—somehow too big, their gaze too blatant and intrusive. The violins are playing together; the music is full of yearning and just a little off-key.
Brigid comes back with the drinks, settles herself at our table again.
“You know, I still don’t get it,” she says slowly. “You two intrigue me. And all this interest in Alice Murphy. I mean, you’re not here just to have a good time, are you? I don’t think that’s what brought you . . .”
I feel a warm rush of gratitude toward her for being so open with us. I wonder what else she can tell us, if only we’re honest with her. The whiskey loosens me, gives me a hot, rash urge to confide.
“It’s because of Sylvie we’re here,” I say.
Adam is staring at me. I can see the concern in his face. I take no notice.
“There’s something about that child,” says Brigid. “Something so thoughtful. She seems too old for her years.”
“It’s funny you should say that,” I say. I see Adam reach out toward me in a little restraining gesture. I know he wants to stop me. I ignore him. “You see, sometimes we wonder if she’s remembering something. If she’s remembering a past life . . .”
Brigid’s eyes widen. She has a flushed, excited look. “Goodness. You mean reincarnation?” she says.
Immediately I wish I hadn’t said it. But the words hang there between us, and I can’t take them back.
I nod slightly.
“Well, why shouldn’t it be so?” she says. “Why shouldn’t Sylvie be an old soul? There’s a whole great spirit realm around us—that I’m sure of.” Her keen eyes glitter in the firelight. The violins soar and waver. “Maybe it’s Alice Murphy come back to settle a score.” There’s a thrill in her voice. “Maybe Alice’s soul wants vengeance.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t know.”
A wave of nausea surges through me. I hate this. I wish I hadn’t confided in her.
“If there’s any way I can help you,” she says.
“That’s very kind,” I tell her.
Adam puts his hand on my arm, as though to stop me saying more.
“I guess it’s time we turned in,” he says to Brigid.
I finish my glass. We say good night and go upstairs to our rooms.
I don’t immediately go into my bedroom.
“Could we talk for a bit?” I say. “I don’t want to be on my own.”
I’m not quite looking at him. There’s a sudden awkwardness between us.
“Okay,” he says. But he doesn’t move, just stands there, an uncertain look on his fa
ce.
“We could go out on my balcony,” I tell him.
“Yes,” he says.
We walk quietly into the bedroom. Sylvie has kicked off half her covers; her body is sprawled on the bed, arms and legs stretched out as though she’d been flung from a great height. I worry that she had a nightmare and I wasn’t here. Perhaps I shouldn’t have left her.
I pull the duvet up over her. Her face has a wholesome glow in the apricot light of the lamp, and her eyes are moving under her tight-closed eyelids. I hope this dream is a happy one.
I open the balcony doors, then pull them shut behind us. The doors make an emphatic click, but Sylvie doesn’t stir.
I sit on one of the plastic chairs. The cold silk touch of the air is welcome after the thick, beery warmth in the bar. The lamps along the jetty cast light across the water that’s broken up into sparkly shards by the ripple and shift of the waves, and the sky is vast and deep, with a moon nearly full and a lavish sprinkling of stars.
Adam is leaning on the railing, looking out at the sea. It’s so quiet, I can hear the creak of his shoes when he moves.
“You never see stars like this in London,” he says. “Here there’s real darkness, the real thing.”
“Yes,” I say. “I guess so.”
Something in my voice makes him turn to me.
“You’re cold,” he says. “You’re shivering.”
To my surprise he takes off his sweater and wraps it around my shoulders. The wool is still warm from his body. I pull it close against me.
“I hated that.” My voice is a little slurred, I can hear the whiskey in it. “I wish I hadn’t told her—you know, about Sylvie. About the past life thing.”
“Yes. Well, I did think you were taking a bit of a risk with that,” he says.
“I hated those things she said,” I tell him.
“Brigid’s a bit of a drama queen,” he tells me. He’s got his back to the railing now, he’s looking down at me. “She was loving every minute of it. She just wanted to tell a good story. She could have made half of it up.”
“But that thing about vengeance,” I say. “About wanting to settle a score. It was horrible. It was a horrible thought.”
“Yes. But you shouldn’t pay too much attention to her.”
Yes, My Darling Daughter Page 21
