Too Close to Home

by Aoife Walsh

  ‘I just don’t believe you, Nita. I never picked you for a head-in-the-sand type, ignoring what’s in front of you, or I never would have—’

  ‘You never would’ve what, Des?’

  ‘Never mind.’

  ‘You never would have abandoned your daughters to my sole care?’

  ‘Look, Nita, don’t turn this into a personal attack on me. This isn’t about us or your anger, it’s about Minny, and the fact is, because of your policies—’

  ‘Oh, which policies are those?’

  ‘Your obsession with helping lame dogs, to be frank. Apparently Penny’s been worried for a while because of Minny being under undue pressure to look after Aisling at school – fair enough, I’m not saying anything about that, but I don’t see why you need to extend it to every misfit who crosses your path. Now she’s suddenly dropped her former friends in order to hang out with a boy who has a known history with drugs – Minny herself told Harriet that.’

  ‘Yes. She told me too. I already knew, because your mother had told me.’ Nita stretched out an arm to pull Aisling towards her.

  ‘Oh great, and you thought it a good plan to encourage Minny to get involved with him?’

  ‘They’re not involved, Des.’

  ‘Really? Once again you’re proving unable to see the obvious, Nita. Maybe Minny finds it difficult to talk to you. She told Harriet, on the other hand …’

  Minny saw her mother’s eyes narrow.

  ‘Yes, she did, Nita – she told Harriet that she had a crush on this boy.’

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ Minny cried.

  ‘And that Penny was jealous because they were spending so much time together. Well, I ask you, Nita, what do you think a fifteen-year-old boy has on his mind when it comes to hanging around with a young girl who has those kinds of feelings for him?’

  After that the conversation became, briefly, rather ugly. Minny lost track of what she was shouting herself; she could scarcely hear anyone else over the baby, who’d started screaming when she did, but anyway it didn’t last long, because her mother kicked her father out. He was yelling things about lawyers and seeking his rights if no one else was going to be looking after his daughters when she slammed the door in his face and pushed everyone through into the back room.

  It took Minny all evening not to feel shaky. The first thing she did was send Franklin a text:

  So sorry. He is mental and Penny has been making all this stuff up. Don’t know why. Think she has gone nuts.

  His reply came quickly but it just said:

  Don’t worry about it.

  The worst part was when Babi got back just as they were going to bed and demanded to be told what had happened. Their mother tried to take her aside, but they could all hear Babi’s reactions. Minny sat next to Selena, who had been frankly overacting during the whole situation – crying and stuff, and looking all traumatised, when it wasn’t about her at all.

  ‘I told you,’ Babi said loudly, in the kitchen. She sounded triumphant. ‘I told you this is what would happen, but you had to be so civilised, and urge the girls to give him another chance straightaway, and this is the result – he thinks he can still treat you and them however he pleases and do whatever he likes. You’re going to end up needing a lawyer again, I tell you now.’

  ‘Shut up,’ Selena screamed. She ran to the door. ‘Shut up, shut up, shut up. You’re not our mother! And he –’ she pointed at Gil, who was standing by the fridge – ‘he isn’t anything.’

  ‘I’m worried about Selena,’ Nita said on Sunday evening.

  It hadn’t been that bad over the weekend. Selena had seemed more or less her usual self on Saturday morning – she didn’t apologise and it was a bit weird and awkward, but it seemed they all, including Babi, had agreed just to forget about it. Sel did have a screaming fit at four o’clock on Sunday morning when Aisling turned on the light in the bathroom and hence also the extractor fan (and turned the hot water off, but at least that didn’t make a noise). They found her standing on the landing with her hair on end still yelling, even though Ash had gone back into her bedroom and shut the door. And she had cried over her maths just that evening, even though she only had about eight sums to do and she was good at maths.

  Aisling was upstairs watching The West Wing for the millionth time on her computer because no one else could stomach it any longer. Babi was out with Gil; Sel and Raymond were in bed. Their mother was lying on her spine on the sofa glugging white wine because it had been a rough couple of days. She’d spent her Saturday afternoon driving out to a college miles and miles away to see if it might be at all suitable for Aisling, only their angle had been to ask her why she was so keen to force a person with a learning disability into doing academic exams. ‘That was why they dragged me out there, so they could share their philosophy with me. Open my mind.’

  ‘Ash doesn’t have a learning disability.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Do they not understand what the autistic spectrum is?’

  ‘Apparently not.’ She took a swallow of wine.

  ‘It’s not the lessons that are the problem, it’s the teaching. And the other kids.’

  ‘I know. You and I can understand that, and your grandmother, but it seems no one else in the entire world.’

  Minny wriggled into a more comfortable position; her Hello Kitty pyjamas had seen at least three summers and were on the snug side. ‘So what are you going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know. There are still options, but the trouble is everything will be closing down for the summer soon. I’d really like to get a plan in place so that Ash knows what she’ll be doing come September. But I’m so bloody busy with this play, and the end of term – I’m already neglecting you all shamefully.’

  ‘We’re all right,’ Minny said. Everything was relative.

  ‘I don’t even know what the hell’s going to happen when I have to go to Edinburgh.’

  ‘Well, you know what’s not going to happen.’

  ‘I could murder your father.’ Nita refilled her wine glass. ‘He just had to go and make such a spectacular arse out of himself that not even Selena will consider going to stay with him.’

  ‘You wouldn’t want us to, would you? After that? And she’s even worse.’ Minny really felt that. That Harriet should, in an inflammatory context, start talking about what Minny had told her during a confidential conversation – let alone start making stuff up – was desperately bitter. It made her feel like an idiot. So they’d decided that Penny – completely unknown to Harriet and virtually so to Des – was more trustworthy than Minny. That was fine. She could exist in a state of mutual lack of trust as far as they were concerned.

  ‘I’m sorry you feel so let down, honey,’ Nita said now. ‘Things have gone wrong, haven’t they?’

  ‘You could say.’

  ‘And now I have to leave you all.’

  ‘It’s only for five days, Mum. We’ll be fine.’

  ‘I hope so. You know I have to rely on you, don’t you?’

  Minny sighed. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Even more than usual though? Babi does her best, but she can’t always … concentrate. And with Raymond in particular, you know …’

  ‘I’ll keep an eye on him.’

  ‘Just … be there at bathtime, always? And don’t stay out any nights, will you? And at mealtimes – make sure she cuts the grapes in half.’

  ‘I will, Mum.’

  ‘I know. In a way he’s the one I’m least anxious about; he’s not going to crack up. Try to keep Ash talking, won’t you?’ She twisted her glass. ‘I’m worried about Selena.’

  ‘Why?’ Minny had found one of her grandmother’s emery boards sticking out from under the sofa. She started filing her nails.

  ‘She looks beside herself most of the time.’

  ‘Well, you know. She doesn’t sleep well, does she?’ Sel had always had patches where she got a lot of nightmares. She used to sleepwalk sometimes.

  ‘I know, but normally she
comes in to me. She hasn’t appeared at my bedside in weeks. I think she’s struggling to – I don’t know, I think grow up. Be more independent. Consciously, I mean. And all this Bible obsession – she keeps reading the Old Testament. I didn’t mind the Jesus stuff, but there are some nasty stories earlier on. Poor kid. It’s hard for her to process all this about her father – you were so angry when he left that I think you got some of it out of the way. She was very little. Maybe she still has to go through it. She said something very negative about Harriet this morning.’

  ‘Selena did?’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘Well, you can’t blame her. Harriet’s a cow.’

  Nita pulled a face. ‘I don’t like saying this because it makes me sound like a bitter ex-wife, but I think she’s just very young, you know? She just got it wrong – both what you said, and what she did about it. I mean, look at it from her point of view: your father was ranting and raving about how worried he was; she was trying to help, I think.’

  ‘It was a power thing.’

  ‘Well. Possibly.’

  Minny wriggled again. ‘She’s massive now.’

  ‘Oh yes? It’s not long to go, is it? You might like having another baby in your life. Would you rather a boy or a girl, do you think?’

  ‘Girl.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ve got a baby brother already.’

  ‘I expect Harriet’s hoping for a boy,’ Nita said, refilling her glass again and leaning back. Minny thumped up her cushion and leaned against her. ‘Your father won’t care – he always got on better with girls anyway. But Harriet will be wanting a boy, I would think.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah. To give him something different.’

  It was dim in the room because the bulb had broken in one lamp a couple of weeks before and they hadn’t replaced it yet. Her mother was twisting a strand of Minny’s hair into a rope so Minny lay still. ‘It’s not really different though, is it?’ She could suddenly feel every place her body was bent. ‘It’s not as if Dad’s really only got girls, is it?’

  She waited, without turning her head; there was a long pause when nerves thrummed along the length of her stretched-out legs.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Nita said, wrenching her fingers out of Minny’s hair and sitting up to put her glass down.

  ‘Yeah, you do. I’ve always kind of known, Mum.’

  ‘No, you haven’t. Isn’t anything to know. How?’

  ‘Come on, Mum – Raymond. He looks just like me, everyone says it. And I look like Dad.’

  Her mother rubbed her face, all over, with her fingertips and sat still with her eyes shut. ‘I was always amazed that no one else noticed it. He was the image of you from the moment he was born. Have you really always known?’

  ‘I don’t know. Sort of. I didn’t … think about it. I never really bought your secret short relationship though.’

  Nita made a face. ‘I know. I felt so puerile – a made-up boyfriend, for God’s sake. But I thought it was better than a made-up wild night of sex with a man whose name I never knew.’

  ‘I suppose so. I didn’t know what was wrong about it, but it just never sounded right. And then he was born, and he looked like me, and he felt like he’d always been here, and it felt right. So …’ So she hadn’t needed to ask any questions. ‘I still don’t really get it though. I mean Dad had been gone two years, nearly, when he was born.’

  ‘A year and a half. Yes. I won’t give you too many details.’

  ‘No, don’t.’

  ‘But do you remember when I went away to that conference in Glasgow?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t. I went to New York. We’d just had that really tough year – obviously – Ash was having a hard time settling at Raleigh, and you’d been in trouble and were still miserable, and I was panicking about money. The lease was up on the flat and I didn’t know whether to renew it or not. He was sending us money, but I was all in a haze about whether we could rely on that lasting because I couldn’t really tell what state he was in, just over the phone when all we did anyway was argue. And I hoped I might even persuade him to come and see you three, because I knew he’d be rolling in guilt and self-loathing and would never make it if I left him to it. So I just decided it was time to see him face to face and talk things through – the future.’

  Minny had started peeling the label off the wine bottle while she listened. ‘Why did you tell us you were going to Glasgow?’

  ‘Well, for God’s sake, things were fraught enough, and I was scared that you would think I was trying to bring him back. I honestly wasn’t – not that I didn’t have a fantasy that things would be wonderful and he would have a revelation, but I knew it wouldn’t happen really, we’d come too far. Anyway –’ she topped up her glass – ‘I went. And I’d honestly thought I was over it, I’d thought we could just have a calm discussion. But it didn’t happen like that.’

  ‘Ewww,’ Minny said, putting the cushion over her face.

  ‘Grow up, Minny, we’re having a conversation here.’ She batted her with the other cushion. ‘I won’t go into detail, but suffice to say we got extraordinarily drunk. We rowed almost the whole time, and I finished up with the conviction that I wasn’t the right person to pull him out of what he was going through. So I pulled the plug. I told him that we, he and I, were truly over and I’d been seeing someone else – that was where the imaginary boyfriend first showed up, but he mightn’t have believed it otherwise. And I came home and moved us to Babi’s house where I knew we’d have a roof over our heads whatever happened with your father.’

  ‘And what about when you found out you were …?’

  ‘Ah. Well, that was a few weeks later. And I was very happy.’

  ‘Even at first? How could you be?’

  ‘Well, I loved your father, Minny. I still do in a kind of way. Raymond was the seal, for me, the conclusion. An end and a beginning. I could never regret him.’

  Minny was still behind her cushion, thinking. ‘Was he with Harriet already?’ She didn’t know what she wanted the answer to be.

  ‘No, not really. He knew her, he mentioned her actually, but they weren’t together.’

  She came out for the most serious question. ‘Does Dad know?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How can he not know?’

  ‘I never told him I was pregnant. I don’t actually know how he found out, but a few months in, just after I’d told you actually, he was on the phone gibbering one night.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I told him the baby wasn’t his. I told him I knew conclusively that the father was my imaginary boyfriend.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, Minny. Try having the most complicated life you can possibly imagine and then this. I’ve told you, I didn’t want your father after that weekend. He wasn’t ready to come back here; he certainly wasn’t ready to be part of my life again. On the other hand he was already miserably guilty over abandoning us. What would have happened if I’d told him we were having another child? And if he did come back, for this one, what would that do to you girls?’ She poured out more wine. ‘Also, can you imagine what my mother would have said?’

  ‘So if he believed you, why was he looking so goggle-eyed when he turned up here and saw the baby?’

  ‘Why do you think? He knows what he looks like. He knows what you look like.’

  ‘So he knows?’

  ‘No. I fobbed him off again. I told him you must take after me more than we’d ever realised. We didn’t have time to argue about it, not in the front room with the rest of you in here, and anyway, why would he have argued? He wanted to believe me, so he did.’

  ‘He can’t really believe it. Not looking at him.’

  ‘Well, he’s choosing not to think about it, just like you did for a while. I don’t much blame him – it would be devastating to a lot of people if it came out now.’

  Minny thought, fiercely, about h
ow anyone could look at Raymond and not want to be his father.

  ‘So don’t stir it, Minny, all right?’

  ‘Fine. What? I don’t stir things.’

  Nita let it go. Minny could see in her mother’s face that she felt guilty about giving her even more to deal with, and she was worried about the secret being out to the tiniest degree, but that she was also glad. That kind of secret, kept to yourself, could make you feel like you were going mad. Minny was glad herself. She would help her mother keep the baby safe.

  ELEVEN

  Term ended on Thursday. Minny was dying to be shot of school, but apprehensive because, currently lacking a normal structure of friends who made telephone calls and things like that, she didn’t know what she was going to do with herself for six weeks. Franklin said he’d have to get some kind of job.

  On Wednesday night when she got home from school there was a letter on the kitchen counter, for her. Not a library reminder or a postcard, an actual letter, with scruffy slanty inky writing on it. Babi pointed it out to her without comment. Minny went up to her room to open it, and scrambled up onto her bunk in case Selena came bursting in.

  It was from Harriet. It was quite hard to read, being handwritten, and it took her a while to plough through it. It went on about being sorry and all that, and how much Harriet had enjoyed their weekend and getting to know Minny and how much she regretted that it was spoilt. Then she said: ‘The thing is, I appreciate I was probably wrong because I’ve never even met the girl, and when I reflect on the fact that her mother called up Des after she’d spoken to your mum, and didn’t even tell your mum she was doing it, it sounds as if she might be a tiny bit crazy all right. Des is so sorry about the way he handled it – I think he lost his temper because he was so worried and so guilty, that his leaving might have had a really bad effect on you, you see – and he’d been so impressed with you before that. Because he thought you’d handled it so well and grown up so well. Anyway he feels now that he definitely went the wrong way about things with accusing you like that, and that after all perhaps your friend Penny wasn’t telling the truth. He was just worried about you, Minny. It’s scary being parent to a teenager, not that I know – yet! – from personal experience but I can see he’s always thinking about it. If he phoned you, or if maybe you phoned him if you’d rather, would you talk to him and let him apologise? Anyway I’ve got to apologise because I guess I did betray your trust and I can see that it might be hard for you to trust me again. Would you think about forgiving me? I’d love it if we could sort things out so that we’d all be ready for your little brother or sister – you, and Aisling and Selena, are going to be so important to him – or her!’