‘Oh yes,’ I tell her. ‘Probably more so.’
‘That’s because I’m a gobby little toe-rag.’ Cara’s face is joyful. She waves behind her head as she canters down to the traffic lights.
My mind crawled back to the present, to the hot car seat stuck to my thighs. I had so much to do today, so many surreal little tasks; I had no time to waste daydreaming about schooldays.
Parked outside the post office, I turned straight to the back page of the newspaper for the first time. Babies and engagements and…yes, they’d got my message and fitted it in. I supposed they kept the columns empty until just before going to print. But how did they know how much space to leave for each category? Perhaps there was some sort of equation that gave you the average number of Irish Times readers’ deaths for each day of the year, adjusted for seasonal variations such as office parties.
WALL, it began, like a children’s spelling book. WALL, suddenly, Cara, beloved daughter of Ian and Winona. How she would have liked that name; how she would have pranced round introducing herself with ‘Hi, I’m Wall Suddenly Cara’. House private, it went on; what a discreet way of telling relatives not to waddle round with cheesecakes. Deeply regretted, the notice concluded, by her family circle. That was my phrase, one that could include me by some stretch of the imagination; ‘circle’ sounded too symmetrical, but it would have to do. I read the words right through twice more, trying to believe them, but they sounded more fictional every time.
I folded the newspaper in half and laid it on the other seat. Sun drizzled through my thick lashes. I waited to start crying, but nothing happened. I generally thought of myself as someone quite easily brought to tears, and not just by Little House on the Prairie. Whenever Cara and I had one of our trial breakups, I used to spend awful afternoons meeting her ‘to talk it through’ in city-centre cafés, tears plopping into cups of Earl Grey tea. But now I was sitting here on my own it was not safe to cry, because there would be no one to hear, no one to mop me up, no way to stop except to cough my way to a halt and feel the water crust into salt on my jaw. So I drove home instead.
Though I didn’t get back till half nine, there was no message from the airport. Damn it, I had known something would go wrong. Walking into the kitchen with my finger skimming the woodchip wallpaper, I wondered whether they would look American. Winona would, of course; according to Mr. Wall, she looked American when she was Winnie Mulhuddart fresh from County Limerick. But Kate I was not sure about. Vigorous dark hair, I remembered, curlier than mine; the curls cropped by now, no doubt. A strong jaw; I remembered it one afternoon in French, grinding a honey-filled cough lozenge in slow motion, hypnotizing my eyes. She’d say ‘Pehhn’ – no, more like ‘Pain, ahll cahl yah’. No, you eejit, that was Deep South. What was a Boston accent? ‘Pen, al cawl yew’. Why would she be calling you anyway, you daft egg, when she’d be staying at your house? Her house, I meant. Or was it a little of each now? Got to get a grip.
On no account must I try to impress Kate Wall, I reminded myself, filling the saucepan from the spitting tap. No ironed cotton napkins at dinner, no medium-expensive wine. She would have no need of a hug or a tampon or anything else a gracious hostess could provide. Neither should I cook anything ambitious; this was a woman who probably served sushi at dinner parties. Cara used to reminisce about the way her sister made brandy snaps, curved over the handle of a wooden spoon. She once mimed it for me on a biro, reverent.
I brought a cup of coffee in to Mr. Wall, but his study was empty; he must have walked to his walnut-panelled office in the Wotherby library at twenty to nine, like any ordinary day. And after all, if you wanted it to be an ordinary day, it was probably best to pretend that it was. Then for a few seconds at a time you might forget your personal headlines and escape into wonderful mundanity. I left the cup to cool on a pile of Rare Book Digest while I browsed through his tape collection of composers whose names all seemed to begin with B.
On top of the stereo was the message pad we kept beside the downstairs phone. ‘Garda O’Connor’, it said at the top, followed by ‘one ten or thereabouts, taxi hit behind, lone driv., poss. alcohol. Both drivers crit. inj.’. There was a space, and then, at the bottom, ‘C. no belt, head impact window, prob. instantaneous’. I stared at the words as if at hieroglyphs that gradually deciphered themselves. That must have been the police who rang this morning. I wondered why Mr. Wall had made these reporterly notes. Could he not trust his ears to retain such grotesqueries? As the clock hand moved to five past ten with a tiny scrape I drank his coffee myself, in three gulps.
Phone calls, shopping, clean sheets, I muttered over and over, like a list of demands on a march. Dust sparkled past me on the stairs. I leaned against the hall mirror and turned the overwritten pages of Cara’s Snoopy address book. I began with Amazon Attic, which was top of the list in several senses.
Of course it would have to be Sherry who picked up the phone; I recognized her husky giggle. ‘Who? Oh, Cara’s Pen, sorry. Listen, could you tell her I want my toothbrush back? I’ve just remembered, we found it at the last minute and she put it in the side pocket of her bag.’
‘I don’t think –’
‘It’s a yellow one. Listen, how are you, Pen? We had the best holiday, has Cara been telling you? Spent the last day on the beach having a contest to see who could put their nipples in their own mouths.’
I opened my lips against the mouthpiece, but nothing came out.
‘So, how are you yourself?’ she rolled on. ‘Did the measly Irish sun shine on you at all while we were away?’
‘On and off.’
‘It’s glorious today, though, I have to say. The roses are gone all crumpled, it’s wild. You must come round and sunbathe nude in our clover patch.’
‘I don’t think I can.’ The conversation was becoming impossible. ‘Could I possibly, is Jo there? I have to –’
‘Sure, hang on, she’s making yoghurt.’ A violent crack in my ear; Sherry must have let the receiver slide off the counter and dangle in a fern. I felt a momentary urge to put the phone down and steal away to the kitchen for something to fill my hollow belly. But Jo would be sure to ring me right back.
‘Howarya.’ Her voice patted my ear.
‘I hope you’ve wiped your hands,’ I told her, ‘or your phone will be breeding its own culture.’
‘That’s what “lesbian subculture” means, you know, it’s a kind of yoghurt.’
I had thrown back my head and laughed, before I remembered. Could I sober the conversation down in gradual stages now, or would it have to be wrenched into the mode of mourning?
‘Seriously, now, what can I do you for?’ Jo’s vowels were very Dublin, very easy on the ear. ‘Did Cara forget anything?’
‘No. At least she might have.’ Don’t be silly, take a breath, your lungs are not sealed up. ‘But she, I can’t actually say this so why don’t I ring you back later.’
‘Whatever you like.’
Jo’s gentleness gave me something to rest on, so I told her. My voice was curiously steady; I heard the sentence from a great distance. She went quiet for a long minute. She didn’t say she was sorry. At last she cleared her throat in a great roar and said, ‘I haven’t taken this in at all yet.’
‘Me neither.’
There was a pause. I thought I heard Jo swear, in an abstracted undertone, but couldn’t be sure. Then in her practical voice she told me that she was sure they’d all be there on Wednesday, except Sherry, because she had sworn never to darken the door of a Catholic church again, but she’d probably come to the cemetery.
‘Right.’
‘Oh and by the way, are you, were you out to her family?’
I leaned my temple against the cool mirror and examined the little red tracks across my eyeballs. ‘Not in so many words. I mean, some of us have homes and jobs we could lose, you know, we can’t all just up and…’
‘Don’t get your knickers in a twist,’ said Jo. ‘I was just wondering should we go easy on the T-
shirts.’
‘Which T-shirts?’
‘Well, Mairéad’s latest full-time garment says “Fit for a Clit”; I thought I should warn you.’
‘Oh god no, make her wear a plain black one.’
‘Trust me.’ Another long pause. ‘Listen, I’m surprised you’re holding together at all. Are you?’
‘Far as I can tell.’
Jo wanted to know what she could do, people to contact and so on; she rode over my polite refusals. I read her any names and numbers I recognized from the address book; it gave me such relief to surrender them. I supposed that Jo, being the wiser side of forty, must have done this before. I wondered what formula she would find to leave on answerphones all round Dublin: ‘Hi, this is Jo Butler ringing on behalf of Cara Wall. She can’t speak to you herself right now because…’
As soon as Jo had finished talking, I promised myself, I could go out in the garden to let the sun bake my brain to powder. The light blinded my left eye as I leaned back against the banisters. That small window over the stairs was streaky and cobwebbed; I’d have to see to it. Couldn’t have the homecoming Walls thinking I’d let their house go to pot.
‘…and I can’t even claim to have known her that well.’ Jo seemed to be winding down. ‘It was only the summer really. This is completely unreal.’
I shut my ears to her. The last rainfall had left long fingerprints on the glass.
‘And you two had something really special going there, Pen. I could tell how much she cared about you. I’ve always thought, you know, it’s not whether a relationship is monogamous or open or whatever, it’s the quality of it.’
‘Sorry?’
There was a hesitation on the line. ‘Well, with you two, the issue wasn’t like being a one-to-one exclusive coupley-type couple, was it?’ Jo was asking. ‘The way Cara described it, it sounded like you two had a strong bond, but also room to breathe, you know? Which I happen to know from experience you don’t get if you’re doing the monogamy thing.’
‘I was.’
‘Sorry?’
I kept the stream of words gentle and blistering. ‘I’ve been faithful to Cara for thirteen years. I’ve never been to bed with anyone else. What do you think, Jo, does that make me monogamous?’
Silence on the line.
‘Though of course I was well aware that she had a little current something on the side, or in the Attic, rather. Didn’t know she was telling the world we had an open relationship, though. You’d be the one to ask, actually, I’ve been wondering: was it Sherry?’
Jo’s voice sounded tiny. ‘I don’t think this is the best time to talk. I’m sorry I’ve upset you.’
‘No, no, I’m fine. See you Wednesday,’ I finished, almost jovial, and put down the phone, very careful not to let it slam.
Big breaths until the helmet over my brain started to lift off. There was no harm in Jo. She wasn’t to know. There was no need to take things out on her. My face met me in the mirror. So near, it looked chalky and monstrous. There was fog on the glass from my breath, and my nose had smudged it. I went to rummage in the cupboard under the stairs for a fistful of rags.
By lunchtime I had done every mirror and window in the house except the one in the back bedroom. I sat on the rust-sprinkled sill with my feet tucked under Cara’s bed for anchorage, leaning out backwards to try to smack a cobweb off the outside of the pane. The last time the outsides had been done was the spring, I remembered. Cara had gone up on a ladder while I scrubbed at the insides. 1 was kneeling painfully on the radiator in the back bedroom when her manic grin appeared from the ivy. I jumped, but she was safe enough. We leaned on the window for a kiss, half a centimetre of cold glass between us. Her eyes shut and her tongue escaped from her lips, but when she tasted grit and cobwebs she made a face and reached for her cleaning fluid, spraying a circle to white out our faces.
‘Ah, hi there?’
I woke from my daydream, and peered down past my shoulder. My headscarf was slipping over one eye. ‘Yes?’ I called.
‘I’m looking for Mr. Wall. Or Ms O’Grady. I rang the bell.’
It could be, except there was no luggage. ‘Are you, is it Kate? Be right down,’ I bawled, and wrenched myself off the sill. A glance in the mirror showed that there was nothing I could do except pull off the scarf and practise a bedraggled smile.
When I opened the front door, breathing hard, I thought there was no one there. Then she stepped out from the overhanging honeysuckle. ‘So, is my father home?’
Such a restrained voice, after all my expectations. Darker skin than I remembered, darker everything. The curls remained, but lay back more slickly. ‘Not right now but come in, come in,’ I gabbled. Kate wiped her heels on the mat. My hands were sticky with window-cleaner; I couldn’t offer one to shake. ‘Well. Welcome home.’
‘Thank you, but it’s not my home.’ She stepped past me into the hall. Not as tall as I remembered, or maybe it was I who had grown. I seemed to be looming over her.
‘Is your mother in the taxi?’
‘Afraid not. I called her yesterday morning. She was committed to giving the keynote address at a conference in Detroit. It just couldn’t be cancelled at such short notice.’
I sucked on the inside of my lip.
Kate turned. ‘And you are?’
I looked at her blankly, digging my fists into the pockets of my cardigan. ‘Oh, but I’m Pen, I spoke to you on the phone.’
Her face opened into a guilty smile; all the bones shifted under the skin. ‘I do apologize. I thought – well, it was the headscarf.’
A wave of shame began at my neck. I turned away and answered, ‘No, I’m afraid we don’t have any cleaning ladies, it’s just me and a bottle of window-cleaner twice a year. Come on in, let me make you a cup of tea. Or coffee, if you…have you no bags?’
We discussed the criminal negligence of luggage-handlers as I hung up her trench-coat in the bulging cupboard. I said I would have been happy to have come and get her from the airport; she said it seemed simpler to take a cab. Then she was staring past me. ‘My god,’ she whispered, ‘he never threw away my duffel coat.’ I stood out of the way. Its stiff hood ducked and its sleeves bobbed as she lifted it down by the neck.
To fill the silence, I let out a little breath of amusement. ‘Haven’t seen toggles like those for a while. We’ve got a box of old clothes for Oxfam…’
‘It would seem cruel to make a nineties child wear this.’
‘No, no, they love them.’
Kate gave the coat a disdainful shake. ‘Filthy with dust. And look, the bottom toggle’s missing.’
Complicit, I tugged open the back door, and Kate stepped into the yard. She pushed the grey duffel well into the bin. Then in the middle of our first grin I remembered that we were virtual strangers, and busied myself with the saucepan. When I caught her looking over my shoulder, I explained that we’d had a little accident with the kettle.
The clinking of teaspoons filled the chinks between sentences about how unusual this weather was for Ireland. I was going to offer to lend her some clothes until her bag was recovered from its detour to Zurich, but a glimpse of her suede shoes cost me my nerve. Once the coffee had been poured I asked, too bluntly, ‘Do you want to know about the accident?’
Kate’s eyelids flickered. ‘Sure.’
I found it helped if I kept the sentences short and pretended I was reading the news. ‘It was just after one on Saturday night. Cara was in a taxi coming back from the airport. She’d been away in Greece with some friends.’
‘How many were in the taxi?’
‘No, just her, they’d gone ahead, she’d had to wait for her bag.’
Kate nodded, businesslike.
‘Well apparently,’ I resumed, ‘a car stove into the taxi from behind. They think he might have been drunk.’
‘Did he –’
‘Both the drivers got hurt. But they had seat-belts on. Cara was in the back, you see, because it was a taxi. If it was a private car
she’d probably have been in the front where they have seat-belts. But only new cars have to have them in the back. The taxi must have been an old car. I don’t know what the law’s like in America, but that’s how it is over here.’
She was nodding still.
‘So that’s all I know,’ I finished, almost brightly. ‘The funeral is on Wednesday; I’m sure your bags will have turned up by then.’
‘I could always wear this,’ Kate said, casting her eyes down at her dark brown trouser-suit, ‘but it might scandalize the relatives. I presume they’ve been told?’
‘Mr. Wall said he’d do them tonight,’ I said.
That was clearly all we were going to say about the main event. I chattered on: ‘I’ve never understood why we still wear black to’ – suddenly I couldn’t manage the word – ‘these ceremonies.’ I took a slug of tea and went on. ‘Black is glamorous nowadays, it’s no privation to wear it. Beige, now, that’d be a true mortification of the worldly mourner.’
‘I think black was always glamorous,’ said Kate with a yawn behind short smooth nails. ‘You know, the grieving widow look.’
That’s me, I thought, disconcerted: the grieving widow. I was suddenly ravenous, remembering I had eaten nothing all morning. ‘Cheese?’ I hauled the plate of odds and ends out of the fridge, and showed it to her.
‘I’m too tired right now, but thank you.’
I laid into the leaking wedge of Brie. I didn’t care if she thought me insensitive.
‘My mother used to wear a lace mantilla to nuns’ funerals,’ Kate went on. ‘They dropped like flies in the cold season.’
‘They have to live longer now; the stream of new vocations is almost dried up. But Sister Dom will live for ever.’
Kate’s bushy eyebrows drew together in a look the pit of my stomach remembered. ‘Excuse me?’
I felt rather foolish to be rabbiting on about the nuns. ‘Where would we be without them, eh?’ I asked.
‘Book about them a few years back, very big in the States,’ she went on, her bony fingers snapping a water biscuit.
The cat-flap slammed open, and there was Grace, scratching at my chair leg; I pushed him down.