“I love you, Elsa.”
“I love you too, Mummy.”
When the performers take their bow at the end of the show, the children are too busy searching for dropped sweets to applaud them. Katherine decides to go backstage to say hello to Charlie Copeland. The narrow corridor eventually leads Katherine, with Elsa and Isabel in tow, to the makeshift dressing rooms, where, as she knocks and slowly opens the door, she finds Charlie Copeland sitting in a tiny room. The room is filled with boxes, rows of stacked chairs, and a large bingo board. Charlie Copeland lifts his head to look at Katherine as she enters. His lids glisten peacock blue, his lips are scarlet red and his eyes are rimmed in thick raven black. His wig lies on his lap like a dead cat.
“Charlie, remember me?” Katherine holds out her arms to embrace him.
Charlie Copeland jumps up. “Oh, of course I do, of course I do. My lovely Katherine, oh my goodness, what a delightful surprise!” Charlie smiles broadly at Katherine and throws his arms around her. “Katherine Fallon! How are you?”
“Just fine, Charlie!”
“And these are your beautiful children!” Charlie pulls back to take in Elsa and Isabel.
“This is my daughter Elsa and her friend Isabel.”
“Two beautiful girls.” Charlie has now folded his hands under his chin, shaking his head in admiration at the two girls and staring in disbelief.
“How are you, Charlie? Are you well?”
“Oh, as well as can be expected. Oh, what a lovely surprise.” Charlie’s eyes are filling up as he looks at Katherine. “What a lovely, lovely surprise! And look at you, just as beautiful as ever! After all these years! My goodness! And tell me”—he speaks quickly now—“are you still living over the chip shop?” Charlie turns to Elsa and Isabel and laughs. “I used to love it when your mother came to rehearsals smelling of fish and chips—always made me hungry, so it did.”
Katherine laughs, too. Elsa smiles. There is a look of slight disgust on Isabel’s face.
“No, Charlie, I’m living up on Hillfoot Crescent now, just beyond Hillfoot Road.” Katherine smiles at Charlie.
“I know Hillfoot Crescent well. Oh, and you’re looking as glamorous as ever, Katherine. Look at your mother, girls—isn’t she beautiful!”
Isabel slips another hard sweet into her mouth and, crunching it loudly, brushes her hair back from her face with her hand.
“And you Charlie, still living up on Ridgeway Street?”
“No, dear, I’ve moved back in with Mummy. She’s not at all well.” Charlie Copeland shakes his head a little, as though pitying himself.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Charlie.” Katherine’s concerned tone disguises the fact that she is genuinely amazed that Charlie’s mother is still alive after all these years.
Then, suddenly he says, “Come here, Katherine, and tell me, have you seen anyone else from the group. What about that Rosemary Wylie one, where is she now?”
“I’ve no idea, Charlie. I’ve lost touch with everyone.”
“I know that your fella, what’s his name . . . your Don José! . . . Hugh Drummond—he’s doing very well for himself. Runs a catering business and has hotels and all, all over the place.”
“Oh, very posh!” Katherine laughs.
“And James McCauley took over his father’s furniture shop.”
“Oh, very good.”
“And Cissie McGee went to America.”
“Charlie, it seems you know everybody’s business!”
“And of course there was that young tailor.” Charlie Copeland’s pace slows a little. “You remember him, don’t you, Katherine? He made your costume for Carmen. A lovely young man.”
Katherine bleeds white and cold at the mention of Tom. “Yes, Charlie, I remember.”
“Terrible, wasn’t it?” Charlie Copeland gives a large sigh.
“Do y’know—now this’ll tell ye how odd I am—I still think about that young man. I do. Funny that, isn’t it. After all this time, I still think about him—as if that would do any good for him! That was such a terrible shame, that whole thing . . . such a lovely young man . . .” Charlie Copeland’s voice trails off almost to a whisper.
“That’s nearly twenty years ago, Charlie.” Katherine says, her voice shaking.
Charlie nods. “How time flies, eh!” he says, and he hunches his shoulders to show that there’s nothing he can do about the time flying. Then he makes a funny face at the two girls. He is aware of Katherine’s sudden disquiet. He wants to lighten the mood. “There you go!” he says, and smiles a wide smile.
Katherine visibly steadies herself and looks Charlie firmly in the eye. “And George is still a civil engineer and still works part-time for the Fire Service,” she says briskly.
“George?”
“George Bedford. Yes, we got married.”
“George Bedford. You married George Bedford after all? That big brute of a man! Oh, for goodness sake.”
“And he took me to Mexico for our honeymoon.”
“He did not?” Charlie Copeland has an astonished look on his face. “Mexico! Well, isn’t he the bee’s knees!”
“And we’ve four children.”
“Four. How wonderful. And are you still singing, Katherine?”
“Oh, no . . . no, not anymore.”
“Oh, that is a shame. And you could’ve taken the world by storm!” He looks intently at Elsa and Isabel. “Your mother, girls, your mother had a magnificent voice. The voice of an angel.”
“And you, Charlie, how’s the printing business going?”
“Still good. People still want their calendars I’m glad to say. And, as you see, I’m still doing this amateur stuff for my sins!” Charlie screws his eyes up as he smiles, his red lips spreading. “You know, we should get everyone together again—have a reunion!”
“Yes, we must.”
“Sure it’s great to see you.”
“And you, Charlie.”
“Any of these young girls gettin’ married soon?” Charlie turns to Elsa and Isabel again. Elsa smiles in response. Isabel glares at the ceiling.
“Charlie, we’ll leave you now and let you get organized. Perhaps we’ll catch up soon?”
“I certainly won’t leave it for long now that I know where you live!”
“Please, Charlie, call in if you’re ever passing, number ninety-two. I’d love to see you.”
Katherine gives Charlie Copeland another embrace.
“Good-bye, Charlie.”
“Good-bye, Katherine. See you soon.” Charlie turns to Elsa.
“This little one looks so like you, Katherine. Another Katherine Fallon, imagine that!” He rubs the top of Elsa’s head. Isabel has already moved to the door. Then turning to his makeshift dressing table, he gives Elsa two toffees from a paper bag.
“Thank you,” says Elsa. She looks into Charlie Copeland’s face. It is a child’s drawing.
On their way through town after Hansel and Gretel, Katherine, Elsa, and Isabel pass St. Mary’s Church on Chapel Lane. The two girls chat. Katherine is so preoccupied with the thought of having met Charlie Copeland again after all these years, a concrete reminder of when Tom was still alive, that as she passes the chapel, it happens automatically. She blesses herself—in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost—lifting her hand unconsciously and gracefully to her forehead, her chest, and her shoulders. So deep in thought is she that she is unconscious of how deliberate a display it is. Elsa and Isabel look up at Katherine in disbelief, wondering if she is aware of what she has done. And then it happens. Instantly across her cheek a splat of warmth, a thick, wet stink, shocking in the cold air of the night. Someone’s spit is on her face.
Katherine turns, confused, to look at who would do this, expecting a jeering child, a scut of a boy, an unruly adolescent who will run away as soon as he is spotted, but instead she sees a well-dressed, tallish man in a long haired tweed coat, carrying an umbrella. He has a face like a bird. The man looks directly at he
r, unflinchingly holds his gaze on her with his black eyes, then silently mouths the word Fenian as though he could be blowing her a kiss. His head remains angled toward her as his body moves forward. She feels the glob of spit move slowly down along her skin. The man walks on casually. She searches for a handkerchief in her handbag. She is shaking. She emits a sound that Elsa has never heard from her before, a high, soft groan. Elsa looks up at her mother, startled. The man turns the corner of the street and is gone. A shadow that’s crossed her soul.
The incident over, Katherine tries to make light of it, but she can see the girls shrink from her, as though they are completely embarrassed by her and want to pretend that it never happened. So instead, Katherine quickly switches to talking to the girls about Hansel and Gretel as they make their way home. After they disembark from the bus they leave Isabel at her door, but Isabel’s father wants to show Katherine and Elsa his lamp stands—wine bottles over which he has painstakingly arranged a layer of seashells—and Katherine says what an interesting use of wine bottles and seashells and how did he ever find the time to make them, but the conversation tires her. When at last they get home, Katherine washes her hands and face and then decides to change out of the tweed skirt she had put on that morning. The elasticated waistband of the skirt feels loose and she has become conscious of how it keeps slipping from her waist down onto her hips. As Katherine changes out of her skirt, her chest feels tight and her back feels sore. She stops to take a breath, spreading one hand in front of her upon the dressing table and leaning her upper body forward in an attempt to loosen her frame to take in air.
She tries to put the “incident” out of her mind. She won’t tell George: he’ll get too upset over nothing. There’s no point, she reassures herself, for by tomorrow it will all be forgotten. It was an isolated incident, just one of those stupid things that could happen anywhere. She gets a flash of the man’s birdlike face and his lewd curling lips. She straightens herself to see if that will help her breathe. Just one clean breath, just one sensation of air going all the way in. But her lungs seem to cheat her, as though they are plugged. So she fixes her thoughts on meeting Charlie Copeland again, of how lovely it was to see him, of how she hopes that he will hold to his word and call to see her sometime, of how, undeniably, her meeting him has only served to intensify her thoughts of Tom.
The shock of Tom’s death had, at the time, served to affirm for Katherine what she had known all along but had chosen to ignore, that her feelings for him, no matter how genuine, had indeed been inappropriate. That teetering down the path of illicit romance had been foolish and irresponsible. It served to show her to herself, her lack of moral fiber, her selfish indulgence, her disrespect for any religious mores her mother may have attempted to instill in her. Her total disregard for George. But there was also a darker shock to weather. The question that had turned over and over in Katherine’s mind—for weeks, for months, for the two years that George had waited for her to set a wedding date, a question that still, after all these years, had not been answered, and in truth never could be—had she been responsible in any way for Tom’s death? Was it her rejection of him that had, in a manner of speaking, pushed him over the edge into the swollen river? Had she caused him such distress that he had lost all common sense that night and, regardless of the storm, had walked the river’s path? Had his distress marred his judgment, caused him to fall to his death? Had he died in any part because of her, died for her?
The weight of this burden took its toll. For months after the accident, Katherine’s behavior was tempered by an extreme caution, as though there was a constant pressure on her, physically and emotionally, as though something was pressing her in, limiting her; her words and actions rationed by need until they were only just enough, her moods shifting uncannily slowly, seeping through the days. For weeks on end, she would often appear preoccupied, distant, almost anesthetized to the world around her. Then for periods after that, she would appear agitated and restless. Only occasionally would she be angry, and usually over the smallest thing, a forgotten appointment, a mislaid belonging, something she had spilled or broken, but even then there was no sense of real release. Her anger would rise up and then would hang around her until she simply tired of it. To her mother, Vera, and Frank, Katherine always seemed to be on the brink of a fever or a flu. Her mother had advised her to see a doctor on several occasions, which Katherine never did, choosing instead to stay in her room. She couldn’t sleep at night and would walk the house while everyone else was in bed. At work, she would be exhausted. She ate little and had no interest in going out. She had retrieved her engagement ring from the jewelers in Smithfield Market, paying back the money owed and not mentioning anything to George about how it had been used as security against the purchase of the statuette—but then she wouldn’t wear it. George would call at the flat, only to be told by Vera or her mother that she was resting or that she was not feeling well enough to see him and that she would telephone him later, which of course she never did. At other times, George would call at the offices of the Ulster Bank, only to be told by her colleagues that she had left early to go home.
But George had waited for her patiently all that time, his only aim being that she would be happy again, that she would finally agree to a life together with him, that she would set a wedding date. The two years of their engagement he had found difficult. Katherine knew this. He found her anger easier to handle, he had told her. At least then there was contact between them, albeit edgy. But when she pulled away from him, he said that he despaired of ever winning her back. His mother, Anna, had disapproved of Katherine’s behavior. No woman respected a man who spent his time walking on eggshells around her, she had said drily. She urged him to be firmer. But George was content to count his blessings, as he put it. He loved Katherine more than anything in the world, he had said. She had agreed one day to be his wife, and to him that was all that mattered.
And in the end, George’s love had indeed brought her back, offered her a new beginning, allowed her to let go of the past. Hadn’t it?
Why, then, has the past been haunting her again, as though there is unfinished business?
Is it because the world is trying to catch up with her? For, for her, it has been winter for quite some time. Since George rescued her from the sea, since she encountered the seal, the coldness hasn’t gone away. It has been her constant white companion, traveling at her elbow with an earnest expectation. It hangs around her now like an invisible hoary skin that she must shed. While she goes about her daily household chores. While she sleeps. While she dresses her children for school. While she embraces her husband before he goes to work. It hangs around her.
Whenever Katherine wakes up to the call of her children or to the rousing streaks of the winter’s yellow dawn coming through the bedroom curtains or to the telephone ringing for George, she feels exhausted. There is no sense of regeneration in her sleep. Tiredness fills her body and she carries the heavy dryness of it all day. It seems as though it is suffusing her whole body, circling in her blood until it reaches every fingertip, every cell, every last piece of her, reaching right into the insides of her, synapse after synapse. The children think she looks puzzled or confused, as though she is constantly trying to remember the name of something or decipher the sound of a distant voice. The blue-ridged veins along her hands feel tender and sore and seem to have grown bigger than they need to be. Her hair hurts where it joins her scalp. Her back hurts.
Nights are broken by the bad dreams of her children, who, while in their jittery somnambulant daze, can walk directly to the mother smell in the next room. Their bad dreams do not coincide, but stagger from one child to the other at different times during the night on different nights, as though each has taken it in turns to slumber-read a chapter of the same anxious story. Then there are the colds and coughs, the teeth hurting, the leg cramping, the snot-blocked noses, the aches of growing. Katherine comforts and rubs and reassures but finds herself, by breakfast time, a mere sha
dow. Nights that the children sleep right through, she is ill prepared for, and she wakes regardless, expectant and listening.
The tiredness calms her by disorientating her. It makes her selective. I can go shopping for groceries or I can take the children to the park, not both, she thinks, I can cook the dinner or wash the curtains, not both.
At its most intense, she is only hearing. A dog barking in the distance gives her a sense that there is life.
And then there is a nausea that beleaguers this calm. A nausea that sweeps periodically through her body. She feels herself falling down inside herself, slipping down, back down, into the red ocher sludge that her blood has become.
Since the summer Elsa and Elizabeth have had to consider the two alphabets. One alphabet is Catholic, where the letter h is pronounced haiche. This alphabet they have finished with for the day at school and so have packed it neatly back into their schoolbags. The other alphabet is Protestant, where the letter h is pronounced aiche. Even though things have quietened down in the city, they still routinely arm themselves with this particular alphabet on leaving school. As they have to walk through a Protestant neighborhood on their way home, chances are that Protestant children will stop them, and this semantic ammunition may work in their favor. All other clues that they are Catholic are, as usual, covered over by their navy coats.
They take the familiar route home, cutting across the junction on the Woodstock Road and then making their way along Jocelyn Avenue. Elsa spots them almost as soon as she and Elizabeth have rounded the corner: four boys, dragging their schoolbags along the pavement, looking for trouble.
“Elizabeth,” Elsa says quietly, “will we turn back?”
“No.” Elizabeth keeps her head down. “It’ll be all right.” The foursome slow their pace. Then the oldest boy in the group, a thin, wiry, long boy of about eleven, his hair shaved close to his head, makes a dash across the road toward them.
“Where d’ye think yer goin’?” His discolored teeth point inward. Ink streaks his cheek. The two girls remain silent and carry on walking. Within a matter of moments, the other three boys join the long boy with the shaven head. They form a ragged semicircle around Elsa and Elizabeth, blocking their way forward.
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