Fallen Read online

  ‘I know enough!’

  ‘Katie.’ Eva leaned over and tugged my sleeve gently. ‘What’s all this? I know you’re friendly with Con, but –’

  ‘He was Liam’s friend, Eva. Have you forgotten?’

  ‘Of course not! Why do you think we –’

  ‘Bartley’s hard on him. He told me he took his studies seriously this year.’

  ‘I should hope so, for his finals. He’ll know all about hard work once he’s an intern, come the summer.’ She held out her hand for the nightdress. ‘It’ll be the making of him.’

  I gave it to her. ‘Why do you do your own sewing?’ How anyone would volunteer for such torture was a mystery to me. Stitching on buttons and ribbons was the height of my capability.

  ‘I like it.’ She stroked the fabric and smiled. ‘I like making things for them. You’ll see, when you’ve a family of your own.’

  I stood up and went to the window. A boy on a bicycle wobbled past on the street below. He lost his balance, and the bicycle keeled over at an angle, but the boy thrust his foot to the ground, just in the nick of time to break his fall. He made a few hops, straightened the bicycle, turned it and came back, all elbows and knees. The narrow front wheel jerked from side to side. It looked difficult to master, but think of the freedom it would bring. Mother had forbidden me to try.

  ‘It’s good if Con has changed his attitude to work,’ Eva was saying. ‘But, Katie, a person could waste a lot of time waiting for someone like him to take matters seriously.’

  ‘Lockie likes him.’ I turned around.

  Eva’s wide grey eyes were hard to look at. ‘Lockie isn’t right about everything.’

  ‘No more are you.’ I glanced back at the street, just in time to catch a glimpse of the bicycle boy’s back as he sailed along towards the main road, straight as a die. Then he was gone.

  Eva knotted a thread and cut it. ‘Well, that’s that.’ She folded the nightdress back into the basket and started to look through the other garments. ‘Alanna will be up from her nap any minute, and we’ll have tea.’

  Quickly, I told her about the trunk, the letters and photographs, Mother’s reaction to Isabel’s letter. The door opened and Alanna came in. A long, thin child, she glided over to Eva like a little nun. Her fine brown hair was gathered into high bunches that fell to rest on the navy-blue shoulders of her velvet dress. She leaned against Eva’s leg and looked at me.

  I smiled at her. She leaned further back, into the hollow of her mother’s shoulder, and the two of them rocked in unison, side to side. It was mesmerizing, as though they were one person.

  Eva sat up straighter. ‘Say hello to your auntie Katie.’ She kissed the top of Alanna’s head. ‘Then go down to Nan and tell her we’d like some tea, please.’

  When Alanna had gone, I gave Eva her letters. She held them in her two hands for a moment, as though weighing them. Then she chose a piece of green silk from her mending basket to wrap them in, got up and moved stiffly to the corner cabinet, unlocked it and put them inside. ‘I’ll read them later.’

  When she sat back down and lifted her feet to the stool, her skirt slipped up her leg. Her ankles were swollen and puffy. She caught me looking. ‘I know, aren’t they a fright?’ She settled her skirt.

  ‘Why are they like that?’

  ‘Fluid.’ She shrugged. ‘Don’t ask what, because I don’t know.’

  I was a pig. I’d been so consumed by my own concerns, I’d forgotten to ask anything about hers. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Better. Tired, but not exactly ill. You know. The usual.’ She lifted her shoulders in a half-shrug and went back to her mending. I watched her darn a cuff. She’d always been delicate, prone to these kidney attacks, and she avoided talking about them, saying that while she was ill she hadn’t the energy, and when she was well she didn’t want to dwell on them. I’d seen her skin turn translucent, her veins rise to become visible rivers on the map of her arms as she burned and shivered in the bed we’d shared, whimpering with pain. When the attacks began, I’d move to a nest of blankets on the floor. I’d tried to sleep with Florrie once, but she was a violent sleeper, tossing and kicking in the narrow bed. She fought me for the blankets, and in the end she’d shoved me out on to the cold floor.

  ‘I don’t know why Mother’s turned on Isabel,’ I said, to break the uneasy silence. ‘She’s beautiful.’ I counted her virtues on my fingers. ‘Her father’s a judge, she made Liam happy.’ I swallowed a lump in my throat. I’d had trouble with that last item myself, as Eva well knew, being the very one who’d pointed out my own jealousy to me.

  It happened the day I got a curt, cold letter from Liam, not long after he went to the Front. Katie, If you can’t behave like a sister to Isabel, leave her alone. I won’t forgive you if you cause trouble. You know full well I’ve my own good reasons for deciding to enlist, whether or not you agree with them. You belittle me if you think I’d put on a British uniform – any uniform – ‘just to keep her father happy’. Why would I make Isabel’s father happy at the risk of hurting her? She objects to this war just as much as you do, if on different grounds. Put this right, or I’ll not speak or write to you again.

  He was so annoyed, he hadn’t even signed it. I practically ran the whole way across town to push the horrible page into Eva’s hands, demanding that she read it. Her reaction disappointed me. She folded the letter calmly and gave it back to me, reminding me that Liam intended to marry Isabel and I’d be wiser not to make trouble for myself. She advised me to apologize, but, as it happened, Isabel’s apology came first, a sweetly flowing note inviting me to tea. I don’t know what got into me, I was afraid there was truth in what you said, don’t be angry, can we not be friends?

  We were going to be sisters, after all. And we both wanted the same thing, didn’t we? A small, simple thing, for Liam to be safe and happy.

  Alanna came back with Nan, who carried tea on a tray in her big red hands. She’d a man’s shoes on her feet, with no laces. The tray held bite-sized pieces of ginger cake and slivers of apple on a plate for Eva, ham sandwiches and a plain sponge for the rest of us.

  ‘Is that all you’re having?’ I asked, when Nan had gone out again.

  ‘It’s all I can stomach.’

  Alanna sat on the floor and played with paper dolls.

  ‘I’ll be mother,’ I said, pouring tea into cups, adding a sliver of lemon to Eva’s, milk to my own. I poured a cup of milk for Alanna.

  Eva folded the tabs of a paper ballgown around the flat sides of a doll. On the floor beside her, Alanna sorted through a variety of paper capes. I picked up a different doll, in a Red Cross uniform, with a cape and a starched hat on her head. I opened the tabs and took off the doll’s clothes, folded them away. Underneath the uniform, the cardboard doll had her full complement of underclothes: petticoat and stockings, frilled knickers. I took them all off to find a final layer of underclothes painted on, a little chemise, frilled longjohns. The doorbell rang, startling me. When I looked up, Eva was watching me. ‘See if it’s him,’ she said.

  I got up and looked out of the window, down on the head and shoulders of a shawled woman. ‘It’s a beggar.’ I heard the front door open, an exchange, and the door shut again. The shawled woman turned and sat on the step. A short while later the door opened and Nan went out and gave her something in a twist of brown paper. The woman folded it away under her shawl and left. I turned back into the room.

  ‘Con is not right for you, Katie, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ Eva said quietly, so as Alanna wouldn’t hear.

  ‘Is that a fact?’

  ‘I’m serious. You’ll have to take my word for it.’

  ‘Why should I? You did exactly what you wanted, no matter what anyone said.’

  ‘What’s all this?’ Bartley stood at the door. Alanna tilted her head and slid two fingers into her mouth.

  ‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘I was just leaving.’

  On the way to Dote’s house, I shook off my unease
about the conversation I’d had with Eva, before she started on about Con. I didn’t know why Mother suspected that Isabel had intended to end her engagement to Liam. She could hardly have forgotten the day, not four months ago, when Isabel came to the house in a state and asked if there was any way to have Liam recalled from the Front. I certainly hadn’t forgotten it. It was like a scene from a play, with Isabel standing in the centre of the room, pleading, and my parents setting their faces against her.

  We were in the parlour with the fire lit, a dismal day. Mother was knitting a sock, on three needles. Her clever fingers flew; she didn’t have to watch them. But, as Isabel spoke about a change she detected in Liam’s letters, the needles faltered and Mother had to stop to count her stitches. When Isabel asked if Dad would write to Liam’s CO, and make a case for having Liam sent home on leave, Mother gave up the attempt at knitting altogether. The abandoned sock was a sorry, shapeless puddle of beige wool, the needles pointing every which way in her lap. She demanded to know what, exactly, Isabel was trying to insinuate.

  I wanted to know myself. I was as shocked as Mother by the suggestion, but, at the same time, a small flare of hope sang in the back of my mind. What if Isabel was right, and it was possible to have someone recalled from the Front? Just because I’d never heard of such a thing didn’t mean it never happened.

  Isabel spoke slowly, pronouncing each separate word carefully but in a low, toneless voice, as though afraid of losing them. She said she was worried that Liam was suffering a kind of fear.

  Mother reared back at that. ‘I’ve heard enough.’ She got to her feet, her assorted needles loose in her hands. ‘I’m disappointed in you, Isabel. I thought you were made of stronger stuff.’ She gathered up the half-made sock and the ball of wool from its place under the cushion, wound it all up into a lumped and spiky ball and pushed it into her sewing bag.

  ‘It’s not possible, my dear.’ Dad spoke gently enough, but he looked disappointed too. ‘Out of the question.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure it’s not out of the question, for people with influence,’ Isabel said bitterly. ‘I’m sure my father could arrange it, if I asked him.’

  ‘I forbid it, absolutely!’ Mother said. ‘My Liam knows his duty; he’ll perform it to the utmost. Our duty may seem a lesser one, less clear to some,’ the flash of her eyes veered towards me, then away again, to where Liam’s face smiled at all of us from its peaceful silver frame on the mantelpiece. ‘But it’s perfectly plain to me. Our duty is to honour his courage with our own. I can’t quite believe you think so little of him.’

  Isabel cast a desperate glance at me. I spread my hands, palms up. I didn’t know what she wanted me to do.

  ‘I should go,’ she said.

  I followed her out. In the hall I found her struggling with her coat. I took it and held it open for her, guiding her arms into the sleeves.

  ‘Will you say anything to your father?’

  ‘No.’ She fixed the collar of her coat and fussed with the buttons, avoiding my eye. ‘I wish I could, but I won’t. Liam would never forgive me. He’d hate me for it. I’m such a coward. I wanted your parents to do what I’m afraid to do myself.’ Tears rose in her eyes. ‘You don’t understand, Katie. Liam is your twin, you’ve shared every second of your life with him. Nothing can take it away from you. But our life is all in the future. What if – what if it never happens?’

  Shocked, I let her go. ‘Don’t even say it!’

  She slipped the latch of the door and went out into the street.

  ‘Isabel, wait!’ I went after her, but the fog came down like a murky brown wall between us, and Mother was in the door, calling me back, the light from the hall a blurred yellow radiance around her.

  ‘Such timing,’ said Dote in her rich, gravelly voice, as she opened the door to me at Percy Place. ‘The kettle’s on.’

  ‘Your kettle is always on.’ I let the satchel strap fall from my shoulder and put it down. ‘Do you mind if I leave this here for a while?’

  ‘Is it heavy, pet?’ May was in an apron at the kitchen table, which was spread with newspapers. She’d a row of plant pots in front of her and was spooning soil into them from a small zinc bucket, three clay pots of vivid red and pink flowers on chairs beside her. ‘I told you, Dote. It’s not right to have the girl lugging reams of notes around.’

  I hesitated. ‘That’s not it. I’ve Liam’s letters in there. My mother is looking for them.’ I felt as though I were making my way through a cold incoming tide, up to my chin in water, testing the seabed with each tentative step, expecting it to shelve away any minute. ‘I’ve brought them here for safekeeping.’

  Dote and May exchanged a look.

  ‘They’re letters he wrote to his fiancée – and to me. He asked me to keep them safe.’ My cheeks burned, but every word was true.

  ‘Leave them upstairs in the dining room,’ Dote said. ‘Along with the notes. They’ll be safe there.’

  I knew it, and I was grateful. I brought the satchel upstairs and stowed it in a corner, out of the way. It looked perfectly at home there, unremarkable. Relieved, I hurried back down to the kitchen, where Dote was scalding the teapot and May had resumed her peculiar business with the soil and the spoon. I felt a huge wave of affection for them both, and all the differences between their house and ours.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked May.

  ‘She’s repotting her geraniums,’ Dote said. ‘Really, May, how are we supposed to have tea, with the table smothered in dirt?’

  ‘Cleanest dirt there is. We can go outside to eat.’

  ‘Isn’t that just typical,’ Dote grumbled. ‘The plants get the furniture and we have to fend for ourselves outside.’

  ‘Al fresco! Nothing better.’ May stood up and wiped the palms of her hands on a rag, then on her apron, then through her flyaway hair. ‘And no time like the present. Come on outside with me, pet. Fresh air – it works wonders.’

  Going home that evening, I took a tram as far as the Pillar. I was too tired to walk. I didn’t feel like talking to anyone when I got in. I was too tired to eat. I asked Lockie to tell my parents I’d given Liam’s letters back to the people who wrote them. Hoping to be left in peace, I brought a mug of cocoa upstairs to bed with me, but before I’d time to drink it I fell asleep.

  Part Two

  Easter Monday, 24 April 1916

  Liam’s anniversary, and the sun came up beaming.

  I was to meet Isabel later and bring her to Percy Place for tea with May’s nephew, Hubie Wilson, who’d been discharged with wounds and was on his way home to Mullingar from a military hospital in England. But, first, there was the anniversary Mass to get through. I crossed the landing to Florrie’s room, looking for company. She was propped up on her pillows, rubbing cream into her neck. The room reeked like a flower shop, worse even than when I’d shared it with her. Something sickly sweet, gardenia or lily, predominated.

  ‘A year today,’ I said.

  ‘I know.’ Some unease flared in her face. Of course she knew – hadn’t she been counting the days until she could marry Eugene Sheehan? They’d settled on the first Friday in June, six weeks away, for a bit of distance from the anniversary, but the presents had already started to arrive: linen, silver, Waterford this, Belleek that.

  I went over to the window and looked out. A flaw in the glass, the hint of a curve, suggested water, but it was a good-looking day. Young leaves shone on the trees across the road, amid hints of colour that the sun would tease out later: white, cherry-pink, burnt-orange. They were wasted on me.

  Down on the street, two skinny dogs, a whippet and a reddish mongrel missing a tail, fought over some bloody-looking scrap. They lunged at each other, pulled apart, attacked again, their faces mashed up close and snarling. Soon the scrap, whatever it was, split apart. A splinter of bone emerged, white as a moon, and the mongrel loped off with it. The whippet limped in pursuit. What was a well-bred dog like that doing loose on the streets?

  I traced the warp i
n the glass with my finger. Once Florrie was married, the rest of us would pack up in earnest. Dad had finally agreed to move to Kingstown, near the sea, where the air was better and the neighbours would be more to Mother’s liking. He said there was nothing to stay for.

  There was everything to stay for. We were born in this house. Its traces were in all our memories, as we’d left traces in it. Inflections of our grandparents’ voices lingered on the landings, came out at the end of Dad’s sentences and were echoed in my own. Our footsteps had smoothed the floors, worn away the centre of each stair. Old slams were stored in the doors.

  My reluctance wasn’t only sentiment. Suppose there’d been a mistake and Liam came back – how would he find us, if we’d moved? It could happen. Or suppose a final letter had gone astray. Suppose it turned up in a French farmhouse or a Belgian church, months or even years from now. It would be delivered to this address. ‘Not known’, the new householder would write on the envelope. ‘Return to sender’.

  ‘Strange to think we’ll all be gone from the house, come the summer.’

  I turned around to see Florrie busy with two halves of a lemon, a knife and a bowl, just about balanced on a wooden tray. ‘And I’ll be in my own brand-new, spanking-clean house. No draughts, imagine!’ She’d scooped the pulp from the lemon while I wasn’t looking and a dome of yellow rind now cupped both elbows. She held each in place with the opposite hand. ‘Be an angel, Katie?’ She pointed her chin at the tray, then at the dressing table.

  ‘What’s this, now?’

  ‘Bleaching my elbows.’

  I pushed a clutter of creams and lotions aside to make room for the tray in front of the three-sided mirror and caught a glimpse of my hair, flattened on one side where I’d lain on it. I unpinned it, worked my fingers down through the length of it and took up Florrie’s hairbrush to give it a good going-over.

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t use my brush,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll clean it when I’m finished.’ I let my head fall and the hair with it, nearly to my knees, brushed the underneath with long strokes. It crackled and sparked. I swung it back up again and tamed it with the brush, made an effort to smooth it with my palms.