‘It’s the same as it was, day she left,’ Dermot says from the doorway.
I nod slowly, not knowing what to say, not sure I could say anything if I wanted to.
‘Josephine wouldn’t let Clare change a thing.’
What sort of a person banishes her daughter and enshrines her bedroom?
He sets my case at the foot of the bed. ‘I’ll leave you to it, so.’
‘Thanks, Dermot,’ I breathe, my eyes wide and wet.
He nods and backs out of the room.
My mother’s room. Sweet Jesus. This is the next best thing to actually being with her again! I open the wardrobe and gasp at a row of Mum’s dresses. They were hand stitched, most of them; simple A-line drapes, starchy calicos. I run a careful hand over them. She didn’t take them. Had she gone in that much of a hurry?
I sink down onto the bed, breathing deeply, trying to absorb my mother’s past life. She grins down at me from a frame, her little body swathed in a white smock, her arms cradling a wax-covered cheese wheel. A regal, dark eyed woman stands at her shoulder and hugs her about the waist. That must be Josephine, my grandmother. She looked so happy. I’d always imagined her as a dour old bag, the kind of woman that lives for ages and ages, heart fuelled solely by resentment. But now. Now I can see how very much Josephine had doted on Mum, even in her absence.
Clare clomps in and drops an extra blanket on the bed.
‘This room gets draughty,’ she says and turns on her heel.
‘Clare?’
‘Mmm?’
‘You’re very good, letting me stay here.’
She grumbles and disappears down the hall.
I can’t blame her. I don’t want me here as much as she doesn’t. I lie back on the bed and let my eyes wander from one corner of the room to the other. Clare is everywhere in the photographs, and she is almost always alone. Is it Mum who had taken those pictures? In the darkening light, her eyes looked already to know the thing that I do not.
What was it that had happened between her and Mum? I peel the photograph of the sisters, arms linked, skipping, from the wall. That is happy. That look, right there. That’s the only one in the entire human arsenal you can’t fake. It was hard to imagine Clare smiling like that now; so big, her cheeks go splotchy and push her eyes almost shut. Kate could make me smile like that. She was the only person on the planet that could make me smile like that. If I woke up one morning and she was gone--no note, nothing--I guess I’d be pretty hard to humor, too.
A squawking B flat drills through the wall.
‘Cormac, will ya put that bollixing thing away!’ Dermot hollers from the kitchen.
‘Just ten minutes!’
‘Julie’s trying to sleep!’
There’s a flat donk on the other side of the wall and the snap of a case shutting.
Thank you, Dermot.
I slip my heels off, pull on the old “I <3 NY” T-shirt of Dad’s, and curl into bed. But it’s too quiet to sleep. And too dark! There’s nothing out there, not a single street light, not even a star. I strain against the blue dark for some sound of home. Just one honk, guys! Nada. I reach for my wallet and pull out two tattered photographs. Mum and Dad grin out of the first, dressed mightily for a show.
‘I’m not seeing anything called The Miserable,’ Dad’d said, so Mum had got them tickets to Streetcar. She was on her toes, not kissing him but touching her cheek to his neck, breathing him in. He was laughing as if it tickled. In the next shot, I’d smooshed in between them, and Dad’d snapped, his arm out stretched. Mum wasn’t looking at the camera. She was looking at me.
I prop the photos against the bedside lamp and pull the blankets around my shoulders. They smell like old books and rain. Quick, light steps ring down the hall. Clare’s? What had she been raving about? If anyone had suffered, it’d been me! She can play the martyr all she wants to, making out like Mum was some sort of monster. She never would’ve hurt anyone… would she?
I kick at the sheets, restless, my head buzzing. None of this is my business. I’ll get the 20K, get on a plane, and never see these people again. Lord knows I have enough domestic drama waiting back home. But I was here, on the island Mum and Dad had fled. My grandmother had wanted me to come here. Why? Both of my temples pulse hot, and I bury my head under the pillow. Who am I, Angela F-ing Lansbury?
Outside, so far off it sounds like an echo, a car horn bleeps. Or was that a sheep?
‘Six days,’ I mumble into the mattress, ‘and I’m out of here.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
Last night I’d curled into bed, never more ready for that overdue lie in, and I’d tossed and turned till I finally fell asleep, head crushed by the awful quiet. At that dawn break moment between hard sleep and lucid dream, I roll onto my side, and the actual dawn was glaring in through the naked window.
‘Oh, for the love of…’
I hug my knees to my chest and turn to the wall. Two beating red spots loom behind my eyelids. I snap them open. No blinds?! Really? What time is it? I feel about on the floor for my bag and fish out my phone. Midnight in New York. Five in the flipping morning?! Oh, this just gets better and better.
I squeeze my eyes shut and try to will myself to sleep. Not happening. I pull myself out of bed and rummage through my suitcase for a sweater. It’s freezing!
‘Seriously, I didn’t pack one sweater?’ Way to go, Julie.
I yank on a pair of jeans, two knit tops, and tiptoe downstairs and into the kitchen.
Pot of coffee and I’ll be golden.
I riffle through the presses. If it was anything else, I wouldn’t think of taking such liberties, but you do not want to see me decaffeinated.
Tea. More tea. Is that all they drink?
I let out a little gasp. A dented tin of instant sits, almost mockingly, on the top shelf. Is that the coffee?
‘You’re up!’ Dermot’s voice seems to fill the room up entirely. I spin round like a kid caught stealing.
‘Yeah, oh yeah. Up and at ’em.’
Dermot smiles and taps a folded paper on the table top. He’s wearing a canvas jacket and wellies and smells very faintly of cow shit.
‘I’ll put the kettle on so.’
‘Thanks.’ I settle into a chair, rubbing at my goose-pimpled arms. ‘Do you have any coffee, by any chance?’
‘Absolutely!’
Oh thank God.
He plunks the tin down in front of me.
Instant coffee. Gag me.
‘Thanks…’ I sigh.
‘Care to see the paper?’
‘I’d love to, actually. I haven’t had a chance to read one in days!’
He hands me the paper.
The Farmers’ Journal.
I have to look at it twice to be sure. Yep. Farmers’ Journal. I crack it open to a full page spread on the latest Massey Ferguson tractor--the 7600.
‘Massey’s classy, but Zetor’s better,’ Dermot chuckles and needles me in the side. ‘Jayzus, you’re half froze! I’ll grab you a jumper of Clare’s.’
‘No, really, that’s--’
He’s already disappeared down the hall.
Oh, this’ll be good. Reeeeal good. Morning Clare! Never mind me. Just wearing your clothes and snaking your birthright.
‘Here we are, so.’ Dermot reappears with a knobby wool sweater that could easily fit me, him, and Clare. ‘She won’t miss it at all, at all.’
‘I can’t imagine why,’ I mumble and pull it over my head.
He leans on the countertop and peers out the window at a low cloudbank.
‘Gonna be a scorcher today!’
‘Is it?’
‘Tis! The cows are all lying over. Sure sign.’
‘That’s a sign it’s gonna rain, Dad. Gahhh,’ Cormac sighs on his way to the fridge.
‘Sure he’d get more wet sitting down!’ says Dermot.
‘If he sat in a puddle!’
‘Don’t they sit down to sleep?’ I ask and sip cautiously at my so-called coffee.
>
‘They do, yeah,’ Dermot says.
‘Will you come up the fields with us?’ beams Cormac. ‘We’re after getting this mad ewe! If you turn on the radio for her--it has to be music, not just talking--she sings!’
‘She does too,’ Dermot says reverently.
‘Wow, that’s really… something. But I’ve got loads of work. Emails. I haven’t been online in, I don’t even know. Wait…do you have wi-fi?’
‘Who?’ Dermot asks.
‘Wireless?’
Blank stare.
‘It’s alright--’
‘Ohhh, the interweb, is it?’ he says.
‘Yes!’
‘Sure, they’ve got that down at the pub.’
The pub. Perfectly logical.
‘Great. I’ll just, em… When do they open?’
‘Eleven, I’d say,’ Dermot says, pulling at his chin.
Right. Breakfast of champions.
‘Come here, you should stop by St Enda’s, introduce yourself!’
‘I really don’t think--would that be appropriate?’
‘Don’t be daft!’ Dermot laughs.
‘It’s only up the road,’ Cormac says and spurts toast dust at me.
Everything’s only Up The Road.
‘Actually, if you wouldn’t mind…’ Dermot opens a cabinet and pulls out a sheaf of papers. ‘If you wouldn’t mind dropping this to Bridie. In the office there.’
I take the papers--invoices, handwritten, most of them.
‘Great stuff. Borrow a pair of wellies there.’ He nods to the back kitchen. ‘That road’s cat.’
Cat?
‘Cormac!’ Dermot pushes through the back door. ‘Come on and bring that with ya.’
Cormac grunts and stuffs two pieces of cold bacon into his mouth, then takes a swig of tea and follows his father out the back door and up the fields.
I choke down my coffee and flick through the stack of invoices. Two hundred liters of milk from a Mr.. Lynch. Five hundred from the Dalys. One thousand from Dermot. That’s a lot of milk. I scan down the balance sheet. And they don’t make much from it either.
I fold the invoices under my arm and duck back into Mum’s room. I’ll run these down to St Enda’s, pop ’em in the mail slot, probably won’t even have to go in. If I start waltzing around the place, shaking hands, running little errands, people might get the wrong idea. The factory is Clare’s as far as I’m concerned. The less involved I am with the goings on there, the better. I glance at the photograph of Mum and Josephine. It wouldn’t hurt to see it, though, just to have a peek at what my grandmother (and Mum and Clare, too) started together, right here, so long ago.
First, I’ve got to get a shower. I step into the bathroom, a narrow corner of the back kitchen, and feel around for the light switch. It’s on the outside wall.
‘Because that makes sense,’ I whisper.
There’s a big, ominous looking red switch beside it. What does that do? I don’t push it. The radiator in the bathroom is frigid and, by the time I’ve stripped down to my socks, I’m heaving cold. I open the shower door. Instead of the standard HOT/COLD knobs, there’s a shwoopy box with dials, one for temperature (I think) and one for flow. What the hell is flow? I twist the temp to high. Nothing happens. Hmmm. I step back out of the shower and twist around. There’s a string dangling from the ceiling. It looks like a light pull, but it’s not. I yank on it and turn the shower to full blast. Still nothing. The red switch--has to be. I jut an arm out of the door and flick the switch, and a lovely purr of electricity fills the room. A hot vapor wafts over the glass doors. Bingo. I step in and let the water wash away the stale reek of airplane food, diesel exhaust and spent makeup. It feels so good, I forget to worry about waking Clare.
I also forget that the towel she’d set out for me is still folded neatly on top of the dresser in Mum’s room.
Shit. What am I supposed to do now?!
I shake out my hands, then my feet, partly to fling the water off, partly to fence off the cold. I plant my feet on the slate floor, sure they’ve fused there like a wet tongue to a pole. A billowing column of steam rises from my head. How do people deal with this?! I know it’s ‘summer’ and all, but a little central heating? Maybe? I grab my clothes and bolt back up the stairs to Mum’s room, leaving a trail of watery prints behind me.
The sun has the white washed stones lit up like streetlights, soft and orange. There’s a twinge of heat coming off from it and, once I get the towel jerked up to my armpits, I walk backwards and let that small warmth spread over my shoulder blades. I kick open my suitcase and shiver. Could I get my pantyhose on under my jeans? Clare’s sweater is there on the bed post, staring at me like a dead sheep. I’d rather freeze my ass off.
It’s just after nine when I nudge out the front door in a pair of Cormac’s old rubber boots--not the nouveau Town & Country sort, with the dainty profile and a houndstooth trim. Oh no. These are all out Country. I’m talking clod-hopping, tractor-pulling, I-smoke-a-corn-cob-pipe kind of boots. They are olive green and already gummed with mud. I snap a photo of myself, the three camis and the cropped blazer and the big, honking boots, and send it to Kate as I plod up the drive: ‘Do these boots make me look fat?’
The phone makes a sad pong. ‘Unable to send message.’
AHHH!
As it turns out, Up The Road is up several roads. All of them look suspiciously like long, rutted driveways that run, one into the other, at indiscriminate angles. If they lead anywhere, it’s not directly, that’s for sure, and I haven’t seen one cat. At the crest of a sweeping hill, I keel sideways onto the stone fence, my breath hot and ragged in my throat. Note to self: take the stairs. Once a week.
From here, the sea looks soft and fine, even though the breakwater is capped white and the air at the shoreline is hazy with spray. I’ve never seen the sea like this, with nothing fronting it but rocks and off cut fields. There isn’t a single roofline breaking the horizon, and that seems right to me. In the middle distance, a lop sided peak, salmon-gray and cloud hung, studs the landscape. It reminds me of the moon, the coldness of it, the way it curves outward in concentric rings. There isn’t a bush growing up there, but someone has taken the trouble to build a net of stone walls down the face. They stand out against the grain of the mountain like old scars. I close my eyes, relishing the cool wind on my cheeks.
A flatbed truck rumbles past, the back jammed full with metal canisters, the old fashioned kind you sometimes see on milk cartons. I follow it down the hill and around a sharp bend to a squat row of houses and a long, mute looking warehouse. A hand painted sign hangs above the door--St. Enda’s. It could be a convent for all that tells you. The truck brakes beside the loading dock, and a man about the same age as Dermot hops out and begins hoisting the canisters off the bed.
‘How ya?’ he says to me without breaking stride or looking at me directly. ‘Pretty good.’
He nods, as if that was the answer he’d been expecting to hear, gets back into the cab, and drives off with a one-fingered wave.
I step up to the front door. No letter slot.
Well, shit.
Should I try the door?
I give the knob a twist. It gives. I’ll just run in, slip this somewhere, and run back out, easy as. I step into the hard, fluorescent light and am overwhelmed by a sharp, crusty smell. My ears ring with a low, mechanic thrumming. The far wall is rimmed with aluminium workstations, all of them sparkling clean. This is what my grandmother built? I was expecting a couple of converted sheds, but this is really something.
Where is everybody?
I pad into what appears to be the office, which is really just a desk in a narrow room that might have once been a closet. There’s a framed photograph of the late Josephine Tully hanging just a smidge off center on the back wall. She looks like a grandmother in this one--hair docked short, glasses, deep riven lines around a diminishing mouth. Is that what Mum would’ve looked like? I stare into her pale blue eyes. So this was the woman w
ho’d turned her back on Mum and I. She looks too vulnerable, too benign. I want to touch the photograph, even though I know what it will feel like--smooth, cold. Nothing like skin. I pull the stack of invoices out of my purse, and am just about to slap them on the desk and head for the door.
‘Sorry, can I help you there?’
Shiza!
‘I was just dropping these for my uncle. Dermot. Dermot O’Mahony,’ I stammer at the four foot nothing woman eyeballing me from the door.
‘Mother of Jesus! Julie?’
She’s smiling at me now, reaching out.
‘I’m sorry, do I know--’
‘I’m Bridie!’
Oh well, THAT says it all.
‘Come here to me,’ she says and takes the two and a half steps into the room to me. She crushes me into a hug. ‘By God, you’re the spit of your mother.’
Am I?
‘And how’s Dermot?’
Made With Love: I Love You Forever Page 10
