Heaven Eyes (20 page)

“Yes, Heaven. We think they are still as still.”

Tears trickled on her cheeks.

“Still as still,” she said. “But they do move and smile and shiver in my thoughts and they is bright as day.”

She held her hands up and the moonlight streamed through them and they were beautiful.

“Fishy froggy,” she whispered. “Fishy froggy Anna. Mouth more, mine brother Janry Carr.”

“Your sister was called Caroline. Your brothers were Anthony and Tom.”

More tears trickled on her cheeks, splashed into her lap. I held her close.

“They is still as still,” she said. “And little Heaven Eyes is all alone and this world is big as big as big as big.”

I held her tight as the secrets entered her, as the story deepened in her.

“I am your sister,” I said. “These are your brothers. We love you. We love you.”

She leaned against me.

“Mouth no more, my brother,” she said. “Mouth no more till this night is bright as day.”

W
E SLEPT, THE FOUR OF US
sitting there in the moonlight beneath the window. It seemed like a dream when Maureen tapped at the door and stepped shyly into the room. She stood in a long blue dressing gown. Her feet were bare. Her face was pale as the moon.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Couldn’t sleep …”

I stared at her. January stared at her. She hesitated in the doorway.

“I worried about you all,” she said. “I … I thought you’d all gone off again. …”

Her voice faltered. She flicked at her eyes with her fingers. She crouched in front of us. She reached out and took Heaven’s hand. Leave her alone! I wanted to say. But I saw Heaven’s hand close gently around Maureen’s.

“We will find you,” Maureen whispered. “We’ll search the records of missing children and we’ll find someone like you.”

She delicately touched the webs on Heaven’s fingers. Her breath quivered.

“Who do you think you are?” she said.

“My name is Anna May.”

“Anna May?”

“Anna May. There is other things, but they come slow as slow as slow.”

“We know other things,” said January. “But they’re things for Heaven Eyes to know. Mebbe she’ll tell you one day. Okay?”

He tilted his head to one side.

“Okay?” he said.

“Okay,” she said.

Go on, I wanted to say. Go on. Get out!

As if she had heard me, she said softly, “Erin. Please don’t.”

She stayed there, crouching before Heaven Eyes, like she was wanting something, waiting for something.

Heaven Eyes touched Maureen’s face.

“Where is your little girl?” she asked.

Maureen stared.

“My little girl?”

“Yes. The mum of Erin had a little girl. The mum of Heaven Eyes had a little girl. Where is the little girl that was in Maureen?”

The tears shone in Maureen’s eyes and reflected the moon.

“There is no little girl,” she said.

Heaven pondered this.

“Then Maureen is the little girl. So where is the mum of Maureen?”

The tears dripped and shone.

“There is no mum,” said Maureen.

“Still as still?” said Heaven Eyes.

“Still as still. Still as still.”

The webbed fingers stroked Maureen’s cheeks, they wiped away the tears. I looked across at Jan. We rolled our eyes in scorn, then in wonder.

“You is lovely,” said Heaven Eyes. “You is lovely, Maureen.”

W
E DRIFTED IN AND OUT OF SLEEP
and dreams. I felt the lovely rocking of the river, the lovely spinning of the raft. In deepest sleep I went down into the blackness of the Middens and lay there with my mum and many saints. I swam with shoals of fish, with frogs. I kicked my arms and legs and heard Mum singing to me and felt her hands pressing in on me. I flew in and out of rooms with little curious birds and flew into the night again and headed for my nest. I spread my hands like Heaven Eyes and held their webs up to the sun and moon. I felt the hands of Wilson Cairns supporting me, felt his breath on me, felt him urging me to move, to walk across a little table while fascinated children gathered all around. I felt the heart beating in me, the spirit shivering with life and love in me. I
heard my whispered name, “Erin. Erin. Erin.” Opened my eyes.

“Erin,” Jan whispered.

“What is it?”

“Nothing. Just need to move. Need you to come with me.”

“What is it, Jan?”

“Please, Erin.”

We left the room, tiptoed down through the house. It was soon after dawn. The sun was burning low in the east. We went out across the concrete, through the iron gate, into the streets. Sparrows dashed across the sky. There were pigeons and crows, seagulls wheeling and screaming high above. We passed the little house, the beaten garden, the scratched door. Came to the wasteland. Sunlight gleamed on the arch of the greatest bridge. The city’s low rumble as its day began. Its roofs, its spires, its curving steep streets and tumbling steps and alleyways, its brick and steel and stone. Its jagged silhouette. The distant moors bulging in the east. Sky brightening, brightening, brightening. The scents of petrol, seaweed, sea, fish, rot, flowers, dust. Mysterious river glowing like beaten metal above its deep dark bed and below the endless sky. River heaving through the city, over the black Black Middens, rushing down toward the sea. River rushing past new pubs and clubs and offices, past ancient warehouses, ruined quays, huge cranes, construction sites. Mysterious river rushing
through the present and the past and surging to the future. We sat on a pile of bricks and rubble and gazed out at it all.

“What is it, Jan?” I said.

“Dreams. Just dreams. Cardboard boxes and hospitals and stormy nights. But stronger than before.”

He shuddered.

“Scary,” he said.

“Scary.”

For a moment I trembled with my own scary dreams.

“Jan,” I said. “Is it awful being us?”

“Dunno,” he said. “What’s it like being anybody? But aye, sometimes it’s awful. Sometimes it’s the worst thing in the world.”

“Let’s run away,” I said. “Let’s go tomorrow. Today.”

“Aye.”

“Where to?”

“The moors?”

“Aye, the moors. Just imagine it, eh?”

We stared at the moors and dreamed ourselves there, striding through bracken, skipping over little streams, lying beneath the sun on soft green turf, surrounded by the calls of curlews and the scent of peat.

“Wow!” I said.

“Wow! Wow!”

We giggled.

“Jan,” I said. “Think we’ll always run away?”

“Dunno. Till we’re older, mebbe. Mebbe till there’s kids of our own we want to care for.”

For an instant I saw it, me and Jan together years in the future with little kids beside us. Just for an instant, just a glimpse. I didn’t speak it, but I thought that maybe Jan had glimpsed it, too.

“Might be awful,” I said. “But I love it just the same.”

“Love what?”

“Being alive, being me, in this world, here and now.”

He grinned.

“It’s bloody great, eh?” he said. “Bloody great.”

We stood up and wandered across the wasteland toward St. Gabriel’s. The sun continued rising. Jan held my arm, stopped me. He turned and peered back to where we’d come from.

“What’s up?” I said.

“Dunno. Nothing.”

We walked on and he kept turning, turning.

“We’re not asleep?” he said.

“We’re not asleep.”

“So why do the dreams keep on coming, Erin?”

W
HITEGATES
. The iron gate, the concrete garden. Wilson stared from the window, like he stared past us, through us, to something a million miles away. January kept on turning as we walked toward it, as we entered the gate, as we drifted to the door. He looked back like there was something following us, tracking us, seeking us. We went inside. Deep silence. We sat in the poolroom behind Wilson. Dust seethed and glittered in the sunlight that poured through the windows. January became dead calm. He held my hand.

I peered into his eyes.

“What is it?”

“Just stay with me,” he said. “Stay beside me, Erin.”

Then footsteps upstairs, above our heads. I turned and saw Heaven Eyes and Mouse coming down
together. Heaven raised her hand and beamed at me. Mouse yawned, rubbed his eyes. Maureen came behind them in her dressing gown and bare feet, her hair hanging loose and tangled. She stood in the doorway as Mouse and Heaven came to us. We watched each other. Our eyes were wary, suspicious, but I knew that we had begun to move closer to each other. I knew that our story had begun to change. I sighed and thought of Mum and I felt her smiling.

“Janry Carr,” said Heaven Eyes. “My brother. You is far as far away?”

He gazed at her from his dream.

“Janry Carr is good as good,” she said. “Strong as strong.”

She sat on the floor with Mouse. They played with Squeak. Deep inside, Mum sang to me.

A deep sigh from Wilson Cairns. Then another. January went to the window and stood beside him. I went to his shoulder. He reached back and took my hand and drew me to his side.

“Erin,” he breathed.

We watched the pale houses, the shimmering roadways, the green gardens, the red rooftops, the birds flickering and wheeling across the great sky. We watched in silence and we waited.

She must have come across the wasteland above the river, past the little house and garden. She came into sight, stood at the junction of two streets. She wore blue
jeans and a black leather jacket and carried a big red backpack, as if she’d come back from some adventure. She looked about her until she saw Whitegates. She watched it for a time. Her fair hair lifted in the breeze and blew about her face. She looked back to where she’d come from and seemed about to go back again, but she came onward. She was still hesitant, still kept looking back, but then she straightened her shoulders and shook her head so that her hair swung and we saw her earrings glittering. She walked more quickly, more purposefully. The black road at her feet shone like liquid and her feet seemed to step in and out of liquid, over liquid. Closer to, as she approached the iron gate, we saw her red lipstick, pale lined face, troubled bright eyes. Her clothes were dusty. A ripped knee in her jeans. A tear in her jacket. We saw how scared she was, how worn she was, but we saw how right January had been. She was beautiful. She stepped into the concrete garden. She saw us at the window, and hesitated again in fear and trepidation.

“Oh, Erin!” whispered Jan.

“Keep watching,” murmured Wilson Cairns.

No trembling in January’s hands, no quiver in his breath, just a deep deep silence in him as she came on again and entered Whitegates. I walked with him from the window. Heaven watched with her lovely eyes that saw through all the trouble in the world to the heaven
that lies beneath. She touched January with her webbed fingers as he passed.

She stood there, in the hallway.

How did they know each other? Ancient dreams. Images from a stormy winter’s night. Love. They watched each other.

“I knew you’d come,” said Jan.

She raised her hands to her cheeks and stared across them.