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would say. I’d nod. I loved them. Especially Scarlett, a doll with the darkest black hair and green eyes, in a green velvet gown.
She reminded me so of the actress Vivien Leigh in Gone With
the Wind, my mother’s favourite movie, so Scarlett seemed the most apt name.
I can hardly believe I’ve left her here. I can’t believe I reached an age when I am embarrassed by her and the others, too
embarrassed to bring this vital link between my mother and
me to my new home. I’ll get some bubble wrap, I vow. Wrap
them up and take them to our house, even though it’s small
with not enough storage space. We’ll find somewhere for them.
Maybe Lily might want them when she’s older.
I wonder what her granny would have made of her. What
she would think of me as a mother. My heart aches for her.
Then again, my heart always aches for her.
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Chapter Thirteen
Heidi
Then
I was nine and three quarters when time ran out and my mother
died.
I remember her death in snapshots. Like looking at old
pictures. Moments in time captured forever in my mind, the
minutes and hours between just a blur.
It’s as if I hear a click of some imaginary camera and I’m in
my bedroom listening to a raised voice from the room two
doors away. It’s not an angry voice. It’s something else – some-
thing that makes my stomach tighten and my heart hurt. It
belongs to my granny, I think, or the smiley nurse who has
been visiting each evening. She always gives me lollipops. The
taste sours in my mouth.
Click.
‘Mammy’s in heaven now.’ The nurse isn’t smiling any more,
but her face is soft, sad. Her mouth downturned.
Granny’s face looks strange. Twisted. Changed. Her eyes are
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red – so red that the blue of her pupils looks almost too bright, like there are lights shining on them or something. She doesn’t
look like herself any more. I don’t think she’ll ever look like
herself again.
Joe wanders around the house, lost. He seems to stand a lot.
Like he has forgotten how to sit down. He looks so sad. He
looks how I feel. As if a part of him has died, too.
Click.
I’m on the stairs and I can’t understand it. They say Mammy
is in heaven, but I know she’s in the living room. Lying in that
box. I’ve seen her through the door. It’s definitely her. I want
to ask how can that be her if she is in heaven, but I’m afraid
to. I don’t want to make my granny cry again.
Click.
‘Who’s going to mind me now?’ I ask.
Granny is crying. She pats my hand.
‘Am I coming to live with you and Grandad? You’ll have to
get a new house with a bedroom for me.’ I’m momentarily
lost, wondering what my new bedroom will look like.
‘Well, here’s the thing,’ she says. ‘You know how Joe has lived
here for the last year helping your mammy and you?’
I nod.
‘And he loved your mammy for a year before then?’
I nod again.
‘Well, he loves you so much that he is going to stay here
and look after you,’ Granny says with a smile that doesn’t reach
her eyes. ‘Your mammy talked a lot about it, you know. With
me and with Joe, and we all thought it would be easier for you
if you were able to stay here. In your own house, in your own
room with your own toys.’
I don’t want that. He’s not my daddy. I don’t even like him.
Not really. I was nice to him for Mammy. He’d moved in a
year ago and everything with Mammy had changed. She spent
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less time with just the two of us. More with him. And then she got sick.
He doesn’t know how to look after me. He doesn’t give me
cuddles like Mammy did. He doesn’t bake me cookies like
My lip wobbles. I feel tears settle in my eyes and I’m trying
so hard not to blink and let them fall.
‘Your grandad and I will always, always be here for you,
darling,’ Granny says, her voice cracking a little. ‘But we’re not as young as we used to be. And Grandad doesn’t keep well. I’m
sure you’d much rather stay in your own house, among your
own things, anyway. All your toys. Sure, Grandad and I don’t
have room for toys.’
‘But if you got a new house . . .’ I say, trying to keep the
pleading tone from my voice.
I watch as Granny shakes her head. ‘I’m so sorry, pet. We
can’t do that. I wish we could, but you will be fine with Joe
and we’ll always be close by. Always. I promise you.’
‘But Joe’s not my daddy,’ I stutter. ‘He wasn’t even married
to Mammy. He’s not my family. I can’t stay with him!’
I notice she’s crying and guilt swoops in. I don’t want to
make her cry any more, so I stop talking.
‘It will be okay, my angel,’ she says through her tears and I
will myself to believe her.
Click.
‘You have to be brave now.’
He’s sitting beside me. My little hand dwarfed in his. His
hand is clammy. Sticky. People have been coming and going to
the house all day and it’s stuffy in here. There’s a smell of strong tea and cigarette smoke. People keep looking at me with funny
expressions on their face. Telling me I’m a great girl. They bring me sweets and treats as if it’s my birthday.
I want to ask them why.
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Click.
Granny tucks me into bed. I don’t want to sleep. Not with
Mammy downstairs in that box. Who is sleeping in her bed?
Is Joe there? Who will be there if I wake up in the night? I
lie awake, afraid to close my eyes. Will they put me in a box
like Mammy, too? Tell everyone I’ve gone to heaven?
Click.
I’m sitting on my bed and my grandmother is pulling the
hairbrush through my hair. She’s distracted. The brush keeps
catching on knots. It hasn’t been brushed properly in a few
days. Still, I’m a brave girl. I don’t cry out. It seems such a
babyish thing to cry about. Especially now.
She has a new dress for me to wear. Black. With ribbon. I
hate it. Mammy would never have made me wear something
like this. She knew I loved running about in jeans and a T-shirt.
Playing in the garden and getting covered in mud.
Click.
A church. It’s cold. Everyone is crying and looking at me as
if I’m the one making them sad. I want to tell them I didn’t
do anything wrong. I didn’t hurt Mammy. I swear I didn’t! But
Granny has told me to be on my best behaviour.
‘I won’t be able to cope if you don’t behave,’ she said.
I’m angry. I want to tell her I always be
have. I’m always good.
I always do exactly what I’m told.
Click.
He sits on the edge of my bed. His jumper smells of beer
and stale cigarettes again. It makes me feel sick, as if I might
throw up. The last people have left the house. Why has it been
a party? Cake and sandwiches and the grown-ups drinking.
Someone singing and laughter ringing out every now and then.
My mammy is dead. I don’t understand.
I pull away from him as he tries to hug me. I don’t want him
near me. I’m fed up with grown-ups. His hands are still clammy.
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‘You’re not to worry. I’m not leaving you. I’ll make sure you’re okay.’
I hold my tears inside me, give in to his hug. I’ll be great
girl. And a brave girl.
Just like Mammy would want.
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Chapter Fourteen
Joe
Now
There’s not a single person in this world who hasn’t made a
mistake. Who hasn’t done something they are ashamed of.
Anyone who denies this is a liar.
I’ve not always done the right thing. I’ve absolutely done the
wrong thing a few times. Some of these things for the right
reasons. Or I thought so at the time.
Like when Natalie was sick. She was in so much pain. So
wretched. It hadn’t been that hard to get my hands on some
extra morphine for her. I suppose things weren’t as rigid then
as they are now.
I was trying to help. I still believe I did help. I took her pain
away, and then I stayed because even though I knew it was
good and humane that her suffering was over, I was still over-
come with guilt.
Each and every time I saw Heidi look up at me, her eyes
wide, her face pale. Her grief too painful to watch, I wondered
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if I’d done the right thing. I’d taken a mother from her child.
So I stayed. Did what Natalie had wanted. She’d begged me,
you see. ‘Make sure Heidi is okay,’ she’d say, knowing her own
parents weren’t fit to look after the child. Natalie was so terri-
fied that Heidi would end up in care. Bad things happened in
care, she said.
She’d had faith in me. She was foolish, too. I tried to be
good, but I was – I am – only human and I am flawed.
But I’ve fought my demons. That has to count for something,
doesn’t it? I rehabilitated. Found God. Asked for His forgiveness
for what I did to Natalie. What I did for Natalie.
And I lived a good life. I thought it would make a difference,
but in the end it seems it doesn’t matter what you do for people,
it’s never enough.
No one realises how hard this is. What a burden it is.
Temptation is everywhere. Urges don’t just go away, you know.
I had to content myself with looking and not touching, but I
did that because I wanted to prove I could change.
I was prepared to wait for forgiveness. I’ve been very patient,
but time is running out and now I think there’s a cruelty to
them that they aren’t prepared to let go of.
How do they not see how hard it was for me, too? How it
ate me up inside? Because it did. I hated myself for years. It
almost destroyed me, almost drove me to suicide.
I was a victim, too. I didn’t ask to be born this way.
I wasn’t perfect. I did so much for them that they will never
bring themselves to acknowledge.
The selfish, spoiled little bitches.
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Chapter Fifteen
Ciara
Now
Auntie Kathleen is far changed from the confident, fashion-
conscious, funky auntie who I hero-worshipped through my
childhood and into my teen years.
Looking at her from across the living room in my father’s
house, I feel shocked at her distinctly middle-aged appearance.
She can’t be any older than her mid to late forties, but she
dresses like someone in their late fifties or sixties. Gone are the short skirts, the big hair, the coloured tights and bright make-up. Instead, a woman with the same salt-and-pepper hair as my
father sits in sensible black trousers, a pale pink jumper over a
crisp white blouse and black shoes, which owe more to comfort
than style, on her feet. The only jewellery she wears is a pair
of pearl stud earrings and her plain gold wedding band. She
wears no make-up and I can’t help but notice that her eyebrows
could use a good reshaping.
She’s smaller, too, than I remember. A remnant of the person
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she was, or am I just remembering it all wrong? Sometimes I don’t know what I remember any more.
She looked lost when she arrived at the airport. I’d gone to
pick her up and had been waiting for her at arrivals, when I
saw this rather wretched-looking creature walk through the
security doors blinking as she glanced around. She looked pale,
tired and old, and she’d promptly burst into tears when she saw
me.
‘I can’t believe it,’ she’d said over and over, to the point where I wanted to scream at her to stop talking.
She was quieter in the car, lost in her thoughts for a while.
Then she asked about me. About Mum. About Heidi. How she
was coping.
‘She is okay, isn’t she?’ Kathleen asked. ‘You know, stable?’
‘She seems to be,’ I said, which was the truth. I don’t think
I was ignoring any warning signs just because it suited me to
have Heidi doing the lion’s share of looking after Joe.
‘Because we have to be careful,’ Kathleen said. ‘You know
she’s fragile.’
Yes, I knew Heidi was fragile. Everyone kept reminding me,
not that I needed telling. For a year or so when she was a
teenager our entire existence had revolved around ‘poor Heidi’
and her fragility.
‘She’s a different person now,’ I said, as if I knew her well
enough to comment authoritatively on her mental wellbeing.
‘Her husband seems to be lovely and she’s focusing on her baby.’
Kathleen made a noise that was at best non-committal. ‘I
don’t know,’ she’d said. ‘I wouldn’t want to push her too far.’
I’d tried to draw her further on what she meant but she
clammed up. Refused to say any more. Frustrated, I’d switched
on an audiobook through the car’s Bluetooth system and tried
my best to lose myself in it as we drove the rest of the way
home.
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Of course, when Kathleen had finally seen my father, she’d collapsed into a paroxysm of grief. ‘My poor big brother,’ she’d
wailed, pulling him into a hug and then apologising
as he’d
winced from the pain. I’d winced, too. The show of emotion
ringing hollow in my ears.
But she’s calmer now as she stands in front of the fireplace,
orating on palliative care and family responsibility.
‘Perhaps we could put our heads together and think of things
that might encourage him out of that bed and back into the
world for another bit. Maybe we could get him to make a
bucket list. You know, things he’d really like to do while he
can. We could try to make them happen.’
She seems so determined she can make a difference. That
taking him on some poorly thought-out adventure might save
him that I almost feel sorry for her.
She’s also assuming the rest of us have the same desire to
have him around for as long as possible as she does.
‘Do you have any ideas?’ she asks to the silent room.
I see Heidi bow her head like the shy girl in class desperately
hoping the teacher will have forgotten she exists and skim past
her. I feel a sense of dread build as her gaze falls on me.
‘Ciara?’
‘Dad and I aren’t very close,’ I tell her, which of course is a
gross understatement. ‘I’ve no idea what he might want to do.’
To my annoyance, I feel the warm glow of shame rise in my
cheeks.
‘He’s still your dad. You must have some ideas.’
I know when I was little he liked books and gardening. He
liked being the centre of attention. He liked people thinking
he had brains to burn. Country walks. Talking about himself.
Wildlife documentaries. Hurting people. Manipulating their
feelings. Leaving.
‘I don’t know,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘Maybe a drive to the
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beach. A visit to the museum,’ I say with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.
‘We could try to get him down to the library, to see his old
friends,’ Stella suggests and I could kiss her for trying.
‘I was going to take him out for a pint, if he was well enough,’
Alex offers.
Heidi stays silent.
It’s all pretty mundane as far as a bucket list goes, but at least it feels doable, and without too much effort or time spent with
him.
‘Those are all great ideas,’ Kathleen says, nodding a little too
enthusiastically given the dull nature of our suggestions. ‘I think it’s worth really focusing on the fact that the thing he needs
most of all right now is all of us pulling together to support