Jim had brought flowers and she accepted them gratefully. He complimented her on the smell coming from the oven and she didn’t tell him it was ready-made lamb tagine that she was simply heating up. She handed him a glass of wine and he sat at the table while she dished up.
“You look nice tonight,” he said.
“Thanks,” she said. “I bought the dress yesterday.”
“Well, it suits you.”
She put his plate in front of him and a plate in front of herself and she sat. “Eat up,” she said.
“No need to ask twice. I’m starving.”
They ate in silence.
“Is there something wrong?” he said.
“No, why do you ask?”
“Well, usually you’re giving out about something or someone.”
“That’s not true,” she said, “and anyway you’ve been here five minutes and you haven’t mentioned one single article you’ve read today.”
“Well, now that you mention it, I was reading the details of the government bank-guarantee scheme earlier. I tell you, Leslie, people have no idea how close this country came to bankruptcy a few weeks ago. The good times are officially over.”
“Oh, don’t say that! I’ve only just started to leave the apartment,” she said, and he laughed.
“Well, right about now I think your apartment is the best place to be,” he said, and she smiled. She’d forgotten to buy dessert so they enjoyed coffees on the sofa. She was wondering when and how she’d break the news of her love for him when he put his coffee down and fished in his jacket pocket. “I forgot,” he said. “I have something I thought you might like to see.”
“Oh,” she said, and put her coffee on the floor. “What is it?” She didn’t notice her cat shove her face into the coffee, lick her lips and turn on her heel, raising her tail high in the air. She was focusing on Jim digging in his pocket.
“Here it is,” he said.
“What is it?”
He smoothed it out and handed it to her. “It’s a letter from Imelda.”
“Imelda. My dead sister, Imelda?”
“One and the same.”
“To me?” she said, pointing at herself.
“No, to me but it’s about you. Go on – read it.”
She opened the letter and part of her wanted to read it and part of her didn’t and she was totally thrown. Why did he bring this tonight? She began to read it silently.
Dear Jim,
It’s time to talk about Leslie. We both know she’s stubborn and cut off and we both know why. When I’m gone you’ll be all she has left in this world and I know it’s a big ask but please look out for her.
She looked up at Jim. “What is this?”
“Just read it,” he said.
We’ve talked about you remarrying and you know I want you to find someone to love and to love you. I want you to have a great new life that doesn’t include overcrowded hospitals, dismissive doctors, overworked nurses and cancer. I want you to find someone strong and healthy, someone you can go on an adventure with, someone you can make love to, someone who doesn’t cause you anguish and pain. Every time I see your face it hurts because for the first time I see that, in loving you, I’ve been selfish and I understand why Leslie is the way she is.
“I’m not that person any more,” Leslie said. “I’m trying to change. Why are you bringing me back in time like this?”
“Just read on,” he said.
Leslie is a better person than me. I know you’re probably guffawing at that as you read but it’s true. She’s watched her entire family die of cancer, and when we were both diagnosed with the dodgy gene after Nora’s death, she made the decision not to cause pain to others the way Nora caused pain to John and Sarah and I’m causing pain to you.
“She’s praising me but I was so stupid, so wasteful,” Leslie said. “She was right. I was wrong.”
Before cancer she was smart and funny, kind and caring, and she still is to me. Without her care I wouldn’t have coped. I know sometimes she calls you names but, trust me, she knows you’re not a monkey, so when she calls you an arse-picker, ignore it and be kind.
Leslie laughed. “I’d forgotten I used to call you an arse-picker.”
“And I’ve tried to,” he said, and smiled.
I thought she was being defeatist. I thought that we’d suffered enough as a family and that we’d both survive. So I made plans and fell in love and for a while we had a great life, but then that dodgy gene kicked in. Now I see you look almost as ill as I feel and I realize that my sister Leslie knew exactly what she was doing when she broke up with Simon and all but closed off. I watched her disappear from her own life. I thought she was insane back then but it makes sense now. She put the pain of others before her own. She watched John and Sarah suffer after Nora and she’ll watch you suffering after me, and, although she pretends not to like you, she does, and it will hurt her and it will also confirm for her that she is right to remain alone, waiting for a diagnosis that may never come.
Suddenly Leslie felt the tide of sadness returning. “She always knew me better than I knew myself,” she said.
I’m her last family and friend. She hasn’t even let herself get to know her niece so when I’m gone she’ll have no one and that haunts me. Please go and live your life but all I ask is that every now and again, no matter how rude or uninviting she may seem, call to her, talk to her, be her friend even if she fails to be yours, because she has been there for me, for Mum, for Dad and Nora, and I can’t stand the idea that after everything she’s been through she should live or die alone.
Leslie put her hand to her mouth. She looked from the letter to Jim and back to the letter. She shook her head. “This is why you’re nice to me,” she said. “It’s because Imelda asked you to. You don’t have any feelings for me. You have feelings for her. I’m so stupid.”
Jim looked confused. “I just found the letter. I thought you’d like to know how your sister felt about you, that’s all.”
“Well, now I know,” she said, “and I’m actually quite tired so, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to say goodnight.”
“We were having a nice time,” he said, startled and dismayed. “I shouldn’t have given you the letter.”
“No,” she said, “I’m really glad you did. It’s cleared something up for me, so thanks and goodnight.”
Jim was standing outside Leslie’s apartment with the door slammed in his face before he had time to work out what had happened and it was only when he was halfway home that realization dawned: Leslie had totally misread his intentions.
*
Leslie took the letter to bed, lay with her cat and read the last piece:
I know I say it all the time, and in all my little notes and letters about this and that, but time is running out and I need you to know that it’s been a privilege to be your wife and, although I feel selfish for all the pain I’ve caused you, I know I’ve brought happiness too so hang on to that and forgive me because, even knowing what I know now, I’d love and marry you again. I suppose Leslie would say I was a selfish truffle-sniffer but I can die with that.
Yours,
Imelda
Leslie let the letter drop from her hand and closed her eyes. I’m such a fool. Jim has no real interest in me. And why would he want me anyway? I’m half a woman. I’m such a silly, silly fool.
Tom opened the door and was surprised to see Jane, red-eyed and tearful. “Are you alone?” she said.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“Why?”
“Because I want you to take me to bed,” she said.
“Jane, I think you need to –”
“Are we friends?”
“You know we are.”
“So please do what I ask and take me to bed.”
He nodded, led her upstairs, kissed her mouth and took off her coat. He removed his shirt and unbuttoned her blouse, kissed her neck, and when his face was wet from her tears he took her over to
the bed and sat her down. He handed her a pillow to hug and asked her what was wrong. Jane told him about the time when Kurt was fourteen months and he hadn’t stopped crying in a week and everything she’d tried hadn’t worked and she’d thought she was losing her mind and she’d hated him with a real, palpable, seething hatred and wondered about killing him more than once, she was so tired. Even when her eyes were black and she was zombie-like and skin and bone, not once had her mother relieved her. Not once did she pick up the baby and tell her that it was okay, that she’d take care of him while Jane got some much-needed sleep. Not once did she offer to babysit so that Jane could go out with her friends, and not once did she tell her that everything would be all right.
Jane told Tom about that day when she’d walked into the police station with her son. “I wouldn’t have hurt him,” she said. “I just needed someone to help me.”
“Ah, Jane,” he said, and he took her into his arms.
He lay down on his bed and she lay on his chest and she told him about what Rose had said about her dad and Elle. “I should have known Dad didn’t have a heart attack. I’m so stupid.”
“You couldn’t have.”
“And Elle – Rose has always been so protective of her and it used to drive me insane. I made one mistake and she punished me for years. Elle messes up time and time again, and Rose always finds a way of making what she’s done seem normal and okay when all the time she knows it isn’t – and I should have known. How could I have been so blind?”
“Because Elle seems perfectly fine. If you ask me, she’s just a little selfish and a little spoilt.”
“No,” Jane said. “She disappears for weeks and weeks. She’s so exuberant sometimes and at others she’s so pensive, so sad.”
“We all get like that – it’s called life.”
“Then there was China.”
“What about China?”
“She was in Hong Kong with her boyfriend. They were in some club and they had a big fight. He told her he wanted their relationship to end, that he wasn’t happy any more and that it was over. He was flying home the next day. Right after that there was an accident. Elle was hit by a car and ended up in a coma for two days. By the time I got there she’d woken up, but she’d broken her left leg and arm. She was fine but it scared the life out of us. Vincent – that was her boyfriend – was sitting by her bed and so attentive I thought they were still love’s young dream but one day when we were getting coffee he told me about their fight and that she’d jumped out in front of the car on purpose.”
“And you didn’t believe him.”
“She swore she hadn’t seen the car.”
“So you believed her.”
Jane nodded. “Who jumps in front of cars?” She was crying again. “I should have known. After all, her father hanged himself with a skipping rope and me, well, Jesus, I threatened to kill my own child.”
“You were just crying out for help.”
“And what was she doing?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
She raised her head and looked at him. “How does it feel not to be the most messed-up person in the room?”
“Pretty good.” He smiled at her and wiped away a stray tear.
“Well, that’s something, then,” she said, and he leaned in and kissed her, and they made love twice before they fell into a sound sleep.
Elle answered her front door expecting it to be her mother, who had been up and down to her cottage harassing her since Jane had stopped talking to her.
Jane was standing there, pulling her coat in close to her chest. “Can we talk?” she said.
“Yes, please.”
Jane closed the door behind her and, for the first time in her life, she had no idea what she was going to say to her sister.
Chapter 15
Happy Death
A happy death is all I want,
to feel that I have loved someone
and did the things I said I’d do
and lived my life true.
Jack L, Universe
November 2008
Breda died on a Tuesday morning at nine o’clock. She was alone. Her husband was in the toilet next door and the rest of her family were in traffic. Eamonn arrived ten minutes after she was pronounced dead, with Frankie running in two seconds later, panting and in need of oxygen. Kate followed within five minutes. But it was too late. Their wife and mother was gone.
“She waited until I left the room,” Ben said. “Your mother never liked to make a fuss.”
Kate hugged him. “I know, Dad.”
She took Ben outside and Eamonn sat with Breda for a while. All the pain was gone from her face, all the ravages of time melted away. Her spirit had moved on and she looked thirty years younger than she was.
“Are you with Alexandra, Mam?” Eamonn said. “Is that why you had to go?” He left soon after and Breda’s body lay in silence.
Tom got off the phone from Kate and rang Jane. “Breda’s gone,” he said.
“What can I do?”
“Come to the funeral.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” If she hadn’t slept with Tom she wouldn’t have had a problem with it, but now attending his mother-in-law’s funeral seemed in bad taste.
“She liked you.”
“Making me feel worse.”
“Please come,” he said, and Jane knew he badly needed the back-up.
“Okay,” she agreed, and hung up.
Kurt came in, threw his bag down in the hallway and stormed into his room. Jane followed him and knocked at his door. “Go away,” he said.
“What’s wrong?”
“I just want to be left alone.”
“Okay.”
She walked down the hall and into the kitchen.
“Jane! Jane! Jane! Jane, it’s your mother! Jane!”
She pressed the button. “Yes, Rose.”
“Come down.”
“I’m busy.”
“I want to talk to you.”
“I haven’t time.”
“Five minutes.”
“You have two.”
Jane sat on her mother’s sofa and Rose poured herself a large glass of wine.
“What did Dr Griffin say?” Rose asked.
Jane had made an appointment to see him in his surgery the previous day. She had waited for a good half an hour because it was flu season and a few times she thought about bolting. When his receptionist told her to go in her feet had felt like blocks of cement and she had had to drag herself to his door.
Dr Griffin smiled at her and she sat down. “What can I do for you, Jane?”
“You can tell me how my father died.”
He sat back in his chair, looked at his hands and rubbed his knuckles. “When did she tell you?”
“Twelve days ago. I can give you the hour and the minute too if you’d like.”
“I’m sorry, Jane. It must have been a shock.”
“You could say that,” Jane said. “Why have you never told me?”
“It’s not my place, Jane, you know that.”
“You were there. You saw him. Rose said you took him down.” Tears were welling but she was refusing to let them fall.
“Your dad had a lot of demons.”
“And Elle? Does Elle have demons, Dr Griffin?”
He sat up. “What do you mean, Jane?”
Although Dr Griffin had been the Moore family’s general practitioner for years, the family member he had had least contact with was Elle. In fact, the last time he had seen her with any kind of ailment she had been twelve so, as far as Dr Griffin was concerned, Elle was as fit as a flea.
“Rose thinks Elle is like my father.”
“In what way?”
“Temperament.”
He laughed. “Well, that’s natural. We all inherit aspects of our parents. You are sometimes like Rose.”
“I am not!” Jane said, with the greatest alarm.
“The last time I was in your house you threatened to
kill her.”
“That was just talk.”
“Yes, but familiar talk,” Dr Griffin said. “Just because some of Elle’s behaviour is reminiscent of her father doesn’t mean there is a problem.”
“She stole her boyfriend’s car and burned it out. Then she packed her bags and disappeared for a while. She often disappears – she puts a sign on her door to tell us that she’s gone fishing and we just wait for her to come back. Sometimes it’s days, sometimes weeks. She drinks a lot. Two years ago she nearly overdosed on cocaine and after that she promised faithfully she wouldn’t do it again. A few months ago my son found her in a freezing cold bath – she was blue. She said she’d fallen asleep. She throws money away. She has sex with stranger after stranger, and recently she had an affair with Kurt’s dad yet for years she barely tolerated him. Sometimes she behaves like there’s no tomorrow and other times she acts as though she can see eternity laid out before her and she can’t stand it. She lives her life according to a letter she writes once a year to the bloody Universe. And then there was China.”
After Jane had finished telling Dr Griffin about the incident in China he was adamant that Elle needed to be referred to a psychiatrist who specialized in diagnosing the kind of condition he suspected Elle suffered from.
“Rose doesn’t want that,” Jane said.
“Rose shouldn’t have a say.”
“She said it was only when doctors got involved that Dad hanged himself.”
“Your dad was very sick and, no, he didn’t get the help he needed but times have changed and I promise you that if you get Elle to agree to see someone it will help – maybe not immediately but it will help.”
“I’m scared.”
“That’s perfectly normal.”
“How could I have been so blind?”
“Because we see what we want to see.”
“Vincent tried to warn me,” Jane said. “All the times I called him names and thought he was shallow and stupid, and he was the only one who really saw her.”
The One I Love Page 25