A Week in Winter(42)

‘Very probably,’ Winnie agreed. ‘Let’s hope he had a good record in getting people out of situations, whoever he was.’

‘You agreed to come. You said you were happy we had battled on.’

‘I was. At the time.’

‘Do you pray?’ Lillian asked.

‘No, not much. Do you?’

‘I used to once. Not now.’

There didn’t seem to be anything more to say, so they sat in silence listening to the crashing of the waves and the howling of the wind. There was only one higher ledge, which they might have to climb up on if things got worse.

They were cold and wet and frightened.

And they were of no help to each other.

Winnie wondered would they die here. She thought about Teddy, and how Mrs Starr would have to break the news to him. He would never know that her last hours had been filled with a cold hatred of his mother and with a sense of huge regret that she had allowed herself to be sucked into this idiotic game of pretence which could only end badly. But, truly, who could have known how badly?

She couldn’t see Lillian’s face, but she sensed her shoulders shivering and the chattering of her teeth. She must be frightened too. But it was her bloody fault. Still, however they got there, they were both in it together now.

After an age, she said, ‘It doesn’t really matter one way or another, but why are we here together? In Stoneybridge, I mean. You hated me on sight. But we both love Teddy, that should be a bond, shouldn’t it?’ This was the first time that love for Teddy had ever been mentioned. Here in Majella’s Cave, as they faced death by drowning or hypothermia. Up to now, Winnie had been treated as some menopausal old fool who was keeping an eye on Teddy for them both.

‘I love Teddy,’ Winnie said loudly. ‘And he loves you, so I tried to get to know you and like you. That’s all.’

‘It hasn’t worked though, has it?’ said Lillian grimly. ‘We got here by accident. I didn’t want to be here with you any more than you wanted to be with me. You found the place, Stone House, you went along with coming here today. And now look at us.’

A silence.

‘Say something, ask something,’ Lillian begged.

‘How old are you, Lillian?’

‘Fifty-five.’

‘You look a lot less.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Why do you pretend that you and I are the same age? You were twenty-one when I was born.’

‘Because I wanted you to go away, to leave Teddy as he was, with me.’

Another silence.

Eventually Winnie spoke. ‘Well, in the end neither of us got him.’

‘Do you think we’re going to get out of here?’ The voice had aged greatly. This was not Lillian of the Certainties.

Some small amount of compassion seeped through to Winnie’s subconscious. She tried to beat it back but it was there.

‘They say you have to be positive and keep active,’ she said, shifting around on the ledge.

‘Active? Here? What can we do to be positive here?’

‘I know that. We can’t move. I suppose we could sing.’

‘Sing, Winnie? Have you lost your marbles?’

‘You did ask.’

‘OK, start then.’

Winnie paused to think. Her mother’s favourite song had been ‘Carrickfergus’.

I wish I had you in Carrickfergus,

Only three miles on from Ballygrand.

I would swim over the deepest ocean

Thinking of days there in Ballygrand . . .

She paused. To her astonishment, Lillian joined in.

But the seas are deep and I can’t swim over,

And neither more have I wings to fly.

I wish I could find me a handy boatman,

Would ferry over my love and I.

Then they both stopped to think about the words they had just sung.

‘There might have been a more inappropriate song if I could have thought of it,’ Winnie apologised.

For the first time, she heard a genuine laugh from Lillian. This was not a tinkle, a put-down or a sneer. She actually found it funny.

‘You could have picked “Cool Clear Water”, I suppose,’ she said eventually.

‘Your call,’ Winnie said.

Lillian sang ‘The Way You Look Tonight’. Teddy’s father had sung it to her the night before he was killed on the combine harvester, she said.

Winnie sang ‘Only The Lonely’. She had found the record shortly after her father had married the strange, distant stepmother who made jewellery. Then Lillian sang ‘True Love’, and said that she had always hoped to meet someone again after Teddy’s father had died but never did. She had worked long hours and tried too hard to make them people of importance in Rossmore. There had been no time for love.

Winnie sang ‘St Louis Blues’. She had once won a talent competition by singing it in a pub and the prize had been a leg of lamb.

‘Are we wasting our voices in case we need to call for help?’ Lillian wondered. She asked as if she really wanted to hear what Winnie would say.

‘I don’t think anyone would hear us anyway. Our best hope is to keep positive,’ Winnie suggested. ‘Do you know any Beatles songs?’ So they sang ‘Hey Jude’.

Lillian said that she remembered her mother had said the Beatles were depraved because they had long hair. Winnie said that her stepmother had never known who they were and that even her father was vague about them. It was so hard to have a real conversation with them about anything.