‘But, Mum, I didn’t actually want to go anyway. I don’t want to do Law. It’s not me. It never was. But Dad’s never shut up about it. Ever.’
‘He just wanted something nice for you and this is what he thought was something nice.’ Bloody Michael, I thought, though. Not only has he compounded her stress and panic by talking incessantly about Trinity and the following in the Fogarty footsteps, but he was never around. He hadn’t actually taken a proper interest in how she was going to get there. ‘Well, thank God for that,’ I said. ‘It took this, all of this, for you to admit you don’t want to go to Trinity to do Law. Bit of an elaborate way of going about it…’
‘Yeah…’
‘I got stuck, just like you have, once. And you think that you are never going to be unstuck or even how on earth you are going to move on… is that how you feel?’ She nodded. ‘I think finding that way of writing something down, like you did, was really clever of you, because I didn’t do that, when it was me. I just stayed indoors for weeks and weeks.’
‘What happened?’ Her eyes were wide, listening.
‘Oh, it was a long time ago. A really long time. Before you were born. But it changed me, that experience. Reshaped me. My life wasn’t the same again. Couldn’t be.’
Before
Nora was at home with me, taking care of me as I lay in bed, facing the wall. She’d never been particularly maternal before and neither of us knew if she even had it in her. Seemingly she did.
‘Red phoned,’ she said. ‘I told him you were out, like you said.’
I didn’t respond, just stared at the intricate flower patterns on the wallpaper, the curls and curlicues, the swoops and sweeps of colour. Rosaleen had chosen it before it became my room. It was in her colours, the greens and the turquoises.
‘He sounded really upset,’ she said. ‘In tears.’
The feel of the ruffle on the pink bedspread against my face, the sound of the starlings gathering in the tree in the churchyard behind the house. The nothingness, the emptiness, the deadness in my belly.
*
Where do you start, how do you even tell you daughter this thing that happened? How do you put it into words that she might understand, that might explain who you are to her but will certainly make her feel differently from you?
‘Rosaleen was ill for at least a year before she died,’ I began. ‘She was diagnosed with cancer and initially she didn’t tell us. We noticed she was getting thinner and paler. And she stopped going swimming. She’d head down to the Forty Foot, get changed and then just stand there, on the top step, and let the sea wash over her feet. “That’s enough,” she said. “I don’t think I’ll go any further,” as if she was talking about her own life. But then when Nora and I were told, we assumed she’d get better, as you do. We were certain she would be fine because Rosaleen always was. Somehow. Anyway, Red and I had both finished our teacher training…’
She sat up a bit. ‘Red, as in that man Red? Who brought the book round?’
‘Yes. As in that man Red.’ I half smiled at her.
‘You were going out with him? I thought it was a bit of an odd thing to do, bring a book to a stranger’s child.’
I nodded. ‘There you go…’
‘And you never told me? I didn’t know any of this!’ She was half-shocked, half-thrilled with this previously classified information.
‘Ro, I didn’t tell you then but I’m telling you now… So Rosaleen was dying, but I was meant to be going to San Francisco with Red so I stayed just to see her back on her feet again and I would join him later. But her dying, well, it kind of put a spanner in the works…’
‘You were going to live together?’ Rosie was delighted with this idea of her mother. ‘You and Dad didn’t, did you?’
‘Red was different, okay? It was an entirely different relationship.’
‘Obviously,’ she said.
‘Rosaleen was chatting to all her friends at the Forty Foot. She hadn’t been in the water all year. And everyone was so happy to see her back and I had to wait for her for ages before she finished talking to them. But I didn’t mind really because the sun was out.’
*
I stopped speaking for a moment, thinking of Rosaleen and me. We walked home, my arm in hers, because she wasn’t able to cycle, her asking me all about the phone call I’d received from Red. He’d found a place for us. Haight Ashbury. Not luxurious, he’d said. But it was perfect. Perfect for us. I hadn’t told him my secret. I thought I’d tell him when I was there. It might mean coming home to Ireland sooner than we’d thought. Or we could stay there. I imagined us, our lives together, getting jobs and buying a house. Bringing up a little American child. Who would never know the delights of Cadburys or Tayto crisps but would race home-made go-carts and have lemonade stalls. I’d walked home in the sun, thinking that I could never be this happy again. I’d see Red next week and I’d tell him and… and…
‘So, Rosaleen and I went home, together, talking all the way, about San Francisco and my plans. It’s funny because I always thought she and Nora were chalk and cheese but Nora is so like her in so many ways. Maybe I’d just never noticed and she always was. Or maybe it’s just getting older. Anyway, when we got inside, we had a cup of tea and I told her…’
‘Told her what?’
‘That I was pregnant.’
‘What?’
‘Pregnant. I mean, it was an accident, it wasn’t meant to happen but I wanted it. I mean, I loved Red and I knew he loved me. I wanted the baby.’
‘Oh my God…’
‘But she died that day. Granny Nora and I organised the funeral, got everything organised… but I hadn’t told Red about the… you know… the baby.’
‘Did Granny Nora know?’
I nodded.
‘But why didn’t you tell Red? It was his baby too.’
‘I know. But it was going to be a surprise and I thought I’d wait and then… well, sometimes you don’t think straight… Anyway, I was still meant to be leaving right after the funeral. I was determined to go. And then I would tell him. It was only a week. And even all that week, being so sad about Rosaleen, the baby kept me going. My lovely baby… it was like I knew him or her – I never knew which – it was as though we already knew each other.’ Rosie’s face was full of sympathy.
‘I thought about what he or she would be like,’ I went on. ‘Would they look like me or Red, or be entirely their own self? I couldn’t wait until I was able to bring my baby to the Forty Foot and swim there, just like Rosaleen and I used to. So, the morning of the funeral, I woke up and for some reason I wanted to go swimming. It was the one place which I most associated with Rosaleen. But…’ I stopped, not wanting to cry or do anything that might upset Rosie.
‘Go on…’
‘Well…’ I could still feel the cold instantly leeching into my skin, soaking my bones, so cold, it made me gasp as I paddled around, trying to get warm. ‘Well, I lost the baby. And I thought it was because I went swimming. I thought the water had done something, like it was powerful.’
‘Really?’ Rosie’s eyes were wide-open, as she tried to make sense of everything. ‘Oh Mum…’
It was devastating. Red and I were over. Life shifted entirely in a different direction. Permanently altered, forever scarred, I thought I was an entirely new Tabitha but it was only recently, since Red had come home, that I had realised that she was still there. She’d just been hiding.
Before