Eamonn always stood just inside the door, leaning against the wall, watching his mum and waiting for a sign. He was quiet, only speaking when he had to answer a question or ask the doctor or nurse for a status report.
Tom came and went, and it was hard for him because, although Kate was kind and Ben’s attitude to him had softened, Breda had been the only member of the Walsh family never to blame or suspect him in the loss of Alexandra.
She maintained his tenuous link with the Walshes and, in her absence, he felt like an outsider rather than family but in deference to her he went anyway.
Things had been slightly awkward between Tom and Jane since the kiss but after Kate phoned him with the news about Breda she was the first one he called. Initially she was hesitant: he could hear it in her voice so he didn’t beat around the bush.
“Breda has cancer,” he said.
“Oh, Tom, I’m so sorry to hear that.”
“She’s dying.”
“Oh, my God!”
“They say she’s only got six to eight weeks.”
“Oh, Tom, that’s awful!”
“I can’t believe it.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I thought you were fucking sick listening to people say sorry,” he said in jest, and all the tension that had built up that night dissolved.
“Let’s just leave it at that, shall we?”
“I’d love to.”
“What can I do for Breda?”
“Absolutely nothing.”
“God, Tom, I really am so sorry to hear that.”
“I know – I know you’re fond of her.”
“Poor Mr Walsh!”
“Are you going to call Ben ‘Mr Walsh’ till the day you die?”
“Probably.” She sighed. “How’s Eamonn?”
“Annoyed.”
“Nothing new there, then.”
“For once I don’t blame him.”
“I wish I could do something for her,” she said.
“Me too.”
After that they agreed to meet up for a coffee the next day. Jane put down the phone and Kurt was standing behind her when she turned. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“I’d like to ask you the same thing.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Dad says he’s not welcome here any more. What the hell?”
“He’s not and you don’t want to know,” she said, walking from the sitting room to the kitchen.
“I really do,” he said, following her.
“Do you want a coffee?”
“Yes,” he said, sitting down.
She boiled the kettle, scooped the coffee into the percolator and stood at the counter, tapping her fingers on it. Kurt waited at the table with his hands in his hair. “Mum?” he said, when the kettle was just about boiled.
“It’s complicated.”
“I’m not twelve.”
She poured the water into the percolator and put the top on, grabbed two cups. She placed the percolator and cups on the table and sat. Kurt leaned back in his chair, opened the fridge door and brought out the milk. “Well?” he said.
“He slept with Elle,” she said.
“Elle Moore?”
“Yes.”
“Elle, your sister, my aunt?” he said, pointing to her and then to himself.
“Yes.”
“What the fuck?”
“Language, Kurt.”
“No, seriously, Mum, what the fuck?” Kurt stood up and paced. “Why? Jesus, they don’t even like each other that much.”
“I don’t know.”
“When?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters.”
“Your birthday party.”
“Oh, man!” He sat down. “No wonder Dad’s been acting strange.”
“I’m sorry, Kurt, but I don’t want to see him again.”
“I know you love him, Mum,” Kurt said.
Jane blushed so red she was embarrassed by her embarrassment. Her eyes filled and stung.
“I’m really sorry, Mum.”
“Thanks,” Jane said, and pulled herself together.
“What about Elle?” He hadn’t seen her in well over a week but that didn’t mean a thing as she often disappeared for that and longer.
“She’s not welcome here either.”
“But she lives down the back of the garden.”
“And that’s where she can stay.”
“Okay. What about me?”
“I don’t understand the question.”
“I hate what they did to you but he’s my dad.”
“And I don’t expect you to take sides,” Jane said. “You’re an adult now. You’re starting college next week. You can still have a great relationship with your dad, just one that doesn’t involve me.”
“Okay, but I promise I’m going to give him such shit for this.”
“I appreciate that,” Jane said, and smiled at her son, “and if you throw in a kick in the nuts I’d appreciate that too.”
Kurt practised swinging his leg. “Consider it done. And, Mum, he isn’t good enough for you.”
Jane’s eyes filled again. “Thanks, son.”
Kurt left the kitchen and Jane sighed and thought that even if she was about to turn thirty-six and she was alone, at least she had Kurt – for a while anyway.
She poured the coffee they hadn’t touched down the sink, and when Elle appeared and stared at her through her kitchen window she ducked.
Jesus, Jane, get a grip
. She stood up and left the room.
Since the party Elle had deeply regretted her actions with Dominic. As soon as they were caught their affair was over. There was no discussion, no debate and no goodbye. After Jane vacated Elle’s room they had sat in the bed in silence, allowing her words to sink in. They both knew Jane well enough to hear in her voice the hurt and damage they’d caused and they both knew her well enough to understand that she was serious when she said she was done with them. They both realized that in that moment their happy family was no more. Jane was the glue that had held them all together and the glue had become unstuck. Elle got out of bed and got dressed and Dominic followed suit. She walked into her sitting room, closed the door and cuddled on the sofa with her favourite blanket. He left without a word. Since then she had kept out of Jane’s way: she’d slept with
the love of Jane’s life so that was the least she could do.
She missed her in her life instantly. Jane was one of the very few people she talked to every day and Jane took care of her when she was sick, when she was well, when she didn’t want her to and when she needed her to. Jane was Elle’s world, and without Jane Elle’s world was incredibly empty. Four days after Kurt’s party Jane sent Elle a business letter ceasing their working arrangement, withdrawing as Elle’s agent and providing her with names of other agents and galleries she could work with. Elle was devastated because Jane knew that she was a ditz with business: the end of their working relationship meant Jane was absolutely adamant that she wanted nothing more to do with her. For the first time ever Elle had done something so bad that there was no coming back from it. Jane had been forgiving her all her life but she’d crossed the line.
She told Leslie when she called to her cottage to pick her up for a planned walk in a local park. Leslie wondered if she should nip up to the main house to ask Jane if she wished to join them and Elle broke down into tears.
“What happened?” Leslie said, hands on hips.
“She found us together.”
“Oh, no,” Leslie said. “You cannot be serious.”
“At Kurt’s birthday party, here in my bedroom.”
“Oh, Elle, you stupid, stupid girl!”
“I know – I know I’m stupid. I’m an idiot, a selfish little liar twisted in the head.” She was banging her head hard with her fist, so hard that Leslie had to grab her hand and hold it tight.
“Okay,” she said. “Calm down, sit down and stop banging your head.”
Elle sat and wrung her hands. “I’ve really hurt her, Leslie. I’ve really hurt her.”
“She’ll get over it. It might not be today or tomorrow but I promise she will get over it.”
“She hates me.”
“Well, now she needs to, so let her.”
“But I can’t cope on my own.”
“You’re twenty-six. In two months you’re going to be twenty-seven. You’re old enough and capable enough to take care of yourself.”
Elle shook her head. “Not without Jane.”
“Yes, without Jane,” Leslie said, in her strictest voice. “It’s time for you to find your own way because, Elle, if you think living down the back of your sister’s garden is a permanent arrangement you’re wrong. Things change – and if anyone knows that I do.”
“Let’s walk.” Elle got up from her chair, desperate for a new scene and subject.
“Okay.” Leslie put on her coat.
Elle walked to the door and stood outside waiting for her.
“Elle,” Leslie said.
“Yeah.”
“Your coat.”
Elle looked at herself and realized she was standing outside in the cold in a T-shirt. “Oh,” she said, took it from Leslie and put it on. “Let’s go,” she said.
Leslie pulled the door shut and wondered whether Elle would truly be lost without Jane.
The first night Elle slept with Dominic she had gone home and into her studio and started painting. The theme was
“Sin” and she used a lot of reds and blacks and purples and there was a girl succumbing to a man with the devil in his eyes. She’d liked it, so as the month and her affair carried on she’d painted more in that style. She hadn’t shown them to Jane before she’d received her sister’s letter, and afterwards she wasn’t sure what she would do or where she would go so she just kept painting. Lori called her two days before the Ken Browne exhibition in Albert’s Gallery and asked her if she would be attending.
“I’m barred,” she said.
“Don’t be an ass. Your sister owns the place.”
“She barred me.”
“For what?”
“For sleeping with Kurt’s dad.”
“Christ, Elle, what are you like?”
“A whore, a hussy, a selfish, twisted little bitch.”
“It was a rhetorical question,” Lori said, “and, besides, you have to come. I’m hearing a lot of good things about this guy and you know Jane is all business – she won’t make a scene, not in the gallery.”
“Okay,” Elle said, “I’ll go.”
She decided to go for two reasons, the first being that she had heard Ken Browne was an artist worth watching and the second that she hoped Jane would see how sorry she was and find it in her heart to forgive her.
On the evening of the exhibition she met Lori in a pub down the road from the gallery and they had a drink to calm their nerves.
“This is actually quite exciting,” Lori said. “There’s a whole new edge to the event.”
Elle just hoped Jane would be okay with her turning up. They
waited until they knew the gallery would be busy. Jane was rushing around and the artist was talking to patrons and friends, every now and then stopping to have his photo taken. Lori spotted someone she knew and ran off to talk to them, leaving Elle standing alone. She walked over to a painting and stood in front of it for a long time. It was so beautiful it made her want to cry. She stared at the colour on the canvas, the deep browns, the burnt orange, the translucent white against the brightest blue, and what she saw was scorched earth and she could feel the heat, and under the brightest blue sky in her mind’s eye she saw a beginning of all things.
The woman beside her was just as taken with the painting. For her it didn’t evoke the dawn of creation but it did match her sofa.
Elle moved on to the next and then the next, and every painting spoke to her and told her its story. They were celestial, brave and beautiful. She could hear each voice individually calling to her from the canvas.
This is real art
. The one that had made her want to cry called out:
This is talent. This has heart and soul. You’ll never paint like this. You’ll never evoke the emotions these paintings evoke. You are a pretender and soon you’ll be found out. Without Jane, you’re just a jumped-up cartoonist
.
“Shut up,” she said.
The woman beside her looked her up and down. “I wasn’t talking to you,” she said, and walked away.
Jane appeared behind her. “Go home, Elle,” she said.
“Please can we talk?”
“I’m working, and even if I wasn’t I have nothing to say to you and there is nothing that you can say.”
Elle left and Lori didn’t notice because she was too busy bowing before Ken Browne.
Elle went home. She walked into her studio and dragged all her finished paintings into the garden. “You’re shit,” she said. “You’re shit, shit, shit! It’s all shit!” She piled them high and doused them in whiskey, then lit a match and threw it and the lot went up in flames. She stood watching.
The flames and smoke alerted Kurt and Rose at the same time. Kurt saw his aunt standing far too close to the fire, ran out into the garden and pulled her away from the flames. “Your work! What are you doing to your beautiful work?”
“It’s ugly,” she said. “It’s all so fucking ugly.”
Rose walked down the garden, grabbed her hose and trailed it to a point where she could point it and douse the flames. Elle watched her put out the fire while Kurt held her back. When Rose had finished and there was only smouldering wood left she turned to her grandson. “Put Elle to bed, then come in to me and tell me what the hell is going on around here.”
Kurt nodded and took Elle into her cottage. Rose made her way to her basement apartment and waited for him to make sense of Elle’s latest episode.
The day after Ken Browne’s exhibition Rose Moore walked up the steps from her basement to the main house and used her key to get in. Jane was vacuuming the landing upstairs and stopped when she saw Rose. It wasn’t feeding time and there was no special reason for Rose to be out of her chair and up in the main house, so she was concerned. “What’s wrong?” she said.
Rather than shout up the stairs, Rose ignored her
daughter and walked to the kitchen. Jane parked the vacuum, came downstairs and followed her in. “What’s wrong?” she repeated.
Rose sat down on one of Jane’s kitchen chairs with a groan. “Well, since you asked,
you
are.”
“I’m wrong?”
“Yes,” Rose said, “you are.”
“About what, Rose?” Jane said, in a tone that suggested she wasn’t in the mood for her mother’s madness.
“You know what your sister’s like – she acts before she thinks, she’s impetuous, highly charged, a slave to her emotions. That’s what makes her so special.”
“Sleeping with the father of your sister’s child is not special. It’s cruel.”