‘You’re wet,’ Brendan stepped away from her and his arms tightened around the tiny bundle.
‘Is she here?’ Kathleen asked again, her voice still angry. She was still standing outside the front door. She hadn’t asked to come in and she hadn’t been invited.
‘Of course she’s not here.’ Brendan bounced Saoirse around, trying to calm her. ‘I thought you’d taken her to that magical place that would cure her for ever,’ he said angrily.
‘It was supposed to be the best place, Brendan – better than the other ones, anyhow. Anyway,’ she mumbled the next few words, ‘she’s gone.’
‘Gone? What do you mean, gone?’
‘She was missing this morning from her room. Nobody’s seen her.’
‘Has a habit of disappearing in the night, does your mother,’ Brendan said angrily, rocking Saoirse. ‘Well, if she’s not where you sent her, you don’t need to look far from here. Sure won’t she be in Flanagan’s?’
Elizabeth’s eyes widened and she gasped. Her mother was here in Baile na gCroíthe; she hadn’t left her after all.
In between their bitter exchanges, Saoirse wailed.
‘For Christsake, Brendan, can you not quieten her?’ Kathleen complained. ‘You know I can take the children. They can live with me and Alan in—’
‘They’re my children and you won’t take them from me like you did Gráinne,’ he bellowed. Saoirse’s wails quietened.
There was a long silence.
‘Be off with you.’ Brendan spoke weakly as though his earlier boom had broken his voice.
The front door closed and Elizabeth watched from the window as Kathleen banged the gate shut and got into her car. It sped off, the lights disappearing into the distance along with Elizabeth’s hopes of going with her to see her mother.
A glimmer of hope remained. Her father had mentioned Flanagan’s. Elizabeth knew where that was – she passed it everyday going to school. She would pack her bag, find her mother and live with her away from her screaming little sister and father, and they would go on adventures every day.
The handle on the door shook and she dived into bed and pretended to be asleep. Squeezing her eyes tightly shut, she decided that as soon as her father had gone to bed, she would make her own way to Flanagan’s.
She would sneak out into the night, just like her mother.
‘Are you sure this is going to work?’ Opal stood against the wall of the hospital ward, her hands trembling as they clasped and unclasped themselves against her anxiety-filled stomach.
Ivan looked at her with uncertain eyes. ‘It’s worth a try.’
Through the glass in the corridor they could see Geoffrey in his private room. He was hooked up to a ventilator, his mouth covered by the oxygen mask, and around him contraptions beeped while wires ran from his body into machines. In the centre of all this action, his body lay still and calm, his chest rising and falling rhythmically. They were surrounded by that eerie sound that only hospitals provided, the sound of everyone waiting, of being in between one timeless place and another.
As soon as the nurses who were tending to Geoffrey opened the door to leave, Opal and Ivan entered.
‘Here she is,’ Olivia spoke from beside Geoffrey’s bed, as Opal entered.
His eyes shot open quickly and he began to look around wildly, searching the room.
‘She’s on your left-hand side, dear, she’s holding your hand,’ Olivia said gently.
Geoffrey attempted to speak, his sound coming out muffled from under the mask. Opal’s hand flew to her mouth, her eyes filled and the lump in her throat was visible. It was a language that only Olivia could understand; the words of a dying man.
Olivia nodded as he made sounds; her eyes filled and when she spoke Ivan could no longer stay in the room.
‘He said to tell you, that his heart has ached every moment you were apart, dear Opal.’
Ivan stepped out of the room through the open door and walked as quickly as he could down the hall and out of the hospital.
Chapter 37
Outside Elizabeth’s bedroom window on Fuchsia Lane, the rain fell, hitting off the bedroom window like pebbles. The wind began warming its vocal chords for the night and Elizabeth, tucked up in bed, was transported back to the time she journeyed out in the late winter night to find her mother.
She had packed her schoolbag with only a few things – underwear, two jumpers and skirts, the book her mother gave her and her teddy. Her money box had revealed £4.42, and after wrapping her raincoat around her favourite floral dress and stepping into her red Wellington boots, she set out into the cold night. She climbed the small garden wall to avoid the sound of the gate alerting her father, who these days slept like the farmyard dog, with one ear pricked. She kept alongside the bushes so as not to be spotted walking up the straight road. The wind pushed and pulled the branches, scraping them against her face and legs, and wet kisses from soggy leaves brushed against her skin. The wind was vicious that night. It whipped her legs and stung her ears and cheeks, blowing against her face so hard it took her breath away. Within minutes of walking up the road, her fingers, nose and lips were numb and her body was freezing to the bone but the thought of seeing her mother that night kept her going. And on she journeyed.
Twenty minutes later she arrived at the bridge to Baile na gCroíthe. She had never seen the town at eleven o’clock at night; it was like a ghost town, dark, empty and silent, as if it were about to bear witness to something and never speak a word of it.
She walked towards Flanagan’s with butterflies in her tummy, no longer feeling the lash of the cold, just pure excitement at the thrill of being reunited with her mother. She heard Flanagan’s before she saw it; there, and the Camel’s Hump, were the only buildings in the village with lights on. From an open window, out floated the sounds of a piano, fiddle, badhrán, and loud singing and laughter, occasional cheers and whoops. Elizabeth giggled to herself; it sounded like everyone was having such fun.
Outside, Aunt Kathleen’s car was parked and Elizabeth’s legs automatically moved faster. The front door was open and inside there was a small hallway, but the door to the pub, complete with stained glass, was closed. Elizabeth stood in the porch and shook the rain from her coat; hung it up alongside the umbrellas on the rack on the wall. Her black hair was soaking wet and her nose was red and running. The rain had found its way into the top of her boots, and her legs shook from the cold and her feet squelched in the ice-cold pools of water.
The piano stopped suddenly, and there was a loud roar from a crowd of men that made Elizabeth jump.
‘Come on, Gráinne, sing us another one,’ one man slurred, and they all cheered.
Elizabeth’s heart leaped at the sound of her mother’s name. She was inside! She was such a beautiful singer. She sang around the house all the time, composing lullabies and nursery rhymes all by herself, and in the mornings Elizabeth loved to lie in her bed and listen to her mother as she hummed around the rooms of the bungalow. But the voice that began in the silence, followed by the rowdy cheers of drunken men, was not the sweet voice of her mother that she knew so well.
In Fuchsia Lane, Elizabeth’s eyes darted open and she sat upright in her bed. Outside, the wind howled like a wounded animal. Her heart was hammering in her chest; her mouth was dry and her body clammy. Throwing the covers off her, she grabbed her car keys from the bedside table, ran down the stairs, threw her raincoat around her shoulders and escaped the house to her car. The cold drops of rain hit her, and she remembered why she hated to feel the rain against her face: it reminded her of that night. She hurried to her car, shivering as the wind tossed her hair across her eyes and cheeks, and by the time she sat behind the wheel she was already drenched.
The windscreen wipers lashed across the window furiously as she drove down the dark roads to the town. Driving over the bridge she was faced with the ghost town. Everyone was locked safely inside, in the warmth of their houses and hostels. Apart from the Camel’s Hump and Flana
gan’s there was no nightlife. Elizabeth parked her car and stood across the road from Flanagan’s, standing in the cold rain staring across at the building, remembering. Remembering that night.
Elizabeth’s ears hurt from the words of the song being sung by the woman. It was crude, the words disgusting, being sung in such crass and dirty tones. Every rude word Elizabeth was taught not to say by her father was winning the plaudits of a boozy, sozzled pack of beasts.
She stood on tiptoes to look through the red of the stained-glass windows to see what awful woman was croaking the awful tune. She was sure her mother would be sitting beside Kathleen, absolutely disgusted.
Elizabeth’s heart jumped into her throat and for a moment she fought hard to breathe, for on top of the wooden piano sat her mother, opening her mouth and releasing all those awful words. A skirt she had never seen before was hitched up to her thighs and around her a handful of men taunted, teased and laughed as she threw shapes with her body Elizabeth had never seen any woman do before.
‘Now, now, lads, calm down over there,’ the young Mr Flanagan called from behind the bar.
The men ignored him, continuing to leer at Elizabeth’s mother.
‘Mummy,’ Elizabeth whimpered.
Elizabeth walked slowly across the road towards Flanagan’s pub, her heart beating at the memory so alive in her head. She held out her hand and pushed open the bar door. Mr Flanagan looked up from behind the counter and gave her a small smile, as though he expected to see her.
Young Elizabeth held out a trembling hand and pushed open the door to the bar. Her hair was wet and dripping around her face, her bottom lip out and trembling. Her big brown eyes looked around the room in panic as she saw a man reach out to touch her mother.
‘Leave her alone!’ Elizabeth shouted so loud the room was quietened. Her mother stopped singing and all heads turned to the little girl standing at the door.
Her mother’s corner of the room erupted in such a loud laughter. Tears spilled from Elizabeth’s terrified eyes.
‘Boo hoo hoo,’ her mother sang the loudest of them all. ‘Let’s all try to save Mummy, shall we?’ she slurred. She set her eyes upon Elizabeth. They were bloodshot and dark, not the eyes Elizabeth remembered so well; they belonged to someone else.
‘Shit,’ Kathleen cursed, jumping up from the other side of the bar and rushing over to Elizabeth, ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I c-c-c-came t-t-t-to,’ Elizabeth stammered in the quietened room, looking at her mother in bewilderment, ‘I came to find my mum so I could live with her.’
‘Well, she’s not here,’ her mother shrieked. ‘Get out!’ She pointed a finger at her accusingly. ‘Drowned little rats aren’t allowed in pubs,’ she cackled, knocking back her glass, but she missed her mouth, causing most of the drink to land down her chest, where it glistened on her neck and replaced the smell of her sweet perfume with whiskey.
‘But, Mummy …’ Elizabeth whimpered.
‘But Mummy,’ Gráinne imitated and a few of the men laughed. ‘I’m not your mummy,’ she said harshly, stepping down onto the piano keys and causing a disturbing sound. ‘Little drowned Lizzies don’t deserve mummies. They should be poisoned, the whole lot of you,’ she spat.
‘Kathleen,’ Mr Flanagan shouted, ‘what are you doing? Get her out of here. She shouldn’t be seeing this.’
‘I can’t,’ Kathleen stayed rooted to the spot. ‘I have to keep an eye on Gráinne, I have to bring her back with me.’
Mr Flanagan’s mouth dropped open in shock at her. ‘Would you look at the child?’
Elizabeth’s brown skin had paled. Her lips were blue from the cold and her teeth were chattering, a soaking wet floral dress clung to her body and her legs shook in her Wellington boots.
Kathleen looked from Elizabeth to Gráinne, caught between the two. ‘I can’t, Tom,’ she hissed.
Tom looked angry. ‘I’ll have the decency to bring her home myself.’ He grabbed a set of keys from under the bar and started to come round the other side to Elizabeth.
‘NO!’ Elizabeth screamed. She took one look at her mother, who had already become bored by this scene and was lost in the arms of a strange man, turned to face the door and ran back out to the cold night.
Elizabeth stood at the door of the bar, her hair dripping, rain rolling down her forehead and off her nose, her teeth chattering and her fingers numb. The sounds of the room weren’t the same. Inside there was no music, no cheers or whoops, no singing, just the sound of an occasional clinking glass and quiet chatter. There were no more than five people in the bar on the quiet Tuesday night.
An aged Tom continued to stare at her.
‘My mother –’ Elizabeth called out from the door.
The sound of her childlike voice surprised her – ‘she was an alcoholic.’
Tom nodded.
‘She came in here a lot?’
He nodded again.
‘But there were weeks,’ she swallowed hard, ‘weeks at a time when she wouldn’t leave us.’
Tom’s voice was soft. ‘She was what you’d call a binge drinker.’
‘And my father,’ she paused, thinking of her poor father who waited and waited at home every night, ‘he knew this.’
‘The patience of a saint,’ he replied.
She looked around the small bar, at the same old piano that stood in the corner. The only thing that had changed in the room was the age of all that was in it.
‘That night,’ Elizabeth said, her eyes filling with tears, ‘thank you.’
Tom just nodded at her sadly.
‘Have you seen her since?’
He shook his head.
‘Do you … do you expect to?’ she asked, her voice catching in her throat.
‘Not in this lifetime, Elizabeth.’ He confirmed for her what she had always felt deep down.
‘Daddy …’ Elizabeth whispered to herself and took off out of the bar back into the cold night.
Little Elizabeth ran from the pub, feeling every drop of rain lash against her body, feeling her chest hurt as she breathed in the cold air and the water splash up her legs as she pounded in the puddles. She was running home.
Elizabeth jumped into her car and sped off out of the town towards the mile-long road that led to her father’s bungalow. Approaching headlights meant she had to reverse back the way she had come and wait for the car to pass before she could continue her journey.
Her father had known all this time and he had never told her. He had never wanted her to shatter her illusions of her mother and she had always held her up on a pedestal. She had thought her a free spirit and of her father as a suffocating force, as the butterfly catcher. She needed to get to him quickly, to apologise, to make things right.
She set off again down the road only to see a tractor slowly chugging before her, unusually at this late hour. She reversed the car back to the entrance of the road again. With her impatience rising she abandoned her car and began to run. She ran as fast as she could down the mile-long road that brought her home.
‘Daddy,’ little Elizabeth sobbed as she ran down the road towards the bungalow. She screamed his name louder, the wind helping her for the first time that night by lifting her words and carrying them for her towards the bungalow. A light went on, followed by another, and she could see the front door open.
‘Daddy!’ she cried even louder, and ran even faster.
Brendan sat at the window of the bedroom, looking out to the dark night, sipping a cup of tea, hoping among all hopes that the vision he was waiting for would appear. He had chased them all away, he had done exactly the opposite to what he wanted and it was all his fault. All he could do was wait. Wait for one of his three women to appear. One, he knew for certain, would and could never return.
A movement in the distance caught his eye and he sat to attention like a guard dog. A woman ran towards him, long black hair floating behind her, her image blurring as the rain hit against the window and streamed down the glass.
r /> It was her.
He dropped his cup and saucer to the floor and stood up, knocking his chair backward.
‘Gráinne,’ he whispered.
He grabbed his cane and moved as quickly as his legs would take him to the front door. Pulling the door open, he strained his eyes in the stormy night to see his wife.
He heard the sound of distant panting as the woman ran.
‘Daddy,’ he heard her say. No she couldn’t be saying that, his Gráinne wouldn’t say that.
‘Daddy,’ he heard her sob again.
He was taken back over twenty years by the familiar sounds. It was his little girl, his little girl was running home in the rain again and she needed him.
‘Daddy!’ she called again.
‘I’m here,’ he called, quietly at first, and then he shouted louder, ‘I’m here!’
He heard her crying, saw her opening the creaking gate, dripping wet, and just as he did over twenty years ago he held out his arms to her and welcomed her into his embrace.
‘I’m here, don’t you worry,’ he soothed her, patting her head and rocking her from side to side. ‘Daddy’s here.’
Chapter 38
Elizabeth’s garden on the day of her birthday was like the scene of the Mad Hatter’s tea party in Wonderland. She had one long table set out in the middle of the garden decorated with a red and white tablecloth. Covering every inch of the table was a huge array of plates piled high with cocktail sausages, crisps, chips and dips, sandwiches, salads, cold meats and sweets. The garden had been pruned to within an inch of its life, new flowers had been planted and the air smelled of freshly cut grass mixed with the aroma of the barbecue in the corner. It was a hot day, the sky was an indigo colour with not a cloud in sight, the surrounding hills were a rich emerald green, the sheep upon them like snowflakes, and Ivan felt the pain of having to leave such a beautiful place and the people in it.