I thought I’d lost him. We were hosting a MaxSpirit dinner dance at the club – Conleth reckoned we’d easily pull in over €150,000 if it all went to plan. Tickets were €250 a head, but that hadn’t put anyone off. We’d been turning people away for a month. Someone had spread the rumour that Bono was going to be there – it was only a rumour, but let’s say Conleth was happy to spread it.

  I was exhausted. I was just over seven months pregnant and, even though my bump was small – way smaller than normal – I felt like someone had attached lead weights to my body. My hands and feet were swollen, my face puffy. Conleth had told me to wear the champagne sequinned dress – my least favourite of all the ones he’d got in. It was full length and fully lined with a gathered knot at the bust, long chiffon sleeves – the pale pink satin was completely covered in silver sequins. Like someone’s idea of a pregnant princess.

  ‘Megan wore one of hers,’ he’d said, ‘so I don’t want to hear any whingeing.’ That figured. It was so heavy, like wearing chainmail, but I was glad of the sleeves to hide the bruising. Pregnancy hadn’t granted me immunity. In fact, the sight of my growing belly seemed to enrage him further. Like I was beyond his control.

  And so I stood beside him in the foyer of the club greeting people as they arrived, ignoring the throb of my swollen feet and the nausea and the dull, deep backache. My hands pulsed too, the fingers so swollen that none of my rings fit – ugly and red.

  ‘Put one hand around my waist for the photos,’ Conleth had said. ‘And hide the other in the dress.’ His nose and cheeks pinched together, like he smelled something bad. ‘They look gross.’

  We were at the top table with Rick and Xandra – the music producer and singer he was most hoping to impress. During the meal, he drank steadily and fielded questions like the pro he was. It was all jokes about how he’d have to hang up his lifejacket once the baby arrived, though he hadn’t done any real sailing in over a year. I felt dreadful. Waves of pain rolled across my lower back, and I’d a terrible feeling of pressure in my groin. I felt like I needed to pee, though I’d barely drunk anything.

  ‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ I whispered into his ear, longing for the cool of the bathroom, fantasizing about taking off my shoes even for a couple of minutes. Under the table he grabbed my knee and squeezed so hard I almost gasped out loud.

  ‘Wait,’ he hissed through gritted teeth. ‘After the speeches.’

  The commodore of the yacht club spoke. Rick spoke. There was a raffle, where the prize was a trip to the Canaries. And sweat rolled down my back and between my buttocks and countless times I thought I’d just get up. Just stand up and smile and apologize and leave the room. But I couldn’t do it. A spasm rolled through me, and I felt a wetness in my groin and I wondered if I’d – could I have actually lost control of my bladder? And just when I thought I would pass out, Conleth stood up.

  In his speech – hilarious and charming, naturally – he thanked me for leading him over the rapids of family life. He said I was the captain of the family ship, the lighthouse in the dark and the glimmer of bright hope after Max disappeared.

  There were cheers and tears for that one.

  And then I staggered to my feet, hoping to get to the bathroom. The last thing I saw before I blacked out was the drenched seat of the chair. My waters had broken.

  There are nanny-cams all over the house – hidden, not hidden, it doesn’t matter. I don’t know where he watches those – in the office, I suppose. And then the other stuff, like this – the Before and After photos, the punishments, when he makes me clean things and fetch things on my hands and knees, he films that too, saves it all up on a memory card. And then he sits on the sofa and watches, a towel across his lap. Sometimes he makes me sit through them too.

  I long to escape. And I know I never will. On Friday, we will turn my brother to ash, and the guards will lose interest and even Penny will tire of me and my lies. And Ferdia will never be what his father wants him to be and that will be my fault too.

  I could creep into Ferdia’s room now and I could end this pain for both of us. He cried himself to sleep – huge sobs that tore jagged strips off my heart because I couldn’t go to him. Conleth found him in bed with the new digger tucked in beside him, under the duvet. He snatched the toy out of Ferdia’s hands and jammed it on top of the wardrobe. There was scolding and laughter. He laughed when he told me, but his eyes contained a warning.

  I could go into Ferdia’s room now and bring him the digger. I’d get into bed beside him and we’d snuggle together and then quickly, I could do it, when he’s asleep, I will get the pillow and hold it tight, tight over his face. And it will be quick.

  And then I will end my life – I just need to find a way to do that quickly. Finally and with no room for error.

  THURSDAY

  43

  Gemma

  I wake before six, lying painfully on my right hip, a shaft of sunlight filling my palm like a promise. For a few moments I just stare at it, feeling the warmth – a kind warmth – enjoying the image. It would make a beautiful photograph. I lift my gaze to follow the trajectory of the beam. It’s a bright morning. The kind of morning I would enjoy posting about – simple pleasures, a beautiful view, a bright flower, light reflected on water. I get so many likes just for those types of things. My followers are interested in more than just stuff.

  And it feels good to still be able to notice beauty. Even now, I see these things. I’ve always noticed them. There was a time, before Max’s death, before Conleth – I suppose it was before I became who I am – a time when there was a possibility of a different future. The only subject I liked in school was art; it was the only time I was completely engaged. I remember we had a student teacher – well, a young teacher, I suppose: she can’t have been a student because we had her for our Junior Cert year. She was called Ms Green – and we used to tease her about being named after a colour. We teased her, but kindly, because we all loved her. She let us play music while we worked. She even hummed along. The art room was a place of refuge and she let us hang out there for hours after school, working on our Junior Cert projects. She encouraged me, praised my work. I remember when Mum came home from the parent–teacher meeting; it was one of the first times I can ever remember her being proud of me.

  ‘Well, that’s something to aim for, isn’t it? Art college? Your teacher says you’d have no problem getting a place.’

  She’d stepped towards me and opened her arms ready for a hug. And I know now – now that I’m a mother, I understand what she was trying to do. To close that gap. We both felt it. A chasm had opened up between us, filled with secrets. All the stuff I couldn’t tell her – the things that were happening with Conleth, which I believed were my fault just as much as his, and my old resentments – the strain of being Max’s imperfect sister. The food restrictions. The self-harm. And behind it – always – Conleth.

  Now, I feel the strength of the bond between me and Ferd – and it’s like he’s still a part of me, almost as much as when he was in my womb. He clambers over me, clings to me, sits on my lap and snuggles into me. The bond is still there, but already it’s under attack.

  Stop babying him. Don’t encourage him. Put him down.

  I think of Eli and Jude, Penny’s boys, and I don’t think I’ve seen them sit still for more than a second. Have I seen her carry them or sit with them on her lap? They’re always bombing around the place on scooters or clambering up walls. Maybe Conleth’s right. Another thing I’ve messed up. Already.

  The thought of Penny gives me strength. I’d told her that I wouldn’t make the swim this morning – but now I want to do it. I know she’ll be there. I’ll bring my phone and do some posts – he was saying I need to do more. And he needn’t know about the swim – anyway, it’s like a valve with him. For a few hours afterwards, something has been released. The beast has been fed.

  I draw my knees up carefully, so as not to wake him, and sit cross-legged, the sunbeam cupped in my hand. Maybe I – maybe there’s another way.

  The familiar trepidation – Penny says just call it excitement, but it’s not, it’s a kind of dread – takes hold of me as I approach the steps. Penny is already in the water, a small distance away from a group of swimmers. More are clustered around piles of clothes and towels at varying stages of getting dressed or undressed. It’s unbelievably perfect – chips of fractured light are scattered across the moving blue water. The sun has already climbed high above the old stone of the Martello tower on my left and the path sweeps down into the little bay. A line of Prussian blue marks the horizon and, above it, that clear Virgin Mary blue of an Irish summer sky. I take some live footage, and a few shots of the new flats I’m wearing – and one of my sunglasses. I’m supposed to be launching my own brand in June. They’re in production.

  I sit on a pile of warm, smooth stones taking photos: the edge of a bright red spade half buried in pink-tinged seaweed, the meeting point of sea and slipway, a zoomed-in shot of one of the square hollows in the tower, the bobbing bright bodies of swimmers.

  ‘Gemma!’ Penny spots me and begins swimming, then wading, ashore. ‘I didn’t think you were coming! I’d have waited.’

  She draws level with me, water trickling from her sodden curls on to the tight tanned skin of her chest and arms. She grabs my shoulders with both hands – freezing hands.

  ‘Come on! You’re getting in, right?’ She nods and steps back, clearly waiting for me to get ready. ‘Today’s the day. We’ll swim to the buoy and back.’

  There’s no arguing with her and, anyway, this is why I came. And I realize now, I don’t care and I’m not scared. I want this – the shock of the cold water and the way it squeezes the air from your lungs and the thoughts from your brain simultaneously. I want the freezing crash of a wave over my face and the chill it brings. A line from a poem we did in school comes into my head, surprising me, because I don’t remember learning it and I don’t remember who wrote it. I think it was religious, and for that reason I would have discounted it. But it must have stayed with me. Batter my heart, that’s how it began, and there was a line about break, blow, burn and make me new.

  I shrug off my coat and track bottoms and I kick off the shoes. Penny is looking at me curiously.

  ‘Okay. You’re on.’

  I see her check out the bruises on my knees, then the one on my forehead. She presses her lips into a line. And before she can say anything, I start running, half stumbling on the sharp stones, towards the ocean.

  Break, blow, burn and make me new. Or kill me. I don’t care.

  ‘Brilliant!’ screams Penny. ‘Keep going!’

  A shiver rips through my body as I plunge into the water, waves breaking over my knees and splashing my stomach. I keep running, the water now above my waist, then my chest and then – whoosh – I’m in. I thrust face in and down, feeling the chill grab my neck and shoulders. My legs float upwards, and I’m moving my arms in big circular sweeps and from somewhere behind me, Penny is squealing.

  ‘That’s it! That’s it!’

  She draws alongside me, her face split by a grin, treading water. She points out to sea.

  ‘Come on, it’s not far.’

  And it’s not far, but to get there we have to swim out of the clear sandy shallows and over a massive bed of seaweed. And it’s too late to change my mind – I know that if I stop moving, I sink. I don’t want to look down. I don’t want to think of what’s underneath. My courage wasn’t courage – it was a kind of madness. And so I follow Penny’s bobbing head in desperation, my arms lurching and splashing from side to side in an ugly front-crawl stroke, trying to stop my legs and bare feet touching the hideous black plants.

  My mind whirls, memories surging to the surface like air bubbles from the bladderwrack. The slither of brown weeds tangles my legs and I’m trying not to scream. Because the memory surfaces.

  I was seven or eight. We were – I don’t know where Mum was. Max and Conleth were there and we were at some beach and Max was doing something with the kayak. They had an inflatable kayak, that’s it. And Max was getting it ready. I was in the water, sitting up to my waist in a deep rock pool. It was before the real fear began. And I remember my togs – God! I loved them. It was a set – top and bottoms in a pink and orange shiny fabric – like fish scales. Conleth calls me over to look at something. He’s at the far side, hidden by a big outcrop of barnacled rock, and I can just see his face. He’s grinning. I go over, intrigued. Usually, he never bothers with me. Nor does Max. They’re always too busy.

  The water is deeper, but I can still stand – just about. I reach him, out of sight of Max, of the people on the shore.

  ‘Look,’ he says, nodding at where he’s pointing at a red anemone. ‘You can only do it a bit before they realize. It thinks I’m food.’

  I watch as he pokes his finger into the centre of the tiny red tentacles. They clasp on to his finger as one.

  ‘Does it hurt?’

  ‘Of course not. You can do it.’ He pulls his hand back and the sea anemone shrinks into a blob of red. I wonder if it’s angry.

  ‘Wait. I can’t.’

  ‘Don’t be a baby,’ he says. ‘Here, I’ll help you.’ And he grabs me so I’m standing in front of him, held in place by one arm around my waist, him holding my right arm in his other hand.

  ‘Put out your finger,’ he says. ‘Do it. Go on.’

  I extend my finger, my hand clasped inside his, and he pulls it closer, closer to the sea anemone, whose tentacles have extended once more. And I don’t want to hurt it. I don’t want to disappoint this creature, expecting food. But Conleth’s grip is strong and, anyway, something else is happening.

  Even as my finger touches the soft redness of the anemone, Conleth’s left hand snakes down and down, across the front of my sparkly togs, and his finger pushes underneath the seam of the bikini bottom and down – a sea creature looking for somewhere dark to hide. And when I wriggle and try to pull away, he pulls me back and down under the water, into the strands of seaweed, and he holds me there. Not for long. But for ever. And inside my head is roaring, screaming, rushing – water and bubbles and weeds.

  ‘Oopsy!’ he says, lifting me out. ‘Mind out.’

  And I’m thrashing in the water, panicked. I’m going under. Penny is calling my name and I feel her strong arm around my ribs and she’s hauling me up and up.

  ‘This way,’ she gasps, trying to keep me upright, treading water. She turns her head, then looks back to me. She’s panting. ‘Trust your body to float, Gem,’ she says, and I feel her hand underneath my shoulders, pushing me upwards. ‘Let your head tilt back – go on. Trust the water to hold you up. Keep calm. Follow me.’

  44

  Niamh

  Cig is hunched over, looking at his phone. I don’t think he heard me coming in. I clear my throat and he bolts upright, slamming the phone face down on the desk.

  ‘Ever hear of knocking, Darmody?’ he blusters, his face blotchy, eyes red-rimmed. Holy Christ! Is Cig crying?

  ‘Sorry, Cig. I—’ I want to tell him that I did knock, but yeah – the sight of him would discourage any disagreement. ‘Is – is everything okay?’ I look towards the chair in the corner, half expecting to see Laura there. Did he only summon me?

  ‘Okay?’ He makes the word sound ridiculous. I say nothing. ‘Okay? No, everything is not okay, Darmody.’

  I’m tempted to sit down, bone-weary after a poor night’s sleep in the narrow creaky metal bed which Dorothy has slept in for the best part of eighty years. And me wondering at every twinge if it was a sign.

  ‘I’ll be getting a new bed delivered,’ I’d told her this morning as she scraped the burnt bits off her toast into the sink. I would have brought her breakfast in bed, but she was up and dressed and burning her toast as usual by six thirty.

  ‘Really?’ she’d said, like it was an outrageous extravagance. Before she could tell me how perfectly good the bed was, I leapt in.

  ‘Did you buy that off the monks in Glenstal or something? Jaysus, it was like sleeping on a steel cable.’

  At least I can get a bit of cooperation from her now, a few luxuries for herself. Or I’ll threaten to call Sarita. The thought bolsters me. Distracts me from the waiting – always with IVF it’s a game of patience and resilience more than anything else. You need to develop a talent for waiting. And the courage to hope.

  ‘Are you listening, Darmody?’ Cig’s voice cuts through the image that’s playing on a loop in my brain. I’m picturing the test kit, the longed-for line in the little plastic window.

  ‘Sorry, Cig. Yep, I’m listening.’

  ‘Really?’ he says, in a sarcastic tone. God, I hate when he’s like this. What the hell is wrong with him? ‘I was on to that fisherman boyo – O’Riordan, asking him what’s taking ye all so long? Ye know we’re fecking short-staffed here, I says to him. You think crime stops in Seskin West because you’re busy in Dún Laoghaire?’

  I shake my head. Then nod. Not sure which is better.

  ‘No – I mean, yeah, I know – he knows you’re under pressure here. It’s—’ I start to tell him about the waiting game, but he holds up a leathery red palm to stop me.

 

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