‘You’ve been walking more,’ she said to her mother. The issue of her weight was not one they discussed. The shape of a woman’s body was private business.
‘Carol calls for me most mornings and we walk for half an hour,’ her mother said.
‘That’s neighbourly of her. It only took fifteen years.’
‘Should I reject her friendship because it was a little slow?’
‘Fifteen years is not “a little slow”, Mama. It’s her expecting you to help her now that she has had her hip replaced and is afraid to walk alone. Why should you come running just because she calls?’
‘So I should sit alone in my house and not go out?’
‘You know that’s not what I meant. You should go out.’
‘Out where? With whom, if not my neighbours?’
‘With your friends.’
‘My friends are in Lebanon.’
Alina forced herself to breathe once, twice, before saying anything. For years, her mother had clung to this idea, her refusal to go back there to visit allowing her vision of the past to remain unspoiled. Alina’s father asked her to stop trying to convince her mother to visit, afraid that if she went, she might never return. It was a half-life, Alina saw now, giving Mai the worst of both worlds.
‘That’s not true.’
‘I cannot be friends with my neighbours, nor can I have friends back home. It seems you know my life better than I do.’
‘How can you find it funny that you have lived here for this long and still say you have no friends?’
‘I have friends here,’ Mai corrected her. ‘I simply believe my true friends are in Beirut. My family is there. My blood.’
‘Your blood is right here, Mama!’
‘You remember how it was there: your aunts and cousins in and out all day long, so much talk and laughter. Here it is only the radio that makes noise in my kitchen.’
The truth was Alina didn’t remember. When her mother mentioned childhood, she thought snow and skipping and schoolyard talk of Santa Claus and the tooth fairy. But it was true that every child and every parent remembered these things differently.
She looked at her mother. ‘Why did you never go back? I know Baba never wanted to, but after he died you could have.’
Mai sighed. ‘On my own, they might not have let me return here. Without your father, who would argue for me?’
‘Mama! You are a citizen here. You have a passport, the same as anyone else.’ She thought fleetingly of the direct provision centre, the women with the buggies, waiting for others to decide their right to stay.
‘Yes, but I came originally on your father’s visa and now he is gone…’
‘That’s not how it works,’ Alina said impatiently. ‘They gave it to you. They can’t just take it back.’
Mai smiled at Alina with something like pity. ‘Rules can change,’ she said.
‘We should go,’ Alina said. ‘Together.’ The lightness with which the words came! She could have danced all the way there. ‘We should go and spend some time with the family.’
‘Your family is here now,’ her mother chided gently.
‘They will still be here when we get back. I’m not talking about forever, Mama, just a week or two. A month. We can book an open return. Don’t you want to?’
‘What about Seán? What would he say? Will he want to come with us?’
‘He will understand that this is something we want to do, just us.’ In the face of this plan, she could admit to herself that Seán’s interest in her culture had long dwindled, the nuances fallen into a global category of ‘different’. She could not blame him for never having known uncertainty about who he was. ‘Let’s do it.’
‘What if too much has changed?’
‘Even if the place has changed, the family has not,’ Alina said. She couldn’t have said where her certainty came from, yet there it was.
‘For in the dew of the little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed,’ Mai said.
On hearing Gibran’s words from her mother’s mouth, Alina knew they were as good as packed. ‘It will take a few weeks to organise everything. We can be there in the springtime.’
‘We must walk faster, I cannot go home like this.’ Her mother patted the great roll of her belly. ‘As a girl, my figure was the envy of Beirut. Is a few weeks enough time to make a difference?’
‘Yes, Mama.’ Alina hugged her mother to her and watched their shadows stretching and growing taller on the footpath in front of them. ‘It can make all the difference in the world.’
LUCY
‘I know,’ Lucy told the doctor. ‘I hadn’t taken a test or anything, but I was pretty sure.’
‘For now the heartbeat is holding steady. But we’ll keep monitoring things closely and if you start to feel any heaviness or cramping, then call one of the nurses straight away. In the meantime, I’ve arranged for one of the hospital social workers to come and talk to you in a little while.’
‘Because of the baby?’ her mother asked.
Pat was so composed, Lucy wondered if she had already told her and simply forgotten it. People kept talking about shock, after all.
‘Sometimes people who go through things like this can benefit from talking it out with someone.’
Lucy couldn’t imagine wanting to ‘talk it out’ with anyone. Talk what out? She didn’t ever want to think about it again.
‘Thank you,’ she said, but the doctor had already left.
For a second she thought, stupidly, that the cracking noise was something to do with the door closing. Then her face filled with fingers of fire where her mother’s hand had connected.
‘You silly little bitch,’ her mother hissed. Her face was so close that Lucy could see the anger dancing in her eyes, shaking its tiny multicoloured fists and swinging its hips. That’s what started all the trouble in the first place. She had to work to keep the giggle from leaking out. ‘Now look what you’ve done,’ her mother said. ‘All my sacrifices and here you are. Unmarried and pregnant, like a common tramp.’
‘Like you were,’ Lucy said. Was it the medication that made her feel so dreamy and fearless? Or did they refuse to give her anything because of the baby? It was hard to remember. Time seemed to move in short bursts then stop entirely.
‘Don’t you get smart with me, lady,’ Pat said. ‘Don’t you dare. You can’t ever get high and mighty with me again, let me tell you.’
She paced the room in a crackle of polyester, filling the air with static. Lucy could see her fingers flexing, itching for the peaceful action of a cigarette.
‘At least I married your father,’ Pat said. ‘At least I had that much sense. No fear your fella will marry you, is there? He can’t, can he?’ Her mother’s voice was triumphant. ‘Did you really think I didn’t know you were carrying on with a married man? Living the high life on his money like a… like a…’ She couldn’t say it.
Slut. Mistress. Bit on the side. Her mother read the Daily Mail.
Tart. Strumpet. Scarlet woman. She also read Mills & Boon.
‘Did you think I didn’t know that he dumped you and that was why you came running to my door, like you always do?’
How long had Lucy been breathing in and counting? One-two-three-four, but how many times? ‘Not that it’s any of your business, but that’s all over. Kieran and I are thinking of getting back together.’
‘The baby is Kieran’s?’ Her mother spun around to look at her.
Lucy closed her eyes. She thought about the baby. Her baby, stubborn enough – stupid enough – to have made it through the last couple of days.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘The baby is Kieran’s.’
‘So that’s why he’s here.’ Pat’s voice was triumphant.
‘Kieran’s here?’
‘Who did you think drove me over from the accident site?’
Of course he was here. Where else would he be? It wasn’t like he had a life of his own. Here he was, indispensable and pernicious. Like ivy.<
br />
‘They said family only, but, sure, they’ll have to make an exception for him under the circumstances. I’ll go out and get him—’
‘No, please. He doesn’t know yet. We were only just starting to work through things and I—’
‘You don’t want to scare him off with baby talk until you know you won’t miscarry,’ her mother nodded. ‘Sensible girl. You don’t want to chance losing a good man over what might turn out to be a thing of nothing.’
Was this what she had invited in, with her impulsive decision? Months of unwelcome solidarity, of tips from a woman whose idea of accomplishment was to trap a man into looking after her? Dread churned her stomach.
‘Where’s Auntie Kit?’
‘She went back to the house a couple of hours ago for a rest.’
‘That’s a bit rich, don’t you think?’
‘Laugh all you like, Miss,’ Pat said. ‘I’m glad to have her support. It’s a comfort to me to have her. You wouldn’t understand what it’s like between sisters.’
Whose fault was that? If there had been two of her, would things have been different? Would she have been half-normal? So many giggles to swallow, she would be hiccupping shortly.
When she opened her eyes, it was still dark outside her window. Her mother shook her arm.
‘The social worker is on her way,’ she said. ‘You know I’ll support you, with the baby and everything? We’ll make it work. You came home for a reason, after all.’ Pat’s eyes were too bright, darting around the room. ‘You’ll be sure to tell her I’ll stand by you, won’t you? Here, let’s get you looking presentable.’
Lucy let her mother apply some make-up, her touch light across Lucy’s cooled cheek. She wondered if James had seen the news. If he was surprised to see her face on the television. He might not care. Even if he did, what was he going to do? Her phone was somewhere buried under a pile of rubble and he could hardly turn up at the hospital.
‘That’s more like it,’ Pat said, finally satisfied. ‘Stay still now, don’t smudge it before she gets here.’
The door opened and a woman stepped into the room with a pile of folders in her arms. No white coat, but shiny slacks and an oversized cardigan. Only her plastic ID card marked her as staff.
‘I’m Doreen, the hospital social worker,’ she said. ‘How are you feeling, Lucy?’
‘I’m all right, thanks.’
‘Hello again, Mrs Phelan. I’m glad to see you again under better circumstances. I met your mother at the site yesterday,’ she told Lucy, as if there was some confusion. As if Lucy might have thought they met playing bridge, or at a swingers’ club.
Breathe in. One-two-three-four. Exhale.
‘You were very kind to all of us,’ Pat said. ‘It was a relief to have someone on our side when we were being told nothing.’
‘Everyone had their own job to do,’ Doreen said. ‘Now, I’m sure you’d welcome a coffee break after the long night of it, so if you want to step out, I’ll have a chat with Lucy.’
‘I thought I’d stay, in case—’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll keep a good eye on her,’ Doreen said easily.
Pat’s smile faded at the shift in solidarity. ‘I suppose I could use a coffee.’
‘She was dying to have a cigarette anyway,’ Lucy said, when the door shut.
Doreen smiled. ‘It was quite the wait for her.’
Her smile made Lucy feel bad for bitching out her mother behind her back. ‘Don’t be telling everyone your business,’ hissed the well-reared part of her brain. The part her mother slapped into shape with the heel of her hand.
‘How are you doing, Lucy?’
‘I’m in one piece, so I’m feeling very lucky.’ It was what people kept telling her.
‘Often, when someone is the sole survivor—’
‘No,’ Lucy shook her head. ‘The bus driver got out. And Alina, the…’ Her mind went blank. She couldn’t say Muslim, that was presumptuous. So was Eastern. A lot of her kind at university had Cork accents. Oh, God. She couldn’t say her kind, whatever she did. Ethnic, maybe? No, that made her sound terrified. She had glanced at the woman’s picture in the newspaper, certain for a second that they had shared an undergrad class years earlier, before dismissing it as unlikely. It wasn’t racism, she assured herself. It wasn’t as if she thought all the brown girls looked alike. She cleared her throat. ‘The other woman. It wasn’t just me.’
‘That’s true.’ Doreen made a little note on her file and Lucy wondered what it said. ‘You told the emergency workers that you spoke to two of the others while you were all trapped. Is that right?’
‘You mean did it really happen or did I imagine it?’
‘No, no. I didn’t mean that.’
‘So you want me to tell you what we talked about. Did their families ask, is that it?’
‘I don’t want you to tell me anything you don’t want to. This is about you, Lucy, not anyone else.’
That was what they all said, but it was never true. There was something about her, Lucy knew, that made second place perfectly acceptable.
‘We wondered what had happened. When the rescue teams would get there. Like being in a waiting room, that kind of small talk. They fell asleep. That’s all.’
‘They all got out, Lucy.’ Doreen leaned towards her. ‘It’s important that you know you didn’t leave them in there.’
Jesus Christ. She hadn’t felt that. Not until now.
‘In fact, Paul was taken out first,’ Doreen continued. ‘Sadly, his injuries were too profound and he died on the way to hospital.’
Was it supposed to help her to know that? To imagine him going through the same painful pulling and dragging that she had, only for it to be worthless? Going over it all wouldn’t change anything. Six of them were trapped. Five of them died. She didn’t. Not her.
‘Would you like to talk to the families? To Orla’s family, or to Paul’s?’
There it was. The so-called concern was only because they wanted something from her. ‘Why would I do that?’
‘It might help.’
‘Help me or help them?’
‘It might help all of you, Lucy. It’s important not to bottle all of this up and it would be good for them to know what you talked about. Maybe get a sense of their last few hours.’
‘No.’ Lucy turned away from Doreen. They would want stories of solidarity. Not the selfishness of the truth. How she would have sacrificed their children in a second. How she was glad it was Paul whose insides couldn’t withstand the trauma, Orla whose breath turned to water. Whatever lie she told would be inaudible against the constant beating of her heart. The living trump the dead. Simple as that.
‘I’ll tell them you’re not ready.’
‘I need to rest now,’ Lucy said. She looked out the window while Doreen shuffled paper and snapped the lid back onto her biro.
They had fallen asleep on the bus, that much was true. When Leo’s face disappeared, the water was already high around her knees. Paul didn’t answer when she called him and she was afraid to look at Orla, whose side of the bus had been lower than hers all along. ‘Orla?’ Her own voice had sounded small in the dark and it scared her too much to try again. She didn’t know which would be worse: if Orla answered or didn’t. Underground in the city, the water might have been sewage. There might have been rats. She remembered Orla’s lisp and shuddered.
‘Doreen? Tell them… Orla’s parents… tell them she asked me to tell her a story and I told her the story of the Princess Bride. She liked it.’
‘Thank you, Lucy. I’ll tell them that.’
Her mother was in the door the moment Doreen left. She must have been waiting in the corridor. ‘What did you tell her?’
‘Nothing, Mam. I didn’t tell her anything. There was nothing to tell.’
‘I went out for a cigarette,’ Pat said. ‘The place is still crawling with reporters. They’re all mad to talk to you.’
‘I don’t want to talk to anyone.’
‘That Nina Cassidy is out there cosying up to the foreign woman, the one with the question mark hanging over her. She’ll have it all her own way if you’re not careful.’
What way might that be? Lucy wondered. How could her mother imagine their versions would undercut one another? ‘I don’t want to talk to anyone,’ she repeated.
As a teenager, she told her mother there was no need to come to parents’ night at school. Over and over she would have to say it before it sank in, from when she woke her mother in the morning to when she pulled a blanket over her on the couch.
‘Maybe you’re right. Give it a couple of days, let the furore over the dead cool down, then one of the papers or the magazines will be bound to offer you something substantial to tell your story.’
‘To sell my story.’ The disdain in her voice surprised her, she with her fantasies of couches and jewel-coloured dresses and bright smiles.
‘Or one of the television stations, that might be—’
‘The families want to talk to me. That’s why the social worker was here. To try and get me to do it.’
‘That sneaky little… They can want to talk to you all they like, but you’re not to do it. It’s too stressful on top of everything else. Bad for the baby.’
‘I told her I didn’t want to talk to them.’
‘Good girl. You’re right to wait until you can make the announcement about the baby. Who doesn’t love a little miracle?’
She hadn’t even thought of that. How awful, when those people had lost their children, to stand in front of them and tell them she was lucky. That the baby inside her slid between the jaws of death, too small to be captured.
Like Sylvester and Tweety-Bird, she thought, and realised she was drifting away again.
In her dream, the colours were bright and false, like something out of The Wizard of Oz. She wore a blue dress, disturbing against the blood-red of the sofa she sat on. Her hair was long, past her shoulders and still growing as she looked at it, spilling down over her chest and onto her feet, princess-style. Her bump was enormous, resting cartoon-like on her knees. She put her hand to it and the baby’s face appeared through the skin. Orla’s face. ‘How lucky! An immaculate conception!’ the gameshow host shrieked with glee, while canned laughter rang in her ears. She caressed her stomach for comfort, but, when she looked down, her hand had rubbed away some of its features, the face disappearing as she moaned in horror.
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