Authors: Sarah Crossan
Apple and Rain
For my grandmothers Olive Fox and Mamie Crossan
And for Andreas and Aoife, of course
Contents
I don’t know if what I remember is what happened or just how I imagine it happened now I’m old enough to tell stories. I’ve read about this thing called childhood amnesia. It means we can’t remember anything from when we were really small because before three years old we haven’t practised the skill of remembering enough to be able to do it very well. That’s the theory, but I’m not convinced. I have one memory from that time. It never changes, and if I wanted to make up memories, wouldn’t they be good ones? Wouldn’t all my childhood stories have happy endings?
I woke up crying. I could hear angry voices downstairs and thunder outside. I got up and stumbled on to the landing. A white gate was attached to the newel post to stop me tumbling down the stairs. I couldn’t figure out how to open it, no matter how hard I tried. I wasn’t wearing socks. My feet were cold. I carried a white blanket that dragged across the floor.
Two figures stood by the front door under a sprig of mistletoe, their faces in shadow. I whimpered. Nana looked up. ‘Back to bed, pet,’ she said. ‘Go on now.’
‘Can’t sleep,’ I said.
Nana nodded. ‘I know. I could never sleep before Christmas Day either.’
I shook my head. It was nothing to do with Christmas. I just didn’t want to go back to bed. The thunder sounded like it might blast through my bedroom window. And why was everyone shouting?
I started to cry again. I wanted the person in the green coat next to Nana to turn around because although I could tell from her long hair and narrow waist she was a woman, I couldn’t see her face.
But she wouldn’t look up. She was staring at the doormat and holding tight to the handle of a suitcase.
‘I’ll call you in a few days,’ a voice from inside the green coat whispered, and I knew then it was my mum.
‘Mummy,’ I said.
She opened the front door with her free hand. When Nana tried to stop her stepping into the night, she shrieked and pushed my grandmother against the mirror on the wall. ‘Stop trying to ruin my life!’ my mum shouted. The wind slammed open the door. Rain came thrashing into the hall. The air smelled especially salty.
Finally Mum turned and saw me, but she didn’t smile or wave or blow me a kiss. She stared like I was something strange and sad that she couldn’t decipher.
Then she sniffed, turned and left, banging the door behind her.
And it was quiet again.
No shouting.
And no thunder either.
‘Mummy,’ I whispered.
‘Mummy’s gone, pet,’ Nana said. She climbed the stairs, opened the gate at the top and lifted me into her arms. She was shaking. Her eyes were wet. ‘It’s you and me now. You and me, OK?’
‘Mummy,’ I repeated.
‘Let’s go to bed,’ Nana said. ‘And in the morning we’ll see what Santa brought you.’
But I didn’t care about Santa’s presents. All I could think about was what had been taken away.
Again and again I’ve asked Nana about the Christmas Eve that Mum left. I want to understand why she walked out. But when Nana tells me what happened, she makes it all Mum’s fault. Mum was the one who ran off to New York to be on Broadway, without once thinking about the child she’d left behind. And every year when Christmas rolls around, it’s the memory of that night – Mum in her green coat and the thunder crashing around the house – that consumes me.
‘I’m not waiting a minute longer!’ Nana calls.
‘Another thirty seconds!’ I shout. I pull my purple hoodie over my head.
‘I’m counting to ten!’ Nana replies.
I tumble out of my room and down the stairs. Nana is brushing her black coat free of Derry’s hairs. I take my scarf from the hallstand and wrap it around my neck a few times.
Nana’s been spending the morning peeling parsnips and potatoes for dinner. The Brussels sprouts are soaking in broth and the turkey is slow cooking in the oven. The whole house smells of orange and cranberry stuffing.
Unlike me, Nana still loves Christmas. Every year she plays her favourite carols on repeat and turns the volume up really loud when
In the Bleak Midwinter
comes on. The sound of her singing fills the whole house and forces me to hide out with Derry, our Labrador, in my room. Nana isn’t really much of a singer, but she’s very enthusiastic.
Nana leaves the clothes brush on the hall table and tucks her feet into a pair of navy, low-heeled slip-ons. ‘Where do you think you’re going in those?’ she says. She points at my trainers. I don’t answer because it’s a rhetorical question. She uses them when she’s annoyed. ‘We’re going to Mass and it’s
Christmas
.’
‘They’re comfortable. And they’re only a bit scuffed,’ I say.
Derry sniffs my feet, giving away the fact that they probably smell. I shoo him away with the toe of one trainer.
‘I don’t mind what you wear as long as it’s clean and those old things are
not
clean. Wear some nice shoes please,’ she says in her soft Irish voice that’s both gentle and firm.
The only
nice
shoes I have are heavy and blister my heels. I’m about to tell Nana this, when her eyes meet a spot on my hoodie.
‘Now come on, Apple, what are you playing at? You don’t have a clean top on either?’ she asks. I scratch at the spot where I dripped egg yolk this morning. I’d forgotten about it, and you’d think by Nana’s tone and big bulging eyes that the blotch was poisonous. ‘It’s my favourite top,’ I say. And I want to wear it. I want to wear it with my smelly trainers.
‘Get yourself up those stairs immediately and change, young lady,’ Nana says. She pinches her mouth into a prune. When she does this, there’s no arguing. When she does this, I always wish my mum were still here.
In my room, I squeeze into a dress and a pair of too-tight lace-up shoes. The last time I wore this outfit was six months ago to Nana’s friend’s funeral. Since then, Nana hasn’t stopped talking about death. She says things like,
Oh, you’ll miss me when I’m six feet under like poor Marjorie
or
I don’t want everyone wearing black to my funeral, Apple. A bit of pink here and there won’t harm
. It’s not good for a thirteen-year-old to be around someone who thinks she’s going to drop dead any second. I told Nana as much, and she laughed, flipping her head back and showing off her black fillings and missing teeth. But I didn’t understand what was so funny.
When I get back downstairs, Nana is penning Derry into the kitchen. His golden hair is all over her coat again. ‘Much better,’ Nana says, seeing me. I go to Derry and kiss his silky ears. He turns and slobbers all over my mouth. Nana grimaces. ‘Oh, Apple, he licks his boy bits and then you let him lick your face. It’s disgusting.’
Nana double-locks the front door and hurries ahead of me down the path to the car. Seagulls squawk and circle in the sky. A fog is climbing up the hill from the beach.
I slip into the back seat, because Nana still won’t let me ride with her in the front, and do up my belt. My feet already feel cut up from the shoes. I can hardly breathe in the dress.
‘Do you think she might come home today?’ I ask.
‘Who?’ Nana says. I don’t reply. She studies me in the rear-view mirror. ‘I don’t think so, Apple. Do you?’
I shake my head. I know Mum isn’t going to magically show up today or any other day. Just because she left at Christmas doesn’t mean that’s when she’ll come back.
And who knows, she might never come back at all.
After dinner, Dad and Trish arrive from London carrying a bag of presents and an M&S trifle. Trish nips my cheek between her fingers and Dad kisses the top of my head.
‘Everything well with you?’ he asks.
I nod.
‘School ticking along?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Sorry I missed the end of term concert.’
‘That’s OK,’ I say.
‘You’ll have to play me a tune from it later,’ he says.
‘OK.’
Even though Dad lives less than two hours away, I don’t see him much. Not since Trish showed up.
Dad and Trish got married three years ago. It was completely out of the blue. One day he made me speak to Trish on the phone, and the next they asked me to be their bridesmaid. I said yes, not knowing I was going to be forced to wear a bright yellow dress that made me look like a stuffed lemon. Trish only spoke to me once the whole day, to tell me to ‘cheer up’ because she didn’t want me spoiling the photographs. She really shouldn’t have said anything because then I went out of my way to ruin them. I stuck out my tongue and rolled my eyes back in my head and even pretended to be crying. I thought it was hilarious until the photos got delivered and Dad went ballistic. He said he’d spent over a thousand pounds on the photographer and made me write a long, fake letter of apology to Trish.