‘For the bodies.’
‘What bodies, for God’s sake?’
Bernie didn’t reply. Her shoes kicked up the gravel as she walked away and Nancy had a sudden image of Bruce running alongside her.
She was right. Nancy had left her to it, had been sick of being the girl with the mental sister, the attention seeking stories of eating babies and killing cats, devils and digging up graves and being tied to crucifixes. It was humiliating. Everyone knew, everyone whispered behind her back. She’d left her to it and gone to America with no intention of ever coming back. Their father was broken, their mother cried all the time, Bernie was mad and Florence was very good at ignoring all of it. Nancy was glad to be out of it.
She walked along the edge of the garden, by the fence, until she reached the familiar space beneath the rhododendron bushes. Bows and arrows. She no longer had a penknife or loops of nylon in her pockets. She couldn’t let Hurley have them either. She sat down hard on the grassy mound and pulled her feet up.
Back for the bodies, she’d said. Nancy laid her head on her knees. Mum had said on the phone that she’d come out the other side, that she was doing well. Bernie was allowing Adrian to visit with the girls now, supervised. Bernie didn’t go. Not yet. She thought back to that last holiday, the last few hours they had all been in the same room without tears and accusations. Mum was the one who kept in contact, her voice inevitably wavering over the transatlantic line, her punctuation hesitant in the emails. ‘Love from Dad too,’ was the only contact she had had for years. Thirty years of talking which got none of them anywhere.
That was why she hadn’t bothered with counsellors and therapists for years with Hurley. They just seemed to make things so much worse for Bernie, and none of it had helped Hurley anyway. She was left with drug therapies. He was left with being drugged.
This is how her mother must have felt, both protective and ashamed of a mad child, unwilling to take them out in public, tired of apologising. But what had happened to him right now was Bernie’s fault. She’d provoked him, or let her girls provoke him. Nancy needed to remember that and hold her head high, at least today. He’d been doing so well.
It hadn’t rained this morning but the rain of past days had soaked up through her trousers and pants. She heard rustling in the bushes and whispered, ‘Bruce.’ His ghost didn’t come. But there were more noises, whispers, from through the bushes.
Bernie’s girls never came outside, not on their own. She edged herself off the hump of grass and crept towards the whispers. A girl and a boy. Oh God, Hurley was with one of the girls. She pushed around the wet leaves, but it wasn’t one of Bernie’s girls. A face flashed towards her and then the girl turned her head and ran down the grass at the side of the drive, a long red ponytail bouncing behind her. Like a fox tail, thought Nancy.
‘Who was that?’ she asked Hurley. ‘I think I know her parents.’
He shrugged. ‘You scared her.’
‘I thought you were still in your room.’
‘It was too noisy. What were you doing, hiding in there?’
‘I wasn’t,’ she said, knowing that was exactly what she had been doing. Adults weren’t supposed to hide. ‘I was just thinking. I used to do a lot of thinking there when I was little.’
‘Your butt’s soaked.’
‘I know.’ She wiped her trousers with one hand and then had to wipe her wet hand on her thigh. ‘What was that girl saying?’
‘Just stuff. Asking who I was and where I was from and how long I was here.’
‘She asked all that and you didn’t ask her anything?’
‘Didn’t have time.’ He frowned and looked at her. ‘Were you following me?’
She laughed, ‘I was there first.’
‘Spying then.’
‘How would I know you would come and stand right here?’
Hurley tilted his head. ‘Sometimes I think you’ve put a tracking device on me so you always know where I am. You don’t trust me.’
Nancy widened her eyes. ‘Why do you think that?’
‘That’s what they said. You always need to know where I am and what I’m doing because I’m dangerous.’
‘The girls said that?’
‘Bernie just laughed like they were funny. And then Maeve said that you’d said that that’s why I couldn’t watch TV or use a console, because if they’re on you can’t watch me through them. They have to be off so they record properly and you watch me on your phone.’
Nancy touched his shoulder and he moved away.
‘You know that’s garbage, right? You know that’s not possible?’
‘It probably is possible.’
Yes, it probably was.
‘But I don’t do that. There are no cameras, Hurley.’
He shrugged and looked down at his feet as he drew arcs in the gravel.
‘Did they say this before or after you hit Maeve?’
‘That’s why I hit her.’
Nancy’s stomach flipped. It wasn’t Hurley just lashing out for no reason. Bernie was punishing her by allowing her daughters to torment Hurley. She grabbed for Hurley’s shoulder and caught it this time.
‘Let’s get some lunch.’
‘I’m not hungry,’ he said, but let himself be guided up the steps into the dark hallway.
‘Wash your hands and then come to the parlour.’
She watched him slope upstairs and then heard the girls in their room above her head. She needed to watch them without making it look as if she was watching him. Even though she was watching all of them, and especially him.
What was Bernie playing at? If she hadn’t just had that conversation with her she’d have put Hurley’s complaint down to exaggeration or the usual made up excuses. But now it had a ring of truth. Bernie had said, ‘Children are never believed until an adult believes them, like someone hearing the tree fall in the forest.’ But Elian wouldn’t believe either her or Hurley.
She could never tell Bernie anything at all after this.
21
Then
I decided the best way to stop her going off with Tommy was to stick right next to her. So when she agreed to go with Donn to visit Mary I had to go as well. Mary’s farm was even worse than the outbuildings we couldn’t go into. The farmhouse was rickety and draughty and the only good thing about it was the herds of cats that ran about outside. First we had to go inside.
Mary looked impossibly old, maybe eighty. She had white hair but it wasn’t bright and clean like some old people. There were dull ends to it, like it was dusty. She always wore black clothes, maybe the same black clothes, like Sister Agatha, and had a brown shawl on. Summer and winter it seemed to be the same shawl, like she never got any colder or warmer. In summer the house was never warm anyway. The tiny windows let no sun in and the fire was always blazing.
Neither me or Nancy could understand more than the odd word that Mary said. We had to listen to Donn and guess, or sometimes he would translate if it was a question we were supposed to answer. We tried to avoid her eyes so that she forgot we were there. Whenever we answered her it meant that we weren’t paying attention to her three massive dogs who snarled at us when we walked in.
‘Don’t try to stare them out,’ Donn had said, but it was almost impossible to not look at them when we thought they wanted to tear our throats out. Nancy was better at not looking than me, but I tried to copy her, looking at the fire next to them whenever I remembered.
After a while Mary said something or other and Donn said, ‘Do you want to play outside for a while?’
We nodded and walked out to the yard and that’s when we started to hunt for the cats. We knew we couldn’t go in any barns, so that’s pretty much where they kept themselves. If we did see one walking around it hissed. If it was big we weren’t interested. We were after the kittens. They were just as loud and fast as the big ones, but so much sweeter.
Me and Nancy still weren’t really speaking, but we’d done this before and didn’t need to
talk about it until I came across the ginger one. I knew it had heard me because it swivelled its head around in my direction, but not fully. I watched it, creeping closer. Every noise made it move but not quite so it looked at me. It was using its hearing. I beckoned Nancy over. She stood at my side. I mouthed, it’s blind, and she nodded. We didn’t decide that she would catch it. It was always going to be her. She was slow until the last bit and then grabbed the kitten with both hands at once.
It hissed and writhed and bit at her so that she nearly dropped it, but managed to bear the pain.
‘Take your jumper off,’ she said, and we managed to get the legs and body still. The head thrashed about, the tiny teeth striking at us while Nancy made murmuring noises. Its eyes looked normal, but very blue, and I managed to stroke it twice without getting bitten.
‘Let’s ask,’ said Nancy.
The scratches on her hands had turned from angry red lines into properly bleeding injuries now. I thought about the dogs and how they’d be able to smell blood and I hesitated, but she was already carrying her prize in and waiting for me by the door.
‘Open it.’
‘Do you think . . .’
‘Hurry up.’ The kitten was hissing again, like it could smell a room full of dogs.
I opened the door and Nancy strode in.
‘We found a kitten,’ she said. ‘It’s blind. Can we keep it?’
Mary said something but there was a lot of head shaking and I caught the word ‘pet’. I noticed there was someone else in the room, a younger woman sitting in the chair that Nancy had been in.
Donn nodded at what she was saying.
The younger woman said, ‘Sure, let them keep it. It won’t last long out there.’
Donn smiled at her, but Mary said something cross.
‘You’ll have to put it back, Nancy,’ he said. ‘It’s not yours to take.’
Nancy bit her lip as if she was going to cry, but I knew she was angry from the way her cheeks flushed.
‘But it will die!’ she wailed.
‘Things die,’ said Donn.
The woman said, ‘They’re too soft hearted to be farm girls, Donn. Are these your nieces from England?’
Donn nodded.
‘Nancy and Bernadette? I’m Catriona, a friend of your uncle.’
Nancy tried to smile but the lost kitten was fighting to get away again. Catriona stood up, and Donn stood too.
‘Here,’ Catriona said, ‘let me take it and I’ll find somewhere safe for it to hide.’
She fumbled it out of my jumper and held it by the scruff of the neck. It hung limp and quiet. Nancy scrunched up my jumper in her hands.
‘Will it find anything to eat?’ I asked.
‘Not if death isn’t allowed,’ Donn mumbled, sinking back to his seat.
Catriona disappeared and when she came back smiled broadly at Nancy. ‘Would you like to try on a bit of make-up? You’re too old to be running around looking for kittens, sure.’
Nancy blushed and nodded.
‘Come with me,’ Catriona said. I stood next to Nancy. ‘You’re a bit young, you stay here.’
I watched Nancy smirk as she left the room. I stayed as still as possible because, now that Nancy had left, the dogs’ eyes were just on me. Mary had to speak to Donn a couple of times before she could get his attention. Then she said something in a low voice which made him smile awkwardly and shake his head. He glanced at me.
‘OK, there?’
I thought I was probably as uncomfortable as he was, and nodded. He smiled gratefully. Mary said something, nodding in my direction, and he shook his head. Then she laughed. Nancy came back in, scarlet mouthed, and pouted at me.
‘We’d better make a move,’ said Donn, standing.
‘Hold on,’ said Catriona, going to the table. She picked up a package and handed it to Donn. ‘From Tommy. He’s back from Dublin. He’ll be round soon, I’m sure.’
Donn looked towards me and Nancy and nodded. I stood slowly, keeping an eye on the dogs, and began to edge to the door.
‘I’ll be seeing you tonight, Donn,’ said Catriona, kissing him on his stubbly cheek. He raised his hand to the mark and herded us out.
In the car he handed Nancy a rag. ‘You’d better get rid of that before your Mammy sees it.’ He gestured to her mouth.
She took the rag and sniffed it. ‘I’ll use my hand.’ She moved her fingers over the lipstick, making it less bright, but being careful not to smear it outside her lips.
‘I like Catriona,’ she said. ‘Are you going out tonight?’
‘No, I think she’s just going to come over for a chat.’
‘What, you’re going to sit in the kitchen with your sisters and let them do all the talking?’
‘You want me to tell Agatha and your mammy that you said that?’
Nancy ignored him. ‘Is she your girlfriend?’
I looked at Donn as he tried to answer. ‘Girlfriend? I don’t know about that.’ But his smile returned and his hand moved back to his cheek.
Nancy was smiling too, like she was one of the adults. I imagined her staying up in the kitchen when me and Florence were in bed, the children, and I hated her for wanting that. They were boring and she didn’t even like tea that much. I hoped that Mum wouldn’t let her, that she’d say, ‘Don’t be silly, Nancy, you’re too young.’ That might make Nancy cry and then she’d never get away with pretending to be an adult.
I reached my fingers across the back seat and pinched her hard on the leg.
‘Ow! What was that for?’ I could see tears of fury welling.
‘It was an accident.’
She thumped me on the arm so I was next to shout.
‘Youse two, stop it!’
We turned into the back driveway. Nancy was cross with me but she couldn’t be all grown up when she felt like that. I didn’t even mind when she kicked my ankle so hard that I nearly cried.
22
Now
She went into the parlour and found sandwiches already made and on the table.
‘There you are,’ said Elian. ‘We’re all taking a trip out. Hurley will love it.’
‘Where to?’
‘A science museum, about an hour away. That’s one good thing about this place, hardly anything is more than an hour away. Back in the States we can drive for four hours for a day trip.’
Adrian smiled and looked at Bernie. She caught his eye, rolled her eyes, and looked away. Elian was oblivious. Hurley came in, followed by the girls, whispering behind their hands. He sat next to Elian. The girls sat down and put a DSi on the table, turned off and facing him. Nancy grabbed it.
‘Not on the table, girls.’ She put it on the mantelpiece.
‘Mum!’
Bernie ignored them and sat down.
Elian said, ‘So, Hurley, we’re off to a science museum today. Pretty cool, huh?’
Hurley nodded.
‘I think I’ll stay here,’ said Nancy. ‘I’m not feeling too good. Do you want to stay too, Hurley?’
‘What?’ said Elian. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, he loves that kind of stuff. You’ll come, won’t you?’
Hurley looked from Elian to Nancy and nodded. ‘I’ll come.’
Nancy looked at Bernie for her reaction but her face was unreadable. The girls grimaced and giggled. Nancy fought the urge to shout at all of them.
She spoke to Elian, ‘Can I have a word outside?’
He followed her to the hall and she closed the door behind them.
‘Do you think this is a good idea after yesterday?’
‘Sure.’ He put his hand out to open the door again.
‘You don’t think we should avoid them, limit the contact between Hurley and the girls?’
‘No. There’ll be as many adults as children. I think it’s a good idea.’ He stepped towards her. ‘Listen, do you really want to stay after they leave? If it hadn’t been for them I think I’d have gone stir crazy.’ He saw her face. ‘We can talk about it, yeah?’
>
Nancy decided it probably wasn’t the time to bring up buying the farm.
She borrowed Donn’s car with the excuse that they had to visit Auntie Beth’s after the science centre. She wasn’t going to let Hurley go in the car with those girls, so they may as well make a day of it. She stayed next to him until they separated back into their cars.
Beth still lived in the house they had built while living in a caravan, but her two daughters and three sons had moved out. Nancy realised she could only remember the name of their first child and hoped that she could get by without making it obvious. She pulled up the winding driveway.
She turned to talk to Hurley. ‘It’s wiggly because Beth thinks the fairies live in those bushes.’
She pointed. He looked at them and then away, back at the sky. She turned the engine off and looked over to Elian. They’d stopped for a meal at a service station so he could fill his phone with all the information that had being waiting in the sky from him. He’d sat smirking as the email box filled up and had been reading through them ever since.
‘We’re here,’ said Nancy.
‘Just a minute.’
‘No. Those can wait. She’s seen us pull up.’
Elian grimaced and slid his phone back into his pocket. Beth stood at the window, not coming to the door. Nancy got out and waved to her. Beth lifted her hand.
Nancy opened the back door. ‘Come on, Hurley,’ she said, keeping a smile on her face. He slid out and Elian followed them. Nancy rang on the bell and only then did Beth move to let them in.
‘Well, you’re here at last, are you?’
‘Hello, Auntie Beth. This is Hurley and Elian.’
‘Well, I’d know that if you ever sent me any photos, but your mother, God save her, still sees me as family. You’d better come in.’
Nancy kept smiling.
Elian murmured, ‘Are you sure we’re invited?’
Nancy nodded and pushed Hurley in front of her.
‘If you’d let me know a bit sooner I could have got all your cousins here, of course. But no. At least none of them have emigrated across the world, like your poor mother.’
The Insect Rosary Page 15