Beatrice Page 19

  Now the car turns a corner, and everything is gone, all of a sudden. Now there is just black behind them, a slate wiped clean.

  EITHNE

  I drive Lisa into town to catch the bus to Dublin. Daddy is going to be buried tomorrow. Leo is on his way down. Even Phil is coming from England. I haven’t seen him since the summer before Beatrice disappeared.

  It is snowing, a white blizzard envelops the car.

  ‘Are you sure you’re okay taking the bus back?’ I ask.

  ‘It’s no problem,’ says Lisa. ‘I don’t want to be in the way.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be,’ I say, and I mean it, although I can imagine what some of the relatives would say if they knew who she was.

  ‘I have to get back,’ she says. ‘You see, Steve’s expecting me.’

  ‘Right,’ I say.

  ‘We’re getting married in a few months.’

  ‘So soon!’ I say, thinking she’s too young.

  ‘That’s why I wanted to find my real mum,’ she says. ‘I had a dream that she’d be at my wedding – instead of Lorraine and Paul.’

  ‘But they’re your parents as well.’

  ‘Only on paper.’ She gets out her cigarettes, and lights one up. ‘They wouldn’t bloody come anyway,’ she says, puffing out the window. ‘They wanted me to go to college, not get married.’

  ‘What do you want to do?’ I ask her.

  ‘I don’t want to go to college. I’ve had enough of school. I want to get out into the real world.’

  Freezing air streams into the car. I shiver.

  ‘All I want is to have my own kids,’ she adds.

  ‘It’s hard work.’

  ‘I know . . . that’s what Lorraine keeps saying. But I can’t wait to have my own little baby.’

  ‘Babies scare me,’ I say. ‘They’re such a huge responsibility.’

  ‘Ah, they’re easy. All they need is to be loved.’

  ‘But they can’t talk to you, that’s what frightens me. How do you know if they’re okay?’

  ‘You know, cos you’re their mum. It’s all instinct!’

  ‘Maybe you’re right.’

  ‘Course I’m right. You’re practically a mum anyway, don’t you have that little girl all the time, your husband’s daughter?’

  ‘That’s different . . . she’s not a baby.’

  ‘You’d be a great mum, Eithne, I know it,’ she says definitively. ‘I wish that it was you I had been looking for – I wish you were Beatrice.’

  I blush, and accept her praise.

  ‘I just don’t understand,’ she continues, throwing her butt out the window, and winding it up.

  ‘What?’

  ‘How she could give me up?’

  ‘I don’t know, Lisa. I don’t understand anything any more. I thought Beatrice was dead.’

  ‘There must have been someone or something that made her do it.’

  We drive in silence. I know we are both thinking the same thing. Neither of us has forgotten Daddy’s scene the night he died. It is almost too much to bear. Daddy would never have done that.

  We arrive in town as the bus pulls up. We get out of the car, and Lisa takes her bag out of the boot.

  ‘Thanks, Eithne,’ she says.

  ‘I didn’t do anything,’ I say.

  ‘You believed me.’ She crosses the road, and then turns and runs back.

  ‘Sorry about your dad,’ she blurts out. ‘Sorry if it was me . . . being there . . . that made him—’ She stops.

  ‘No, Lisa, don’t think that. It had nothing to do with you.’

  She looks doubtful.

  ‘Come back, Lisa,’ I say. ‘Come back sometime when things are better here. You’ve my number.’

  ‘Yeah, thanks.’

  She hesitates, and then, nearly knocking me over, she wraps her arms around my chest and squeezes me tightly. A Beatrice hug. She smells of cigarettes and soap. Then she lets go, turns and runs across the road.

  ‘We will find her one day. I promise,’ I call after her.

  She doesn’t hear me. I am shaking, trying to push the tears back. I rub my elbows through my jumper and coat. She has already boarded the bus without a backward glance.

  I head into the hotel for a cup of coffee. Leo is arriving in an hour and I may as well wait. People look at me as I sit down. A couple of them come over and offer their condolences. I feel very removed.

  I had no business making Lisa that promise. It was one I could not keep.

  SARAH

  Sarah was scared again. The day after she gave birth to the new baby, Joe came to visit her in the hospital. He brought her a big show of flowers, but no smile on his face.

  Sarah held the baby in her arms while she fed. Joe sat in the chair next to the bed. He said nothing, just glowered at his wife.

  ‘Let’s hope this one’s mine,’ he growled under his breath.

  Sarah started, and the child unlatched.

  ‘You know exactly when this child was conceived.’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not.’

  His breath stank of whiskey fumes.

  ‘Will Noel Chaney be visiting you?’ he suddenly demanded. Sarah immediately coloured, he had caught her off guard.

  ‘Tommy told me,’ he whispered. ‘He saw you, Sarah, last summer. Tell me – wife – what were you doing visiting Noel Chaney in the middle of the night, in your underwear? Cleaning his house at midnight? Or were you getting a few perks with the job?’

  ‘He’s lying, Tommy is lying,’ Sarah countered quickly.

  ‘Now why would he do that? He’s my friend.’

  ‘Because he hates me.’

  ‘He only hates you because he knows you’re a tart, and he thinks I deserve better than that.’

  ‘He tried to kiss me once but I pushed him away. He’s resented me ever since.’

  ‘Stop lying, bitch,’ he hissed.

  ‘Can you not see she’s yours?’ Sarah sobbed. She offered the squirming bundle up to him.

  Joe looked down at the tiny baby. His anger dissipated. Something in the little girl’s shiny dark eyes reached through all the pain to his heart. He took the child into his arms.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said, ‘she is mine.’ He held her for a minute, and stroked her downy cheeks. ‘She’s to be called Eithne, after my granny.’ Then he handed the baby back to Sarah. ‘But, Sarah,’ he whispered, ‘you know what they say: there’s no smoke without a fire.’

  EITHNE

  I glance at myself in the mirror in the hotel toilets. I look dreadful: my skin is almost jaundiced; my eyes are smudged by dark shadows; I have an unsightly cold sore on my upper lip. As for the rash it is out of control, even though I have lathered my arms in special creams. I hunt around in my bag for a bit of make-up. My hand knocks against the compact. I had forgotten it was in there. Mammy had given it to me after Beatrice went. She could not bear to keep it herself.

  I hardly ever use it. I never wear foundation or face powder. But I keep it in my bag, always, like a talisman.

  I take the compact out now, and click it open. I peer inside at the tarnished and cracked mirror. It gives a kinder reflection, and I do not look so battered, just sad. I finger the rim of the compact, its sharp ‘O’. What could this tiny treasure tell me? If only its mirror could rewind reflections. What might it show us? It was the last thing found, open and perfectly balanced on a tiny stone by the brook in Fore. All her things . . . in so many different places, miles from each other. She must have put them there herself – or someone who knew her very well.

  Lisa’s appearance has turned my world upside down. I like life tidy: home, college, print-making, marriage, exhibitions. Lisa does not fit into any of my boxes. The neatest thing would have been if Beatrice had died. Awful . . . but at least there would have been an end to it. What drives me mad are all the loose ends. They bind me like ropes, and throw the rest of my life into complete disarray. I feel different about everyone – Daddy, Mammy, Beatrice, even Leo.

  I don�
�t want to see him.

  I rang him before I left for the bus with Lisa. He didn’t even mention our row. He told me he was sorry, he told me he loved me, and that he would come right there and then. That very minute.

  My good husband, who has done so much for me, who is dropping everything to be by my side, yet his impending arrival troubles me. It stresses me. Leo always knows best, but this time I do not want his advice. I should be needing him – my father has died for God’s sake. Yet I just want to be alone. Once I speak to Leo he’ll start to analyse everything. I’m not ready . . . I don’t want him to put two and two together, as he inevitably will. I don’t want his ‘help’.

  I click the compact shut and finger the iridescent pearl on the lid. Why did she not take this and all the other things with her? I put it away, and dig out a lipstick and mascara.

  As I come out of the toilet there is a text message for me. It is from Mammy. Leo has phoned to say he’ll be down early tomorrow morning. He tried my phone, but I must have been out of coverage. Shauna is unwell, and he has to take her to the doctor. His friend Mick is driving him down tomorrow, and his mother will mind Shauna. He is sorry, so sorry, but his daughter needs him.

  I am relieved. Then guilty, that I feel so. And then I am cross.

  Why do I always come second?

  There is more to Mammy’s message. Phil is arriving on the next bus. Can I stay in town and meet him? I go back into the hotel bar and order a whiskey. Now I need a drink.

  LISA’S LOOKING GLASS

  For a moment she is still.

  Her presence has the same quality as a gazelle about to take flight. Her muscles are tensed; she balances on her toes. Lisa gazes at the rippling water. She likes to see herself like this, disguised with cap and goggles. Poised in her sports swimwear. She waits until the pool is virtually still, and then she gazes into her perfect looking glass.

  I want to break through the blue.

  Lisa can see the tiles on the bottom of the pool. She sees a lost wedding ring, a sharp bright light amid the floating reflections.

  She has seen that film, The Big Blue, where the two friends compete against each other, diving deeper and deeper, pushing themselves way past the limit. The hero was like a sea creature, she had thought at the time. Awkward on land, among people. Lisa knew how he felt.

  If only she could see me now, as I shoot forward and slice the water. My arms cut a white path, and I know where I am going.

  Lisa did not like her life to hold too much time for reflection. It was only here, when she stood on the edge of the pool, toes squeezed tight, that she dared to look in at herself.

  She narrowed her vision until it contained nothing but blue. She closed her ears to the splashing of others swimming and she shut out the smell of chlorine. She was on a white cliff, a sparkling contrast to the Mediterranean blue sea. She was high up, the sun on her head, and dreams in her heart. Yes, she loved that film.

  She had seen it only once, and Steve had said it was boring but she thought it was great. There were those who weren’t earthbound.

  She found people hard work. It had been difficult in Ireland, meeting that family, trying to be tough. She had built her hopes so high. Now she had had enough.

  I want to be like everyone else.

  Lisa raised her arms, pressing her hands together, pointing her fingers like an arrowhead, and bent her knees. She sprang into a graceful arch, and entered her haven. Folded in blue. The water carried and soothed her.

  Lisa’s limbs began to work; she glided swiftly, effortlessly forwards.

  If she could have dived for her mother, she would have swum ten thousand fathoms.

  SARAH

  After Eithne was born Sarah changed.

  A tiny spark inside her, which she had let Noel Chaney ignite, finally went out. She cut her hair and dedicated herself to her children, in particular to Beatrice. It was her little girl who kept her alive, who gave her the love she needed to keep going on. Now that she was five, each little advance Beatrice made excited Sarah. Her first day at school, the first book she was able to read, and all the funny, witty things she said – they were the reasons she was able to get up every morning and face each day. Joe went back to England, but his threats had frightened her. She knew what he was capable of when he was angry. She had seen him watching her with Beatrice, and she knew their intimacy taunted him. A couple of times she was certain he was jealous of the child. So maybe the baby’s arrival wasn’t such a bad thing . . . at least he had a little girl too now.

  Sarah felt so different about this baby. She had bonded with Beatrice as soon as she laid eyes on her. But she found it hard to accept Eithne into her heart. Even at three months the baby still felt like a stranger. She had long given up on breastfeeding, and much to Margaret’s approval the baby was now being bottle fed. When Sarah felt guilty about her lack of feeling for her newborn she consoled herself with the fact that Beatrice adored her little sister, and spent as much time as she could lavishing affection on her. Sarah prayed that one day her love for Eithne would expand.

  As money was still tight, she got a part-time job in the pub in Fore, as well as keeping on some cleaning jobs. It was great to get out in the evening, and Margaret and Bríd were happy to mind the two girls. Sarah made friends in the pub. For once she was part of a small but lively scene. The landlady was a cheerful and robust little woman, Katie Sykes, and she liked the young Englishwoman. Each evening she left out old magazines for Sarah to take home with her to read and study what was happening in the outside world, even if it was only fashion.

  When Sarah locked up the pub, she would circle the village of Fore, just so she could pass the abbey. It was a place of such rare beauty, and completely unappreciated by her neighbours. Sarah imagined the monks, and the harshness of their lives. It must have been so cold inside that old stone in the winter.

  By the side of the abbey was a pigeon house. It was similar to a miniature round tower, with openings all the way around it for the pigeons. Sarah imagined the panicked flapping of the doomed birds. They were the monks’ only form of sustenance in the long, winter months. Now the birdhouse stood empty and calm.

  At that time you could still go into the mausoleum and Sarah would often sit on a tomb, kneading her fingers, shaking her head. At times she felt so low that if it had not been for her two little girls, she would happily have climbed inside the tomb and settled herself among the dusty old bones.

  One night, when Eithne was only about four months old, Tommy O’Reilly came into the pub. Tommy had been in England and Sarah had not seen him since long before the baby was born. At first he acted as if nothing was the matter.

  ‘How ye doing, Sarah!’ he said cheerily. ‘Fix us up a pint there, will ya?’

  Sarah started pulling the pint; she said nothing.

  ‘I believe congrats are in order,’ he continued. ‘Will you have a drink, on me, to wet the baby’s head?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ she said stiffly.

  ‘Ah, come on. I haven’t seen ye in ages. Have a drink, why not? For old friends’ sake.’

  ‘I have nothing to celebrate with you, Tommy O’Reilly.’

  ‘Jaysus, what’s up with you?’

  He scratched his head. Sarah finished pulling his pint, and almost slammed it in front of him.

  ‘Steady on,’ he said. ‘You’ll ruin me pint.’

  She started to walk to the other side of the bar.

  ‘Oh, I get it,’ he shouted after her. ‘You’re sore cos of what I told Joey.’

  The bar was fairly empty. Everyone looked up. Sarah turned and walked quickly back to Tommy.

  ‘For God’s sake, haven’t you done enough damage?’

  ‘Sure, I was only having a laugh with Joey. I only said what I saw. Where’s the harm?’

  ‘Don’t pretend you’re a fool,’ she hissed.

  Tommy’s red face deepened. She glared at him.

  ‘You know what he can be capable of.’

  He shook
his head, picked up his pint and joined his buddies. All night long he kept looking over at her.

  When Sarah had finished work it was about one in the morning. She took her usual stroll around Fore. She crossed the brook and walked towards the abbey. She was stepping over a low wall, when she heard someone behind her. ‘Who’s there?’ she called out, turning.

  ‘It’s only me.’ Tommy O’Reilly stood behind her, a cigarette glowed between his fingers.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ said Tommy. ‘I don’t like to be humiliated in front of me pals. You should have taken the drink and shut up.’

  ‘You had no right to tell Joseph you saw me with Noel Chaney—’ she began.

  ‘But it’s true, isn’t it?’ he sneered. ‘I did see ye – in yer nightie.’ He started to laugh. ‘Joey’s right, he’s married a right tart who chucks it around to anyone who’ll ask.’

  Sarah froze.

  ‘So I’m asking yer.’ He took a last drag, and then threw his cigarette away. He stepped towards her.

  ‘Are you mad?’ she spluttered. ‘I’m married to your best friend.’

  ‘I won’t tell, will you?’

  Her lie to Joe had come true. Tommy grabbed her arm and tried to kiss her.

  ‘Get off me.’

  ‘What’s wrong? Am I not good enough for you? Will you only go with the likes of Noel Chaney?’

  Sarah felt sick. She pulled away from him.

  ‘Please, Tommy – this is stupid. I’ll tell Joe and he’ll kill you.’

  Tommy let go suddenly. He spat.

  ‘Guess you’re right,’ he said. ‘He is me friend and all. Anyway, I don’t go with whores.’

  He turned and strolled away, as cool as they come. Sarah’s legs gave way. She crumbled among the ruins of the abbey. Somewhere else had been taken away.

  EITHNE