by Alison Walsh
‘Isn’t this amazing?’ she’d said, as they’d stood there in the tangle of vines and old buddleia, a canopy of dark green around them. In fact, it hadn’t been that amazing, he remembered. The floor was filthy and they hadn’t been able to lie down and he’d been in too much of a hurry, coming as soon as he’d slipped inside her. It had all been a bit uncomfortable, but memorable nonetheless. That was Katy – she made you do things you never thought you would. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t done anything unexpected in about twenty years.
‘It’s perfect,’ the Yank said, pulling Rosie towards him and kissing her tenderly on the cheek, his hand in the back pocket of her jeans. She nodded but didn’t reply, and the expression on her face was hard to read. But that was the new Rosie. It was hard to be sure how she felt about anything. In the couple of weeks since she’d been back, he hadn’t seen a flicker of the old Rosie. She seemed so … composed, that was the word.
‘I’ll give it a lick of paint,’ Pius said then. ‘White all right? I have some in the shed, I think.’
‘Thanks, Pi.’ Rosie leaned towards him and planted a kiss on his cheek. He tried to catch her eye but she looked over his shoulder towards the water. ‘We’ll clear all the ivy off first and sand it down.’
He nodded and turned around, the hen still under his arm, so they couldn’t see that he’d nearly cried on them, burst into tears, like a small child, at the way he’d started to remember. God almighty, Rosie, he thought. Why did you ever have to come back?
I need a coffee, he said to himself, and trudged in the kitchen door, wiping his boots on the mat. It was one of those novelty ones that seemed to say ‘welcome’ until you looked at it from another angle and it read ‘piss off’. Mary-Pat had bought it for him for Christmas one year, and she’d thought it was hilarious.
She could be a complete pain in the arse, the same Mary-Pat, Pius thought as he carefully poured water into the coffee maker and twisted the lid, then tapped out the old coffee in the filter and refilled it, pressing it down firmly before slotting it into the machine, the one and only thing of value in this house. He’d ordered it from London, ignoring Mary-Pat’s derision when he’d invited her to come up to the house and try it out. ‘Oh, la-di-dah,’ she’d scoffed. ‘Too good for this place now, are you?’
‘No,’ Pius had said quietly. ‘I just like cappuccino.’ He’d been gratified to see the look of shame flicker across her face. ‘Have a Jammie Dodger,’ he’d said, by way of a peace offering. She’d been so surprised to be offered a biscuit that she shut up then for a blessed few minutes.
Poor Mary-Pat. Rosie’s homecoming had hit her the hardest. Maybe she still felt a sense of responsibility to her baby sister, not sure what to do now that she didn’t have to cook her big dinners and get her out of bed in the mornings. But Rosie was clearly well able to look after herself. Or maybe Mary-Pat was upset that she hadn’t been asked to do more with the wedding. Rosie had made it clear that she and the Yank had it all under control. Maybe that’s why they all felt a bit unsettled – that they weren’t doing the kind of things a family should do for a wedding. They weren’t involved.
Pius had gone as far as to say it to PJ when he’d been in to the shop for a bit of groundbait. This year, like every year, he’d promised himself that he’d take up fishing again. He’d spent every single day of his young life on that canal bank, rod in hand, penknife in his back pocket to make a shelter for himself out of the willow branches that hung over the dead pool beyond the bridge. And then, after he’d gone into that place, he’d just stopped. Still, every spring he’d take out his old fishing box from under the dining-room table, and he’d open it, and he’d sit there for a moment, looking at the neat rows of rigs, the line neatly tied around them, and he’d announce to Jessie, because she was the only one who listened and didn’t offer an opinion, that he was going fishing again. And she’d wag her tail and look at him expectantly, and he’d close the box and put it away for another year.
Still, it had offered him an excuse to sound PJ out without having to face his sister in the process. It was the coward’s way out, he knew, but that way he could persuade himself that he’d done something without actually doing it. His modus operandi. Himself and Jessie had called into PJ’s Tackle the previous week, Jessie knowing to sit still beside a row of tackle boxes and to keep out of the way, her copper head resting on her two front paws.
‘How’s herself?’ Pius had ventured after a few minutes pretending to peruse the merchandise.
PJ had gone a funny colour, busying himself with lining up packs of mealworm on the counter, before eventually blurting, ‘Ah, sure you know yourself. She hasn’t been the same since Rosie came back.’
Pius had nodded, picking up a pike lure in his left hand and turning it over. ‘I’d say she’d be stressed about it all right.’
‘Stressed doesn’t cover it. I keep trying to tell her that it’s all water under the bridge at this stage and, sure, don’t we all change in ten years, but she keeps going on about how she’s going to stir it all up again, whatever that means.’ He’d scratched his head and looked at Pius hopefully, as if he’d provide PJ with the answers, but Pius had just shrugged. He didn’t have any answers.
‘Anyway, they’re all off to Dublin next week, for the fitting. Mary-Pat’s already up to ninety about it. I told her not to bother if it upset her that much, but she nearly ate me.’
‘The fitting?’ Pius hadn’t understood.
‘Ah, Pi, the dress fitting, you eejit. That’s what all the women do now – they all go into the shop while the bride’s having her dress fitted – you know, like on Bridesmaids.’ Here, he’d rolled his eyes to heaven. ‘And they all drink champagne and then complain that they have sore heads for a week after.’
God, no wonder Mary-Pat was keyed up about it. She hadn’t managed to be in the same room as Rosie for more than five minutes since she’d come back, so the idea of her spending a whole day with her – how on earth would she cope?
PJ had continued, ‘Why don’t you come up and watch Match Fishing with me while they’re all gone? We can have a few beers and put the world to rights.’ PJ was always asking Pius up to the house, to watch football on the telly or to listen to a Gaelic match on the radio – and Pius was flattered, because he knew that PJ wanted him to be an ally, a friend, but he just wasn’t very good at it. He couldn’t really manage the banter and the slagging that you needed to be able to do, the Man-chat, as John-Patrick put it.
‘That sounds good,’ he’d said noncommittally, ignoring the slight look of disappointment on PJ’s face. ‘I’ll text you.’
‘Grand so,’ PJ said, for all the world as if his brother-in-law was actually going to come around to watch men on carp lakes hauling them in.
‘I’ll take this,’ Pius had said and put the pike lure on the counter and PJ’s face had brightened – ‘Pike? Aim high, Pi, that’s what I always say.’
Aim high. It had been quite some time since he’d done that.
Pius poured hot milk now onto the coffee in the three white cups. Always cups, never mugs. You couldn’t drink cappuccino out of a mug. That waiter in Rimini had told him that, on the one and only holiday Pius had ever taken. Katy had organised it, the way she’d organised everything in his life back then. The waiter had invited him behind the café counter to watch how it was done – the coffee tamped down just so, the black, treacly liquid coming out of the spouts into the white cups, the hissing of the milk frother in the metal jug. ‘See?’ the waiter had told him. ‘Assolutamente perfetto.’ Sometimes, he wished he lived in Italy, imagining himself at some little bar at eight o’clock in the morning, knocking back an espresso on his way to work. He’d talk himself into it on his long walks down the canal to Porterstown, wondering what, exactly, was holding him back. But then he’d reason that, sure, he couldn’t speak a word of Italian, and, anyway, it was way too expensive. No, it was better to keep things the way they were. That way, nothing would ever surprise him. He didn’t
like surprises, Pius. They tended to be nasty ones.
He leaned his head against the cool pane of glass in the kitchen window and let out a low groan.
‘Are you all right?’
Pius turned around to see a young woman standing at the door. She was wearing a vivid green dress with a denim jacket slung over it and a pair of battered trainers, but what really struck him was her hair – a long sweep of bright red – not pale red, like Rosie’s, or ginger or strawberry blonde, but proper red. Pius’s first thought was that she looked like a mermaid. A large mermaid, with rolls of milky flesh around her arms and waist, but a mermaid nonetheless.
He stood bolt upright, heart thumping in his chest. ‘You gave me a fright. I was just—’
‘Talking to yourself.’ The words were spoken matter-of-factly and accompanied by a curious kind of a glare that should have been terrifying but which didn’t quite succeed.
He laughed. ‘You got me there.’
She didn’t reply, just walked over to him and extended a hand and shook his briefly. Her hand was warm and her grip so firm he winced slightly. Her eyes were such a vivid green that Pius was startled by them, before deciding that they couldn’t be real. She must wear those tinted contact lenses or something. For some reason, he felt a sudden sense of disappointment.
‘Daphne.’ Her voice was low and deep, with an almost masculine quality to it.
‘Pius. I’m Rosie’s brother—’
‘I know who you are.’
‘Oh. Right.’ But who the hell are you? She clearly wasn’t going to enlighten him, so Pius cleared his throat. ‘Did you need anything …?’
She’d been looking down at her trainers, but now her head flicked up and there was a faint flush to her cheeks. ‘Rosie wanted me to get some sandpaper. For the gazebo thing in the garden.’
‘Oh, OK. I have some in the attic …’
‘Thanks.’
‘Right then.’ He was racking his brains now, trying to think of what to say to a woman who clearly didn’t do small talk, when Rosie appeared in the doorway. ‘Daph, did you get it? Oh, there you are, Pi. We were just looking for some sandpaper.’ Then she looked at Pius and then at Daphne, a slight frown on her face. ‘Pi. You remember Daphne, don’t you? We were at school together. She’s my bridesmaid.’
Pius cleared his throat to say hello to the woman, but instead all he said was, ‘I’ll go and get the sandpaper now.’ Like an eejit who couldn’t manage a little bit of small talk. But then, he was an eejit who couldn’t manage a bit of small talk. When was the last time he’d had the chance to practise? There was a flurry of movement then as he bustled up the stairs and the others went out to the garden to busy themselves pulling the ivy off the gazebo and sanding the chipping white paint down.
He found the pole propping the skylight open in the bathroom, gingerly pulling it towards him so that the ancient window wouldn’t slam shut and the glass shatter. He hoped the attic door would still open – he hadn’t been up there in a long time and he seemed to remember the door was one of Daddy’s attempts at DIY, because it never quite fitted into the hole in the ceiling, a draughty gap on one side. He put the hook into the loop in the door and gave a tug and then another and, with a creak, the door pulled open, a great cloud of dust filling the landing. Coughing, Pius pulled the steps down and climbed up.
He rummaged around for the old Bakelite light switch, hoping that it wouldn’t electrocute him when he switched it on. To his surprise, it still worked, casting a dim yellow glow over the huddled shapes of a dressmaker’s dummy, a music stand and a pile of sheet music. Now, where had he kept that sandpaper, Pius wondered, kicking a deflated football out of his way as he ducked down a little. He was sure he’d stuffed a big pile of it into a box somewhere. And while he was about it, he might as well look for that paint that he’d put away after doing the front gate – he seemed to remember it was a nice pale grey colour. He opened a couple of boxes, to find dusty sheet music in them, and then he spied the black steamer trunk. He’d put a few tins in here, he thought as he tried to prise open the lid, cursing under his breath as he caught his thumb on the rusty catch.
He looked around for something to push the thing open, before pulling a two-euro coin out of his pocket and shoving it under the catch, giving it a twist as he did so. The catch lifted with a sudden snap. He had to tug at it quite hard before the lid lifted with a groan. The smell of must and damp hit his nostrils, and he pinched his nose. He’d always hated that smell, which was ironic considering the state of the house. When the leaves fell in autumn, he’d have to wear a mask over his face to sweep them up, trying not to inhale the smell of decay.
There’s no paint here anyway, he thought, pushing aside a set of black tails, obviously part of a morning suit, shiny with age and wear, and a battered-looking top hat. Where had all of this stuff come from, he wondered as he lifted up a fox-fur stole, the head of the fox looking as if something had been chewing on it, its eyes like little black marbles in its head. ‘You’re disgusting, do you know that?’ he addressed the dead fox. ‘Mammy would have a heart attack if she could see you. I saw her in action, you know, outside Sunday Mass. Headmaster’s wife, as I remember. Poor woman didn’t get over being asked if she’d wear her child’s skin to Mass. She still looks at me funny. But that was Mammy.’ He threw Mr Fox back into the trunk, feeling suddenly irritable and out of sorts. What the hell was he doing, talking to a dead fox? And where were those tins of paint? He reached up to close the lid of the trunk when something caught his eye, the corner of something hard and shiny. He pushed the dead fox aside and the lacquered top of a box appeared, black, with a pinky-white chrysanthemum painted on the front.
He gave the box a little shake. It felt quite heavy, and whatever was inside it gave a little thud. It, too, had a catch, an ornate one in the shape of a Chinese symbol, and it only took a little push to open it. He placed it on the floor underneath the light to get a closer look, because he couldn’t see properly in anything but the brightest light these days, and he scanned the box’s contents.
It took a while for him to understand. He could see what each item was, but his brain just didn’t register. It should have done, because he knew the writing so well, but he just couldn’t understand what it was doing, their names neatly printed on the brown card luggage labels with their string ties and carefully Sellotaped to the objects. Pius picked the book up first, the weight of it too heavy for one hand. The smell of old book hit his nostrils and it was all he could do not to retch as he opened it, the title engraved on the second of the mottled brown pages. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell. The name on the top read ‘June Spencer’. Must have been one of Mammy’s family. Pius shook his head and closed the book, pulling the luggage label into the light so that he could decipher the name on it. ‘June O’Connor’.
He blinked for a few minutes then put the book down. His wrist ached from the weight of it. He looked at the label again, at Mammy’s handwriting. His mouth felt dry and he swallowed, pushing the lump in his throat back down a little bit and he could hear the blood pumping in his ears, a steady whump-whump. He only thought for a second about shoving the things back into the box: the desire to hold them, to examine them, to understand them was too strong. His hand shook as he picked up the scroll of rolled-up paper. It had his name on it. Hands shaking, he pulled at the little bit of Sellotape that held the scroll together and rolled it out, squinting in the light. ‘A French Potager’ read the title at the top, and beneath it, a map of rows of broad beans, cabbages, potatoes, nasturtiums, pansies. A miniature apple tree shaded rows of primula and a raised bed with ‘turnips’ marked on it.
It was like a voice from the dead. As if she were standing beside him, showing him the map, pointing out the shady spots where the ferns would thrive and the well-drained soil that would be needed for the root veg. If he closed his eyes, he could see her, could hear her voice. ‘See here, Pi, wouldn’t a climbing rose look just fantastic over the trellis in front of the
gazebo, or maybe a vine, what do you think?’ Her hands were on her hips, her blonde hair frizzy around her head, tied back with a piece of gardening twine because she didn’t care one jot about how she looked. She was smiling at him, the wrinkles fanning out from her grey eyes. ‘Well, Pi, what do you think? Will you do it?’
He opened his eyes, blinking in the dim light. He was talking to a ghost. She was gone, had been for nearly thirty years. He’d counted the years like that: the first year after Mammy left, the second, the fifth and so on, until now, more than a quarter of a century, and the pain inside of him was as raw as it had been the day she left. All this time, her message had been lying here, hidden away from him, a message that he’d thought she’d never left him. Never left any of them. Seeing it made her alive for him in a way she hadn’t been since she’d walked out the door that summer day.
‘Yes, Mammy,’ he said into the silence. ‘Of course I’ll do it.’
He read the other labels, the one with Mary-Pat’s name on it stuck on the shell that looked as if it had come from Africa, with its beautiful mother-of-pearl inside, the roar of the sea when he held it up to his ear, the tight wad of Sellotape that held Rosie’s name in place around the chunky silver ring. Daddy wore that ring, he thought, but this wasn’t his. It was too small. And then he felt bad, because the objects weren’t his to see. He’d have to give them to the girls and let them do with them as they saw fit. But then, the thought of what might happen if he did made him panic. He shoved the things back in the box and slammed the lid down, as if by closing them inside they’d just cease to exist. As if he could just erase the last few moments from his mind, could pretend they’d never happened. He put the box back in the steamer trunk and sat down on it, staring into space.