“I’m sorry, Daniel. I should have said something sooner about Adele.”
“None of us are angels, are we? It’s all right now. I don’t suppose you’ve changed your mind about helping me over the threshold, have you?”
It would have been so easy, he was that weak physically. Just a nudge too much of morphine.
“Ah, Daniel, no. I can’t do that. Are you in pain? It’s almost time for your next dose.”
He gave a small laugh.
“Pain? Not physical. I’m just bone weary and ready to go.”
Later that night I went to his room, the extra dose ready to hand. He was asleep, lying back in bed so still he could have been dead already. His hair had turned whiter these past months. The few darker ones he still had stood in contrast against the grey on the light green pillow sham upon which he rested his head. He looked impossibly fragile and vulnerable. Perhaps this was what made me fall for him in the first place, this ability he had to be successful and confident on the one hand and so unsure of himself on the other, so revealing of his flaws. Grief washed over me then, for the girl I had been and the woman I’d become. Grief for Daniel and Jude, for Maggie, too. Had I really done the right thing all those years ago? On the farm I would kill without qualm a suffering animal that had no hope of a cure.
Daniel muttered something I couldn’t catch, then opened his eyes.
“Delia,” he said, “you’re here.”
“Yes, I’m here.”
I put the morphine back in my pocket and held his hand.
35
At about half-past two in the morning I gave up trying to sleep and went downstairs to get a cup of tea. A light under the kitchen door surprised me. Jude was at the table with a finger of whiskey and the photo of Fran in her green tartan coat and red and green scarf in front of her. She glanced at me, then turned back to contemplate the photo without a word. I filled the kettle and put it on. Neither of us spoke while the kettle roiled and bubbled. I made my cuppa and was about to take it to my room when I heard Jude sniffle.
“Everything all right?” I asked.
She wiped her nose on the back of her hand then began to cry in earnest.
“Ah, Jude. Talk to me.”
I grabbed a box of tissues and put them in front of her, then sat and waited. She took a handful and swiped at her face. She blew her nose and finally looked at me directly.
“Oh, God, I should be happy for Iris, shouldn’t I?” she said.
“Well, it’s good she knows now who both her parents are. And she has discovered aunties and a grandmother.”
She emptied her glass and refilled it. “Well, I really thought she was Fran’s daughter. Oh, I know, I know, you warned me. I was so sure. She laughs like her. She has almost the same singing voice. I was so sure.”
“We see what we want to,” I said.
God knows I had.
“It was so much what I wanted. It really was. I have to let Fran go, don’t I? Daniel’s been telling me that all along. I thought I had, too, but I was wrong. Daniel will be dead soon, and then it will be just me. This isn’t what was meant to happen. It’s not.”
She blew her nose again and wiped her eyes with the cuff of her dressing gown.
“No. But you have a good friend in Iris. You’ve got that. And Mike. You have him too.”
She sat a little straighter in the chair and nodded. The whiskey in the glass shimmied to the shake in her hand. I sipped my tea.
“I so wanted her to be Fran’s,” she repeated. “To know what happened to Fran. You know? Just to know. I thought it was all connected — Mam’s death, Fran going, Iris showing up just as Daniel was ill.”
She stroked Fran’s image, her fingers trying to find answers. My heart ached for her. In that moment I should have held her, comforted her. I didn’t think she’d let me. Neither would my own sense of guilt. I got a glass from the cupboard. Jude passed me the bottle, a small gesture, but the first nearly friendly one she’d made to me lately. I poured myself a shot.
I’d come from Cardiff to visit Maggie for the weekend. Although the day was cold and blustery, I needed to get out, away from buildings, from the packed buses, from the noise and hurry of the city. Howth Head was Maggie’s favourite walk, so in spite of the weather we drove out there. It was squally out on the Head. The wind took Maggie’s scarf and sent it to fly out over the water so fast that we couldn’t catch it. The tide was high and waves hit the rocks with a sharp smack. Nobody else was on the headland as we set out for the lighthouse.
“Isn’t it grand?” Maggie said as we watched waves climb high on the rocks and fall back to form another attack. Although I had known for months, it was only then I told Maggie that Adele said Daniel could be the father of her child. Too proud to admit I meant so little to Daniel, and because the pain of his betrayal was sharp and fierce still, I hadn’t been able to tell her before. She was furious.
“Dirty old bastard,” she yelled into the wind. “Wish I could get my hands on him. I’d fix him, I would.”
“No point now,” I said.
Maggie thumped my arm before ranting about what shits men were as she paced up and down near the cliff edge. Her rage and indignation on my behalf tempered my own anger and humiliation. As it softened a terrible disillusionment crept in. I thought I’d got the worst from Daniel when he deserted me, yet this really stung.
“Well, she doesn’t know for sure if it’s Daniel’s,” I said.
Maggie wheeled around and almost lost her footing.
“Come away from there. It’s dangerous.”
She moved back beside me and we continued out along the headland.
“Whether it is or not isn’t the point. The point is it could be.”
There was nothing to say to that. A wave crashed against the wall below and a gull rode a wind gust so close to our heads we could see its individual feathers ruffle.
“I’d never have believed it of him. Never. At least not before he left me to face things on my own, anyway. Now I’d believe anything except that he has a heart.”
“Well, knowing this changes nothing really, does it? You will still let me have the baby, won’t you?”
The discovery of this totally new betrayal of Daniel’s made no difference to that, I assured her, she could rest easy.
A man with a Jack Russell on a leash came out from the parking lot and crossed to the edge overlooking the lighthouse. The dog barked once in our direction, then they both turned and walked off away from us.
The wind picked up and a small flock of gulls wheeled and screamed in from the sea. We headed away towards the steeper cliffs, picking up the pace to keep warm. We went a good way out before turning back. In the distance we saw a person coming our way. She walked briskly, head down against the wind, the full skirt of her coat scurrying her along. She was almost on top of us before she looked up. A strand of bright red hair had escaped her headscarf and whipped back and forth in the wind. I recognized Fran Wolfe. Her steps faltered as she recognized us.
“Damn. I should have known we’d run into someone from Kiltilly,” I muttered to Maggie, instinctively covering the bulge of my belly.
“You’re so wrapped up in that big coat she won’t notice. Don’t worry.”
There was nothing for it but to come face to face. It was the first time I’d seen her since her mother’s death, so decency required that I sympathized. Coolly she looked straight at the front of my coat where my bump was.
“Looks like you didn’t have much care for my mother,” she said. “Sneaking around with my father behind her back. What kind of a woman are you?”
The guilt I felt that my row with Ellen had contributed to her accident rose with a rush, so I said nothing. Maggie spoke up.
“Now wait a minute here. Don’t go putting all the blame on my sister. She didn’t do it all by herself.”
I tried to hush her. She shrugged me off.
“I’m genuinely sorry for your loss. I am,” I said.
“You can save your breath. I heard you on the phone with Daniel after she died. Trying to get him to keep on with you in the face of her death.”
She tried to push past us.
“One minute there.” Maggie reached out to stop her. “You can’t talk to my sister like that. And furthermore, that’s your half-brother or -sister she’s carrying.”
“Really? Well, I’d rather have my mother.”
She elbowed Maggie in the arm to get past.
“Don’t shove me.” Maggie stood her ground.
“Get out of my way.”
She shouldered into Maggie, who reached out and gave her a push. Fran lost her footing on the wet ground. She threw her arms out to keep herself upright. Maggie made a grab to steady her. She caught Fran’s scarf, which came away in her hand. Fran tried to right herself but her feet slithered again on the muddy grass, eyes huge with terror and pleading. Her mouth gaped in horror and with just one single cry she disappeared over the lip of the cliff. Her green and red scarf blew across Maggie’s eyes, so at first she didn’t see that Fran was gone. I stood frozen for a second or two, then moved gingerly toward the cliff edge. Maggie freed herself from the scarf.
“Where is she?” she asked. “Where did she go?”
I pointed to the cliff.
“She went over.”
“Oh my God, is she all right?”
Maggie moved toward the edge.
“Stop. Be careful. It’s slippery.”
I edged carefully to the lip but couldn’t see down to the bottom. The wind whipped my coat around my legs.
“Fran! Fran!” I called.
The wind carried my words back toward to me. I listened before I called again. Only the wind along with the whoosh of breakers answered. I lay down in the soggy earth so I could look over the lip of the cliff. The land fell steeply to sea. Whatever ledges might have broken her fall were covered with water. There was nothing to be seen, only the waves foaming as they dashed themselves on the rock face and surged away from the land. For a second I thought I saw the green plaid of her coat swirling in the water, but that might have been mind over matter. I couldn’t be sure.
“Do you see her? Is she there?”
The next gust of wind brought rain with it. Once again I scanned the rock face and then the water. There was no sign at all of Fran. I squirmed back from the edge and got myself to my hands and knees. Maggie came and helped me up to my feet.
“We need to get help. Where will we get help?” Maggie made towards the edge. I caught her arm and stopped her.
“She’s not there. She’s gone. Just gone. No point putting ourselves in danger too.” I held her to me, smearing mud from my coat and hands all over her.
“Jesus, what will we do?”
Maggie’s voice was muffled by my shoulder. There was no help to be had. Nobody was around. We could have been the only two people on the planet. Maggie began to tremble against me.
“Let’s go back to the village. We can report it there.”
“Will they look for her? Jesus! I never meant to kill her.” Maggie began to cry. “Oh God, her eyes. I’ll never forget them.”
“You didn’t kill her. It was an accident. We’ll report it, but nobody can do much in this storm. The coast guard won’t put out tonight, with this weather. Come on, let’s go.”
I urged her along the path. My legs shook and rain added itself to the wind in earnest. Maggie tried to break out of my hold and go back to the edge again, but I held her fast.
“It’s too late. Too late. Come on, let’s get out of the cold.”
Half dragging my sister, I stumbled my way to the car. I eased her into the passenger seat and dumped my own coat, heavy with mud, into the back seat. I got the engine going and turned the heat up full.
“We have to do something,” Maggie said.
Her teeth chattered the words out of her mouth. Fog spread across the windows as the heat kicked in. My hands wouldn’t quite obey me when I tried to turn on the wipers.
“We will,” I told Maggie. “First we will get warm.”
“No, no, we have to get help now. We have to find her.”
She grabbed the door handle and fumbled to get out. Before she could, I got the car into gear and eased out of the parking spot. I had intended to stop in the village and report the accident, but I could see Maggie going into shock. I wasn’t doing so well myself. The drive back took forever as I tried to keep the car and my mind on the road, Maggie’s moans and sobs a terrible backdrop to the horror and confusion that ran inside me. Back at her apartment, I got her into a hot bath and changed into warm dry things myself. What seemed like hours later, but was probably no more than one, Maggie was still in the bath.
“Maggie? You all right in there?”
I knocked on the bathroom door. No answer. I eased the door open. Maggie was still in the bath, knees up to her chin, staring straight ahead.
“You should get out. The water’s cold.”
She didn’t seem to hear me. I grabbed a towel and crouched by the bath.
“Come on, Maggie. Let’s get you dressed.”
She didn’t move until I got her under the arms and eased her up. Once on her feet, she stepped out of the bath when I told her to. I towelled her off and persuaded her into nightclothes. As I tucked her into bed, she finally looked at me.
“Oh God. I killed her, Delia. I killed her.”
Tears ran down the edge of her nose. I wiped them with my sleeve.
“It was an accident. It was. I saw it.”
Reassurances didn’t seem to get through to her. I got her into bed and sat with her till she fell into a restless sleep.
I fully intended to report the accident. The nearest phone box was a few blocks away and it didn’t seem a good idea to leave Maggie just then. Besides, it was late night by this time. And I worried about leaving her alone. Next morning she was ill. All day she raved and muttered in a fever as I tried to spoon broth into her. I put off my return to Cardiff and stayed to nurse her until her fever broke and she was well enough to take care of herself. I never did report the accident. Maggie was so ill I couldn’t leave her and by the time I could it seemed way too late. Every day I scanned the papers for news of a body being found. There was none. Eventually I went back to Cardiff. The next time I came back to visit, Maggie was reluctant to leave the house. Her terrible slide out of reality had begun.
Jude and I both lost our sisters that day. No matter that I knew where, precisely, mine was in body, the sister I knew disappeared along with Fran. I whipped up my bitterness against Daniel to bury my own part in destroying both his family and my sister. This was the thing I couldn’t say to Jude. I couldn’t say it to anyone. It was what went through my mind as Jude wept at the kitchen table and we polished off the whiskey between us.
36
I woke with a start sometime in the early hours of the morning. The house was quiet, just a creak of floors settling now and again. I got up to check on Daniel, which had become a habit since he took to his bed permanently. Often I’d find him sleeping, but this night he was awake.
“Do you want company?” I asked.
“Yes, it would be nice.”
It was hard to tell whether he was more at peace since the paternity results or if the illness had sapped his energy. He had moved these past days into the state of quiet surrender where energy is used for only essentials. I opened the curtains and the moonlight brightened the unlit room as we sat together.
“Open the window,” he asked. “Let the night air in.”
I tucked the blankets around him securely to keep out any draughts and threw both sides of the window open as far as they would go. We heard an owl hoot from the trees in the grounds. T
he occasional engine hum of a car as it passed on the road carried into the room. A breeze came up near dawn and the tree just outside rustled and whispered until the birds began to chirp and trill, covering the sound. Through these hours I held Daniel’s hand. We said little. I wanted to tell him again I was sorry, but I knew he would have hushed me. I thought too about our son. Would he have resembled Daniel? He would be a man now, but I saw him that night as the tiny waxen thing I held wrapped in a blue blanket before his body was taken away. Sometime as dawn broke Daniel drifted into sleep. I closed the window and left. I went to my bed and slept until nearly noon.
The following day Jude and I agreed to get a nurse to stay with him at night. He didn’t protest. As there was no need of me there all night I once again walked out to the farm in the evenings. Maybe it was because most of my secrets were no longer secret, or maybe it was spending evenings at home with Mam and Da, or maybe it was getting away from the closed world that the Big House had become, but for whatever reason, I noticed a lift in my spirits within days. Once again the beauty of the countryside overtook me as I walked and once again I delighted in the sight of the little farmhouse at the end of my day. Often Iris walked out with me and, as she had with Daniel, she became a favourite of Da’s. He even taught her how to milk the cows, an occupation he had guarded fiercely since he had let the big herd go.
After one such visit Iris and I walked back to Daniel’s. The first signs of winter were in the air, a chill that nipped at our ears and noses, a faint sheen of frost on the grass.
“Why do you think my mother said Daniel could be my father?” Iris asked.
“She wanted to protect you, just in case Jimmy found her, I think. If she could cast doubt that he was the father she thought you’d be safer. She wanted to keep you safe so much.”
She linked her arm in mine and lifted her face to whatever warmth there was in the sun.
“I told Grandma I’ll go back to Scotland soon,” she said. “I’ll wait until Daniel goes. I promised Jude, but I’m ready to be home. I can’t stay working in the café the rest of my life. I want to get back to college, settle into our little cottage. My cottage now. I want to find out how to change my name to Iris Sweeney too.”
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