stranger.’ I’ve had a shower at this point, and I’m in my favourite fleecy pyjamas and fluffy slippers. I curl up on the couch with the phone, settling in for a long talk. ‘How’re things?’
‘Great. The weather’s been incredible. Actually, a little too hot, if anything.’
‘It’s pissing rain here.’ My tone is deeply sarcastic. ‘Just in case you care.’
She laughs. There’s glee in that laughter. Bitch.
‘How’s Isla?’
‘She’s grand. Still loving school.’
‘I miss her,’ Louise says in a more serious tone. ‘I bought her a soft toy yesterday, a koala bear with an Australian-flag T-shirt and an akubra. Gimmicky but cute. She might think it’s too babyish, though.’
‘She’ll love it,’ I say firmly, adjusting the cushions behind my back to make myself more comfortable. ‘She misses you too, Lou. She keeps asking about you. I blue-tacked a map onto her bedroom wall so she could see how far apart Dublin and Sydney are, but she can’t comprehend the distance.’
‘Sometimes I can’t either.’ Louise laughs again. ‘And how’s Eddie?’
Louise is like my mother in that respect, always asking about Isla and Eddie before me. Isla and Eddie are my barometer, I suppose: I can’t be happy unless they are. Sometimes I think they’re all that I am, the sum of me, and without them I’d be nothing at all.
‘Yeah, grand. Determined to be a home-owner. Showed me a brochure tonight of a house in Clondalkin. As if we could afford it.’
‘Maybe …’ Louise begins.
‘No fuckin’ chance … Shit, there I go again. I’m trying to stop swearing.’
‘Isla?’
‘Yeah. I don’t want her growing up and talking like I do … Anyhow, so what’ve you been up to?’
‘The usual. Working. Actually, I really like this job. Lovely people, an interesting project … And, of course, I’m spending all my spare time looking at phone directories and the like … Actually, Joe’s brother, Dan, is helping me.’
I feel my hackles rise. ‘How do you mean “helping”?’
‘He’s a journalist … he has contacts.’
‘Are you seeing him?’
She snorts, as though I’m being absurd. ‘No, I’m not seeing him, at least not in the way you mean.’
I’m not put off by that sardonic tone of hers. If anything, it makes me only more suspicious. ‘You like him, don’t ya?’
‘Of course I like him,’ she exclaims. ‘I like all the family. I’ve told you about the mother, Mary, haven’t I? Well, she has offered to help, too. She works at the local library, and she’s familiar with the resources people use to research their family history and so on.’
‘Isn’t family genealogy a completely different thing?’
‘Yes, but some of the resources might be of use.’
It has been a long time since Louise has been so optimistic. This worries me.
‘It’s nice of them to help,’ I say with some difficulty.
‘Yes, it is. I feel very touched. They’re such a genuinely lovely family, Em. You’d like them.’
I feel jealous, insanely envious of this ‘lovely family’ who have taken it upon themselves to help her. And I feel inadequate, as though I have somehow let her down. Quite suddenly, I’m berating myself for not having helped her in a more practical way. Instead of being a shoulder to cry on and a sounding board, I should have taken a more active role in the search, trawled through the internet and library records, like this Mary, this woman who hardly knows Louise.
‘I’d better go,’ she says. ‘I’m late for work. This time difference is a nightmare, isn’t it?’
‘The nightmare is that I’m stuck here in this miserable weather while you’re complaining of being too fuckin’ hot.’
‘You’d better start a swear jar.’ With one final laugh, a laugh that has sunshine and blue skies and hope in it, she hangs up.
Distractedly, I pick up the remote and turn up the volume of the TV. There’s a show on that Louise likes: Secret Millionaire. I forgot to tell her about the ballet classes. We could have laughed our heads off at that. And I also forgot to mention how Jamie is supposedly turning over a new leaf, and how nervous that makes me feel. Louise is the only one who gets how I feel about Jamie. She witnessed the ugliest moments of our relationship, and understands how precarious the current situation is.
I hug one of the cushions to my body. The truth is, I don’t just need Eddie and Isla to feel whole. I need Louise, too.
From the sounds of it, she’s settling in well. Her job is going great, she seems to have made friends with this entire Connolly clan, and I can’t remember the last time she sounded so hopeful.
I’m happy for her, I really am. It hurts only because in recent years I suspect she has needed me less than I need her.
Chapter 13
Louise
Dan kissed me yesterday. I was so stunned I didn’t respond, either to push him away or to return the kiss. It lasted only a few seconds, his mouth warm and surprisingly soft as it moved against mine, which felt cold and limp by comparison.
‘Sorry,’ he said, pulling away. ‘You obviously don’t feel the same way. Now I’ve wrecked things.’
I didn’t answer, didn’t know what to say. Though we were standing in the middle of a crowded pub, it felt as if we were completely alone, not a soul nor a sound around us.
I raised my bottle of beer (the one he had thrust into my hands moments before he kissed me), and gulped it back. I noticed that he was doing the same, attempting to extinguish the excruciating awkwardness with alcohol.
‘Thanks for your help today,’ I said, trying to get things back on an even keel. ‘I don’t know what I’d have done without you.’
Before the pub, Dan and I had been at the local Australian Electoral Commission office. The office had access to the country-wide electoral roll. The system was easy to use, the search engine surprisingly fast, and there were four different terminals available, only one of which was being used when we walked in. The only negative was all the stupid rules, which were displayed in large, impossible-to-miss signs above each terminal. Terminals were not allowed to be used for stretches of time longer than forty-five minutes, and if other people were waiting, this reduced to a time limit of just fifteen minutes. According to the rules, one was not allowed to use the roll for private investigations or genealogy enquiries. Why else, I ask you, would one need to consult the electoral roll? Just to look oneself up? For the fun of it? The last rule — the most important one, it seemed, given all the bold lettering — was that photocopying or printing or taking photographs of the roll were all strictly prohibited.
‘Pretend you’re not with me,’ I hissed to Dan. ‘You work from the top of the list, and I’ll work from the bottom. Try not to make it too obvious you’re directly copying from it.’
When the receptionist behind the desk wasn’t looking, I tore a sheet of paper from my pad and passed it to him. He had his own pen in his shirt pocket.
The search threw up over a hundred listings.
Middle name Elizabeth, I wrote on my pad for Dan to see, so he would know to eliminate entries with middle names that were different. Of course entries without a middle name would have to be included.
Someone came in and stationed themselves at the last available terminal. Luckily, no other members of the public appeared until we were