A Small Part of Me

by Noelle Harrison

  ‘I can’t wait to get on the plane,’ Cian said, pulling away. Suddenly he frowned. ‘But Mammy, we forgot Paddington! We can’t go without Paddington.’

  ‘We can’t go back now, pet, we’ll miss the plane.’

  His lip wobbled and his eyes screwed up. ‘But Paddington!’ he wailed.

  ‘I’ll get you a new teddy in the shop,’ she said hastily, taking the case up in one hand and dragging Cian along with the other. ‘I’m sure you’ll meet a new member of the family somewhere in the airport.’

  They checked in and then made their way over to some shops, but there were no teddy bears.

  ‘Let’s go through the gate over there, there’ll be more shops,’ Christina said. She was feeling jumpy. She wanted to get away from the main concourse.

  They went through security. On the other side was a row of fancy shops with lines of people walking up and down. After the isolation of Helen’s cottage, Christina felt exposed, as if she was thrust under a spotlight. There were so many people pushing into her, so much noise. Why couldn’t they give her some space?

  She looked up at the departures screen and brought her hand up to push her hair out of eyes. She could see it was shaking. ‘Okay,’ she said with mock bravado. ‘We’ve got plenty of time.’

  ‘I’m hungry,’ Cian said.

  There only seemed to be a swanky chocolate shop cum café, so they sat down there. Cian chose a hot chocolate and two large chocolate cookies. Not exactly what she had intended. Her coffee was a bad idea. The sharp, bitter taste of the strong drink made her feel even more tense.

  Her mobile rang and she jumped. She took it out of her bag.

  Declan.

  If she didn’t answer he might get suspicious, but if she did he might guess something was up anyway. She couldn’t risk him turning up at the cottage and discovering they weren’t there.

  ‘Christina, it’s Declan.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘What were you doing at Johnny’s school today?’

  She froze, her mind racing.

  ‘I…I wanted to see if he’d come to me for the weekend.’

  ‘But why did you have to go and do that right outside his school, in front of all his friends when he’s in the middle of exams? Have you no consideration for how it made him feel?’

  ‘I just wanted to see if he had forgiven me.’

  ‘Me, me, me. Why don’t you think of your children for a change?’

  ‘That’s not fair, Declan. You know that’s not true.’ She took a breath. It was no use arguing. ‘I can’t talk, Cian’s with me.’

  ‘Just leave Johnny alone. He doesn’t want to know at the moment. Besides, we’ve a match on Sunday.’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course,’ she said hazily.

  ‘That’s why I’m calling as well. I want to collect Cian on Sunday morning so I can bring him to the game, with me and Johnny.’

  ‘You can’t,’ she answered quickly.

  ‘Don’t give me that old one, that he doesn’t like Gaelic. It’s part of the family and it’s about time he got involved a bit,’ he said, misreading her reaction.

  ‘I’ve something planned on Sunday. He can’t go.’ She bent her head down and stared at the dregs of her coffee.

  ‘What?’ But before she could think of an answer, he added, ‘What’s all that noise? Where are you, Christina? It sounds like you’re in a train station or something.’

  ‘We’re just in that café in the Navan shopping centre.’

  Cian stopped eating and stared at her. She looked up and smiled at him.

  ‘Put Cian on to me, will you?’ Declan said. ‘I want to talk to him.’

  ‘I can’t, he’s eating. Look, my battery is about to go, I’ll ring you later.’

  ‘Okay,’ Declan said and hung up.

  He had guessed. He was ringing the Guards this very moment. She turned her phone off and slung it back into her bag. It was better to ignore him now, at this stage.

  ‘Mammy, who was that?’ Cian’s head was on one side, like a little bird.

  ‘It was Daddy.’

  ‘Why did you lie to him?’ His eyes were like two black beads.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Why did you say we were in the Navan shopping centre?’

  ‘Because this trip is a secret, sweetie, just between you and me.’

  ‘Like in Danny the Champion of the World? His daddy has a secret too, and only Danny knows.’ He smiled, a chocolate ring around his mouth.

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ she said, leaning over and wiping his face with a napkin.

  ‘I wonder what Daddy’s secret is. Because every grown-up has a secret.’ His eyes sparkled, and then he started whispering to himself. This was a habit of Cian’s. Sometimes Christina tried to hear what he was saying but she could only catch one or two words and strange sound effects, like whooshing noises and little squeaks. Once she asked him what he was talking about. He looked at her oddly, as if woken from a dream, surprised she was still there, and said, ‘It’s private.’

  They wandered around the shops. The coffee sat in the pit of her stomach like acid and her mouth tasted sour. She was so tired.

  ‘Oh, look, look,’ Cian said excitedly. ‘Can I have one of those?’ It was a small teddy bear with a T-shirt on that said ‘Aer Rianta’.

  ‘Okay, sure,’ Christina answered distractedly.

  ‘I’m going to call him Walter,’ Cian said.

  ‘Why Walter?’

  ‘Because it suits him,’ Cian said with conviction.

  At last she heard their flight being announced. As they walked down the tunnel into the plane, everything felt surreal. It was as if they were walking in slow motion, the silver walls twisting this way and that, the floor beneath them slippery and black, the thud, thud, thud of their feet in the silver foil tube which was pulling them along. They turned the corner and suddenly the plane was there. A hostess was standing at its entrance, welcoming them. Christina watched Cian as he skipped aboard the plane, charming the cabin crew.

  She would never give him up.

  GRETA

  I watch my body change. In the bath I look at the bloom of my stomach and my breasts, large and full. I always had a tiny little chest, but now I’m positively buxom! When I was pregnant with Christina I didn’t grow to such an extent. It’s odd how each time can be different.

  Tomás is fascinated by my new body. At night he touches my breasts gingerly, feeling his way around them. It doesn’t take him long to get excited. I thought that I might go off all of that now I’m pregnant again, because that’s what happened before. But this time it’s exactly the opposite, as if we have just got married all over again.

  Maybe it’s all that good food Angeline is cooking. Certainly things between us have been so much better since she came, and there was I, worried that she might get in the way – not in a bad way, just make us feel self-conscious. I was concerned Tomás might think the food was too foreign, but he loves it. He says it reminds him of the meals we ate in France when we were on honeymoon and Christina was conceived. At night, in bed, he tells me it’s the food of love.

  Angeline’s room is on the far side of the house and she goes up there every night to meditate. I can’t believe she does it every day – she’s like a nun! Once she’s gone upstairs, myself and Tomás start teasing each other. It’ll start with a silly game, like tickling or blowing in my ear while we’re watching the television, and then we start kissing and Tomás becomes all hot and bothered and he has to take me upstairs.

  Let me tell you a secret. I never really enjoyed sex until I got pregnant this time. Now I feel voluptuous. I wish I could be pregnant forever! Last night, for instance, Tomás spent ages just kissing my breasts and stroking my stomach – cradling the tiny, tiny bump with his big strong hands – and he makes love to me with such devotion. I close my eyes and let go. It’s wonderful being a wife. I feel so safe and protected and cherished.

  Afterwards we snuggle up to each other
and sleep like two little animals in the wild. I imagine us curled up in the sheets, two feral things.

  CHRISTINA

  As they took off, they held hands.

  ‘It’s like we’re in a rocket going to the moon,’ Cian said. ‘Look, look at the cars and the houses! Look, they’re tiny!’

  They were silent for a few minutes, watching civilisation disappear, rising up through the clouds. Christina’s thoughts scattered as she looked out the tiny window over her son’s head. The plane was above the clouds now and they were dazzled by brilliant sunshine.

  ‘Why are we going on holidays without Daddy and Johnny?’ Cian scratched his head and pressed his lips together. He looked very serious.

  ‘Well, we’re not actually going on holidays. We’re going to visit someone.’

  ‘Really?’ Cian looked surprised. ‘But who do we know who lives in America?’

  ‘Your granny.’

  He paused and fiddled with his seatbelt. ‘But Mammy, you’re wrong, both my grannies live in Ireland.’

  ‘This is a new granny, one you haven’t met before.’

  Cian knotted his brows together. ‘What do you mean? I already have two grannies, how can I have three?’

  ‘Sometimes you can.’ Cian looked up at her expectantly. Christina gripped the armrest and continued, ‘You have Granny McDonagh, and she’s Daddy’s mammy, and Granny Angel, who is married to Grandpa, but she’s not actually my mother. Granny Angel is my stepmother, so you see, I have another mammy.’

  Cian beamed up at her. ‘And that makes granny number three?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Cian scratched his head. ‘But why haven’t I met her?’

  ‘Because she lives in America.’ She could see Cian thinking. She wanted him to stop asking questions. She quickly picked up his book. ‘Shall I read to you, darling?’

  ‘No, I want to look out the window.’ He sat back into his seat, squeezing Walter in under his seatbelt.

  Christina stared straight ahead, breathed in and watched all the other people reading their books, putting on the headsets and settling in for the long haul. One of the cabin crew walked past, showering her with a bright smile. No one knew who she was, and by the time she met her mother, she could be someone else completely. She could reinvent herself.

  Cian was silent and still, looking out of the window, impressed by the magic of what he saw. Everything was new and edged with meaning. A field of clouds looked so pure, untainted – Cian said he was looking for angels – and so inside herself, something new began. She was emerging, into uncharted territory.

  GRETA

  Poor Angeline! It must be so awful to be alone.

  If anything happened to Tomás I don’t know what I’d do. In fact, just thinking it makes me shake with fear. I think I would have to throw myself on top of his grave like one of the ancient Romans. The only way I could stay alive was for Christina and the baby.

  Christina is a big girl now. She’s doing very well in school. Who does she look like? A little like Mammy, I think. She has curly hair as well.

  This morning she came downstairs very excited because it’s St Patrick’s Day. Angeline had dressed her completely in green clothes. She looked like a little pixie – she even had green tights on, I don’t know where Angeline found those! Then Angeline came into the kitchen and she looked just wonderful – like St Anne! She was wearing an exquisite green dress made of layers and layers of silk that flowed down to the ground. Her hair was loose and she had tied twirls of green ribbon throughout it. She had done the same to Christina’s hair, but being longer and jet black, Angeline’s looked even more dramatic. She even painted her fingernails green! And she was wearing big green discs on her ears and a huge clump of shamrocks pinned onto her left breast.

  Good Lord! Tomás exclaimed. You look like the Emerald Isle itself, Angeline!

  I was embarrassed by my husband’s forthrightness.

  You’re beautiful, I said.

  And look at the two of you, she teased, not a touch of green to be seen on either of you. She produced a mound of shamrocks and, shaping them into two little bundles, pinned one on each of us.

  There, she said, ready for the parade.

  Tomás ruffled Christina’s hair. I’ll see you ladies later, he said, going out into the back hall to put on his boots.

  When is the parade starting? Christina ran around the room, a flash of green.

  Not for a couple of hours, said Angeline, and taking out the weighing scales, she announced, Let’s do some baking!

  Christina jumped up and down.

  Can I join in too? I asked. I’d love you to teach me some things.

  Angeline hesitated then. I don’t know why, maybe she thinks that I’m such a bad cook I’m consigned to be a hopeless case.

  Of course, she answered a little stiffly.

  I may as well have not bothered because I couldn’t retain any of her instructions as it was. She said that she was going to make a special Patrick’s Day cake and the recipe was extremely complicated. I was ordered to cream the butter and sugar for what seemed an eternity. My arm was heavy and sore by the time she accepted the mixture. The cake was a strange concoction. There were many different kinds of chocolate and toffees and cream all mixed up together.

  When it was ready, after Angeline had covered it in a special peppermint icing with Christina helping, and in keeping with the green theme, of course, we went to the parade. It was very cold. The wind whipped right through us and I was ready for a hot port in O’Hagans after it was all over.

  It seemed to go on forever, brass bands followed by trucks with loudspeakers and children dressed in green leaning out of trailers and waving. It was the usual St Patrick’s Day hilarity all around, especially when Joe Mackey’s black pig broke free and ran squealing around the square. At least that made us move a little and warm ourselves up.

  By the time we got to O’Hagans, Christina’s hands were freezing and I made her stand by the fire. Tomás was inside already with Liam Flanagan and Sam White. He looked very rosy there, up at the bar with his pint and his pals. Angeline and I bought two hot ports and cosied down together by the fire. The place was packed and it was hard to hear each other.

  Jack used to love Paddy’s Day, Angeline said. He used to always buy a piece of green ribbon with a cut-out gold harp stuck on it and pin it to his jacket and wear it all day long. He’d just be waiting for all the Brits to ask, what’s that then? He was never ashamed to be Irish, even after that dreadful bomb in Guildford went off.

  You must miss him a lot, I said.

  She sat quietly for a couple of seconds, and then to my utter amazement said, No. I’m glad he left me.

  I was stunned. I didn’t know what to say or do, and luckily she began to talk again because I was speechless. I just couldn’t think of a word to say in reply.

  That must sound strange, she half-smiled, then looked into the fire and, pulling Christina back from the sparks, she continued. But we were never compatible. We fought terribly, and he used to hit me, more than once, quite a lot. Jack was a very jealous man. If I so much as looked at someone else he would be accusing me of dreadful things. It was a terrible strain. In our last job he was convinced that I was having an affair with our employer. It was very upsetting. And then when we found we couldn’t have children, he blamed me. He said that I must have done something awful in the past, he said I must have ruined myself.

  That’s dreadful, Angeline.

  I should have left him, but I kept on hoping for a child. I couldn’t face the truth. She turned to me, her black eyes fierce.

  You wouldn’t have recognised me then, Greta. It was before all of this. She passed her hand over her dress. Before I became conscious.

  It’s hard to understand Angeline when she starts to talk like this. It’s to do with the incense and meditation, this ‘consciousness’. From what I can gather it’s not that different from our faith, not in the greater scheme of things.

&nbs
p; She sighed, sipping her hot port. The funny thing is that it was Jack who was conducting the affair all along. He ran away with the gardener’s daughter in our last position.

  That’s appalling.

  He got what he wanted. They already have two children. Poor as church mice, but breeding.

  She cradled her steaming glass in her hands.

  I just hope he isn’t hitting her too.

  I looked at her then, surprised, but there was no touch of irony in her tone. She did mean it. She was able to wish this woman, who stole her husband, absolutely no ill will.

  Aren’t you angry with him? Don’t you hate her? I prodded.

  Of course I was angry, and hurt, but then I went to live in London and everything changed. I came into contact with Buddhism and it made me understand why this had happened to me, that myself and Jack had been karmically tied.

  What does that mean?

  It means that I had created that situation and I had to live through it.

  But how could your husband having an affair be your fault?

  No, I didn’t mean it was my fault, but that I could learn from what had happened. I couldn’t blame anyone – not his new wife, not even Jack.

  I rocked back on my stool, chewing my fingernail. I couldn’t be like that, I said with certainty. I’d want revenge.

  Believe me, you wouldn’t, because the only person you would destroy would be yourself.

  I nodded, not knowing what to say, so I took her hand. She had a big ring on her middle finger, a bright green stone stuck in its centre. I stared at the ring and its different states of green.

  It’s been hard for you, Angeline. I hope you’re happier now, with us.

  Oh, I am. She squeezed my fingers. You saved my life!

  We went home soon afterwards, just us girls, and ate a feast. Angeline made a delicious Italian soup with little pieces of pasta shaped like bows, or as Christina insists, butterflies, and chunks of clove-flavoured ham and fresh peas, tomatoes and basil leaves. Afterwards we had huge slices of her St Patrick’s Day cake – an oozing, fudgy, chocolate concoction served with a bowl of whipped cream. The rich, deep chocolate was offset perfectly by the peppermint icing. It was so filling we could only manage one slice each. But when Tomás came in, and very merry he was from O’Hagans, he ate the rest up. The whole thing, just like that!