A Little Unsteadily into Light by Jan Carson

Author:Jan Carson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New Island Books
Published: 2022-08-14T00:00:00+00:00

Heatwave

Oona Frawley

It was midsummer, towards the peak of the heatwave, when the call came about Pat. Maura and Ellie were in the back garden repainting the shed and sketching plans for a mural on the concrete wall that divided them from their neighbours. Maura tried to keep her niece occupied, giving her holidays structure day to day, though sometimes this demanded too much of her. Ellie, fifteen and sharp as her own collarbones, watched jewels of sweat magnify Maura’s freckles and knew that it was too much for her aunt. She was old enough to entertain herself – she had two Stephen King novels upstairs, borrowed from the library, and would have been glad to lie in the sun reading – but Maura kept elaborating on the mural plans until the dirty white wall was covered in annotations and shapes. When Ellie looked at it, she thought of a programme she’d seen on the expansion of the universe, scientific formulae and numbers appearing rapidly across a massive board as the researcher spoke. In all likeliness the rain would return before the mural was finished, but Ellie didn’t say so. You could say something like that to your mother but not your aunt.

When the phone rang, Maura went in with relief, glad of an excuse to step out of the sun. Ellie saw her through the glass, taking the receiver off the hook and then perching on a stool she kept nearby, dabbing her forehead with a tea towel. She continued painting the warm slats of the shed, watching tiny bubbles popping as the liquid absorbed into the grey wood that was so hot and dry. They were painting it a solid sky blue, because Maura wanted something cheerful to look at in winter, with white trim round the door and the one small window for contrast. The wood seemed so parched Ellie thought it would take at least one extra coat.

After a few moments Maura returned with two glasses of blackcurrant. Her mouth was already working as if rehearsing the news she was about to deliver and Ellie, seeing this, put the brush down immediately and stood up. She relieved Maura of the glasses since her aunt’s hands had begun to tremble slightly and braced herself for some news about her mother. Had she fallen? Lashed out at another resident as had happened once before? But when Maura began to speak it turned out she’d been completely off base. Ellie’s Uncle Pat – Maura and Mum’s brother – had leapt out of his car at a traffic light in central Paris. ‘In the 14th arrondissement,’ Maura added, though Ellie had never been to Paris and the detail meant nothing to her. In the car were his wife and teenagers, Ellie’s cousins, en route back to Ireland after their holiday.

Back in the doldrums of bleak February, Paris had been a hot spark in Pat’s mind, an add-on to the Eurocamp experience which he’d spoken of with starry eyes. Maura wondered if the baffling networks of roads had upset Pat.

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