‘What?’
‘The Cure is a band, Pen. Didn’t you know, for real?’
‘What, like a rock band?’
‘Yeah. The lead singer has all this backcombed hair…’
I stared at the letters. ‘And all these years I’ve been reading such profundity into it.’
Her laughter was throaty, much lower than her sister’s. ‘You’re a little out of touch. What do you play on that old ghetto-blaster of yours?’
‘Bach,’ I told her. ‘Sometimes Pachelbel, Handel, people like that.’
She was walking ahead into the trees. I couldn’t make out the phrase she threw back.
‘No, they’re the business,’ I insisted. ‘They’d resign you to anything.’
It was a curious sensation, following her through my familiar places. Above the cluster of beeches, yesterday’s rainstorm had muddied the ground. Sun on the back of my neck made me suddenly bend down to undo my laces. Kate watched as I stepped out and felt the mud squelch between my toes. It felt cool and sweet, slightly obscene. She made no comment, but I could almost hear her thinking that it would be hell to clean the muddy toe-marks off the insides of my runners. If Cara had been beside me she would not have thought that, or warned me against broken glass, twigs, caterpillars or foot and mouth disease. She would not have made me feel foolish and theatrical, wanting to put my shoes on again but resisting the impulse out of pride.
See how nostalgia was addling my brains already? Cara wouldn’t have smiled at my toes, she would have been too busy with her own. She’d have rushed to get there before me, to be the spontaneous one, kneeling and rolling and being one with mother earth, making muddy handprints up a silver birch, while I stood by, holding her shoes. If I ever got around to loving anyone else, I thought suddenly, it would have to be someone who would neither muffle my thunder nor steal it.
The earth was delicious on the worn pads of my heels. ‘You ever been spat at, Kate?’ I asked to break the silence as we emerged into a clearing.
‘Not that I ever noticed,’ she said amusedly. ‘Why, have you?’
‘Just the once. It was Cara and me –’
‘Wasn’t it always?’
‘It’s just the place that reminds me,’ I went on after a few seconds. ‘We were sitting on that blue bench over there one Sunday morning, minding our own business – I think Cara was reading out Nell McCafferty’s column from the paper – and up comes this little old lady.’
‘How old?’
I paused to remember. ‘In her seventies, maybe; not senile, as far as I could tell. And not a bag-lady either; she was a typical Dublin 4 granny. She had one of those expensive beige raincoats buttoned up to her neck, in spite of the sun.’
‘Sinister.’
‘Ah, you’re slagging me now, but wait for it. So I spotted her walking towards us with this little fluffy dog on a leash, right, one of those ridiculous Lapsong Souchong things, and I grinned at them, and the next thing I knew, this great gob of spit was sailing through the air at us.’
Kate laughed under her breath. ‘Are you sure it wasn’t an accident? Maybe she was trying to say hello and her dentures slipped?’
‘No, it was quite deliberate. It landed on Cara’s shoe, but she never noticed, just kept on reading out bits from the paper.’
‘And what outrage did she perpetrate next?’
‘You don’t believe me,’ I said.
‘I believe that the lady spat at you,’ said Kate diplomatically, ‘but there must be a reasonable explanation.’
‘We hadn’t done a thing to her.’
Her steps were picking up speed. ‘Then she was just a weirdo. We’ve plenty of them in Boston. They talk to themselves on street corners.’
The back of my hand stroked the moss that furred a sycamore. ‘You can’t just write someone off that way. We’re all weirdos in one way or another.’
‘Not me,’ said Kate. ‘I’m boringly normal.’
‘Are you?’
She gave me a dazzling smile over one shoulder. ‘All except for my dreams. They could get me locked up.’
‘Really?’ After a few seconds I went on, ‘I suppose the difference is, most of us confine our weirdness to the privacy of our own homes or nightmares, and don’t go round expectorating at strangers.’
‘So what happened next?’
‘Well, I was expecting her to offer some justification or insult, but she just took a folded tissue out of her cuff, wiped her mouth with it and walked off.’
‘And how did Cara react?’
‘She wouldn’t believe me till I showed her the gob of spit on her shoe. She still claims, I mean she always used to claim that it was a pigeon dropping, and I was hallucinating the rest.’
‘My sister sounds like a pain in the butt,’ observed Kate under her breath. ‘I’m rather glad we lived in different countries.’
We had emerged on to the top of the hill. Rain lingered in a puddled stretch of grass; a couple of seagulls steeped across, shuffling blue sky through their toes. ‘Ah, Cara was all right,’ I said softly. Too softly. Who was I kidding, with my edited stories and flippant references? This East Coast sophisticate could probably see right through me. ‘I doubt you two would have had much in common, though,’ I said. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever adopted a whale.’
Kate groaned, wiping the sweat out of her eyes.
‘She called it Samantha,’ I added enjoyably. Then I heard the cheap satire in my voice, and my mouth went sour. ‘Actually,’ I said, ‘she wasn’t some bleeding-heart hippy, she did a lot of good work.’
No comment from her sister.
‘I mean, I know she sort of sponged off your father in the big house, but that let her do lots of crisis helplines and stuff, when others just couldn’t afford the time.’
‘Why do you call it that?’ asked Kate, surveying the smoky horizon. ‘The house isn’t very big at all.’
‘I think it came from me taking the piss out of Cara for being rich, like, the gentryfolk up in the Big House. Besides, it was bigger than I was used to.’
‘I guess when they bought it Mom and Dad were expecting more of a family.’
‘Would you have liked other siblings?’
‘No,’ said Kate, considering. ‘I’d have preferred to be an only child.’
I let the silence lengthen, waiting for her to qualify the remark. Then I said, ‘Anyway, the house seemed huge to me when I first saw it. Do you remember that day?’
‘Which?’
I wiped the sweat off my throat with the back of my hand. ‘What were you on, all through fourth year?’
Kate pursed her lips. ‘Had we been shopping?’
‘No, swimming. Stop pretending to remember.’
Her teeth flashed in a grin, very white and strong. ‘OK. You’re the storyteller.’
‘We’d bumped into each other after school at the pool,’ I explained, ‘and there wasn’t another bus for an hour, and my hair was dripping into my collar, so you invited me home for tea.’
‘What a nice girl I must have been.’
‘You took the last slice of chocolate gâteau and ran yourself a hot bath, leaving me to watch Top of the Pops with your little sister.’
Kate’s mouth twisted in amusement. ‘Turned out Cara was more useful to you in the end, though.’
My fingers were following a crack in the bark of a horse-chestnut tree. ‘Still, I’d have liked some gâteau.’
‘I’ll buy you one tomorrow, all right?’
‘Too late,’ I said with a theatrical sigh. ‘But I was so impressed by your house,’ I went on, picking my way across the slope.
‘Why?’
‘Well, for a start it was detached; I’d never been in more than a semi before. It seemed so grandiose, and your parents were so civilized, with their long words and glass coffee cups, and you had a hammock in your garden.’
‘You were easily impressed.’
‘Well, for someone from my background –’
&n
bsp; ‘Hang on, something’s coming back to me: didn’t your father work at the university?’
For a moment I felt the old shame behind my eyes. I produced a snigger, as I wiped my muddy feet on the grass before tugging on my runners. ‘I used to say that, while I was at school. What I meant was, he was one of the college gardeners.’
‘Ah.’
‘And of course as soon as I got to college myself, after he died, my snobbery inverted, and I told people, “My father used to dig here”.’
Kate’s voice expanded in a laugh.
‘It was a sort of running joke. Sometimes when I’d come over to the big house and Cara’d open the door, I’d say, “Beggin’ yer pardon, yer honour”, or “Top o’ the mornin’ to you, young mistress, and would there be any little thing I could be doin’ for you today?” Just stupid stuff like that,’ I trailed off, feeling pink.
‘But we’re not Anglo at all,’ Kate insisted. ‘Catholic peasant stock on both sides.’
The warm paint splintered under my fingers as I pushed the gate open. ‘Nobody’s a peasant with money and a hammock.’
‘Who are you to talk?’ Kate added playfully. ‘You live here now.’
‘Yeah, but I’m only the window cleaner.’
Her hands were dug deep into her ironed cotton pockets. ‘I’m really sorry about that. I was jet-lagged, and the headscarf confused me.’
‘No worries,’ I told her magnanimously.
By the time we got home the sky was beginning to cloud over. Kate looked in the kitchen window while I struggled with the lock. There was a muffled crash from the tool-shed. ‘That’ll be Grace,’ I told her, and sure enough there he was, edging along the whitewashed window-sill. I got the door open at last, and paused on the step, wiping my runners on the mat. Kate hadn’t moved.
‘You all right?’
‘Something else is coming back to me,’ she said, following me in.
I busied myself with the kettle’s strange new switch, leaving a silence for her to fill, but she didn’t. ‘You’ve probably had more than an earful of Wall family history over the years,’ she said at last.
Fishing for an invitation, was she? Would the words not come without the asking? I smiled at the floor. ‘No, actually, Cara said very little about it. And all Mr. Wall’s stories are of you two as small children.’
‘Really? What kind of stories?’
‘Like when you were fighting in the back of the car, and your mother stopped on the roadside and made the pair of you get out, and threatened to drive away unless you promised to be civil.’
‘Did she do that? Good for her,’ Kate added uncertainly. ‘If I ever have children, I’m going to buy an old cab with one of those sound-proof screens between front and back.’
‘So what was it you were remembering?’ I sat with my elbows on the table and waited.
‘Just, why I went with Mom, back in ’78,’ she said. ‘It was the evening they told us they were splitting up. I hadn’t noticed a thing.’
‘Mmm?’ I said after a few seconds, to bring her back.
She jolted slightly. ‘Anyway. Can’t remember the euphemism they used, something like “Mum’s going to take a job in America for a while and Dad’s going to look after you two here till we decide where we’ll all live.”’
‘That what they said?’
‘They probably meant it at the time. But I should have known Dad would never have the guts to emigrate.’
Considering a retort, but knowing it would slow the story down, I reached up for two mugs.
‘So anyway, much later that evening, round bedtime, I was coming past this window – probably on my way back from mooching round the woods, which I wasn’t supposed to do after dark – and I looked in and saw Dad and Cara.’
‘Doing what?’
‘He was on his own by the sideboard, polishing the forks. I couldn’t hear a thing but it looked like he was crying, from the way he was bent over. I didn’t think crying was something he did.’
‘So where was Cara?’ I followed Kate’s gaze, taking in the sideboard, the white lightshade, summoning up the scene.
‘She walked in with an empty mug and saw him. Now if it had been me, and I’d known that Dad had seen me seeing him cry, I’d have been so mortified I’d probably have gotten the hell out of there. But Cara went right over and put her arms around him. She was taller than him, even then.’
‘Yeah?’ I said, to keep her going.
‘They stood there for ages,’ said Kate, staring at the sideboard. ‘His head was on her shoulder and she still had the mug hanging from her little finger.’
The kettle was starting to pant. ‘I still don’t see why that made you demand to go to Ohio.’
‘It just seemed…appropriate.’ A hint of irony undercut the word. ‘I knew Cara was Daddy’s pet; when she was small she was always knocking things over and cutting her knees and needing them to be kissed better. But it was never so real to me till I saw the two of them standing there, and I thought, yes, that fits.’
The skin was shadowy below her mud-brown eyes. ‘Couldn’t you have fitted too?’ I asked.
‘Nah, I wasn’t in that picture. But it all worked out,’ she added after a minute.
I watched steam ribbon up from the neat mouth of the kettle. ‘Did it?’
‘Sure. I knew the States would suit me better; I was always getting impatient with Ireland.’
‘At least you got to keep your mother.’
‘Oh, Cara did all right out of the bargain,’ said Kate briskly. ‘I suspect my father was the better mother.’
I made tea for two, without thinking, then poured out one mug and made her coffee. Apparently drained of words, Kate opened the newspaper and leaned into it, her eyes intent on the page.
I stood for a second, my arms hanging by my sides, then went off for a shower. The mud clung to my toes; I had to lean against the side and scrub them hard. After standing in the water for ten minutes I was no cooler. My skin crisped up but the heat stayed in my head and stomach.
Cooking seemed far too much effort, so when Mr. Wall plodded into the yard at five to six I simply arrayed cold ham and pâté and a cucumber across the tablecloth. I asked Kate something about her mother’s job, but she had retreated into monosyllables. I put out three plates, my ears comforted by the familiar clang as each hit the cloth. Kate lifted her paper out of my way without looking up.
Mr. Wall was in form at dinner, chatting away about the Wotherby library’s more peculiar users. He was looking rather dashing today, his Adam’s apple firm against his wine silk tie. I wondered whether, if Irish law had allowed it, he would have married again. He might still, I supposed, if divorce came to Ireland in the nineties; unless he considered himself to have outgrown that sort of thing.
Kate sat across the table from me. When her long knee brushed against mine, I shifted away imperceptibly. I decided, as I reached for the bottle of white wine, that Mr. Wall’s daughters had little in common except their mother’s height. He seemed a gentle Joseph who had contributed nothing to their features. I passed dishes, commented on weather and politics, and kept on watching Kate. Only the odd gesture gave an unnerving reminder of their sisterhood. Funny word, that; why did ‘hood’ added to nouns make them into states of being? Perhaps sisterhood was a hood that sisters had to wear, or rather, two hoods. Wide brims framing the eyes, I imagined, rather Florence Nightingale; perhaps harmonizing tones of the same colour, azure and midnight blue, with ribbons to match. Then what about maidenhood? Definitely the hoods off our old Immac uniforms, stiff red gaberdine to shade us from rain and male glances. They were detachable, too, I remembered, and the bad girls used to unbutton theirs and lose them in the first week: how very suitable! And under the maidenhood was the maidenhead, and girls lost their heads just as easily.
I took the bottle from Mr. Wall’s outstretched hand and poured myself a toast to my enduring maidenhead. After Cara gave up men she stopped mocking me for it; in fact I suspect that, with h
er taste for extremes, she rather envied my being what Jo called a cradle-dyke. (The phrase conjured up an image of a baby lolling in a cradle, one blurry eye on the breast, deciding that nothing else would do.) Cara brought me back a badly printed red badge from Manchester once that said ‘Technically a Virgin’. I had never worn it, but every time I glimpsed it on the inside of my wardrobe door I grinned.
At a certain stage, it occurred to me now, chewing on a strand of ham, even the most technical of virgins becomes an old maid. Twenty-eight it was in Jane Austen’s day, so being thirty last May I was well past it. The spinsterhood, I decided, would be tall and crooked, in dark grey felt; not the prettiest, but I’d prefer it to the flapping gingham motherhood, or (god forbid) the wifehood drowned in off-white lace. Dykehood was definitely a baseball cap. There wasn’t a lesbianhood that I knew of, only an ism, sounding like a digestive disease. Someone would have to invent something better.
In the cool of the early evening Kate insisted on doing the washing up. I filled up the kettle for yet another boost of caffeine, and sat on the high stool by the counter, reading the crossword clues without bothering to reach for a biro to fill them in.
Mr. Wall padded in. He was wearing his best grey suit. ‘Twenty to seven now, girls.’
We stared at him.
‘The removal’s at seven. Is that what they call it? Reception of Remains?’ The words were slipping around in his throat.
‘Right,’ said Kate, all business.
‘I don’t think,’ I began, and the two of them stopped in their tracks. ‘Actually, I can’t manage it.’ They waited. ‘I could ring you a taxi…’
‘Why don’t you give me your keys.’ Kate’s voice, solid as a church bench. ‘I’m insured for any car.’
But you’re used to…’
‘I’ve driven plenty of manual cars on the left when I’ve been in London on business trips.’
‘Couldn’t spare a day to stop off in Dublin and see your sister on any of these trips, no?’ The words spat themselves out like bullets.
We were all equally startled. Kate’s mouth opened as if to answer, mine as if to apologize, but nothing came out of either. Mr. Wall’s face was uncooked dough. I fumbled for the keyring in my littered handbag. ‘Mind the clutch,’ I told her, ‘it’s a bit touchy.’