Jack lets out a sharp burst of air, something between a grunt and a sigh.
‘I don’t think there will be time for that. My life hasn’t stopped just because you’re here.’
Of course he is angry. I didn’t expect anything else. But it still hurts. He places the bowl of beans on the floor and reaches for the hose. I hop out of the way just in time to avoid tripping as he pulls it towards the beds.
‘I’m busy,’ he continues. ‘The farm keeps me busy, then there’s arrangements for the funeral and I still need to tackle sorting out Mum and Dad’s house and all their things and god only knows how long that’s going to take me.’
‘I can help.’ As I say the words my skin grows hot. ‘I can come with you and help sort the house.’
What will it be like to step inside the house we grew up in after all these years? To be among our parents’ things, to see my old room again …
Jack waters the beds in silence. But then he turns off the hose, drops it onto the floor and turns around. Those grey eyes bore into me. It is almost too much to look at him. And yet I cannot look away.
‘Fine,’ he says. ‘Icared for them for years,Ilooked after them when they were dying. But fine, come andhelpat the house. I’ll be going over there in a couple of days.’
Then he turns and walks away out of the polytunnel. I want to follow him and to apologise, for everything. I might have chosen to cut my parents from my life but I should have tried harder to keep in touch with him, even if it seemed at times impossible. I never meant for things to become such a mess. But for now, all I can do is lean against one of the vegetable beds and catch my breath, my brother’s words sitting inside me like a stone lodged in my throat.
I stay in the polytunnel for a long time. Sometimes when Ella is out at the weekends I like to sit in her empty room. I perch carefully on the edge of her bed and look around, taking in the small details of her life and personality that remain behind even when she isn’t there. Like how the shedded skin of a snake still holds the shape of the life that once flowed inside it. I’m always careful not to disturb anything or leave a sign that I was there. I don’t want her to feel I’ve been snooping around. Because I don’t think of it as snooping. It’s just a way to feel close to my daughter. To breathe in the smells and sights of her at thirteen that I know are fleeting, having already lost those that clung to her at two, six, eight, twelve… I already knew loss before becoming a parent. Perhaps it prepared me well. Because among the joy that my daughter brings me are all the daily losses too. Those versions of her that will never exist again, the moments I can never get back.
Now, I pause among the rows of vegetables, taking in the sweet, green smell of hundreds of leaves and the dark dampness of freshly watered soil. These are my brother’s smells. I will never get to know what he was like at eighteen, twenty-one, thirty. All I have is now. I might have been reluctant about returning to the island, held back by fear. But now I’m here I want to try to make things right.
As I sit I can’t help but think about the conversation with Alice in the car just now. Thoughts of my parents that I’ve tried so hard to push away come flooding in. My father’s rages and his breath that always smelt like alcohol and breath mints. My mother who seemed to pull away from Jack and me the worse things became in our house. By the time I left the island she could barely meet my eye. Suddenly, I remember the last time I spoke to her.
I’d just arrived home from the hospital with new-born Ella. She was sleeping soundly in her pram that I’d put in the middle of the living room. The flat felt at once fuller and emptier than it had ever been before. Despite my new baby’s tiny size, curled up in her bundle of blankets, her presence seemed to fill the whole flat. But the room was quiet and the small coffee table was bare, no cards or flowers welcoming us home. Not that I’d been expecting anything, of course. But in that moment the realisation of quite how alone Ella and I were hit me with a force that brought me to the floor, slumped against the sofa in front of my new daughter.
I drew my phone from my pocket and dialled my parents’ number for the first time in years. I don’t know what I was really thinking. I hadn’t spoken to them once since I left the island. Perhaps I hoped that the arrival of a granddaughter would change things. It might not be able to fix things between us exactly but perhaps at least some sort of relationship might be possible. I think maybe I was just lonely and frightened and needed my mum to tell me it would all be OK.
‘Hello?’
I remember hearing my mother’s voice on the other end of the line; it sent an electric jolt through my body. There are some things that no number of years or miles can allow you to forget. Your mother’s voice is one of them.
‘Hi, it’s me.’
‘Lorna.’
Her voice shook. I suddenly felt my nerve falter too. What was I doing?
‘How are you, Mum?’
‘Me?’
She sounded so surprised that I wanted to drop everything, go back to the island and force her to leave with me. Jack too if he wanted. Maybe they could find an apartment nearby in London. It would be the four of us: Mum, Jack, Ella and me. They both refused to leave all those years ago but maybe they would come with me now?
‘What do you want?’ she said instead of answering, her voice changed now, harder somehow.
Ella was asleep beside me, her skin pink and wrinkled, her tiny head sparsely covered with downy hair. Right then I wanted to pick her up and hold her tightly against my chest, to breathe in that new smell of her. But I didn’t want to wake her.
‘I know it’s been a long time, Mum. But I wanted to tell you that you have a granddaughter. She was born two days ago. Seven pounds two ounces. The doctors say she’s healthy, she’s perfect. I’m calling her Ella. Ella Irvine.’
There was a slight pause on the other end of the phone, and then my mother spoke again.
‘We already have a granddaughter.’
‘What?’
I couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing.
‘Your brother’s daughter, Molly. She was born last year.’
