Herself Alone in Orange Rain Read online

  I tug at a corner, sliding it free.

  It has been quartered, the creases bruised by repeated folding. I open it carefully. At the top is an official crest and the words ‘Teastas Beireatais’. Skimming down, I see the remembered Irish spelling of my first name followed by ‘Finnighan’ and ‘3rd May, 1962’: my birthday. More foreign words follow; máthair, athair, Cathal, contae, Muineachán.

  ‘It’s your certificate of birth.’ Aiden trails a finger over ‘Teastas Beireatais’ and translates; mother, father, Charles, county, Monaghan.

  I’m not Kaylynn Patty Ryan; I’m Caoilainn Patricia Finnighan. My parents’ names aren’t Susan and John Ryan; they’re Fiona and Cathal, Charles, Finnighan.

  ‘Why did they change their names? Are they… on the run?’

  Aiden flinches. ‘They’re not.’

  ‘So what the hell’s going on, Aidie?’ I drawl his childhood nickname.

  ‘They didn’t change their names. The Ryans aren’t your parents.’

  ‘Caoilainn?’

  I snap back into the room. ‘If they’re not my parents who the hell are they? Who are my parents? How can I not have known this?’ My voice pitches up with each word. ‘Jesus Christ!’ I’m too high. I let go. Laughter bubbles up. I hear madness in it. So does Aiden, he edges towards me. I’m scaring him. I stop laughing.

  ‘They’re not my parents?’

  He nods.

  So I’m finally free of them.

  But cornered by something worse: the unknown.

  I can’t fight it blind.

  ‘Tell me what you know.’ I rest my hand on Aiden’s arm, encouraging him with a be-my-hero squeeze. ‘I need the truth.’

  He takes my hand in both of his. ‘The Ryans, they were friends of friends or something. Your granddaddy had them take you to live with them, ’cos your,’ he hugs my hand, ‘ma and da had died.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Your da was a volunteer.’

  ‘A what?’

  Aiden looks away. ‘He was in the IRA, killed in action I suppose.’

  ‘And my mum?’

  ‘Aye, she was involved too but I dunna what…’ He shrugs.

  He can’t help. I pull my hand from his. ‘That’s all you know?’

  ‘I know this is who you are.’ He strokes the flimsy birth certificate. ‘This is your family.’ He retrieves the photograph. ‘What’s left of it.’

  I stare at the old man. ‘And him?’

  ‘He was after doing the right thing,’ Aiden says.

  ‘Getting rid of me.’

  ‘Taking care of you.’

  Our sentences criss-cross each other.

  ‘By getting rid of me.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that.’

  ‘How was it then?’

  ‘He’s old, sick.’

  ‘He didn’t want to be bothered with me so he sent me packing.’

  ‘He’s a hero.’

  ‘What kind of a hero does that?’

  Aiden bangs a fist on the table. Our mugs leap up.

  ‘No! He fought in the GPO with Pearse in ’16. Survived the War of Independence and the Civil War. He was protecting you. You’ve no idea what he musta been through.’

  ‘Whose fault is that? I don’t know any of this. Who’s Pearse? What Civil War?’ Aiden opens his mouth, eager explanations on his tongue. I stop him before they surface. ‘Don’t. Bloody hell, you’ve just dropped an atomic bomb on me, I couldn’t give a toss about Irish history.’ I push up from the table and stagger to the door, the world brightly blurred.

  ‘Where’re you going?’

  ‘I need to walk.’ I bang out.

  Scaly autumn leaves crackle under my boots. Burying numb hands in my pockets, I stride through the city to the sea front. Fading light turns the waves graphite grey. White foam curls up like pencil shavings. I stand at the seawall, watching the water blacken. The rhythm of roll and retreat grinds me to dust. The sea doesn’t care about what’s happened. Nor does the man who nods goodnight as he walks by. Nor does his Labrador who sniffs me and trots on. Nor do the parents who aren’t parents, who will care only about their exposed lie, not its victim. Nor does the old man in the photograph, the one who should care because he settled me on shale, left me to this landslide. I lean over the wall, straining towards rushing waves, wishing it was as simple as dropping into them, letting the tide scatter me into oblivion.

  It’s not fair. My fucking life and I’m the one that didn’t fucking know.

  What now? Hide? Walk away from it? Run towards it?

  Child-me, gambolling through the painting in the college studio, what would she do?

  The answer is easy for her. She knows what she’s running towards.

  When I open the door Aiden rushes at me.

  ‘Jesus, I was worried. You’ve been gone ages.’

  ‘I was thinking.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I still am.’

  We sit at the table again. Aiden makes more tea.

  ‘I’m sorry it’s like this,’ he says, handing me a mug.

  I finger the brittle yellow paper. ‘How’d you get this?’

  ‘Lifted it from your granddaddy’s. He’d kept it, and the photo. Sure, doesn’t that tell you all you need to know?’

  ‘It doesn’t tell me why he thought it was OK. to dump me on a couple of hippy crusaders who always had something more important than me to take care of.’

  ‘What?’

  I shake my head. Explaining the past can’t justify it. I go to the bed-settee and curl up. Aiden stays at the table. The hum of the refrigerator and the clanging of water pipes masks our silence. Saggy springs creak as I shuffle into the cushions. There’s a metallic click from the table. I look over but he’s only lighting a cigarette. I lean back again, closing my eyes, letting myself drift. A car drones along the road. The picture of my past dissolves and reforms, the sliding coloured beads inside a kaleidoscope.

  Still that question: what now?

  Face it. Understand it. Fight it.

  That’s what I was taught to do when something isn’t fair.

  We catch the last train to Bristol and hitch across the channel in a lorry. The driver shoots curious glances at us. Aiden avoids speaking and keeps checking the wing-mirror. We’re dropped off in Cardiff to wait for the first train to Pembroke Dock. Aiden goes for tea. I sit on the platform, my coat buttoned against the cold, trying to light a cigarette.

  ‘Here.’ Aiden returns with two steaming polystyrene cups.

  The tea trembles in my frozen grip. Aiden sits unflinching on the icy bench and when he lights my cigarette his hand is steady.

  ‘Aren’t you nithered?’

  ‘I’m used to it,’ he says. ‘Do you want my jacket?’

  I think about what he’s been doing to acclimatise himself to long cold hours waiting, a gun in his pocket. I remember us running through the park, scattering ducks, giggling. ‘No, but thanks.’

  He shuffles closer, his arm pressing mine. ‘I know it’s been a shock.’

  ‘Will he be glad to see me?’

  ‘Aye, course.’ Aiden clears his throat. ‘I’ll come with you, don’t worry.’

  But I am worried. I’m not sure I’ll be glad to see him.

  Dublin—15th October, 1980

  The bus ride from Rosslare Harbour takes two hours. I sit by the window, reading bilingual road signs showing off their double-tongue. Aiden chain-smokes, says little. When a sign proclaims 5 miles to Dublin, he lights his last cigarette. His leg starts a jig and his hand goes to his hair half a dozen times. I keep still, afraid movement will splinter me.

  Weeds grow through the broken slabs of a drive leading to a child-drawn bungalow.

  Aiden calls out as we enter, ‘Mr Finnighan, it’s me.’

  A voice croaks, ‘Away in, lad.’

  We creep along a narrow passageway. Aiden inches open the door.

  ‘I’ve brought you a visitor.’

  ‘Who’s that, so?’

&nbs
p; Aiden beckons to me.

  In an armchair, wrapped in a grubby blanket, is a shrunken man. His face is thin and lined, chin speckled with grey stubble, eyes deep-set hollows, nose hooked and twisted, skin sallow. He stoops forward, his crown showing through sparse white hair. Eyes widen, blue glittering. A hand, knuckles gnarled and skin brown-speckled, appears from beneath the blanket, reaching out as though to touch me; I hang back. The hand drops.

  ‘You eejit, what the fuck’ve you done?’ He throws off the blanket, crossing the room on a younger man’s legs. ‘Ya bloody wee bollocks.’

  He smacks Aiden in the mouth. I recoil. Aiden puts a hand to his split lip, drawing it away red-smeared.

  ‘You’ve no business, so you haven’t.’

  ‘We’ve been worried about you,’ Aiden murmurs.

  ‘Haven’t yous enough worries?’ He swings fierce eyes on me. ‘You’re leaving. Take her back. Now.’

  ‘Mr Finnighan, it’s for the best. Da said…’

  He snorts, ‘What business is it of his?’ Raises his hand again.

  I grab the sleeve of his raggy jumper. I want to hate him but the little girl from the photograph wants to hug him. It’s the smell; tobacco, talc and pencil shavings. ‘It’s not him you should be angry at; it’s yourself.’

  His arm falls. He shakes his head. ‘Whatever’ve you done? Silly ould bastard.’ He returns to his chair, sinking down. His eyes settle on mine, searching me. ‘What’s he said to you?’

  ‘Enough.’

  Daideo glowers at Aiden who shuffles on his feet.

  ‘Do you not think she’s a right to know, Mr Finnighan?’

  ‘Just ’cos someone’s a right to something doesn’t mean they deserve it thrown at them,’ Daideo bawls. He turns to me. ‘Go home.’

  He’s as afraid of this as me but he doesn’t know it yet and I won’t tell him.

  ‘No.’ I plant myself on the sofa and meet his glare with a neutral expression.

  ‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ Aiden offers, hurrying from the room.

  ‘Aiden says you’re ill.’

  ‘I’m ould, that’s all.’

  ‘So you’re not ill?’

  He doesn’t reply.

  ‘You think this is how I deserved to find out?’

  ‘Him and his interfering da. I’ll skin Frank, so I will,’ he mutters. ‘You weren’t supposed to know.’

  ‘Well I can’t unknow it now. You could at least be sorry.’

  He scowls. ‘I’ve nothing to be sorry for.’ He unfolds himself, rounded shoulders straightening, and reaches across to the table at his elbow. On it is a sketchpad, three stubby pencils and a tobacco tin. He flips the pad shut and snatches the tin. ‘’Twas for your own good.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Wee ’uns need a proper family, ma and da, caring folks with decent values.’

  ‘Your idea of a proper family’s pretty fucked up.’ I slap him with the last two words. Wonder if he’ll slap back. He doesn’t.

  ‘I know they’ll’ve loved you, raised you right.’

  I try foul truths instead of foul language. ‘I’ll tell you how they raised me. Instead of colouring books I had placards to paint. We had our picnics on picket lines. They didn’t send me to school because they didn’t want me indoctrinated so I did my lessons alone at home which was mostly in some rank doss-house because it didn’t matter to them where we lived as long as we were handy for whatever rally was next on the calendar. They didn’t care what I got up to because they thought I was a hell of a lot better off than any of the oppressed whose battles they were fighting.’

  ‘Weren’t you, so?’ he snaps. ‘Clothes, food, education, family, freedom: love.’ He starts rolling a spindly cigarette. ‘You should be glad you’d the chance to learn from them what this world’s like and how to set about making it better.’ He runs a pale tongue along the cigarette paper, seals it and strikes a match.

  ‘They were too busy marching and protesting to love me.’

  ‘Of course they loved you. Why else would they teach you to stand up and fight for yourself when something’s not fair?’

  ‘They didn’t want me…’

  He interrupts. ‘I’d’ve never given you to them if I thought that.’

  ‘…and neither did you.’

  His fierce face fractures. He fights the blow, batting it down, drawing himself together again. ‘I did what I thought best. I’m sorry if you’re not of the same mind but there’s nothing to be done about it now.’ He folds his arms.

  I’m doing this all wrong.

  Aiden returns with tea and biscuits. ‘OK. here?’

  Neither of us answers. Daideo sinks into the cushions. I settle into the sagged sofa, my feet on the coffee table. He squints at me, studying each feature the way I study things I’m drawing. I wonder what’s on the pages of his sketchpad.

  ‘You’ve still the look of my mother about you,’ he says.

  ‘What?’

  Aiden sits next to me and pours tea. As he passes my cup he leans in and whispers:

  ‘Give him chance.’

  I take the cup, swallow tea and frustration. Wait for the old man in the corner to speak again.

  ‘What are you doing with yourself?’

  I came for answers, not questions. At my elbow Aiden lets out a tiny cough. I glance over and he nods, encouraging, guiding me.

  ‘I’m at college.’

  ‘Studying what?’

  ‘Art.’

  Daideo stubs out his roll-up. His eyes widen, the blue luminous in the shadows of his sockets.

  ‘I used to do a bit,’ he replies. ‘Still knock up the odd sketch.’ A hand strays towards the sketchpad. He snatches it back. ‘But oils were my thing when I was a lad.’

  ‘My favourite too.’

  His cheeks flush. Pride? ‘A painter, eh? You get that from me.’ He shoves a digestive into his mouth. Splutters, ‘Are you good?’

  ‘I got a scholarship.’ I pause. ‘To them it was a sell out of all their years teaching me to denounce The Man, be a free spirit and lobby for liberty.’

  ‘But you went anyway?’ He spits biscuit crumbs down his shirtfront.

  ‘They’re too lefty for parental dictatorships.’

  He peers at me over his teacup. ‘So?’

  ‘I packed and walked. That was last year. We’ve hardly spoken since.’ I set down my mug. ‘Now I don’t see there’s anything left between us except mutual disappointment.’

  Daideo’s mouth quivers. ‘A fighter: you’ll get that from me, an’ all.’ He gulps his tea; some dribbles down his grizzled chin. ‘I broke with my father when I was sixteen on account of needing to make my own way in the world so I’ll say nothing against you on that.’

  ‘Good, because they’re nothing to me now.’

  He sighs. ‘Aye, you’re like me, so you are.’ He shakes his head. ‘And I’m like my father, more than I’d wish to be.’ He pauses to snatch at some dark memory. ‘Reckon I owe you an answer, lass.’

  I look at Aiden. He winks.

  Daideo starts somewhere in the middle.

  ‘Your ma… Susan,’ he corrects, seeing my frown, ‘Aye, she’s Bethy’s daughter. Beth was Charlie’s youngest sister.’

  ‘Charlie?’

  ‘School pal of mine. Your da’s named after him. Charlie died when he was nothing but a lad.’ His sight turns inwards as he peers into the past. ‘So when your da was born I give him Charlie’s name. He was a grand lad and I kept in touch with his family after, off and on. When your folks…’ Daideo presses shaking fingers into his eye sockets, smearing tears. ‘I tried, so I did, but it wasn’t any good. I couldn’t cope. So when I heard Sue was away to England with this fella she’d married we fixed things up for you to go with them. You’d be almost four, young enough to forget. I only asked them to write once in a while, let me know how you got on, and to make sure that you did forget.’

  ‘That’s why they changed my name.’

  ‘Aye. They wanted to call you
Katherine but you wouldn’t have it so they made do with scrubbing the Irish out of Caoilainn.’

  His words are only the story’s ending.

  ‘What about my real parents?’

  ‘Sure, it was the Troubles killed ’em. A terrible time, so it was.’ He falls silent.

  Is that it? I sit forward. ‘Is that it? What about how? By who? When?’

  ‘You’re best off not knowing.’

  ‘That’s not your decision.’

  ‘As long as there’s breath in me it is.’

  ‘Fine. Don’t tell me. I’ll find out myself.’

  It’s a risky sidestep; maybe there’ll be no other way of finding out. His mouth twitches. I can’t read him so look to Aiden for a translation.

  Daideo suddenly pounds his fist off the chair arm. ‘You want to hear about how they were killed by a war we’ve been doomed to fight and lose in every generation? You want to know about brutal enemy attacks; folks afeared to sleep in their beds; spending weeks, months, years, running for safety in our own country; cowering like criminals when all we’re after’s getting back what was robbed from us; watching our comrades jailed, killed and waiting for the same ourselves?’ Words explode from him, slamming me into my seat with a crushing pain. ‘You want me telling you ’bout your parents being shot, your ma’s chest ripped open by bullets, your da’s face such a mess we’d to have the coffin closed? You want me to say how it felt hearing I’d lost two more, my own two, and knowing I was as much to blame as them that fired the guns?’ His face throbs with anger. Spit clumps in the corners of his mouth. His breath comes in drowning gasps. His eyes scorch me. He falls back, hand clawing at his collar.

  Aiden jumps up, snatches a bottle from the sideboard and tips whiskey into Daideo’s teacup, pressing it into dothery hands. Daideo gulps from it, his face cooling, sweat beading on his forehead. Aiden hovers at his side. Daideo pushes him away to stare at me. He gasps one more breath.

  ‘You want to know the agony I felt telling you your mammy and daddy were dead?’ He crumples, allowing himself to be swallowed by the chair cushions.