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

I haven’t really spoken to anyone in depth before about how I became the keeper of a borrowed heart – well, it might seem like party piece-style entertainment, but most people shy away from the subject as quickly as their eyes divert from the light scar on my chest – should they spot it – so talking to Simon, who is all ears and who has a genuine interest, is a whole new experience.

‘I was quite the athlete back then,’ I explain. ‘I won most of the prizes on every sports day and the farmhouse was like a shrine to my achievements on the track and field.’

‘Really?’ he says, seriously surprised. ‘I had visions of you as a really sick kid for years, or someone who was born with a heart condition.’

‘Not at all,’ I explain. ‘Had I had any warning signs, what unfolded would have been less of a shock. It all happened very suddenly. Totally out of the blue.’

‘Go on.’

‘I have one brother, John Joe, who is a bit older than me,’ I explain. ‘My parents had gone to the market one Saturday and left us both to take care of things on the farm, just as they had been doing for years.’

The piano man is playing an Elton John favourite and in other circumstances I would stop to listen, but I know if I don’t keep going I will never finish and I want to hear about Lucy as soon as possible and get my side over and done with.

‘John Joe and I, well, we used to be really close before I got sick. Looking back, I think he resented me for not only coming along and ruining his status as an only child, but also for then totally stealing his thunder for taking most of my parents’ attention when I almost died,’ I explain, realising that I am talking very, very fast. ‘I was helping him on the farm and I remember feeling ill, really ill. So, so ill.’

I slow down now and Simon is taking in every word, sipping his beer.

‘I went into the house, despite John Joe’s insistence on labouring me with more chores,’ I tell him. ‘He kept telling me I was faking it and being lazy and saying I looked okay and to just get on with it… I suppose he was just teasing me like any brother in charge would, but…’

‘Take your time, Maggie,’ he says. Everything feels like slow motion. The piano man has gone silent and things are blurry. Simon takes my hand.

‘These… these,’ I whisper, ‘well, they were like really heavy flu symptoms, were becoming more and more severe. I couldn’t breathe. I was sweating. I was so, so hot. I felt like I was shutting down inside. Because I was shutting down. My whole body was shutting down.’

I feel my voice break slightly so I decide to keep going and push on through the pain barrier that comes with reflecting on that dark day. If I stop talking now I will never be able to tell this story again.

‘I had to lie down, so I went to the house and when it got even worse, I called for my brother, but he didn’t come,’ I tell him, and I feel all the hurt and resentment for John Joe rush through my veins again. ‘He says he didn’t hear me but I know he did. He heard me, Simon. He heard me and he didn’t come.’

‘Oh, Maggie, he couldn’t have. He mustn’t have heard you.’

My tears flow now and I look around, not wanting to cause a scene in such a warm and social environment. I can hear the piano again. I am going to be okay.

‘Everyone says that but I think he did. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter… well, it does matter…’

God, this is harder than I thought it would be.

‘Take a deep breath, Maggie,’ says Simon. ‘We have all night. Take your time.’

He puts his hand on top of mine again and I want him to hold me so badly. I want to lean in on his manly chest and cry and cry and never stop.

But I can’t. So I do what he says. I take a deep breath and continue as best I can.

‘They say I passed out and when I woke up, I could literally see that my heart had swollen in my chest,’ I explain. ‘It looked like it was going to burst. I tried to scream but I couldn’t get a breath. And then everything went black again and I woke up in hospital, where I lay attached to a machine for almost two weeks waiting for a transplant – and then a miracle occurred. And that miracle was your sister’s gift. To me.’

‘Wow….’

‘Yip. Wow indeed.’

I stare into my glass. Simon is still holding my hand.

‘So, who found you?’ he asks. ‘Who came to your rescue? Was it John Joe?’

I see protection in Simon’s eyes and it makes me want to never let go of him.

‘My parents found me,’ I tell him. ‘When I got to hospital my heart was failing pretty rapidly. Turns out I had a congenital condition that would have killed me had they not came back when they did. I was inches from death and I needed a heart transplant to save me. Basically, I needed someone to die to keep me alive. And that someone was your sister. I’m so sorry.’

We both sit in silence, absorbing the moment. I have a flurry of emotions running through me right down to my toes. Relief, gratitude, love, grief, sorrow… but, most of all, guilt. Why did Lucy have to die and I got to live? Surely that isn’t fair?

‘And what happened since then? Could it happen to you again? Could Lucy’s heart fail?’

It’s the question I am asked the most and the one that I can never bear to answer.

‘I take immune suppressing drugs every twelve hours and will do so all my life,’ I explain to him. ‘It’s so my body doesn’t try to fight the foreign cells, which would send me into rejection, which would be the worst thing ever.’

He knows what I mean. ‘So, is there a life expectancy? Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked you that.’

‘It’s okay, Simon,’ I tell him. ‘I know my special heart won’t last forever and that someday I will need a new one to live and I see my consultant often enough to keep an eye on things. If that doesn’t come my way, I’m grateful for all I have and all I got to see and do. Me and Lucy, well we just take one day at a time and so far we are doing just fine.’

Simon has gone to the bathroom and I sit there waiting, hoping my side of the story hasn’t upset him too much. I feel like I have cheated him, like I have cheated Lucy and all their family. Why should I have survived when she didn’t?

When he finally comes back, I see tiny beads of water on his forehead. It’s not sweat because he didn’t have it before he left. He must have splashed his face with cold water in the bathroom.

‘Is this too much?’ I ask him.

‘No, please, no,’ he says with such sincerity. ‘It is why I am here. I have wanted to know this for so long. Tell me about your brother. Tell me the rest.’

‘I feel so guilty, Simon. I feel so bad that I am here talking to you and Lucy isn’t. You must resent me so much.’

‘Maggie, Maggie, Maggie,’ he says, sounding just like he did when he first came into the bar to meet me a few hours ago. ‘Lucy died and that was nothing to do with you. You have given me hope. To find you is like finding a missing jigsaw puzzle piece that I lost all those years ago. She lives on in you and to see you in real life is something I have always dreamed of! Please tell me the rest of your story and then I will tell you mine and I hope that, in some way, all of this can help both of us. Please, go on.’

And so I continue…

‘It took a long, long time to get the full story of what happened that day and then more time to forgive my brother,’ I tell Simon. ‘Years, really. Mum always idolised John Joe and she forgave him slowly once I had the operation and the transplant was a success. For my dad, it took a lot longer, but they managed to work together in some sort of civilised manner and then John Joe moved to America and has been womanising … I mean, working there ever since.’

Simon looks puzzled.

‘That was my idea of a joke,’ I say with a shrug. ‘He seems to go through a lot of woman. Anyhow, I’ve stayed out of his way and he’s stayed out of mine. With that unspoken arrangement in place, we all get along fine. At least we had a happy ending, thanks to your family and the brave decision your parents made.’

We sit in silence again for a few moments, both taking in the incident that I have just relived – something that I have avoided talking about for years and yet which kept me awake at night after night.

‘I’d love to give you a hug,’ says Simon.

‘I’d love you to as well,’ I say. I need a hug really badly.

I lean into him and he holds me and I close my eyes, my chest moving up and down as I focus on breathing in and out, in and out.

‘I can feel your heart beat,’ he whispers and I close my eyes and breathe.

Then I excuse myself and it is my turn to go to the bathroom. I need to compose myself before I hear Simon’s side of the story. Apart from my grievance with my brother, at least my story has a happy ending.

His doesn’t.

Chapter 8

‘My sister Lucy was wise way beyond her years,’ Simon tells me later and I lean on my hands, my eyes dancing in reflection of his happy memories. ‘She was so clever, so tuned in and she looked after me and our younger brother, Henry, like we were precious jewels. She really was a special kid. I know I’m biased, but she was.’

He gulps and his mood drops a little.

‘Her death, it happened at such a weird time for us,’ he explains. ‘My sister, our brother, Henry, and I were close, so close and we’d had such a brilliant few days as a family, which unfortunately was pretty rare for us. Mum and Dad were in top gear, you know, really flying after a few tortuous years when they had depended on others to come and pick up the pieces, but at that time… at that time, we were good, you know?’

He rubs his eyes. He is tired and it is getting late and we are both getting a bit tipsy by this stage. I contemplate stopping him, asking him to pause and tell me this when we hadn’t consumed alcohol because, to be honest, I am afraid that when I wake up the next morning I will forget what he had said thanks to the amount of gin and the level of emotions that are swilling around in my head.

‘My mum was an alcoholic,’ he tells me.

Oh God. Ouch.

‘… and for most of our childhood it was misery, but on that day, everything seemed, ironically, perfect, like she had finally put us before the bottle. But she hadn’t.’

Jesus. I don’t know what to say. This is not what I was expecting from this strong, beautiful man who has contacted me out of the blue. I think of my own drinking and the selfish way I have brought misery and worry onto others. I push away my glass. Then I reach for it again and feel the familiar glow the alcohol brings – like an old friend who is really your worst enemy.

‘Are you sure you don’t want to leave this until tomorrow?’ I ask him. ‘You look tired. You don’t have to tell me this at all if you don’t want to.’

‘I want to,’ he says.

Simon’s childhood sounds so painful and worlds away from the idyllic upbringing I had on the farm with my older parents, despite my clashes with my big brother. My life sounded perfect compared to what Simon, Lucy and wee Henry had gone through and I feel like such a spoilt brat for complaining about John Joe.

He pauses for a second.

‘I think I need to get this out of my system. It helps talking about it. Do you mind?’

‘I don’t mind at all,’ I reply. ‘Tell me anything you want to.’

He smiles. I am so touched by his honesty, about his pain, about the heartache he has lived through and I totally respect that he has been to hell and back and has taken the time to find me and tell me Lucy’s story.

‘So Mum was insisting that Lucy had a haircut that day, which in any other family would be no big deal, right?’

‘Of course,’ I say, remembering in a flashback the time my own mother made me have my hair cut in a ‘page-boy’ style, which was all the rage. I looked like a cross between Lady Diana’s bridal party and a cocker spaniel. I want to tell him that, to try and make him laugh, but now is not the time.

‘Lucy had refused for so, so long. She didn’t want to have her hair cut but that day she finally gave in. So Mum, Lucy and Henry set off and the mood was good. She seemed happy but we had no idea that she had been sipping away at her vodka all that morning,’ he goes on, with deep sorrow in his voice and his eyes drop. ‘I have gone over and over that morning since then, analysing her every move. Wondering what would have triggered it. A row with Dad? Or another crazy notion that his eyes were roaming towards any random woman that came his way? But there was nothing. Even Dad said there was nothing. He had gone to his conference that morning in high spirits, confident that when he came home, it would be as it had been for the last few days … I had sneaked my girlfriend around and was too worried about how she might feel if I kissed her for the first time. Just a normal, pretty nice day, but of course it didn’t end that way at all.’

The barman signals to us that last orders are being taken and the piano man is packing up his song sheets. The room goes quiet as punters filter out and welcoming low-key house music fills the stillness in the air.

‘Would you like another drink?’ he asks and I shake my head.

‘I think I have had enough.’ His mother was an alcoholic. I can’t go a day without a drink lately. Like John Joe said, I need to get a grip.

‘Two whiskies, then,’ he tells the barman.

‘Whiskies?’ Ah, Jesus.

‘I think we might be glad of them. What is it you say in Ireland? One for the road?’

I can’t really argue with that, can I?

‘Okay, then,’ I tell him. ‘Let’s have one for the road.’

I dread to think how bad his story will end, but no matter how much I anticipate, the real story is a whole lot worse.

‘Mum drove into town after a morning’s drinking behind our backs,’ he tells me. ‘We found her stash in the hot press, under the kitchen sink, in her old handbags, everywhere there was evidence that she had been topping up all along. They hit a car in a head-on collision and she was killed instantly. Lucy lived for two days, but her injuries were too much for her to survive.’

‘Oh my God!’ My hands cover my mouth. ‘Not your mother too! No…’

‘The other driver escaped almost unmarked, which was lucky for him. He was as devastated as we were.’

‘And Henry? Was he okay?’

I am almost afraid to ask.

‘Henry is … well, Henry is alive,’ says Simon. ‘Well, as alive as he can be. He was in a coma for three weeks with a brain injury and he stayed in hospital for two months after the accident. He needed special care after that and has lived with our Aunt Josie in Glasgow ever since. I see him when I can but he remembers very little really. He doesn’t speak much. He exists, but he doesn’t really live any more. He is twenty-eight years old but has the mind of the little boy he was on that awful day.’

We sit together, numbed at the story that has unfolded and for once in my life I am truly lost for words. Simon seems to be too as we stare at the table, at each other, at the barman who is wiping down empty tables and at the piano, which is now idle and without a tune.

‘I think we should go,’ he tells me.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I think we both need some sleep.’

We have thrashed out enough, more than enough, for one night and our minds and bodies need to rest and digest all that we have told each other, though, to be honest, despite the rush of alcohol that fills my veins, I doubt there will be very much sleep for me tonight.

I say goodbye to Simon Harte and watch him from the back seat of my taxi as he walks towards the Lisburn Road to the B&B with the real chandeliers.

He looks so lost and lonely and his sister’s heart aches inside of me with longing to ease his pain. I only hope that meeting me can give him the closure he so desperately needs so that he can look forward to his new life with his wife and their baby.

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,

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