Aidan holds Liv’s shoulder. His eyes are full. ‘I’ll ring you in the morning. Are you all right?’
She nods. ‘Just look after them. And look after yourself. Drive carefully.’
She tugs on some clothes, finds the bottle of strong red wine they opened earlier when they got back from the well, three hours ago, a lifetime ago, pours herself a large glass and drinks. A long shiver passes through her body. She knows that until her dying day, she will never forget Maeve’s face dissolving and her savage cry. The thought of going back to bed is impossible. No one in that other house will get much sleep tonight; why should she?
She can’t bear being alone with her fears. Crouching before the fire, she rings Owen’s number. He answers quickly.
‘I’m sorry to wake you,’ she says.
‘Liv! You didn’t, I just got in from a bridge party west along, literally walked through the door. What’s up?’
‘Is there any chance you could come over? I’m in trouble here. I could do with your company.’
‘I’ll be there in half an hour. You’ll be all right?’
‘Yes, thanks.’
While she waits for him she stirs the fire, gazes into its depths. ‘Oh Nanna, what’s happened here?’ Her words fly into the corners of the room, crouch and watch her. She can’t get warm, moves her chair into the hearth, and holds her palms out. No harm done, Aidan had told his wife. Hardly. Hardly.
Owen brings with him strong, old-fashioned scents of good dining and rich cigars. She is grateful for them, for his big hands holding hers as he asks how she is.
‘You look as if you saw the devil on the wind’s back,’ he says as he makes them both hot whiskey, producing a hip flask, finding cloves and brown sugar in the dresser. When the kettle boils he measures the liquids and stirs briskly. As he hands it to her it smells like medicine. She doesn’t care for whiskey but she sips it, bolstered by its fire. He draws a stool up and listens in silence as she spills out her tale, gazing into his glass. He is pale, his face still.
‘That’s a sad state of affairs,’ he says, rolling the whiskey between his hands. ‘Maeve is besotted with Aidan, you know. I believe he’s the one, she had no other relationships to speak of before him. She’ll have taken it hard.’
Liv gazes at him. ‘You know I didn’t mean for this to happen.’
He nods. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘I’m not sure. Maeve can’t handle this, that’s all I know for definite after tonight. The woman is out of her mind with loss.’
‘You feel responsible.’
‘Yes.’ She stirs the fire, adds turf. ‘Someone has to do something here to put an end to this chaos and it seems it’s me.’
He puts his glass down carefully, brings his hands up and joins them under his chin. His breathing is nasal and laboured. ‘I’m going to tell you something now that I never thought I’d tell you, a story that hasn’t been told for a long time, but I believe the circumstances call for it.’
She looks at his profile, his eyebrows like wild mountain ledges. His voice is rolling and a little sing-song, the way it was when he told the tale at the birthday party.
‘Is this about someone I know?’
‘Yes, unfortunately.’ He sits upright, folds his arms across his chest. ‘Ah Liv, the things we do, the things we do. The reason I lost my marriage and was persona non grata in the glen and with my family for a long time was because I had an affair. The person I had that affair with was your mother.’
He looks at her. She stares back, drinks from her glass, pressing it to her lips.
‘I was in love with Mollie and she loved me. We didn’t mean it either. It just happened. It lasted nearly a year. I came to London and we’d meet in hotels. She got pregnant and thought the baby might be mine. That’s when she told your father, while you were all here and then she miscarried. The anxiety was too much for her, I’d say. Shall I make another one of those?’
She holds the glass out to him, watches as he pours again. Already she can see them together, imagine how well they suited each other, two live wires setting London alight, linking arms as they sauntered along.
‘That would have been the summer when my father took my mother home and I was left here with Nanna.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Did people here know?’
‘No one knew the details except your parents, me and your nanna. There’s been plenty of speculation over the years about who I’d been adulterous with. I told Edith I’d had an affair but not who with. She thought it was someone in Dublin, an actress. I can say to you that Mollie was the love of my life. I don’t know if I was hers, that would be for her to say and she’s gone now. But we caused havoc. We didn’t mean to but we did. Your father is a man with a generous heart and he said little. He never said a word to me.’
‘He suffered, though,’ she says, thinking of her father’s resigned look, his air of lingering unhappiness, the tainting of his homeland. No wonder he likes the safety and predictability of his cottage hospital at home and a wife who’s never going to go out without him. ‘He lost this place, even if he didn’t lose his wife. And his mother lost his company, his regular visits.’
‘All of that. And you lost your contact with your nanna. You see, I’ve thought of all the angles over the years; and then there’s the lost child, too. Everyone lost, that’s the truth of it. And we never meant any of it.’
‘I always wanted a brother or sister,’ she says. ‘I used to envy other children who had siblings. Did you and my mother plan to be together?’
‘We talked of it, of course. But I don’t believe she could ever have left you and she wouldn’t have taken you from your father. We’d go round in hopeless circles, discussing it.’ Owen drains his glass, reaches up and sets it on the mantelpiece. ‘The day you opened that door to me I thought I was seeing a ghost, you look so like Mollie with your freckles and that hair. You sound just like her, that quick, precise way of talking. Maybe I should have stayed away from you but I couldn’t. I liked you as a child and I liked the woman I found. I don’t want to lose you now. If you want a refuge with me, you’re welcome. But after what I’ve just told you, I’d understand if you never wanted to see me again.’
She shakes her head at him, manages a faint smile even. ‘There’s been enough of that over the years, don’t you think? Absences, silences, shoulder turning. An old wound that can’t be mended now. It’s not about us now, anyway.’ She pulls sharply on her fingers, cracking the knuckles. ‘Carmel is around the age that I was that summer when my mother had the miscarriage. That ten days without my parents seemed an eternity to me, even though Nanna couldn’t have been kinder.’
Owen takes her hand, pats it. ‘You’re right, you have more pressing worries now. I’m sorry, Liv. I regret the past although I can’t regret loving Mollie.’
‘Yes, but I can’t help thinking of my father and the way he would look bewildered, as if there was something he’d misplaced and couldn’t find.’
‘Mollie loved him, you know, she never had a bad word to say about him. Is he happy now, do you think?’
She considers her answer. ‘He’s found a way of being content, yes.’
It’s five o’clock when Owen leaves, the night dense and thick, hugging its secrets before the dawn. No point in trying to sleep now, she thinks. She washes her face in cold water, dunking her head right in, rubbing hard. Her hands are curiously steady, her mind clear and intent, and her heart desolate. She mustn’t stop now, best to keep going, leave no space or time for doubts or hesitation. There are griefs that have to be borne. Her mother, she understands, must have been distraught back then but she never stopped cooking the dinners, doing the shopping, ironing the sheets.
She tidies the cottage, secures the windows, packs her cases and takes them to the car. Her head is down, her manner brisk. If she looks around at Aidan’s belongings, his jumpers, boots and garden plans she might falter, start thinking that there is some other way. She
throws the bread and scones that are left out for the birds. The whiskey glasses she shatters in the fireplace, wanting the noise and finality of the splintering crash. Then she sweeps them into a glittering pyramid and pours water on the embers to make sure that all is quenched and cold.
At six, the hour when her father has never failed to get up, she rings him. He hates the phone, always has, and answers it in a hesitant voice, as if it might bite him.
‘I got your postcards,’ he says. ‘I liked the one of the town centre, it’s looking prosperous. This is early enough for you, isn’t it?’
‘It is. How are you?’
‘Oh, fine, you know, getting by. I just put a few rashers of bacon on. Hazel managed to sit downstairs the last couple of nights and we watched a bit of telly, one of those glam dance competitions, fellows swanning about in tight trousers.’
‘Good.’ She swallows. His mild, steady voice makes her want to weep. ‘I’m standing at the cottage door,’ she says. ‘It’s been raining during the night but it’s stopped now. Do you remember you used to carry me down the glen on your shoulders when it had been raining, in case I slipped?’
‘I do remember, of course. That’s a long time ago now, you’re a bit older and I’m a lot more wrinkled!’
‘Dad, I’m coming back today.’
‘To London?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s a bit soon, isn’t it? I thought you said you were having work done on Glenkeen?’
‘I was. I’ve changed my mind.’
‘Oh. I suppose Douglas will be pleased, anyway, to have you back sooner, I’m sure he’ll have missed you.’
She sighs, covers the phone.
‘Is everything all right, Livvie?’
‘No. I’ll tell you when I see you. I’ve had some trouble here, I think its best that I leave.’
‘What kind of trouble?’
She can’t reply, grips the phone. ‘Dad, what do you do when you’ve messed up and everything is just one huge, horrible disaster, how do you get through?’
‘Has this got anything to do with Owen Farrell?’ he asks, his voice tightening. ‘If that man has said something . . .’
‘No. It’s all my own doing. I can’t tell you now, I’ll come and talk to you when I get back.’
‘I see.’ She hears a pan rattling, can imagine him flipping the bacon over, one-handed. ‘Well,’ he says at last, ‘in answer to your question, I suppose you just try to live a good life.’
* * *
She puts the key under a stone by the front door; she will ask Owen to collect it and ask Aidan for his. Before leaving she takes the knife that Maeve had wielded to the well and drops it in, hoping, in her final request of this place, that it falls deep enough for misery to be washed away. She parts the foliage and turns her torch beam on to the white pebbles that spell Mollie and Fintan, places her palm over them, then covers them carefully with an extra layer of stones and ferns.
* * *
The day is bright now, with a watery sky and a sharp breeze. A good day for sailing, for feeling the surge of the wind-whipped waves. She wishes that the boat was about to set its course for some faraway, unknown destination that would take weeks to reach, a place across oceans, continents and time zones. She sees it, an island on the fringes of the world where she could be an anonymous, reinvented woman with no onerous history. Disembarking, she would ask the way to a small hotel and give another, unburdened name, find herself a job in a cafe or a book shop maybe. Then she would rent a quiet room, living a brand new existence, a scoured, sparkling and polished life that would glint in the sun. After all, Douglas has laundered his life, rinsed and refreshed his body and his spirit. It can be done. The ship blasts two loud, derisive hoots.
She moves out of the way as several children clatter past her and steps into the shelter of a doorway. She takes her phone from her pocket and holds it, weighing it in her hand. Scrolling through, she sends a text message to Douglas, pausing as she presses the letters, carefully trying to measure the words. It would be cruel now to raise false hopes and she has none to offer, none even for herself.
Have left cottage, not returning. Will be back in London alone this evening. Please don’t expect anything. I don’t know what I’m going to do.
She watches the tiny envelope flutter momentarily on the screen and wing across the Irish Sea; message sent.
She waits until the bow doors have clanged shut, like a huge shell closing and the ferry has cast off, moving towards the open sea before she raises her phone again and calls up Aidan’s number. She watches Ireland slip away from her, bracing herself against the rail as she hears him answer, a faint, lost voice.
THE END
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NOW TRY GRETTA MULROONEY’S LOST CHILD FOR FREE
What happens when you take an orphaned child into your new family?
May has just started a new life with Nathan and his son from his first marriage. May meets a recently orphaned little girl, Elva, at the children’s home where May teaches. She develops a close relationship with Elva, and together with her husband, she draws the child into their loving family circle. The bereaved girl blossoms in the easy affection of the new family.
But there are clouds on the horizon: Nathan’s ex-wife is hell-bent on disrupting the situation and complex ties of obligation and guilt threaten to destroy May’s job, marriage, and everyone she loves.
This is a gripping, sometimes harrowing novel telling the story of a blended family fighting for survival. There may be no perfect happy endings, but with love there is always hope for the future.
PROLOGUE OF LOST CHILD
The girl woke, feeling empty. This happened often, waking hungry in the early hours. She had a storybook about a boy being taken to a night kitchen where bread was made for the morning and her mother laughed at her trips for biscuits, saying that she was Elva in the night kitchen. The Mickey Mouse clock by her bed said 2.20. She lay for a few minutes, watching the luminous silver stars and pale crescent moons on her bedroom ceiling, listening to the clumping footsteps in the flat above. Riff-raff, her mother called the people upstairs, a word that she loved to repeat; said fast, it sounded like a dog’s bark. She thought about the ginger biscuits in the kitchen, home-made by her mother, who bought real ginger on the market to grate into the dough. Her mother’s arm flashed up and down as she worked so that when Elva squeezed her eyes closed, it became a blur. She imagined the spice of the dark, crumbly biscuits on her tongue, delaying the moment when she would get up and eat some, her mouth watering. Someone overhead flushed a toilet and that made her want to go, so she slid out of bed and went to the bathroom. The plastic seat was pleasantly cool against her warm skin; this summer was so hot, they were sleeping with just thin sheets on their beds.
Her mother was asleep on the sofa as she passed through the living-room on her way to the kitchen. The biscuit tin had dark yellow flowers on it and there was a trick to opening it because the lid was wonky. She banged the lid once, glancing at her mother, half expecting her to start and stretch, then sit up and look for her soft pumps, saying that she hadn’t meant to doze off. But her mother slept on and she quickly pulled the lid off and took two biscuits. She stood and watched her mother as she ate, the moist dough sticking to her tongue, and washed the biscuits down with a glass of milk. The cold coated her mouth and calmed the fieriness of the ginger.
She rinsed her glass and put it upside down on the draining board, then moved to her mother and shook her shoulder because she got a frozen neck when she fell asleep on the sofa. She’d ask Elva to rub it for her, very hard, dig her bony fingers in. When she didn’t move Elva shook her again, then again, calling her name. She was floppy and her eyes stayed closed. Her long hair trailed across the cushion. Elv
a thought she must be ill. Maybe she had sleeping sickness, Elva had read about that in the encyclopaedia. She leaned down by her mother’s face and smelled a trace of garlic from the spaghetti Bolognese they’d had for supper. Garlic warded off evil spirits, her mother told her.
She knew about 999 and she dialled and said that her mum was sick, speaking the address slowly although her heart was racing. While she was waiting for the ambulance, she fetched the temperature strip from the drawer and put it on her mother’s forehead. That was the first thing her mother did when Elva said she didn’t feel well. It would change colour, blue to green to orange, depending on how high her temperature was. Her mother called it the temperature rainbow. Elva pressed it to her skin but nothing happened, no rainbow colours appeared. She kept it there, just in case, until the ambulance men knocked on the door, but it stayed dark, no colours blooming, the blues and greens and oranges of a life.
She stood by the sofa in her nightdress while the ambulance men bent over her mother.
‘What’s your mum’s name, sweetheart?’ one of them asked and when she told him he said: ‘Suzy, Suzy, can you hear me?’
Then there was a long silence broken by music suddenly erupting from above, the deep thud of bass guitars. This was when she would hear her mother knock on the ceiling with the kitchen mop and call, turn that damned racket off, there are people trying to sleep down here! But her mother was having no trouble sleeping; the noise didn’t bother her at all tonight. The tall ambulance man with glasses, the one who’d called her sweetheart, said to her that she should put some clothes on because they were going to have to take her mum to hospital. He asked if her mum had any tablets and she said only herbal ones.
‘Has she got sleeping sickness?’ she asked and he glanced at his companion and said: ‘we’ll get her to hospital, then we’ll know more, sweetheart. Is your dad around, or an aunty or granny?’ She told him that she didn’t know her dad and added what her mother had always said, that she and Elva were each other’s family, they had only each other in the whole wide world. The tall man patted her shoulder and went to the phone.
OUT OF THE BLUE a gripping novel of love lost and found Page 21
