by Susan Stairs
‘No, I’m not. I’m not. It’s not like that.’
‘You saw that man before, didn’t you? The one in the graveyard. You drew him on the wall the day after we moved in. Where did you see him? Who do you think he is?’
‘I don’t know. I saw him in the park when Mam was having Kev. Remember I went off on my own? He was there . . . watching me. And then when I drew him on the wall, it was like he was still watching me, even when he was covered up with the wallpaper.’
‘Maybe he was some kind of . . . spirit or something,’ Sandra said, sitting up and cuddling into me.
‘It’s weird you saw him the day Kev was born,’ Mel said. ‘And then the day he . . .’
‘He might’ve been warning you about Kev. About . . . you know . . .’ Sandra said.
‘Maybe. Do you think Kev . . . If we hadn’t moved here, if we’d stayed in the old house, would he . . . ?’
‘But we only moved here because of Kev,’ Mel said. ‘If we didn’t move here, it’d mean he wouldn’t have been born.’
‘So do you think it was all planned out or something?’ Sandra said. ‘That he was always going to . . . ?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, sliding back down into the bed. ‘And I don’t ever want to find out.’
Next morning, Dad announced we were all going to Auntie Cissy’s to stay. Just till we’d sold the house and found ourselves a new one. I was sure I saw some sort of relief in Mam’s face. She hadn’t wanted the three of us to go, but she seemed happy that we were all going now, together. Dad said he’d thought long and hard about it and he felt it was for the best. The house could take months to sell and we weren’t hanging around in Hillcourt Rise all that time. He told us we could start packing as soon as we were finished breakfast. We were going to leave that day. None of us complained. As much as we hated Auntie Cissy’s house, we didn’t mind the thought of going to live there now, and we were used to the idea after only a few minutes. Dad said to pack everything into boxes, but only to take essential stuff for the time being. Anything else could be kept in the house until we found a new place of our own.
Mam walked around in her dressing gown, opening drawers and cupboards. She selected the rolling pin, the sugar bowl and a stainless steel teapot that she never used, and asked Dad to find her something to pack them into. He told her he’d look after it and sent her into the sitting room for a rest on the couch, putting each item back in its place after she’d gone. When he was sure she was asleep, he asked Mel to help him carry Kev’s cot downstairs and they lifted it into the garage, along with his highchair and his playpen full of toys.
It didn’t take long for Sandra to pack. I think she surprised herself at how little she felt she needed to bring. Nothing seemed to be that important any more. When she was finished, she left me to it, managing a smile on her way out, saying she didn’t know how on earth I was going to sort through all of my rubbish. Mel poked his head round the door minutes later, saying it hadn’t been hard. He’d thrown everything he owned into a large box, and chosen to bring with him only a few comics and his collection of Dinky cars.
I decided to bring some books, some markers and a drawing pad. The rest of my stuff I dumped into a tea-chest Dad had given me from the garage, left over from when we’d moved in. I cleared my side of the wardrobe, my shelves and finally my drawers. The last one was my underwear drawer. After I’d taken everything out, I found the two things I’d hidden there: the tongue from Shayne’s snake on its bed of cotton wool, and David’s letter torn into pieces. I twirled the red, forked tongue around in my fingers, watching the way the ‘V’ of it wobbled about. I wondered if I’d never taken the snake or held onto the tongue, would things have turned out different to the way they did? I knew I had no way of knowing, but I couldn’t help thinking that they might have.
I took out the letter, pieced it together like a jigsaw, and read it again. I’d been so sure it was full of lies, that it was some sort of joke, a twisted tale of David’s that he was trying to lure me into.
How could I have been so wrong? How could I not have known?
I took out the song words and read them through again. It was true: there was no escape from reality. Then I put them back in the envelope, along with the tongue and the pieces of the letter, and went downstairs. Sandra and Mel were in the sitting room with Mam. She was awake now, and Dad had told them to stay and keep an eye on her. They sat holding her hands and talking gently about going to Cissy’s, while she stared into the fire, her eyes all glassy and still.
I walked in and bent down in front of the hearth, shovelling a piece of coal from the bucket into the grate and tossing the envelope in with it. None of them saw what I did and the paper had almost disappeared by the time I stood up. A thin, bluish flame whizzed into life and sped up the chimney as I left the room and I guessed that was the tongue, finally disappearing into nothing.
I went into the kitchen and found Dad standing in the middle of the room with a brush in his hand, like he was waiting for me. Sitting on the table in front of him was a tin of white paint. He nodded at the wall. ‘We can’t leave it like that,’ he said. ‘Not with the estate agents coming round to have a look at the place. It won’t be perfect but I’m not about to start papering the whole room again. I thought you could have a go at it.’
I rolled up my sleeves and dipped the brush in the paint. ‘Mam never liked this wallpaper,’ I said as I wiped a broad stroke over the man’s boots. ‘Did you know that?’
‘Is that so?’ Dad said, sitting down at the table.
‘She just pretended she did because she didn’t want to hurt your feelings.’
‘How did you figure that one out?’ he said, lighting up a cigarette.
‘She said so. The night I told her about . . . the night before she went off to Auntie Cissy’s.’
‘I see. Well, no harm in that, I suppose.’
I swept the brush up over the man’s legs and body. ‘Do you not mind, then?’
‘It hardly matters now, does it?’
‘I suppose not.’ I painted over the blackbird, whitewashing his yellow eye and the notes coming out of his beak. My throat burned and I knew I was going to cry. ‘Dad,’ I whispered. ‘Do you wish we’d never come here?’
I heard him sucking deeply then blowing out a long, slow puff. ‘Do you?’
I looked at the man’s face on the wall, the brush hovering over it before I brought it down over his eyes, blinding him for ever. There’d be no more watching me now. ‘There’s no point in thinking about that, really, is there?’ I said.
‘No,’ he said. ‘No point at all.’
When we drove away from Hillcourt Rise that Sunday evening, we may as well have been going off for a spin up the mountains or to the park. It was hard to believe we weren’t ever going back. The cherry blossoms were in full bloom on the green, their clusters of pink petals waving against the clear blue sky. We saw no one except Tracey, standing at her front door, balancing baby Brian on her hip, but it was like she didn’t know who we were. Mam looked away as we passed; something she would do for months – years – afterwards whenever she saw a little boy.
TWENTY-ONE
Living with Auntie Cissy wasn’t that bad. I suppose we didn’t really care where we were as long as we were together. Her old, draughty house was in Phibsborough, a mile or so north of the city centre, on a busy street with a shop on the corner and lots of noisy traffic. It was like being back in the South Circular again and I think, in some ways, that helped. None of us went to school while we were there. It wasn’t long till the summer holidays and Dad said there was no point starting somewhere new just for a few weeks when we’d be moving again very soon. Auntie Cissy did her best to keep us occupied. Sandra and I got up early in the mornings and did whatever jobs she had for us, like cleaning out her old range, polishing all her brass or going to the shops. Mel had to look after Thomas, letting him in and out and giving him his favourite food at various times of the day. He was also in charg
e of the fire. Because the house was so cold, it was lit every day, regardless of the weather. He had to take out the ashes, fill the coal scuttle, and set everything in the grate. All of which he did without the slightest complaint.
Most days, Mam didn’t get up until the fire was blazing. She’d sit staring at the flames with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and Kev’s favourite teddy in her lap. We’d snuggle ourselves in beside her and one or all of us would eventually end up crying. Mostly, our tears fell silently, the tracks on our cheeks glittering in the firelight. But sometimes Mam would start sobbing: deep, wracking wails that lurched up from her chest and made it sound like she was choking.
Dad went back to work after a few weeks. Apart from the fact that we needed the money, I think he preferred to be kept busy. He took things easy, though, often coming home long before dinnertime, but even then he always found some job to do around the house. He grew quiet and began to smoke more, and did everything much slower than before. His hair turned completely white and he got very thin. Cissy said he’d turned to skin and bone.
It didn’t take long to sell number forty-two. Majella and her garda fiancé made an offer on it not long after the sign went up. Well, Bridie made an offer on their behalf, the estate agent told Dad. But they were obviously in agreement and happy to live next door as they followed it through and the deal was done. It seemed right to me that it was someone like Majella that was moving in. I didn’t like to think of another family of strangers trying to settle into Hillcourt Rise.
At first, Mam had no interest in looking for a new house. Dad would mark rings around property ads in the papers and make calls to estate agents and auctioneers. Lists and brochures arrived in the post and he’d pore over them at Cissy’s big kitchen table, scribbling numbers and calculations on the backs of the envelopes. When he showed Mam places he liked, she’d listen in silence as he spoke and just mumble, ‘Whatever you think, love’ when he was finished.
But one morning, that changed. Dad had decided to widen his search. Instead of looking close to the city, he began considering places further out. Houses in the country. With land around them. And views of mountains and fields. I heard him talking to Cissy, telling her how much more you could get for your money if you were prepared to live ‘out in the sticks’, as he called it. Cissy looked doubtful. She reminded Dad he was born and bred in the city and she didn’t think he’d be able to cope with country smells and having to drive miles for a pint of milk.
I went upstairs and told Mam. She was propped up against the pillows, her eyes fixed on a holy picture hanging on the wall, and her untouched breakfast tray sitting beside her. She turned to look at me and took my hand in hers.
‘We could find somewhere in Wicklow,’ she said. ‘Somewhere close to Kevin.’
It didn’t take long. Dad narrowed it down to three potential houses and viewed them all one day the following week, reporting to Mam on his return. He had hoped she might go with him but she couldn’t be persuaded.
In the end, there was only one contender: a stone-built lodge on the outskirts of the village of Glengolden. Sitting on half an acre, and bounded by thick woodland on one side and open fields on the other, it was definitely the prettiest of the houses Dad had viewed. But there was only one reason Mam decided it should be our new home – it was just a little under a mile to the graveyard.
We all cried when we left. Even Dad. Cissy stood on her doorstep with Thomas circling her bony ankles and hugged Mam for the longest time. ‘I’ll be out in a few weeks for a visit,’ she said, rubbing Mam’s back. ‘If you want me sooner, just let me know.’ Mam nodded and pulled away, and Dad had to help her get into the car.
The journey took around an hour. I don’t think there was one word spoken for the length of it. I was scared. I knew the others were frightened too. I could see it in their faces; sense it in their silence. I caught Dad’s eyes in the mirror when we’d almost left the city behind and I could tell he was afraid. We’d been cocooned in Auntie Cissy’s since leaving Hillcourt Rise and she’d looked after us well, better than I’d ever have imagined. We’d felt safe there. As safe as we could have in the circumstances. There were things Mam didn’t have to think about while we were there, like making dinners and washing clothes and changing sheets. I worried that she might not be able to do those kinds of things any more. That she’d forget the way we used to live. The way we used to live before.
Dad had arranged for the removal men to collect all our stuff from Hillcourt Rise and bring it straight to the lodge, and as soon as we arrived that afternoon, he told Sandra and me to take Mam for a wander around the garden. I discovered later that he and Mel spent those twenty minutes taking Kev’s things apart – his cot, his playpen, his highchair – and hiding them away in the attic. I’m not sure if Mam ever knew they were there.
Though the lodge was old and needed work, none of us cared, least of all Mam. Dad said it had ‘character’ and it’d be a shame to start ‘tarting it up’. He was right, in a way. It wasn’t tatty or scruffy; everything was just nicely worn or faded, and no surface had a hard edge. And the bubbled glass in the arched windows let in only a gentle, grainy sort of light that made the rooms all soft and dim.
I can’t talk about how much we missed Kev in those early days in our new home. I don’t have the words to describe it. Sometimes I try to figure out how we coped, how we got through things, and I can’t for the life of me understand. But I know it helped that we were near to him. And that he was in such a beautiful place. All that summer, Mam liked to go and visit him in the evenings with Dad. They’d head off down the road after dinner, Mam picking cornflowers and poppies from the hedgerows to leave on the grave. And though the three of us might be doing our own separate things, after a while we’d all wander out to the garden gate and wait for them to return.
Sandra and Mel usually went together in the morning-time. They’d always ask if I wanted to go with them, but I preferred to go alone. In the late afternoon, when the air was heavy and warm, I’d take a shortcut across the fields and sit on the crumbling stone wall for a while, listening to the buzzing of bees and the faraway sound of cattle being led in for milking. And I’d think of all the things I wanted to tell Kev: how we were, what we were all doing, how much we loved him. But when I’d get to the grave, I could never remember a single one. The words wouldn’t form in my head. All I could do was cry.
The weeks passed. We started in another new school but it was hard to make friends. People knew what had happened to us. And though it was hardly mentioned, it was always there, hovering in the air, separating us from them. Perhaps it might’ve been different if they’d known us a long time, if we’d been living in the area for years. The school wasn’t bad, and we had some really nice teachers, but for those first few months we looked forward to coming home before we even got to the bus stop in the mornings.
Mam tried. Really hard. She got back into the ordinary things: cooking dinners, ironing clothes, hoovering. I used to think about her when I was at school, in the house on her own, with all those hours to pass until we got back. If Dad was working not too far away, he’d go home for his lunch. And a nice woman who lived in the farmhouse down the road called in every week or so with a bowl of eggs or a box of potatoes. And Cissy came to stay often too. Mam cried less at home as time went on. At least, she seemed more able to control it there. But outside it was different. It was always when she was in a crowd, as if being surrounded by people she didn’t know made her realize who she was, and she’d break down sobbing, taking ages to stop. It happened in town one day when we were queuing to get new schoolbooks and Sandra got mad because people were staring. And one Saturday we went to see Mel’s football match and missed his goal because we had to help Mam back to the car.
Dad spent all his spare time in the garden. He planted trees and shrubs and flowers, made a rockery, and laid a crazy-paving patio, like Mam had always wanted. In later years, he made a special place in a corner down the end, where a
rose-covered arch led to a wooden bench set in a gravelled square. He’d sit there reading the paper, hidden from view except for the telltale wisps of cigarette smoke rising up in the air.
We each had our own bedroom in the lodge. Mine was the smallest, with a tiny metal fireplace and a window with a deep, stone ledge where I’d sit and look out over the fields and mountains. For months after we moved in, my stuff remained in boxes. Though my room had shelved alcoves and a tall wooden cupboard left by the previous owners, I wasn’t in any hurry to fill them. I unpacked in dribs and drabs. It wasn’t something I could do in one go. Everything I owned belonged to before.
By early spring, I had just one box left to empty. I tackled it on a crisp, cold Sunday afternoon when Dad had gone for a walk with the others and Mam was snoozing by the fire. After I’d shoved it across the floor, I sat down on the edge of my bed and started taking things out one-by-one. The envelope fell from the pages of a book. I watched it flutter slowly to the floor. I let it lie there on the wooden boards and stared at it for ages.
It was the one I’d addressed to David in Clonrath after he’d written to tell me the truth.
David O’Dea. I read it like it was another language. The words sounded bizarre in my head. Even the way I’d printed them was strange. I didn’t write like that any more.
I picked it up. Inside I found two blank sheets of notepaper: the letter I’d never written. I laid them out flat on the book, found a pen and went over to the window. Looking out, I could see for miles. The whole countryside was quiet and still. The sky was pale blue, fading to white over the horizon, and above the frosted rooftops of Glengolden hung the silvery ball of the moon. Trees were still bare and the peaks of the mountains were lacy with snow. I settled myself sideways onto the ledge and began to write.
When I started the letter, it wasn’t with any intention of sending it. I’d barely thought of David, or anyone from before, since we’d left Hillcourt Rise. I think my mind had shut that part of my memory down, blocked it out, so I wouldn’t have to keep re-living what I might’ve done wrong. What I could’ve done differently.