The House On Willow Street (26 page)

“I have a few errands to do in . . . erm . . . Arklow,” Danae said, looking flustered and uncomfortable.

No, Mara hadn’t imagined it, there was something going on. Her imaginative mind ran over the possibilities: Danae was sick and she was going to an appointment with the hospital . . . No, that was crazy—what hospital or consultant had appointments on a Saturday? Honestly, she was being paranoid.

“Okay,” said Mara. “What time will you be back? Do you want me to do anything?”

Again Danae looked furtive. “I was writing you a note, asking if you’d mind throwing a bit of feed to the hens at about five? Round them up before it gets dark and lock them in. I’ll probably be back by . . . by dinnertime.”

Mysteriouser and mysteriouser.

Mara nodded. “No problem,” she said. If Danae had secrets, that was fine by her.

Ten minutes later Danae set off in the car, leaving Mara sitting at the kitchen table with Lady staring up at her, those hypnotic, wolf eyes watching adoringly. Mara loved Lady, she was such a beautiful dog, so affectionate, content to sit beside Mara and Danae and occasionally put a questing nose up for a little pet, as she did now. And as Mara sipped her coffee, she wondered what her aunt was up to, what she had to hide. And then she told herself to mind her own business; everyone was entitled to their secrets.

Danae felt rattled as she took the Dublin road out of Avalon. She hated lying, it had always felt wrong to her. Up to now, she’d managed without ever having to lie; she just didn’t tell people things, and that worked. But Mara was changing all that, Mara was making it harder. Living with another person was tricky. That was the word, Danae decided.

Now that Mara was living with her, Danae felt she owed her niece some explanation. But she couldn’t, she couldn’t talk about it, it still hurt too much. No, it was easier to keep it to herself. Mara would leave soon enough. She’d been talking about going to London some time, and then Danae would be there alone again. Why go through all that pain unnecessarily? No, no, she would be better off keeping quiet till then.

Of course the other problem was that Mara was so very sociable and she was determined that Danae would be sociable too. In the few short weeks that Mara had been living there, Danae had been out five times to the cinema with Mara and Belle.

“Belle—she’s your best friend, isn’t she?” Mara had inquired within a day or two of her arrival. Danae had been shocked. How had Mara noticed? Not that Danae had such a thing as a best friend really, but if she did, Belle was it.

“Well, I suppose she is,” said Danae, trying to appear normal.

“Okay, there’s a great film on in Arklow, what do you think, will we book it for Friday night? Maybe have something to eat beforehand—pizza, Chinese? What do you think?” Mara had said, making it all sound so terribly normal.

Belle had been delighted. “I don’t know how you managed to get Madam here out of the house twice in one month,”
she’d said as she sat in the front of the car while Mara drove them into Arklow.

Mara giggled. She’d told Danae that she thought Belle was a riot, but she wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of her. Belle looked tough.

“Now, tell us, have you taken a vow of chastity since this desperate Jack fellow left you?”

Mara didn’t seem to mind Belle talking about Jack. Perhaps because Belle would probably knee Jack in the groin if she so much as set eyes on him.

“No, but there’s a lot to be said for a vow of chastity,” Mara pointed out. “I mean, with chastity you never have anything to do with men, which in my current state of mind sounds like a very sensible plan altogether.”

“Ah no, men are great as long as you can give them back to their mummies afterward,” said Belle, with a riotous laugh. “I’m only kidding, Mara,” she added. “I don’t care for the ones under forty: they know nothing. They are unformed under forty. Aren’t they, Danae?”

Sitting in the back of the car, squashed because there was no room for her legs, Danae nodded, as if she knew.

“Totally, yes, I agree,” she said.

Then, there’d been the impromptu night out that came about after Mara had gone into the café and met up with mad Vivienne from the clothes shop. Apparently Vivienne had said Tess Power needed a good night out because she was wasting away in the house watching the television in misery and somehow that had resulted in Belle, Mara, Danae, Vivienne and Tess ending up in the town’s Italian restaurant laughing, giggling, talking until one o’clock in the morning.

Jacinta Morelli and her sister, Concepta, had sat down beside them at closing time and joined in the chat, bringing
over coffees and plates of delicious biscotti. Danae couldn’t quite remember how long it was since she’d been out past midnight. It felt odd to meet people like Tess and Vivienne socially. She’d been so stiff at first, she felt like the postmistress behind her plexiglass. Without the safety of that dividing screen there was a sense of being vulnerable, laid bare to their gaze. Not that anyone else appeared to feel that way or even notice. But it had been difficult for Danae.

From the beginning, Tess and Mara had got on like a house on fire. “So you’re not wasting away or withering away up there on your own watching television,” Mara had said, tipsy on three glasses of wine.

Tess had laughed so much she nearly cried. “Is that what she said to you? Vivienne, you’ve got to stop telling people that I am wasting my life, just because Kevin has a lovely girlfriend.”

“Whom he met when you were having a trial separation,” Vivienne said loudly.

“Say it more loudly,” Tess said, “I don’t think the diners at the far end of the restaurant heard! I’ll get you a megaphone next time.”

And Danae had put a hand on Tess’s arm and squeezed it, because even if Tess was able to joke about it, she knew it must hurt unbearably still. Tess had looked at her gratefully as if to say,
Yes, I can joke about it but there’s a lot of pain in there nonetheless.
Danae, who knew a lot about pain, had smiled back warmly in return.

Danae joined the motorway that would take her to Dublin. There was so much different about her life now that Mara shared it. It was so much fuller, so much more fun. It made her realize what she had been missing and the loneliness that she’d go back to, once Mara was gone. But it was easier not to tell her, easier to tell nobody.

“It’s strange, Mum,” said Mara on the phone to her mother one evening. Danae was off on her solitary walk with Lady, climbing the hills, something she did come rain or shine, never mind that it was pitch-dark this time of year. “I love her, and I know she loves me, but she’s not that comfortable around people, and I never noticed that before. I suppose in the past I’d never stayed here for longer than a weekend. Now, having been here for a while, I see how reserved she is. If ever I offer to do something nice for her, like doing her hair—you know how good I am with hair—she can’t accept it. It’s as if she doesn’t like people helping her. And then she went off last Saturday and she wouldn’t tell me where she was going. It was very strange.”

On the other end of the phone there was silence.

“Mum, are you there?”

“Yes, I’m here,” said Elsie. “Mara, you know things have been difficult for your Aunt Danae.”

“You see, that’s it,” explained Mara. “I know there was some terrible thing in the past with her husband when he died and everything, but I never really knew what it was because you didn’t tell us. Whatever happened to her then, it’s like she’s closed off. I mean, what did happen, Mum?”

There was another silence, which was in itself very unusual because Elsie was not a woman given to great silences, as the rest of her family would testify.

“Mara, that’s not my story to tell,” said Elsie. “It’s up to Danae to tell you that, and she’s a very private woman. She’d be terribly upset if you brought it up, to be honest.”

“But what if his anniversary happens while I’m here and I don’t say anything and she’ll think I’m being horrible and ignoring it? I mean, if I had been married and my husband had died, I’d want people to remember it. Go on, you’ve got to tell me what this is all about.”

Elsie clammed up. “Pet, I can’t go into it, that’s all I’m saying.”

“And how am I supposed to ask her about it then?” Mara demanded. “
‘What would you like for your dinner, Danae? We could have spaghetti Bolognese or perhaps some of that lovely vegetarian quiche I made yesterday, and oh, by the way, will you tell me all about your husband?’”

“For heaven’s sake, Mara, you’re a terrible child,” Elsie groaned. “Look, I’m no good with this sort of thing. Ask your father. And tell me, what’s the story about Christmas? Are you coming to us?” There was a faint hint of pleading in her mother’s voice.

“Well, I’m sure
I
am,” said Mara. “And I’ll try to get Danae to come this time.”

Danae had never come before, despite the offer always being there.

“But it would help if I knew . . .”

“Leave Danae be. If she doesn’t want to come, she won’t come,” said Elsie quickly. “As long as she knows the invitation is always there.”

“I’ll definitely try and get her to come this year,” said Mara. “Leave it with me.”

There was no more to be got out of her mother on the subject. By the time she put the phone down, Mara had heard all the latest happenings on Furlong Hill, how the O’Briens opposite had got bay trees exactly like Elsie’s and how violently annoyed she was with them.

“They copied us on the stone cladding and now the bay trees too! Well, that’s taking it too far,” said Elsie, ominously.

Mara grinned. Her mother’s lifelong battle with Mrs. O’Brien across the road always made her smile. But when the call was over, Mara went back to thinking about Danae.

A few days later, Rafe Berlin sat in the window of the café on the corner of Avalon’s main square and watched the girl with the green felt hat get out of her car. She was wearing weird clothes, he reckoned: a crazy red skirt with embroidery, alpine boots, a green coat cinched in tight around her waist and that hat. It was like a pancake stuck on her head. But the face made up for the mad outfit. Like a naughty angel with her dark red fringe in her eyes, amazing big eyes with lots of dark eye stuff smudged around them, making them shine out like jewels in that freckled face.

And now she was stomping over to the café.

Clearly plugged into her own personal music, she shimmied over, hips and shoulders moving to a beat he couldn’t hear. She didn’t care if she was half dancing as she walked. Rafe grinned. Cool chick, oblivious to what anyone else thought: exactly the sort of girl he liked.

She marched in and went up to the counter.

Deciding he needed a refill, Rafe downed his coffee and followed her.

She even smelled good, he decided as he stood behind her: something cinnamon? Did they make perfume with cinnamon in it? She was a small girl, and he liked that too, not being overly tall himself. He liked everything about her.

“Hi,” he said.

She whirled around, stared up, and he got a blast of those eyes. Viridian green, he decided, and flashing with anger.

The angry eyes said:
Don’t talk to me, stranger.