Stolen Child (26 page)

On the Colorado River, Joy’s father steers the speedboat between the canyon walls. Pillars, minarets and colossal cliffs soar above them. Joy feels terrifyingly insignificant as their small craft shudders in the backwash from other boats.

‘Vishnu schist is one of the oldest layers of exposed rock known to man,’ he says. He does not look in the least bit fazed by his towering surroundings. ‘No one knows its origins but geologists reckon it’s over one thousand, seven hundred million years old.’

The rock, gleaming like a wall of dark chocolate, looks far too cracked and raddled to be the basement structure for the Grand Canyon. As her father steers around the pinhead bends, Joy grips her seat, terrified they will be washed overboard and disappear forever. Sometimes he slows to gaze upon the eroding rock face and describe the strata of the earth’s skin, but she is unable to relax until they are back again on the open plain of the Colorado River. Then he releases the throttle and laughs. He throws back his head. The wind whips her hair and flings it like a banner behind
her. She has been growing it for nine months. Soon it will reach her shoulders.

In Arizona, everywhere she looks, there are rocks. Not like the rocks of the Burren but enormous, aloof boulders bulging from the landscape. They appear to be balanced on their toes, tilting so precariously she can imagine them tumbling over when the breeze stirs across the desert earth. Not that the breeze stirs very often. She has never known such heat, but at night, when the hot desert air finally cools, they sit on the veranda, or sometimes soak in the hot tub, and gaze up at the stars. She listens to him making plans and waits for him to mention her mother’s name but he never does; nor does she. She’d like to ask him how he really feels. Is he relieved that her mother is no longer going on about Spain and the oil fields and locking her door so that no one would know she was dying? If Joy asks, he will tell her the truth, as he always does. But she’s not yet ready to ask such questions. Not until she understands how she feels about this hole that has opened up in her life.

‘Change direction,’ are words he regularly uses. He cheered and shot his fist in the air when Miriam rang to tell him planning permission to build the hostel had been granted. He has done enough travelling. This is his last contract. Joy is glad she decided to come with him instead of staying with her grandmother, who has moved back into Rockrose to be with them when they return home

Not that she can forget what happened, but in such a strange empty landscape it is possible to escape. The desert seems too barren to hold seeds, yet it sprouts with blood-red claret cup and scarlet gillia, carpets of verbena and poppies, prickly posies; everything is prickly here and, when the sun sets, the land turns to blood, a sudden haemorrhage that paints the truncated limbs of the tall saguaros and
the brittlebush. Then it is gone. A heartbeat is all it takes for darkness to fall and quench the flame.

She has made friends with three girls in high school. They have the whitest, most perfect teeth she has ever seen. She hangs out with them by their swimming pools and in the shopping mall where they have their nails painted and sip cappuccinos. They talk about their families, the complicated labyrinth of half-sisters and half-brothers. She has told them about Joey and Miriam. She never mentions her mother since the night Hannah cut her off in mid-sentence and said, ‘Let’s change the subject. Life’s too short to dwell on tragedy.’

Hannah’s mother has a house like a ranch and runs a vegetarian restaurant. She feeds Joy tofu scramble and black bean
chilaquiles
, and makes batwing eyes at her father when he collects Joy in his four-wheel drive. He looks younger these days. She suspects he would like to sit longer over the
papadzules
that Hannah’s mother serves him, but he always thanks her and leaves as soon as he finishes eating.

She drinks tequila one night when Hannah’s mother is out. Egged on by the girls, she rings Joey and puts the call on conference. He hears them giggling because he hangs up while she is in the middle of speaking to him. He doesn’t email her for a while afterwards. When he does, it’s a real big brother lecture about underage drinking. It makes her so angry she vows she will never contact him again but he keeps popping into her mind at the most unexpected moments, especially when he finishes art college and goes to Ireland to work in Miriam’s studio. He’s staying in Rockrose for six months then moving to Italy to continue his training with a famous glass designer. He surfs with Dylan in Lahinch and Doolin, and emails the photos to her. Hannah and the others pretend to swoon when they see them. He was a boy when Joy saw him last, all elbows and big feet
and a wide, cocky grin. He’s different now, more serious and sleek, like a panther. Joy has to agree with her friends. Her half-brother is the most handsome man she has ever seen. But that doesn’t mean he has the right to treat her like a kid.

‘There’s an email from Joey on the laptop if you want to read it,’ her father says when they return from the boat trip. ‘He’ll still be in Ireland when we return home. We should have a party before he leaves for Italy. What do you think?’

She shrugs. ‘As long as he stays out of my hair.’

‘Don’t tell me you’re going to get a lip about Joey. What did he do to annoy you?’

‘He thinks he can boss me around.’

‘The nerve of him.’ Her father laughs and opens his laptop, clicks into the email. ‘I think it’s about time we had some dancing in Rockrose, don’t you?’

Miriam and Joey are waiting to welcome them home. The house looks different, not so tidy any more. It even smells different, a warm smell, which is ridiculous because
warm
doesn’t have a smell, yet that’s the only way Joy can describe it.

Soon she doesn’t notice it any more. She’s settled back into the house and pulled it around her again. She’s forgiven Joey for being such a pain over her drinking but the pleasure she feels in his company is mingled with guilt, knowing her mother would never allow him to stretch out on the armchairs or sleep in the spare bedroom or to stand at the Aga and toss pancakes in the air. He flicks batter at her and she does the same to him until they are splattered and there is no one to yell, ‘Stop…
stop
…’

Everything they do together would be impossible if her mother was alive. Perhaps that is why his simplest gestures, like holding her hand as he helps her down from the rocks, or ruffling her hair, or accidentally touching her hand when he steadies her surfboard, seem wedged in her mind.

They confide in each other. She lies on the sofa and dangles her bare legs over the arm while he sprawls with his back against the side. If she moves her toe, she can touch
his hair. It’s springy on the crown, standing like a question mark. When she dips her toe, she does it so fast he never notices. The sensation of his hair against her skin is like a feather flicking the pit of her stomach. He talks about his stepfather, who kept going on and on at him about finding a proper job when he graduated from art college instead of ‘gadding around Europe like a ponce’ and got jealous every time Joey’s mother tried to defend him. And all the time, Joy’s toe is as light as air, stroking, stroking.

She tells him about the noises she keeps hearing in her head. The smash of bottles and jars falling to the floor. The strange whimpering cry that sent her crashing against her mother’s door.

‘You can’t blame yourself,’ Joey says. ‘It wasn’t your fault. I doubt if even I could have broken that lock.’

Looking at his shoulders, she knows he could have smashed it open with one heave.

Rockrose is full of people, Dowling’s Meadow full of cars. Miriam and Phyllis have baked and roasted, prepared salads, sliced hams and turkeys, dressed a wild salmon, all to celebrate their arrival home and Joey’s departure.

‘Just like old times,’ Miriam says. ‘Whiskey and Guinness, music, dance and song.’

As if to make up for the long absence, people dance harder, laugh louder, sing sweeter, and the musicians, sweat pouring down their faces, play with a wilder than usual abandonment. Joy is unable to imagine her mother anywhere, not in the kitchen, which is laden with food and bottles and a Guinness keg, not in the living room. Not even in the conservatory where she used to sit in the evening to watch the sun setting. No one mentions her name. She might never have existed.

Nikki and Dylan arrive with their children. ‘Well, would
ya take a look at yer one,’ says Dylan, exaggerating his Dublin accent and holding her at arm’s length. ‘Isn’t she the bee’s knees with her fancy new hairstyle and them high heels? Ya’d never take her for a boy now, so ya wouldn’t.’

‘I never mistook her for a boy at any time, you blind old bat,’ says Nikki, nudging him out of the way and hugging Joy. ‘You beautiful girl,’ she whispers. ‘Welcome home.’

Joy
feels
beautiful. She swishes her long hair. It settles like silk on her bare shoulders. It was a relief to let it grow and not to have to meet the searching gaze that had followed her all her life, the disappointment flickering deep in her mother’s pale blue eyes. An eternal quest that nothing Joy did was capable of satisfying. She had never been so aware of her mother’s disappointment until it was no longer visible.

Joey grabs her hands. ‘Come on, sis. It’s time to dance.’

He is as agile on the floor as he is on a surfboard. She spins in his arms, faster, faster, until she is dizzy and collapses against him, hot and breathless, laughing, and he spins her again and again, not allowing her to relax until the dance is over and Imelda Morris claims him.

When Dylan dances with her he stamps all over her feet. ‘Born with two left ones,’ he says. ‘A terrible curse altogether. Don’t know how Nikki puts up with me. When are you and Joey going to call over and see us?’

‘Soon.’ She waves as Nikki dances past, her cheeks red, her head jerking as Mitch Moran swings her into a star pattern.

The floor vibrates, crash, stamp, thump. Old women with stiffly waved hair and floral dresses waltz around with the same ease as the strutting young men who stamp the floor and swirl their partners through each intricate movement. She walks outside with Joey. The stars punch the sky, so bright they dazzle her when she looks upwards. Joey leans against the wall and rolls a cigarette.

‘You must miss her a lot.’ He dips right into her thoughts and the guilt comes back because this is a wonderful party, one they would never have had if her mother was alive and Joy is glad…glad…glad that Joey is here, standing with his shoulder touching her shoulder, the roll-up between his teeth, the tip sparking the darkness.

Without replying, she leaves him and runs upstairs. In her mother’s bedroom, she searches through the dressing table for perfume. She wants to sprinkle it on the walls and floor, on the new bed and the bedclothes that have replaced the sheets and counterpane. She wonders if Miriam burned the ones that wrapped her mother when the haemorrhage began. She does not want to remember that morning but, no matter how hard she tries, she can’t stop thinking…thinking.

The drawers are empty. She lies on the bed and buries her face in the pillow, seeking her mother’s scent, but she smells only newness – a change of direction, closure. She begins to weep. Tears will destroy her face but the relief they bring swells inside her. She does not hear the door open or Joey’s footsteps on the floorboards.

‘I figured you’d be here,’ he says.

‘I’ve haven’t cried since the night she died.’ The pillows muffle her voice and the mattress moves when he sits down on the edge of the bed. He puts his hand on the back of her head and strokes her hair. She sobs louder. Why is she crying so violently? Is it because she misses her mother or because she is freed from her unending expectation of love?
Hug me…kiss me…love me…

Joey emerges from the
en suite
with a handful of tissue. ‘Come here,’ he says. ‘Let me wipe away those tears.’

She sits up and hugs her knees. ‘I must look a sight.’

‘You’ll be fine.’ He dabs her cheeks, wipes her eyes. When
he is unable to remove the mascara smudges he wets the tissue with his saliva and rubs again. He pushes aside her fringe and touches the scar on her forehead. She jerks her head back, her skin flaring at his touch. The tassel on the window blind raps against the glass and his fingers shiver suddenly. She wants him to move closer. To kiss her on her lips and open her mouth with his tongue. She is shocked by the longing that opens like a warm wound inside her, pain and pleasure oozing from a dangerous core. What would her mother think if she knew? Joy imagines her shame, her disgust, but still she cannot stop…if he kisses her she will kiss him back, the way she kissed Hannah’s brother one night, kissed him until her lips were sore, and she is seized again by that same clamping excitement. She giggles, hating the sound but unable to stop until the words in her head become audible.

‘I don’t miss her eyes,’ she says. ‘They never left me alone. Even now, I feel her watching me, judging me.’

‘Why should she judge you?’ He sounds puzzled.

‘I never knew. That’s the problem. She died without telling me.’

They can no longer ignore the noise from downstairs. This is supposed to be a party and she is monopolising him with her moods when they should be downstairs mingling with the others.

‘That phone call…’ She covers her face, cringing. ‘It was
so
stupid. I was drunk and lonesome and all over the place…oh my
God
…what a hangover. Those Arizonian girls sure know how to drink their liquor.’ She mimics Hannah’s accent and he tells her to cut it out, shakes her shoulder, amused or angry, she doesn’t know. He moves away from her and stands beside the window.

‘Like I said, kiddo, you shouldn’t be drinking at your age.’

‘Who are you to tell me what to do?’

‘I’m your brother.’

‘Half-brother.’

‘Same difference. I think you should talk to Dylan.’

‘
Dylan?
’

‘Yeah. He understands things.’

‘Like what things?’

‘Like your mother being dead and how you feel about her.’

‘I don’t need a counsellor.’

‘He’s a friend.’

‘He’s a fucking counsellor and you’re telling me I’m a basket case just ‘cause I said some shit when I was off my head. Go to hell, Joey, and mind your own business.’

He grabs her arm to prevent her walking from the room. She turns into him until suddenly there is nothing between them except the hard pressure of his body. But she must have imagined the sensation because he shoves her back and says, ‘Okay…okay…let’s forget this conversation ever took place. I was just trying to help. I’m worried about you.’

‘No one’s asking you to worry.’

‘I don’t need to be asked, Joy. I care about you. Is that so difficult to understand?’

He is in her dreams that night, tall and suntanned, astride a surfboard, crashing ashore. She is on the sand waiting, knowing she will be knocked asunder by the advancing wave. Joey/Joy. Separated only by an E.