Stolen Child

by Laura Elliot

  Joy imagines the snow and the panic and Phyllis’s rough, red hands carefully drawing her out into the light, and her father, far away on the rig, listening on the phone to hear her first cry.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Susanne

  Last week she was photographed in Kim’s Cave. I remember it well. The nightclub for celebrities and wannabes. Her eyes are as smudged as night and behind the drunken sparkle I saw the bleakness…oh…the bleakness…And now this. Model Linked to Murdered Prostitute. Publicity follows her like a bad smell. I saw the resemblance immediately. I never noticed it before but you are growing into her.

  ‘Why…why…why,’ said David. ‘Joy’s hair was beautiful. Her crowning glory. Now she looks like an urchin. Are you jealous of her beauty? Is it possible that you resent your own child, the attention she receives from others?’

  When I mentioned nits he called me a liar.

  Our gloves are off, our marriage reduced to bare knuckles. It’s a charade and you are beginning to see through it. I wonder about other women. They must exist. He is young and virile but he has never come to me since that night when I said it was inappropriate (yes, I did use that word) to hold a small child against his naked chest.

  He was in Dublin yesterday talking to my father…about me. Neither will admit it but that has to be the reason my father came today.

  You heard his van entering the lane and were gone before I could catch you, running up the lane, your hands waving. He stopped and flung open the driver’s door. You disappeared inside and when he braked outside the house you were sitting on his lap, your hands on the steering wheel, the two of you laughing uproariously.

  ‘It was just for a few yards,’ he said, when I warned him about the risk. ‘Isn’t she the great little rally driver? In control the whole time.’

  I asked why he hadn’t phoned in advance. I didn’t intend it to sound like an accusation but I’m losing my ability to speak normally to people. He claimed he had to visit a client in Limerick, some new hotel signage, and, as he was so near, he decided to touch base with his only daughter. This was an accusation and was not meant to sound otherwise. ‘Just be glad to see me,’ he replied. ‘A cup of tea in my hand is all I want. That and a chance to hug my favourite grandchild.’

  ‘Silly Granddad,’ you shouted, giddy from the drive. ‘I’m your only grandchild.’

  I made him tea and he nibbled around the edges of a biscuit. ‘So,’ he asked, when you’d gone into the living room to watch your video, ‘how’s life treating you, Susanne? It must be lonely all on your own down here, especially when David is away so often. I hear he’s interested in finding a job closer to home.’

  I shrugged, refused to be drawn.

  He picked up a pine cone from the nature table and examined it intently. The questions began. Why were you not attending the local school? Why does David believe I was bullied throughout my school days when nothing of the sort happened? Why have I turned my back on an interesting career in Miriam’s studio? Why did I strike another woman’s child and accuse him of attacking Joy when everyone present agrees it was an accident? He flung the pine cone back on the table. It rolled to the floor and reminded me of your fury that afternoon, the hatred in your gaze when you cursed me.

  No sense fooling myself any longer. He’s right. You hate home-school. You lie listlessly across the kitchen table and suck your thumb. You tickle Splotch under his chin and allow him to walk across the table on your school books. You find it impossible to memorise the simplest sums yet count the days until David’s return.

  ‘Home-schooling,’ my father said, ‘is for cranks and Creationists. Why are you involved in this ridiculous charade when Joy is crying out for the company of other children? Why are people talking about you? Are you aware that they call you a recluse? They claim you’re neurotic, an unbalanced mother.’

  How easy it is to fling accusations of neurosis into the air. I thought briefly of Edward Carter and his bird-wife but my father was in full spate, incapable of stopping.

  ‘I believe you’re suffering from agoraphobia,’ he said. ‘Fear of open spaces,’ he added, as if I was unfamiliar with the term.

  He suggested I see someone, a counsellor, someone who can understand my fear of human contact; someone in whom I can confide the reasons why I have such a compulsion to hide myself away.

  He felt responsible…at this point he stopped and seemed to lose his way.

  ‘You were not brought up in a happy environment,’ he said. ‘It has obviously affected you.’

  I saw my parents’ faces then, cameo-sharp in my memory: Nina and Jim, the ticking of their unhappiness loud in the silence surrounding them. I’d longed for a brother or a sister, or both, but there was no space for them to survive the briar of my parents’ anger.

  Is that what you see when you look at us, I wonder. My brittle smile ordering you to be happy? David’s brooding resentment leaching the energy from the air around us?

  This afternoon, my father was determined to tackle old ghosts. ‘That first unfortunate experience…’ his voice trailed away.

  ‘You would have had my baby adopted,’ I said. ‘You would have given him away, no matter what I wanted. You’d no interest of starting your married life with me and a baby hanging on.’

  ‘That’s not how I remember it,’ he said. ‘You were young. How could you cope with the responsibility of a child when you could not even name its father?’

  Until this afternoon, that instant, I was unaware of how much I hated him.

  We heard you singing, the light beat of your feet on the wooden floor as you danced with the orphans. Annie the Musical…again. Miriam bought it for your birthday. You play it every day, singing about ashtrays and art and lost parents. Singing with such pathos, such longing.

  You sang about a hard-knock life this afternoon, held a hairbrush like a microphone to your mouth.

  ‘She’s made for the stage,’ my father said. ‘But she’ll never get beyond these four walls if you have your way.’

  I imagined you exposed in spotlights. The hairs lifted on my neck. It can never be. And yet it must.

  I watched him leave. Sheehan Signs is written large on the side of his van. As a sign maker, he works with neon and metal, oak and vinyl. I always recognise his signs wherever they are erected. The graphics, the colours and imagery do not intrude on the landscape. Their function is to attract attention without jarring the eye, to guide the customer without effort in the right direction, to seem invisible while being actively visible. I am the sign that jars the eye. The one that points the way to strange behaviour, leads towards speculation and innuendo. Invisibility has made me conspicuous in a community that would notice a blade of grass growing in the wrong direction. I’d forgotten about perception. It’s not the story that counts but how it’s told.

  You and I must face them, become one of them. We must become visible to remain invisible.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Carla

  Robert’s son was eight months old when Raine married Jeff Boyne, the European manager of the Fuchsia chain. Under different circumstances, Carla would have been her chief bridesmaid. Raine understood her reasons for refusing. Too much exposure could destroy her hard-won freedom. As Carla waited with Frank and the other guests for the bride to arrive, he nudged her with his knee and whispered, ‘Is that Sharon in the front row?’

  ‘Yes.’ Carla folded her hands calmly on her lap and watched as Sharon lifted her son to her knee and silenced his cries with a kiss. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘She’s your clone.’

  ‘Not any more, she isn’t.’

  ‘True,’ he replied. ‘But you know what I mean.’

  A wide-brimmed hat added to Carla’s anonymity. Her arrival at the church had not caused an intake of breath, or a head to turn, yet when the organist played ‘Here Comes the Bride’ and Raine walked up the aisle on Robert’s arm, he recognised her instantly. His eyes widened and his mouth opened, as if h
e was going to speak her name. Then he recovered. His expression smoothed out. He too was used to invisibility.

  When they reached the hotel where the reception was being held, Carla went directly to the ladies’. She ran cold water over her wrists until her hands felt numb and her cheeks grew pale again.

  ‘Carla…’ He was waiting for her outside.

  ‘Clare,’ she said, softly.

  ‘Raine told me.’ He nodded in acknowledgement and gestured with his hand, taking in her slimline shirt and short jacket. ‘You look stunning.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She removed her hat and ran her hand through her hair, ruffling it back into shape. ‘I still get a shock when I look in the mirror.’

  ‘You’ve moved apartments, I believe.’

  ‘Yes. I’m settled in now. And you…a family man. Are you happy, Robert?’

  ‘Sometimes I believe I am,’ he replied. ‘In my own way. And you?’

  ‘I’m content. It suffices.’

  ‘I think about her every day.’ He spoke so quietly she had to lean forward to hear him. ‘I visited the Angels’ plot yesterday. She would be seven years old now.’

  ‘She is seven years old.’

  ‘You look different,’ he said. ‘But you haven’t changed at all.’

  Sharon, pushing the baby in a buggy, stopped beside them. ‘I was wondering where you were.’ She glanced at Carla without a flicker of recognition. ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘I’m Sharon Dowling.’ She waved towards the baby. ‘And this is our son, Damian.’

  ‘Congratulations, Sharon.’

  ‘Carla…’ Sharon’s gasp was audible. For an instant no one moved. Even the baby seemed gripped by the currents playing across their faces. ‘I saw you in the church but I’d no idea…’ Her voice trailed away and the little boy, as if unable to bear the tension, began to wail.

  ‘He’s hungry.’ Sharon bent and laid her hand like a protective wing over Damian’s head. Her bleached hair showed dark at the roots. She was obviously letting it grow out. Perhaps she was tired of being the alter ego of a past memory. ‘I’m going to take him to our room and feed him.’

  ‘I’ll join you in a moment,’ said Robert.

  She nodded and glanced from him to Carla. ‘It’s good to see you again.’

  ‘You too, Sharon.’ How civilized we are, Carla thought. How immune to pain we have become. Who would have believed it would be possible to stand in the same space without drawing knives?

  ‘Can I call and see you?’ he asked when Sharon walked away.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Just to talk?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I wouldn’t—’

  ‘Yes you would.’

  He nodded. ‘You’re right. I would. But would you?’

  ‘I’m not going to risk finding out.’

  ‘That man you’re with? Who is he?’

  ‘Frank Staunton. He’s a friend.’

  ‘Ah, the publisher. Raine says he wants to be more than that.’

  ‘He does.’

  ‘Will you let him?’

  ‘I believe I will.’

  He reached out and grasped her hand. ‘Jesus Christ, Carla…how did we lose each other?’

  ‘I don’t know, Robert. But we did. And now there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it.’

  Frank had organised a table and ordered drinks. ‘I was going to send a posse out to look for you,’ he said when she sank into a chair opposite him.

  ‘I was talking to Robert.’

  ‘I thought you might be. If you want to break for the border, we don’t have to stay for the reception.’

  ‘The border sounds good. Raine and Jeff will understand.’

  ‘Where would you like to go?’ he asked.

  ‘How does my apartment sound?’ she replied.

  ‘It was a dangerous place the last time I visited it.’

  ‘No, Frank. It was an uncertain place.’

  ‘And now?’ His expression was quizzical.

  ‘It’s filled with certainty.’

  She was surprised at how easy it was to love Frank. He delighted in controversy, the edginess of living close to the wire, and it was this recklessness that continued to attract her to him. If she had been asked to define her feelings she would have admitted that it was a convenient love, one that made few demands on her. No questions asked. No turbulence, no rows. She experienced none of the fire that had drawn her to Robert or any of the giddy, foolhardy excitement that had attracted her to Edward Carter. Frank’s true passion was paper and print and he, while appreciating her past, was not burdened by it. At forty-two, he was, he admitted, a confirmed bachelor with a set lifestyle he had no intention of changing. They suited each other’s needs and the move from being friends to becoming lovers was effortless.

  Chapter Forty

  Susanne

  Twelve Years Later

  Tonight you were a star. I sat with David in the front row of the assembly hall of Maoltrán National School and watched you strut into the spotlights; that radiant smile, that cocky walk that could, in a heartbeat, slow to a languid glide. Your mop of red curls was a thin disguise but no one sat alertly in their seat and added two and two together and, even if they could, they were too absorbed in their own children’s performances to notice the resemblance that beamed at me from the stage.

  From the time the auditioning for Annie began, I knew you’d be chosen. Your music teacher loves your voice.

  ‘How proud you must be of your daughter,’ she said, when we went backstage. ‘Where does she get her talent from?’

  After the show, I wanted to sweep you into my arms and tell you how wonderfully you had performed. My voice sounded strained, the words empty. I saw your face fall, your expression harden. You tossed your head defiantly and turned your dazzling smile upon those who came to congratulate you. You believed I’d dismissed you and I was in too much pain to care. Fear and pain, I wasn’t sure where one ended and the other began. My stomach cramped and I was afraid blood would flow…it gets worse each month and I’m frightened…oh Jesus…I’m frightened.

  Discipline, that’s what matters. Yoga and religion. I’ve discovered the power of prayer…and property. It was Miriam’s suggestion that I call in to Breen’s Auctioneers and talk to Victor Breen about a job. ‘If only you’d come to me sooner,’ she said, sighing and pretending to be disappointed when I’d asked if I could work again in her studio. Our relationship changed after the Joey incident and has never been the same since. For your sake, we occasionally have Sunday dinner together, but in the years that have passed we’ve grown more distant. Busy people, both of us. Pillars of the community, each in our own way. Occasionally, I think back to the early days but thinking back is to stand still and I don’t have time to pause. Not with Victor breathing down my neck and prices spiralling.

  I never thought I’d be good at selling property but it’s a piece of cake. Victor believes we’re cut from the same cloth. I guess he’s right. Commitment. That’s his mantra. One hundred and ten per cent commitment. ‘The property market is going through the roof,’ he shouts. ‘We have the Celtic Tiger by the balls and by Christ we’ll make him roar. Apartments and town houses, manors and mobiles, castles and chateaus, duplexes, semis, terraces, bungalows, barns and shoe boxes. This is our time, Susanne. Big is beautiful. Property is king. Sell, sell, sell.’ Maoltrán seethes with life. It’s not unusual to hear Polish voices in the shops or the deep roll of an African accent. Stately black women in peacock colours address me by name, as do the slim Latvians and brown-eyed Romanians. Sell…sell…sell…

  Tonight, you sold yourself to a packed audience. You got a standing ovation. Cameras flashed. This way, Annie…That way…The other way. Sing ‘Tomorrow’…‘Maybe’…‘Hard-Knock Life’. Encore…encore. Miriam led the standing ovation.

  ‘Aren’t you glad you changed your mind about home-schooling,’ she said.

  She finds it hard to resist these small verbal nudges but she’s right. I am glad I set y
ou free. I never realised how claustrophobic our relationship had become until you walked away from me that first morning when I brought you to school. You held my hand tightly, your eyes round with fear when I knocked on the classroom door. We both cried in the beginning, morning after morning, and then, slowly, I felt my grip loosening on you.

  Initially, Lilian Marr, the school principal, was cool with me. Home-schooling was a challenge to her authority but she mellowed when I offered to join the school management committee. After that it was the Chamber of Commerce and the Tidy Towns committee. In the end, it was easy enough to assimilate. People in country villages understand depression. The grey sky. The grey rocks. The isolation. It can happen to anyone.

  Months passed without writing in my journal and, even when I remembered its existence, I had no desire to pour my dread into it. Carla Kelly had disappeared. Nothing to suggest she had ever existed. The relief was slow to come. I kept expecting her to stare at me from screen and paper. Then, finally, I was able to breathe deeply into my lungs and walk freely into the world.

  You asked where the Judgement Book had gone. I hadn’t realised what terror it held for you. It was mixed up in your head with the Day of Judgement when all our sins shall be revealed. I never intended it to become a weapon of fear but you had found its hiding place. If I hadn’t discovered you drawing those pictures you would have shown them to David. You always showed him everything you did, hanging on to his words of praise. I lashed out…forgive me. In that instant I saw a terrifying future…everything we had achieved…our lives wrenched apart. I’d forgotten to lock the box. How could I have made such an incredible mistake?

  But now I write again, write late into the night. The whisperers came back to me after David’s father died. Six months now since he was laid to rest in the graveyard. Last week Miriam erected a headstone. I never knew the man. When I saw him for the first time he was laid out in his coffin. Miriam had received the call from the Mater Hospital in the middle of the night. Since he left her, there had been many women in Kevin Dowling’s life but none were by his side when he died. Miriam and David went to Dublin and brought his body back to Maoltrán. He’s at peace now, if peace is what awaits us on the other side. But on this side I’m in torment. In his will he left the cottage and the land surrounding it to David. Now my husband has ambitions. There’s a sparkle in his eyes and you’ve been fired by his enthusiasm. He’s had plans drawn up by an architect. The two of you pore over them, discuss how the lane will be widened and the cottage demolished so that a hostel can rise in its place. Dowling’s Meadow will become a wildlife sanctuary. They’ll come to Maoltrán, the botanists and lepidopterists, the hill walkers and those who seek mystical significance in the ancient tombs. I imagine the claws of diggers reaching deep into her tomb. My almost child. My secret exposed.