Yes, My Darling Daughter

by Margaret Leroy

  My pulse skitters off.

  “D’you have her address? D’you think she’d see us?” I say.

  Brigid nods. “I’m sure she would. Like I say, she’s got a good heart. I’ll find her number for you.”

  I ring Adam. He’s still at the garage with Sylvie. I tell him about Deirdre and about Jessica having a twin.

  “Full marks, Grace.” There’s a thrill in his voice. “That’s a huge step forward.”

  I like him praising me like that.

  He says we should try to see Deirdre at once. The car should be ready by lunchtime.

  “What was wrong?” I ask him.

  “Some problem with the brake fluid. They’ve topped it up and replaced a damaged pipe.”

  “Did they say how it could have happened?”

  “Well, you know what people are like round here. Someone could have siphoned it off, but then again, maybe they didn’t.” He puts on an extravagant Irish accent. “I’m ruling nothing out and I’m ruling nothing in . . .”

  I feel a vague unease when he says that.

  I ring Deirdre from our bedroom.

  “Deirdre Walker speaking.” A formal, rather cautious voice.

  “My name’s Grace Reynolds,” I tell her.

  There’s a whole careful speech worked out in my head. But she responds before I can begin.

  “Oh yes. Grace Reynolds. I thought you’d be in touch.”

  This startles me.

  “You’ve heard about us?”

  “Of course I’ve heard about you. Gordon told me. That you’ve got a little girl who’s psychic, who seems to remember this place.”

  Her voice is measured and pleasant, but I can hear the anxiety in it.

  “She’s four,” I tell her. “She’s called Sylvie. She seemed to recognize Flag Cottage.”

  “Yes, Gordon told me that,” says Deirdre.

  I breathe in deeply.

  “Deirdre. I wondered if we could possibly come and see you?”

  There’s a long, tense silence. I hear the thud of my heart.

  “I’ve been thinking about this,” she says then. “What I should do if you called. I’ve given it quite a lot of thought, to be frank with you. And this is what I’ve decided. I don’t mind seeing you as long as Gemma isn’t here. You could come this afternoon when she’ll be at college.” She clears her throat, as though it’s hard to say this. “But Grace, you mustn’t bring Sylvie. I absolutely don’t want Sylvie to come.”

  47

  I LEAVE ADAM and Sylvie watching television in the lounge at St. Vincent’s.

  The house is on the coast road that climbs up out of Barrowmore. It’s a bland modern house with a view out over the sea. She opens the door as I arrive; she must have been watching out for me. She’s wearing a woolen jacket that has a woven pattern of fruit. The colors are too bright for her. Her face looks tired and faded.

  “Thank you so much for seeing me,” I say.

  “That’s quite okay,” says Deirdre, but she doesn’t smile.

  She takes me into her living room. There’s a floral three-piece suite, a piano with lots of framed photographs on it, the chemical sweetness of air freshener. On the mantelpiece is a picture of the Virgin, with a halo of sugar-pink roses and eyes that seem to follow you around the room. Outside, in the back garden, gulls are fighting over scraps.

  She brings in tea and angel cake.

  “Your little girl’s four, you said, Grace?”

  “Yes,” I tell her.

  Her face softens. “I always say four’s a perfect age.” There’s a touch of yearning in her voice. “I have three of my own, you know. Well, they’re all grown up now. But then Gemma came, of course.”

  “Yes,” I say.

  We drink our tea. The shadows of seagulls move over the room, the glide and weave of their wings, and their screaming is loud in the stillness. I bite into my angel cake, but my mouth is dry, I find it hard to swallow. Now that I’m here, I don’t know how to begin.

  “You want to talk about Gemma,” she says then.

  “Yes. About Gemma and Jessica. I know it must seem strange . . .”

  “Gemma and Jessica,” she repeats. She’s picking some fluff from her sleeve. “They were very close, those two. They weren’t identical—I’ll show you a picture later, you’ll be able to see for yourself. But they were incredibly close. Alice wanted them put in different classes at school. You know, to help them establish their own identities. But they were so unhappy, and in the end they were put back together again.”

  She pauses for a moment, and I sense the conflict in her—that there are things she’s never said, because they feel too dangerous, and yet she longs to share them.

  “They lived in a world of their own,” she says. “They even had words they’d made up together, and secret places where they used to go. Sometimes I’ve thought—perhaps they provided a haven for each other, a kind of safety. Because Alice couldn’t always give them what they needed. You know, because of her illness. They were rather left to fend for themselves. I remember once they went off together and no one could find them for hours . . .”

  She takes a slow sip of her tea.

  “They were everything to each other,” she says quietly.

  “I know that can happen, with twins,” I say.

  She puts down her cup precisely in its saucer.

  “When it . . . happened—I think Gemma felt the loss of her sister still more than the loss of her mother. As though it was, I don’t know, an amputation. Does that make any sense to you?”

  “Yes, it does,” I tell her.

  Deirdre’s mouth is working. “As though she felt a part of her had gone.”

  She gets up, takes a photograph from the piano. “Look, here’s Gemma,” she says.

  It’s a school photograph. The girl in the picture is twelve or so, just on the cusp of womanhood, with the almost luminous loveliness girls sometimes have at that age. She has long dark curls that fall loosely over her shoulders, milky skin, an open smile.

  “She’s gorgeous,” I say.

  “Well, this was four years ago,” says Deirdre. “She’s really blossoming now. There’s that rather magical moment—they have their braces off and they seem to leave childhood behind. Though of course in lots of ways they’re really no more than children.”

  She puts the photo back on the piano, turns to face me directly. Her eyes are raw in her white face.

  “I know it wasn’t Alice’s fault—that she was ill, that depression is an illness. I know that. But I can’t help feeling so angry that she chose to take Jessica with her.” Her voice cracks. “That’s so selfish, so cruel. I didn’t think she had it in her, to be as cruel as that.”

  She turns a little away. The seagulls weave their shadow pattern across her.

  “I used to hear Gemma crying at night, and I’d go in to her, of course I would, but what could I do to help her?”

  I murmur something banal about how hard it must be.

  “You feel so helpless,” she tells me. She moves her hands slowly together as though she is trying to warm them. “Look, there’s something upstairs I know you’ll want to see.”

  I follow her.

  The room has a view out over the beach—she’s given Gemma her best bedroom. This touches me. It’s blowy out there, you can see the white tops of the waves. The room has that mix of the grown-up and childlike that I remember from my own teenage bedroom. There are gingham curtains trimmed with braid, and heaps of Beanie Babies, and other, more teenage things—jewelry, pop posters, a wind chime made from delicate pieces of shell. The window is open—the wind chime shakes in the rough salt wind from the sea, with a sound like many tiny bells, at once delicate and discordant.

  Deirdre shows me a framed photograph hanging on the wall.

  “This is her old family.” Again, there’s that crack in her voice. “This was the last photo they had taken—before it happened.”

  It’s so strange to see them, these people I ha
ve imagined. Gordon I recognize of course, though here he looks quite different, younger and unburdened. Alice has high cheekbones, and glossy dark hair pulled back, and the sleek, assured smile of the woman who knows she is beautiful. The girls may not be identical, but they still look very similar, with the same unruly brown curls and creamy skin. I don’t know how to tell them apart.

  “This was Jessica,” says Deirdre, pointing, reading my thought.

  The poignant past tense tugs at my heart.

  I stare at the gap-toothed smile, the confiding hazel gaze. I stare and stare. I tell myself, This is Jessica, this is her face, this is who she was. I realize that, ridiculously, I’d thought she might look like Sylvie, expecting her appearance to offer some answer, some clue. But she could be anyone.

  I glance around the room, trying to take it all in, wanting to remember it so I can tell Adam about it. On the wall by the photo there are holiday postcards, an Arctic Monkeys poster, and certificates from Gemma’s music exams. My eye skims briefly across these things, my gaze moving hungrily onward, searching for anything I can learn about her; then I find myself drawn back to the certificates again. They have Gemma’s full name on them. “This certificate is awarded to Gemma Eleanor Murphy for Grade 5 Clarinet. Highly commended.”

  Eleanor. I hear the name in my head, like someone has just spoken it. I think of all the things that Sylvie has said. You aren’t my Lennie. They shouldn’t sing that, she isn’t Lennie, Grace. Where’s Lennie hiding? I need to find Lennie.

  I feel a rush of cold, like the room is flooding with icy air.

  I turn to face Deirdre. There’s gooseflesh all over my body.

  “Did they have special names for one another? Pet names, perhaps, like sisters sometimes do?”

  “I couldn’t answer that,” says Deirdre. “If Gemma talks about her sister—and she hardly ever mentions her—she always calls her Jessica, like it’s safer to be more formal. Like she wants to distance her, not bring her too close.”

  The wind chime is juddering wildly now, and I think how fragile they are, those spheres and crescents of seashell, as thin as paper and pale and brittle as bone. If the wind blows any harder, they will surely shatter.

  “Gemma’s a very private person,” says Deirdre then, and I remember how Marcus said exactly this of Alice. “She buries everything and keeps it hidden. You know, I don’t think that’s such a bad thing. What would talking do for her? It wouldn’t bring them back.” She’s leaning on the windowsill, looking out at the sea. “Sometimes I think that’s how people cope—that maybe it’s better to bottle it up. I know they say it’s good to talk. But some things—if you let them out, well, maybe they couldn’t be borne . . .”

  I want so much to comfort her, but I don’t know what to say.

  “Coming here to Gemma’s room, you can tell it’s a happy room,” I say. “You can feel she’s happy here.”

  This sounds so glib. I wish that Adam were with me.

  A rainbow silk scarf is draped across the foot of the bed. I notice because it’s the kind of scarf Lavinia might wear. It’s the loveliest thing, made of silk that is almost transparent, its lavish colors washing together as though they are melting and wet. I run my fingers lightly across the fabric. The silk is so fine, I feel it could snag on my skin.

  “She has such pretty things,” I say.

  “That’s from Marcus, from his dress shop in Dublin,” says Deirdre.

  I turn to her sharply.

  She makes a little throwaway gesture, as though to say, What can I do?

  “He’s very fond of Gemma. Well, she’s got her mother’s looks . . .”

  I wonder what she’s telling me—whether she’s hinting they have a sexual relationship. Her face is flushed. Perhaps she thinks I’ll be shocked, that I’ll feel she should have stopped it.

  “I know it must seem odd,” she says. “I mean, with the age gap and everything. But he’s very charming, of course.”

  I try to reassure her. “Older men can be very attractive, especially to a teenager,” I tell her. “Sylvie’s father . . . he was a lot older than me.”

  She’s grateful for this. She gives me a tentative smile.

  “The thing is,” she says, “I’ve never felt I can be really strict with Gemma. She’s not my own daughter, not really mine. If she was my own child—well, I might put my foot down. But she was nine when she came to me. She was quite her own person by then.”

  “I guess they have to find their own way,” I tell her.

  She takes me downstairs. The noise of the wind chime follows us, that sound of something forever on the point of breaking. In the hall, she stands by the door, but she doesn’t immediately open it.

  “I don’t know if that’s been any use,” she says.

  “It’s been very helpful,” I tell her. “I’m so grateful.”

  “There’s something I want to ask you,” she says. “The thing is, you might see Gemma when she goes to Coldharbour, when she’s visiting Marcus.”

  “Yes.”

  “You must absolutely promise me you won’t say anything to her. And especially that you won’t let Sylvie talk to her.”

  I feel a judder of disappointment.

  “I know you’ll think that’s harsh of me,” she says. “But she has a new life now. I hate the idea of dredging up the past. She’s a very resilient girl. But what happened to her was devastating. I don’t want everything to come unstitched again . . .”

  “No, of course not.”

  She takes my hand in hers. Her fingers are tense and urgent.

  “Promise me, Grace,” she says.

  She’s standing very close to me, and she’s searching my face with her gaze. I can’t refuse her.

  “I promise,” I tell her.

  “Thank you,” she says. “Look, I’m not going to tell her you came. Though she’ll probably find out, of course. People do talk around here.”

  She opens the door. It’s cold on the doorstep, and she wraps her woolen jacket close around her. Her eyes are on me, tired and troubled and kind.

  “Grace. Do you really believe them—these things that Sylvie says?”

  I want to be truthful with her, but I don’t know what the truth is.

  “I do and don’t at the same time. Both things together,” I say. “Sorry. That sounds so stupid . . .”

  “No, it doesn’t.” Her gaze on my face. “Now, don’t forget what you promised me, Grace.”

  At the gate I turn to wave, but Deirdre has gone.

  48

  I WAKE TO hear Adam’s voice through the wall. He’s talking on his phone. His voice is intense, hard-edged, though I can’t quite hear what he’s saying. I wonder what can have happened to upset him.

  I leave Sylvie in our bedroom, playing with her LEGO. He’s at our table already. He has a troubled look.

  “Are you okay?” I ask him.

  He smiles his rueful smile. “You heard, then,” he says.

  “Not really. Not what you were saying. But you didn’t sound very pleased.”

  He says nothing for a moment, just sips slowly at his coffee. It’s pleasant in the dining room. Sunlight falls across us, and there’s a vase of narcissi that have a thin, peppery scent.

  “You were right about Tessa,” he says then.

  I’m puzzled.

  “I don’t remember what I said,” I tell him.

  “You wondered what she thought about me coming here with you. Whether she’d be okay with it.”

  “Oh.”

  “It appears she isn’t,” he says. “She isn’t okay.” He’s looking down at his hands, not looking at me. Again, that slight crooked smile. “Could be I’ve been talking about you a little too much.”

  I know my face is flaring red.

  He looks up then, looks right into my eyes. My stomach tightens, flips over.

  Like Sylvie, I’m not hungry; I just eat a bit of toast, but I keep refilling my coffee cup. I would like this meal to last for hours, to sit here close be
side him in the sunlight and the flower scent.

  We talk about what Deirdre said, go through it all again.

  “It seems to make sense of so much that’s happened,” says Adam. He’s animated, his eyes gleam. “Like that thing that Sylvie said about the children in her drawing.”

  “Two peas in a pod.”

  “Yes, exactly,” he says.

  “I wish Deirdre hadn’t made me promise to keep the girls apart.”

  “She didn’t really give you a choice. And I guess it’s utterly comprehensible from her point of view—after all that Gemma’s been through.” He shakes his head a little. “But God, it’s just so tantalizing,” he says.

  I think that he might have handled her better, not agreed so readily.

  “Perhaps I gave in too easily. I’m really sorry,” I say.

  “Don’t be,” he tells me.

  He puts his hand on my wrist—lightly, just for a second or two. Warmth floods me.

  I’m talking to Sylvie already as I open our bedroom door. “Time to get going, sweetheart. You need to put on your shoes . . .”

  My words fall into silence.

  “Sylvie?”

  I knock on the door to the bathroom. No answer. I open the door. The tap has been left running, but the room is empty. I curse myself for my self-indulgence, for spending all that time with Adam, not coming straight back here.

  I go out into the corridor.

  “Adam!”

  I’m calling for him before I get to his room.

  He comes to the door. He’s pulling on a sweater.

  “It’s Sylvie. She’s gone.”

  “What?” His eyes widen.

  “Adam, has someone taken her? D’you think she could have been snatched?”

  “She’s almost certainly still in the building,” he tells me.

  But there’s a shred of anxiety in his voice.

  We hunt through the lounge, the bar, the garden. Sylvie isn’t anywhere. I’m calling for her; my voice sounds thin and shrill. I’m full of a jittery energy. I need to run, but I don’t know where to run to. Panic floods me.