Shelley
I scrape the leftovers from my boring lasagne meal for one into Merlin’s food bowl, knowing that if Matt got a sniff of what I was doing I’d be in trouble. I give Merlin a knowing wink that tells him it’s our secret as he laps it up with great delight. The lights in my kitchen are low and the surfaces are shiny and clean like they always are these days with no little fingers to smudge them, my laundry is up to date with no tiny milk-stained pyjamas to wash and there’s nothing much on telly for a Saturday night so I stand and stare out the window at the sea in the distance which is now still and black, with only the light house for company.
I could have a bath. Or a shower. Wow, what a choice to have to make … and then I could put on a face mask and a bath robe and fluffy slippers and watch soppy films that I don’t normally get to watch when Matt is at home, but I’ve kind of run out of those. I used to enjoy my time alone when Matt travelled for work to the most exotic locations across the globe. I would pamper myself and enjoy the time and space and let Lily sleep in our bed and sometimes Merlin jumped onto the bottom too.
This house was my haven and I had made it so, designing the interior of every room exactly how I wanted it with memories of our travels in almost every possible space or corner I could find – a large wooden elephant from Africa used to stand in the hallway, much to Lily’s delight and she would cover it with sticky hands and pull at its ears and try to climb on top of it as soon as she was on her feet. A large handmade patchwork rug once hung on the dining room wall, something I picked up when we were in New Delhi before Lily came along and it reminded me so much of those early romantic days when everything we did together was exciting and new. Then there were the two wine glasses we smuggled back from a 5-star hotel in London in our hand luggage on the plane and we couldn’t believe they were still intact when we got to Dublin airport. We toasted Lily’s first birthday with those glasses. Gosh. That was probably around this exact time five years ago in this very kitchen. What a different place this house was back then. It was a home, a proper home, bursting with life and love and noise and people, overflowing with coloured plastic toys and cuddly bears. When Lily discovered her artistic side, we were constantly wiping down walls and doorframes which she’d colour with crayons at every opportunity. The sound of children’s TV programmes was sometimes still chiming out even after she was asleep at night – we’d realize we didn’t actually have to listen to the theme tune of Balamory when it was well after 8pm and we’d laugh at how immune to it all we’d become. Her little plastic cutlery and plates and bowls spilled out of cupboards and I’d find her handiwork in the most unexpected places, like the time I found the sugar bowl on top of the washing powder box in the utility room. She thought they matched and I suppose to her little eyes they did. Both white, both powdery in texture … she was such a clever girl.
And now all of that is gone. I live in a world of basics here. No personality. No heart, no soul, nothing to get attached to. This is not a home anymore, it’s a shell. It’s a place to hide away from reality, where I lock the doors and don’t let the outside world in.
My phone rings, which is a welcome interruption to my wandering mind and I answer it with a smile. It is my dad and his Northern Irish accent makes me both teary and calm at the same time. His timing, as always, is perfect.
‘Tough day, pet?’ he says and when I just nod in reply, I know he can still hear me. ‘You’re doing really well. I’m proud of you, girl. We all are and you’re in my thoughts all day, every day.’
I nod more and exhale until I find the words I am looking for and when they come out, they are not what I expected to greet him with.
‘I met a little girl today, Dad,’ I tell him. ‘Well, a teenager really. I found her crying on the beach because her mum’s dying and she was scared. How on earth did we get through it, Dad? How did we learn to live again without Mum?’
Now it’s his turn to choke up at his little house over two hundred miles away, in the same kitchen my mum used to cook in and where they used to dance arm in arm after Sunday Mass to country songs, as roast beef cooked slowly in the oven and my favourite sounds and smells filled the air.
‘One day at a time, I told you, Shell,’ he reminds me. ‘That’s all you can do is take each day as it comes. That little girl will grow up to be a woman, just like you are now and she will have many more ups and downs ahead of her, just like you’ve had. Life can be pretty tough sometimes but we’ve all got to learn to live through it, if you know what I mean.’
‘I know exactly what you mean,’ I tell him. ‘I just don’t know how to make it better.’
‘You’ll get there,’ he assures me. ‘Look at me now compared to the wreck I was back then. I couldn’t find the strength to get out of bed and do a day’s work for two whole years after your mother died. I wanted to end it all, but I battled on and it was never easy but I learned to live again by taking it one step at a time. Now, I enjoy two holidays a year, I’ve a nice wee retirement fund in the bank from all those years of hard work and my house is my own with no mortgage to worry about. Life is good. It is absolutely horrible for you now, love, but you will get there some day when you’re ready, I promise. ‘
‘And you have Anne, Dad,’ I remind him with a giggle. How on earth could he forget Anne?
‘And top of the list is my darling Anne, of course,’ he says and I can hear my stepmother cackle with laughter in the background at the very idea of him leaving her out in his ‘life is good’ speech.
Thank God my father is happy, I think to myself. We may live miles apart but it only takes a phone call from him to give me just a little glimmer of hope that I might find peace like he has some day.
‘And how’s the lovely Eliza?’ he asks me, knowing that his asking after my mother-in-law will definitely raise a smile in me. ‘Still talking to the fairies, is she?’
I shake my head.
‘The angels, Dad,’ I say to him. ‘She talks to the angels. There’s a big difference in talking to angels and talking to fairies, my goodness! She’d murder you if she heard you mock her like that.’
She’d laugh if the truth be told. Eliza knows my dad by now and they always share great banter on the rare times we all get together.
‘What’s her latest prediction, go on, give us a laugh?’ he asks me and I can just picture him leaning on the kitchen counter with his weather-beaten face and big hearty smile, waiting to be entertained.
Eliza, with her mood stones, chakras and crystals just doesn’t cut the ice with him at all. He really likes her and enjoys her company, but the cynic in him can’t help but kick his heels up in laughter at some of the things she believes in.
‘I can’t think of anything,’ I tell him, trying my best to recall our conversation from earlier today. ‘Oh, wait a minute. Actually, she did tell me to look out for the colour blue today, something she said on the phone this afternoon when I was going to work. She said blue would be good for me today.’
My dad lets out a roar of laughter.
‘I hope you told her you were surrounded by it when you looked up above,’ he chuckles. ‘The sky is blue and the sea is blue and you’re surrounded by both every day! Holy mother of God, I never heard worse in all my life! Look out for blue! Blue! Blue what you should have asked her! A blue moon? Ha!’
I roll my eyes as my dad erupts into fits of laughter. He is old school, and as black and white as they come. It’s either one way or another, right or wrong, up or down, long or short. No nonsense and nothing in between and he finds those who see those differently quite fascinating. Hilariously funny obviously, but fascinating all the same.
‘Now that you say it, I didn’t see anything blue that I don’t see every day,’ I tell him, retracing my afternoon in the shop and my trip to the grocery store then my brief stop at home to fetch Merlin for his walk, then the little English girl with the big umbrella on the beach who told me about her sick mother and then I remember … actually, I remember there was something!
‘Well, there you go,’ says my father, still in kinks of giggles and before I get to fill him in, he decides it’s time to go. ‘I’ll leave you to your evening there now, pet but remember what I said. One day at a time. You’re playing a blinder and wee Lily and your own mother are looking after you every step of the way, do you hear me?’
‘I hear you, Dad,’ I say to him. No matter how cynical he might be, my father still very much believes in heaven and the angels when he needs to. ‘Big love to Anne and I’ll chat to you very soon. Thanks so much for the call, it really cheered me up. Night night, Daddy.’
‘God bless, Shelley, night night love,’ he says, just like he always does. I hang up the phone and sit down on the kitchen sofa, staring out at the lighthouse as I realize that Eliza, for once, may have been right on the mark with her colour predictions.
The English lady who was sick, she bought a blue dress from me today. The little girl, Rosie, whose mother is dying said that her mum bought a new dress today. That warmth I felt when I walked away from Rosie was a feeling I really haven’t experienced since, well, since Lily’s death I suppose. I totally believe that they are all connected, but then I suppose when you’re wrapped up in grief, you’ll cling onto any little sign at all, won’t you?
Juliette
‘And who was this lady? Did she tell you her name?’
Rosie and I are snuggled up in our pyjamas, dry and warm at last with a steaming bowl of noodles and prawn crackers on each of our laps and I am quizzing her on her travels earlier. She seems a lot more settled now, much more like the daughter I know and adore and a lot less edgy and defensive than she was when we first got here this morning.
‘Her name was Shelley and she lives in the big house that overlooks the beach, across from the lighthouse,’ she tells me. ‘I was so upset but she made me feel a lot better and told me to give you a big hug. Her mother … well, her own mother got sick too, just like you, when she was around my age so she kind of understood why I was so upset and afraid.’
‘Oh, you poor baby,’ I say to my darling girl and my instinct is to go to that kind lady’s house right now and hug her and thank her for looking after Rosie and sending her back to me.
‘Mum, you should see the dog she has,’ says Rosie, her eyes widening in excitement. ‘His name’s Merlin and he ate my chips and though his fur was soaked in the rain he was so nice to touch and he let me pat his head and didn’t even bark. I’d love a dog like him. He’s cool.’
‘Really? What type of dog is he?’ I ask her, knowing that no matter what type he is, there’s no way she could ever have a pet where we live. It’s too close to the middle of the city and there’s hardly room for the two of us never mind an animal. Plus, I’m hardly in a position to make any big plans for the future right now, am I?
‘A golden retriever,’ she says. ‘Or something like that. He’s big and sandy and I bet when he’s all dried he’s really cuddly and fluffy. I think he liked me.’
‘I bet he did,’ I tell Rosie. She always did have a connection with animals and again, my ‘future’ dream was always that we would live in the countryside or better still, by the coast and she could fill the place with dogs, cats, chickens, the works. Even a pony if she wanted one. I always dreamed of her owning her own pony, but instead I could only ever afford that tiny terraced house where there wasn’t room to swing a cat, never mind own one.
‘Maybe this place is nice after all, Mum,’ Rosie announces, her young innocent mind full of dogs and kind ladies on the beach. Whatever or whoever it was who changed her mind, I will be forever grateful.
‘I really hope we can have a nice time,’ I say to her, wanting so badly to tell her the whole truth about my now terminal diagnosis right from the horse’s mouth and how precious this time really is, but she is smiling and eating and she looks so content, so I daren’t rock her world, not yet. ‘Maybe tomorrow we will quickly drop by and say thank you to Shelley for her little chat with you?’
Rosie nods and smiles more.
‘I’d love that,’ she says. ‘I could maybe see Merlin again, too. I’d love to see him when he’s all dry and snuggly and cuddly. Do you think I could get a dog someday, Mum? Maybe when we move to a bigger house like you said we would?’
I pause at the mention of the future and I honestly don’t know what to say.
‘Never mind,’ she says. ‘It’s not the most important thing in the world right now. I’ll go get some chocolate. Do you want a glass of wine?’
I sometimes think I gave birth to a mind reader. I would bloody love a glass of wine.
‘That would be just perfect,’ I tell her and my heart glows as I watch her walk out of the room in her fluffy pink robe and slippers, so much more content and happy than I’ve seen her all day.
How on earth am I going to leave her behind in this world without me?