This Is How It Ends (23 page)

It was Della who interrupted her.

“Yeah, yeah,” she said impatiently. “But would you want to know? That was the question.”

“No,” said Addie with a sigh. “I suppose not. But it’s a nice thought all the same.”

T
HE MORNING OF
Addie’s birthday, the post fell from the letter box onto the floor with an unusually loud thud. A lovely sound, Addie registered it from where she lay in her warm bed. The bedroom door was standing ajar and she could almost see the heap of letters on the floor. Her heart gave a little jump. She could feel the love.

She had woken early, thinking of her mum, as she always did on her birthday. Imagining that morning, thirty-nine years ago now, when her mum would have opened her eyes with a start, her sleepy brain suddenly waking to the fact that this was the day. Outside it would have been still dark, and her mum would have rolled over to wake Hugh, the cramps racking her bursting belly. Or maybe the pains would have come upon her as she was making the breakfast for Della, or as she was walking up to the shops with the buggy. Maybe she had rushed home to phone Hugh at the hospital, stopping to ask a neighbor to babysit for her while she was gone.

Addie has never been told the story, so she has to imagine it for herself.

“What time of the day was I born? I need to know what time I was born so I can work out my astrological chart.”

“Good Lord, child, I don’t have a notion. How on earth would I remember that?”

But Addie remembers thinking, how on earth would you not?

As she lay in the bed, she could hear Bruno clattering around in the kitchen. From the sound of it he was making her breakfast. She had to resist the temptation to jump up to collect the post. If she got up it would spoil the surprise. She needed to pee as well, but it would have to wait. Already she could smell the coffee. She could hear a ping as the microwave finished heating the milk.

“Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Addie. Happy birthday to you…”

His timing was perfect. He set the tray down on her knees just as he sounded the last note. She tilted her face up as he lowered his, closing her eyes to savor the kiss. The creamy smell of the steaming coffee, the thin sun filtering through the window, the grizzly scratch of his stubble against her chin as he kissed her.

He had brought the post in with him, the letters stacked up on the edge of the tray. She started to open them hungrily.

A card from Hugh,
To a Wonderful Daughter
. There was a picture of a teenage girl on the front, standing proudly beside her pony. Hugh still picks these cards out for Addie as if he hasn’t noticed that she’s turned into an adult now.
To my darling Addie,
he had written inside.
A very happy birthday. Love, your old dad.
The nib of his fountain pen was so thick that the ink pooled in the loops of the letters. His cartridge was running out on him, the handwriting getting more and more watery as he went along.
PS
, he had written at the bottom of the page, the letters so faint they were barely legible.
I must get myself some new ink.

Addie smiled as she laid the card down on the tray. She reached out for the next envelope in the pile. A card from Della, it had a photograph on the front of two old ladies sitting in deck chairs wearing their swimsuits. There was a sheaf of homemade vouchers tucked inside. A voucher for a hug from Lisa. A nail-painting voucher from Elsa, another for dog brushing from Tess, a back massage from Stella.

Bruno was perched on the edge of the bed. Addie passed the vouchers over for him to see.

The little parcel she kept until last. A padded brown envelope, it didn’t look like there was an awful lot inside. Addie tested the weight of it on her open palm. It felt like it was empty. She recognized the writing on the front, the familiar upright character of Maura’s hand.

“Open it,” said Bruno, “I’m intrigued.”

But Addie set the parcel back down on the tray. Picking up her coffee cup, she leaned back against her pillows.

“I always wait awhile before I open a parcel. Once you open it, the magic is gone.”

“I bet you even did that when you were a kid.”

Addie nodded. “It used to drive Della crazy.”

In a businesslike fashion, she put her coffee cup back down on the tray and picked up the parcel again. She began to slide her finger under the seal, flipping it open and slipping her hand inside. She pulled out a small folded page of notepaper, then a square paper sleeve housing an unmarked DVD.

“Curiouser and curiouser.” She opened up the letter.

Bruno sat and waited while she read.

“She’s in Rome. She won’t be back until next weekend.”

She began to read the letter out loud. She was imitating Maura’s voice for Bruno, her tone brusque and businesslike.

“At last I found somebody to put this onto a DVD. We have the technology!”

She looked up at Bruno.

“She doesn’t say what it is. Oh Jesus. I hope she’s not going batty. She’s the only sane person I have.”

She tucked the letter and the DVD back into the envelope. Only then did she realize Bruno was waiting for her to say something.

“Oh Bruno! Apart from you of course.”

GOOD OLD MAURA,
she never fails to remember Addie’s birthday. For Helen’s sake, more than for Addie’s even, it’s a date that is forever etched on her mind. She always feels Helen’s death sorely on this day, the tragedy of it as fresh to her as if it were yesterday. The arbitrary nature of it is still unfathomable to her. They sat beside each other every day for six years in school. Now Helen is gone and Maura is still here. There’s a responsibility that goes with that. There are duties that must be carried out. She sees herself as the custodian of her friend’s legacy.

After Helen died, her jewelry was divided up between the girls. It was Maura who divvied it out. Hugh had asked her to do it.

“Maybe there’s something you’d like to keep back for yourself?” she’d asked him. “As a memento.” And he’d said, “God no, sure what would I be doing with any of her jewelry?” He had never thought to ask her whether she might like something as a keepsake. So Maura just divided the jewelry out between the two girls.

One rainy Monday afternoon after she picked them up from school they spilled it all out onto the bedspread and they raked through it with their eager little fingers. The pearl necklace, that was what Helen got for her twenty-first. The aquamarine earrings, Helen’s mother had given her those for her wedding. The gold lockets and the charm bracelets, they were childhood trinkets. The lapis lazuli pendant and the tourmaline choker, presents from Hugh over the years. The engagement ring went to Addie, and Della got the wedding ring.

“Do you think that’s why Della got married and I didn’t?”

“Oh, Addie! Don’t be so fatalistic! What makes you think you won’t get married yet?”

Ever the optimist, that’s what they love about Maura. She believes in them. She wants the best for them.

“There’s a lovely man in your future, Addie, I’m absolutely certain of it. It’s just taking him a while to appear on the horizon.”

That was just after she’d broken up with David, when Maura had said that. Addie found herself thinking about it more and more now. It was as if she was testing it for strength, like a creaking floorboard you’re about to step onto.

With her dancing black eyes and her sharp little face, it’s always hard not to find yourself going along with Maura. The certainty of her, it’s as if she can see things nobody else can see.

“There are plenty more fish in the sea,” she had said. “Next time, forget the mackerel, go for the salmon!”

The girls inherited Helen’s money of course. All that money she’d been left by her own parents in their wills, it passed on to Hugh when she died but he was too proud to touch it. So it was salted away for Addie and Della. Eventually it bought them both a roof over their heads.

There was some silver too, a canteen of cutlery that Helen’s parents had been given as a wedding present. Hugh encouraged Della to take that with her when she moved out. Helen’s christening mug, Addie had that on a shelf in her kitchen, she stored stray boxes of matches in it. She wasn’t sure what else you would do with it.

Addie took no comfort from any of these things she had of her mother’s. They were hard things all of them, just bits of metal and glass. You could take them out and look at them, you could polish them and buff them, but there was nothing of her mum in them. They were as impersonal as stones.

That’s why the relics of the saints are so precious to people. Addie understands why people flock to see them. She’s seen the pictures on the television, thousands of people queuing up for hours upon hours just to lay a hand on an old box with a fragment of bone inside it, or a clutch of dead hair.

Addie wishes she had a relic of her mother. She wishes she had a tooth or a lock of hair, something that might still harbor some essence of her. A swatch of fabric from a piece of clothing maybe, something that had touched her skin, something that she had sweated or bled into. If Addie had such a thing she would put it under her pillow. She would reach her hand in there during the night, finding comfort in the touch of it.

IT WAS EARLY
evening before she got around to watching the DVD. They’d spent the day out on Howth Head, winding their way along the cliff paths, down onto one beach and then another, the dog crashing over the stones into the water. The headland, the lighthouse, the weaving road down into the village. They had stopped to buy fish on the pier, slipping into a pub for a pint of Guinness and a pack of crisps before straggling slowly back to the car. A hot bath, and now Addie was sitting on the floor in front of the TV. Her hair was still wet and she had a towel draped over her shoulders. Bruno was in the kitchen making the birthday dinner. A smell of garlic and aniseed. Searing butter. The sound of hot liquid being poured into a colander.

Addie pointed the remote at the TV and switched it to DVD mode.

The screen went blue.

She pressed play.

A plain black screen, there was a date written across the middle in clean white print.
8th January 1974
. Addie’s fourth birthday.

Cross-legged on the carpet, she sat staring at the screen. Her heart was still.

The date faded away. A burst of noise as the picture emerged. A wandering camera, it swung across some kitchen cabinets, coming down to hover over a row of little faces. Half a dozen little girls in party dresses were lined up at the kitchen table like skittles. The camera jolted and the little girls turned to look to the right of the picture, their eyes huge and bright.

Addie sat in the glow of the television, an expression of wonder on her face.

The camera roved over to the right, and she saw herself. She was standing on a kitchen chair, leaning eagerly over the table. Her hair was in two high bunches, feathery tufts growing out of either side of her head. Her chubby hands planted flat on the table, she was jumping up and down on her hind legs like a donkey.

Steady, Addie, steady, shouted someone. You’re going to come off your chair.

Suddenly the lights went out, the faces became shadows. Eyes and teeth flashing in the darkness, shifting shapes. A male voice began to sing a booming happy birthday. Happy birthday to you. The little girls joined in, the camera wobbling along the row to capture their chirruping little faces. A woman’s voice rose above them in an exaggerated soprano. Maura, thought Addie, it could only be Maura. You could hear her but you couldn’t see her.

The camera had reached the empty doorway, and a cake lit by four candles appeared out of the darkness. You saw the candles first, only afterwards did you notice the disembodied face floating above them. The flickering light threw shadows up over her like splashes. Her eyes were dancing as she sang along.

The camera stayed with her as she moved gingerly forward. Coming up behind Addie, she raised her elbows out to the side, making a hoop of her arms. Carefully, she lowered the hoop over Addie’s bobbing head, setting the cake down in front of her on the table. She bent down so her face was next to Addie’s and she whispered a prompt. The next thing Addie was huffing the candles out, there was a little cheer, and the lights came back on.

Addie watched her four-year-old self proudly survey the table, her cheeks bright dabs of pink under the harsh overhead light. She watched as the camera waved around the kitchen. Her mother was cutting the cake now, distributing thick slices on thin paper plates that were buckling under their weight. Her hair was long and tawny, she had it pinned up in a messy bun on top of her head. Every so often she would push out her bottom lip to blow away a rogue curl that kept falling in front of her eyes. She was wearing a high-necked Victorian blouse, her mouth a wide red bow. She leaned back against the kitchen cupboards, a cigarette in her hand. Hugh was beside her, but it took Addie a second to recognize him. An extravagant lock of hair swept across his forehead. He had a cigarette in his hand too. As Addie watched them, her mum leaned her head down on Hugh’s shoulder for a moment. Then the picture abruptly ended and the screen went black.

WHEN BRUNO CAME I
n from the kitchen he found her crying. She was still sitting on the floor facing the television. Her back was straight, she had her legs crossed in front of her like a yogi, but her shoulders were shaking as she cried.

Addie had never seen a moving picture of her mother before. Photographs yes, but a moving picture is different. A moving picture is real in a way a photograph could never be. After all these years, to see her brought back to life again, it was a physical shock. Addie hadn’t been expecting it.

When Bruno found her she was heaving with sobs, the air coming out of her in shuddering gasps. Jesus, he said, what’s wrong? He rushed over and crouched down on the floor beside her, the tea towel still in his hand. He started to rub her back, up and down with the flat of his hand, in an effort to calm her.

Her face resting in her hands, she was shaking her head from side to side as if she was trying to shake the shock out of her. She was crying so much that it was hard to make out what it was that she was saying. Bruno leaned in towards her as he tried to decipher it.