by Laura Elliot
“The mind can get used to anything.” Lorraine took a sip from the glass and laid it back on the counter. The cloying sincerity in Andrea’s voice was as irritating as her comments.
“No, I mean it sincerely. You’ve been through a wretched time. It’s inspiring to see you coming out the other side. This portrait will attract a lot of attention. Expect commissions from my friends.” She held the glass carefully by the stem and studied the bubbles. “I was talking about you to someone the other night. Your ears must have been burning.”
“Not that I noticed.”
“It was at the opening of the Spiral Staircase Art Gallery. You remember I mentioned it a while ago? Such a wonderful night. Everyone but everyone came. Check out this month’s Prestige. The photographs are in the centrefold.”
For an instant Lorraine was too shocked to reply. How the wineglasses must have clinked as invited guests gathered in Blaide House to celebrate the opening. She leaned her elbow on the counter. The chill of the marble surface sent an involuntary shudder along her arm. “I’m afraid there’s not much of a demand for Prestige in Trabawn.”
“No, I shouldn’t imagine so.” Andrea released a trill of laughter. Her eyelids closed over her slightly protruding eyes and Lorraine was reminded of a bird of prey that waits for the exact moment to strike.
The tapping shoe quickened its beat. “Do you know Mara Robertson?”
“We were in college together.”
“She’s running the gallery. I hope I’m not upsetting you, Lorraine?”
“Of course not. Time has moved on, Andrea. My studio was on prime city space. It’s the perfect location for an art gallery.”
“I admire your spirit. I really do. So courageous. Mara’s hoping you’ll do your next exhibition with her. Rather an insensitive aspiration, under the circumstances.” Her accent was contrived, too many drawled vowels, each word carefully pitched to provide maximum hurt. “Bill invested in another painting. Cost him well over the odds. It’s staggering the prices you artists demand. I’ll show it to you before you leave. I’d like your opinion on its market value.”
“I have the utmost trust in Bill’s investments.” Lorraine eased off the stool. “I’m sorry to rush off but I’m already late for an appointment.”
“Oh, dear.” Andrea’s fingers fluttered to her lips. “This has upset you. I can see it in your eyes. No, no, don’t bother denying it. Bill says I’m far too sensitive for my own good. I pick up other people’s vibrations so easily.”
“Andrea, I never impose my personal life on my professional relationships and I expect you to extend the same courtesy to me.” She stared coldly at the other woman until Andrea was forced to look away. “If you’ll excuse me, I’d like to leave without engaging any further in this inappropriate conversation.”
High gates opened at the end of the avenue. Distracted by her anger she drove too fast onto the road. A car exiting from an opposite driveway stopped with a screech of brakes and the driver, shocked by her sudden appearance, was jolted forward. She signalled an apology and smiled through the window at him. He reversed back and allowed her to drive ahead.
A van, parked illegally and too close to the T-junction leading onto the main road, blocked her right hand vision. She advanced cautiously, unable to see if the road was clear of approaching traffic. As she drove forward, nosing past the rear of the van, a car came into view, travelling too fast, the headlights flashing warningly, forcing her to slam on her brakes. Within a few seconds the car coming from behind thudded against her bumper. She saw the driver raise his hand to his forehead. He sat in that position for an instant, his hand obscuring his face, then opened his door and walked towards her.
Together, they surveyed their cars. There appeared to be little damage to her own, apart from a dent on her bumper and some scratches.
“We seem destined to almost do serious damage to each other’s cars.” She spoke jokingly but his lips tightened, as if he resented her attempts to lighten the situation. He walked around her car, examining it from all angles, then leaned his hands upon the bonnet, breathing deeply, still obviously shocked by the collision.
“Twice in five minutes would certainly suggest we were destined to meet.” His voice was low, as if addressing the words to himself. “But it could have been worse. We could have knocked someone down.”
“Thankfully, we didn’t. There’s hardly any damage done. If you’re happy to leave things as they are, then we needn’t bring it any further.”
He held her arm as she attempted to open her door. “Don’t go yet. We’ve both had a shock.” He gestured towards a hotel across the road. “At least allow me to buy you a coffee before you begin your journey?”
Black hair hung low over his forehead and on his neck. His strong dark eyes observed her, an unnervingly intimate stare. His face would make an interesting study, she thought, and was conscious of a slight, almost-forgotten response, an awareness of a man’s attention and the challenge it excited within her. Once more she attempted to open the car door, aware that there was strength in his grip on her arm. “I’m afraid I haven’t time. But thank you for the offer.”
He released her arm but still stood in front of her. “You’re Lorraine Cheevers?” His voice lilted over her name, as if it was a cherished sound. “I recognise you from Artistically Speaking.”
“I never watched that programme.” Tears rushed to her eyes. Horrified by her reaction she sucked in her breath and released it slowly.
“Meeting you today is such a coincidence.” He spoke hurriedly, a slight frown furrowing his forehead. “I’ve tried to make contact with you for months but you seemed to disappear into thin air. I called to your studio a while back. The person I spoke to refused give me your address.”
“Those were my instructions. What did you want to discuss with me?”
“My son … I was thinking of a portrait.”
“My studio is now in Kerry.”
“Can I call and see you?”
She wrote down her address and telephone number on a piece of paper. “I only recently returned to work so I haven’t an up-to-date business card.”
“Trabawn.” He stared at the address. “I spent a holiday there when I was a child.”
“So did I, many holidays.” She smiled, feeling a sense of kinship with him. “I only remember sunshine summers. But it’s changed quite a bit since those days. You probably wouldn’t recognise it.”
“I’ll have to check it out.” His handshake was firm. “I’ll be in touch with you soon.”
“I’ll look forward to hearing from you.”
She watched him walk towards his car. He was not as tall as Adrian, or as handsome, but he carried himself well, a confident stride, easy movements. He lifted his hand in salute and watched her drive away. Only afterwards, as she was driving through the city, did she realise that he had forgotten to tell her his name.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Killian
Sometimes, there is a glimmer in the dark. A chink. Memories roll across the waves. Coil like fish seeking escape. Flash like lightning in a stormy sky. Voices call. He holds the sound in his fist, hugs it to his chest. Reaches into the dark and listens … listens …
He looks strong today, Missus. Have a cup of tea. A biscuit, take two. You’re skin and bone, God give you strength. How do you keep doing it? He knows what I’m saying, don’t you, Loveadove? You mark my words, Missus. He’ll be drinking tea with the best of them before you know it.
Come back to me, my darling boy. Dreams are good but you can’t live in them forever. We’re all here, Terence and Laura, and Duncan’s come too.
Always here! Always here! Smelly ward. Wanna go home.
Hush at once! Killian can hear you.
Can’t! Can’t! Retard. Wanna go home!
Knock Knock. Who’s there? Tinker Bell. Tinker Bell who? Tinker bell is out of action. Ha ha ha.
I’ve got a belly stud, Killian. Look. Mum did her nut when she saw it, di
dn’t you mum? I can play your guitar now. I listened to REM the other day and heard you singing clear as a bell in my head. Everybody hurts … hold on hold on …
Your temperature is good, little soldier. Normal. My daughter ring from Manila. She pass her exams for university. I am very proud of her. Let me fix your pillows. Your father – he is late tonight. He is lost like you. How sad to see such unhappiness when family are near and can hold each other.
Bridesmaids! Jealous whores, more like. They won’t turn up for fittings and they keep making remarks about my dress. It’s not a meringue, it’s not! Blood pressure’s stable. Good lad. Wish mine was. They refuse to wear pink shoes. Say they look tacky. I ask your holy pardon! Whose wedding is it anyway?
Wake up, mate. How long does a trip last? Sorry I fucked up. Left you on the pier. How crazy were we? Wired to the fucking moon. What were we fighting over anyway? Some shit piece of junk jewellery.
Lay thee down now and rest: May thy slumber be blest. Lay thee down now and rest: May thy slumber be blest … Granny is here, Killian. Look, I’m shaking the glass snowball. See the flakes dancing. Stop fretting We’re with you every step of the way … Lay thee down now and rest: May thy slumber be blest. Lay thee down now and rest: May thy slumber be blest.
I’m late tonight, Killian. Give me a chance to catch my breath and I’ll tell you everything. I found her … found her … found her. I thought she was an apparition, my fury summoning her from the ether. It was too easy, you see. All that searching, scanning cars, the faces of drivers, wondering if she was among them, watching her on video, she had taken over my mind – and there she was in the flesh, driving impetuously and much too fast from Sheraton’s driveway. I thought I’d lost her when she accelerated away but she had to stop at the end of the road, you know how dangerous that junction can be, and before she could escape again I forced my attention on her. A light bump, skilfully executed.
She was puzzled rather than angry as she surveyed the damage. Not that there was much to see, at least outwardly, but all I saw was the dent of your body beneath a sheen of polished silver. I wanted to strike her, watch her fall helplessly at my feet. Instead, I offered her coffee. There was a hesitancy in her smile – how well I know it now, how familiar her gestures seem. She refused and drove away.
What would we have discussed if we had sat opposite each other sharing a pot of coffee? A portrait of my son? How could I have uttered such foolish words? I spoke without thinking yet in that instant I wanted her to know you, to stroke you to life with her brush, capture your innocence, the hopes you once cherished.
She lives a long ways down the road, Killian, hours away. I’ll have to make time, leave you for a while. She talked about childhood holidays and sounded nostalgic for sunshine summers. But she too suffers from selective memory. Of course it rained. Just as it rains tonight, splashing silverfish off your window pane.
I was nine years old when I went to Trabawn with Harriet. We stayed in a guesthouse that smelled of gravy and toilet cleaner. Under the shelter of rocks on a windswept beach we shared sandy cheese sandwiches. Waves swept me off my feet. My mother had died in the spring. Harriet cried and pretended it was rain on her face. There were children in raincoats, jumping from high sand dunes. Was she among them, I wonder. A young freckle-faced girl running through the summer, engraving memories on her soul that would last forever?
PART TWO
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Trabawn
1969–1980
Trabawn never changes. That’s the most wonderful thing about it. Lorraine is convinced the population of farmers and fishermen falls into a magic slumber when the Cheevers leave at the end of their summer holidays and only awaken again on their return the following year.
Soon Market Street is left behind and the countryside spreads greenly before her. Uncle Des pulls out into the centre of the road and passes them, loudly honking his horn. From the back window Virginia and Edward shake their fists triumphantly. The two cars race each other to see who will reach the caravans first. Old Red Eye, the one-eyed dog, is crouched, waiting in the lane.
“Barking mad as usual, daft mutt!” Lorraine’s father laughs loudly as the dog ducks and dives beneath the whirring wheels. He enjoys this annual contest of wits which he wins every time – for who, he shouts, slapping his leg for emphasis, but a suicidal mongrel will argue with a blue Toyota Corolla?
Celia, the owner of the caravans, waits at her gate to welcome them. She wears hobnailed boots and a long red skirt. Her hair is tied in a hairnet which sparkles with coloured beads. Two donkeys graze in her garden. A cat with yellow slanting eyes watches them from the gate post. The Strong family from Galway have already arrived. Mrs Strong is shaking mats at the door of her caravan and shouting at her husband to fetch water from the pump. Adrian Strong runs down the caravan steps to greet them. He is an only child and too spoiled for his own good, claims Aunt Josephine.
“Spare the rod and spoil the brat,” she says every time he comes to the beach with his surfboard and fancy snorkelling equipment. Lorraine’s mother says he will break hearts when he grows up. Uncle Des calls him “a nancy boy” and Lorraine’s father always has him on his team when they play beach volleyball. Soon Adrian and Edward are lost in the heart of the sand dunes. They shout and fling fistfuls of bubbling seaweed at those who dare to follow, especially small girls.
The abandoned car at the end of the field is a little more rusted than the previous year but the door opens with a shriek and the steering-wheel still turns. The tree with a branch like a sofa that serves as a swing is still standing but each year the hidey-hole hedge has a little less space in which to hide. The girls rush to Celia’s garden to greet the donkeys. She calls her donkeys The Philosophers and allows the girls to ride them bareback up and down the lane. The one with the darker coat is called Aristotle. Plato is skinnier and has a white mark on his ear. Celia’s gingerbread is fresh from the oven, cooling on a wire rack, and there is fresh milk in a bucket behind her kitchen door. In the evenings she tells them stories about banshees and fairy forts and how the rat-a-tat-tat on their caravan roofs is not from crows pecking, as the adults believe, but is actually the step of tiny dancing fairy feet. In bed at night, Virginia whispers that Celia is actually a witch with warts on her left breast. Lorraine cannot imagine the old woman in a witch’s hat riding high on a broomstick but she pretends to believe her cousin, because Virginia, being a year older and from London, knows everything.
London is much better than Trabawn, says Virginia. It has trains that run under the ground, Spangle sweets, fireworks in November, pop stars with fur coats and a queen with a crown. Once, when Virginia curtsied and handed Queen Elizabeth a bouquet of golden roses, the queen shook her hand and said, “Thank you, my most loyal subject. I will treasure these flowers forever.”
“Liar, liar! Dirty knickers on fire,” chants Edward when Virginia tells this story, which she does many times. Lorraine is not sure what to think. She is an only child, fanciful and shy, but for the next two weeks she has a make-believe sister and her world is perfect. How she envies Virginia’s self-confidence which comes, Lorraine is convinced, from being English. But she never says this aloud because when Virginia’s father drinks too much he shouts, “Up the IRA,” and sings “A Nation Once Again” with tears running down his cheeks.
Virginia swings upside down from the branches of the highest trees. On the beach she is the fastest runner. Faster even than Adrian Strong. When everyone else obeys the Golden Rule and swims parallel to shore she heads like a shark towards the rock where the cormorants perch. Once she pretends to drown, flailing her arms and shrieking “Help! Help!” until Adrian dives in fully clothed to rescue her. Her father slaps her afterwards. Hard, stinging slaps across her legs. But she doesn’t cry, not once, just as she never apologises for the rows and the tantrums that come without warning and swallow Lorraine like a giant rumbling wave.
At the end of the lane there is a farmhouse with a byre where
Frank Donaldson milks his cows. He tilts the cows’ udders and squirts milk towards the girls, laughing loudly when they scream and dash for cover. Celia warns them not to fall in love with Frank who has turned twenty-two on his last birthday and has a townie girlfriend called Noeleen. Virginia says she would prefer to be a buried alive in quicksand than settle on a smelly manure farm. Lorraine imagines marrying a farmer like Frank, only with Adrian’s face, and wearing her jeans tucked into wellingtons as she herds cattle down the lane. At night they signal messages with their torches towards Adrian’s caravan window and he answers – dots and dashes, short flashes, long flashes, see you tomorrow, girls.
In the evenings the adults gather around the campfire to sing the same songs they sing every year. They grow noisy and drink from long glasses then order the children to perform their party pieces. They won’t take no for an answer, even when Edward hides his head in his knees and curses softly, chanting each word like a slow litany. When Adrian plays guitar and sings “Puppy Love” he sounds far better than Donnie Osmond.
“Young ladies! Don’t hide your lights under a bushel. Virginia! Lorraine! On your feet immediately.” Aunt Josephine encourages them forward. They sing and dance, swaying together while the moths spin crazily above the campfire flames and the vampire bats with blood in their eyes flit between the trees.
“Time for sleep, young ladies. Tomorrow is another day,” Aunt Josephine shouts when she hears them giggling. On alternate nights, the girls sleep in each other’s caravans. Lorraine lies under Virginia’s bunk and thinks about tomorrow, imagines it waiting outside in the darkness, a closed flower preparing to open yellow petals and release the sun. She knows exactly what the next day will bring: games of hide-and-seek, treasure hunts, picnic dinners on the caravan steps, the shivery ache of sunburn, the soothing touch of calamine lotion on hot skin.