Her Mother's Daughter

by Alice Fitzgerald

  I am scared.

  She turns to me. ‘Do you hear me?’ Her eyes are shining and her lips are tight and I don’t know why she is so angry. I haven’t done anything, only played out here with Thomas, like I was told to do. And I wasn’t bothering Granddad, I was only talking to him when he talked to me.

  I nod. I let out a big sigh and my shoulders slouch, the way Mummy doesn’t like, so I straighten my back again.

  ‘Good girl,’ she says. She puts her arm round me, pulls me towards her and squeezes me so tight it hurts. She holds me with both arms and her chin is digging into my head, but I dare not complain. My face is squashed against her chest and I can smell her perfume. It’s so strong I can’t breathe.

  ‘Let’s go and get Thomas,’ she says, standing up and opening the door.

  The room is dark. The curtains are drawn and the bedside lamp is on at the side of the bed, making strange black shapes on the walls. Daddy is looking after Sooty and I don’t know what to do with my hands. I put them at my sides and play with the folds in my dress. All of a sudden it is tight on me, and I want to take it off right now and put on tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt, like Mary and Sarah and John. I’d love to be back at their house right now playing in the hayshed, rolling around or beating Sarah at an arm-wrestle.

  Mummy is in front of me and Thomas is holding onto the back of my dress and I pull at it, so it’s free of him. As soon as I do it I feel bad, so I stretch my hand backwards and find his. It’s hot and clammy and grips me tight.

  ‘Children, this is your granny,’ Mummy says when she has reached the bed and sat on the chair beside it, so we can finally see the woman lying in the middle of it.

  She is old and wrinkly and doesn’t look anything like Mummy. Her face is so thin and dry that it looks like paper. All it needs is lines on, and it could be straight out of my exercise book. She is covered by the blankets, but her hands are out and she lifts one up and it is full of blue lines that look like they’re going to burst any second and splash us all with blood, just like that story Mummy told me about when Granny lost her baby and she was covered with blood and it looked like paint. I imagine the black shapes on the wall as splashes of blood. I hold Thomas’s hand tighter. I wonder if I’m hurting him, like Mummy hurt me before, when she was hugging me so tight I couldn’t breathe.

  ‘Say hello.’

  ‘Hello,’ I say.

  ‘Hello,’ Thomas says.

  Our granny smiles. ‘Aren’t you very pretty?’ She looks at me.

  Me and Thomas stand next to each other, holding hands.

  ‘Like your mother,’ she says.

  I smile. Yes, I am pretty like my mummy, I think. ‘Nice to meet you,’ I say.

  Thomas copies me. ‘Nice to meet you.’

  Mummy and Granny laugh then, which makes me and Thomas giggle.

  ‘Nice to meet you too, Thomas,’ she says.

  I wipe my nose with the back of my hand because snot is starting to drip down, even though I’m not allowed to. Then I breathe in through my nose to make it go back up, and swallow.

  For the first time I notice a huge machine by the wall. It looks like a robot. I want to ask what it is, but I don’t. There’s a jug of water and boxes on the bedside table and a photo in a frame, but I’m too far away to see who is in it.

  I’m hungry. I wonder how much longer we’ll have to stand here. Me and Thomas start playing secretly with our hands, tickling each other’s palms.

  ‘Give your grandmother a kiss,’ says Mummy.

  I walk over to the bed and lean in, but I can’t reach her, so she leans her head towards me. I give her a peck on the cheek and she takes my hand and rubs it between her fingers. I smile at her and wait for her to let go, but she doesn’t, so I pull it back. Then I stand to the side to let Thomas in. When we’ve both given her a kiss we go back to where we were and hold hands.

  Finally Mummy says, ‘Okay, you two, off ye go now and leave your grandmother to rest.’

  In my head I say, Yipeeeee, but what I really say is, ‘Okay, see you soon.’ We go outside and I close the door behind us.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ says Thomas.

  ‘Me, too,’ I say. ‘Let’s find Daddy.’

  We walk along the hallway to the kitchen, and Granddad is sitting at the table.

  ‘Look who we have here,’ he says, smiling.

  Thomas giggles and runs over to the table and sits down, but I don’t know what to do. ‘Do you know where our daddy is?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes, I do indeed. He’s gone down the road to the shops for a few things. Now I bet ye two are as hungry as can be, aren’t ye?’ he says.

  My tummy growls. Thomas squeals and I laugh, too. I nod.

  ‘Sit down there now and I’ll make you a nice fry-up.’ He heaves himself off the table and I sit down.

  I feel dizzy. It’s been hours since we’ve eaten.

  ‘Are you okay, little one?’ he asks.

  I nod. ‘I feel dizzy.’

  ‘Here, up you get – come into the front room and lie down on the sofa.’ He pushes me up with his hands on my shoulders and guides me out of the kitchen. If it wasn’t for him holding me, I would sway all the way to the floor.

  I shake my head. I cannot be alone at any time with my granddad.

  ‘Shush, now, don’t worry,’ he says. He pushes open the door to the posh room with the nice chair and leads me to the sofa. I sit down and he pushes my head down and lifts my feet up. He rubs my face. ‘Now, you rest there for a minute and I’ll make you something to eat and a nice, warm milk.’

  I’m just thinking that Mummy’s going to kill me and cut me up into little pieces, like I’m a piece of steak on her plate, and she’s so hungry she could eat a horse, when I nuzzle my face into the soft cushion on the sofa and fall asleep.

  Thomas wakes me up. ‘Clare, Clare.’ He pushes my shoulder and rocks me backwards and forwards. ‘Come on, Clare, Granddad has made us a big fry-up.’

  I get up and take his hand and follow him through to the kitchen, where Granddad is sitting at the end of the table. There are three plates on the table, one in front of him and one on either side of him. I sit down where I sat before, and Thomas sits opposite.

  ‘Are you feeling better, Clare?’

  I nod. I have been very naughty, leaving Thomas on his own, and if Mummy finds out she is going to have my guts for garters. I think about crying, but that would be no use. I’m hungry. I look down at the plate. There is a sausage and two slices of bacon and beans and half a tomato and a slice of something fat and black. I ask Granddad what it is and he says it’s black pudding. I don’t know what that is. I decide not to ask, because Mummy said not to bother Granddad, so I pick up my fork and stick it into the sausage and put the end of it into my mouth. It’s delicious. I chew and swallow and then take another bite, and then again and again until it’s gone.

  I look up, because I’m waiting to be told off as I’m eating like a little pig with no manners at all, but Granddad isn’t even looking at me, he’s focusing on his plate, which is piled high with his own sausages and bacon and beans and tomatoes. There is another plate in the middle, with slices of bread on it. Granddad puts butter on one and folds it in two and gives it to me, then gives another one to Thomas and keeps one for himself. I bite into it. It’s yummy. We’re not allowed to eat white bread at home because Mummy says brown is better, so I gobble it up really quick in case she comes in and catches me and takes it away. It has loads of butter on it and reminds me of my cousins.

  This visit is turning out to be much better than I thought. Coming to Mummy’s side is a lot of fun and I wonder why we didn’t do it sooner. If Granny was better, it would be even more fun, but as Mummy says, you can’t ask for everything. And I’m sure she’s not really dying, she probably just has asthma like me and it’s really bad at the moment. Maybe I should lend her my pump.

  I kick my legs under the chair because Granddad doesn’t mind anything. With Mummy, we can’t kick our legs or laugh or
sing or anything. We have to sit and eat like a good girl and boy. I kick Thomas under the table and he laughs and kicks me back. We eat until our plates are clean. By the time I finish I am so full that my dress is tight. I undo the ribbon around my waist and do it up again, but that doesn’t make a difference. I imagine my dress popping at the sides like I’m a cartoon character with super-powers.

  Granddad is mopping up the sauce from the beans with some bread when Mummy comes in. She smiles at the three of us and looks at me. ‘Where’s your father?’ she says. I wish she would call him Daddy, like she used to, and let him cheer her up with a kiss.

  ‘He’s gone to the shops to get some bits,’ says Granddad.

  ‘I see,’ says Mummy.

  I jump off my chair.

  ‘What is it?’ Mummy says in a fright, coming over to me.

  ‘Sooty. Where’s Sooty?’ I look from her to Granddad.

  ‘He’s gone with your dad,’ says Granddad.

  I sigh a deep sigh, like people who have a shock, and then everything is okay. How could I forget Sooty? What kind of mother am I to my little puppy doggie?

  ‘I made some food,’ Granddad says to Mummy. ‘Help yourself, it’s on the side there.’

  ‘Thanks,’ says Mummy. She goes over to the frying pan and finds a plate and dishes the food out.

  ‘Did you manage to bath her?’ Granddad asks when she is sitting down.

  She nods.

  ‘Thanks a lot. Siobhan will come over tomorrow and take care of it, so you needn’t worry.’

  ‘Is Siobhan not coming tonight?’ Mummy asks. Her voice sounds different. She sounds more like Aunty Joan and Uncle John and Granddad, not like me and Thomas. I have to remember to speak like them, I think to myself, my hands under my bum and my feet swinging.

  ‘Clare, be a good girl and stop swinging your legs, will you?’

  I sit still. I just hope Thomas and Granddad don’t say anything about me lying down in the front room.

  ‘She’s stopping by, she said. Sean said he’ll come down as well.’

  ‘When are they coming?’ I ask.

  ‘After your bedtime, little lady,’ Mummy says. She smiles, but it’s not one of her lovely film-star smiles from the cover of a magazine, it’s a tight-lipped one. Her make-up has rubbed off her eyelids and her lips, and now she just has the black lines around her eyes that make them look like they’re really deep in her face, even though they’re not.

  ‘Can’t we stay up to meet them?’

  ‘No, ye cannot. It’s been a long day for everyone.’

  I don’t say anything else. We sit and wait until Daddy comes home with some shopping, and then I tell him we have to get ready for bed and we’re not allowed to see our aunt and uncle who are coming to visit.

  ‘Surely they can stay up late one night?’ he says.

  I knew he was my one last hope.

  She looks at him like she’s talking to him without using words. He replies with a shrug, and she lets out a sigh and says, ‘Okay, okay.’

  ‘Yay!’ Me and Thomas jump up and down. I take his hands and we start skipping around in a circle.

  We get ready for bed and Daddy sets Sooty up with a bed outside, which I’m a bit worried about because he’ll be outside on his own and tied up, so he doesn’t go wandering off during the night.

  After we’ve brushed our teeth and put our pyjamas on, we play on the big bed in the room where we’re going to sleep.

  The doorbell goes. Mummy told us to stay here and that she’d come to get us, but I’m too excited to wait, so I get off the bed and lift Thomas off and open the door and peep outside. There’s no one there, so I creep along, holding Thomas’s hand and pulling him after me. We go towards the voices and, when we get to the end, I peep round the corner and there are all the grown-ups standing in a circle.

  A man with a beard sees me and beckons me with his finger. ‘Who’s this little lady?’ he says, and then he sees Thomas after me and says, ‘And this handsome little chap!’ Everyone laughs.

  Mum steps forward, takes our hands and leads us to him. ‘This is my daughter, Clare, and my son, Thomas. This is your Uncle Sean.’

  He crouches down and opens his arms, so I walk to him with Thomas behind me and he wraps his arms around us and gives us a hug. Then he gives us a kiss each. The hair on his cheeks tickles and his eyes are sparkling and smiling. I like him. He has Granddad’s spiky hair and Mummy’s brown eyes, which I guess are like mine.

  There’s a lady too, Mummy’s sister Siobhan, who I spoke to on the phone. She looks serious, but when she sees us her face breaks into a smile. ‘Oh, Josephine, they are gorgeous,’ she says, touching Mummy’s hand. Mummy puts her hand on top, and for a second they look at each other, smiling.

  Then she pulls her hand away and comes to gives us a kiss and ruffle our hair with her hands. She puts her hand in her pocket and takes out a green hairband with green flowers on and a green scarf with the same flowers, and says the hairband is for me and the bandanna is for Thomas.

  ‘Thank you!’ we chime together.

  She explains that the green flowers are shamrocks – four-leafed clovers – and will bring us good luck.

  I decide to wear mine tomorrow.

  It’s way past our bedtime, so we say goodnight and Mummy brings us to our room. She pulls the curtains and sits on the bed. Thomas is next to the wall and I am on the outside, and she reaches over me to kiss Thomas and then kisses me. She strokes my hair and Thomas’s and tells us to cuddle each other. I put my arms around Thomas and he puts his around me. ‘Now,’ she says, ‘hug each other like that all night. It gets cold here, so you hold onto each other to stay warm now, won’t you?’

  ‘Yes, Mummy,’ we say together.

  ‘Promise me you’ll hug each other all night.’

  ‘Promise.’

  ‘Promise.’

  ‘Clare, don’t let go of your brother,’ Mummy says one last time, and then she turns the light off and closes the door. I squeeze Thomas tight.

  ‘Ouch,’ he says, squirming in my arms, but I don’t loosen my grip one little bit.

  CLARE

  29TH JULY 1997

  Someone getting into bed wakes me up. I open my eyes, but it’s black-black-black and I can’t see anything. I freeze and think of screaming, but then I would scare Thomas. I think of calling out but everyone would hear, including Granny, and she isn’t feeling well so I can’t wake her up. I squeeze my eyes tight shut. Tears fall down the side of my face, and even though I hate when tears tickle on their way down and always wipe them away, I don’t move because I don’t want to wake Thomas and I don’t want whoever it is to know I’m awake. I lie as still as I can and hope that whoever it is will go away. I squeeze my eyes and legs together, and wish I was still cuddling Thomas like I promised I would.

  Something lifts up and then there’s an arm over me, and I squeeze my eyes even tighter because that will make it all go away. This is why Mummy told me to cuddle Thomas all night long. I knew she was saying something that she wasn’t really saying. I think of Father Feathers and Mass, and I say the ‘Holy Mary’ in my head as fast as I can. The arm around me pulls me close, and then there are kisses on my face and I can smell the strong scent of Mummy’s perfume and the sweetness of her hair, mixed with cigarette smoke.

  ‘Mummy,’ I whisper, ‘is that you?’

  ‘Shush, go back to sleep, my darling,’ she says.

  ‘Mummy! You scared me!’ I wipe my face and hug her tight and nuzzle my face into her neck, where I fit perfectly.

  ‘It’s okay now, honey. Off to sleep you go.’ Her words are soft around the edges because she has been drinking. Her skin is warm. I close my eyes and let out a deep breath.

  When I wake up I am as snug as a bug in a rug. Mummy is on one side and Thomas is on the other and it’s so hot I’m sticky and sweaty, but in a good way. I love being snuggly under the thick blankets they have in Ireland that mean you can’t really move. At home we just have one duvet, a
nd it’s light and fluffy and boring. Thomas kicks me.

  ‘Ow!’ I say, even though it didn’t hurt, but I still don’t want him kicking me or he’ll just do it all the time. ‘Cheeky monkey,’ I say.

  ‘Sorry, Clare!’ he sings. Then he comes and hugs me round my neck really tight. I tickle him until he lets go.

  ‘Shhh,’ Mummy says.

  Thomas lifts his head up to look over me. Then he cups his two hands round my ear and whispers, ‘What’s Mummy doing here?’

  I cup my hands round his ear. ‘She came to sleep with us last night,’ I whisper back.

  He does the same again. ‘Why?’

  I do it again, too. ‘To keep us safe.’

  ‘From what?’ He leans back and scrunches up his nose so that he looks like a tiger when it gets angry and wants to fight another tiger.

  I don’t really know, and what I do know is too hard to explain, but if I say that he’ll make me tell him every detail. I shrug my shoulders.

  ‘What?’ he whines. He hates it when he doesn’t know something, even though I say I’m older and that’s the way it is. I’ve even explained that adults don’t know everything, they just know more than us. It’s God that knows and sees everything.

  ‘Shhh!’ I say, pointing at Mummy who still has her eyes closed. That works a treat. He lifts the blankets up and puts his head underneath and then pokes his head out and his hair is electric and wiry.

  Mummy moans.

  ‘How’s the head?’ I ask, the way Uncle John asked when he came down to the kitchen when we were at his house.

  She bursts out laughing. ‘Where did you hear that?’ she asks.

  ‘At Uncle John and Aunty Joan’s,’ I say.

  ‘You cheeky monkey.’ She puts her arm round me and kisses me on the cheek. Thomas whines, so Mummy reaches her hand out and Thomas comes in and we have a three-way hug, which is when all three of us hug at the same time. Mummy squeezes us tight. ‘I love you both so much,’ she says.