Make Yourself at Home

by Ciara Geraghty

  ‘It’s like soup after a while,’ said Rita, coming towards her, towing Harrison and Sheldon along by their shoulders as they lay on their backs.

  ‘Look at us, Marnie,’ shouted Sheldon.

  ‘We’re floating,’ added Harrison so there could be no doubt.

  ‘I’d say you could do it too,’ said Sheldon, although there was an element of uncertainty in his tone that Marianne felt was warranted.

  ‘Course she could,’ said Rita, setting the boys on their feet and turning towards Marianne.

  ‘I don’t think I …’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Rita, putting her arm around Marianne’s back. ‘You don’t think it. You feel it.’

  The boys cheered and clapped as Marianne leaned back. Beneath her, she felt Rita’s arm under her knees, felt her legs lift through the water until she was horizontal, the water lapping around the circle of her face. ‘Don’t let go,’ she gasped.

  ‘I won’t,’ said Rita.

  ‘Are you still scared, Marnie?’ asked Harrison, clinging onto Rita’s shoulder and staring down at Marianne.

  ‘Yes,’ said Marianne.

  ‘Stretch your arms and legs out,’ instructed Rita. ‘Like a starfish.’

  Marianne did as she was told. The boys laughed and beat the water with their hands. Their excitement was infectious. She wanted them to see that she could do it. Or that she was at least willing to try. ‘What do I do now?’

  ‘You float,’ said Rita.

  ‘How?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’ll let go and …’

  ‘No, wait,’ shouted Marianne. ‘I’m not ready.’

  ‘You let me know when you are,’ Rita said.

  Marianne could still feel Rita’s arms beneath her, keeping her up. She opened her eyes. She hadn’t realised they’d been closed. Her mother’s face came into focus. The gunmetal blue of her eyes, the concerned furrows along her forehead, her tongue trapped between her teeth.

  ‘You look nervous,’ said Marianne.

  Rita shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I was just … I wish I’d taught you this years ago.’

  ‘You did try,’ said Marianne.

  ‘I should have tried harder.’

  Marianne exhaled. ‘I think I’m ready,’ she said.

  Rita let go.

  Marianne held her breath and squeezed her eyes shut. She listened to the sounds. The boys shrieking and splashing. The lament of a curlew, moving out to sea. The soft lap of the water against her body.

  She was floating. When a part of her body began to submit to the pull of the water, she gently moved it and there she was, floating again.

  She opened her eyes a slit. Then wider. Everything was as before. Except now, she was floating. Rita smiled at her and lifted her arms out of the water. ‘You’re doing it, Marnie,’ she said.

  Marianne smiled back. ‘I know,’ she said. She was filled with a potent mix of feelings. Hope was one. The hope that, for her and Rita, there might be other days like this.

  A resigned sort of sadness too.

  The knowledge that, for her and Rita, there wouldn’t be many.

  Chapter 36

  Marianne and Rita fell into the habit of sitting in the glasshouse most afternoons. Even on days when the sun was weak and faltering, ducking between clouds, it managed to penetrate through the glass and provide a warmth that felt personal, like a service laid on just for them.

  The fine weather continued throughout April, and that afternoon, Marianne was persuaded to take off her anorak. She spotted herself in one of the panes of glass and, for a moment, was confused by her own reflection. That sensation of knowing someone from somewhere but being unable to put your finger on who. Or where.

  She laughed.

  ‘What’s funny?’ asked Rita.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Marianne. ‘I was just noticing my rig-out.’

  She was wearing one of Rita’s silk skirts: the plainest one she could find, which wasn’t as plain as she might have liked, being mostly pink with complicated swirls of orange, purple, and green. The skirt was too big so Marianne had tucked her T-shirt inside the waistband and borrowed one of Patrick’s leather belts to keep everything in place. She slotted her bare feet into runners and left her hair down, tucking as much of it as she could manage behind her ears so she could see out.

  ‘You look lovely,’ Rita told her.

  ‘I put my tracksuits in the twin-tub and forgot to turn it on yesterday,’ said Marianne.

  ‘You should do that more often,’ said Rita.

  Rita sat down on one of the two deck chairs Patrick had taken from the shed and cleaned, when Rita initially expressed a desire to sit inside the glasshouse and absorb the sun.

  Marianne went to make afternoon tea.

  Afternoon tea was another of the rituals that had developed. Today it was mint tea – made with mint from Patrick’s kitchen garden – and a plate of Rita’s lemon melts.

  Of all the treats her mother made, lemon melts remained Marianne’s favourite. There was a strict process in how she ate them that she was powerless to change. She began by manoeuvring the entire lemon melt into her mouth, placing it gently on her tongue. Then, she made herself wait until the pastry and the curd softened, dissolved on her tongue. She only allowed herself to chew when the entire concoction was in danger of melting away. She did the same with the second one. Washed them down with tea. When her tongue roamed the inside of her mouth for leftovers, she tasted the tartness of the lemon. The sweetness of the pastry.

  She ate each one the same way, every time.

  In the glasshouse, Rita watched Marianne’s ritual with amusement. ‘Here,’ she said, rummaging in her handbag and handing Marianne a crumpled piece of paper. ‘I’ve written down the recipe for you.’

  It was an electricity bill. On the back, Rita’s elaborate handwriting with instructions and even an illustration of how to rub the butter into the flour.

  ‘Pastry should be handled as little as possible,’ she said, pointing to the picture. ‘So only use the tips of your fingers to do it.’

  ‘They won’t taste as good as yours,’ said Marianne.

  ‘They will,’ said Rita, ‘eventually.’

  They leaned back in their deck chairs, closed their eyes and absorbed the sun like solar panels.

  They never talked about death. About dying. Marianne sometimes forgot about it. She put that down to Rita herself, who seemed, in the main, her usual larger-than-life self, in her flamboyant rig-outs, talking in her rapid, clipped voice that was always louder than it needed to be.

  It seemed impossible that she had cancer. That she was dying. That she would die.

  ‘I spoke to the policewoman who … arrested me,’ said Marianne then. ‘On the phone yesterday.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Rita. ‘Karen, isn’t it? A dote. How did her daughter get on in the mocks? She was a bag of nerves, apparently.’

  ‘I … I don’t know, she didn’t say.’

  ‘Well, what did she say?’

  ‘She said there was a good chance I could do an addiction counselling course. That it could count as my community service.’

  ‘Would you like that?’ said Rita, sitting up and studying Marianne’s face.

  ‘I’m not talking about the Get Well Soon programme, obviously,’ Marianne said in a rush. ‘But just, you know, it could be an area I might be interested in getting involved with at some point in the—’

  ‘I think you’d be brilliant, Marnie,’ said Rita, setting her cup on the ground so she could clap her hands. ‘When?’

  ‘There’s a course starting in September,’ said Marianne.

  ‘September is great for fresh starts,’ said Rita.

  Neither of them mentioned how unlikely this was, for Rita, at least.

  Marianne stood up. ‘Do you want some more tea?’

  ‘I know you’re just going to get another lemon melt,’ said Rita.

  ‘I am.
’

  Rita reclined on the deck chair and closed her eyes.

  ‘Are you tired?’ asked Marianne.

  ‘I’m happy,’ said Rita, smiling.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m glad you came home,’ said Rita.

  ‘I didn’t have much choice,’ said Marianne.

  ‘I know,’ said Rita. ‘But I’m glad all the same.’

  Marianne made a great performance of gathering up their cups and plates and setting them on the tray. She walked with purpose to the door of the glasshouse, opened it, then stopped.

  ‘I’m glad, too,’ she said, before she opened the door and walked away.

  In the kitchen, she washed the muck off the mint and put the leaves into the teapot, waited for the kettle to boil and put the last two lemon melts on the plate. Beside her, she could feel George’s breath, warm against her leg. She trailed a hand down to his head, scratched him behind his ears the way he liked it. His tail thumped against the door of the press and it was such a happy sound, Marianne was compelled to squat down beside him, use both her hands to pull gently at his ears and whisper into his coarse fur, to tell him what a good dog he was. The rhythm of his tail, beating against the wood, quickened.

  ‘You know he can’t understand you, don’t you?’ Aunt Pearl said as she swept into the kitchen.

  Marianne straightened and smiled. ‘I used to agree with you but I’m not so sure any more,’ she said. ‘I think it’s his eyebrows. They’re so … expressive.’

  Aunt Pearl shook her head and tutted. ‘I thought you were the one person in this family who spoke a bit of sense, Marianne.’

  ‘Me, too,’ said Marianne, pouring water into the teapot. Behind her, she sensed Pearl eyeing up the lemon melts. Even she was powerless in their presence. She hated that about herself and only ate one when she knew nobody was watching.

  Marianne picked up the tray, moved towards the back kitchen.

  ‘If you and Rita are going to the graveyard this afternoon, make sure you take an umbrella,’ Aunt Pearl called after her. ‘It looks pleasant now but it’s going to turn.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Marianne, using her elbow to release the door handle.

  That was another habit they had fallen into. The walk along the cliff to the graveyard, if Rita was feeling up to it. Marianne brought scissors so she could trim the grass if it needed a trim, and Rita sat on the blanket Marianne brought in her bag. They didn’t speak about Flo and Marianne was glad about that. It was peaceful there, the only sounds the distant murmur of the sea far below and the soft coo of the wood pigeons, perched in pairs along the budding branches of the sycamore tree. And the tree itself, like a celebration of spring, a yearning for summer, with its pale green buds swelling along the branches, the shy tips of leaves, gold where the sun glanced against them, making their way out into the world.

  Marianne walked into the garden, past the kitchen window. In her peripheral vision, she could see Aunt Pearl, reaching her hand towards the plate that Marianne had set on the counter with the last lemon melt placed irresistibly in the middle of it.

  Aunt Pearl ate the biscuit the same way Marianne did, guiding all of it into her mouth, doing her best to wait before biting, savouring the sensation of the pastry and curd melting on her tongue.

  She licked her lips when it was over.

  Marianne smiled as she made her way towards the glasshouse, even though the plate on the tray now held only one solitary lemon melt. Still, Rita might agree to share it.

  As soon as Marianne stepped inside the glasshouse, she knew.

  Rita was where she had left her, lying along the soft curve of the deck chair. She looked peaceful, as if she was asleep. There were the remnants of her earlier smile about her face. A ghost of a smile.

  Marianne set the tray on the floor and sat in the deck chair beside Rita’s. She took her hand, held it in her own. It was warm and soft. She closed her eyes. Listened. Through the glass, everything was muffled. Donal, braying for oats, and Declan, crowing his ragged crow as if it was the break of day and not the afternoon. Marianne thought she should know what time it was. Weren’t people supposed to know? She lay there with her eyes closed, holding Rita’s hand.

  She wondered if Rita heard what she had said before she left. ‘I’m glad, too.’

  She hoped so.

  She was glad. That she’d said it.

  Out loud.

  Chapter 37

  Rita left strict instructions.

  There was to be no crying.

  Instead, there should be singing and dancing.

  The wearing of black would not be tolerated. Colours, she wrote in her funeral instructions. Let there be colours.

  And there were.

  The funeral was to take place at Ancaire. There were to be no eulogies and absolutely no open coffin. ‘I might not be looking my best,’ Rita had written on her list of instructions.

  Ancaire felt colder than usual. Aunt Pearl had insisted on flinging open the windows to give the house a good airing before the funeral guests arrived.

  Quieter, too. Marianne had never known the house to be so quiet. Even with the wind from the sea whistling through the windows, rattling the frames, Ancaire was quiet. Subdued. As if it were straining to hear the clatter of Rita’s heels down the stairs. Or Patrick, hammering away at a rogue piece of wood somewhere in the house.

  But Patrick had not stepped inside Ancaire since Marianne had told him. She couldn’t remember what she had said exactly but she probably hadn’t said it right. Used the wrong words. It was hard to know which words to use. Marianne had never known, when it came to Patrick. She had been too busy resenting him.

  For being the perfect son.

  And Rita, for being the perfect mother.

  The Get-Well-Sooners were the first to arrive. They filed out of Hugh’s taxi and gathered around Marianne. She closed her eyes and breathed them in. Even Bartholomew’s Paco Rabanne was restrained. Ethel, in a lilac wool suit and pillbox hat, and a handbag dangling from the crook of her elbow that seemed slighter than ever today, dabbed at her eyes with the corner of a delicately embroidered handkerchief. ‘My dear, brave girl,’ she said, patting Marianne’s arm. Marianne put her hand on Ethel’s bony hand, squeezed gently.

  ‘If you cry, Ethel, so will I,’ said Bartholomew, already weeping into his pocket square. Marianne looked at him, almost blinded by his cerise-pink three-piece suit and rainbow-coloured dicky bow. ‘You look magnificent,’ she told him.

  ‘It’s not de trop?’ said Bartholomew in a tear-sodden voice.

  ‘Rita would have loved it,’ said Marianne, hugging him.

  Freddy, pale and gaunt in a Les Misérables T-shirt under a navy corduroy jacket with the obligatory leather patches at the elbows, did not rush to confirm that Bartholomew’s outfit was indeed de trop. In fact, he did not say anything. Marianne straightened his glasses. ‘Day one hundred and twelve,’ she told him, smiling.

  ‘Is it?’ he said.

  ‘It is,’ insisted Marianne. ‘Rita would be very proud of you.’

  ‘You don’t look as shabby as usual,’ said Shirley, reefing herself out of a leather jacket to reveal a yellow and orange tie-dye T-shirt, which she wore as a dress, gathered at the waist with a school tie. Marianne waited for her to say, ‘No offence’ but she didn’t.

  It was true that Marianne had dressed up for the occasion. Another of Rita’s instructions.

  No leisurewear.

  Marianne had taken that to mean tracksuits and had also taken it to mean, specifically, her.

  ‘How many times did you wash it?’ Shirley asked Marianne, nodding at the dress she had brought over yesterday. It was not something Marianne would have picked, being delicate in a pale yellow silk sort of way. Also short-sleeved and scoop-necked, the bodice fitted to her waist, the skirt falling just past her knees. It swished about her body when she twirled. Which she didn’t do, since it was a funeral, although she had a feeling that Rita would have included twirling on her list
of instructions if it had occurred to her.

  ‘Twice,’ admitted Marianne. Shirley rolled her eyes. ‘I told you the charity shop washes all the clothes before they sell them.’

  ‘I know, but …’

  ‘And you owe me a tenner.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And it’s shit, by the way. Rita being dead.’ Shirley’s voice seemed to teeter along the words. She clenched her eyes shut, her eyelashes long and spiky and laden down with mascara. She looked impossibly young then, like a child who was lost on an unfamiliar road. Marianne didn’t think she could bear it if Shirley cried. She clenched her fist and punched Shirley’s arm.

  ‘That hurt,’ said Shirley, opening her long navy eyes and glaring at Marianne.

  ‘I’m really sorry, I—’

  ‘Just fucking with you,’ said Shirley, grinning and thumping Marianne back.

  They moved inside the house and Marianne waited at the door for Hugh, who had parked his car round the back and was walking towards her now, flanked by Harrison and Sheldon, in matching black leather jackets over the Irish football strip. Their skin was pink from a recent and, Marianne guessed, vigorous scrubbing by their mother.

  Harrison ran when he saw Marianne, stopped in front of her and looked up, his blond mohawk glinting gold in the sun. ‘Mam told me to say I’m sorry but I haven’t even done anything yet,’ he said, his long, navy eyes intense with indignation.

  Marianne crouched in front of him. ‘Did you bring your football?’ she asked.

  Sheldon ran up the steps. ‘It’s in Hugh’s car,’ he said, ‘But Mam said we shouldn’t …’

  ‘Rita left instructions,’ Marianne told them. ‘You have to play football after lunch.’

  ‘Bagsy not goalie,’ shouted Harrison, kicking off his football boots before charging into the house. Sheldon rolled his eyes.

  Marianne watched them skid down the hall in their football socks, glad of their energetic noise.

  ‘You look lovely,’ Hugh said, arriving on the doorstep. ‘Not your usual uniform.’

  ‘Rita’s orders, I’m afraid,’ said Marianne, turning towards him, conscious suddenly of the softness of the silk, glancing against her bare legs. ‘You look … nice, too,’ she said, nodding briskly at him.