He comes back and kneels beside me and puts his head on my tummy and cries. I lift up my arm and put it on his back, even though it’s so heavy and feels like a tree trunk and not even my arm.
Neeee-naaaaw, neeeeeee-naaaaaw, neeeeeeee-naaaaaaaw. More screams through the house. There must be a fire nearby. Then the glass circle in the front door is black and people are talking and saying to open the door. ‘Don’t do it, Thomas, we can’t open the door to strangers,’ but he gets up and stands on his tiptoes and a ray of light rushes in before the shadows, and they’re all around me and then running upstairs, making loads of noise, and they haven’t even wiped their feet on the mat and Mummy would be so mad if she wasn’t already dead.
More sirens. But now I have my eyes open and can see colour and lines and faces and the inside of the ambulance, where I am, with Mummy lying on the bed beside me and Thomas strapped into a chair, crying. I have a mask on my face, which is digging into my cheeks, and it’s tight and hurts but I don’t dare say anything. I’m just glad I can breathe again. In, out, in, out. It’s so nice.
We get to the hospital. They wheel Mummy away and then put me into a wheelchair and take Thomas by the hand and bring us inside. I close my eyes because I’m so tired and they’re holding Thomas’s hand, so I can rest my eyes for a minute, like Daddy does when he gets in from work and sits on the big comfy chair.
They put us in a nice room with Disney characters on the walls, and toys. A woman with hearts on her cardigan talks to Thomas. I realize she’s telling him Mummy is dead and I start crying. The tears fall down the mask like the rain drips down the windscreen.
‘Hello, Clare,’ she says. ‘How are you feeling?’
I cry more. ‘I want my daddy,’ I say, but the sound is all muffled. I take the mask off; ‘I want my daddy.’
Thomas runs over and tries to climb up onto the bed, but there’s a bar in the way, so the woman lifts him up and he lies down next to me and snuggles up.
‘He’s on his way,’ the nurse says.
I know she’s talking in an extra-soft voice because my mummy’s dead, but I don’t care. I don’t like her. My mummy wouldn’t like her, either, with her bad teeth and dirty-looking hair and stupid hearts on her wrinkled cardigan.
‘You’ve had an asthma attack,’ she says. ‘Your mum is—’
‘Dead.’ I howl like the fox I’ve heard in the garden at night.
‘No, sweetheart, she’s not dead, she’s with the doctors, that’s all.’
‘I thought she was dead,’ I cry, and I hug Thomas and cry into his hair.
She’s alive, I think. We haven’t gone to heaven. We have another chance. We can still all be together.
I don’t know which one of us falls asleep first, maybe it’s Thomas, maybe it’s me, but we hold each other tight, knowing the bars won’t let us fall out.
*
The door opens and Daddy comes in, with small red eyes and a white face. I think maybe the lady lied and Mummy is dead after all.
‘My darlings,’ he says, and a tear falls out of his eye. He wipes it away quickly before we can see it, but I already have. ‘My poor little things.’ He reaches over the bar and hugs us, pulling us close so our faces are pushed against his jacket and his T-shirt. The zip of his jacket is cold against my cheek. Then he pulls away and kisses us hard, and I can feel his face is wet.
‘Don’t cry, Daddy,’ I say.
‘I’m not crying, Clare,’ he says, but I can still see the tears stream down his face.
‘Is Mummy—?’ I can’t say the D word.
‘She’s okay,’ he says. ‘She hit her head and went to sleep for a while, but she’ll be fine.’
‘I thought she was dead,’ I start, but then the upset comes and my throat closes up tight.
Thomas starts crying then, in quiet sobs that make his shoulders jerk.
Daddy lifts him up onto his lap and rocks him from side to side. I push back the blanket and move closer to him, and he lifts me up over the bar with his other arm and I sit on his other knee. He rocks us both from side to side. Thomas whimpers quietly until he’s so tired he falls asleep again.
‘It was horrible, Daddy,’ I say after a while.
‘I know, honey, I know. I’m so sorry. It will never happen again. We’ll go on holiday and have a break and when we get back everything will be different, everything will be better, you’ll see.’ He puts Thomas into the bed and pulls up the blanket, and takes me back on his knee. ‘You’ll see, everything will be better.’
‘You promise?’ I say into his T-shirt.
‘I promise,’ he says.
I sniff some tears and snot up my nose, feeling a teeny-weeny bit better.
Daddy rocks me back and forth, like the way he painted the fence with a paintbrush a few weeks ago, so the garden would be lovely for the summer. He sniffs, too, so I think he must be feeling a teeny bit better as well.
He puts me back into bed with Thomas and I rest my eyes again. When I wake up, it’s dark outside and the bright white lights are on. The woman with hearts on her cardigan comes to see us again and asks us what happened. She asks us some questions and then we’re allowed to play with the toys while she goes out to talk to Daddy. Nosy parker, asking all those questions. They stand outside the door with glass in it and lots of little squares, looking serious and talking hush-hush.
A little while later Daddy says it’s time to go and he’ll be back in a minute. The woman puts the bar down and I sit on the chair at the side of the bed, with Thomas on my lap and my arms around his waist, and we wait.
Daddy pushes Mummy into our room in a wheelchair.
‘Mummy Mummy Mummy!’ we squeal, and we run to her and Thomas jumps on her knee, but Daddy says to take it easy and settle down.
I hug her and hold onto her and rub her hair with my hand. I want to stay like that for ever. When I pull away and look into her eyes, they look so sad and tired that I want to cry all over again. She needs a little break at home in Ireland, with the green fields and the sea and the sand. That’s what she needs. And we’re going to see her family this time, for the first time in so long. She’s probably nervous, but once she sees them I bet it’ll be the best thing ever. Then she’ll be happy and laughing, and her eyes will be big and full of life again.
On the way home we stop to get chicken and chips because there is no food at home and it’s late. Daddy goes into the corner shop first, to buy breakfast and lunch for tomorrow, because we don’t have time to go to the supermarket and do a proper shop. Then he goes to the chicken-and-chip shop and gets a family meal, even though Mummy says she’s not hungry. Everyone is quiet. Daddy hasn’t even told us to put our seatbelts on.
‘Does your head hurt, Mummy?’ I ask.
‘Yes, darling,’ she says in a floaty voice, ‘it does.’ She keeps looking forward. ‘You were both so brave today,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry you had to see that.’
Thomas sits forward. ‘You couldn’t help hitting your head, Mummy.’ He cups her face in his hands from behind and kisses her neck.
‘Thank you, sweetheart.’ Mummy takes one of his hands in hers, and reaches her other arm back to look for me.
I reach out my hand and we hold hands.
‘I love you both so much,’ she says, and she starts crying.
I get up and hug her as best I can from the back seat, my head on her shoulder. ‘I love you, too, Mummy.’ I cry as well, and so does Thomas. We stay like that until Daddy gets back, and Mummy sniffles and wipes her face and says, ‘Now, now, let’s head home.’
We each give Mummy a kiss on the cheek, being careful to be as soft as we can, and then Daddy takes her upstairs to get some rest and comes back down. We eat our chicken and chips in the sitting room in front of the TV, which we’re never allowed to do.
We eat quietly, watching the telly. When we’ve finished, Daddy puts us to bed and tells us a little story so we have sweet dreams.
When he’s finished and he’s switched the light off, he sa
ys, ‘Night-night, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite.’
‘Daddy?’ I say when he’s walking out.
‘Yes, sweetheart?’
‘Can you leave the light on?’
He clicks the switch and the light comes on with a flash, and then he turns the little knob until it’s a golden glow.
‘How’s that?’
‘That’s okay.’
The next day Daddy gets us up for school and makes us breakfast and does our lunch boxes. He tells us to be quiet because Mummy is resting and needs to get her energy up for Ireland, so we’re really quiet and every time we have to say something, we whisper it.
When I stand beside the car, waiting for him to open the door to take us to school, I wait for a minute even though he’s unlocked it from inside, because the cold wet of the drops on my face is so nice. The sky has opened up and the storm has passed – that’s what Mummy always says when it rains. And she says that the angels have been having an argument. I wonder what the angels were fighting about, and if they’ve made up.
I ask Daddy if we can stay at home, but he says no, it’s better that we go to school because we only have a couple of days left. He asks, don’t I want to be with my friends, because after Friday I won’t see them for a while? But I don’t feel like it today. I don’t feel like talking. When Daddy stops at the gate, I undo my seatbelt and kiss him goodbye on the cheek then lean through the gap between the seats because I’m in the front, and kiss Thomas goodbye. I walk slowly up the path, kicking the ground with the toes of my shoes like I’m not supposed to, because it ruins them. I keep my head down so I won’t see anyone and go and sit on the bench in the wilderness, where nobody will find me. When the bell rings, I think of staying there, but I’ll only be found out when everyone comes out at break and for PE, and what will I do then? I climb over the wall and walk along the playground until I get to my line and stand at the back. I keep my head down and follow my class inside. I sit down at my desk and put my head in my arms, facing the window, so no one can see me. Everyone stays away. When my name is called I say, ‘Here’, and Miss doesn’t even stop, she keeps reading through the register. I say the names in my head with her, and keep my eyes closed.
When class starts, I sit up because I don’t want to get in trouble. I pretend that I’m listening, but really I’m looking out the window and thinking of Mummy nearly being dead, and Father Feathers being an angel here to take her away, and the snakes swimming through the sea, getting nearer and nearer, and me screaming to warn her.
I close my eyes to shut out the snakes, and cross my fingers that Ireland will be good for Mummy, like Daddy says.
JOSEPHINE
22ND OCTOBER 1980
I see Michael on nearly all my evenings off. We walk through Holland Park, going off the main path and getting lost in the trees, coming across the most beautiful pond that looks like something out of the pictures, it’s so idyllic. There’s no one else, just us, wrapped up in gloves and scarves, and I feel like one of the wealthy women who live in the big houses we’ve passed, going for a walk with my wealthy husband. Who needs money? I think. I don’t need anything else. I’ve got who I need right here. Everything is so sweet and pleasant with Michael beside me. Sometimes he brushes his fingers against mine, other times he puts his arm right round my shoulders and I feel like I’m someone special.
He takes me to his favourite parks and pubs and the cinema and for dinners, and on a Friday night we go out with the girls and a few more lads to the dance in the church hall, or a ceílí. On Saturdays one of us is usually working, and on Sundays I might make us a nice meal and we’ll drink a bottle of bubbles. If it’s nice we’ll go to the park and eat a ham-and-cheese roll and a choc-ice. Life takes on a nice rhythm and I am optimistic about it all. I even sign up to an evening class in accounting, to complement my secretarial cert. That way, I might get another job on the side and maybe even leave the café. The way Michael looks at me makes me believe in myself. He makes me feel beautiful and sure of myself and able to do things.
On our first Saturday off together since we’ve been going strong, we’re going on a day out to Buckingham Palace. I’m supposed to be leading the high life over here, so I should at least go and see the palace. We’re going for tea and scones afterwards. Michael has the name and address of a nice place and we’re going to have a lovely day.
I have a while before he’s coming over. I take out my pen and pad to write some letters home. In Bernadette’s, I insert the Mass card I got from Father Francis this week and tell her I’m praying for her and her mother and send them all the love in the world. Then to Granny; I ask how she is and give her an update on the girls, the flat and work. I tell her that Michael and I are going to see the guards change at Buckingham Palace and that afterwards I’ll tell her all about it. I tell her I’m in love, and I think he is the man for me. My last letter is for Sean, because it’s his birthday next week and I’m sending him a red double-decker bus as a present.
I put the letters in their envelopes and wrap Sean’s present. I insert the money for Mammy and Daddy into a separate envelope and put it inside Sean’s, and put some more inside Granny’s.
Writing the letters has lowered my mood. I hum a tune to distract myself; to stop me going round and round in circles inside my head. I still can’t get over them not writing me a single letter. I still can’t get over any of it.
I consider getting back into bed and beating the pillow with my fists and not answering the door when Michael comes. The best place for me would be in bed, with the curtains drawn and the door closed and no one to disturb me.
Don’t be a fool, now, Josephine. You’re off to Buckingham Palace to see the guards change with a fine, handsome man you’re in love with.
Joyce is sitting at the kitchen table filing her nails. ‘Morning, petal,’ she says. She has a habit of calling everyone something related to flowers: petal, blossom, clover. I envy her upbeat attitude and sing-song way of talking.
‘Morning!’ I breeze in and switch on the kettle, determined to shake the divil. ‘How are you?’
‘Grand, now,’ she says, pushing an emery board across her index fingernail. ‘I’m going to have a nice, lazy morning for myself.’
‘Good for you. Will you have one?’ I put a teabag in the mug and pour in the boiling water. Joyce nods, so I get another teabag and pour her a fresh one. I add the milk, making hers milky and mine strong, the way we both like it.
‘And where are you heading today with lover boy?’
‘Buckingham Palace, my lady.’ I bow my head and put the milk bottle back in the fridge. ‘We’re going to see Changing the Guard.’
‘Are ye now?’
‘We are indeed. Have you seen it?’
‘Yeah. It’ll be good, now. Something to see, that’s for sure.’
‘I can’t wait.’ I sit next to Joyce at the table and watch her paint her nails. ‘I have to get myself dolled up. Can I borrow your make-up?’
‘Help yourself.’
‘Thanks. Where’s Maura?’
‘Early shift.’
I look up at the clock on the wall. It’s nearly half-past nine, and Michael is coming at half-ten. I should get ready. I hold the warm mug in my hands while Joyce puts on the second coat. It looks grey outside. I hope it doesn’t rain.
‘Are you all right?’ she says after a while.
‘Yes, sure, I’m grand,’ I say. ‘It’s just my little brother’s birthday coming up, that’s all.’
She sighs, and waves her burgundy-nailed hand in the air as if to say, Tell me about it. ‘I know the feeling,’ she says. She takes a cigarette out and offers me one. I take it, even though I try not to smoke so early in the day. I’m supposed to be cutting down.
We sit together, with just the tick-tock of the clock for noise. I inhale deeply, waiting for the nicotine to take the edge off my nerves.
I will need the full mask today. Beads of sweat break out above my top lip; I rub them away with
a square of toilet roll. It’s one of those days when it’s hot and muggy and chilly, all at the same time. I dab the foundation onto my face and rub it in with circular motions, and then with a small brush, I rub light-brown eyeshadow onto my eyelids. I lean heavy on the eyeliner, making the line fat along the curve of my eyes, and thicken my lashes several times with mascara. Dark-red lips today: I start with the lip-liner, to stop them bleeding the colour, and then rub the lipstick around my mouth. I pull off another square of toilet roll and clamp my lips round it a few times to get rid of any excess.
I smile at myself in the mirror, but the darkness within me doesn’t lift. I show my upper teeth, not the lower ones, and then I laugh as if I just heard someone tell a joke and I think it’s really funny.
I get dressed in a pair of flared jeans and a soft pink blouse I bought in the sales, and brush and dry my hair. Eleven years. I think I might be sick. I concentrate on what I’m doing, pushing the ball of sick down into the pit of my stomach, the way I always do. I play with the idea of telling Michael the truth about myself. My head is light from the cigarettes and the thought.
How could he ever love me? I mean, really love me? Wouldn’t he look at me and see something horrible and disgusting? Michael, with not a secret to hide or a bad word to say about anyone. With his soft voice and his gentle ways, his college friends and his love for long walks and words. Wouldn’t I destroy myself for him, with the idea of a fully-grown man coming into my room the night my little brother was born?
Who was it? he’d ask, angry, or maybe crying.
I don’t know, I’d have to reply, I’m not sure.
Him, incredulous: What do you mean? How could you not be sure about something like that?
Her Mother's Daughter Page 8
