The Heart Whisperer (31 page)

‘Too late!' Eilish said as Kelly stepped into the lift and the doors closed. Claire hobbled back to the sofa to put her own boots back on again and they went back down to the ground floor so she could finish her shopping. Her dad had told Nick he wasn't up to ‘any fuss' this Christmas and ‘fuss' seemed to include Claire coming over for dinner, so she was spending the day at Richard's parents' house. Eilish was going to look after Dog.

Claire had already picked up a panettone in Carluccio's and a side of smoked salmon in Wright's. She had bought Richard a black cashmere scarf and a pair of soft brown leather gloves. She'd found a book of Carol Ann Duffy poetry for his mother and
a Douglas Kennedy novel for his father. That just left his sisters, and five minutes at the Benefit counter sorted that.

‘Come on,' Eilish said when they were finished. ‘I need a killer outfit for the Emerald Warriors wrap party.'

‘I'm so glad you're finishing up. I've missed you.' Claire took her arm and they went outside to join the river of shoppers flowing along Grafton Street beneath the canopy of Christmas lights. ‘I can't wait for you to be back in Dublin full time.'

‘I won't be back just yet. Pete's just won the contract for the second series of Warriors so I'll be on location for most of the spring.'

‘But your face is healed. I thought you were going to start trying to get back into acting.'

‘I will,' Eilish steered Claire round a group of carol singers, ‘when this contract is over. But I can't let Pete down. That van would be closed down by the HSE if it wasn't for me.'

‘Deja Vus' was where Eilish made all her best vintage finds. She flicked through the rails and pulled out a short yellow and green pinafore with a narrow orange belt. ‘What do you think?'

‘Mmmmm,' Claire said tactfully. ‘It's kind of Zooey Deschanel.'

‘Right. If Zooey was blind drunk or partially sighted.' Eilish turned to a rack of shoes and boots. ‘Christmas with the parents, that's pretty momentous. Does this mean that Richard might be,' she held up a pair of white stilettos like quotation marks, ‘ “the one”?'

Claire remembered the night she'd seen her parents dancing in the living room. Her mum's face pressed against her dad's chest. Her eyes closed as she swayed against him. The tender look on her dad's face that time Claire had seen him carrying her mum in his arms into their bedroom. ‘How are you supposed to know?'

‘I don't know but I wouldn't hang around for sky-writing. They phase that out when you hit thirty.' Eilish pulled out a pair of seventies wooden platforms with ‘love' in different languages carved into the wedges. ‘Richard certainly seems to be crazy about you.'

‘I just wish he was crazier about Dog.' Richard hated the way
Dog's fur got on his suits or the way he tried to burst into the bedroom at inappropriate moments and he hated having to watch the news on RTE instead of Sky.

‘Claire!' Eilish slipped her feet into the shoes and looked at herself in a speckled mirror. ‘You're doing it again!'

‘What?'

‘Finding a way to sabotage yourself. You weren't Dog's number-one fan yourself till a while ago.'

Claire sighed. ‘We've just reached an understanding.'

Eilish kicked the shoes off, picked them up and checked the price sticker.

‘Well, I'm going to invest fifteen euros in these lucky “love” shoes to bring you good luck because I think that you, Claire Dillon, might be falling in love, “l'amour”, “amore”, “liebe” and,' she squinted at the words carved into the wooden wedges, “zamilowanie”.' She shook her head. ‘And they say Polish isn't a romantic language.'

Aine popped a chunk of smoked salmon in her mouth.

‘You're an animal!' Richard tried to pull it away from her. ‘Claire is going to make smoked salmon and scrambled eggs.'

‘I don't mind!' Claire was quite happy to skip making breakfast on Christmas morning. Eilish had talked her through it but she was terrified she'd burn the eggs or undercook them and give Richard's entire family salmonella.

Helen came running into the kitchen with tinsel around her neck and a set of battery-operated fairy lights in her hair.

‘Let's go swimming.' She planted a set of antlers on Richard's head.

He groaned. ‘Can't we just skip it this year? It's minus two out there!'

‘Exactly!' Helen said. ‘It's minus you two! Come on, you big chicken!' She rolled up a slice of salmon and posted it into Andreas's mouth.

‘Is chicken?' He chewed it. ‘It tastes of the fish.'

‘We're going to have to do it,' Aine sighed, ‘or Helen will keep this up all night. It's a Christmas Eve tradition,' she explained to
Claire, ‘you only have to get into the sea for a few seconds. I can lend you a bikini unless you want to skinny-dip.'

Claire swallowed. ‘I might just stay here, if that's OK.'

‘We have a Lidl wetsuit!' Helen took her arm. ‘You can have that!'

‘I don't think so—'

Helen grabbed her other arm. ‘We'll let you off ‘cos it's your first year. But you have to come and watch!'

Richard drove. Helen had brought the salmon, wrapped in tinfoil, and a hip flask of brandy that she passed around the car. Claire hated brandy but she took a few mouthfuls to try to settle the trembling in her stomach.

They drove along winding country roads between bare trees and grey hedgerows, then Richard took a sharp left along a narrow track and, there, ahead of her, was the wide grey expanse of the Irish Sea. Claire's heart jumped up into her throat. Richard pulled over and parked a few feet away from where the beach started. She had never been on a beach holiday. Never been to a swimming pool. Never taken a ferry. This was as close to the sea as she had been since she was six.

The others were giggling and struggling out of their clothes in the back. Richard got out and undressed, folding his sweater and his jeans and putting them neatly on the driver's seat. Through the open door, Claire could hear the roar of the surf. The muffled thump of breaking waves, the clatter of the shingle.

‘Richard, don't go in, please.' Her hand was shaking when she put it on his arm. ‘It's not safe.'

‘It's not heated. That's the problem.' He leaned in and kissed her.

‘OK, people!' Helen took a final gulp of brandy. ‘Let's do this thing!'

They grabbed one another's hands and raced, whooping, across the sand to the sea. Helen in a pink bra and knickers with a tattoo of angel's wings on her back, the tiny lights in her hair sparkling in the dusk. Aine in a gold halter-neck bikini with a tinsel halo. Andreas in black Speedos and reindeer antlers. Richard in Hawaiian shorts.

Claire closed the window then closed her eyes so that she didn't have to see them running into the sea. She counted under her breath to keep herself calm. She was at nine hundred and four when they all fell back into the car, soaked, shivering and laughing.

‘Wow!' Richard's face was flushed and his goose-bumped skin was silvered with drops of water. He grabbed Claire and kissed her. His lips were so cold that she had to force herself not to pull away.

Richard went into the pub to get the drinks while the others waited on the village street under red and white Christmas lights with bags of hot, salty chips. Claire couldn't eat hers. Her palms were clammy and she was shivering, even though Richard had given her his sheepskin jacket.

‘Come in, planet Claire!' Helen jabbed the air in front of her with a chip. ‘I was asking if Richard's invited you to come skiing with us at Easter.'

Claire nodded.

‘Mum will be devastated if you don't.' Aine licked salt from her fingers. ‘She's probably at mass right now begging the Baby Jesus not to let the white sheep let you slip through his fingers. Hooves. Whatever sheep have.'

‘Dear God.' Helen sank to her knees in the street and gazed up at a flashing neon Santa over the pub door. ‘In your infinite wisdom, grant the Byrne family the gift of the lovely Claire. And lead us not back into the dark days of the Celtic Tiger when we had to put up with Foxrock Fannies in head-to-toe Max Mara who thought we were a shower of muckers because we didn't have our “hoor” styled by Dylan Bradshaw or have jobs in “morketing”. Amen.'

The queue outside the chip shop applauded and Helen got up and bowed, then made Claire bow too.

It was another Byrne family tradition that everyone had to be in bed by midnight on Christmas Eve and, to Claire's relief, they all went along with it, even Helen. At ten to twelve she turned off the
fairy lights in her hair and went to make everyone hot-water bottles.

Richard's dad had insisted on separate rooms for the guests but Claire was glad that she'd be sleeping on her own in the tiny single bedroom under the eaves. She'd done her best to try to be bright and chatty while they sat round the fire playing charades but she just wanted to be on her own now.

“Night, Claire!' Richard kissed her outside the bathroom on the landing. ‘Sweet dreams.'

Richard's mother put her head around the door. ‘You can sneak into Richard's room if you like. I don't think Sean will do a midnight raid.'

‘It's OK,' Claire said. ‘I'm happy to be on my own.'

Jean came in and sat beside her on the bed. Her hair was caught up in an bun with a wonky chopstick. She was wearing a grey man's dressing gown and there was a little blob of moisturiser by her ear. ‘Are you missing Christmas at home?'

Claire nodded. She wasn't missing the strained, awkward Christmases, when she and her dad ate a roast chicken at the kitchen table then watched TV in front of the electric fire. She was missing the Christmases when her mum had made hot punch for Santa Claus and sung ‘Happy Birthday' to Jesus when she brought the turkey to the table.

Jean sighed. ‘Christmas is a tough time of the year, when you've lost someone. Richard told us that your mother died when you were very young. What happened?'

Claire pulled her sleeves down over her knuckles. ‘She drowned.'

‘I'm so sorry.' Jean's eyes went to the watercolour on the wall above the bed, a seascape with storm clouds. ‘That must have been so hard. Who looked after you?'

‘My brother did a lot.'

‘It's not the same.' Jean shook her head. ‘Girls need their mothers. I should know, I have two daughters. What was she like, your mum? Are you like her?'

‘We look a bit alike,' Claire bit her lip, ‘but we're not really. She'd done so much by the time she was my age.'

‘And you think that matters? That you haven't done all the things she did?'

Jean's eyes were so kind that Claire had to look away. She stared down at the floor. ‘It does matter,' she said quietly. ‘Because she saved my life and then she drowned.' It was more than she had told anyone except Ray but it still wasn't the truth. Not the whole of it. She could feel Jean's eyes on her face.

‘What a heroic thing to do. She sounds like an amazing woman.'

Claire touched her locket. ‘She was only thirty-three.'

‘Look at me.' Claire couldn't, so Jean took her hands. ‘Listen to me. Your mother gave you life twice and the best thing you can do is live your life.'

‘I'm trying to be more like her—'

‘Don't do that,' Jean said. ‘Be true to yourself.'

‘I don't know how.'

‘This is going to sound like a Hallmark line, but all you have to do is listen to your heart.' She put her arms around Claire and hugged her. She smelt of Nivea and marzipan. ‘But you have to listen very carefully,' she said, ‘because, most of the time, your head is shouting so loudly that you can't hear your heart whispering.'

Claire wanted to sleep but when she closed her eyes, she was on the beach again. Her mum's long red hair had turned brown and separated into thin tails. Her face was red and she was panting. She bent over and spat up a mouthful of sea water. She tried to pick Claire up again but Claire struggled out of her arms. Her mum shook her head in frustration. Drops of water flew in glittering arcs from the ends of her hair. A trickle from her locket ran down between her breasts. ‘It's OK, nothing bad is going to happen!' She squatted down and put her hands on Claire's wet, shaking shoulders. The whites of her eyes were criss-crossed with tiny red lines. She looked ugly. ‘What's wrong with you, Claire? You've been like this all day. What is it?'

It was at the back of Claire's head like the headache she got after eating too much ice cream, or a wobbly tooth that her tongue was too frightened to touch. She didn't know what it
was, just that it was there. She began to sob, tears mixing with the water that ran from her own wet hair.

‘What is it?' her mum asked her. ‘Tell me!' Claire had to say something but she couldn't, so she pointed at her swimming ring instead. The waves had picked it up and it was ten or fifteen yards away from the shore now. A small, cheery pink circle against the dark wall of grey.

‘I lost my swimming ring!' she whispered.

‘Is that all? We'll get you another one.' Her mum smiled. ‘We'll buy one on the way home in Wicklow.'

Claire shook her head. She meant,
no, that isn't what it is
. But her mum didn't understand.

‘Fine! I'll get it.' Her mum stood up and waded back into the sea. She swam in a perfectly straight line, lifting her face to breathe and then plunging it back in again. But every time she reached the ring, the wind picked it up and it skipped away again.

Claire sat on the cold sand, her breath coming in shallow little gasps, her fingers digging into the damp grit, watching the dark dot of her mother's head grow smaller and smaller.

She heard something behind her, and when she looked over at the picnic rug, she saw the big yellow dog. He knocked over the flask and stuck his nose into the picnic basket then pulled out the birthday cake her mother had wrapped in tinfoil. Claire wasn't afraid of dogs, not back then. She had asked for a puppy for her birthday.