‘Elle, what is it?’ I ask as we sit in silence broken only by the distant rumble of an aeroplane.
‘So you’re sure he died?’ she asks. She must mean the cyclist; the paramedics gave up on him after five minutes of effort. We waited, watched as it all unfolded, until they zipped him into a body bag just before we left.
‘Yes, I’m sure.’
‘Shame.’ She turns, points at the view. ‘When bad things happen, you need a place to retreat in order to forget them. Like this view. You can get lost in it, pretend you’re somewhere else. Isn’t it beautiful?’ she says, resting her head on the glass. ‘I come here sometimes and just stare at it. Like it’s an escape.’ I look across the land, my eyes scanning the outcrops of rock as they push through the green mounds of earth. She’s right. It is beautiful. ‘It’s like it’s endless.’
‘Yes, Elle. It is.’
‘If only it wasn’t for that place.’ She motions to a stately looking building that at first I think is a church, big and white, a steeple poking from the roof. It seems to spread out in all directions, high on the brow of a hill, looming above everything else. It is protected by a dense perimeter of trees. ‘But it’s derelict now. That’s something, I guess.’
‘It doesn’t look derelict to me. What is that place?’ On second thoughts, it isn’t a church. It’s too big. What building of such a size would be hidden away in the hills of Scotland? As a cloud passes overhead, I catch the sunlight reflecting off the windows, picking out the irregular shapes of the broken glass. The building is so large it seems to cast a shadow over the rest of the landscape.
But Elle has stopped listening to me, and instead starts the engine. We meander down towards the house, and I see the sign, Mam Tor, rocking in a light breeze. We bump along the driveway, the black iron gates opening as Elle edges the car ever closer. The only sound I can hear is the tyres as they roll over the ground. No sound arises from inside, and there are no signs of life. The house is holding its breath, waiting for me to approach.
We slip from the cool evening air into the even cooler air of the hallway. The faces of my ancestors stare back at me, their stern beaky noses casting doubt on my right to be here. There is music playing in the background. Something I think I have heard before. A woman singing an aria, so mournful, bereft. Elle is pulling at me, dragging me towards the post-mortem introductions that are coming about twenty-nine years too late.
‘Elle,’ I say, a last-chance effort to protest. I pull back slightly, but she is bigger and stronger than me, and her grip only intensifies. Her nails dig into my wrist.
She pulls me along the corridor and we burst through the door of the sitting room, breaking every unspoken rule concerning behaviour around the dead. The room itself appears to be in mourning; the light beige tones and pastel floral drapery look dark and sombre, as if the petals are ashamed of their cheery mood. The sun refuses to cast its light here today. The sofas have been pushed aside to make space for the shiny black coffin with the fancy handles, balanced in the centre of the room on tripods decorated with ornate roses and faces of angels. But as Elle steps forward, I see something else that I was unprepared for. My father is here with the body, conducting a vigil at his dead wife’s side.
‘Eleanor, Irini.’ He stands with a degree of effort, whispers something in the direction of the coffin. ‘I didn’t hear you come in,’ he says, moving towards the stereo, where he silences the music. He is looking at me, I think, but I can’t bring myself to meet his eyes. ‘It was your mother’s favourite,’ he explains. And I realise it was the music that I heard in the car when Elle picked me up from the airport. Then he reaches towards the body, perhaps to close an open eye, the unnerving wink of the dead. Maybe he brushes a stray hair away from an overly made-up face. I don’t know what it is he does, but the way he looks down at the body before him hurts me. It is with such affection, wet eyes brimming with held-back tears.
‘Here she is.’ Elle beams, pulling me forward, ignoring our father. I glance at him, and for a second we make eye contact. It’s me that looks away first. ‘Have a look at her face,’ Elle says, urging me on. ‘See how weird they made her look. I’m telling you, I swear they gave her Botox.’ She steps behind me, blocking my exit. I feel her hands slide around my body, her grip tight as a nut, her nails digging into my arms even through the fabric of my clothes. ‘Won’t you just take a look?’ she says, moving me forward with the weight of her body, her breath tickling at my hair. She is as impatient as a child trying to show off a new toy. She glances back towards our father and tuts, as if I am just so damn difficult. Still the same, that one. Nothing but trouble. Thank God we got rid of her when we had the chance. But he doesn’t say anything. He continues to look at me, but doesn’t try to speak. Instead, he watches me, then Elle, then his eyes move back to me. Together again, two sisters, like he has travelled back in time.
I step forward and he steps back, looking away to the floor. Elle grabs my hands, her wristwatch catching my bone, cutting through skin. I flinch, but she pushes me up close, forcing my hands down on the edge of the coffin. I feel it shake beneath me. We all hold our breath for a moment in case it topples over, but I hold it steady, my fingers brushing against the soft satin lining, Elle’s hands suffocating mine.
‘Doesn’t she look weird?’ Elle whispers in my ear as she relinquishes her grip. From the corner of my eye I spot her poking at the skin on our mother’s face. I look down, telling myself, just a dead body, just a dead body, just a corpse, nothing there but death. But I can’t help wondering if there’s a wound hidden somewhere underneath her summer-blue dress. If the evidence to implicate Elle is right there in front of me.
‘Don’t do that,’ our father snaps, grabbing at Elle’s exploratory finger. She allows herself to be pulled away. He lets go with the same urgency as when he reached out and grabbed her, like he is dropping something hot. He holds his hands up apologetically, as if he momentarily forgot himself and now understands his mistake. For the second time today I see that we are not so very different, my father and I. He understands who is in control just as well as I do. Elle pulls her hand back, shakes her head in disgust.
‘She is dead now,’ she reminds him. ‘She doesn’t care if I touch her now that she is dead. Irini, take a look. Come on, don’t be shy, she won’t bite.’ She urges me on with a nudge from a bony elbow in my side, but her eyes don’t leave our father. ‘Don’t you think she looks like you?’
‘Eleanor, I really think perhaps we should give Irini a little time alone with your mother.’ My father steps forward. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think Irini has a tongue,’ Elle says. ‘She can tell us if that’s what she wants.’
But I’m not listening to them. I am focusing on my mother. I see the look of the embalmed before me: typical plumped-up features, overly pink skin covered in clown make-up. A beautiful pearl necklace looped around her neck. At first I don’t spot anything that resembles the face I see when I look in the mirror. But as I carry on studying it, taking in each feature, I start to wonder whether something might be familiar. The curve of the eyebrows perhaps, and the way they arch up towards the outer eye. The square tip of her nose, and the little bone that appears crooked just at the bridge. My features. I glance back at the man who is my father just as he looks up at me. I know he sees it too. I am her and she is me. Just like Matt said. We are our parents. We are what they make us, through either their presence or their absence.
‘Yes,’ I say, my grip on the edge of the coffin strengthening. ‘I do look like her.’ And then the image of me dragging myself across the kitchen comes back to me. Well done! Brave girl! Now spread your wings. Push up, I know you can. Do it for Mummy. The missing pieces of the memory come flooding back and I see her face. She is there, picking me up, smiling at me, encouraging me as if she loved me.
I glance back down at the glued-together eyes and stitched-up mouth, sad that a person who looks so much like me physically has absolutely nothing to do with
my life. I look up at Elle, and then at my father, and I see that she doesn’t resemble anybody.
‘I’ll give you some time,’ my father says.
‘Where are you going?’ Elle snaps as he tries to push past her. She grips his arm, the same way she did mine when she wanted to drag me in here. I see the whites of her knuckles, the intensity with which she is holding him. I have placed one hand across the open coffin, protectively covering my dead mother. I look up as my father takes a step forward, but Elle switches her footing and manages to block him.
‘Now, Eleanor, stop this. Remove your hand from my arm. I only want to give you some time together. Irini and I can talk later.’ Then he looks to me. ‘I would like that, Irini, if you and I could sit down and talk.’ I don’t say anything. All this time I have wanted to speak to him, but yet here in this moment I am lost for words. ‘Just the two of us.’
‘Without me?’ Elle asks, but nobody answers her question. My father is still staring at me, and for the first time I see something other than fear, shame or guilt on his face. It looks like an apology. An I’m sorry that you have to see this. For the first time ever in my life I can really believe that it was better that I didn’t grow up here, that perhaps, maybe a one-in-a-million chance, he gave me up because he wanted something better for me.
‘I should go,’ I say. ‘I shouldn’t be here.’ It is perhaps the most truthful thing I’ve said since I arrived, and the first time I might actually believe it. I forget my fear and craving for the truth and take a step forward, but Elle holds out a hand and shoves me backwards. I hit the corner of the coffin and feel it wobble again. I reach behind me instinctively to steady it. My father takes hold of my arm to catch me. I don’t need his help, but I let my weight fall into his grasp.
‘You’re not going anywhere,’ Elle says. ‘You are our guest.’ Only then does she seem to notice our father holding me, and with that, he lets me go.
‘It’s for the best,’ I plead with her. ‘For me, and for him.’ Because I want to protect him too. From her. I want this horrible scene to be over. ‘I don’t know why I came here.’ I push forwards, but again she shoves me back.
‘Yes you do. You came here because you want to know why they gave you away. You said it in the car. You just asked me, remember?’ She turns to our father. ‘So? Are you going to tell her?’ she spits, a finger wafting in his face. ‘Is that what you want in your little tête-à-tête? To tell her the truth? Do you want her to stay? She would want it after all, wouldn’t she? That’s what she always said. Always said she wanted her here and not me. I used to hear you, you know that?’ I realise that Elle is crying and I reach out to try to help. She knocks my arm away. I turn to look at my father and see that his gaze is unfocused, guilty, unsure. ‘Whispering at night when you thought I was asleep. But voices travel through the vents as clear as day. Couldn’t bear me to touch her, could she? She never stopped resenting you for the choices you forced her to make.’ She slips into a nearby chair, her body shaking, curled up like a baby. Tears run down her cheeks, and suddenly she seems so small. Weak in a way like never before. I look at our father and see him holding back. He knows as well as I do that this quiet won’t last.
‘Eleanor, don’t get yourself worked up.’ He holds out a hand, yet still he is cautious. He takes a step forward and I follow his lead. But then he swings his hand towards me, uses it as a barrier, ushers me back. He crouches down at her side and I stay where I am, my back against the coffin.
‘Always her, right?’ Elle says, her voice weak, shaky. ‘I need to know, Daddy. That’s why I got her here. So I could know. So I could know if you still think you made the right decision.’ She reaches out and clutches at his arm, desperate. ‘So? What is it? Do you still feel the same?’
He doesn’t say anything to Elle; he doesn’t even look her in the eye. Instead, he maintains his broken gaze in my direction, the weight of a defeated army on his shoulders, and tells me something I knew all along. ‘You should never have come here.’ Then he leans in, cradles Elle in his arms as her crying intensifies.
Never have I felt less a part of anything than right now. There was a point just a short while ago when I thought my father and I shared something of worth, something that set us apart from Elle. But now I see they share so much history, and I am once again little more than a spectator.
I step forward. ‘But you still want to talk, right? Just the two of us?’
He shakes his head. ‘Can’t you see that now is not the time?’
I look away from them both, and with my eyes cast to the floor, I rush from the room.
13
Sometime during the night, my father came to my room. He whispered my name, his deep voice hoarse but instantly recognisable. I gave no answer. I didn’t want to see him, not after what had happened. He tried the handle, opened the door a crack. I closed my eyes, pretended to be asleep. After a few seconds he retreated, left me alone.
When the earliest birds begin singing, I am already awake, watching the darkness retreat to the shadows of the bleak northern countryside as an invisible sun rises in the sky. Even at this hour I feel sticky and warm, hot like an overdressed baby in the summer. I hear the cook, Joyce, who brought me drinks and sandwiches as room service last night, rattling about in the nearby kitchen. More than once I hear footsteps on the gravel of the driveway, and even at times in the hallway outside my room. Now I just want out. Yet still I am here.
When I venture downstairs, I find Joyce in the kitchen. She spots me at the bottom of the stairs looking hesitant, so pulls out a chair and sets a glass of juice on the kitchen table. A get-out-of-jail-free card so I don’t have to go to the dining room. If she was in the house, there is no doubt she heard what happened yesterday afternoon. So I proceed to eat a plateful of salty eggs in the kitchen with Joyce scurrying around me.
‘I’d love a coffee,’ I say quietly, not wanting to be heard beyond this room. She sets down a giant mug, and I sip at it, burning my lips. When I hear footsteps in the hallway I make an urgent but silent move to stand. But Joyce is straight to my side. She places her good hand on my shoulder and I sit back down.
‘He went out early, and she won’t come into the kitchen,’ she whispers.
I watch as she wheels the serving trolley away, loaded with coffee and juice. I wonder if he instructed her to keep me away from them, now that he has admitted I shouldn’t be here. Either way, I am grateful for Joyce’s help, and I slip back up the stairs to grab my bag. I remember how brave I was on the first day here, creeping downstairs to find him. It feels like a long time ago. The memories of my mother are strangely silent today.
‘Thanks for breakfast,’ I say as I walk back into the kitchen. She smiles at me from across the room as she dries a beaker with a soggy tea towel. ‘I’m going to go out for the day.’
She steps towards me and gestures to the back door. ‘On your own?’ I nod. ‘Well, she won’t hear you leave if you go out this way,’ she mumbles. I try to smile but I just feel ashamed. I can feel my cheeks flushed pink, my eyes red and swollen.
‘Why are you helping me?’ I ask.
She looks down at the glass, balanced over a useless, gnarled hand. ‘The funeral is tomorrow. Just stick it out until then. You never know, you might want to hear what he has to say about her.’ I fight not to cry. ‘Then you can go back to your life and forget about it all.’ She backs away but I reach out and grip her arm just like Elle did to me.
‘What life? I’ll never be able to do that. Not now I’ve been here.’ I wipe a tear from my cheek and tell myself I have got to get it together. ‘I need to know what happened. Did he tell you to help me today? Did he tell you to keep me away?’
She gently pulls her arm free and I loosen my grip. She casts a quick glance down at her reddened wrist but doesn’t make anything of it. I spread my fingers to show her I mean her no harm. ‘Some doors are better left closed,’ she whispers. She drops the glass to her waist and lets out a sigh. ‘And some are better
left closed, locked and stuck behind a cupboard full of photographs. Never to be opened again. It’s for the best,’ she says patting me on the arm. She hasn’t answered me, but she is quick to get her good hand on the door handle.
‘But I need to know why they gave me away.’
‘No you don’t. You just need to be strong for another day or so.’ She ushers me out with her weight behind me before I can ask anything else.
I slip through the gates, dodging Frank and his cheery demeanour. I keep my head down and push on along the dusty driveway. I look up only to see where I am going as the path twists and turns. Which is when I see my father up ahead, a newspaper tucked underneath his arm. Up until yesterday I was desperate to talk to him; now I look behind me in search of a way out. But the path only leads to the house, cast in a grey shadow, visually impregnable. By the time I turn back around he has seen me too. He has stopped, his body tight with fear. He takes a step forward, me a step back.
‘Irini,’ he says as he holds out his hands. The newspaper drops to the ground, forgotten. He is only a few metres away from me. I could almost reach out and touch him.
‘Don’t you . . .’ I say through uncomfortable breaths. But I’m not sure what it is I don’t want him to do. So I cross to the other side of the driveway, head down, unable to look at him.
‘Irini, please. Wait,’ he says as he glances to the house. ‘About last night. I’m so very sorry.’ He nibbles on the inside of his lip and I back away. ‘Bloody hell, that sounds so trite. Please forgive me, Irini. You must’ve been able to see how she was behaving. We have to talk, now, while she’s not around. Come quickly.’
I am shaking my head. I try to walk away but he steps forwards to block my path. ‘Let me get past,’ I say. He reaches to grab my arms but I back away towards the trees, my pulse racing.
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