Weekend reading

Life has moved on for Lucy but the pain of missing her sister is renewed by this week's events in Family Lines

III

15 March 1995

All right girl, now I’m torn between spitting feathers, raining tears and screaming. I could do with a dose of Daire’s primal therapy, anything to burn off my rage. Then maybe I’ll be able to feel relief and I don’t know maybe actually meet you and give you a hug or something. Big Maybe.

  Well maybe not. I’ll see you when I can sort out my head.

  So, I know you told Rose to tell me about the exhibition. And yeah that means Rose knew all along but didn’t tell me. Which means you told her not to tell me and somehow she thought it was more important to keep your secret than to put us out of our agony. I’m not saying you killed Mam but you did kinda destroy her and us. You need to know that. That’s why I’m actually going to give this letter to Rose to give to you. Along with all the others that I kept.

  Were you there yesterday? Watching me studying your photos, the photos of you, or of your body, never your face, only the back of your head – not sure how you managed that one – trying to make out familiar bits, to verify that it really was you up there on the walls. I saw the butterfly tattoo which was a confirmation I suppose. Not that your the only one around here with a butterfly tattoo. You see, I happen to have one too. Yes, like an eejit when I was mourning you I went and got one on my shoulder, exact same spot as yours, don’t ask me why, some kind of memorial or a mad idea that I could some way have part of you in me or on me. Well we do share some genes which counts for something I guess only it wasn’t obvious – you were the bright and beautiful one I was the ugly sister. That’s why I liked the butterfly idea, just to borrow a little bit of your beauty.

Photo by Jim on Unsplash

Maybe after all the butterfly is the only thing we have in common. What am I supposed to think about the fact that we don’t share as many genes as we thought or as I thought? I suppose it explains the differences between us. I take after Dad, you take after Mam, which is about right. Or so the theory goes but now I’m beginning to question my origins which is pretty fucking confusing. On top of everything else. Well on top of you and your shenanigans.

Yeah, yeah, Marge told me all about Mam and you about a year after Mam died. She said it wasn’t fair to me not to know. The thing is she knew all along too and she guessed that was why you fecked off. But she didn’t know how you knew because Mam said she never said anything to you. That’s what she said. Only you know whether she did and if she did whether that’s the why of you doing a runner out of the blue. I don’t know. My head is fried now and I can’t work out what’s true and what’s not.

  Here’s the thing of it though, whatever else happens you have to see Dad. He had a stroke two years ago and went a bit doolally after. Plus his left arm and leg don’t really work anymore. I couldn’t mind him on my own, not now that I have a real job. (In the bank believe it or not. At the foreign exchange counter which is a joke cos I’ve never been anywhere. Unless you count a weekend in Athlone.) Last year me and Marge decided we’d have to put Dad into an old folks’ home. It took a bit of arranging. Marge even had to get onto our local TD, Fintan Maloney. He remembered all about you going AWOL. He said his little brother was a friend of Fogo’s and met you a few times with him.

In other words he sort of felt he knew us and that made him feel sort of sorry for us. I didn’t mind all that supposing if he could help us. Which to be fair he did. But we’ll have to vote for him next time out. At least he’s Labour so I won’t have to hold my nose! I asked him about Fogo out of curiosity cos I hadn’t seen him in years. The story is that he’s working in his Da’s pub now, still plays the odd gig there on a Friday night but he’s a married man with responsibilities, in other words, three kids. I wanted to ask do they have Mohicans but decided I better not or Fintan might think I was taking the piss.

Dad doesn’t do much these days apart from sit in a chair staring out the window. There are times I think he knows who I am and other times he hasn’t a clue. It’s like he’s lost in his Mam and Dad’s house talking to his brothers and sisters, not knowing that half of them are dead and the other half are in England and Australia, apart from Marge. Then he gets agitated, shouting at some of them. The older ones bullied him Marge said because he was quiet and not into Ga and all the rest of it. He preferred to be inventing games with his pals. Later they hated that he didn’t drink. Told him he wasn’t a man and all that. I think they thought that he thought he was superior to them. I suppose that’s why we never met any of them, bar Sean. And then he went and disappeared. Off the side of a boat they said.

I don’t think Marge ever believed that story. She swears he went off with some other man’s wife and started a new life in New Zealand, leaving his own wife and children high and dry. Which goes to show you’re not the only disappearing act in this family. Still and all I think you should visit him. Dad that is. I think if he saw you he’d maybe recognise you. It might shake loose some memories from the fog in his head. It might even make him happy for a few minutes.  

I won’t be telling him about your exhibition. ‘Bodies Bewear’ is right. Probably just as well neither of them got to see that. Mam would have said, It’s not very nice, and Dad would have done a complete turtle. After all Mam liked dressing up not the opposite. Is that why you made these photos? The naked truth or something like that? How about telling us – well me – the truth?

The ones where you make your body look like a landscape, or actually a moonscape with strange surfaces and pits and hollows and dunes are kinda strange and creepy and beautiful all at once. But to tell the truth I wanted to tear them all off the wall and stamp on them. They’re selfish pictures. Do you know that? They show you only care about yourself and don’t give a damn about all the strife you caused. One letter, one postcard, one phone call, one effing photo would have saved us all.

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