“GEMMA MURPHY? SURE. She’s in a room of her own.” The nurse has emerald eye shadow and a crisp black bob. “Today’s her birthday, of course. They’re having a little party . . .”
She takes us to a side room. Deirdre is there, and Gordon. Gemma is sitting up in bed, though her face is horribly bruised where she was knocked against the branches as he took her to the icehouse. There are lots of flowers and greeting cards.
Deirdre smiles warmly at us.
“Gemma, this is Grace and Sylvie and Adam.”
Gemma grins. “I’m sorry I look so crap,” she says. She touches her face with a careful, tentative fingertip. “They showed me my reflection this morning. I mean, I look completely putrid.”
“Gemma . . .” says Deirdre, prompting her.
A flush spreads over Gemma’s face.
“There was this speech I was going to make—to thank you for saving my life. Deirdre got me to practice, but really it’s too embarrassing.” She smiles her wide-open smile. “But thanks anyway. I’m just so glad you were there.”
There’s a bag of jelly sweets on her locker, and a Dizzee Rascal CD, and she’s wearing a T-shirt that says JUST WAIT TILL I’M FAMOUS. She’s not what I’d expected, this vivid, emphatic teenager—not at all the fey and wistful creature I’d imagined.
“I’m so glad we could help,” I tell her.
“She’s coming home tomorrow,” Deirdre tells us. “They just want to keep her in for one more night—just to keep an eye on her.”
“That’s fantastic,” I say.
Sylvie doesn’t say anything. She’d been so impatient to come, but now she has a lost look. Her hand in mine feels very small and cold.
“Now, I think you’ve met Gordon,” says Deirdre.
He comes toward us, shakes our hands.
“We’re so grateful to you,” he tells us. “For what you did for Gemma. And for laying this to rest.” His eyes are moist and full. Deirdre puts a hand on his arm. “It means so much—to all of us—to know what really happened. To know that Alice didn’t choose to leave us . . .”
There’s a choke in his voice, and I don’t know what to say.
The birthday cake that I saw in Barry’s is on a table by the bed, with seventeen candles stuck in it. Under the tubular lighting, the chocolate has a dull and muted shine.
Deirdre follows my gaze.
“You must join us in some cake,” she says. “I’m just going to light the candles.”
But it’s a family party, and we are strangers to them. I worry we are intruding.
“Really, we should be going,” I tell her. “We just came to check that Gemma was okay . . .”
“You can’t go yet,” says Deirdre. “Honestly, I won’t let you. Not till you’ve had a slice of Gemma’s cake.”
She starts to light the candles. The clinical little room has a smell of celebration, of warm marzipan and melting wax.
“No singing, okay?” says Gemma. “Or I’ll freak.”
“Okay. No singing,” says Deirdre. She shakes out a match and lights another, smiles ruefully at Gemma. I have a sense of her relationship with her willful foster child—at once wary and indulgent. I admire her.
“There,” she says. The candles are all lit now, and flickering extravagantly. “Maybe Sylvie here could help you blow them out.”
Sylvie edges toward the bed. Gemma takes her hand and leans toward the birthday cake: the yellow flames are dancing in the darkness of her eyes. She blows the candles out, and wisps of blue smoke blur her face. Sylvie doesn’t join in, just stands there staring at Gemma.
“There. We did it. You really helped,” says Gemma, smiling at her. Deirdre has brought paper plates. We stand around eating the cake. It’s scented and rich, but my mouth feels dry and I find it hard to swallow. The things that aren’t being said seem to hang in the air between us.
Maybe Deirdre senses this.
“Gordon and I are going to grab a coffee,” she tells us. “We’ll leave you four to have a bit of a chat.”
They leave, and the room is silent.
Sylvie just stands there with that lost look on her face, and I don’t know what to say or do, or how to make it easier.
“Your braid’s all coming undone,” says Gemma.
Sylvie puts a hand to her braid, where it’s messy and ragged from yesterday, from crawling through the bushes. I’d offered to take it out for her, but she wanted to keep it in.
“Did Siobhan do it for you?” says Gemma. “That girl with all the snake tattoos? The girl who sells the belts and stuff?”
Sylvie nods. Her eyes are large in her white face.
“I know how she does it,” says Gemma. “I got her to give me a lesson.” She gestures to the bed beside her. “You could sit yourself up here,” she says, “and let me put it right.”
Sylvie climbs on the bed, sits with her side to Gemma.
Gemma takes her hairbrush and brushes Sylvie’s hair.
“You’re the blondest girl I ever saw,” she says.
She cuts the knot and unpicks what’s left of the braid. She lays the threads out on her blanket, all the sherbet colors. Then she takes the threads and knots them in Sylvie’s hair and starts to weave, wrapping them over and over. Their heads are close together. They’re sitting under the window and white sunlight spills across them, and the room is full of the festive scents of chocolate and candle wax. I watch the movement of Gemma’s hands, their fluid, intricate patterning.
She ties off the end of the braid. All the snagged, unraveled pieces are woven together again.
“There,” she says.
She has a mirror on her locker. She holds it up for Sylvie. Sylvie, a little self-conscious, smiles at her reflection.
“You’re ready for anything now,” says Gemma.
She puts the mirror down again, placing it well to the side of her so she can’t see her own reflection.
“I try not to look at myself,” she tells us. “I hate it, with all these bruises.”
Sylvie reaches out and touches Gemma’s face. It’s the lightest touch, as though she is touching something unguessably precious. Gemma puts her arm around her.
“I saw you before,” says Gemma to Sylvie. She’s speaking quietly, I can only just hear. “I saw you on the beach that day. I didn’t know who you were.” She has a slight puzzled frown. “Well, to be honest, I still don’t really—”
Sylvie doesn’t say anything. She rests her head against Gemma. She seems entranced or hypnotized, all the tension eased out of her face. It’s as though she’s oblivious to me, as though this is where she should be.
My heart sucks at my ribs. In everything that’s happened—the fire, the cave, the danger—there’s been nothing that has made me so afraid.
I feel Adam put his hand on my arm—to comfort me, or maybe to restrain me. Perhaps he’s afraid I might go and snatch her away. I’m glad he’s here with me.
They sit there for what seems like an age.
At last I take a deep breath. I steel myself to speak to them.
“Sylvie. Maybe—in a moment—we’d better say goodbye . . .”
My voice has a shake in it.
Sylvie starts at the sound of my voice. She stretches, slides off the bed.
“Look, Sylvie,” says Gemma, a little embarrassed and uncertain. “If you want, you could come over, once I’m out of hospital. You know, if you’d like that . . .”
Sylvie just stands there for a moment, staring at Gemma, drinking her in, her eyes unblinking and huge. I’m clasping my hands together, the palms are damp with sweat.
Then Sylvie shakes her head. It’s a very slight movement, so slight you could easily miss it.
“We can’t come and see you,” she says, and her thin, small, definite voice is bell clear in the quiet. “We’ve got a plane to catch from Shannon Airport.” She’s rather self-important, relishing the grown-up phrase. “We’re going back to London. Me and my mum have got to go back home.”
There’s a little pause—just a heartbeat.
“Sure,” says Gemma then. “Well, that’s for the best really, isn’t it, now?” She rests her hand for a moment on top of Sylvie’s head. “I tell you what, they’re going to really like your hair, in London . . . I’m glad I put it right for you. I told you that I would.”