Melancholia looks like a Goth even in her school uniform and she couldn’t care less what people think about her. When Jobbo Boland makes a pretend cross sign with his arms and calls her Belladonna, she just laughs and calls him a wanker. I never heard the Cure or the Banshees or Bachaus until she played them. I’m never going to listen to Kylie Minogue again.
Julie is getting bigger every day. Paul still wants to marry her. He must be off his head. She has such a temper and if she’s not sulking she’s bawling her eyes out. She’s never ever getting married.
Love to Dad and all,
Cathy
1 November 1989
Dear Mum
Julie’s wedding was brilliant. She didn’t care about being a whale and kept getting up on the stage to sing with the wedding band. Rebecca walked her up the aisle. It should have been Daddy but Rebecca said we had to make this a happy day. Lauren looked like a mermaid in her bridesmaid’s dress. Mrs Moran eyes slid sideways when Mr Moran was dancing with her and said it’s amazing how quickly young people grow up nowadays when there’s no proper supervision. I thought Rebecca was going to thump her. I would have! Paul nearly had to carry Julie off the stage so that the band could play Congratulations and send them off on their honeymoon to Galway. We used boxes and boxes of confetti. Julie was so huge she needed it all to cover her tummy! And Jeremy Anderson came!! Home from the Big Apple. Guess he didn’t like the taste. He danced with Rebecca and she looked like the happiest woman in the world.
Love to Daddy and all,
Cathy
Chapter Thirteen
Rebecca’s Journal–1989
Never believe your best friend when she promises not to interfere in your love life. Sheila said it was just the two of us meeting for a meal. We’d seen so little of each other since she got engaged to Brian. I figured she wanted to show off her ring and steeled myself to be enthusiastic when she discussed her wedding plans. But I was wrong. I didn’t notice Jeremy at first. Brian blocked him from view until I was almost at the table. Then it was too late to run.
I believed I’d stopped loving him. Convinced myself he meant nothing to me. Believed I hated him for being a coward. Paul stuck by Julie, put up with her moods and her tears and her tantrums and now…well, it’s not exactly a match made in Heaven but he’ll be holding her hand when the baby comes.
Jeremy said he was too young to carry me through the bad times and he ran. It’s hard remembering how I felt then…when I think back to those years they seem dreamlike, as if we were performing a play on a stage and the world was our audience. I remember people walking to the other side of the street, hoping I hadn’t noticed they were avoiding me. I can understand their embarrassment. We were an ordinary family made extraordinary by tragedy. I wouldn’t have known what to say either and, sometimes, it’s better to keep on going.
Jeremy regrets leaving me, the heartache he caused. I try to remember the heartache but I can’t…I think my feelings must have been stirred in the greater melting pot of grief.
He’s older now and he’s back. Little steps. Everything can be done in little steps. He says I can trust him. He’s changed, matured, knows what he wants.
VisionFirst have set up an advertising division in Ireland and sent him back from New York to work in it. I’m not surprised. His persuasive powers are good. Julie says I must be off my head to trust him again. The leopard’s spots are not for changing. But I have to trust him. He’s brought me back to life.
Chapter Fourteen
Letters to Nirvana
22 November 1989
Dear Mum,
I’m a teenager at last. My birthday party was brilliant. Rebecca gave me a stereo. Melancholia gave me Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice and Kevin gave me a CD of the Cure. Lauren gave me scented candles. Julie and Paul gave me a gift voucher for Awear. Jonathan gave me a mug with The Coolest Hip Auntie in Town on it. I still can’t believe he was born on their honeymoon! Julie said pushing out the Rock of Cashel would have been easier. Mrs Mulvaney gave me a pair of Docs. Mr Moran gave me money and Mrs Moran gave me a dictionary. Bitch! Jeremy gave me Lily of the Valley perfume. I have it on me now and it’s gorgeous.
I sleep with Rebecca now. I miss your room but it’s Julie and Paul’s, and I prefer sharing with Rebecca rather than freaky Lauren. It’s strange having a man living in the house. I can’t remember Daddy’s sounds. Paul sings when he’s in the shower and he leaves the toilet seat up and talks to the telly when he’s watching football. He’s given up college and is working with computers. Jonathan is adorable! He looks like Daddy. Everyone says so. When I held him for the first time he gripped my thumb so tight I thought my heart would melt with love for him. Lauren was afraid to hold him in case she let him fall. She never wants to have a baby and that’s just as well because of the accident and what it did to her insides.
Julie’s going to start a new band as soon as she stops breast feeding. Paul can like it or lump it. The only music in her life now is Jonathan crying. At maximum volume!! You and Daddy are grandparents. I hope you know that…I really do hope so.
Love to Daddy and all,
Cathy
2 December 1989
Dear Mum,
Lauren cut herself again. Rebecca had to take her to the doctor. She’s so beautiful, not like me, what’s she trying to do? I’m just an acne dose but she’s always going on and on about how ugly she is and staying in her room all the time writing crazy stuff. I hope she means it when she says never again. That’s all the news for now.
Love to all,
Cathy
15 January 1990
Dear Mum,
It’s five years today. Sometimes it only seems like yesterday but when I think of all that’s changed in those years it seems like forever since I knew you and Daddy.
There’s strange things happening in your graveyard. We saw empty cider bottles and burned grass in the old part where no one is buried any more. Someone wrote Boot Boys Rule OK on a tombstone. Rebecca hates me going there but all we do is listen to our music. Leah doesn’t go on at Melancholia all the time. Neither does Mrs Mulvaney. She let Kevin paint his room black and stick a luminous skeleton on the ceiling. He had his bottom lip pierced with a tiny dagger. You’d laugh if you saw his hair. He’s dyed it jet black and made it straight. He hates fair curls and is sick of being called a blondie pouf! I asked him what it was like kissing girls with a dagger in his lip and he said, do you want to find out? Cheeky.
I still miss you. Do you know it’s five years or does that just seem like a little dot in eternity?
Special love to Dad on this memory day,
Cathy
3 March 1990
Dear Mum,
It’s so fucking unfair! It was all in the Evening Herald about the gravestones and photos too. Your gravestone was all right. It was the old ones that had the graffiti done on them. Nothing to do with me and Kevin and Melancholia but the woman in the house beside the gate told the guards we hang around there all the time. We don’t hang around! We visit your grave if only she’d open her stupid eyes and look. And we don’t smash gravestones but no one believes us. The guards came to the house and talked to Rebecca. They asked us questions about the graffiti and the broken angels and devil worship. One of the guards said Rebecca had better keep a closer eye on me in future or there’ll be more trouble. He made it sound as if it was all her fault. But it’s not. She told me not to go