Beatrice Read online

  She circled the Common. It was a cold day, but she felt hot. Here came the pain again. Breathe. Focus on that twig. Breathe through the pain. She wished she wasn’t alone. She wandered slowly to the other side of the Common, she was right by the building site. She looked up, and there was the Irishman above her. He waved; she waved back and crumpled. Water was trickling down her legs. Beth leapt up at her and started barking with fright.

  ‘My waters have broken,’ she whispered.

  The Irishman was there by her side, panting.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

  ‘My waters have broken,’ she repeated.

  ‘What? Are you having the baby?’

  She nodded. A wave of pain broke over her. She whined.

  ‘Jaysus!’ the Irishman exclaimed. ‘Mikey, get the van, will yer. She’s having a baby!’

  They arrived at the hospital, and the Irishman took her in while Mikey stayed in the van with Beth. The midwife examined her while the Irishman sat outside waiting.

  ‘Three centimetres,’ said the midwife. ‘You’ll be a while yet. Do you have your overnight bag?’

  ‘No, I was in the park,’ Sarah said.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get you a gown. Your husband can go home and get your bag.’

  Sarah went out into the corridor; she was surprised to see the Irishman was still there.

  ‘I’d better be getting back to work,’ he said. ‘Is your husband coming?’

  ‘I don’t have a husband,’ she said.

  ‘Oh. Your fiancé, then?’

  Anthony flashed through her mind. No, she could not expect that. She did not want him to see her like this anyway.

  ‘No, I don’t have one.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Pause. Another contraction. She gripped his hand.

  ‘Please . . . could you get my bag?’

  Twelve hours later Beatrice was born. It had been a slow process. The hours had crept by and Sarah was exhausted, but the second stage had been uplifting. She had never felt such power as she delivered her baby. All the time the Irishman let the nurses think he was her husband. He had sat patiently outside, and when the baby was born they brought him in to hold her. Sarah did not even know his name, yet there they were: a family. He held the baby gingerly, peered down at her and said, ‘How ya’.’

  ‘What are you going to call her?’ asked the nurse as she stitched Sarah up.

  Sarah closed her eyes and for a second saw Jonathan’s beautiful face. Sorrow overwhelmed her.

  ‘Beata Beatrix,’ she whispered to herself.

  ‘Beatrice,’ said the nurse. ‘That’s a lovely old-fashioned name.’

  BEATRICE

  Beatrice went to the secret garden to write her note. She took with her a torch and a small box. The box was made of tin and she had painted it with brightly coloured patterns, and stuck shells on it. Eithne could not miss it.

  The secret garden was behind the shed. You had to squeeze through the shed past all the tools, the lawnmower and a huge machine which caught leaves, to the back door. This door was permanently locked. Their parents had told them that the key was lost, and that there was nothing behind the shed apart from a jungle of weeds, but the girls had been intrigued. A high wall covered in ivy ran from the wall of the shed in a semi-circle, encompassing a small hidden garden, and about two years ago Beatrice and Eithne had found the key in an old greasy jamjar under piles of old newspapers in the corner of the shed. It had taken them a long while to get the door open, but eventually the lock had turned. Getting through had been difficult, because weeds and ivy blocked the doorway; painstakingly they had cut their way through.

  It was always night in the secret garden. A lattice of tree branches, weeds, evergreens and ivy were interlaced above the girls’ heads. The smell of poisonous plants was almost overwhelming. Anything fragrant or delicate had long since been exterminated by heavy green foliage. Being here had not been comfortable, it was smelly and dark, but at least they had been totally safe. No one could find them here; no one could hear them.

  Beatrice looked at the piece of paper for ages and sucked the end of the biro. How was she going to tell Eithne? But she should know the truth: that she had not meant to leave her; that she would come back. Afterwards.

  EITHNE

  I am in shock. I lean against the side of the bath gasping. Shauna is calling me from the kitchen.

  ‘Was it a ghost?’ she shouts with delight.

  I feel as though I have seen a ghost. It is impossible to think that Beatrice is still alive after all these years. She would have come back. In fact, she would never have run away in the first place. She wasn’t like that. She was proud; she would not have cared what people thought if she had been pregnant. And our mother, of all people, could not have judged her. Even our father could not have been so bad as to make her run away. All alone, and pregnant . . . It was inconceivable.

  Shauna walks into the bathroom.

  ‘Why are you sitting on the floor?’ she asks.

  ‘I don’t feel too well.’

  ‘I’ll get you some water.’ She troops back into the kitchen and gets me a lukewarm glass of water. There are bits of green leaves floating in it.

  ‘I put some mint in it,’ she says. ‘Lovely glass of mint water.’

  ‘Thanks, love.’ I pretend to drink it and get up shakily. ‘Let’s get on with our painting.’

  The phone rings. I freeze.

  ‘Actually, why don’t we go to the park?’ I say.

  ‘Answer the phone, answer the phone,’ Shauna trills.

  I go into the kitchen, lift the receiver and put it straight back down again.

  ‘Who was it?’ Shauna asks, as I hand her a coat.

  ‘No one. Wrong number.’

  ‘Bogeyman, bogeyman,’ Shauna sings as we leave the house.

  We stay out all day. From the park, I take Shauna to the cinema, and then we have a pizza. It’s dark by the time we get back and Leo is already home.

  ‘Did anyone phone?’ I ask nervously.

  ‘No. Why?’ He looks at my face. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I got this really weird phone call.’

  ‘You look awful, Eithne. Jesus, what’s happened?’

  ‘It’s Beatrice . . .’ I pause not knowing quite how to put it. ‘This girl rang me, Leo. She was English – she said she was Beatrice’s daughter; that she’d been adopted.’

  Leo looks appalled.

  ‘That means,’ I continue, ‘that Beatrice was pregnant when she disappeared – that means she’s not dead.’ I gasp. ‘Oh, my God . . .’

  I feel like I am falling away from my self, my body unable to stay erect.

  ‘Sit down,’ Leo says, taking my arm and forcing me onto the sofa. I put my head in my hands.

  ‘It might not be true,’ he says quietly. ‘That girl might be making it up.’

  ‘But why would anyone do that? Go to all that bother?’

  ‘It could be a mistake,’ he suggests.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, feeling a little better. ‘You must be right. It doesn’t make sense – Beatrice couldn’t have done that, just gone away without telling anyone. She wouldn’t have willingly done that to Mammy . . . She really loved her. It has to be some misunderstanding, don’t you think?’

  Leo doesn’t look so sure now.

  ‘Yes,’ he says unconvincingly, ‘absolutely – and anyway even if she was out there somewhere she obviously doesn’t ever want to come back, so what’s the point of torturing yourself any longer?’

  I stare at him in disbelief.

  ‘I don’t believe you just said that!’

  He looks uncomfortable.

  ‘I’m sorry, it came out wrong. I’m sorry . . . I’d better get Shauna out of the bath . . .’

  ‘You have no idea at all – how dare you be so patronizing!’

  ‘Calm down, will you?’ he says. ‘Shauna will hear you.’

  ‘You don’t know what it’s like to lose someone close to y
ou – how could you possibly tell me to just stop thinking about it?’

  ‘Eithne, the story of my whole family is based on loss – aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, all gone. I’m just saying that there is a point at which you have to let go – we can’t live with your sister’s ghost for ever. If you cling on to the past too much, you forget about the future.’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten the future – I think about it all the time.’

  ‘Whatever,’ he says taking the towel from his shoulder and going out of the room.

  I am raging. How did he do that? Turn around my upset so that now I feel bad, self-indulgent.

  I growl, turn on the telly and slump onto the couch. Leo comes back into the room and picks up the hairbrush. He pauses and is about to say something; he seems unusually hesitant, but I turn my back on him and he gets the message.

  *

  There is one last portrait of Beatrice, which is in the Artist’s attic. This painting is not a nude but a copy of Rosetti’s Beata Beatrix with Beatrice as Dante’s lover. The picture is smaller than the others and painted in soft focus in oils. Beatrice must have told the Artist about Sarah and Jonathan, and about what her name meant and why our father hated it. The painting shows Beatrice’s head and shoulders, she is at right angles to us and illuminated by a shaft of light.

  In the painting, Beatrice is receiving a small flower from a dove. Is this her lot?

  I picked the picture up.

  ‘Can I take this?’ I asked Mick.

  ‘Of course. You can take them all,’ he said.

  ‘No, I just want this one.’

  ‘Will we burn the others?’

  ‘You can’t,’ I said, ‘somebody made them. We can’t destroy someone’s work. Sell them, pack them away. I don’t care. Just make sure my mam and da never see them.’

  I took up the small picture and examined it.

  This last painting is imbued with more doom-laden eroticism than all the nudes put together.

  I am still cross with Leo the next morning.

  ‘Get up, Daddy – Daddy get up.’ Shauna comes tumbling into the bedroom and jumps onto the bed.

  He moans and tries to hide under the covers.

  ‘I want my breakfast.’ She prods him. ‘I’m hungry.’

  ‘Go on, Leo, get up.’ I push him.

  ‘Okay, okay,’ he says, his head emerging from the covers.

  Slowly he pushes open the duvet and sits on the edge of the bed rubbing his eyes. Shauna is delighted.

  ‘I’ll get the breakfast ready.’ She scampers off to the kitchen, while Leo pulls on his jeans. He is not a tall man. Slight, with blue eyes, which slant at the corners. The texture of his skin reminds me of the marble he chisels, and his features are sharply defined, particularly his cheekbones. He does not look Irish in the least. He leans over me and kisses my forehead.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asks.

  ‘Yeah, fine. It’s just . . . I feel so confused.’

  ‘It’s probably all a big mistake,’ he says again, unconvincingly.

  I am surprised, it is unlike him not to know for sure just what to say.

  ‘Do you mind if I don’t come with you today?’ I say. ‘I just don’t feel up to it.’

  ‘Course. That’s fine. Sure, there’ll be plenty more dinners at my mam’s.’

  A crash comes from the kitchen and he dashes out of the room.

  It is a sunny winter’s day, the best kind, clear and bright, and I look at the crystal hanging from our skylight, sparkling and bouncing rainbows off the walls. I feel stranded. I try to dismiss the English girl from my mind but I keep hearing her voice saying, ‘I’m her daughter,’ over and over and over again. And with that voice, a tiny seed of hope, which had always existed, begins to flower.

  After Leo and Shauna have left, I get out of bed, and wander round the house drinking a huge mug of coffee. Every few minutes I begin shaking. I am in shock. It couldn’t be true, it has to be a hoax. But what if it is? And with that thought comes anger – why? Why? Why?

  Now I wish I had gone with Leo and Shauna. At least I would have been distracted. I decide to go for a run; maybe the icy air will make me feel saner.

  I walk to Phoenix Park and then I run through the woods. I see deer, unconcerned at my approach. When I can’t run any more, I lie on the grass and look up into the sky. I frame my eyes so that all I can see is a blue void. I think about Beatrice.

  And Beatrice’s sister. Me.

  Empty, annihilated. The lost girl.

  Which girl is lost?

  When I was eight my Uncle Jack gave me my first book of poetry. It was called Songs of Innocence by Willam Blake. Uncle Jack told me that William Blake was not only a great poet but a talented engraver as well. Following the instructions of his dead brother who he had seen in a dream, Blake had decided to combine both poem and illustration in one entity, engraved on a copperplate. Each page of the book was to be coloured with washes by hand. No two copies of the book were to be the same. Even the order of the pages was not fixed. This was my first encounter with print-making. I was fascinated. For hours I perused the book attracted by the delicacy yet depth of the engraving, by its deep shadows and translucent layers of colour. And the writing. I loved the old-fashioned lettering – the full curve of a ‘c’, a fat wholesome ‘g’.

  Beatrice read me the poems. I was particularly impressed with the story of Lyca, the little girl lost.

  I loved her name and insisted on being called Lyca for two whole weeks until my father exploded – if I wanted to be called after the little girl lost, I could just go and get lost until I grew up and answered to my real name like any normal human being. Then Beatrice shouted back and said that it wasn’t my fault that Eithne was such a boring common name and it was no wonder I wanted to change it to Lyca. Then my father became serious and said something under his breath about Beatrice and why her name was Beatrice – bastard – I think he said. And then Beatrice stormed out, and my mother said, ‘For God’s sake, Joe.’ And she looked over at me and I felt it was my fault.

  Later that night, when Beatrice was still downstairs watching telly with Mammy, Daddy came up and sat on the end of my bed.

  ‘I’m sorry, poppet,’ he said, and he picked up the poetry book and read to me, the words a little slurred, but each one said with love. ‘You’re my best girl,’ he said.

  ‘Daddy,’ I asked, ‘why don’t you love Beatrice?’

  ‘I do.’ The words came strangled out of his throat, but I didn’t believe him.

  When my daddy read ‘The Little Girl Lost’, it made me think of my secret garden.

  Seven summers old

  Lovely Lyca told,

  She had wander’d long

  Hearing the wild birds’ song.

  Sweet sleep, come to me

  Underneath this tree;

  Do father, mother weep—

  ‘Where can Lyca sleep’.

  One day, soon after my eighth birthday, I tried to get lost. I got up early, put on a thick sweater and made a pile of ham sandwiches. Then I set out. I walked for hours. All day, it seemed.

  I walked down the big hill and kept going until I did not recognize the road, then I cut across some fields and through a small copse. It was tough going, but I was determined to get lost. Finally, I came out onto another road, and headed up a hill. I saw a spire in the distance. I thought, I will sleep in the graveyard and walk again tomorrow. Then I will be utterly lost. Everyone will weep and come looking for me. But as I got closer and closer to the spire the road became familiar, and I realized that I was approaching my own village. I had spent the entire day walking in a circle. I was too tired to attempt to get lost again. Wearily I shuffled home. It wasn’t even dinner time and to add insult to injury no one had noticed I had gone missing.

  ‘There you are,’ said my harassed mother. ‘Will you lay the table, please?’

  ‘Did you miss me?’

  ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘Did you miss me?
’ I repeated.

  ‘Why? Where did you go?’ she said half listening as she put the kettle on.

  ‘I got lost.’

  ‘You should take the dog,’ she said. ‘Don’t go out on those roads alone. You hear me? The dog will always bring you home.’

  Frowning, frowning night,

  O’er this desart bright,

  Let thy moon arise

  While I close my eyes.

  Maybe Beatrice had decided to get lost and succeeded. Yet Beatrice would never have left me behind. We had shared a bedroom for twelve years. Every night I had listened to her breathing in my sleep, and our dreams had woven in and out of each other’s mind. In the morning we moved to the same rhythm. Now a stranger arrives and tells me something different.

  I get up and dust grass and leaves from my trousers. I walk home slowly. As I turn the corner I see a figure sitting on the wall outside our house. A tall girl with blonde hair slouches against the magnolia tree behind the wall. She is wearing jeans, large white runners and a padded jacket. She is smoking a cigarette, and stares straight across the road. She does not look in my direction, but I know this girl is waiting for me.

  I am not surprised.

  BEATRICE

  An Loch Bán. Lough Bane. Her childhood passes beneath you, like a tiny trout, dancing in your watery, speckled light. She remembers those swans flying with their long necks thrusting skyward and their splendid wings sweeping through the crystal air. She will always be here.

  On top of the Noggin, in the company of the beech trees, she looks down at the white, land-locked lough. Two fat bullocks graze close by. Now they are docile, but come evening they will charge about the field and spar.