The Lost Sister

Love to Dad and all,

Cathy

15 January 1989

Dear Mum,

I can’t believe it’s four years. We went to mass and placed a wreath on your grave. We finally got permission to erect the cross in you and Daddy’s memory. Everyone says it’s not a distraction on the bend. But they see it and it makes them slow down and that’s good. I’m glad the cross is up at last but I hate the reason Becks had to fight to get it there.

Julie’s being nice again. She’s asleep now with the pillow over her head. She came into the room tonight when I was crying about her going away with Sebby and then she cried too and said going away was all hot air and the far away hills are greener than the garden shed or something like that and she tickled me so much I got the hiccups and so did she and Becks yelled at us to behave and stop doing her head in. I’m glad I didn’t tell her about Julie going away because she would have stopped her and had a BIG ROW. This way, Julie made up her mind on her own.

Love to Dad and All,

Cathy

3 February 1989

Dear Mum,

Something happened today. I got my period. I had a pain in my tummy all day and then I saw the blood. Becks said I’m too young. I’m not even a teenager so it must be a mistake. No mistake. She gave me a hot water bottle for my tummy and said the pain will be gone by tomorrow. Julie said I’m now a victim of The Curse and hermoans. She bought me a Curly Wurly bar. I thought you’d like to know. I don’t feel any different. Should I?

Lauren says she doesn’t care if she never gets her period. She should by now. But you can bleed in other ways. I see cuts on her arms, scabs healing. She makes me sick!! I was going to tell Becks but there’ll only be another row so I’m saying nothing for the moment.

I’ll write again soon.

Love to you and Daddy and Gramps and Nero,

Cathy

11 May 1989

Dear Mum,

Major news! I’m going to be an auntie. Talk about trouble. Becks (actually, it’s Rebecca now, she says Becks is kid stuff and, as we all claim to be adults, we must call her by her proper name) went ballistic when she heard. Julie is refusing to marry Paul. She says she’ll take the baby with her in a sling when she’s touring. Small problem. Maximum Volume don’t exist any more. Seb’s gone to Australia and the new guitarist is useless and Paul’s got to do exams to support a wife and child. Wife, my arse, said Julie, are you deaf or what? We’re not getting married!!!!!

Lauren’s staying in her room as usual and I’m spending all my time with Kevin and Melancholia. I’m glad I have friends. They’re so much easier than family. I can’t believe I’m actually going to be an auntie!

Love to Dad and all,

Cathy

22 September 1989

Dear Mum,

Seconderry school is not as bad as I thought. I cycle with Kevin and Melancholia and I sit beside them in the canteen even though I’m only a First Year and that’s insect status as far as the rest of the students are concerned. I’m afraid I didn’t make the top stream like Lauren. I’m in a low stream but who cares…except Becks and that’s just because it reflects badly on her.

Melancholia looks like a Goth even in her school uniform and she couldn’t care less what people think about her. When Jobbo Boland makes a pretend cross sign with his arms and calls her Belladonna, she just laughs and calls him a wanker. I never heard the Cure or the Banshees or Bachaus until she played them. I’m never going to listen to Kylie Minogue again.

Julie is getting bigger every day. Paul still wants to marry her. He must be off his head. She has such a temper and if she’s not sulking she’s bawling her eyes out. She’s never ever getting married.

Love to Dad and all,

Cathy

1 November 1989

Dear Mum

Julie’s wedding was brilliant. She didn’t care about being a whale and kept getting up on the stage to sing with the wedding band. Rebecca walked her up the aisle. It should have been Daddy but Rebecca said we had to make this a happy day. Lauren looked like a mermaid in her bridesmaid’s dress. Mrs Moran eyes slid sideways when Mr Moran was dancing with her and said it’s amazing how quickly young people grow up nowadays when there’s no proper supervision. I thought Rebecca was going to thump her. I would have! Paul nearly had to carry Julie off the stage so that the band could play Congratulations and send them off on their honeymoon to Galway. We used boxes and boxes of confetti. Julie was so huge she needed it all to cover her tummy! And Jeremy Anderson came!! Home from the Big Apple. Guess he didn’t like the taste. He danced with Rebecca and she looked like the happiest woman in the world.

Love to Daddy and all,

Cathy

Chapter Thirteen

Rebecca’s Journal–1989

Never believe your best friend when she promises not to interfere in your love life. Sheila said it was just the two of us meeting for a meal. We’d seen so little of each other since she got engaged to Brian. I figured she wanted to show off her ring and steeled myself to be enthusiastic when she discussed her wedding plans. But I was wrong. I didn’t notice Jeremy at first. Brian blocked him from view until I was almost at the table. Then it was too late to run.

I believed I’d stopped loving him. Convinced myself he meant nothing to me. Believed I hated him for being a coward. Paul stuck by Julie, put up with her moods and her tears and her tantrums and now…well, it’s not exactly a match made in Heaven but he’ll be holding her hand when the baby comes.

Jeremy said he was too young to carry me through the bad times and he ran. It’s hard remembering how I felt then…when I think back to those years they seem dreamlike, as if we were performing a play on a stage and the world was our audience. I remember people walking to the other side of the street, hoping I hadn’t noticed they were avoiding me. I can understand their embarrassment. We were an ordinary family made extraordinary by tragedy. I wouldn’t have known what to say either and, sometimes, it’s better to keep on going.

Jeremy regrets leaving me, the heartache he caused. I try to remember the heartache but I can’t…I think my feelings must have been stirred in the greater melting pot of grief.

He’s older now and he’s back. Little steps. Everything can be done in little steps. He says I can trust him. He’s changed, matured, knows what he wants.

VisionFirst have set up an advertising division in Ireland and sent him back from New York to work in it. I’m not surprised. His persuasive powers are good. Julie says I must be off my head to trust him again. The leopard’s spots are not for changing. But I have to trust him. He’s brought me back to life.

Chapter Fourteen

Letters to Nirvana

22 November 1989

Dear Mum,

I’m a teenager at last. My birthday party was brilliant. Rebecca gave me a stereo. Melancholia gave me Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice and Kevin gave me a CD of the Cure. Lauren gave me scented candles. Julie and Paul gave me a gift voucher for Awear. Jonathan gave me a mug with The Coolest Hip Auntie in Town on it. I still can’t believe he was born on their honeymoon! Julie said pushing out the Rock of Cashel would have been easier. Mrs Mulvaney gave me a pair of Docs. Mr Moran gave me money and Mrs Moran gave me a dictionary. Bitch! Jeremy gave me Lily of the Valley perfume. I have it on me now and it’s gorgeous.

I sleep with Rebecca now. I miss your room but it’s Julie and Paul’s, and I prefer sharing with Rebecca rather than freaky Lauren. It’s strange having a man living in the house. I can’t remember Daddy’s sounds. Paul sings when he’s in the shower and he leaves the toilet seat up and talks to the telly when he’s watching football. He’s given up college and is working with computers. Jonathan is adorable! He looks like Daddy. Everyone says so. When I held him for the first time he gripped my thumb so tight I thought my heart would melt with love for him. Lauren was afraid to hold him in case she let him fall. She never wants to have a baby and that’s just as well because of the accident and what it did to her insides.

Julie’s going to start a new band as soon as she stops breast feeding. Paul can like it or lump it. The only music in her life now is Jonathan crying. At maximum volume!! You and Daddy are grandparents. I hope you know that…I really do hope so.

Love to Daddy and all,

Cathy

2 December 1989

Dear Mum,

Lauren cut herself again. Rebecca had to take her to the doctor. She’s so beautiful, not like me, what’s she trying to do? I’m just an acne dose but she’s always going on and on about how ugly she is and staying in her room all the time writing crazy stuff. I hope she means it when she says never again. That’s all the news for now.

Love to all,

Cathy

15 January 1990

Dear Mum,

It’s five years today. Sometimes it only seems like yesterday but when I think of all that’s changed in those years it seems like forever since I knew you and Daddy.

There’s strange things happening in your graveyard. We saw empty cider bottles and burned grass in the old part where no one is buried any more. Someone wrote Boot Boys Rule OK on a tombstone. Rebecca hates me going there but all we do is listen to our music. Leah doesn’t go on at Melancholia all the time. Neither does Mrs Mulvaney. She let Kevin paint his room black and stick a luminous skeleton on the ceiling. He had his bottom lip pierced with a tiny dagger. You’d laugh if you saw his hair. He’s dyed it jet black and made it straight. He hates fair curls and is sick of being called a blondie pouf! I asked him what it was like kissing girls with a dagger in his lip and he said, do you want to find out? Cheeky.

I still miss you. Do you know it’s five years or does that just seem like a little dot in eternity?

Special love to Dad on this memory day,

Cathy

3 March 1990

Dear Mum,

It’s so fucking unfair! It was all in the Evening Herald about the gravestones and photos too. Your gravestone was all right. It was the old ones that had the graffiti done on them. Nothing to do with me and Kevin and Melancholia but the woman in the house beside the gate told the guards we hang around there all the time. We don’t hang around! We visit your grave if only she’d open her stupid eyes and look. And we don’t smash gravestones but no one believes us. The guards came to the house and talked to Rebecca. They asked us questions about the graffiti and the broken angels and devil worship. One of the guards said Rebecca had better keep a closer eye on me in future or there’ll be more trouble. He made it sound as if it was all her fault. But it’s not. She told me not to go to the graveyard except with her but I like being there with Kevin and Melancholia. Those sick boot boys messed up our rights!!

After the cops left Rebecca slapped my face. She said, that’s for running around with sick Goths. What planet is she on? What sick Goths? Just because Kevin dyes his hair, she keeps saying he’s like a vampire. It’s not fair. I don’t cut myself. I don’t get pregnant like Julie did. So why am I grounded for a fucking month? Thank God, Jeremy is on my side. He thinks Goth is an expression of individuality. It always sounds pretentious when Melancholia says that but he made it sound true. He was always getting into trouble when he was a teenager. His father said he’d never amount to anything but he did. His ad about the shopping centre won an award for innovation. His photo was in the papers. Rebecca stuck it on the fridge. I see him every time I open the door.

No more ouija board. It’s banned from my life. Even if I played snakes and ladders Rebecca would freak! I’d stopped believing in it anyway. I just wanted it to be real because I need to know if you’re in Heaven. I’m finding it harder and harder to believe you’re there…or anywhere except in my head. Maybe you were a dream I dreamed and you and Daddy never existed. Maybe I’m a dream and living in everyone else’s dreams. Maybe angels do come at night and read letters. Maybe it’s not a con job thought up by Lydia Mulvaney to stop me snivelling over her fish fingers and chips.

X

Cathy

20 Oct 1990

Dear Mum,

I’m back in your room again. Julie and Paul have moved out. They used Gramps’ money for a deposit on a house in Swords with wood floors so Jonathan doesn’t have to breathe in the dust from our carpets. It makes his asthma worse. Julie gets so scared when he starts to wheeze but the doctor said asthma is not a problem with the right medication and lots of kids grow out of it. Their next new baby will be born in April. Julie calls it ‘another mistake’ but I know she’ll love it just as much as she loves Jonathan. I cycle to Swords with Kevin once a week and we baby-sit so they can go to the pictures.

Sometimes Jeremy stays over in our house. I saw him kissing Rebecca in the hall last night. I didn’t mean to spy and was only going downstairs to get a glass of milk. Rebecca’s hair was like a rope around his hands and he was pressing her against the wall and whispering, let me stay…they won’t hear anything…I promise…promise…kissing her all the time. I was afraid to move in case they saw me. She let him stay. He was wrong. I heard. It makes my tummy swoop to think of it and the more I try not to the more I do.

Love to Dad and all,

Cathy

5 Nov 1990

Dear Mum,

Serious news. Lauren’s in hospital. We’re all in shock. She keeps saying she didn’t mean to do it so deep and she’s promised Rebecca she’ll never do it again. Is she crazy or what? She’s in a private room with flowers. Mr Moran said it’s only right to look after her properly and he’d pay. He brings her chocolates and fluffy toys. Mrs Moran said if they’d had their way in the beginning, all this could have been avoided. She said it low to Mr Moran so that Rebecca couldn’t hear. But I did. The cheek of her. What does she know about anything except being stinking rich and showing off her fancy house in magazines? They’ll never be our parents, no matter how hard they try. Watch over Lauren and make her stop hurting herself.

Love you all,

Cathy

Chapter Fifteen

Rebecca’s Journal–1990

I was searching under her mattress for blades and I found poems instead. Only a few. I suspect she’s destroyed most of them or maybe hidden them somewhere else. But I’m not going to pretend I know. She values her privacy too much. I cried when I read this one. I thought it was about gardening when I saw the title but she’s obviously still clinging to memories of our mother. At least, in this instance, Lauren has released them in ink, not blood.

Crying is not for the faint-hearted. I thought I’d never stop. Only that Jeremy was calling…I don’t ever want him to see me in such a state. We’ve moved on from that time…tick tock tick tock tick…

I’ve copied this poem and others into the journal. Some day when she’s stronger, I’ll persuade her to send them to a publisher.

Deadheading the Red Geraniums

I watch you

Deadheading the red geraniums

The withered petals

Blood-staining your hands

When you snap the head

From its slender stem.

I watch you

Breathe the perfumed air

As sweet peas waltz

On bamboo stilts.

Adrift in pink until the pods

Wither and decay.

I watch you

Gather roses: crimson, cream and peach.

The prayerful thorns sink

Into your flesh.

Stigmata lifting you

Across the deep abyss.

I watch you

Stroke the birch, the silvery bark.

A family tree, denuded.

A wafer fragment

Falling. Ash to ash…

Ash to ash.

Chapter Sixteen

Letters to Nirvana

26 December 1990

Dear Mum,

Guess what Jeremy gave Rebecca for Christmas. A really flash solitaire. They’re getting married in June 1992. Julie and Paul didn’t stay long at the engagement party because of Jonathan and the carpet dust. Lauren is good since she came out of hospital. At the party, all the boys wanted to dance with her…except Kevin. He thinks she’s a real head banger and even though I agree, I hate it when anyone says things like that about her.

Mr Moran proposed a toast to Rebecca and Jeremy and said may all their troubles be little ones. He can talk, said Julie. Where’s his little ones? If he had any he wouldn’t be so slick with his words. She is afraid Jonathan will have another asthma attack and go to hospital again. Sebby sends her postcards from Australia. She calls them salt in the wound.

XXX

Cathy

15 Jan 1991

Dear Mum,

It’s six years today. Rebecca forgot to organise the mass. She can talk about nothing but Jeremy this and Jeremy that and she looks different, like a light is shining inside her. I know you don’t mind but she should have done the mass.

XXXX to you and Daddy on this special memory day,

Cathy

12 April 1991

Dear Mum,

I went shopping with Melancholia today. She gave me this amazing jet black cross for a present and showed me where to find fantastic clothes in the George’s Street arcade. Black net gloves to my elbows and a long black dress with a scooped neck, perfect with the cross.

Rebecca hates my new clothes. She’s always going on about Satanic influences, whatever that’s supposed to mean. Well, I know what it means but that’s not us. All we do is play our music and read Anne Rice. I don’t know how someone as nice as Jeremy can possibly be in love with her. He must be only pretending. He’s probably terrified of her. Everyone else is. She keeps going on about me staying out late and how she has responsibility for my welfare. Who does she think she is? You and Daddy were responsible for my welfare, no one else. Julie’s too busy to talk since Philip was born. He looks like a troll but she keeps going on at Jeremy about using him for nappy ads. Jeremy is so nice he tries to be polite but he says maternal love is blind as a bat, only not to Julie, of course. Only to me. I was going to say love must be very blind if you’re marrying my ugly ageing sister with absolutely no taste in clothes but I didn’t.

He thinks I look like Kate Bush. I adore Kate Bush. I love how she sings my name Cat-he-ah…Cat-he-ah…but what I love most is the way Jeremy says my name. Catriona. I’ve always been Cathy since I can remember but he says I’m too precious to be an abbreviation. That’s what he says. Too precious to be an abbreviation. God! It’s time I went to sleep. Rebecca would go nuts if she knew what I was thinking. Thank God we have skin on our skulls to keep our thoughts from escaping.

Love,

Catriona

10 August 1991

Dear Mum,

I need to tell you something. It’s not bad or anything but I know Rebecca would be mad if she knew. I met Jeremy outside his office today. It wasn’t on purpose. I just wanted to find out where he works. I didn’t expect him to come out and see me. He brought me to a café on Baggot Street. It was very crowded yet it seemed like we were the only two people there. I was shaking so much I was sure he’d notice but he just talked about the awful ads he has to make, like the ones for toilet cleaners and constipation. He made a brilliant one about a woman sky-diving on the Curse days. I’ve seen it loads of times. When she falls from the sky laughing her head off and her arms out like a bird you’d never think she gets tummy cramp or be frightened blood will show on her dress. He said I’m growing into a beautiful young lady. No one ever said that to me before, only to Lauren. He’s going to be my brother-in-law. Every time I think about it my eyes sting as if someone blew smoke into them. God! It’s time I went to sleep. I hate being like this, my skin shivery every time I imagine them together.

I didn’t tell her about meeting him. I was afraid she would get mad and say I was looking for attention again. I wasn’t!

I found your copy of Wuthering Heights. It’s brilliant and cruel and so sad. I keep thinking about death and how it really messes up life for those still living. I hated and loved Heathcliff. I only loved him because he loved Cathy so much that it made everything else he did seem not so bad…almost.

X

Catriona

10 September 1991

Dear Mum,

Rebecca wants her bridesmaids in russet red. Julie thinks polka dots would be very original. Lauren wants us to wear ice-blue. They argue and wave bits of material at each other. My opinion is not sought. Who wants black at a wedding?

He’s going to move into our house when they get married. Rebecca’s going back to college as a mature student to be a vet like she’d started doing when you died. After she’s qualified, she’s going to run the animal sanctuary on Gramps’ field with Lulu. Her dreams are no longer ash. They’re all coming true.

I wish I was her. I can’t tell anyone except you. Even Melancholia wouldn’t understand.

Catriona

2 December 1991

Dear Mum,

You and Dad would be proud of Lauren. Her first book of poems was launched tonight. It’s called Silverfish. She’s dedicated her book to you and Dad. Mr Moran made a speech and said she’s a new young voice dealing with difficult issues. My throat went really tight when she read the Silverfish poem. It’s awful. Sad and weird and very Lauren.

I know what silverfish are. They look like commas and sometimes I see them flicking in the dark. Lauren’s wrists have healed up but I still see the marks, like she’s drawn little squiggles on her skin.

Jeremy sat next to me. He must have known my thoughts because he said, stop frowning Catriona, you’ll ruin your beautiful face. His knee hit mine under the table and his smile went deep into my eyes when he whispered Oops! Sorry, Catriona. I love how he says my name…Catriona…Catriona…Cat-rio-na…like it’s a beautiful sound in a love song.

Afterwards Mr Moran brought us for a meal to the Shelbourne Hotel. He knew everyone and kept introducing Lauren as his poetic protégée. Mrs Moran said she should stop depending on them for everything. But she said it so quiet that only me and Rebecca heard her. She’s such a bitch!

Love you,

Catriona

Chapter Seventeen

Rebecca’s Journal–1991

She couldn’t believe I’d collected her poems. I tried to persuade her to submit them to a proper publishing house but she refused. Afraid of failure, afraid of everything. Steve Moran took over. Vanity publishing. A big launch. What did it mean in the end? Another crutch.

Silverfish

In the moon skidding hours

I collect silverfish

Somersaulting silverfish

Disco dancing silverfish

Flick flash

Across the ash

And embers dead

Of hearth and home

Sliding in and sliding out

In chink and eave

In weft and weave

Snug in a rug

Smug bugs

In crevices that bleed the night.

Hurry scurry

Playing hide but do not seek us.

Silver scales

Flick flash

Slick slash

Dancing lancing silverfish

Thrashing, slashing twitch-blade runners.

Chapter Eighteen

Letters to Nirvana

15 January 1992

Mother,

Seven years…did you ever exist??????? Where should I address these pathetic letters? Heaven…Paradise…Nirvana…Cloud Nine? Where are you?

Cathy

9 June 1992

Dear Mum,

It’s over. He is now my brother-in-law. Rebecca walked up the aisle on Mr Moran’s arm. The way she smiled when she said, I Do, made me think about the nice times and how she loved me before you died. I kept remembering and remembering and it made me cry. We wore ice-blue with a shimmer when it caught the light. In every wedding photograph we’re smiling fit to burst a gut. Mr Moran made the Father of the Bride speech. Mrs Moran drank too much. Her mouth slid sideways when she was asked to lift her glass in a toast to the bridesmaids and she stayed sitting when everyone else stood up and shouted, To the beautiful bridesmaids.