by Doreen Finn
21
Beth was doing a handstand on the grass. She wasn’t very good. Beth was usually good at everything she attempted, so it was strange to see her struggle with something so easy. Over and over she tried.
‘You’re doing it wrong,’ I said, walking over to her.
‘What?’ She flopped down on the grass. ‘It’s impossible.’
‘It’s easy,’ I said, and I showed her.
‘How did you do that?’ Beth asked as I brought my legs down. ‘I can’t get my legs up and they won’t stay straight.’
I caught her ankles as she tried again, and held her up, like one of the older girls at school had done for me when I was learning handstands.
‘Okay, put me down.’ Her face was reddened from exertion. ‘God. That’s so hard.’
‘If you’re going to be in the Olympics you need to be able to do it properly.’
‘How did you learn? I didn’t know you could do gymnastics.’
We tried again. Beth’s legs were heavy and she swung them into my hands with such force that I staggered under the weight. We lay on the grass, laughing, allowing our breathing to calm.
Then Daniel stood over us, his head blocking the sun. ‘What are you doing?’
I squinted up at him, his face darkened with shadow. A jar in his hand.
‘Handstands,’ I said.
‘Did you see the gymnastics last night?’ Beth asked. She sat up, shook her ponytail free and retied it. Daniel’s eyes travelled the length of Beth’s hair. Jealousy flashed inside me.
Daniel shook his head. ‘Stevie was watching the swimming.’ Daniel’s television was even older than the one Chris had given us. It only worked if you banged your fist on the top of it every five minutes. That settled the screen, stopped all the wavy lines from jumping across. His mother kept a tight surveillance around it, discouraging her children from watching it too much. The work of the devil, she sometimes called what was on it. Daniel and I had tested this theory out once when Mrs Sullivan was at a Pioneers’ meeting and we knew we had at least a couple of hours before she returned to the house. But with only one channel to look at, there wasn’t any evidence of the devil. Just a gardening programme, all close-up shots of dahlias and compost, slug pellets and tulips, followed by the news. There had been a report on the new king of Spain. Maybe he was actually the devil in disguise, we reasoned, but we never got the chance to find out because Daniel’s sister had caught us and said she was going to tell.
‘Nadia lives behind the Iron Curtain,’ Beth announced. This was new. The only thing I knew about Nadia was her age, fourteen, and her ability on the bars and the beam, not to mention her floor exercises.
‘What’s that?’ I asked.
‘It’s a big curtain made of iron, which runs all along the side of Russia. If you live behind it you can’t get out.’
‘Nadia Comaneci is out,’ Daniel said.
‘That’s different,’ Beth said, impatience colouring her voice. ‘She’s in the Olympics. When they’re over, she’ll go back behind the curtain again.’
‘There was a boy Mummy knew who had an iron lung.’
Beth snorted. ‘That’s totally different. This is an actual curtain, and only the government can pull it back if you need to get out.’
‘What happens if you try to get out on your own?’
Beth shook her head. ‘Terrible things. They beat you and they starve you and they take all your stuff.’
All of this was new to me. Sarah went to great lengths to conceal much of the workings of the world from me. The Troubles in Northern Ireland, the Vietnam War, even though it was over. Now there was something else terrible – a curtain you couldn’t part, with punishment for trying to open it.
‘Who does that to you?’ Daniel wanted to know.
‘The people who live there. They’re called communists. America hates them.’
‘Why?’ I asked.
Beth pulled a face. ‘I don’t really know. My mom says it’s because communists hate America and freedom, but my dad tells her not to be so stupid. He likes communists, but he’s not allowed say that out loud. My mom’s afraid he’ll say it at his university and then he’ll lose his job.’
‘What else does he say about them?’
‘My dad says that the communists are the only ones with any real ideas, and if they were in charge the way they should be, then America wouldn’t be the world’s biggest war machine.’
‘How can America be a war machine?’
A languid shake of her head. ‘No clue. But it is.’
‘Is that why you’re here?’ Daniel asked. ‘Because of the communists and the war machine?’
Beth laughed. ‘No, we’re here because my dad is on a transfer.’
‘What’s a transfer?’
‘It’s when your university sends you somewhere else, and another professor comes and takes your place while you’re gone.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. So you can try out other places, I suppose. He’s really clever. He’s always working and writing.’ Beth’s pride in her father was evident. ‘But hey, you guys.’ She leaned towards us, conspiratorial in her whispers. ‘We have to fill the pool.’
Daniel shook his head. ‘We can’t. We tried before. It’s too far away and anyway, there’s a ban on hoses.’
‘Beth found a tap in the lane,’ I explained. ‘It’s right there behind the house.’
‘Plus, me and Stevie can open the door in the wall. All we need to do is borrow the hose, use the lane tap and hey presto. A swimming pool.’ Beth touched Daniel’s shoulder. ‘Come on, Dan. It’ll be fun.’
Daniel wasn’t ever called Dan. That was his father’s name and Daniel’s mother was determined that there would be no other Dan in her house ever again.
He shook his head. ‘I couldn’t. I’d never get out the door without Mummy hearing me.’
‘We’ll just wait till it’s really late, when everyone’s asleep. Come on, it’ll be fun. No one will know. Stevie will come too.’
Daniel’s conflict was obvious. He was so transparent, his emotions swarming on his face. I poked him in the ribs. He squealed, squirming away. ‘Come on, just give it a try. You never know.’ Convincing Daniel to come made me feel braver than I’d felt about night swimming up to that.
‘But I’d be killed.’
‘No, you won’t. And you can always just blame Stevie.’
He smiled. ‘That’s true. Okay, maybe I will.’
Beth leaned towards us. ‘Maybe we should go to the canal tonight. We need to sort out the hose and have all that ready before we start filling the pool. And …’ she nodded significantly towards the French doors, ‘we can’t do too much while they’re around.’
Daniel looked from Beth to me. ‘That’s okay with me.’
I nudged Daniel, thrilled that he would join us on our adventure. Then I gave a sideways glance at Beth, but she had moved on to other things, was already attempting some kind of flip. She failed and fell on her back, where she remained, still, for a moment. Daniel shook the Mason jar.
‘Look.’
I couldn’t see anything. He shook it again, gently. A leaf dislodged itself, revealing a dragonfly.
‘I found it this morning. I came downstairs early to put out water for the birds and this was on the wall.’
We admired the creature, its bulging eyes, its threadlike legs. I felt sorry for it, trapped in a glass jar, even though I knew Daniel would never mean it any harm. The dragonfly swivelled its unblinking stare towards us. Daniel trailed his finger over the glass. Behind us, Beth gave up trying to do a flip and dropped to the ground. The dragonfly disappeared once more beneath the green protection of the sheltering leaf.
I stretched out on the grass and thought of rain. Beyond my reach, on the patio, was a bottle of lemonade and three glasses, left by Judith just after Daniel arrived. Thirst was suddenly greater than tiredness, and I got up and went to retrieve the bottle and the glasses. The house was
quiet, nursing its cool interior. I could hear Sarah upstairs, her sewing machine running like muted gunfire. The French doors were open, the voile curtains a film concealing the inside.
‘I could have been a chef. Why wasn’t I a fucking chef? Tell me. Tell me!’
I froze, lemonade bottle in one hand, glass in the other. Invisible behind the screen of curtains, Judith and Chris argued.
‘You could’ve been a chef if you’d wanted. I didn’t stop you.’
‘Oh no, you’ve been so supportive. Just the perfect husband, really.’
‘It’s a bit early for a martini, isn’t it?’
‘Don’t do this to me. Don’t fucking do this to me.’ Rage and resentment gathered like thunderstorms in Judith’s voice. ‘You always do this.’
‘I’m not the one doing anything, honey girl. You’re doing it all to yourself.’
‘Fuck you.’
They couldn’t see me, couldn’t have known I was there, but the bottle of lemonade was too heavy and too wet with its own perspiration and the sweat of my hot hand, and before I could put it down and slide back to where Beth and Daniel lay on the grass, the bottle slipped from my grasp and smashed on the paving. The sound was an explosion, and instantly it quelled Judith and Chris’s argument. In a flash, they were both at the door. I looked at them, beyond them, to the inside.
I held my hands out. ‘I’m so sorry. The bottle just fell.’ The wet patch bloomed, picking up speed as the spilt lemonade spread. A sticky residue was drying around me on the paving.
Judith was quickly beside me with a broom. ‘Don’t worry, sweetheart, it’s only a bottle. Don’t move your feet. You don’t want to get bits of glass in them.’ Chris stepped over the sweeping brush and lifted me under my arms and swung me over to the grass. He poured water over my feet, then wiped them with a piece of paper towel.
‘That’ll wash away any rogue pieces of glass, sweet pea.’ He smiled, chucked me under the chin. Did he know that I had overheard him, them, fighting? His voice didn’t even sound tired any more, not the way it had when he was still indoors. He looked over my shoulder, raised his voice a notch. ‘So who’s coming out with me to get an ice cream?’
Beth and Daniel whooped. Chris peered at me. ‘Coming?’
I nodded and pulled on my sandals. Judith was still sweeping the patio as we left through the Americans’ kitchen.
‘Chocolate or strawberry?’ Chris asked her.
Judith waved her hand. ‘Nothing.’
‘Suit yourself.’
On the small kitchen table there was a jug of water and two glasses, but no martinis. I looked, but I definitely didn’t see one. No olive on a cocktail stick, no telltale triangular glass.
22
That night was marginally cooler. Beth threw a pebble at my window, waking me. Outside, the light was indigo, spilling over the gardens and walls, filling up every crevice with its ink. I had no idea what time it was, but both Sarah and Gemma were long asleep, so I crept down the stairs, avoiding the squeaky steps that always sounded like a cannonade in the hush of night.
Stars were splashed like glitter across the blackened sky. To the left the full moon flouted the darkness, huge and luminous. On the patio outside the French doors, a minuscule light danced. A firefly, I thought, immediately looking around for Daniel. We had never caught a firefly, had hardly been lucky enough to even see one. But it was only Beth, a lit cigarette travelling the space between her mouth and her knee where her hand rested. She was in the deckchair.
‘Any sign of the boys?’ I asked.
She blew smoke from pursed lips, shook her head. How much older than I she seemed. ‘We’ll give them another few minutes,’ she said, dropping the cigarette on the ground. A small shower of sparks flared briefly before she brought her sandalled foot down firmly on it.
‘Sarah will go mad if she sees that.’
Beth clicked her tongue. ‘God, Megan, you really are a goody two shoes, aren’t you?’
‘I am not! If Sarah finds it, she’ll think it’s your mum or dad, and then she’ll say it to them, and then they’ll know it was you and you’ll get into trouble.’
‘My mother wouldn’t say a word to me if she thought I was smoking. She’s not like that.’
What was Judith like, then, I wondered. Mostly, she seemed to hover around her husband and daughter, cooking for them, smoothing their way. Until earlier that day, she hadn’t seemed to have as much presence as either of them. But then I remembered her anger, a ball of fire in the scorched afternoon. I could have been a fucking chef. She was kind and she was gentle, but Beth treated her with a brusqueness that would not have been tolerated by either Gemma or Sarah. I liked her, even if most of what she cooked sounded crazy. Atole and tomatillos, chalupa and beef jerky.
Beth had tried to explain jerky to me, but it was lost on me. I knew nothing about food, not in the way the Americans knew food. Before them, I hadn’t ever seen people swooning over recipes, or discussing ways to tweak dishes so they turned out just so. Never had I been urged to try something proffered on a spoon with the assurance that I would die, just die, from how good it tasted. Now I knew that jerky had something to do with spices and buying it on the side of the road, but all I could think of was the dusty, traffic-poisoned sides of Dublin roads and how they would be the last place I would ever buy food. With most meals, Judith insisted on serving flat things she made herself: tortillas , or something else I had tried called sopaipillas, which she liked to stuff with eggs and eat for breakfast. Judith got excited about food the way the rest of us got excited about sports or holidays.
Food was just food, when I was nine, and there was nothing about it that was worth discussing. Most food was just a slightly altered version of itself. Meat with gravy, meat without gravy. Vegetables of some sort, boiled and slightly mushy, and rarely appealing. Potatoes in every form imaginable. Soup for lunch, if we were at home. Otherwise, sandwiches. That was it, mostly. I didn’t dislike food, but neither did I think about it unless I was hungry. Judith had a box of cookbooks, and she even got a special magazine in the post about cooking. At least, she had until they moved to Dublin. Now she had to content herself with back issues and cuttings she had taken from the magazines she bought here, all bundled into a folder with special stickers and notes all over them.
I didn’t understand it at all.
Beth nudged me with her foot. ‘Here they are.’
Daniel and Stevie had clambered over the wall and were walking towards us. Daniel was still in his pyjama top, his shorts crumpled, probably from being on the floor. Stevie had that swagger that he brought out any time Beth was to be seen.
‘I’ve no idea what we’re going to do,’ Daniel said. ‘If Mummy wakes up and we’re not there, she’ll go mad.’
Stevie elbowed him. ‘Just shut up. She never wakes up, so she’s not going to know we’re out. If you’re that worried, just go back inside.’
But Daniel stayed where he was. ‘I’ve brought a jar, just in case,’ he said.
‘In case of what, Dr Doolittle?’ Stevie laughed.
Beth put her finger on his lips. ‘Sshh. We can’t wake anyone.’ She kept her finger there, smirking at Stevie’s widened eyes, the flush that marked his cheeks.
For once, Stevie was shocked into silence.
The door into the lane creaked as I pushed it open. We stopped, waited. We crept out when we were sure that no one had heard us. The main road was quiet. A lone taxi swished by, a couple of drunks wished us a goodnight as they passed on unsteady feet, and a tomcat knocked the metal lid off a bin. It clanged as it hit the ground, then rolled away, the sound fading before it fell into the gutter. Only the streetlights were lit, all the lights in shop windows and bedrooms long extinguished. In the butcher’s window, a black and white clock silently ticked the hour. One o’clock. I had never been outside so late in my life. I didn’t think I had even been awake so late, unless it was to get a drink of water, which didn’t really count
. The darkness blunted everything. The orange sodium lights flickered, too high above us to be of much use.
The silence of the street dwarfed us, reduced our chatter to whispers. Beth and Stevie walked ahead of us, Beth’s hair a beacon in the quarter light. Daniel and I followed their lead, neither of us sure what we were supposed to be doing, or where this foray would lead us.
‘Mummy got a letter from Father Bob this morning,’ Daniel murmured.
I wondered who we were afraid of disturbing with our talk. Everyone was tucked away in bed, sleeping off the heat of day before it all started up again in a few hours – the unending cycle of heat, sunshine, heat.
‘What did he say?’
I liked hearing about Father Bob. I especially liked seeing the photos he occasionally enclosed with his letters to Mrs Sullivan. His last missive had included a picture of him, surrounded by small children. They hadn’t looked anything like the starving babies we were told about in school, the ones who would suffer and starve further if we, thousands of miles away, didn’t finish all our food and thank God for it. Our teachers were very fond of reminding us of the poor starving creatures with bellies swollen from hunger, flies buzzing around their heads, red dust coating their skin and hair. The children in Father Bob’s photo were dressed, smiling, with beautiful white teeth. His priestly arms were around them, his face wrinkled against the desert sun.
‘Just boring things,’ Daniel said.
‘Any photos?’
‘None this time.’
‘Pity.’
‘I know.’
I thought about Mrs Sullivan, asleep while her two boys wandered through the velvet darkness. She definitely wore her headscarf in bed, I imagined, and kept her fingers closed tightly around the heavy silver cross of the crucified Jesus that she wore around her neck. I was sure she also muttered prayers in her sleep, asking for deliverance and a safe night.