Free The Fall Girl by Denise Sewell Page A

her.
    ‘Where’s Daddy?’ I ask, sitting next to her.
    ‘At Aunty Lily’s house,’ she says. ‘Stand up till I button up your coat; it’s very blowy out.’
    When she’s finished, she loops my hair behind my ears, pulls my hat out of my coat pocket and puts it on me.
    ‘There,’ she says quietly, ‘we’re all set.’
    Hand in hand, we walk down to Main Street and through the town. A pair of nuns from the Mercy Convent greet us with a nod as they pass and I nod back twice, once for myself and once for my mother because she’s looking at the ground and doesn’t see them. When we turn the corner into Sycamore Street, the wind catches my breath and makes me cough. My mother lets go of my hand to push back a strand of hair that’s escaped from under her headscarf and is flapping across her face. I take off down the footpath, dancing through the wind with an empty brown paper bag that has blown out of a dustbin. I stop at the yellow door, but don’t ring the doorbell because Aunty Lily might be sleeping and, anyway, my mother has a key.
    ‘Here she is now, pet,’ Xavier calls out to his wife when he hears us enter the hall.
    I like the way they always make a fuss of me.
    ‘Frances,’ Aunty Lily says, holding out her arms.
    She’s sitting in an armchair by the fire with a blanket over her lap and her feet resting on a pouffe, but even with all that cosiness, she still looks uncomfortable. When I bend down to give her a hug, she grabs my wrists and pushes me down onher knee, and I think her strength must be coming from her head and not her arms because they’re as thin as sausages. There’s panic in her eyes as she pulls off my hat, scans every inch of my face and combs my hair back with her fingers. I can hear my parents and Xavier talking in the kitchen.
    ‘You’re up today,’ I say.
    ‘I am.’
    ‘Are you better?’
    ‘I always feel better when you’re here.’
    We talk for a while about ordinary things: school, homework, dancing.
    As soon as I mention dancing, she asks, ‘How’s the girl who dances like the French tart doing the cancan?’
    ‘Fine.’ I’m not sure if I should say any more. What if she tells my mother?
    ‘Do ye have fun?’
    I nod.
    ‘What kind of divilment do the pair of ye get up to?’
    I hesitate.
    ‘Go on,’ she nudges me, ‘tell me. I’ll not breathe a word to your mother. Don’t forget: I know her better than anyone; the woman wouldn’t know a good time if it came up and bit her on the arse.’
    After we share a conspiratorial smirk, I tell her that Lesley is teaching me a new reel for the
Feis
at Easter, and about how sometimes the two of us stay out in the car park and dance in the rain.
    ‘Oh, how I’d love to see that.’ She cups her hands around my face and plants a kiss on my forehead. ‘I love you,’ she whispers.
    ‘I love you too.’
    ‘Do you?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘How much?’
    ‘Loads and loads.’
    ‘That’s good. Cos I love you more than … more than anyone could love anyone. Remember that, won’t you?’
    I nod, because I don’t think my voice will work.
    Lowering my head to hide my teary eyes, I lean in on her bosom and now I know that the tit thing is true after all.
    I look up at her when I feel her chest shudder beneath my cheek. There are tears in her eyes too, but they don’t fall. I hear a moaning sound. It’s coming from within Aunty Lily, barely audible at first, like the drone of a faraway ship. Her lips are closed, but quivering. I touch them, run my forefinger over them, trying to comfort her. She begins to rock, slowly at first. Rock and moan. Slowly and quietly. Getting faster, getting louder. I feel frightened, sad. She’s squeezing me so hard, my bones are sore.
    ‘Oh God, oh God,’ she cries out, resting her head on mine. Whatever she was going to ask God for, she’s changed her mind because she knows that there’s no point and I know it too, just like I know that this is our last goodbye.
    Years later my father