Luke suddenly ran from the kitchen and out into the hall. She heard him banging at the living- room door. ‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THERE, IVAN?’ He pulled at the handle.
Finally Elizabeth’s conversation ended and she slammed down the phone. Luke was shouting through the living-room door at full volume. Her blood boiled.
‘LUKE! GET IN HERE NOW!’
The banging at the living-room door stopped immediately. He shuffled slowly into the kitchen.
‘DON’T DRAG YOUR FEET!’ she yelled.
He lifted his feet and the lights on the soles of his runners flashed with every step. He stood before her and spoke quietly and as innocently as he possibly could in his high-pitched voice. ‘Why did you lock Ivan in the living room last night?’
Silence.
She had to put an end to this now. She would choose this moment to sit down and discuss the issue with Luke and by the end of it he would respect her wishes. She would help him see sense and there would be no more talk of invisible friends.
‘And Ivan wants to know why you brought the fire poker to bed with you?’ he added, feeling more confident by her failure to scream at him again.
Elizabeth exploded. ‘There will be no more talk of this Ivan, do you hear me?’
Luke’s face went white.
‘DO YOU HEAR ME?’ she shouted. She didn’t even give him a chance to answer. ‘You know as well as I do that there is no such thing as Ivan. He does not play chasing, he does not eat pizza, he is not in the living room and he is not your friend because he does not exist.’
Luke’s face crumpled up as though he were about to cry.
Elizabeth continued, ‘Today you are going to your granddad’s and if I hear from him that there was one mention of Ivan, you will be in big trouble. Do you understand?’
Luke began to cry softly.
‘Do you understand?’ she repeated.
He nodded his head slowly as tears rushed down his face.
Elizabeth’s blood stopped boiling and her throat began to ache from shouting. ‘Now sit at the table and I’ll bring you your cereal,’ she said softly. She fetched the Coco Pops. Usually she didn’t allow him to eat such sugary breakfasts but she hadn’t exactly discussed the Ivan situation with him as planned. She knew she had a problem keeping her temper. She sat at the table and watched him pour Coco Pops into his cereal bowl and then his little hands wobbled with the weight of the milk carton. Milk splashed onto the table. She held back from shouting at him again although she had cleaned that only yesterday evening until it sparkled. Something Luke had said was bothering her and she couldn’t quite remember what it was. She rested her chin on her hand and watched him eating.
He munched slowly. Sadly. There was silence apart from his crunching. Finally, after a few minutes, he spoke. ‘Where’s the key to the living room?’ he asked, refusing to catch her eye.
‘Luke, not with your mouth full,’ she said softly. She took the key to the living room out of her pocket, went to the doorway in the hall and twisted the key. ‘There now, Ivan is free to leave the house,’ she joked, and immediately regretted saying it.
‘He’s not,’ Luke said sadly from the kitchen table. ‘He can’t open doors himself.’
Silence.
‘He can’t?’ Elizabeth repeated.
Luke shook his head as if what he had said was the most normal thing in the world. It was the most ridiculous thing Elizabeth had ever heard. What kind of an imaginary friend was he if he couldn’t walk through walls and doors? Well, she wasn’t opening the door, she had unlocked it and that was silly enough. She went back to the kitchen to gather her belongings for work. Luke finished his cereal, placed the bowl in the dishwasher, washed his hands, dried them and made his way to the living-room door. He turned the handle, pushed open the door, stepped out of the way, smiled broadly at nothing, placed a finger over his lips, pointed at Elizabeth with his other hand and giggled quietly to himself. Elizabeth watched with horror. She walked down the hall and stood beside Luke at the doorway. She looked into the living room.
Empty.
The girl from Rentokil had said that it would be unusual for mice to be in the house in June and as Elizabeth eyed the living room suspiciously, she wondered what on earth could be making all those noises.
Luke’s giggling snapped her out of her trance and, glancing down the hall, she spotted him sitting at the table, swinging his legs happily and making faces into thin air. There was an extra place set and a freshly poured bowl of Coco Pops across from him.
* * *
‘Boy, is she strict,’ I whispered to Luke at the table, trying to grab spoonfuls of Coco Pops without her noticing. I wouldn’t usually whisper around parents but as she had heard me a couple of times already over the past few days, I wasn’t about to take any risks.
Luke giggled and nodded.
‘Is she like this all the time?’
He nodded again.
‘Does she never play games and give you hugs?’ I asked, watching as Elizabeth cleaned every inch of the already sparkling kitchen countertops, moving things half an inch to the right and a half an inch to the left.
Luke thought for a while and then shrugged. ‘Not much.’
‘But that’s horrible! Don’t you mind?’
‘Edith says that there are some people in the world that don’t hug you all the time or play games but they still love you. They just don’t know how to say it,’ he whispered back.
Elizabeth eyed him nervously.
‘Who’s Edith?’
‘My nanny.’
‘Where is she?’
‘On her holidays.’
‘So who’s going to mind you while she’s on her holidays?’
‘You,’ Luke smiled.
‘Let’s shake on it,’ I said, holding out my hand. Luke grabbed it. ‘We do it like this,’ I explained, shaking my head and my whole body, like I was having a convulsion. Luke started laughing and copied me. We laughed even harder when Elizabeth stopped cleaning to stare. Her eyes widened.
‘You ask a lot of questions,’ Luke whispered.
‘You answer a lot,’ I fired back, and we both laughed again.
Elizabeth’s BMW rattled along the bumpy track leading to her father’s farm. She clenched her hands around the steering wheel in exasperation as the dust flew up from the ground and clung to the side of her newly washed car. How she had lived on this farm for eighteen years was beyond her. Nothing could be kept clean. The wild fuchsias danced in the light breeze, waving their welcome from the side of the road. They lined the mile-long road like landing lights and rubbed against the windows of the car, pressing their faces to see who was inside. Luke lowered his window and allowed his hand to be tickled by their kisses.
She prayed that no traffic would come towards her as the road just about allowed her car through, leaving no room for two-way traffic. In order to let someone pass she would have to reverse half a mile back the way she’d come just to make room. At times it felt like the longest road in the world. She could see where she was trying to get to yet she would have to keep reversing in order to get there.
Two steps forward and one step back.
It was like when she was a child seeing her mother from a mile away but being forced to wait the twenty minutes it took her to dance down the road, till Elizabeth heard the familiar sound of the gate creak.
But thankfully, because they were already delayed as it was, no traffic came this time. Elizabeth’s words had obviously fallen on deaf ears because Luke refused to leave the house until Ivan had finished his cereal. He then insisted on pushing forward the passenger seat in the car in order to let Ivan into the back seat.
She glanced quickly at Luke. He sat buckled up in the front seat, arm out the window, humming the same song he had been singing all weekend. He looked happy. She hoped he wouldn’t keep his play-acting up for much longer, at least while he was at his granddad’s.
She could see her father at the gate, waiting. A fami
liar sight. A familiar action. Waiting was his forte. He wore the same brown cords Elizabeth could have sworn he was wearing when she was a child. They were tucked into muddy green Wellington boots that he wore in the house. His grey cotton jumper was stitched with a faded green and blue diamond pattern, there was a hole in the centre, and the green of his polo shirt peeked through from underneath. A tweed cap sat firmly on his head, a blackthorn cane in his right hand kept him steady, and silver grey stubble decorated his face and chin. His eyebrows were grey and wild, and when he frowned they seemed to cover his grey eyes completely. His nose commanded his face with large nostrils filled with grey hairs. Deep wrinkles cracked his face, his hands as big as shovels, shoulders as wide as the Gap of Dungloe. He dwarfed the bungalow that stood behind him.
Luke stopped humming as soon as he saw his grandfather and brought his arm back into the car. Elizabeth pulled up, turned the engine off and jumped out. She had a plan. As soon as Luke climbed out of the car she shut the door and locked it before he had a chance to push the seat forward and make way for Ivan. Luke’s face crumpled again as he looked from Elizabeth and back to the car.
The gate outside the bungalow creaked.
Elizabeth’s stomach churned.
‘Morning,’ a deep voice boomed. It wasn’t a greeting. It was a statement.
Luke’s lower lip trembled and he pressed his face and hands up against the glass of the back seat of the car. Elizabeth hoped he wouldn’t throw a tantrum now.
‘Aren’t you going to say good morning to your granddad, Luke?’ Elizabeth asked sternly, fully aware that she herself had yet to acknowledge him.
‘Hi, Granddad.’ Luke’s voice wobbled. His face remained pressed against the glass.
Elizabeth contemplated opening the car door for him just to avoid a scene but thought better of it. He needed to get over this phase.
‘Where’s th’other one?’ Brendan’s voice boomed.
‘The other what?’ She took Luke’s hand and tried to turn him away from the car. His blue eyes looked pleadingly into hers. Her heart sank. He knew better than to cause a scene.
‘The young lad who knew about them foreign veg.’
‘Ivan,’ Luke said sadly, tears welling up.
Elizabeth jumped in, ‘Ivan couldn’t come today, isn’t that right, Luke? Maybe another day,’ she said quickly, and before it could be discussed any further, ‘Right, I’d better go to work or I’ll be late. Luke, have a good day with your granddad, OK?’
Luke looked at her uncertainly and nodded.
Elizabeth hated herself but she knew she was right to control this ludicrous behaviour.
‘Off you go so.’ Brendan swung his blackthorn cane at her as if to dismiss her and he turned his back to face the bungalow. The last thing she heard was the gate creaking before she slammed her car door shut. She had to reverse twice down the road in order to let two tractors pass. From her mirror she could see Luke and her father in the front garden, her father towering over him. She couldn’t get away from the house fast enough; it was as though the flow of traffic kept pulling her back to it, like the tide.
Elizabeth remembered the moment when she was eighteen when she thrived on the freedom of such a view. For the first time in her life, she was leaving the bungalow with her bags packed and with the intention of not coming back until Christmas. She was going to Cork University, after winning the battle with her father but in turn losing all respect he had ever had for her. Instead of sharing in her excitement, he had refused to see her off on her big day. The only figure standing outside the bungalow Elizabeth could see that bright August morning as they drove away was that of six-year-old Saoirse, her red hair in messy pigtails, her smile toothless in places yet broad and wide, with her arm waving frantically goodbye, full of pride for her big sister.
Instead of the relief and excitement she always dreamed of feeling when the taxi finally pulled away from her home, breaking the umbilical cord that held her there, she felt dread and worry. Not for what lay ahead but for what she was leaving behind. She couldn’t mother Saoirse for ever, she was a young woman who needed to be set free, who needed to find her own place in the world. Her father needed to step into his rightful place of fatherhood, a title he had discarded many years ago and refused to recognise. She only hoped now that as the two of them were alone, he would realise his duties and show as much love as he could for what he had left.
But what if he didn’t? She continued watching her sister out the back window, feeling as if she was never going to see her again, waving as fast and as furiously as she could as tears filled her eyes for the little life and bundle of energy she was leaving behind. The red hair jumping up and down was visible from a mile away and so they both kept on waving. What would her little sister do now that the fun of waving her off had ended and the realisation set in that she was alone with the man who never spoke, never helped and never loved. Elizabeth almost asked the driver to stop the car right there and then, but quickly told herself to stay strong. She needed to live.
You do the same as me someday, little Saoirse, her eyes kept telling the little figure as they drove away. Promise me you’ll do the same. Fly away from there.
With eyes full of tears, Elizabeth watched as the bungalow got smaller and smaller in her mirror until finally it disappeared when she reached the end of the mile-long road. At once her shoulders relaxed and she realised she had been holding her breath the entire time.
‘Right, Ivan,’ she said, looking in the mirror at the empty back seat, ‘I guess you’re coming to work with me so.’ Then she did a funny thing.
She giggled childishly.
Chapter 7
Baile na gCroíthe was stirring as Elizabeth drove over the grey-stone bridge that served as its gateway. Two huge coaches full of tourists were currently trying to inch past each other on the narrow street. Inside, Elizabeth could see faces pressed against the windows, oohing and aahing, smiling and pointing, cameras being held up to the glass to snap the doll-like town on film. The coach driver facing Elizabeth licked his lips in concentration and she could see the sweat glistening on his brow as he slowly manoeuvred the oversized vehicle along the narrow road originally designed for horses and carts. The sides of the coaches were almost touching. Beside him, the tour guide, with microphone in hand, did his best to entertain his one-hundred-strong audience so early in the morning.
Elizabeth lifted the handbrake and sighed loudly. This wasn’t a rare occurrence in the town and she knew it could take a while. She doubted the coaches would stop. They rarely did unless it was for a toilet break. Traffic always seemed to be moving through Baile na gCroíthe but never stopping. She didn’t blame them; it was a great place to help you get to where you’re going but not one for sticking around in. Traffic would slow down and visitors would take a good look alright, but then the drivers would put a foot down and accelerate off out the other end.
It’s not that Baile na gCroíthe wasn’t beautiful – it was certainly that. Its proudest moment was winning the Tidy Town competition for the third year running, and as you entered the village, over the bridge, a display of bright blooming flowers spelled out a welcome. The flower display continued through the town. Window boxes adorned the shop fronts, hanging baskets hung from black lampposts, trees grew tall along the main street. Each building was painted a different colour, and the main street, the only street, was a rainbow of pastels and bold colours of mint greens, salmon pinks, lilacs, lemons and blues. The pavements were litter free and gleaming, and as soon as you averted your gaze above the grey slate roofs you found yourself surrounded by majestic green mountains. It was as though Baile na gCroíthe was cocooned, safely nestled in the bosom of Mother Nature.
Cosy or suffocating.
Elizabeth’s office was located beside a green post office and a yellow supermarket. Her building was a pale blue, and sat above Mrs Bracken’s curtain, fabric and upholstery shop. The shop had previously been a hardware shop run by Mr Bracken, but when he di
ed ten years ago, Gwen had decided to turn it into her own store. She seemed to make decisions based purely on what her deceased husband would think. She opened the shop ‘because it’s what Mr Bracken would have wanted’. However, Gwen refused to go out at the weekends or involve herself in any social outings as ‘it’s not what Mr Bracken would have wanted’. As far as Elizabeth could see, what made Mr Bracken happy or unhappy seemed to tie in nicely with Gwen’s philosophy on life.
The coaches moved past each other inch by inch. Baile na gCroíthe in rush-hour traffic; the result of two oversized buses trying to share the narrow road. Finally they were successful in their passing and Elizabeth looked on, not amused as the tour guide jumped from his seat in excitement, microphone in hand, succeeding in turning what was essentially a boring halt into an eventful bus journey on Ireland’s country roads. Cue clapping and cheering on board the bus. A nation in celebration. More flashes out the window and the occupants on both buses waved goodbye to each other after sharing the morning’s excitement.
Elizabeth drove on, looked in her rear-view mirror to see the excitement on the celebrating coach die down as they came face to face with another on the small bridge that led out of the town. Arms slowly went down and the flashes died as the tourists settled down for another lengthy struggle to continue.
The town had a tendency to do that. Almost as if it did it purposely. It welcomed you into its heart with open arms, showed you all it had to offer with its gleaming multicoloured florally decorated shop fronts. It was like bringing a child into a sweet shop and showing them the shelves of luminous sugar-coated, mouth-watering delights. And then while they stand there looking around with wide eyes and a racing pulse, the lids were put back on the jars and sealed tightly. Once its beauty was realised, so was the fact that it had nothing else to offer.
The bridge, oddly, was easier to drive over from outside the town. It curved in an unusual shape, making driving out of the village difficult. It disturbed Elizabeth every time.