Twelve Months and a Day, page 29
“What’s her name?” everybody asked, but Róisín didn’t know yet. Eric had already drawn up an astrological chart for her. After dinner, people came back with instruments, playing the lullabies and love songs of their youth. Champagne appeared again and the baby’s head was wetted. Róisín was asleep by then, so Rasmus made everyone go away.
“You stay, though,” she said, half waking, her face in the pillow.
“Are you sure you don’t want to rest?” he asked.
“I am resting,” she mumbled.
And later in the evening, supper trays on the floor and the baby back in her mother’s arms, Rasmus and Róisín lay back on the piled cushions at either end of the bed. He’d opened the shutters: the storm had passed, and Róisín wanted to look at the sea.
“I’d you down as someone who couldn’t trust people,” she was saying.
“No, no,” he said. “It could have been that, but it’s not. Jay was an excellent model for trust. It’s just that when fame and the attention of strangers start coming into it, I get edgy. It’s so fickle that I have to not allow it any value. And the easiest way to do that was to turn my back on it entirely.”
“Was?”
“Still is. But you know, there’s maneuvering to be done. It depends who and what.”
“It does,” she said, and they didn’t speak for a while, listening to the fire crackling.
“I thought,” she said, “Nico is dead, I’m going to be sad forever. Nobody will compare to him or take his place, so how could I ever even think of getting close to someone else, and anyway who would want me when that’s how I feel? And even if they did, how could I inflict myself on them, lying?”
“That is very much part of it, isn’t it? But then: you and I both know what a good marriage is, a good partnership. We know what we want and need; we know how to love. It’s not a competition. It’s different.”
Róisín would have liked to continue this conversation, but she fell asleep.
Rasmus too.
47
Big Ragged Moon
OCTOBER
France
Dear Róisín,
I was just dreaming. It was shockingly real: right here, in my face. Jay was here. She wanted to see the baby, and so I showed her, and she stroked her cheek, and had tears in her eyes. She said to congratulate you. So—that’s for you. And she said she wants me to scatter her ashes. She said she’s fed up. I told her how I’d tried to before and they’d blown back at me and I hadn’t been able to; she said yes, she knew, but it was all right now. In fact I got the impression she had been there at the time. Then she said she had to go. I asked her, do you want me to take them back to Luskentyre? and she laughed and said the ocean is all one. She said, “There’s no water between us.” And she said that Nico was going to go too, that it was time.
It was quite disconcerting. I really felt as if she’d been waiting to make sure the baby was all right. Which is me projecting, of course. People often say “something has shifted” but in this case it really has, hasn’t it? Right out of your body.
You’re asleep at the other end of the bed as I write this. I can see your feet. It’s very late, or early. I didn’t mean to fall asleep on your bed but now I have.
The storm has completely cleared, and there’s a big ragged moon out there. It’s shining right at you. You look beautiful.
And restless. Perhaps you’re dreaming too.
I’m going to go out now and do what she asked. Off the rocks, in the shining path of the moon, to the west. It seems right.
The timing of this is not going to improve, is it? Not for, what, a couple of years? I know you need to be in love with your girl now. But I’m not going anywhere.
Rasmus.
He slipped from the end of the bed, and out of the room. In the corridor he pressed send.
Done it.
Oh God.
Dear Róisín,
PS I mean obviously I am going out to the beach now. And I’m going back into the studio in the morning. And I’m going on tour in the new year. Do you want to come? You could film. Eric could be nanny.
Rasmus.
Róisín was restless in her sleep, her body slack where it had been taut, aching where it had been full, leaking and confusing. A different size, a different shape, a different texture. A new, older body. Nico was holding her, close but hardly touching, tender, his cheek resting on the top of her head, saying to her, It’s time, it’s time, my dear . . .
What is time? Time for what?
Set me free, he said. Give back my ring, set me free.
Nico?
And I will set you free, he was saying.
Oh . . .
She felt his hand leave her shoulder, and she woke with a start. The moon had moved across the window, and the night was filled with its light.
He’s dead. He’s really dead.
It was as if she simply hadn’t really known before at all. The man is dead.
Well, that’s it then.
Her phone pinged. She blinked at it, flashing intermittently on the bedside table, propped among tissues, a muslin square, and a champagne coupe, like a lighthouse at night on a pile of rocks and spray. And a rose, for some reason. Wet from rain.
There was a tune in her head: give back my ring to me and I will set you free, go with him . . .
She picked up the phone.
Rasmus again.
Sleepily she read the messages, and her eyes sprang open.
Dear Rasmus,
Are you awake?
Róisín
Dear Róisín,
Yes.
Rasmus.
Dear Rasmus,
Do you want me to come down with you?
Róisín
Dear Róisín,
No.
Rasmus.
Dear Rasmus,
Come over to me, will you, when you’re done?
Róisín
She went and stood by the window, looking out into the night.
I would like to see two figures following him in the moonlight, she thought. I’d like them to tell us it’s all right.
Maybe they already have.
The baby mewed, and she followed the tight cable of motherhood to the crib. “Hey, sweetie,” she murmured, leaning over to pick her up. Both of them were yawning as they settled back against the pillows and Róisín opened her robe and lifted her breast. Feels so usual, already. One and a half days old. Here I am. Mother.
Ow.
The skull ring on her finger caught the moonlight. She spread her hand out to look at it.
“This is yours, darling,” she murmured, and she reached over the child to pull it off her finger. It came easily—the swelling of her ankles and fingers had subsided overnight, and they were all her own again. Unlike everything else, which is, for the foreseeable, devoted to you, my baby. She held the ring up. “It belonged to your dad, who I will always love,” she said, and she positioned it by the baby’s starfish hand splayed on her breast. “It’s yours now. I’m going to put it in a box for you, for when you’re bigger.” The brown eyes opened momentarily, gazed at her, drinking her in. The tiny determined face.
“Mm-hmm,” Róisín said. “All yours. All yours.”
She looked out toward the window, her burden so warm and sweet in her lap.
“Mostly.”
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
When Róisín woke again, at some ungodly hour of the morning, Rasmus was there at the other end of the bed, collapsed like a giraffe, fast asleep.
She watched him for a while, and then she leaned over and said, quietly into his ear, “Listen, I’m no good at reading between the lines, but was that you saying you fancy me?”
He was laughing at this before he even had his eyes open. So she kissed him. Not a deeply carnal kiss, but enough to know.
“Don’t wake up,” she said, into the hollow of his neck.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he murmured.
“Not yet,” she said.
“Aye aye, cap’n,” he said, and rolled over.
48
What IS Your Name?
NOVEMBER
En route
“I insist,” Rasmus said.
“I couldn’t possibly!”
“I insist.”
“Oh, but I can’t!”
“Why?”
“It’s too generous,” she said.
He observed her curiously. “That must sound absurd, even to you,” he said.
“Yes, it does, but I can’t help it,” she said.
He put his elbows on the breakfast table and went into one of his diagonal thoughtful stares at the floor.
“Do I have to do something like persuade you you’re doing me a favor to make you accept?”
“That’s one thing people do, yes,” she said.
“Okay. Okay, how about . . . one of the Mellotrons needs to go back, I don’t trust Eric not to steal it, so would you and the lassie please accompany it? You’d be doing me a great favor, you really would!” His eyes grew large and frank.
She laughed. “I still can’t believe you really brought two Mellotrons,” she said. “When there was already one here.”
“You can never have too many Mellotrons,” he said. “Meanwhile, how about you just accept a favor?”
“It’s too much—” she began to say, and he stood up and came round to her, and said: “No it’s not. It’s the least anyone would do for anyone. Including you. You’d do it. So accept the bloody help.”
They hadn’t kissed again. God, but they’d looked at each other.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
The ride home was lovely. Leisurely. Luxuriously sprung, in the back of the big Citroën. Eric stopped every few hours; they ate like kings, and spent a night at Tours. The baby (What IS your name? she thought) snoozed, woke, fed. France rolled out before them, wide.
On the ferry, she stood on deck, salt in her hair. She’d chosen the route: Cherbourg to Portsmouth. She wanted to look out, to the west. Have a little think. Hold the baby close. Her first visit to his grave. Her dead dad. A relationship to build there. Important to get it right.
Eric brought her a whiskey. She took a sip, before throwing it into the sea as they left the southern tip to port, to come up the Solent.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
“OMG,” said Nell. “You kissed him. In front of the baby!”
“My fanny not yet healed from giving birth to another man’s child,” said Róisín.
“You baggage.”
“Indeed.”
“So can I read his email?”
“You cannot.”
“Oh, it’s serious then?”
“What the fuck? Of course it’s fucking serious.”
“Has he got any tats?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ah so you haven’t . . .”
“Nell, Jesus Christ, of course we haven’t. Don’t be disgusting.”
49
Symbolic
NOVEMBER–DECEMBER
Dear Roisin,
I miss you.
Rasmus.
Dear Rasmus
You left out my accents! This has never happened before. Are you all right?
Róisín
Dear Róisín,
I am mortified. Forgive me.
Rasmus.
Dear Rasmus
OK.
Róisín
Dear Róisín,
Thank you.
Factual update time . . . (Does this need a new font? Or the curly one? I don’t know. I would think about it, but things are racing ahead, hence the need for the factual update.)
Re band for the tour: I think I’m there. Markus Ofori the drummer, who you met. Katie the Scottish viola player, who I don’t think you met. Sharon the violinist (the one working on the world’s longest bow stroke) who you definitely didn’t meet. On bass, Matt Gruenberg who I’ve known for twenty years. I’ve persuaded Dany, my Berlin tech producer pal, to take on keyboards and synths, about which I’m incredibly pleased. And a young Argentine accordionist who is obsessed with Dave Brubeck. They’re all coming back to rehearse next week; we’ll do some practice gigs, then the tour starts early February: Paris, Barcelona, Madrid, Milan, Rome, Athens, Belgrade, Budapest, Vienna, Salzburg, Prague, Berlin, Brussels, Amsterdam, Utrecht. Fifteen little theaters, fifteen hotels, eleven flights, some vans, some drives, thirty gigs, forty days. You, me, the baby, the travel cot, Eric, the PXW-FS7 II 4K, and both the Mellotrons. You can leave whenever you want. What do you say?
Love Rasmus.
Dear Rasmus,
It’s ridiculous.
Love
Róisín
Dear Róisín,
Yes, I know. Equally, it’s vital.
Love Rasmus.
Dear Róisín,
There is blossom. Francine tells me it is almond. There is sun. Please think about this. You could film.
Love Rasmus.
Dear Rasmus,
I just don’t think I can. I mean I would love to. But all I can think about is nappies and sleep. What will I do about the nappies? Will we just leave a trail of baby shit across Europe? What about laundry? Literally she wears three or four or five outfits a day. What about all those musicians who don’t want to hear a baby crying on the bus? What about the fact she and I spend the whole time in bed, or in the bath, burbling?
Love Róisín
Dear Róisín,
Come for a few days. Nobody will mind for a few days.
Love Rasmus.
Dear Rasmus,
STOP PRESS I HAVE A NAME.
She’s called Aoife. It’s been hard, what with the surnames, what a combination, and all the opinions there’s been floating around here, but what can you do, a Greek Irish girl needs her Greek and Irish names or how will she know who she is? I was actually and seriously tempted by Anto. Such a beautiful, simple word and meaning. But in the end I just don’t want to hang a sorrow round the child’s neck in perpetuity. She’ll have her own relationship with that sorrow. I’m not going to prescribe it. Or describe it, or proscribe it, or anything. So, on the dotted line, she’s
*** Tarantara ***
AOIFE MARINA TRIANDAFILIDES KENNEDY
Which the moment her grandmother came round became Evaki-mou, of course, instantly. BTW she now has her first mataki eye necklace sewn on round her neck.
Re minding: Ayesha might. I’m going back to work in February—I can’t even think about it. It’s not that I don’t want to, you know that. I would bloody love to. I have two projects in mind now—well, three (maybe four, actually), none of which I’ve been able to do a stroke of work on. Seriously, I hardly get dressed—it’s not worth it, when there’ll be milk and shit and baby-sick and God knows what all over me within minutes anytime I do. I just drift around draped in muslin. But a girl can plan, while breastfeeding, and plan I do. I’m filming all the moments Aoife lets me: I have to, as babyhood is one of the things on my mind. Time is boss for sure, for both that and for filming you. You’re right: if I can get raw footage now, I’ll be set up for later. I’ve been looking into the film schools! There’s a lot that are clearly outright scams looking for rich foreign students, but I’ve located the respectable few. This coming September is too soon but next, I mean the year after next, well, we’ll see, but I think I would like to have it lined up. There’s nursery and relatives. The grandmas can’t keep their hands off her. She’d be turning two.
Love
Róisín
PS It’s pronounced “Eefa.”
Dear Róisín,
That is a beautiful name for her.
I had a dream: I was at the airport, I looked up and there you were, with the baby and the papoose and the luggage trolley piled up between us, and I said “Could it be any more symbolic?” and tried to stretch over and past to kiss you and I couldn’t reach you, and you said “No.” As in—I think—no, it couldn’t be any more symbolic.
We’ve been having long discussions about the title for the album. I don’t like their suggestions; they don’t like mine. I’m glad you’ve found a good one for your project.
Love
Rasmus.
Dear Rasmus,
I’m feeling kind of teenage. I don’t know how you lost your virginity. Mine should have been with the boy I’d been with since I was fourteen—i.e., too young—and we had a terrible time deciding when was the right time to do it. Because all around you’d see people meeting, falling for each other, getting on with it. But we’d been snogging for years and so it was a constant anxiety because I didn’t want to yet obviously I did, and he really wanted to but also didn’t, and to be honest it was exhausting. So in the end we—well, I—decided that we’d go by the law, i.e., hold off (people say wait but to me that just sounds like they’re sitting there reading the paper and glancing at their phone, and that’s actually not how we were spending our time) till I was seventeen. But to be honest by then I’d gone off him, and was thinking of ways of breaking up, but he was preparing this touching absurd kind of romantic date night for the occasion of my seventeenth birthday, which I would’ve found embarrassing even if I’d still loved him, involving a posh pub on the coast with purple metallic patterned wallpaper and silver mirrors, and him in an ironed viyella check shirt and a jacket. Which I didn’t know he was going to do. And I got terrified he was going to ask me to marry him—WHICH HE DID. Something very old-school Irish and respectable just leaped out in him, which I’d never known was there, and I’d this image of me at thirty married to him with five kids because he wouldn’t want contraception, and going to Mass and doing nothing strange or new in my life at all, and so I broke up with him that very night like a complete cow, and he went off crying and I went out and got very drunk and slept with my friend’s brother instead which was quite the fiasco in itself. And after all that I could hardly show my face as nobody was talking to me at all, so I moved to London and went to college and became me. Anyway, I’m not expecting you to come up with a pretentious dinner and I’m not planning to dump you before we’ve even started but I am . . . nervous. I know I kissed you while you were asleep, but I think I was mad on mad birth hormones or something. But . . .
