Page 12 of Family Secrets in Inishbeg Cove

‘If you don’t come back here and sort this out, you can kiss goodbye to your career.’

His voice drifted further away from her. She felt as though she was floating above her body, looking down on herself. For the first time in her life, she was all out of answers. She couldn’t fix this. Her chest tightened; she couldn’t get air into her lungs. Her legs had turned weak; her vision was blurry. Then she was falling, falling towards the cold, hard ground.

12

Madeleine could hear voices. Her head was thumping, and her eyelids felt as though they were glued together as she tried to prise them open. The effort was too great, so she stopped trying. She was vaguely aware of a searing pain in her leg.

‘Trust Mum to make it all about her,’ a voice was saying.

‘Poor Nanna didn’t get the burial she deserved at all,’ the other person replied.

‘I can’t believe she took a call at Nanna’s funeral. How can she be so disrespectful after everything Nanna did for us growing up!’ the first voice said.

Was it Lucy? Madeleine wondered.

‘Do you think she can hear us?’ the other person asked worriedly.

It sounded a lot like Faith.

She tried once more to open her eyes, and this time she succeeded. The room shimmered in a blur around her and slowly her daughters came into focus.

‘Mum!’ Faith cried. ‘You’re awake.’

‘Where am I?’ she croaked, her voice coming out thin and raspy.

‘You’re in hospital.’

‘Wh-what happened to me?’ she asked in confusion. Her daughters were sitting on either side of her bed, still wearing the black mourning clothes they had dressed in that morning.

‘You collapsed outside the church during Nanna’s funeral,’ Faith explained.

Lucy took up the story. ‘You left the mass to take a phone call. A passer-by found you unconscious outside the church, so they ran inside and interrupted the funeral mass to ask if anyone knew who you were. So I went outside and that’s when I discovered you passed out in the churchyard.’

A hazy memory of the ground rushing up to meet her and trying, but not being able to stop herself falling, assailed her. Then she remembered the phone call. The disastrous book launch that was taking place today.

‘W-what time is it?’ She strained to get the words out.

‘Almost seven.’

She tried to sit up, but her body just didn’t seem to be able to coordinate itself. ‘I ruined the book launch…’

‘Would you forget about the book launch?’ Lucy snapped. ‘All you care about is your bloody job. You never even asked how Nanna’s funeral went!’

Madeleine sank down into the pillows in frustration. ‘H-how did it go?’

‘It was a lovely mass until you decided to take that phone call, and then all hell broke loose.’

‘I’m sorry…’ Madeleine said, digesting this version of events. ‘I can’t really remember anything about what happened. I recall being on the phone to Jerry and then it all goes blank. Did you … em … did you get to the burial?’

‘We had to call an ambulance. Faith travelled to the hospital with you while I stayed behind at the graveyard for the burial,’ Lucy said bitterly.

‘Well, thank you…’ she mumbled. ‘I’m sorry if what happened overshadowed the funeral. But the good news is that I’ll be out of your hair soon.’ Now that the funeral was over, the girls wouldn’t expect her to hang around. She needed to get back to the office in Dublin and sort out the mess she had left behind. And besides, she knew her daughters would be glad to get rid of her.

‘Where are you going to go?’ Lucy asked in bewilderment.

‘Well, first I’m going to check myself out of here and then I’m going to head back to Dublin, of course. I’ll obviously need to try and get my car released from car prison, but I’m sure I can work something out…’

The girls exchanged a look.