Scarlett

by Cathy Cassidy

  Kian drops down into the long grass beside me, hugging his knees in faded jeans. His tanned arms glint with little golden hairs, and the plaited leather bracelets on his wrists drop down over his hands, revealing a sliver of paler skin.

  ‘Looks like you managed OK,’ he says carefully.

  ‘What would you know?’ I protest. ‘Yesterday was awful. Clare fell and went into labour early, and the storm knocked our phone out so we couldn’t ring for help. I looked for you everywhere, but you weren’t around!’

  Kian rakes a hand over his face, pushing the hair back. His eyes look shadowed, haunted, like the eyes of the boy in the photograph yesterday. ‘Is she OK now?’ he asks softly. ‘Clare, and the baby?’

  ‘What do you care?’ I cry, ashamed at how childish that sounds. ‘Everything’s messed up. My baby sister is in special care, and Clare won’t stop crying and Dad looks so lost…’

  Kian lets out a long, ragged breath. ‘I do care, Scarlett,’ he says. ‘More than you know. My mum died in Castlebar Hospital, this time last year.’

  That stops me. ‘Your mum died?’ I echo.

  Kian nods. ‘She had cancer – by the time she found out, it was too far gone to do anything, and Mum was never one for doctors or hospitals anyway. We came out here, the whole family my uncles and aunts, all of us. We stayed by the lough, did a bit of casual work for the local farmers, swam in the lough, ate rabbit stew. We partied every night, lit fires, told stories, danced, played music. Mum used to sing – she had the loveliest voice. We made the most of last summer, lived it one day at a time.’

  ‘The travellers by the lough,’ I whisper. ‘Holly and Ros told me about it – big shiny caravans and horses and dogs. That was you?’

  ‘That was us. Your cottage was just up the lane, so of course Holly would have known we were there. That’s why I couldn’t risk meeting her at the lough the other week – things would have got complicated.’

  ‘That’s how you knew about my dad, that first night at the lough,’ I whisper. ‘That’s how you knew where I lived.’

  ‘That’s how’

  ‘What – what happened? About your mum?’

  ‘We pretended nothing was wrong,’ Kian says. ‘We pretended, right up until the point when we couldn’t pretend any more. Then it fell apart. Mum was too ill, in too much pain. My dad couldn’t stand it – she begged him not to, but he drove her to Castlebar, to the hospital. We moved on, found a council site in the town, stayed there a while so we could visit her. But, Scarlett, she never came home.’

  Kian makes a weird, gasping sound and covers his face. I can see his shoulders trembling slightly. I reach out to touch his hair, his face.

  ‘I’m sorry, Kian,’ I whisper. ‘I didn’t know.’

  He pulls me close and we hold each other gently, cheeks touching, arms wrapped softly round each other as though we’re each holding something very fragile, very special. I want to stay like that forever, feeling Kian’s warm breath against my neck, the slight jut of his cheekbone against mine, a strand of his black hair blown across my lips by the soft breeze.

  Then he sniffs and smiles and wipes his eyes on his sleeve, and we move apart awkwardly, still holding hands. Kian lets his head fall back against the hazel tree.

  ‘Dad couldn’t face travelling for a while,’ he tells me. ‘We went to Dublin, parked up on a permanent site. I went to school. It was bad – I didn’t fit in and I couldn’t get over Mum. I truanted a lot, and as soon as the warm weather started, I took Midnight and headed out here. I needed to be on my own, think things through. I needed to be here. I guess they’ve been looking for me ever since.’

  I shut my eyes, guilt-stricken. ‘I told them I’d never seen you,’ I say, remembering. ‘I sent them away.’

  Kian shrugs. ‘They didn’t go far – there’s a place we used to like, on the coast to the south, right by the ocean. I rode out yesterday morning and found them there. We did some talking, sorted some stuff out. I think it’s going to be OK.’

  ‘I’m glad,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry I got angry, Kian. I thought I’d never see you again.’

  ‘You were always going to see me again.’ He grins. ‘I had a promise to keep, didn’t I?’

  Neither of us point out that it was a promise to say goodbye.

  ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you, yesterday,’ he says. ‘Do you think she’ll be OK? Clare’s baby?’

  ‘I think she will,’ I whisper. ‘I hope so, anyway. They’re doing all they can to help her.’

  Kian’s fingers stroke away tears, play with my hair. I can feel his soft breath on my cheek.

  ‘Know what?’ he says. ‘I’m going to miss you. The first day I rode into Kilimoor, looking for supplies, the village was going crazy about some mad English girl who’d marched out of school and made for the hills. When we met up, later, right by the wishing tree, it seemed like it was meant to happen. I’ve had the best summer, Scarlett. I thought it’d be the worst, but you made it into the best, OK? I’ll never forget that.’

  It feels like a dream is falling to pieces right in front of me. My eyes are gritty with tears, showing me a world that’s blurred and hazy.

  ‘You’re going back to your family aren’t you?’ I ask.

  ‘I have to, Scarlett,’ he says. ‘It’s where I belong. I’ve felt like I was on my own for a long time now, but I’m not – none of us are. Families are never perfect, Scarlett, but you have to hold on to them. They’re a part of you.’

  I think of Mum, striding through the hospital corridors last night, brisk, efficient, taking charge. I had never been so happy to see anybody in my whole life.

  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ I tell him.

  ‘Hey,’ he laughs. ‘I’m always right, OK?’

  He kisses me then, his lips soft and gentle and salty with tears, and I know he’s saying goodbye.

  ‘We’ll meet again,’ Kian says. ‘I promise.’

  I put a finger to his lips. ‘Shhh,’ I warn him. ‘You’re not so good at promises, remember.’

  ‘Ah, you’ll see,’ he says. He takes a braided black bracelet off his wrist and ties it gently round mine, letting the ends dangle. ‘Just don’t forget me, that’s all.’

  He gets to his feet and just when I think he’s going to walk away he turns and reaches up to the hazel tree, grabbing on to a branch.

  ‘Any of those wishes for me?’ he asks.

  ‘Maybe one or two.’

  He unties one of the scarlet rags and rakes a hand through his untidy hair before using the rag to tie it back. Then he whistles for Midnight and takes him by the bridle, and the two of them walk away slowly along the silver shore of the lough until they’re lost from sight in the mist and the dawn and the blur of my tears.

  When I get back to the cottage, Mum is in the garden in a borrowed kimono wrap, collecting eggs from underneath the rose bushes. She’s bare-legged but wearing her trademark spike heels, which keep sinking into the grass and giving her a lopsided, slightly unsteady look. Her long hair is loose and uncombed, and she’s singing to herself as she drifts about the garden.

  My mum never sings. She looks up and stops in her tracks, smiling softly, as though she hasn’t seen me for a long, long time. Apart from last night, I guess she hasn’t.

  ‘Scarlett,’ she says. ‘Your dad rang. The baby’s had a good night, and the doctors have taken her off the ventilator. That’s great news, isn’t it?’

  ‘She’s OK?’ I gasp. ‘She’s out of special care?’

  ‘She’s fine,’ Mum confirms. ‘I think they’ll keep her in special care for a while, just to be on the safe side, but she’s out of danger. What a relief!’

  I never thought she’d care.

  ‘Poor Clare,’ she says. ‘Poor Chris. If anything had happened to that baby…’ She slips an arm round my shoulders and we go inside, and I want to shout and sing and dance with relief because my new baby sister is going to be OK, after all.

  I start with the shouting. ‘Holly!’ I yell. �
�Holly, wake up! The baby’s out of danger! Everything’s going to be fine!’

  Holly pads down the stairs, bleary-eyed, still wearing yesterday’s crumpled clothes. I take her hands and waltz her round the kitchen until she’s wide awake and laughing, and we flop down at the kitchen table just as Mum sets down plates of scrambled eggs, baked beans, grilled mushrooms and tomatoes. It’s actually veggie. For once, my mum is paying attention.

  She hacks into one of Clare’s granary loaves, producing a mound of crumbling brown bricks. She butters one and takes a bite. ‘Ugh,’ she groans. ‘What is that, wholemeal sawdust? Give me ciabatta any day.’

  Just when I’m starting to think my mum has taken a crash course in full-on, earth-mother, knit-your-own-lentils sweetness and light, she comes over all snooty city girl.

  I guess I kind of like her like that.

  *

  Mum stays on at the cottage for a fortnight, while Dad and Clare camp out at the hopsital, waiting for the moment the doctors will declare my new baby sister is well enough to come home.

  Mum doesn’t moan about missing work, she just calls in and says it’s an emergency and that she’s owed a whole raft of holidays anyhow, might as well take them now. She helps Holly and me to decorate the sky-blue bedroom with sparkly stars and a crescent moon painted in silver acrylic paint. We paint a wide, arching rainbow that stretches from one corner of the room to another. When my new baby sister looks up from her cot, she’ll see stars to wish on, a moon to soothe her to sleep, a slice of rainbow to remind her that magic is always just round the corner.

  I move my bed into Holly’s room, and hey, it’s not so bad. Seriously.

  We finish the cot quilt, too, Mum and Holly and me. We add a border of red patches round Clare’s quilt, a jigsaw of scarlet, crimson and bright vermilion red, snipped from the remaining dresses in the attic. We all take turns at patching the pieces together, stitching them down, decorating the joins with zigzag or chain stitch or French knots in bright, contrasting threads. I’ve stitched my love into that quilt, my hopes and dreams for my new baby sister.

  We take it along to the hospital and give it to Clare, who hugs us all, even Mum, and puts the quilt at the end of the baby’s incubator. My new baby sister kicks her legs and opens her eyes wide and when I put my hand in through the porthole in the side of the plastic cot, she takes my finger in her tiny fist and squeezes, and I know that she loves me and guess what, I love her back, now, always, forever, no questions asked.

  Clare sits in a comfy chair in the visitors’ room beside the special care unit, watching the baby through the glass partition and leafing through a book on names.

  ‘I’d like a Gaelic name,’ Clare muses. ‘The trouble is, there are so many lovely ones and it’s hard to know which one is right.’

  ‘Aislinn,’ Dad offers. ‘It means dream, vision, inspiration. That would fit.’

  ‘Or Etain,’ Holly says. ‘That means shining one. What d’you think?’

  Clare frowns. ‘I’m not sure,’ she says. ‘What about Kiara? Small and dark, that means.’

  I take the book from Clare, scanning the page until I find what I’m looking for. I read it, and my eyes mist over.

  ‘Got one, Scarlett?’ Dad asks, but I shake my head.

  The name I’ve found is not for my baby sister. It’s Kian, and it means ancient, enduring, magical.

  Clare gets up and wanders over to the glass partition. ‘Maybe an old Irish name is too grand, too fancy, for such a little girl,’ she muses. ‘Maybe we’re looking in the wrong place.’

  She reaches out to touch the vase of flowers on the wide window sill, gathered fresh this afternoon from the cottage garden. Her fingers trace the velvet petals of deep pink roses, raggedy shasta daisies, tall, pale, regal lilies. At the back, for foliage and for luck, are a few branches of hazel from the wishing tree, with soft green leaves and tiny, budding nuts clustered in groups of three.

  ‘Hazel,’ Clare says slowly. ‘I think her name is… Hazel.’

  My heart thumps.

  ‘Hazel,’ Dad repeats. ‘Hazel, Holly and Scarlett… it feels right, somehow. I like it.’

  And after two weeks in hospital, my baby sister Hazel comes home. She lies in her cot and twists her beautiful cot quilt between her fists and gazes at the stars and the moon and the rainbow up above her. Overnight, the cottage smells of baby powder and wet wipes and other, dodgier, nappy-type aromas.

  Mum books her plane ticket home, and we all drive to Knock to wave her off.

  ‘I’ll never be able to thank you enough,’ Clare tells her. ‘You’ve been a star. Looking after the girls, keeping the cottage and the garden in order, running everyone up and down to the hospital. Even keeping the Internet soap orders ticking over! Thanks, Sara.’

  The two women hug, and I’m sure I see Mum wipe her eye. She must have a speck of dust in it.

  ‘We really are grateful,’ Dad adds. ‘We couldn’t have managed without you.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ Mum sniffs. ‘It was a holiday for me.’

  Holly doesn’t waste words, she just hurls herself at Mum and hugs her tightly, and then it’s down to me. I look at Mum and I know that there’s no speck of dust that could account for the fat, shiny tears running down her cheeks.

  ‘Sweetheart, I’ll miss you,’ she whispers.

  ‘I’ll miss you too.’

  It feels like I’m being torn in two all over again, and even though it was Mum who sent me away to Ireland, it feels like we’re sending her away now. She looks little and lost, standing in the airport check-in queue with one measly overnight bag and nothing and nobody to go home to. I fling my arms round her and I hold her tightly.

  ‘I’m sorry, Scarlett,’ she says into my hair. ‘I’m so, so sorry for everything. I handled it all wrong, the break-up. I was a mess, and I wasn’t there for you. I’m sorry.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I murmur, because it doesn’t, not any more. ‘We both messed up, didn’t we?’

  ‘Big style,’ Mum laughs. ‘It’s a talent we have.’

  ‘A skill,’ I agree. ‘But hey, we’re learning, aren’t we? We’ll get through.’

  ‘I love you, Scarlett,’ she tells me. ‘Always. Any time you want to come home, just let me know. It’ll be different now, I promise you. We can work things out together – schools, friends, rules. Can’t we?’

  ‘Maybe, Mum,’ I tell her. ‘Who knows?’

  Maybe.

  I stay in Connemara till the end of the summer. I watch my baby sister grow, see her cheeks flush pink from lying out in the garden on her patchwork cot quilt, kicking her legs. I watch her learn to focus her eyes, form her tiny rosebud mouth into a smile meant just for me.

  In the day, I hook up with Ros and Matty and sometimes Kevin Fahey, the shy boy who wants to be a priest. He’s no pin-up, no dreamboy, but he’s fun. He’s a friend, and I need all the friends I can get.

  At night, I lie awake talking to Holly. I listen to her chatter, I tell her about my day, I tell her, again and again, how lucky I am to have her and Hazel. ‘We’re connected,’ I tell her. ‘Bound together, no matter what. Sisters, OK?’

  ‘Sisters.’ Holly sighs in the dark, and slips into sleep.

  But when Dad starts talking about schools again, I know it’s time to move on.

  ‘You’ve made friends,’ Dad tells me. ‘You’ll fit into the school at Westport, no problem now, the same way you’ve fitted in with us. It’s a terrific school, and you’ll get the chance to really stretch yourself –’

  ‘No, Dad,’ I say.

  ‘No?’ he falters. ‘Well, I’m certain you’d have no problems, Scarlett. You’re a different girl these days. The anger and the hurt and the fear, it’s just gone, hasn’t it? But if you’d rather stick with the home-schooling…’

  ‘I’m sorry, Dad,’ I tell him. ‘It hurts like crazy, but I know it’s the right thing to do. I love you and Clare, I love Holly and Hazel. I love it here, more than anything. But I’m going home – t
o Mum.’

  I fall into London life as if I’ve never left, except of course I am different now, stronger. I’ve got nothing to prove.

  I march along the pavement from the tube station at the Angel, flat Mary Jane shoes kicking through the litter. My tights are bottle green, my skirt is knee-length and pleated, my green blazer is trimmed with gold cord, adorned with an embroidered badge that says something in Latin about aiming high and reaching the stars.

  Luckily, green goes pretty well with ketchup-red hair.

  My new school is strict, but I’m not fighting any more, so that doesn’t matter. I’m not a perfect, grade-A student, but I get good marks in English and art and history and drama, and I haven’t wasted too much time in the Head’s office or the detention room. I’ve made some friends, real friends, the kind who’d never think of offering you ciggies in the school loo or daring you to nick an eye pencil from Boots. They’re cool.

  Things are better with Mum and me too. She doesn’t work such long hours these days, and we take time out to talk and find out what’s going on with each other. We still lose it sometimes – we’re both hot-tempered, I guess, but we’re working on it. Seriously, it’s a whole lot better.

  For my birthday, Mum got me the best present ever – a baby rabbit. I called her Smudge and she’s a house rabbit – she gets to mooch around the flat and we’ve even trained her to use a litter tray. Dad called too, and asked me what I wanted, and when I told him, he rang round a few places and found me riding lessons, right here in the centre of London. It’s not like riding bareback on Midnight along the shores of Lough Choill, but it’s pretty cool all the same.

  I miss Dad and Clare and Holly and Hazel, but I’m going back at Easter, and for part of the summer holidays too. I’m really looking forward to that.

  I miss Kian too, of course, and that’s way harder. There was hardly a day, over those five weeks, that we didn’t see each other. We talked, we laughed, we lazed around in the sun. We held hands and flirted and once, just once, we kissed, a sad, lingering kiss that tasted of salt and tears. All I have to remember him are memories, and a little black braided bracelet that stays on my wrist night and day.