Girl Unknown (12 page)

That being said, Caroline remained resolute. She took command of the situation, enlisting Holly’s help with putting out the food, instructing us all on where to sit.

‘You have a beautiful home,’ Zoë offered politely, albeit with a wavering voice. Her eyes were casting around the kitchen and family room. Light flooded in through the glass doors and the skylight. The weather was unusually fine for October.

Robbie asked Zoë where she lived, and blushed a little when she answered.

‘I rent a small flat in Rathmines. Just a bedsit, really.’

‘What made you want to come to Dublin?’ he asked.

She shrugged, ‘I’ve always liked it, since I was a child.’

‘Did you come down much?’

‘I have cousins in Greystones, so sometimes we’d stop off in Dublin on the way to visiting them. Mam and I used to go shopping on Grafton Street.’

I tried to picture it: Linda holding the hand of a little girl, gazing in the windows of Brown Thomas or Marks & Spencer. Dublin is a small city. Would it have been so far outside the bounds of possibility that I might have bumped into her? Would she have introduced me to her daughter if I had? Told me the truth, or tried to pretend Zoë wasn’t mine? Would she have said anything at all?

‘How are you finding UCD?’ Caroline asked, once we had started eating. I was afraid all the questions would make Zoë feel she was being interrogated. She was nervous enough as it was.

‘It’s good. I’m still finding my way a little,’ she said, smiling shyly. ‘But I’m enjoying it.’

There were further questions about her lectures, what clubs she had joined, the part-time job she had picked up in the students’ union shop. She answered them all patiently, and politely, even if there was a note of hesitancy
in her voice, as if she did not trust herself completely to say what she thought was expected of her. We were distracted by the food, passing bread and dipping into the salad. To all appearances everything was going well, but beneath the small-talk there was something else, an unspoken tension – a kind of undercurrent of suspicion so that, no matter what Zoë was asked, I heard the sub-textual rip-tide, the undercurrent of what was really meant:
Why are you here? What do you want?

It was a relief to hear her ask a question of her own and deflect some of the intense scrutiny she must have felt: ‘Who plays the cello?’ she asked.

She had finished eating, making a neat cross of her cutlery on the plate. The cello was leaning against the wall to the side of the sofa.

‘That’s mine,’ Robbie told her.

‘He’s in the National Youth Orchestra,’ Caroline said proudly. ‘You should hear him play some time.’

‘He thinks he’s Yo-Yo Ma,’ Holly said, with a smirk.

Robbie told her to shut up, and she pushed her glasses back up to the bridge of her nose. It was the first time she’d spoken since Zoë had entered the house.

‘I love the cello,’ Zoë told him. ‘Can you play that Elgar piece?’

Robbie leaned his elbows on the table and gave her a half-grin. ‘Not really. I’m trying to learn it but it’s, like, super-hard.’

‘We played it at my mam’s funeral – not a live performance, just on the stereo. Still – it was beautiful.’

No one said anything. I had a groundless feeling at the
thought of Linda dead in a box, the room swelling with the sound of those melancholy strings.

‘Sorry to hear about your mum,’ Robbie said quietly.

‘Thanks.’

‘It must have been shit,’ he added.

‘It was,’ she said, a little distressed, ‘but I’ve been busy since it happened, moving down here and starting college.’

‘What about your family in Belfast?’ Caroline asked.

Zoë brushed the hair from her eyes, ‘Well, there’s just Gary – he’s my stepfather.’

‘He must miss you.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Oh?’ I asked, surprised by the change in her manner. ‘Why not?’

‘We don’t really get on.’

‘You don’t?’

She thought about it, no doubt aware of the weight of our stares. ‘I dunno. We never kind of hit it off.’

‘When did he and your mother marry?’ Caroline asked.

Zoë shifted in her chair: ‘When I was six.’ She picked up her fork and fiddled with it. After a moment’s hesitation, she continued: ‘He was nice at first – always buying me sweets and toys and that. But after a while, he just got bored of me.’

‘That’s awful,’ I said.

Caroline asked: ‘He and Linda had no children together?’

‘No. I think Gary really wanted to have kids of his own, but when it didn’t happen, he just grew despondent. Kind of jealous, too.’

‘Jealous?’ I asked.

‘Of me and Mam. Our closeness. Especially towards the end, when she was sick.’

‘It must have been very difficult for you,’ Caroline offered, but I was more interested in the jealousy she had mentioned. There was something beneath the strained politeness, something she wasn’t saying that worried me: I didn’t like the sound of Gary one bit.

‘Your stepfather,’ I said, ‘do you hear much from him?’

She shook her head. ‘Not since I came down to college. I think he’s glad to have me out from under his feet.’ Then, almost as an afterthought: ‘I’m glad to be out from under his feet, too.’

‘Really?’ I asked.

‘The way he used to go on sometimes, his temper …’

‘His temper?’

The question startled Zoë, as if she hadn’t realized she had spoken her thoughts aloud. ‘Maybe “temper” isn’t the right word. It’s more subtle than that. Oh, I don’t know,’ she said, dismissing her words with a wave of the hand.

‘Passive aggressive?’ I suggested.

She made a remark about how delicious the food had been. It was clear she didn’t want to discuss the matter further.

Caroline got up to make the coffee while Robbie cleared away the dishes. The topic was dropped, but I didn’t forget it, even when the conversation returned to safer subjects: Zoë and Robbie discussing the various bands they were into, what films they liked, Holly answering to what her favourite subjects were in school. All seemingly congenial chitchat, but there was still an almost
palpable tension running through the blood of the conversation, like a contagion. Nothing, it seemed, not wine, light-hearted chat, or even dessert, could dispel it. Or maybe that was just the way I saw it because what she had said about Gary’s jealousy and temper stayed with me, and brought out in me a kind of protective zeal I had not expected to feel for her.

We finished our coffee, Robbie saying, ‘Can we go sit in the comfy chairs?’ and everyone got to their feet.

Caroline, clearing the last of the table, was reaching across to take Zoë’s cup when her hand brushed against the stem of my glass, which I had recently refilled. It toppled, sending out a splash of Burgundy, some of which hit Zoë’s midriff, the rest spilling over her placemat and dripping on to her lap. She leaped to her feet.

‘Oh, Christ!’ Caroline exclaimed. ‘I’m so sorry!’

‘Here,’ I said, handing Zoë a paper napkin.

‘It’s fine,’ she said, dabbing at her T-shirt.

‘God, I’m so clumsy,’ Caroline said. ‘Here, let me get you some soda water.’

‘It’s all right – really,’ she said, laughing to show it was no big deal. Her cheeks had pinked and she put the napkin on the table.

‘Do you want to borrow one of my T-shirts?’ Caroline offered.

‘Ah, no, thanks,’ she said, then gestured towards the door. ‘I’ll just go to the bathroom, give it a bit of a scrub. That’ll be enough.’

She left the kitchen. I picked up the napkin and began to mop up the spilled wine. Some of it had dripped on to the floor and I bent to wipe it away.

‘I can’t believe I did that,’ Caroline said, in a half-amused kind of way.

Her response annoyed me. It was almost as if she took some kind of pleasure in what had happened. As if it was a small triumph for her.

‘Unfortunate,’ I commented.

‘Shall I open another bottle?’ she asked, oblivious to my prickliness.

I stepped past her and threw the sodden napkin into the bin. ‘Hardly worth it now, is it?’

‘Oh, God. You’re not angry because I spilled your wine, are you?’ Her voice still held that slightly mocking tone.

‘Her first time here … I don’t want her put off by us knocking wine over her.’

‘It’s not the end of the world, David. No point crying over spilled Burgundy.’

Caroline’s efforts to defuse the situation made me more agitated. ‘Maybe I should check on her. Make sure she’s okay.’

Caroline made a little noise of irritation at the back of her throat. ‘You stay here and finish tidying up,’ she instructed. ‘I’ll check on Zoë.’

She disappeared out of the kitchen and Holly joined Robbie on the couch. The TV was on, and the two of them were absorbed. I continued with the clear-up until I heard feet on the stairs. Coming out into the hallway, I saw Zoë descending. When she caught sight of me, she smiled broadly. ‘Thanks so much, David,’ she said, reaching the bottom step and taking her coat from where it was hanging on the newel post. ‘This has been really lovely.’

‘You’re not going already?’

‘Afraid so,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I’ve an essay to hand in tomorrow, so I need to go home and work on it.’

Caroline was on her way down the stairs.

‘Let me give you a lift,’ I said, helping Zoë into her coat.

‘I can walk home,’ she said, laughing at my offer. ‘I don’t want to put you to any trouble.’

‘No worries,’ I said, and she rewarded me with a grateful smile.

While Zoë turned to thank Caroline for the meal, I put my head around the door and told the kids she was leaving. Robbie came out to say goodbye, but Holly remained on the couch. I decided not to make an issue of it.

‘Sorry about the wine,’ I said, once we were alone in the car. ‘Caroline isn’t normally that clumsy.’

She told me not to worry, laughing it off.

I felt real affection for the strength she had shown: it was no mean feat to walk into another’s family home and join the established rhythms of their life as seamlessly as she had. It showed real maturity. ‘I know that can’t have been easy,’ I said.

‘It was really nice to meet everyone.’

‘I hope you didn’t feel we grilled you too much.’

‘Not at all,’ she replied. ‘It was nice getting to see another side to you.’

‘How do you mean?’

She shrugged. ‘Outside college, the private you, that’s all. How you are with your family.’

‘Well, I hope you can get to know all of us better.’

‘I’d like that. Holly and Robbie are lovely. Robbie’s so like you.’

I wondered had she been hoping to see traces of herself in his or Holly’s face, some linking traits that marked them out as her siblings.

Neither of us spoke for a few minutes, the car filled with silence as I drove through Rathgar village towards Rathmines. While the afternoon had passed off well, I still felt a lingering sadness. It had started the moment she mentioned Linda’s funeral. Briefly, I thought about how different our lives might have been had Linda made contact: a phone call, a letter – that was all it would have taken. Instead, she had decided to raise Zoë alone. What was so terrible about me that she’d felt she couldn’t get in touch?

We turned the corner into Rathmines, passed the neon shop-front signs blinking in the dark, the fast-food joints, then a charity shop and the church with its copper dome. She directed me down a side-street and we turned on to a terrace of Georgian houses that had seen better days. I pulled the car up alongside the kerb.

‘Can I ask you a question?’ I began tentatively. ‘Did Linda ever talk about me?’

She considered her answer carefully, as if she were remembering something difficult and painful: ‘Towards the end, when she was dying.’

‘But not before then? Not when you were growing up?’

‘Not really,’ Zoë said hesitantly, gazing out of the window. Her hand was on the door-handle, and I sensed her need to go. All the questions she had been asked that day – it must have been exhausting. But, still, I wanted to keep her there, to find some kind of resolution to the
problem that had been bothering me from the moment she had come into my office and made her revelation: why hadn’t Linda told me?

‘Well, there was one time,’ she said shyly, as if reluctant to divulge the information. ‘I must have been eight or nine. We were in Greystones with our cousins, and she took me on a special outing, as she called it, like it was something secret just the two of us were to know about and no one else. She borrowed her cousin’s car and drove up to Dublin, to Belfield. She took me on to campus. It was the first time I had ever been to a university.’

‘She took you to UCD?’ I asked, confused.

‘Yes.’

‘But why?’

‘I don’t know. We just sat in the seating area near the Blob. I don’t know how long we were there – an hour, maybe. She told me someone she knew worked there – someone who had once been important to her. The whole time we were there, she kept looking around, as if she were waiting for someone. Then, eventually, it was as if she gave up. We went back to the car and drove away. She never said anything more about it.’

I had the feeling that she was telling me this to make me feel better, but as I sat there, one hand still gripping the steering wheel, I felt an enormous sense of loss. The wasted opportunity, cruel Fate. Of all the hundreds, no, thousands of times I had walked past that very spot … Had I only done so on that day, had I spotted them there together, seen the face that had once been so familiar to me, so well loved, everything might have changed. Everything might have been different.

Perhaps she saw my reaction to her story. Awkwardness came into the car and she pulled the door-handle, a chill air entering the space around us.

‘If it helps at all,’ she said, one foot out of the car, ‘I could tell that she had never really forgotten you.’

She stepped on to the pavement, pulled up the collar of her coat and walked down the darkened laneway. I closed my eyes and breathed in the last traces of her presence. When I looked at the street again, it was quiet, orange pools of light shimmering in the darkness.

I started the engine, pulled the car away, and above the white noise of the engine, emerging from the deep tangle of my thoughts, one phrase shone clear of all others – the thrill of them:
I could tell she had never forgotten you.