Elle began reading:
“Sunday, December 31, 2006
“Dear Universe,
“What in the name of fuck is wrong with you? …”
“Strong start.” Jane laughed.
Elle read on:
“The icecaps are melting, the ozone is burning, and species are actually dying out, the golden toad gone, the West African black rhino gone, the baiji dolphin gone …”
She took a breath long enough for Jane to interject, “God, that’s awful!” Jane was referring to the demise of the baiji dolphin. She didn’t give a shit about the toad or the rhino. “Do you remember when I took Kurt to Kerry for a week and we swam with a dolphin? He was only nine then and it seems like just yesterday.”
“Did you swim with a baiji dolphin, Jane?”
“No, a regular one.”
“Well, then, it’s not really relevant, is it?” Elle resumed her place in the text.
“The Pyrenean ibex, gone …”
“What’s a Pyrenean ibex?”
Elle thought about it for a minute before shaking her head. “I’ve no idea.”
“Did you Google ‘extinct species’ before writing your letter?” Jane asked in a tone that approached condescension.
“Of course I did. I’m not a bloody zoologist.”
“I just don’t understand your insatiable need to Google depressing subject matters.”
“Because they’re important. We may not know what a Pyrenean ibex is, but I can assure you its extinction will have a fundamental effect on the delicate balance of its ecosystem and vice versa.”
“Do you even know what you’re talking about?” Jane asked.
“Not entirely,” Elle admitted, “but it doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”
“Well, it sure as Shinola doesn’t mean you’re right either.”
“Can I read this letter or not?” Elle asked, and Jane nodded, allowing her to proceed.
“Why aren’t you fighting? I’m doing my bit. I recycle, I turn the lights off, I don’t even own a TV, but you don’t even seem to care that this world, which is a really big part of you, is dying. I know it’s not your fault. I know it’s ours but we are trying and we’ll try harder so stop being such a fucking asshole and adapt or at least bloody try to …”
Elle looked up at Jane. “Wow, I was really pissed off with the Universe,” she said, and Jane nodded. Elle sniffed and drained her coffee cup before finding her place in the letter, while Jane stood up and started to make more coffee.
“And as for this so-called Celtic tiger, I wish it would die …”
Jane placed the coffeepot on the counter with a bang. “Bite your tongue,” she ordered. “This so-called Celtic tiger is part of the reason you can charge forty-five K a painting.”
“Yeah, well, I was over it last New Year’s and I’m still over it this New Year’s,” Elle said. She read on a little, silently, while her sister busied herself rinsing out their cups.
“Okay. My promises for 2007.” She looked at her sister. “Please reserve your comments until the end.”
Jane grinned, steadied herself, and nodded her head in agreement. She placed a fresh cup of black coffee in front of Elle and sat opposite her.
“1. I will learn to play the piano. 2. I’ll donate the proceeds of my next painting to War Child. 3. I’ll paint by candlelight. 4. I’ll try to help Jane more with Mum. 5. I’ll get pregnant …”
Jane gasped. Elle shook her head and sighed a little. “Did I get pregnant in ’07?” she asked.
“Not unless there’s something you’re not telling me.”
“There isn’t,” Elle said, before admitting it was a desire that had passed and that she had no intention of getting pregnant in ’08 either. She resumed reading.
“6. I’ll be nicer to Jane …”
“You’re always nice to Jane,” Jane said, smiling.
“I said no talking,” Elle said sternly.
Jane nodded and pulled her index finger and thumb across her lips to indicate that she was zipping her lip.
“7. I’ll take Vincent to China …”
Elle stopped reading for a second and both women reflected on what had happened the previous June while Elle and her boyfriend Vincent were in China, but it was far too painful for either woman to discuss or rehash, and so Elle moved on.
“8. I’ll grow my own vegetables …”
She stopped and smiled at Jane, who was still ruminating on China, but when Elle’s eyes met hers, Jane brightened.
“You made a complete mess of that,” Jane said, remembering the amount of money, time, and effort Elle had put into growing her own vegetables to end up with nothing bar one crop of pretty poor-tasting potatoes and carrots that looked like they’d been shipped in from Chernobyl, never mind the damage she’d done to the patch of land closest to their mother’s gardenias.
Elle laughed. “Remember Mum’s face?”
“‘What the fock has happened to my garden?’” Jane said, mimicking her mother’s faux-posh accent. It was a funny memory and a good distraction from China.
“9. I’ll start a pension fund …”
“You already have a pension fund. I set it up ten years ago.”
“Oh good. ’Cause I didn’t start one. Right, ten,” Elle said, and she bit her lip.
“What?” Jane asked.
“You might have a problem with this one.”
“What?” Jane asked again, becoming quite nervous. “What did you do?”
Elle cleared her throat.
“10. I’ll take Kurt skydiving.”
Jane jumped up and pointed at her sister. “Oh no, you didn’t!” Actual tears were springing into her eyes. “You didn’t push my child out of a plane!”
“Of course I didn’t push him,” Jane said soothingly. “The qualified instructor pushed him.”
Jane’s mouth was open but no sound was coming out.
“He loved it and he’s fine and it’s over.” Elle was wishing she had kept number ten to herself.
“When?” Jane managed to ask.
“End of April, for his birthday.”
“Seventeen-year-olds need parental consent.”
“Yeah, I gave that,” Elle said, holding up her hand.
“How could you give parental consent seeing as you are not his parent and there is less than nine years between you?” Jane asked through gritted teeth.
“I must look older than my years.”
Jane walked to the door.
Elle called after her, “Please don’t be annoyed!” But Jane was annoyed, and now Elle was sorry.
“You can’t just do whatever you want to do, Elle.”
“I know. I’m sorry. He’d been begging me for years, and I did hold out until he was seventeen.”
Jane shook her head. “I’m really pissed off with you.”
“I know. Sorry.”
Jane opened Elle’s sliding door.
Elle shouted after her, “So are you still going to that party with Tom?”
Jane turned to face her younger sister. “Yes,” she said, and she sighed. “Are you coming?” she asked hopefully.
“I’d rather be dead. Anyway, Vincent is taking me out.”
“You could bring Vincent,” Jane said with hope in her voice.
“It’s New Year’s Eve and you’re spending it with the family of a missing friend whom you haven’t known since you were seventeen.” Elle shook her head. “You have got to learn how to say no.”
“I couldn’t. Breda asked Tom if I’d come and—”
“And she knitted that bloody blanket. Jesus, Jane!”
“Right. I’m going.” Jane turned to walk away.
“Happy New Year!”
“Happy New Year,” Jane responded, “and, Elle, don’t think that because I want you at that party it means I’m not really pissed off, because I am.”
Elle’s intercom buzzed just as Jane closed her door. She picked up the receiver and a man told her that he was standing outside the main gate w
ith flowers. She buzzed him in and told him where to find her. She reopened the door and waved to him as he made his way down the garden.
“Elle Moore?”
“That’s me.”
She signed for the flowers and closed the door. She smelled her flowers and smiled. She opened the card, and her smile quickly faded.
Elle,
Like the song says, I want you, I need you, but let’s face it, I’m never going to love you. We’ve had four good years so let’s start ’08 with a clean slate.
Yours,
Vincent
Elle’s legs turned to jelly, her ears began to burn, and her stomach tightened so much that there was no room for her breakfast. She ran to the toilet and threw up, and then she sat on the bathroom floor and gazed at the note with a sense of disbelief that was overwhelming.
For six years running, Jane had joined Elle at the back of their garden to retrieve her letter to the Universe, and for six years running Jane had discovered something she didn’t want to know. And yet, though her sister had taken her son skydiving even after she had expressly forbidden it and she was so annoyed she could spit, she knew she would partake in her sister’s reading again. Five years ago, after a particularly nasty surprise involving her sister and an intended sexual encounter with a prostitute named Cora, it occurred to her that she should dig up Elle’s letter to the Universe every January and read it to get a heads-up on what Elle had planned for the year ahead, but Jane was terrible at espionage, as had been proved seventeen years previously when she had managed to conceal her pregnancy from her mother for only two hours.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh my God, you’re pregnant!”
If she dug up the letter, Elle would find out and she’d never trust Jane again, so she couldn’t risk it even though she often stood on the spot that was five feet from her mother’s rosebushes and between six and eight feet from Jeffrey’s head and was sorely tempted.
For instance, there was the year that Elle promised the Universe she’d give money to Comic Relief. She watched the show, got drunk, and pledged a hundred grand. Jane had argued that although people all over the world were in need, Elle didn’t know if she’d sell another painting that year and although Ricky Gervais was funny he wasn’t that fucking funny. Elle had laughed and called her mean, but it was Jane who paid Elle’s bills when she’d squandered all her money by June and was waiting for three months for that next big check. There was the year she promised to rescue a dog and ended up rescuing ten dogs from different pounds across Dublin. Two weeks and two tons of dog shit later, it became apparent to all but Elle that she couldn’t care for them. It fell to Jane to rehouse them, and Elle took to her bed for two weeks mourning the dogs she couldn’t seem to remember to care for. There was the year she decided to run a marathon and forgot to practice. She made it twenty miles before she collapsed, suffering the effects of exhaustion and a speed overdose. Elle had felt that it was perfectly acceptable to take speed to run a marathon, going so far as to query the doctor as to how in the hell he thought she’d make it without speed. All of these incidents had caused Jane to deliberate on risking Elle’s wrath, but then she conceded that even if she knew of Elle’s plans in advance there would be no way of stopping her, as she was a law unto herself. Their mother said it was her creative nature that drove her to extremes and that neither she nor Jane could ever hope to understand the things that drove her. Jane and her mother didn’t agree on much, but they agreed on that. Elle was a genius, and everyone knew that genius was close to madness, and so as long as Elle painted the most beautiful and inspired paintings, she would be indulged.
Jane opened the back door, and before she got inside and had time to close it her mother was calling her through the intercom that linked her kitchen with her mother’s kitchen in the basement apartment downstairs.
“Jane? Jane? Jane? Jane, it’s your mother! Jane! Jane! Jane, have you gone deaf? I know you’re there. I saw you come out of Elle’s cottage. Jane, Jane, will you please answer me for God’s sake!”
Jane wondered how many times a day her mother shouted through the intercom and abused an empty room. She pressed the button. “I’m here.”
“Are you planning on starving me?”
“To be fair, Rose, I’ve heard that drowning is faster and less cruel.”
“I want eggs, scrambled, dry and fluffy. Not wet and slimy. If I see slime I’ll throw up.”
“I’ll be down in five minutes.”
“I’m hungry now.”
“Oh fine. I’ll go ahead and pull a plate of scrambled eggs, dry and fluffy, from my rectum then, shall I?”
“No need for vulgarity, Jane. You weren’t born in a barn.”
Kurt entered the kitchen in time to witness Jane give the intercom the finger. “Whatever she wants, I’m not doing it,” he said.
“Oh yes you are,” Jane said in a voice that her son recognized as his mother meaning business. The look that twisted her face suggested he was in big trouble.
“What?” he asked, trying to work out what he’d been caught doing.
“Skydiving, Kurt?”
“I’m going to kill Elle!” He flopped onto the chair and pulled his hood over his head, covering his blond curls, and pressed his hands to his ears.
“Skydiving. You know how I feel about skydiving. I said no. Every time you asked me I said no. No means no. It doesn’t mean maybe, it doesn’t mean I’ll think about it, and it sure as Shinola doesn’t mean go behind Mum’s back with Elle!”
“Mum, please stop saying ‘sure as Shinola.’ It sounds retarded. The expression is ‘You don’t know shit from Shinola.’”
“I don’t give a shit if it is, and that’s not the point.”
“You said it the other day in front of Paul, and he thought you’d hit your head.”
“Really, I don’t give a Shinola. You cannot get away with deliberately disobeying my rules.”
“Ah Mum, back off. It was last April. It’s done, over, it was a laugh, it was safe, and nobody died.”
“Well, you can forget about tonight.”
“You can’t stop me from going out on New Year’s Eve!” he said with scorn.
“No, probably not, but I can withhold funds.”
Kurt pushed his hood back off his head. “You can’t do that. I’ve promised Irene.”
“Tough.”
“I can’t believe you’re doing this to me on New Year’s Eve!” he shouted before storming out of the kitchen.
“Yeah, well, believe it, and you’d better storm back here in ten minutes flat to bring Rose’s eggs to her or you’re going to be poor for all of January!”
“I hate you!” Kurt screamed at his mother.
“I hate you too!” Jane screamed back while breaking two eggs into a bowl.
Ten minutes later Kurt stormed in, picked up the plate of eggs, and stormed out without a word.
Although Jane’s authority had been briefly undermined, her power was restored, she was fifty euros richer, and she had managed to avoid Rose, so her mood brightened considerably.
Kurt made his way down the steps to his grandmother’s basement flat with the tray in one hand, fishing for the key with his other. Inside, the place smelled of air freshener, cigars, and wine, making his eyes water a little. In the small hall he nearly tripped over a stack of unsolicited mail that she kept piled up against the wall. It was stacked so high that the pile kept falling over. He had once asked her why she kept it, and she had told him that she was waiting for a member of the Green Party to call at her door so that she could throw the paper at him, douse him in alcohol, and then set him alight. She had been drunk at the time and so Kurt had hoped she was joking. He opened the door to the sitting room, and his grandmother sat up straight in her chair.
Her face broke into a smile. Kurt’s relationship with his grandmother was far different from what he had with his mother. She idolized her grandson and saved all her grac
e for him. He laid the tray on the table that she kept near the big chair that dominated the room. The chair was referred to as the “throne” by her daughters, and she spent most of her time sitting in it. No one dared sit on Rose’s chair—not her daughters, not her friends, not visiting dignitaries, and not even her grandson, who was one of the very few people Rose actually liked. While poking at her eggs, she asked after Jane, and he lied and told her she felt fluish.
“Well, then, she may stay away—I prefer you anyway,” she said, smiling and winking. She sampled her eggs and made a face to suggest that she was less than impressed. She always made that face. Usually it was for Jane’s benefit, but as it had become habit she did it whether Jane was there or not. She sniffed the plate.
“Just eat the eggs,” Kurt said.
Rose took a forkful and popped it into her mouth, rubbed her tummy, and made a “yum” sound. Kurt laughed.
“How’s Irene?” she asked.
“She’s good,” he said, and he sat down. “Better; she’ll be fine.”
His grandmother nodded and winked at him. “Of course she will. So her father’s an ass. She has you, doesn’t she? So, is your mother still determined to go to the Walsh household tonight with Alexandra’s husband?”
“She’s dreading it.”
“Of course she’s dreading it. The Walshes have always and ever been complete lunatics. Alexandra was the cheekiest pup I ever met. The mother is one of those holier-than-thou types, the father hasn’t done a real day’s work since the seventies, and as for her brother, Eamonn, that little snot was trying to get into your mother’s pants when she was thirteen!” She stopped and took a breath. “And anyway she has no business there—the family is grieving the loss of a child.”
“She’s missing, not dead,” Kurt reminded his grandmother.
“Of course she’s dead,” Rose said. “She’s Valley-of-the-Dead dead.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know this: if someone vanishes without a trace in this day and age, she is buried somewhere, and it’s usually someone closest to her who’s done the burying. For all we know, your mother’s next.”
Kurt laughed at his gran. “Now I know where Elle gets her imagination.”
“Mark my words. Your mother is getting herself involved in something very bloody sinister there.” She pushed the remaining food on her plate to the side and put down her fork. “I’m finished.”
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