Grace After Henry

by Eithne Shortall

The room fell quiet again and I did a bit of work on the nose but when it started to look like he had two I knew it was time to admit defeat. ‘Are you nearly done?’ I asked, when another fifteen minutes had passed.

  ‘Almost . . .’ He raised the pen and extended it towards me as if measuring my face, then he brought it back to the page. ‘Okay, that’s it. I’ve immortalised you in ink.’

  ‘Well, you shouldn’t have gone to the trouble because . . .’ I lifted the sketch pad from my knee and winced as I turned it around. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘It looks like I drew with food.’

  ‘All right,’ he said, lifting his own page and tapping the end of it lightly on the book he’d been leaning on. I did a quick intake of breath and as he turned the page around I suddenly shut my eyes.

  I didn’t want to know how he saw me. I didn’t want to know if he could tell what I was thinking.

  ‘Grace?’

  I thought of how he’d looked into my eyes and I refused to open them.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Come on!’

  I inhaled, slowly this time, then bit by bit I opened them.

  I exhaled in a far less dramatic fashion. ‘What is that?’

  Held in the air beside Andy’s delighted face was a drawing of a stick woman with some sort of rod in her hand. There was a tree behind her, a full sun in the sky and her stick legs were crossed like she needed to pee.

  ‘That’s what you spent almost an hour on?’

  ‘Yip.’

  ‘You know you’re turning pink?’ I said, raising my eyebrows as he nodded, incapable of speech in case he wet himself laughing. ‘And what, if you don’t mind me asking, am I holding?’

  ‘Wooden spoon,’ he yelped.

  ‘Naturally. And her legs?’

  He pursed his lips together and the sight of his rosy mug ready to explode at any moment made me burst out laughing, which obviously caused him to fall to pieces too. Our bodies went loose, flopping in unison on the couch, colliding in the middle. Andy was literally holding his sides.

  ‘I can’t draw, I’m sorry,’ he hooted. ‘I never could.’

  ‘Well, at least I’m thin,’ I said, when I’d regained some composure. ‘But seriously, though, what is going on with her legs?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Andy, frowning as he turned the page back around to himself. ‘She’s doing Riverdance.’

  ‘Ah.’ I nodded sagely. ‘Of course.’

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Saturday morning we went to a market held by the Polish community in the Phoenix Park. None of the other shoppers spoke English and all of the signs were in Polish, which was why I decided it would be safe for us to go. We weren’t going to bump into anybody.

  We walked from stall to stall, holding up everything, presenting them to each other. Things we might buy, like eggs and bread and a tea cosy shaped like an old woman. And things we couldn’t believe anybody would buy, like coasters covered in glittery shamrocks, a money box that burped when you inserted a coin, and some sort of fish soaked in sour cream.

  It was the most beautiful morning and I was happy. I could feel the contentment humming inside me. The whole way back to the house, I swung the plastic bag that held six eggs and the tea cosy. Andy told knock-knock jokes and I laughed even when they weren’t funny. I didn’t mention Henry, not once. I hadn’t mentioned him in days.

  I suggested to Andy that he buy the paper and he went into Pat’s shop while I waited outside. Back at the house, he sat reading at the table, while I cracked the eggs slowly, ceremoniously, into a mixing bowl.

  ‘Is it weird that I feel like I know you?’ I said, after half an hour of comfortable silence.

  Andy looked up from the newspaper spread across the polished oak. ‘No,’ he considered. ‘It makes sense that you’d feel that way.’

  I nodded, and returned to the mixing bowl and the eggs I was beating.

  ‘But it doesn’t make sense that I’d feel the same,’ he said.

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  I watched as he formulated thoughts. Slowly I was learning to read him.

  ‘I feel like . . . this could have been my life.’

  ‘Like Henry’s life could have been yours?’

  ‘Not Henry’s life exactly. But this life.’ He made a grand sweep with his hand from his seat at the table. ‘Every adopted kid thinks about an alternate life. I remember when I was about eight building a tent in my grandma’s kitchen and thinking, “I could be camping in another grandma’s kitchen.”’

  I smiled.

  ‘When I learnt to ride a bike, I had the strongest sensation that there was another version of me learning to ride a bike somewhere else, with his mum. Not a brother, but actually me: the me that would have been if I hadn’t been adopted. Or maybe if I’d been adopted into a different family.’ He went back to the paper. ‘It’s hard to explain.’

  ‘No,’ I said, pushing the bowl to the side and leaning across the counter. ‘Go on.’

  I wanted him to say what I was thinking, to articulate the thing I couldn’t put into words.

  ‘I always had the strongest feeling there was another version of me, in a parallel world or whatever, doing all the same things but a little different. Is it possible that I knew somehow? Twin intuition? Because even though I knew about Frances, the alternate life I imagined was never with her. The life I imagined was like this one, with people like Henry’s parents. What if I’d gone to them, Grace? What if I’d grown up in Dublin and been introduced to five-a-side soccer and had parents who valued education and wanted their son to have a secure life? What if I’d gone to Henry’s school and had Henry’s friends and met . . .’ He trailed off. I glanced away.

  ‘I feel like I know this life,’ he said. ‘Not the Frances life. This one. Like this was my alternate life.’

  Hadn’t I thought something similar, about parallel worlds and alternative lives? And maybe, too, this was mine. Henry but more careful with his words, Henry but less sure of his place in the world, Henry but better at accents. Henry but more cautious on a bike.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Andy, embarrassed. ‘I’ve had a lot of time to think.’

  A large drop fell from the kitchen faucet, and I jumped as it hit the basin and reverberated.

  ‘It does that,’ I said, slightly too loudly. ‘Sometimes it just lets this trickle out, no matter how tight I have it turned.’

  Andy moved towards me, needing half as many steps as I did to cross the room. I backed away from the sink, his smell caught in the breeze created by our movements. He took a screwdriver from his box and started to twist at the tap.

  The muscles on his back moved below the surface of his T-shirt as he forced the top off the tap. I had never known Henry to as much as change a light bulb. There was something so arbitrary about it, the accident of birth. A split-second decision as babies, and their futures were decided. What if Andy’s restlessness had nothing to do with not being in the right place? What if he’d never managed to settle because he hadn’t been in the right life?

  ‘You need a new washer.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I can bring you one tomorrow.’

  ‘All right. Thanks.’

  He pieced the tap back together and threw the screwdriver into the box.

  ‘I was thinking I might go to the graveyard,’ I said. ‘If you wanted to come?’

  ‘To see the wise men?’

  I smiled. ‘They’ll probably be there, yes, drinking tea and pontificating.’

  ‘I have been granted an audience,’ he said, brushing the hair from his forehead. ‘I’m honoured.’

  ‘Yeah, well, be warned. They will tell you the same awful graveyard jokes they tell everyone and Patsy will give you a history of the entire place.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘Not just our section but the whole cemetery right back to 1823 when Daniel O’Connell began his campaign to find the impoverished Catholics of Ireland somewhere to bury their dead.’ The amateur historian’s voice
was ringing in my head.

  Andy grinned. ‘I’ll be sure to take notes.’

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  ‘Until 1832 the impoverished Catholics of Ireland had no place to bury their dead. Nine long years it took O’Connell to build this place and now it’s the largest cemetery in Ireland. Have you heard of Charles Stewart Parnell? No? Well, he’s one of our most interesting residents. Some remember Parnell for his politics, others for his extramarital affair, but around here he’ll always be the man who was so paranoid about grave robbers digging up his body and selling it to science that he asked to be buried under a pile of peasants teeming with cholera . . .’

  I threw Andy a told-you-so look and he jiggled his eyebrows until I laughed. He was enjoying himself. He nodded as Patsy continued his history lesson and he followed the older man off in the direction of the storage shed.

  ‘. . . I think we have a copy of the plans somewhere . . .’

  We’d been there half an hour and Patsy had already laid out the ‘political context’ for Glasnevin Cemetery’s foundation.

  ‘So that’s Henry’s brother,’ said Billy, when the pair of them were out of earshot.

  ‘Yep.’ I drained the end of my tea and reached down for the flask to top it up.

  ‘I’d love shoulders like that,’ said Martin wistfully. ‘Does he look like Henry?’

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘I don’t remember you ever mentioning a brother,’ mused Billy, still staring in the direction of the storage shed though Patsy and Andy had both disappeared inside it now. ‘In fact, I could have sworn you said the two of you were only children. How come he hasn’t been up to visit? Or has he? I’ve never noticed him, anyway. Have you, Martin?’

  Martin shook his head. ‘I’d remember those shoulders.’

  ‘They weren’t close,’ I said.

  ‘I see. And what’s with his accent?’

  ‘Did he watch too many Australian soaps?’ offered Martin. ‘I know a fella whose son never watched anything but Friends and now “like” is his every third word and he says “math” instead of “maths”.’

  ‘How’s the love life going?’ I asked, steering the conversation away from Andy.

  Martin shook his head forlornly.

  ‘Don’t mention the war,’ said Billy.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘She gave him his marching orders due to an unethical dinner.’

  ‘Oh, Martin! We went through this.’ Martin had phoned me from Tesco the previous week. He was cooking for the vegan eco-warrior for the first time. Billy had given him a couple of recipes but he had still managed to tie himself into knots. ‘I told you: beefeater tomatoes, fine. Beef salted almonds, no.’

  ‘I got all that,’ he said crossly. ‘And the dinner was fine – don’t get me wrong now, it was absolutely disgusting, but it was vegan, so grand. She liked it. Only then she went to the fridge to get milk for the tea. I’d bought sorta milk and everything—’

  ‘Do you mean soya milk?’

  ‘I do. Soya milk and everything, but when she came back from the fridge she pulled a calculator from her rainbow-y woollen bag yoke and started going loopers.’

  ‘Why?’

  Martin squeezed his eyes and rubbed the sockets like he was experiencing a migraine. ‘I don’t know. It didn’t make any sense to me. She kept clacking on the yoke and said our dinner had travelled around the world three times to get to our plate. I tried to explain I’d gotten it all in the Tesco Local except for the special milk, which I’d gone to Clarehall for, and even then that was only a five-minute spin up the road. But she kept going on about thousands of miles and all these countries I’d never heard of. I haven’t been further than Blackpool!’

  I put my arm around him.

  ‘It was very stressful, Grace. I don’t mind telling you.’

  Patsy and Andy came back up the slope. Patsy was carrying a wrench and saying something about drainage. I experienced an emotion akin to pride as I watched them. I was glad they were getting on.

  ‘He’s going to take a look at the tap,’ said Patsy importantly. ‘I’d do it myself only I have to look after my back.’

  Martin grinned at Billy, but Billy wasn’t looking in his direction.

  ‘So you’re Henry’s brother,’ he said.

  ‘That’s right,’ agreed Andy.

  ‘He already told you that, Billy. And I told you. How many times do you have to hear it?’

  ‘It just seems strange. What’s with the accent?’

  ‘Well, I grew up in Australia,’ said Andy, glancing in my direction.

  ‘Patsy!’ I said, nudging the ringleader and clapping my hands. ‘Why don’t you tell Andy about the people in the houses over there?’

  The four men turned towards the only visible housing estate.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Patsy, pointing in the same direction. ‘See the people living in the houses just yonder? Well, they can’t be buried here.’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Andy, following our gaze.

  ‘Cemetery rules.’

  ‘Was there a falling-out?’

  ‘No,’ said Patsy, as Billy winked at Martin. ‘Because they’re not dead yet!’ And the three of them dutifully fell around the place in hysterics.

  ‘I’m going to fill the watering can,’ I said, safe in the knowledge that the subject had been changed.

  I carried the container to the tap and jimmied it a little like Patsy had taught me. My foot kept the can upright. I watched the four men from a distance and felt happy. The seal had been broken on the wise men’s joke repertoire and a few of the punchlines travelled on the breeze. ‘The plot thickens!’ I heard Martin shriek, using Billy’s chair to regain his composure as the seated man tried to shove him off. If we could keep the conversation off Andy’s exact origins, I’d happily spend all night up here.

  My phone beeped from my pocket but I ignored it. The inquest was in two days and it was all anyone wanted to talk about. Aoife kept texting to say she was free to go or to provide comfort afterwards – originally she said wine, but then she sent me a baby emoji and changed her offer to tea. Mam kept checking exactly what time it was at and if she should wear anything in particular. Dad told me some socialite’s father’s inquest had been held in the same building. He also wanted to know what they should wear, so he’d have time to get it dry-cleaned.

  I hadn’t heard from Henry’s parents since I got that formal letter from Isabel. I bit the bullet and sent them a text – well, I sent it to Conor, I wasn’t brave enough for Isabel – saying I’d call to the house beforehand. He hadn’t told me not to so I assumed that was still the plan.

  There were four sets of flowers on Henry’s grave and I recognised none of them. I needed to visit more often. Two were from Isabel’s garden – she always used the same silver pots – and another was from the Astro Turf Lads, the group Henry played football with on Thursday nights. I smiled as I closed the card. The last bunch was the least impressive: store-bought tulips, probably from the garage beside the cemetery. I opened the attached card. Unlike the other, which had a note saying they missed him and hoped he was doing fewer slide tackles where he was now, this one just said: From Andy.

  I watched them across the cemetery where the dynamic had changed. The wise men were the ones doing the listening now. I put down the watering can quickly and shouted across. ‘Andy!’ He stopped talking and looked over. ‘Are you going to fix that tap?’

  He said something else to the men who nodded in agreement, then he headed towards me.

  ‘Hey,’ I said, meeting him back at the tap.

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘I see you’ve been up to visit Henry’s grave.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, bending down beside the water source. ‘One day you were at work. Is that okay with you?’

  ‘Of course, yeah. I just . . . I was thinking if you ran into Henry’s parents . . .’

  ‘Well, I’d much rather meet them properly, but you don’t seem to want to set it up.�
��

  ‘I do, I will,’ I promised. ‘Soon.’

  ‘I want to meet them, Grace,’ he said, firmly enough that it couldn’t be ignored.

  I nodded and he went back to inspecting the spout.

  ‘You seem to be enjoying yourself,’ I gushed, pushing the awkward moment along. ‘And they definitely like you.’

  ‘Well, they love you,’ he said, smiling reluctantly. ‘Amazing Grace, they keep calling you.’

  ‘And what did you say?’

  He shrugged. ‘I mean, she’s all right . . .’

  ‘Ha ha.’

  We went back to the group and Andy told the men to try putting some oil on the tap before doing anything more drastic. Patsy said he had suspected as much all along but it was good to have a second opinion.

  ‘Well,’ he said, clearing his throat at the other two, ‘I’d better be off home.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Billy.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Martin, copping that ‘home’ was fairly transparent code for ‘a swift pint at the Gravediggers’. ‘Me too,’ he almost shouted. ‘I’d better be off home too.’

  They shook hands with Andy and told him to come back anytime. ‘We’re always here Wednesdays and Saturdays,’ said Billy. ‘But most other days too.’

  ‘You’d be surprised how much there is to be done around here,’ clarified Patsy.

  Andy and I watched them go, Martin poking Patsy and Patsy pushing him away. It was cooler now but there were still a few hours of daylight left. We turned back to each other.

  ‘So . . .’

  ‘So . . .’ agreed Andy. ‘Do you want to see where Frances Clinch is buried?’

  ‘Yes. I went searching for her once but it’s like a needle in a haystack when you don’t know where to look.’

  ‘This way.’

  I followed him out of our section and into the neighbouring mass of graves. This was where I had been looking the time the wise men gave out to me for being in enemy territory. These ones were a little older but still within the last century. I could make out all the names and a lot of them continued to have visitors, judging by the flowers.

  ‘Did the wise men tell you why the cemetery has such high walls?’ I asked.