In This Bright Future

by Peter Grainger

‘Probably. Most things are these days.’

  She nodded to herself, as if she had expected no more of him than that.

  ‘I mean that it should be me that you see first.’

  ‘Yes. I’m getting a strong sense of the irony in that.’

  ‘Because of all of us, I was the least convinced, wasn’t I? I think you knew that yourself.’

  ‘I knew that you didn’t like me very much, but then, big sisters often don’t. I don’t mean that big sisters have a down on me personally – just men in general where their little sisters are concerned.’

  ‘It was more than that, and you know it, ‘Stuart Reilly’. I remember telling you to your face that I didn’t think you were right.’

  ‘Yes, you did.’

  She stared at him. He seemed to her curiously passive – not afraid particularly, after all, not ashamed, not anything. He was just waiting, she realised, until she was done with him, until he could see Cati.

  She said, ‘Tell me one thing. Is it true what Diarmuid said? He came looking for you – you did not begin this?’

  ‘That’s what happened.’

  ‘And all he has asked you about is concerning Brann?’

  Smith looked at her more directly then, a momentary frown above the blue eyes.

  ‘Yes, that’s all. Is there something else?’

  ‘No, nothing.’

  In the following silence they could hear voices in the other room – quiet and low, and Smith was relieved at that; he had pictured various other scenarios. Lia Wisbey half-turned towards the sink, the kettle and the teapot, as if she had forgotten herself – then she faced him again and waved a hand towards the table.

  ‘You might as well sit down.’

  He did so. She turned again, picked up the bowl that she had been drying, opened a cupboard and put it away. When it came again, her voice had changed, had been changed consciously.

  ‘Has he told you anything about her, how she is?’

  ‘No. Our conversations have been somewhat…focused on other matters. I’m not a family friend and I didn’t want to seem as if I was trying to be. Diarmuid might have told you what I do. If he did, well I’ve tried to come as one of those, if that makes any sense.’

  ‘Oh yes, he’s told me.’

  She said it as if it was one more thing to weigh in the scales against him.

  ‘But as I’m here now… How is she?’

  The sense that there was something wrong had been growing in him for some minutes – since they had pulled up outside in the car, but he could not have said what had caused it. Now the longer hesitation in Lia before she answered him confirmed that he was right.

  ‘She’s not what she was.’

  ‘Every day when I look at the mirror, I say a very similar thing.’

  Diarmuid walked back in through the entrance. He was still upright but paler.

  He said to Smith, ‘Go on in. She’ll talk to you.’

  Smith stood up and as he did so he caught an expression on Lia’s face. It was fear, but he could not tell of what or for whom. She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came, and then she looked away.

  At first he thought that the curtains were drawn, and he stopped walking, allowing his eyes to adjust to the gloom. There was a large, low picture window at the far side – not there thirty years ago – and the heavy brocaded curtains were pulled and tied back, but the garden was full of trees, mostly conifers that had grown too tall and too close to the house. He tried to remember. There had been a lawn, a fruit garden, a vegetable patch – Brannan O’Neill had shown all that to him once. And there had been light in this room.

  Her wheelchair was positioned to the right of the window, angled so that she could see out of it but also so that she could turn her head and see him if she wished to do so. She had heard him come in, he knew that, but it was a long time before she looked away from the window, and all he could do was wait for her.

  There was a blanket on the sofa, and pillows. Two crutches much like the one that he had discarded that morning leaned against the table that stood at one end of the sofa, and then he noted the other accoutrements of an invalid’s life – the jug of water and the glass by its side, the magazines, the television remote, even some red grapes in a bowl. Beyond that small circle of things, of a life shrunken to what is within an arm’s reach, he sensed the quiet emptiness of a room that is visited but little lived in – it was his grandmother’s room, her sitting room, reserved for Sunday afternoons.

  When his eyes came back to her, he found that she had already turned to look at him, that she was watching him. Still he waited, leaving the initiative with her, having no choice in that because she was smiling at him and he did not know what to do or say for that moment. It was a full smile, an honest one without a trace of her sister’s irony.

  She said, ‘Well!’

  ‘Hello, Catriona.’

  ‘I would ask you how you are doing but I can see you’re on the slippery slope yourself…’

  She was looking down at the walking stick. He used it to take a few steps towards her, and then she put out her hand. It was cool, dry and as small as he remembered. While he held it, she spoke again.

  ‘You do have the advantage of me, though. I mean, you know what to call me but I don’t know what to call you.’

  Again there was no bitterness, and the smile still lingered in her eyes.

  ‘David.’

  ‘David… And now you’ve come into Goliath’s own country. I don’t mean this room, of course, and I don’t mean me. I’m not so fierce any more. But Belfast? It could still be a dangerous place for you. And you don’t look as if you could run away so easily.’

  She was obviously intrigued by the stick he was using.

  ‘I had an op a few days ago, nothing major. It was a good excuse to buy a souvenir this morning, though.’ He held up the cane to show her, and said, ‘Irish blackthorn.’

  ‘You still have a taste for things Irish, then.’

  It was fair enough, that he should expect a few blows like that.

  He said, ‘And you? What’s happened?’

  If he remembered her well, she would not want much sympathy.

  ‘MS. For a few years now. I get remissions sometimes, or at least I have had up to now. It’s put me into this chair on a couple of occasions before but I’m not so sure that I’ll be getting out this time. Still, they’ve just given me new meds, so we’ll see.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Nobody’s fault. I don’t dwell on it much.’

  There was a chair facing her own on the other side of the window. She pointed to it and he sat down. She was a little heavier, a little fuller in the figure than when he had known her before, but not so much that he could no longer see the girl within. Her face was rounder now, and there was grey in the hair at her temples, yet the rest of it was still as dark as he remembered, Italian jet shot through with the Celtic red. She knew that he was looking and remembering, and turned her head away again towards the window.

  She said, ‘They say time is a healer but I think it’s killing me.’

  ‘And the rest of us, slowly.’

  Looking back at him now with an expression of pain that he guessed was mostly pretence.

  ‘I knew this might not be the easiest of reunions but does it have to be morbid? Let’s not be morbid. I don’t remember you that way.’

  He had to wonder, of course, how she did remember him. And he had to wonder how to proceed with this. To say simply what was on his mind might be best.

  ‘I see you’ve changed the garden round.’

  She laughed and looked at it.

  ‘My mother. When father died she decided it would be too much to manage as it was, so she planted trees. Since she passed away, we’ve been fighting a losing battle with them. Last year we had someone in to quote for clearing them but it’s not cheap, you know?’

  ‘Not to do it properly, no.’

  ‘Diarmuid, he said he would pay but…’
r />   She looked back at him then, fully, for the first time.

  ‘He’s done a lot already. All that kitchen done for me so I can manage. That’s the most precious gift, you know, giving someone their independence for a little longer. It cost a lot. I know he’ll do more, whatever I need, but just now, with the company and his plans, that has to come first. It’s more important than a few trees. And I get to watch the squirrel.’

  Smith studied the view through the window. After a silence of perhaps half a minute, she spoke again.

  ‘What do you think of him?’

  ‘The squirrel? I’m afraid that I can’t actually see him at the moment.’

  ‘I’m talking about Diarmuid!’

  It was an unexpectedly direct question, and he took his time in answering.

  ‘What I’ve seen, I like. Finding me took some nerve as well as persistence and planning. He’s obviously smart, and devoted to the family. I’d say he’s a credit to you.’

  What he said seemed to hurt her for a moment, and he could not understand that at all. He went over it in his mind, word by word, but she was speaking again before he could come to any conclusion.

  ‘I don’t suppose he would have told you about his plans. He’s taken a lease on a building in the city, or at least a floor of one. Offices and computers. He’s interviewed some clever young people and they all seem to want to work for him. We always said that he would go places and now I think he is.’

  ‘‘‘We’ being?’

  ‘Justin and me. My husband. I expect Diarmuid told you something.’

  ‘Yes. He told me that his father was dead. He didn’t say how.’

  This was difficult. That sounded as if he was asking indirectly – he wasn’t but on the other hand, a part of him wanted to know.

  ‘Justin was a fireman. He was killed in a building collapse seven years ago now.’

  ‘Oh. I’m sorry about that.’

  He stopped himself from going on to say that she had been unlucky.

  She said, ‘He was a good man, and a very good father to the children.’

  ‘You have others, then?’

  ‘Fainche and D’arcy – younger than Diarmuid, obviously. They’re away – one in London, one in Edinburgh. Both career girls, no grandchildren yet for a while.’

  ‘A family of high-achievers. You should be proud of them. I’m sure you are.’

  ‘I don’t claim much credit for it. I made sure they took their education seriously. The rest is down to them, I think.’

  There was a sense of unreality about this conversation. Nothing had been said about Brann O’Neill, about the reason that he was here. Nothing had been said about his own disappearance from her life thirty years ago. Nothing, not a word, had been said in anger or bitterness.

  ‘I think you undervalue what you’ve done for them. Diarmuid setting up a company in the business of the age? And he’s not yet thirty.’

  It was awhile before she responded. Her eyes were heavier than they had been when he sat down a few minutes ago; suddenly she was tired.

  She said, ‘Twenty eight. He was born the day before April Fool’s. I had a word with him and told him to hurry up. I didn’t want that.’

  ‘Well, it worked. He’s no fool.’

  Another long pause. The sun was shining now on the trees, and the leaves on the single silver birch turned over and shimmered in the breeze. The trunk was white as a bone against the dark shade beneath the surrounding firs and larches.

  ‘I’m glad that you like him…’

  Smith had already taken the decision to bring this to an end when she spoke again.

  ‘I’m sorry. It’s the new medication - I’m not used to it yet. I’ll end up asleep while you’re talking, and you’ll think me rude!’

  ‘No, it’s fine. There’s no hurry. I can come back when it suits you.’

  ‘This evening, say? After tea. I’m normally good for an hour or two, then.’

  He was on his feet already and her hand came out to him again.

  She said, ‘Thank you for coming. For offering to help – but I don’t think there’s much you can do, not now.’

  ‘To be honest’ – and he wanted to say her name again then but could not – ‘neither do I. But I would be grateful if you’d let me try.’

  She nodded and he was moving towards the door when she spoke again.

  ‘David?’

  He turned and waited.

  ‘Were you hoping I’d be angrier? Were you hoping I’d throw something?’

  That more than anything went home, went in like a stiletto – that she could see into him now as she had three decades before. It was not that she could read him like the proverbial book. It was much more than that – it was as if she had written the book and was reading it aloud to him again, line by line.

  He managed a smile as he said, ‘Maybe.’

  ‘I thought so. But don’t worry – I think that Lia is angry enough for the both of us.’

  She smiled herself at that, nodded for him to go and turned to look out of the window some more.

  ‘And are you coming back?’

  Lia had got to her feet as she asked the question, as if she was readying herself to take a run at him if he gave the wrong answer. He had no idea, however, what the right answer for Lia Wisbey would be.

  ‘Yes. An hour after tea, she said. Would six o’clock be alright?’

  She looked hard at her nephew.

  ‘She’s already worn out by this, that’s plain enough. What good will it do? You should leave it be now.’

  That was to both of them, Smith could see, but it was Diarmuid who replied.

  ‘When I spoke to her just now she said she wanted go on with it tonight. She said she wanted to tell him the rest of it.’

  ‘To what end? It’ll not help find your uncle, God rest his soul. We had those people look into it. They’re the experts and they got nowhere. Raking it up again won’t do any of us any good.’

  ‘But it’s what she wants – she told me so. For her, maybe it’s about more than what happened to Brann. Maybe that’s only a part of it.’

  Smith glanced at Diarmuid Kelly; though he had been with the young man’s mother for only twenty minutes in the past thirty years, he had come to the same conclusion. Her brother’s disappearance was the focal point, yes, but around it revolved other issues, other matters for which she had yet to find any closure. Back in Kings Lake, Smith had wondered, why now? Having seen her, he had the answer.

  Kelly had left a space for his aunt to respond, but only a small one. When she didn’t fill it, he spoke again.

  ‘You’ll be wanting a lift back into the city. And how will you get back out here this evening?’

  ‘Yes, thank you. Drop me anywhere. I’ve got one of these wonder phones that shows you where you are anywhere in the world with the satellite thing… But I expect I already look stupid telling you that. I’ll get a bus tonight. Use my Belfast Wanderer ticket.’

  ‘I doubt it. Services have been cut, away from the centre. Austerity, you know.’

  ‘A taxi, then. It won’t be a problem. I’ll be here.’

  Lia stiffened but said nothing more.

  Kelly said, ‘Come on. We’ll sort something out on the way.’

  They were back on the A12 but now Kelly was driving steadily – whatever tension had produced the speedy ride out to Glencolin seemed to have disappeared. Smith looked around at the interior of the car, and found it to be clean and immaculately tidy – just like his own after its annual spring-cleaning. There was an LCD screen, though, which his own ageing motor did not have, and all sorts of information was coming and going as the driver worked his way up through the gears.

  He said, ‘This is nice,’ and when Kelly looked across he indicated the car.

  ‘Yes. Now all I have to do is pay for it.’

  ‘Your mother told me about the business, what your plans are. She’s proud of what you’re doing.’

  Kelly didn’t answer stra
ight away, and Smith became aware again of the undercurrents in the O’Neill family waters.

  ‘I spent a couple of years working for someone else and I realised that I’d never get rich that way.’

  ‘You want to be rich? Not that there’s anything wrong with that.’

  ‘Not for its own sake. Looking ahead, we’re going to need some more cash.’

  ‘For the business? To re-invest?’

  ‘No. Not for the business. For the place back there.’

  Smith wondered about it and then said it anyway.

  ‘Like the trees? She was telling me about the trees.’

  ‘Oh aye, the bloody trees!’

  He looked across at Kelly again and saw that the swearing wasn’t the result of ill-temper. Kelly was smiling for a change.

  ‘Yes, they’re on my long-list. But before that we’ll need some more modifications – a ramp, widen some doorways, a stair-lift maybe. A hoist in the bathroom – or a new wet-room altogether. There’s plenty will need doing yet. And then there are Rosa’s fees. With Bradey having to finish work early, that’s something else to think about. He was taking care of that, but now…’

  Smith closed his eyes – he had forgotten entirely to ask about Catriona’s own mother.

  ‘So where is Rosa?’

  ‘A place in New Lodge. Very good but it’s not the cheapest. There was talk of moving her but I said no, we’ll find a way. She settled there now.’

  ‘And how is she?’

  ‘Second stage dementia.’

  More than anything, it was the way Diarmuid Kelly said that – matter-of-fact, just one more thing to deal with, just one more thing that would be dealt with, if Smith was any judge of people. Somehow, at the age of twenty eight, Diarmuid had become the engine that was keeping the family on the road and moving forward.

  Smith said, ‘Look, if my turning up here has complicated things for you, I’m sorry. I doubt that there is much I can do – I won’t be around for long. You don’t need to be involved. It might be best if you’re not, to be honest.’

  ‘Not involved? I am involved, man. How are you going to do anything without my help? Your address book is thirty years out of date, for a start. And any that are still in it and walking about are likely to want to murder you. I don’t want that on my conscience, having brought you into it. I don’t need to be telling my mother that you’ve joined the ranks of the disappeared, Mr Reilly-Smith.’