Still You

by Claire Allan

  It might take a little time – but I could. And if I couldn’t, I thought with a drunken smile, I could always hire a hitman.

  “A pint of milk to line your stomach and a banana,” Áine said. “I know a hangover when I see one.”

  She was sharp, I had to admit. For one supposed to be losing her faculties nothing got past her. Of course I shouldn’t have been seeing her that day. I had planned to sleep the hangover off from my pity party in front of a roaring fire and a Doris Day movie or three while the girls were still with their father. But the peace and quiet I had been hoping for was thrown out the window when Cecilia Brightly phoned just as Calamity Jane was singing about her secret love.

  “Georgina, sorry to call you on a weekend but Jonathan has just called us and something has cropped up at work. He can’t go to his aunt’s until much later and he really, really doesn’t want her left on her own. I know it’s a huge ask – but we would pay the usual overtime rates. You know it would be bad for her if we sent in a new face and we know how fond you are of her – and she of you.”

  Cecilia had simpering down to a fine art, I thought. While it might have been true that we were fond of each other, in that moment I knew that it wouldn’t have mattered one iota to Cecilia if the pair of us were sworn enemies as long as she didn’t have to let down one of her private clients. One of her clients who hadn’t had the manners to call me himself and tell me how valued I was, even though I knew he had my number.

  “I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate,” Cecilia said. “You have to agree, it wouldn’t be good to leave Áine on her own. You have said yourself how routine is important …”

  Cecilia, it seemed, was almost as adept at emotional blackmail as she was at simpering. And, as the full force of the emotional turmoil that comes with a hangover had just about fully hit, I was unable to refuse. “Yes, of course I will,” I found myself saying, even as my body screamed at me that it was perfectly comfortable where it was, prostrate on the sofa, warmed by the glow of the fire. I couldn’t leave Áine on her own, not for such a long time. The guilt would have eaten me alive – and my emotions were battered anyway.

  So I pulled on a T-shirt and jeans, clipped my hair back off my face, took two paracetamol downed with an ice-cold glass of Diet Coke and grabbed a packet of cheese-and-onion crisps to try and settle my stomach.

  But it was no use. By the time I reached Áine’s I was feeling worse than I had first thing that morning when I had woken to a thumping headache and a dry mouth.

  “I’m sorry,” I said to Áine.

  “Strange, isn’t it?” she said with a laugh as she poured me a glass of milk. “I can remember this, but I don’t remember my own name half the time.”

  “A bad day today?” I asked.

  “Not as bad as you’re having,” Áine answered, handing me a banana. “Just quiet. I’m used to Jonathan being here at the weekends. Even if he is working here, I’m used to him being about the house. It’s comforting. Too many echoes around this place and I’m not always sure which of them are real.”

  I reached out and took her hand – there was a slight tremor to it. “I’m sorry. If I had known you were all alone all day I would have come earlier. And I definitely wouldn’t have had so much to drink last night. You have to know, it’s not like me at all. I can’t remember the last time I had a hangover and I hope this will be the last for a long time.”

  “I thought of calling you,” Áine said, “but I didn’t want to impose. Jonathan said I’m not to cross the lines.”

  I sat for a moment, thinking of Áine rattling around the big house feeling alone, and I felt a wave of sadness wash over me again. Damn drink and damn horrors.

  “You’re to call me any time,” I said. “Now, how about we make some lunch?”

  I checked the fridge, found some pork chops and green beans and then set about peeling some potatoes.

  “Well, we’ll have a nice big lunch just now and a bit of a chat,” I said, “and I’ll help make sure you have everything you need. It’s not much but …”

  “I’m sorry for being such a Negative Nelly,” she said. “Charlotte used to tell me I was too serious. I’m fine honestly. I’ve been keeping myself busy. I tidied my room.”

  I thought of her room, almost like a cell, and couldn’t think there was much tidying to do. “Look,” I said, “I’m here for the afternoon now. So how about we watch a movie together? Or just chat?”

  “I couldn’t ask you to stay here, not on your day off. I hope that care crowd are paying you well at least?”

  “I honestly don’t mind being here. I’ve nowhere else to be. Anyway, didn’t you promise me before that you were going to tell me all about Charlotte and your family? It must have been amazing growing up in this big house – with those lovely gardens. We can plan some more about what we can do there. You know I’m not blessed with green thumbs, but I will give it a good try.”

  “I loved the garden,” Áine said. “Especially our vegetable patch. Grew all our own stuff – well, a lot of stuff. Potatoes, carrots, those … those … green things … the green things. You know … the things …”

  “Cabbage?” I offered.

  “No … no … the things – the long, and green. Damn it … the green things …”

  I could see Áine was getting flustered. “It’s okay,” I offered. “It’ll come to you. Cucumbers?”

  “No! Not blasted cucumbers!” Áine said, her mood changing and something that looked like anger flashing across her face. “Green … damn it … damn it …” She began to open all her cupboards as if looking for inspiration. Slamming them closed, she seemed to get even more in a panic.

  “Áine,” I said softly, although I wasn’t sure if I was doing the right thing or even if I should be doing anything at all. “Please …”

  She opened the fridge and pulled out whatever she could. I doubted she even knew what she was looking for any more. I walked to her and called her name again, taking her shoulders and gently trying to pull her to face me.

  Áine shrugged me off. “Don’t!” she shouted. “Don’t touch me. I’m not going to let it beat me!” Tears began to fall from her eyes. “This is stupid!” She hit the side of her head repeatedly, with a force I was surprised she was capable of, as if trying to dislodge the word she was struggling to find.

  I fought the fear that was rising inside of me, feeling more than a little out of my depth. I reached for Áine again, and took her wrists as gently as I could, shushing her and trying to calm her.

  “It’s okay Áine, it’s okay,” I said, the fear I was feeling echoed in her eyes. “It’s okay,” I soothed again, and again, until the fight had gone from Áine and she slumped into my arms as the pot of potatoes on the stove bubbled over.

  Áine was quiet as she ate her dinner. She had repeatedly apologised for her behaviour and I had repeatedly told her it was okay and that I understood.

  “I don’t know,” Áine had said as she sipped from a glass of water after pushing her dinner around the plate for a while. “I don’t know anything about this. How quick? What will it end like?”

  “You have to try not to think about it too much.”

  She offered a watery smile. “That’s part of the problem, isn’t it? Not thinking about things. But I have to accept it, don’t I? And learn not get so angry when words escape me, when memories escape me.”

  “I know it’s scary,” I said, remembering the look of fear on Áine’s face as she tried to find that one missing word.

  “I’m not scared of dying,” Áine said, sitting back. “I’m scared of forgetting them – forgetting Charlotte, forgetting my mother, forgetting Lorcan, forgetting Jack.”

  “Then tell me,” I said. “Tell me about Charlotte. Tell me about the kind of person she was – the kind of things she did.”

  “She was the most beautiful person I ever knew,” Áine said. “Flighty and free and she let me believe I could be anything. She was my best friend. I have missed her every
day since she left. Every day.”

  1964

  The days before Charlotte left were strange. They always were. It was always the same – the same cramming in of happy memories, knowing that they wouldn’t see each other again for a long time. There was a falseness to it all, of course. Almost every situation was played out with extra niceness and extra kindness and a saccharine tang of family bliss that, even though everyone knew it was not strictly real, they revelled in all the same.

  And the sun shone for those few days. The flowers bloomed. The birds sang. The house felt warm from the very inside out and Áine reminded herself to take a few moments every day to consign these moments to her memory. The house would be quiet soon enough. The rooms empty. The stairs, which now rattled and thudded with the sound of the children’s footsteps, would fall silent soon enough. Even Rosaleen had freely admitted she would miss it – that she would miss how Jonathan watched as she moved around the kitchen or how Emma would read to her in the early evenings. Her eyes were often too tired now to read herself so she would sit in her armchair, Jonathan on her knee, and she would listen to his sister’s soft voice retell the stories of Narnia. She was nearly as excited as the children to hear the stories – to revel in the excitement in Emma’s voice as she delved further and further through the wardrobe doors into a world so different from that which they knew. She had convinced them both that the tall mahogany wardrobe in her own room had magical powers – when the moon was full and frost lay on the ground and Jonathan asked her could he please come home during winter to try it for himself.

  When the afternoon sun was highest, they would sit together in the garden. The children would dip in and out of the old tin tub Áine usually kept for scrubbing the clothes and, while it was no match for their swimming pool in Italy, it seemed to give them almost as much pleasure.

  They talked, of course, of going to the park. They talked of the beach. They talked of many things – but Áine felt that in the safe bubble of the garden at Temple Muse they did not have the need to go any further. The house was big enough to offer enough adventure – enough places for their games of hide and seek, sanctuary when they needed a few minutes’ rest but room enough in each space for them all to sit together.

  And what she found most remarkable – most magical of all – was that she felt a bond in the house in those few days that she didn’t think anything could break.

  Charlotte would creep into her room at night and crawl into her bed. They would cuddle together like they did as children and talk as they watched the moon and the stars through the window.

  “Do you really like him?” Charlotte asked one night, her voice soft.

  Áine nodded. She felt shy – embarrassed even – but she could not deny that she liked him.

  “And does he like you?” Charlotte asked.

  “I think so,” Áine replied. “He says he does. He kisses me as if he likes me.”

  Charlotte smiled. “Can you make me one promise, my sister – because I do believe that the next time I see you, you will be on your way to being a married woman? Can you promise me that before you say yes to any proposal –”

  Áine nudged her, blushing. “You’re getting ahead of yourself.”

  “Now, now, stranger things have happened. Just please … if he asks you to marry him, before you say yes make sure to consider everything I told you. You don’t have to settle for anything less than magic. Consider whether or not you really like him and whether or not he really, really likes you. Only ever say yes to a marriage proposal when you know, without a shadow of a doubt, that he loves you like he has never loved anyone else before.”

  “And Jack, Jack really, really loves you back? He loves you like he has never loved anyone before?” Áine asked, rolling onto her side and looking at her sister.

  Charlotte smiled. “He does. Sometimes I think maybe he loves me too much – that he relies on me too much for his happiness – but yes, when I ask myself that question I know that he does. I know I am lucky. I want you to be that lucky. I want you to live a full and wonderful life full of wonderful memories, great children, amazing sex.”

  Áine poked her sister again. “Charlotte! You are bold!”

  Charlotte grinned. “Don’t underestimate the importance of good sex. It’s not as important as true love but it’s important enough. Don’t marry a man who cannot kiss – a man who cannot kiss cannot make love.”

  “Charlotte, you are incorrigible!”

  “You love me for it. Who else could speak to you so freely? Mother won’t. That’s not to say she wasn’t loved or that she doesn’t know love. She and Daddy were hopelessly in love – so hopelessly in love that they couldn’t cope without each other. There’s a romance in her never moving on, don’t you think?”

  “I have never thought of it like that,” Áine said. “I never knew him – so I never really thought too much about them – not as a couple. Not really.”

  “They were hopelessly in love,” Charlotte said. “Just like Jack and me – and just as I hope you and Lorcan will be in love.”

  Áine blushed again – a different kind of a blush – one which came with the hope that she would indeed fall in love, properly in love – the kind of love which lasted – with Lorcan.

  Rosaleen’s fingers were sore and swollen. She muttered under her breath as she threaded the needle and set back to work.

  “I can help you with that, Mother,” Áine said, taking a seat close to her.

  “You can help by staying out of my light,” Rosaleen said with a smile, a smile which hid her frustration as the thread slipped from the needle again.

  “You’ve done a great job. Why don’t you just let me sew the buttons on?”

  “I can do it,” Rosaleen said, with a firmness which let Áine know there was no point in continuing to badger her.

  The dress had been a labour of love for Rosaleen since Charlotte had announced they were to leave. It was fairly simple – not with the frills and flounces that she would have sewn into her own daughters’ dresses when they were little – but it was still beautiful. And it had taken a great deal of strength and willpower for Rosaleen to complete it – her hands no longer able to deftly work a sewing needle in the way they once did.

  “Alright, Mother,” Áine said, proud of the determination in her mother’s eyes. She wasn’t going to let anything stop her.

  “Do you think Emma will like it? I know she is used to her fancy Italian clothes. This might not match up.”

  Áine smiled. “Oh Mammy! Do you not know how special this will be to her? Of all the dresses I had as a child, the dresses you made for me were my favourites. I got so many admiring glances as we went to Mass and when I went to play with my friends. I’m sure Emma will just love it. It’s beautiful – perfect for a gorgeous little girl dancing in the Italian sunshine!”

  “It’s not too old-fashioned?” Rosaleen looked genuinely worried as she snipped the cotton thread and set about sewing the last button into the simple cotton dress, decorated with delicate blue forget-me-nots. She had found the perfect pearlised buttons to match.

  “Not at all! What eight-year-old girl wouldn’t love this? And I know she has a lovely white cardigan which she could wear with it when it gets chilly in the evenings.”

  “I don’t think it ever gets chilly in Italy,” Rosaleen said.

  “Oh yes, it does. I’m sure the dress will be perfect. She will love it.”

  “I’ll miss her, you know – Emma. She’s growing so fast. Jonathan too. When they come back it’s like we have to spend so much time getting to know them again and, just when we settle into a lovely routine, they leave again.”

  Emma and Rosaleen had become close in the last few weeks. Emma loved cuddling up with her granny – the two of them reading to each other, sharing cuddles and sneaking cookies together from the jar in the pantry. They had been caught on more than one occasion with milk moustaches and guilty smiles. All Áine and Charlotte could do was laugh – and sneak off t
hemselves for cookies and milk while they talked about how much younger Rosaleen seemed when the children were around her.

  Jonathan, despite his younger years, was the quieter of the pair – but he and Áine had become close – as they always did when he visited the big house at Temple Muse. He would spend his time with his aunt in the garden, intrigued by the flowers and plants, not to mention the bugs and worms which he spotted. In the evenings he would sit beside her at the piano, his small, chubby fingers matching her notes – delighted to make it through ‘Chopsticks’ perfectly. And then he would beg her for a bedtime story – his own finger following the words she read, trying to sound them out.

  Áine and Rosaleen looked at each other sadly – the house would be different when they were gone. While they enjoyed their peace and quiet, every year after Charlotte and her family left their routine felt meaningless, the peace and quiet unsettling rather than reassuring, and when they sat side by side in the evening they could feel the physical loss of the children who would have sat beside them and offered them hugs and would have fallen asleep before needing to be carried up the stairs to bed.

  “There is no doubt we’ll miss them,” Áine said.

  “And Charlotte too,” Rosaleen said.

  “And Charlotte too.”

  Chapter 14

  Present Day

  I woke early the following morning and padded downstairs. I took two paracetamol from the cupboard beside the cooker and washed them down with a glass of orange juice and then I switched on the kettle to make a cup of coffee. The twins were still with Matthew and the house was silent. I should have been enjoying a well-deserved and luxurious lie-in but for the last fifteen minutes I had been lying in the half-light thinking about the day before and the stories Áine had told me of Charlotte. I’ll admit it was a nice distraction from thinking about my own woes.