by Claire Allan
I glance at the clock. It’s twelve thirty. We’ve said we’ll be back at the house by two. There will be furniture to be shifted. Someone will have to go to the community centre and see if we can get a loan of some chairs for visitors coming to the wake and a tea urn to keep the fresh cups coming. There will be sandwiches to make …
I feel overwhelmed and sit down on the edge of the bed and focus on Lily, who seems to be enraptured with the discovery that she has feet.
The bed dips as Alex sits beside me and takes my hand. ‘We’ll get through it,’ he says and I lean my head on his shoulder.
‘Do you think people will think we’re awful for not having the wake here?’ I ask, looking around me.
‘In a boxy two-bedroom new build with a tiny baby to mind? No, I don’t think people will.’
I take a deep breath. ‘I know I shouldn’t care what people think, but I do.’
‘Do you think any less of Ciara for not offering to hold the wake in her house?’ Alex asks.
I shake my head. Of course I don’t. But that’s different. Ciara is different. No one would expect it of her, even though she was his biological daughter. Me, though? I’ve been told for the past two decades that I’m so lucky that Joe stayed to look after me. That I must owe him a debt of gratitude.
Those people don’t know the truth, though.
I glance down at Lily again on the floor. Her eyes meet mine and she breaks into one of her heart-melting smiles. I feel a wave of emotion rise up in me and I start to cry, immediately annoyed at myself for not holding it together. I can’t fall apart – not at this stage. I just have to get through the next few days, then this whole ordeal will be over.
‘I’ll put some soup on,’ Alex says. ‘You need to eat something, keep your strength up. I’ll take this little madam with me too, so she doesn’t distract you further.’
He reaches for our daughter and lifts her tenderly into his arms. Her smile is instant, her head curling in against his chest. His love for her is so pure it makes my breath catch in my chest. I reach over and stroke the soft, fair, fluffy hair on her head. I know I’d do anything to protect her. To keep her safe.
The phone rings downstairs. It has been ringing all morning and each time I have jumped. I’m tired and it’s too loud. Too shrill. The voices on the other end of the line too false. More wanting to know the gossip than genuinely sympathising. The news hasn’t taken long to spread. It never does. Not in Derry. I want to pull the landline out. Most people I know don’t have them any more anyway.
I hear the low tone of Alex’s voice as he answers. His words muffled and indistinct through the closed door. I hear his feet on the stairs, watch the door for him to open it and impart whatever news he has. So and so sends their sympathy. If there is anything they can do, et cetera, et cetera.
But his face looks different when I see him. It’s as if he has faded in the few minutes we’ve been apart. He is pale. Looks shaken. I don’t like this. It reminds me of his face last night, when I saw him on the stairs.
He takes my hand. I fight the urge to pull it away. I know, just know, something is wrong.
‘That was the undertakers,’ he says. ‘There will be a delay with bringing Joe’s remains back.’
‘Why?’
‘He didn’t say exactly. Just that something had come up.’
An uneasy feeling washes over me. ‘And you didn’t ask what exactly?’
‘He said they just needed to check some things. That’s all.’
I bite my tongue. It won’t endear me to Alex if I say what is going through my mind, which is that there can’t be much to check given that it’s pretty clear he’s dead.
‘Did he say how long?’ I say instead.
‘No.’ Alex shakes his head. ‘He said he’d be in touch.’
‘Well, what are we supposed to do?’ I snap. I feel fidgety. If I have to endure his wake, I’d rather get on with the enduring. I’d rather get to the ‘moving on’ part.
‘Do your best to relax, maybe. Enjoy the calm before the madness of the wake starts.’
I immediately dismiss that idea. There’s no way I can relax. Not when I don’t know what is going on. There is no calm and there never has been when it came to Joe.
‘Maybe I’ll go over to the house anyway. Get a head start on things. No doubt Ciara will be there already,’ I say.
The thought of her poking around the house I grew up in makes me uncomfortable, even though it’s a long time since it felt anything like a home to me.
‘It’s not a competition,’ he says gently.
The rational, adult part of my brain knows that. Another part of me thinks that it is very much a competition and always will be between Ciara and me.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Heidi
Then
I remember holding my pencil. It was red. One of the thicker ones they used to give you in primary school to help with your handwriting. I’d done my homework. Written my sentences using my best handwriting and finished my sums.
I had closed my copybook and slipped it back into my satchel. I was sitting at the kitchen table and he was humming. I can’t remember the tune exactly. I’m not sure I ever knew what it was. But I remember that the noise irritated me.
He was doing a little dance as he set about making dinner. As if he didn’t have a care in the world. As if nothing had ever hurt him. I couldn’t understand how he could be happy. I wondered if I’d ever feel happy again. Mammy was dead more than a year, but it still hurt as much as it did the day she died.
I lifted the jotter my granny had bought me, just for scribbling in, and started to draw. Dark streaks of deep grey lead on the paper. Pushing down so hard that I thought I might tear through several sheets at once.
It helped to release some of the anger that was inside me.
I gripped the pencil tighter – my knuckles white with the effort – and flipped the page over and started to write:
I hate Joe McKee
I hate Joe McKee
I hate Joe McKee
I jumped when his hand landed, thick and heavy, on the table beside where I was scrawling. I felt him loom over me until I could feel his breath – warm and smelling of tea – on my cheek. He was right beside. So close that even while he wasn’t touching me, I could feel him as if he were.
‘You hate me?’ he asked.
I didn’t flinch. I was scared, but a defiance had crept over me that day and I refused to show it.
I didn’t answer. I just kept writing those four words over and over again.
His hand moved, covered mine, pressed down so hard that not only could I no longer write, but also so that I could feel the pencil pressing painfully into my fingers.
‘You hate me?’ he said again, his tone more menacing.
I would not break. He would not break me.
I mustered as much bravery as I could and said ‘Yes’ in a voice that didn’t shake as much as I feared it might.
‘All I have ever done,’ he hissed, ‘is take care of you. And love you when no one else wanted you. You’re just an ungrateful little brat.’
He stayed close. His breathing heavy. I could feel the skin of his palm turn clammy, could feel the sweat on my hand – a hand that was pinned on the table.
I was only a child. Only ten when that happened, but I wasn’t stupid. I promised one day I’d make him feel as trapped, as helpless, as I did.
Eventually he loosened his grip, took the notebook and tore it into pieces before dragging me through to the living room, where I could watch it burn in the fireplace.
He couldn’t burn my feelings, though. He would never be able to do that.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Heidi
Now
It’s only been a few hours since we were last at this house but it already feels as if everything has changed. The energy is different. I can feel that he is gone. I stop for just a moment – taking a deep breath, revelling in how fresh the air feels in a
house that has been oppressive for so long.
Alex must mistake my shivering for a wave of grief. He wraps his arms around me, holds me and kisses the top of my head. I stand still and let him believe what he needs to.
I hear the slam of a car door and turn to see Ciara walking up the short drive towards the house, hand in hand with Stella. Tiredness is written all over her face, I suppose, but then none of us slept well last night.
‘Has the undertaker been in touch with you?’ I ask as she walks through the door and slips off her coat.
She nods, fidgets a little, pulling the sleeve of her cardigan down over her hand. ‘I don’t know what it’s all about. I thought it was just a matter of them … you know … preparing his body.’
‘I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about,’ Stella says, rubbing her girlfriend’s arm. ‘Don’t let it upset you, anyway. At least we have a bit more time to get things organised here.’
‘True enough,’ Ciara says, her eyes darting around the house as if she is seeing it for the first time, even though we’d all been here for most of the night.
Stella speaks next. ‘Where should we start?’ she asks, taking off her coat and hanging it at the bottom of the stairs. ‘I’m not familiar with all your traditions over here, so just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.’
Stella is very practical by nature. No nonsense. I’m glad to have her around. Ciara gives her a small smile. It lasts just a moment or two before she turns to look at me with a more serious face. Her expression reminds me of how she looked when we first met – full of teenage angst and intransigence.
‘Well, Heidi, what do you suggest?’
I don’t know what to do any more than Stella does, if truth be told. I avoid death rituals. I saw enough of them as a child that I blanked them out. I stare, unspeaking, at her.
‘Well, where do you want to have him laid out?’ Alex asks, stepping close to me and taking my hand. ‘Do you think the front living room would be best? If so, I’ll start clearing the furniture.’
I could kiss him for taking charge. Stella is not the only person who can help in a crisis.
‘That’s fine with me,’ Ciara says.
‘Grand. I’ll get started on that, then,’ Alex replies.
‘You can’t do that on your own,’ I say. ‘I’ll help.’
‘How about I help Alex?’ Stella asks. ‘I’m sure you and Ciara have enough to be doing elsewhere.’
Ciara and I look at each other, neither of us sure what else we should be doing at all but sure that whatever it is, we don’t want to be doing it together.
‘That would be great.’ Alex speaks for me again.
It isn’t lost on me that both Alex and Stella are talking slowly, as if giving instructions to truculent toddlers. There is an air of broken eggshells all around us and we’re all being careful not to tread them further into the ground.
‘Mum has the refreshments under control,’ Ciara says. ‘She knows a caterer and wants to help.’
Ciara’s mum, Marie, has always been kind to me. Unlike her daughter, she doesn’t seem to hold me partially responsible for her husband leaving her. I’m glad of her offer of help.
‘And she has been talking to Kathleen about the funeral,’ Ciara continues. ‘Kathleen has very definite ideas about what she wants. I imagine it doesn’t matter to you that much,’ she says. ‘Besides, it will free you up to call the estate agent and get the house on the market. Do you want to do that now, or is it time enough to wait until he’s actually buried? It might get a little awkward showing people around and seeing a coffin in the living room.’
I’m not sure which is my most overriding emotion: shame, embarrassment or anger.
‘Sweetheart,’ I hear Stella say gently.
Alex is quiet. Ciara stands and stares at me, waiting for an answer. She’s not letting me get away with it. She wants to break me down just like her father did.
But I won’t let her. I’m not a child any more. I won’t apologise or cower.
‘After the funeral is fine,’ I say, my voice steady.
Ciara glares at me, waiting for more maybe. But she won’t get it. Not about the house, anyway. I slip into organisation mode, trying to remember all the things we did twenty years ago when it was my mother’s turn to be laid out in the front room. Of course I was so young then, my memories are hazy at best.
‘I think maybe we should be closing curtains. Find somewhere to place the candles from the undertaker. Do people still cover all the mirrors?’
Seeing that she’s not getting a rise out of me, Ciara shrugs. ‘I’m not sure. I’ll check.’
She takes her phone from her pocket and starts to search for ‘wake traditions’.
‘It seems a lot of it is up to us,’ she says. ‘But maybe we should go and look in his room,’ she adds. ‘Strip the bed, open the window at least and air it out. See what medications need to be dropped off at the chemist. Then we can close the curtains again. Or the blinds at least. I think we maybe should cover the mirror in the room he’ll be in,’ she says.
I don’t really want to go into that room again, but I’m determined not to show any weakness in front of Ciara.
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘That seems a good place to start.’
‘Will you two be okay?’ Stella asks.
She’s keeping her voice light, but I know both she and Alex must be scared we will tear lumps out of each other given the chance. It wouldn’t be the first time, of course. It had become physical on occasion when we were younger. Ciara had been stubborn and I had been angry, and grew angrier every day until I couldn’t hold it in any longer.
‘We will,’ Ciara says. ‘We can do this together,’ she says gently to me. Her sudden change in demeanour – the shift from bitchy to supportive – is so fast that I feel wrong-footed.
Ciara crosses the hall and takes my hand in hers. I have to resist the urge to pull away. I have to stay in control and not be manipulated by her rapid mood swing.
I let her lead the way up the stairs, not pulling my hand away. I can play her game.
His room is dark. No one has opened the curtains; the light has been switched off. It smells of stale air with a faint undercurrent of something medical; disinfectant perhaps. I find myself standing for a minute or so just inside the doorway. Ciara has let go of my hand and she walks in and briskly pulls the curtains apart, the stream of light showing the dust motes in full flight.
This was where it all ended. It feels more real now than when the paramedic told me he was very sorry for my troubles. Or when the priest prayed over Joe’s body, or when the doctor made it all official.
That had been much less of a momentous declaration than it should have been. A life over, acknowledged with a shake of a head and a scrawled signature on some paper.
My lungs struggle to suck in the stale air of the room and I feel a weight of something akin to grief hit me directly in the centre of my chest for the first time. It’s a physical sensation that I have not expected. It makes me feel as unsettled as Ciara’s mood swings.
I half walk, half stumble to the bed, where I sit down and close my eyes, trying to find my breath.
I feel the mattress dip beside me. Ciara is sitting down.
‘It’s so strange, isn’t it?’ she says. ‘After all these years …’
Her words hang in the air. I don’t know what to say to her. How to respond.
Slowly, as my breathing returns to normal, I open my eyes. The room looks different in the light. Dated. I can’t remember the last time he had the painters in here. If ever. There’s a fine layer of dust on the chest of drawers. The mirror on the front of the wardrobe is smeared and smudged. Should I have cleaned for him? Or cleaned more? Should Ciara have?
An indentation in the shape of his head still exists on the pillow his head was resting on. The sheets are pulled back. His bedside table is less dusty, but it is cluttered. A glass of water, half empty, a straw poking from the top of it. A couple of boxes of tablets, wh
ich I lift and set on the chest of drawers. I’ll put them in a plastic bag shortly. Some loose change and a box of tissues. Some crumpled and discarded. His reading glasses, unfolded, the arms pointing upwards. A packet of Werther’s Original, three discarded wrappers from the sweets he had eaten. I pick up the detritus, drop it in the bin. I open the drawer on his bedside locker and slip the sweets and the change in. I’m not sure why I do this. He won’t be coming back for them later. A leather-bound diary, burgundy, and a pen are among the scarce contents of his drawer.
I feel wrong doing it, but not wrong enough to stop. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I open the diary, my heart contracting as I see the familiar loops and swirls of his handwriting. It’s this year’s diary. There aren’t that many entries completed, but I see that he has dutifully filled in his contact information.
‘What’s that?’ Ciara asks from across the room.
‘His diary,’ I say.
‘Well, I don’t think you should be looking at it,’ she says.
The harsh tone is back in her voice. I’m more familiar with this version of Ciara than with the Ciara who held my hand walking up the stairs.
In three or four steps she crosses the room and snatches it from my hands.
‘He deserves his privacy, you know,’ she says. ‘Even if he’s gone.’
I mutter an apology, feel shame burn at my face.
Ciara walks back to the other side of the room, opens the wardrobe with the smudged mirrors and places the diary high on a shelf. She closes the door with a rattle and turns the bronze key in the lock, which she then puts in the pocket of her dress. The message is loud and clear. I have overstepped the mark.
‘Ciara? Heidi?’ I hear Stella’s voice from downstairs before I have the time to react.
We walk to the landing and look down the stairs.
There are two police officers standing in the hall, looking directly up at us.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Heidi
Now