by Laura Elliot
‘What more is there to say?’ He drew his arm away and turned to leave.
‘David, do you remember the words you once wrote to me…to Carla Kelly?’
‘What do you mean?’ He stared blankly at her.
‘I memorised them,’ she said. ‘“If faith can move mountains, then you have the power to create an earthquake. What lies beneath the surface is fragile and constantly shifting. Sooner or later, and I hope with all my heart it will be sooner, the cracks will appear and you will be reunited with Isobel.’”
He was silent for an instant, his head bowed. ‘If I didn’t feel like weeping, I’d laugh at the irony of it all,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you in court, Carla.’
She watched him walk away. The waterhen disappeared into the reeds, startled, perhaps, by a group of young women defying the wind in skimpy tops and bare midriffs. Their voices carried across the water, their laughter a shrill signal that their night was just beginning.
The following day Orla Kennedy phoned to inform her that David had broken his bail conditions. He had broken an injunction and visited Isobel Gardner without the knowledge of her social worker. For this reason, he would be remanded in custody until his trial.
Chapter Seventy-Seven
Joy
Her father writes to her every day. Snail mail. He orders her to be brave. He’ll prove his innocence, never fear. Sometimes Joy believes him and then her mind swings the opposite way and she’s convinced he’ll be in jail forever. He won’t have a chance in court. Not with Carla Kelly standing there looking forlorn and desperate. The judge will be putty in her hands. Joy hates her. Her hatred runs cold then hot. It shivers her skin until she feels as if tiny invisible insects are crawling under her flesh. Snitch, bitch, liar, spy, home-wrecker, heart-breaker, impostor…mother…mother…
Patricia tries to persuade her to forgive and forget. How can she? Her heart is ice and will remain ice until her father is released. She tore up Carla Kelly’s letter. Too late…too late…too many lies. Impossible to forgive. Snitch, bitch, liar, spy…
Mary in the next bed agrees. She’s had a hip replacement and is Joy’s limping companion along the corridor.
‘Forgiveness,’ she says, ‘is written in the book of repentance. When you are ready to forgive yourself, then your forgiveness will reach out to others.’
How can Joy forgive herself? She let her mother die then led Dylan to the truth and now her father is in jail because she sent for him. It’s as simple and as awful as that.
She dreams about her mother. Her thief mother. Joy knows she’s dead yet she looks so alive as she stands in front of the cottage with the Judgement Book open before her. Angels fly around her head. Six angels with white robes and shimmering wings, shining baby faces. Joy wants to fly with them but the plaster of Paris holds her to the floor. Her mother is smiling as she looks up from the Judgement Book and gazes at the angels. She doesn’t see Joy struggling to fly. The angels soar upwards and vanish but her mother is sinking into the earth. Joy wants to struggle free from her dream but then she realises that she is actually awake. Dreaming awake. She hears Mary snoring in the next bed. The jangle of the breakfast trolley along the corridor. The dark morning beginning to brighten outside the hospital windows. Her mother continues to sink lower and lower. She is still smiling but soon her face will disappear into the crumbling clay.
Joy rings the emergency bell beside her bed but by the time the nurse comes with the sick tray it’s too late and she has thrown up over the bedclothes. The ward is empty of angels and ghosts.
‘A bad dream,’ says the nurse.
‘It was real.’ Joy huddles in a chair while her bedclothes are changed. ‘I was wide awake the whole time.’
Another nurse checks her chart. ‘Hallucinations,’ she says. ‘I’ll talk to Dr Nolan about your pain medication.’
‘Medical people!’ Mary snorts when Joy is back in bed, sitting palely between the starched sheets. ‘They know how to fix bones but they are clueless when it comes to interpreting the wonderful mysteries of the mind. Your mother was sending you a message.’
‘She’s not my mother.’
‘No. She’s a free spirit. That’s why she’s happy.’
‘How do you know she’s happy?’
But Mary hums as she gathers her black straggly hair in her hands and pins it in a beehive. She knows exactly where each sparkling clip goes and only reaches for the mirror when she is ready to make up her face.
‘Not a good idea,’ she says, as she always does when she sees her reflection. ‘At my great age, a mirror is a dangerous friend first thing in the morning.’
Joy stretches her hands above her head and immediately lowers them again. Movement is pain, yet soon the physiotherapist will have her limping up and down the corridor, demanding impossible manoeuvres. The daily routine of the hospital makes it hard to think. She slides down in the bed and closes her eyes. Snatches of memory come and go.
‘I’m writing your name in the Judgement Book.’ How many times had she heard those words? And she heard them again in the ambulance when her mother’s mouth slanted sideways as she held onto Joy, the words sliding free but garbled, so garbled…written in the blood…written in the book…which was it? Or was it both?
‘The book?’ says Joy. ‘Or the blood?’
‘Written in the book,’ replies Mary. ‘The blood is no longer flowing. It’s found its source.’
Joy stares across at her. Mary’s face is wrinkled now but soon she will be transformed. Her lips will glisten with bright red lipstick and her dangling earrings will sparkle. Somehow, her wrinkles will smooth out and disappear, or else people are so busy looking at everything else about her, including her black flashing eyes, that they won’t notice she is actually quite old. Mary is not her professional name. She hasn’t told anyone but Joy. As a psychic she has a certain image to maintain.
‘It wouldn’t do if word got out that Miranda May is hobbling up and down a hospital corridor like Hopalong Cassidy,’ she whispers.
Joy has promised to keep her secret. The only problem is that everyone else in the hospital seems to know it too. The nurses keep asking her to read their palms and, yesterday, Dr Nolan had a tarot card reading done, but only after he drew the blinds around Mary’s bed.
‘Written in the book of repentance.’ Mary clips on her crystal earrings. The transformation is about to begin. ‘What did she tell you to do?’
‘She never spoke.’
‘Language is not always necessary for knowledge. You must read the signs she left behind.’
‘Morning everyone. Rise and shine.’ The patients resent the morning nurse. She brings the outside world with her, reminding them of swarming traffic and surging crowds and changing weather patterns.
‘Good gracious me, what have we here?’ She stops at the foot of Joy’s bed and stares at her in amazement. ‘Tears? This will never do at all.’
‘She’ll be fine,’ says Mary and, hearing the certainty in her voice, Joy feels strong again. Susanne, she whispers. Susanne…Susanne. The name hisses on her tongue, sibilant and unfamiliar. Using her name is the first snap of a thread that has bound Joy to a lie.
When breakfast is over and the doctors have done their rounds, Joy phones Patricia.
‘I want to meet my mother,’ she says. ‘Will you ask her to visit me?’
‘The shape of a family cannot be defined by blood alone,’ says Mary while they wait for Patricia to arrive.
‘But I belong to her and him,’ says Joy.
‘You belong to yourself, child.’
‘It doesn’t feel like that. I’ve lots of relations, all looking for me to be part of them.’
‘Science has yet to measure the love our hearts can hold.’
‘I’ve no space for her,’ says Joy. ‘She deceived me and she made my father fall in love with her. I hate her.’
Mary starts to hum again.
‘What?’ snaps Joy.
But Mary smiles and sinks
deeper between the sheets.
Patricia arrives and helps Joy into her wheelchair. ‘Carla’s here,’ she says. ‘She’s waiting for you in the dayroom. Good luck.’ She briskly wheels Joy from the ward.
‘I’ll manage the chair myself,’ says Joy when they stop outside the day room.
‘You’re sure?’
‘Positive. This won’t take long.’
After Patricia walks away, Joy sits perfectly still for a moment. She needs to compose herself but her anger continues to bubble out of control. Snitch, bitch, liar, spy…Her head aches from the power of those words. She pushes the door open and manoeuvres her way through. Carla Kelly is sitting in an armchair. A brightly striped coloured scarf is wound around her neck. Her glasses have disappeared and her hair looks longer than Joy remembers. She stands when she sees Joy. Two spots of colour appear on her cheeks. Her hands flutter, that same helpless flutter that Joy remembers from the cemetery. The sun was shining that day, the air still and breathless.
Her anger, that bubbling, sulphuric anger, suddenly evaporates. Joy has no idea where it’s gone. She grapples after it, tries to claw it back, but it keeps slipping beyond her reach and in its place, unfolding in slow motion, is the memory of Danny’s car skidding and turning over. The sensation of being suspended upside down. The knowledge that she was going to die and that it was too late…too late to know the strength of her mother’s arms, holding her safe from harm.
Her mother shudders, as if she has peered inside Joy’s mind. Her hands freeze and she is motionless apart from the slight tremble of her bottom lip. Waiting. Her eyes are bog brown and luminous. Not green and unsettling, as Joy remembers. They belong to her face…and to Joy. Her mouth opens slightly, as if she is about to whisper Joy’s name. How many times over those long years did she call out her daughter’s name…Isobel…Isobel…? How many nights did she lie awake, waiting for a new day to break so that she could rise and begin her search anew?
‘Mammy…’ Joy whispers and her mother’s face breaks apart, like something has ripped through her chest and stopped her breathing. Joy doesn’t know if the rip is her own heart aching, or her own hushed breath repeating, ‘Mammy…Mammy…’ but the sound brings her mother’s face together again. Suddenly, there’s no space between them. Her mother is on her knees, her arms holding Joy with a fierce tenderness, and they cling together, crooning words that make no sense, need no language, binding, rejoicing words that were once lost and are now found.
Afterwards, there is time to talk.
‘I thought I hated you.’ Joy stares at her hands, still scarred from the accident. ‘I couldn’t hate Carla Kelly for destroying my life but it was easy to hate Clare Frazier. But it was her…Susanne, she was the one I really wanted to hate. But I can’t…I want to…I should…’
Her mother shakes her head. ‘You have to give yourself time, Joy. So much has happened so quickly—’
‘She wrote things down.’ Joy needs to make her mother understand. ‘She called it her Judgement Book.’
‘You told me about it. Remember? By the lake. I was so angry I had to walk away from you.’
‘I’ve been thinking a lot about it since this…’ Joy gestures at the cast on her leg. ‘I think it was her Judgement Book. Like a therapy, or something. In the ambulance on the way to the hospital, she kept talking about it. I believe she wanted me to find it. It makes sense. If she couldn’t have me, then it wouldn’t matter who knew the truth. It’s written in the book…she kept repeating that…I thought she meant blood but that wouldn’t make any sense.’
‘Where did she keep the book?’
‘There’s lots. She used to keep them in the back of her wardrobe but the police searched our house for evidence. They found nothing. I think she buried them.’
‘Buried?’
‘In the cottage garden. It’s where she went when we had rows. Like it was a grotto or something. She smacked me once for following her there. Sometimes I hid and watched her. She used to kneel and pray.’
‘Oh, Joy…were you ever happy?’ her mother asks.
‘I believe I was.’ She nods vigorously. ‘But I was either clinging to her or pulling against her. Always trying to win her approval. At least now I understand why that was impossible. The best times were when Dad was home. I know he’s not my dad…but I can’t stop…’
‘You don’t ever have to stop, Joy.’
‘Do you believe he’s guilty?’
Her mother doesn’t hesitate. When she says, ‘He never knew,’ Joy’s body folds forward in relief.
‘But he’s in jail because of her,’ she says.
‘When he goes on trial he’ll be able to tell his story. Then it’s up to the jury to decide.’
‘Will you tell that to the judge?’
‘My word will carry weight but I’m only a witness, one of many. Everything your family has done over the years will be scrutinised and analysed. Then the jury will decide. So, you see, Joy, I’m only a very small cog in the whole process.’
‘If you had proof…they’d have to listen.’
‘What proof can I bring? All I have is a belief. That’s not evidence.’
‘The books might be.’
‘But if you’re right and she buried them, how could anyone possibly find them? I’ve seen that place. It’s a wilderness.’
‘Not in one space. There used to be flowers there, like they were planted, not growing wild. I’ve done research on the internet. If you find the journals and hand them over, the DPP will have to believe you.’
‘You want me to find them?’
‘Mary says…’ Joy stops, embarrassed. Her mother will think she’s a snowflake if she discovers she believes in psychics. But maybe her mother does too. Maybe they share lots of things in common. ‘Mary says the truth is hidden in a place of stone.’
Her mother tilts her head back and stares at the ceiling. She appears to be deep in thought before she meets Joy’s gaze. And nods.
Chapter Seventy-Eight
Carla
Carla did not stop driving until she reached Rockrose. Still exhausted from the events of the day, she was happy to allow Joey O’Sullivan to fuss over her and serve her a second helping of spaghetti bolognese. Tomorrow morning he was flying from Shannon to Dublin to see his family then flying on to London for a business meeting. He was reluctant to leave her alone in Rockrose; he was stressed from the sudden responsibility of running his grandmother’s studio and still shocked by the events that had occurred. ‘I won’t be alone,’ she said. ‘I have Splotch for company.’ She patted the dog’s head and was rewarded by a slobbering lick.
‘Joy told me why you’re here,’ he said when they were clearing the table after the meal.
‘Do you believe in this so-called Judgement Book?’
‘Anything was possible with that woman. But I never saw it or noticed her writing anything down. I think Joy’s sent you on a wild goose chase. If there was any incriminating evidence Susanne would have destroyed it.’
‘She died very suddenly. Whatever her intention was, she would not have had time to do anything before she collapsed.’
‘Perhaps. But I’m not convinced.’
‘You obviously didn’t like her.’
He frowned and shook his head. ‘There was something about Susanne. An aura, Joy would probably call it. It was invisible but at times I could feel a chill surrounding her. She was a cold woman, utterly possessive. I was Joy’s half-brother but she still resented me having any part of her. I disliked her intensely. Now I hate her. My father may go to jail because of her. Who’s going to believe he’s innocent?’
‘I do,’ said Carla.
‘I’ve never hated anyone before,’ admitted Joey. ‘But you must have carried that same hatred for all those years. How are you still standing upright?’
How indeed, Carla wondered after he had gone to bed. She walked through the rooms that had imprisoned her daughter. In the bedroom where Susanne Dowling had slept for her entire
married life, nothing remained of her existence. Carla hesitated at the doorway and shuddered. They had made love in this room, conceived babies and lost them when fate decreed it was not their time to be born. The bed was new, as was the crisp bed linen. The drawers and dressing table were empty. Carla knelt and checked under the bed. Bobbles of dust made her sneeze but there was nothing to see, no hidden trapdoors or unwieldy boxes.
She entered David’s room. A woolly jumper lay over the back of a chair and an anorak hung from a hook on the door. She caught a whiff of oil from it. The pockets were numerous and bulky, deep enough for pens and binoculars, measuring tools and goggles, and small razor-sharp chisels. She imagined him under desert suns, adrift on oil rigs, searching for the black tide beneath the surface.
He had stood too close to the edge of the canal. A step further and he would have entered the water. She would have dived in after him and pulled him to shore. She had the strength to do it, and then she would have kissed life back into his lips. Could she love such a man if she believed him guilty of stealing her child? No, a thousand times no.
Splotch followed her into Joy’s bedroom. Posters on the wall, Coldplay, Snow Patrol, Kings of Leon, Sugababes. Similar posters hung on Jessica’s wall. Her dressing table was cluttered with creams. Necklaces dangled from the fingers of a black, splayed hand. A teen magazine was open on her bed and the clothes Joy had dumped on her last night before being taken to Dublin were still crumpled in a laundry basket. Carla lay on the bed and held the pillow over her face. She had no tears left, nor any desire to cry. She fell asleep in her daughter’s bed and did not awaken until morning.
The sun, rising above the hedgerows, streaked the clouds with blood-red energy. Frost hung in the air and froze her breath, tingled her fingers as she made her way towards the cottage. A digger stood abandoned beside it. Joey drove down the lane and stopped when he reached the cottage. His tousled hair, frank gaze and lanky stride reminded her of his father. He gazed over the dead foliage she had raked into neat cones.