She looks away and closes her eyes. ‘He woke on the way to the hospital. He didn’t even cry. They kept him in overnight, just in case. I know he was okay in the end, but it was so close. He could have died.’
She opens her eyes again and blinks in the bright Pacific light. ‘That was the end of everything. Declan wanted me out, nowhere near the kids, and how could I blame him really? Cian, bless him, never talks about it. Sometimes I think he’s forgotten about the whole thing. But I can never forget. I’ll never forgive myself.’
‘It’s not so terrible,’ Luke says gently. ‘It was an accident, Christina.’
‘But worse things happened,’ she shouts suddenly, angry with Luke for being kind. Couldn’t he see how bad she was? ‘When we got home from the hospital and I saw Johnny, his teeth clenched, the hate spitting out of him, I just wanted out. I couldn’t bear it, the pain of living. Each breath tore me. Johnny looked at me in a way…I don’t know, it was a way that would make the toughest soul crumble. He despised me. I made a choice, and it took only a moment, to fill the glass with water and take all my anti-depressants, all of my medication.’ She sighs. ‘I had gone past any maternal instinct. Luke, can you understand this, how bad I was feeling?’
‘I can see it,’ he replies, his grip warm and strong.
‘My stepmother, Angeline, found me. If it hadn’t been for her I would have died.’ Her face is wet and glistening, the tears dripping off her chin. ‘And Johnny…Jesus, Johnny saw me. He came with Angeline into my room. He saw me lying there, he thought I was dead. No one else knew about it – not Declan, not my father. They both thought I was just drunk and mad, taking too much stuff by mistake. I’ve only told my stepmother what my intention was, and then she betrayed me.’
‘How?’ asks Luke.
‘It was her who swung the judge. She told him she believed I was a danger to my own children. I still can’t believe she did that.’
There’s no more she can say. She attempts to smother her sobs, but Luke leans over and places his hand on her back. He strokes her all the way down her spine from the nape of her neck to the tip of her backside. She opens her mouth and lets out a belt, like a howl from one of those lost wolves.
MAMMY
When Angeline brings her supper, she knows that something’s wrong. She’s allowed to eat it in her room, and she’s allowed to eat two big pieces of chocolate cake.
She remembers then. Are Mammy and Daddy back?
No, not yet. Angeline looks away. Let’s play a game, she says. Do you want to play snap?
So they go downstairs and play cards in the sitting room, and Angeline lets her win every game.
Time for bed, Angeline announces.
Christina looks out the window. It’s nearly dark. The storm had cleared suddenly, and now the last rays from the sun shine weakly. Everything is still wet. Christina goes upstairs and changes into her pyjamas. She slips back downstairs again before Angeline comes up to her and goes into the sitting room.
Christina stands in the shadows and looks out the patio doors. It’s just before night. Her mammy called it twilight and told her this was when the fairies came out. Christina stares hard, looking for fairies. She looks to where they might be – the small pond on the front lawn with the water lilies or the rockery stuffed with bright flowers. She can’t see anything. And as she’s standing there, she decides she doesn’t want to go to bed, not until her mammy comes home.
These are the moments Christina had long since buried – looking at the shadows growing longer across the lawn, waiting and watching. She can still hear the clock on the mantelpiece ticking away; each second is a dead weight. It’s like she can hear something growing, a stone in the pit of her stomach. She stands by the window until she sees car lights and her heart surges, only to drop when she sees just Daddy get out.
Her father comes in and she notices his cheeks are bright red. He huffs and puffs in the doorway.
Where’s Mammy? she asks.
She had to go somewhere, he says awkwardly. She’ll be back soon. Come on to bed, Christina. It’s late.
No, I’m waiting for Mammy.
Daddy walks towards her, but Angeline stops him. Leave her be, she whispers.
Angeline brings her a blanket and a mug of cocoa. She sits next to her and waits too. Christina doesn’t want to sit. She stands erect, to attention, her terror making her rigid. How can she live if her mammy doesn’t come home?
Finally her legs buckle and Angeline catches her. She begins to cry.
Christina remembers the smell of Angeline as she holds her, the smell of lemons and garlic.
It’s okay, she whispers, carrying her upstairs and tucking her into bed. I’ll be your mammy for now.
GRETA
She was doing exactly what Henry had always told her never to do. She was going back out there. It was against all his rules, but she couldn’t leave him. It was instinctive, her need to paddle towards him. She couldn’t part with Henry, not now.
Greta takes a sharp intake of breath and spins her kayak back out through the opening of the passage, into the open water. It isn’t as hard going out as coming in had been because the powerful tide is pulling her forward, like a giant’s hand underneath her kayak, keeping her afloat, dragging her along. She tries to ignore the flashes of lightning to her right, illuminating patches of black water. It seems as if she’s sailing into the waters of hell, somewhere so deathly and dangerous that nothing else matters now, just survival.
Henry’s upturned kayak is just in front of her. She squints through the rain, and sees with relief his hand, almost blue with the cold, but clinging onto the outside of his boat.
‘Henry!’ She rounds his kayak, her own being practically lifted out of the water with the swell.
He’s shocked to see her. His face is grey with the cold and she knows she has to get him out of the water.
‘Here, take my hand!’ she yells above the sound of the wind.
Maybe she can pull him up onto her kayak, then somehow get his righted? It seems an impossible mission.
He’s shaking his head, but he reaches to her all the same, and she feels the tips of his icy fingers as they brush hers and then fall away again.
‘Try again,’ she urges.
This time she grips him, but as she smiles at him, trying to communicate that everything is going to be okay, he looks past her, his eyes opening wide in horror, and immediately he tries to pull away from her. She holds on tight and glances behind her. What she sees freezes her heart. It’s a furious current of water, leaping and chopping, beginning to rock them.
Henry looks into her eyes. She can see the eternity of their love, she can see his blue lips mouthing, Let me go, but she’s no longer afraid and she holds on tight. The water cups her and then spills her forth, and still holding Henry’s hand they both go down.
The storm passes as quickly as it came. The sea calms down and the wind drops, gently ruffling the water’s contours and picking up tiny white waves. This place is like a drop of heaven. The only sign of humans are two upturned kayaks nose to nose. And from above it makes a pattern – a yellow starflower spinning on a bright blue lawn.
LUKE
Luke cruises down the street past the large log house gallery, and taking a right, he pulls in on a hill. The ocean is visible and the edge of Meares Island, across the bay. The town is busy, tourists ambling along the sidewalks, locals chatting outside the co-op.
Luke looks over at Christina. She’s still pale and subdued from her confession, but there’s a change about her. He can see the start of something.
‘Would you like me to take you there, in the truck?’ he asks.
She turns to him gratefully. ‘Would you mind? It would be good to have an escape route, just in case.’
The road clings close to the coast. He stops to ask for directions and they head off again, eventually arriving at a group of three houses in a row, low down by the water, each one with a stretch of green lawn before it.
‘Do you want to go down on your own?’ he asks.
‘I think so,’ she says. ‘Cian, you wait here, darling, I won’t be a minute.’
Luke watches her walk over to the mailboxes, read them, then continue down to the middle house. A large golden retriever comes out from behind the last house and starts barking at her, but it looks friendly.
Her long blue legs slowly move towards the door. He watches her shake her head so that her hair falls down, escaping from her earlier attempt at an arrangement. He watches her knock. No one comes to the door. It’s obvious that the place is still empty. Luke has the feeling that they haven’t returned yet. Christina knocks again, then he sees her walking around the side of the house and peering into the window. The dog continues to bark and comes bounding over, and a woman comes out of the third house and follows the dog towards Christina. She’s wearing an apron and Luke can see her dusting flour off her hands.
Luke watches the two women talk. He can’t see Christina’s face, but she looks like she’s standing to attention, like a soldier. Suddenly, he sees her running towards him. Her face is green, her eyes black. She pulls the door of the truck open and climbs in, and before he can ask her anything, she says, panting, ‘Drive…just drive, please.’
He hesitates.
‘Just get me the hell out of here!’ she screams.
He jolts, turns the ignition on, puts the foot down and accelerates down the road, spraying gravel behind him. He can feel Cian move closer to him, sense his fear.
CHRISTINA
She feels the stones of dread – in her throat, making it hard to breathe, on her head so that she feels a dead weight above her, in the pit of her belly so that she feels sick and her feet, heavy, her limbs dragging. There’s the stone in her heart, banging against her beat, knocking her, making her shake.
She reads the mailboxes – Greta and Henry Kittle – and below it she reads Sacred Stone Spa. The irony isn’t lost on her. She sees a small business card stuck on the mailbox and reads it – Sacred Stone Spa offers a range of body therapies and healing services to restore the balance between the mind, body and spirit. So her mother had become a healer.
Christina tells herself she shouldn’t be afraid. If her mother does this sort of thing, surely she’s gentle, surely she’ll be kind? What worries Christina is that she doesn’t know what to say. She hasn’t planned any speeches because she just doesn’t know how to put it. She’s terrified that at the moment her mother opens the door, she’ll be struck dumb. Will she know who she is? Will she recognise her without Christina having to say anything?
Now she’s on the porch. She knocks, hesitantly at first, then when no one comes, more firmly. A dog is barking at her, but she ignores it and begins to creep around the side of the house. She can see a room. It must be her mother’s therapy room. It looks nice, all wooden, with a long massage table and lots of candles and crystals on shelves. God, her mother had become a hippy! She walks a little way along the decking, noticing lots of little things, like smooth, flat, round shells and small tubs of herbs and plants. A hammock swings in the breeze, and as she peeks around the back of the house she can see a clean green lawn running all the way down to the blue ocean.
‘Hi.’
Christina jumps and turns. The dog is leaping up at her and a small dark-haired woman with a round face and in an apron is staring at her. This isn’t her mother.
‘Are you okay?’ she asks, peering at her.
‘I’m looking for Greta Kittle,’ Christina says.
The woman shakes her head. ‘Oh dear,’ she says. ‘Oh dear, I really did think that I’d called all of her clients. Did you have an appointment with her today?’
Christina nods.
‘Oh dear, oh dear…’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘They’re missing.’
‘Missing?’
‘Herself and her hubby, Henry. They were kayaking around the Sound, and apparently, Lord help them,’ she does the sign of the cross, ‘they got caught up in a freak storm.’
‘A storm?’ Christina repeats.
‘No one’s seen them and then their kayaks were found, so we have to presume…you know…’ The woman continues, shaking her head. ‘I’m still in shock. I can’t believe it. I was just talking to Greta the day before she went and then Henry left Lofty round.’ She indicates the dog. ‘It’s just crazy.’
The walls are closing in. All she can see is this woman’s face, the lips moving, the words flowing like hot lava down her back.
‘No, it’s not true,’ she pleads.
‘I know, it’s just not right, is it?’ the woman continues. ‘Had you been coming to Greta for a long time?’
Christina pauses. Should she tell her the truth?
‘No, this was the first time.’
‘Ah,’ the woman nods. ‘That’s a shame, she was a wonderful person. You missed out there,’ she says tearfully. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says.
Christina runs down the white tunnel. All life around her is dead, blanked out. Blindly she gets back in the truck. She can feel herself falling apart, coming away from her core, but not here, not here on her mother’s pretty front lawn, among the gladiola bursting from their beds, with the sound of the birds chattering all around her.
LUKE
Something terrible has happened, he knows that. Luke drives back into town, glancing across at Christina. She’s shaking so much she looks like she’s going to have a convulsion. Cian is staring over at her. ‘Mammy! What’s wrong? Mammy!’
‘Stop!’ she orders suddenly, her voice raw and hard.
He pulls in off the road, the brakes squealing. She jumps out and runs over to a tree, where she bends down and vomits. He attempts to distract Cian, who’s fidgeting nervously beside him.
As she gets back in, he leans across, touching her hand, and says softly, ‘What happened?’
‘Please, do you have any water?’ she asks stiffly.
‘Sure.’ He hands her the bottle and she drinks half of it, wiping her mouth and pulling her cardigan around her shoulders as she pushes herself back against the seat. He waits for her to speak. She stares out of the windscreen, and says, flatly, ‘She’s dead.’
‘Dead?’ Luke repeats.
‘Who’s dead?’ Cian asks.
‘My mother, darling.’
‘Angeline?’ Cian asks.
‘No, my real mother. She died yesterday. For fuck’s sake, only yesterday…’ Her voice peters out.
‘So we don’t get to meet her?’
‘No.’
‘Who was that woman you were talking to?’ Luke asks.
‘She was a neighbour. She told me.’
‘Did you tell her who you were?’
‘No!’ Christina wails. ‘How could I? What’s the point any more?’ She slams her hand down on the dashboard.
‘Mammy, when are we going home?’ Cian asks nervously. ‘I want to see Daddy.’
She’s unable to answer, just utters one desperate grunt, and then, closing her eyes, she brings her fists up to them. She looks as if she wishes to burrow them out.
‘Okay,’ Luke says, trying to think quickly, ‘let’s find somewhere we can rest and talk, okay?’
She nods, so he starts up the truck again and drives back into town, pulling into the first motel he sees.
They book a room up on the second floor. The building is bright blue, with pristine white doors and a wooden roof. It looks sunny and bright and cheerful. He follows her up the stairs and helps her open the door. She says nothing, going straight into the bathroom.
Luke puts down their bags and opens the balcony doors. Cian skips out and sits on one of the chairs, swinging his legs. Luke follows him. They look at the view of the inlet and the islands.
‘Luke? Can we still go whale watching?’
‘I’m not sure. We have to see what your mother thinks.’ He glances ov
er at the bathroom door; she’s been in there a long time. They go back into the room and Cian climbs up onto one of the beds.
‘Can I watch TV?’
‘Sure.’ Luke turns it on for him and switches to a cartoon channel. He ruffles his hair and the child smiles up at him. Then he goes over to the bathroom door and knocks. ‘Christina? Christina, are you okay?’
He hears the click of the lock. He puts his hand on the knob, turns it and goes in.
Even her top is wet from the tears, so damp it’s transparent. She pushes the door shut behind him. ‘Cian can’t see me like this,’ she says hoarsely.
‘Are you okay?’ he asks.
She bends over double, shaking her head. ‘It h-hurts,’ she stutters.
He comes behind her and lifts her up straight. She looks right into him; they’re so familiar now. He’s never felt so close to anyone in his life.
‘Luke,’ she cries, ‘what am I going to do?’
He starts to kiss her and she pushes her hands into his hair, pulling it loose out of the ponytail. She trails her fingers down the side of his face. He catches them and presses them to his mouth. Then it begins, slowly, irrevocably, neither of them unable to stop the motion of it. She’s up close and he lifts her onto the bathroom counter, her damp shirt pressing into his chest. He closes his eyes, smells her, senses her, lets her whole being consume him. He looks at her again. Her eyes are luminous, speaking to him. They unbutton their jeans and he pulls hers off, so the blue lies crumbled on the ground. Then he closes his eyes again and he feels her wrap her legs about his waist. He lifts her off the counter and pushes up into her. She makes a tiny gasp. They’re a perfect match.
THE STITCHES
When his mother was dying, Luke’s father hadn’t left the house, not for days. All the family came and went, but his mother continually had a ring around her, a golden circle of light. And it was his father who spun it, the children entering and leaving.
A Small Part of Me Page 27