As I cross the floor, all eyes in the room weigh heavily on my back. I wish I knew how late I was. The large sash window is open and despite the chill, my cheeks flush. Then I see Mum, sandwiched between the only two empty chairs. I can’t help but notice how small she looks. Tugging my flimsy shirt around me I sink down next to her. I’m not ready to look at her.
The Scottish woman is still talking. A man on her right gawks up at her like a dog under the table waiting for scraps. ‘Growing up, Stu was our rock. He was like that even when we were wee bairns. He’d look after us all. Always did his best to –’
‘Joanne,’ Nick interrupts. ‘Your regard for your brother is understandable, but as I said earlier, we’re focusing today on how our loved one’s addiction has impacted on our lives. Please share with us what it was like to live with Stu during his drug use, and how it made you feel.’
She snivels. ‘Ach, it’s hard, you know …’
‘We appreciate that, Joanne, but it’s crucial to Stu’s recovery that he understands the implications of his behaviour. Please be as specific as possible, like we discussed.’
Nick is on it today. Joanne wipes her nose with her sleeve and looks at him like she understands there’s no getting off lightly. ‘I guess it was when his wee son got sick, that we knew he was nay in control …’
At this, the guy who must be Stu lets his head crash into his hands, rocking his body back and forth, slowly at first and then more vigorously, before properly howling. Joanne’s voice becomes hysterical but I switch off from it in order to quiet the voices in my own head. Mum is staring at me; I can sense her eyes burying into the side of my face. My jaw clenches.
Nick half stands. ‘Thank you, Joanne. We’ll give Stu a moment to compose himself and we’ll return for his response in a few moments.’
The room falls silent and I turn to look at the young guy on Joanne’s left, the next lamb up for slaughter. I lean back and stare at the ceiling.
‘Emerald? Do you feel ready?’ I roll my head around to Nick’s chair, but it’s empty. He’s up, opening another window at the far end, near the door. I glare at him, like another doomed animal in the mouth of the hunter’s trap. I scan the door. He sits back into his seat. ‘Emerald?’
He’s said my name again. I’m so unprepared for this. There are too many questions I haven’t asked yet. Why is Dad not here? I can’t do this. Not with all these people. My fists ball so tightly my nails pierce my palms. I concentrate on the stinging pain. I notice the girl with the UGGs sitting next to me, picking roughly at a rash on her arms and suddenly I’m itchy too. Something is scratching at me from the inside, trying to get out.
‘Would you like to tell us what it was like for you, Emerald?’
I look around and spot Sunil, the guy with the crack addict girlfriend, clearing his throat opposite me.
‘Your mum has been preparing for this, so please, don’t be afraid,’ Nick says as Mum’s icy fingers slide across my jeans and grip my knee.
I’m suddenly livid that she’s put me in this position. I jerk my leg away and her tiny body recoils into the plastic chair. I swallow hard. ‘I don’t know,’ I say, barely recognising the sounds leaving my mouth.
‘What is it you don’t know?’
‘It’s just …’ I inhale. Closing my eyes to steady myself, it’s like I’m back on the island with Liam, wearing that too tight life-vest and feeling like I might, at any second, explode. ‘It’s been a long time …’ I can’t believe the voice I’m hearing is mine. My eyes meet Sunil’s and they dazzle me, somehow urging me on. ‘Since she’s been like my mum.’
Mum straightens, leaning forward in her seat. My heart is hammering against my ribs. All my thoughts are in flux, whirling up inside my head. The pressure is building; it’s almost unbearable. I tear at the life-vest, pulling it all the way off.
‘It’s all about her.’
My mouth is full of words, each of them ready to fire out of me now like bullets. ‘It’s not even the drunkenness. I hate it of course, but the distance is worse. She has no idea what’s going on for me, no idea what’s actually happening in my life.’
I can’t help but glance back at Nick, as much to check he’s still there, that I’m still here and that I’m really saying this stuff. He leans forward so that his arms are folded on his knees.
‘She goes to that place behind her wall and I wait, like her mother, worrying all the time. ALL the time! I’m always there – ready to clean up the damage. I miss having a mum, but that’s how it is. That’s how’s it’s been for years. But I’d like to know why –’ I stop and look to Nick again.
‘Why what, Emerald?’ he asks.
Mum slinks down into her chair beside me but I turn around, looking right at her for the first time. Her eyes are closed but I take in her whole face: the tiny twitches in the half-moons on either side of her mouth and how, as they adjust, they seem to unlock more pieces of the puzzle. I’m overcome with an urge to defy this awful memory. I hate how it hides inside me, lurking, waiting. I can’t keep it in any longer. I won’t.
‘Why she hit me.’ It comes out more forcefully than I’d planned and all the tired, leaden heads around the room rouse and turn to me.
I feel the first warm tear slide down my cheek. ‘It changed everything, that slap. I’ve blocked it out for so long, burying it along with other secrets I’ve had to keep, confusing it with lies I’ve told to bridge other gaps along the way, but I’m certain now that it all started that Christmas. It’s when everything between us became –’ I stop to catch my breath – ‘broken, I guess.’
Mum raises her hand. ‘Stop!’ she cries, but she’s looking away so I don’t know if it’s to me or to Nick. ‘I know,’ she says, louder this time. Her body slumps forward and she starts to sob gently. ‘I know why.’
‘Eliza, you’ll get your turn,’ says Nick. ‘Let Emerald speak.’
Mum begins fumbling in my lap and clasps my hand tightly in hers. I don’t know whether to pull it away or lash back at her. I wrangle out from her grip and look her right in the eye.
‘You slapped me across the face, as if I was a man. You told Dad that I deserved it. I heard you.’
Her lips quiver. ‘Em,’ she says. ‘You called me a drunk. You shouted it at me across Annie’s kitchen. You were the first ever to say it. It terrified me. You terrified me.’
I lift my face to meet hers and I find my own eyes stare back at me, that way they do when I need it least.
‘And you were right. Eleven years old, standing there with your ponytail swaying behind you. You were absolutely right.’ She kind of laughs this bit. She looks crazed but slowly tears start to stream down her face and she nods back at me.
Then she falls into my lap. Her body is heaving. I don’t know what to do. I sit there frozen as she cries uncontrollably. Mum takes another deep breath and slowly sits up, reaching over to hug me properly but I flinch from her slender arms; I can’t help it.
She swallows hard and sits back into the chair, clearing her throat. ‘I was drunk, Em, and I was angry. It wasn’t me. Of course it was, but it wasn’t really. I wasn’t angry with you,’ she sniffs. ‘It wasn’t ever you, but you were like a mirror I couldn’t face, and since then I’ve … I’ve been afraid of looking into it. Truth is, I’ve been afraid of you.’ She blows loudly into the tiny, scrunched-up tissue jammed into the palm of her hand. ‘I wanted you to slam that kitchen door in my face, but you didn’t. You just stood there, stunned. I mean, of course you were. What kind of mother –’ She stops.
I sit on my hands now and begin to rock forward gently with my legs crossed at my feet.
‘The look on Annie’s face as she ran into the kitchen behind you, that look as she dragged you away to safety. Away from me.’ Her body judders and she looks to her feet. ‘As soon as my hand touched you I collapsed on to that cold kitchen floor and started to grieve, for you, for me, for everything. I immediately wanted to take it all back but I knew I couldn’t. I knew it was ove
r,’ she says, closing her eyes and raising her trembling hand to her mouth. ‘So I just lay there, in front of the Aga, but above my shame, my grief and everything else in the world, d’you know what I wanted? What I really wanted?’ She’s addressing the whole room now. ‘Another drink. Another fucking drink!’
There’s another sharp inhale, and she breathes heavily out of her nose before filling up her lungs again. ‘After that day I knew I couldn’t lie any longer. I tried. I tried for years. I kept trying until six weeks ago, when I couldn’t go on.’ Her voice is low and guttural now. ‘I’m s–sorry,’ she says, turning around and addressing only me. Her face is a flood of pain and tears. ‘I am so sorry, Emerald, for everything.’
She says the last seven words more slowly than I’ve ever heard her speak and for a few seconds all I hear is my own breathing, like I’m submerged in a tank.
I feel her hand snake across my lap once more and I don’t pull away this time. I close my eyes and grip her hand in mine. I’m chilly suddenly. It takes the smallest second to realise it’s not cold I’m feeling, it’s something else new and strange. It’s like I’m lifting. Someone else starts to talk. It might be to Mum, but their words don’t reach me.
I just allow that apology, the one I’ve waited five and a half years to hear, to seep in and dissolve under my skin.
Mum folds a tissue into itself like some complex piece of origami. It’s getting smaller and smaller. I’m swinging my legs on the bench like a child, surveying the garden, peppered with people in uncomfortable clusters like us. My phone rings inside my bag. I look at Mum. ‘Dad.’
She gets up, presumably to allow me some privacy, but I kill the call. ‘Where is he today anyway?’ she asks, turning around.
In all the madness she never asked and I never explained. ‘In a meeting. That’s why I was late. Magda called when I was at the airport.’
Mum sighs and I watch her chest surge and then fall. She does that strange new laugh again just as my phone beeps with a text. I shade my eyes to read it.
Sorry about earlier. Hope it went OK. Coming to see you for celebrations on the 24th. I’ll make it up to you then. Will call later. LOL Dad.
I roll my eyes at more than his crap text-speak.
‘Everything OK there?’ she asks. I nod but it’s unconvincing, even to me.
‘Thought I’d see him today, that’s all. It’ll be another week and a half now. He’s bringing my results back to Dublin on the twenty-fourth.’
‘You’re not going to school to collect them, with Kitty?’
I shake my head.
Mum is watching me closely. It’s been a while since she’s looked at me like this. ‘Em, what you said in there was true. You were right about all of it. I don’t know what’s going on for you, and I haven’t, not for some time.’
I don’t even pretend this isn’t true. ‘Uh huh.’
‘You’ve always been so competent too. I guess I fooled myself into thinking I didn’t have to worry about you, but that was so wrong of me. Jesus, I was numb. It sounds corny, I know, but I’ve had a lot of help. I’m able to see stuff now that for so long I couldn’t. Or, at least, chose not to.’
It’s almost too much, but then it’s not. I don’t know if it’ll ever really be too much or too late. I look up into the strong afternoon sun and I feel that lightness again.
I sit back into the bench, watching the other people attempting conversations like ours. How do we change when something has been wrong for so long? Is it even possible for us to really change inside of that room, inside of a day, inside of a summer? When did I stop being me? When did she? When did we stop being the two trembling bodies on her dressing-room floor?
It doesn’t matter. Something enormous is happening; something that never could have happened before now.
‘D’you know,’ Mum says, ‘there’s this cheesy little picture of a Buddha at the end of my bed here. “When the pupil is ready the teacher will come”, it says. I’ve looked at it for weeks not understanding, but then I realised it’s taken sixteen years for me to notice you’ve been with me this whole time. If only I’d opened my eyes wide enough to see you, standing there all along.’ She squeezes my knee tightly. ‘I’m ready now, Em. I’m really ready.’
She’s so excited. For a moment I’m afraid she doesn’t understand, that she still doesn’t get it. ‘I need a teacher too, Mum. Can’t you see that?’
‘Exactly!’ she says, clamping her hands on my shoulders. ‘I’m not here just to learn from you. I’ve things to teach too, but first I need to learn about you. That’s what I really want now, Em.’
The Scottish guy, Stu, is sitting on the grass with his sister and a teenage boy who is playing the guitar. The boy looks over and I decide to leap. ‘I met somebody,’ I say.
‘But what about … ?’
She can’t even remember his name. ‘Rupert,’ I say and she nods. ‘That nothingness finished before it started.’
‘OK …’ She draws out the word. ‘So tell me then, what’s this new boy’s name?’ She settles in beside me on the bench, clearly encouraged by my new openness.
‘He finished with me too.’ It hurts to say it out loud. ‘At least I think he has,’ I add.
She places her hand on the back of my head, smoothing my hair. ‘Oh, Em … I’m sorry.’
I cross my stretched-out legs and sigh. ‘Liam, that was his name.’
‘What happened?’ She whispers it.
‘That’s what I don’t know. He stormed out of Grandma’s house on Wednesday morning and hasn’t returned my calls since.’
‘Did you have a row?’
‘No! Everything was great. It was perfect. A policeman said something to him. Actually, I don’t think he said a word, but a thing happened. I’m sure of it, but nobody will tell me.’
She leans in to me, forcing eye contact.
I pull away. ‘It’s fine, I don’t think he’s in any trouble. Otherwise … Oh nothing.’
‘Does Annie know him?’ She sounds serious.
‘She knows something. She’s been acting really strange about it. It’s one of the reasons I need to talk to –’
‘Your dad?’
I nod. ‘I can’t believe he didn’t come today, Mum.’ I stop and stare at an older woman over by the pond. She’s hugging a man the same age as Dad to her chest. I can tell from how his back vibrates in her arms that he’s really crying. God, this place is intense.
‘You’ll get your chance to talk. Don’t worry,’ Mum says, bringing me back around. ‘But did this Liam actually finish it?’
‘Well … no.’
‘How do you know it’s really over?’ she asks.
‘He just flipped out and left – it’s been radio silence since. I’ve called him every day. I don’t know what’s going on, Mum.’
Her face adjusts like she’s learned a new expression and I don’t know how to read it. She unfolds the tissue and smooths it out on her thigh. ‘Mmm …’ She sighs. ‘You really care about him?’ I bow my head, bobbing it gently. She nods hers too, like she understands. ‘And does he know how you feel?’
‘I thought he loved me too.’
‘Well …’ she says, ‘if I’ve discovered anything these past few weeks, it’s that you need to work at love.’ My head slumps against her shoulder and settles into the outer pool of her hood. ‘Sometimes it’s not easy, Em. In fact, sometimes it takes a little fight.’
LIAM
I’m not asking you, I’m telling you
I finally succumbed to Game of Thrones; Kenny dropped over the box sets and I’m losing myself in Season Three already. I’m trying to zone out and forget about life but Laura’s FaceTiming her friend and they’re both shrieking.
‘Can you do that in your room?’
‘What?’ she says, rolling her eyes at me for what must be the fifth time in twenty minutes.
Suddenly there’s another screech. At first I think it’s the TV, but then I look back to Laura and she’s already folded
over the couch, peering outside to where Da’s van is skidding to a halt inches from the living room window. He gets out and wallops the van door, trudging towards the house with a face like thunder. The hall door slams shut.
‘I gotta go,’ Laura says, flipping over the iPad cover. We look at each other and I’m wondering whether she knows something I don’t. My sister has a sense for these things. I hear Da’s feet thump up the hallway and then the door opens and he’s standing there before us.
He points to Laura. ‘You. Out!’
I automatically stand up. I’m trying to figure out what Laura might have done when I realise Da’s nose is practically touching mine.
‘What part of “never take that boat out again” wasn’t clear to you?’ he says. ‘Eh?’ Specks of his saliva hit my face. He pokes his finger into my shoulder, hard. Jesus Christ!
‘I’m sorry, Da.’
‘You’ve no idea how sorry you are, pal.’ I’ve never seen Da this mad. Well, I have, but it was a while ago. He hasn’t been mad like this in ages. ‘Would you like to be the one to tell your mam …’ he says, his voice beginning to crack, ‘why I’ve lost this job?’ This last bit struggles out.
I stare at his mouth. I want to push the awful words back in and then I want the carpet at my feet to hoover me up. He’s looking around now, anywhere but at me, rubbing his stubbly chin as though smoothing a beard that’s not there. ‘And,’ he starts again, ‘that her week on the Shannon, her only holiday in three years, is no longer happening. Would you like to tell her that?’ he asks.
I don’t know what to say or what to do. I just stand there before him, hopelessly shaking my head. ‘That prick!’ It trips out of my mouth.
‘At least I knew Gerry was a prick, Liam. I thought more of you,’ he says, pacing up and down in front of the TV. ‘I mean, what were you thinking? What in the name of Jaysus were you thinking, son?
‘I’m sorry, Da.’
‘So you keep saying.’
He’s stomping around the room now and fuming like an angry dragon. It’s like he’s getting more worked up the more he thinks about it. He fires a look at me, drilling more guilt into my heart. I can’t answer him. There is nothing to say. This is the worst ever.
No Filter Page 22