The Lost Sister

Jeremy danced with me. His fingers pressed into the small of my back. He said I looked beautiful in blue and that I’d emerged from a chrysalis. I went into the Ladies and stared at myself in the full-length mirror. An ice-blue butterfly emerging from a chrysalis. Flying from a dark place, afraid of my reflection.

X

Catriona

22 August 1992

Dear Mum,

I didn’t think I’d ever get used to it but I have. Jeremy eats muesli and croissants for breakfast. He put photographs of his best ads in frames all over the hall. I sleep with cotton wool in my ears and squeeze my eyes tight so that I won’t think about them in the next room. But I do…I do…In the morning I pretend not to notice when they touch every time they pass each other. I pretend not to hear when they giggle over stupid things I don’t understand. Rebecca looks so young again. A student now, jeans and a ponytail.

I’m not going to write to you any more. What’s the sense in writing to a ghost? I ask myself that question every time I take up my pen. It’s stupid to keep looking for a sign that your fingers touched the paper when it’s obvious you don’t exist!!

X

Catriona

21 September 1992

Dear Mum,

Lauren’s gone to the University of Westminster to learn to be a proper writer. Mrs Moran organised it, the fees and all. Rebecca is furious. She doesn’t want Lauren to leave home but Lauren said it’s got nothing to do with her any more. We’re all growing up and making our own decisions. I haven’t told Rebecca about the night Mrs Moran rang and called me an ungrateful adulterous whore. Her voice was so squeaky and shaky, I didn’t know who she was, at first. When I said, you have the wrong number, this is Cathy Lambert, she hung up immediately. Every time I think about that squeaky voice on the phone something twists inside my chest. When I told Lauren, she stared back at me with her haughty expression that shuts everyone out and never said a word. Mrs Moran is mental to think Lauren fancies her geriatric husband. Lauren doesn’t fancy anyone but herself.

I wanted to tell Julie but I didn’t. I was afraid she’d laugh at Mrs Moran and call her a daft bat. She’s in rotten humour since she discovered she’s pregnant again. Why don’t they take up badminton or marathon running? Sex can’t be the only game they know how to play.

It’ll be easier in the house without Lauren. Not quieter, she never made a sound, but calm like we can open doors without being afraid.

Love you all,

Catriona

1 Nov 1992

Dear Mum,

I’m in deep shit. Grounded for ever, as far as Rebecca is concerned. Remember I told you about Melancholia’s idea for the Halloween Goth party? My date with disaster, as it turned out!! Rebecca thought I was sleeping over at Melancholia’s house and had even checked with Leah, who pretended I was.

We held the party in a warehouse down on the docks. It used to belong to Melancholia’s uncle. All the buildings around are empty too so it was creepy and perfect. We made a papier-mâché coffin and a tombstone and put black netting over the walls. We only invited Goths so it was hush-hush. Or so we believed. Melancholia sneaked vodka from Leah’s cocktail cabinet. Two bottles. Sharon had wine and Kevin brought beer. I drank vodka for the first time. It was like a volcano inside my chest. One of the Goths kept giggling ’cause you’re not supposed to drink it neat. It was easier going down with the orange juice…smooth and easy…easy and slow.

More people came, gatecrashers, not Goths. We all danced together but not touching. Goths don’t touch or invade private space. The gatecrashers didn’t care. Jobbo Boland called me a vampire bitch and begged me to bite his neck. They started a fight and broke bottles against the wall and carried the coffin on their shoulders like it was a real funeral. When there was no drink left they went on to the next party. Most of the Goths went as well.

My head felt fuzzy and my eyes were whirling around. Everything was dark and awful until I saw you. Yes, you, angel Mother, dancing on your own. You were as clear as a star in a jet-black sky. The music was so beautiful. I wanted to dance with you for ever. Kevin shouted at me to stop dancing with shadows but I couldn’t. I twirled around and around, and you twirled with me. The music played louder and louder until it seemed as if my head would explode. Then your face went spinning towards the moon outside the window. You were going away again. I wouldn’t let you. Not this time.

I screamed and my fist went through the window. I don’t remember the glass breaking. Just the moon turning silver and your face vanishing into the night. I woke up in hospital with bandages on my hands. Not a good idea, said the doctor when he came to see me. Don’t do that again, young lady, unless you’re into blood sports.

When I got home from the hospital Rebecca made me look at myself in the mirror. Black panda eyes and black smeared lipstick. I wanted to die. Black…black…black. She kept shouting and flinging my clothes on the bed. She looked at Daddy’s guitar and your perfume bottle shaped like a pyramid, still half-full, and my silver locket with your hair inside. She said my room is nothing but a shrine and it’s time I started living in the real world. She tore my posters of Bauhaus and the Banshees and The Cure from the wall and crumpled them in a ball. Tomorrow I have to paint your room. Primrose yellow or rose-petal pink, I have two choices.

Alcoholic poisoning is what I had. My stomach was pumped. I’m going to stop writing to you for definite this time. Angels don’t read letters. They don’t even exist. Death is a black and bottomless sleep. I’m grounded for 6 weeks. Shit!

Catriona

6 November 1992

Dear Mum,

Your room is painted primrose yellow. I have kitten posters on the walls. Jeremy painted the ceiling and I did the walls. When he did his Michael Jackson moonwalk across the floor, we laughed so much Rebecca came in to see what the joke was about. When I told him I was never going to drink again, he said alcohol is only disgusting when it’s handled recklessly. I was too young. I broke rules. I was heedless of my own welfare. I have to look upon this experience as a baptism of fire. He asked me why I did such a crazy thing. It’s dangerous and corrosive to keep bottling up your feelings, Catriona, he said.

I began to giggle, a high awful giggle that I couldn’t stop. Take it easy…it’s all right…take it easy. His voice was sharp, then soft, like he was coaxing me over a dangerous place and I stopped as suddenly as I started. Goose bumps ran all along my arms when we sat on the bed and he leaned close to me. You should laugh more often, Catriona, he said. But not like that…not like that.

X

Catriona

15 Jan 1993

Dear Mum,

Lauren rang today. Eight years, she said. Who’d have believed it. She lives in one of Mr Moran’s apartments. Real plush, she says, with a view of St James’s Park. He brings her out for posh meals when he’s in London on business. I bet Mrs Moran doesn’t know! I asked who held his zimmer frame when they kissed and she said I was way off the mark on that one. He’s a father figure, kind and decent and nothing more. You’re forgetting rich, I said, and married to the teacher bitch. The teacher bitch has nothing to worry about, Lauren said. Her husband can obsess all he likes but I’m not interested.

I wonder if she’s telling the truth. The boys in school used to call her The Ice Queen and put bets on who could get her to go out with them. They never won. She has lots of boyfriends now but their names keep changing: Louie, François, Colm, Toby, Saul.

She’s OK again after falling off her bike. Rebecca flew over to make sure and said she’s living like royalty.

Look after her and keep her away from blades.

Love you all,

XX

Catriona

3 Feb 1993

Dear Mum

I have to write about this. Forgive me…forgive me. I never meant it to happen. This evening I met Jeremy by accident on Merrion Square. At first he didn’t recognise me in my Goth make-up. Goth coat and dress, lace over my face, my black cross.

When I said hello he stopped like he’d run into a wall and said, Good God, Catriona, is that really you? You look amazing.

He gave me a lift home. The rain started when we were leaving the city and was pouring down by the time we reached Broadmeadow Estuary. There’s a storm coming, Jeremy said. Even as he spoke, we saw lightning flashing across the viaduct. We parked by the shore. The waves raced under the arches and the ducks flapped their wings into the wind. We saw the heron standing as still as ever. Then the thunder rolled over the estuary and lit up the swans like ghosts on water. Jeremy put his arm around my shoulder and said it was nature at her proudest, showing off for all the world to see. Like Goths, he said. Showing off her darker side.

I began to cry. Don’t ask me why. He lifted the lace from my face and laid it over my hair. He took off my net gloves and stroked my fingers. Nothing else. Just stroked and stroked until my whole body was shivering. My sweet innocent Catriona, he said. Are you a child playing adult games or a woman caught in a child’s mind? Why does such anger radiate from you? He talked about the accident. No one ever does but he asked questions and it was like drawing splinters out of my skin.

Sometimes I wake from a dream and hear Julie screaming. I jump out of bed and crash into the wall because your room is different to the room I slept in then. Rebecca should have been minding me but she’d sneaked off to Sheila’s party. Jeremy explained how she feels guilty about disobeying you and not being at home when the police called to the house to tell us about the accident. He said that’s why she tries so hard to do what’s right.

I wish she’d stop trying. She can’t make it different, no matter how hard we pretend. Then I told Jeremy the most dreadful thing of all. How my anger sometimes makes me hate you for being dead. It’s not true. It’s me. I hate myself for thinking such awful thoughts but they go like a skewer through my brain.

He said the line between love and hate is as fine as a wire vibrating. I don’t understand what he means but it sounds right. He understands how things can happen in a part of your mind you never knew existed.

He kissed the tears on my cheeks and on my eyelids. When he kissed the tears on my lips he opened his mouth and pulled me closer. Then he was kissing me for real, tongue touching tongue, and even though I was frightened, I didn’t want to pull away, ever. I thought about Rebecca and all her dreams coming true. The wind nearly blew me over when I opened the door of his car. He said, Don’t be silly, Catriona. Get back in! I’ll drive you to the house. He feels as if he’s playing with fire when we’re alone. It would be the end of everything if Rebecca found out about his moment of weakness. She won’t…she won’t find out.

Don’t warn me against him. Don’t remind me of his age, of Rebecca, a whole life I’m too young to understand. I’m in love with him. The age difference doesn’t matter. That’s nothing where love is concerned. I’ll dream about him tonight. And tomorrow I’ll daydream through the waking hours. His eyes are so piercing they can see right into my soul. Even now, when he’s not with me, I feel him beside me, feel his touch on my skin, his fingers stroking mine, and the thunder enfolding us. Is that how it was with you and Daddy? Tell me what to do!!

Catriona

10 Feb 1993

Dear Mother,

Kevin’s bedroom is now painted white. The skeleton has gone from the ceiling. Ask me how I know. I’m not supposed to be there. Off limits, isn’t it? Go on, ask! I’m going to tell you anyway. I lay on his bed and listened to The Cure but it was different to before, like he could stop being my friend and be something else. He took the tiny little dagger from his lip and put it under the pillow. When we kissed I closed my eyes. I kept seeing Jeremy’s face. The way he combs his wheat-yellow hair straight back from his forehead yet there’s always a bit hanging down. I could see his eyes, blue like the sky, and his voice soft when he said, Catriona…Catriona…Catriona.

I lifted my black dress above my ankles so that Kevin could see my net stockings and my shoes with the silver buckles. He parted the lace at my throat. He opened the buttons on my dress. So many buttons down the front but he didn’t mind struggling, one button after the other, stopping to kiss me in case I was bored it was taking so long. Then I saw his blond roots where he’s growing out the black and I had this terrible feeling that I was ruining our friendship by allowing him to open buttons and kiss my neck, his tongue licking the hollow in my throat, making shivers on my skin while all the time I was thinking about someone else.

Then the buttons were open and he was able to take off my bra. My heart gave a skippy kind of jump when he touched my nipples. He pressed me deeper into the bed. His face was hard, a stranger’s face. I didn’t know him any more. I wanted to hug my breasts away from his eyes and be safe in my room with you in the kitchen making dinner and Daddy’s key in the front door, and the way he used to shout, ‘Hey, you parcel of beauties, I’m home.’

I shouted at him to let me go. He didn’t hear me. My dress was down around my waist and he kept whispering my name…I love you Cathy…Cathy…Not Catriona. I hit his face with my fist and he jerked back, his eyes opening wide. Then he slumped beside me, breathing fast, as if he’d been in a race that went on too long.

Nothing happened, Cathy, stop crying…calm down…calm down…His words came from far away but eventually I heard him. He kept apologising, said he’d misread the signals, thought I felt the same, nothing happened, nothing to stop us continuing to be friends as before. But I knew he lied. That he, like me, could see our friendship dissolving with every promise we made.

I can’t think of anything else to tell you tonight. Watch over me. I’m in a dangerous place.

Catriona

16 March 1993

Dear Mum,

Jeremy’s kiss is like a dream. Perhaps it was. I don’t ever want to think about it again. I saw Kevin this evening when I was walking along the estuary. The dagger’s gone from his lip. We haven’t talked much since that night. A girl was with him. She has swinging fair hair like a shampoo advertisement. I was afraid he’d told her about the time in his bedroom and could feel the shivers coming just thinking about it. Her name is Andrea and I just know she hates The Cure.

Tomorrow is St Patrick’s Day. Remember the parades and the sleet and us dancing on floats in our Irish dancing costumes? Blue knees? The parade has changed a lot since your day. I’m going to watch it with Melancholia and her friends.

I’ve kept the worst news until last. Rebecca flew out this morning to see Lauren. How does she always know? She’s determined to bring her home and make her better again.

X

Catriona

Chapter Nineteen

Rebecca’s Journal–1993

I never should have allowed Olive Moran to send Lauren away but, truthfully, I was secretly relieved she was leaving us. I wanted nothing to come between Jeremy and our happiness. I convinced myself it was a good idea to let her handle life on her own. I’ve enough on my hands with Cathy and her Goth friends.

It could have worked out. She sent me sections of her novel. It was raw and revelatory, and was, I suspected, giving her an opportunity to release her feelings. I read her tutor’s critiques, his belief that it would be recognised as a serious work of fiction. If only she hadn’t been knocked from her bike. It happened so easily–a driver opening the door of his car without looking. She went flying and the second car had to swerve to avoid her. The squeal of brakes brought it all back. She was still screaming when the ambulance arrived. They sedated her in hospital, then discharged her.

She swore she was OK. I believed her because I wanted to. Is it like drugs, I wonder, the sweet swooning oblivion that comes over her when the drip drip drip becomes a flow? There were men; I met some of them when I was there. They brought her flowers and chocolates, and fluffy animals with love notes embroidered on their fur. They make her forget. Why then does she send them away and reach for the only relief that gives her comfort?

I knew as soon as the poem arrived. Just a verse but it’s all there. Her cry for help.

Rage river rage

Rage towards the night ocean

Where the tide waits

To crest you towards distant

Reefs of coral

Sharp as the lover’s blade

When it sinks into the flesh of a barren moon.

Chapter Twenty

Letters to Nirvana

18 March 1993

Oh Mum…Mum!

I need to tell you what happened. I can’t tell anyone else, never, ever until the day I die. Rebecca will kill me stone dead…what have I done?

We watched the parade going through O’Connell Street then met Melancholia’s friends at the bank on Dame Street. Do you remember the one that’s shaped like a square mushroom? That’s where we sat on the steps and watched everyone walking by. It felt good, being part of a group and everyone looking at us, but pretending they weren’t. Then we went up Grafton Street. Buskers were playing guitars and there were jugglers and fire-eaters and a man who stood like a statue and had a frozen face like Lauren, except when he winked. Melancholia’s boyfriend, Chaos, and his friends bought cans of lager in the off-licence and we sat on the grass in Stephen’s Green drinking them.

Wrong brew, said Jobbo Boland when he came by. It should be blood. He called me Vampira. I hate him! We told him to get lost but he kept hanging around. I felt so good with the muzzy far-off feeling inside my head. Jobbo kept shaking his head like music was switched on in his brain. We went to McDonald’s for burgers. A woman shouted something about devil worshipers and we chanted We are Goths…We are Goths…We are Goths…back at her. We passed the acrobats turning cartwheels, passed the buskers and the traveller children with their mouth organs, the pavement artists with the Virgin Mary pictures. I saw myself in a shop window. Eyeliner streaked like soot, my hair all over my face. Vampira Lambert on her day out.

It was hot and crowded in McDonald’s. The tables were full of families, children with painted tiger faces, bobbing balloons. Jobbo sat opposite me and Melancholia went to the counter for chips and Big Macs.

You look out of it, Vampira, Jobbo said. Are you not used to drinking blood or what? His piggy pink eyes kept darting all over the place and his head was shaved except for a wispy bit at the back. He told me to relax for a change instead of always looking like I was going to cut my wrists. I nearly said, wrong sister, but I didn’t. Have some fun for a change, he said, you’ll be in your coffin long enough. Then he gave it to me. Maybe, if he hadn’t mentioned coffins, I wouldn’t have done it. Maybe I would…I don’t know anything any more.

The tiny square of paper had a clown’s face painted on it. Who’s that, I asked him, Ronald McDonald?

He laughed like I’d said the funniest thing in the world. Believe me, Vampira, it’ll blow all those negatives out of your mind. You’ll float like a bird.

In the Ladies I licked the tab and wondered if angels would cry because I swore to Rebecca I’d never touch drugs. An oath taken at your graveside one Sunday afternoon when we were pulling weeds. I couldn’t eat the Big Mac or the chips. Melancholia called me an ungrateful cow and dumped them in the bin.

We ran down to College Green where a band called Ovida Jones was playing. The lead singer had long red hair. He was so casual, smoking and joking with the guitarist, ignoring thousands of people watching him. The drummer hit a cymbal. The amplified boom almost lifted me off my feet. Everyone jumped then roared laughing. Where did our laughter go, all our throaty laughter floating up into the dark mysterious night? Did it reach Nirvana before it faded away? Jobbo said I’d float like a bird. Like an eagle. No one to touch me when I’m on top of the world.

The musicians began to play and the thoombing noise crashed from my heart to my head. The singer grabbed the microphone and the crowd screamed. The noise was incredible, a thoomb…thoomb beat like a great pounding beast. The singer shoved the microphone towards us and we sang the chorus. ‘Under the clock clock…clock…under the clock. Holding my heart in hock for you under the clock…clock…clock!’

Again and again we sang the words and I was screaming with them, only there was no sound coming from my mouth because it was frozen in a huge O, tears pouring down my face, and all the fans were crazy wild. Melancholia was sitting on Chaos’s shoulders but there were loads of people between us, all strangers. I tried to push my way back to her but I’d lost her in the crowd.

I couldn’t stand the thoom in my chest. I had to scream before it choked me. Someone kept shouting, Get her out of here…bring her home.

Kevin and his girlfriend stood in front of me. They had their arms around each other. She whispered something behind her hand when she saw me. Kevin pulled my face around.

Jesus! What did you give her? he shouted and hit Jobbo with his fists. He knocked him into the crowd. His girlfriend screamed when Jobbo hit him back. Security men in yellow coats pulled them apart. The fans shook their heads, jumping crazy, and swayed back as Kevin was dragged away.

I heard Jobbo calling me. Vampira…Vampira! Over here. His legs dangled over the plinth of a statue. He hauled me up beside him. I gripped the legs of the statue. Long smooth legs that I must climb if I was to reach beyond the clouds. People kept yelling and pointing as I stretched beyond Jobbo’s grip, bracing my knees. Gratton, an Irish patriot, a brave man. It was easy to climb his body, crevices in the elbow, the collar of his coat. I clung to his neck and kissed his face.

Smoke billowed around the magic musicians as they dipped and swayed on the silver stage. When I looked up, the sky was full of silver birds flying in formation. I was among them, an eagle flying forever towards Nirvana.

The wind grew cold. It would blow me from the patriot’s neck. Far below I saw a dark hole opening and I screamed because I knew I was going to fall into it. A man lifted me down. I ran away and pushed through the crowd until I was free. I slid to the ground inside a phone box. It was warm and dark like a coffin. The music seemed far away. I was laughing so much no one could understand and I was calling her name…Rebecca…Rebecca…Rebecca.

Boys were waiting outside. One of them opened the door and blew smoke in at me. Don’t hog the effin’ phone all night, he said, and then I remembered that Rebecca was in London with Lauren and Jeremy kept saying, where the hell are you? Tell me immediately.

I waited by the railings of Trinity College. Remember…it’s where you and Daddy met? I saw ghosts at the gates. Ghosts behind the windows, waving, pale ghosts drowning in silver dust.

His face melted like candle wax and came together again. He called me…Catriona…Catriona, come to me. Be safe…come into my arms. He took my hand and led me away from the noise. His car surged through the night. We left the city behind.

It was dark on the estuary. Music played on the radio. The swans were sleeping. A bed of white feathers rising. The water sparkled when a train passed over the viaduct. He held me to him and I was carried through ribbons of light. I love you…love you…kissing him, I repeated the words over and over again. I knew it was going to happen. My fingers sank through his flesh. I watched them disappear into his spine…shimmering…his hair sparking when I stroked it, filling him with radiance. There were stars above us and the thooming music was still inside me. His voice whispered, husky commands. You’re safe. Safe in my arms, my beautiful Catriona.

I saw Rebecca’s sweater lying on the back seat, two of her books about animals and her Eurythmics CD. I couldn’t stop crying but he kept saying, it’s all right…it’s all right…stay still…it’s all right. I wanted to shout stop stop stop but his hand was over my mouth and I heard him sigh, as if there was a great pain within him that must be relieved by reaching into that place…that private place that belongs only to me.