She stands in her vandalised kitchen, unable to act. She stands, surrounded by broken things and spilt things and thrown-about things. She lets time travel on while she summons the courage to face the possibility that it is gone.
Finally she turns and leaves the kitchen, and makes her way down the corridor. The fear that she might not be alone has abated, has moved aside to accommodate the greater apprehension. Let it be safe, she prays. Let it not have been found. Let it still be there.
She enters her room to find the same disorder. Pillow and bedclothes in a tumble on the floor, mattress half on, half off the base. Lamp knocked sideways, book splayed open, wardrobe door gaping, clothes pulled from hangers, and—
No.
No.
No.
‘No!’ she wails, stumbling to her knees before the wrenched-open drawer that had been locked, the wood around the lock splintered and cracked now, the kitchen knife that must have been used to hack at it tossed onto the rug by her bed.
Trailing from the drawer is her old soft red scarf; she knows without lifting it that it will be empty of the pearl necklace she had enfolded so carefully within it. ‘Mutti, Mutti, Mutti,’ she moans, pressing the scarf to her face, rocking, lowering her head to the floor, prostrating herself in her grief, ‘liebe Mutti, liebe Mutti,’ her last reminder gone, nothing left of her now.
After a time – an hour, half that, more than that – she clambers slowly, stiffly to her feet. She shuffles to the door, feeling every one of her ninety-two years, scarcely able to see for the tears that run along the creases and runnels of her face, that trickle past her throat and soak into the neck of her cardigan. She makes her way back along the corridor, pressing a hand to the wall for support, for guidance, her breath coming out in sobbed gulps. Mutti, Mutti.
She must check the sitting room; she must see what the state of play is there before alerting the police to the burglary. She opens the door and steps inside, not seeing in her distress the album cover on the floor that slides forward as soon as she places her foot on it, pitching her off-balance. Her arms fly out as she crashes to the floor.
Her eyes close. She lies without moving among the broken shards of her beloved records.
Heather
‘WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE COLOUR?’
‘Blue,’ he says, without stopping to think. ‘You?’
‘Green, ever since I came to Ireland. Does that sound like a load of schmalz?’
‘Kind of.’
‘Don’t care. Lottie’s is gold. Madge says she’s got notions of grandeur.’
He laughs. ‘Long time since I heard that one.’ He tips chopped lettuce into the salad bowl and reaches for a cucumber. ‘Madge used to be my babysitter – she must be over a hundred now.’
‘She’s sixty-eight, and as hale and hearty as myself. You’re not as ancient as you’d like to think.’
He’s thirty-seven, which is only twelve years older than Heather. He married Yvonne at nineteen when Nora was on the way. Yvonne was twenty-one, his older woman. They’d been together for four years.
Heather was a kid of seven when he married Yvonne. Heather was in grade two when he walked down the aisle with his new pregnant wife. Nine years later, he and Heather came face to face for the first time when she lied about her age so she could look after his father.
He finishes the salad and begins separating a garlic bulb. ‘How’s that sauce coming along?’
‘Good. Do those bay leaves stay in?’
‘Yes, until it’s done. Has the wine cooked off?’
‘No idea.’ Who knew white wine was an ingredient in spaghetti bolognese?
He looks into the saucepan, gives it a stir. ‘OK, now you can add the tin of tomatoes. Stir them well in, bring it up to a simmer, then lower the heat and cover the pan.’
‘Yes, sir.’
They’re making dinner in his kitchen. They’re cooking for five: him and her, his two older kids, and his daughter Nora’s boyfriend, Daniel. Lottie is home with Madge: too soon for her to be part of this – and anyway her buddy Jack is with his mother, in the rented apartment she’s been living in since the marriage split.
Heather is on her second glass of red, because she’s in this house for the first time. She’s in the kitchen where Yvonne put meals together for years, and she’s making dinner with Yvonne’s husband. And even though nothing will be said aloud – hopefully – Yvonne’s children are bound to wonder what precisely Heather is doing here. Comparisons, she feels, will be inevitable.
The sauce bubbles. She turns down the flame, finds a lid for the pan. Yvonne’s pan, Yvonne’s lid. ‘What’s next?’
‘Check if there’s cream in the fridge. We can do without, but if we have it, we’ll chuck it in later.’
She loves the we. It’s so long since she’s been part of a we. She opens his fridge, which is considerably better stocked than hers. Wedges of cheese, eggs, cooked meats, sausages, butter, yogurt, jars of pesto and olives, a tub of hummus, another of potato salad, bottles of fish sauce and sweet chilli sauce, milk and juice. She shifts things around and locates an opened carton of cream, and sets it by the stove.
‘Can you cut a few slices of that bread? Eoin likes to mop up his sauce.’
‘Thick or thin?’
‘Medium.’
‘Like this?’
‘Perfect.’
She’s told him about Josephine. He’s told her about being bullied at school because of the milk-bottle glasses he ditched as soon as he could afford contacts.
She hasn’t mentioned Lottie’s father.
He’s said nothing of the abuse Yvonne meted out.
They have time.
They have time.
I used to enjoy meeting you, he said. You were always so cheery.
I wanted to talk to you, he said, every time I saw you at the school. I felt bad about everything, but you made it kind of plain you didn’t want me to come near you, so I left you alone.
You were the enemy, she said. You and Yvonne.
After we met in the restaurant that evening, he said, I couldn’t get you out of my head. Everything you threw at me was justified, but I honestly never wanted any of it to happen.
I know.
I hated myself for going along with Yvonne, but I had the kids to think of. I had to try to keep the peace for their sake.
I know.
I was dreading Lottie’s party, he said. Given how badly our meeting in the restaurant had gone, I mean. I knew I’d have to bring Jack – he’d never have forgiven me if I didn’t, and there was no way Yvonne was taking him – and then Nora told me she was going, and I was so relieved.
And then, he said, we met on the street.
We did.
I knew we’d get on, he said, if we were given a chance.
Would you like to come to my place on Thursday? he’d asked, after the walk in the park. Nothing fancy, Jack will be with his mum so it would just be dinner with the older two. Nora might ask her boyfriend.
So here they are. Here she is, about to give love another try, like Emily. Here she is, getting a little tipsy on wine, because when it comes to love she’s very much out of practice, and because on paper he’s still married, and his kids might resent her muscling in, and it’s all a bit terrifying.
She hears the opening of the front door. ‘That’ll be Eoin,’ Shane says, mincing garlic into a small bowl. ‘He might be quiet. He had a bit of an upset this morning.’
‘What kind of an upset?’
The kitchen door opens. A teenager walks in, shrugging off a backpack.
‘Eoin, this is Heather,’ Shane says. ‘She used to look after your granddad – you mightn’t remember her. She’s mum to Lottie, Jack’s friend.’
‘Hi Eoin,’ she says. ‘I’ve seen you at the school gate a couple of times.’
‘Yeah,’ he says, just that. He’s distracted, she tells herself. It’s not that he doesn’t want her there.
He turns to his father. ‘How is she?’
�
�I checked just before I went off duty. She was gone to surgery.’
‘But she’ll be OK?’
‘Hopefully. It’s early days.’
Heather looks from one to the other.
‘A woman on his paper round,’ Shane explains. ‘She was broken into. Eoin found her this morning.’
‘Oh no – that’s awful.’
‘He called me – I was on the early shift. My crew took her to the hospital. She’s ninety-two, poor creature.’
A tiny bell pings in Heather’s head. ‘Where was this?’
‘Cedar Grove.’
Cedar Grove. Astrid.
‘Mrs Carmody?’ she asks Eoin. He nods. He looks at his father. ‘You know her?’ Shane asks.
‘She’s a friend.’ Her stomach clenches. Astrid, burgled. Astrid, injured. ‘You said she’s had surgery.’
‘Yes, a broken hip—’
Heather pulls down sleeves, grabs her bag from the worktop. ‘I have to go to her.’
‘I’ll take you,’ Shane says, setting down the garlic crusher. ‘Eoin, will you keep an eye here? Just turn that sauce off in about half an hour. Cook some spaghetti if you want to eat before we’re back.’
‘Let me know how she is.’
‘Will do.’
‘She was very confused when we got to the house,’ he tells Heather on the way to the hospital. ‘Normal after a shock. She was lapsing into another language – German, I think.’
‘She’s Austrian. Was she able to say what happened?’
‘Nothing that we could make sense of. It’s a good job the front door was open or Eoin would just have put the paper through the letterbox and gone away again. He called her, and when he got no answer he went in.’
‘What time was this?’
‘Eight, around that.’
Eight o’clock in the morning. ‘Where was she?’
‘Front room.’
She closes her eyes, opens them again. ‘Who would attack an old woman?’
He glances at her. ‘That may not have happened, Heather. She might not have been at home. She could have fallen afterwards. Everything was up in a heap – she could easily have tripped.’
Everything in a heap. Astrid’s little house, neat as a new pin anytime Heather had seen it.
‘We won’t know for sure what happened until she comes round.’
Until. Unless. She tries not to picture it, but all she sees is someone, some man, raising a hand to Astrid. Astrid, who would blow away in a stiff breeze. ‘Will she be alright?’
He darts a glance at her. ‘Let’s wait and see, OK?’
His training kicking in, she thinks. ‘Don’t give false hope’ must be one of the first rules. You can see it in his driving too, keeping to the speed limit even though she wants to yell at him to hurry up, to put his foot down hard on that damn gas pedal.
‘What about her house? Is it secured?’
‘It is. The guards are investigating.’
Another invasion, on top of whoever trashed it. Guards taking photos, dusting for fingerprints, or whatever it is they do. ‘I have a key,’ she says. ‘She gave me one in case she ever locked herself out. I can fix up the house, when the cops are done.’
‘That would be good.’
‘Ninety-two,’ she says, her hands clenching and unclenching, her gut churning with worry. ‘Ninety-two.’
He takes a hand off the steering wheel to squeeze hers briefly. ‘They’ll do everything they can, Heather.’
She clutches at the words, even as she recognises them for the cliché they are. She pictures Astrid opening her door with a smile, always happy to see Heather with her window-cleaning kit. Always looking on whatever bright side she could find.
They approach the hospital. ‘She has a nephew,’ she says, remembering. ‘I’ve never met him, but he needs to know.’
He nods. ‘She’s on file at the hospital – he’s probably listed as her next of kin so he’ll have been contacted.’
Next of kin. She’s never liked that expression: it has death sewn into it. They enter the hospital gates, and Shane pulls up at the main door. ‘She’s in Intensive Care,’ he says. ‘I’m not sure if they’ll let you in, but tell them you’re with me. I’ll park and follow you in.’
‘Intensive Care,’ she says to the man at Reception, and he points her in the direction. She wonders, as she hurries along corridors, if he could smell the alcohol on her breath. Not that it’s any of his damn business – but thank the Lord she was just halfway through that second glass.
‘Astrid Carmody,’ she tells the nurse who comes in answer to her summons at the double doors that lead to Intensive Care. ‘I was hoping to see her.’
‘Are you family?’ The nurse definitely smells the alcohol, by the sour look on her face.
Can she say niece? Better not – might come back to bite her. ‘I’m a good friend, I’m here with Shane Gillespie. He’s parking the car …’ and here he comes, slightly out of breath. Must know a shortcut.
‘Críona, I’m glad to see you. Heather is a close friend of Mrs Carmody’s – is there any way you could let us in, just for a minute?’ Tucking a hand into the crook of Heather’s elbow as he speaks. Making a statement, it feels like. ‘We’d really appreciate it.’ That we again.
There’s a short pause, during which Heather shifts slightly, forcing his hand to release its hold – and allowing her to grab it with hers, and hang on to it.
‘A minute, that’s it. She needs her rest.’
‘Bless you,’ Shane says, and they follow her across the tiled floor, past machines and cubicles and an empty bed stripped of its linen, around a partition wall and into a little curtained-off area, where Heather has to work very hard not to burst into tears at the sight that awaits her there.
Astrid lies unmoving under a sheet, a bruise in shades of red and purple staining the entire left side of her face. Her head, and both arms from elbow to wrist, are bandaged. There is a tube in her nose, another going into the back of her left hand. She wears a blue hospital gown. Her eyes are closed.
She looks tiny, the size of Lottie.
Heather approaches the bed, touches the hand that doesn’t have a tube in it. She runs a thumb to and fro along the wrist bone, strokes the swollen knuckles, feels the rise of the veins that look like they could break through the papery skin at any time. Cold, so cold, despite the heat that’s causing beads of sweat to pop on Heather’s forehead.
She cradles the hand, she strokes it, tries to send warmth into it. ‘Astrid,’ she whispers, ‘Astrid’ – and the eyelids flutter, and the eyes open, and immediately Heather’s own eyes fill with the threatened tears. She blinks hard: not yet. ‘Sweetheart, don’t try to talk. I heard what happened, and I’m just here to see that you’re OK.’
No reaction from Astrid, nothing to indicate that she’s heard. Nothing but the open pale blue eyes, pupils flickering about Heather’s face, so she keeps on talking in a low voice because Astrid’s silence must be filled with something. ‘I’m here with my friend Shane. He’s a paramedic. His son Eoin delivers your paper – he’s the one who found you. He called his dad, who came in the ambulance and picked you up. You’re in good hands here, nothing for you to do but concentrate on getting well. And don’t worry about your house – I’ll keep an eye on it. I have a key – remember?’
Something, some agitation, chases across Astrid’s face then. Her mouth opens, and a sound issues from it, so tiny that Heather misses it. She leans closer. ‘What was that, honey?’
‘Key.’ Just the word, nothing else. And again, ‘Key.’
‘Yes,’ Heather says. ‘You gave me a key. Don’t worry, sweetie, everything’s under control.’
‘You need to leave.’ The nurse’s voice behind her. ‘She has to sleep now.’
‘Sure,’ she says, not turning around, giving the hand she still holds a gentle squeeze. ‘I’ll come see you again tomorrow. Get some sleep now.’
She’ll bring hand cream, she’ll massage it in
to the skin, and a comb for the hair that’s lost its way. And she’ll bring a nightdress, a pretty one. She’ll go to Dillon’s, where she never shops because the prices are crazy, and she’ll get the best they have, and it will be soft and fabulous.
‘I had a quick look at her chart,’ Shane tells her on the way back to the car. ‘She suffered a head injury, and she has lacerations on her arms, and the damage you saw on her face. That, and the hip. All consistent with a fall. There may not have been violence.’
They stop for a red light. She watches a man walk past the car with a small perky dog on a lead. She asks again the question she asked on the way to the hospital: ‘Will she be OK?’
She doesn’t miss the pause. ‘They’ll know more after the night,’ he says. ‘If her general health was good before this—’
‘It was. She had a cold, flu, something, a little while ago, but she was better.’
‘Well, that’s a good thing. That’ll help.’
They drive along Main Street. She looks out at shops, and sees only Astrid with her bruised face and bandaged head. ‘Will you take me home?’ she asks. ‘I’m not sure I can handle a family dinner tonight.’
‘Of course I will. Whatever you want.’
She shifts in her seat to face him. She takes in his profile, the regularity of his features, the general tidiness of him. The pale brown hair streaked with blond that frankly could do with a decent cut.
‘You’re a good man,’ she says. ‘You’re a credit to your father.’
He turns and gives her a smile that makes her insides flip over. ‘You’re not so bad yourself,’ he says.
Emily, she thinks, as they cross the canal. She must let Emily know.
Emily
IT’S THE FIRST DAY OF SEPTEMBER, GREY AND DRIZZLY. She rubs butter into flour for shortcrust pastry, thinking about how much she hates the estate agent, who has just left.
It’s compact, isn’t it? he said, measuring walls with his fancy gadget, tapping numbers into his iPad. Few enough businesses it would appeal to – size-wise, I mean. His hair stiff with some product or other, suit trousers straining across stout thighs, top button of his white shirt undone. The toes of his black shoes coming almost to a point, which she always feels looks daft on a man.
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