Dear Vincent (16 page)

Inside this outer wall two further ring-shaped
earthworks interlink. I stand at the centre of one circle and close my eyes. What kind of people lived here, these kings and queens of all that they surveyed?

In the other circle stands a giant stone. It’s smooth and rounded at the top, nearly as tall as me. I lay my hand on it and feel its latent heat.
Are you here, Van? Did you rest your hand on this as I do now?
An unsettling stillness — solemnity — radiates from the stone. I feel the weight of all the years since it was placed there.

‘We call it
Lia Fáil
, or the Stone of Destiny,’ Royan says. ‘Legend has it that if a true king of Ireland stands on it the stone will roar.’ He comes and drapes his arm around my shoulders. ‘How are you going, love? Are you all right?’

I nod. ‘I’ve never seen anything so old.’

‘I hope you’re talking about the place and not your poor old Uncle Royan!’ I force a smile. ‘When I was a wee lad we learnt a poem about the place:
The harp that once through Tara’s halls, The soul of music shed, Now hangs as mute on Tara’s walls, As if that soul were fled.
I can’t believe I still remember it.’

‘It’s beautiful,’ I say. ‘And sad.’

‘Aye, that it is. There’s always something special about these places — a kind of magic from the early times.’

‘Where exactly did Van die?’ I scan the countryside, waiting to hear her call. Eye a grove of trees.

‘What good will it do to know, Tara? It’ll only cause you pain.’

‘You don’t understand. It’s the only thing that can take the pain away.’

He blinks suspiciously wet eyes. ‘Then come with me.’

We trek back down towards the visitor’s centre and approach a huge white statue behind a fretwork fence. Some kind of religious figure in mitre and robes, holding a staff.

‘Saint Patrick,’ Royan says.

No! Surely not?
I turn from it to search his face. The sadness there confirms my guess. ‘You mean right here?’ I ask, but I already know. I feel her pull.

‘The policeman had to cut her down.’

‘Jesus fucking Christ.’ I slap my hand over my mouth. Mumble ‘sorry’ through my fingers. The patron saint of Ireland. She’s so damn clever, choosing the man responsible for importing the bloody Catholic faith. And by no coincidence, I’m sure, he also bears Dad’s name.
Two messages in one: Saint Patrick to address the hate crime; Hill of Tara to signal I was in her heart.
It couldn’t be more perfect — or more terrible.

I barely notice Royan take me by the shoulders and lead me back towards the car. I’m blind to everything, can only see Van hanging down the saint’s slick marble side, entwined in rope. A freezing band garrottes my skull. I start to retch, the spasms stealing all my strength. Royan lowers me before I fall, presses my head between my knees and rubs my back.

‘It’s okay, Tara love. You’ll be okay.’ The words catch in his throat. He’s crying too.

‘I’m sorry,’ I pant between the spasms. ‘It must have been so bad for you.’
Don’t think about it. Don’t.

‘Oh darlin’,’ he says. ‘There’s no winners in this game.’ He tucks my hair behind my ears, out of my face. ‘Let’s be away. There’s no more good can come of this.’

I let him coax me back into the van. Sit numb and
motionless as we drive away. Inside my head is nothing but a high-pitched keen.

WE’RE DRIVING THROUGH
THE
outskirts of Dublin before I even register we’re here. Uncle Royan takes me on a tour and though the real, hurting part of me is locked inside, I manage suitably impressed conversation on remote control.

A late lunch, more sight-seeing, a castle tour. All this should be enough to lift me from my shock but I’m a sleepwalker, balancing on the cusp between one world and the next. By the time we check into a cheap backpackers and head out for an even cheaper meal, the urge to slip away, to join with Van at last, is overpowering.

At dinner, which I insist on paying for, I ply Royan with beer. Five glasses later he’s yawning and when we return to the backpackers I mix him up a special nightcap: hot chocolate laced with one of Shanaye’s little pills. His concern for me is touching — but stifling.

He’s snoring by eight thirty. I leave a hurried, apologetic note, and sneak out with my backpack and Royan’s keys. The van is unfamiliar but handles well. It’s the one thing Mum took time to teach me, so I could run messages for Dad. I navigate through unfamiliar streets to find the M3 and then motor out of Dublin in the settling dark.
Hurry, Miss T. No time to waste.

I’m outside any sense of time or place. I park the van at the Hill of Tara’s car park, climb the fence, and edge
through looming shadows to the place Van died.

‘I’m here,’ I whisper. ‘I heard your call.’

Somewhere out in the darkness a bird startles, then falls back on silence.
Swallow, little swallow
,
will
you stay with me one night more?
Above me Saint Patrick glows against the dark, yet he’s no Happy Prince.
There is no Mystery so great as Misery,
he says.

I lie down on the dewy grass, his statue backdropped by the stars. Can see Van’s body flailing there. Can hear the choking moments before her death.

The words of that old ballad rise up to soothe her, close now to its origins, but with an urgent twist.

Above me Vincent’s starry night spills out across the skies. He thought of stars as souls that spoke of life and loss — God’s voice — looking down onto the ones they loved. Are you up there, Van? Can you hear my call?

It is easy to end it now. No one will really care. Shanaye and Royan will hurt, but they’ve their own kids to sustain them; Mum and Dad will breathe a sigh of relief. I have the means. A one-gulp entry fee to
never-ending 
sleep. There is a beautiful symmetry to it. Both seventeen. Both on this day. Free to roam together, not doomed to lie apart.
So logical. So very right.

I scrabble in my backpack. Take out the pills and whiskey and sit both bottles on the footing of Saint Patrick’s fence. One big, one small, like Van and me. And looming over us that bastard man with all his rules and judgements, blocking any radiance from the sky.

I uncap the whiskey. Take two slugs. Shudder it down. Shake out the pills and line them up along the footing one by one. Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumbs, guaranteed to lead me home. I place one in my mouth. Taste the bitterness as it dissolves onto my tongue. I flush it down with drink. Sit back.
One down. Twenty-three to go.
The rest I’ll take in one big gulp — can’t risk falling asleep before the deed is done. But first I have to draw for one last time.

With my sketchbook open at a fresh new page I tip the pastels out onto the grass.
Have to catch Vincent’s sky.
My farewell. My final attempt to understand his sorry life.
And mine.
And yours.
I slip into his skin and stare up at the stars. See every separate moving particle, the flicker and the flow. It doesn’t matter that this shimmering, this inability for anything to firm into its solid form, was actually his brain’s response to epileptic stress.

My hand’s drawing so fast I can’t keep pace. Above, the stars parade the spirits of the hill’s past residents: the hosts of ancient kings and queens, masters, serfs — and my dead sister. They call to me. Whisper promises of peace and joy. All I have to do is swallow down one handful of this instant sleep and I’ll end it all. I snatch the whiskey up and twist off its cap. Scoop up the remaining pills. Who decreed all art needs suffering? Surely there must be a way to paint and still survive.
Cuckoo. Cuckoo. Please, someone, tell me this is true.

The pills weigh heavy in my hand. I peer at them, swaying, as I listen for their promise of everlasting peace.

Van’s face erupts through the rising tide of drowsiness.
Hark the hypocrisy. Cuckoo. Cuckoo.

Voices clamour for attention. Shouting. Arguing. Filling every corner, light and dark. And the logic I’ve been building for the last three weeks explodes like a supernova.

No more self-pitying dramatics. I have to end this now.

THE FIRST GHOSTLY WHISPERS
of dawn nudge across the landscape. I unravel stiff joints and stagger up, avoiding the discarded dew-spoilt pills. I pour what’s left of the whiskey out onto Saint Patrick’s feet.
Repent, you bastard.
My head is stuffed with cotton wool.

‘Van?’ My voice is tiny in this vast space.
Nothing
.

I can’t look at the statue without shivering, but the madness of last night has ebbed away. She’s gone, I know that now. And I don’t feel the emptiness I carried around for months, years. Despite the throbbing hangover, my mind is calm.

Until the horror of what I nearly did last night slams into me.
Jesus
. I was railing at them both for their stupidity yet almost followed suit.
What was I thinking?
I shudder at the awful warped logic of it; the sense that history had me in its clasp.

I pull my backpack towards me and stow the empty bottle. All Van’s efforts to buffer me would’ve been wasted if I’d carried out my plan. And Royan — hauled in by the police to identify another godforsaken niece — and poor loving Shanaye —
and
all the trust Max has put in me. God, even Ms Romano and Sandy would’ve felt betrayed.
You promised you’d seek help.

Besides — and here’s the crux of it — I still have things to paint. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. And you can’t do it dead.

It’s only twenty to five. If I hurry, I might arrive back before Uncle Royan wakes up.
Dear god, I can’t believe I drugged him.
I haul myself to my feet. Stars still dot the silvering sky.
My picture!
I scrabble for my sketchbook and find it tucked beneath a nearby bush, I have no idea why.

The drawing steals my breath. It’s Vincent’s
Starry Night
, though his cypress is transformed into Saint Patrick, his sleeping village into a field of translucent wraiths. The heavens seethe, each star a fiercely burning mass of jilted hope. If I ever need a visual reminder of my close call with death, this is it.

Before I leave I walk up to the Stone of Destiny. Rest both hands on top and close my eyes. I hold my breath.
Thank you.
The death-wish clamour in my head has gone. Beneath my hands I feel the reverberation of a psychic cheer. An echo from the ancient ones, who slipped into my mind just as the madness peaked to plant new seeds of possibility. And now they’ve come to send me on my way. I’ll not be back. I have a life to sort at home — still shit, but I’m not ready to give it up.

The roads are clear and I return to Dublin in good
time. I park the van and race into the backpackers, fingers crossed. Uncle Royan’s still in a snore-off with the other overnighters, so I return his keys, screw up the note, and clamber back onto my bunk. Thank goodness he need never know.

I awaken to him shaking me. ‘Good mornin’, sleepy-head. Sorry to wake you but we’d best move on. It’s ten to nine.’

‘How did you sleep?’ I struggle out of the bunk. All my muscles ache from contact with the damp ground.

‘Grand,’ he says. ‘Though don’t go telling my darlin’. I haven’t slept so well for years. And you, love? How are you?’

I cock my head.
Still nothing
. ‘I’m grand as well!’

We go in search of breakfast before we start the journey back. Uncle Royan tells me tales of taunting British soldiers in his youth while we demolish scrambled eggs.

‘What about Dad?’ I ask. ‘You haven’t said much about him.’

He dabs his mouth. Crumples the napkin into the middle of his plate. ‘Billy’s death really knocked him arseways. Before then he’d get cheesed off right enough, always scrappin’, but after Billy died he went real quiet, never laughed. I think the hate just got to him, and poor Kathleen was hurting too. Someone should’ve stopped them. Everybody knew it was a bad idea.’

‘Do you think he loved Mum at all?’

‘Too right he did. Everyone loved Kathleen. But she was Billy’s girl.’

‘Was it his idea to emigrate?’

‘Kathleen was desperate to get away. He agreed for
her sake or else he never would’ve gone. Leaving Ireland broke his heart.’

I think about the nights he’d tuck into the booze with his few mates from ‘home’. How they would sing old songs, make us recite, and reminisce. It was the only time he’d really come alive. And it would always end in tears — his spurred by nostalgia; ours because the drink would make him mean. Now it seems he, too, has a fine old list of hurt and loss to complicate my feelings for him. Especially when you add the fact he did his best to rescue Mum.

I mull over these jigsaw pieces on the drive back to Belfast. As soon as we pull up, Shanaye flies out the front door.

‘Jaysus! Thank the Lord you’re here.’ She clasps me to her breast and sobs into my neck.

‘Now, now, Shannie. What’s all this?’ Uncle Royan levers her off, just as the kids pile out onto the street and leap around us like demented leprechauns.

We’re dragged inside without an explanation and sit down at the kitchen table while she shoos the kids next door. When she returns she perches next to me, drawn and tense.

‘Is there something you want to tell me, love?’

I see both anger and relief in her face, and know she’s somehow found me out. I nod. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I just—’

‘You’ll give them back?’

‘What in God’s name are you on about?’ Uncle Royan says.

‘I did something really dumb.’ Stupidity is only part of it. I’m dishonest and totally selfish too. I take a deep
breath and tell them what I almost did last night.

‘You never?’ Uncle Royan looks so hurt I want to cry.

‘It was this weird compulsion — it felt so right — so logical. Like I’d been walking towards that moment for the last five years.’

‘What stopped you, love?’ Thank god Shanaye’s starting to thaw.

‘I think it was you … and Royan and the kids … my friends back home. I thought … maybe I wasn’t being fair—’ I struggle to find the words. Give up on explanations and take Shanaye’s shaking hand. ‘I don’t know. It was a crazy night. But I promise you from now on I choose life.’
I do. I really bloody do
. Fuck me, that kind of dark is scary, scary shit.

‘Oh darlin’. When I realised what day it was I went into a real panic. Then I saw the pills were gone. I was beside myself. I never should’ve shown you where they were.’

‘Please, it’s not your fault. I’m so, so sorry.’ I can’t believe I put her through this when all she’s ever shown was love. ‘I swear on Van’s grave I’ll never do anything like that ever again.’

Whether they believe me or not, they don’t try to stop me when I tell them I want to visit Roselawn again. ‘I won’t do anything stupid, I promise. And I’ll pick something up for dinner. It must be my turn to cook.’ I hug them, savouring the comfort.

At the cemetery I lay last night’s drawing at the foot of Van’s stone and crouch beside it. Close my eyes and lean in till my forehead’s pressed against her name. Do I forgive her?
Maybe
. Though I’ll never stop wishing that she’d asked for help. It’s all she had to do: let Shanaye
know. Not Mum, whose heart’s too hardened by scars. Not Dad. Not even me; I was too young. I see that now, just as Max was forced to see. But Shanaye and Uncle Royan were there. They loved her. All she had to do was take one steadying breath before she did something so irreversible. And one breath more to let the infinite promise of the world seep back in. Then another, and another. Until her lungs remembered how do it on their own. In the end that’s what I did last night. And what I’ll have to do from here on in.

OVER THE NEXT FEW
days I’m sucked into the vortex of the family. There’s no need to resist now, even if I wanted to, and their warmth helps ease the sadness that still lingers inside. I’d thought that facing down my demons would be the end, but what I hadn’t factored in is just how much I need to think through everything I’ve learnt since I arrived.

I don’t know how I’m going to broach all this with Mum — or if I even can — and now I’ve survived my own seductive dance with death, I have to rethink how I feel about Van’s. And then there is Johannes — or, rather, the lack of him. I haven’t heard a single thing from him since he left. Max’s emails reveal nothing and I’m too embarrassed to drag him in. Meanwhile, Johannes’ desertion hurts like hell.

To distract myself and, in predictably Catholic fashion, to atone for my thoughtlessness, I take on half the cooking and hatch a plan to brighten Helen’s room.

I find a shop that sells leftover tins of paint and start to cover her bedroom walls with a wrap-around Van Gogh landscape: Egyptian blue skies washed by filmy wafts of cloud; a bobbing sea of sunflowers the exact yellow they used in Byzantine manuscripts; cypress trees with orange highlights that pick up all the colours in the shimmering sun. Helen is ecstatic, especially when I ask her to help paint in butterflies, insects and birds.

For the boys I buy glow-in-the-dark stars and, together, we map the Milky Way on the ceiling of their room. I’m just sticking up the last few stars one night when Uncle Royan calls me to the phone. He’s grinning, so I’m guessing it’s not bad news.

‘Hello?’

‘Is it too late to welcome you to the northern hemisphere?’

Johannes!
Annoyance fights excitement, flattening my voice. ‘Probably.’

His joking manner drops. ‘Are you all right? Your Facebook messages sounded miserable and then you disappeared.’

I disappeared? What about you?
‘How did you find me here?’

‘You looked their number up on my laptop, remember?’ There’s a moment’s awkward silence. He clears his throat. ‘I’m so sorry I haven’t been in touch. The course I’m on is way out in the mountains and I’ve not had internet or phone. My dear mother didn’t tell me I’d be going there straight from the flight. I just got back to civilisation about an hour ago. I’ve been going bloody crazy wondering how you are.’

Heat rushes through me like he’s turned a switch.
‘When you didn’t answer back I thought you didn’t want to hear.’

‘Shit! I
knew
that’s what you’d think. It’s been bugging me so much I skipped my class today and caught a ride down to town.’

‘I hope you’re not missing anything important on account of me.’ I sound like a total bitch. So much has happened since I last saw him I don’t know how to act.

‘The only important thing I’ve been missing is you.’

My heart ka-booms. ‘Me too.’

‘Listen, I can’t talk long now but I’m heading back to Paris tomorrow night. I’ll call you then. Okay?’

‘Okay.’

‘You’re sure that you’re all right?’

I laugh, happiness finally bubbling up. ‘I’m fine.’

When I hang up I notice all three boys are smirking around the corner of the door.

‘Is that your boyfriend?’ Frankie asks.

‘Maybe,’ I say.
What the hell.
He called. He’s not forgotten me. He’s going to ring again tomorrow night.

THE WHOLE NEXT DAY
I’m jumpy with anticipation. I thought I’d dampened down my feelings for him, but the sound of his voice has ramped them right back up.

When the phone finally rings just after dinner, the whole family’s on matchmaker alert.

‘Are you sitting down?’ Johannes says.

‘No. Why?’

‘Have you got plans for tomorrow and the day after?’

‘No. Why?’

My audience laughs. I poke my tongue out at them and turn my back. Hunker down over the phone.

‘I’ve booked you tickets to come to Paris for the night! I’m going to take you to the Musée d’Orsay.’

‘You’re not!’

‘I bloody am! Get this …’ He imitates a trumpet as if about to make a proclamation. ‘They’ve got a special exhibition of Van Gogh and
Starry Night’
s been brought over from New York!’

I can’t help but scream. Then I spin around to tell my freaked-out audience: ‘I’m going to Paris to see
Starry Night!
’ They look at me blankly. I spin back. ‘You’re kidding me? You really mean it?’