by Claire Allan
Professionally taken, in the early nineties, it looks dated. A heavy wooden frame. Soft blurring around our faces. My mother’s hair, teased and backcombed. Her lip gloss a shiny pale pink – I can still remember the sweet smell of that gloss and how it would leave sticky marks on my cheeks when she kissed me. I’m there, all of three years old, hair much curlier than it is now, tied in two pigtails with pale blue ribbon, and a pretty, flouncy, completely over-the-top party dress. We are looking not at the camera but at each other, and we are both grinning.
I wish I could say I remember the day it was taken, but I don’t. Still, every time I see that picture in my grandparents’ flat, part of me feels like that day says everything that needs to be said about my relationship with my mother.
I’m looking at it now, sitting on a small brown two-seater sofa, while my grandparents, perched either side of me in their armchairs, look between me and each other, waiting for me to speak. My granny has wrapped me in a blanket after roughly towel-drying my hair. She gave me her housecoat to wear while she hung my coat, dress and tights around the various radiators in the flat, adding to the stuffy, humid feel of the place.
I’m wearing a pair of my grandad’s thick woollen socks and I think my teeth have finally stopped chattering.
They know Joe’s funeral was this morning, but neither of them are in good enough health that they could attend. My grandfather is now entirely immobile. His days are spent being hoisted by carers from his adapted bed to his hospital-issue bed and back again. He is a prisoner in his own house and, increasingly, a prisoner in his own mind. There are days when he doesn’t so much as utter a word, Granny tells me. Other days he gets agitated wondering when ‘his Natalie’ will come to visit.
Today, he is staring at me through cloudy eyes, his jaw slack. He is trying to place me. To remember who I am and what I am to him, and I’m reminded once more of just how cruel life can be.
Granny does her best to be positive, but she is broken. She has been broken since the day my mother died. I do as much as I can to help them, but over the last few weeks that has been very little. Still, they never make me feel guilty. I think they carry their own guilt at not being able to take care of me after Mammy died. We, all of us, are weighed down by guilt.
When I arrived at their door I was barely coherent. My grandmother didn’t ask questions. She just pulled me in through the door and set about making me feel better, looking after me as if I was still that scrappy little girl who had clung to her legs on the day my mother was buried. I don’t know how I’m going to tell her about Mammy’s grave. I don’t know how she will react. I decide just to blurt it out.
‘Granny,’ I start. ‘I’m really sorry, but I have some bad news. They put him in Mammy’s grave with her.’
I start to cry and I can’t even bring myself to look at my grandmother’s face. I hear a sharp intake of breath and a whispered ‘Jesus, Mary and St Joseph’ and that tells me what I need to know.
I lift my head. ‘I don’t know how it happened. I know you were both to be buried with her. I don’t know if Ciara did it to spite us all, but she says she didn’t and I’m just so sorry …’ I crumple.
‘Hush, pet.’
My grandmother’s voice is soft. I feel the gentle pat of her hand on my knee.
‘I don’t want you getting upset over it. I suppose he’d every right to be buried with her.’
She is trying to soothe me, but I can’t help but notice the defeated tone in her voice. Her hands are shaking just ever so slightly, enough to give it away that she is struggling. As if her life isn’t hard enough already.
I know that I will never, ever tell her just why he had no right to ever be near to my mother again. Why he should never, even in death, be allowed near another person again. It would kill her.
If she knew – God, if she knew what had happened it would destroy her altogether. She deserves to believe she did the best she could for me all those years ago when I was left in his care.
For the first time ever, I’m grateful for my grandfather’s dementia. None of this can touch him now. But my poor granny.
She wraps her arms around me. Everything about her embrace screams comfort and security. The familiar smell of her talcum powder, the softness of her jumper. The feel of her skin, warm and soft. I let her rock me and I revel in the kisses she places on my head, and how she tells me that everything will be okay over and over again.
‘You poor pet,’ she soothes. ‘You’ve not had it easy, but you have to focus on the good things now. On Alex and that wee baby of yours. Don’t be fretting on behalf of your grandad or me. We’ve been through enough battles to know we’ll win the war as long as we have each other.’
Her words should soothe me completely, of course, but all I can think is just how awful all this is. I’m not going to let them get away with this. Ciara is not going to get away with this. I’ve had enough.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Heidi
Now
Guilt, or a sense of duty, or a sense of not wanting to make things worse with Alex, brings me back to Marie’s house. I’ve been AWOL for two hours, enough time for the small number of mourners who came back to the house to have had their fill of tea and sandwiches and gone home.
I’ve seen our car outside, so I know Alex is there. He will be angry with me. I know that. Angry and worried. I’ve seen the missed calls on my phone, but I couldn’t bring myself to call him back. What I need to say to him can’t be said over the phone.
I’m sure I hear Alex’s voice from the living room, so I pop my head around the door. Two sets of eyes, neither of them belonging to my husband, stare back at me.
‘Are you feeling better?’ a woman with a mass of messy red curls and too much make-up on her face asks me.
I don’t know who she is. I nod and thank her for her concern.
I hear Alex again, realise his voice is coming from the kitchen, so I walk that way.
‘I don’t know why she would say that,’ I hear Ciara say.
Her voice is thick with emotion. I press myself close to the wall to listen, even though there is no way they would be able to see me from where I am anyway.
‘I know this is really distressing,’ I hear Kathleen speak. ‘But try not to let it, or her, annoy you. The poor girl hasn’t had it easy. Losing her mum so early. And whether we like it or not, Joe was the only father she ever knew, so here she is without the pair of them and with a new baby to deal with, too. She might be finding it very hard to cope.’
I hear Ciara sniff. ‘But she’s not the only one who’s had it tough. It’s almost as if she’s trying to make out I have some sort of vendetta against her. That I’m trying to make her life hard. And I swear to you all, I’m not.
‘She wants everyone to think I did it, I know that. She wants everyone to think I was capable of killing my own father. I think she’s losing the run of herself and is determined to drive us all mad in the process.’
I bristle. I’ve done no such thing. I’ve not tried to heap blame on her at all. If anything, she has been setting me up for a fall. I’m disgusted, angry at the tone in her voice. If I didn’t know categorically that she was lying then I might even be convinced myself. If there was an Oscar for best performance at a family funeral, I was sure she would be a contender. I roll my eyes, anger making me immune to her sniffs and sobs.
But then I hear it. An unmistakably male voice. Alex.
‘I know,’ he says. ‘I’m really starting to worry about her,’ he continues. ‘Only for her granny calling me to say she was okay, I’d have had the police searching for her. I think I need to get her some professional help. Especially given her history.’
My stomach tightens. I haven’t told Alex of my mental health history, which means someone else has. Someone who never really understood it in the first place.
‘That might be a good idea.’ Marie’s voice this time, firm and decisive. ‘And I wouldn’t wait too long. I really don’t think she’s
herself and you know, you’d want her to be right in the head if she’s at home with Lily.’
‘She wouldn’t hurt Lily,’ Alex says, but his voice doesn’t sound as confident as I would like.
‘Not normally, no, and I’ve no doubt she’s a great mammy and she loves that baby with all her heart. But she’s been very erratic lately. Not herself. If it were me, and Lily was my baby, I’m not sure I’d want to take the chance. I know I couldn’t live with myself if something awful happened.’
There’s a pause. I start to wonder if she’s done, but then I hear her speak again.
‘You know about the fire, don’t you?’
Chapter Fifty
Heidi
Then
It was Christmas and I was back at Aberfoyle Crescent. I didn’t want to be there, having escaped for the last three months to university in Dublin.
I hadn’t come home at any time in those three months, not even for a weekend. My newly made friends, especially those also from Derry who went home at least once a month and certainly for the Halloween festival, couldn’t really understand my insistence on staying in Dublin.
Our student digs could become quiet at the weekends and on a student income heading out partying wasn’t always within my budget. Not that I was a party girl anyway. Still, I preferred it to travelling up north and spending time with Joe.
If I could’ve stayed there over Christmas I would have, but I knew I had to go home, if for no other reason than I wanted to see my grandparents. That was the hard part of staying away.
A bit of distance had maybe mellowed me. That and I was eighteen and could see a life free from reliance on Joe open up in front of me. My phantom text-message stalker had given up after about eighteen months of messages. They tapered off at the end. Just like everything. The abuse had become a thing of the past. The nasty messages.
Yes, I still carried my scars – physical and emotional – from what I’d been through. I still had times when it all felt too much, when I’d wake screaming, a nightmare having put me back in my room, scared and defenceless and still a child. There were times when I still had to score at my skin. But slowly, I believed, I was healing. I believed that I could heal. I even started to think that maybe one day I would be able to find a partner. To take a chance on finding love. To consider being physical with someone. To believe that I deserved to be loved and cherished properly.
It was hardly surprising that my nerves were in flitters by the time I got back to the house. I refused, even at that point, to call it home.
Joe was in a jovial mood. He had made a half-hearted attempt to put up some Christmas decorations and there were a handful of presents underneath the tree.
‘I want us to have a nice Christmas,’ he said. ‘Do you think we could manage that?’
There was something in the way he spoke that led me to believe that he thought I was the problem. I was the troublemaker. He took no responsibility for his own actions. The hell he had put me through.
But I didn’t want to let him drag me down, not then. Not yet.
‘I’ve invited Ciara over for dinner on Christmas Eve,’ he said. ‘You’re both adults now. Maybe we could start moving on. I’ve asked Marie too, and your grandparents.’
I could think of nothing that would be more awkward, but I consoled myself that at least Granny and Grandad would be there.
‘I’ll do all the cooking,’ he said. ‘You just have to show up. Do you think you could do that?’ he said. ‘I’ve missed you, Heidi. I just want things to be better between us.’
He looked so earnest. His eyes were sad. I could almost convince myself that he was feeling sorry for what he’d done. But maybe he was just feeling lonely. People may have talked to him on the streets. He may have been able to hold court at the library, but when he closed the door to this house, the house that should never have been his, he was all alone.
Still, I agreed because I was tired of the constant warring, too. I even spent some of my money on presents. Silly little things. A brooch for Marie. An ornament which, in hindsight, was ugly as sin for my grandparents. A hand-made notebook wrapped in delicate tissue paper for Ciara. I wrapped them, along with a bottle of red wine for Joe, and added them to the pile under the tree.
Christmas Eve arrived and Joe was true to his word. He busied himself in the kitchen, shooing me away every time I popped my head around the door. Instead, I did what I could to make his sorry excuse for a Christmas tree look a little less haggard, and when that was done I set six place settings in the small dining room. I showered and dressed and even put on a little make-up. I was nervous, but also excited. It would be lovely to have my grandparents here.
Marie was first to arrive, in a fug of Chanel No. 5, impeccably made up and carrying a bottle of Moët & Chandon. Eighteen-year-old me was impressed. Real champagne! It felt decadent and grown up.
‘You look lovely, Heidi,’ she said, hugging me so tightly that I got a lungful of her perfume mixed with her hairspray. ‘It’s lovely to see you. Is Joe in the kitchen?’
I took her coat and soon heard peals of laughter as they chatted. I liked Marie. I always had. Unlike Ciara, she hadn’t taken her hurt about Joe leaving out on me. She’d always been kind when we met, looking at me with sympathetic eyes. Sometimes I wondered how someone who appeared as kind as she did raised a daughter as cruel as Ciara. Then I’d remember, of course, who Ciara’s father was.
My grandparents arrived next, dressed in their Sunday best. I helped Grandad through the door and to the living room. He was looking well. Feeling great, he said. He’d left his wheelchair at home and was managing with his walker. My heart was aglow with love for them. Granny even agreed to take a small glass of sherry while Grandad remained a traditionalist with a bottle of beer I poured into a glass for him. Marie and Joe joined us and we were making polite conversation when the doorbell rang again.
Ciara had arrived. Very much in the party spirit. I could smell wine on her breath and her eyes were glazed. Still she grinned.
‘So, where is it?’ she asked, looking directly at Joe.
He shrugged. ‘Where’s what, sweetheart?’
She rolled her eyes in a dramatic fashion. ‘The fatted calf? Surely it should be on the spit by now? Celebrating the prodigal daughter’s return from Dublin.’
‘Ciara.’ Marie’s voice was low and stern. She was firing off a warning shot.
Ciara pressed her index finger to her lips and shushed. ‘I know, I know,’ she said. ‘We have to be good. Keep quiet. Don’t say what we all want to say.’
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.
‘Right,’ Ciara said, ‘where can a girl get a drink around here?’
‘Ciara, you’re twenty-three years old and acting like a brat,’ Joe hissed, which was exactly the wrong way to try to endear Ciara to him.
‘Oh, Daddy, you’ve noticed me! I didn’t realise you remembered I existed,’ she said, mouth turned down melodramatically. ‘Kudos to you for remembering my age! I am impressed.’
‘Ciara, please,’ Marie said, her voice more urgent this time.
My grandparents were both staring into their drinks, trying to avoid the scene in front of them.
‘Oh, Mum, why are you always on his side? Do you think he’ll leave you if you aren’t nice to him? Oops! That’s right – he already did, didn’t he? For some slut he’d only known a couple of months.’
I heard my grandmother gasp. My face blazed.
‘And not only that, when she popped her clogs what, two years later, he stayed to raise her mad brat, too.’
‘Ciara! That is enough!’ Joe’s voice was stern, angry.
My grandmother was crying. Grandad was shaking his head.
‘Why? Why is it enough? Why is it always about her? Be kind to poor Heidi! She lost her mother. Be kind to Heidi, she’s going through a tough time. Be kind to Heidi, she’s not right in the head. She might hurt herself. Poor fucking Heidi.’
‘ENOUGH!’ Joe was shouting now
.
Marie was crying. I was mortified.
‘No!’ Ciara shouted back. ‘It’s not enough. It’s not even nearly enough.’
‘Ciara,’ I said, trying to keep my voice steady. ‘Please. Why don’t we all just try to calm down and have a nice evening. Your dad has gone to so much effort.’
‘Well, that’s nice of him. To go to some effort, for once. And of course it would be for you. For your big homecoming.’
‘We’re all here,’ I said. ‘We’re all invited.’
She sniffed. ‘Oh, Heidi, you know nothing. You’ve never known anything. You’re so wrapped up in yourself. No one gives a damn about what the rest of us have been through. Why haven’t you just pissed off by now? You should’ve pissed off by now. God only knows, I told you often enough. All those messages I sent. You never took the hint, though, did you? How stupid are you?’
I stare at her, my eyes wide. I knew Ciara hated me. Of course I did. But to have sent all those messages. To have told me, repeatedly, to kill myself? She’d almost, almost pushed me to it. She’d messed me up just as much as her bastard father had done.
‘I think we’re done here for tonight,’ Joe said.
‘I’ll take this one home,’ Marie said, grabbing a reluctant Ciara. ‘How could you be so cruel?’ she hissed at her daughter.
‘Being cruel was bred into me,’ Ciara hissed back.
After everyone had gone home, when what was meant to be dinner was wrapped in tinfoil or decanted into the bin and Joe went to bed, I sat in the living room and stared at the tree I had decorated earlier. And I looked at the presents underneath.
Any sense of hope, or belief that the worst was over, left me. If Ciara wanted me to kill myself, I would. Or I’d at least make a big enough scene that everyone would know just how bad everything was.