by Alison Walsh
‘Pi, you up there?’ Rosie’s voice floated up to him through the open hatch. ‘I thought I’d give you a hand to find the paint.’
He had to clear his throat with a loud coughing noise. ‘No need. It’s not here.’
‘Oh.’ There was a long silence and then Rosie’s head appeared through the hatch, her tiny face with its scattering of freckles. A deep line split her forehead as she frowned. ‘Is everything all right?’
And even as he said everything was grand, just grand, and that he needed to have a look in the shed, turning off the attic light and practically shoving her down the steps onto the landing, he was thinking, of course it’s not fucking all right. Everything’s changed, can’t you see that? Nothing will ever be the same again. And then the thought came to him: and it’s all your fault. Mary-Pat was right. If you hadn’t come back, none of this would have happened. And then, he gave out to himself for even having thought such a thing – how was it Rosie’s fault exactly?
When she came into the kitchen later and offered to make lunch, he felt so guilty for his disloyal thoughts that he made an extra effort to be nice. Yes, he’d love some carrot and coriander soup, thanks – yes, he knew that it was fantastic to have your own veg and, yes, he really should use them more, instead of that awful packet tomato stuff. And all the time his head was spinning, mind filling with thoughts, one jumbling on top of the other.
He was so preoccupied, he didn’t notice the noise of the knife slamming through the onion onto the board, making a loud rapping sound on the wood, but then it grew louder and louder, until she yelled, ‘Ow, crap,’ and held up her finger, which instantly began to pour blood, a long trail of it dripping onto the board.
Pi was beside her. ‘Here, let me,’ he said, holding her hand in his and leading her over to the sink, running the cold tap and holding her finger under it, a stream of pink flowing down to the plughole. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘we’ll wrap it in a bit of kitchen paper while I hunt down the plasters,’ and he pushed a wad around her finger. ‘Hold onto that for a second,’ and he went into the living room, where he rummaged around under a pile of yellowing newspapers until he found what he was looking for.
‘I knew I had some somewhere,’ he said, returning to the kitchen clutching the tin of Elastoplast. ‘Let’s have a look,’ he said, and placed one gently around her finger, the thin blob of blood on the cut flattening down under the plaster. ‘Pius will make it all better. Just like when you were eight and you fell over the water barrel in the yard and you needed ten stitches.’
‘Oh, God, yes.’ Rosie smiled at the memory. ‘And you distracted me at the hospital by telling me some big long story about a pike eating someone’s toes.’
‘That wasn’t a story,’ Pius joked.
‘Very funny.’ Rosie attempted a smile, but her face had gone a milky shade of white, and her teeth chattered in shock. There was a pause, and then Rosie said, ‘Pi, if I tell you something, will you promise not to tell Mary-Pat? Or June?’
Pius sighed and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. ‘You can tell your old brother anything, you know that, hmm?’
‘I know, Pi. I always could.’ She paused. ‘I’m not sure I want any of this.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Any of this –’ Rosie gestured to the garden, the house. ‘It’s all Craig’s idea – it’s his dream and it’s what he wants, but I think it’s a mistake.’
‘Getting married, is that what you mean?’ Pius said, thinking about the Yank and what a long drink of water he was. ‘Or coming back?’
‘I don’t know.’ There was a long pause.
‘You’ve been gone a long time, Rosie. It’ll take time to settle back in, to get to know everyone again. And Daddy—’ Pius tried to reassure her, but she interrupted, ‘I got fired, well, made redundant, but it amounts to the same thing.’
‘Oh? Oh,’ was all Pius could manage. He knew she had some do-gooding job, working with kids – he hadn’t been able to see it somehow, but maybe he was thinking of the old Rosie, barely more than a kid herself. This new Rosie, all grown up. Yes, he could see that.
‘I worked in a centre with disturbed teenagers – please, no comments about the irony of it,’ she added. ‘And I got the boot when one of the lads went mad with a snooker cue and smashed the place up.’
‘Sounds as if it wasn’t your fault, Rosie-boo.’
‘It was, because I was really, really crap at it. It turns out that having once been a disturbed teenager is no preparation for dealing with them.’ She couldn’t help it – she had to laugh.
‘Ah, Rosie, I’d say you’re being hard on yourself.’
‘Not hard enough.’ She bit her lip. ‘I’m at a bit of a … juncture, I suppose you could call it. I’ve always just got along, ever since I left. I managed to find work in Dublin and then I met Craig and went to the States, and it just seemed that life would go along like that for ever, but now …’ Her voice trailed away. ‘Have you ever found that, that you’ve just come to a stop and you’ve no idea where to go next?’
No, Pius thought to himself, because I’ve never really got started.
She blushed then. ‘Sorry, that wasn’t very tactful.’
He shrugged. He supposed she was talking about what had happened to him – but he wasn’t going to go there. Not now.
‘Are you better now?’
‘Ah, sure, I’m all right.’ He gave her a little squeeze. ‘And you’ll be all right, Rosie-boo.’
She shook her head impatiently. ‘None of you want me here, do you?’
No, we probably don’t, Pi thought to himself, while understanding that this was not the answer his sister was looking for. Because she was right, in a way – about coming home – it had shaken them all.
He had no idea how to reassure her. What to say. And then it came to him. Without another word, he left the room and climbed the stairs to his bedroom, where he’d smuggled the box, holding it behind him as he’d ushered her down the attic stairs to the landing. When he came back into the kitchen, he had a small brown-paper package in his hand. He cleared his throat. ‘Ehm, I thought you might like to have this.’
‘What is it?’ Rosie eyed it warily.
‘Open it.’
She took it from him and looked at it, at the crumpled brown paper and the tight wad of Sellotape. ‘It has my name on it,’ she said.
He nodded.
‘Whose handwriting is this?’ She looked at the immaculate hand, the ‘R’ in Rosie an elaborate flourish.
‘It’s Mammy’s.’
Rosie looked up at him and then back at the tiny package, examining it, turning it over in her hand. He’d wrapped it well, burying it hastily under several layers of brown paper, which he’d found under the bed, but he hadn’t been able to get the label to stick on properly and it hung off at a funny angle. Eventually, she pulled at a bit of Sellotape, and when it came away, she pulled at another bit, until there was a hole in the paper through which they could see a flash of silver. She pushed back the nest of paper to reveal the silver ring, rough-hewn, with a knobbly purple stone in the middle. When she tilted it towards the light, it took on a muted glow.
Pius nodded then. ‘I think he had a friend make them, one for each of them. He still wears his,’ Pius added. ‘I know, the irony.’
‘Why did she leave it for me?’
‘I don’t know, Rosie-boo. Maybe she wanted you to make the right choice.’
There was a long silence while Rosie slipped the ring on her ring finger, where it wobbled around, far too big for it.
‘Do you love him?’
Her head shot up. ‘Yes. Yes, I do.’
‘Well, then.’ And they both looked at the ring. ‘Pius’s marriage guidance,’ he added, ‘from the benefit of my vast experience.’
She managed a laugh, and he took his chance then to change the subject. He cleared his throat and asked the question that had been on his mind all afternoon. ‘Ehm, your friend Daphne.’
‘Yes?’ Rosie looked mystified.
‘Is she, I mean … is there a Mr Daphne?’
If she was surprised, she hid it well, Pius thought. ‘Oh. Yeah, Kevin. He’s an idiot.’
‘Oh.’ He tried to conceal it, but he couldn’t help feeling pleased. ‘Let’s finish chopping that onion, shall we?’
‘Right,’ Rosie said, punching him playfully on the arm. ‘And thanks,’ she said, looking thoughtfully at the ring.
July 1969
Michelle
John-Joe has just given me a ring, and I don’t quite know what to make of it. I don’t even know if I like it, or even if I like him. There’s something about him that’s so … powerful, like standing too close to the sun, but do I like him? I haven’t decided yet.
It’s quite an ugly ring, a battered-looking silver thing with a huge knobbly purple stone in it; I’m holding it between my thumb and forefinger, examining it, while I try to work out quite what to say. It’s hard, when you feel that a tidal wave has swept over you, when you feel that someone has come into your life and whipped it up into a whirlwind and the only thing you can do is just give in to it. It’s frightening, but then I remind myself that this is what I’ve always wanted, that sense that life could go anywhere at all, that it wasn’t just one dreary day following another, my whole future stretching out in front of me.
How often have I pictured myself in this new life, imagined myself sitting at a long table filled with exotic food that I have to eat with my fingers, drinking wine out of chipped mugs, the sun on my face. I’ll be wearing something long and loose, and I will have thrown away the girdle that cuts into my tummy and leaves angry red stripes on my skin. And my hair will be falling around my shoulders, not squashed to my face in those horrible heated rollers. And there’ll be a man there too, tall and handsome and brown from the sun – and bare-chested. I have to giggle at that part of the fantasy, because sleeveless jumpers, shirts and ties are also banned in my new world. And shoes! There’ll be no more Sunday afternoons in the drawing room, the fire hissing in the grate, listening to the rain beating on the window, the rustle of Pa’s newspaper and the tick-tock of the French clock on the mantelpiece as I wait for Mummy to look up and ask, as if she’s never asked the question before, ‘Sherry, Pa?’ And for Pa to reply, ‘Is it time, dear?’ When I want to scream at the top of my voice, ‘Of course it’s bloody time. It’s been the same every single Sunday that I can remember.’ Until just this moment, I thought this other life could never be, that my whole future was mapped out for me, and now I sit here with this man, and for the first time, I dare to think that things just might be different.
He turned up at Miss Marsh’s, a single rose in his hands, and demanded that the secretary fetch me out of my typing class. He told her he was my brother and that it was a ‘family emergency’ and her face was a picture: a mixture of anxiety and distaste as she said the words ‘your brother’. I almost said it then, ‘But I don’t have a brother,’ but something made me stay quiet, follow her out of the classroom and down the corridor and into the office, where he was sitting in a chair by the window. For a moment, I had no idea who he was – I’d only met him that one time before, after all, in the gloom of the Students’ Club, and even then we’d hardly exchanged a word, just watched the film together in near-silence – but then I remembered the way he’d looked at me when we’d said goodbye, right into my eyes, and he’d kissed me softly on my cheek. And then he’d just vanished – and now, six weeks later, here he was, sitting in the office of the secretarial school, pretending to be my brother.
I hovered by the threshold in my green jumper and my threadbare tweed skirt, my toes pinched in the white stilettos the school insists we wear ‘to aid posture’. He’d slicked back those black curls into a side parting, but they still rested on his shirt collar in a way that Mummy would describe as ‘scruffy’ and he was wearing a suit jacket that looked as if it was three sizes too small for him, and then he caught sight of me and his face split into a huge grin, a lopsided one that showed a set of large white teeth. He looked as if he had a black eye, a purple shadow around his left one, and I took in a deep breath at the sight. Has he been in a fight? I wondered. I couldn’t suppress a shiver of excitement at the thought. I’d never met a man before who’d been in an actual fight.
‘Well, have you nothing to say to your brother, Miss Spencer?’ Mrs McCarthy’s voice was sharp in my ear.
‘Oh, yes, what is it, William? I have class and you’ve interrupted my shorthand note-taking.’ I tried my best to look annoyed.
He coughed, to clear his throat, his hand over his mouth. ‘Yes, well, ehm … sister, you’re wanted at home. Grandad’s been taken ill.’
I had to feign alarm then, when all the while I wanted to howl with laughter. ‘Sister’? He didn’t even know my name! I bundled him out of the office as quickly as I could, thanking Mrs McCarthy profusely for her help, and ran out the door. Only when we had walked around the side of Trinity College, a good five hundred feet from the school, did I dare let out the laughter which had been bubbling up inside.
‘What on earth was “sister” all about?’
He grinned that big grin of his again. ‘I was improvising. I thought you’d be impressed.’
‘I am.’
‘Ehm, you see, I don’t know your name.’
‘It’s Michelle,’ I said. ‘Pleased to meet you again.’
He looked at my outstretched hand and then down at his own, as if he were deciding whether or not it was clean, and then he reached out and took mine, clasping it in his. He didn’t shake, just held it there and gave a little squeeze. I could feel my skin tingle. ‘John-Joe O’Connor.’
We ran all the way to Macari’s café on Talbot Street, the two of us nearly doubled over with laughter as we hopped through the puddles, and then we took a seat by the window, looking down onto the shoppers going in and out of Boyers department store. And now, here we are, sharing a big plate of chips and battered cod, and it feels good, hot and greasy and I lick my fingers, the salt on my tongue. No knives, no forks, no fine dining. Daddy would have a heart attack.
‘I suppose you’re wondering how I found you again?’ He’s leaning back on the seat, so far he threatens to topple backwards, rubbing his stomach, before he gives an appreciative belch. I cover my mouth, my eyes wide. In my house, a belch has never once been heard: people retreat into the privacy of the bathroom to do things like that, behind closed doors.
I giggle. ‘That’s very rude.’
‘But you like it.’ He smiles broadly. ‘You like a man who’s honest about these things. Who doesn’t pretend to be one thing when he’s really another.’
‘Hmm …’ I shrug my shoulders, because I have no idea what kind of man I like. The statement seems so odd, when the only men I’ve ever known are Daddy and a few of the boys at the tennis club. I couldn’t imagine Ivan, with his tweed jacket and pullover, his shirt and tie, letting a big burp out like that or talking to me like this man talks to me, directly, as if I’m not ‘a lady’, just, well, a woman, I suppose. Ivan is far too much of a gentleman – all that opening doors and insisting he drive, even though I know perfectly well how to drive myself. I look at John-Joe and I can tell he’s not a gentleman, but there’s something about that that I like: it makes me feel that I know him in a way I’ve never known a man before: as an equal.
‘I’ve been trying to look you up ever since we bumped into each other at the Students’ Club,’ he’s saying. ‘I went back a few times, but there was no sign of you. And then I remembered you talking about your “awful secretarial school”’ – he does a very funny imitation of me and I find myself giggling again – ‘and so I tried all of them until I found you. I had to stand outside for a week or so to see if you walked in the door, but it was worth it.’
I should be scared, I know. That a man – who, incidentally, hadn’t seemed terribly bothered about me at our first meeting – should go to such lengths to find me. Me! But then I thought o
f Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo in À Bout de Souffle and how they just found each other, without needing silly things like tennis clubs and respectability. It just seemed so romantic: that he would search the whole of Dublin just for me. And when he lays his brown hand on mine and gives it a little squeeze, my heart gives a little squeeze too.
‘How did you know my surname?’ The thought suddenly occurs to me.
He leans back in his seat again, a big grin splitting his face. ‘You have one of those labels sewn into the back of your coat, like a little schoolgirl. M. Spencer it said. I thought the “M” stood for “Miss”.’
I blush a bright red and try to stifle a giggle, thanking God for Mummy’s insistence on labelling all my clothes.
He leans forward then, his expression suddenly serious. ‘There’s a protest on next Saturday. About Vietnam. Fancy coming?’
My stomach flips, a mixture of excitement and nerves. I’ve never been to a protest before. ‘Will it be violent?’ I ask.
He looks as if he’s trying not to laugh. ‘You’re very sheltered, aren’t you? Of course it won’t be violent, unless the guards kick off,’ he spits. ‘Bastards.’ And then he coughs. ‘Excuse me. I forget that you’re a lady.’
I groan. ‘Not all that “lady” nonsense, please. Why can’t we just be equals?’
His eyes flash. ‘Oh, be careful what you wish for, Michelle. Women’s liberation can be a dangerous thing.’
‘Oh, really? How, exactly?’ I say smartly.
‘Well, it’s obvious. Men and women aren’t made the same. They’re different for a reason. Women are born to be mothers – they’re soft and gentle and they nurture their young, not like us men – and as for politics or the factory floor, well, it’s no place for women. It’s too aggressive. Women couldn’t survive that.’
‘And there was I, thinking that you weren’t like other men,’ I say tightly, pulling my handbag onto my lap. ‘It’s because of men like you that we’re all at home, chained to the kitchen sink. It’s because of men like you that we have no hope or expectation of equality,’ I spit. ‘Why shouldn’t we be doctors or astronauts or soldiers or anything else we want to be?’