The girls are still sleeping – she has another hour before she’ll need to call them. She makes herself a coffee, savouring the stillness of the kitchen. She sits up at the breakfast bar and, clasping the mug in her hands, looks out the window at the strange calm of the greeny-grey sea below her. It looks ominous today, like a giant bath calling to her, trying to lure her in.
When she is finished she puts her mug down and takes the circular staircase back down to the bottom of the tower. She creeps out into the hallway and softly opens and closes the old wooden front door so as not to wake everyone. She carefully makes her way down the old stone staircase that leads to the cove. It was the steps that led her to buy their house. She loved how they connected the house to the water. She can almost feel the gravitational pull of the tides, pulling her towards the water, back to where we all come from. Where it all began and could end too. She walks over the loose pebbles and stones underfoot. The wind fights against her, it pushes her back. It whips strips of her hair against her face and takes her breath with it. The blade-like grass on the headland, dotted with the pretty yellow of trailing tormentil flowers, stands strong and tall from centuries of evolution. She climbs up onto her favourite rock, finding the groove she likes best. Vapour trails rip through the pewter sky like wounds. She watches a red-beaked oystercatcher as it picks its steps across the sand, searching out cockles.A gull swoops down and squawks just over her head. And then Ella screams. She screams loud but the wind is always louder than her.
On Monday morning Mrs Frawley lets herself in with her key and climbs the stairs up to the tower where Ella is sitting at the long kitchen table in her dressing gown and slippers. Celeste and Dot run to hug the woman who has been minding them since they were newborn infants.
Ella can see the disappointment in the older woman’s eyes before she even begins to speak.
“I know you’ve probably seen the papers . . .”
“Yes, I have. Girls, why don’t you two run down and put on your uniforms?”
They do as she instructs.
“So it’s true then?” she says after they are gone.
She doesn’t go to sit down and Ella finds herself tensing up in response.
“I’m sorry, Mrs Frawley, I really am . . .”
“Was it a mistake? Was that it? Did you just forget to pay?”
Ella says nothing. She has no words inside her that can explain the force within her that caused her to do what she has done. She shakes her head.
“I haven’t slept a wink all night. I just can’t stop thinking about it all. Ella, what were you thinking? I just don’t understand why you would do such a thing.” There are tears in her eyes. “You weren’t raised that way.”
The woman’s disappointment in her is obvious and it makes Ella want to crawl into the ground and hide with embarrassment.
“I’m sorry, Mrs Frawley. I know I’ve let you and everyone else down. I feel terrible.”
“It’s yourself you have let down, Ella. So what happens next?”
“I’ll get a summons for the district court soon. I’m meeting my solicitor later on.”
Mrs Frawley nods. “That’s wise, Ella. So I take it you’re not going in to the studio today then?”
“Actually,” she pauses, “I’ve been fired. Malcolm called to say they can’t have me back in case I taint the show.” There is a bitter edge to her voice.
“Oh no, Ella! I’m truly sorry to hear that – I know how much your work meant to you.” She stops to clear her throat before continuing. “Look, Ella, I’ve wanted to talk to you about something for a while, but I think now is probably the right time . . .”
“What is it?”
“I’m sorry, Ella, I wish the timing was better but I can’t stay on working for you any more.”
“What?”
“I think it’s time that I retired.”
“Retired? But why?”
“Well, for a start, now that you have no job there isn’t room for the two of us in the house.”
“I won’t get under your feet, you don’t need to worry about that. You can still go about your own routines and your way of doing things – I won’t interfere.”
“But that’s not it, Ella.”
“You can’t, Mrs Frawley – please, whatever it is – if you need more money – whatever you want, please, I’ll do it.”
“Oh Ella,” she laughs. “It’s not anything like that.”
“But what about the girls? You’re like a grandmother to them!”
“They’ll understand and I’ll obviously come and visit them.”
“Please, Mrs Frawley, don’t go – don’t do this to me.”
“I know this is hard on you but I think it could actually be a good thing for you. You need to try and look at this as an opportunity to spend more time with the children. They need you, Ella, especially now. They need their mother. I will stay on until the end of the week but Friday will be my last day.”
She then walks down the stairs and helps the girls finish getting ready for school. As Ella stands there in her kitchen, she feels as though her world is crumbling and she is moving further down into a void of unknowns. All of her constants, the things that she thought she could rely on in her life, like Dan and Mrs Frawley and her job, are just slipping away from her.
“Mrs Frawley is leaving us,” she tells Dan when he comes home from work that night.
He drops his bag and looks at her. “And so the fallout continues,” he says sardonically. “Well, in all fairness, can you really blame her? She must be disgusted by what you did.”
Then he turns and walks out of the room.
Chapter 7
Rachel McLoughlin hears the door shut downstairs and she bolts upwards in the bed. Her heart hammers against her ribcage. There are footsteps on the stairs now, getting ever closer. She grabs her phone in her hand, ready to ring the Gardaí. The footsteps cross the landing and then the door to her bedroom opens and he is standing there.
Marcus is standing in her doorway.
“You scared the shit out of me! What are you doing here? You’re meant to be in Tokyo!” She sits up against the headboard and switches on her lamp.
“Well, Frankfurt actually. I had an overnight stopover there before my connection back to Dublin but I saw there was a flight to London that was boarding so I managed to get on it and I knew from there I could get to Dublin easily enough and be with you faster. I couldn’t face sitting in a hotel room on my own for another night. I needed to be with you.” He climbs up onto the bed beside her and gives her a lingering kiss on the lips.
Her eyes work their way up his face, over his jawline bristly with dark stubble, his broad, easy grin and then finally they settle on his smiling hazel-green eyes. When she’d first met him, she’d thought that they were the same age. He looks a good ten years younger than his forty-three years – maybe because of the way that he dresses. His sideburns, recently peppered with flecks of grey, are the only thing that give his age away.
“So how did the meeting go?”
He had been in Tokyo on a buying trip for his clothing company, Salo.
“It went well. I should know next week but I don’t think I managed to insult anyone by getting the etiquette wrong. Here, I bought you this . . .” He goes and unzips the side of his suitcase and takes out an object wrapped in sheets of newspaper. Coming back to the bed, he hands it to her.
She unwraps it to find a small battered-looking Japanese Geisha doll.
“I picked it up on a street stall – it was either that or a Hello Kitty schoolbag so I made an executive decision.”
Rachel laughs and takes the doll and looks at her heavily painted face and the ruby-red flowers of her kimono. Her eyebrows are slanted downwards so she appears to be frowning at them.
“It’s hideous, isn’t it?” Marcus is saying.
Rachel stands the doll up on the bedside table so that she is leaning against her alarm clock and then she reaches forward to kiss him, feel
ing the familiar outline of his lips against her own. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“God, I’ve really missed you. I know it’s only been three days but I needed to feel your arms around me,” he murmurs into her long dark hair.
His hand starts moving up inside the silk fabric of her nightdress and her skin comes alive under his fingertips. He starts to pull it down at the front, exposing her breasts. He straightens up for a moment and pulls his sweater off over his head before tossing it onto the floor.
“That doll is freaking me out.” He grabs it and hurtles it across the room where it bangs against the wardrobe door.
“Hey, that was my present!” she says in mock anger, before leaning in to meet his lips again and running her fingers over the contours of his chest, feeling the strands of wiry chest hair before moving down further to unbuckle his belt.
He tugs off his jeans and then is on top of her again. He slips inside her and soon they are moving together as one.
When she wakes up the next day and opens her eyes, Marcus is looking at her with a big grin on his face. She sees her underwear and nightdress lying on the floor from where he had thrown them last night.
“Well, this beats waking up in a hotel room in Frankfurt, that’s for sure.” He leans in and kisses her on the forehead. “Good morning, my love.”
Soon they are making love again until they are interrupted by her phone ringing. She groans and wishes she were the kind of person who could just ignore it but instead reaches a hand out to check who it is. The name of Ursula, her team leader, lights up on the screen. Her stomach sinks and she hits answer.
“Rachel, hi. Sorry to ring you so early, I hope I didn’t wake you?”
“No, I was already up.” She sighs, pulling back the duvet to get out of bed.
“Oh good – I have an emergency for you, I’m afraid – three children, we think ages four, two and one – found at home alone by a neighbour. No sign of any parents and it’s not known how long they’ve been on their own. A neighbour heard crying through the wall all night long and when she went in to investigate she found them all in a terrible state. She called the Gardaí who are there now. They’re all quite distressed. The neighbour is with them at the moment but they need a social worker to go over there ASAP.”
Rachel cradles the phone between her shoulder and ear and goes downstairs to the kitchen to grab a pen and paper to scribble down the details as Ursula calls them out to her. She writes down the address and then hangs up. Then she makes another phone call to cancel the two meetings she had scheduled for that morning before going back upstairs.
Marcus is sitting up in bed, playfully pouting. “Aren’t you coming back to bed?” he asks.
“I’m sorry, darling, but I have to run – it’s an emergency.”
“Damn! Well, why don’t I make us breakfast while you get ready for work?” he says, getting out of the bed.
“I’m sorry, I won’t have time.”
“So after me flying around the world to see you, you’re kicking me out, Ms McLoughlin – is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
“’Fraid so!”
“Okay – well, at least I know where I stand.” He comes over and draws her close. “I suppose I’d better run anyway – I’ve loads to catch up on.”
“Will I see you later?”
“I’m going to the cinema with Eli and Alexandra – you’re welcome to join us?”
“Ach, no, you three go ahead without me. I know I’ll probably be too exhausted to sit through a movie.”
“Okay – well, I’ll call you later – love you.”
“I love you too.”
She showers and gets into a fitted woollen dress with court shoes. She runs a brush through her hair before taking the lift down to the underground car park and getting into her car. She puts the address that Ursula gave her into her sat nav and reverses out of her space.
As she drives through the rush-hour traffic her mind wanders. She knows she will arrive at this house to find neglected children, probably hungry and living in squalor. Maybe their mother will arrive back, or maybe she won’t. From seeing too many similar cases she knows that, unless the mother has a really good reason for leaving them alone, the children might end up being put into care temporarily. The odds are already stacked against them and they are still so young.
Sometimes she thinks she is mad to do this job. It has a habit of seeping in underneath her skin and staying with her long after her working day is done. It used to get in on her, it used to really, really upset her. No matter how good she is at her job or how on top of it she tries to be, there will always be more children out there going through the same thing. When she was in school and wanted to be a social worker, she had such ideals and dreams – all the usual aspirations and hopes of a teenager who thinks ‘I will be the one to change things’. She had really thought that she could change the world. But she couldn’t. She had learnt that lesson early on. When she first started doing this job there were days when she would come home from work and cry just from the sheer frustration of seeing nothing change. Or because of the infuriating bureaucracy she had to deal with day in day out. But what was almost worse than all of that were the cynical people populating the top ranks who just didn’t seem to care enough to fight for the children any more. She swore she would never let herself become like them, no matter how frustrated she got.
Eventually the voice on her sat-nav tells her to take the next right. She indicates and turns into the housing estate of the address that she has been given. It looks just like every other middle-class suburban estate. It’s not the kind of place where you would expect to see this sort of thing – then again Rachel has been doing this job long enough to know that it always happens where you least expect it. It’s not just a working-class problem – it’s an every-class problem. She follows the curving road along until she pulls up outside the house. Except for the long grass in the front garden it is the same as all the other houses on the road. There is nothing to indicate what might be happening behind its walls.
She turns off the engine and takes a deep breath. Right so, she thinks, here we go.
Chapter 8
That evening Rachel climbs the concrete steps leading up to her duplex, puts her key in the door and lets herself into her home. She notices that more cracks have appeared on the cardboard-like walls just inside the door. They spread out like veins. She is afraid to slam a door in case a new one appears on the wall afterwards. Although she won’t admit it to anyone, sometimes she finds this place depressing. It was a quickly built Celtic Tiger job, lacking design or decent materials. The bathroom-ware was never sealed properly and Rachel has to angle the shower a certain way or it will leak down to the apartment beneath her. Two of the kitchen presses have come off their hinges already. All her neighbours are the same – young professionals like herself stuck in these boxes. She had slept out overnight in her car to try and get a footing on the property ladder and gratefully took whatever was left by the time she had reached the top of the queue. Then there were all the add-ons – fifteen thousand for a parking space, five grand extra for a south-facing balcony. She shudders at the total cost of what is now worth less than half of her hard-earned money. There are half-finished units in the block opposite hers with shell-like windows and exposed steel girders sitting there in a limbo state for six years now.
Rachel had wanted to buy her own place for ages. She had kept on watching as prices rose and one by one her friends all bit the bullet and became mortgage-holders. When she had eventually managed to save up enough for a deposit and finally did take the plunge, the housing market had collapsed six months later.
She opens the press and pulls down the remainder of a bottle of red that she had opened the night before. She needs it after the day she has had. She spent the day in a grotty kitchen with the upset children who didn’t have English as a first language. There were dirty tear-tracks down their faces and they kept saying things that she just didn’t
understand. Eventually they had managed to get an interpreter in to talk to them which helped to calm them down a bit. Then their mother had arrived back, dazed and not fully with it, but she had got aggressive when Rachel told her who she was and tried to get a scissors from the drawer but clumsily fell over and banged her head against a kitchen cabinet, giving herself a large gash above her left eye. So then an ambulance was called, an emergency care order put in place and the three crying, exhausted and frightened children were handed over into state care. And Rachel knew from seeing so many similar cases, so many children crying out for the basics, that this was going to be the start of a long and arduous path for these three young children. This was going to be the defining moment in their lives. Already not even out of nappies and this was the watershed – everything from now on would come back to this moment. They might get lucky, they might not and this was the bit she found the hardest.
Into the Night Sky Page 4