Iris has the sensation of sinking, of her pulse knocking at her temples, and she would really like to leave, like to be anywhere else but here, and Gina is saying something to Luke and there is a little interchange between them about how cold it is and whether they will walk to the summit of the hill and, in the middle of all this, Esme suddenly turns to look at Iris. She frowns. Then she takes Iris's wrist.
'We have to leave,' she announces. 'Goodbye.' She pulls Iris away and steers her down the path, glaring at Luke as they go.
When the car pulls up outside the home, Iris observes that her hands haven't stopped shaking, that her heartbeat is still uneven, still fast. She opens and shuts the glovebox as Alex gets out, as he helps Esme do the same. She pulls down the mirror and has a quick glance at herself, decides she looks deranged, pushes her hair off her face, then opens her door and steps out.
As they walk across the car park and in through the glass doors, she avoids meeting Alex's eye. He lopes along beside them, hands in his pockets. Iris passes her arm through Esme's and walks with her to the front desk, where she signs them in.
'Do you want to come as well,' she addresses the region of Alex's shoulder, 'or wait here? I don't mind, it's up to—'
'I'll come,' he says.
At the door to Kitty's room, Iris says, 'Here we are,' and Esme stops. She looks up to her left, at the point in the corridor where the wall meets the ceiling. It is the movement of someone who has just seen a bird passing overhead or felt a sudden gust of wind. She looks down again. She folds her hands over each other, then lets them dangle back to her sides.
'In here?' she says.
The room is bright, sun glaring through the French windows. Kitty is seated in a chair, her back to the view. She is dressed in a taupe twinset, a tweed skirt, a pair of polished brogues, looking for all the world as if she is about to get to her feet and tackle a good country walk. Iris can tell that the hairdresser has visited recently – her hair is brushed back in silver-blue waves.
'Grandma,' Iris advances into the room, 'it's me, Iris.'
Kitty swivels her head to look at her. 'Only in the evenings,' she replies, 'very rarely during the day'
Iris is momentarily stalled by this but then rallies herself. 'I'm your granddaughter, Iris, and—'
'Yes, yes,' Kitty snaps, 'but what do you want?'
Iris sits on a footstool near her. She feels suddenly nervous. 'I've brought some people to see you. Well, one person, really. The other one, the man over there, is Alex. I don't know if you remember him but...' She takes a deep breath. 'This is Esme.'
Iris turns to look at Esme. She is standing beside the door, very still, her head on one side.
'What have you done to your hair?' Kitty shrieks, making Iris jump. She turns back and sees that Kitty is speaking to her.
'Nothing,' she says, wrong-footed. 'I had it cut ... Grandma, this is Esme. Your sister, Esme. Do you remember your sister? She's come to visit you.'
Kitty doesn't look up. She looks determinedly at her watchstrap, rolling it between her fingers, and the thought crosses Iris's mind that she sometimes understands more than she lets on. Something in the room flexes and stirs, and Kitty rolls the watchstrap, a chain of gold links, between her fingers. Someone somewhere is playing a piano and a thin voice floats out over the top of the melody.
'Hello, Kit,' Esme says.
Kitty's head jerks round and the words begin to fall out of her mouth, without pause or reflection, as if she's had them ready: '– sit there with your legs like that, over the chair arm? Whatever it was you were reading anyway. And what was I supposed to do? My chances all ruined. You look just the same, just the same. It wasn't me, you know. It wasn't. I didn't take it. Why would I have wanted it? The very idea. Anyway, it was for the best. You have to admit that. Father thought so too, and the doctor. I don't know why you've come, I don't know why you're here, looking at me like that. It was mine, it was mine all along. Ask anyone.' She lets go of the watchstrap. 'I didn't take it,' she says, quite distinctly. 'I didn't.'
'Take what?' Iris says, solicitous, leaning forward.
Across the room, Esme unfolds her hands. She places them on her hips. 'But I know that you did,' she says.
Kitty looks down. She plucks and plucks at the fabric of her skirt, as if she can see something stuck to it. Iris looks from one to the other, then at Alex, who is standing beside Esme. He shrugs and pulls a face.
Esme steps further into the room. She touches the bed, the patchwork coverlet, she looks out of the window, along the sweep of the garden, out at the roofs of the city. Then she moves towards her sister's chair. She looks at Kitty for a moment, then reaches out and touches her hair, as if to smooth it into place. She puts her hand to the silver-blue waves at Kitty's temple and holds it there. It is a strange gesture and lasts for only a moment. Then she removes it and says to the air around her, 'I would like to be left alone with my sister, please.'
Alex and Iris walk down the corridor. They walk quickly. At some point, one of them reaches for the other's hand, Iris couldn't say for certain which of them it was. They hold hands, anyway, fingers laced together, and they walk round each corner and out into the sunshine. They walk as far as the car and then they stop.
'Jesus,' Alex says, and exhales as if he's been holding his breath. 'What was all that about? Do you know?'
Iris tilts her head to look at him. The sun is behind him and he is just a black silhouette, blurred and smudged against the light. She extracts her hand from his and leans against the car, pressing her palms against the heated metal. 'I don't know,' she says, 'but I think...'
'You think what?' Alex comes to lean next to her.
She pushes herself away from the car. Her arms hurt as if she hasn't moved them for a long time. She tries to order her thoughts. Kitty and Esme. Esme and Kitty. Chances all ruined. Wouldn't let go of the baby. Mine all along but I know that you did. 'I think I don't know.'
'Eh?'
She doesn't reply. She unlocks the car and gets in, behind the wheel, and after a moment Alex joins her. They sit together in the car, looking out at a man with a mower, cutting the lawn in even stripes, at an elderly resident of the home making his way down a path. She is thinking about Esme and Kitty but is also conscious of something pressing on her that she needs to say to Alex.
'I didn't know,' she says absently. 'I didn't know about the wife. Being pregnant. I would never have...'
Alex is looking across at her, his head tilted back into the seat. He gazes at her for a long moment. 'Ah, love,' he says, 'I know.'
They sit in the car together. Alex reaches over for her hand, her left hand, and Iris lets him take it. It lies there, in the lap of his jeans. He straightens out each of her fingers, one by one, then lets them curl back. 'Do you ever wonder,' he says, in a low voice, 'what it is we're doing?'
Iris looks at him. She is still running and rerunning the words in her head. I didn't take it. But I know that you did. 'Sorry?' she says.
'I said,' he speaks again in a soft tone, so that Iris has to strain forward to hear him, 'do you ever wonder what we're doing? You and me?'
Iris stiffens. She readjusts her position; she touches the steering-wheel. The elderly resident has reached the shade of a tree and is gazing up into the branches at something. A bird, perhaps? Iris gives her hand a small tug but Alex holds it fast.
'It's only ever been you,' he says. 'You know that.'
Iris snatches away her hand, pops the catch on the door and opens it with such force that it swings back on its hinges with a grinding noise. She leaps from the car and stands with her back to it, hands over her ears.
Behind her, she hears the other car door open, his feet on the gravel. She whips round. Alex is leaning on the car roof, and with one hand he is extracting a cigarette from its packet. 'What are you so afraid of, Iris?' He gives her a smile as he presses down on his lighter.
Esme holds the cushion between both hands. Its fabric – a textured damask in a deep bur
gundy – is packed tight with foam stuffing. It has gold piping at its edges. She turns it over, then turns it back. She takes two steps across her sister's room and she places it back on the sofa. She does this carefully, propping it against its twin, making sure it looks exactly as it did when she found it.
Two women in a room. One seated, one standing.
Esme waits for a moment, looking out of the window. The trees shake their heads at her. The sun appears from behind a cloud and shadows slide out from under everything: the tree, the sundial, the rocks round the fountain, the girl, Iris, who is standing beside her car with the boy. They are arguing again and the girl is angry, gesticulating and whirling one way then the other. Her shadow turns and turns with her.
Esme backs away from the window, keeping the girl and boy in her sights. She keeps her face averted from the other. If she is very careful she will not have to think about this just yet. If she holds her head just so, she can almost imagine that she is alone in the room, that nothing at all has happened. It is a relief that the noise has stopped, that everything is still. Esme is glad of that. One seated, one standing. Her hands feel empty now she has put down the cushion so she presses them together. She sits. She continues to press her hands together, with as much force as she can muster. She stares down at them. The knuckles turn white, the nails pink, the tendons standing out under the skin. She keeps her face averted.
Behind her, by the bed, a red cord hangs from the ceiling. Esme saw it when she entered the room. She knows what it is. She knows that if she pulls it, a bell will ring somewhere. In a moment, she will get up. She will cross the room. She will cross the carpet, keeping her face averted so she doesn't have to see anything because she doesn't want to see it again, doesn't want it imprinted on her mind any more than it is, any more than it will be, and she will pull the red cord. She will pull it hard. But for now she will sit here. She will take just a few minutes for this. She wants to watch until the sun goes in again, until the sundial loses its marker, until the garden sinks into softness, into shadow.
***
'I'm not afraid of anything!' Iris shouts. 'I'm certainly not afraid of you, if that's what you mean.'
He takes a long draw on his cigarette and seems to consider this. 'I never suggested you were.' He shrugs. 'I just happen to make it my business to interfere in your life. Especially when your life concerns mine too.'
Iris looks about wildly. She considers making a run for it, she considers leaping into the car and driving off, she contemplates the stones beneath her feet and thinks about hurling a handful at Alex. 'Stop it,' she falters instead, 'just stop it. It was ... it was all so long ago and we were just children and—'
'No, we weren't.'
'Yes, we were.'
'We weren't. But I'm not going to argue the toss with you about that. We're not children now, are we?' He grins at her as he releases a cloud of smoke. 'The point is that you know it's true. It's only ever been you and you know it's only ever been me.'
Iris stares at him. She cannot see how to respond. Her head feels blank, smooth, optionless. Suddenly, somewhere behind her, there is a flurry of feet on gravel and Iris turns, startled. Two carers in white uniforms are hurrying towards the home. One is holding a pager. Iris scans the front of Kitty's building. There is a quick movement behind one of the windows, which vanishes when she looks.
'The thing is, Iris,' Alex says, behind her, 'I just think—'
'Shush,' she urges, still looking at the building. 'Esme...'
'What?'
'Esme,' she repeats, pointing at the home.
'What about her?'
'I have to...'
'You have to what?'
'I have to,' she begins again, and suddenly something that has been snagged at the periphery of her mind seems to slide forward, the way a boat might loosen from its moorings and float free. Mine all along. Wouldn't let go. And do you have a picture of your father. Iris puts her hand to her mouth. 'Oh,' she says. 'Oh, God.'
She begins to move, slowly at first, then much faster, towards the building. Alex is close behind, calling her name. But she doesn't stop. When she reaches the door of the home, she wrenches it open and sprints along the corridor, taking the turns so fast that she glances off the wall with her shoulder. She has to get there first, she has to reach Esme first, before anyone else, she has to say to her, she has to say, please. Please tell me you didn't.
But when she reaches Kitty's room, the corridor is filled with people, residents in slippers and gowns and people in uniform spilling out of the door, and faces are turning to look at her, pale as handprints.
'Let me through,' Iris pushes at these faces, at these people, 'please.'
In the room are more people, more limbs and bodies and voices. So many voices, clamouring and calling. Someone is telling everyone to move off, to please return to their rooms immediately. Someone else is shouting into a telephone and Iris cannot make out the words. There is a frantic movement by two people leaning over someone or something in a chair. She glimpses a pair of shoes, a pair of legs. Good-quality brogues and thick woollen tights. She turns away her head, closing her eyes, and when she opens them again she sees Esme. She is sitting by the window, her hands laced over her knees. She is looking straight at Iris.
Iris sits down next to her. She takes one of her hands. She has to prise it from the grasp of the other and it feels very cold. She cannot think what she was going to say. Alex is there with her now, she feels the brief pressure of his hand on her shoulder and she can hear his voice telling someone that, no, they can't have a word and will they please back off. Iris has an urge to reach out and touch him, just for a moment. To feel that familiar density of him, to make sure it is really him, that he is really there. But she cannot let go of Esme.
'The sun didn't go in,' Esme says.
'Sorry?' Iris has to lean forward to hear her.
'The sun. It never went in again. So I pulled it anyway.'
'Right.' Iris clutches Esme's hand in both of hers. 'Esme,' she whispers, 'listen—'
But the people in uniform are upon them, muttering, exclaiming, enveloping them in a great white cloud. Iris cannot see anything but starched white cotton. It presses against her shoulders, her hair, it covers her mouth. They are taking Esme, they are pulling her up from the sofa, they are trying to extract her hand from Iris's. But Iris does not let go. She grips the hand tighter. She will go with it, she will follow it, through the white, through the crowd, out of the room, into the corridor and beyond.
Acknowledgements
My thanks to:
William Sutcliffe, Victoria Hobbs, Mary-Anne Harrington, Ruth Metzstein, Caroline Goldblatt, Catherine Towle, Alma Neradin, Daisy Donovan, Susan O'Farrell, Catherine O'Farrell, Bridget O'Farrell, Fen Bommer and Margaret Bolton Ridyard.
A number of books were invaluable during the writing of this novel, in particular The Female Malady: Women, Madness and English Culture, 1830—1980' by Elaine Showalter (Virago, London, 1985) and Sanity, Madness and the Family by R.D. Laing (Penguin, London, 1964).
About the Author
MAGGIE O'FARRELL is the author of four previous novels, including the acclaimed The Hand that First Held Mine and After You’d Gone. Born in Northern Ireland in 1972, O'Farrell grew up in Wales and Scotland. She has two children.
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox Page 19