Where There’s Smoke

I joined Sister Ignatius in the greenhouse. I stood beside her, my body rigid and tight. My shoulders were hunched up past my ears as though I was trying to disappear into my body like a tortoise. I clung to the diary so tightly my knuckles were white.

‘Oh, look at you,’ she said, in her joyful, carefree voice. ‘You’re like a drowned rat. Let me dry you off‑’

‘Don’t touch me,’ I said quickly, taking a step away from her. I angled my body away from her but I sneaked a look at her now and then over my shoulder.

‘What’s happened, Tamara?’

‘Don’t pretend you don’t already know.’

A quick look over my shoulder showed her eyes narrow momentarily, then open wide. She registered something. She knew something. She looked like someone who had been caught.

‘Admit it.’

‘Tamara,’ she began, then paused, searching to find the right words. ‘Tamara, look at me. I’m…let me explain…we should go somewhere else to talk. Not here. Not in this greenhouse. Not with you like this.’

‘No. First I want to hear you admit it.’

‘Tamara, I really think that we should go inside and‑’

‘Admit that you wrote it,’ I snapped.

Her face instantly changed to utter confusion. ‘Tamara, I don’t understand. Admit that I wrote what?’

‘The diary,’ I exploded, and pushed it in her face. I flicked ferociously through the pages. ‘Look, it’s been written in. I hid it in my bedroom, and this morning I brought it to the castle to write it, just like you told me to, and look. How did you do it?’ I shoved it under her nose and flicked through the pages, my wet hands blurring the ink. She blinked furiously to try to focus on the pages as they raced by.

‘Tamara, calm down. I can’t see anything, you’re going too fast.’

I went faster. She reached out and with those thick hands, strangling hands, she grabbed my wrists tightly and said firmly, ‘Tamara. Stop.’

It worked. She took the diary from my hands and opened the first page. Her eyes raced across the first few lines.

‘This isn’t for me to read. These are your private thoughts.’

‘I didn’t write them.’ I knew by then that she hadn’t either. The way her face had changed to such confusion couldn’t have been faked.

‘Well…who did?’

‘I don’t know. Look at the date on the first page.’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘Some of the things written are about what happens tomorrow.’

The rain pelted against the glass, so loud it felt like it was going to break through.

‘How do you know that, if tomorrow hasn’t happened yet?’ Her voice had softened, as though she was trying to coax a mental patient to put down a knife. She may very well have been, only I didn’t pick up the knife, somebody had put it in my hands. This was not of my own doing.

‘Perhaps you got up in the middle of the night and wrote it, Tamara. Maybe you were so sleepy you don’t remember doing it. I’ve often done funny things half asleep or half awake. I’ve wandered around the house looking for things when I don’t know what I’m looking for, moving things, and when I wake up in the morning and go to find something, I’m in a right muddle.’ She chuckled.

‘This isn’t the same thing,’ I said quietly. ‘I’ve written about things that have happened today that I couldn’t have known about. The rain, Rosaleen and the coat, you…’

‘What about me?’

‘I wrote that you’d be here.’

‘But I’m always here Tamara, you know that.’

Sister Ignatius kept talking then, trying to rationalise it, telling me a story about a time she’d wandered into Sister Mary’s room during the night, apparently looking for gardening gloves because she’d been dreaming of planting turnips, and she frightened the life out of Sister Mary. I tuned out. How could I have written five pages and not remembered? How could I have predicted the rain, Rosaleen’s arrival with the raincoat, Sister Ignatius waiting right here in the greenhouse with the spare beekeeping suit?

‘Our minds do unusual things sometimes, Tamara. When we’re looking for things it takes it upon itself to go down its own route. All we can do is follow.’

‘But I’m not looking for anything.’

‘Aren’t you? Ah, now it’s stopped. I told you it would. Why don’t we get you to the house to dry you off and get something hot into you? I made a soup yesterday with my own grown veg. It will be just right now, I’d say, if Sister Mary hasn’t sucked it up with a straw. She dropped her dentures yesterday and Sister Peter Regina accidentally stomped on them. Everything’s been through a straw since.’ She covered her mouth. ‘Oh, forgive me for laughing.’

I was about to protest when I remembered my comments in the diary about being smothered with a cold. Perhaps I could change what was going to happen. I followed her out of the garden and through the trees to her home.

The house was just like Sister Ignatius. It lacked a deceptive brick in its making, as it was as old on the inside as it was on the outside. We entered through the back door, a small hallway filled with Wellington boots, raincoats, umbrellas and sunhats, every necessity for every kind of weather. Uneven, cracked stone flagging floored the walkway to the kitchen. The kitchen was something from the 1970s. Shaker‑style cabinets, linoleum flooring, plastic counter tops, avocado and burnt orange in every possible place from an era obsessed with bringing the outside in. There was a long pine table with a bench on either side, long enough to feed the Waltons. From a room off the kitchen a radio blared. Brown swirly carpet led my eyeline to a big television set with a booty that came out thirty inches from the wall. On top, cream lace dangled over the front of the screen and a statue of Mary stood. On the wall above it was a simple wooden cross.

The house smelled old. Musty damp mixed with generations of cooked dinners and greasy cooking oil. Somewhere in there was the scent of Sister Ignatius’ a clean talcum powder soapy smell, like a freshly bathed baby. Like Rosaleen and Arthur’s house, this had the feel that generations of people had lived there before, families had grown up, run and shouted through the hallways, had broken things, grown things, fallen in love and pulled themselves back out of it again. Instead of the occupants owning the house, the house owned a part of each of them. We never had that feeling in our house. I loved our house but every bit of life was cleaned away by our cleaners who everyday rid the rooms of history’s perfume and replaced it instead with bleach. Every three years a room was done up in a new style, old furniture thrown out, new furniture moved in, a painting to match the sofa. There was no eclectic collection of items gathered through the years. No sentimental clutter crammed together oozing secrets. It was all new and expensive, lacked anything of sentiment. Or that’s how it had been.

Sister Ignatius hurried off in her beekeeping suit, walking like a toddler with a bulging nappy. I took off my cardigan, lay it across the radiator. My vest was see‑through and stuck to me, my flip‑flops squelched but I daren’t take them off in case dirt from the previous family stuck to my sole. Too much of outside had been brought in on these floors.

Sister Ignatius returned with a towel in her hand and a T‑shirt.

‘I’m sorry, this is all I could find. We’re not in the habit of dressing seventeen‑year‑olds.’

‘Sixteen,’ I corrected her, checking out the woman’s pink marathon T‑shirt.

‘I ran it every year from ‘61 to ‘71,’ she explained, turning to the Aga to prepare the soup. ‘Not any more, I’m afraid.’

‘Wow, you must have been fit.’

‘What do you mean?’ She struck a pose in her beekeeping suit and kissed a padded bicep. ‘I haven’t lost it yet.’

I laughed. I lifted my vest over my head and lay it on the radiator too, then I put the T‑shirt on. It went to mid‑thigh. I took off my shorts and used the belt to turn the T‑shirt into a dress.

‘What do you think?’ I walked an imaginary runway for Sister Ignatius and posed at the end.

She laughed and wolf‑whistled. ‘My word, to have a pair of legs like that again,’ she tutted and shook her head.

She brought two bowls of soup to the table and I devoured mine.

Outside the sun shone, the birds sang again as though the rain had never fallen, as though it had all been a figment of our imaginations.

‘How’s your mother?’

‘She’s fine, thank you.’

Silence. Never lie to a nun.

‘She’s not fine. She sits in her bedroom all day looking out the window, smiling.’

‘She sounds happy.’

‘She sounds crazy.’

‘What does Rosaleen think?’

‘Rosaleen thinks that a lifetime’s supply of food in one day will keep anyone going.’

Sister Ignatius’ lips twitched at that but she fought her smile.

‘Rosaleen says it’s just the grief.’

‘Perhaps Rosaleen is right.’

‘What if Mum whipped off her clothes and rolled around in mud singing Enya songs, what then? Would that be the grief?’

Sister Ignatius smiled and her skin folded over like origami. ‘Has your mum done that?’

‘No. But it doesn’t seem far off.’

‘What does Arthur think?’

‘Does Arthur think?’ I responded, slurping the hot soup. ‘No, I take that back, Arthur thinks, all right. Arthur thinks but Arthur does not say. I mean, some brother he is. And he either loves Rosaleen so much, nothing she says bothers him, or he can’t stand her so much he can’t be arsed talking to her. I can’t really figure them out.’

Sister Ignatius looked away, uncomfortable.

‘Sorry. For the language.’

‘I think you’re doing Arthur an injustice. He adores Rosaleen. I think he’d do absolutely anything for her.’

‘Even marry her?’

She glared at me and I felt the slap from her stare.

‘Okay, okay. I’m sorry. It’s just that she’s so…I don’t know…’ I searched for the word, searched for how she made me feel. ‘Possessive.’

‘Possessive.’ Sister Ignatius pondered that. ‘That’s an interesting choice of word.’

I felt happy for some reason.

‘You know what it means, don’t you?’

‘Of course. It’s as if she owns everything.’

‘Hmm.’

‘I mean, she’s looking after us so well and everything. She feeds us three hundred times a day, in keeping with the dietary requirements of a dinosaur, but I wish she’d just chill out, back off from me a little and let me breathe.’

‘Would you like me to have a little word with her, Tamara?’

I panicked. ‘No, she’ll know I talked to you about her. I haven’t even mentioned I’ve met you. You’re my dirty little secret,’ I joked.

‘Well,’ she laughed, her cheeks pinking, ‘I’ve never been that .’ Once she’d recovered from her embarrassment she assured me she wouldn’t let Rosaleen know that I’d spoken about her. We talked more about the diary, about how and why it was happening and she assured me that I shouldn’t worry, my mind was under a lot of pressure and she was sure I must have written it sleepily, and forgotten. I instantly felt better after our chat, though was more concerned about my sleeping habits by the end of it. If I could write a diary in my sleep, what else was I capable of? Sister Ignatius had the power to make me feel that everything obscure was normal, like everything was divine and wonderous, and nothing worth stressing myself about, that answers would come and the clouds would clear and the complicated would become simple and the bizarre would become ordinary. I believed her.

‘My, look at that weather now.’ She turned to gaze out the window. ‘The sun is back. We should go quickly and see to the bees.’

Back outside in the walled garden I was suited up and feeling like the Michelin man.

‘Do you keep bees for extra time off?’ I asked as we made our way with the equipment to a hive. ‘I do that at school. If you sing in the choir you sometimes get classes off to take part in competitions or at church, things like when the teachers get married. If I was a teacher and I got married, I wouldn’t want some snotty little bitches who give me hell all day to sing at the happiest day of my life. I’d go to St Kitts or Mauritius. Or Amsterdam. It’s legal for a sixteen‑year‑old to drink there. But only beer. I hate beer. But if it’s legal I wouldn’t say no. Not that I’d be getting married at sixteen. Is that even legal? You should know, you know your man.’ I jerked my head towards the sky.

‘So you sing in a choir?’ she asked, as though she hadn’t heard a word of anything else I’d said.

‘Yeah, but never outside school. I’ve never been there to compete. The first time we were skiing in Verbier, and the second time I had laryngitis.’ I winked. ‘My mum’s friend’s husband is a doctor so he used to give notes whenever. I think he fancied my mum. You wouldn’t catch me dead at one of those competitions, though apparently our school is actually really good at the choir competitions. We won the All‑Ireland under somethings, twice.’

‘Oh, what kinds of things do you sing. “Nessun Dorma” was always my favourite.’

‘Who’s that by?’

‘“Nessun Dorma?”‘ She looked at me, shocked. ‘Well it’s one of the finest tenor arias from the final act of Puccini’s opera Turandot .’ She closed her eyes, hummed a bit and swayed. ‘Oh, I love it. Famously sang by Pavarotti, of course.’

‘Oh, yeah, he’s the big dude who sang with Bono. I always thought he was a celebrity chef, for some reason, until I saw him on the news the day of his funeral. I must have been confusing him with someone else‑you know, the guy who makes pizzas with weird toppings, on The Food Channel. Chocolate and stuff? I asked Mae to make me one once but it totally made me retch. No, we didn’t sing anything like his songs. We sang “Shut Up and Let Me Go” by the Ting Tings. But it sounded completely different with all the harmonies, really serious, like one of those operas.’

‘The Food Channel, now I don’t have that at all.’

‘I know it’s a part of the satellite stations. Neither do Rosaleen and Arthur. You probably wouldn’t like it, but there is The God Channel. There’s probably stuff on that you’d like. They just talk about God all day.’

Sister Ignatius smiled at me again, wrapped her arm around my shoulders, squeezed me close to her and we walked like that towards the garden.

‘Now let’s get down to bizzz‑ness,’ she said as we reached the hives. ‘So, very important. First question, and I probably should have asked you this earlier, are you allergic to bees?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘Have you ever been stung by a bee?’

‘No.’

‘Hmm. Okay. Well, irrespective of all the protective measures, you may receive the occasional sting. Oh, don’t look at me like that, Tamara. Okay then, off you go to Rosaleen. I’m sure she’s got the lovely hind legs of a cow for you to snack on while you wait for your dinner.’

I was silent.

‘You will not die from this sting,’ she continued. ‘Unless you’re allergic, of course, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take. I’m brave like that.’ Her eyes twinkled mischievously again. ‘There’ll be a slight swelling in the affected area, later followed by some itching.’

‘Like a mosquito.’

‘Exactly. Now this is a smoker. I’m going to blow smoke into the hive before inspecting it.’

Smoke began to exit through the nozzle. I was already feeling a little funny as everything I read from the diary early that morning was coming true, playing out before me like a script. She held the nozzle under the hive.

‘If a beehive is threatened, guard bees will release a volatile pheromone substance called isopentyl acetate, known as an alarm odour. This alerts the middle‑aged bees in the hive, which are the ones with the most venom, to defend the hive by attacking the intruder. However, when smoke is blown in first, the guard bees instinctively gorge themselves on honey, a survival instinct in case they must vacate the hive and recreate it elsewhere. This gorging pacifies the bees.’

I watched the smoke drift into their home. Then suddenly I thought about the panic. A wave of dizziness came over me. I reached out to hold on to the wall.

‘I’m going to extract the honey next week. That suit is yours if you want to join me. It’ll be nice to have a bit of company. The sisters aren’t interested in beekeeping. I like to be alone sometimes but, you know, it’s nice to have company once in a while.’

My head swirled as I imagined the smoke in the hive, the bees gorging themselves on food, the sheer and utter panic of it all. I wanted to snap at her and tell her to stop talking, that I had no interest in extracting honey with her, but I heard the tone in her voice, the excitement, the delight over company, and I remembered the wish I’d made in my diary about wanting to take back my response. I held my tongue and nodded, feeling faint. All that smoke.

‘Or at least it’s nice to have somebody there who pretends they’re enjoying it. I’m old. I don’t care much any more. But that’s great that you’ve volunteered. I think Wednesday will be a good day to do it. I’ll have to check the weather forecast and make sure it’s a good day. Don’t want us getting soaked again like today…’ On and on she went until I felt her staring at me. She couldn’t see my face nor I hers underneath the netting of our headgear.

‘What’s wrong dear?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing is ever nothing. It’s always something. Is the diary worrying you?’

‘Well, yeah, of course. That is…but it’s not that. It’s nothing.’

We were silent for a while and then as if to prove her point, I asked, ‘Was there anyone in the castle when it went on fire?’

She paused before answering, ‘Yes, unfortunately there was.’

‘Just watching that…that smoke going in. I can imagine the panic and the people being so afraid.’ I held on to the wall again.

Sister Ignatius looked at me with concern.

‘Did anyone die?’

‘Yes. Yes, indeed. Tamara, when the fire ravaged that home, it ravaged so many people’s lives, you have no idea.’

That home. Home. It made it all the more mysterious that a building such as that could be called such a thing. It had meant something to people once upon a time, whoever they were.

‘Where do they live now? The people who survived.’

‘You know, Tamara, Rosaleen and Arthur have been here for so much longer than I‑you should really ask them that. Ask me a question and I’ll never lie, you understand? But this one you should ask them. Won’t you?’

I shrugged.

‘Do you understand me?’ She reached out and gripped my forearm. I felt her strength through my gauntlet. ‘I’ll never lie.’

‘Yes, yes, I understand.’

‘You’ll ask them, won’t you?’

I shrugged. ‘Whatever.’

‘Whatever, whatever, the language of sloths. Now, I’m going to lift this off, and I’ll show you the inhabitants of the honeycomb empire.’

‘Whoa. How did you get them all in there?’

‘Ah that was the easy part. Like all of us, Tamara, a swarm is always actively looking for a home. Now, do you know how I’m going to show you the queen bee?’

‘You’re going to draw on it with a marker.’

‘However did you know that?’

‘Apparently I wrote it in my diary when I was sleepwalking. Lucky guess, huh?’

‘Hmm.’

When I got back to the house, it was late. I’d spent the entire day out. Arthur was returning from work too, walking down the road in his lumberjack shirt. I stopped and waited for him.

‘Hi Arthur.’

He threw his head back at me.

‘Good day?’

‘Ah.’

‘Good. Arthur, could I have a word with you before we go inside, please?’

He stopped. ‘Is everything all right?’ Concern that I hadn’t seen before crossed his face.

‘Yes. Well, no. It’s about Mum‑’

‘Well, there you are,’ Rosaleen called from the front door. ‘You both must be starved. I’ve the dinner just out of the oven, piping hot and ready to go.’

I looked at Arthur, and he looked back at Rosaleen. There was an awkward moment as Rosaleen refused to leave us. Arthur gave in and walked up the garden path and into the house. Rosaleen stepped aside for him to enter and then back to where she was to look at me, then went inside to see to the dinner. Once we were all seated at the table Rosaleen prepared Mum’s food ready on a tray to bring upstairs. I took a deep breath.

‘Shouldn’t we try and get Mum to eat downstairs with us?’

There was a silence. Arthur looked at Rosaleen.

‘No, child. She needs her peace.’

I’m not a child. I’m not a child. I’m not a child.

‘She has plenty of peace all day. It would be a good idea for her to see people.’

‘I’m sure she’d rather have her own space.’

‘What makes you think that?’

Rosaleen ignored me and carried the tray upstairs. For one minute Arthur and I would be alone. As if reading my thoughts she came back to the kitchen. She looked at Arthur.

‘Arthur, would you mind getting a bottle of water from the garage. Tamara doesn’t like the tap.’

‘Oh, no, I don’t mind. I’d rather drink from the tap,’ I said quickly, stopping Arthur from getting to his feet.

‘No, it’s no bother. Go on, Arthur.’

He stood again.

‘I don’t want it,’ I said firmly.

‘If she doesn’t want it, Rosaleen…’ Arthur said so quietly I could barely make out his words.

She looked from him to me and then legged it up the stairs. I had a feeling it would be her fastest trip ever.

Arthur and I sat in an initial silence. I spoke quickly.

‘Arthur, we have to do something about Mum. It’s not normal.’

‘None of what she’s been through is normal. I’m sure she’d rather eat alone.’

‘What?’ I threw my hands up. ‘What is it with you two? Why are you so obsessed with locking her away on her own?’

‘Nobody wants to lock her away.’

‘Why don’t you go talk to her?’

‘Me?’

‘Yes, you. You’re her brother, I’m sure there’s stuff that you can talk about that will bring her back to us.’

He covered his mouth with his hand, looked away from me.

‘Arthur, you have to talk to her. She needs her family.’

‘Tamara, stop it,’ he hissed, and I was taken aback.

He looked hurt for a moment. A deep sadness flicked through his eyes. Then, as though he’d built up some sort of courage, he quickly looked to the door of the kitchen and then back to me. He leaned in towards me, opened his mouth, his voice was hushed. ‘Tamara, listen‑’

‘Now, there we are. She’s in great form.’ Rosaleen said, out of breath, rushing back in with her little‑boy walk. Arthur studied her all the way in and to her seat.

‘What?’ I asked Arthur, on the edge of my seat. What was he about to tell me?

Rosaleen’s head turned like an antenna finding a signal.

‘What’s that you’re talking about?’

For once it seemed Arthur’s snot‑snort came in handy. It was enough of a response for Rosaleen.

‘Dig in,’ she said perkily, fussing about with serving spoons and bowls of vegetables.

It took Arthur a while to begin. He didn’t eat much.

That night I sat staring at the diary for hours. I kept it open on my lap, waiting for the moment the words would arrive. I couldn’t even last until midnight because when I woke up at one a.m., the diary was still open on my lap, every single line filled in my handwriting. Gone was yesterday’s forecast and instead was another entry, a different entry for tomorrow.

Sunday, 5 July

I shouldn’t have told Weseley about Dad.

I read that sentence a few more times. Who on earth was Weseley?

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 671