Chapter Six

elizabeth was awakened at 6:08 a.m. by the sun streaming

through the bedroom window and onto her face. She always slept with the curtains open. It stemmed from growing up in a cottage; lying in her bed she could see out the window, down the garden path, and out the front gate. Beyond that was a country road that led straight from the farm, stretching on for a mile. Elizabeth could see her mother returning from her adventures, walking down the road for at least twenty minutes before she reached the bungalow. She could recognize the half-hop, half-skip from miles away. Those twenty minutes always felt like an eternity to Elizabeth. The long road had its own way of building up Elizabeth’s excitement, it was almost teasing her.

And finally she would hear that familiar sound, the squeak of the front gate. The rusting hinges acted as a welcoming band for the free spirit. Elizabeth had a love/hate relationship with that gate. Like the long stretch of road, it would tease her, and some days on hearing the creak she would run to see who was at the door and her heart would sink at the sight of the postman.

Elizabeth had annoyed college roommates and lovers with her persis-

tence in keeping the curtains open. She didn’t know why she remained firm on keeping them open; it certainly wasn’t as though she were still waiting.

But now in her adulthood, the open curtains acted as her alarm clock; with them open she knew the light would never allow her to fall into a deep sleep.

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Even in her sleep she felt alert and in control. She went to bed to rest, not to dream.

She squinted in the bright room and her head throbbed. She needed

coffee, fast. Outside the window, the bird’s song echoed loudly in the quiet of the countryside. Somewhere far away, a cow answered its call. But despite the idyllic morning, there was nothing about this Monday that Elizabeth was looking forward to. She had to try to reschedule a meeting with the hotel developers, which was going to prove difficult because after the little stunt in the press about the new love nest at the top of the mountain, they had design companies flying in from all parts of the world and looking for the job she knew should be hers. This annoyed Elizabeth; this was her territory. But that wasn’t her only problem.

Luke had been invited to spend the day with his grandfather on the

farm. That bit, Elizabeth was happy with. It was the part about him expecting another six-year-old by the name of Ivan that worried her. She would have to have a discussion with Luke this morning about it because she

dreaded to think of what would happen if there was a mention of an imaginary friend to her father.

Brendan was sixty-five years old, big, broad, silent, and brooding. Age had not managed to mellow him; instead it had brought bitterness, resent-ment, and even more confusion. He was small-minded and unwilling to

open up or change. Elizabeth could at least try to understand his difficult nature if being that way made him happy, but as far as she could see, his views frustrated him and only made his life more miserable. He was stern, rarely spoke except to the cows or vegetables, never laughed, and whenever he did decide someone was worthy of his words, he lectured. There was no need to respond to him. He didn’t speak for conversation. He spoke to make statements. He rarely spent time with Luke, as he didn’t have time for the airy-fairy ways of children, for their silly games and nonsense. The only thing that Elizabeth could see that her father liked about Luke was that he was an empty book, ready to be filled with information and not enough knowledge to question or criticize. Fairy tales and fantasy stories had no place with her father. She supposed that was the only belief they actually shared.

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She yawned and stretched and, still unable to open her eyes against the bright light, she instead felt around her bedside locker for her alarm clock.

Although she woke up every morning at the same time, she never forgot to set her alarm. Her arm knocked against something cold and hard and it fell with a loud bang to the floor. Her sleepy heart jumped with fright.

Hanging her head over the side of the bed, she caught sight of the iron poker lying on her white carpet. Her “weapon” also reminded her that she had to call Rentokil to get rid of the mice. She could sense them scurrying around her in the house all weekend and she had felt so paranoid that they were in her bedroom the past few nights that she could hardly sleep, although that wasn’t particularly unusual for her.

She washed and dressed and after waking Luke, she made her way

downstairs to the kitchen. Minutes later, with espresso in hand, she dialed the number to Rentokil. Luke wandered into the kitchen sleepily, blond

hair tossed, dressed in an orange T-shirt half tucked into red shorts. The outfit was completed with odd socks and a pair of runners that lit up with every step he took.

“Where’s Ivan?” he asked groggily, looking around the kitchen as

though he’d never been in the room before in his life. He was like that every morning, it took him at least an hour to wake up even once he was dressed and walking around. During the dark winter mornings it took him even

longer; Elizabeth supposed that somewhere into his morning classes at

school he finally realized what he was doing.

“Where’s Ivan?” he repeated to no one in particular.

Elizabeth silenced him by holding her finger to her lips, and giving him a glare as she listened to the lady from Rentokil. He knew not to interrupt her when she was on the phone. “Well, I only noticed it this weekend. Since Friday lunchtime, actually, so I was wond—”

“IVAN?” Luke yelled, and began wandering around the kitchen, look-

ing under the table, behind the curtains, behind the doors. Elizabeth rolled her eyes. This carry-on again.

“No, I haven’t actually seen—”

“IVAAAAN?”

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“—one yet but I definitely feel that they’re around.” Elizabeth finished and tried to catch Luke’s eye so that she could give him the glare again.

“IVAN WHERE ARE YOOOUUU?” Luke called.

“Droppings? No, no droppings,” Elizabeth said, getting frustrated.

Luke stopped shouting and his ears perked up. “WHAT? I CAN’T

HEAR YOU PROPERLY.”

“No, I don’t have any mousetraps. Look, I’m very busy, I don’t have

time for twenty questions. Can’t someone just come out and check?” Elizabeth snapped.

Luke suddenly ran from the kitchen and out into the hall. She heard

him banging at the living room door. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN

THERE, IVAN?” He pulled at the handle.

Elizabeth slammed down the phone after her conversation had ended.

Luke was shouting through the living room door at full volume. Her blood boiled.

“LUKE! GET IN HERE NOW!”

The banging at the living room door stopped immediately. He shuffled

slowly into the kitchen.

“DON’T DRAG YOUR FEET!” she yelled.

He lifted his feet and the lights on the soles of his runners flashed with every step. He stood before her and spoke quietly and as innocently as he possibly could in his high-pitched voice. “Why did you lock Ivan into the living room last night?”

She had to put an end to this now. She would choose this moment to sit

down and discuss the issue with Luke and by the end of it he would respect her wishes, she would help him see sense, and there would be no more talk of invisible friends.

“And Ivan wants to know why you brought the fire poker to bed with

you?” he added, feeling more confident by her failure to scream at him

again.

Elizabeth exploded. “There will be no more talk of this Ivan, do you

hear me?”

Luke’s face went white.

“DO YOU HEAR ME?” she shouted. She didn’t even give him a

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chance to answer. “You know as well as I do that there is no such thing as Ivan. He does not play chasing, he does not eat pizza, he is not in the living room, and he is not your friend because he does not exist.”

Luke’s face crumpled up as though he was about to cry.

Elizabeth continued. “Today you are going to your granddad’s and if I

hear from him that there was one mention of Ivan, you will be in big trouble.

Do you understand?”

Luke began to cry softly.

“Do you understand?” she repeated.

He nodded his head slowly as tears rushed down his face.

Elizabeth’s blood stopped boiling and her throat began to ache from

shouting. “Now sit at the table and I’ll bring you your cereal,” she said softly.

She fetched the Coco Pops; usually she didn’t allow him to eat such sugary breakfasts, but she hadn’t exactly discussed the Ivan situation with him entirely as planned. She knew she had a problem keeping her temper. She sat at the table and watched him pour Coco Pops into his cereal bowl. His little hands wobbled with the weight of the milk carton. Milk splashed onto the table. She held back from shouting at him again, although she had just

cleaned the table yesterday evening until it sparkled. Something Luke had said was bothering her and she couldn’t quite remember what it was. She rested her chin on her hand and watched Luke eating. He munched slowly.

Sadly.

There was silence, apart from the crunching in Luke’s mouth. Finally,

after a few minutes, he spoke. “Where’s the key to the living room?” he asked, refusing to catch her eye.

“Luke, not with your mouth full,” she said softly. She took the key to

the living room out of her pocket, went out to the doorway in the hall, and twisted the key. “There now, Ivan is free to leave the house,” she joked and immediately regretted saying it.

“He’s not,” Luke said sadly from the kitchen table. “He can’t open

doors himself.”

Silence.

“He can’t,” Elizabeth repeated.

Luke shook his head as if what he had said was the most normal thing

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in the world. It was the most ridiculous thing Elizabeth had ever heard.

What kind of an imaginary friend was he if he couldn’t walk through walls and doors? Well, she wasn’t opening the door, she had unlocked it and that was silly enough. She went back to the kitchen to gather her belongings for work. Luke finished his cereal, placed the bowl in the dishwasher, washed his hands, dried them, and made his way to the living room door. He

turned the handle, pushed open the door, stepped out of the way, smiled broadly at nothing, placed his finger over his lips, pointed at Elizabeth with another, and giggled quietly to himself. Elizabeth watched with horror. She walked down the hall and stood beside Luke at the doorway. She looked

into the living room.

Empty.

The girl from Rentokil had said that it would be unusual for mice to be in the house in June. As Elizabeth eyed the living room suspiciously, she wondered what on earth could be making all those noises.

Luke’s giggling snapped her out of her trance and, glancing down the

hall, she spotted him sitting at the table, swinging his legs happily and making faces into thin air. There was an extra place set and a freshly poured bowl of Coco Pops across from him.

“Boy is she strict,” I whispered to Luke at the table, trying to grab spoon-fuls of Coco Pops without her noticing. I wouldn’t usually whisper around parents, but as she had heard me a couple of times already over the past few days, I wasn’t about to take any risks.

Luke giggled and nodded.

“Is she like this all the time?”

He nodded again and munched on his Coco Pops.

“Does she never play games and give you hugs?” I asked, watching as

Elizabeth cleaned every inch of the already sparkling kitchen countertops, moving things a half an inch to the right and a half an inch to the left.

Luke thought for a while and then shrugged. “Not much.”

“But that’s horrible! Don’t you mind?”

“Edith says that there are some people in the world that don’t hug you

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all the time or play games but they still love you. They just don’t know how to say it,” he whispered back.

Elizabeth eyed him nervously.

“Who’s Edith?”

“My nanny.”

“Where is she?”

“On her holidays.”

“So, who’s going to mind you while she’s on her holidays?”

“You.” Luke smiled.

“Let’s shake on it,” I said, holding out my hand. Luke grabbed it.

“We do it like this,” I explained, shaking my head and my whole body,

like I was having a convulsion. Luke started laughing and copied me. We laughed even harder when Elizabeth stopped cleaning to stare. Her eyes

widened.

“You ask a lot of questions,” Luke whispered.

“You answer a lot,” I fired back and we both laughed again.

Elizabeth’s BMW rattled along the bumpy track leading to her father’s

farm. She clenched her hands around the steering wheel in exasperation as the dust flew up from the ground and clung to the side of her newly washed car. How she had lived on this farm for eighteen years was beyond her;

nothing could be kept clean. The wild fuchsia danced in the light breeze, waving their welcome from the side of the road. They lined the mile-long road like landing lights and rubbed against the windows of the car, pressing their faces to see who was inside. Luke lowered his window and allowed his hand to be tickled by their kisses.

She prayed that no traffic would come toward her, as the road just about allowed her car through, leaving no room for two-way traffic. In order to let someone pass she would have to reverse half a mile back the way she came, just to make room. At times it felt like the longest road in the world. She could see where she was trying to get to, yet she would have to keep revers-ing in order to get there.

Two steps forward and one step back.

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It was like the frustration she suffered as a child at home—the excite-

ment of seeing her mother from a mile away, but being forced to wait the twenty minutes it took her mother to dance down the road, until she’d hear the familiar sound of the gate creaking.

But, thankfully, no traffic came this time. They were delayed already as it was. Elizabeth’s words had obviously fallen on deaf ears, because Luke refused to leave the house until Ivan had finished his cereal. He then insisted on holding the passenger seat in the car forward in order to let Ivan into the backseat first.

She glanced quickly at Luke. He sat buckled up in the back, arm out the window, humming the same song he had been singing all weekend. He

looked happy. She hoped he wouldn’t keep his playacting up for much

longer, at least while he was at his granddad’s. She could see her father at the gate waiting. A familiar sight. A familiar action. Waiting was his forte.

He wore the same brown cords Elizabeth could have sworn he had

been wearing since she was a child. They were tucked into muddy green

Wellington boots that he walked in all around the house. His gray cotton jumper was stitched with a faded green-and-blue diamond pattern; there

was a hole in the center, and underneath the green of his polo shirt peeked through. A tweed cap sat firmly on his head, a blackthorn cane in his right hand kept him steady, and silver-gray stubble decorated his face and chin.

His eyebrows were gray and wild and when he frowned they seemed to

cover his gray eyes completely. His nose commanded his face with large

nostrils filled with gray hairs. Deep wrinkles cracked his face, his hands were as big as shovels, shoulders as wide as the Gap of Dunloe. He dwarfed the bungalow that stood behind him.

Luke stopped humming as soon as he saw his grandfather and brought

his arm back into the car. Elizabeth pulled the car up and as soon as the engine was off she jumped out of the car. She had a plan. As soon as Luke climbed out of the car she shut the car door and locked it quickly before he had a chance to hold the seat forward and make way for Ivan. Luke’s

face crumpled again as he looked from Elizabeth back to the car.

The gate outside the bungalow creaked.

Elizabeth’s stomach churned.

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“Morning,” a deep voice boomed. It wasn’t a greeting. It was a statement.

Luke’s lower lip trembled and he pressed his face and hands up against

the glass of the backseat of the car. Elizabeth hoped he wouldn’t throw a tantrum now.

“Aren’t you going to say good morning to your granddad, Luke?” Eliz-

abeth asked sternly, fully aware that she herself had yet to acknowledge him.

“Hi, Granddad.” Luke’s voice wobbled. His face remained pressed

against the glass.

Elizabeth contemplated opening the car door for him, just to avoid a

scene, but thought better of it. He needed to get over this phase.

“Where’s th’other one?” Brendan’s voice boomed.

“The other what?” She took Luke’s hand and tried to turn him away

from the car. His blue eyes looked pleadingly into hers. Her heart sank. He knew better than to cause a scene.

“The young lad who knew about them foreign veg.”

“Ivan,” Luke said sadly, his blue eyes welling up.

Elizabeth jumped in. “Ivan couldn’t come today, isn’t that right, Luke?

Maybe another day,” she said quickly and before it could be discussed any further. “Right, I better go to work or I’ll be late. Luke, have a good day with your granddad, OK?”

Luke looked at her uncertainly and nodded.

Elizabeth hated herself, but she knew she was right in controlling this ludicrous behavior.

“Off you go so.” Brendan swung his blackthorn cane at her as if to dis-

miss her and he turned his back to face the bungalow. The last thing she heard was the gate creaking before she slammed her car door shut. She had to reverse twice down the road in order to let two tractors pass. From her mirror, she could see Luke and her father in the front garden, her father towering over him. She couldn’t get away from the house fast enough; it was as though the flow of traffic kept pulling her back to it, like the tide.

Elizabeth remembered the moment when she was eighteen when she

thrived on the freedom of such a view. For the first time in her life, she was 54

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leaving the bungalow with her bags packed and with the intention of not coming back until Christmas. She was going to Cork University, after winning the battle with her father, but in turn losing all respect he ever had for her. Instead of sharing in her excitement, he had refused to see her off on her big day. The only figure standing outside the bungalow Elizabeth could see that bright August morning as they drove away was that of six-year-old Saoirse, her red hair in messy pigtails, her smile toothless in places yet broad and wide, with her arm waving frantically good-bye, full of pride for her big sister.

Instead of the relief and excitement she had always dreamed of feeling

when the taxi finally pulled away from her home, breaking the umbilical cord that held her there, she felt dread and worry. Not for what lay ahead, but for what she was leaving behind. Elizabeth couldn’t mother Saoirse forever, she was a young woman who needed to be set free, who needed to find her own place in the world. Her father needed to step into his rightful place of fatherhood now, a title he had discarded many years ago and refused to recognize. She only hoped now that as the two of them were alone, he would realize his duties and show as much love as he could for what he had left.

But what if he didn’t? She continued watching her sister out the back

window, feeling as though she were never going to see her again, waving as fast and as furiously as she could as tears filled her eyes for the little life and bundle of energy she was leaving behind. The red hair jumping up and

down was visible from a mile away and so they both kept on waving. What would her little sister do now that the fun of waving had worn off and the realization set in that she was alone with the man who never spoke, never helped, and never loved? Elizabeth almost told the driver to stop the car right there and then, but quickly told herself to cop on. She needed to live.

You do the same as me someday, little Saoirse, her eyes kept telling the small figure as they drove away. Promise me you’ll do the same. Fly away from there.

With eyes full with tears, Elizabeth watched as the bungalow got smaller and smaller in her mirror until finally it disappeared when she reached the I f Yo u C o u l d S e e M e N o w

end of the mile-long road. At once her shoulders relaxed and she realized she had been holding her breath the entire time.

“Right, Ivan,” she said, looking in the mirror at the empty backseat, “I guess you’re coming to work with me so.” She sighed. Then she did a funny thing.

She giggled childishly.

Date: 2015-04-20; view: 370