Chapter 16
16
1910
Memmie climbed up out of the ditch cussing under her breath. ‘Mazed Memmie’, they called her, ‘Mindless Memmie’, but she knew. She knew a thing or two, more than those daft little girls who’d gone to school with her and now helped their mams in the kitchens and bakehouses; she knew about the fairy folk for a start. Her own mam had told her – you don’t go out when the travelling folk comes through, you stays away, you turns your face to the wall and you doesn’t listen to them calling you over.
She wasn’t quite sure that they were fairies, but they came and went in the summer, with their vans and their fires and their songs, and all the children were told to keep away and not take anything they offered, so Memmie reasoned that they must be fairies, else what was they doing?
That hot summer night she’d leaned out of the window and heard the music and it had sounded so sweet. She’d heard the voices raised in song, and she’d climbed out and gone to them. Spent the night dancing and singing with them, drinking the harsh apple juice they gave her, but not eating, no, never eating, you don’t eat fairy food else they’d take you away. That was what Mam said.
There had been the men, and she wasn’t entirely sure what they’d done, mostly cos of the apple juice, which had made her head all fuddled. And now it was winter, and here she was in this ditch with her apron all ruined and this thing that they’d given her.
Memmie looked down at it. She didn’t want it. She wasn’t sure what to do with it now, and Mam would give her a belting if she took it home. Then Da would join in for good measure, and they’d know that she’d been out with the fairy folk.
There was only one thing to do. Memmie folded her apron around the thing and crept her way out of the village. Send it back. That was what she had to do, send the thing back to the folk it belonged to. Up, up onto the high moor, following the distant secret path that nobody was supposed to know, but that she’d seen the men walk only last week. Yes, the path was still here, still clearly marked by the tread of their boots. Out across the hill to the Fairy Stane.
Memmie felt her heart beat faster with the fear as much as the walking. Suppose the fairies was there? How did she tell them that she didn’t want what they’d given her? How could she return the gift if they was there? But the stone lay, stretched and silent, alone in the dark, and Memmie relaxed. Nobody was here.
She crouched next to the stone and scooped great handfuls of wet, loose soil away from underneath it, digging until her nails were all dirt and her hands were sore, until she found the little bundle that the men had brought up here last week. They hadn’t dug all the way down to fairyland, then. Just far enough to make sure everything was covered. Memmie nodded to herself. They wouldn’t want to disturb the fairies down there, have ’em coming up around the village again. Once a year was all anyone could stand.
She rocked back on her heels and pushed the apron-wrapped gift into the new hole, on top of last week’s offering, then used her forearms to push the excavated earth back in on top. There. Now it was back where it belonged and Memmie could forget about it and not get belted by Mam and Da.
It was the fairies’ problem now.
Now
The lights were all on in the cottage. I could see them blazing out into the misty evening as I crested the rise of hills and began the swoop down towards the river, and I cursed Saoirse and Connor under my breath as I went. They could have made sure all the lights were off before they went! But I supposed they’d been hurrying, dashing out towards their wonderful new life, not worrying about my electricity bill.
The back door wasn’t locked either and I cursed more loudly as I barged my way through, hoping that the place wasn’t full of burglars or murderers, crouching behind my tiny loveseat or hiding under the beds. It would be vanishingly unlikely, of course, but it had been that kind of day.
‘Bloody hell,’ I announced to the kitchen, loudly, to give all the burglars time to get out of the upstairs windows, ‘they really didn’t care, did they? He could have locked the door and posted the key through the letter box.’
I dropped my work bag noisily on the floor. There was a reassuring lack of windows opening and black-clad figures jumping to the riverbanks, so the house probably wasn’t being ransacked. I went over to fill the kettle to make tea while I got out of my coat and boots, and jumped. The kettle was half full and hot.
And then Connor walked in from the living room.
‘Ah, you’re back,’ he said, as though last night hadn’t happened and we were still existing in our landlady and tenant situation. ‘I’ll get some food on.’
‘Connor?’ I didn’t know why I asked. It was obviously him, wearing an Aran knit jumper and his usual black jeans, looking as though he’d come from an evening of lecturing rebellious students. ‘Connor?’
‘Who were you expecting? I hear Idris Elba is married, y’know, you’ll have a long wait.’
‘But you…’ I gathered up my disobedient jaw, which wanted to gape. ‘Is Saoirse upstairs?’ I finished lamely.
He turned his back, fiddling with mugs and teabags and opening and closing the fridge. ‘She’s in a little B that hole from which every lonely Christmas and special occasion, every Sunday morning walking alone, every evening in watching stupid TV programmes in silence, had stared back at me. I thought of those days spent lining up all the pills and tablets in the cottage and looking at them. Knowing that I could follow Elliot any time I chose, and it would stop this dreadful emptiness; the twitch every time a door banged, or a vehicle went past, when my heart would rise with the certainty that all this had been a mistake and he was coming home.
‘She’s very unhappy,’ I said softly. ‘And she might not be able to see any other way out.’ I pulled on my coat and walked out of the door.
The B she needed someone to listen. She needed to be validated as a woman, and that was what she’d used Connor for. He’d thought he was starting a relationship that was going to lead somewhere, falling for this fragile, pale woman and her fabricated life.
Somewhere around two or three in the morning, Saoirse fell asleep, curled up on the bed. I thought about tiptoeing away and driving back to my own bed, but then I thought of her waking alone again, to the memories and the horror, and tried to doze off myself in the little armchair by the window. But the dreams were here and wouldn’t let me rest, as though they’d been given new life by my resurrecting the memories to help Saoirse.
I dreamed of Elliot, leaving that morning, complaining about a pain in his shoulder and feeling groggy. How I’d had little sympathy, hurrying him out of the door to work so that I could do the test in the bathroom and deal with the almost inevitable disappointment alone. I dreamed of that faint line on the pregnancy test, the astonishment and the sudden rise of excitement; the way I’d hugged that knowledge to myself like a longed-for present, and the way all the anticipation and joy had been forgotten when that phone call had come into my office, and I’d run for the hospital.
Then two days later, the bleeding, the dashing of hope, but I’d hardly been able to care, because my hope and joy had already gone, along with Elliot.
I woke to the surreal purple light of the Christmas illuminations under the window and the sound of Pickering starting its day. Saoirse was sitting up on the bed, back to being pale and troubled.
‘What am I going to do, Rowan?’ She rubbed her eyes with her knuckles. ‘I was dreaming of Connor and Michael.’
I shook my head. The dream-memories were still with me too. ‘I can’t tell you what to do, Saoirse,’ I said sadly. ‘I really can’t.’
‘Michael is a good man,’ she went on. ‘He just doesn’t know what it’s like with two wee ones at home all the time. And Connor…’ she went off into a reverie, staring at a corner of the room so hard that I wondered if there was anything about that illustration of the lighthouse at Flamborough Head that reminded her of Connor, ‘…he’s lovely too. He makes me feel like I used to, before the girls.’ A shake of the head. ‘But it’s not real. None of it was real.’ She brought her gaze around to my face now. ‘I think you’re right. I need help,’ she said. ‘But I have to face reality too, and I don’t know if I can.’
‘It’s not going to be easy,’ I said gently. ‘It will take time. But the girls will get older and easier, and you’ll find yourself again.’
She smiled. ‘When did you get so wise about all this?’
I shrugged. ‘I’ve had three years to find out. I thought my life was over when Elliot died, but I’ve made another life since then. It’s different and it’s got holes in it, but it’s there and it’s up to me to do something with it.’
There was a noise outside on the landing, what sounded like a hushed conversation, and then a tap on the door.
Saoirse stared at me. ‘What do I do?’
‘Just open the door. Take it from there, I should.’
She opened the door. On the threshold stood a large man with flaming-red hair carrying a small child who had equally red hair and was asleep. Next to him stood a little woman in a mac she held the hand of a toddler who looked as though sleep was never going to be an option.
I assumed this was Michael, Maeve, Fionnula and Mam, but I didn’t wait around to find out. I heard only a breathless ‘We took the first flight we could get on…’ and an enthusiastic cry of ‘Mammy!’ and I headed out, ducking under the arm of the tall red-headed man and off down the stairs.
What would happen, would happen. I’d done my bit. Saoirse had even seemed to be coming to terms with things a little and I hoped my company and empathy had helped.
I had another momentary flash of that line of pills on my bathroom shelf. If nothing else, I’d kept her from that desperation.
On the drive back home, the memories kept shouldering their way to the front of my mind. Memories I’d pushed down, kept away, held at bay using work and research as weapons to stop them snapping at my heels. Memories of the doctors telling us that Elliot had low-motility sperm and an unassisted pregnancy would be unlikely. His guilt at the results, telling me that I’d be better off without him and me telling him I’d rather have him and stay childless, than be without him…
One of our rare arguments, about, of all things, what we used as a worktop in the kitchen. His assertion that oak was best, would look right in the cottage, and mine that wood was a ridiculous substance to use for a surface that was going to be subject to heavy use and sharp knives. The raised voices as we held our positions – his for historical correctness, mine for practicality.
But I realised that I didn’t ache as much as I had. Three years had worn away the sharp edges of the pain to blunt nudges rather than the incisions they had once been.