Must-Haves

By Jane Babb (Winner)

She found the hat.

In the rain, Mam, she said. In a muddy puddle. On the steep path down the mountain. The one with the stations of the cross all along it?

She had found it, washed it, got the icy muck out of it and the grit. Made it good as new. It suited her. She modelled it for me. She pouted and turned and made me laugh.

The hoodie she bought with  babysitting money. She held it up under her chin for me to admire. I congratulated her (I was thinking Zara prices).

Wear it well, I said. Don’t forget the 20% rule.

            No, no, Mam, don’t worry. I straight off put twenty in the bank for every hundred I earn. Don’t even miss it that way. Don’t know I ever had it.

Alright. Good girl.

She hid the jacket in her room. I never saw it. She wore it on her school ski trip, it seems, and when she stayed in friends’ houses. She was invited often in the first year. People supposed it was  a help to me.

You’d think it would have shook her  – the shame of having had to admit, that first time, that she did take the card out of my wallet, did take note of the numbers and of the dates. (Or did she take a photo?)

It was a while before she was confronted. I hadn’t been looking at credit card statements. There was a pile of To Do stuff on Liam’s desk. Insurance, pensions, bank statements, title documents, mass cards. I added things to the top of it as they came in. My idea was to deal with them altogether. More efficient that way. One fell swoop. Next week. Or the next. After the school holidays. When I had time.  When I could concentrate.

Louisa, an old college friend of ours, came to stay. Louisa asked practical questions. Louisa went off and bought bull clips and a lever arch file. Louisa made tea.

We’ll start, Louisa said, at the top of this pile here, and we’ll work through it, paper by paper. We’ll have it all done and organised and filed away in no time.

Ok, I said.

Sound, I said.

I drank the tea. I answered her questions. I found files. (Past me was no slouch, you know. Past me had share certificates and Pillar 3 account details and tax returns all to hand in a system that was clear enough once you unmuddled it out from under the unopened envelopes and the dust.) I stayed focused, more or less. I typed and sent the emails Louisa dictated for me. We made a spreadsheet of the information we had and of what we still needed. We noted who we had asked for what and on what date. We left extra columns for the answers and for follow up questions so that everything was in one place and easier to keep track of. (I must update that spreadsheet.) When we got to the credit card statements, Louisa stalled for a sec.

Should we make you a topline monthly budget? she asked. Nothing too rigid, just a ballpark. To give you a steer? I don’t think you can afford three grand in Moncler now.  

Ha! No. You could develop champagne taste here alright. The twins wonder why we don’t have a Maserati. That’s the school-run car of choice.

Louisa didn’t laugh at that. She passed me the statement. She pointed at the number.

We’ll call them, she said, sort it out. Not to worry.

I let her call them. Imagine. Fraud I told myself. A down jacket with a fur-lined collar, a hoodie, a hat. This season’s Must-Haves, the website said. A two hundred franc beanie. A woolly hat, like.

It took two days for it to dawn on me. And all I could think of was Aoife’s little hand with the dimples at the knuckles and it closed tight over her two euro coin while she skipped to the shop holding my hand and listing off all the things she might buy and when we got there her careful concentration as she decided between the Freddo and the pink-wrapped lolly.

Jesus, Louisa, what’ll I say to her? Are there other things?

So we went through the statements. There were other things alright.

I practised what I would say. I went through it all with the therapist. Made a script. I prepared for all kinds of: what if she says x…and what if she says y… I was ready. I’d be clear, assertive, explain the consequences, be the adult.

I asked her. She denied it. That was a relief. I kissed the top of her head. I called Louisa.

            It wasn’t Aoife.

            What about the vape store?

            No. She told me, no.

            And the diet apps?

            Not her.

            And the cash?

            I must have lost it. 

            Will I ask her?

You are kind. Thank you. I am quite sure it was not Aoife. 

Louisa came back three weeks later to stand her ground and mine for me. Aoife was ashamed. She got sick even. Had to run across to the toilet. She had wanted to fit in, she said. (She drooped as she said it.) Had wanted to look good. Had wanted to pull she even dared to say and she looked up at us from her lowered eyes so that Louisa and I both laughed despite our adult role in the matter, despite the seriousness of the thing.

And despite the seriousness of the thing, she’s still at it now - going into my bag and taking out my wallet, removing money. Stealing money, I mean. Small amounts. No, wait. Any amount. (It’s important to notice when you’re in denial, my therapist said. Or minimising.) There are a good few steps in that process. A good few opportunities to cop yourself on, to decide that the next step is not such a bright idea, to close the wallet, slide it into the bag, click the bag closed, put it back where you found it on the shelf beside the bike helmets in the hall.

My wallet is tiny. It’s actually supposed to be a cardholder. For my credit card, a debit card, driver’s licence, travelcard, organ donor card. I keep some cash in it. The odd time. The notes only fit if I fold them in three. Like a subpoena. I don’t pay huge attention to how much cash is in it. Never very much. One night, back home in Dublin, we all had a laugh about that – the girls only ever carry fifty or so. The lads always have way more cash on them.

To look flush? we’d asked them, sitting back, swirling the cucumber in our gin, swapping smug smiles.

Not to be caught short, Liam had said, spokesman for the lads, the axel that kept the gang together. Liam was never caught short.

The thing is though that last night, just after dinner, I did note how much I had. (So that I’d have Aoife’s pocket money ready for her, more fool me.) Half that amount is gone now. But what if I ask her and she says, No, Mam. God. Is that to be my label forever now? I’d feel awful.

But what if she is stealing? What if she’s been at it continuously? What if she takes a photo of somebody else’s card? What if a teacher leaves his wallet on his desk for two minutes while he goes to the photocopier? What if she owes money to someone? What if drugs? What if gambling? I sometimes see that she is worried. On her face, I can see the sick feeling in her tummy. Her little tummy. What if loan sharks? I’ve no idea even how loan sharks work.

I like having the money, is what she said, that time, in front of Louisa.

Right. I have to stand up. Off the floor. Or we’ll all be late for school. Face the thing. On my own. In charge. I have to open Aoife’s door. With conviction. Address the thing. Say, would you take a look please at this elephant on the good carpet crushing our whole lives and tell me what to do about it before you end up in that grey block of a prison beside the Schutzengel train station.

When I close her bedroom door behind me, she jumps. Still mostly asleep, she knows already that she’s missed a trick.

Did you take money from my wallet?  

No.

She can’t even bother to be adamant.

Goddamn it! I whisper. I hide my face. (See no evil. Smell no evil)

She hugs me.

No, no, no, she says gently to my tears.

How much did you take?

Now, as if we’re in some cheesy film, the morning alarm launches the Sonos and Here comes the Sun embraces everything all around the house. The twins are yelling at each other about socks. Aoife plonks herself into her study chair. Under her weight, the chair rolls her away from me.

I lost money.

(Jesus. To whom? How?)

How? I ask.

I don’t know.

Where?

I don’t know.

How much?

Sixty? About.

The fear is dense. It paralyses. I have to make breakfast for the twins, supervise lunch-making, bag-packing, music practice. All the bits of their small lives.

            What?

             We were out. So I borrowed money from Katerina. I took the money from your purse to pay her back. I was going to tell you. I’ll get you back on Sunday anyway. It’s not a thing, Mam.

            I roared. I don’t know what I roared. About it certainly was a thing. About you’re a liar. About your father would be ashamed of you. About you’re a spoilt little brat. About rotting in prison and see how you like that. The twins were tiptoeing half dressed in their cotton vests and whispering loudly:

Mammy’s really cross.

Make her coffee, I’d say.

Yes.

We had aimed to raise three good people, Liam and I. Had planned for it. We had drawn our lines, drafted our charter. Not that he would have been much use in this. I would have sorted it on my own even if he were here. But I could have roared at him at least instead of at her. I could have cast blame on him by way of relief while I was managing the thing. He wouldn't have flinched.

The night of his wake, Aoife sang The Foggy Dew. It had taken effort to get the wake sorted. The Swiss authorities had no point of reference for it. What in God’s name would you want with a procession of strangers and a cadaver in your clean, warm, private house? Bumped, cut, bruised. Legs at odd angles. Gravel stuck in a muddy gash along his right cheek. I wanted them to leave the bike gear on. I wanted them not to tidy him up, not to wash him, not to make him neat. I needed to see all that mess to believe the absurdity of him being entirely and unforgivingly dead.

It’s not that they were unwilling to help. It’s just, it was too far outside their known processes. The cultural divide was wider even in death than in life. So to solve the thing, to sort out a wake for him, I hiked up to the top farm. I waited at the second field and waved at the farmer. The tall man. Farmer number three.

On fog-loaded November days in our first year in Switzerland when I was trailing behind Liam’s star, this leather-limbed man had encouraged my ascent: 

Go up simply. Only up, he said, waving towards the summit. The sun is there. Truly. Go up, up!

He had smiled as he waved me on, up the yellow-signed path. He had been delighted with me, grateful to me for loving his mountain, for searching out the scarce Autumn sun - a sign of our shared faith. So two days after Liam was mangled, I stood at the farmer’s gate. He sat in his tractor. 

My husband is dead, I said, he came down the hill too fast. On his bike. Couldn’t stop. Slid on gravel. At the turn. Went under a hay truck. Back wheel first. Above Alosen.  My daughter behind him, watching.

The good man climbed down from his tractor. He settled himself on the dung-spattered ground and faced me.

I explained about the wake. I explained that it was a thing at home – to wake him. I explained about the women in the town offices not understanding.

They won’t release the body, I said.

He nodded.

Scho guet, he said.

It’ll be grand, he said. 

And it was. On the Wednesday they came with the body. I was glad I had known to speak to him. He was from an old family of the town, respected. I was glad I had been able to think of that. Even if Liam was dead, I had been able to think of it. Even in a foreign place, I was able.

Aoife skulked out to school. I got the twins out in good time too, bellies full, lunches in bags, singing. They’ll be home at four or so. Aoife, a small bit later. We’ll eat and when the homework is finished, we’ll play a game, a short one. Oven-timer Scrabble, maybe - for the howls of laughter and banter and madey-up words, and the rude words. The littles will go to bed and I’ll talk to Aoife. I’ll cuddle her. I’ll throw out the therapist’s dictates about boundaries and discipline. I’ll forgive myself my parental failures. I’ll be furious at Liam for going and getting himself killed on her. I won’t torment myself with having mourned too much and listened too briefly, with not having given her the space to practise truth telling because truth telling takes time and needs attention I didn’t have. I won't worry that she’s been left to be reared by a motley sequence of hapless undergraduates pretending to care about children. I won’t worry back. I’ll start from here.

What if you stop stealing? I’ll ask her. She’ll look at me for the answer she thinks I want.

What’ll you lose?

Her dad. She’ll lose her dad. Her dad will be dead. He’ll keep being dead. There is nothing bad enough she can do to deserve him abandoning her. There’s nothing so bad she can do that by stopping it, she can bring him back. We’ll hike up past the stations of the cross to the sun. We’ll bury our guilt with our loss.