The Space Between Us

by Anna McPartlin

  ‘You said your mother had a brain tumour,’ the doctor said.

  ‘Hers was cancerous,’ she said.

  ‘We’ll be keeping a close eye on it.’

  She didn’t ask any questions. She didn’t want the answers, not while she was alone and not on a bloody Wednesday. She smiled and shook his hand. Friday is a much better day for that kind of news.

  ‘Thanks, Doctor,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t be, it was a long time coming,’ she said, and walked out, leaving him to stand in his office and comment to himself that it took all sorts.

  It was a bright September morning. Daisy was back at school and had made friends with a girl called Willie, which was short for Wilhelmina. They were the same age and her family lived in Terry the Tourist’s old place across the wall. She, Tess and Willie had become the local It girls. Daisy smiled more, and although the mother-daughter relationship had altered irrevocably, it had more to do with her growing up and opening her eyes to the world than with any real residual anger. If Daisy was truly honest with herself, and it would be years before she was, she would admit that life was better with her funny, kind, pretty, happy, playful, caring, loving mother, and that in her absence, and after his initial breakdown, her dad seemed more content without her. Some people bring out the worst in one another, Daisy. Your dad and I are two of those people.

  Scott had come to dinner twice and had even brought dessert the second time. When he told her he was enjoying the bachelor lifestyle with his dad he was telling the truth. They lived on M&S microwave food and the cleaner came three times a week. He and Declan passed each other like ships in the night but when they did spend time together they actually talked. If his dad was in a bad humour Scott just left him to it, and if Scott was entertaining a girl or friends, his dad went out with Rodney or worked late. ‘We’re fine, Mum,’ he said.

  Of course, there would be hard times to come and her kids would throw her defection in her face every time they were hurt but, extraordinarily quickly after she’d left home, with the support of the people she loved and who loved her, Lily’s life improved a thousand per cent. When she asked herself, If I knew I was set to leave this earth soon, would I do it all differently? the honest answer was no. If it brought me here, I’d do it the same way every time.

  After Lily had dropped her daughter at school, she picked up Clooney and his suitcase. They said goodbye in the airport. Clooney held her tight and kissed the top of her head. She fought tears and gave him a wide, genuine smile. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘I love you, Lily Brennan,’ he said.

  ‘I love you, Clooney Hayes,’ she said, and let him go.

  He walked through the gate and disappeared from view. She stood for a minute or two and collected herself.

  Time for a new chapter, Lily.

  Eve waited until she was strong enough to walk the cliff with Lily before she told her about the tumour. They went up the hill together to their favourite grassy patch. They lay out under a still and warm sky, talking as they had when they were teenagers, Lily resting her head on her arm and Eve staring up at the sky.

  Eve told Lily that she’d noticed she was impaired cognitively when she’d returned to New York after her father’s death. She was forgetful; numbers and details that had never previously confused her had become difficult to grasp. She was suffering from headaches and had problems with spatial awareness. She had come home because she was tired, bored and wanted a different life, but also because, deep down, she had known that time was running out.

  Lily rested on her arm, still and silent, processing the information, but it was hard. She was deeply shocked. ‘You survived being hit by a car,’ she said.

  ‘Funny old world.’

  Lily shook her head from side to side as though somehow that would change Eve’s fate. ‘Benign tumours are removable. They rarely lead to death,’ she said.

  ‘Not this time.’

  ‘How long?’ Lily said, sitting up suddenly, anger in her voice, as though Eve was dying just to spite her.

  ‘It’s progressing slowly, my symptoms are still relatively minor, it could stall, speed up or slow down further. They don’t know.’

  ‘So you could be here for ever?’ Lily said, battling tears.

  ‘Yeah,’ Eve said, ‘for ever and ever.’

  On the way back from the cliff they walked slowly hand in hand, until Eve decided it was too sticky, let go and wiped her palm on her jacket. The baby-pink sky was turning red over the harbour.

  ‘Can we finally talk about what happened?’ Lily asked, out of nowhere, but Eve knew exactly what she meant.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said.

  ‘Declan raped you.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I must have read that letter a hundred times when I received it and not once did I think of it that way. I thought you were jealous and mean and you wanted to hurt me because I’d crossed the line with Clooney.’

  ‘Is that why you didn’t write back?’

  ‘I wrote a lot of letters. Most of them were horrible and I binned them all. Declan had beaten the post. He arrived on my doorstep the day after, telling me he knew about Clooney and that you’d slept together. He begged my forgiveness and asked for a fresh start.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘I don’t,’ Lily said. ‘I was so stupid.’

  ‘We both were very, very stupid,’ Eve said, and smiled.

  ‘I’ve kept your letters all these years.’

  ‘I’ve kept yours too,’ Eve said, ‘but let’s make a pact never to read them. I tried to go back. It didn’t work. Let’s just stay in the present.’

  Lily nodded. ‘I want you to know that I began to understand what had really happened after we were married. I should have contacted you but I was married to him.’

  ‘You don’t need to explain. I love you, Lily.’ She shrugged her newly built shoulder. They walked on for a while in silence.

  ‘A brain tumour?’ Lily said. ‘Really? A fudging brain tumour?’ she shouted at the red sky. ‘Well, you’ll have to do better than that, do you hear me?’

  Eve laughed at her friend. ‘Yeah, screw you, sky, universe, gods, aliens, nothingness, screw you all!’ she said, shaking her fist.

  Then Lily turned to her friend, tears raining down her face. ‘Fuck you, Eve Hayes,’ she said.

  ‘Fuck you too, Lily Brennan.’ She took her friend in her arms and kissed her head, the way she’d seen her brother do. ‘Think about it this way. Whatever happens, we found our way back to one another to right our wrongs and that’s worth something.’

  Lily agreed and held her tightly. ‘And we’ll fight it to the end.’

  ‘Yes, we will.’

  Eve told Adam next. He was angry and shouted at her for hiding the truth. He pointed his finger at her and walked across the floor, then back again. When he finally stopped shouting, he stormed out red-faced, only to return an hour later to hold her in his arms on her ridiculously uncomfortable sofa. She explained that she had come home to die and it had taken a car crash to make her want to live. She apologized – she’d always known the all-clear was a mistake. She asked his forgiveness and wondered if he could fall in love with a woman on Death Row. ‘I only ask because if the situation was reversed I’d still fall in love with you,’ she said, ‘and I’m selfish, self-centred and truly believe the world revolves around me.’

  He kissed her. ‘Don’t forget that you’re a bitch.’

  She grinned. ‘To the very end.’

  He insisted on more and more tests, and she obliged him because it was the least she could do, having made him a part of her life when she should have known better. The Hayes family just weren’t long for this world. Good luck, Clooney. You’ll be the last of us. The results didn’t change, no matter how much Adam wanted them to. The outlook was uncertain. Eve might live for one year or ten, depending on whether the tumour continued to grow or stalled. Two days after she’d told him o
f the diagnosis, he arrived with two cases.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘I’m moving in.’

  ‘Who asked you?’

  ‘Life’s too short to wait to be asked,’ he said. He put his suitcases in Eve’s room and after that it was their room and their apartment, and the first thing Adam did was order a new sofa. Every night he’d read about alternative medicines into the early hours. He kept coming back to ayurveda.

  He woke her late one night.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Remember when I asked you to go to India?’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘You said yes.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘So we’re going to Kerala, OK?’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘Say yes.’

  ‘Yes.’

  He leaned over and kissed her lips. ‘I’ll book it tomorrow,’ he said, and she turned over and fell back to sleep.

  She told Clooney via Skype, because she wanted him to see that she was well and happy and, despite the brain tumour, as healthy as she could be. He was the hardest to tell because he had received this kind of news too many times. She was bright and breezy and told him that the outlook was not as bad as he might think. She warned him not to come home.

  ‘I’m coming home.’

  ‘So that you can sit around for the next ten or twenty years and wait for me to die? Because that’s how long I intend to live,’ she said.

  ‘Eve,’ he said.

  ‘Live your life, Clooney, because I’m living mine. OK?’

  ‘If you get any sicker …’

  ‘If I get any sicker, Lily will be on to you before I even think about lifting the phone.’

  The rest were easy. Gina cried every time she saw her for the first few weeks but after that she settled down: Eve was going nowhere fast. Gar told her she was a trouper and Paul sat down and put his head in his hands. When his face reappeared he told her he and Simone and their little one would be there for her: she wasn’t to go anywhere till the kid was born because they wanted her to be godmother.

  ‘Is that because I’m rich and dying?’ she asked.

  ‘It was because you’re rich – the dying bit is a bonus,’ he said.

  She laughed. ‘I’d be honoured.’

  ‘Good.’

  The evening before she and Adam flew to India for a month’s stay in Kerala, Eve waited for Lily in the kitchen she had grown up in. Lily had run down the road to get coffee and, without really thinking about it, she started to roam around. She went up the stairs and passed the wall that had once held the pictures of her and her family, which had been replaced with a painting of a sunset. Daisy and Scott’s faces greeted her on the wall at the top of the stairs. She walked into the room her mother and father had died in. One wall was painted pale lavender, and it smelt of fresh linen and Lily. In Daisy’s room she sat at her old desk and traced the carving of BGML. Where are you now, Ben? Will I see you again? Are you waiting for me? Unlikely, but it’s a nice dream.

  She made her way downstairs, went outside and sat on the swing-set she and Lily had played on.

  Daisy appeared with her schoolbag on her back. She dropped it and sat beside Eve. ‘Mum told me,’ she said.

  ‘Oh,’ Eve said.

  ‘Are you scared?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘What’s to be scared of?’

  Daisy thought about it for a long time. ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

  ‘I bought you a piano,’ Eve said. ‘They’ll deliver it any day now.’

  ‘Really?’ Daisy said. She was pleased and surprised. ‘I thought you didn’t like me.’

  ‘I like you as much as you like me.’

  ‘Well, then, that’s a lot,’ Daisy said, grinning.

  ‘It is, now that I’ve bought you a baby grand.’

  ‘A baby grand, holy crap!’ She jumped off the swing.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  She pointed to Terry the Tourist’s. ‘To tell Willie.’

  ‘You’re welcome!’ Eve shouted after her.

  Daisy stopped, turned and walked back to her. Eve stopped swinging and Daisy hugged her. ‘Thanks, Eve,’ she said, and ran off, leaving Eve alone again on the swing.

  ‘You’re welcome, Miss Daisy,’ she said, and her eyes welled. She wondered if she’d live to see the girl grow up, follow her dreams and fall in love.

  When Lily returned with coffee she found her contemplative friend swinging so she joined her. They swung slowly at first, then faster and faster and higher and higher until their feet were touching the sky.

  ‘The one who swings highest gets a wish,’ Eve said.

  ‘I know what my wish is,’ Lily said. ‘I love you, Eve Hayes.’

  ‘I love you, Lily Brennan.’

  They screamed at one another just as they had when they were little girls. When they both felt sick and the swing-set jerked a little ominously, they stopped, walked back inside and got busy with living.

  Eve’s Bucket List

  • One month with Adam in Kerala at an ayurvedic spa. FANTASTIC, I feel amazing.

  • Be there for the birth of Paul’s baby. Aaaah, it’s a little girl called Lisa.

  • Oversee the sale of Lily’s house and the transfer of Lily’s half. No gloating – time to let go.

  • Be at Lisa’s christening. Priest didn’t even ask if I was a Catholic. What an odd ceremony.

  • Take Adam, Lily and Daisy to Peru for two weeks. I miss Clooney.

  • Buy the apartment. Finally I’m home.

  • Get to know Scott. Ongoing.

  • Live unwedded and happily ever after with Adam. Ongoing.

  • Sell the house to Lily for €100.

  • Lodge €50 into Clooney’s account.

  • See the Ginger Monster go to prison.

  • Be there for Lisa’s first steps.

  • Be there for Scott’s graduation.

  • Be there for Daisy’s wedding.

  • Live long enough to see Clooney and Lily reunited.

  • Screw it, hang on till I’m seventy.

  Eve’s Funeral Plan

  Lily,

  Make sure they don’t lay me out for people to look at and touch me. The number of neighbours and strangers who touched Danny’s face was outrageous.

  Regarding the (closed) casket, I’d prefer a dark one to light. Light wood just looks cheaper. And unvarnished, if possible.

  I’ve no problem with flowers, as long as they are not carnations or lilies (no offence).

  Obviously it won’t be a religious ceremony, it will simply be a gathering to remember me and send me on my way to a full stop or a new beginning wherever that may be. I’d like you to speak, and Clooney and Adam, of course. I’ve got quite close to Daisy in the recent months, and if she wanted to say something that would be cool, if not I understand. Paul won’t speak, but Gar and Gina might, and that’s fine too.

  NB I do not want the speeches to be sappy and/or boring. Please let nobody talk about me like I was something special and the best person they ever knew (well, maybe you can but no one else). I hate watching the news when someone is killed and their friends and family say that they were the most amazing person who ever lived and there has never been or never will be a person like them. I’ve yet to hear someone say: ‘Ah, he was all right, a bit of a dick with drink on him, but to be fair, he didn’t deserve to be stabbed.’ I want people to be real and say how they feel. I’m not perfect. I want that reflected.

  Music is very important. Make sure wherever you hold the memorial service it’s wired for sound. Keanan’s was dreadful so don’t lay me out there. I’d like ‘Tower Of Song’ by Leonard Cohen and I want the full song played – don’t turn it off halfway. That’s all eight verses. After that I’d like ‘Grapefruit Moon’ by Tom Waits, and just for fun and for Adam, Ray LaMontagne’s ‘Trouble’. I’d love Daisy to play keyboard if she wants, she’s such a beautiful player. The piece she does from The Piano soundtra
ck is amazing but again I don’t want to push her. Having said that, if I live till she’s over twenty I’ll be really pissed off if she doesn’t.

  There will be a large fund put aside for the after party and I want it to be a party. Leave me in the box in the funeral home and head to the Killiney Hotel. They will put on a four-course meal and I want you all to drink and dance till dawn. When I’m ashes, and no matter what time of the year it is, wait until it’s a sunny day, then take Danny’s old boat out: you, Clooney, Adam, Daisy and Scott, if he wants to come. Gar, Gina, Paul, Simone and my goddaughter are also welcome. Bring a picnic and throw me into the sea with the fishes and Danny, and don’t be sad. Be happy we found one another again and we were lucky enough to live the lives we’ve lived, and when Adam is sad and lonely remind him that he was loved and will love again, even if he makes his annoyed face.

  I love you, Lily Brennan.

  Eve XXX

  PS Very important, make sure to check the direction of the wind before you pour me into the sea. Wind direction is key.

  To whom it may concern

  As of today Eve Hayes still lives.

  Love

  Lily

  Acknowledgements

  I was knocked down when I was twenty and I’ve always wanted to tell that story, but instead of a simple car-hit-pedestrian scenario, I wanted to write about an incredible accident, one that the reader would question as to whether or not it was possible. I wasn’t having much luck until one day in the TV3 dressing room I asked producer Tom Fabozzi if he knew of anyone who would have a story to share. He proceeded to tell me about the accident he and his girlfriend had been involved in one late night in Sligo in the early nineties. It was incredible. In fact, so incredible that every aspect of the accident has been re-created here, including, unbelievably, some of the dialogue. I replaced Tom with my character Eve, and wrote it exactly as he told it. He shared X-rays and reports with me, talked me through every detail of his recovery, and we both reminisced about hospital life and the monotony that comes with being broken and bed-bound. Tom’s kindness, patience, and his ability to recall the most horrific night of his life with such clarity and humour have been invaluable, and I am so grateful to him because the rest of the story and its tone came from there. Thanks so much, Tom. We’ll all miss you in the halls of TV3 and wish you every success in your new role with Fine Gael.