The Fall Girl Read online

  ‘See,’ my father says. ‘Happy as the day is long.’

  I don’t think my father realizes that it’s not her sister’s happiness my mother is worried about: it’s her soul. If she’s not getting a rosary in every day, she could find herself on what my mother calls the slippery slope.

  When Lily and Xavier come downstairs, my mother goes quiet, but I know she’s thinking and worrying, and wondering what she can do, if anything.

  ‘I’ll make the tea,’ she says at the first lull in conversation.

  ‘I’ll have coffee, Rita, if it’s not too much trouble,’ Aunty Lily says. ‘You just can’t get the same kick out of a cuppa tea.’

  ‘Oh you can’t, can’t you?’ my mother mutters on her way out the door, signalling for me to follow her.

  ‘Here,’ she sighs, handing me a pound note in the kitchen. ‘Run up to Scully’s for a jar of coffee. Madam must have her kicks, God help us!’

  After we’ve eaten, Aunty Lily tells me to follow her and leads me upstairs to her room.

  ‘For you, love,’ she says, handing me a black-haired doll in a yellow dress.

  ‘Listen,’ she says, pulling a string on the doll’s back.

  My name is Rosie, it squeaks.

  ‘You do it,’ Aunty Lily says.

  I pull the string. Will you play with me?

  ‘You’ll be looking forward to having your friends round to show her off, won’t you?’ she says.

  ‘I don’t have any friends.’

  ‘Of course you do,’ my mother titters, coming into the room. ‘Though living in Crosslea, she’s hardly spoiled for choice.’

  For the first time since she’s arrived, Aunty Lily isn’t smiling.

  At seven o’clock, my mother announces that it’s time for the rosary and offers a set of beads to her sister.

  ‘Ye go on ahead,’ my aunty says, dragging on her cigarette. ‘Xavier and I say ours together in bed at night. Isn’t that right, darling?’

  ‘Oh God, aye,’ he says and either sneezes or sniggers, I’m not sure which.

  ‘How long do you intend staying?’ my mother asks her sister over breakfast the following morning. My father and Xavier aren’t up yet.

  ‘Just the week. Why? Are you getting tired of us already?’

  ‘No, no, it’s not that. I was just wondering.’

  ‘Sure, I have to spend a few days with my long-lost niece,’ she says, ruffling my hair. ‘You wouldn’t begrudge me that, would you?’

  My mother lifts the teapot. ‘I’d better fill the kettle again,’ she says. ‘It’s nearly empty.’

  ‘Who do you think she looks like, Rita?’

  ‘I really don’t know.’

  ‘I think she’s the down stamp of Mammy.’

  ‘Good morning, ladies,’ my father says, coming into the kitchen.

  My mother looks up at the clock. ‘About time.’

  ‘She’s as bossy as ever, I see,’ Aunty Lily says, pulling out a chair for my father.

  My mother’s cheeks flush.

  ‘I was just saying to Rita, Joe, I think Frances is the image of our mother. Would you agree?’

  ‘You needn’t be asking him,’ my mother says. ‘When it comes to family resemblances, he wouldn’t have a notion who’s like whom. Would you, Joe?’

  ‘Nah,’ my father says, looking at the floor and scratching his head, ‘Rita’s right. You’re asking the wrong man.’

  ‘Take it from me, love,’ Aunty Lily smiles at me, ‘you’re the picture of your grandmother. Bee-autiful she was. Everyone thought so. Didn’t they, Rita?’

  ‘They did.’

  ‘I’m supposed to be like her too.’

  ‘That’s the first I heard of it,’ my mother says, placing a clean cup and saucer in front of my father.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ Lily says, pulling a cigarette from her packet, ‘people were always telling me that.’

  When the visitors take the bus into town on the Monday afternoon to go shopping, my mother sprays air-freshener all over the house and tells my father that she’s counting the hours. I’m not quite able to count the hours, but I am counting the days. I’m going to miss them. In fact, I’m already missing them and they’ve only gone into Castleowen for a few hours. What I notice most is that I can hear the clocks tick again and somehow that makes me feel lonely.

  The night before they leave, my mother invites her friend Nancy, the district nurse, and Nancy’s brother, Father Vincent, the parish priest in Castleowen, to join us for the evening. They’re all from the same town in County Cork. When Father Vincent asks about London, Aunty Lily talks about the underground trains, Buckingham Palace, Piccadilly, Hyde Park, Chinese restaurants and its huge department stores.

  ‘Some day I’ll take you to London, love,’ she says, winking at me. ‘You’ll absolutely love it.’

  ‘With all its attractions,’ Xavier says, and takes two quick puffs of his pipe, ‘it can’t hold a candle to Ireland.’

  ‘I’d say not,’ Father Vincent says.

  ‘To be quite frank with you, Father, London’s going to the dogs.’

  ‘Is that right?’

  ‘Och aye. Between the hippies and the junkies and the nig … the blacks, you don’t know who you’re going to run into when you step outside your front door.’

  ‘Are there a lot of blacks?’ Father Vincent asks.

  ‘They’re coming in their shiploads.’

  ‘From where?’

  ‘Africa, Jamaica, Timbuktu, I don’t know. Sure they all look the same to me. And I’ll tell you something else –’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I’d sooner have an English Protestant for a next-door neighbour than one of them fellas. And coming from a deep-rooted republican family, that’s saying something.’

  My father unscrews the top of the whiskey bottle and refills the glasses. My mother pours more tea for Nancy and herself.

  ‘Are you sure,’ she says to Lily, ‘you’ll not have a cup of coffee instead?’

  ‘Thanks, but no thanks. I’m on my holidays. I’ll enjoy my wee drink, if it’s all the same to you.’

  Aunty Lily’s legs are crossed: the upper one is swinging. She forgets she has a cigarette resting in the ashtray and lights another.

  ‘I don’t mind the blacks,’ she says, and everyone looks at her as if she’s lost her marbles. ‘Well, I don’t. There’s a black woman working in the laundromat up our street and I’m telling ye straight, a nicer woman you wouldn’t meet.’

  ‘Well, isn’t that something,’ Nancy says. ‘And would ye have a chat, you and this black lady?’

  ‘We would surely. We have a bit of a natter every time I’m in doing my laundry. She’s a great oul character.’

  ‘And where does this woman hail from?’ Father Vincent asks.

  ‘Jamaica.’

  ‘Is she a Catholic?’ Nancy asks.

  ‘I couldn’t tell you what religion she is; I’ve never bothered to ask her. Sure, what difference does it make to me who she prays to?’

  ‘Talk to the divil, would my wee Lily,’ Xavier says, reaching over and touching her cheek with the blunt tips of his fingers.

  When he looks into her eyes, Xavier’s face reminds me of a sleepy moon and I think that he must really like her, even though she does talk to blacks.

  ‘Tell me this, Rita,’ Father Vincent says. ‘Now that you and Lily are back in touch, would you consider taking a trip over to London yourself ?’

  ‘Indeed, I would not. I’ve no desire to go chasing excitement, Father. A couple of days on the Donegal coast is more than enough for me.’

  ‘Not to worry,’ Xavier says, and straightens himself up in the armchair, ‘because Lily and I –’

  ‘No, no. Not yet, Xavier,’ Aunty Lily says.

  ‘Sure, why not, love? Isn’t now as good a time as any?’

  Aunty Lily tips the last of her whiskey into her mouth. Then she nudges her husband. ‘OK, go on so. Tell them.’

  ‘That trip into Ca
stleowen the other day – well, it wasn’t just a shopping excursion. Lily and I have put a deposit on a house in Sycamore Street. I’m selling the bar beyond, and we’re moving back.’

  Father Vincent says it’s great news and won’t it be ideal for both of them to be so close to their families. Isn’t Xavier’s hometown of Armagh just a stone’s throw from Castleowen and yet they’ll be south of the border and not stuck in the middle of all the troubles. From what he’s heard, it’ll get worse before it gets better.

  ‘That’s right,’ Nancy says. ‘He has a good point there, right enough.’

  ‘Well, isn’t that a good one,’ my father says. ‘Castleowen, begod.’

  Both himself and Aunty Lily are looking across at my mother. Her eyes are downcast. She’s picking off specks of wool from the bottom of her sleeve.

  ‘Here’s to your health and happiness,’ Father Vincent says, raising his glass. ‘And to coming back to your home country. Lily and Xavier.’

  The men hold out their arms and chink their glasses.

  ‘To Ireland,’ Xavier says. ‘All thirty-two counties.’

  ‘Come on,’ my mother whispers, taking my hand. ‘Time for bed.’

  We’re just at the door when Aunty Lily says, ‘And what do you think, Rita?’

  My mother half turns her head but looks no farther back than the door handle. ‘You become very accustomed to a way of life after seven years. Woolworths is a far cry from Harrods, isn’t it? Just don’t expect too much.’

  1 October 1999 (middle of the night)

  I’ve been thinking a lot about Aunty Lily and my mother. In fact, they’ve been keeping me awake tonight. What I cannot fathom is how two sisters could turn out to be so different from one another. Aunty Lily was everything my mother was not – funny, exciting, modern, but, most of all, tender. She was motherly; the kind of woman who nearly couldn’t stop herself from reaching out and stroking my head if I was walking by her, or putting her arm around me if I was sitting next to her. It felt strange to me at first because I wasn’t used to being touched. But I got to like it. It made me feel loved: mothered. That’s all I wanted to do the day I took the baby. To mother.

  Her eighteenth birthday

  I’ve just finished feeding the baby. The side of her face is resting on my shoulder. I’m touching the back of her head with the tip of my nose and inhaling her infant smell. I can hear the wind gurgling in her tummy as I caress her back in a circular motion. I love her softness, her vulnerability, the harmless huff of her breath. Our breathing becomes synchronized, slow, sleepy. I feel so tired.

  Just forty winks, I think, closing my eyes.

  The baby hiccups, and a warm mouthful of milky froth soaks through my blouse. Cradling her in my arm, I wipe my shoulder with an old J-cloth. When I look down at her again, she’s fast asleep. I wish I could lie down beside her cheek to cheek, but I can’t. It’s time to move on.

  Before I go anywhere, I need to use the toilet: I’m bursting. But how will I manage? I can’t leave her alone in the car; someone might take her. If only I had one of those things like a rucksack, I could strap her to my back. Or one of those car seats with a handle. I need things, so many things: a car seat, more bottles, more milk, more nappies, baby clothes. A place to live, a bed to lie on, a night’s sleep. A clear head. A sign. Some sort of sign, so I’ll know that I’m doing the right thing. A toilet: most of all a toilet.

  I’m out of the car, baby in my arms. The back of my skirt is clinging to my legs. Someone’s cackling. What’s the joke? What’s so bloody funny? Stop laughing at me.

  ‘Excuse me, where’s the toilet?’ I ask a teenage boy who’s passing. He shrugs.

  A woman who is walking a couple of steps behind him points to a door and says, ‘Over there, love.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘A wee boy, is it?’ she asks, smiling down at the baby.

  ‘No, a girl.’

  ‘Ah, she’s lovely. How old?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Three months.’

  ‘Isn’t she tiny?’ she says, craning her neck to take a closer look at the child.

  Why is she being so friendly? So nosy? She’s making me nervous.

  ‘She was premature,’ I say, hurrying into the Ladies.

  It’s a dingy room with no window. It takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. With one hand, I wipe the toilet seat, struggle with my underwear and sit down. My heart is pounding. That sweetie-pie woman has shaken me. What if she suspects something? I check my watch: it’s after two o’clock. I’ve missed the latest news. What if she’s heard about the baby’s disappearance? She could be on her mobile phone right now, dialling 999 and telling them that there’s a weird woman in the toilet with the missing child. Jesus!

  The baby shudders in my arms as if she’s having a bad dream. When I kiss her forehead, her button nose twitches and she relaxes again.

  There’s so much noise outside: cars revving, people shouting, doors slamming. Footsteps. Someone bangs on the toilet door.

  What if it’s the Guards? Oh God! What’ll I do?

  ‘Just a second,’ I say, jumping up.

  I’m sure they’re going to knock down the door and barge in on top of me. My legs go weak at the thought of it.

  ‘I’m nearly finished,’ I squeak, flushing the toilet.

  I give my hands a quick rinse under the tap, one at a time, changing the baby from one arm to the other. She stirs but doesn’t waken. I put her up on my shoulder and kiss her: maybe for the last time. I kiss her again just in case. Reaching out to unlock the door, I take three short sharp breaths. God help me, I pray, pulling back the bolt and opening the door. As I step out, the brightness hits me and for a moment I cannot see clearly. I’m waiting for someone to swipe the baby from my arms and pounce on me, but no one does. A teenage girl brushes past me and into the toilet, slamming the door behind her.

  Move, I think. Put one foot in front of the other and walk over to the car. No one’s watching. They’re all too busy.

  As I lay her down again in the carrycot, I notice that her baby-gro is damp at her bottom, but it’s too late to start changing her now. I don’t feel safe. I’ve got to get out of here.

  3 October 1999 (evening)

  I thought that once I got away from the city, I’d be able to relax, but I couldn’t. I was terrified of getting caught. Of the day being ruined. It was her anniversary. My day. I couldn’t let anyone take it away from me. It’s all I have to hang on to, you see.

  My day

  It’s half past nine in the morning on 24 August 1982: my daughter’s first anniversary. I’m standing barefoot in the middle of the living-room, still in my nightdress. I don’t know what to do with myself.

  Neither of my parents has mentioned what day it is. The bloody bastards. In the kitchen, my father is slumped over in his chair, polishing his shoes. As if having shining fecking shoes mattered. My mother is tiptoeing round the house gathering her holy things – her prayer book, her beads, her mantilla – eyes downcast, lips sealed. Solemn. Giving the occasion the reverence it deserves. The unspoken words are stifling me. I want to open my mouth and fill the room with angry, ugly noises. Rage: that’s what this occasion deserves.

  Without even looking in my direction, they walk by me and into the hall to put on their jackets. They’re off to Mass, to pray for my baby’s lost soul, dutiful to the last.

  I start singing:

  Happy Birthday to you (quietly)

  Happy Birthday to you (getting louder)

  Happy Birthday, Baby Fall (and louder)

  Happy Birthday to you. (shouting)

  My mother bounds back into the room and orders me to pull myself together.

  ‘How?’ I cry, as she storms out of the room. ‘For God’s sake, how?’

  The front door slams shut. They’re gone.

  I don’t know how to live this day. I’m not sure if I can. How am I to remember her? As the baby w
ho kept me awake at night dancing in my womb? Or as the still and silent baby I cradled in my arms? Or neither? Maybe I should be thinking about where she is now, a year after her death? Limbo – that’s where the Pope says her soul is. But I refuse to believe that. She can’t be in Limbo. If she is, I’ll never see her again, and that would be unbearable. To hell with what he says, I will see her again, even if I have to denounce Jesus and become a lost soul myself.

  I don’t want to be around when my parents return from Mass, her playing the martyr, him paying homage to her martyrdom, so I hurry upstairs, get dressed and splash water on my face. I’ve no plans other than to get out of the house. As I rummage through my top drawer in search of my baby’s white bootees, I stumble upon Aunty Lily’s wedding ring and try it on. It’s a perfect fit. I find the bootees in a small brown paper bag, stuff them into my jeans pocket and run downstairs.

  I hitch a lift into Castleowen, where I head for the bus depot and join the queue for the Dublin bus. In order to discourage anyone from sitting next to me, I sit on the aisle side of an empty pair of seats. I’m in no humour for idle chit-chat. As the bus crawls through the town traffic, I find myself twiddling the ring on my finger and thinking about my baby – what she might look like if she’d lived, and what we might be doing right now. I’m enjoying the fantasy. I need it: today of all days.

  After a few stops, an old woman gets on and starts making her way down the aisle in search of a seat. Closing my eyes, I pretend not to notice her.

  ‘Can you shove over there, love?’ she says, tapping my shoulder.

  Without looking at her, I move in and close my eyes again. Every so often she turns and looks at me: I can tell by the warm tickle of her breath on my face. She keeps shifting about in the seat, and opening and closing her handbag, and blowing her nose, and making silly, pointless remarks like ‘Ah now’ and ‘Sure, that’s how it goes’. She’s distracting me from my dreams.

  ‘Excuse me, girshe,’ she says, digging my ribs, ‘but would you mind opening that window, before I die of suffocation?’