by Mandy Hager
I walk back to the house with my head down to hide my tears. I thought, by finding out the truth, that the misery deep inside might ease. But things have gone from strange to bloody indescribable. Everything’s turned upside down and there’s no going back.
15
I do not feel I have strength enough left to go on like this for long … I am going to pieces and killing myself.
— VINCENT TO THEO, ARLES, AUGUST 1888
SHANAYE IS FOLDING ANOTHER huge pile of washing when I reach their house.
‘Tara! Thank the Lord. I’ve been worrying. How are you, love?’
I slip into a dining chair and she passes me a pile of socks to pair. ‘Okay — though I still have lots of questions.’
‘I’ll make a cuppa then.’ She smiles. ‘Tea’s our cure-all. Meantime, fire away.’
‘Okay … What did Van do after you told her about Mum?’
Shanaye shudders. ‘It was awful. She went right in on herself. Wouldn’t talk. She took off with this boy she’d met — he was a real dead-beat, drink, drugs, the works. She’d come home late or not at all, so bollixed she could hardly stand. We tried to talk to her about it, but that just made it worse.’
‘Did you ever hear back from Mum after that letter Uncle Royan wrote?’
‘So you saw that, eh?’ Her lips tighten. ‘She said the poor kid would have to earn the money for her ticket home. It wasn’t long after Paddy’s second stroke, if you remember.’
‘Why didn’t Van have a return ticket?’
‘I’m not sure, but I suspect she cashed it in. We were going through a lean old time and the poor darlin’ hated not being able to contribute. But when she asked for help, Kathleen told her they were broke. If we’d had the money we’d have paid. As it was, we ended up borrowing to pay for the stone.’
‘I’m so sorry. I can give you some money …’
‘Oh, what’s a few more pounds when the need is there? We rub along. It’s not like we’re any different from our neighbours and friends.’
‘How long after Van heard back from Mum did she—’ My tears are one small word away. I’m coming, Van. Only three days.
‘She told us she was going to trip around with her new friends. I was struggling with the baby, she was keeping us up at night. We didn’t think through the possible consequences …’
‘It wasn’t your fault.’
‘I’ll never stop blaming myself, love. Poor Royan. He still has nightmares after identifying her.’
‘There’s nothing to feel guilty about.’ I’m glad they have each other. ‘I saw on a bit of paper that she died at some ancient site?’
‘That’s right. It’s called Cnoc na Teamhrach — The Hill of Tara.’
‘The what?’
Shanaye rests her hand on my shoulder. ‘Aye, I know. It seems particularly cruel.’
‘Not cruel,’ I manage to croak out. It means she thought of me. Planned that once I found this out, I would know. ‘Where is it?’
‘About forty minutes north of Dublin.’
‘Down south?’
She nods. ‘The boyfriend drove her there and dropped her off — the devil take his soul. He didn’t even stay to see if she was safe.’
‘What’s there?’
‘They say it once was the true seat of the High King of Ireland. There are standing stones, burial tombs, ring forts and barrows, the whole works.’
‘How did she know about it?’
‘I’m not sure. But those last few days before she left she didn’t spend much time with us. We were trying to get her help, but she didn’t want to know.’
‘Did she leave any kind of note? She sent me a really ambiguous letter.’
‘The night before she left she came into our bedroom and kissed us both. Told us she was feeling better. That she loved us. That she’d settled things inside her head. We were such eejits we thought it was a positive sign — until the police said that it probably meant she’d already made up her mind.’ The breath she expels is more shudder than sigh.
‘You have to listen to me, Shanaye. It’s really not your fault.’ I lean forward. ‘It was always going to come to a head.’ Van was a time bomb waiting to go off. All Shanaye and Royan did was try to help. Too much, too late, Miss T.
My head is throbbing now and my eyes want to close even though it’s only early afternoon. When Shanaye orders me to take a nap before the kids get home, I go without a fight. I’m still jetlagged; at home it’s the middle of the night.
The trouble is my brain won’t stop. I don’t know how to deal with the bombshell about Mum. Wish I didn’t know. Hate is so much easier when you’ve had the perfect role models. Do I really have to reassess my entire life — dredge up compassion for her even though she gave Van none? The sins of the father are to be laid upon the children … Even bloody Shakespeare knew: you can rail against your parents all you like, but you can’t change your DNA. Is this how Van felt? That her broken heart pumped a rapist’s blood? That nothing she could do would ever change that fact?
And what of this Hill of Tara? What the hell I am supposed to make of that? Is it something I should know about? Some key to help me understand her dying thoughts? Van always loved a game. Loved inventing stories to deflect the pain. She’d find me crying in the corner over something Mum or Dad had said and somehow would remove the sting. Then she’d shoo me off. Protect me from the carry-on.
Oh my god, I’ve been so blind. The battles I remember — I thought they were all about her but so many times they’d started in on me before Van stepped in to deflect their blows. She wasn’t fighting for the joy of it; she was fighting for me. Countless times she could’ve walked away but didn’t. That’s what big sisters do. Enter the lion’s den, even when you know there’s no way out. That’s crazy. Aren’t we all? You could’ve left. I stayed for you. Oh great. So now I have to carry that guilt too?
I scrabble up and sink my head between my knees. Breathe deeply in and out to halt this nausea. It’s my fault. Mine. I held her there. Trapped her. Used her love so I could feel some control. I’m no better than Dad. Than Vincent, laying all his hurts and doubts at Theo’s feet, looking for rescue. My life is threatened at the very root. My steps are wavering.
They say people who talk of suicide don’t go through with it, but that’s simply not true. I looked it up. The thing is, even if Vincent didn’t pull the trigger the will to die was always there. The seed. Three days to go. I feel Van call to me. Come take my hand. But I’m not you. I’ve lived first-hand the pain that suicide brings. Not pain. Release. Relief for everyone. You’re the one final reminder of their shitty past. Give them a break.
I can’t stand it! I escape downstairs and offer to help Shanaye with the chores, relieved when Uncle Royan and the kids return. There’s homework to supervise, dinner, dishes, four picture books for Helen and Billy, then two chapters for the twins. By the time their lights go out my body’s craving bed. Not so my brain.
I join Royan and Shanaye in the kitchen and carefully compose my face. ‘I’d like to see the Hill of Tara.’
Dread infuses their smiles.
‘I’ll drive you,’ Royan says.
‘There’s no need. I’ll take a bus.’
He shakes his head. ‘Oh no you won’t. It’s not negotiable.’
‘But—’
‘Tara, darlin’,’ Shanaye says. ‘There’s no use arguing. We mean to keep you safe.’
I love them for their care, though I’m sure they’ll be relieved when I’m gone. ‘Okay. But only if you let me pay for petrol.’
Royan grins. ‘You’re as stubborn as your ma!’ He offers me his hand to shake. ‘We have a deal.’
‘Could we go Friday?’
‘As soon as that?’ He looks at Shanaye. ‘Love?’ She nods. ‘Well, okay then, Friday it shall be.’
I kiss them both goodnight and go into the bathroom to brush my teeth. Shanaye taps lightly on the door.
‘I’ve something that might help, Tara.
I’m betting you could do with a good rest?’ She opens up the cabinet above the basin and reaches for a pill bottle at the very back of the top shelf. Takes something out. Opens her hand to reveal a small blue pill. ‘The doctor gave me these after everything with Van. They’ll send you off.’
In bed, waiting for the pill to bring on sleep, I think about the story Max told me — though now it seems a lifetime ago. Survivor guilt, he said. Buried trauma that haunts you, maybe even poisons you, until you deal with it or else it ruins your life. It’s not so different from Mum and Dad — especially Mum. Except that Max pushed through it, found a way to love — like Royan and Shanaye, despite the terrors of their youth. What makes one person strong enough? No, not strong exactly. Resilient. Ah yes. What makes one person resilient while another slips a knot?
OVER THE NEXT TWO days an executioner’s clock ticks off the hours in my head. Despite their attempts to draw me in, I shrink away from the family. It’s not my life. Never will be. I’m a foreigner. An awkward disruption in their lives.
No word comes from Johannes and my compulsive checking doesn’t help. I should know better. I thought we had something but I was wrong. I was convenient, no more than a short-lived diversion. Anyway, better this quick release — he’d soon have tired of me. I draft a dozen emails to Max, but how can he help when he’s half a world away?
I visit Van each day. Take flowers, clean off the lichen, generally buff up her stone. I tell her about the darkness creeping like a graphite glaze over my heart. She whispers back, counting down the hours. Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Soon we’ll be together, just us two.
When Friday dawns I help ready the kids for school. Royan’s arranged for us to stay in Dublin overnight so I have time to see the sights. Now the day has come, I’m calm, at peace. The thought of joining Van is far more preferable to living on alone. I pack oil pastels and my sketchbook. The last things I secrete inside my backpack are a bottle of whiskey and Shanaye’s sleeping pills. There are twenty-five inside, I counted again yesterday. Enough to make sure I can end the pain. That’s all I want. To still this whirlpool in my head.
As we head out through the streets there are Union Jack pennants strung between the houses and milling groups of people — the men dressed in dark suits, white gloves and bowler hats, each sporting an orange sash around their shoulders, some even brandishing ceremonial swords. The women wear their Sunday best.
‘What’s going on?’
Uncle Royan shakes his head slowly, expelling a long sigh. ‘It’s the Orangemen’s day. They parade about rubbing our noses in the fact they won the Battle of the Boyne.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It was in 1690 — the Proddy king William of Orange won a battle over James II. The bastards use it as a chance to stir up trouble every year.’
Jesus, Van, sign on bloody sign. Picking a date like this was bound to stick it to Mum. You never cease to amaze me. ‘You think there’ll be trouble today?’
‘I hope not, lass. I’ve given Shannie the hard word to keep the kids inside when they get home from school.’
‘No one’s ever going to let it go, are they?’
‘Never, lass. It’s part of who we are.’
No wonder Mum and Dad couldn’t put their pasts behind them; the whole damn country’s one big weeping scab. Van and I never stood a chance with the weight of all this history looming over us.
Once we leave the city, we drive towards the great divide between the north and south, through pretty villages and stone-fenced fields. What was Van thinking five years back? Had she already shopped for rope both thick and long enough to end her life? Was she lucid? Drunk? On drugs? Did the boyfriend stop off at the hardware store, not questioning the package she brought back? What if she didn’t mean to die, instead got caught up in dramatics that went horribly wrong? Stop thinking, Miss T! Stick to the plan.
Beside me, Uncle Royan does his best to keep things cheerful, telling funny stories from his youth. The Kathleen he describes bears no resemblance to my mum: she sounds more full of life, sharp-witted, railing at the restrictions imposed upon her.
‘Actually, she sounds a lot like Van.’
Uncle Royan smiles. ‘Seeing Van, then you, is like looking back into the past. The two of you are Kathleen reborn.’
Is it possible Mum saw this too? She must’ve hated how Van threw away her opportunities when Mum had none. No doubt Van’s sleeping around pressed a truckload of her buttons too. And Dad’s. Not that it lets them off the hook. Exactly how much damaged viciousness is allowable before your quota’s up? At some point, surely, you have to take responsibility — decide enough’s enough. Like I’m doing now.
I force myself to focus on the landscape and am surprised how quickly Royan turns off the motorway. A few minutes further on we pull into a car park by an old stone building. My head pulses and everything inside grows tense.
We walk up to the site, where a huge ridge runs around the rim of a wide flat-topped hill. ‘They’re earthworks from an Iron Age hill fort called the Fort of Kings.’ Royan points to the perimeter, where the ridges rise beneath the grass.
I can’t comprehend this kind of age. Have never seen anything this old formed by human hands. ‘Old’ at home means three or four hundred years. The awe I feel is giddying.
Inside this outer wall two further ring-shaped earthworks interlink. I stand at the centre of one circle and close my eyes. What kind of people lived here, these kings and queens of all that they surveyed?
In the other circle stands a giant stone. It’s smooth and rounded at the top, nearly as tall as me. I lay my hand on it and feel its latent heat. Are you here, Van? Did you rest your hand on this as I do now? An unsettling stillness — solemnity — radiates from the stone. I feel the weight of all the years since it was placed there.
‘We call it Lia Fáil, or the Stone of Destiny,’ Royan says. ‘Legend has it that if a true king of Ireland stands on it the stone will roar.’ He comes and drapes his arm around my shoulders. ‘How are you going, love? Are you all right?’
I nod. ‘I’ve never seen anything so old.’
‘I hope you’re talking about the place and not your poor old Uncle Royan!’ I force a smile. ‘When I was a wee lad we learnt a poem about the place: The harp that once through Tara’s halls, The soul of music shed, Now hangs as mute on Tara’s walls, As if that soul were fled. I can’t believe I still remember it.’
‘It’s beautiful,’ I say. ‘And sad.’
‘Aye, that it is. There’s always something special about these places — a kind of magic from the early times.’
‘Where exactly did Van die?’ I scan the countryside, waiting to hear her call. Eye a grove of trees.
‘What good will it do to know, Tara? It’ll only cause you pain.’
‘You don’t understand. It’s the only thing that can take the pain away.’
He blinks suspiciously wet eyes. ‘Then come with me.’
We trek back down towards the visitor’s centre and approach a huge white statue behind a fretwork fence. Some kind of religious figure in mitre and robes, holding a staff.
‘Saint Patrick,’ Royan says.
No! Surely not? I turn from it to search his face. The sadness there confirms my guess. ‘You mean right here?’ I ask, but I already know. I feel her pull.
‘The policeman had to cut her down.’
‘Jesus fucking Christ.’ I slap my hand over my mouth. Mumble ‘sorry’ through my fingers. The patron saint of Ireland. She’s so damn clever, choosing the man responsible for importing the bloody Catholic faith. And by no coincidence, I’m sure, he also bears Dad’s name. Two messages in one: Saint Patrick to address the hate crime; Hill of Tara to signal I was in her heart. It couldn’t be more perfect — or more terrible.
I barely notice Royan take me by the shoulders and lead me back towards the car. I’m blind to everything, can only see Van hanging down the saint’s slick marble side, entwined in rope. A freezing band garrottes my skull. I st
art to retch, the spasms stealing all my strength. Royan lowers me before I fall, presses my head between my knees and rubs my back.
‘It’s okay, Tara love. You’ll be okay.’ The words catch in his throat. He’s crying too.
‘I’m sorry,’ I pant between the spasms. ‘It must have been so bad for you.’ Don’t think about it. Don’t.
‘Oh darlin’,’ he says. ‘There’s no winners in this game.’ He tucks my hair behind my ears, out of my face. ‘Let’s be away. There’s no more good can come of this.’
I let him coax me back into the van. Sit numb and motionless as we drive away. Inside my head is nothing but a high-pitched keen.
WE’RE DRIVING THROUGH THE outskirts of Dublin before I even register we’re here. Uncle Royan takes me on a tour and though the real, hurting part of me is locked inside, I manage suitably impressed conversation on remote control.
A late lunch, more sight-seeing, a castle tour. All this should be enough to lift me from my shock but I’m a sleepwalker, balancing on the cusp between one world and the next. By the time we check into a cheap backpackers and head out for an even cheaper meal, the urge to slip away, to join with Van at last, is overpowering.
At dinner, which I insist on paying for, I ply Royan with beer. Five glasses later he’s yawning and when we return to the backpackers I mix him up a special nightcap: hot chocolate laced with one of Shanaye’s little pills. His concern for me is touching — but stifling.
He’s snoring by eight thirty. I leave a hurried, apologetic note, and sneak out with my backpack and Royan’s keys. The van is unfamiliar but handles well. It’s the one thing Mum took time to teach me, so I could run messages for Dad. I navigate through unfamiliar streets to find the M3 and then motor out of Dublin in the settling dark. Hurry, Miss T. No time to waste.
I’m outside any sense of time or place. I park the van at the Hill of Tara’s car park, climb the fence, and edge through looming shadows to the place Van died.