Dear Vincent

by Mandy Hager

  ‘Doesn’t seeing these every day keep rubbing salt into the same old wounds?’

  ‘Scratch any of us who grew up through the Troubles and you’ll find we’re still as angry as we were when we were young,’ Shanaye says with a wry smile.

  We’re passing rows of terraced houses, graffiti-splattered and run down. Threadbare clothes clutter small courtyard lines. Grimy toddlers scrabble in bare dirt. I’m swept by the oppression of the place as I take in the litter and potholed roads. By the time we reach the primary school, I’m goggle-eyed. Its fence is topped by razor-sharp palings. CTV cameras capture every movement in or out.

  ‘My god! It’s like a jail.’

  ‘That’s nothing,’ Shanaye says. ‘At least we know our wee ones here are safe. When we were snappers we had to walk past hordes of screaming Proddies to get to school. Armed soldiers at checkpoints too. We braved a war zone every day, not knowing if we’d make it … or who’d be orphaned next.’ I feel a twinge of guilt at how I roll my eyes when Mum says the same thing. Now I’m here everything’s way more real.

  She wraps her arms around herself although the day is warm. ‘You’ve no idea, darlin’, how it affects a person. Never a chance to relax with your friends, even at home. Drink-fuelled arguments; secret meetings; no one you can really trust. By the time we finished primary school all of us had witnessed people killed or maimed.’ She points over the street, to another memorial enclosed by brick and steel, a big black and red phoenix worked into the metal gates. ‘It’s for the fallen of this area,’ she says. ‘There are dozens throughout the country. So many deaths.’

  ‘Why have these reminders when it hurts so much?’

  ‘It’s our past, Tara, whether the murals and memorials are here or not.’ She shrugs. ‘Anyway, daily reminders of our fragile peace don’t hurt.’

  ‘It’s safe now, though?’

  She shakes her head. ‘We had our hopes, but the recession’s hit everyone hard. And as soon as hard times hit, things bubble back to the surface. Right now, the situation’s sliding backwards fast.’

  ‘Why do you stay?’

  ‘We have no choice. Your Ma and Da had their reasons for escaping but we have old ones here who need our help.’

  ‘So Mum and Dad left you guys all the responsibility?’ That figures.

  ‘Life’s never that straightforward, pet.’ She nods ahead. ‘Hurry. We need to catch that bus.’

  SHANAYE POINTS OUT THE landmarks as the bus passes through central Belfast. The high-rises and flashy buildings are much like any others, though there are definitely more churches than at home. More CTV cameras and barbed wire too.

  ‘Are you and Uncle Royan practising Catholics, or do you pick and choose like Mum?’ The passengers around us quieten. Is this not safe to ask?

  Shanaye lowers her voice and leans in close. ‘It’s impossible to live here and not play the game.’ The woman in the seat ahead coughs — or maybe laughs. ‘Though Royan and me surely aren’t fans of our parish priest.’

  ‘Why? Because of Van?’

  Her head nods infinitesimally. ‘Now’s not the best time, love.’

  Ten minutes on we’re outside Roselawn Cemetery. True to its name the headstones rise out of well-tended lawns. On first sight it’s beautiful; the avenues of trees and rose beds offsetting the infinity of stones. But as we start to pass the row on row of graves I fumble for Shanaye’s hand. I need her strength.

  Time stretches out and slows. I’ve inched towards this moment hour by hour for five long years.

  We pass into a section where the headstones are markedly plainer. Shanaye veers off the main pathway to a small hill where more plots are tiered up the slope. I scan every inscription as we walk by. In loving memory of … beloved Father … Mother … Sister … Brother … the sacred heart of Jesus … in the arms of the Lord …

  I recognise her name just as Shanaye stops. A plain grey stone. No fancy embellishments. Vanessa McClusky, daughter of Kathleen and Paddy, sister of Tara. Stark and ugly. No hint of what ended her seventeen short years. Only at the bottom are there any words of love: Cherished niece and cousin. Died too soon.

  Shanaye nudges aside a bouquet of dead flowers from the foot of the stone. ‘We brought those for her birthday.’ She wraps her arm around my shoulders.

  ‘I should’ve brought fresh ones.’ I’m so sorry.

  The inscription shreds the fabric of my heart. Died too soon. Like there’s an optimum time to die. The right age order. First Dad, then Mum, then Van then me, all alone.

  I slip from Shanaye’s comfort to approach the stone. Bend over to trace the letters with my finger. Lichen is colonising all the grooves, as if to prove that nature always wins out in the end. Are you here, Van? Does this ground still hold the memory of your life? Your bones?

  A vision of her decomposing body flashes into my head. Empty eye sockets accuse me. Where have you been? Flesh-hungry worms, Medusa’s snakes, writhe in the hollow that was once her brain. You promised you’d stay loving me. Her long bone fingers scratch for air. You came too late.

  The trembling takes me over now. Before my legs give way I drop down to my haunches. Wrap my arms around my knees and tuck my head into my chest. From deep inside the pain wells up, exploding in barbed sobs that slice and cut. I rock, filled with the death of her, that deep, dark emptiness that’s stalked me from the first. Nowhere to run to now. The evidence lies six feet down — and nothing, nothing, I can do will bring her back.

  Shanaye strokes my head. ‘No need to mourn this on your own.’ She coaxes me back to my feet. Uncoils me. Envelops me. This is how a mother’s embrace should feel. ‘You cry, my love, you let it out.’ She’s crying too. Mum’s never cried with me. Nor Dad. They shut me out. Forced me to tough it out alone. God damn it, Van, I want you back.

  It’s the coldness that sits heavy in my chest. Where’s the Much loved daughter? Beautiful big sister of … ? ‘Who chose the words?’

  ‘It’s what your Mammy said to put — except the little bit from us.’

  ‘Anyone would think she wasn’t loved.’

  Shanaye pecks my cheek, then lets me go. ‘I know. I’m sorry, darlin’. We would’ve changed it but it was all we could afford.’

  ‘You paid for the headstone?’

  ‘It was Royan and me who wanted it.’

  ‘You’re bloody kidding me? They weren’t even going to cough up for her stone?’ Shanaye can’t meet my eye. It’s clear she’s trying to put a better spin on this but there is none. ‘I hate them. You have no idea.’ I’m shaking again.

  ‘Shhh now. Shouting won’t help.’ She rubs my back but I’m too furious for comfort. ‘Let’s find a quiet place to sit. There’re things I need to tell you and it may as well be now.’

  ‘What kind of things?’

  ‘Just come. It’s better that you know it all.’ She guides me to a wooden bench beneath a splay-armed tree.

  Above me something marks the moment, exactly like a clock. ‘Did you hear that?’

  Shanaye peers up. ‘A cuckoo. It’s pretty rare this late in the year. Though ironic, in the scheme of things.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  She sighs. ‘I’ve got a big long tale to tell, love, but before I do you have to promise.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That if you can’t make sense of things — feel overwhelmed — you’ll let us know. Van’s death nearly destroyed us, love. We need your word.’

  I think about the promise I made to Sandy back at school and mentally cross my fingers. ‘Sure. Okay.’

  ‘Do you know anything about your mammy’s early life?’

  I shake my head. ‘Only that she had it tough compared to us. She told us all the time, like it would help when she was being such a bitch.’

  Shanaye grins. ‘If I had a dollar for every time my ma said those same words …’ She peers into the distance, then gives herself a little shake before she carries on. ‘Kathleen and my big sister Annie were best of friends. Lord, how we envie
d Kathy. She was beautiful and clever — goodness, Tara, you have no idea how much you’re like her. You and Van. She topped the class — everyone agreed that one day she’d make a fine doctor. The whole neighbourhood was proud of her. And when she started going with Billy they seemed the perfect match.’

  ‘Billy?’

  ‘Royan and Paddy’s brother. He was a year younger than your da. Him and Kathy made a right handsome pair.’

  ‘Dad’s brother?’ Oh yes. That mention of him in Royan’s letter.

  Shanaye inspects her fingernails, one by one. ‘Your mother was born a year after her da was injured in the bomb attacks of Bloody Friday. It made him awful bitter — some said he was a member of the PIRA.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Provisional Irish Republican Army. Much more hardcore than the old IRA. Belfast was swamped by British soldiers at the time and the Provos were threatening attacks on English soil. You have to understand the kind of pressure we lived under: we were all raised dodging bullets and bombs. It does your head in — that kind of fear and horror never goes away.’

  ‘You think that forgives Mum and Dad’s behaviour?’

  ‘I wish that’s all I meant.’ In this morning light she looks much older, years of strain etched into her face. ‘But you need to understand the background first; how it affects us all. The only way to survive that kind of constant terror is to shut it out.’

  ‘That’s why I paint.’ Is it? My god, I suppose it is.

  Shanaye slumps back against the seat. ‘You know, when Van first told us how your ma and da were treating her we weren’t sure we believed her. But the longer she stayed, the more we saw the damage they’d done. Lord, we anguished over telling her the truth. But she was so unhappy — so hurt and rejected — we thought the truth might free her up. Were we total eejits? I still don’t know.’

  A fist clenches inside. ‘What truth?’

  ‘When Kathleen and Billy were seventeen they went with Paddy and a group of friends to celebrate the Glenanne barracks bombing. On their way home a gang of Proddies cornered them … Things got out of hand.’ She swallows hard. ‘They held Billy and the others down while they took Kathleen.’

  I have to force myself to breathe. My heart’s the drum of doom and I fight the urge to block my ears.

  Again and again she swallows, unable to form words. ‘Shanaye? What did they do?’

  ‘They took her — raped her. Brutally. Boy after boy. Billy fought so hard to save her, they knocked him out. Paddy broke free and ran for help — but by the time her daddy got there it was far too late.’

  I don’t want to … have to … ‘What happened then?’

  ‘Her daddy took her home to nurse her. Our prick of a priest told them she must have courted it — that they were not to speak of it or everyone would know her shame. When Billy regained consciousness he was wild. No one could calm him, not even poor Kathleen. When she found out she was expecting, he loaded up his car with home-made bombs and drove it at a British checkpoint. Killed himself, two British soldiers and two passers-by. People said the explosives came from Kathy’s da.’

  I hear the cuckoo call above us and now the irony connects. ‘The baby was Van.’ Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Ya daddy’s not ya daddy, what ya gunna do?

  Shanaye nods once, then drops her head into her hands and sobs for real. I pat her back, too shocked and sick to cry myself. Poor Van. How do you live with that?

  Come on Miss T, you know the answer right enough: You don’t. Impossible, when every time they look at you they see those rapists looking back …

  Jesus. I jump up from the seat and pace, trying to escape. Can’t think how all this screwed up Mum. Horror for her tangles with my anger. She still bloody punished Van for something out of her control.

  I swing around. ‘So how does Dad fit into this?’

  ‘He married her, to help save face. The Church would not allow abortion and, anyway, her family were staunch Catholics. I think Paddy married her for Billy too — to atone for his suicide.’ She scoops up a leaf from the ground and strips it from its ribs. ‘But in an awful way he punished Kathy for Billy’s death. Men are right good at throwing all their sins and indiscretions back on us.’

  ‘He sure as hell punished Van too. So did Mum.’

  ‘Your mammy was in a real bad way after Billy’s death, especially once it sunk in that there was a baby coming. Paddy found her down by the banks of the Lagan late one night, stones already in her pockets. That’s when he insisted that she marry him. He promised he’d get her out of Ireland for good.’

  ‘Mum was going to kill herself? What the hell is this, a family curse?’

  A random comment Mum hurled at Van after Dad’s stroke jumps out at me. They’d been arguing over Van’s refusal to sit with Dad.

  ‘Why should I?’ Van shouted as the argument caught fire. ‘You know he doesn’t want me here.’

  ‘Listen, missy, you wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him.’

  At the time I’d put it down to emotional blackmail: Dad was in Van’s DNA. Now it all falls in place.

  Shanaye’s voice draws me back to the present. ‘That kind of hurting’s hard. We were all shook up.’ She stands and stretches. ‘I know it’s overwhelming for you, darlin’. What say we head back and have a nice cup of tea to help swallow all this?’

  ‘If it’s okay I think I’ll stay and sit with Van. Just tell me how to get back home.’

  She looks dubious. ‘Tara, you’re looking—’

  ‘Shanaye, I’m fine.’

  ‘It’s just that—’

  ‘Aunt Shanaye. I’m really fine.’

  She shakes her head, disapproving, but in the end draws me a map on the back of my sketchbook. ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right?’

  ‘Really, I’m okay. Thanks for telling me.’

  After several more assurances that I won’t do anything rash she disappears through the city of headstones. Finally I can make my way back to Van’s grave. The trouble is I don’t know how to get up close to it without the feeling that I’m trampling her. In the end I lie over top of her, belly down, cheek pressed against the grass and my fingertips in contact with the sun-warmed stone.

  Oh, Van. How did it make you feel? I was the cuckoo in the nest. The alien. Scratch me and my blood ran Orange. But you were Mum’s daughter too. We both were. Spit-on images. Two abominations cut from Medusa’s gut.

  I don’t know how to feel about Mum. We lived in a war zone of my parents’ making. They may’ve thought they got away, hidden halfway round the world, but the hate still ran strong in their blood. Can people live through things like that and not be filled with hate and rage? Jesus bloody Christ! Gang-raped. They stole her future, fucked over her body and her mind.

  Anger and disgust drowns everything, except the silent movie flicking through my head. The whites of her eyes. The thrashing limbs. The leers upon the faces of the boys, the men, the filthy raping bastards who held her down and forced themselves on her. Seventeen. The same age I am now. As Van.

  How does she feel each day, pandering to doctors when she’d aspired to be one? Does she blame Van for that as well? Of course. Does she blame me? I’ve been a slave to you; sacrificed my entire boggin’ life, Miss Hoity-Toit. No wonder she hates me as well. Every achievement, every scrap of praise, rubbed her nose in what she’d lost. And if Dad blamed her, threw it in her face each time they argued, how could she ever heal? She was a prisoner, served up to Dad with the label Damaged Goods. All value gone. The only ones lower in the pecking order of her life were Van and me.

  Was this what tipped the balance, Van? This discovery that butterflies emerge from grubs? We’re tainted. All of us. A family thing, just like poor Vincent. Why not? His mother was unstable and depressed. Theo too. His uncle killed himself. What was his name? Johannes. Bloody hell.

  I push myself up off the grass, feeling sick. I can’t believe I haven’t made this link before. When the hell does coincidence become a sign? You want a sign?
I feel the pull of eyes on me. Spin around. Three black crows perch in a tree, quite still. Vincent’s omens, dark and brooding, huddle on a branch like the three Fates.

  I lunge at them, clapping my hands. ‘Geddout!’ Drive them, squawking, from the tree. But all they do is move on to the next tree and regroup, glinting eyes still fixed on me. ‘What do you want?’ Have to get out.

  I take one last glance at Van’s headstone, and am caught again by the barrenness of the inscription. So alone. Did she sit there, watching Royan and Shanaye’s family banter while the contrasts ate away at her? Did she see that it doesn’t matter how welcoming they are, they already have a complete family unit; that they don’t need us?

  The date on the stone calls to me. July 12th. On Friday it’ll be five years since our world stopped.

  Hah! Hah! Hah! the crows screech. They know they’ve reeled me in to this place, this time, to play the story out. Eye for eye. Tooth for tooth. Life for life. Is that what you’re saying then? That it’s inevitable? That I came here to join Van, to really join her? Hah! Hah! Hah!

  I grab my backpack and run, through the cemetery lawns, into open countryside, heading back the way we came. Can’t stop. Need to keep the pounding up to block the chorus in my head.

  It’s not until I reach a small estate that I slow down. There’s a group of young mothers waiting for a bus, so I stop a little down the road, turned away from them. When the bus arrives I fumble with the unfamiliar currency, show him Shanaye’s map and climb aboard. The driver says he’ll tell me when to get off, so I sit back and try not to think. Not likely. Eventually, I drag my sketchbook out and start to draw the faces of the people on the bus, surprised when the driver announces that we’ve reached my stop.

  There’s a seedy little internet café at the end of Shanaye and Royan’s street. I go in to check my Facebook page. Still no word.