My Sister's Child Page 6

  Through the window she could see the streetlights reflected off the bright whiteness outside. She watched the flakes as they rushed now against the glass, falling steadily and persistently. What is it that transfixes us about the beauty of snow, she wondered. It was almost like everything had gone quiet, the whole world had gone still as if cloaked in a blanket of silence and, for a time, everything looked at peace. It was perfection for a while until it started to melt, leaving dirty brown slush everywhere.

  When they had finished the tea, they went up to bed, creeping up the stairs so as not to wake his flatmate. Isla lay back on his springy double bed, with its plain navy cotton duvet cover and two matching pillowcases while he was in the bathroom brushing his teeth. She looked around the small room at his built-in wardrobes where he had hung clothes on the corners of the doors so they didn’t close properly. When he came back in he put on a Bowie CD and switched off the lights before undressing. Then he leaned over her on the bed and started tugging off her boots and then her jeans. She sat up and pulled her T-shirt off over her head and tossed it onto the floor. He started kissing her passionately, eating at her lips, her neck. He traced his fingers gently over her collarbone. She could feel his hardness pressing against her thighs. He worked down lower, his lips grazing delicately over her skin before coming back up and kissing her deeply again. She was ready for him. She pulled him close.

  “I love you, Isla,” he said as they lay there afterwards, their skin clammy with sweat.

  “No, you don’t.”

  “I do. I love being with you. I love this. I love you.” He propped himself up on one elbow and turned to look at her.

  She could just about make out the contours of his face in the light coming in behind the curtain from the street outside the window. A long curl fell in front of his forehead. She reached out and brushed it back off his face.

  “Why won’t you give it a chance?” he said.

  “I’m sorry, Greg, I don’t know why – I just can’t . . .”

  He lay back down on the bed with a heavy sigh. She could feel his body tense with frustration. They lay there in silence for a few minutes until Greg rolled over. Isla lay wide awake, staring at a triangle of street light that was escaping at the top of the curtains. Why did she do this? She had a closeness with Greg that she didn’t have with anybody else – it felt like he was the only person in her whole life besides her dad who had truly accepted her as she was.

  Isla didn’t sleep well that night. At one point she woke up with a start and sat upright in the bed beside Greg, her heart hammering, her breathing quick. The sheets were damp with sweat underneath her. She had dreamt of the baby again. He had smiled this time. His rosebud lips moved up at the sides and he smiled at her. It was like he was calling to her.

  Chapter 7

  Vera’s Baby Shower

  Greg had been unusually off with Isla as she had sat on the edge of his bed getting dressed the next morning. After she had tied the laces on her boots, she had leaned over his mound in the bed to give him a kiss but he didn’t turn around to say goodbye to her. He had never been like that with her before. She had let herself out and continued on home to get ready for Vera’s baby shower.

  Now, as she came through the revolving door of the hotel, a huge display of fresh flowers standing on a polished mahogany table greeted her. All around her were guests on plush sofas taking afternoon tea. She squinted around the foyer to see if she could catch sight of Vera.

  A traditionally dressed doorman came over to her. “Can I help you there, madam?”

  “I’m looking for the baby shower for Vera Rowland?”

  “Oh, yes, that’s taking place in our conservatory. Turn right here and go straight down to the end of the corridor and follow the signs. They’re all seated there already.”

  “Thank you,” she said nervously.

  Isla walked over the wool carpet, thick underfoot, and followed the directions she had been given. She had come to a fork and hesitated, unsure whether to go right or left, when she felt someone come up behind her.

  “Isla?”

  She turned to look at the speaker. Her blonde bushy curls were ashier in colour now, and she looked smaller in height too. The American twang that was once so strong to the ear had softened.

  “Mrs Rowland? Oh my goodness,” Isla said. “How are you?”

  “I’m good, thanks, Isla – how’ve you been?” She hugged her warmly. “Gosh, I haven’t seen you in such a long time. What have you been up to?”

  “Not a lot really.”

  “You’re so good to come. I was thrilled when Vera said you could make it.” She kissed her cheek. “We’re just in here.”

  Isla followed behind Julia and the blow-dried heads of twenty women turned around from the long table to look at her. She immediately felt self-conscious as she took off her green parka jacket to reveal a grey T-shirt layered underneath a cardigan, jeans and a pair of Converse, and wished she had made more of an effort with her appearance.

  Vera was seated at the head of the table. She used the arms of the chair to push herself up and came over to greet Isla with one hand across her bump and the other on the base of her spine. She waddled slightly as she walked.

  “Isla! I’m so happy you could come!” she enthused and threw her arms around her friend.

  “I wouldn’t have missed it.” But the truth was that Isla had been dreading coming from the moment she had read Vera’s email.

  Vera was a paediatrician working in the children’s hospital and all of her friends were either doctors like her or lawyers or company directors and, well, Isla had odd-jobbed since she had left school, usually earning the minimum wage or thereabouts. Isla’s life hadn’t really moved on since school. It was like someone had pressed pause on the sixteen-year-old Isla but Vera’s tape had kept on playing.

  Once Vera and Isla had been inseparable but, the more time marched on, the more it seemed to wedge them further apart, highlighting the different paths their lives had gone down. Although they had been best friends in secondary school, today they were very different people.

  “You look amazing, Vera. Really, really great.”

  Her bump looked like a perfect basketball had been attached onto her abdomen. She was dressed in an elegant red wrap dress and high heels. The sun that was slanting through the glass panes of the conservatory lit up her face. Isla noticed how Vera’s fingernails were manicured and she found herself putting her own hands behind her back. She couldn’t help but think back to their school days and how much Vera’s appearance had transformed. Gone was the grungy girl who only wore black, heavy eye make-up and hair dyed a different hue of red every week. The woman standing before her now was sophisticated and poised.

  “I see you still haven’t given up the heels then,” Isla said, pointing at the four-inch-high court shoes on Vera’s feet.

  “God, no! I’ve done everything else by the book – no alcohol, no unpasteurised cheeses – I’ve stopped wearing underwire bras but I draw the line at giving up my heels!”

  They both laughed. Vera linked Isla’s arm with a squeeze and turned her around to face the table. “Everybody, this is my friend Isla! We were in school together.”

  Isla had met Vera on the first day of secondary school. She had noticed her in her oversized denim jacket and black nail polish, getting out of a Mercedes Benz car, which were a rarity in those days. A glamorous woman with a poodle-like blonde perm, who Isla had presumed to be the girl’s mother, had come rushing around from the driver’s side, grabbed hold of her by the shoulders and pulled her into a bear of a hug before proclaiming loudly in an American accent “Good luck, my angel!” so that everyone in the yard could hear. The girl in the denim jacket, who looked the furthest thing that Isla had ever seen from an angel, had pushed her away disgusted.

  The second time she saw her was when their English teacher handed Vera a bottle of nail-polish remover and a wad of cotton wool with the instruction: “Take it off.” She did as sh
e was told without argument as if she knew that this was going to happen. After the class was over and they were all supposed to be making their way to double French, Vera had stopped in the corridor, rested her back up against the wall, folded one knee up underneath her for balance and then took out a small bottle of black nail varnish from her schoolbag. Isla had watched in fascination as she began to paint her nails again. She purposely hung around outside the classroom door and waited until the girl went in ahead of her and then she made sure she got the seat beside her.

  “What’s your name?” Vera asked as Isla sat down on the chair next to her.

  “Isla.”

  “Nice to meet you, Isla. My name is Vera and I hate it – parents!” she said with a shrug of her shoulders as if it explained everything.

  She was born in New York. Her dad was Irish and her mum, Julia, was American. They moved over to Ireland when Vera was twelve. Vera’s parents were forever embarrassing her. Not intentionally but it just seemed that way to Vera. “Vera, don’t tie that belt too tight on your jeans or your ovaries won’t grow,” Julia would warn or “Vera, what date is your period due again?” She said ‘due’ pronounced as ‘doo’. “Lemme know so I can buy your tampons when I go to the store later.” Her mother would comfortably walk around the house in her bra and knickers and not feel awkward if she saw Isla sitting at the kitchen table drinking a glass of juice. And when she got older, it wasn’t unknown for her mum to slip a condom into Vera’s bag when she was going out somewhere. She was an only child and they worshipped the ground she walked on.

  Vera was a Morrissey fan and had become a vegetarian like him. Isla had experimented with it briefly but she didn’t have the willpower.

  It was Vera who taught her how to kiss. They were sitting on the floor up in her bedroom one day when Isla told her she was worried that when the time came for her first kiss she wouldn’t know how to do it. She was worried about how you would breathe – how fast should your tongue move? Should it dart in and out or move around in a circular motion?

  Vera had shrugged and said, “You can practise on me if you want.”

  “I can’t do that!” Isla was horrified by the suggestion. “You’re a girl!”

  “Duh! That’s how all the girls back home learn but if you’re too prudish then . . .”

  “No, I’m not – okay, let’s do it then.”

  “What, you really want to?” Vera suddenly didn’t seem as enthusiastic about the idea.

  “Yeah, if you say that’s how all the girls in New York learn, then what’s the big deal?”

  “Okay. So close your eyes,”

  Isla sat back against the bed and did as she was told.

  “Now tilt your face slightly upwards, yeah . . . okay . . . just down a teensy bit . . . okay . . . come closer . . . now stop.”

  The next thing Isla felt was Vera’s warm mouth covering hers, her tongue parting her lips as it started to search out hers. The taste of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum. But instead of it being disgusting, as Isla had thought it would be, it felt strangely good. She relaxed her shoulders and moved her hands up into Vera’s lemon-scented hair.

  Then she heard the groan of the door opening, followed by, “What are you two doing? Oh my God!”

  Isla opened her eyes to see Jo standing there, looking at them in horror. She quickly pulled away from Vera and stood, using the bed to lever herself up.

  “We’re not lesbians, I swear to you, Jo! . . . Vera was . . . em . . . she was just teaching me how to kiss, you know . . . to practise . . . for when I’m kissing boys.”

  Vera was still sitting on the floor, clutching her stomach, snorting out big bellyfuls of laughter.

  “I’m sorry, you guys –” she tried, before breaking off into peals of laughter again. “I’m sorry but –”

  “So you think this is funny?” Jo said, putting her hands on her hips, turning to her in mammy mode.

  “Don’t worry, Jo, Isla’s not a lesbian,” Vera said, getting up off the floor. She turned away from Isla and said in a mock-whisper to Jo, “You should see the way she gets off with guys down in the bowling alley! Trust me, you have nothing to worry about.”

  And then she sauntered out of the bedroom. They heard her making her way down the landing before she traced her steps back and stuck her head back around the door. “See ya tomorrow, Isla!”

  Then they heard her laughing all the way down the stairs.

  Life always seemed to be exciting whenever Vera was around. She was like a stream of colour in a grey world.

  But when Isla decided to leave school in fifth year, even Vera, who spent every weekend outside the fur shop near Grafton Street drowning the ladies coming out with red paint, was shocked and tried to convince her not to do it. But she just couldn’t stay there any longer; the conformity had felt like a tightness constricting her whole body. She couldn’t follow rules; she hated the regulations of school – being told what to do, what to wear, how much study you should be doing. It all felt counter-productive. It was like a blindfold tied over her eyes, a gag across her mouth. It felt unnatural for her to be there. She never seemed to be able to answer a question in class like her classmates could.Vera seemed to be able to abide by the regulations more than she could. When Isla had asked her about it one day she said, “You have to play the game, Isla, do what they tell you. Let them think they’re in control of you and it makes your life easier. It won’t always be like this for us, you know.” But Isla couldn’t stick it, she had to leave. She felt as though she was useless at the whole thing. She was doing all pass subjects except for art and she knew she wouldn’t even get the points to get into art college because all of her other subjects would let her down. There was no point in wasting her time and fulfilling everyone’s expectations of her, so she dropped out, more to Jo’s horror than her dad’s.

  Vera would call over on her way home from school and fill her in on the goings-on. She would do impressions of the teachers until Isla was laughing so much that she had to tell her to stop or she might wet herself.

  On the day that the Leaving Cert results came out Vera called over as she did every day on her way home from school but on that day she had stood in the doorway to Isla’s bedroom looking sheepish. She wouldn’t look her in the eye.

  “So how did you get on?” Isla had asked. “Let me guess, sub three-hundred?”

  “Actually, Isla, I got five-six-five.”

  “Five-six-five?” Isla had repeated in disbelief, wondering if she had heard her right.

  Vera nodded.

  Isla was shocked. Then she felt guilty for feeling that way when she should have been happy for her friend. It seemed that after Isla had left school in fifth year, Vera had put her head down and worked hard. Her parents had paid for extra tuition in sixth year too. She went off to Trinity to study medicine the following September and dropped the denim jacket and black nail varnish.

  Isla knew that that was when the distance had set in between them. Vera would invite her out with all her new college friends but Isla didn’t feel like she fitted in with them so she would make excuses not to go. They still saw each other, though not as often as they used to.

  “Let me introduce you to everyone,” Vera was saying now, jolting Isla out of her thoughts. “This is my friend Sandra from the hospital” (she pronounced ‘Sandra’ as Sondra). “This is Annabelle – we were in med school together – and of course you remember Jane.”

  Isla did remember Jane; she was another med-school friend of Vera’s. She and Isla had both been bridesmaids for Vera at her wedding to Mike three years before.

  “Hi, Isla,” they chorused back to her.

  “This is Louise – we met in antenatal yoga – she’s due two weeks after me, isn’t that exciting? And this is Mike’s friend’s Tom’s wife . . .”

  And on and on the introductions went until Isla’s head was spinning.

  Isla eventually sat down at the last remaining place at the table between Mike’s younger sister Li
sette and another doctor friend of Vera’s called Stacy. She remembered Lisette from Vera’s hen party – she had been good fun. When everyone else had cried off to bed at midnight, Isla and Lisette had gone on to a nightclub. Isla had flashbacks of dancing to some really bad eighties music and falling backwards against a wall – then when Lisette had tried to pull her back up, she had fallen down beside her and they both had sat on the sticky tiles, laughing hysterically. Then there was something else to do with a rickshaw, which had seemed hilarious at the time but it was all fuzzy now. Lisette had fallen asleep in the taxi on the way home and Isla had to get out to ring the doorbell to get her mother to take her into the house.

  Lisette lifted a bottle of pink champagne from the centre of the table and leaned over to fill their glasses. Stacy’s hand automatically shot out to cover the glass. “Not for me, thanks, I’m driving.”

  She turned to fill Isla’s glass then. Isla went to stop her because she was worried she wouldn’t be able to afford it. “I . . . eh . . . might just get a beer actually.”

  “Jane left six bottles of this stuff on the table and I’m the only one drinking it – the rest of them are all on mineral water.” She pointed her finger accusingly around the table. “Now are you going to help me or not?”

  Isla smiled. “Okay, go on then.”

  “That’s more like it, sharing is caring,” Lisette said, filling Isla’s glass with the pink bubbles.

  “So, what do you do, Isla?” Stacy asked.

  “Oh, nothing as important as you guys . . .”

  Stacy’s eyes were fixed on Isla, wide with curiosity, demanding more.

  “Well . . . I . . . eh . . . work in a café.”

  “How nice.”

  Isla knew she was just being polite.

  “Would I know it?” Stacy asked.

  “I doubt it – it’s on St John’s Street.”

  “Oh . . .”

  An awkward silence hung in the air between them until Lisette filled their glasses up again.