by Anita Notaro
6
LILY
I WAS THE zany one in our small family unit, or so my sister said. I preferred easy-going. Alison worried enough for both of us, and anyway she was such a doer that there were very few decisions left over for me to make, so it was easy to be a bit of a slouch. My twin had very definite views on life and she was extremely hard to say no to, so most of the time I simply went along with things. It suited me, I suppose. Certainly it made my life easier, although occasionally I wanted to shout, ‘No, that’s not what I want.’ But I never did. On the plus side my sister was the kindest, most generous person in the world and would do anything – literally – to help the few people she really loved, namely me and Charlie, her son.
Alison and Charlie and I were good together. Since he’d come along, my sister had relaxed a bit. Also she’d had to depend on me a bit more, which was – surprisingly – a nice feeling.
That night, I was indulging in my favourite hobby – fantasizing about what I’d do if I won the lotto – and so I remember the split second life as I knew it changed for ever. The kitchen was full of the smell of rosemary and garlic and good olive oil, as I attempted to perfect a new bread to go with the supper Ali had promised. Really I was just killing time – and cooking was one of the few things that totally absorbed me. I’d watched TV for a while but I couldn’t concentrate. Something was going on with Alison and I wanted in on the action.
When I heard a noise I flung open the door – even though my sister was always telling me to look through the peephole first – and reached out to take whatever was thrust at me. Ali always came home with the baby in one arm and a load of shopping in the other and usually relieved herself of whichever was causing her the greatest strain, which most evenings was the bundle that wriggled. She never used her keys when she knew I was there. Once loaded up from the car she just waited until one of our neighbours was coming or going and usually signalled her arrival by kicking the door of the apartment.
‘And what time do you—’ It took me a moment to realize it wasn’t her. At first I looked over their shoulders, expecting to see a shamefaced Ali apologizing for giving me a fright. But the hall was deserted. I think I took a step back then, maybe because I saw something in the blank pages of their faces, although even in my wildest imaginings – and I’d had some – I could never have envisaged the full horror story they’d come to deliver.
‘How did you get in?’ I decided they couldn’t be looking for me because they hadn’t rung our buzzer.
‘One of your neighbours was going out,’ the older, male officer explained quietly.
‘We’re looking for Lily Ormond.’ The voice of the female Garda sounded matter-of-fact, just like I’d heard many times on The Bill.
‘What’s happened?’
‘Can we come in?’
I stepped back further. ‘Please, tell me, has there been an accident?’
The grey-haired man nodded and introduced them both.
‘Where is she? I need to see her . . .’ I could feel panic beginning to surface.
‘Maybe we could go somewhere for a moment.’ The young woman looked too nice and too innocent for what I suspected she was about to say. A car accident had been my first thought. ‘You might like to sit down . . .’
‘The baby, where’s Charlie?’ I remember shouting then, unable to believe I’d forgotten him even for a second.
‘The baby’s fine,’ the man said quickly. I knew then that it had to be Ali and I backed away from them, not wanting to hear what they seemed intent on telling me.
They sat me down and explained as gently as they could that my sister – my lifelong friend, my soulmate – was dead.
‘No,’ I said softly and then the word kept getting louder in my head until I realized I was screaming it at them. All of a sudden the chair seemed to disintegrate underneath me and I felt myself slithering, jelly-like, to the floor.
* * *
They did everything they could, held my hand, made tea, let me cry, while explaining in quiet voices what had happened while I’d been watching EastEnders and sucking clove drops. Afterwards, they stayed for ages and tried to persuade me to let them call someone to come and stay with me, but I couldn’t think of anyone. Sally, my best friend, was living in Australia and Orla, my old school pal, was working in a hotel in Brighton.
‘You must have some family?’ they prodded gently. ‘Other brothers and sisters . . . an aunt or uncle maybe?’
But I couldn’t think of anyone – no one I wanted, that is.
‘There was just the two of us . . . and Charlie . . .’ My voice trailed off. How could I make them understand that the only one who could have helped tonight was the person they’d just taken away with their calmly delivered missile?
‘I have to see the baby, make sure he’s all right.’ I stood up and felt my head go light. ‘Will you take me, please?’ I grabbed my handbag and ran a comb through my hair, as if it mattered.
When I saw him he looked frightened, even though the Filipina nurse told me she’d been with him all the time.
‘Lily!’ He held out his arms and I grabbed him. The tears came then and they all tiptoed out to give me space, although what I needed was the claustrophobia of my sister’s arms around me, the way she’d done a million times, like when Mum died, or my father was in one of his moods.
‘Mammy Lily.’ Charlie kept repeating my name as he cried and clung on for dear life to me. Usually, he wasn’t able to tell us apart when he saw Alison and me together and it had become a guessing game that the three of us played all the time. He called Ali Mammy and me Mammy Lily even though sometimes he looked at us both when he shouted one of our names, as if covering all his options. What I saw was that hers were the eyes that lit up like beacons each time she spotted him, and she was the one who looked at him with exquisite tenderness and had pale grey circles because she’d never slept soundly at night since he’d come along. He, however, saw us as identical, as most people did, yet on this truly awful night he knew I wasn’t her.
‘Mammy gone’ was all he said.
‘It’s OK, Charlie, I’m here.’ I held him as close as I could without hurting him. ‘Mammy Lily is here.’ I rocked him back and forth and tried to stop crying. Eventually, he struggled free.
‘Mammy gone sea.’ He pointed out the window. I kissed him and mumbled something stupid.
‘All gone,’ he repeated in that wondrous voice he used when he’d eaten all the crisps in the packet and then couldn’t believe it was empty.
‘Mammy’s in Heaven,’ I told him gently but he didn’t do religion.
‘Mammy’s in the water.’ He looked bewildered. ‘The man in the sky took me away.’
They’d told me about the attempted rescue but my mind was refusing to go there yet. Now I thought about how scared he must have been and how frightened my sister must have felt too. I tried to stop the pictures forming in my head but all I could see was her face in the water. Suddenly it felt like I was drowning and the panic made me throw up with fear and desperation. We both sat there, shivering, until they came back in and took him from me and cleaned both of us up and changed the bed and tried to make me drink hot, strong tea.
It was much later when I realized that without Charlie I might not have been able to cope. Having him gave me a focus on that pitch-black night. They wanted to keep him in for observation and because I wouldn’t leave him I ended up crashing out beside him on the too small, rubbery bed. All night I went over and over things in my head. Alison had been so happy when we’d spoken at lunchtime. She’d rung to ask if I’d be at home that evening.
‘I’m not babysitting’ had been my instant response.
‘I’m not asking.’ Alison had laughed. ‘I just want to talk to you.’
‘What about?’ I was wary. Talking usually meant she had another plan for us.
‘Nothing bad, don’t worry.’ She’d paused, as if about to say something, then seemed to change her mind. ‘I’ll tell you all t
onight. It’s good, you’ll be happy.’
‘You’re looking for something,’ I’d said and both of us giggled, knowing it was much more likely to be the other way round. ‘Don’t tell me,’ I’d teased her. ‘You want to borrow my petrel-blue mini with the silver buttons?’
‘Only if you’ll lend me your white spangly top to go with it,’ she’d snorted, referring to the first item in my wardrobe she’d take a pair of scissors to, given half a chance.
So I’d relaxed and looked forward to the evening. Alison had said we’d order in Italian – which was why I’d been messing around with some new bread – and had offered to bring home a bottle of wine. Such extravagance was not usual for my sister, except where handbags were concerned. It made this whole thing even harder to comprehend.
The groaning doors and squeaky soles on lino provided me with a lifeline that night, reminding me that normality still existed in a world that had stopped for me. I don’t think I could have stayed alone in the flat. As it was I curled up in a corner of the bed with the TV on, and only realized I’d slept when I woke up very early feeling cold and shivery despite the stifling hospital temperature.
A new nurse brought me more strong tea and buttery toast and left me a makeshift toilet bag, which at least allowed me to clean my teeth and comb my hair, although the smell of sick still clung to me. While they did a final check on Charlie, I sat in a faded velour seat by the window and tried to make a mental list of things I needed to do. Even that felt strange. Alison was the list-maker and a million other things besides. She was the organizer, the doer, the charmer, the communicator. Without her I felt ten years old again. I wanted someone to bring me breakfast of a boiled egg and soldiers, or at the very least jolly me along, the way she used to when we were kids and my father was on the warpath.
‘Come on, Lily, eat your vegetables, otherwise we’ll be in trouble with Dad.’
‘Don’t want them. I hate broccoli.’
‘OK, tell you what, give it over to me.’ My sister expertly cleared my plate on to hers. ‘Here, you have my chicken, you like chicken.’ She had it all sorted in an instant.
‘Good girl, eat up and be very quiet. Dad’s in a bad mood tonight. And if you’re good we could sneak a book up to bed later and read without anyone knowing. How about that?’
It was just one of a thousand times she’d made it all OK for me.
The nice female Garda, Susan Malone, knocked on the door then. The clock on the wall told me it was almost eight a.m. She looked even more fresh-faced, whereas I felt I’d withered overnight.
‘Are you still on duty?’ I was surprised.
‘Nearly finished,’ she told me. ‘I just wanted to make sure you were all right and take you home, or wherever you need to go.’
‘Thank you.’ I was amazed by all the kindness. ‘Home would be good, I suppose.’
‘There’ll be phone calls to make, things to organize . . .’ She trailed off.
‘I guess so,’ I agreed, even though action of any kind seemed beyond me right then.
The sister on duty gave me her direct line in case I needed to talk to anyone about Charlie, and then we left to face the most dreaded day of my life so far.
Aunt Milly, that was who I’d call, I decided after letting several cups of tea go cold while I sat with the phone in my hand. It was the easiest, and besides, she just might know what to do or where to start.
When our mother died just before our fifth birthday, it had been Aunt Milly who’d kept us going. She was Mum’s younger sister, the one who’d stayed in the family home in Cork and looked after our elderly grandparents. Milly was a giver, everyone said so. ‘It’s all she knows, poor thing,’ Ali had told me a couple of months ago, when we’d been discussing the family. ‘She deserves to be looked after herself for a change.’
I hadn’t given it much thought at the time.
Now I was nervous about phoning her, because it had been so long since I’d been in touch. What if she wouldn’t help me? I dialled while reciting a childhood prayer that Ali and I used to say every night when we needed guidance.
‘Aunty Milly, I have some terrible news,’ I blurted out as soon as pleasantries were out of the way.
‘What’s up, child?’ The soft, lilting Cork brogue was my undoing.
‘It’s Ali, she . . . she’s dead.’ I felt my eyes fill up saying it for the first time. I bit hard on my lip.
‘Jesus, Mary and Holy St Joseph, what are you saying to me?’
‘She drowned . . . last night. She got caught too far out and . . . and they couldn’t get to her in time.’ I tried to hold it together. ‘The baby’s OK, though,’ I told her quickly.
‘She had the baby with her?’
‘Yeah . . .’ I gulped as I watched him watching me. ‘But he’s fine, don’t worry. He was in hospital, but just for observation. He’s here beside me, glued to the cartoons on TV.’
‘Oh my poor pet, I can’t believe what you’re telling me. I was only talking to her last week.’
‘Aunt Milly, will you come up?’ I wasn’t sure I’d ask, but I needed a mother so badly right now.
‘Of course, child. I’ll come today. Let me get a few things together here and organize one of the neighbours to keep an eye on the dog.’
Horace. That was all I could think of then. Ali hated Aunt Milly’s dog, said he made Dennis the Menace’s dog Gnasher seem attractive. She always insisted he had the personality of Maggie Thatcher. All the neighbours hoped he’d get lost some day and constantly left her front gate open, Ali claimed.
‘Thanks.’ I jerked myself back to the present. ‘It’s just I . . . can’t really cope on my own.’
‘I’m on the way, don’t fret yourself. I’ll probably be on the lunchtime train and then I’ll get a taxi. Just give me directions again, I know I have the address here somewhere.’ I could hear her rooting around for a pen and paper. ‘Sorry, love, I’m all addled. Here it is. Now, give me your phone number first.’
We chatted for a while longer and I gave her what little information I had and she promised to ring me back as soon as she’d made arrangements.
Next I called our other aunt, my father’s only sibling.
‘Aunt Rose, it’s Lily . . . Lily Ormond,’ I felt I should add. We hadn’t seen each other in yonks.
When I told her I could tell she was shocked, but she was much more controlled in her emotions. Just like my father, I thought bitterly. Ali said it was all they knew. Apparently their own parents had never been affectionate to either of them. As I answered her questions I gave thanks for my own lovely mother, who’d given us everything during those first crucial years before she died.
We spoke for a little while and I promised to ring back later when I knew more. Rose offered to come over but I explained that Aunt Milly was on the way.
‘I’ll go to mass this morning for the poor unfortunate girl.’ It was meant to be compassionate but the way she said it made it sound as though Ali had done something to deserve this. I pictured Rose’s thin lips slicked over with too much red Max Factor lipstick, the one I used to coat my dolls with when we were little and she wasn’t looking.
‘Thanks,’ I said now because I couldn’t think of anything else. ‘Say one for me.’
‘Of course I will.’ She made no mention of Charlie but that didn’t surprise me. Rose had never approved.
‘And Charlie,’ I said tightly.
‘Yes.’
Talking to her always unnerved me. Her voice was too like my father’s. I could still hear him, even now.
‘What did I tell you about making noise after bedtime?’
My father seemed to constantly patrol the house.
‘It’s only seven thirty. I want to go out and play.’
‘You will stay in your room and study and be quiet, otherwise you’ll get no supper.’
‘Lily, shush. Come here,’ Ali called. ‘Don’t annoy him. Let’s play quietly by ourselves.’
Ali always said it was sim
ply that he couldn’t cope with twin girls. Control was the only way he knew where youngsters were concerned. But we were good, always quiet, always obedient. I tried to rid myself of the unwanted thoughts and went to check on the baby. Charlie was still engrossed in the cartoons. Ali rarely let him watch that sort of stuff, and it was working to my advantage now. He was enthralled by it, sitting mesmerized on a cushion with his juice, locked into his own uncomplicated little world of cats chasing mice and dinosaurs in skirts.
Next up I phoned my boss. The more I said it out loud, the easier it got to say and the harder it was to believe. Stephen Pritchard was already at work in the big glass building where I was employed as a chef.
‘Stephen, we had bad news last night. My sister, Alison, was killed. She drowned. It’s been a lot to take in, so I’m afraid I won’t be in for a while.’
Everyone I rang had the same reaction. Disbelief. Shock. Sympathy. After several more calls I was exhausted and teary again. I made coffee for a change and tried to think what to do next. Sally would know, but Sydney was so far away. I’d have to tell her but I couldn’t face it yet, because I knew she’d be devastated. She had only brothers and looked on Ali as her big sister too. I wished she hadn’t gone away. I tried Orla again. She shared a house in Brighton when she wasn’t staying over at the hotel where she worked, but there was no reply and her mobile was off so I left a message asking her to call me urgently. I hoped she’d be able to come home.
I’d no idea what to do about Alison’s work. I knew so little about it really: another sign of my sister’s competency. She juggled her life effortlessly, whereas I just about managed. Eventually I called Violet, the girl who helped out part-time. She burst into tears and I found myself in the role of comforter for a change, which kept me going for another little while. After we’d talked for ages, Violet offered to phone clients of The Haven, the little beauty salon Alison had invested so much in. She also promised to put a notice in the window and we quickly worded it together.