The Ladies' Midnight Swimming Club(4)

Unexpectedly, a rage as she’d never known before reared within her, burning her up from somewhere deep inside her belly.

Her eyes drifted from the plot before her; she couldn’t look at it now. Just yards away, the large grave that she’d tended for so many years seemed neglected by comparison. It wasn’t fair – none of it was fair. Eric buried here with flowers and all the fanfare of a local celebrity, and her baby was interred in a grave that didn’t even bear his name. She couldn’t stop shaking, and before she realised what she had done, she was peeling back the layer of green netting, hurtling flower arrangements across the graveyard, as though they’d been scattered by the wind and not the madwoman she’d become. Expensive wreaths of lilies, begonias and hydrangeas, baby’s breath and roses – were flying through the air, landing askew and rolling along the path – unwanted; begrudged. She wanted to hurt him. She wanted to make Eric pay for everything he’d done to her – everything she’d let him do… and that made it so much worse.

Eventually, when the grave was empty of any floral tributes, she marched to its head, kicked the cross that bore his name viciously so it leant sideways as if to make away from her. She stood for a moment, surveying all the damage she had caused. There was no guilt, not one ounce of remorse for wrecking the hard work and the expensive gifts of mourners to her dead husband. Then she turned, unexpectedly convulsing with the sort of grief that comes from years of buttoning up the deepest emotions.

She made her way along the narrow path; too familiar over the years, since she’d spent so much of her time here tending it. The Grave of the Little Angels was a large plot, opened long before Elizabeth could remember. It was a holding place for babies who had died before the parish priest had time to welcome them into the Catholic family. Her little baby was here. It was as near as she could get to him now, as near as she’d ever been to him since he was born. She threw herself across the damp earth, not caring that her expensive coat would be covered in wet soil, not caring if anyone came along and saw her. Elizabeth lay prostrate across the nameless grave for a long time.

Eventually, she heard the sound of a curlew far below, playing among the rocks, perhaps being cast about on the windy tide; the sound pulled her from her tears. She drew her scarf tighter around her and turned her collar up against the breeze before kneeling down again and touching one of the may flowers she’d set there just weeks before. It was battered and bruised from the storm the night before, too delicate to survive the harsh weather really, but still, Elizabeth pulled a mound of earth up around it for protection. Then, she gathered herself up. It felt as if she’d cried herself out, this time for the one she’d really lost.

*

Elizabeth made her way downwards. She would walk to the pier; stand for a few moments with the sea air whipping back against her face. She would shiver and pull her collar closer about her and enjoy the wind on her back as she walked uphill to close the door out on an evening that held only the promise of winds and rain.

Just as she turned back from the pier, she caught sight of her friend Jo parking her ancient car on the road outside her cottage. She had brought one of the fruit cakes from her pantry for her, knowing that Jo had a sweet tooth and there was only so much funeral food Elizabeth could get through before it went off.

‘Jo,’ she called, but her voice was lost upon a wind that probably picked it up and dropped it streets away, startling some other afternoon walker with its false proximity. Ballycove was like that. The wind blustering through streets carried far too many conversations to ears that might be better off not hearing. ‘Hello, Jo…’ she tried again, but even without the wind working against her, she was not a woman used to shouting and so her voice trailed lamely while Jo made her way inside, unaware of it. Bother. Now, she would have to knock on the cottage door and the last thing Elizabeth wanted was anyone thinking she was calling to visit because she was suddenly lonely.

Sighing, she tapped lightly on the door. Inside, she could hear the door being rattled, as though locks were being thrown back and then Jo stood before her, with an expression that was at once both welcoming and curious.

‘Oh, Elizabeth, what on earth brings you here on an evening like this? It’s going to pour down at any minute. Come in, come in…’ she said standing back into the narrow hall to welcome Elizabeth into her snug home.

‘No, no, I really must get back. I just came out for a walk to wake me up a bit for the day and I thought, I have so much food that I’ll never get around to eating… so I…’ She presented the porter cake, wrapped up in greaseproof paper. It was large enough to treat a family for a few days.

‘That’s very thoughtful of you…’ Jo said taking it. ‘You really shouldn’t have though. I mean, you might have callers yourself while I…Well, the only ones to call here are Lucy and Niall. Mind you, when they’re here, Niall eats me out of house and home…’ She started to laugh at this and for a moment, Elizabeth felt a stab of something she couldn’t put a name on.

‘It’s a sort of thank-you present too, you know, for the funeral. You were really kind, and I don’t know how I’d have managed without you.’ It was true. Jo had commandeered her kitchen and supplied an endless stream of tea, coffee, whiskey and sandwiches for anyone who turned up at her door while they were mourning Eric.

‘Isn’t that what friends are for?’ Jo said easily. ‘Are you sure you won’t come in for a cuppa? It’s going to pour down out there any minute.’ With that, the rain began to fall, in hard sheeting slaps against her back. ‘Come on, you can’t go out in that…’