Bird of Passage (48 page)

‘Don’t you?’

‘How could I?’

‘I loved her better than anyone.’

‘Oh Finn!’ She gazed at him, helplessly. ‘I know you did. I know.’

‘What’s she playing at? Why is she hiding from me? Is this to pay me back? Is this what she felt like when I went away? Being left behind is worse than going. Being torn away from somebody. Being torn apart. I know what I’m talking about. I swore I would never let it happen to me again. But now it has.’

‘Do you mean when you were little? When you got taken to that school? When your mother had to leave you?’

He turned on her, fiercely. ‘How do you know about that? Did
she
tell you?’

‘Mum? She told me a bit.’

‘Well she shouldn’t have. It was private.’

‘She said that your mother had been sent to one place and you’d been sent to another. And we had to understand how difficult that would be.’

‘And make allowances for me?’

‘No. She just loved you, Finn. She wanted me to understand a bit about you. She didn’t tell Flora. Only me. And she said she didn’t know very much and it was really none of her business, but she would tell me what she knew, anyway.’

‘My father left us when I was a baby. He went to England, for work, and never sent a brass farthing back to us. Did she tell you that?’

‘She said you and your mother were on your own and it must have been difficult for you back then.’

‘It was. But she had a job, when I started school.’ He frowned, rubbing his forehead. ‘That was my first school. And then... then my mother lost that job and she didn’t get another one for a while, and things were difficult. It was hard. We were cold. I remember going to bed to get warm, the two of us cosied up together. She had a friend called Phyllis. I couldn’t say her name. I called her Phissie. She used to lend us things. She gave us food, I think. Groceries. And then, my mother managed to get another job. That must have been what happened. But it all went wrong. It was my fault.’

‘Finish the puzzle, Finn. You have to finish the puzzle.’ That’s what she had said to him. In the dream. He still had that same dream, even now.

 ‘How could it be your fault? You were just a little lad. What on earth could you have done wrong?’

‘Open the door. Open the door, Finn!’ That’s what Mrs Maguire had said. She knew his name. And he had recognised her voice. He was there, seeing himself, watching it happen all over again.

Pulling the chair over to the door. Finding the big iron key. The spare key. Climbing up onto the chair and turning it in the lock. He needed his two hands. It was hard but he managed it. Proud of himself, like a big boy. She came through the door so quickly that she almost knocked him off the chair.

‘I let her in,’ he said, gazing at India.

‘Let who in?’

‘Mrs Maguire.’

‘Who was she?’

‘The Legion of Mary woman. I told your mother about her. She was a nosy old bitch. She had her suspicions about us. And she came snooping around. I wasn’t supposed to let her in. My mammy was at work. Mrs Maguire came to the door, and I thought it would be alright because she had said not to let any strangers through the door. Don’t open the door to strangers, she said.’

‘You were all alone? A little boy?’

‘I told you. But I didn’t think Mrs Maguire was a stranger. We saw her in the church on Sundays. She was friendly with the priest. I thought I’d better do as I was told. So I got a chair and I stood on it, and I unlocked the door.’ He paused, the memories flooding through him, wave after wave. ‘Oh Jesus, I unlocked the door. And she was so angry! Mrs Maguire was so
angry
with me!’  

‘But why would she be angry with
you
? I don’t understand! You were a little boy, and you were alone in the house. Was that it? Your mother had left you alone while she went to work?’

‘The woman downstairs was supposed to be looking after us. But she was ill. And my mammy had been ill too. We had both had the flu. She couldn’t take any more time off work or she would lose the job. She would lose this new job and she said she couldn’t afford to do it. It had taken her months to find it. So she said, you’ll have to stay here, Finny. You’ll have to stay here with her. Mind her.’

‘Mind who? The woman downstairs? I don’t understand, Finn.’

‘You don’t understand. She’d told me what to do. I knew what to do. I was sensible. It was alright. It would have been alright. I was her little soldier. I knew everything I had to do, and she would come home and see us in the middle of the day, and... I did the wrong thing. I did a bad thing. It was my fault. I let Mrs Maguire in, and she saw that there was nobody to look after us. And it was
criminal
, she said,
criminal
!’

‘Your mother left you on your own so that she could go to work, and this Mrs Maguire reported her?’ 

‘No. No! You don’t understand!’ He was shouting at her, seeing it all in his mind, the words tumbling over themselves. ‘I wasn’t on my own. There was Grania. Grania was there too!’

A pair of oystercatchers flew overhead, calling plaintively to each other, their golden beaks catching the last of the light.

India drew a deep breath. ‘Finn, who was Grania?’

There was a long silence. It was as though some door to memory had been suddenly, forcibly thrown open. He had turned the key, and Mrs Maguire in her blue hat had come bursting through. Finn rocked back and forth in the boat.

‘Oh Jesus! Oh Jesus! Grania! She was the baby. She was the baby. She was ...my little sister. My Grania. I loved her. I loved her so much! My Grania!’

 Finn and his mother had caught the flu and it had gone through the whole house, which was a warren. Only the baby, Grania, stayed healthy. Mary was on a warning, no more time off work,  but then the old woman who usually looked after the baby took to her bed with the flu as well. So Mary, in desperation, left Finn and Grania in the room on their own. Finn was a bright little boy, who knew what to do and loved his baby sister. He knew how to heat up the bottles and test them on his wrist to make sure that the milk wasn’t too warm. How to hold the baby and feed her. How to make sure she didn’t choke. How to burp her and change a nappy. He knew all of that. And his mother was coming home at dinner time to make sure everything was alright. But Mrs Maguire came to the door first. Maybe she already suspected something. A lost job. A new baby. No husband in evidence. The baby woke up at the furious knocking and started to cry, that hungry, fretful wailing, like a wild bird, and Finn didn’t know what to do, between the fierce demands of the crying baby and the noises at the door, so he let the woman in. He wasn’t supposed to let anyone in, but he knew her from the church, so he let her in. It was all his fault.

It seemed alright at first. Mrs Maguire was plainly angry, but then she calmed down and smiled, a wide smile, and gave him  a sweet out of that big shiny handbag –it was a rotten sweet, stale and soft and it hurt his mouth -  and then she started asking all kinds of questions. The next thing Finn knew, the
Gardai
were there. He blamed himself. They were put into a big black car and taken to court, the baby all bundled up in a blanket on Mrs Maguire’s knee. At the courthouse, they were left outside while the authorities did the business, inside. And then, Finn was taken off to school. He never saw his mother again, not till that meeting in the convent. He never saw the baby again. But worse, he didn’t remember her. He had erased her from his memory as surely as though she had never existed.

India was crouching down on the sand, reaching out to him. ‘Don’t tell me they sent a wee baby to one of those schools as well?’

‘I don’t know what became of her.’

‘But you remember her?’

‘Just this scrap with dark hair. And not very much of it.  Little fingers, little toes. I used to watch my mammy giving her a bath. She would wave her arms around and I would tickle her. I liked the back of her neck. I remember that. But I don’t remember anything else. I don’t think I want to remember anything else. I’m sorry, India. But there’s nothing in here.’ He touched his chest, his heart. ‘There’s nothing left in me. I’m empty. I wish I hadn’t remembered. Do you think that’s what she’s doing? Paying me back?’

‘Do you mean my mother? But she didn’t know about Grania, did she? She didn’t know you had a sister. Besides, my mum never did you a bad turn in her life.’

‘She married Nicolas, didn’t she?’

‘Only when you left her. She would never have done it, if you hadn’t gone. Never! And besides, I’m glad she married my dad. She was happy with him.’

 ‘Your father...’

‘What about him?’

He gazed at her, seemed on the point of speaking. Then, she saw his gaze slide away from hers, as though momentarily distracted by something beyond her. She turned to follow his line of vision, and realised that he was looking up, way beyond Dunshee, towards Hill Top Town, where birds soared and tumbled up there. He didn’t know what they were, but they looked like flakes of ash from some great bonfire. 

 ‘Never mind, India. It doesn’t matter.’

‘Come back up to the house with me.’

‘Where is she now? Tell me that!’

‘I don’t know. I wish I did. But I know how it feels. Because I feel the same. There’s no point in us arguing. We just have to try to help each other.’

‘Nobody can help me now. Nobody. Not even you, India.’

All the same, he got out of the boat and walked back up to Dunshee with her. She made him some beans on toast, which was all she could find in the house. She sat with him while he ate it, and then washed up the dishes. Nicolas phoned her on her mobile, from the hotel. ‘I was getting worried about you.’

‘It’s alright dad. I’ll be down soon.’

‘Well just see that you are.’

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

Kirsty had died just when her daughter was about to become wildly successful, playing what the critics called a Celtic classical fusion fiddle. Whenever she read these kind of reviews, India could hear her mother roaring with laughter at the very expression. ‘Fusion fiddlesticks,’ she would have said. It was what India did say, in exactly her mother’s old fashioned tone of voice, when she went to spend a couple of nights with Flora and Annabel, in London.

It was almost two years after Kirsty’s death and India – who now had her own flat in Edinburgh – was performing at a small venue in Covent Garden.

‘Have you been back to the island?’ Flora asked.

‘I went in February. Just a flying visit. I had a gig in Oban. So I thought I would go. Have you been yet, Flora?’

Flora shuddered. ‘No, and I don’t want to.’

‘I’m sure Charlie would put you up at Ealachan if you wanted.’

‘I’m sure he would, but I can’t bear the thought of the island. Too many painful memories. I’m surprised you can stand to go.’

‘It wasn’t all bad. In fact, most of it was pretty good, you know. We should count ourselves lucky. We were blessed with a happy childhood. And loving parents.’

‘Until
he
came back into our lives.’

‘I think that was inevitable. Don’t you?’

‘I wish he had died on that rig. I wish he had never got off. I wish he had drowned.’

‘Don’t say that, Lolo.’

‘Why? I mean it! If he had never come back, our mum would have stayed with our dad, and maybe she’d be alive now. He would have got her better treatment, and got it sooner, you can be sure of that.’

‘We can’t be sure of anything.’ India gazed at her younger sister, distressed by her bitterness.

‘We haven’t turned out too badly, have we?’ she asked, in an effort to lighten the mood.

Flora was working with Annabel in the design business and they were doing quite well.  Once they had abandoned Annabel’s fiddly jewellery and concentrated on interiors, things had started to go better. Flora had flair, a sense of style, and she was very efficient. Annabel had contacts and charm. Together, they made a formidable team.

‘So, what did you do, when you went to the island?’ asked Flora, unwilling to change the subject.

‘I went to the cemetery. Took some flowers. The weather was appalling. Somebody had left a bunch of evergreens there. Maybe it was Finn.

‘At least he looks after the grave then.’

‘Mum and great grandad and granny. They’re all there. Quite a party. I know it sounds daft, but I always think what a nice part of the cemetery it is.

Flora shuddered. ‘Did you go to Dunshee?’

India nodded. ‘It was difficult.’

‘So how was he?’  Flora still couldn’t bring herself to say the name aloud.

‘Not good. I think he’s drinking too much. I wanted to tell him that I’ve been trying to find out about his sister.’

‘What sister?’

‘He had a sister. Not even mum knew about her. A baby called Grania. I think she was put up for adoption, but I can’t find out where she went. Nobody will give me any information. I was going to tell him that I’d been searching, but there didn’t seem any point. He’s in his own wee world up there. He doesn’t seem to care about anything. He didn’t want to let me in, but I kind of made him. He wasn’t really rude. Just indifferent.’ She hesitated, aware that she wasn’t quite telling her sister the truth. She had thought him indifferent, but then there had been the parting gift of the folio.