Look beyond the polished veneer and you would be privy to draughty, overcrowded rooms; Belfast sinks filled with tepid water, and a kitchen … more of a Victorian scullery really, furnished with outdated appliances and cracked crockery.
Take an even closer look and you would see a creaking collection of abandoned rooms and damp cellars, accessible only from a single set of steps that no one dared to descend; a place where tales of ghosts and white sheeted spectres grew legs and arms and became real to imaginative children; tight-lipped orphans looking out of windows smeared with frosty breath.
From the outside looking in, they appeared well cared for and cocooned; on the inside most of them were uncultured kids who wanted no more than a place to call their own and a decent chunk of change to buy some of the finer things in life like hair accessories, stickers and clothes.
When Emily and Rita Derbyshire arrived with everything they owned in a single suitcase and two rucksacks, they were treated to the usual gauntlet of glowering boys and girls, the likes of which they had not met before. Rita clutched a teddy and folded into Emily’s thigh too scared to meet their unwelcoming stares. Emily strode on bravely, knowing they were out of options; Summerville Children’s Residence was their new home.
In the early days it was a case of assimilate or suffer—there was no in between. Emily’s twelve year old bark was worse than her bite but—a month in—she developed incisors sharp enough to draw blood if necessary.
At night, Rita cried and begged to go home to mummy. Emily didn’t have the heart to tell her that they were home and there was no mummy. She soothed her with the promise of fresh starts and bedrooms adorned with puppy posters and soft sheets. Even though Emily explained that mummy had gone to heaven to be with Jesus, she continued to cry and talk of angels and the afterlife was meaningless to a grieving five year old. Rita’s miseries merged then divided like cells, revealing themselves in a number of ways: she refused to eat, threw herself onto the floor and kicked out like an upturned cockroach; she sobbed for hours and even began wetting the bed.
For a while, Emily struggled to make sense of her sister’s sudden decline. Over a lackluster bowl of Irish stew one evening, a gangly, older girl with orange coloured nails filed into dagger sharp points announced, “She’s acting-up because she misses your mum. You’ve gotta be her mum now. You’re all she’s got.”
From that unsophisticated teen came words of wisdom which would resonate with Emily again and again when Rita acted up and even later in life when the tantrums had long since subsided and that tenacious toddler had been transformed into a beautiful, intelligent young woman.
After following a daily routine of strip, wash, make and dash for almost a month Emily became exhausted. The time came for some tough love. Just as a good mother would, she forbid Rita to have a drink at bedtime and forced her to wear a sanitary towel.
That lasted two nights.
On the second morning, having woken up wet and thirsty, Rita exclaimed, “I’m a big girl, and big girls don’t wet the bed!” She tore the damp sheets off her bed, threw them to the floor and stamped on them as if treading ripened grapes. Emily looked on and glowed with pride—she was a fast learner. She rewarded her with a new teddy she swapped for a pair of cheap earrings her mother had bought her.
A week later, when that teddy went missing, Emily assembled a search party. She looked older than her twelve years and used that to her advantage. She didn’t go looking for trouble, but when it found her, when Kristen Fletcher—a freckled faced ten year old with curls and a jealous streak stole Rita’s hard earned prize—she saw it as her duty to become judge, jury and prosecutor. She doled out punishment suited to the crime.
As well as nursing a black eye, Kristen had to forfeit her meagre puddings for a month—a yoghurt here, an apple there. The criminal served her time without protest and Rita put on a couple of pounds.
As the weeks passed, a kind of in-house justice took shape; no crime went unpunished, no achievement unrewarded. A new brand of status quo was established, pioneered by the increasingly authoritative Emily Derbyshire.
Chapter Two
Emily
BY SOME MIRACLE, I made it home to Brackenbury Village, Hammersmith. I had driven through a snowy haze intensified by the fog swirling around inside my head, dulling my senses. I turned into Clifton Avenue, parked in front of the end terrace, number thirty, the one with the hanging basket by the front door—now an effective snow catcher—and stopped with a jolt so abrupt it awoke me like a sensory alarm.
Being a school day, the avenue was empty and silent. There were no neighbours walking dogs or clearing snow from icy steps. Not that I would have known their names to say hi. Was the woman next door called June? Or was it Jane … the skinny woman with bleached hair who had asked if I wanted to join the Neighbourhood Watch team? Naturally I said, “No thank you.” I was happy to watch my own patch, thank you very much.
If it had not been for the distant sound of a speeding police car and the magpies overhead, I might well have been the last one standing after an apocalyptic event—a solitary survivor.
I pushed open the front door, sending letters and junk mail skating across terracotta tiles, and proceeded in a straight line in the direction of the wine rack in the kitchen. I exchanged car keys for a bottle of red, unscrewed the cap and poured it into my throat and, still wearing my coat, gloves and boots, climbed the stairs, chugging back wine en route.
In an attempt to blank out everything, I lowered the blind in the bathroom, relieved myself and walked in the direction of the guest bedroom: Rita’s room. I took an invigorating gulp of Merlot and braced myself, knowing I would have to confront recollections which would cut into an already festering wound.
Thank God her clothes were hidden behind wardrobe doors: blue jeans, T-shirts and a pair of shoes for impromptu shopping trips. I walked around the bed with a single objective in mind—to close the curtains, shut down, switch off, but I only got as far as the bedside cabinet.
There rested a framed photograph of two girls: a bonny five year old and a poker faced twelve year old: me, the unshakable rock onto which Rita clung like a barnacle; her, my deceptively weighty anchor. Two survivors shipwrecked, in need of a safe haven—a home.
I held the photo to my breast, reliving the memory. It was taken twenty years ago, on the day we were claimed by our new family. Despite my inscrutable expression, I remember us being happy that day.
An involuntary sob made my chest heave against the small photo; a tear fell onto it smearing the glass, causing the image to blur. I placed the bottle down and polished the smeared glass with my gloves until it shone and I could see myself reflected in it. I looked ghastly; my face bore the brunt of my suffering, that and my aching head. I returned the framed photo to its place facing the bed, picturing Rita waking up to a cup of coffee after a sisterly catch-up, a night spent drinking too much wine, watching a Rom Com or singing along to familiar songs like a pair of drunken sailors.
The curtains took the brunt of my frustration, fell into place and stayed there, reminding me of the red velvet drapes furnishing the altar during the ceremony I had secretly attended an hour earlier.
Once everyone had entered the church, I crept inside to the sound of A Sky Full of Stars by Coldplay, one of Rita’s favourite songs; totally appropriate for someone who had become the brightest star in the sky, and poignant enough to have the entire congregation bowing their heads and blowing their noses as they wept.