A Keeper

by Graham Norton

  ‘What did you have?’

  ‘A boy!’ He sounded triumphant. ‘You have a grandson, Mom. Come see him!’

  Elizabeth laughed. ‘I will, I will. Let me just jump in the shower and I’ll be right over. Give me thirty minutes.’

  Navigating the snow drifts on street corners and picking her way along the parts of the sidewalks that hadn’t been salted meant it was closer to forty-five minutes later when she was reunited with Zach. He was in a small, nondescript waiting area. A thin bald man in his thirties was asleep in a chair. Zach beckoned his mother out into the corridor. They hugged.

  ‘Do you want to see him?’

  ‘Of course! How’s Michelle?’

  ‘Good, I think. I wasn’t there for all of it.’

  Elizabeth knew better than to ask questions. She assumed it had all been a bit much for him. Was a seventeen-year-old supposed to experience childbirth? Would it affect all his relationships with women from now on? Banishing such thoughts, she followed her son down the hallway.

  ‘He’s just along here in the newborn nursery.’

  ‘I thought they kept the babies with the mother these days.’

  Zach had stopped in front of a large window, and was pointing impatiently. ‘That’s him. The one on the right.’

  Elizabeth peered through the glass and saw nothing but a blotchy purple and red face, its mouth wide open in a silent scream.

  ‘Oh, Zach. He’s gorgeous.’ She hugged her son.

  She was just about to ask him about names when the slap of swinging double doors distracted them both. An older man, a doctor Elizabeth assumed, was walking towards them. As he reached the unlikely couple standing outside the nursery he took off his tortoiseshell glasses and rubbed his other hand through his grey hair. He looked serious.

  ‘Mr Kleinfeld?’

  ‘Yes,’ Zach replied.

  ‘I’m Dr Rice. Alan. We met last night.’

  ‘Yes. I’m Zach.’

  The two men shook hands.

  ‘I’m his mother,’ Elizabeth explained.

  The three of them stood together in silence. Something didn’t feel right. People only wait for bad news. Zach reached for his mother’s hand.

  ‘Perhaps you’d prefer to step into one of our family rooms.’ The doctor indicated a door a little further down the hall.

  ‘Yes, no,’ Zach corrected himself. ‘Just tell us here.’ His voice was thin and high. Elizabeth squeezed his hand harder.

  ‘I really feel you might be more comfortable—’

  ‘Please!’ To Elizabeth, Zach sounded the way he had as a small boy pleading for a treat or for the answer to a riddle.

  Dr Rice rubbed his tongue along the inside of his bottom lip and then spoke.

  ‘We aren’t sure, but we think Ms Giardino may have had an adverse reaction to the epidural. Tests will tell us more later.’ A small cough, and then he continued. ‘Shortly after your son was born, the mother went into respiratory failure. Efforts were made to resuscitate her, but I regret to say, those efforts failed.’

  Zach looked at his mother, more frightened than she had ever seen him.

  ‘I’m so very sorry, but Michelle is dead.’

  Zach gasped and violently jerked backwards as if he’d been struck. Elizabeth had to put her other arm around him to steady his body. He collapsed against her. She could feel his hot tears on her neck, his howls soaking into her padded jacket.

  Dr Rice stood awkwardly beside them.

  ‘It’s a great deal to take in. Again, the family room is at your disposal if you’d prefer.’

  Elizabeth just wished he would leave them.

  ‘If you’ve any questions, anything at all, here’s my card. Please feel free to call me.’ He paused before repeating, ‘I’m so sorry’, and then moved away.

  ‘Thank you, Doctor,’ Elizabeth mumbled, taking the business card with one hand while rubbing the other up and down her son’s back, trying to comfort him. As if anything could bring him comfort. This wasn’t right. This boy wasn’t built for this sort of pain. Elizabeth was suddenly filled with a terrible rage. What was wrong with the world? Why? Why would the gods conspire to test her child in this way?

  Over Zach’s shoulder, Elizabeth could see her grandson struggling inside his tightly wrapped blanket. His face was even redder than before. It was as if that tiny human shared her anger. The two of them bonded by a fury at the world. She knew what she had to do.

  2

  Memories don’t just vanish, they hide. Like a tiny boat trapped in heavy seas trying to catch sight of the shore, sometimes glimpses of the past appear. But some days the wind drops, the clouds part and there is a clear uninterrupted view of land.

  In Abbey Court Care home, Edward lay in his bed just before the dawn and everything was revealed to him. The barren vista of his life. He tried to sort through his memories, searching for the happier ones; a summer’s evening bringing in the cows, frying up a pan of mackerel for breakfast, Mary on their wedding day, but it was useless. He had no choice. Only one dark day kept looming into view.

  He was at the kitchen counter doing it the way he had seen his mother doing it for Patricia. Grinding the tablets with the back of a spoon, and putting them in the teapot. They were the pills the doctor had prescribed for his mother after James had died, but she had stopped taking them years before. Patricia had only ever had one or two, but he needed to be sure, so he crushed six of them.

  ‘You’re making tea?’ It was his mother coming into the kitchen.

  ‘I fancied a cup. Is that all right?’

  ‘Don’t let me stop you. This is a rare treat, getting waited on.’

  The kettle was boiling so Edward filled the pot, and put a mug for himself and a cup and saucer for his mother on the table.

  ‘What about madam upstairs?’

  ‘I’ll ask her in a bit.’

  He let it brew for a few minutes and then poured.

  He picked up his mug and blew on it but didn’t drink. He tried to watch his mother surreptitiously. She was slurping loudly.

  He remembered they had spoken then, but couldn’t recall the words. What had they talked about? Strange that of all their conversations, that one wasn’t etched on his memory.

  He did know that his mother had yawned and said, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I can’t keep my eyes open.’

  Had there been a moment? Had his mother guessed what he had done? Was there a look? He hoped there hadn’t been. He prayed that she had never known.

  Her head had fallen forward against her chest and her body had slipped down in the chair. Edward had waited then for a few more minutes, before tapping her on the arm. Nothing. ‘Mammy?’ His mother remained slumped and unresponsive.

  He went to the back door and pulled on his jacket and scarf. Outside the light was fading. He hurried across the yard and got the wheelbarrow from outside one of the outhouses. He wheeled it as quickly as he could to the back door. He didn’t know how much time he had.

  Back inside he gathered his mother up in his arms and carried her outside and placed her as gently as he could into the wheelbarrow. It had started to rain. He pushed his load along the side of the house into the lane. The rough terrain coupled with speed disturbed Mrs Foley and one arm flopped over the side of the wheelbarrow and scraped along the stone wall. Edward saw blood. He froze, waiting for his mother to react. Her face remained still, her eyes closed, her mouth hanging open. Struggling with the heavy weight of his load, Edward took a sharp left into the orchard. Here it was much slower going, trying to ease the front wheel across the soft ground through the long wet grass. They passed the blackened trunks of the trees he had set alight to provide cover for Patricia’s failed escape. Up ahead a rope lay coiled at the foot of one of the tallest apple trees. Just seeing it lying there like a serpent ready to strike made Edward stop. His breath, heavy from his efforts, floated in clouds before him. Was he doing the right thing? Was this really the only solution? He looked down and observed
his mother’s head hanging to one side, the pink of her tongue edging over her bottom lip. Edward began to cry. No. He had to keep going. This was his plan and it was the best way out that he could think of. Not just for Elizabeth and Patricia, but for his mother too.

  Her plan was never going to work. He’d told her. The letters. He’d said to his mother, ‘What will happen when they find out?’

  Mrs Foley had waved away his concerns. ‘We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.’ Except they hadn’t. They had all fallen off that bridge and were now drowning in the mess she had made.

  He threw the rope over the highest strong branch and then tied it off lower down on the trunk.

  His mother couldn’t have coped with her failure. Edward could have borne her disappointment in him, he had lived for most of his life with that, but she couldn’t have faced a future where she wasn’t able to make things better. Somehow, even after everything that had happened, she believed she had the power to change things, to rescue him. Edward didn’t know how she could have survived such disappointment. This was the kind thing to do. It had been his mother, all those years before, who had taken the gun out and shown him how to shoot that heifer after it broke its leg. He remembered them standing together in the field, trying to hide his tears as the bark of the gunshot echoed up into the darkness. She had turned to him and told him that it was for the best. He bent down and scooped up her body. This was for the best. It was.

  He laid his mother down on the wet grass, the rain splashing against her face. Wiping his tears away to see better, he went to the wall and picked up the small wooden stepladder they had always used when they were picking the apples. He opened it and tried his best to steady the feet on the uneven ground. He lifted his mother’s body and leaned her against the steps. He raised a hand to reach the noose but it was too high. He shifted his weight and fell against his mother’s wet body. He felt her warm shallow breath on his face. Keeping her upright, he climbed a couple of steps until he had managed to grasp the rope. Then, using all his strength, he hauled his mother up in the air. He groaned with the strain. She slipped, he caught her. The ladder began to rock, but with one final effort he managed to slip the noose around his mother’s head. For a moment they were face to face. He wondered if he should kiss her goodbye. No.

  He looked away and let go. Her body dropped, knocking the ladder and sending Edward sprawling to the ground. He left the ladder where it was and stood up. In horror, he watched as his mother twitched and kicked. What was happening? It should be over. Her body twisted around towards him, and he saw, thankfully, that her eyes were still shut. He scrambled towards the wheelbarrow. He had so much to do. Still his mother’s feet kicked. One of her shoes had come loose and landed on the grass like a windfall apple. Edward didn’t know what to do. It was not meant to be happening like this.

  He pushed the wheelbarrow towards the house, making a low whimpering sound. As he reached the gate he looked back. His mother’s right leg was shuddering. He couldn’t bear it. He would cut her down! Just as he set off towards the hanging body, everything suddenly became still. The rope was still swaying slightly and the rain was dripping from the trees, but his mother was gone. Edward sank to his knees. He bowed his head in front of his mother’s corpse hanging from a rope and felt relief. Huge, life-changing relief. It was over, finally over. Her pain, her disappointment, her longing, all of it: she was at peace.

  Night had fallen. Edward got up and pushed the empty wheelbarrow through the darkness back to the yard. Even before he went back into the house he could hear Patricia’s bell ringing in the night air.

  Now, more than forty years later, an old man in Clonteer lay in the early morning light and thought he could hear that sound once more. Maybe he could, or perhaps it was just the breakfast trolley clattering in the hallway. He wondered if Patricia had received his letter. The one he had written himself. It had taken him two attempts, sitting at the kitchen table, holding the biro like a spoon, copying the word from the piece of paper where Mrs Lynch had written it out for him. Miss Buggy in the post office had written the address. For days, he had fretted about what he would do if Patricia replied. Who would he get to read it for him? He needn’t have worried, because no response came. Then, three, maybe four years later, an envelope had been waiting for him when he got back to the empty house after work. Nothing but a photograph of a little girl. She was wearing a red pinafore and laughing at something he would never see. Elizabeth. He had put down the bright photograph and looked at what surrounded him. The cream walls with dark clouds of damp gathering in the corners. Old lino on the floor, worn away to the flagstones by the door. The ticking of a clock to remind him that time was passing. He had smiled then. What he had done had been for the best.

  In the day room, two nurses were sharing a joke in the kitchen area. The sound of their laughter reached the room of Edward Foley. His eyelids flickered and his breathing became uneven. Inside his chest his heart fluttered and then, just as he thought to himself, this is it, it’s over, it was.

  AFTER

  The tide was full and the sky was perfectly blue. Elizabeth could hardly believe how different it all seemed. As they drove across the causeway, the water sparkled in the sunshine, and she knew this had been the right thing to do. ‘Nearly there now,’ she called to the boys in the back. Her boys. That’s what she called them. Zach was sitting with his son who was strapped into a car seat that neither he nor Elizabeth were convinced had been installed properly.

  It hadn’t been easy but in the little more than two years since her last visit to Muirinish, life had changed a great deal. After Michelle’s death, Elizabeth had such a strong, unshakable belief in what she should do. She talked to Zach and he was enthusiastic about the plan. Michelle’s parents took a little more convincing but, conceding that they were too old to start caring for a baby, they agreed that it made sense for their grandson to at least be close to his father, while being cared for by a responsible adult. Elliot thought she was crazy, but then, he hadn’t even managed to care for a puppy. Will and the Weimaraner had moved out.

  At first, things had been difficult. Convincing Zach to stay in school and arranging a leave of absence for herself from Hunter had been a struggle, but she had muddled through. She had graded papers from home and, although still unsold, she had managed to rent out Convent Hill. Then there was an unexpected but extremely welcome change in her circumstances. The Giardino family had reached a sizeable out-of-court settlement with the medical centre following the badly performed epidural, and they had decided to put half in trust for their grandson and give the rest to Elizabeth, to help her raise the child. The money was a godsend. She was able to return to teaching part-time at Hunter and her little family decamped to a modest duplex apartment on the top two floors of one of the few un-gentrified brownstones in Williamsburg.

  Elizabeth loved being a mother again. It was so much easier the second time around, and, she reminded herself, that wasn’t just because there was no Elliot this time. Of course, there were nights when she couldn’t sleep, or her grandson refused to sleep, when she sat in the dark holding the baby and thought about Michelle. Poor woman. Elizabeth didn’t rewrite history, she never pretended that she had been fond of the woman, but it did break her heart that Michelle had been robbed of time with her son. He was a magical little boy. Elizabeth thought of her own mother too. She had wondered if looking after another woman’s baby might give her some insight into the mind of Patricia Keane, but, if anything, she felt she understood her less. Elizabeth was impatient to tell her grandson about his mother, show him pictures, allow him to ask questions. Had her mother never felt compelled to tell her the truth? Times were different then, she supposed, but it still bothered her. Surely the truth had always had a value? Or maybe back then other things were more important? They must have been or why else would secrets have been a way of life?

  Castle House had found a buyer and the new owner was waiting for them as their car bumped and bounce
d its way down the lane. Hair slicked back, and wearing a freshly ironed shirt, Brian gave them a wave. The purchase had been purely practical. He wanted a yard adjacent to the land and it was a reasonable price. He still hadn’t decided what to do with the house, probably just wait till it had joined the castle as a ruin. Elizabeth hadn’t known he was the buyer until he had texted her to inform her about her father’s death. There had been nothing left to bequeath in the will, the land had been sold to Brian years earlier, and Elizabeth already had the house, but there was the question of Edward’s remains. The solicitor who had power of attorney had contacted Brian to see if he had a number for the previous owner of Castle House, and indeed he did. Elizabeth hadn’t been sure what to do. Being so far away, she didn’t know if she could arrange a funeral, or where Mary was buried, so she had just asked for a small private service at the crematorium in Cork. Today was to be about the ashes.

  Elizabeth got out of the car and gave Brian a peck on the cheek.

  ‘Great to see you.’

  ‘You too. You’ve picked a great day for it.’

  ‘Yes.’

  They both looked around at the ruins, the blue sky peeping through the narrow misshapen windows. A banging sound brought them back to the car.

  Zach was knocking on the car window.

  ‘Mom, let us out!’

  Elizabeth laughed. ‘Sorry, sorry.’

  She opened the back door, and then she and Zach both struggled with the car seat.

  A large white Range Rover was coming down the drive. It seemed to fill the whole lane. Elizabeth looked and waved. ‘Oh, good. She made it.’

  The car pulled up beside the other two and Cathy Crowley stepped out, before going around the car to help her mother Ann Lynch from the passenger’s side.

  ‘Are you all right there?’

  ‘I’d need a ladder. I hate this car.’ Eventually the old lady’s feet made contact with the ground and they walked over to the small waiting group. Elizabeth noticed how nicely dressed they were. She hoped they weren’t expecting a formal ceremony or some catered event afterwards.