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SEAGLASS
1984
The weather at Seaglass is always a bit hit-and-miss, especially in summer. Blacksand Bay seems to have its own microclimate, blissfully unaware of the seasons. But my family was very good at being very British come rain or shine. If the calendar said that it was summer, we would all play outside wearing shorts and T-shirts, even if it was snowing.
The home movie on the ancient TV now proves that the sun did sometimes shine at Seaglass. The wobbly shot reveals a blue sky over a lush garden, a makeshift stage consisting of a navy upside-down rowboat, and some chairs on the lawn. Nancy appears in the doorway at the back of the house, looking stunning in a white blouse, belted skirt, and silk scarf, just like Audrey Hepburn inRoman Holiday.She’s smiling. A lot. It’s surreal to see. The camera moves closer, then ducks behind a large plant. Whoever filmed this was spying on our mother.
A man appears beside her on the terrace. He’s smiling too. Atfirst, I think it’s my dad. But as the camera zooms in, I realize it isn’t. It’s Conor’s. Mr. Kennedy helped Nancy to completely redesign the garden at the back of Seaglass, landscaping what was already there, as well as planting new flowers and a pretty magnolia tree. She loved that tree and would often sit on the bench beneath it. Nana said it was a symbol of what friendship and hope can achieve, and how helping to make others happy can make you happy too. Nancy and Conor’s dad sit down side by side, moving their chairs a little closer together on the lawn. I think they had been “friends” for about a year by then.
My sisters and I were putting on a play, just like we did most summers at Seaglass, and the empty chairs for the “audience” were filled with teddy bears and dolls. I don’t remember how or when the annual Darker family plays started. Like most family traditions, it became something we always did simply because it was something we had always done.
Dad’s piano had been wheeled out onto the lawn. That would have made him cross, which is perhaps why my mother let us do it. She loved to see us singing, or dancing, or acting. Nothing seemed to bring her more joy. Nancy always helped with the costumes and the choreography, and was our most enthusiastic member of the audience, whooping and cheering while Nana and Mr. Kennedy just clapped. I remember that was the first year my sisters allowed me to have a speaking role. Rose and Conor were fourteen, Lily was thirteen, and I was nine.
The fabric of the relationship with my sisters has been repeatedly stretched, torn, and restitched over the years. A patchwork quilt of antiquated love and lies, born out of duty and expectation. We are supposed to love our family. It’s an unspoken rule. Whenever I see pictures of other families, their happy faces all coveredin matching smiles, I find myself wondering whether it is real. Or if the happiness they’re portraying is simply a mask worn for the sake of others. Surely all families have fights, and disagreements, and conflict… Maybe the way we were with one another was more normal than I thought. We all have our own version of the truth, and it is rarely whole.
As always, our play that year was a strange mix of stories from our favorite films, blended into an elaborate tale of our own. It’s clear that 1984 was a year when we were all intoStar Wars.Lily walks out onto the “stage” dressed as Princess Leia, with her plaited hair in giant buns on either side of her head. She stands on top of the upturned blue boat and starts talking about a galaxy far, far away. Before she finishes, I see nine-year-old me hurry out of the kitchen door and sit down at the piano. I avoid eye contact with the audience or my costars the whole time—I was always horribly shy compared to my sisters, possibly even more than normal on that occasion because I was dressed as Gizmo fromGremlins.
We were a musical family before our composition changed. Some families know all the lyrics to one another’s songs and live in harmony, but not us. My sisters showed little interest in following in our father’s footsteps after he divorced our mother—Rose dabbled with the recorder, and Lily could just about keep time with a tambourine—but I always enjoyed playing the piano. I used to play imaginary notes on the kitchen table when I couldn’t play the real thing, my fingers silently moving to a melody that could only be heard in my imagination. Nana said that I sometimes did it while holding her hand, and that she occasionally saw my fingers twitching even when I was in bed, as though playing the piano in my sleep. My dad was so proud and pleased that I had showed an interest in what he loved most, music, and he was the real reason Iplayed, desperate to earn his affection. I was definitely a daddy’s girl when I was a child, but he could never live up to the man I turned him into inside my head.
I was still delighted when he appeared in the garden at Seaglass that afternoon. He had a frown on his face as he sat down next to Nancy in the audience. I presumed it was because his precious piano was outside, but now I think it might have been more to do with the other man sitting next to my mother. Dad smiled when I started to play, and it made all the hours of practice seem worthwhile. Rose was tone-deaf, and Lily had as much rhythm as an arrhythmia. Playing the piano was the only thing that I was better at than my sisters. By the age of nine, I’d taught myself to play rather well.
It was fourteen-year-old Rose’s turn to take the stage next. She was just about young enough to still take part in the family play, although I doubt she would have told her friends at school about it. Rose was dressed as a Ghostbuster, and I think it was by far the best homemade costume that year. I watch myself play a little bit of the film’s theme tune as she walks out, and Lily glares at me when I get a couple of the notes wrong. I remember how bad that made me feel, even though I had practiced for days. The story we were trying to tell—about a princess, a gremlin, and a Ghostbuster—makes as little sense to me now as it did then. But I get goose bumps when teenage Rose starts to sing.
Hush, little baby, don’t be afraid.
The beds we lie in are the ones we made.
And if that means you can’t sleep at night,
Remember that wrongs are sometimes right.
And if you fear you’re all alone,
You’ll always have me and a place to call home.
Hush, little baby, don’t you cry.
Sometimes we live, sometimes we die.
I find myself looking at Rose in the present. If she feels me staring at her, she doesn’t show it. Instead she continues to watch her younger self on the screen. Conor and Lily are staring at her now too. Rose was always changing the words of nursery rhymes when we were growing up—swapping the real lyrics for something a shade darker. Not unlike the poems in Nana’s children’s books. Or the chalk poem written on the kitchen wall tonight.
“Who is that?” asks Trixie, and we all look back at the television, just in time to see fourteen-year-old Conor perform his part in the play. She’s right to wonder; he is almost unrecognizable from the man he grew into. Teenage Conor stands on the upturned boat and raps about the freedom of the press, dressed as the Karate Kid—one of our favorite films that year. He tries to balance on one leg while doing a rather comical impression of the crane kick.
Then it was my turn. My first and—because of what happened—last speaking role in the Darker family play. Nine-year-old me looks terrified as she steps onto the old blue boat and stares out at the audience of four adults and several toys. I clench my fists and squeeze my eyes closed as I try to overcome my stage fright and remember the lines that my sisters had written for me. I remember that the Gizmo costume was very itchy and made me want to sneeze. I caught Nana’s eye, and she smiled at me.You can do it,she mouthed. Her belief in me outweighed my inability to believe in myself.
“Daughters are like gremlins, and there are three rules you mustn’t break,” I say. “One: keep them out of bright light…”
Conor and Lily shine flashlights at me, and Rose throws a whitesheet over my head, which was always part of the plan. The sheet had holes cut into it so that I could still see.
“Two: never feed them after midnight,” I say.
Lily throws an egg at me, which wasnotwhat we had rehearsed, but everyone laughed so I carried on.
“Three: donotget them wet…”
Lily throws a bucket of cold water over me, which was also not part of the plan, and I struggle to remember my final line. I watch myself spin around, revealing a scary hand-drawn face on the back of the white sheet I was beneath.
“Or they’ll turn into ghosts!”
