by C. L. Taylor
The woman jolted in surprise and looked up at her. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘The cottage.’ She looked herself, noting that a new ornament – a figurine of a dancer – had appeared in the living-room window. ‘Do you know the Kennedys?’
‘No, no.’ Helen shook her head, her dyed red hair fluttering on her shoulders. She stood up and reached for her son’s hand. ‘I don’t suppose you know if there’s anywhere round here that we could get some lunch?’
Inwardly Mary smiled. She knew a distraction technique if she saw one. ‘There’s the Little Strand restaurant but it doesn’t open for lunch at this time of year. There’s a pizzeria further up Main Road. If that’s closed too there’s always the takeaway.’ She glanced at Ben who was tugging on his mother’s hand and calling her name. ‘They do good chips if he’s hungry.’
‘Thank you.’ Helen smiled tightly. ‘That’s very helpful.’
‘Sghetti,’ the child said. ‘I want sghetti, Mummy.’
‘OK.’ She glanced up the street and tugged on his hand, eager to be on her way.
‘One … er … one second,’ Mary said.
Helen stopped in her tracks and looked back. ‘Yes?’
‘What was it about the cottage that you found so interesting?’
‘The … er … the cat.’
She started walking again.
‘What cat?’ the boy asked as he ran to keep up with his mother’s quick strides. ‘What cat, Mummy?’
What cat indeed, Mary thought as she turned to walk in the other direction. The Kennedys didn’t have one. They didn’t have any animals. The danders sparked Rory’s asthma.
From outside Helen’s room Mary can hear the low drone of the television, the high-pitched wail of the boy and, somewhere in between, Helen trying to console him. Mary knocks on the door – three sharp taps – and then waits. The television goes off, the boy continues to cry and she can distinctly hear Helen making a shushing sound.
She knocks again. This time she adds, ‘It’s just me.’
A couple of seconds later the door opens a crack and Helen eyes her warily. Her hair is tidied back in a messy ponytail and she’s removed her glasses. There’s a red ridge on the top of her nose and dark circles under her eyes.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Helen says. ‘Is Lee’s crying disturbing you? He’s overtired and I’m struggling to get him to sleep. He’s refusing to change into his pyjamas.’
‘These are for him.’ Mary thrusts the basket of toys forward.
‘Oh.’ Her mouth forms a perfect ‘o’ as her eyes flick over the wooden sorting box, Fisher Price clock, chunky jigsaws and the plastic zoo animals. She looks back up at Mary. ‘That’s so kind of you.’
She opens the door to reach for the basket. As she does so, Mary catches sight of the child, half naked, sitting on the edge of the double bed. He’s stopped crying and is swinging his legs back and forth as he watches the exchange at the door.
‘Mind that he doesn’t break anything,’ Mary says as Helen lifts the basket out of her hands.
‘Yes, yes, of course. Thank you again. Really. That’s so kind. Lee will be ever so …’
Helen is still expressing her gratitude as Mary turns to go. She takes the stairs one at a time, gripping the banister as she quickly returns to the ground floor. She hurries across the hallway, steps into her living room, shuts the door behind her and then grips the back of the armchair. She bends over it and sucks in air, gulping it into her lungs. She’d only caught a glimpse of the child, sitting on the edge of the bed in pink and white spotty knickers with bruising on his back and chest. But, in that brief moment, she could have sworn she was looking at Niamh.
Chapter 45
‘Right, I’d better get changed.’ Sean pushes back his chair from the breakfast table and stands up. I didn’t expect to see him in the dining room this morning but he was sitting at the table by the window, sipping a coffee, when we walked in half an hour ago. He immediately invited us to join him and made Elise laugh by pretending that the salt and pepper pots were scared of her and running away along the table. When I asked him whether he had a day off he told me that he didn’t have a client meeting until 10 a.m. so he’d gone for a run along the beach instead. His hair is smoothed back from his face, still damp from the shower, and he’s dressed casually in jeans and a sweatshirt. ‘You have a good day now, you hear.’
‘And you, little man,’ – he ruffles Elise’s hair as he walks past her – ‘you be good for your mammy.’
‘My not a man,’ Elise shouts after him. ‘My a girl.’
I inhale sharply. Mary’s not in the room with us but that doesn’t mean she’s not listening. She drifts silently from room to room like a ghost in an apron, grey slippers and pearls. Unlike Sean, who stomps around the house, slams the front door and clomps around in the room next to ours, Mary appears as if from nowhere. Just like she did yesterday afternoon when I was standing outside Mum and Dad’s old cottage, and yesterday evening when she knocked on my bedroom door.
‘Course you are.’ Sean pauses in the doorway and turns back. He winks at me and then smiles at Elise. ‘And a very lovely girl you are too.’
Satisfied with his response she flashes him a winning smile.
‘See you then!’ He raises a hand in goodbye. A second later the front door clicks shut, a shadow passes by the window, and he’s gone.
‘So,’ – I reach across the table and touch my daughter on the hand – ‘I thought that, today, we could go back to the beach and explore the rock pools. But first we need to ring Granny.’
It’s been days since I last spoke to Mum and I desperately need to talk to her and not just because I have no idea where to find my aunts Sinead and Celeste or Uncle Carey. The last time I spoke to her she said Dad wasn’t great. I hate to think of her having to make decisions about his care with no one to turn to.
‘Go Gan’s old house?’ Elise says.
‘No.’ I shake my head. ‘We’re not going back there today.’
I didn’t think I’d recognise our old house, not after so many years and when the streets of Clogherhead are so unfamiliar, but the second we turned the corner by Lea Cottages onto Main Road my breath caught in my throat. Scissored snapshots of my childhood flashed through my mind – striped wallpaper, a dark-green paisley carpet, a tiled fireplace, a framed photo of Jesus in the hallway and Wanderly Wagon on the TV in the lounge. Smells too – my dad’s aftershave and the booze on his breath after he returned from the football, the floral scent of the lavender Mum grew in the front garden and the warm yeasty scent of bread being baked in the kitchen. I heard the wind whistling under the front door when someone forgot to put the draught excluder back in place, and seagulls cawing outside my bedroom window. I felt the atmosphere of our home as though it was a soft, warm blanket. That blanket was whipped away the day Dad disappeared.
‘He’s a bad man and we’re better off without him.’ That was Mum’s stock response whenever I asked where he was. As a child I eventually stopped asking about him but my desperation to find out what had happened to him returned when I hit my teens. I was a shy, overweight and desperately unhappy girl. I felt different from my bright, outgoing peers and I became convinced that if we’d stayed in Ireland, I’d have been happier. I tried to get Mum to tell me what had happened to Dad. I shouted, I cried, I called her names and I told her that I hated her for taking me away from Ireland and forcing me to live in a shithole in north-east England instead. All I had to remember him by was a faded photograph I’d found shoved into the back of an album hidden under Mum’s bed. It was of my parents on their wedding day. I hid it in my room, tucked behind a framed photo of me and a friend.
‘What kind of mother steals her child away from her father?’ I screamed at her.
‘A mother that doesn’t want her child to be judged for the sins of her father. A mother that wants to protect her child from finger-pointing and gossip. A mother that wants the best for her child.’ She placed her hands on the ki
tchen table that separated us. ‘You don’t think I miss my old life? You don’t think I’d go back in a heartbeat if I could? Everything I’ve ever done, Joanne, I’ve done for you.’
A tear shone in the corner of her eye then spilled onto her cheek. It was the first time I’d ever seen her cry and I felt so wretched that I silently swore that I’d never ask her about my dad again.
What kind of mother steals her child away from her father? The irony isn’t lost on me.
‘Are you finished?’ I gesture at Elise’s plate and she nods. ‘OK then, let’s get our coats on.’
She jiggles and wobbles on the spot as I wrestle her into her coat, hat, scarf and gloves, then I pull on my own coat and snatch my handbag up from the floor.
‘OK then, let’s go and ring Granny.’ I open the front door then pause. Have I got enough euros for the phone? I open my handbag and root around for my purse. It’s not there. It must have fallen out upstairs.
‘Damn.’ I give the door a shove to, then lift Elise onto the chair in the entrance of the hallway.
‘Stay here. I’m just going to get my purse from our room. Don’t move!’ I cross the hallway before she can object and take the stairs two at a time. I fumble the key into the lock, push the door open and there it is, my purse, lying on top of the suitcase on the other side of the room. I snatch it up. As I do, a terrible wailing sound drifts up the stairs. It’s so wretched it makes my blood run cold. I drop the purse and fly out of the room.
‘Li!’
A hundred different possibilities flash through my mind as I speed across the landing – my daughter trapped beneath a heavy piece of furniture she pulled on top of her, or hurt and bleeding because she grabbed something sharp. Or worse – kicking and screaming as a stranger drags her from the house.
‘Li! Mummy’s coming! Mummy’s coming, Li.’
My foot catches on the top step of the stairs. I reach for the banister to stop myself falling but I twist awkwardly and my shoulder wrenches in its socket as the base of my spine hits the step. The pain takes my breath away and Elise’s anguished wail stops as suddenly as it started. Her silence is more terrifying than her scream.
‘Li!’ I scramble back to my feet, leap down the next three steps and round the staircase. There’s only one person in the hallway below – Mary. She’s sitting on the floor facing the door. Her back is curved, her arms are gripping her knees and her head is bowed. The hairs on my arms bristle as a chill wind gusts up the stairs towards me. The front door is wide open.
‘Mary.’ I run towards her. ‘Mary, where’s Li?’
When she doesn’t reply I pull on her arm. That’s when I spot Elise, squashed into my landlady’s embrace, her head pressed against Mary’s chest, her little blue wellies gripped by Mary’s slippered feet. She twists to try and look at me but Mary’s holding her so tightly she can’t move.
‘Mary.’ She doesn’t move when I touch her on the shoulder and she doesn’t look up. Instead she begins to rock back and forth. ‘Mary, what happened? You’re scaring me. Please, Mary, tell me what’s happened.’
Chapter 46
Max hurries out of the imposing glass-walled building clutching an envelope. Two days he’s waited to get an appointment at Newport passport office. Two days when he could have been in Ireland, tracking down his wife and child. He could have paid for an emergency appointment the day before but he’d woken up in his hotel room with horrific stomach cramps that had sent him scurrying back and forth to the en suite all day. It was the bloody kebab he’d grabbed after he’d left the office. That or the beers he’d drunk. Either way, that was the last time he was going to let himself get in that kind of state. He needs to keep his wits about him now he’s got a passport and the address of the church in Meara where he thinks Brigid married Jo’s father. He’s booked his ticket to Dublin for the next morning, bought a map of Ireland and paid for a hire car at the airport. In less than 48 hours he’ll have his daughter in his arms again and it will all be over.
His phone rings as he unlocks his car. It’ll be Fiona again. She’s been ringing him since nine o’clock that morning. Why is she hounding him like this? She told him he could take time off if he needed it and he’s sent her an email to tell her that he’s going to Ireland to look for Jo and Elise. What else is there to talk about?
He steps into the car and fits the keys into the ignition. He doesn’t start the engine. Instead he rests the back of his head against the headrest. For the last three weeks he’s been surviving on caffeine, booze and adrenalin. He’s barely slept or eaten. And the stomach bug and the drive to Newport have used up the last of his energy.
He should get back to Bristol. He needs to check out of his hotel room and tidy the house so it looks warm and inviting when Elise comes back. His girl, back where she belongs. If he sets off now there’d still be time to visit Cabot Circus and buy her some toys. He’d buy her everything in the whole shop if he could.
His eyelids grow heavy. He fights to keep them open but he’s too exhausted. I’ll just have a quick nap, he tells himself as he yawns and crosses his arms over his chest. He smiles as an image of Elise, laughing and running into his arms, flashes behind his closed eyes and then his phone rings again. Why can’t she leave him alone? He just wants to be left alone.
He fumbles in his inside pocket for his mobile, vaguely registers that the number is withheld, and then presses it to his ear.
‘Hello?’
‘Hello, Max.’
That sing-song tone. So cocky, so self-assured, so repulsive. His grip on the phone tightens but he doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t trust himself to respond.
‘You know, you really should work on your conversational skills,’ Paula says softly into his ear. ‘I’d have expected better from a journalist. Was the message I sent you not clear enough? Don’t tell me you need it repeated, Max. Because I could arrange that. You just say the word.’
Max grits his teeth.
Don’t rise to it. Don’t let her know she’s got to you.
‘Don’t tell me I have to send a message to your wife, Max. Really? I know you’re a thief. I didn’t realise you were a gutless, heartless bastard too. Jesus, you really are a piece of work, aren’t you, Max? You probably wouldn’t even bat an eyelid if I sent a message to your lovely little daughter. I know I’m a bitch but you’re a grade-A cun—’
‘Fuck you!’ All the anger, rage and frustration that have been building in Max over the last few weeks explode as he screams into his phone. ‘You fucking bitch!’
Slam! He smacks the phone against the dashboard. ‘Fuck you!’ He slams it again. The glass screen shatters but he doesn’t notice. ‘Bitch!’ Slam! ‘Bitch!’ Slam!
The phone crumples in his hand but he continues to pound it against the dashboard. Only when the muscles in his shoulders seize up and he can’t lift his arm does he stop. Then he slumps over the steering wheel, rests his head on his hands and sobs.
Chapter 47
Mary’s eyes widen with surprise as she searches the young woman’s face. Who is she?
‘Please,’ the red-haired woman says. ‘Please, Mary, tell me what happened.’
Mary stares at her blankly, then down at the child nestled in her arms. She touches a hand to the child’s cheek. She’s warm. She’s moving. She’s breathing. This isn’t a dream. She did it. She got to the door before her daughter. She wrenched her back from the road. Niamh isn’t dead. She saved her. Tears spill down her cheeks. She saved her.
‘Mary!’ The woman pulls on her arm. ‘Mary, please let go of Li. You’re holding him too tightly. He doesn’t like it. He wants me. He wants his mummy.’
Mummy.
His mummy.
She’s lying. Mary knows her own daughter. She knows the dark blonde hair that curls at the back of her neck, the bright, inquisitive green eyes that fill with love whenever she walks into her bedroom in the morning, and the sweetest rosebud lips she has ever kissed.
‘Mary, please let go of Li. Pleas
e. I need to check he’s OK.’ She can hear the anguish in the other woman’s voice, but she can’t, she won’t, let go of the child.
‘Mummy!’ the child screams, reaching for the red-haired woman.
Mummy. Not Mammy. The word is a rock, hurled against Mary’s heart. It shatters like glass. Niamh is still dead. She didn’t save her. She’s still in the ground.
‘The door,’ she says as Helen plucks at her fingers, trying to loosen her grip on Lee. ‘You must shut the door. You could have lost him. You could have lost him for ever.’
She tries to let go of the boy but she can’t. Her mind and heart may have realised the truth but her body is still clinging to the delusion that it’s Niamh in her arms, and Helen has to help her stand. She ushers her into the living room, with Lee still in her arms, and helps her into a chair. Helen says something about getting a glass of water but before she can leave the room her child starts to cry. And, just like that, Mary’s locked limbs release him. Her body aches with loss as he scrambles away from her, then, as his mother lifts him up and into her arms, a wave of shame washes over her.
‘What happened?’ Helen perches in the chair next to her. ‘Please, Mary. Please tell me what happened.’
‘I was in the kitchen,’ she says. She feels numb, detached, as though someone else is speaking the words that are coming out of her mouth. ‘And I felt a breeze. I realised that the front door must have been left open so I went into the hallway to close it. That’s when I saw Lee, standing outside, all alone. He was about to step into the road.’
‘Oh my God.’ Helen covers her mouth with a hand. ‘But I shut the door. I could have sworn I shut the d—’
‘A car was coming,’ Mary continues. ‘I snatched him out the way.’
‘Oh my God.’ The other woman bursts into tears. ‘Oh, thank you. I don’t … I don’t … if anything happened …’
Mary doesn’t say a word as her guest continues to praise and thank her. Her chest is so tight she can’t speak.