Tell Me What I Am by Una Mannion

We present an extract from Tell Me What I Am, the new novel by Una Mannion, the acclaimed author of A Crooked Tree.

When Deena Garvey disappears in 2004, she leaves behind a daughter and a sister. Deena's daughter grows up in the country. She learns how to hunt, when to seed the garden, how to avoid making her father angry. Never to ask about her absent mother. Deena's sister stays stuck in the city, getting desperate. She knows the man responsible for her sister's disappearance, but she can't prove it. Not yet. Over fourteen years, four hundred miles apart, these two women slowly begin to unearth the secrets and lies at the heart of their family, and the history of power and control that has shaped them both in such different ways. But can they reach each other in time? And will the truth finally answer the question of their lives?

Ruby

May 2018, The Islands, Vermont

From the open door of the coop, a needle of light fell across the hen's egg – mute blue in a nest of pine shavings – a misshapen moon, or one of the pale-green pills the doctor prescribed for Clover. Ruby wrapped her fingers over it, turned her palm up. She considered the weight of the egg, how it moulded to the human grip so perfectly.

Outside the coop the hens murmured and clucked in their dust baths, old tyres Ruby had filled with sand and wood ash. A happy sound, even though it was mid-morning and she’d only just let them out. Yesterday she hadn't collected their eggs at all. Put it off, and off. Neglected them. Most nights now they took themselves to bed, a little assembly line heading up the ramp when the sun fell, a sad string of would-be mothers. She’d watch them from the porch, dragging herself down in the pitch dark to shut the coop door.

She squeezed her fingers, pressed the egg tighter: still enough cal- cium that it didn't break. That was good. She listened to the soft chatter outside and hated herself. Their beating flightless wings when they saw her coming, their dumb trust, following her around the yard, letting her reach in and take their brood. All that foraging and effort she’d been throwing into the trash or scrambling and feeding back to them. Lucas always said they should: scrambled eggs helped the hens regain nutrients lost while laying. He’d rattle out the list of benefits – protein, calcium, magnesium, vitamins A, E, B6 and 12 – and her thoughts would start to drift.

Every few days Ethan Puckett pulled up in his truck and left a few groceries, cartons of milk, loaves of bread, meals in baking dishes still warm that Adelaide made for Ruby and Clover. Lasagne, macaroni and cheese, maple baked beans, venison. Ruby stacked the cleaned dishes on the bottom step for him to take. All of Clover's food had to be pureed now because of the stroke; the left side of her mouth still sagged. The blender left Adelaide's meals a bland lumpy grey. Neither Ruby nor Clover had much appetite. The hens ate Clover's pureed dinners, as well as their scrambled selves. Ruby had been back home for almost a week. She was so angry with Adelaide and Clover that her stomach stayed clenched.

Ruby stepped outside the dark coop and away from the heavy smell of bedding and manure. Maybe she should give the eggs to Ethan today. Instead of avoiding him when he pulled up, she could thank him for all he’d been doing, mention the heat, the fishing. And hand him a box of eggs. Adelaide could use them. Maybe Ethan could take the hens.

The house phone was ringing. Clover was there but she prob- ably wouldn't answer. It was hard for her to stand and then she’d have to lumber across the kitchen because they still didn't have a cordless phone; the caller would have given up. It kept ringing. Ruby put the basket down at the bottom of the steps, stamped up to the porch and let the screen door slam behind her against its aluminium frame. Clover was slouched in her day chair, staring at the TV; her mug of tea had turned milky grey beside her. She didn't look up.

The phone shook on the wall when it rang, like in a cartoon. Hello, Ruby said, glaring at Clover, but Clover just shrugged her right shoulder, the way she did, up to the ear, which meant some- thing defeated like So what about it, or I don't want to listen. She had The Price Is Right on loud, her housedress hiked to her knees, bare legs shocking white above inflamed ankles. A pair of pink plas- tic barrettes held her hair each side of her face, just above the ears. Ruby recognized them as her own, from years ago, and felt a slap of remorse. Clover's post-stroke fingers grappling with the child's clasp. The slippers were Ruby's too: pink faux fur, matted and pilled and too tight on Clover's swollen feet.

Hello? she said again, the receiver on her shoulder, her hand against the vinyl wallpaper, the once-bright oranges sun-bleached into large spectral patches. There was a pause on the line, like who- ever it was hadn't expected it to be answered after so many rings and was gathering themselves to speak. A woman said, Ruby? Is this Ruby?

Yes, she said, this is Ruby Chevalier. Who's calling, please? She used the don't-mess-with-me voice she’d rehearsed for journalists or investigators. Don't say anything, the lawyer had told her. To anyone. She’d spoken as if Ruby couldn't grasp how serious all this was. Ruby didn't even know what it was she might mistakenly say. It wasn't a journalist, though. Ruby could tell by the halting uncertainty, the out-breath like a sigh, the hesitation. When jour- nalists called they spoke immediately and said things fast, like Hey Ruby, how’ve you been? Familiar, like they knew her, as if she’d be tricked into thinking they’d met before. Nathalie said they’d even waited outside the school, asking kids who she was, to point her out if she showed up. Ruby hadn't left the house since she’d come back.

The woman wasn't from around here, the way she said Ruby. The exaggerated vowel sound. She said it again: Ruby. Ruby, this is Nessa. Nessa Garvey. From Philadelphia? Your aunt. Ruby opened her mouth to speak but didn't really have anything to say.

Ruby's finger traced a faded petal on the wall. It was barely vis- ible. One of the only times Nathalie had ever stepped inside their kitchen, she’d said to Ruby, Oh my God, That ’70s Show – a phone with a cord, the vinyl, orange and brown, the Formica table.

The woman, Nessa Garvey, Aunt Nessa, started again. Please don't hang up, she said. Please. Hear me for a minute. Ruby wanted to burst into tears. She glanced over at Clover but Clover wasn't paying attention. She was writing possible prices for showroom merchandise on the back of an envelope with her right hand. She couldn't work the other one anymore.

Nessa. A name Ruby remembered on her own. She pushed open the screen door and stretched the cord to sit at the top of the steps. She balanced the phone between her cheek and shoulder to wipe her hand on her shirt because the receiver was slipping, and realized that in her other hand she was still holding the blue egg.

Yeah, she said, go ahead. Her voice didn't sound like her own. I don't know if you remember. You used to live with me. You and your mother? Ruby didn't say anything. Nessa. Maybe she wanted Ruby to say things to get Lucas in more trouble. The voice wasn't rude or unkind, but it wasn't friendly either. She sounded like she was reading from a page. The tremor that had started in Ruby's lip moved up the muscles on her cheek. She couldn't still herself.

We’re having a— She stopped, cleared her throat, kept going. We’d like you to come here. You were her whole world. We’ve waited. We had to, you know, at first, but now we’ve waited for you, so you could be here. I’m making this call for her. To ask you. We don't have to talk about—

Nessa broke off.

We don't have to talk about your father. We’ve made all the arrangements for you. If you’ll come.

Ruby held the receiver in her lap and looked east toward the Green Mountains, squinting against all the blue – the bright morning, the glare of the lake. The day would be fine. She should move the run to a fresh patch. She’d do that today. Clean out the coop, give them a fresh start; it wouldn't take long. And she’d reseed the lawn from the sack of clover in the shed. The hens were foraging where the enclosure met the shale, pecking at the clawed brown earth and grey slates, the scratch grain gone and the morning dew long evaporated.

One hen's golden feathers caught the sun, her comb still radiant red, healthy. Beside her a blue-black Ameraucana camouflaged against the shale; beech leaves stirred above them; a motorboat cut across the water, tracing a dark gash in its wake. Everything was still beau- tiful. The hens were hers. She should keep them.

Tell Me What I Am is published by Faber