Waking in the house after that first night, lying under a cover-less duvet on a bed without sheets, she felt like a squatter, an unwanted guest.
Unwanted.
Her father had tried to explain but she had refused to hear it. She felt betrayed by him. She was also hungry.
There was nothing to eat. The fridge and the cupboards were empty. She dressed, then went up the street to the corner shop for milk and tea and cereal. But when she had it all out on the counter and it was being added up on the till she discovered she didn’t have enough money. Flustered, she said she would be back, then made an embarrassed exit.
It was eight thirty and the traffic down the Lisburn Road, heading into the heart of the city, was clogged and irritable. She glanced at people she passed to see if they were looking at her but no one was. She was anonymous, just another person hurrying by, yet she felt certain that if they didn’t know who she was, they would see what she was: a fraud, an imposter pretending to be as normal as they were. They had a purpose, places to go, people to meet. She had nothing, not even a past.
She didn’t like it on the street. She hadn’t been out like this, alone, before.
She needed to find a bank with an ATM. She had to get money; the taxi ride last night had used up nearly all her cash. She had her cash card. She had credit cards, too, the old bills long settled by her father, the cards renewed automatically because she was such a reliable customer. It was difficult to use your plastic when you were in a coma.
She spotted a Northern Bank on a corner. A man was huddled over the cashpoint so she waited a discreet distance until he had moved away. She put her card into the slit and the screen asked for her number.
She froze, her finger poised. Damn, she couldn’t remember.
Wait, it was 4851, wasn’t it? She tried that but the screen did not agree with her and told her so.
A man and a woman moved up behind, waiting their turn.
OK, 4581, then. No, the screen did not know that one either, but it began with a four; she was certain of that. She had another stab at it and then to her horror the card disappeared into the wall with a sharp sucking noise. The screen said something about her card being retained.
The couple behind whispered to each other and stared at her suspiciously. She turned from them, trying to hide her reddening face, and hurried home, wondering what she was going to do now.
She found her father in the kitchen.
There was darkness around his eyes. It was the face of a man who had not slept much.
Two bulging bags of groceries were standing on the work surface. It was hopeless. How on earth could she complain about people doing things for her when she had just demonstrated that she was incapable of doing anything for herself?
‘I let myself in,’ he said. His voice sounded strained. ‘I was worried when you weren’t here.’ He gestured towards the shopping bags. ‘I brought you some things. It occurred to me that there wouldn’t be anything in the house.’
‘No,’ she agreed, ‘there wasn’t.’ She was finding it hard to stay mad at him. Then she told him what had happened at the bank. All of a sudden she thought it was funny and she could not help laughing.
He did not join in. Instead, he asked: ‘Last night – what happened at your mother’s?’
Her smile went. ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter now,’ she said.
‘It does. Please. I want to know.’
She sighed. ‘All right, then.’
He listened, his brow knotted, as she told him about the visit from the pastor and the subsequent spat with her mother. Then he said: ‘The things she told you about me – I had to come this morning, to try to explain.’
This time she let him do so, waiting as he sat down wearily on a kitchen chair, which was black metal and not very comfortable. She did not like them much.
‘Meg, it’s not true that I wanted you to die,’ he said. ‘I wanted you to live. But I wanted you to be alive the way . . . the way you are now. After almost four years, there was no sign that you were ever going to recover. Somebody had to start thinking of the future, to ask what the options were.’
He looked at her for some response but she did not know what to say.
‘You know that birthday card I sent, the one with the girl in the boat?’
She nodded, remembering that her mother had all her cards in a box somewhere.
‘That’s the way I saw you,’ he said, ‘going nowhere, neither backwards nor forward, frozen in time. You were showing no sign of recovery at all. I discussed it with the doctors but it was a difficult topic. In circumstances like that, well, there wasn’t a lot to discuss. It wasn’t as if you were brain dead, you see. You weren’t being kept alive by a whole lot of machines doing everything for you. You would have stayed the way you were until you went one way or another. Either you would have become ill or you would have recovered. I’m just so happy you got better.’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘It was just a conversation, that was all, but your mother found out about it and went into one of her holy rages, accusing me of going behind her back and planning to murder you.’
He stared at the floor and shook his head. ‘But I wasn’t, Meg. I need you to believe me. I was . . .’
His voice cracked. All of a sudden he put his head in his hands and began to cry. As if floodgates had been opened, it burst out of him, great racking sobs of pain and remorse that seemed to reverberate in the openness of the room.
It took Meg unawares. She crouched beside him and put her arms round his shoulders. She scented the faint whisper of his shaving cream, the tweedy sweetness of his skin and his clothes.
‘Oh Meg,’ he said, ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘It’s all right, Dad,’ she whispered. ‘I’m here. I’m here now.’
Later she sat alone and in silence, the stress of the morning and the evening before like a heavy weight pressing into her chest.
He had desperately wanted her to understand so she had assured him she did and when he left he had felt better. He had been holding all this inside for a long time. Such anguish. She felt guilty that she had ever doubted him.
Guilt. She thought of her mother.
The hurried departure from Carryduff gnawed at her. She couldn’t leave things like that.
She invited her to the house two days later.
Gloria hated the place as soon as she saw it – it was written all over her – although she did not say as much. Meg wouldn’t have minded if she had.
She plunged straight in. ‘Look, Mum, I’m sorry about what happened the other night. I didn’t intend to upset you or embarrass you in front of your pastor. I guess we both said things we didn’t mean but now I want us to make a fresh start. To be friends. What do you say?’
Gloria did not answer. She stood in the middle of the big room and looked around. ‘Of course, you know he’s bought several houses round here?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Your father. Another of his little sidelines. He fixes them up cheaply, he can get the labour and the materials, you see, and sells them at a big profit. He’d probably have done that with this if you . . .’ She stopped and they stared at each other.
Later, they had lunch in the delicatessen along the road. Chicken in a lemon sauce with whole grain rice. They did not mention the subject again but it hung over Meg like a cloud. She watched her mother. Gloria ate heartily, believing, clearly, that fresh concerns about Sam Winter’s motives had been planted firmly in her daughter’s mind.
You are being used.
That’s what this was. Her mother was trying to drive a wedge between her and her father. There was so much anger, so much poison. She did not want to be a part of it.
She called Elizabeth and they arranged a shopping expedition so that Meg could get some new clothes.
When the day arrived it was wet and miserable. Elizabeth had left Catriona with her sister-in-law. Over coffee, Meg brought her up to date and gave her the details of her shortlived stay with her mother.
‘I hate to say it,’ Elizabeth said, ‘but I told you so.’
By lunchtime the wind was blowing the rain in waves that billowed down Belfast’s long streets. People ran out of its path and huddled under dripping awnings. Gutters flowed like rivers and cars had their headlights on, the wipers set to frantic. Elizabeth had booked a table for lunch at Deane’s in Howard Street. They tumbled in, laughing, clasping carrier bags from Gap and Monsoon and shaking streams of water from an umbrella.
A waiter with black hair like a shiny shell took their things, and when they had collected themselves in the ladies’ room, he glided ahead to their table, pulling their chairs out for them.
‘I’ll have a gin and tonic,’ Elizabeth said before she was firmly on the seat. She wore a suit and gleaming knee length boots in expensive leather. She opened her jacket. Her breasts pressed against a white silk blouse.
The waiter gave her an approving look then raised his eyebrows to Meg who was in chinos and a jumper and felt dowdy beside her richly upholstered friend.
‘Just a mineral water, thanks.’
He nodded and headed for the bar.
‘Not having a proper drink?’ Elizabeth wondered. ‘You’re back in the big wide world again. It’s time to celebrate.’
‘No, I’m fine. Somehow, rediscovering alcohol isn’t high on my list of priorities.’
‘Oh, don’t be silly. A little drink now and again can take the edge off. When was the last time you had one?’
Meg shot her a look.
‘Ah, stupid me,’ Elizabeth said. ‘The night of the accident. Sorry, I forgot. You know, maybe if you had a drink your memory would come back. Sometimes that works. You get into the same frame of mind or something.’
‘Thanks, I’ll not bother, if it’s all the same.’
Another waiter brought the drinks. He was small, in a waistcoat too big for him. He took their food order. ‘Oh and I’ll have a glass of the house white as well,’ Elizabeth said.
When he had gone, Meg lifted her glass. ‘Cheers,’ she said.
They clinked, then Elizabeth took a belt of her gin and tonic and looked around the restaurant. At a table nearby four men in suits were glancing their way. She smiled over at them and raised her glass slightly. Meg noticed.
‘What are you doing?’ she muttered.
‘Just being friendly,’ Elizabeth said through her smile. ‘The thin one with the dark hair’s not bad. What do you think?’
‘I’m not looking,’ Meg said. ‘Behave yourself.’
‘Oh, I’m not doing any harm,’ Elizabeth insisted, still eyeing the other table. ‘Lighten up, darling, for goodness sake. There’s nothing wrong with having a look, seeing what’s on offer, a bit of window shopping. And you’ll be wanting to get yourself laid again one of these days, don’t you think?’
‘Elizabeth – do you mind?’
‘Well, you will.’
‘But not here. Not over the first course.’ She glanced at the other table at last. ‘And certainly not with any of them.’
‘Spoilsport.’
Meg looked at her. ‘So what’s the news on Vincent? You’ve been avoiding the subject all morning.’
Elizabeth’s face seemed to darken. She took another drink. ‘He’s coming over next week.’
‘Where?’
‘Here. He’s coming next week.’
‘Really? You were keeping that quiet. How did all this come about?’
Elizabeth shrugged. ‘We’ve been talking on the phone. He calls all the time. Damn it, if he’d threaten me with a court order or a lawyer or something it’d be easier to handle. But he doesn’t. He just says he understands: says he’s not going to talk about having any more children if I don’t want to, says it’ll be good for me to have a break for a while, to have some space.’
‘And is it?’
She frowned. ‘I don’t know. I’m confused. I don’t know what to think.’
‘Do you love him?’ Meg asked.
It was a straightforward enough question but it seemed to sting.
‘Love him? What sort of a thing is that to ask? Love. What does it mean anyway? Well? Can you tell me that?’ She gave Meg a harsh stare.
The moment was relieved by the waiter who arrived with their starters, seared scallops piled high on a bed of something green.
Elizabeth finished her gin and lifted her glass of wine as Meg began to eat. It tasted great but her appetite had waned.
‘Well, then,’ Meg said eventually, trying again, ‘I’ll put it another way – do you miss him?’
‘Catriona does,’ Elizabeth offered.
‘But you – do you miss him?’
Her friend gave an abrupt nod that was a bit reluctant. ‘Sometimes, yes, I suppose I do.’
‘So you should sort it out. Face to face. It’s good that he’s coming here and that he’s being reasonable about this. Running away like that, it could have been part of the whole post-natal stuff, you know. That can take a long time.’
‘And you would know?’ Her wine was finished and she signalled for another one.
‘That’s right,’ Meg said and gave her a sharp look. ‘I would. Apparently I’m a doctor.’
When Elizabeth and a taxi dropped her and the shopping off at Truesdale Street later she was glad to be on her own again.
She was running out of sympathy. For her father, for Elizabeth. Everyone.
She unwrapped her new clothes and put them away. Then she made a cup of tea and stood with it, looking out her front window. Like some sort of tropical storm, the rain had stopped as suddenly as it had begun. The clouds were drifting away towards a new target and the sun was casting a blanket of light across the sturdy flanks of the Black Mountain.
They were draining her, Elizabeth with her moods, her parents with their emotional hang-ups and their problems, pulling her one way, then another.
No one was thinking of her needs at all. It was like, great, she’s back. Let’s dump as much baggage on her as we can.
She had to free herself of this. She had more important things to think about. She had to get her life back on track and it was time she made a start.