The Prodigal Sister: An emotional drama of family secrets

by Laura Elliot

  Dear Mum,

  The rain is coming down. Sheets of it turning the graveyard into a mud river, soaking your bones and stirring the dead clay. I feel it soaking through the cracks of your shining walnut coffin with the brass handles and the white lace framing your face. I wish I was dead. Dead as you and Dad. Shadows, not substance. Shadows flit. Substance suffers.

  As soon as I came home from work, I knew Rebecca knew. But not everything. Thank God she does not know everything. Melancholia is the only one who shares my secret and she has sworn an oath on the blood pricked from our fingers that she will never tell.

  I’m not the only one who’s pregnant. Sheila Brogan, who is now Mrs O’Sullivan, was at the Rotunda Hospital today. I didn’t see her but she saw me. At first she thought I was with Melancholia but then she heard the nurse call out my name. She’s Rebecca’s best friend so needless to say she felt it her duty to ring my sister and tell her. Bitch, bitch, interfering bitch. What am I going to do?

  Rebecca demanded to know everything. I told her I didn’t know the father’s name. Liar, liar, she said. It’s Kevin Mulvaney, isn’t it? She kept saying his name over and over again. I didn’t nod. I know I didn’t nod but she shouted that it was bad enough with Julie, but now I was going the same way and Kevin would know all about it, oh, yes, he would, she’d see to it that he did the right thing…I put my hands over my ears and ran out of the house. I could smell the rain on the estuary but it was still only a cloud and I sat on the jetty until it was dark. When I came home Rebecca had gone to Kevin’s house to have it out with Lydia.

  Oh God, oh God, I can’t bear it…I’ve tried to talk to Kevin on the phone but he hung up on me. What am I going to do? TELL ME. Stop sitting on your Cloud Nine and do something useful, for a change. TELL ME WHAT TO DO!!!!!

  Cathy

  * * *

  15 July 1993

  Dear Mum,

  Do you agree with Rebecca? A man should know that he is to become a father? It sounded strong and proper when she said it but I don’t know anything any more. I went to his office. VisionFirst is engraved on a brass plate outside the front door. There was a bell to ring and a receptionist to pass before I was brought in to him. A nerve twitched in his cheek when I said he was the father.

  Delusions…delusions…this is not his baby. He stated this fact with conviction, repeated it twice, as if the force of his words would make it true. Everything sounded different when he repeated it back to me, like echoes bouncing off the wrong walls. I must stop lying. How could we have been together when I was out of my head on drugs that night? Drugs that make the mind crazy. Hallucinations and paranoia. He never did anything to me. He knows for a fact I was screwing around with Kevin Mulvaney, no matter how often Kevin denies it. He grabbed my arm, hurting me, and demanded to know if I’d told this ridiculous lie to Rebecca.

  I began to cry, knowing I could never tell her and he, knowing this also, locked me into his secret. I must have the baby adopted, he said. His voice was soft, consoling, as it used to be when I poured my heart out to him. He would talk to Rebecca, convince her it was the right decision. She might even consider adopting it because she always has my best interests at heart. It’s my baby, I said. Yours and mine.

  I sensed his fear, a clammy, sick fear that made him speak too fast. He called me wild and wilful, a liar intent on destroying my sister who had given up everything to look after us.

  When I began to cry he ordered a taxi to bring me home. He tried to give me money for the fare. I ripped the notes up and flung the pieces back at him. I ran past the receptionist and the hanging plants and the gleaming brass plate at the entrance.

  Beyond the railing of Merrion Square I saw beds of white flowers shaped like stars. I recognised his car parked by the railings. I removed the black cross from my neck and dug it deep into the wing of his fancy Saab. The gouging scraping noise made my teeth water. I wondered if our baby cringed from the sound. I pushed harder, moving the cross backwards and forwards until it fell from my grasp. I slumped against the door and tried to catch my breath. The alarm went off. The sound whirred around my head. I turned and saw Rebecca. She stared at his car, then back at me. The clamouring alarm drowned her voice. I ran past her outstretched arms and into the traffic. I got the bus to Heron Cove and rang Kevin. Mrs Mulvaney said he was out but I knew she was lying ’cause I could hear The Cure playing in the background. I begged her to get him and he came on the line and said to stop bothering him and to never speak to him again.

  I packed a bag. I took my letters and my family photograph of the ballet concert. I stole money from Rebecca’s purse and left a note on the table. I went back to the city but I didn’t know where to hide. Then I remembered the warehouse on the quays where we had our Goth party. I forced the door open. It was easy. I lay on the floor. I must have slept. It was dark when I woke up.

  I walked along the quays. A truck stopped when I lifted my arm. The cabin was warm. A heater blasted air on my legs. Slogans were stuck on the dashboard. Robbie calls his truck ‘Ramblin’ Rosie’. He has a beer belly, a wife named Doris, two daughters and a son. Their photos were pinned above the window. His eldest daughter is my age. He’d take a stick to her backside if she dared hitch a lift from a trucker. It’s asking for trouble, he said, and there’s enough of that about without seeking it out.

  I told him I had to go to my grandmother, who was seriously ill. He travels on the night ferry, delivering fresh fish to restaurants. He played music, country music tapes, Emmylou Harris, and sang along with her. We stopped at a roadside takeaway van. Truckers stood around, talking and eating chips. They muttered something to Robbie, slapped his shoulder.

  You’re lucky it’s me picked you up, he said. Some of them truckers would teach you a few tricks if they got their hands on a pretty little thing like yourself. He asked what was wrong with my grandmother and frowned when I said cancer of the heart. He’s never heard of that kind of cancer. We passed through sleeping villages in Wicklow, then Wexford. He braked when he reached the terminal in Rosslaire and turned on the overhead light. He didn’t believe my grandmother story and, because he has a daughter, Anna-Marie, my age, he decided to lecture me. Running away from home never solved anything. Child, he said, if you’re in some kind of trouble go to the police or a priest. The road’s not the place to sort it out. He sounded like a father…I think. I’ve forgotten what Daddy was like. I told him about the baby.

  Tell your mother, he said. Mothers understand about these things more than you realise.

  I’ve told her already, I said. She understands but there’s nothing she can do to help.

  He went very quiet when he heard about the accident. He asked me my second name. He knew the driver who caused it. A prickly feeling ran all over me, like someone had walked on my grave. They used to travel over on the ferry together. The driver doesn’t drive any more. He’s got something that brings flash-back memories. All the time we were talking, Robbie was moving towards the ramp with the other truckers. Ro-ro, he called it. Roll on, roll off. He didn’t ask me to get out of his truck. On the ferry he shared his sandwiches and bought me soup. He has a sister in London called Alma. I have her address in my pocket.

  The engine is like a drum beat under my feet. I’m at sea, in every way. I keep thinking about Rebecca. Her eyes watching me. The shock on her face, like I’d punched her hard. I can’t go back…I can’t. I left a note. They won’t worry.

  There’s two seagulls flying with the ferry. Where are all the others? They always fly in flocks. Maybe it’s you and Dad. Anything is possible…anything. Always stay with me, wherever I go.

  Love and kisses for ever,

  Cathy

  * * *

  15 November 1993

  Dear Mum,

  Looking back, I don’t remember much about getting to London, just a long road and Emmylou singing. A furry disc hung from the window of Robbie’s cab, nodding and bobbing in front of my face. I think I slept a lot, even when he put me on the tr
ain with a map showing me how to reach Alma. He gave me money. I think you sent him from heaven. Alma laughs when I say that. She says he’s the grouchiest old bastard this side of the Alleghenies but angels come in many forms.

  Last night she waved a gold ring over my stomach and said I’m going to have a boy. I’ll have to go back to the name book if I do because I think it’s a girl. You had four girls. Why should I be different? I’ve no space in my tummy for swooping feelings or lonely thoughts or pining for my sisters. It’s full of my baby. I waddle like a duck when I walk. If Melancholia could see me she’d howl laughing and call me Donald. So would Kevin, if he would forgive me. But I don’t want to think about them any more.

  I help Alma in her shop. It’s health food and vitamins and crystals. Her name means fostering and loving. Nadine means hope. That’s what Alma called her little baby, but Nadine was adopted so she doesn’t know if that’s still her name. It was a long time ago. Things change, she said, and look at me now. In London with my own little business. I can call my baby Nadine if it’s a girl. Alma would like that. Nadine…when I whisper her name I can see my way through the next day and all the days to follow.

  Love you all,

  Cathy

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Rebecca’s Journal – 1993

  If only the police had taken me seriously in the beginning. But they knew best. Sisters fight and Cathy would come back home as soon as she had cooled her heels. They refused to start a search until all the obvious possibilities had been checked out. I knew better. Her note was stark.

  ‘I’m running away and starting a new life. Don’t bother searching for me. I’m just Trouble. Goodbye. Cathy XXX’

  I kept rereading it, as if, somehow, I could decode a clue she had planted. Lauren is good at leaving a trail but Cathy has not given anything away. By the time an official search was launched she was well gone, and the first postcard arrived from London a few days later.

  ‘I’m fine. I’m with a good friend and have found a place to stay. Don’t worry about me. Cathy XXX’

  What friend? She had no friends in London and the ones at home hadn’t, or claimed they hadn’t, a clue where she was staying. I believed Kevin, but not Melanie Barnes. She put on her usual Gothic mask of inscrutability when I asked. I wanted to shake the truth from her. Her gaze unnerves me. She’s hiding something but I suspect nothing will persuade her to talk.

  I’d already decided to go to London and search for her when the second card arrived and informed us that she had had an abortion.

  I’ve been here for two months now. There’s an underground map on the wall in front of me. Seven more stations before I reach Heathrow and the last leg of a fruitless journey. Jeremy was right. He said she didn’t want to be found, but at least I tried. How I tried…

  The bedsit in Kilburn was a dump but it was cheap and all I did was sleep there. I’ve searched the city, the side streets and squats, the shops and the cafés where I hoped she would be working. I wrote letters to the newspapers, stuck posters on walls, handed fliers to people rushing through the underground. I’ve even been on radio programmes begging her to contact me. Only once did I believe I’d struck gold.

  On the King’s Road I looked through a shop window and saw a girl in baggy dungarees with an olive-green T-shirt. She was pregnant, which didn’t fit my picture of Cathy. But the frizz of black hair spilling over her shoulders sent such a wave of joy through me that I ran blindly into the shop and called her name.

  The shop smelled of jasmine and cedarwood oils, and that weedy smell of herbal teas. The girl had disappeared and there was only a woman with red hair standing behind the counter.

  ‘Need any help, love?’ she said. Her accent was obvious, Dublin inner city, born and bred. She was polite but definite that the girl I saw was her daughter. Nadine, she called her. I didn’t want to believe her. I kept walking up and down the aisles. Her skirt swept the floor when she walked to a shelf and stacked it with blocks of soap. The scent of lavender was so strong it was in my nostrils for ages afterwards. She called her daughter a brazen hussy for dodging off work. I gave her the leaflet with Cathy’s picture and she pinned it to a notice board, alongside the advertisements for reflexology and yoga. I told her how desperate I was. Something about her made me suspicious. The way she kept fussing around me, like she was afraid to let me out of her sight. Maybe she thought I was a shoplifter, though what there was to steal was hard to know.

  I pretended to examine the labels on vitamin jars and herbal shampoos. The narrow door leading into the interior of the shop remained closed.

  ‘Take care, love,’ she called out when I was leaving. ‘If I were you, I’d try and not worry your head too much. Young people have a way of surviving and you never—’ The chimes drowned her last words. I didn’t go back. I’m sick of listening to platitudes.

  I spent hours watching her shop. She didn’t see me when she came out to close up for the night and secure the window with a steel grid. Lights were switched on upstairs. I recognised her at the window, her embroidered smock and distinctive hair. No one left the premises. I came back the following day but no matter how often I walked past, or how many customers entered and left, I only ever saw her inside. I finally accepted it was a false trail and moved the search to Islington. Another blank. I hate it here. How can she do this to me? I loved her so much and now I’ve lost her. How did I let that happen?

  Jeremy will meet me at the airport. He’ll hold me close and comfort me. We’ll lie together. Our bodies are made for each other. But my mother’s words will continue to echo in the emptiness Cathy has left behind.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Letters to Nirvana

  15 January 1994

  Dear Mum,

  Today I visited Highgate Cemetery with Melancholia. It’s where all the Victorians are buried. Lots of amazing headstones and vaults, really Gothic designs and statues of lions and Karl Marx and Egyptian columns and mausoleums as big as houses. But I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to be in the shadow of dead people when I have given life. But it’s nine years since you left and I wanted to be in your space for a little while.

  I held Conor up towards the statue of a stone angel so you could see my baby. Melancholia wants me to come home. She said Rebecca won’t notice the resemblance but I knew by her voice that she was lying. Even now, even at this early stage when Conor’s gaze is still milky, we both see it, the wheat-blond hair and sky-blue eyes. So she didn’t insist. She just hugged me and said shit happens. Then held me until I stopped crying.

  Rebecca called to the shop one day before Conor was born. I saw her through the window. I thought I was hallucinating at first. My heart thumped so bad I was afraid it would burst right out of my chest or I’d have a heart attack and die like Gramps Gaynor. I hid in the staff room. I heard her talking to Alma. I had to hold myself down in the chair to stop myself running to her. I was frightened Alma would feel sorry for her and tell her the truth. But she didn’t let on. She knows all I want is for Rebecca to be happy. I did a terrible thing and this is my punishment.

  I don’t get much time to write any more. So don’t worry if you don’t hear from me. I’ll never be far away.

  Love you all,

  Cathy

  THE JOURNEY

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Havenswalk

  Conor strikes out towards the centre of the lake. His supple body parts the water with knife-like thrusts. He is used to the temperature, the shock of ice on his skin. The lake is small by the standards of others on the South Island and does not even register as a blue dot on a map. Its size makes it even more special, like a secret shared with a few close friends who, like him, are familiar with its moods and personality. This morning the mood is buoyant, frisky. His mother prefers the lake in the evening. She comes here in the gathering dusk when she needs to be still, but he uses the lake as a punch bag, hammering his energy into early morning swims, water-skiing and windsurfing, kayaking, f
ishing, sailing.

  He turns and floats on his back. Clouds, pink and streaky as fish bones, trail across the sky. His aunts have started their journey. In twenty days’ time they will be in Havenswalk. Real flesh and blood aunts instead of the virtual-reality figures he Googles on the internet. His mother calls the internet a spy hole on the world. As descriptions go, it’s apt. He has found them all. Lauren, his slinky aunt, at some posh function with her elderly husband, who looks like he owns a large chunk of the world. Julie looks like she was born to hug people and solve all their problems. She has three sons, Jonathan, Philip and Aidan. After his mother made contact Conor started emailing Aidan, who is his own age, and shares his taste in music, rugby, and girls.

  In the distance, he hears Hannah’s motorbike. Ruthie has already arrived to cook breakfast and Lyle is at work in the garden. Conor strikes out again, swims underwater until his lungs can no longer take the strain. The sun dazzles his eyelashes as he surfaces and heads for shore.

  The site that interests him most is the Lambert Animal Sanctuary. He’s read everything Rebecca has on it: animal abuse, recovery programmes, pleas for funding, advice to kids who keep horses in housing estates. He’s looking forward to meeting her most of all. He has been unable to find her photograph on the website, only images of horses and donkeys grazing in a field.

  He has to rely on the family photo his mother kept hidden in the attic. Once the past opened up, she had it enlarged and reframed. It now hangs in the restaurant and the guests always ask about it. Lauren is dressed like a fairy and Julie is cool, a rock diva, eighties style. His mother, eight years old and skinny as a stick, looks like Rebecca. Admittedly, Rebecca is much older, with curly hair to her shoulders, while his mother has two pigtails jutting out on either side of her head–and Rebecca is smiling like a sexy model, unlike his mother, whose first teeth are missing–yet the more Conor examines the photo, the more he sees the resemblance.