by Laura Elliot
Julie’s being nice again. She’s asleep now with the pillow over her head. She came into the room tonight when I was crying about her going away with Sebby and then she cried too and said going away was all hot air and the far away hills are greener than the garden shed or something like that and she tickled me so much I got the hiccups and so did she and Becks yelled at us to behave and stop doing her head in. I’m glad I didn’t tell her about Julie going away because she would have stopped her and had a BIG ROW. This way, Julie made up her mind on her own.
Love to Dad and All,
Cathy
* * *
3 February 1989
Dear Mum,
Something happened today. I got my period. I had a pain in my tummy all day and then I saw the blood. Becks said I’m too young. I’m not even a teenager so it must be a mistake. No mistake. She gave me a hot water bottle for my tummy and said the pain will be gone by tomorrow. Julie said I’m now a victim of The Curse and hermoans. She bought me a Curly Wurly bar. I thought you’d like to know. I don’t feel any different. Should I?
Lauren says she doesn’t care if she never gets her period. She should by now. But you can bleed in other ways. I see cuts on her arms, scabs healing. She makes me sick!! I was going to tell Becks but there’ll only be another row so I’m saying nothing for the moment.
I’ll write again soon.
Love to you and Daddy and Gramps and Nero,
Cathy
* * *
11 May 1989
Dear Mum,
Major news! I’m going to be an auntie. Talk about trouble. Becks (actually, it’s Rebecca now, she says Becks is kid stuff and, as we all claim to be adults, we must call her by her proper name) went ballistic when she heard. Julie is refusing to marry Paul. She says she’ll take the baby with her in a sling when she’s touring. Small problem. Maximum Volume don’t exist any more. Seb’s gone to Australia and the new guitarist is useless and Paul’s got to do exams to support a wife and child. Wife, my arse, said Julie, are you deaf or what? We’re not getting married!!!!!
Lauren’s staying in her room as usual and I’m spending all my time with Kevin and Melancholia. I’m glad I have friends. They’re so much easier than family. I can’t believe I’m actually going to be an auntie!
Love to Dad and all,
Cathy
* * *
22 September 1989
Dear Mum,
Seconderry school is not as bad as I thought. I cycle with Kevin and Melancholia and I sit beside them in the canteen even though I’m only a First Year and that’s insect status as far as the rest of the students are concerned. I’m afraid I didn’t make the top stream like Lauren. I’m in a low stream but who cares…except Becks and that’s just because it reflects badly on her.
Melancholia looks like a Goth even in her school uniform and she couldn’t care less what people think about her. When Jobbo Boland makes a pretend cross sign with his arms and calls her Belladonna, she just laughs and calls him a wanker. I never heard the Cure or the Banshees or Bachaus until she played them. I’m never going to listen to Kylie Minogue again.
Julie is getting bigger every day. Paul still wants to marry her. He must be off his head. She has such a temper and if she’s not sulking she’s bawling her eyes out. She’s never ever getting married.
Love to Dad and all,
Cathy
* * *
1 November 1989
Dear Mum
Julie’s wedding was brilliant. She didn’t care about being a whale and kept getting up on the stage to sing with the wedding band. Rebecca walked her up the aisle. It should have been Daddy but Rebecca said we had to make this a happy day. Lauren looked like a mermaid in her bridesmaid’s dress. Mrs Moran eyes slid sideways when Mr Moran was dancing with her and said it’s amazing how quickly young people grow up nowadays when there’s no proper supervision. I thought Rebecca was going to thump her. I would have! Paul nearly had to carry Julie off the stage so that the band could play Congratulations and send them off on their honeymoon to Galway. We used boxes and boxes of confetti. Julie was so huge she needed it all to cover her tummy! And JeremyAnderson came!! Home from the Big Apple. Guess he didn’t like the taste. He danced with Rebecca and she looked like the happiest woman in the world.
Love to Daddy and all,
Cathy
Chapter Thirteen
Rebecca’s Journal – 1989
Never believe your best friend when she promises not to interfere in your love life. Sheila said it was just the two of us meeting for a meal. We’d seen so little of each other since she got engaged to Brian. I figured she wanted to show off her ring and steeled myself to be enthusiastic when she discussed her wedding plans. But I was wrong. I didn’t notice Jeremy at first. Brian blocked him from view until I was almost at the table. Then it was too late to run.
I believed I’d stopped loving him. Convinced myself he meant nothing to me. Believed I hated him for being a coward. Paul stuck by Julie, put up with her moods and her tears and her tantrums and now…well, it’s not exactly a match made in Heaven but he’ll be holding her hand when the baby comes.
Jeremy said he was too young to carry me through the bad times and he ran. It’s hard remembering how I felt then…when I think back to those years they seem dreamlike, as if we were performing a play on a stage and the world was our audience. I remember people walking to the other side of the street, hoping I hadn’t noticed they were avoiding me. I can understand their embarrassment. We were an ordinary family made extraordinary by tragedy. I wouldn’t have known what to say either and, sometimes, it’s better to keep on going.
Jeremy regrets leaving me, the heartache he caused. I try to remember the heartache but I can’t…I think my feelings must have been stirred in the greater melting pot of grief.
He’s older now and he’s back. Little steps. Everything can be done in little steps. He says I can trust him. He’s changed, matured, knows what he wants.
VisionFirst have set up an advertising division in Ireland and sent him back from New York to work in it. I’m not surprised. His persuasive powers are good. Julie says I must be off my head to trust him again. The leopard’s spots are not for changing. But I have to trust him. He’s brought me back to life.
Chapter Fourteen
Letters to Nirvana
22 November 1989
Dear Mum,
I’m a teenager at last. My birthday party was brilliant. Rebecca gave me a stereo. Melancholia gave me Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice and Kevin gave me a CD of the Cure. Lauren gave me scented candles. Julie and Paul gave me a gift voucher for Awear. Jonathan gave me a mug with The Coolest Hip Auntie in Town on it. I still can’t believe he was born on their honeymoon! Julie said pushing out the Rock of Cashel would have been easier. Mrs Mulvaney gave me a pair of Docs. Mr Moran gave me money and Mrs Moran gave me a dictionary. Bitch! Jeremy gave me Lily of the Valley perfume. I have it on me now and it’s gorgeous.
I sleep with Rebecca now. I miss your room but it’s Julie and Paul’s, and I prefer sharing with Rebecca rather than freaky Lauren. It’s strange having a man living in the house. I can’t remember Daddy’s sounds. Paul sings when he’s in the shower and he leaves the toilet seat up and talks to the telly when he’s watching football. He’s given up college and is working with computers. Jonathan is adorable! He looks like Daddy. Everyone says so. When I held him for the first time he gripped my thumb so tight I thought my heart would melt with love for him. Lauren was afraid to hold him in case she let him fall. She never wants to have a baby and that’s just as well because of the accident and what it did to her insides.
Julie’s going to start a new band as soon as she stops breast feeding. Paul can like it or lump it. The only music in her life now is Jonathan crying. At maximum volume!! You and Daddy are grandparents. I hope you know that…I really do hope so.
Love to Daddy and all,
Cathy
* * *
2 Decem
ber 1989
Dear Mum,
Lauren cut herself again. Rebecca had to take her to the doctor. She’s so beautiful, not like me, what’s she trying to do? I’m just an acne dose but she’s always going on and on about how ugly she is and staying in her room all the time writing crazy stuff. I hope she means it when she says never again. That’s all the news for now.
Love to all,
Cathy
* * *
15 January 1990
Dear Mum,
It’s five years today. Sometimes it only seems like yesterday but when I think of all that’s changed in those years it seems like forever since I knew you and Daddy.
There’s strange things happening in your graveyard. We saw empty cider bottles and burned grass in the old part where no one is buried any more. Someone wrote Boot Boys Rule OK on a tombstone. Rebecca hates me going there but all we do is listen to our music. Leah doesn’t go on at Melancholia all the time. Neither does Mrs Mulvaney. She let Kevin paint his room black and stick a luminous skeleton on the ceiling. He had his bottom lip pierced with a tiny dagger. You’d laugh if you saw his hair. He’s dyed it jet black and made it straight. He hates fair curls and is sick of being called a blondie pouf! I asked him what it was like kissing girls with a dagger in his lip and he said, do you want to find out? Cheeky.
I still miss you. Do you know it’s five years or does that just seem like a little dot in eternity?
Special love to Dad on this memory day,
Cathy
* * *
3 March 1990
Dear Mum,
It’s so fucking unfair! It was all in the Evening Herald about the gravestones and photos too. Your gravestone was all right. It was the old ones that had the graffiti done on them. Nothing to do with me and Kevin and Melancholia but the woman in the house beside the gate told the guards we hang around there all the time. We don’t hang around! We visit your grave if only she’d open her stupid eyes and look. And we don’t smash gravestones but no one believes us. The guards came to the house and talked to Rebecca. They asked us questions about the graffiti and the broken angels and devil worship. One of the guards said Rebecca had better keep a closer eye on me in future or there’ll be more trouble. He made it sound as if it was all her fault. But it’s not. She told me not to go to the graveyard except with her but I like being there with Kevin and Melancholia. Those sick boot boys messed up our rights!!
After the cops left Rebecca slapped my face. She said, that’s for running around with sick Goths. What planet is she on? What sick Goths? Just because Kevin dyes his hair, she keeps saying he’s like a vampire. It’s not fair. I don’t cut myself. I don’t get pregnant like Julie did. So why am I grounded for a fucking month? Thank God, Jeremy is on my side. He thinks Goth is an expression of individuality. It always sounds pretentious when Melancholia says that but he made it sound true. He was always getting into trouble when he was a teenager. His father said he’d never amount to anything but he did. His ad about the shopping centre won an award for innovation. His photo was in the papers. Rebecca stuck it on the fridge. I see him every time I open the door.
No more ouija board. It’s banned from my life. Even if I played snakes and ladders Rebecca would freak! I’d stopped believing in it anyway. I just wanted it to be real because I need to know if you’re in Heaven. I’m finding it harder and harder to believe you’re there…or anywhere except in my head. Maybe you were a dream I dreamed and you and Daddy never existed. Maybe I’m a dream and living in everyone else’s dreams. Maybe angels do come at night and read letters. Maybe it’s not a con job thought up by Lydia Mulvaney to stop me snivelling over her fish fingers and chips.
X
Cathy
* * *
20 Oct 1990
Dear Mum,
I’m back in your room again. Julie and Paul have moved out. They used Gramps’ money for a deposit on a house in Swords with wood floors so Jonathan doesn’t have to breathe in the dust from our carpets. It makes his asthma worse. Julie gets so scared when he starts to wheeze but the doctor said asthma is not a problem with the right medication and lots of kids grow out of it. Their next new baby will be born in April. Julie calls it ‘another mistake’ but I know she’ll love it just as much as she loves Jonathan. I cycle to Swords with Kevin once a week and we baby-sit so they can go to the pictures.
Sometimes Jeremy stays over in our house. I saw him kissing Rebecca in the hall last night. I didn’t mean to spy and was only going downstairs to get a glass of milk. Rebecca’s hair was like a rope around his hands and he was pressing her against the wall and whispering, let me stay…they won’t hear anything…I promise…promise…kissing her all the time. I was afraid to move in case they saw me. She let him stay. He was wrong. I heard. It makes my tummy swoop to think of it and the more I try not to the more I do.
Love to Dad and all,
Cathy
* * *
5 Nov 1990
Dear Mum,
Serious news. Lauren’s in hospital. We’re all in shock. She keeps saying she didn’t mean to do it so deep and she’s promised Rebecca she’ll never do it again. Is she crazy or what? She’s in a private room with flowers. Mr Moran said it’s only right to look after her properly and he’d pay. He brings her chocolates and fluffy toys. Mrs Moran said if they’d had their way in the beginning, all this could have been avoided. She said it low to Mr Moran so that Rebecca couldn’t hear. But I did. The cheek of her. What does she know about anything except being stinking rich and showing off her fancy house in magazines? They’ll never be our parents, no matter how hard they try. Watch over Lauren and make her stop hurting herself.
Love you all,
Cathy
Chapter Fifteen
Rebecca’s Journal–1990
I was searching under her mattress for blades and I found poems instead. Only a few. I suspect she’s destroyed most of them or maybe hidden them somewhere else. But I’m not going to pretend I know. She values her privacy too much. I cried when I read this one. I thought it was about gardening when I saw the title but she’s obviously still clinging to memories of our mother. At least, in this instance, Lauren has released them in ink, not blood.
Crying is not for the faint-hearted. I thought I’d never stop. Only that Jeremy was calling…I don’t ever want him to see me in such a state. We’ve moved on from that time…tick tock tick tock tick…
I’ve copied this poem and others into the journal. Some day when she’s stronger, I’ll persuade her to send them to a publisher.
Deadheading the Red Geraniums
I watch you
Deadheading the red geraniums
The withered petals
Blood-staining your hands
When you snap the head
From its slender stem.
I watch you
Breathe the perfumed air
As sweet peas waltz
On bamboo stilts.
Adrift in pink until the pods
Wither and decay.
I watch you
Gather roses: crimson, cream and peach.
The prayerful thorns sink
Into your flesh.
Stigmata lifting you
Across the deep abyss.
I watch you
Stroke the birch, the silvery bark.
A family tree, denuded.
A wafer fragment
Falling. Ash to ash…
Ash to ash.
Chapter Sixteen
Letters to Nirvana
26 December 1990
Dear Mum,
Guess what Jeremy gave Rebecca for Christmas. A really flash solitaire. They’re getting married in June 1992. Julie and Paul didn’t stay long at the engagement party because of Jonathan and the carpet dust. Lauren is good since she came out of hospital. At the party, all the boys wanted to dance with her…except Kevin. He thinks she’s a real head banger and even though I agree, I hate it when anyone says things like that about her.
XXX
Cathy
* * *
15 Jan 1991
Dear Mum,
It’s six years today. Rebecca forgot to organise the mass. She can talk about nothing but Jeremy this and Jeremy that and she looks different, like a light is shining inside her. I know you don’t mind but she should have done the mass.
XXXX to you and Daddy on this special memory day,
Cathy
* * *
12 April 1991
Dear Mum,
I went shopping with Melancholia today. She gave me this amazing jet black cross for a present and showed me where to find fantastic clothes in the George’s Street arcade. Black net gloves to my elbows and a long black dress with a scooped neck, perfect with the cross.
Rebecca hates my new clothes. She’s always going on about Satanic influences, whatever that’s supposed to mean. Well, I know what it means but that’s not us. All we do is play our music and read Anne Rice. I don’t know how someone as nice as Jeremy can possibly be in love with her. He must be only pretending. He’s probably terrified of her. Everyone else is. She keeps going on about me staying out late and how she has responsibility for my welfare. Who does she think she is? You and Daddy were responsible for my welfare, no one else. Julie’s too busy to talk since Philip was born. He looks like a troll but she keeps going on at Jeremy about using him for nappy ads. Jeremy is so nice he tries to be polite but he says maternal love is blind as a bat, only not to Julie, of course. Only to me. I was going to say love must be very blind if you’re marrying my ugly ageing sister with absolutely no taste in clothes but I didn’t.