by Claire Allan
continues. ‘Only for her granny calling me to say she was okay,
I’d have had the police searching for her. I think I need to get
her some professional help. Especially given her history.’
My stomach tightens. I haven’t told Alex of my mental health
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history, which means someone else has. Someone who never really understood it in the first place.
‘That might be a good idea.’ Marie’s voice this time, firm
and decisive. ‘And I wouldn’t wait too long. I really don’t think
she’s at herself and you know, you’d want her to be right in
the head if she’s at home with Lily.’
‘She wouldn’t hurt Lily,’ Alex says, but his voice doesn’t sound
as confident as I would like.
‘Not normally, no, and I’ve no doubt she’s a great mammy
and she loves that baby with all her heart. But she’s been very
erratic lately. Not herself. If it were me, and Lily was my baby,
I’m not sure I’d want to take the chance. I know I couldn’t
live with myself if something awful happened.’
There’s a pause. I start to wonder if she’s done, but then I
hear her speak again.
‘You know about the fire, don’t you?’
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Chapter Fifty
Heidi
Then
It was Christmas and I was back at Aberfoyle Crescent. I didn’t
want to be here, having escaped for the last three months to
university in Dublin.
I hadn’t come home at any time in those three months, not
even for a weekend. My newly made friends, especially those
also from Derry who went home at least once a month and
certainly for the Halloween festival, couldn’t really understand
my insistence on staying in Dublin.
Our student digs could become quiet at the weekends and
on a student income heading out partying wasn’t always within
my budget. Not that I was a party girl anyway. Still, I preferred
it to travelling up north and spending time with Joe.
If I could’ve stayed there over Christmas I would have, but
I knew I had to go home, if for no other reason than I wanted
to see my grandparents. That was the hard part of staying away.
A bit of distance had maybe mellowed me. That and I was
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eighteen and could see a life free from reliance on Joe open up in front of me. My phantom text message stalker had given
up after about eighteen months of messages. They tapered off
at the end. Just like everything. The abuse had become a thing
of the past. The nasty messages.
Yes, I still carried my scars – physical and emotional – from
what I’d been through. I still had times when it all felt too
much, when I’d wake screaming, a nightmare having put me
back in my room, scared and defenceless and still a child. There
were times when I still had to score at my skin. But slowly, I
believed, I was healing. I believed that I could heal. I even
started to think that maybe one day I would be able to find a
partner. To take a chance on finding love. To consider being
physical with someone. To believe that I deserved to be loved
and cherished properly.
It was hardly surprising that my nerves were in flitters by
the time I got back to the house. I refused, even at that point,
to call it home.
Joe was in a jovial mood. He had made a half-hearted attempt
to put up some Christmas decorations and there were a handful
of presents underneath the tree.
‘I want us to have a nice Christmas,’ he said. ‘Do you think
we could manage that?’
There was something in the way he spoke that led me to
believe that he thought I was the problem. I was the trouble-
maker. He took no responsibility for his own actions. The hell
he had put me through.
But I didn’t want to let him drag me down, not then. Not
yet.
‘I’ve invited Ciara over for dinner on Christmas Eve,’ he said.
‘You’re both adults now. Maybe we could start moving on. I’ve
asked Marie too, and your grandparents.’
I could think of nothing that would be less awkward, but I
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consoled myself that at least Granny and Grandad would be there.
‘I’ll do all the cooking,’ he said. ‘You just have to show up.
Do you think you could do that?’ he said. ‘I’ve missed you,
Heidi. I just want things to be better between us.’
He looked so earnest. His eyes were sad. I could almost
convince myself that he was feeling sorry for what he’d done.
But maybe he was just feeling lonely. People may have talked
to him on the streets. He may have been able to hold court at
the library, but when he closed the door to this house, the
house that should never have been his, he was all alone.
Still, I agreed because I was tired of the constant warring,
too. I even spent some of my money on presents. Silly little
things. A brooch for Marie. An ornament which, in hindsight,
was ugly as sin for my grandparents. A hand-made notebook
wrapped in delicate tissue paper for Ciara. I wrapped them,
along with a bottle red wine for Joe, and added them to the
pile under the tree.
Christmas Eve arrived and Joe was true to his word. He
busied himself in the kitchen, shooing me away every time I
popped my head around the door. Instead, I did what I could
to make his sorry excuse for a Christmas tree look a little less
haggard and when that was done I set six place settings in the
small dining room. I showered and dressed and even put on a
little make-up. I was nervous, but also excited. It would be
lovely to have my grandparents here.
Marie was first to arrive, in a fug of Chanel No. 5, impec-
cably made up and carrying a bottle of Moët & Chandon.
Eighteen-year-old me was impressed. Real champagne! It felt
decadent and grown up.
‘You look lovely, Heidi,’ she said, hugging me so tightly that
I got a lungful of her perfume mixed with her hairspray. ‘It’s
lovely to see you. Is Joe in the kitchen?’
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I took her coat and soon heard peals of laughter as they chatted. I liked Marie. I always had. Unlike Ciara, she hadn’t
taken her hurt about Joe leaving out on me. She’d always been
kind when we met, looking at me with sympathetic eyes.
Sometimes I wondered how someone who appeared as kind
as she did raised a daughter as cruel as Ciara. Then I’d remember, of course, who Ciara’s father was.
My grandparents arrived next, dressed in their Sunday best.
I helped Grandad through the door and to the living room.
He was looking well. Feeling great, he said. He’d le
ft his wheel-
chair at home and was managing with his walker. My heart
was aglow with love for them. Granny even agreed to take a
small glass of sherry while Grandad remained a traditionalist
with a bottle of beer I poured into a glass for him. Marie and
Joe joined us and we were making polite conversation when
the doorbell rang again.
Ciara had arrived. Very much in the party spirit. I could smell
wine on her breath and her eyes were glazed. Still she grinned.
‘So, where is it?’ she asked, looking directly at Joe.
He shrugged. ‘Where’s what, sweetheart?’
She rolled her eyes in a dramatic fashion. ‘The fatted calf?
Surely it should be on the spit by now? Celebrating the prod-
igal daughter’s return from Dublin.’
‘Ciara.’ Marie’s voice was low and stern. She was firing off
a warning shot.
Ciara pressed her index finger to her lips and shushed. ‘I
know, I know,’ she said. ‘We have to be good. Keep quiet. Don’t
say what we all want to say.’
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.
‘Right,’ Ciara said, ‘where can a girl get a drink around here?’
‘Ciara, you’re twenty-three years old and acting like a brat,’
Joe hissed, which was exactly the wrong way to try to endear
Ciara to him.
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‘Oh, Daddy, you’ve noticed me! I didn’t realise you remembered I existed,’ she said, mouth turned down melodramatically.
‘Kudos to you for remembering my age! I am impressed.’
‘Ciara, please,’ Marie said, her voice more urgent this time.
My grandparents were both staring into their drinks, trying
to avoid the scene in front of them.
‘Oh, Mum, why are you always on his side? Do you think
he’ll leave you if you aren’t nice to him? Oops! That’s right
– he already did, didn’t he? For some slut he’d only known a
couple of months.’
I heard my grandmother gasp. My face blazed.
‘And not only that, when she popped her clogs what, two
years later? He stayed to raise her mad brat, too.’
‘Ciara! That is enough!’ Joe’s voice was stern, angry.
My grandmother was crying. Grandad was shaking his head.
‘Why? Why is it enough? Why is it always about her? Be
kind to poor Heidi! She lost her mother. Be kind to Heidi,
she’s going through a tough time. Be kind to Heidi, she’s not
right in the head. She might hurt herself. Poor fucking Heidi.’
‘ENOUGH!’ Joe was shouting now.
Marie was crying. I was mortified.
‘No!’ Ciara shouted back. ‘It’s not enough. It’s not even nearly
enough.’
‘Ciara,’ I said, trying to keep my voice steady. ‘Please. Why
don’t we all just try to calm down and have a nice evening.
Your dad has gone to so much effort.’
‘Well, that’s nice of him. To go to some effort, for once. And
of course it would be for you. For your big homecoming.’
‘We’re all here,’ I said. ‘We’re all invited.’
She sniffed. ‘Oh, Heidi, you know nothing. You’ve never
known anything. You’re so wrapped up in yourself. No one
gives a damn about what the rest of us have been through.
Why haven’t you just pissed off by now? You should’ve pissed
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off by now. God only knows, I told you often enough. All those messages I sent. You never took the hint though, did you? How
stupid are you?’
I stare at her, my eyes wide. I knew Ciara hated me. Of
course I did. But to have sent all those messages. To have told
me, repeatedly, to kill myself? She’d almost, almost pushed me
to it. She’d messed me up just as much as her bastard father
had done.
‘I think we’re done here for tonight,’ Joe said.
‘I’ll take this one home,’ Marie said, grabbing a reluctant
Ciara. ‘How could you be so cruel?’ she hissed at her daughter.
‘Being cruel was bred into me,’ Ciara hissed back.
After everyone had gone home, when what was meant to
be dinner was wrapped in tinfoil or decanted into the bin and
Joe went to bed, I sat in the living room and stared at the tree
I had decorated earlier. And I looked at the presents underneath.
Any sense of hope, or belief that the worst was over, left me.
If Ciara wanted me to kill myself, I would. Or I’d at least make
a big enough scene that everyone would know just how bad
everything was.
I lifted the matches from the fireplace, struck one and watched
it burn until it threatened to singe my skin. Then I threw it in
the direction of the delicately wrapped notebook and all the
other Christmas presents, as I watched until they caught fire
one by one.
It was only when the flames started to lick across the carpet
that something in me, a survival instinct of sorts, kicked in and
I panicked.
I screamed for help, rushing to the kitchen, grabbing a pan
full of water that was wholly inadequate and throwing it at the
fire. The smoke alarms were pealing at this stage and I saw Joe,
his face stricken, at the top of the stairs.
‘What have you done this time, you stupid girl?’
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Chapter Fifty-One
Heidi
Now
I can’t let Marie tell Alex about what happened. I can’t let her
control that narrative. No doubt she will leave out how
completely horrific Ciara was before it all happened. How she
had stalked me and humiliated me. She will focus on the fire,
the six weeks I spent in in-patient care afterwards. The months
in therapy. How I had to skip out on the end of my first year
at university and start all over again the following academic
year.
I was the demon. Ciara, who had admitted sending all those
messages, seemed to be absolved of her sins. She had been
drunk. Hurting. And sure, it had been almost two years since
the last message.
I got a half-hearted passive-aggressive apology delivered to
me while I was lying semi-comatose in hospital trying to find
the energy to do anything other than stare at four walls. Joe
visited almost every day. It wasn’t out of love for me, far from
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it. It was because the thought of me being in therapy, of spilling his sordid secrets, terrified him I saw the fear on his face with
each and every visit. I saw the silent pleading.
He needn’t have worried. Despite the gentle probing of my
therapist, there was no way I was going to spill my deepest,
darkest secrets to anyone. I was still too mired in shame, back
then.
But standing outside of the kitchen now, hearing how
damaging just one side of the narrative can be, I was starting
to think it was tim
e they all heard the whole truth, after all.
But I know that if I lose it now, it will only fuel their narra-
tive that I’m crazy.
Stella is the first to spot me. Her face colours, knowing they
have been caught out. She isn’t quite as obvious as to cough
or make a dramatic change in conversation but she does say
hello. Her smile is soft. Her eyes warm and welcoming. I like
Stella. She seems to be a calming influence on Ciara and a nice
person. It’s strange in this moment that she feels like the one
ally I have in all of this.
‘Heidi,’ she says. ‘You’re here. Are you feeling okay?’
‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that,’ I say.
Alex is staring at me as if he has never seen me before, but
he isn’t speaking. I try not to focus on him because if I do, if
I see how disappointed in me he is, I might just break.
‘It’s been a tough few days,’ Stella says and I nod.
The others in the room haven’t spoken yet. I wonder if
they’ve even taken a breath. Bar the ticking of the big kitchen
clock on the wall and the shuffle of the chair I pull out to sit
on, the room is silent.
‘It has,’ I say. ‘And there have been a few unpleasant surprises.’
I glance at Ciara. She doesn’t react. Not even a little. There
is no trace of surprise, of hurt, of anger or even denial in her
expression.
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Kathleen is first to speak. ‘I understand there has been a bit of a mix-up.’
I remind myself not to give in to my heightened emotions.
‘Yes, you could say that.’
‘Sweetheart,’ she says and I dig my nails in deeper.
I am not Kathleen McKee’s sweetheart and nor will I ever
be.
‘So much gets muddled at these times. We’re all through
ourselves with grief. I swear I don’t know myself these days. I
keep thinking I hear him or see him . . .’
She starts to cry, which causes a flurry of activity. Hugs from
Ciara, a tissue from Marie. Stella announcing she will put the
kettle on.
Alex moves. ‘I think I hear Lily. I’ll go and get her.’
Lily isn’t crying. I know that. I spot the baby monitor on
the counter – no echoing cries through it, no moving lights,
but still I step back and let him pass me.
‘I think maybe we have some things to sort out,’ Ciara inter-
jects. Her voice is soft but the expression on her face is hard.