Between Sisters (24 page)

‘I can’t believe she changed her name,’ said Jo, sounding totally like herself for a brief moment. ‘She’s always hated it, but changing it …’

‘You did OK. Josephine’s fine. Attracta’s such an Irish name, it might not travel as well as Jo,’ agreed Coco.

‘I wish my mother had been channelling something weird like yours and Cassie’s mother,’ Jo added. ‘Coraline and Cassiopeia – now
they’re
amazing names.’

‘Which she gave to us and then left,’ Coco emphasised. ‘What was that about saying you have the most screwed-up family ever?’

At that moment, Jo laughed – a sound Coco hadn’t heard since before her stroke.

‘You win that one. But nobody in your family ever tried to immerse you in the bath to wash away your sins. I win!’

‘Sounds lovely,’ said Coco, grinning. ‘A family spa day. You never told me that before.’

‘It’s not the sort of thing you can discuss when you’re eleven, but it was a very fundamental phase they were going through …’ And Jo laughed again.

What a lovely sound,
thought Coco.

‘What am I going to do with Attracta?’ Coco asked Pearl in a manic whisper when she went to pick up Fiona.

Attracta/Tracey had said she’d wait in the car as she didn’t like meeting new people.

Coco wanted to say she didn’t like new, wildly unsociable, slightly unhinged people staying in her flat, but controlled herself.

‘She completely freaked out when she saw Jo. I was going to bring Fiona in this afternoon but I certainly don’t think I can bring Attracta – sorry, Tracey – in. It’ll make Jo crazy and upset Fiona.’

‘Fiona’s the one you have to think about,’ said her grandmother wisely. ‘Not Tracey. And not Jo. Jo is an adult and you can only do so much for her. She has to learn to cope with this on her own, but you’re taking care of her daughter. Her nine-year-old daughter. That’s your job now.’

Coco thought about it. Pearl was right. Taking care of Fiona was the main thing, and the longer that they spent together, the more she realised how much went into mothering. It was more than the fun things she, Jo and Fiona had done over the years, like going out to restaurants or to the cinema or to the park. Even holidays they’d taken together. No, this was totally different. Being a parent meant – and she supposed she was Fiona’s parent for the moment – so much more. It meant being responsible for the fears that went on in Fiona’s little head.

‘You’re right,’ Coco said decisively, agreeing with her grandmother. ‘Fiona is my main priority. I’ll tell Tracy to stay at home or to go out for a walk, or to do whatever the bloody hell she wants, and I’ll bring Fiona in to see her mum. Then maybe we’ll go somewhere out for dinner?’

‘Only do what’s right for you and your family,’ said Pearl. ‘That’s what you have to do when you’re taking care of children.’

It all sounded very sensible to Coco.

When her granddaughter had left, Pearl was thinking of exactly how true her advice really was. She thought of the earth-shattering decisions she’d made when she was trying to protect Coco and Cassie all those years ago.
Protect your family no matter what else.
But she hadn’t protected everyone. She hadn’t protected Marguerite, and that was one of the things she regretted most. Marguerite had had nobody to take care of her, and Pearl had been thinking only of the children.

Tracey didn’t want to go out to dinner and was being so moody and miserable that Fiona went silent and sat in her room among her teddies. So Coco ordered in Chinese takeaway, but even that didn’t lift the gloom. After eating most of the prawn crackers, a vast quantity of the fried rice and at least half of Fiona’s leftover sweet and sour chicken, Tracey sat down in the best armchair after dinner.

Ignoring the fact that the television was on with a DVD of
Frozen
, because it was Fiona’s favourite movie and Coco was trying to take her mind off her deeply stressed aunt, Tracey then proceeded to talk loudly in a sad monologue about how stressful things had been and how strange she felt being back in Ireland, how confined and suffocated.

‘Well, that’s great,’ said Coco sharply in a tone she barely recognised as her own. She never normally spoke like that, but somehow taking care of Fiona had turned her into an alpha mum with a hint of lioness added in for fun. ‘Let’s talk about something else,’ she’d growled, giving Tracey a very meaningful glare and then staring at Fiona. ‘Something less upsetting.’

It was a command and, finally, Tracey copped on.

‘Er, of course,’ she said.

Luckily, jetlag, despite the melatonin, hit Tracey like a lead balloon and she had to go to bed early. So Coco and Fiona left her to the couch and snuggled up on Coco’s bed, watching the rest of the film on the TV in her bedroom. Coco wished they had her grandmother’s pug, Daisy, sprawled on top of them.

She should get a dog, she thought. A dog would be fabulous for Fiona. Children told things to dogs, told them their deepest, darkest secrets.

She had.

She’d sat in Basil and Sybil’s bed when she found out her mother had left, and she’d whispered the secrets that she couldn’t speak to anyone else, and the dogs had understood. They’d consoled her with loving pug licks that made Coco feel
somebody
understood how upset she was.

‘Your mother left because you were a crybaby,’ were the hateful words that had haunted her for years.

The more Coco thought about it, the more she realised that
she
was going to be Fiona’s mother for quite a while to come.

‘I’ll be in rehab for fucking months and I might never be back to normal,’ Jo had hissed at her a couple of days before.

That thought had been rattling around in Coco’s brain ever since. She’d been avoiding it, not because the idea of taking care of Fiona was so onerous, but because she didn’t think she could be a stand-in mother.

She had never, ever planned to have children. How could she? She’d probably make a very good granny, because Pearl had been the most fabulous granny. A granny-cum-mother and a wonderful role model but still, not a mum.

Dad had been there too, but Coco could remember Pearl and Cassie doing most of the raising. Her mother leaving had broken something inside her father.

The Keneallys had never been an ordinary family. Coco didn’t know how to do ordinary, and she’d decided a long time ago that children weren’t in her future. But now she was forced into being a mother. The incredible thing was that she was enjoying it. Loving it, actually.

‘Should we get a dog?’ she asked Fiona.

‘Yes!’ Fiona snuggled in tighter. ‘I’d love that. I’ve been asking Mum for a dog for ages but she always says …’ She stopped, as if talking about Jo was somehow out of bounds.

Fiona did this a lot. Talked about the past and her mother, and then suddenly reality hit and she knew what was happening. She knew that her mother was in a hospital bed, angry and upset, injured.

In that instant, Coco felt she understood all of this almost like she could see all the cogs whirring in her goddaughter’s head.

‘Your mum will get better, darling,’ she said. ‘I promise you she will get better. One of the hardest things for her right now is not to be able to take care of you because she loves you so much.’

‘But she’s so angry!’ whispered Fiona. ‘She’s so angry when I go in, and she’s angry with you and everyone. Mum isn’t like that.’

‘She’s like that because she’s scared, I told you that, darling. She’s scared because she doesn’t know what’s going to happen and doesn’t realise that you, me and your mum are a team.’ Coco smiled. ‘We’re a family, Fiona.
A family
. I’m here for your mum and, most importantly, I’m here for you. Do you believe me?’ She looked at Fiona gravely, willing her to say
yes.

Fiona’s little face broke into a smile. ‘Course I believe you, silly billy. You are a silly billy sometimes, Coco. You’re my other mummy.’ She curled up closer to Coco, who thought her heart might explode with love.

‘Let’s get a dog,’ she said decisively. ‘What sort of dog would you like, Fiona?’

For the first time in a very long while, possibly since the night of Jo’s stroke, when Lily and Beth had been in Coco’s house and they’d all been dressing up with such childish glee, Coco saw a gleam of sheer joy in Fiona’s beautiful blue eyes.

‘A pug,’ she said, like she was saying
a fairy princess castle filled with Barbies
. ‘Like Pearl’s.’

‘OK,’ said Coco, her heart aching to see Fiona’s joy in this simple move. ‘A pug it is.’

‘Can I get it clothes and dress it up?’ said Fiona.

‘Well, we’ll see,’ said Coco. ‘The puglet might not like clothes …’

‘She will,’ said Fiona happily.

Bribery,
Coco thought, as they hugged tightly and went back to watching
Frozen
. But she didn’t care. If the thought of a dog brought a smile to Fiona’s face, then bribery it would be.

The next day Coco felt glad she hadn’t offered to pick Xavier up from the airport. Look at what had happened when she’d picked Tracey up – that had gone
so
well. As a morning guest, Tracey was stressed until she got her coffee, and then seemed stressed even when she had it. Simply being in Silver Bay, close to her home, had ignited some anxiety in her.

At least Xavier had sounded laid-back on the phone; so laid-back, in fact, that it didn’t even sound as if he was flying over to see his sister, who’d had a hideous, premature stroke.

‘I’m getting quite an early flight, but I’ll drop in and see some pals,’ he’d said casually to Coco on the phone. ‘Then I’ll head out to the hospital and possibly come around to yours later.’

He wasn’t staying with Coco, a fact for which she was very grateful. With Fiona in her spare bedroom and Tracey on the couch, space was at a premium. Space, not to mention sanity.

But Sunday afternoon came with no word from Xavier since the night before when they were discussing his flight arrangements.

‘Did he come in to see you?’ Coco asked Jo in the hospital that afternoon.

‘Yes, he was in this morning. He flew in early,’ said Jo, and she looked animated for the first time in ages. ‘It was amazing to see him. I’d forgotten how much fun he is. He made me laugh. He even fed me lunch and told me I was a gimpy old eejit, and the sooner I got into rehab, the better, so I wouldn’t embarrass him when Fiona and I next came to Paris. He said he’s moving apartments, somewhere in the sixth arrondissement. Very cool, I’m betting. And there’ll be a spare room for us.’

Coco grinned. Jo hadn’t talked about the future in anything except negative terms for the last few weeks. Was it a gradual acceptance, a strength, a courage? Or just Jo’s natural optimism finally reasserting itself?

Xavier turned up at Coco’s flat that evening with a bottle of wine, a tiny box of handmade French chocolates, and clearly no intention of staying any longer than about half an hour, which made Coco very happy because she had no more beds and only one nerve left.

He greeted his sister warily. ‘Tracey,’ he said, and gave her a little peck on the cheek.

Very Parisian, but only one, so only half-French, Coco wondered? Or was this some subtle Parisian way of saying: ‘You’re bonkers, so you only merit one kiss’?

‘And Fiona.’

He picked his niece up in a big bear hug and swung her around and around the room, so that Coco began to fear for her table lamps. It wasn’t a big apartment and she had a lot of stuff in it. She kept thinking about what she was going to do when Jo got out of hospital and how the three of them were going to manage. Jo couldn’t live on her own as she was still relearning to use her left hand and she walked with a limp, which meant stairs might be out of the question. So Coco’s apartment – one flight of stairs – would be tricky, particularly as it had only two bedrooms. But then Jo’s own place was smaller and was up three flights of stairs, with a temperamental lift, so how would she manage that?

Of course, Jo might not want Coco taking care of her and Fiona, but it seemed like the most obvious choice, and after all,
nobody
was going to be able to take care of Fiona like she could.

‘You’ve grown, honey,’ said Xavier when he finally put a now dizzy Fiona back on her feet.

Fiona gave him a pitying look. ‘I’m nine. Course I’ve grown. We’re getting a dog,’ she then announced, as if there was one waiting to be delivered instantly. ‘A pug.’

‘Oh, I love pugs,’ said Xavier. ‘They’re
très délicieux
.’

‘You do?’ said Fiona. ‘My granny, Pearl, has one.’

Coco grinned. Pearl wasn’t Fiona’s granny and yet she was. Pearl had been Coco’s mum. It was all a little mixed up and yet that was OK, she thought, looking with adoration at the child she loved like a daughter.
Daughter.

Suddenly her beloved rose velvet couch was behind her knees and she sank down on to it with a shock.

She was the woman who was
never, ever
having children, and now here she was looking after Fiona with more love than she’d thought possible. She’d adored Fiona before, but now that love seemed to have increased tenfold. And yet Fiona would eventually go and Coco’s heart would break because she loved having her goddaughter with her all the time and—

She wanted a baby of her own. A real baby. Her own child. A child she’d never, ever leave.

‘You OK, Coco?’ asked Xavier politely. ‘You’ve gone a bit white.’

‘Have a chocolate, Coco,’ said Fiona, cosying up to her and ripping open the chocolates with expert ease. She picked out the richest-looking one – white chocolate with pistachio pieces and caramel sugar trailing into little shapes on top of it – and handed it to Coco. ‘This,’ she said gravely, ‘will make you feel better.’

‘
You
make me feel better,’ said Coco, gazing at Fiona earnestly.

‘I know,’ said Fiona. ‘Bite it. Is it nice?’

She picked an equally rich-looking one for herself and stuck the whole thing in her mouth.

‘Uncle Xavier,’ she said, mouth full, ‘these are yummificacious. When we have a pug, we can’t give him chocolate. Pearl told me that. It’s bad for dogs’ hearts. It’s not bad for my heart,’ she added, just to make that clear. ‘I can eat lots of chocolate and it never makes me sick.’ She took another one and ate it quickly, just to prove this fact. ‘See?’