Apple of My Eye

by Claire Allan

  Maybe you think I’ve no right to know. You may never reply but I have to ask anyway.

  I’m attaching a scan of an article that appeared in the Derry Journal a few months back. A feature on the hospice here and the staff.

  There’s a young woman, Louise. A nurse – thirty-three-years old. Her name is Eliana.

  Eliana? Such an unusual name. I’d only heard it once before. When you told me it meant ‘God has answered my prayers’. When you told me you’d love to name your daughter Eliana.

  In the article this nurse talks of her childhood, her mother – and maybe I’m just an old man and my imagination is running away with me. But I looked her up on Facebook, maybe because of her name, and because she said her mother was called Angela and she was raised in Paisley.

  I could see her cover photo. A picture of two women sitting side by side on a blanket on the beach. I’d know you anywhere, Louise. Any time, in any life. You’ve barely changed. I found your profile, too – no public pictures, but well, it wasn’t hard to find what email address it was attached to.

  I know you owe me nothing, but I’m pleading with you to come clean now.

  I’m right about the Kearney baby, aren’t I? She’d be thirty-three, too.

  I’ve always regretted that you and I never worked through the horrible tragedy that befell us. I’ve had a good life, Louise, but I’ve carried that pain with me every day. If I could go back and change it, I would. We couldn’t fix us, but even now it’s not too late to fix this for the Kearney family.

  There isn’t a happy ending for us, but there can be for them.

  I panicked. I’m still panicking now. He knows. He could contact the Kearneys, or the police, or Eli herself. I curse myself for not taking action to get Eli out of Derry sooner. Away from that city where my life had gone so terribly wrong all those years ago. Away from the reality that sooner or later, everything gets found out in that city.

  I curse myself for being weak all those years ago. When I’d written to Peter. I just needed to know that Noah was being looked after. The pain of thinking of him lying there all alone nearly ended me. Eli must have been maybe three or four at the time when I gave in to the temptation to contact him. Remembering how he’d loved me, even in those last few weeks.

  I told him I’d started again. I was happy. I asked him to please, please let me know that Noah’s grave was being looked after. I had to tell him I’d changed my name. I had no choice. We were still in the bedsit and if he’d written to me using my old name I’d never have received it.

  I only contacted him the once. I’d been scared after, but we’d moved and I’d not heard from him again. I’d assumed we were safe.

  But I was wrong.

  About Peter.

  About Martin.

  About Kate.

  About everything.

  Well, none of them – not even Eli herself – would get the chance to take my daughter and my grandchild away from me.

  Over my dead body.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

  Eli

  This is what I’ve been reduced to. Eliana Hughes, pretending to be asleep while my mother lies on the bed beside me, determined not to leave my side.

  She’s placed a basin on the floor and a glass of water by my bed. She’s pulled the duvet up around me and tucked me in and she’s kissed my forehead. She’s told me she loves me, and my heart had cracked as I told her I loved her back and realised I was only saying it because I was scared of her.

  Just a few weeks ago it had been true. Unquestionable. Unconditional.

  Now, I don’t even know her.

  There’s no chance I’m actually going to go to sleep. I need to stay alert. My head is full with so many thoughts. I want so desperately to run to Martin. If I can even get to Kate’s house, I can call him and he can come to me.

  My mother needs help, that much is sure. Maybe we can help her, maybe. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to forgive her, though.

  I listen for hours as my mother reads her Kindle by lamplight, the occasional sigh from her providing my soundscape for the evening while I try to keep my breathing even, keep my body still, close my eyes. Fake a deep sleep. It isn’t easy, especially given that adrenaline is coursing through my veins at a rate of knots and the fact that my skin is crawling.

  She gets up at one stage to use the bathroom and I contemplate making a run for it there and then. Barefoot if necessary. I could just run out of the door and down the street. I’d maybe be able to flag a taxi down from the end of the road. If a taxi would take a pyjama-wearing, shoeless pregnant woman wandering the streets at the end of November.

  Surely they would, though? They wouldn’t leave me standing there.

  I’ve just about convinced myself it’s worth a try, when I hear the bathroom door open again and the sound of my mother’s footsteps on the landing. I fix my eyes closed, try to resume my rhythmic breathing and hope she won’t take long to fall asleep. If there’s one thing I know about my mother, it’s that she sleeps the sleep of the dead and once she’s properly out for the count, there’s little that can wake her. Especially if I’m quiet. Very quiet.

  She switches the lamp off. I wait for the snoring to start. And then a further ten minutes to be sure.

  I edge my way so slowly out of bed, slipping my feet into my trainers and lifting my cardigan from the chair by the door. It’s chilly outside my room. The heating is turned off and there’s no fire to warm me. I’m shaking but I don’t think that’s just down to the cold.

  I tiptoe down the stairs, as delicately as I can at seven and a half months pregnant, and make my way to the front door. I can hear the rain battering at the windows, at the glass panes in the front door. Everything in me screams to get out of here as fast as I can.

  I know I have to be careful when opening the door. It’s old and stiff and sometimes creaks loudly. I gently turn the Yale lock and pull, but it won’t budge. Swearing internally, I remember that my mother fitted a mortice lock a few months before. But when I look down, I see that, of course, the key isn’t there. The door is bolted.

  I look around, at the key hooks on the wall over the phone table, on the table, in the plant pot, even reaching in the pockets of the jackets on the coat rack, but the keys are nowhere to be found. My heart rate is rising, along with a sense of panic. I take a couple of deep breaths. I have to stay focused.

  Gently opening the living room door, I peek in and look to the sideboard. Damn it! It’s too dark to see. I’ll have to put a light on. I opt for a small table lamp before pulling out the drawers one by one, one ear trained on the noises around me in case I hear my mother wake and step out of bed.

  No keys. No sign of my belongings.

  I’m starting to feel increasingly desperate. The windows are small and high – there’s no chance I could climb out of them even if I wasn’t seven months pregnant. The back door opens onto a small yard with no mews access. It’s a dead end. I’m trapped.

  I creep through to the kitchen, open the drawers where my mother stores all the detritus that doesn’t have a home elsewhere. Hope it’ll give me something, maybe even a spare key she’s forgotten about hidden in the back of the drawer behind the Blu-Tack and the charger for a mobile phone long since gone. Nothing.

  Opening the cupboards, I feel around, right to the back. I pull open the first aid box, just in case. Look in the storage jars, the fridge, on the tops of the cupboards. There’s nothing there until my hand brushes against a plastic box – Tupperware. I stand on my tiptoes, my bump hindering my ability to get close to the worktops. I brush the edge of it with my fingers, try to find the corner, to nudge it closer to me, but my hands slip and I manage to push it just a hair’s breadth out of reach. I swear – a whispered prayer to someone or something – and stand down, rubbing my stomach where the indentation of the kitchen worktop has pressed into me. My baby kicks in a well-timed response. She’s encouraging me to keep going, I know it.

  I look around, see the small ste
pping stool my mother uses when she’s cleaning the windows, and I use it to stand up and so that I’m able get a firm hold of the box. It contains a few small cardboard boxes. Some printouts. A few keys – too small to be my house keys.

  I look more closely. The boxes are medicines. Medicines my mother has hidden away from her usual medicine store. I look closer, read the labels. Zolpidem. A drug used as a sedative to induce sleep. The prescription just a few days old. I open the box, count the blister pack to see how many tablets are gone. The knot in my stomach tightens. I’ve been extra sleepy, slept all day. Felt drowsy. Out of it. More than normal pregnancy fatigue, enough to convince me I was coming down with the flu. Have I just been drugged instead?

  I pull out the other box. A bottle of Ipecac syrup, designed to induce vomiting. I tug the printed-out pages from below the boxes and see they’re full of information downloaded from the Internet on the safe use of sedatives and natural emetics in pregnancy.

  I have to force myself to breathe in.

  My mother’s been medicating me. On top of everything else. She’s risked everything, even my baby – the baby she claims to love. Now, I know I have to get out, using whatever means necessary.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  Angela

  Something wakes me with a jump. All my synapses are firing. My senses are on high alert. I’m immediately aware that Eli isn’t in the bed beside me. Maybe she’s just gone to the bathroom. That’s the most likely explanation.

  I tell myself not to worry while at the same time cursing myself for falling asleep. I should’ve tried harder to stay awake. But I’m just so tired – burned out from living on my nerves.

  I listen, trying to pick up the familiar sounds of my house. The rattle of the loo roll holder. The clinking and clanking of the old pipes as the bathroom taps are switched on. The creak of the floorboard just to the left of the bath, beside the towel rack. Nothing.

  I swing my feet out of bed, crane my head so I can see through the door. The bathroom door is ajar, the light off. I should’ve locked the bedroom door while Eli was sleeping. Locked us both in. I have the key with me, in the pocket of my dressing gown. I hear the creak of a door, followed by a loud sigh, and I know it’s coming from downstairs.

  I try to hold on to whatever sliver of calm I can. There are any number of reasons why she could be downstairs. I should’ve given her more sedative before bed, but I was scared after she’d been so sick. It was the first time I’d used the syrup; I hadn’t expected it to work so quickly or so violently. I’d just hoped it would make her a feel a little out of sorts. Nauseous. Make her think that pregnancy sickness thing she had was flaring. Make her a little needy, but not too needy.

  Maybe now she’s just hungry. Or thirsty. Or unable to sleep and watching TV. It doesn’t have to mean anything bad …

  Except that it does. I know it. I feel it and I know whatever happens next will define everything going forwards.

  Sliding my feet into my slippers, I stand, pull my dressing gown on. I think of where I’ve put Eli’s things – her keys and purse in my car, in the glove compartment. If she’s looking for them, and I suspect she might be, she’ll never find them.

  Not that she’ll be able to get out of the front door. The keys for that are safely in my dressing gown pocket too.

  I creep out of the room, stand at the top of stairs and listen. I can hear the door to my study open. She’ll find nothing in there. I’ve deleted any files, any information at all that could link me to any recent events. I’ve filed Peter’s email in a secret online folder.

  I hear another loud sigh, her footsteps in the hall. I stand back, just at the corner so she can’t see me, and listen as I hear her lift the phone from its cradle.

  Damn it. I feel the adrenaline surge through me. Who’s she calling and why had I not thought to pull the phone from its socket? Hide the damn thing. I listen as she taps at the numbers. I have seconds, just seconds to stop her from contacting someone. I have a choice. I can stand here and wait, see who she’s calling and listen to what she has to say.

  I can listen as she brings our worlds crumbling around us. Betrays me. Leaves me.

  Or I can make a move.

  I decide I simply can’t take any more chances. I can no longer pretend she doesn’t know something is very wrong. There’s no way whoever’s on the other end of the line will tell her my desperate actions have been normal. But they are normal, aren’t they? A mother’s love …

  A bomb is about to go off in my world and I have to stop it.

  She’s given me no choice.

  ‘Eli!’ I shout, my voice shaking. ‘Stop.’

  I watch as she jumps, my voice startling her. Her eyes widen as she looks at me. I see fear then. For the first time – real, stark fear. I notice the hand she’s holding the phone with is trembling.

  ‘Put the phone down, Eli,’ I say as firmly as I can.

  I have to draw on every ounce of my strength to keep my voice from shaking. Oh, Eli, I think, why are you making me do this?

  I can see the hesitation on her face. She doesn’t move. Not an inch. The phone is still in her hand.

  ‘Put it down,’ I say, harsher this time.

  She doesn’t move her eyes from mine. My heart thumps against my chest. I will her to drop the phone. To say something. To look less scared. To look less horrified by me. I don’t want to have to shout. I don’t want to have to take this further.

  But I will, if I need to.

  Nothing’s going to take her from me.

  I watch her slow but shaky inhalations of breath. Watch as she starts to shake her head slowly. But she places the phone down and I momentarily sag with relief.

  ‘What have you done, Mum? What have you done?’

  There’s fear there, but anger, too. Sadness. Pain. I’m starting to realise there’s no coming back from this.

  ‘The first thing you need to know, Eli, is that everything I’ve ever done has been for you, and because I love you. Everything.’

  I watch a tear slide down her cheek. This is her moment of weakness. Her softening. I have to take every advantage of it.

  I take one step towards her, start to walk down the stairs.

  The strength of her voice, the volume of it, shocks me.

  ‘Don’t!’ echoes around the hallway, bouncing off the walls. ‘Don’t take one more step!’

  ‘Eliana …’ I’m pleading.

  ‘Don’t Eliana me!’ she says, her face contorting with grief.

  ‘I love you,’ I say, my own voice cracking.

  ‘No!’ she shouts. ‘No, you don’t love me. You can’t love me. You’ve been drugging me! You’ve been drugging my baby!’ She points her finger at me, her hand still shaking.

  ‘No, no, I wouldn’t. That’s absurd, Eliana.’

  ‘Don’t lie! Why is everything a lie? I found the drugs. I found the fucking syrup! Making me sick? As if I haven’t been sick enough! As if it hasn’t been hard enough. And Martin hasn’t been cheating, has he? No one has been throwing rocks through my windows – no one but you! You! The cufflink? I know that was in my house when we were there. You’re the only person who could’ve lifted it. It’s been you all along. Having me on edge and terrified and sick and feeling like my entire life is one big catastrophe. And my marriage … and my work …’

  I watch as each realisation comes to her in waves like contractions, bending her in two with grief. I watch my daughter detach herself from me, step by painful step. It’s more painful than the cutting of any umbilical cord. Any birth. Any labour pain.

  But she doesn’t understand. If I can only make her understand. If she does, she’ll be on my side. She’ll see how I love her. She’ll appreciate that I’m just being a good mother.

  ‘It’s because I love you, you have to let me explain,’ I say, taking another step.

  ‘You can’t explain this away, Mum. This isn’t excusable or forgivable. Are you mad? Are you actually insane? Why anyone would behave like you
have …’ Her voice drifts off as if she’s trying to process it all.

  ‘But … you need to know. It was because I was scared …’

  I’m laying it on the line. Being honest. Hoping she’ll see just how scared I am. How I’m terrified of losing her.

  ‘Scared? Scared! Of what? That I might, just might, be happy? Have a life independent from you. Jesus Christ, Mum. Were you scared I’d have a baby of my own? A happy marriage.’

  ‘That you’d have a new family, away from me. You said you wouldn’t leave me. You said you’d live near me and with me …’

  ‘So that made it okay to launch a nuclear attack on my life?’

  ‘Eliana, please.’ I take one more step. I’m losing her.

  ‘No! I don’t want to know. Just tell me where my keys are and let me go. I don’t want to be anywhere near you. I don’t want to listen to your lies any more.’

  No, I think, taking one more step. That isn’t going to happen. She isn’t going to leave me. Not now.

  ‘I can’t do that, Eli,’ I say and take another step, and then another and another.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

  Eli

  I don’t know her any more. I don’t recognise the tone in her voice, the look on her face. She looks the least like my mother than she ever has. She’s a stranger in front of me and now she’s walking down the stairs, glaring at me.

  ‘I’m not giving you the keys, Eli. I’m not letting you leave.’

  I stand my ground. ‘You can’t keep me here. I’ll break a window if I have to.’

  ‘And what, Eli? You’ll squeeze that pregnant tummy of yours out through a narrow window with broken glass. You’re being ridiculous. Why not just sit down and I’ll make us a cup of tea and we can talk.’

  She’s talking differently now. Her voice isn’t shaking. She’s calm and it’s more terrifying than when she was shouting and screaming.

  She’s delusional if she thinks there’s any chance any of this could be talked about over a cup of tea! As if I’d trust her to prepare anything for me any more. She drugged me, for Christ’s sake! As if I’d even want to be in the same space as her any more.