‘Ooh, Jasmine,’ Heather says as soon as she sees what I’ve done with the garden. ‘I can’t believe it’s the same garden.’
‘I know. Do you like it?’
‘I love it.’
She looks at me in silence, which makes me feel self-conscious.
‘What?’ I look away, busy myself with our tools.
‘I’m surprised that Jasmine did this,’ she says, as if I’m not there but she’s looking directly at me. Her tone surprises me. ‘Busy, busy Jasmine.’
‘You’re one to talk!’ I try to keep my voice light. ‘You’ve a busier schedule than me.’
She moves a hair from in front of my eyes to behind my ear. She has to stand on tiptoe to do this. ‘I am proud of you, Jasmine.’
Tears prick behind my eyes and I’m embarrassed. I don’t recall her ever having said that before, and I don’t know why it moves me so much, so suddenly, so deeply.
‘Yeah, well, I am on gardening leave, after all. So,’ I clap my hands. ‘Before we start, I got you something.’
I give her the gardening clothes I’d ordered online. Green wellington boots with pink flowers, overalls, a warm hat and pink gardening gloves.
We are busy digging a hole big enough to fit the basin of the bowl in when your door opens. I try not to look up and succeed in doing this, my heart drumming at the thought of another confrontation with you, but when I hear footsteps approach, the dragging and shuffling sound tells me that it’s Fionn and I’m no longer afraid to look up. His Beats by Dre are around his neck, and his hands are shoved deep into his pockets. It’s like a Mary Poppins bag illusion. His hands are far too large to be squeezed into pockets of that size; the effort of jamming them in has pushed his shoulders up past his ears. He doesn’t say anything, just stands there and waits to be addressed.
‘Hi, Fionn,’ I say, straightening up my already aching back.
He grumbles something inaudible.
‘This is my sister Heather.’
The test of a good person right there. And then I remind myself that I need to stop setting so much store on that one moment: the introduction. But Fionn passes the test, grumbling the same inaudible response to Heather and looking neither of us in the eye.
Heather waves.
‘My dad was wondering if you need help.’ He surveys the tools and the hole. ‘Are you doing the water fountain?’
‘Yes, we are.’ I feel awful, but as wrong as I was to say the things that I said to you last night, I’m not going to spend the day minding your son again. Besides, I’ve planned to spend the day with Heather. But I can’t do it. I can’t reject him. You are probably still in bed, hungover. I picture your dark, stuffy bedroom, you as a lump beneath the covers, blackout curtains keeping out the daylight, while your children are downstairs, still in their pyjamas at noon, throwing cereal around the kitchen, stamping on it, mushing it into the carpet. Setting things on fire.
Just as I’m handing Fionn the shovel I hear a burst of children’s laughter and you and the two blonde children come around the corner from the back garden behind your house. You are saying something, very jovial, chirpy, playful. There’s a spring in your step, you’re in good form for someone who was throwing whisky glasses at my head in the very same garden less than twelve hours ago.
You whistle. A call.
I know it’s for Fionn. Fionn knows it’s for Fionn, but he doesn’t turn around. Nor do I look up.
‘Fionn, come on, buddy,’ you say good-naturedly.
‘I’m helping.’ Fionn’s voice comes out whiney, and then breaks.
‘No you’re not,’ you say happily, setting some things out on the table.
I want to see what they are but I don’t want to look at you.
‘Hello, Heather,’ you say cheerily.
‘Hello, Matt.’ Heather waves back and I’m stunned by their exchange.
You ignore me. I’m afraid to look you in the eye.
Fionn sighs, drops the shovel and, without a word to Heather or me, he trudges back across the road, hands disappearing in the magical pockets again, the weight of his long arms pushing his trousers down to reveal the top of his boxer shorts.
In a cheery voice you start to explain to the children what you’re going to do. I want to listen, but Heather is talking and I can’t tell her to stop. Then you turn music on in your car. The kids are excited and the girl who dances everywhere dances around and the other focuses hard on his task. I try to glimpse what you’re doing without being obvious; I try to position myself so that I’m facing you but look as though I’m engrossed in my work. You’re all gathered around the garden table. You are all sanding, and I almost stop what I’m doing to stare in shock. You have taken my advice.
Heather is still talking.
I finally tune into what she’s saying. She wants to go over to you and talk about the tour of the radio station. She’s been doing some research, there are certain studios that she would like to see. I tell her that it’s not appropriate, that it’s Sunday and you’re having family time.
‘I’ll be polite, Jasmine,’ she says, her eyes pleading, and that breaks my heart because I was never in any doubt that she would be polite and I don’t want her to think that it’s her I’m worried about. Finally I stop working.
There is another thing about my sister. She gets things into her head and she must absolutely do them. Absolutely. If she can’t, she cannot fathom it and it rocks her world. Maybe there’s something to be said for having challenges in life; it makes you work harder to face things, it won’t let you take no for an answer. You do more than most people would ordinarily do to rise to the challenge and ensure that your fear or whatever it is that threatens to hold you back cannot win. When I had finished my homework and could watch TV, Heather had speech therapy. When I was able to go out and play with my friends on the road, Heather had extra reading classes. Learning to cycle was a prolonged effort, while I just took off. She always worked harder for everything. This is why the meetings are important, because if she suggests something that isn’t ideal, then at least as a group we can talk about it before it takes over her mind. She did discuss visiting the radio station at the group, everybody agreed that a trip would be a great idea – everybody but me, and I didn’t voice my opinion. By failing to speak I let her down.
I once met a mother who, describing her son’s character traits, said, ‘Typical Down syndrome.’ I wanted to slap her. You cannot define a person by any one thing at any time; we are all unique. This part of Heather’s personality has absolutely nothing to do with having Down syndrome. If so, then Dad and I have Down syndrome too because there’s no stopping any of us when we get the bit between our teeth.
I think about lying. It’s on the tip of my tongue. I always feel that if I can somehow personally guarantee Heather’s happiness then everything will be all right in the world. But my philosophy has always been to tell Heather the truth; I might sugar-coat things occasionally, but that’s my worst offence. I’ve never told her a full-on lie. Realising that I’m about to break my code of ethics, I stop. A boyfriend of mine once told me that I was a people-pleaser, only I know that I wasn’t, because I didn’t please him – I didn’t even try. He seemed to be the last person on my list who I tried to please. What I realise now is that I’m a Heather-pleaser. There are very few other people I try to please; everything revolves around her. I realise that this does not make me a caring person. In fact it makes me rather selfish, because it has meant that in the end everything revolves around me too.
For years I have told myself that Heather looks to me to fix everything. But does she? Or is it that I think she wants me to fix everything? I realise now that she has never asked me to sort things out, has never given any sign that she expects anything to be altered by me, it is I who have placed that pressure on myself. I am having an epiphany. In my garden. Standing knee-deep in a hole that I have dug.
My first thought when I was fired was I can’t tell Heather. I thought it would upset
her, that I had to protect her from knowing about the bad things in the world, that she would become scared about being fired herself. What was I thinking? What kind of education is that? Heather knows more than I the cruelty of the world. She hears abusive comments thrown at her, degrading things said about her by ordinary decent people who don’t know any better, both to her face and behind her back on a daily basis. I merely accompany her on that. As I hear you and your kids sanding and laughing on the fresh, bright, sunny spring day with Pharrell’s ‘Happy’ blaring from your iPhone, I have an epiphany. Everything in my life does not have to be altered in order to please me and Heather. I can’t continue sheltering her from everything, but maybe I can simply be there to help her if and when she gets hurt.
‘Okay,’ I finally say, hearing my voice shake. What am I doing? I am sending her over there to have her heart broken by you. I am doing this. I am letting it happen. I am so shaky, I can’t catch my breath and I sit on the garden bench and watch her cross the road.
The two blonde children stop sanding to watch her, warily.
‘Hello,’ Heather says happily.
You and Heather are talking. I can’t hear what you’re saying and it is killing me. I want to know. I need to know so that I can help control the conversation so that I can steer it away from hurting her. I feel helpless, but I feel like an executioner too. I have sent her over there to kill her faith in people, perhaps in me.
I watch you explaining something to her, your soft expression, your hands gesturing gently to shape the points. Then you stop talking and watch her. You wait to hear her reaction, but she is not saying anything. Your hands go to your hips. You watch her, uncertainly. You’re not sure whether to reach out to her; you do and then you don’t make contact, know better not to. Then you look over at me. You are concerned. You don’t know what to do with this young woman who is staring at you and not saying anything. You don’t know what to say. You need my help.
It kills me to do this to Heather but I’m not going to give it to you.
You start to say something else but Heather turns away from you and comes back across the road. Heather looks like she has been slapped. A stung look to her face, glassy eyes, a pink nose. I stay where I am, watching her, as she comes towards me and then passes me by.
This is what happens, Matt Marshall, when you let people down. You will learn it all and you will remember it by simply seeing it on the face of my sister.
Heather stays in the house and listens to her music on her record player, silently dealing with her heartbreak at not being able to visit the radio station. She doesn’t really want to talk about it and that’s okay, because neither do I. I carry on digging the garden, and the deeper I dig into the ground, the deeper I dig into myself. When I have gone deep enough, and I am raw and exposed, it is time to close the wound. I lay two inches of gravel in the hole I’ve climbed out of and place the basin on top of the gravel. I measure the distance from the hole to the nearest electrical outlet, then I cut a piece of PVC conduit to the same length. I thread a string through a conduit and duct tape one end to the plug of the water pump that I’ll add later. I pull the plug of the water pump through the PVC conduit and tape the plug to the end of it. This part takes me some time. I lay the PVC conduit in the trench and cover it with soil. I centre the water pump in the basin and lay a screen on top of the basin. Using my new utility scissors I cut a hole at the centre of the screen.
Next, I’m supposed to connect the water pump to the piping, but I can’t. It is too complicated and frustrating and I’m mumbling and grumbling and cursing to myself when I hear a voice behind me.
‘Hi, Garden Girl.’
It is not you. I know that straight away. I jump and drop the scissors into the basin.
‘Shit. Monday. Hi. Sorry. You gave me a fright. I’m just. Feck. My scissors. I’ll just … there. This thing,’ I sigh, and wipe my sweaty face. ‘I’m trying to build a water fountain.’
I’m on the ground, in a hole, and from down here Monday is even more majestic than usual. He is in a navy-blue suit and instead of wearing his tie, he is wearing an amused expression on his face, one which is fixed and directed solely at me. I steal a quick glance over at you. I catch you looking away quickly, as if I haven’t caught you, and return to concentrating on varnishing the table with the kids in that cheery scout leader voice that you’ve managed to keep up for almost an hour now.
‘I called you a few times but you were in your own world,’ he says, smiling. He lowers himself to his haunches. ‘What have you got here?’
‘A great big mess.’ I show him what I’m supposed to be doing.
‘May I?’
‘Please.’
He reaches out his hand and I take it, and allow him to pull me up out of the hole I dug. Not a sign. Not even a symbol. An actual thing that’s happening. As soon as my skin touches his I don’t know if it’s just me but I feel it all over my body. He doesn’t step back from the edge of the hole and I’m pulled up close to his body, my nose touching the fabric of his shirt, able to see the flesh beneath the open buttons of his shirt. I would like to stay there for ever, feeling his hard body next to mine, but instead I clumsily move away, unable to look at him in case he sees how he’s flustered me. He takes off his jacket, and I bring it inside for him, taking the opportunity to clean myself up, fix my hair, my eyeliner, defluster myself. When I return, he has rolled up his shirtsleeves and he’s on his knees on the grass, brow furrowed in concentration as he works on connecting the water pump to the piping. I try to make small talk but he’s busy concentrating and I feel like a pest, so I watch him for a while, then feel wrong for admiring him in all the wrong ways, then sneakily steal looks at you and your children varnishing the table. Apart from Fionn, who has deserted the task and is sitting in one of the chairs playing on an iPad, the other two are having fun. You are animated, engaged, communicative, funny. You are a good father, and I’m sorry for saying that you weren’t. The cynical side of me wonders if this is all a show for me after what I said last night, but then I see the genuine looks and sounds of happiness and am ashamed of myself for thinking that once again it is all about me. I then have an argument with myself about feeling ashamed considering all that you have done in the past, how you have let Heather down and the fact you threw a glass at my head. The winner of that argument is me; you deserve me to mistrust you so.
Monday is looking at me and I snap out of my trance. He has obviously said something and is waiting for an answer. I wait for him to repeat it but instead I’m embarrassed to see him shift his gaze to follow mine. His eyes settle on you.
‘His voice is familiar. Is that Matt Marshall?’
‘Yes.’
Monday is neither impressed nor unimpressed, and I’m surprised by how I feel about that. I don’t want him jumping up and down declaring that he is a fan and running across the road for an autograph, but I ready myself in a nervous kind of way for his dislike of you, as if I’m ready to defend you. It’s a peculiar response, considering I’m supposed to despise you so much, particularly after the way you hurt Heather. If we were in a relationship I would have to leave you and move far far away. Which is what your wife did, come to think of it. Perhaps you have that effect on people.
‘This is going to take me a few minutes longer,’ Monday says, fixing me with a look that makes me smile.
‘You don’t have to do this.’
‘I know. But it might give you a few more minutes’ thinking time about the job. You’ve seemed to have needed a lot of that.’
I bite my lip. ‘Sorry. You said I had a month to decide.’
‘Tops. We can talk about it after I do this, if that’s okay.’
I look at the wires in his hand. ‘Do you know what you’re doing?’
‘I bought an old cottage in Skerries and did it up myself. New roof, new plumbing, new electrics. Took me a few years, but it’s habitable now. Don’t worry, I haven’t blown anything up. Yet.’
I try to
picture him in his little cottage in the sleepy town of Skerries, wearing an Aran sweater and buying his fresh fish daily from a fisherman, but I can’t. All I can see is him, naked from the waist up, ripping up floorboards and stripping wallpaper with enormous power tools in his hands.
‘Do you have time to talk after?’ Registering my blank stare, he adds, ‘We had arranged to talk today …’
The penny drops. ‘Ah. I thought you meant over the phone, which is why I’m … we never actually agreed a time, but today is fine.’
He seems embarrassed that he has shown up unexpected on a Sunday, or is there something more to his awkwardness? If so, it is quickly covered up. Or perhaps I’m imagining it, kidding myself that I can see that vulnerable side of him, that he’s dropped by unannounced because he genuinely wants to see me. In the flash that passes between us I believe that is a possibility, but now it’s business as usual – or not quite, as he is destroying a perfectly good suit as he bends over a hole in my garden.
Thirty minutes later, as I have prepared tea for me and coffee for him, Monday and Heather are sitting at the kitchen table. Heather is telling him about her jobs. She is always proud of her work and finds it the easiest thing to talk about around strangers. I like that she does this, she is good at conversation, though I worry about her security. I don’t want her to tell random men about her weekly schedule in case they turn up where she is. I’m not worried about her telling Monday, obviously. Nor is she, because when she is finished, she asks him about his job.
‘I’m a headhunter,’ he says. ‘My job is to identify suitable candidates who are employed elsewhere to fill business positions.’
‘Isn’t that like cheating?’
‘Not really.’ He smiles. ‘I don’t like cheating. I see myself more as a problem-solver. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle. I put the right people in the right places. Because sometimes people aren’t in the place that they should be.’