Eggshell Days (33 page)

He felt completely empty and barely knew which way to turn as he approached the gateposts, but as he did he caught flashes of an orange and purple hat through the bamboo, and a glimmer of hope reappeared. Maya? He'd thought she was at the beach with the others.

His mind had played enough tricks on him lately for him not to trust it, so he stopped the car and kept watch. The orange and purple hat flashed past again, and this time he could make out a slight body beneath it, sitting in an inflated craft. He could tell, even with all the bamboo in the way, that the boat was gliding quite proficiently.

From the car window, he saw the gap that had been cut in the hedge. The pruning shears and the hacksaw were on the ground and two huge gunnera leaves lay on the drive.

His car inched on over the stalks, his mind less committed to leaving now, past the huge Cedar of Lebanon, past the line of granite mushrooms, through the granite posts he'd probably never be invited through again. He pushed himself on. Then he saw the discarded oar.

That was it. The olive branch. The excuse. The prop that would allow him to say good-bye. He pulled his car to one side of the faded tarmac apron in front of the low wall and got out. Just a good-bye, until they could say a proper hello. With the oar in his hand, he had an excuse. A shout from the bank would suffice.

On the other side, the edge of the pond was only just discernible from the mossy bank. He walked along the narrow, marshy edge, following her footprints, occasionally accidentally turning his foot over and staggering into the water. When he reached the gap she had cut in the gunnera, he saw drag marks of what must be the bottom of the boat. He also saw the sharp stone sticking up like a shark's fin in the middle of them, and the possibility that she might have ripped the rubber planted itself in his mind.

Everything he could see was green. The edges of the pond were green, the hedges around it were green, the weed on the pond was green. He couldn't see any orange and purple flashes anywhere. He scanned the scene for color. Then, with a stab of alarm, he saw the yellow dinghy, floating on its own in the middle of the pond.

*   *   *

Emmy, stopping for a glass of water, heard the shout and wondered idly what it was that Niall wanted Maya so urgently for. She thought he had gone cross country for an Aga part to see if he could get the cooker going again. A cold Aga was a strange and dead beast, she thought, touching it with her bare hand, which still throbbed from the vibration of the sewing machine.

She was in the kitchen, enjoying a freedom she hadn't tasted since Cathal's arrival. Ever since she had seen his good-bye note and checked that his car had gone, she had been wandering freely from room to room, taking stock of what had been going on in her enforced absence, enjoying the knowledge that she couldn't turn a corner or open a door and walk into him anymore.

Being downstairs again after so long in her garret reminded her of times in her childhood, before her mother had died, when she was allowed to get up after a day or two of illness. The house always looked tidier than she remembered it, more ghostly, like a stage set. Everyday things seemed unfamiliar. Smells seemed strange. There was the remainder of an apple crumble in the fridge that she hadn't seen either baked or eaten, there was mail on the side she hadn't sifted through, there was half a bottle of wine left by the Aga that she hadn't opened. It always struck her as otherworldly that normal life could go on without her.

“Maya?”
she heard again.

This time, she turned off the tap and tried to work out what it was about Niall's voice that wasn't right. There was a politeness or a caution in it that wasn't usually present.

“Maya!”

The moment she realized what it was, she ran from the house in her socks, screaming the same name, only louder.

*   *   *

Cathal was down to his boxer shorts, t-shirt and bare feet before he knew it. The coldness of the water didn't register as he waded in up to his knees, not even feeling the slimy clay and sharp grit between his toes. He yelped when the water hit his balls, but forced his cumbersome body to surge through the weeds, clawing back the green fronds, trying not to let them tie him down.

“Maya! Maya!”

He was breathless but his roar, which came from the pit of his stomach, could be heard at the farm. Not so far away, Mog was making a similar noise and Mrs. Partridge would later claim she'd heard that one, too.

The surface of the weed was broken around the boat, which bobbed knowingly up and down. Emmy's high-pitch scream reached his ears above the splashing:

“Where is she?”

He was working too hard against the vegetation to reply.

“Cathal! What's happening? Where's Maya? Is she all right?”

Emmy started to run round the pond's edge. It felt as if she had been scalped. Cathal was panicking—she could tell by the way his head swiveled, searching. Then she noticed his clothes heaped on the side. She had to reassess. He hadn't gone out in the boat with her. Perhaps he was rescuing her. Perhaps his presence was a godsend.

“Maya!” she shouted. “Maya, Cathal's coming. Hang on, Maya. Cathal's coming.”

She ran, watching the surface of the pond, waiting for something to break. Cathal had reached the boat. He pulled the side down to check that the child wasn't lying still, for a joke, out of view. Maya's orange and purple hat was floating on the bottom, with her coat and four inches of water.

“No, no, no,
no
!” he heard himself cry. “Can she swim?” he shouted. His voice was breaking.

“Yes, she's a really good swimmer. What's happened? Get her for me, please get her!”

Emmy carried on running and he carried on swimming, moving toward each other. Cathal felt the far side of the pond scrape against his torso, and he hauled himself up, blue with cold. When he stood up, Emmy was right there. Weed hung from his hair and his wrists, and he was shivering with fear. The dread in their eyes was the same shade.

“Where is she?” Emmy sobbed. “Where is she? What happened?”

“We'll find her. Don't worry.”

He pulled her to him, his hair dripping onto her, and put a tentative bare arm around her. She let him.

“It's going to be all right. She's okay, I know she is. It's just me. I panicked.”

“
Maya
?” she shouted as loud as she could. “This is my fault,” she said. “My selfishness. My—”

“No, stop that. It's going to be okay.”

They started to run round the edge together, looking obsessively at the surface of the water, watching for something they hardly dared imagine.

“Maya?”

Cathal's feet were being cut to ribbons. Emmy's head was shrinking.

“I'm sorry, Cathal. I'm sorry I've been so, so, unable to cope.”

“It's okay. Maya?”

The rhododendrons behind them rustled.

“Yes?” said Maya, coming out of the woods. She was clothed but shivering and she had a bunch of yellow rhododendrons in her hand.

Emmy fell on her. Cathal kept his hand on Maya's back, desperate to have equal contact. He let out short bursts of relieved laughter, the remnants of a panic so intense he had thought his world might end. Emmy was repeating her daughter's name over and over again.

“Have you been in as well?” Maya asked Cathal through chattering teeth. “The weed makes it really hard, doesn't it? I did a surface dive.”

“Did you?” he tried to say. “Good girl.” He spat a mouthful of saliva and pond water into his hand.

“You look like a weird fish,” she told him as Emmy ripped off her fleece and put it round her daughter's shoulders. “A creature from the blue lagoon.”

Cathal tried to suck in his cheeks. He looked like an old man with no teeth.

“Oh,” Maya said, suddenly seeing him with entirely new eyes. “Look, Mum. I can't do that, either.”

*   *   *

Niall saw the three of them from across the pond. He stood there, his feet on his brother's clothes, rooted to the spot. Then Cathal saw Niall. Emmy saw Cathal see Niall. Maya saw them all see each other. The earth stopped spinning on its axis for a moment.

“Look at these,” Maya said, thrusting the yellow flowers under Cathal's nose. “This is proof, this is.”

“I'll see them later,” he said, looking toward his brother. “Go inside now with your mum and get warm. I've got to talk to Niall about something.”

Maya waved across the pond at Niall.

Cathal looked at Emmy. His eyes searched hers. He was still shivering, still in his boxers, weed still hanging from him.

“Is that okay with you?”

“Yes,” Emmy nodded, picking a string of blanket weed from his arm and preparing to usher Maya back to the house. “That's okay with me.”

18

“Why are you taking so much stuff with you if you're coming back?” Maya persevered accusingly. She was leaning against Niall's bedroom door frame, noting every item he put into the three open cases on his bed. Books and music. An ashtray. A halogen desk light. He had already unplugged his computer in the library.

“To make room for Mog and Dean and baby Nathan.”

“
Baby Nathan
?” she repeated. Niall was not himself. She looked at him as if to say, Do you think I'm stupid?

“They take up ten times more space than an adult, you know,” he said.

“No, they don't.”

“Go and take a look in Jonathan and Sita's room if you don't believe me. You can't move in there for nappies and powder, and vests and—”

“That's just them,” she interrupted impatiently. “You know what they're like. They all have their own shampoos. And toothpaste. Asha's even got a different toothpaste from Jay.”

“Whereas you clean your teeth with a stick and some salt.”

“Yeah, and I wash my hair with my own spit.”

Niall remembered the times he had taken her out with nothing more than a spare nappy and a packet of baby wipes in his coat pocket. She ate anything, slept anywhere, still did. Just thinking about her made the hole inside him even bigger.

“And my, how it shines.”

Maya frowned at him. He could see that now was not an optimum time for joking, but he was doing his best to sound normal, to hide the fact that his heart had been wrenched from its casing and was hanging out on wires, like the light switch on the stairs the electrician was working on.

Twice, Emmy had tried to touch him, to see if she could ground him somehow, but twice she had got a shock. The first time was hardly surprising. It had been too soon after the whole ghastly showdown for there to be a safe connection. He had walked back into the house from the pond like a zombie, and she had leaped out at him from the shadows of the hall, mortified at her own behavior, desperate to talk, pleading with him to trust her, to speak to her. But he hadn't been able even to look at her. His worlds had collided, and the wreckage was still burning.

Niall couldn't shake off the memory of the way his brother's naked body had juddered in time with his voice.

“You need to know something,” Cathal had stammered, dripping onto his clothes.

“I do, don't I? What's going on?”

“Nothing. It's not…”

“You and Emmy? I don't have a problem…”

“Not now, not for years. Just once.”

“Once?” Niall had begun to laugh. “Jaysus, ye bastard, I thought you were going to tell me—”

“No, wait. Once, once is all it takes.”

“You want to tell me you're in love with her?”

“No, I'm trying to tell you, I'm trying to tell you Emmy got pregnant.”

“I know that.”

“Not that time, another.”

“What other time? How long ago?”

“Well, you know how long.”

“W'd ye feck off?” Niall had laughed hopefully, but then he suddenly knew he had to accept it. “No. Not Maya.” It wasn't even a question.

“I'm sorry. I would have told you years ago, except I didn't know. It's just come to a head in the last few weeks and…”

But coherent thought had stopped there for both of them.

“You must go,” Niall had told him. “You must go. Just go. You can't be here. We can't do this. Go on. Go.”

Cathal had put his dry clothes back on over his wet body and driven away, sodden and still trembling, because that was the only thing he could do to make it better.

It had been no easier to help Niall after Cathal had left. “I don't want you near me,” he kept saying to Emmy, as if she was about to rip off her face mask and reveal an alien. “You feel like a stranger. Leave me alone. Don't touch me.”

“I'm sorry,” she kept saying. She wasn't crying, so he knew she meant it.

Maya hadn't become a stranger, though. She was still his girl, his lovely girl, and she wasn't prepared to take his exit lying down.

“Mog and Dean have got their own home. It's parked outside the door. Or haven't you noticed?” she persisted, coming in at last and sitting on the bed.

“But it's a bus, Maya. A knackered old bus. And this is a bedroom, in a house, with running water and electricity.”

“The bus has got those things.”

“Come on, stop being difficult.”

“I don't want them here. I want them to go.”

“How? Their bus has broken down. It was towed here, remember? Or are you going to push it for them?”

I would if it meant you would stay, she wanted to tell him.

“Well, how long are they staying, exactly?” What she meant was, How long will you be gone?

“They're going as soon as it's fixed.”

“Can't
you
sleep in the bus till then? Stay. Please?”

The understanding was only just out of her mind's reach. Her mum seemed less stressed and yet Niall was leaving Bodinnick, Mog and Dean were taking his place and their baby both did and didn't have something to do with it. But to make sense of it, Maya needed the missing links, the other babies, the aborted baby, the baby she used to be. Only Emmy and Niall had those. Only they really knew the nature of the thin-skinned beast that stalked the house. Everyone else was left guessing at its curious footprints and unfamiliar cry.