Seacliff

Chapter fifteen: Memories of war

1919

Saoirse produced a handkerchief from the pocket of her cardigan, to wipe at her bloodshot eyes and runny nose. Her head hurt from the barrage of tears and her face felt hot. Hotter than Sorley's hands intertwined on her hip.

"Ciara," she repeated. "My daughter, Ciara."

Sorley nuzzled her hair, kissed her temple, ran his nose down her cheek and along the line of her jaw, until it nestled in the crook of her neck and he kissed the exposed skin above her collar. His forearm fell on her lap as he unclasped his fingers and his palm flattened on her stomach.

Molten lava pooled in her pelvis, awakening instincts she'd tried so hard to suppress this past month. Selkie or not, Sorley was a man – a young-looking and handsome one at that, who loved sharing her bed. But he was also an ailing man, at the mercy of her care.

"Sorley, please..." Her voice scratched at her throat. "Please stop."

His eyes rose to watch her. Still clouded, yet so kind. Tears slipped renewed through her eyelashes and she reached up, cradling his face, brushing her thumb across his cheek. She gulped and stood up. This wouldn't do. She wouldn't allow herself to take advantage of him.

After washing her face with cold water in the kitchen, Saoirse put the kettle on and sat forlorn at the table, her mind blank. Her pain had festered, ditched in the darkest recesses of her brain, and now that it'd escaped, she didn't know what to do with it.

The kettle screeched in the oppressive silence and she snapped out of her trance, surprised to find her cheeks damp once more.

"May I come in?" Sorley's timid voice distracted her as she filled the teapot. He stood in the door, wrapped in a kilt over his linen shorts.

"Yes, of course." Saoirse smiled and cleared her throat.

She couldn't help noticing the disarray his hair was in. She usually brushed and braided it for him after every bath.

"I made you sad," he said, sounding remorseful.

"No... not you." She motioned for him to sit down and went to stand behind him. "I've been sad for a very long time now." She carefully combed her fingers through his tangled tresses. "I've just... ignored it. But you cannot ignore... grief. If you do, it never goes away. It just... it just lurks inside of you and will spring up on you when you least expect it."

He turned to watch her and took her hand. "Tell me," he urged her.

She made him face away, so she could finish what she'd started. Her fingers smoothened out each clotted strand, reminding her how soft and silky her daughter's hair used to be.

"Oh, I... I wouldn't even know where to begin..."

She pushed each disentangled lock over his shoulder and let it hang loose across his chest.

"I was... I was nineteen years old when I got married. I was working as a nurse in London by that time, fresh out of Florence Nightingale's school. Oh, I was so happy... It was such an accomplishment for a girl like me, from a fishing village... My husband was a constable with the Metropolitan Police and between the two of us, with a little help from Auntie Aoife, we could afford a little flat in the East End.

"It wasn't easy, by any means... We used to work such long hours, days and nights, too. But we were young and in love and so excited to have a family of our own. I... lost two, um... I had two unsuccessful pregnancies before Ciara was born. She arrived early, too early, but she was born a fighter and survived against all odds. She was barely..."

Her fingers trembled as she gathered Sorley's hair in her fist and divided it up.

"Three years old," she managed to murmur. "The war came and... and her father left. I... we... we all thought it was the right thing to do. It was going to be over by Christmas. But Christmas came and went and the war continued. The letters I received, the patients I tended to... I couldn't bear standing by. I had to... I had to help. I had to do something.

"So, I packed my bags and went to war. What kind of a mother does that? I was stupid, so stupid. I left Ciara with her aunt and joined the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry in France. Soon after, my husband died in a gas attack at Ypres. I should have... I should have gone home.

"I did once, briefly. I made it to Ciara's fifth birthday. My sister-in-law begged me to stay. I didn't listen to her. I went back and when the war was almost over... Just before the armistice, I went home. I wanted to be there for Ciara's seventh birthday. The poor girl spent more than half her life without her mother and when this selfish, stupid woman, unfit to be a parent, finally returned to her... it was too late. She'd fought her whole life, but she couldn't defeat the Flanders grippe.

"It... it took her. The flu took her. If I'd stayed home and looked after her properly... if I'd never left, she might have lived. Or at least she might have passed knowing that her mum loved her. But I abandoned her because I... because I thought myself so powerful and righteous and I... I did enjoy it, didn't I?"

She tied the end of Sorley's plait with a piece of string and crumpled on a chair beside him.

"The work and the camaraderie and the valour... I felt... important. Meaningful. A hero. I didn't know... How could I know? How could anyone have known?"