Into the Night Sky

by Caroline Finnerty

  “Of course I do.”

  “You should go off home now, my dear – I’m sure Dan is getting worried about you.”

  Ella stands up. “Will you call up to see the girls soon?”

  “I’d like that.”

  She walks Ella to the door.

  Ella stands down off the step and turns back around. “Mrs Frawley?”

  “Yes, dear?”

  “Are you really proud of me – even with the shoplifting and everything?”

  “Of course I am, Ella. Yes, you and I have had a few run-ins over the years and I still am quite upset by what has happened but I am so proud of you today. Very proud.”

  “Thanks, Mrs Frawley, and thank you for everything that you’ve done for me over the years. I probably didn’t tell you enough how much I appreciated it but I really do.”

  “You’re very welcome.”

  “Okay, well, I’d better get going. Goodbye.”

  “Goodbye, Ella.”

  Chapter 36

  Rachel is sitting at the kitchen table at 9 St Dominic’s Terrace.

  “So did you get a chance to talk to him yet?”

  “I can’t do it.”

  “So you didn’t tell him then?”

  “That’s what I’m after saying, amn’t I?”

  “Well, he needs to be told, Tina. I thought we both agreed that it was for the best?”

  “I can’t have that conversation with him. I just can’t do it.”

  “That’s okay, I understand it’s hard, but we do need to tell him, Tina. Would it be any easier if I was to talk to him for you instead?”

  She nods. “If that’s the way it has to be, then yeah.”

  “Okay, well, if I stop by on Tuesday can you try to have him here for me?”

  “I’ll try my best.”

  “How did you get on with Libby the other day?”

  “We had a good chat. Look, Tina, I really can’t be talking to you about it. I have to try and remain impartial.”

  The other woman remains quiet.

  “What’s wrong, Tina?”

  “It’s not meant to be like this. Why should I have to make plans for someone else to raise my boy because I won’t be here to do it?”

  “It’s shit.” Rachel’s hands fly towards her mouth as she realises what she has said out loud.

  Tina looks up at her, open-mouthed.

  “I’m sorry, I know I probably shouldn’t say that but there is no other way of saying it. What you’re going through right now – what you have to think about for Jack’s future – it’s shit. It’s not fair. No parent should have to do that . . . I . . . eh . . . I just wanted to say that.”

  “That’s life, isn’t it?” Tina mumbles.

  “Look, I should probably head on but I’ll see you Tuesday. Look after yourself.”

  “Bye . . . oh, and Rachel?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thanks.”

  Rachel is driving out of St Dominic’s Terrace and she feels exhausted. The conversation with Tina is weighing heavily on her mind. She sees so much wrong in this world from doing this job but then every once in a while she’ll come across someone like Tina White who restores her faith in human nature again. The odds were stacked against Jack from the moment he was conceived but, because Tina was determined to sort herself out, she enrolled in a treatment programme and transformed her life for the sake of her unborn baby. Unfortunately Rachel doesn’t always see people turn their lives around like this and that’s what makes the situation with Tina and Jack so unbearably sad.

  She stops when a football bounces across the grey concrete ripples of the road and a boy about Jack’s age runs across the road after it. She waits for him to fish it out from underneath a car before driving on again. She comes up to traffic lights and while she is stopped she reaches back with her left hand to rub the knots out of her shoulder. Dusk is falling; the long darkness of winter finally seems to be lifting. Finally. As she looks around the street she sees John-Paul standing outside the pub. There are iron bars covering the windows and letters are missing from the sign over the door. He is standing chatting to a few other men. He draws hard on a cigarette so his whole face is pinched up into hundreds of tiny lines and then he exhales mini smoke circles. He doesn’t see her and she watches him for a few moments until the lights turn green.

  She goes home and, instead of making dinner, she pours herself a glass of red. She fills up the glass more than she should, until it is just slightly below the lip. She picks up the phone and rings Shirley but gets her singsong message: ‘Hi, this is Shirley. If I don’t answer, it’s probably because I’m knee-deep in some baby poo.’ Then she gives a little laugh. ‘Please leave a message and I’ll call you back.’

  She hangs up without leaving a message. It’s lashing down outside, the rain is running down her windows. She stares in a trance at the drips running to join other drips to form small rivers, joining bigger ones to stream down the window. She rings her mother next. She feels an acute longing to be with her parents, the like of which she hasn’t felt since she first moved to Dublin and had spent months feeling homesick. She would give anything to be sitting in their kitchen right now, beside the Aga with its neatly folded piles of clothes on top that her mother would have left there to ‘air’. She wants to be back at home, she wants to be five years old again where none of the trappings and responsibilities of adulthood can get her. The negative equity, the broken heart, the work pressures – they are non-existent when you are five. To be five years old again and your only worry is whether you have enough money to buy apple drops and a bar of chocolate.

  She tells her she’s coming home at the weekend. She’s made up her mind to go up home and tell them about the break-up. The thought of looking at their disappointed and concerned faces after she tells them is awful though. They will probably say something like ‘We just want you to be happy, love’ and that will be all it would take for her to fall to pieces. That is the problem – their kindness will be the very worst bit.

  “Is Marcus coming too, love?” her mother asks.

  “No, not this time, Mam.”

  She knows her mother, as a devout Catholic, was never too keen on Marcus. She was from a different era where a separated man, let alone a divorced one, was a tainted man. Every time Rachel went home her mother would try to initiate a conversation with her about where the relationship was going but Rachel, not wanting to confront what she knew her mother was thinking, would swiftly change the subject. She hadn’t wanted to tell her about Marcus’s decision not to have any more children – she felt it would further cement the negative image her mother had of him, so she had never discussed their problems with her.

  They talk about Rachel’s job, her washing line which was blown over in the high winds the night before, Rachel’s younger sister Imogen who is due to give birth to her first child imminently. The fact that her dad’s car had passed its MOT.

  Rachel doesn’t tell her about Marcus. She looks out at the lights coming from the other apartment blocks beside her and wonders if there is anyone else as lonely as she is behind their yellow brickwork walls.

  Chapter 37

  Ella comes in the door of Haymarket Books with a screaming Maisie in her arms. She has a woolly hat pulled down over her unruly hair and she’s wearing thick black army boots and her parka jacket. Conor tries not to look too shocked by her appearance but she has completely let herself go over the last few weeks. She was always so groomed. He knows it was because she had hair and make-up people at the station every day but this is another level. There is no chance of her being recognised like this, that’s for sure.

  She is jigging Maisie up and down on her hip, trying to soothe her, and he can tell that she is stressed.

  “She’s been crying the whole car journey over here.”

  “Hey, calm down, give her here to me.” He takes her and unzips her from her snowsuit. “What is it, little Maisie, huh?” Her small face is red and wet. She is catching her brea
th between tears. “Come on now, you’re okay.”

  “I’ve fed her, I’ve changed her, I’ve cuddled her but she still screams!”

  “Well, maybe she’s in pain somewhere.”

  He puts Maisie between his knees and tilts her chest against the inside of his thigh and rubs her back in firm, circular motions. She starts to calm down, soothed by the repetitious movement of his palm.

  “There, there, little one, it’s all right.”

  “Where did you learn that?”

  “I saw Leni doing it before with her niece.”

  “She would have been such a good mother.” She sighs and flops down on a chair beside him. “She was so good with kids.”

  “She was.”

  Suddenly Maisie gives a huge burp, releasing some trapped wind.

  “There we go – feeling better?” He looks at the little face whose lids are drooping closed in tiredness.

  “You’ll have Supernanny asking you for tips next. I’m just so rubbish at the whole thing – I’m only realising now how much Mrs Frawley did for me all those years. She practically raised my children and I never thanked her properly for it. I mean, I gave her a generous pay check every week and lovely presents for her birthday or Christmas – in fact, I showered her with gifts, but I never truly appreciated how much she did for us – I never said a proper thank-you, you know?”

  “There’s no way she’ll come back to work for you?”

  She shakes her head. “I went to visit her recently. She said she had been meaning to retire for a while anyway but that me losing my job had made her mind up for her. She said it would be good for me to spend some time with the kids without her being there too but I’ll never find anyone like Mrs Frawley again – she was like a grandmother to the kids. Celeste and Dot miss her terribly. I think that’s why Celeste is so angry with me – because it’s all my fault that Mrs Frawley doesn’t mind them any more.”

  “Are things any better with Dan?”

  She shakes her head. “I’ve tried talking to him but he just doesn’t get it. He just keeps saying that it’s all my own fault – which I know it is. When the summons came he just shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘Well, you knew it was going to come at some stage’. Whenever I tell him that I’m finding things hard, he just says that I got myself into this mess in the first place. But I’ve never felt like this before – I go to bed and I can’t sleep – I spend the whole night just staring up at the ceiling or fretting that Maisie will stop breathing and then during the day all I want to do is climb back into my bed to sleep until the day is over. I spend every day feeling afraid of what’s coming. I feel sick in the pit of my stomach every time she cries. I just can’t seem to do anything right. Sometimes it feels as though this whole thing is happening to somebody else and I’m just going through the motions of day-to-day life.”

  “You need to speak to someone.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Maybe have a word with your doctor.”

  “Maybe,” she sighs. “But I can’t face it. I just feel so tired and weary. Like everything, even coming here to see you was such a huge effort.”

  “I’m worried about you – you haven’t been yourself at all lately. I mean, first the shoplifting and I know losing your job has been hard on you, but I’m really starting to worry about you, Ella.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not about to jump off Howth Head . . . yet.”

  “That’s not even funny, Ella.”

  “Sorry.” She is contrite. “So how are you doing . . . with everything?” She’s clearly trying to change the subject.

  “In some ways it feels like the longest few months of my life but in another way it still feels as raw as yesterday. He or she would have been a month old now.”

  “Conor, I –” She starts feeding the loose chain of her watch around her wrist, feeling awkward at the mention of the baby. She feels guilty because she has her baby and he doesn’t have his. She has Maisie and she still isn’t able to be a proper mother to her. Conor would have made a good father. He would have been a natural, glad to get stuck in and help Leni out.

  “Look, Conor, I’m sorry – I’m sure it must be hard to watch me with her and think that he or she would be doing all the things now that Maisie is doing.”

  “I don’t want you to feel bad, Ella – you’re the only person I can talk to about it. I need to be able to talk about it, you know. I’ve been robbed of everything. The two-year-old banging his or her head off the wall, the five-year-old nervously entering their classroom for the first time. I’ve missed all of that.”

  “I know you have. It’s not one bit fair.”

  Chapter 38

  Dublin 2011

  He comes up to the gate and watches as one by one her students file out the door for the last time. She bends down to hug each child in turn as they go past her. Their parents are giving her cards, gifts and flowers. She chats easily with them. She has grown close to them over the last year of teaching their children. He waits until she has waved them all goodbye before coming over.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I will miss them a lot.”

  “You always say that.”

  “But it’s true – I always do. I get to know them and love them over a year and then they grow up and leave me.”

  She is pouting, her bottom lip turned out. He has always loved her lips – the feel of the downward cleft of her bottom lip against his, the full sensation of them against his own.

  He follows her back into the classroom and sits down on a chair many sizes too small for him. She starts to laugh. “You look like the Big Friendly Giant in that – here, have mine, I’ll take that one.”

  It is a colourful room full of orderly wooden toys that stack together and slot into one another neatly. Six neat tables and matching small chairs. Children’s artwork hangs around the walls. She opened this Montessori school two years after she left her job in finance to retrain as a Montessori teacher. She has always loved children. He has seen her when they are eating a feast of lunch in the garden of her parents’ house. Leni would prefer to sit at the children’s picnic table with her many nieces and nephews instead of sitting with the adults. She is one of those people who seem equally at ease with children as they are with grown-ups.

  “Well, how about I treat you to lunch? The stock has started to arrive. Can you believe, I’ll be in my own bookshop – my very own bookshop, smelling all papery and inky? What if mine doesn’t have that smell or what if it smells all wrong? What if it still smells of the wooden sawdust or the plastic wrapping from the books?”

  “You worry too much, Conor – you need to take a deep breath. You are trusting your dreams so it is natural to be nervous. It will all be okay. Maybe you should light a lantern too!”

  They are going, as they always do, on the last day of the Montessori term to light a paper lantern to wish the children happy and bright futures and send it out over the sea. It’s a tradition Leni has had since her first class graduated.

  “Ah, c’mon, Leni, you know I always feel stupid doing those things.”

  “It’s good for you. It forces you to recognise what is worrying you and set it free.” She comes over and messes his hair. “Come on, Mr Sceptical – even if you don’t believe in it, it can’t do you any harm.”

  “I suppose not,” he grumbles.

  Chapter 39

  The phone is ringing but it’s in her dream. It is loud and obnoxious and calls her away from the deep recesses of sleep. Eventually she realises that it is her phone on the table beside her bed. She scrambles a hand across the top of it and hits answer.

  She hears his voice. First comes its soothing tone, and then a few moments later, the familiar heavy sadness sets in. “Rach, it’s me.”

  “Marcus?” She sits up straight in the bed.

  “I’m sitting here in a hotel room in Singapore, I’ve just got into my hotel room after seventeen hours of travelling, the kitchen is closed and I’ve missed the cut-
off time for room service. I’m tired, hungry and emotional and I’m just fed up. I’m fed up with it all. I’m missing you, Rachel, so badly. I want to be with you always, I want so badly for us to be together.”

  “But, Marcus, you know why we can’t be! If you tell me you’ve changed your mind then I’m yours, I’m there – you know that!” Her tone is both weary and frustrated.

  “I know, Rach,” his voice breaks. “I know, I wish I could – sometimes I let my heart go and say ‘Just do it – you want her, you love her – do what it takes to have her in your arms every day’ but then my head jumps in and tells me why I can’t. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t even be calling you.”

  “Marcus, we’ve been through this, it’s killing me. I want this no more than you do but it’s not my decision. I wish more than anything we could be together as well but not having children is a deal-breaker for me, you know that.” There is unmistakable anger in her voice but she can’t help it. This isn’t her choice. She feels tears of sadness fall down her face. Hearing his voice like that, vulnerable and needy, has upset her but he knows why she had to break up with him. He hadn’t left her with any other choice.