How would posterity judge him? Good? Bad? No, worse. It wouldn’t even bother.

  28

  5.58 pm: ‘Oh, it’s Joan,’ Vera said, as if the scene had not taken an even more unpleasant turn. ‘You’re supposed to be cleaning the church. You promised.’

  Jenny snorted at the mere idea of the value of her sister’s promises. In their family it was a good idea to make a promise. But it was usually not good practice to keep one.

  Joan said, ‘It was… closed.’

  ‘Ah,’ Vera said. The unquestioning way she sided with ignorance over truth, simply because it was easier, was infuriating. She’d always appreciated Joan’s skill for reshaping life’s events to make them ‘suitable’. Similarly, Vera did not appreciate Jenny’s disparagement of this skill by pointing out that it was actually called ‘lying’.

  With Hugh originally anointed as the golden child, Joan had spent the first half of her life in the wings of their mother’s life: discreet, patient and loyal. Jealous and protective. Jenny had never been close to her sister. The most vivid childhood memory Jenny had of them together was of Joan standing over her bed when she’d been very sick with glandular fever, saying, ‘Christ, you’re such a black cloud, Jennifer.’ Joan had married an unspectacular man who had quickly learned that when he pleased his mother-in-law – by lavishing attention on her – he would be rewarded: a holiday paid for in June, school fees taken care of in September, a nice new watch at Christmas. It had worked for him until Vera realised that her own life would be even more wonderful without him in it. Jenny remembered that when Joan married, there had been a sadness about her – an obvious reluctance to leave the family home, to leave Mum behind.

  Jenny had not spoken to Joan much since she’d been eighteen. In the meantime, Joan had cheerfully soaked up the excess wealth that came their way from Jenny’s slice of the family pie. In the last few years, she’d usually only come across her sister at things like a cousin’s wedding or an uncle’s funeral. Jenny still had to make an appearance at the ‘big’ functions, if only for an hour or so – just enough to give Vera capacity to project the family as totally normal to the outside world. It was easier to turn up rather than face the barrage of pressuring calls from her mother. At these events, Joan had completely ignored her and kept her distance but unless they were watching closely, no one would’ve noticed.

  Staring at Jenny from across the living room, Joan pressed her Ray-Bans tighter to her face and stepped forward. ‘How can you show your face here, after the way you treated me?’

  ‘This one,’ Jenny said, gesturing grandly to the walls and roof, ‘is not yours – yet. I’ll come here whenever I please.’

  ‘You murdered your child. You killed it. Because you’re so, so, so, selfish.’

  Had she really just said that? No, she couldn’t possibly have. Yet she had.

  Joan continued. ‘Surely you realise that you can’t keep running away from this. Did you think it would all be forgotten when you first ran away from home to—’

  ‘When you’re over eighteen, Joan, “Running away from home” generally means “moving out”.’

  ‘You’ll never escape what you did to your child; to our father; to all of us.’

  For one futile moment Jenny waited for her mother to intervene. But of course, that didn’t happen. Joan was Vera’s favourite and, therefore, with Joan, even the most objectionable was always tolerable. That had always been the case in Jenny’s family.

  ‘Jesus Christ, Joan, can’t you just for once shut your mouth and mind your own business? Can’t you just leave it? Can’t you just leave me the fuck alone?’

  ‘You think that’s even possible after what you did? The world may have changed in many ways over the last twenty-five years, Jennifer; but some things are sacred and will never be acceptable and, as far as I’m aware, Hallmark aren’t making cards for abortions yet. What sickens me is that all of this is just because you couldn’t keep your legs together, you tramp.’

  ‘Wow… so, you’re slut-shaming now?’

  ‘Slut-shaming? Well, that is what happens when sluts get shamed, isn’t it?’

  Vera snapped, ‘Joan, stop that now.’ It was a conversation-ender.

  Joan removed her shades and glared at her mother; mouth open as if she’d just been slapped. But the inescapable fact was that she had stopped, and now stood there like a blinking cursor awaiting direction.

  Vera continued to glare at Joan, and Jenny watched them both. Speaking the truth was usually against the rules. Speaking the truth usually got you punished. Therefore, it was a pivotal moment in their family history – three Donaldsons in a room, getting ready to undress their lies.

  After a few seconds, Joan and Vera refocused their attention on Jenny and Jenny experienced an old – yet familiar – sensation: the absolute nausea of feeling her mother’s and sister’s eyes bore into her as they over-analysed every flicker on her expression, every word that came out of her mouth.

  There had always been something unpleasant about the way Vera and Joan conducted themselves. When a teenager, Jenny would sit in this room and turn the TV up to drown out the sound of her mother and Joan laughing in the kitchen – no doubt at someone else’s expense. All day, they would gossip away like bitchy soap opera vamps. One of Vera’s favourite sayings was that the nice thing about gossip was that it doesn’t really matter whether or not it is true.

  Jenny said, ‘Mum, tell her to get out and leave us alone.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘I can’t control what my daughters say and do. And I won’t be made to choose between my daughters, either.’

  ‘I think you already have.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Vera spoke slowly, which was a giveaway flagging her insincerity. Her regional accent came to the fore too, stomping all over her usual melodic southside Dublin enunciation. It showed that she was trying too hard. ‘Jennifer, you’re acting like a baby. Are you trying to get even with Joan or something? Is that it? Is that why you’ve decided that you’re being picked on? Are you jealous, Jennifer? Is that it? There is nothing to be jealous about. We can all be together in one room, surely?’

  Vera smiled sweetly. That was the indignity of what her mother inflicted; her modus operandi was to deliver a loaded sentence that communicated so much bile and hate and then, seconds later, to wash her hands of it, so that however she may have changed that person’s life, she remained unchanged herself.

  Jenny said, ‘After what she just said to me. In front of you. In your house?’ Even as Jenny spoke, she knew it was pointless to challenge her mother. What did she expect? Sympathy? Vera loathed pity. She would rather flay another person alive than pity them.

  ‘As I said, I can’t control what my daughters say or do.’

  Calmly, Joan said, ‘I have never understood the meaning of “off your meds” until this very moment. See, Mom? That’s what she was like earlier. I told you. That’s what she’s like every time we have words.’

  We have words. For most people, words were the nails that hammered down reality. But not for her mother and Joan. Already everything Jenny had said – or would say – had been dampened down with a harmless catch-all cliché. That was Jenny’s family. Avoid the truth, avoid the harsh realities and blame anything else – even God or nature. But never blame nurture, because that would mean it could be Vera’s fault – and Vera was never wrong.

  Jenny said, ‘Mum, I just can’t take this anymore. I have Shane and… he’s always been there for me. So please, leave me alone.’

  Her mother’s eyes widened a little. She was judging her, weighing up her daughter’s mood, analysing the tone of her voice, seeing how seriously she should take the directive. Vera approached; fists balled by her side. There was a barely audible intake of air, as if she wasn’t going to give away anything that she didn’t have to, not even her breath. Especially not her breath.

  With a voice that had the authority of an artillery battery, she said, ‘You were just damaged goods selling fancy goods – and that fool was buying. That’s who your husband is. And that – pet – is who you are.’

  Her hardness was chilling. Yet Jenny was not totally surprised. Vera’s behaviour was actually quite predictable. Usually, she was all sweetness and light until something eventually snapped and then Jenny was made to pay for all the things that Vera had not been honest about.

  Jenny’s eyes watered. She hated the way her mother could be mean and cold and right all at once.

  No. She’s doing it again. That’s not how things are. You are better than this.

  Jenny reminded herself that she had regretted every return visit she’d made to her childhood home, and each time had admonished herself for ever daring to think that it would be different.

  Jenny crossed the living room, her expression neutral, pretending that her thoughts were already elsewhere though they were really sifting through the depths of her guilt from which she could find no way of liberating herself. She felt weighed down, as if moving in zero gravity, like she contained all the anxiety that her mother and Joan were not showing.

  Vera said, ‘Where are you going? I just said what needed to be said.’

  As always.

  ‘I am so sorry if the truth hurt you,’ she called out in a sincere, high-pitched tone that mocked the very thing it strove to be.

  Jenny turned the handle of the door.

  ‘No. Don’t go. Wait!’ Vera sounded urgent. Genuinely urgent. And yet… Vera never sounded urgent.

  Something was off. Jenny sensed her mother’s repressed anxiety like sonar.

  What’s coming? A splinter of the future leaked into the present.

  Jenny soaked up Vera’s alert face, which was now reddening with the blood that still had a reason to circulate, even if the body it pumped through had aged more rapidly than she wanted.

  Vera said, ‘You don’t understand what’s happening. You have no idea what’s going on. I never had the chance to—’

  ‘And you never will.’

  Jenny’s face blanked over as if her past was an overgrown graveyard she never visited anymore. Stepping out into the hall, she opened the front door and slammed it behind her.

  She walked slowly along the driveway, her full-of-thinking head down.

  Someone was behind her.

  She glanced back. Joan. Ten feet. Five feet. It would take about twenty seconds to reach the front gates. Once there, Joan would leave her alone. No matter how extreme things got, the world must only ever see the family smile.

  Joan was beside her now. Jenny kept her eyes on the gates. How long would it take her to walk those twenty-five metres? A few short seconds or half a lifetime?

  At her uncle’s funeral a year ago, she’d listened to Joan make an emotional speech about an extended family holiday they’d all gone on to Egypt. ‘Those weeks in Egypt,’ Joan said, ‘were the happiest times for all of us Donaldsons.’ That had made Jenny resentful because she could hardly remember Egypt, except that it was quite boring and dusty. It had made her realise that she had absolutely nothing left in common with Joan – they didn’t even share the same memories.

  Joan kept pace, arms folded, her head turned towards her sister’s, smirking. ‘You are an idiot,’ she said. ‘Hear me? You are a fucking idiot.’

  ‘Go away.’

  Joan did not go away. Instead, she mimicked Jenny in a high-pitched squeal – ‘Go away. Go away. Go away. Jesus, you are a child.’

  Jenny kept walking. Joan careered into her, shouldering her.

  ‘What the…?’ Jenny said – not slowing, but feeling a lump in her throat as she still had a child’s impulse to cry when wrong was done to her by her big sister. ‘Do not touch me. Ever.’

  ‘Don’t touch me. Don’t touch me,’ Joan caricatured, while making sure her shoulder continued to force down against her quarry.

  At the gate, Jenny faced her middle-aged tormentor. ‘Know something, Joan? Just for once, I want us to relate to each other without Mum coming between us.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No pretending. No script. Just ourselves. Is that possible? Do you think so?’

  Joan smirked. ‘You torched your family. You burnt it like every other bridge you’ve ever crossed. And just so you know, so there can be never ever any doubt about it, let me reiterate – I haaaaate you. In fact, it makes me so happy that you’re being thrown out of Clareville. Not because I want it. I don’t. But simply because I don’t want you to have it.’

  Jenny soaked up the enraged face, shades raised onto her head, eyes like her own but wide with frustrated fury. It was a visage that said, suffering does not make you a nice person. In fact, it makes you a bad one.

  Suddenly, just for a moment, Jenny felt as if she should help Joan. That it wasn’t too late for her sister to turn her life around – not too late for her to actually have a life. It must be awful to be Joan. People always abandoned her in the end. Maybe she expected it to happen and therefore always made it happen.

  But whatever was wrong with Joan, Jenny hadn’t caused it and she couldn’t cure it. So, fuck her.

  ‘Enjoy your revenge, Joan – I hope it soothes your envy.’

  Jenny looked away as if Joan wasn’t even worth loathing and let the gate swing closed behind her. As she walked away, Jenny touched her forehead as a headache suddenly bubbled up from her core. It was as if she’d been walking away from Joan her whole life, trying to escape the biological imperative that they would spar, that they would thwart and provoke.

  When did it all go to hell? When Dad died? No, before that. When I went away for my abortion? No, before that, too. When Hugh went to London? Yes, that’s when it all went to hell.

  29

  Twenty-Four Years Ago

  Before Joan, Hugh had been Vera’s golden child. Vera had groomed him from the day he was born to think that he was magnificent – even though he’d never wanted to ‘be’ anything, except on Halloween. Of course, she’d smothered him in the blanket of her own neurosis. From the moment he was old enough to go out by himself, Vera had found herself obsessing about his safety. She’d needed to know where he was twenty-four-seven. When she gave him a time to be home, he had to make it. If he didn’t, then he wasn’t allowed out the next day.

  When Hugh was only average at school, Vera explained to him that his talents were still hidden and would emerge at college. To be fair, he eventually got the grades for the best university in Dublin, with grinds, grinds and more grinds. But that was Hugh – always better on paper. However, once exposed to a university life where having an ordinary, mid-level IQ was akin to being mentally retarded, the reality of being ordinary had crushed him.

  Most children gradually learn that their parents are unreliable from two big, universal lies: Santa Claus and sex. But Vera had a third lie. She lied to Hugh about his greatness.

  By his early twenties, the only times Jenny saw Hugh was when he’d come home drunk from their father’s firm. He wasn’t rowdy or loud. Hugh was turning into the kind of harmless functioning alcoholic that perhaps fumbles with their door keys when getting in every night. He would sit in the kitchen and actually try to talk to her. However, Hugh didn’t really understand the ebb and flow of conversation, and so instead he pontificated.

  Over these odd kitchen meetings, out it all came – how he hated gay people; how he blamed the poverty of immigrants on innate weakness and most of all, how he hated slutty women. Jenny was only sixteen when these chats began, but by the time she was seventeen she realised that every word he’d said to her while drunk had been repulsive; that her brother was, in fact, a monster disguised by a mask of blandness.

  Hugh was drinking in his twenties because he had realised that, under it all, he had become an equal opportunist disappointment – to his rugby mates, to his work colleagues, to the girlfriends who made fleeting appearances to be judged by Vera. Hugh’s technique was to forge a bond, create a sense of expectation and then, ultimately, totally fail to deliver. When he was justly criticised, he reacted with the same insolence that he used to face every obstacle in his mollycoddled life. He would walk away, as if nothing had ever happened.

  Back then, Shane had said to Jenny, ‘Hugh is the type of lucky, over-privileged wanker who was able to choose exactly what they wanted to be the moment they hit twelve – and yet he’s still doing nothing with his life.’ Lorcan, too, noticed his son’s lack of progress. Hugh had been given everything Lorcan himself had never received – a loving household, security, access to money and a top education. And so, despite Vera’s protestations, Lorcan forced Hugh to move to London, where he was shoehorned into the boardroom of the UK wing of the company.

  Hugh did not flourish in London. From the moment he arrived, he began to rot from the inside, eaten up by the bitterness of being mediocre. One of his problems was that Hugh only ever trusted people who wanted things from him, and in London no one wanted anything from him. For the first time in his life, he was truly alone.

  Twelve weeks after his arrival, Hugh’s cleaner found him hanging from the hook on his bedroom door, having failed at the one true duty of all living things – endurance. Hugh’s eyes, which had once been full of confidence and choice, had ended up – at twenty-three – bulging from their sockets, dimmed. His death mask communicated his final realisation – that there was not always a way out of the darkness; that most people fall, eventually, without a net.

  Typically, he left no note.

  His death had been a surprise to Jenny. But not a shock. You had to care for it to be a shock. Hugh had no longer been her brother in any sense besides blood. She did feel sorry for him, though. How horrible it must have been to die like that, toes stretched down, a carpet centimetres out of reach that would take his weight, just for a moment, and let the rope slacken to allow air down his throat. As he struggled, the tighter the rope would have pulled.