by Doreen Finn
What power did I have to divert Beth’s parents from noticing their daughter’s absence from the tiny white bedroom in the garden flat? What could I say to make them believe that she was safe? With Stevie, it was different. He slept late every morning, so it would never occur to Mrs Sullivan that her firstborn would be anywhere but in his bed. She never checked on him in the mornings, so he was safe. But with Beth, it was different. Judith’s hovering, anxious presence constantly sought reassurance that all was well with her daughter.
Daniel and I crept back up the lane, made our way through the door that we’d left propped open. Already, the sky was lightening, the glitter of stars fading to nothing. Our whispered goodnights were the only sound. At the top of the steps, just outside the kitchen door, I paused. The trees were outlined in the blossoming dawn, the light silvering. I fancied I heard the glug of water through cracked rubber, but maybe it was just my own anxiety. I didn’t want to leave Beth alone with Stevie, wide open to the possibility of being caught with contraband water, two open garden doors and an abandoned swimming pool stealthily filling.
As it turned out, I needn’t have worried. The next morning, early, I crept outside. The door was closed, the strands of the clematis rearranged to make it look as though the door had never been noticed, let alone opened. The hose had been returned to its original position on the patio, coiled around its holder. Only a telltale smudge of leaked water hinted at anything remiss.
25
Gemma’s dress was definitely new. Sarah noticed it too.
‘When did you get that? I didn’t know you were going shopping.’
Gemma’s irritation was a brief spark in the hot kitchen. ‘Mother, I don’t have to tell you everything.’
Beyond the opened doors, another yellow morning was settling under the unmoving carpet of heat that had already compressed all the air out of the day. A blackbird trilled, but it was half-hearted, defeated. The heat was winning.
Sarah put toast on the table, her calmness unruffled. ‘I wasn’t aware of ever saying that you did. It’s a very nice dress.’
‘Thank you.’ Gemma smoothed the dress over her legs, like a child. Unsure.
‘Where’d you get it?’ I asked.
My mother poured coffee in her cup. This was something new too. Coffee for breakfast. Gemma only ever drank coffee when we were out. She was a tea drinker, always had been. I observed her stirring a half teaspoon of sugar into the dark liquid. Milk was added. More stirring.
A new dress and coffee at breakfast. The heatwave was finally getting to my mother. Everyone does funny things in the heat. Patterns were broken, new ones begun. And now my mother was wearing a pale blue denim dress, as she sipped coffee.
‘Where did you get it?’ I repeated.
‘The Dandelion.’
‘Was that when you met Ruth?’
Gemma finished her coffee and poured more. I didn’t recognise the pot she was using.
‘Is that a coffee pot?’ I asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Is that new too?’
‘It is, Megan.’
‘Why did you buy it?’
My mother put her cup down and looked at me. ‘Why all the questions?’ But she wasn’t annoyed with me. I could tell.
I picked up a piece of toast. ‘Just wondering, that’s all.’
‘I was in town with Ruth and we went to the Dandelion. She bought one of these dresses in another colour and she got a teapot. I bought a coffee pot. It’s called a cafetière.’
‘Is that Spanish?’
‘It’s French. You put coffee in it, then water, and that’s it. Very simple.’
‘I thought you liked tea.’
‘I do. But I like coffee sometimes too, and I thought I’d buy this.’
Gemma wasn’t one for buying things. She made her own clothes, and she was so good at it that people often asked her where she got them.
Something else crawled into my head. Like a wasp, I tried to swat it away, but it stayed there.
Chris drank coffee.
I was being ridiculous.
But he did. Chris drank coffee. I had seen a pot, not unlike Gemma’s new one, the cafetière . I had seen a smaller one in the kitchen downstairs.
‘Can I go with you the next time you meet Ruth?’
Gemma smiled at me, pushed my hair off my face. ‘Of course you can.’
Sarah was looking at my mother. She did that sometimes, watched her. I thought it was maybe to check that everything was all right with Gemma, that she was happy. I knew that Sarah worried about Gemma. I’m happy with how things are, Gemma insisted any time Sarah said anything to her.
But was she? If my mother was happy, would she have a secret friendship with Chris? If she was happy, why would she go night swimming with him?
But there was no doubting that Gemma was happy. She didn’t sigh as much as she used to, and she was painting more than ever. She’d abandoned her portrait of me because she was too busy to work on it, something she seemed to regret. I didn’t mind. Even though I loved her attic and was still curious about the ghosts, it was too hot to spend more than a few minutes up there. Gemma kept the skylights open and an ancient fan on the floor, whirring the air around the room, but still it was too much for me. Even the ghosts were losing some of their hold on me. It was as though I’d moved on from that, somewhat. Other things were occupying me, others things to be done and experienced. The portrait would be finished during the winter, if the winter was ever actually going to come. I had a feeling that all we were ever going to have now was heat. I imagined Christmas in the sunshine, eating turkey and ham out in the garden, pulling crackers under a hot December sun.
Gemma touched her fingers to the ends of her hair, which she had braided into a long plait. Two silver bracelets jangled as they slid down her arm. They were new too. I opened my mouth to say so, but closed it again. Gemma got very self-conscious if too many things were said about her, particularly in front of Sarah. She was very sensitive. I think it was because of all that had been said about her after she’d had me. She tried not to care about what other people said, and mostly she didn’t, but I could see now, in her new dress, her hair shiny and her face relaxed, that it probably wasn’t the right thing to say at that moment. I could ask her about the bracelets later. One of them had a tiny fish that dangled on a link. Its scales caught the light as Gemma touched her hair again.
‘More toast, anyone?’ Sarah asked, getting up to slice some bread.
Outside, I heard Stevie kicking a ball against the wall. He called to Daniel to go in goal. Daniel said he would, in a bit. Music filtered through the heat.
‘Good Lord, not that bloody record player again,’ Sarah said, working the bread knife through the loaf.
‘What’s wrong with it?’ I asked.
‘Nothing, nothing’s wrong with it. I just don’t want to have to listen to Blue Floyd, or whatever they are, all day. Beth does whatever she likes, whenever. No regard for anyone but herself.’ Then Sarah closed her mouth, having broken one of her cardinal rules of not criticising others in front of me.
Gemma and I burst out laughing. ‘ Pink Floyd, Mother. Pink. Not blue.’ Gemma shook her head and winked at me.
‘Pink, blue, purple. What difference does it make? A ridiculous name is a ridiculous name, regardless of the colour.’
‘I like Pink Floyd,’ Gemma said, picking up her new coffee pot.
‘You would.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Sarah sighed. ‘Gemma, it doesn’t mean anything.’
‘I like them too.’ I felt I should side with my mother, and besides, I did like Pink Floyd. Their music was dreamy, like balloons and streamers drifting on a hot summer day. Like today. It was appropriate heatwave music, though it could also be night swimming music, all quiet and secretive. At home in the darkness.
26
The tiny kitchenette downstairs was stifling. Judith fanned herself as she stood by the cooker, a pan of s
omething spicy spitting on the stovetop. Gemma and I had just returned from town, and I had come down to the garden flat to show Beth the new skates I had got. They were a most unexpected gift, their extravagance matched only by my mother’s enthusiasm in buying them.
‘These are awesome!’ Beth held the skates by their straps. ‘Mom, I need skates.’
Judith shook the pan, wincing as something hot shot out and burned her hand. ‘Darn it!’
‘Mom!’
Judith turned to Beth. ‘Yes, dear?’
‘Mom, I need skates.’
‘Talk to Daddy, sweetie.’
Beth exhaled sharply. ‘He’s not here, is he?’
But Judith had turned her attention back to the stovetop. A cookbook, propped against the radio, was spattered with spots of grease.
I would never have been allowed speak to either Gemma or Sarah the way Beth spoke to Judith. The unconcealed irritation, the demanding tone, the impatience. It simply wouldn’t have been tolerated.
‘Except I’d need mine with boots. Mom!’
‘Yes, Beth?’
‘I said I’d need skates with boots.’
‘Yes, sweetheart.’
Beth rolled her eyes.
‘Why do you need boots?’ I took my skates back from her.
‘Oh, you know. I’m way bigger than you and these would fall off my feet.’
I showed her how the skates could be made bigger, by sliding the metal plates further apart. The toe holds could be laced more loosely, to accommodate a bigger foot. But Beth’s attention was elsewhere, caught by noise from outside.
‘Megan, honey, would you like to try some?’ Judith was holding a spoon towards me.
I hesitated. A lot of what Judith cooked looked scary. I looked for Beth, but she was nowhere to be seen.
Judith smiled. ‘Go on, it won’t hurt you!’
I felt sorry for Judith, cooking in here in the heat, with no one to taste for her. I could have been a fucking chef.
‘It’s a chilli paste. I’m trying something new. Beth loves chillies.’
I remembered what Judith had told me about chilli and chillies, how one could become the other but not the other way around. Cooking chillies is an art, she explained.
‘They need to be done in such a way that they are the base of the flavour, but not the whole flavour.’
I nodded, not understanding a word.
Chris strode into the room, preventing me from having to sample more of the tongue-melting chilli paste. ‘Well, hey there, Megan! How are you, honey pie?’ He turned to Judith. ‘What’s this? Cooking in the homesick restaurant?’ He squeezed her waist and she yelped, but in a delighted way. Chris looked at me. ‘We always know when Judy here is missing New Mexico more than a little bit, because out come the chillies and the spices, and Beth and I are subjected to long discussions about beef jerky and the best way to cook an enchilada.’ Chris laughed. ‘You know you’re with a New Mexican when they get all jumpy at the smell of a roasted pepper.’
Judith swatted Chris with a dish towel, but she was laughing.
Chris turned to his wife. ‘Well now, I have some plans for the weekend, honeybunch, so you can just put that thing down before you hurt someone.’
Judith’s mirth subsided. ‘Chris, I can’t do anything this weekend. It’s the spouses’ picnic, remember?’ She gestured towards the pan. ‘That’s why I’m trying this out.’
Chris groaned. Beth cartwheeled outside, and I grabbed my chance to escape the steaming heat of the kitchen and the adults’ banter before I was asked to try anything else.
Outside, the garden grass was turning khaki. Despite Gemma’s illicit night-time watering, the heat was shrivelling everything green, reducing the plants to droopy versions of themselves, their colours bleached by the endless sunshine. Beth did a handstand, then flopped down beside me.
‘What were they saying?’
I shook my head. ‘Nothing. Your dad wants to go somewhere for the weekend.’
Beth pulled her hair free from its ponytail. It fell around her shoulders, the colour of sand. Not the sand on Irish beaches, all dark and damp and brown, but the sand I’d seen on postcards, island sand, whitened by the sun. ‘He’s doing that on purpose.’
I frowned at her. She began to braid her hair, draping the plait over one shoulder. ‘Doing what on purpose?’
‘Getting the car this weekend. He knows my mom has that American picnic and that she won’t be able to come with us. He knows. But he’d prefer if she didn’t come, and now he has the perfect excuse.’
She spoke so like an adult at times that it was hard to believe she was only twelve. There was no anger in her voice, no irritation. Just stating the facts.
‘But why wouldn’t he want her to come?’
Beth snapped the elastic on the end of her plait, then flipped the braid over her shoulder. She closed her eyes and turned her face to the sun. ‘It’s just easier for him. He can say and do what he likes and he won’t have my mom sighing and being all disapproving. You know.’
I didn’t. I had no idea what it was like. I only had Sarah and Gemma, and they didn’t behave like that.
‘My dad likes to roll the windows down, play the radio up loud, keep one arm out the window as he drives. My mom’s always telling him that it’s dangerous, or it’s too cold, or the music’s too loud. That sort of thing. Then they argue and she won’t speak to him, and I just can’t be bothered.’ Beth kept her eyes shut and slid back onto the grass. ‘So you’ll come with us, right?’
The grass prickled my bare legs. A ladybird landed on the back of my hand and I watched as it tracked its way over my skin.
Beth nudged me. ‘Won’t you? We’ll get Stevie and Daniel to come too. It’ll be fun!’
The ladybird took off when I blew on it. A day in a car with loud music and the breeze on our faces sounded like perfection.
‘Okay.’
The car was huge, a station wagon with wooden panels along the doors and a sunroof that was propped open. Chris had backed it onto the driveway of the front garden, gravel popping like corn under its fat tyres. Because of the heat, he had rolled all the windows down and opened the boot so that some air could get in. In truth, there was no air, at least none that wasn’t already stagnant, yellowed with the sultriness of the early morning. Above us, the sun was silent, watchful. Our shadows were squat at our feet.
Chris wiped his forehead with his wrist. He was wearing a red T-shirt. Damp circles widened at his armpits as he carried things to the car, things I hadn’t encountered before. A cooler. A separate box, filled just with ice. The biggest flask I had ever seen, with a spout for pouring. I carried two blankets that Sarah had given me, enormous woollen ones. They were heavy in my arms and they irritated my skin.
Daniel had a bag hanging from his hands, his fishing net like a flag from where it was wedged among his belongings. Chris had only told him to bring his swimsuit and water, but I knew that Daniel also had his insect book, a jar with a lid and a pair of binoculars that Stan had loaned him the last time he had been down at the canal. Daniel confided that he had gone alone to visit Stan, twice. They had sat on the deck of the barge, watching insects and talking about creatures of all kinds. Daniel hadn’t told his mother because she would worry. He asked me to come with him the next time. Stan had told Daniel that when he was older he could go to the university where Stan worked, to study animals. It was outside Dublin and the science department was still small, but by the time Daniel got there it would be much bigger, Stan promised, with more labs and opportunities. Daniel’s cheeks were pink with the wonder of it all. ‘Imagine, Megan,’ he said. ‘Studying animals. Working with insects.’
Already, our paths were making tiny inroads at diverging, our futures forking in different directions. My future was still a blur to me then – vague ideas of art or English or music sometimes hovering in my mind – but nothing definite had taken shape yet. There’d just been Gemma’s and Sarah’s sug
gestions of things that I might possibly like.
Mrs Sullivan appeared at their front door, calling Daniel’s name and waving something blue and white. ‘Daniel, bring an extra T-shirt.’
Daniel flushed. ‘No thanks, Mummy. I won’t need one.’
Mrs Sullivan was insistent. ‘I know what you’re like. One splash of water and you’ll be soaked.’ She shook the shirt. ‘Come on now, put it in your bag.’
Reluctantly, Daniel ran over to his mother and stuffed the offending garment in his bag. ‘Thanks, Mummy.’
I wondered if Mrs Sullivan was going to shake her bottle of holy water over us, or light a candle for the journey.
Sarah had made sandwiches and these were packed in an extra-large Tupperware box that Judith had provided and were then stowed in Sarah’s ancient picnic basket. Everything with the Americans was extra-large, Sarah had remarked, as she cut the sandwiches into triangles.
‘You’d swear you were going away for a week.’
It was true. The Americans were only here for a limited time and yet they still managed to have more, better and bigger things in their temporary cupboards than we had in our entire house. We used biscuit tins for transporting picnic food. Judith produced, as though by a wave of a wand, special food boxes with labels and matching beakers.
We were only going away for the day. Chris had been loaned the car by one of the men who had been at the Fourth of July party. I couldn’t recall which one. Maybe it was the bearded man who had been keen to talk about a film about a killer shark. Whoever it was, anyway, had given Chris his car for the weekend, after Chris had confessed to not owning one. It didn’t seem like much to us – not having a car. Sarah didn’t drive. We lived practically in the city centre. All the buses we needed passed by our front door. I walked to school. My piano teacher lived down the road. Gemma took the bus or cycled to wherever she needed to go. A car would have been pointless, a waste of garden space. Americans loved their cars, Beth had said, even though her family didn’t own a car either. You didn’t need a car in New York, she said. The subway was enough.