Girl Unknown (15 page)

We finished off the Margaux and I opened a Châteauneuf-du-Pape. After the goose, there was pudding, and we all agreed that we were too stuffed for cheese. Outside the window, the sky had darkened. No one said it, but it was clear that Zoë wasn’t coming.

‘No word?’ Caroline asked, as we cleared away the dishes.

‘No. I wonder what happened to her.’

‘Maybe she went up to Belfast after all.’ She put the detergent tablet into the dishwasher and flipped the door closed.

‘You’d think she’d have rung,’ I said.

Caroline gave me a sidelong glance that seemed laden with wry weariness, but didn’t say anything. All day she had seemed to be giving off something – a kind of relief that Zoë hadn’t turned up. It wasn’t anything she said
per se
, just the relaxed relish she took in the day without Zoë, as I perceived it.

‘I just hope she’s okay,’ I added, prodded by anxiety. It wasn’t like Zoë, no matter what Caroline was implying.

‘I wouldn’t worry,’ came her sharp reply. She wiped her hands on the towel, then threw it on to the counter with a flourish. ‘I’m sure she’ll be in touch when she needs something.’

As it happened, it was not Zoë who got in touch, but someone else.

Christmas Day passed and I dropped my mother home the following morning. Afterwards, Caroline and I took the kids for a hike up around the Three Rock Mountain – a St Stephen’s Day tradition. I walked with a hand in my pocket, clutching my phone, waiting to feel it vibrate with an incoming call or text, something to explain Zoë’s absence. I had left several messages, dropping any pretence of casualness as the time passed and there was no response from her.

Back home, I went straight through into the kitchen, putting on the kettle for tea, my hands and feet still numb from the bitter cold of the mountain air. I didn’t hear the
phone ringing in the hall. It was only when I heard Caroline’s voice saying, ‘Is she all right? What happened?’ that the rigour of her questions and her polite but worried tone alerted me to trouble. I stood in the kitchen doorway, watching her speaking into the phone, growing more anxious as she said: ‘Of course. I’ll let him know immediately. He’ll be over right away.’

My mother
, I thought.

But it was not my mother.

‘It’s Zoë,’ Caroline told me, her eyes fixed on my face, choosing her words carefully. ‘She’s in hospital.’

‘
What?
’

‘She’s fine, David. She’s out of danger.’

‘What happened?’

Lowering her tone, so the children in the next room wouldn’t hear, she said: ‘She took an overdose.’

Weakness came into my legs. The numbness left my extremities and I felt the stinging pain of pricking needles all over my feet and hands as the blood came rushing into them. ‘She tried to kill herself?’

Caroline didn’t answer that. Instead she told me which hospital and named the ward where Zoë was. I grabbed the keys from the hall table where I had left them and went back outside. My hands were trembling as I started the engine – it was still warm.

It’s something no parent ever wishes to see – their child lying helpless in a hospital bed. Even though Zoë had been a stranger to me only months before, even though I had missed all the birthdays and Christmas mornings of her childhood, the first day at school, the hockey matches
and end-of-year plays, as soon as I saw her lying there, tubes travelling into her veins, I felt a rush of protective love so strong that I had to stop and collect myself, lest all that emotion might break inside me and flood out.

She was lying on her side, a blanket covering her body. She was not fully awake – sedated, perhaps, or deep in a depression. A bruise blossomed on her hand where an IV had been inserted. I wanted to reach out and touch her, but I was afraid of disturbing her.

As I approached the bed, her head turned. As soon as she saw me, the mask fell away, her face contorting with tears that seemed to gust through her, savage and raw.

‘Zoë,’ I said softly, pulling a chair up next to her.

She was trying to cover her face, hiding her brokenness from me, but the sobbing and shaking spoke of her fragility. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, the words coming out liquid and halting, spoken between gulped breaths.

‘Sssh,’ I whispered. ‘You don’t need to apologize. I’m just glad you’re all right.’

She continued to cry but the sobbing had lost some of its raw edge, and while she was still upset, I could see she was calming. Passing my eyes over her, I noticed how pale and gaunt she was, skeletal under that harsh lighting. All the colour had drained from her – even her hair looked drab and lifeless. She was wearing a hospital gown, her bare arms emerging from the printed cotton. I was so used to seeing her swathed in baggy jumpers, or long-sleeved T-shirts, the cuffs tugged down over her wrists and hands. With a shock, I saw the markings on the inside of her arms – a series of vicious little cuts, as if a cat had clawed her, over and over. Some were fairly new, the
scabs still present, while others had healed into fine pink lines, and a few had faded almost completely. I saw those lines and felt emotion inflate within me, tears of shock and pity coming unexpectedly. I swallowed them, taking her hand.

‘What happened?’ I asked gently. ‘You can tell me.’

‘You must wish you’d never met me,’ she said hoarsely.

‘Not at all. In fact, quite the opposite.’ It surprised me how much I meant those words. ‘Please tell me, Zoë. I promise I won’t judge. I just want to understand.’

She turned over so that she was lying on her back, staring up at the ceiling. Her face looked flatter, her eyes dulled. She had let go of my hand but still I sat close, leaning towards her, waiting.

‘It just got too much,’ she began. ‘Everything got on top of me. I felt like I was drowning.’

I nodded encouragement. When she didn’t go on, I prompted her: ‘Was it your studies? A lot of students struggle in the first year. It’s very common.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed, but I could sense the tug of reluctance within her and knew there was something more.

‘There’s still plenty of time to catch up,’ I offered. ‘It’s only the end of Semester One.’

‘Time,’ she said drily. The tears were gone now, and what remained was dry deflation. ‘That’s part of the problem. I have no time.’

I knew that she had a part-time job to help pay her rent, but as she detailed the jobs she had and the hours she needed to work to pay her bills, it became clear to me the burden under which she was struggling, and how little time remained for her studies.

‘What about Gary?’ I asked, feeling somewhat awkward at mentioning his name. ‘I had the impression that he was helping you financially, paying your fees at least?’

Even as I said the words, I felt fraudulent. I was Zoë’s father, not Gary. Why did I expect a man I had never met to pay for my daughter’s education?

‘Gary has made it obvious that he wants nothing more to do with me.’

She enunciated the words clearly, hardness entering her tone. There was a warning there to keep away, not to prod the sore too deeply. For now, I resolved to leave it be.

‘How do you manage?’ I asked. ‘With all these part-time jobs, you must barely have time to go to class, let alone study.’

In a voice still scratched from the recent tubes down her throat, she described to me the various uppers and downers she took to get the work done, how she used medications to keep her awake through half the night when she needed to study, and then to induce rapid sleep. It was depressing listening to it, hearing the dry clack of her tongue against the roof of her mouth, her tiny frame dwarfed by the bed, the hospital cubicle, the austere reek of disinfectant in my nose.

‘Well, that has to stop,’ I said, a fatherly, instructive tone creeping into my voice. ‘You can’t keep that up. Look at what it’s doing to your body.’

‘I know.’

‘Zoë, something must have prompted you to do this now,’ I said, as calmly as I could. ‘What was it?’

She tried to prop herself up, but had hardly the strength to do so. Reaching for a bottle of water on the side table,
she took a sip, then settled back against the pillow. She appeared sullen, a little ashamed, perhaps. ‘It’s stupid,’ she admitted. ‘I’m such a cliché. Trying to kill myself on Christmas Day. The psych nurse they sent around to talk to me told me they get more suicide attempts at Christmas than any other time of the year.’

‘I suppose that makes sense. A lot of people find Christmas hard.’

‘Yeah. And without Mam, it’s just …’ Her voice died away.

‘What about us, Zoë? We wanted you to have Christmas at the house. We were all expecting you. Robbie was really disappointed –’

‘You won’t tell him, will you?’ she asked quickly, panic in her eyes.

‘Zoë –’

‘Please? I couldn’t bear it.’ She started to cry again, and I put my hand on her arm to reassure her.

‘It’s okay, sweetheart,’ I said, the endearment slipping out as easily as it would were Holly lying in the bed needing comfort.

She settled back, the fright going out of her eyes, but she remained uneasy. ‘I’ve let you down,’ she stated.

‘No, you haven’t.’

‘It was kind of you to invite me for Christmas. But as the time drew near, I just knew I couldn’t come. You were only inviting me because you felt sorry for me.’

‘That’s not true,’ I argued, feeling a warm breath of anger. ‘The only person feeling sorry for you was you. I asked you because I wanted you to be there. Because you’re my daughter and that makes you part of my family.’

‘David, you don’t even know me. There are things I’ve done …’

Her voice trailed off and she turned her face away. The words spoken, she seemed more lucid than she had since I’d sat down. It chilled me to hear them.

‘Listen,’ I said. ‘As soon as you’re discharged, I want you to come and stay with us. There’s a spare room in the attic. You’d be comfortable. Safe.’

She didn’t answer. Already her eyes were closing, as if she were locking me out, wanting to be alone again with her troubled thoughts, her guilty secrets.

‘Live with us? Isn’t that a bit rash?’ Caroline said.

‘She tried to kill herself. I’m her father – it’s the very least I can do.’

She was preparing dinner and I watched as she sliced an aubergine, placing each sliver carefully in a colander and sprinkling it with salt. ‘I know,’ she said softly. ‘It’s hard to take in, that’s all. What she did. It seems unbelievable.’

‘I just think if we can get her back here, provide her with some stability and support, help her get back on her feet again, it will be better for everyone.’

Caroline turned on the tap and rinsed her hands. ‘What should we tell the children?’

‘Zoë doesn’t want them to know what she did.’

‘David –’

‘Please. She’s ashamed.’

‘Are we to lie to them about it?’

I shrugged, a mean thought entering my head:
You’ve lied to them before. You’ve lied to all of us.

‘I feel very uneasy about this – all of it,’ she said,
wiping her hands on the towel. ‘She’s clearly unstable and vulnerable, and I’m not sure she’s a good influence on Robbie and Holly. I mean, what if she tries to do it again?’

‘I don’t think that’s going to happen.’

‘But what if it does?’

‘You know what, Caroline? If it were anyone else – the child of a friend of ours, one of Robbie’s pals – you’d be flinging wide the doors, laying down the red carpet for them.’

She turned away and hung the tea-towel over the rail of the cooker. Her back still to me, I heard her say: ‘She makes me uneasy.’

With her admission, the air between us seemed to deflate, the tension easing.

I went to stand behind her, put my hands on her shoulders and leaned in so the side of my face was close to hers. ‘She needs us, love,’ I said gently. ‘She has nothing, no one. Only us.’

A brief hesitation, and then her hand reached up to cover mine.

‘I’ll go and make up her room,’ she said.

I stood in the corridor by the lifts, waiting for Zoë. There was a window looking on to the tops of the trees, the rooftops of Merrion and Ballsbridge. Outside, the evening was cold and still. I felt a stirring of nerves in my chest. The sky was a bright blue, so clear I could see as far as Howth Head beyond the bay. Seagulls called loud and clear. My fingers tapped impatiently on the sill.

It was back with me again, the
déjà vu
– the nervous energy in my body fizzing. Something had changed
between us, and even though I felt as if I were carrying all the giddy expectancy of a younger man, the solid mass of our bond lay underneath. The hours I had spent with her at the hospital over the past few days, holding her hand, listening to her, comforting her, I had felt it announce itself so strongly that I wondered how I had ever questioned it. I thought of the DNA test I had ordered, the deceitful manner of it, and felt ashamed.

A door opened and I turned to see her carrying her bag, shoulders slumped forward in her grey hoodie, but she gave a half-smile when she saw me and I felt a bloom of hope.

‘Hey,’ she said shyly, and I took the bag from her.

‘Plenty of rest, the doctor said,’ I told her, as I pressed the button to call the lift.

I put my arm about her shoulders. She felt so slight against me, enclosed within my embrace as the lift doors opened, but I could see our reflections in the mirror and she was smiling. For the time being at least, she was safe.

13. Caroline

That first night, David spent a long time up in her room, his low, sonorous tones coming down the narrow stairs as I stood on the landing, looking up at the closed door. I kept thinking of the dark shadows around her eyes and mouth, lending an austere grace to her beauty. The tragic princess. Afterwards, when he came downstairs, he said little of what they had talked about.

‘She’s calm,’ was all he said, as if that was his primary concern.

One by one we went to bed.

I lay awake staring at the ceiling, thinking of her in the room above us. I couldn’t tell if David was asleep beside me. Perhaps he, too, was listening for noises overhead, light footsteps across the floorboards, the gentle creaking of the bed as she turned over. I was listening attentively, every nerve alive to the sensation of this stranger in my home.