by Laura Elliot
‘That’s nonsense.’
‘It’s my truth, Cathy. I read your letters.’
Cathy bends her head and allows Rebecca to take the cup from her.
‘Do you still write to her?’
‘Not for years…not since I left home.’
‘If you were to write to her now, how would she reply?’
‘She would tell me to look after my son.’
‘You already do that, Cathy. Answer my question.’
‘I don’t know—’
‘She would tell you to stop living with the past. She would order you, as I’m doing now, to embrace your future.’
‘I hurt the people I love—’
Rebecca leans across the chairs and places her hand over her sister’s mouth. ‘Stop talking, Cathy. Be silent for a little while and listen to our mother’s voice.’
She holds her sister’s hands and waits for the grief to wash over them. When it comes, they slide into its healing strength.
Chapter Sixty-three
Day Eight
Lauren watches the marquee being disassembled. Lyle speaks to the men, who work efficiently, loading the poles and canvas into the truck. Steve joins her on the balcony.
‘Shame about that,’ he says. ‘It would have been a magnificent setting.’
She nods in agreement. Her view of the lake is clearer since the marquee came down. She returns to the bedroom and removes her dress from the wardrobe. Steve unzips his case and removes his suit. They dress in silence for the wedding.
The scent of the white roses, forming an arch around the door, fills Conor’s ward. Kevin is as nervous as any bridegroom waiting for his bride to arrive. At a signal from Lyle, Julie, accompanying herself on her mandolin, begins to sing an old Irish folk song. Under her breath, Lauren sings the words with her. Her voice will falter if she sings aloud.
My young love said to me,
‘My mother won’t mind
And my father won’t slight you
For your lack of kind.’
And she stepped away from me
And this she did say,
‘It will not be long, love,
Till our wedding day.’
Cathy steps through the rose bower. Alma walks behind her. They approach Lyle, who stands waiting at the foot of Conor’s bed. Two candles, a vase of flowers and a crucifix have been placed on a small table. Lyle has given up his right to dress in consecrated robes but, even without vestments, even wearing an old suit that has the creases of decades in its folds, the simple ceremony he performs has all the solemnity of a sacred ritual. Rituals are important. Lauren carried them out in the silence of her room, her eyes full of plummeting steel.
Conor is sleeping when they leave him. Cathy places the roses in a vase beside his bed. Lauren remembers the red rose she placed in her hair on the morning of departure. She remembers the red roses that filled her ward when Rebecca brought her home from London. They were delivered in bouquets, one for each day. At night, unable to breathe from their scent, she had asked the nurse on duty to remove them.
In the hospital canteen, a wedding breakfast has been prepared. What an emotional journey they took to reach this point, Lauren thinks. All the planning and decision-making reduced to this moment in a hospital canteen. The bride and groom cut the wedding cake, which has been transported, complete with the leprechaun, to the hospital. They raise their glasses to happiness. Some of the patients and staff enter and join the celebrations. Rebecca stands to make a speech but Steve is there before her. He wishes the happy couple lots of luck and little ones. The guest clap politely when he finishes. Cathy holds hands with her sisters and when they stand together, they form an unbroken link of memory.
Lauren enters the glow-worm grotto. This time there are no missed turns or leafy cul-de-sacs. The splendour of the pulsating light draws her deeper into the clearing. She is standing in a fragile space. She can destroy it with a kick, a flick of her fingers, but destruction seems obscene in this glistening grotto.
Steve calls her name. His feet trample leaves, snap wood. The beam of a torch sweeps across the grotto.
‘Turn it off,’ she says.
He ignores her request and draws nearer, shines the torch in her face. ‘What the hell is going on, Lauren? I’ve been searching for you for over an hour.’
‘You were sleeping when I left.’
‘What has that to do with anything? I thought something…I’ve been out of my mind with worry.’
‘Why?’ She steps back from the beam.
‘Why?’ he shouts. ‘You disappear in the middle of the night. Why shouldn’t I worry? You don’t even have a mobile that I can contact you on.’
‘Turn off the torch and look around you, Steve. It’s so beautiful.’
‘If you insist.’ For an instant the grotto darkens but there is no time to see the clusters of light before he switches the torch on again.
‘Come back to the chalet, princess.’ He holds her arm, turns her towards the entrance to the grotto. ‘It’s been a long day. You must be exhausted—’
‘Steve, when we stayed with the Maori woman up by the glaciers, I threw my phone into a lake.’
‘You what?’
‘Yes…into Akona’s lake.’
‘Why on earth did you do that?’
‘To stop you controlling me.’
‘Control you? Since when did cherish become a form of control?’
‘You don’t cherish me, Steve. You possess me. I find it difficult to breathe when you stand too close to me.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with your breathing when you’re spending my money.’
‘I don’t want your money. When we return to Ireland, I’m leaving you.’
A simple statement. Three words that will change her life. Three words that can never be retracted. She feels lightheaded with relief. The consequences will come later.
‘You’re leaving me?’ He sounds indulgent, rather than angry. ‘And how, may I ask, do you expect to manage on your own?’
‘I will, somehow.’
‘Lauren, you have never stood on your own feet since you were born. It’s a little late in the day to change. You’re overwrought and not thinking clearly. Do I have to remind you of the times—’
‘No reminder is necessary. I understand the risk I’m taking. It’s my choice.’ She shudders, aware that she is throwing aside the affluence that has cushioned her against guilt.
‘You have the nerve to talk about choice.’ His anger is as refined as silk. ‘It was your choice to marry me. Your choice to be pampered and spoiled. Your choice to take everything I offered you. Your choice to engage in the occasional dalliance, which I tolerated because I knew you were tooinsecure to cope without me. I desired you, Lauren, but I paid the price, so don’t give me any balderdash about control. Being a trophy wife is a hell of a lot safer than opening those delicate veins.’
He tightens his grip on her arm when she tries to walk away. He turns her palm upwards and exposes it to the torch.
‘Money, Lauren. Do you really believe you can walk away and expect me to support you?’
‘I have some money—’
‘Have you really? May I ask what you’ve been doing? Saving euro in a jar behind my back?’
She pulls free and walks away from him. As she emerges from the grotto she breaks into a run, her footsteps drumming as she passes the Kea chalet and bangs on the door of the Silvereye. Julie answers the door. Without asking questions, she beckons Lauren inside and closes the door.
Chapter Sixty-four
Day Nine
Young people, mainly students, have come to hear his music but older people also crowd the auditorium. Lauren glances at a programme she picked up on the way into the auditorium. His biography is short, written in English and Maori. Six sentences: how easy it is to condense a life and prioritise the essential facts. Niran Gordon, composer, whose latest work is dedicated to his wife, the violinist, Gloria Gordon, who drowned in the tsu
nami. Her photograph, the ceremonial costume, is instantly recognisable. His own photograph is positioned beside it, a stamp-sized image, Asian eyes and strong Kiwi chin.
The musicians begin to play. His music fills the chambers of her mind. In this requiem to his wife, a beautiful woman in the wrong place at the wrong time, Lauren hears the tsunami rise, the juggernaut roar. Which of them made the decision to take that short Christmas break, she wonders. Did Gloria suggest it? Did he surprise her with air tickets? Did they argue over it, one or the other claiming a too-heavy work schedule then capitulate because they were in love and longed to be together? Cause and effect. A divine hand at work or a chaotic ruthless indifference?
As his lamenting music rises and collapses around her, she closes her eyes until all she hears is the shuddering guilt of survival.
Niran Gordon is a survivor, like herself. A survivor who understands that love, like death, can happen in an instant, between one heartbeat and the next, and be lost in that same blink of time. Was that what she sensed when she first saw him? What stopped her running terrified through the streets of Bangkok? What brought them together with such abandoned passion? She grips the arms of her chair to prevent herself rising and leaving the auditorium.
An instant of silence greets the end of the performance. The audience breathes a collective sigh as if they have been released from an ungovernable force and a solitary clap resounds through the auditorium. The applause rises and sweeps the audience to its feet. He walks on stage and bows in acknowledgement. He is dressed in white, the colour of mourning.
‘Your music speaks a terrifying language.’ A young woman in the front row asks the first question. ‘Who inspired you?’
‘My wife, Gloria.’ His lips kiss her name. ‘She is my inspiration in life and in death.’
He speaks calmly about the tsunami, instructs the students to play various movements that correspond to its destructive power. Lauren shrinks back into her seat. Rage river rage…rage towards the night ocean…She senses the dedication needed to compose with such controlled abandon. His music is more demanding than any wife or lover.
‘Did it exorcise your grief?’ an elderly man asks.
Niran Gordon shakes his head. ‘There are moments when I forget. But that is all they are…moments.’
When he has answered all their questions and left the podium, Lauren rises with the audience and makes her way to the foyer. He calls her name as she approaches the exit. She stops and waits until he reaches her. His white trousers are cut just above his ankles and sit snugly against his long brown legs. The high collar of his tunic is decorated with a filigree of gold embroidery. Instinctively, her eyes are drawn to the break on the bridge of his nose. She imagines the crunch of bone and gristle, the blood spurting, his indifference to the pain as he called his wife’s name again and again in the throes of the tsunami.
‘I sensed your presence in the auditorium,’ he says. ‘Just as I sensed you in my house. You left your scent behind.’
‘It was unforgivable of me to intrude.’
‘I wish you’d stayed.’
She shakes her head, holds her arms stiffly by her side. ‘You spoke well today. Your music is powerful. I wanted to hear it live.’
‘When are you leaving?’
‘Tomorrow evening.’
‘Can I see you before you go?’
‘For how long? A moment…two…three?’
‘Since Gloria died…’ he hesitates, aware that people have gathered and are politely waiting for them to finish their conversation. ‘There has been no one but you. Those times we spent together…they were more than moments. Much more.’
‘But not enough,’ she says. ‘This is not the right time for you…or for me.’
She sees the same realisation in his own eyes. His gaze is steadfast when he speaks again. ‘Later in the year I’ll be in London. Perhaps then?’
‘Later in the year…who knows? I have to go now.’ Unable to say goodbye she turns and walks away. She hails a taxi without difficulty. The driver is silent as he drives towards the airport. Two butterflies dance before the windscreen, twirl around each other, wings fluttering in a giddy, aerial courtship that ends abruptly when they are dashed against the glass. The driver spurts water on the windscreen. The wipers whip into action. The smear disappears. Lauren’s throat tightens. Chaos and destruction. Only a breath away from those who dance briefly in sunshine.
Twilight has settled when she returns to Havenswalk. Steve’s presence is still in the chalet. She smells his aftershave lotion but the shelf where it stood is empty. He has left a mobile phone on the table. A blue light flashes. She checks the screen, reads his text. ‘Phone me when this madness is over. You belong to me and those who lose their way always return to the one who cherishes them.’
Pebbles crunch under her feet as she walks along the shore. Tawny clouds fill the lake with radiance. The turbulence that almost swallowed her nephew is a tranquil mirror with no distortions. All the fire and the fury, rising and dying, transforming, creating new life, restoring memories. Lauren allows the blade to fall from her fingers. A tiny splash, imperceptible ripples spreading outwards but strong enough to shake the order of the world.
Epilogue
Havenswalk
16 February 2009
Dear Mum,
For fifteen years I never wrote to you. Never yearned to pick up a pen and pour out my heart. But now that my sisters have left, I feel the need to cling to something that was once familiar. It seems strange to write to you on a laptop but you were never to know the miracle of email. The trivial and the terrible relayed around the world in seconds. Communications have improved beyond your wildest imaginings…on the technology side, that is. The other kind, the-word-of-mouth, is as cocked up as it ever was.
At the hospital, Rebecca’s face was wet with tears when she said goodbye to Conor. Already, he is counting the weeks until September when we plan to visit Ireland. I’ll show him familiar places and walk with him along the estuary road where the swans once swam at high tide. The shore is now indented with car parking spaces and the bird sanctuary is straddled by an elevated bypass. But Rebecca says the birds still fly unafraid between the massive pillars and the swans remain unruffled by passing traffic. Yes, she held my hand when I asked, yes, indeed, the heron still stands and guards the water’s edge.
I will return from Ireland without my son. He intends spending a year working in Rebecca’s sanctuary before applying for a place in Trinity. In the short time she spent with him, I saw the bond between them strengthen and grow. I suspect she will become the best thing in his life. I’ve tried hard not to be jealous. It’s an unworthy emotion but a human one.
Tim will come to Ireland with us. Long-distance romance has the odds stacked against it but they are determined to give it a chance.
Lauren is living with Mel until she finds her own place. She has some money in her bank account, an inheritance from Gramps and the money from the sale of Heron Cove. It’s a pittance when weighted against Steve’s treasure chest but will tide her over the coming months. Niran Gordon, she claims, was the catalyst, but not her reason for leaving Steve. I know the man, not personally, but through reputation. Alma and I once attended a recital of his music. He is slight and intense and has, I suspect, stolen my sister’s heart. She made no further effort to contact him before leaving.
Does a man have the right to know he is to be a father? Will he handle that right, abuse it, discard it, deny it, reject it, trample it into indifference, whitewash it? Jeremy kept the right to remain silent, hoping I was a dark dream that would disappear in the morning. But such dreams do not disappear and Niran Gordon has not been told the truth. Nor has Steve. This pregnancy is a miracle, Lauren said, and she will carry it alone. She will give birth in September.
Steve is convinced she will break against the first wave and wash back to him. Being without him feels like an amputation, she said. She expects to suffer phantom twinges but I believe she’l
l cope. Even in the bad days, terror shadowing her cat-green eyes, a blade flicking her skin, she had the world at her feet if only she had the courage to look.
Midnight has come and gone. A new dawn is turning and Kevin waits for me. In bed he is a bully, plunging me into pleasure so deep I fear I’ll drown. Can you understand this ecstasy? Yes, I believe you can. I wandered into your bedroom one night when you and Daddy were making love. I didn’t see much, bedclothes tumbled, your bodies twisted in strange positions. I was young, probably about six years old, yet I understood, or sensed the shivery excitement that sparked the air. Daddy told me to leave the room. His voice was harsh, breathless. It sounded different, not slow and tolerant, as I knew it to be. But he didn’t scare me. And you, I remember your face flung back as if you were sunbathing, the languid fall of your limbs. I came into being from such rapture. All of us, four daughters conceived on a sigh, a moan, a deep capitulating surrender. We are women now. Would you recognise us? Would we recognise you? Daddy’s face is clear in my mind, young and laughing–but you have aged alongside us, carrying, as you always did, the burden of your wayward girls.
We will never forget you. How can we when you are the background music to our lives, easy and soothing, until an errant note scrapes against a nerve and we pause, as I do now, to breathe you in even deeper.
Good night, my lost loved ones,
Cathy
Letter from Laura
When I write The End – and know that it really is the end of my story, all the redrafts and edits complete – I feel as though I’ve reached the final stage of a long journey. Throughout the months, and sometimes years, I spend writing a book I live in a land of imagination with twists and turns and cul-de-sac, one-way streets and those clogged with too much traffic. This can be a difficult terrain to navigate – and also a challenging one. It was particularly true when I began to write The Prodigal Sister. I was in the passenger seat of a camper van travelling across the beautiful South Island of New Zealand. Each day we drove towards a new destination that had looked so reachable when planned on the map with Sean, my husband, in the comfort of our home. The scenery was spectacular, awesome mountains, shimmering emerald lakes, rainforests that looked as though they had reminded undisturbed since the hand that created them rested, well satisfied. But even the most amazing scenery can pall when the road is too long, the weather too hot, the sandflies too hungry, the camper too small and bad hair days are the norm. So, along with the pleasures of the trip, there were the niggling instances when tempers frayed and silences developed a threatening pout. Thankfully, such moments were rare and would have been forgotten in the overall enjoyment of our trip if I hadn’t trapped them on paper.