The Changeling (37 page)

A long, long pause. Then the phone rang.

The woman driving chirruped: ‘Do you mind answering that, pet – that will be my daughter, she’ll be delighted it’s not me answering, I always touch the wrong thing and cut her off, tell her I’m two minutes from Kilduff, I’ll be at hers in thirty minutes . . .’

But it was Carla’s number. Aoife tapped the green phone icon and put it to her ear, closing her eyes.

In a low, fierce, tearful voice, Carla said, ‘Sinead, you bitch, I know this is you, and isn’t it bad enough you pretend to see a ghost walking down the road and now you’re pretending to be her, this is a new low, you are lower than the snake’s belly, wait till I tell Killian this and I am going to tell everyone and put it all over Facebook and—’

‘Carla, it’s not Sinead. It’s me.’

Silence.

‘Carla, it’s me.’

Silence.

‘Carla, it’s OK, it’s Aoife.’

Carla said in a very small voice: ‘Aoife?’

‘Yes.’

Hesitantly: ‘
Aoife?
’

‘Yes.’

‘
AOIFE?
’

‘See, Sinead wasn’t lying about seeing me—’

‘Oh my God, you ARE a ghost!’

‘No!’

‘I don’t care! I don’t care if you’re a ghost! Just don’t hang up on me!’

‘I’m not a ghost, Carl, I swear, it’s really me, just me. Carl, I’m sorry, I have to go—’

‘No, don’t go again! Are you kidnapped? Tell me where you are – just describe it to me – tell me what you can see! I’ll find you—’

‘I don’t mean
going
, I’m not going anywhere – I mean I’m here at the top of our lane, I’m not going anywhere, only home.’

‘Oh my God . . .’

‘And I have to go home now, but I’ll come and see you later today, I swear. I haven’t seen Mam and Dad yet—’

‘But where have you
been
? Why didn’t you ever call me? Are you with Shay? And is Shay alive too?’

‘Yes, Shay’s here. Carla, I’m sorry, I’m on someone else’s phone and they’re giving me a lift home, and we’re nearly there now. I have to go – I really love you—’

‘
Don’t go!
’

‘I have to. This is our turn off.’ She tapped the woman on her shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, it’s here, do you mind?’

‘Aoife, listen, listen . . .’

But instead of stopping, the woman turned into Aoife’s lane and thundered along slowly over the potholes. ‘I’ll take you all the way, pet – ye don’t want to be getting any wetter.’

‘Thank you, that’s really good of you—’

‘Aoife, who are you talking to? Listen, listen to me, don’t go yet!’

‘Carla, it’s OK, I have another minute now – I’m listening.’

‘I love you and I’m so glad—’

‘Love you too, Carl.’

‘No, listen.’

‘OK. Go on.’

Carla took a deep, shuddering, tearful, happy breath. ‘I just want you to know: whatever happens, if this is a dream, I’m so glad you were in my dream.’

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

There were four cars parked in off the road next to the house, on the track up to the turf shed – the Volvo and the Citroën, and two others she didn’t recognize.

The woman dropped them off in the lane, did an elaborate fifteen-point turn, then rolled down the passenger window and leaned across. ‘I just have to ask because I couldn’t help hearing you on the phone. Are ye two really Aoife O’Connor and Shay Foley, the star-crossed lovers?’

Shay glanced at Aoife from under his long lashes – a green-gold flash of amusement. She felt herself flush. ‘Well, we’re Aoife and Shay, anyway.’

The old woman beamed, and her faintly wrinkled cheeks became as red as apples. ‘Goodness me. Nothing this wonderful has happened to me since my hippy days. We were all mad into other realities then. I’ll be telling my daughter about this but she will never believe me. My daughter is very modern, you know. She doesn’t believe in visitors from the other realms.’ And she drove off slowly and bumpily, leaving them by the blackberry hedge at the side of the house.

The rain had eased off to nothing, and the sweet smell of wet blackberries was all around them. Eva had woken up when they climbed out of the car. Now she stretched out her arms, yawning, and Aoife took her from Shay. The little girl blinked around her crossly. ‘What are we doing here? You said we were going home.’

‘You are home, sweetie.’

‘No, I live in Dublin.’

‘This is where your mammy and daddy live now, sweetheart.’

‘They live in
Dublin.
’

‘Well, then, yes, but now they’re on holiday.’

Eva looked surprised, then hurt. ‘On holiday? Without me? I want ice cream. Did they forget me?’

‘They never forgot you, honey . . . Ssh now, a moment.’

The door of the house was opening, and two men came out onto the porch, pulling on their coats. One was Martin Flynn, of the coastguard. The other was John Tiernan, one of Aoife’s old school teachers from the Kilduff national school, a very quiet man and a member of the deep sea diving club. His voice ringing clear as a bell through the shadowy late afternoon air, Martin said, ‘God help us, John, that’s a very sad house.’

‘It is.’

‘There’s nothing worse than losing a child that way, and worse again to have no body to bury. I hate always telling them the latest search turned up nothing.’

‘Desperate.’

After a short pause Martin said, ‘Did he encourage her to jump, do you think? It seems to run in the family.’

Shay was standing so close behind her, Aoife could feel him tense. She glanced back at him and mouthed:
Will we tell them now?
but he shook his head, and pulled her further back behind the blackberry hedge, out of sight.

The school teacher said, with sudden volubility, ‘Martin, we’ll never know what was in a pair of teenagers’ heads, and maybe that’s a good thing. It’s no good to anyone trying to figure it out. It’ll only make matters worse, going over and over it again. Things are bad enough as it is.’

Coats buttoned, they walked in silence to their separate cars, and one after the other backed out into the lane, turning to their right, not seeing the returned ghosts standing in the gap of the wet hedge.

When they were gone, Aoife said, ‘Do you think I should just go right on in?’

‘It’s hard to know how else to do it.’

‘I don’t want to give the poor things a heart attack . . . Maybe I’ll go round the back.’

‘Like that will be less of a shock.’

She laughed awkwardly.

Shay said with sudden determination, like he’d been considering it for a while, ‘Look, I’m thinking will I walk back on up to the road, get a lift onwards.’

‘Oh . . . What? Now?’

‘I need to let John Joe know I’m alive.’

‘You could call him from my house?’

‘I’m like you. I don’t want to be giving him a heart attack either. Actual fact, I’m hoping I’ll find him in the pub in Kilduff, and at first he’ll just think he’s seeing things. Let him in gently, like.’

‘Right.’ Aoife managed a weak laugh. ‘Yeah, I guess.’

Shay stood hesitating. ‘Look, I’ll see you very soon.’

And then the thought of him just walking off, into the damp autumn dusk, became unbearable. ‘No, wait. My dad will give you a lift.’

He laughed genuinely. ‘I don’t think your dad will be interested in driving me around the countryside when he’s just got you back from the dead.’

‘Eva as well, don’t forget. Especially Eva. I’m not sure they’ll be that interested in me. After all, Eva’s their real daughter.’

‘Ah no, you’re as much their daughter as she is.’

Aoife shrugged. ‘I guess.’ But she wanted to say:
The people we love don’t always love us back.
‘I don’t know if they feel that way. They never asked to look after me. It was all only for her sake.’

Eva was struggling and sliding down out of her arms. ‘Put me down! I want to see my mam.’

‘You’re wrong. Of course they love you for yourself.’

‘I want to see my mam!’ Eva was dragging at her hand, tugging her towards the house.

Shay reached out for her other hand, then didn’t take it, letting his own fall to his side once more.
The people we love aren’t always able to love us back.
‘Look, I’ll call you later, all right?’

‘I haven’t got my mobile.’

‘Have you a house phone?’

‘You haven’t got your mobile either.’

‘I’ll call from my brother’s phone. What’s your number?’

She told him. ‘But you won’t remember it.’

‘I will, I’m good with numbers.’

‘Repeat it back to me?’

‘Really, I have it. Aoife, listen, you’re going to be fine. Everything will be more than fine. Just get in there.’

‘
I want to see my mam!
’

‘Aoife, go on.’

But then, as she turned to go, Shay called her back – ‘Wait a minute!’ – and lifted his hand and very lightly touched her nose with the tip of his forefinger. ‘
Wahu
, Aoife,’ he said softly. And then, ‘Take care.’

Lifting Eva, she moved carefully across the lawn to peep in through the kitchen window from the growing shadows. Her father was standing with his back to the window, one hand on the electric kettle, the way he always stood waiting for it to boil. His head was lowered.

Eva asked, ‘Who’s that?’

‘That’s your daddy, honey.’

‘My daddy has black hair.’

Suddenly James turned and stared straight at them, or rather, straight in their direction into the darkening garden – as if he had heard something. He was pale and his eyes were puffed up with weeping.

‘Daddy?’ said Eva doubtfully, touching her forefinger to the golden locket.

‘Yes, sweetie. Just his hair went grey.’

‘OK. Will we knock on the window?’

‘No – ssh – let’s go round the back—’

‘Are we going to give them a surprise?’

‘That’s right, honey.’

With Eva on her hip, Aoife climbed the ash tree easily, using only one hand. Her bedroom window was unlocked, and she leaned out of the tree to pull it open, then lifted Eva across the gap and followed herself, nearly knocking a lighted candle to the floor. Her bedroom was like a shrine. It
was
a shrine. There was a ridiculously large picture of herself on the chest of drawers; a jar of wild roses, five candles and two plaster angels were grouped around it. The bed neatly made and the covers turned down and everywhere unnaturally tidy – all clothes put away; her guitar leaning in the corner; the computer desk a paper-free zone. The torn edges of the music posters were neatened with Sellotape. There was even a set of her own song lyrics hanging on the wall, mounted on blue cardboard and laminated.
Under the hawthorns, he raises me with a kiss . . .

‘Is this house
your
house?’

‘Ssh, honey, just whisper.’

‘That’s you! And you! And you!’ Eva pointed to the walls with enthusiasm. There were many more photographs than before. The sort that she wouldn’t have bothered with herself, because they didn’t have Carla in them. Aoife moved softly around, gazing at them. She’d never realized how many pictures her parents had taken of her, year after year. Grinning in a centimetre of snow. Knee deep in a river, holding up a fish. Lopsided on a donkey. A holiday in Cork. They must have had a full drawer of photographs somewhere – photographs of her, their fairy daughter.

‘Can I see my mam now?’

‘Ssh, honey.’

‘Is it still a surprise?’

‘That’s right. Don’t make any noise until I tell you.’

Holding Eva’s hand, Aoife eased her bedroom door open a crack.

Across the landing, her parents’ bedroom door was nearly closed. Before she could open the door any wider, her father came into view up the stairs, a mug of tea in each hand. He glanced sadly towards Aoife’s bedroom, then used his foot to push open the door of his own. ‘Thought you might want a cup of tea, love.’ He went in, turning on the light, leaving the door ajar behind him.

Eva tried to pull her hot little hand out of Aoife’s; Aoife looked down with a frown and a slight sideways shake of the head, putting her forefinger to her lips. Then led the child out onto the landing.

Through the half-open door of her parents’ room, they could see Maeve sitting cross-legged on the bed, dark blonde hair grown longer and tied aside in a plait, her back resting against the oak headboard, staring blankly in front of her. James stooped over her, pressing one of the mugs into her hand. She smiled up at him weakly, tears running down her face. In a choked voice, she said, ‘I almost wanted them to find her, James. Do you believe that? It just hurts so much, not knowing. Then, at the same time, of course I don’t want them to find her. I want to carry on believing she went back to her own world. That she’s there with Eva, somehow. And they’re happy together, in paradise.’

‘That’s what I hope for, sweetheart.’

‘But does paradise even exist?’

‘I think it does.’

‘But we don’t know for sure, do we? And we told her she could fly. And then she jumped . . . with that poor boy.’ James sat down on the bed next to her, passed his arm around her. She pressed her wet face to his shoulder. ‘
Oh God, Aoife.
’

In this room too there were photographs everywhere, covering the walls. And, framed, on the oak chest of drawers. Aoife’s face, but also Eva’s – all the hundreds of photos from the drawer. No longer locked away.

‘If only I knew where they were!’

‘We have them here, Maeve. Both of them. Here.’ And James pressed his hand to his heart. ‘That’s what matters in the end. Wherever they are.’

There was no easy way, but it had to be done now. Aoife crouched down beside Eva, and whispered very, very softly in the little girl’s ear. ‘Keep quiet a bit longer, honey. We’re going to go stand where they can see us. All right?’

Eva nodded solemnly. Aoife straightened up. Hand in hand, they moved a few paces forward, to where the bedroom light could fall through the door onto the two of them. The slender changeling in the sun-rise dress with her red-gold hair, and the sheóg in a dress of dried rose petals, with her short blonde curls.

Maeve had lifted her head from James’s shoulder and was frowning towards the dark, rainy window. ‘What was that?’