I halt the kelpie-horse and stare.
All of this.
My parents have all of this – made all of this – and there is no sign of a lack of money. No deprivation, neither paucity nor poverty. No expense spared. Yet I have spent my life in made-over gowns, eating soup and porridge thin as water, my grandparents turning a coin around seven times before they spent it, dodging debt collectors, begging the likes of Aidan Fitzpatrick for the smallest of aid.
And my parents have this.
They did not send anything to help.
My mother did not send assistance though she could not have avoided knowledge of the state of the family – she too grew up in Hob’s Hallow.
She did not send for me.
I feel as if rage will choke me. I’ve come so far and here I’ll die on the threshold because I cannot swallow down this fury that’s closing my throat. And yet: longing. Yearning. I’d give everything if only they’ll love me. Explain everything away. Tell me it was all a mistake.
And I know this is infantile – that my heart is still that of a hurt child – so I clench my hands around the reins, feel my nails sharp again my palms. It pulls me back to here. The bile subsides. The kelpie-horse moves impatiently beneath me and I’ve no doubt he’s eager to have his service done. Gently, I dig my heels into his flanks; he makes a mild noise of protest at the indignity and we move on.
When we are perhaps five yards away from the semi-circular steps that lead upwards, the white front door with its silver knocker – is that a two-faced, two-tailed mermaid? – flies open and a woman appears in the breach.
My heart stops for the shortest of moments until I realise this cannot be my mother. Cannot be Isolde. This woman is short and very blonde, nearly platinum. She’s buxom but almost to the point of turning stout: her apron and waistband are straining against her. There are traces of a little too much fat in her round cheeks and beneath her chin, and her skin shows traces of coarsening. She’s pretty but how long that will last is anyone’s guess – it’s like she’s poised on a moment between. Even if she had been tall and slender and dark like an O’Malley, the apron with its stains would have given me pause. Even on the worst days when Aoife had to help in the kitchen because Maura was overwhelmed, she would never be seen in a grubby smock, never be seen looking like a scullion or slattern. She drilled that into me and I can think of no good reason why it wouldn’t have been imprinted onto my mother’s mind as well.
Then I focus on the dress beneath: sky blue with silver flowers embroidered. Even at a quick glimpse, it’s of better quality than one usually associates with a servant. However it doesn’t seem made for her; a hand-me-down. I think of my mother giving away her fine dresses to a servant when she couldn’t be bother to help her own family. I shake the thought away.
A housekeeper then, or a maid, and by her expression an unhappy one at that.
‘How did you get in? Who are you?’ Her tone is barely below that of a shriek. Her hands are on her hips, clenched into fists as if that’s the only way she can keep herself from hitting me. She narrows her dark eyes.
‘Lazarus Gannel let me in,’ I say, answering the last question first, and her colour soars from pink to angry red. ‘And my name is Miren Elliott and I’m here to see my parents.’
Her face goes slack with shock, all that red choler drains, and she reels away from the doorframe, back inside the shadowy depths of the great house.
Do I stay here? Do I follow her?
While I’m deliberating, there’s a disturbance somewhere in the dimness of the entry hall. All I can see is a stirring in the gloom. There are shouts and cries, a slap and then the noises hush to bare whispers that I imagine moving dust across the air.
Another figure appears on the threshold: a tall man, with light brown hair shot with silver, blue eyes, high cheekbones, a square jaw clean shaven; emerald trews, a white linen shirt with a loosely tied red cravat, and a waistcoat of violet silk with a border along the bottom of harlequin diamonds in green and purple and yellow. His brown boots are highly-polished; they look as if they’ve never been worn outside. The colours of a peacock. There’s a slight smile on his lips, which are full, but as he gets closer I can see a scar mars the right curve of the cupid’s bow. He hangs in the doorframe for a moment, then steps out, arms opening.
Is this my father? Malachi said he was a pretty boy. Older now, age has taken the edge off the prettiness, so he’s handsome more than anything. But is this my father?
‘Miren. My darling girl. Miren. Welcome home.’
24
I almost fall in my haste to dismount, then my knees are weak when I touch the ground and it’s only my father’s arms that hold me up for the longest while. I’m crying and I don’t want to, but I cannot stop myself. And the tall man is patting my back and kissing my forehead, and whispering ‘There, there, my darling girl.’
At
