She couldn’t go home again – not on her own.
Uncle Patrick was over from England that time. Gran’s face would light up when she saw him. Her only son, a priest. He didn’t stick around for long though. He worked in a shelter in London and only had a few days’ leave, he said, he’d be needed back there. He’d come to say goodbye too, though he tried not to let on. He stayed in Gran’s empty house, which struck me as a very odd thing to do. When I asked Mam why he wouldn’t come stay with us she just said he wanted to spend some time in his own room, that he needed time to reflect, and that our house was strange to him. His room in the home-place was kept just as he’d left it – the same pictures on the walls, the football trophies, even the bedclothes. The wallpaper was coming away in places, and the sheets always felt damp whenever I’d stayed over. Patrick didn’t come anywhere near our house the few days he was home.
Gran kept asking for Celia, that time she was ill. It was the first time I’d heard her say her name. I’d seen the photo on the mantelpiece, of course, and Mam had told me she was her half-sister, but I didn’t really understand until then.
Mam wouldn’t know what to say. She’d get especially uncomfortable if Uncle Patrick was there. He’d get all fidgety and make some excuse to leave the room. ‘I’ll go get us some tea, will I?’ he’d say. He had black hair too. He didn’t look at all like Mam. He was the spit of Lazy Bones, apparently, his father’s son.
Gran wouldn’t let on who Celia’s father was then. I’m surprised, now that I think of it, that Mam let me listen to all this. I suppose she thought I was so young I wouldn’t understand. She wanted Celia, Gran kept saying, where was Celia. My mother promised her she’d find her, and then nothing more was said of it. I used to wonder if I’d dreamt the whole thing, it was so muddled in my head.
‘Those are the maternity wards, Lani.’
Mam pointed to the bay windows at the front that opened out onto a patio, and then down to a manicured lawn with leafless cherry blossoms.
‘That’s where you spent your first few days.’
‘The last time I was here was to see Gran,’ I said.
‘Oh, so it was. We thought she’d not be leaving that time, didn’t we, Dad?’
I hated the way they called each other ‘Mam’ and ‘Dad’ for my benefit, as if I was still a child. I was sure they didn’t call each other that in private – when their condom broke, for example: ‘Oh no, Dad, what are we going to do?’
The nurse was late. We sat on a bench in the corridor, the blood-red leather creaking beneath us. Hospital staff walked quickly past in their crisp antiseptic garments. A pretty doctor smiled at me as she went by, chart in hand. I wanted to be like her, with her pale blonde hair and her white coat. A porter and a nurse pushed an old man past on a trolley. He was all entangled, strings tied loosely around his green paper dress, a drip in his arm, a tube curling from his mouth. They were quiet and slow: no emergency, they must have been heading for theatre.
Mam was taken into the prenatal room first, where she could remove her blouse and pull her elasticated skirt down round her hips. She was given a paper dress like the man on the trolley.
‘And how have you been feeling, Deirdre?’ the nurse was asking when Dad and I walked in.
‘Oh, quite sick still. And tired. And hungry all the time!’
They both laughed.
‘Well, hopefully the nausea will pass soon – in a week or two. Try eating lots of small meals rather than three big ones. Dry biscuits or toast can help.’
‘Yes, I’ve been doing that,’ Mam said peevishly, and quickly tried to make amends for her rudeness by offering, ‘My breasts have been particularly sensitive this week.’
I could feel the muscles on my face slacken with embarrassment. Dad cleared his throat. All that discomfort bubbling out of him, breaking on the surface.
‘Oh, yes, I know. That can be a terrible problem. There isn’t really much we can do about that I’m afraid, my dear. I would just recommend that you wear good strong sports bras. And you could try rubbing some nice cold cream into them? It’s not a cure but it feels lovely!’
‘I’ll do that then,’ said Mam cheerily.
Dad and I didn’t know where to look.
‘Right so,’ said the nurse, as she lifted back the paper from my mother’s belly, ‘let’s have a look.’
Mam’s belly was ever so slightly distended, as though someone had taken a foot pump to it – the same taut and shiny complexion as an inflated beach ball or one of our inflatable camp beds. A faint line running from her belly button down to her knicker-line (which I imagined leading to the nozzle for the pump). The nurse smeared what looked like a computer mouse with a clear gel and placed it on Mam’s tummy. She swept it over and back, then stopped, her eyes all the time on the screen to the right of Mam’s head.
‘Ooh, that’s cold.’
‘I’m sorry, dear.’
‘Oh, not at all.’
Our eyes went from the movement of the nurse’s hand, to the screen, to her hand, to the screen, waiting for something to pop into focus.
‘There you go, you see?’ she said, sounding slightly relieved. ‘There’s the head, and this’ – with her finger she followed a tiny curve on the screen – ‘this is the spinal cord. See how tiny it is? A perfectly healthy little foetus.’
We all squinted. If you squinted really hard, a vague little creature, like a dormouse, blurred into focus. Dad squeezed Mam’s hand, kissed the top of her head. A great sigh of something, I wasn’t really sure what it was, heaved from my body. Mam grabbed my hand, pulled me to her, and we all stayed there like that for what seemed like an age – Dad with one hand on my back, my head on Mam’s shoulder and one arm dangling by my side. Mam was crying. Dad might have been crying too, I couldn’t see.
Mar came into class a couple of mornings later fluttering an envelope about, holding it out to me, then pulling it away.
‘Just give it to me, would you?’
‘Is that a love letter?’ Mary Hart asked, grinning and elbowing her friend to look at me.
I said nothing.
‘Hardly,’ her friend scoffed.
‘Just give it to me, Mar. You’re not funny.’
I pulled at her jumper, and snatched it out of her outstretched hand.
‘No need to have a fucking hernia, Lani.’
I slipped it between the pages of my English book in my school bag.
‘You’re such a fucking cow,’ I said.
‘That’s the thanks I get,’ she snorted, looking over at the other girls and throwing her eyes up to heaven. ‘If I was you I wouldn’t have anything to do with him,’ she said.
‘Well, I’m not you,’ I said, ‘thank God. And what would you know anyway?’
‘That you’re well away from him, is what.’
I read the letter over a ham sandwich at lunchtime.
Dear Lani,
My recurring dream of you, in my room, has changed. Last night I dreamed I was lying in my bed, and you came to me. You came right into my room, leaned over the bed, and kissed me. The gentlest kiss. How can I describe to you how happy that made me?
I can think of nothing else but you.
My study has gone by the wayside these past few days, but I don’t care. I cannot wait to see you again – to see those blue eyes of yours, your golden hair. Can you come out to Crogher on Saturday? To Bannon’s pub on the square at 2 o’clock. I’ll wait for you. I’ll know, if you’re not there, that you have thought better of all of this, and I’ll understand (but I do so hope you turn up!). I’ll pray every night (though I don’t believe in God) for you to come, my darling Lani.
We will not die, these lovers say,
For any eyes but eyes of blue;
No hair shall win our hearts away
But hair of golden hue.
Love,
L.B.
I tore the middle section from a copybook and quickly wrote:
Dear Leon,
I wil
l do my very best to be there on Saturday. I’ll get my bike out. I haven’t used it in a long time, so I’m afraid I might be a bit red in the face when you see me!
I’ve never been to Bannon’s but I think I know the one you mean. I’ll see you there at 2. I hope you get this letter before then. If not I suppose it doesn’t really matter, either way.
Love,
Lani
I had to go up to Geraldine McGovern in the canteen and ask her if she’d give the letter to Leon so I wouldn’t have to talk to Mar. I nearly died of embarrassment. She looked at me like I was a piece of dog shit.
I hadn’t ever been in a pub on my own. I’d thought it would be empty on a Saturday afternoon. Once my eyes got used to the dark inside, though, and my nostrils to the smell of turf and tobacco smoke, I saw the string of locals all propped up at the bar. It looked like a family reunion – small children, grandparents and all. They weren’t too happy to see me. Not one of them said hello. There was no one behind the bar, and there was no sign of Leon, so I turned and walked straight out again.
I was just about to mount my bike so I could pretend to be leaving and circle the town for a bit, hoping Leon would show up, when the youngest of the family group came out and prodded me in the leg with his finger. He couldn’t have been more than four or five.
‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ he asked.
I laughed. I couldn’t help it.
‘Who the fuck do you think you are?’
He was very cute. But I was also a little intimidated. So I stopped laughing, in case one of his older brothers decided to come and sort me out. He started kicking me then, on the shins, and shouting, ‘Who the fuck . . . who the fuck do you think you are?’
‘And who are you?’ I asked quietly, wincing a bit as he kicked me again really hard.
He stopped then, looked up and said: ‘None of your fuckin’ business.’
I heard laughter behind me. Here we go, I thought, the older brother. But it was Leon. He smiled at me (the first time I ever saw him smile), and told the little brat to get lost, which he did.
‘Aren’t you a little scared of him?’ I asked, mortified.
‘And why would I be scared of that little shite?’
He took my hand and we headed for the road that led to the forest park.
‘Are we going to your house?’
‘Maybe later,’ he said, pulling me in the direction of the woods. ‘I live up that way,’ he pointed, ‘out towards the football grounds. See that there,’ he said, pointing now at a tiny white cottage with a thatched roof, ‘that’s that artist’s house, the one you saw in school the other day.’
‘And how did you know I’d be there? I got an awful fright when I felt that lad prodding me in the back.’
‘Don’t I know everything there is to know about you.’
‘Do you now?’
‘Of course.’ He grabbed my wrist, held it tightly. ‘I like that top you have on you,’ he said, glancing down at it. ‘Is it new?’
I blushed. ‘No. Why?’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’
It was fairly low-cut, and though I was mortified, I was pleased too that he’d noticed.
‘You’re good at writing,’ I said, trying to draw attention away from my breasts then, as I could feel my face and neck redden. It only made it worse, though. I felt like I was talking too quickly, slurring my words. ‘Do you read lots?’
‘I don’t like to read. Have to read enough at school as it is.’
‘But what about that poem?’
‘Oh, I thought it would impress you. Girls like that kind of stuff, don’t they.’
We walked along in silence for a few moments. I looked up at him and saw that he was grinning to himself.
‘Ha ha, very funny,’ I said.
I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me.
The road turned into a laneway that grew darker under the shadow of the blue spruce. The lake was just visible over the hill. I’d been out there many times with Mam and Dad. We spent whole days there in summer, swimming, picking big bunches of wild flowers, making daisy chains, following the arrows through the woods past the little Hansel-and-Gretel style keeper’s lodge, with its boarded-up windows. I’d go around holding buttercups under the grown-ups’ chins to see who liked butter. It seemed they all did, but I still had to make sure with each new buttercup I picked. The fields around the lake were full of those pale violet cuckoo flowers, and cuckoo spit.
It was out there that I first learned to swim. I can’t remember that very moment when I was able to float, but I remember the fear of the deep and the large pike I saw Dad and the other fishermen haul from the water, and the slimy feel of the bed of the lake. Blue loved the water. She went in after the flies. We had big picnics in the long grass, away from the lake and the midges, and I’d lie flat looking up at the sky.
It was cold now. And it was much quieter.
We made our way down to the water and crossed the bridge. I liked the sound our feet made on the wood. I always liked that sound. There wasn’t a soul around. The big oaks at the other side of the bridge were bare of leaves, and the ground was covered in a brown pulp of pine needles, bark and dead leaves. A squirrel scuttered up one of the trees in front of us, and we both stopped to look, then moved on, round by the edge of the lake, on a footpath that was well worn by fishermen and bathers. I wanted to put my toes in the water, though it was cold and the water would be even colder. Our clenched hands were damp, but I didn’t want to let go of him. He moved closer to me. I could feel his breath on my neck. He smelled warm and greasy, as before. I felt a hotness down my back, though the rest of me was shivering. I buried my free hand in the pocket of my coat.
‘Are you sure my bike will be okay back there?’ I asked, trying to distract myself from the thought of lying down on the wet grass with him.
‘It’ll be fine,’ he said, ‘don’t worry,’ and he held my gaze for a long enough time that we were forced to move closer together and kiss. His tongue was cold. His hands moved up under my coat, my jumper, my top, and I felt their watery print on my clammy back. The lake made a nice lapping sound. I pushed against him, as hard as I could. His breathing was coarse and uneven, like mine. I dug my hands into his thick hair, as if I was trying to unearth something, and his hands moved across my flesh – up and down my back, around to my belly and my breasts. He took hold of my throat, pushed his tongue further into my mouth until I thought I would drown and had to pull back.
I wanted him to do what he would with me, but I didn’t have the words to tell him, so I took his hand again and led him away from the water and into a part of the woods where no one would see us if they happened past.
The ground was a dark mulch away from the footpath. We found an opening in the wood where it was still damp and spongy, but less sodden. Leon threw his coat down over some wet bracken and pressed it to the ground. Damp patches seeped up through it. I sat down first. He looked uncomfortable then for the first time. I patted the bit of coat beside me to encourage him, and he sat down. He put an arm around my waist and looked straight ahead of him. His little finger hooked itself in the top of my jeans. I was admiring his pouting mouth and the dark growth of stubble just under his lower lip, waiting for him to make the next move. He pulled tufts of moss from the tree beside him. A woodlouse ran over his finger and he pulled his hand away quickly and shivered.
‘Let’s get out of here.’
The wet was through to my skin.
‘Look, you’re drenched,’ he said.
‘Oh, I don’t mind, really.’
‘No, let’s just go.’
‘Can’t we go back to yours, then?’
‘No, my dad’s there—’
We followed the path round, past the bathing area, then away from the water, into the woods again. The cracking of broken branches underfoot, and the birds. I didn’t know where he was leading me. I’d never come this way before: I always thought it was a dead end there, just beyond
the changing area.
‘Where are we going?’
I wasn’t sure what I’d done wrong. He was biting the top of a biro he’d pulled from inside his coat pocket.
‘If you’re not careful with that pen, you’ll end up with blue lips.’
It was like he hadn’t heard me.
‘I have to go and put the spuds on for Dad’s dinner,’ he said, which made no sense.
Back to the main road again – a full circle of about a half mile – without uttering another word. He still had my hand in his, and he squeezed it every now and again, very gently.
I was relieved to see my bike hadn’t been touched, and that that little boy wasn’t around.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
‘What are you sorry for?’
‘For not taking you to my house. I just can’t. Maybe some other time.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said, though really it did matter. I wanted so desperately for him to keep me there, not send me away. And I wanted to see where he lived. I don’t know why, I just did. And all that fresh air had made me hungry, and I had to cycle all the way home now on an empty stomach. We kissed goodbye. I heard his stomach grumble.
‘Thanks for coming out.’
‘It was lovely.’
I didn’t think I’d see him again after that. Tears poured down my face as I cycled home. I was so hungry by the time I got there, but I had to hide it. I couldn’t have Mam and Dad thinking I’d been in town all that time and not bothered to get a bite to eat.
Angela, 17
I’m going to work in one of them big stores in Dublin, Switzers or Clerys. Mother Assumpta says I have a real gift with my hands. I’m going to be a respectable woman. Some nice young fella will marry me – I’ll make the dress myself – and we’ll have four children: Patricia, Martin, Gemma and Michael. Girl, boy, girl, boy. They’ll all have blonde curls. They’ll none of them be redheads like me. I do sometimes help Mother Michael with the babies down in the infirmary, to practise for when I have my own.
He Is Mine and I Have No Other Page 6
