The Legacy of Lucy Harte: A poignant, life-affirming novel that will make you laugh and cry. Emma Heatherington

       Chapter 9

      I count sheep. I count them in English and then in French and then As Gaelige and then backwards in each language, but still sleep won’t come. I see her every time I close my eyes. I see her freckled nose and her glasses and her long wavy, tatty hair that needed to be cut so badly that day. I hear her voice, or what I think it might sound like, and I feel… well, I feel her heart beat inside me and it makes me very sad.

      ‘God bless you, Lucy,’ I say out loud. ‘God bless you poor, poor Lucy Harte.’

      I think of Henry and his wide-eyed innocence. A little boy at only twelve years old, now orphaned and trapped in a man’s body and fully depending on his ageing aunt. I think of Simon, sat that morning with his young girlfriend and worrying about how he might kiss her, when the police arrived at the door. I think of their father, now dead and buried too, and all the pain and regret he must have lived with for so many years. And I think of their desperately addicted mother, who probably thought she was doing the right thing that day by taking her daughter to have her hair cut, topped up in Dutch courage by the dreaded drink.

      Life is cruel. Life is crap and cruel and I can’t sleep.

      I get out of bed and take my insomnia to the living area, where I curl up on the sofa under my throw again and turn on the TV. Shopping channels. Yes, that should do it. I lie there and squint at the screen, the rush of gin pumping through my veins and my head begins to spin. I am going to be sick. No… I am not. Yes I am… no… should I get up? What time is it? I feel dizzy again… I’m so….

      The TV has gone onto standby and I wake up to the sound of a car radio booming outside. I lift my head from the sofa. Ouch. Damn you Cucumber Coolers. Then I remember about the whiskey. My mouth is like sandpaper. No bloody wonder. Yuk.

      I am raging to be awake as I was having the most glorious dream where Jeff came to my door, totally unannounced, but looking oh-so handsome apart from needing a haircut, and like someone had waved a magic wand, he told me that Saffron didn’t even exist and it had all been a big mistake. There was no affair. In fact, there was no one in this entire world called Saffron. No one in the entire universe called Saffron, in fact. Saffron who? He kept saying this. You must have been dreaming, babe! You’re my wife and I love you.

      He wanted to take me back to the place we called home, the terraced house we bought in Stranmillis until we decided where to build our dream pad, and the place where we would bring our first baby home to in just a few months’ time because I was already pregnant and didn’t even know it. It would be a girl, he said, and we would call her Lucy Harte. Will Powers Sr was with him at the door and he was laughing at the idea of me thinking they had told me to take time out from work. Don’t be so silly, Maggie,