by Doreen Finn
Secrets had their place. Lies, less so, but secrets kept the world at bay, helped us to navigate the dangerous path of life, and if we were less informed because of them, then was that really such a bad thing? At nine, I had felt that I knew enough to keep going. There would be time to decipher Gemma’s secrets, unfold my father’s mysteries, but now wasn’t the time for doing it. First of all I needed to admire Daniel’s miniature frog before it found its mother and leaped away.
I needed to keep an eye on my mother, make sure she didn’t wander any further down this road of painted nails and white wine, televisions and station wagons, a world of record players in the garden and night swimming when everyone who cared about her was fast asleep in their own beds and not there by her side to warn her not to make any dreadful mistakes that couldn’t ever be undone.
30
It was late by the time we got home. Darkness had edged its way across the sky as we drove back in the borrowed station wagon. Songs still unravelled on the radio, but more quietly, filling in the background instead of being all that there was to hear. Dinner had been eaten in a restaurant, Chez Jules, a treat of enormous magnitude. Chris had spotted it that morning, and swerved into a parking space outside when we passed it on the way home, much to everyone’s delight. It was huge, with one wall made entirely of glass. It was also busy, and Gemma and Chris had a drink at the bar while we waited for a table. We had Coke in bottles, with straws, and we fought happily over the dish of peanuts the barman set down in front of us. Our table was in a corner, by the window. There was a huge potted fern behind my chair and it tickled the back of my neck each time I leaned back. The three of us ordered the same things: steak, chips, more Coke, desserts in tall glasses eaten with long spoons. Gemma ordered chocolate cake off a trolley that was wheeled to our table by a white-bloused waitress whose name was Molly. Chris declined the offer of dessert, but somehow managed to eat at least half of Gemma’s, without one word of complaint from her. Again, I’d had that sense of belonging to a larger family unit, when the waiter asked Chris if his wife would like wine too. Gemma had gone to phone Sarah to tell her we were eating out, and Chris, in her absence, failed to correct the waiter. Tiredness had settled itself along my limbs and my skin tingled from a day under the sun as we’d sat around the restaurant table. Hunger compelled me to finish everything on my plate and allowed me to pick at Daniel’s uneaten chips after he had finally pushed his plate away. We were not dressed for eating in a restaurant, with our T-shirts and shorts, but no one minded. Gemma and Chris were less untidy and hot looking, and Chris commanded such authority with the staff that no one could have objected to the trio of tangled, field-dusty children.
I was impressed with how Chris ordered, asking about the wine and tasting it before accepting the bottle. He enquired about the length of time the meat had hung, something I’d never even heard of before. His American accent allowed him to get away with it, and the waiter addressed him as sir with each answer. Chris paid for everything, with a plastic card, and he waved away Gemma’s offer of splitting the bill with a swift don’t even ask.
Sarah was asleep when we got home and the lights in the garden flat were also extinguished. We said goodnight to Daniel on the steps up to the front door and he hopped over the railing that separated our houses. A whisper of a tap on the front door and his mother in her nightdress opened it at once. She called out hushed thanks to Chris and Gemma as she shepherded her son indoors, then disappeared inside her dark house. The door closed with a click behind them.
‘I don’t have my key,’ Chris said, patting the pockets of his jeans. ‘Can we come inside with you and go out through your kitchen?’
‘Sure.’ Gemma shrugged.
I could have sworn I’d seen Chris pocket his key as he walked to the car that morning.
‘The garden doors will be open,’ Beth said when I asked her how they would get in. ‘We never close them.’ I wondered what Sarah would have to say about that.
I was in bed, almost asleep, when I realised that my mother hadn’t come upstairs. There had been no telltale creak on the steps, no roar from our ancient plumbing as she brushed her teeth. Of course, she could have been watching the late news, or reading downstairs, but then I heard the record player starting up and music, faint but definite, reached me through the darkness, and I knew where she was and what she was doing.
Curiosity stretched itself within me, cat-like, but sleep’s pull was stronger. I thought I heard a cork pop as it was eased out of its bottle, the faint chink of glass, the hush of muted conversation. But maybe I imagined it all. Maybe my mother wasn’t night swimming, sipping wine in the midnight garden, with records spinning on Chris’s record player. Maybe candles hadn’t been lit in jars and the warm night air wasn’t heavy with scented stocks, roses, the herbs in the pots on the deck. The bougainvillea still wound its way up the banister, its blooms papery, leaves feathery, but possibly Gemma didn’t notice them because she wasn’t there. As I fell into sleep, I thought, yes, the murmured wisps of conversation that reached my open bedroom window were likely coming from next door, or further away, the muted laughter someone else’s mirth.
31
Sarah had to leave us for a little while, to go and visit her sister. My great-aunt lived in Galway and Sarah spent a week with her each year. Usually, I went too, but this year Hannah was recovering from a broken leg and so Sarah wanted to go alone.
‘You don’t mind, do you?’ Sarah asked, anxious. Her small suitcase was open on her bed, as she put the final items of clothing in. She came over to me and put her hand on my face. ‘I hate not bringing you, and Hannah will be so disappointed not to see you, but it’d be too much for her, with her leg in a cast.’ She tucked a piece of my hair behind my ear. ‘I don’t want you not to have a holiday.’
‘It’s okay. Really.’
Truth be told, I didn’t mind. Gemma and I would be fine by ourselves, and sometimes it was nice to have my mother to myself.
‘We’ll have a few day trips when I come home, and we can go down to Hannah after Christmas, if you like. She’d love that.’
I nodded. Hannah was a year older than Sarah, but like Sarah, she was active and brimming with vigour. It would take much more than a plaster cast to dampen her spirit for long.
As Sarah fanned herself with a magazine – the sash windows were pushed open, but no air stirred in the room – I ran my fingers over the bedspread. Tufts of candlewick were fashioned into a pattern of flowers and leaves. The fabric was faded around the edges, almost threadbare in patches.
‘Will it be hot in Galway?’ I asked.
‘Oh God, I hope it’s not as hot as here. But at least we can walk along the promenade.’
Hannah lived in Salthill, right along the seafront. Most of her neighbours ran bed and breakfasts, but Hannah had been a teacher until she took early retirement. Her three grandchildren lived nearby, and I always loved seeing them.
‘Hannah’s leg is broken,’ I pointed out.
Sarah laughed. ‘True, but at least I’ll be able to go.’
I touched my fingers to my grandmother’s hand. ‘I’ll miss you.’
Sarah kissed the top of my head. ‘And I’ll miss you, sweetheart. But it’ll be good for you and Gemma to have the house to yourselves for a while. You don’t need me around all the time, getting in the way.’
‘You don’t get in the way!’
‘I know, but it’s good to be on your own, just you and your mother. And it’s only for a week.’
Before Sarah left for the train station, she gave Gemma a list of instructions. Water plants each morning and evening. Put rent money from Judith in post office (account book in drawer in kitchen). Settle account in greengrocer’s (money in small envelope beside post office book). Defrost lamb for dinner tomorrow. Curtains ready for collection were folded in piles on the dining room table, each neatly labelled with their owners’ names.
‘Make sure they pay you before taking
the curtains, will you?’
‘There’s no worry there,’ Gemma said. And there wasn’t. Last year, when Sarah and I went to Galway, a woman had collected six pairs of curtains that Sarah had made, with the promise of dropping the money in the following day, but we had never seen the woman again. Sarah was furious, not with Gemma, but with herself for being too trusting. Now the rule was payment on collection, or no curtains.
‘Thanks, love. You can lodge that money too.’
‘I will. Just have a good time, and give Hannah our love.’
Hannah was Gemma’s godmother and Gemma liked to spend time with her too. Usually when I was back at school, Gemma went to visit her on her own, as she would later that year as well. When Gemma had been expecting me, she went to stay with Hannah for a while, till she decided what she was going to do. Gemma didn’t tell me much about that time, those months she spent in the old house along the seafront, but I knew that it was to give her a chance to decide whether she was going to keep me or give me away. Sarah wouldn’t like me to know that, because she was fierce in her conviction that babies should stay with their mothers, but I knew that my mother had had to make that decision herself. And it didn’t bother me because she had kept me. She’d always known that I would be hers. That’s what she said, and I believed her.
It was strange at first, not having Sarah around. We were in such a routine, the three of us, that losing Sarah for a week knocked everything off tilt.
‘We’ll be fine on our own,’ Gemma said, her arm around my shoulder as we went back inside after waving her off. The hall was dark, not quite taking in the white light of morning. The fanlight threw shattered reflections on the polished floorboards, highlighting the imperfections of the wood.
‘Sarah said it’d be good for us,’ I said, looking at my mother. Something silver caught my eye. I reached up and touched her ears. ‘Are these new?’
Gemma put her fingertips to her earrings. ‘I just haven’t worn them before.’
‘But I’ve never seen them in your jewellery box. They’re new.’
She shook her head. ‘They’re not.’ In a brighter voice she carried on. ‘Anyway, let’s see what’s on the cards for today.’
‘I don’t mind what we do.’
‘We could go to the sea, or into town. Then again, it’s too hot to be in the city.’
‘When’s the heatwave going to end?’
My mother started towards the kitchen. ‘Oh don’t even think about it! We’ll be shivering with the cold all winter long and wishing we still had a bit of warmth.’
I couldn’t quite remember what it was like to be cold. I had a memory of it, but conjuring the precise sensation of that icy winter chill was impossible. Just as it would doubtless be impossible to recall this fierce blast of heat once summer was over.
We spent that morning, my mother and I, in close proximity, but not exactly together. Gemma moved her paints downstairs and set up her studio in the dining room for the week, so as to be close to me as I played in the garden or read my books in the slightly cooler environs of indoors. All the windows were thrown open to the hot morning, the kitchen door wedged open with a chair. It made little difference. Inside, as out, the day sweltered, the pollen-tinted air unmoving.
Beth and Judith had taken the bus into town. They were going to the shops, to lunch with an American family they knew, and to have a wander around the city centre. Daniel and I took our bikes out and went for a cycle. It had been so long since I’d used my bicycle that it was coated with dust and cobwebs when I dragged it out from under the wooden staircase. I gave it a hasty swipe with a rag. Mrs Sullivan gave us a sandwich each and a bottle of water.
We cycled side by side down the main road, through Ranelagh. We took the road that ran alongside the canal as far as Portobello, up through Rathmines, and zigzagged our way back towards home through quiet streets with rows of red-bricked houses, small squares of gardens enclosed by railings, children playing outdoors. Instead of going straight home, though, we made our way to the park, but I didn’t want to go anywhere near the tennis courts or playground, for fear that the boys would be there. Instead, we went and sat in the old bandstand by the duck pond across the road and ate our ham sandwiches. The bread mills behind the high wall that surrounded the park released their warm, yeasty scent.
Daniel finished his sandwich, stuffing the crusts into his mouth. ‘Will we shout up?’ he asked, pointing to the grey bakery building behind us. Sometimes, if we were very lucky, and we shouted loudly enough, someone inside would throw a fresh loaf out of a window at us, and we would then go and feed the ducks.
I drained the last of the water from the bottle. ‘Okay.’
We stood at the right spot for bread begging and jumped up and down, waving our arms and shouting, laughing at each other. Daniel paused at one point to examine a caterpillar that inched its way up the high wall, but I carried on.
We were not lucky: the windows remained closed, despite the heat. Bored of shouting into the void, we picked our bikes up from where we had abandoned them by the bandstand. We circled the pond, cycled over the grass and wound our way home.
By the time we got home, it was already mid afternoon. There was no sign of Beth. I leaned my bike against the outside staircase and took the steps two at a time up to the kitchen. Chris was sitting with my mother at the kitchen table. Her arms jangled with silver bangles, her hair piled on top of her head, pagoda-like, skewered with a red pencil. Chris poured water from a jug. Mint leaves floated on the surface, obscuring thin slices of cucumber that Gemma had cut earlier. The coffee pot was drained, but the smell of coffee lingered. Two mugs had been pushed away. They were empty.
Later, Beth came home from town while I was watching the gymnastics, and she came upstairs to watch with me. We waited for the final scores. Nadia was looking like a dead cert for the All Around and we wanted to see her claim the gold.
Nadia was on the television in her white tracksuit, smiling and waving to the crowds. Both her arms were in the air, both hands as synchronised as her floor routine. Around her neck, the big gold medal flashed when it caught the light. She wasn’t overwhelmed, just happy. As though she had expected to win. Her face had none of the teary gratitude I had noticed in other winning athletes. She was simply happy. A job well done. A medal earned. Her fringe moved as she turned to the crowd, her ponytail with its ribboned bow bobbing. Would she disappear after the Olympics, back behind the Iron Curtain again? Would Checkpoint Charlie stamp her passport, let her through? Then I remembered Beth had said Checkpoint Charlie was somewhere else. Germany, maybe. I needed to ask Gemma.
It was then that Beth turned towards me and broke my spell.
‘I think my father is in love with your mother.’
32
Of course it was all nonsense. I knew it was, but that didn’t stop Beth telling me again, as matter-of-factly as if she’d been talking about Nadia winning gold. My father is in love with your mother. I shook my head. It wasn’t true because Chris was married to Judith and my mother had me.
‘You’re very naïve, Megan,’ Beth said, crushing one of the biscuits Gemma had given us, the crumbs falling on the plate. She sat cross-legged on the floor. I lay on my stomach beside her. She drew shapes with her forefinger in the crumbs, before licking her finger clean.
‘I don’t even know what that means,’ I admitted.
I kept my gaze on the television, even though Nadia was gone and the men were beginning their rounds. Men’s gymnastics had failed to enthral me. The men lacked the lightness and grace of the girls, and while normally I would have switched it off by now, it gave me something to look at besides Beth.
‘Are you even listening to me? Megan?’ She poked my shoulder.
I jerked away from her. ‘Stop. I don’t want to hear any more.’
‘But it’s not bad. It’s just what I think. And I know I’m right.’
I turned over onto my side to l
ook at her. ‘You have to stop saying these things. My mother isn’t like that.’
She smirked. ‘Isn’t like what? She had you, didn’t she?’
The slap came out of nowhere. I hadn’t meant for it to happen, but I was overtaken with a rage that was as instant as it was fierce, and my hand stung, the palm rapidly reddening.
No one spoke about my mother like that. Beth’s smirk said it all, spoke more loudly than any words she could have uttered. She was a phoney and I knew it. Really she just wanted something to gossip about. She thought she was better than us. Better because her mother had been safely married before Beth had arrived, better because people didn’t point and turn away and whisper about her.
But she wasn’t better than us and I knew that. If you think you’re better than someone, that is proof enough that you’re not.
Beth sat, her hand to her face. Shock had paralysed her features, silenced her tongue. The only sound was the commentator from the men’s gymnastics, praising someone’s prowess on the parallel bars. Upper body strength. Six days’ training a week. The pinnacle of his career. The possibility that he would be beaten by the Russians. Although the commentator didn’t say so, it was implied that to be beaten by the Russians would be a mark of shame. The gymnast must have been American. I allowed the sound to wash over me, blurred and disjointed in the aftermath of the slap. Beth’s face a still life in astonishment.