“But I should have known better.”
“All we can do is our best, Mum.”
“But I didn’t do my best, Janey,” she cried. “I’m so sorry I’ve made such a mess.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay!” her mother shouted. “I shouldn’t have let this go on for years! I shouldn’t have made you responsible for her, and I shouldn’t have told you not to involve doctors because it didn’t focking
work
! She could have died, Janey. My fault – again my fault!” Rose was trembling and beating her chest.
Jane wasn’t sure if she was cold, in shock, or suffering from DTs. “Dad wasn’t your fault, Mum.”
“Of course it was. I left him alone and I knew he was in
despair, I left him alone because he was in despair, and I left him alone because I was focking sick of it!” Rose was rubbing her hands in an attempt to stop the violent shaking.
Jane had no clue what to say or do as she had never witnessed her mother in such distress – neither had she ever thought her capable of it.
“When your father died I was angry and sad and bitter and in such pain, and I left you two girls to fend for yourselves. I know I did and I’m not proud of it but you, Janey, you took over. You took care of me and your sister and you did a good job. You’re the strong one, Jane, you’ve always been the strong one – that’s why I pushed you so hard. We need you. We always have.”
“I thought you were disappointed in me.”
“I’m disappointed in myself – you just remind me of it, that’s all,” Rose said. “I am sorry, Janey, I am sorry.”
She was sniffling and Jane felt such an overwhelming warmth for her mother it was unnerving. “Let’s just be kinder to each other,” she said, and Rose nodded.
Jane held her mother tightly, and when Rose composed herself Jane took a tissue out of her pocket and dried her mother’s eyes.
“I hope you hadn’t snotted in that,” Rose said, and their tender moment was over.
Elle didn’t have any visitors during her first week in St Patrick’s but after that Jane and Rose came most days. At visiting time she’d sit in the glass annexe that overlooked a lush garden, and her visitors would join her there. On Rose and Jane’s first visit together, Rose was not behaving like herself, much to Elle’s confusion.
“This is lovely – isn’t it lovely, Jane?” Rose said.
“It’s lovely, Rose.”
“You look fantastic, really beautiful,” Rose said to Elle.
“I look terrible,” Elle said, and looked at Jane for a hint as to what was going on in her mother’s head.
“No, you’re lovely,” Rose said. “Isn’t she, Jane?”
“No, she’s right, she looks terrible,” Jane said.
“What’s going on?” Elle asked Jane.
“Rose is scared that if we’re not nice to you, you’ll try to kill yourself again,” Jane said, and she wasn’t laughing.
Jane was angry, and Elle knew it. Rose blushed the way her elder daughter did on most days but not that day.
“You’re angry, Jane. I understand,” Elle said.
“You understand?” Jane said, pointing at Elle. “Oh, good, because I understand too! I understand that you were desperate and scared and out of your mind – trust me, after two years’ dealing with a colicky baby I do understand – but what I don’t understand is you lying to me. I came to you, I asked you if you needed help and told you I’d be there to help you, and you lied and lied and lied. You made me doubt myself and if you’d died you would have made me complicit in it.”
“I didn’t mean to – I didn’t want to – but everything was so muddled and unreal and I wanted to be okay. I wanted to be kooky, arty Elmore, the genius painter. I wanted it to be okay to suffer for your art and then it wasn’t okay – then the world tipped sideways and I felt like I was barely clinging on. I got tired and all I could focus on was letting go.”
Rose was silent and pale.
Jane shook her head. “If you ever try to kill yourself again I’ll follow you into the next world and I’ll kill you
there too.” Jane’s tears fell and she allowed Elle to bear witness to her pain and her broken heart.
“I’m so sorry, Janey.”
“Don’t be sorry. Just don’t do it again.”
Rose took Elle’s hand in hers and for the first time Elle noticed her mother was trembling. “We love you, Miss Elmore, whether you’re kooky or crazy or a little bit of both, whether you’re an artist or a dinner lady we love you – but Janey’s right. If you ever put us through that again, hell will be a holiday.”
Elle smiled. “Okay, Mum.”
“Right,” Rose said. “Now, Jane, let’s get out of this focking kip before I see someone else I know.”
Kurt and Irene called once a week.
“How’s medicine going?” Elle asked one day, while they ate beef sandwiches that Jane had sent in a picnic basket; it also contained three types of salad dressing and four types of salad, a large bag of lettuce and three cupcakes.
“Good,” he said. “It’s hard, though.”
“Too hard,” Irene said. “I never see him.”
“You’re seeing me now,” he protested.
“And look where we are! No offence, Elle.”
“None taken,” Elle said.
“The last time we went out was well before Christmas,” Irene complained to Elle. “We’re in college, for God’s sake, and we went out more when we were in school.”
“My exams were after Christmas, I’m just finished them, and I told you we can go anywhere you like tonight,” Kurt said, clearly annoyed at having to repeat himself.
“Yeah, well, I’m not in the mood tonight.”
Kurt raised his hands to heaven. “You see?” he said to Elle.
“Nobody goes out in January, Kurt,” Irene said.
Elle decided to change the subject. “So how’s nursing, Irene?”
“Hate it,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m thinking about leaving and doing modelling.”
Elle looked at Kurt who raised his eyes to heaven. “Modelling?” Elle said.
“Mum has a friend in London. She says I’ve got great cheekbones and a good attitude.”
“Well, then,” Elle said.
“Still,” Irene said, “I’m not sure I’d like modelling. I might do a beauty course or something. I’m not really sure so for the minute I’ll stick with nursing but I swear I’ll never make a nurse. People are foul.”
Leslie came every day except the day she had an appointment with her consultant. She would arrive bringing books or chocolates or both. “You can never read enough or eat enough,” she said.
“You’re too good to me,” Elle said.
“You’re right, I am,” Leslie said, “and as soon as you’re well enough remind me to give you a kick in the hole.”
“That’s lovely language.”
“Isn’t it? I heard it coming out of the mouth of a ten-year-old as I was making my way over here.”
“Is it possible to be depressed that you’re depressed?” Elle asked.
“I’m sure it is. I know I’d be depressed if I was depressed.”
“I just wish I could look into the sky and make sense of it all,” Elle said.
“The answer to life’s problems isn’t in the sky,” Leslie said. “It’s in Jack Lukeman’s songs.”
Elle smiled. “Really?”
“Absolutely. In fact ‘I’ve Been Raining’ changed my life – well, that, a nosy girl called Deborah, a cat with the shits, a broken lift and a surgeon.”
“So, name the song that will change my life.”
“Hmmm.” Leslie thought about it for a moment or two.
“Time’s up.”
“No,” Leslie said, batting her away. “Give me a second.” Then she grinned. “‘Universe’.”
“‘Universe’?” Elle arched an eyebrow.
Leslie cleared her throat.
“Don’t tell me you’re going to sing it?”
“I’m better than you,” Leslie said. She cleared her throat again and began to sing. “‘Oh nothing lasts for ever …’”
“Dun, dun, dun, dun,” Elle sang, imitating the trombone.
Two male patients on their way back from a smoke stopped at the door to enjoy the show.
“‘You can cry a million rivers …’” Leslie sang, and pointed at Elle, who nodded and got ready to imitate a trombone once more.
“Dun, dun, dun, dun …”
“
You can rage it ain’t no sin
but it won’t change a thing
’cos nothing lasts for ever
…”
Leslie reached out and embraced Elle. “Sing it with me, Elle.”
Together they sang:
“
There’s a universe inside
where the two of us can hide
and there’s nothing to be frightened of
,
a flash of light a raging star
don’t you know you’re not alone
,
ah there’s nothing to be frightened of
.”
A nurse stopped beside the two male patients and looked at the two girls singing, arms wrapped around each other. She smiled before she went about her business. The two men clapped.
“Thank you, thank you, we’re here all week!” Leslie said, and Elle laughed. They sat silently for a moment or two, then Leslie looked into Elle’s eyes. “Well? Did it work?” she asked.
“You’re right – I’m cured,” Elle said, and laughed.
“I hate to say I told you so.” Leslie smiled at her friend. “It’s going to be all right, you know.”
The first chance Jane had after Elle was stabilized, she made her way down towards her mother’s rose bushes and the graves of the gerbils, Jessica, Jimmy, Judy and Jeffrey. She walked the correct distance between them and started digging. Rose and Kurt appeared from their respective doors and followed her to the spot where Elle had told Leslie she’d left her final goodbyes. Kurt and Rose were silent while Jane dug. When they heard the shovel tapping on the tin Jane turned to face them and Rose nodded for her to continue. She cleared the soil from the top of the tin and picked it up. She opened it, exposing the three notes folded inside. She set it down on the ground and took a
lighter out of her pocket. She looked once more to her mother and she nodded again. Jane leaned down and set the paper alight. It went out so she lit it again and when it looked like it was going to go out again Rose reached into her pocket, pulled out a hipflask and sprinkled some booze on it causing it to reignite and burn until there was nothing left.
“Aren’t you even curious?” Kurt asked, as they made their way back to the house.
“No,” Rose and Jane said in unison.
“I am,” he admitted, “a bit.”
Rose put her arm around her grandson as they walked. “It wasn’t Elle’s time to say goodbye, so let’s just be grateful for that.”
Jane found it hard to get rid of all her anger. The people in St Patrick’s Hospital had told her that this was a perfectly natural reaction and they attempted to explain her sister’s mental state to her. Jane found it hard to accept that Elle was unwell. She had been so desperate to believe her when she’d explained away her symptoms, and now she felt so selfish and stupid.
It was her son who got through to her. “Mum, you do the best you can but you’re not perfect. No one is, except maybe me.”
“She could have died,” Jane said.
“We all could die any day and not because we want to. Elle is just like the rest of us.”
“Oh, yeah, and what’s that?”
“Fucked up,” Kurt said, and Jane laughed for the first time since Elle had tried to kill herself.
*
Alexandra was buried on a Sunday morning. The church was packed to the rafters. Tom stood at the top of the church with Alexandra’s father, her brother, his wife, her sister and her husband. The priest spoke warmly of Alexandra, her mother Breda and the entire Walsh family. He spoke warmly of Tom and his fight to find her. He hoped that he could now find peace as he had no doubt that Alexandra had.
When Leslie told
the Jack Lukeman camp that Alexandra had been found, Jack offered to sing at her funeral. The family were blown away by his kind gesture so he sang Breda Walsh’s favourite hymns for the girl who had died on the way to pick up tickets for his show. Tom got up and spoke about his wife, how they’d met, how they’d fallen in love, the reasons he’d loved her, the reasons he would always love her. He spoke about their plans and dreams and disappointments. He spoke about her sense of humour and he ended by reading from the last note Alexandra ever wrote to him.
“Alexandra always had the last word in our house so I think it’s only right that she gets the last word today. ‘Tom, When you are shopping can you pick up the following: bread, milk, water, spaghetti, mince – lean! Make sure it’s lean and not the stuff they call lean and charge half price because it’s not lean. I want lean cut right in front of you and I don’t care how much it costs.’”
The crowd laughed, and Tom read on: “‘Tin of tomatoes, basil, garlic, wine, if you don’t still have a case or two in the office and make sure it’s not Shiraz. I’m really sick of Shiraz. If you want dessert pick something up. I’m meeting Sherri in Dalkey for a quick drink at five. She has the Jack Lukeman tickets so I took money from the kitty to pay for them. I’m taking a ticket for you so if you don’t want to go text me. I’ll be home around seven thirty. Your aunt called. She’s thinking about coming to Dublin next weekend. Try and talk her out of it. I’m exhausted and can’t handle running around after her for forty-eight hours straight. Your aunt is on cocaine. I’m not messing. An intervention is needed.’”
Again the crowd laughed a little and smiled at the words from a girl who couldn’t be boring even writing a shopping list.
“‘Oh, and washing-up liquid. We badly need washing-up liquid, and will you please call someone to get the dishwasher fixed? OK, see you later, love you, Alexandra. PS When somebody close to you dies, move seats. God, I love Jimmy Carr.’”
The crowd clapped, and Tom looked down to where Jane was sitting beside Leslie, and she nodded and smiled because he’d done her old friend proud.