The Year that Changed Everything

by Cathy Kelly

  ‘Poppy, love, will you get out of the car and into the house. Look at you! You’re so grown-up, you’re a young woman! I’ve waited for this for so long.’

  Callie watched as Poppy was enveloped in the same tight grasp and Callie had to lean against the wallpapered wall in the hall, beside the holy Sacred Heart picture with the red light burning underneath, so she could breathe with relief.

  Home. She was home. And welcomed.

  It didn’t take long to get all the suitcases and bags in.

  Poppy and Callie did it.

  ‘No, Mam, you’re not touching any of it,’ said Callie.

  Despite the speed with which her mother had run down the path to get Poppy out of the car, it was obvious that she was suffering now with severe arthritis: her movements were stiff, her hands misshapen, fingers covered with little arthritic nodules on the knuckles.

  ‘I’m fine, sure, aren’t I well able to carry a few things in,’ said her mother.

  ‘No,’ said Callie. ‘You make the tea, we’ll drag it all in.’

  Poppy looked like she might object, but Callie shot her a fierce glare.

  ‘Where will I put it all, Granny?’ said Poppy as she came in with the first load.

  ‘We’ll worry about that later,’ said Callie, wondering who was still living in the house, what was going to happen. She thought of the phone calls she’d had from Freddie: furious, drugged-induced, raging phone calls where he’d accused her of being a turncoat, of abandoning their family for that bastard Jason Reynolds. If Freddie was around, Callie wasn’t sure they’d be allowed to stay. She’d given up on poor Freddie too.

  ‘It’s just me here now,’ said her mother as if she could read Callie’s mind. ‘Your Uncle Freddie’s in Kerry, doing well,’ she said, with a nod to Callie. ‘Very well. Very health-conscious, your Uncle Freddie.’

  Callie let out a breath she didn’t realise she’d been holding in.

  Health-conscious – code for ‘off the drugs’.

  ‘Your Auntie Phil is still living in the big house near the golf club. Wait till you see it, Poppy. I’d never seen the like of it. Phil fell on her feet, ah but sure he was a good man, Seamus, a good man, a lot older than her now and I won’t say she hasn’t been through trouble with him through sickness, but they had such love.’

  ‘Had?’ said Callie anxiously. She’d loved Auntie Phil.

  Auntie Phil was the glamorous one in the family, while Callie’s mother, Pat, never went in much for any more than a slash of a bright lipstick, which was always flattened down to the tube end before she thought about replacing it.

  ‘Lord almighty, Phil, you look fabulous. I wish I could do that,’ Callie’s mother would say as Phil emerged from the attic bedroom, face painted, platinum hair set and ready to go. ‘New perfume?’

  ‘It’s Dinner in Paris,’ Phil would explain. ‘Or is it Lunch in Paris . . .?’

  ‘Late Night Chipper in Paris?’ Callie’s mother would tease and the two sisters would bend over laughing, delighted with their humour.

  They looked so similar, even with Phil all beautified: both a lot shorter than tall, lean Callie; both with hair dyed, home-dye jobs because who in Sugarloaf Terrace could afford the hairdresser. And both with the same hoarse laugh that sounded as if they’d spent years singing torch songs in nightclubs, although the hoarseness was part genetic, part too many cigarettes.

  The teenage Callie had loved the sisters when they were like that: laughing and joking with each other, Phil all glittery and done up, with her nails – kept short for the factory – expertly painted bright red. Nobody made her mother laugh the way Phil did.

  Pat Sheridan, manageress of the dry-cleaners on Florence Road, could have a sharp tongue on her, but it was softer for her younger sister and softest of all for her beloved daughter, Claire.

  She patted Callie’s hand. ‘Seamus isn’t well, but I’ll tell you all about it later, lovie. Phil will be dying to see you both.’

  She led the way into the kitchen, which had changed totally. Extended and with lovely wooden cupboards, it was all amazingly different from the mad mustard cupboards that had been there in Callie’s time. The whole place had been extended till it was a lovely family room with a lantern ceiling window that allowed glorious light to shine in. The old kitchen table they’d all done their homework on was gone and in its place was a pale ash table that went with the wood of the floor. A soft couch and a TV in one corner filled it out.

  ‘It’s fantastic,’ said Callie, looking around.

  ‘Freddie’s company did it, he’s got a great business now in the building trade,’ said her mother, ‘went into partnership with Seanie down the road. Managed through the crash and I tell everyone they’re the finest builders in Ireland. Been in some of the magazines as well. They work a lot with this architect fella, decent lad. Younger brother of – ah, you wouldn’t know him. They live and work in Kerry mainly. Freddie likes the quiet.’

  Quick as a flash, Pat Sheridan changed the subject.

  ‘He did this up for me, for my seventy-fifth.’

  ‘You’re seventy-five, Granny?’ said Poppy, always fascinated with people’s ages.

  ‘Seventy-six now,’ said her grandmother, ‘and still no sense because I’m still going to the bingo. Not that I win very much. Your Aunt Phil’s much better than me. Luckier. Your father always said she had the luck.’

  ‘And Freddie?’ said Callie. ‘Did you tell him you thought I’d be coming?’

  ‘I didn’t share it with him but I’m sure he’s thinking of it,’ said her mother slowly, ‘I mean, he rang me when he saw it in the papers. I don’t know, Callie, don’t know what to say to you, love. I’m not going to say anything now in front of the child.’

  ‘I’m not a child,’ said Poppy, outraged.

  ‘As it happens, I’m not going to say anything in front of you, anyway,’ said her grandmother firmly. ‘What’s happened has happened but we have to move on and make a new life for yourselves . . .’

  ‘We are not making a new life ourselves,’ said Poppy firmly. ‘We’re here for a visit. Dad’s going to be back, everything is going to be fine, it’s all a misunderstanding. We just needed somewhere because we were staying with Brenda and then, you know, the newspapers came and were taking pictures and we had to get out.’

  Callie looked at her mother and saw the deep pity in her eyes.

  ‘Quite right too,’ said her mother cheerily. ‘I’m glad you came here for a little break. I’ll show you the room. Not that your mother needs any showing, she can bring you up. You can take the attic. You wouldn’t want to be tall to be in it, so it was fine for your aunt because she was a bit of a short one like myself, and it will be grand for you. Not for your mother though. Not with those long legs. You could have Freddie’s old room, Claire. It’s all done up nice now, pinks and greys and Freddie kept saying they weren’t the colours now, but you know I like them. And you could meet the dog. Ketchup. He’s out the back doing his business. Let’s get him in.’

  Ketchup was a funny breed of dog.

  ‘Ah sure he’s a bit of everything,’ Callie’s mother said. ‘Fifty-seven varieties and all that, that’s why we called him Ketchup.’

  ‘Brilliant,’ said Poppy, who’d always wanted a dog. She sat on the floor and let herself be loved and adored by the off-white little creature with the tufty hair, the short tail, the brown eyes and a little face that said uncertain parentage was definitely part of the picture.

  ‘We don’t know how old he is,’ Callie’s mum said, as the two grown-ups watched Poppy turn into a kid with an animal. ‘Some young lads had him one Halloween. Luckily, your brother Freddie got there in time and he said it would be good for me, you know, after the operation.’

  ‘What operation?’ said Callie, hating the feeling that here was yet another thing that she had missed.

  ‘Ah
, you know,’ her mother began, then stopped, which was very unlike Pat Sheridan. ‘Women’s things. Ages ago, it doesn’t matter.’

  Poppy decided she didn’t want to sleep alone and that since Ketchup had taken such a shine to her he would share her room.

  ‘I’m just telling you he makes terrible wind in the middle of the night,’ said her grandmother.

  ‘That’s fine, Nana,’ said Poppy. ‘I don’t mind, I love dogs.’ She was walking round holding Ketchup in her arms as if he was a pampered chihuahua or some other handbag dog instead of an adorably scruffy little mongrel with the most bewitching black eyes that shone with happiness. Every few seconds, his pink tongue reached out to lick whatever bit of Poppy he could reach.

  ‘She’s a lovely child,’ said Pat when Poppy went up to the attic with Ketchup to show him his new sleeping quarters before dinner.

  They could hear her talking to him on the way up.

  ‘Now you can have your bed on the floor, but if you really want, you can get into the bed with me and we can snuggle, but no smelly wind,’ Poppy was saying. ‘Although I don’t mind, honestly, I still love you.’

  ‘Yes, she’s a great girl,’ said Callie, sitting down on one ancient kitchen chair that had been there since she had been a kid. Even though the kitchen was changed, her mother had kept those parts along with some of the old family pictures still on the walls. There were lots of new pictures now, new pictures of a life of which Callie was no longer a part. How could she have been so stupid as to let Jason do that to her? Even thinking about the insults flung and how it had broken up the family made Callie want to cry.

  ‘That’s in the past, love,’ said her mother, watching Callie’s gaze on the photos that were stuck up haphazardly all over the walls. This was no beautifully created gallery wall – this was family life, the pictures stuck in every which way in all sorts of frames. ‘No point looking back, got to keep looking forward.’

  ‘Oh, Mam,’ cried Callie. ‘But I do keep looking back. I keep looking back wondering what’s happening, what has he done? And now you’re welcoming me in with a kindness I don’t deserve. Why wasn’t I here when you had that operation? Why did I abandon you? I’m sorry, I’m just so sorry. You must be thinking I’m getting my just deserts now.’

  Her mother began stirring the soup she had made from scratch which was going to be their dinner, soup and home-made bread. It was so simple and yet it felt like such a long time since Callie had eaten a good, simple home-cooked meal.

  ‘You’re my child and I love the very bones of you, Claire Sheridan,’ said her mother firmly. ‘I love you and I have always prayed for this day. Jason had you under his thumb from the first moment he met you. We could all see it, your aunt and I, we used to talk about it. He was controlling, very controlling. But you couldn’t see any bad in him.’

  ‘There wasn’t any bad in him,’ Callie protested, and then stopped. He’d kept her from her family. He’d run off and left her with fraud hanging over her and no money. It was hardly a résumé a man would be proud of.

  ‘He wanted to take you away from us and have nothing to do with us,’ said her mother, the first time a hint of anger had shown in her voice since they had turned up on her doorstep earlier. ‘That’s badness: wanting to take you away from everything and everyone you love. That’s a sign of control as much as if he was hitting you, Claire. I don’t like that in a man and I never liked it in him. But I wouldn’t say it. And I worried about how he made his money. I knew it couldn’t be real, only gangsters make that sort of money. The time I did say that, well, he ran me out of the place, didn’t he?’

  ‘Brenda said a long time ago I should make it up with you, but I just—’ Callie paused.

  Telling the truth, she’d only recently admitted to herself, would hurt and yet she had to say it openly and honestly.

  ‘I was always aware that if I tried to get in touch with you that Jason would disapprove and make me pick. He’d already made me pick and I picked him. I am so sorry, Mam.’

  Saying the words out loud made her aware of how controlled she sounded, how stupid she’d been, not getting in contact with her family because her husband had stopped her. So what, there were plenty of things about Jason she didn’t like, but she put up with them, because she loved him. And yet she’d let him walk all over her.

  She’d lost ten whole years of her family’s life for a man who had upped and left her and their daughter. What sort of a fool was she?

  ‘What made you think he wanted to control me?’ she asked her mother.

  ‘Ah, just small things: the way he used to have a hand on top of you every time you were here. You had to sit beside him, he insisted. He’d have to have his hand on your knee or around your neck. Like he was showing off, that you were his.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that, Mam,’ Callie said, shaken. ‘That makes it sound weird.’ Though she was starting to wonder whether there was something in what her mother was saying. Up to now, she’d been wondering how she hadn’t seen what Jason and Rob’s business really was. Now she began to wonder what else she’d blindly ignored because she was in love.

  ‘Making your wife pick between you and her mother isn’t what a good man would do, Claire.’

  ‘Neither is leaving your wife and child to the mercy of the police and the media,’ Callie said, and began to cry.

  Her mam sighed. ‘Lovie, you know I call a spade a spade. Too blunt, your Aunt Phil calls me. Whatever else he was, Jason was clever. If he knew the cops were after him, then he had a plan to get out and that plan didn’t include you, Claire. So you have to think about that long and hard now. It’s time to start making other plans, plans that don’t include Jason Reynolds.’

  Pat Sheridan gave the soup another stir. There was silence in the room and then they heard the footsteps of Poppy belting down the stairs with the little bouncing steps of Ketchup along beside her.

  ‘Ketchup loves it upstairs,’ she said delightedly. ‘He didn’t make any smells, Nana. Honestly.’

  Pat and Callie both smiled tightly, smiles that said, let’s pretend everything is absolutely fine even when it wasn’t.

  Neither of them knew how to break all these revelations to poor fourteen-year-old Poppy.

  Sam

  Sam was filled with a sense of anxiety that meant that even when she was absolutely shattered with exhaustion and had a moment where she could possibly lie down and sleep, she couldn’t relax. As soon as she’d put her head on the pillow with the baby monitor beside her, the fears would start. How could she protect India? What happened if someone broke in and tried to kidnap her? What would happen if Sam died? Who would look after India, then? Yes, Ted would be there, but it wasn’t the same. India needed her mother.

  And Sam knew she was getting so much wrong. She could feed her daughter and change her and hold her tightly, but Sam was doing it all wrong – she knew she was because if she was doing it right, the feeds would be spaced out and India wouldn’t be waking up all the time in the night. On the phone, Joanne had told her it was important to grab sleep any time she could: ‘As soon as their heads hit the pillow, your head needs to hit the pillow,’ Joanne had said calmly as if it really was that simple.

  But Sam wasn’t finding it simple at all. When India cried in the night, she bottle-fed her the expressed milk.

  Afterwards, Sam was never able to go back to sleep. She was on edge, waiting for something to go wrong, waiting for a disaster.

  Her heartbeat raced, and she felt the adrenaline rush within her, the way people who’d taken amphetamines described it: one huge rush, one huge speeding sensation through her whole body. And yet if this was speed, why did anyone try it?

  It was horrible, stressful and fearful. It made a sense of doom and fear envelop her.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Ted would murmur sleepily, turning in the bed.

  ‘Yes,’ she’d whisper, lying, wis
hing he’d know she was lying so she could sit up and tell him the truth.

  That the fear was so huge. That her milk was drying up because she was so tired. She couldn’t even do that properly. That when she slept, she had terrible dreams and in every dream, somebody was hurting India and Sam could never get to her baby in time to save her.

  She often woke from these nightmares sobbing and it took ages for reality to kick in.

  Worse, far worse, was the dark hole her mind went into: like an abyss she was standing on the edge of. Inside was darkness: no colour, just dark.

  It was waiting for her, softly waiting.

  Sam was afraid that if she fell in, she would never come out of the nothingness, never feel joy again.

  When India slept, she sat in the chair in her baby’s room and cried, with the abyss waiting for her.

  When India was awake, she tried to banish it.

  ‘I love you so much,’ she crooned to her beloved baby. ‘You are so loved.’

  She knew India knew this, knew on a deep psychic level that her beautiful child could feel her mother’s fierce love. Knew all the pain she’d gone through for India to be born. Her star, her shining child.

  All those years of treatments.

  Injections in the morning from tiny bottles kept in the fridge. Scans to see what was happening.

  Great excitement at the harvesting of healthy follicles.

  Huge hopes at the clinic implantation of tiny cells made up of her and Ted: him holding her hand tightly and music playing in the background, the nurse holding her other hand. Everyone wishing the best.

  And then the disappointment.

  The crushing, life-numbing pain.

  The abyss had been there too, Sam realised: but merely on the edges, a faint glimmer that never managed to reach her properly.

  Just now it had come to claim her, when she had this miracle baby she’d been given to cherish. Why now? Why?

  ‘I love you, little India, with all my heart,’ she said scores of times every day.

  Yet still the darkness waited and while she tried to keep it out until she was alone, it was creeping into her everyday life, making her eyes dull, her gaze full of pain.