The Liar’s Daughter. Claire Allan
down my face.
‘Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death …’
Now
Thankfully, I don’t have to lay the guilt on too thickly before Kathleen agrees to fly over from England. She’ll be here as soon as she can get it all arranged. Maybe her visit will give Joe a bit of a boost, she says to me.
‘I’ll ask my friend, Pauline, if I can stay with her,’ Kathleen says.
I tell her she’s welcome to stay at the house, not adding that it would be great if she did so that she could take care of the overnight minding that Dr Sweeney seems to think her brother needs so badly.
‘I wouldn’t want to get under anyone’s feet,’ she says, and even though I tell her it would be no imposition, she is firm in her resolution to stay with Pauline.
She stayed here, in this house, back then, when I was a child. For a few months, before she moved to England, if I recall correctly. It was, I think, about a year after my mother died. So I had been maybe ten or eleven. I can’t quite remember. We’d had a strange, strained, relationship. At times she was so loving and caring towards me, I felt as if I never wanted her to leave. I realise now that a part of me was longing for someone to fill the hole my mother had left, but also instinctively knew no one could. I was so lost without my mother, though, I grabbed on to every act of affection tightly.
But then, at other times, Kathleen would look at me as if I was completely incomprehensible to her. An alien child. I’d see no trace of warmth or love. Those times were scary.
I’ve often wondered if she knew what happened under this roof, if she had any suspicions at all. It’s hard to believe she didn’t, but it’s worse to think that she might have and did nothing about it.
Even though she says she will stay with Pauline, I decide to make sure the two spare rooms are ready. Joe is sleeping and Lily is napping in her pram in the living room, so I decide to kill the time productively. One used to be my old bedroom and the other a guest room. At least they’d be in a decent state for anyone unlucky enough to get landed with an overnight shift.
If nothing else, it gives me something to distract me from my own thoughts, which have a tendency to slip towards darkness and despair a little too often for comfort these days. It’s best just to keep busy, I tell myself.
I can’t remember the last time I set foot over the door of my old bedroom. God knows when anyone was last in it. There’s no doubt it will need to be aired and dusted, especially if there’s a chance Lily will have to spend a night here with me.
But even walking to the far end of the landing makes me feel a sense of horrible foreboding and when my foot lands on the squeaky floorboard – the floorboard that used to act as my warning signal – my body tenses.
I take a deep breath and open the door, feeling the cold air hit me. The room has a damp feel to it. A musty smell. I need to air it but it is much too cold to consider opening a window just yet. I shiver and switch on the overhead light, the bulb giving just one pathetic flicker before it pops and dies. I reach for the switch to the bedside lamp instead and thankfully it turns on, although it must be the weakest wattage known to man. A dim, yellow glow lifts the darkest corners of the room but I wouldn’t say it is in any way light. Stubbing my toe on the foot of the bed, I swear as I walk around to plug in the small oil-filled radiator that sits by the desk.
We can probably fit a travel cot in here for Lily if the need arises, but apart from that there is only enough space to walk around the bed, open the chest of drawers or sit at the small school desk. Still scored with my childish graffiti, it sits under the window.
An unpleasant burning smell rises from the radiator and I curse myself for not thinking to dust it off before switching it on. I grab an old towel to give it a wipe while I look in the airing cupboard for any suitable bedding to dress the bed with. I decide I’ll bring my own, buy new stuff if I have to. I don’t want anything he has slept in touching me.
The room doesn’t feel like my room any more, although the echoes of my childhood and teenage years are still here, down to the remnants of Blu-Tack still clinging to the walls, where posters once hung.
Sitting on the bed, I look up and see the dolls, which were once the most important thing in the world to me, on the shelf of the far wall. Four of them. Porcelain, pale-faced, dressed in Victorian-style clothes. Ciara hated them. Said they were ugly and gave her the creeps. But when I was younger they were a vital link between my mother and me. She would buy me one each Christmas. ‘A little girl deserves a very special doll,’ she 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.
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 – something 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 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