The One I Love (6 page)

“Not unless there’s something you’re not telling me.”

“There isn’t,” Elle said, and admitted it was a desire that had passed and she had no intention of getting pregnant in 2008 either. She resumed reading. “‘Six: I’ll be nicer to Jane.’”

“You’re always nice to me,” Jane said, smiling.

“I said no talking,” Elle said sternly.

Jane pulled her index finger and thumb across her lips to indicate that she was zipping them.

“‘Seven: I’ll take Vincent to China.’” Elle stopped reading, and both women reflected on what had happened while Elle and her boyfriend Vincent were in China, but it was far too painful for either to rehash it so Elle moved on. “‘Eight: I’ll grow my own vegetables.’” She stopped and smiled at Jane, who was still ruminating on China but when Elle’s eyes met hers she brightened.

“You made a complete mess of that,” she said, remembering the amount of money, time and effort Elle had put into growing her own vegetables to end up with nothing but one crop of pretty poor-tasting potatoes, and some carrots that looked like they’d been shipped in from Chernobyl, never mind the damage she’d done to the patch of land closest to their mother’s gardenias.

Elle laughed. “Remember Mum’s face?”

“‘What the fock’s happened to my garden?’” Jane said, mimicking her mother’s
faux
-posh accent. It was a funny memory and a good distraction from China.

“‘Nine: I’ll start a pension fund.’”

“You already have a pension fund. I set it up ten years ago.”

“Oh, good. ’Cos I didn’t start one. Right. Ten,” Elle said, and bit her lip.

“What?” Jane asked.

“You might have a problem with this one.”

“What?” Jane asked again, becoming quite nervous. “What did you do?”

Elle cleared her throat. “‘Ten: I’ll take Kurt skydiving.’”

Jane jumped up and pointed at her sister. “Oh, no, you didn’t?” Actual tears were springing into her eyes. “You didn’t push my child out of a plane?”

“Of course I didn’t push him,” Elle said soothingly. “The qualified instructor pushed him.”

Jane’s mouth was open but no sound was coming out.

“He loved it and he’s fine and it’s over.” Elle was wishing she had kept number ten to herself.

“When?” Jane managed to ask.

“End of April, in good time for his birthday.”

“Seventeen-year-olds need parental consent.”

“Yeah, I gave that,” Elle said, holding her hand up.

“How could you give parental consent seeing as you are not his parent and there’s less than nine years between you?” Jane asked, through gritted teeth.

“I must look older than I am.”

Jane walked to the door.

Elle called after her, “Please don’t be annoyed!” But Jane was annoyed and now Elle was sorry.

“You can’t just do whatever you want to do, Elle.”

“I know. I’m sorry. He’d been begging me for years and I did hold out until he was seventeen.”

Jane shook her head. “I’m really pissed off with you.”

“I know. Sorry.”

Jane opened Elle’s sliding door.

Elle shouted after her, “So are you still going to that party with Tom?”

Jane turned to face her younger sister. “Yes,” she said, and sighed. “Are you coming?” she asked hopefully.

“I’d rather be dead. Anyway, Vincent’s taking me out.”

“You could bring Vincent,” Jane said, with hope in her voice.

“It’s New Year’s Eve and you’re spending it with the family of a missing friend who you haven’t known since you were seventeen. You have got to learn how to say no.”

“I couldn’t. Breda asked Tom if I’d come and –”

“And she knitted that bloody blanket. Jesus, Jane!”

“Right. I’m going.” Jane turned to walk away.

“Happy New Year!”

“Happy New Year,” Jane responded, “and, Elle, don’t think that because I want you at that party it means I’m not really pissed off because I am.”

Elle’s intercom buzzed just as Jane closed her door. She picked up the receiver and a man told her he was standing outside the main gate with flowers. She buzzed him in and told him where to find her. She reopened the door and waved to him as he made his way down the garden.

“Elle Moore?”

“That’s me.”

She signed for the flowers and closed the door. She smelt them and smiled. She opened the card and the smile quickly faded.

Elle,

Like the song goes, I want you, I need you, but let’s face it, I’m never going to love you. We’ve had four good years so let’s start ’08 with a clean slate.

Yours,

Vincent

Elle’s legs turned to jelly, her ears began to burn and her stomach tightened so much that there was no room for her breakfast. She ran to the toilet and threw up, then sat on the floor and gazed at the note with a sense of disbelief that was overwhelming.

For six years running Jane had joined Elle at the back of their garden to retrieve her letter to the Universe and for six years running she had discovered something she didn’t want to know. And yet, although her sister had taken her son skydiving after she had expressly forbidden it and she was so annoyed she could have spat, she knew she would partake in her sister’s reading again. Five years ago, after a particularly nasty surprise involving her sister and an intended sexual encounter with a prostitute named Cora, it occurred to her that she should dig up Elle’s letter to the Universe every January and read it to get a heads-up on what she’d planned for the year. But Jane was terrible at espionage, as had been proved seventeen years previously when she had only managed to conceal her pregnancy from her mother for two hours. “
What’s wrong with you?
”

“
Nothing
.”

“
Oh, my God, you’re pregnant!
”

If she dug up the letter Elle would find out and she’d never trust Jane again so she couldn’t risk it, even though she often stood on the spot that was five feet from her mother’s rose bushes and between six and eight feet from Jeffrey’s head and was sorely tempted.

For instance, there had been the year that Elle had promised the Universe she’d give money to Comic Relief. She’d watched the show, got drunk and pledged a hundred grand. Jane had argued that, although people all over the world were in need, Elle didn’t know if she’d sell another painting that year, and although Ricky Gervais was funny he wasn’t that fucking funny. Elle had laughed and called her mean, but it was Jane who paid Elle’s bills when she’d squandered all her money by June and had to wait three months for the next big cheque.

There had been the year she’d promised to rescue a dog and ended up rescuing ten from different pounds across Dublin. Two weeks and two tons of dog-shit later it had become apparent to all but Elle that she couldn’t care for them. It had fallen to Jane to rehome them and Elle had taken to her bed for two weeks, mourning the dogs she couldn’t seem to remember to care for. There was the year she’d decided to run a marathon and forgotten to prepare. She’d made it twenty miles before she collapsed, suffering the effects of exhaustion and a speed overdose. Elle had felt that it was perfectly acceptable to take speed to run a marathon, going so far as to query the doctor as to how in hell he thought she’d make it without.

All of these incidents had caused Jane to deliberate on risking Elle’s wrath, but then she’d conceded that even if she knew of Elle’s plans in advance there would be no way
of stopping her as she was a law unto herself. Their mother said it was her creative nature that drove her to extremes and that neither she nor Jane could ever hope to understand the things that drove her. Jane and Rose didn’t agree on much but they agreed on that. Elle was a genius and everyone knew that genius is close to madness and so as long as Elle painted the most beautiful and inspired paintings she would be indulged.

Jane opened the back door and before she got inside and had time to close it Rose was calling her through the intercom that linked her kitchen with her mother’s in the basement apartment.

“Jane? Jane? Jane? Jane, it’s your mother! Jane! Jane! Jane, have you gone deaf? I know you’re there. I saw you come out of Elle’s cottage. Jane, Jane, will you please answer me, for God’s sake!”

Jane wondered how many times a day her mother shouted through the intercom and abused an empty room. She pressed the button. “I’m here.”

“Are you planning on starving me?”

“To be fair, Rose, I’ve heard that drowning is faster and less cruel.”

“I want eggs, scrambled, dry and fluffy. Not wet and slimy. If I see slime I’ll throw up.”

“I’ll be down in five minutes.”

“I’m hungry now.”

“Oh, fine. I’ll go ahead and pull a plate of scrambled, dry and fluffy eggs from my rectum then, shall I?”

“No need for vulgarity, Jane. You weren’t born in a barn.”

Kurt entered the kitchen in time to witness Jane give the intercom the finger. “Whatever she wants, I’m not doing it,” he said.

“Oh, yes, you are,” Jane said, in a voice her son recognized as his mother meaning business. The look that twisted her face suggested he was in big trouble.

“What?” he asked, trying to work out what he’d been caught doing.

“Skydiving, Kurt?”

“Oh, I’m going to kill Elle!” He flopped onto the chair and pulled his hood over his head, covering his blond curls, and pressed his hands to his ears.

“Skydiving. You know how I feel about skydiving. I said no. Every time you asked me I said no. No means ‘no’. It doesn’t mean ‘maybe’, it doesn’t mean ‘I’ll think about it’ and it sure as Shinola doesn’t mean ‘Go behind Mum’s back with Elle’!”

“Oh, Mum, please stop saying ‘sure as Shinola’ – it sounds retarded. The expression is, ‘You don’t know shit from Shinola.’”

“I don’t give a shit if it is and that’s not the point.”

“You said it the other day in front of Paul and he thought you’d hit your head.”

“Really, I don’t give a Shinola. You cannot get away with deliberately disobeying my rules.”

“Ah, Mum, back off. It was last April. It’s done, over, it was a laugh, it was safe and nobody died.”

“Well, you can forget about tonight.”

“You can’t stop me going out on New Year’s Eve!” he said, with scorn.

“No, probably not, but I can withhold funds.”

Kurt pushed his hood off his head. “You can’t do that. I’ve promised Irene.”

“Tough.”

“I can’t believe you’re doing this to me on New Year’s Eve!” he shouted, and stormed out of the kitchen.

“Yeah, well, believe it and you’d better storm back here in ten minutes flat to bring Rose’s eggs to her or you’re going to be poor for all of January!”

“I hate you!” Kurt screamed at his mother.

“I hate you too!” Jane screamed back, while breaking two eggs into a cup.

Ten minutes later Kurt stormed in, picked up the plate of eggs and stormed out without a word.

Although Jane’s authority had been briefly undermined her power was restored, she was fifty euro richer and she had managed to avoid Rose so her mood brightened considerably.

Kurt made his way down the steps to his grandmother’s basement flat with her tray in one hand, fishing for the key with his other. He opened the door and went inside. The place smelt of air-freshener, cigars and wine, making his eyes water a little. In the small hall he nearly tripped over a stack of unsolicited post that she kept in a pile against the wall. It was stacked so tall that it kept falling over. He had once asked her why she kept it and she had told him that she was waiting for a member of the Green Party to call to her door so that she could throw the paper at him, douse him in alcohol and set him alight. She had been drunk at the time so Kurt hoped she was joking. He opened the door to the sitting room and his grandmother sat up straight in her chair.

When she saw him, her face broke into a smile. Kurt’s relationship with his grandmother was far different from that he had with his mother. Rose idolized her grandson and saved all her grace for him. He laid the tray on the table she kept near the big chair that dominated the room. The chair was referred to as “the throne” by her daughters and she spent most of her time sitting in it. No one dared sit on Rose’s chair, not her daughters, not her friends, not visiting dignitaries and not even her grandson, who was one of the very few people that Rose actually liked. Poking at her eggs, she asked after Jane and he lied and told her she felt fluey.

“Well, then, she may stay away – I prefer you anyway,” she said, winking. She sampled her eggs and made a face to suggest that she was less than impressed. She always made that face. Usually it was for Jane’s benefit but as it had become habit she did it whether Jane was there or not. She sniffed the plate.

“Just eat the eggs,” Kurt said.

Rose took a forkful and popped it into her mouth, rubbed her tummy and made a yum sound. Kurt laughed.

“How’s Irene?” she asked.

“She’s good,” he said, and sat down. “Better, she’ll be fine.”

His grandmother nodded. “Of course she will. So her father’s an ass. She has you, doesn’t she? Is your mother still determined to go to the Walsh household tonight with Alexandra’s husband?”

“She’s dreading it.”

“Of course she’s dreading it. The Walshes have always been complete lunatics. Alexandra was the cheekiest pup I ever met. The mother is one of those holier-than-thou types,
the father hasn’t done a real day’s work since the seventies, and as for her brother Eamonn, that little snot was trying to get into your mother’s pants when she was thirteen!” She stopped and took a breath. “And, anyway, she has no business there – the family are grieving the loss of their child.”

“She’s missing, not dead,” Kurt reminded his grandmother.

“Of course she’s dead,” Rose said. “She’s Valley-of-the-Dead dead.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know this. If someone vanishes without a trace in this day and age they’re buried somewhere and it’s usually someone closest to them who’s done the burying. For all we know your mother’s next.”

Kurt laughed. “Now I know where Elle gets her imagination from.”

“Mark my words. Your mother is getting herself involved in something very bloody sinister there.” She pushed the remaining food on her plate to the side and put down her fork. “I’ve finished.”