Guilty

by Siobhan MacDonald

  The Glasshouse was awash with cards. He’d read some. Most remained unopened. He couldn’t bring himself to read them. Along with mounds of cards was a stack of newspapers, all running with the same headline:

  Family Reunion Ends in Tragedy.

  Aided by a walking stick, Cornelius shuffled towards the lectern. Luke tensed. Wendy squeezed his hand. Cornelius had insisted on a eulogy though he was advised against it. He’d assumed the role of chief mourner, wearing long black tails. He looked like a sad old crow.

  He cleared his throat. ‘My son-in-law has asked that I say a few words …’ What was Cornelius playing at? The old man peered over the top of his reading glasses, scanning the congregation. ‘So, please bear with me.’

  Luke had suggested no such thing. All he wanted to do was make it through the funeral. To get it over with.

  ‘It’s a terrible, terrible thing for any man to have to bury a daughter,’ began Cornelius. ‘It isn’t natural.’

  Luke closed his eyes and bowed his head. Wendy squeezed his hand more tightly. Around him, he could sense women looking in bags in search of hankies.

  ‘In the short time she was here with us, she brought so much joy and light to those around her,’ Cornelius said.

  Luke winced.

  ‘The time we have together goes so quickly,’ Cornelius continued. ‘In the blink of an eye. It feels like only yesterday that we were here in this very church for the christening. Many of you here were also in the church that day. And what a hell of a party we had back at Crow Hall. Her mother was so proud—’

  Cornelius broke off, directing his gaze at the photo on top of the coffin.

  ‘She’d accomplished much. But she had so much yet to give. It seems cruel and senseless that she was taken from us now when she had so much life—’ His voice cracked. ‘She was a devoted daughter …’ He couldn’t continue.

  All along the pew, heads turned to Luke in sympathy. He squirmed. If he could get up and sneak out, he’d gladly do so. Listening to Cornelius talk about his precious daughter was scarcely bearable.

  Cornelius pulled himself together. ‘Her untimely passing is a loss to all the children’s charities she worked with,’ he said. ‘To all her constituents she worked tirelessly for with warmth and fervour. She is an irreplaceable loss to our extended family at Crow Hall, and of course to her former business partner, Roddy Gilligan …’

  He broke off to retrieve a handkerchief from his breast pocket.

  Nina whispered in Luke’s ear. ‘Is Grandpa going to mention us at all?’

  ‘I’m sure he will,’ Luke replied.

  The old man had better give Nina a mention at least. Luke put his arm around her shoulder.

  Cornelius resumed. ‘I think we all agree that Alison was a rare breed in politics. She was selfless. Unlike many of us who go into the game in good faith, a lot of old-timers like myself, we become disillusioned, we become cynical. Alison was none of those things. Nothing was too much for her constituents. Since the election, she’d been spending a lot of time up at Crow Hall with me.’

  ‘And Groper Gilligan,’ muttered Nina, under her breath.

  ‘She leaned on me for advice. The two of us would stay up into the small hours, figuring out what could be done to help the suffering of farmers and householders affected by the floods. Alison worried for them. She went on many a sandbag delivery with my foreman, Sly Hegarty, down there.’ He nodded his head in Sly’s direction. ‘As you know, Alison was never one to shy away from work.’

  ‘A proper Mother Teresa,’ Wendy whispered.

  Suppressing a giggle, Nina hid her face in a tissue and pretended to sob. After the ordeal she’d suffered, Luke was relieved to see she hadn’t lost her sense of humour.

  ‘Alison’s special gift lay with children,’ Cornelius was hitting his stride. ‘Kids seemed to gravitate towards her. And after she and Luke got married, well … and I know it was a source of great sadness to her … it was difficult when children didn’t come along.’ Cornelius stopped to dab his eyes.

  What the hell? A ripple of unease cascaded through the pews. Luke’s face burned. How dare Cornelius use the occasion of Alison’s funeral to humiliate him. Wendy looked at Luke, dismayed.

  ‘But Alison was made of grit and got on with things. I’m sure Nina feels as proud to have had Alison as a mother as I was to have her as a daughter.’

  Cornelius eyeballed Nina. She bowed her head.

  ‘Alison was always loyal and she was always kind. It was typical that once she’d welcomed Nina home from her travels, she wanted to get on with sorting out the floods. She was on her way back to Crow Hall to discuss disaster relief with me last Thursday.’

  The lie that had tripped off Luke’s tongue to the police that Friday morning made its way to Cornelius later.

  ‘Most of the roads were closed but that wasn’t going to stop my Alison. She set out for the High Shore Road.’ He shrugged. ‘Sadly, Luke couldn’t convince her to wait until the morning.’

  Luke bristled. How dare the old bastard blame him?

  ‘I’m sorry …’ Cornelius’s voice wavered as he succumbed to a fit of shaking. A bishop took a tentative step in his direction. But Cornelius rallied. ‘There’s so much more that I wanted to say but I promised I would keep it brief.’ He scanned the congregation. ‘I’d like to invite you all to Crow Hall for refreshments after we put Alison to rest alongside her dear departed mother, Marguerite. For those of you that don’t know the way, Roddy Gilligan will be handing out directions at the back of the cathedral.’

  Wendy gasped and looked at Luke. Protocol suggested the funeral reception should be at the Glasshouse, at the home of the grieving widower. Cornelius’s wishes trumped convention. Luke had been ignored in any funeral planning, learning of the arrangements through a funeral notice in the newspaper, just like any member of the public. Neither he nor Nina had been consulted, their wishes an irrelevance.

  Luke wouldn’t give Cornelius the satisfaction of making a scene. He was withered from his father-in-law’s shenanigans. When his anger subsided, it struck him that in fact the arrangements suited him quite well. He didn’t have it in him to host a reception, or to make hypocritical small-talk about the wife he had grown to loathe. He was also distrustful of some of the mourners.

  Alison had fostered genuine affection in some. More were looking for an angle, a connection to exploit. Cornelius and Gilligan were welcome to their conniving milieu. Luke wanted nothing more than to slip home with Nina and Wendy. To get away from this charade. But he would have to attend Crow Hall for a short while to thank his colleagues for attending.

  He wasn’t looking forward to that. There’d be Fran to contend with for a start. She radiated suspicion. She’d been desperate to call out to the Glasshouse the afternoon the news had broken. Despite her nosiness, Luke knew her urge to call was due mainly to her long-standing affection for Nina.

  ‘That poor little lamb,’ she said, ‘what a homecoming. Are you sure I can’t be any help? I can do sandwiches and tea for callers.’ He’d stood firm. ‘Thanks, Fran, but the police are calling again.’ Unfortunately for him, he’d chosen the wrong thing to say. It made Fran even more curious. He had to resort to very firm words to dissuade her from calling. With her razor-sharp eyes, Fran might spot things the police had not.

  When the police had first called that Friday morning, Nina had been ghostly in the folds of her dressing gown. They were not to know that hours before, Nina had been hypothermic. It had been a slow process to raise her temperature without a drop in blood pressure. Neither did they notice Nina pulling the dressing-gown sleeves over her hands to cover the marks made by the handcuffs. They didn’t notice the discoloration on Luke’s wrists from the tie-wraps either.

  Luke was careful with his clothing. If he’d been in hospital scrubs, the abrasions and bruising would have required an explanation. By the time his compassionate leave was up, any residual discoloration should draw little if any attention.

 
Cornelius stepped away from the lectern, off the altar, and leaned on his stick. His colour was poor. Returning to the pew, he stopped by the coffin. The congregation held its breath. Kissing a finger, Cornelius laid it on the photo of Alison. They’d been unable to have an open coffin because of the state of her remains.

  ‘Goodbye, sweet daughter,’ he said. He shuffled awkwardly back to his seat. Sitting down, he made a sound like a pocket of air being released.

  ‘All right, Grandpa?’ Nina leaned forward and whispered along the pew. Luke wondered why she bothered. She never received a scintilla of affection from him.

  ‘Hmph,’ came his reply.

  Mourners approached the altar with symbols and stories of Alison’s life. Luke hardly recognised the woman they described. It wasn’t the woman he had married. His mind started to wander. He wondered how he was going to get through the next few days. He was longing to get back to work. He wanted some routine.

  ‘Dad.’

  He felt a nudge.

  ‘Dad.’

  Another nudge, more insistent.

  ‘And so now we must take leave of our sister, Alison, in the sure and certain hope that we will meet again one day,’ the voice on the altar said mournfully.

  ‘Stand up, Dad.’

  The congregation was on its feet. Alison’s coffin was being shouldered by Sly Hegarty and labourers from Crow Hall. The pall-bearers began the awkward procession down the central aisle, like a lumbering woodlouse. Cornelius edged in first behind the coffin. Luke and Nina moved along the pew to follow with Wendy close behind.

  ‘Who’s that supporting Cornelius?’ whispered Wendy.

  ‘Roddy Gilligan,’ said Nina.

  ‘I didn’t recognise the guy,’ said Wendy. ‘It’s years since I saw him. My, he looks shifty.’

  It angered Luke to walk behind Cornelius and Gilligan, knowing half the parish had to know the rumours about Alison and Gilligan. He felt humiliated, as if he were being paraded as a cuckold.

  A large crowd awaited as they emerged into the sunlight. It was the first time it had stopped raining in weeks. The sky was no longer a blanket of dishwater grey. Further pomp awaited. Luke groaned inside. A guard of honour was waiting for the coffin. Members of the Scarigell Hunt. Luke estimated it to be fifty-strong, buttoned, tucked and smoothed into black hunting coats, breeches, boots and caps.

  The press was out in force. As Luke’s eyes flitted through the crowds, there was a spray of camera flashes. He wanted this to be over. The aping pretence of playing the grieving but errant husband. He’d been discreet, but he suspected there were also people aware of his affair with Sophie.

  His mind started to play tricks. He thought he saw her. For one split second he’d thought it was Sophie. There, on the edge of the crowd, in a peach-toned raincoat. The face he’d imagined had melted away. He let his breath out. Linking Nina and Wendy, he headed for the car.

  Family Tragedy

  ‘What dreadful people!’ Wendy was sitting in the back as Luke drove out past the crow-topped pillars on their way back to the Glasshouse.

  ‘Well, I felt like stabbing needles in my eyes.’ Nina turned around in the passenger seat to face her aunt.

  ‘It must be awful to bury your daughter,’ Wendy continued. ‘And I should feel sorry for Cornelius. But all I can do is feel sorry for you, Luke. That you’ve had to suffer that man and those goons he keeps for company.’

  ‘What about me?’ Nina was indignant too. ‘When I was a kid I hated going to Crow Hall. The way they all looked at me, like I was a freak.’

  Wendy laughed. ‘After the people I saw in there today, you’re the normal one.’

  ‘Too right. I remember once as a kid, I was on the wall between the yard and the back fields, with my sketch pad, minding my own business, when I felt a jab in the back. It was that lump, Sly Hegarty with that big leery face of his. He was poking me with the handle of a yard brush, thinking it was funny. When I went in and complained to Grandpa, he told me they must have no sense of humour where I came from.’

  ‘The man’s an arse,’ said Wendy, ‘there’s no two ways about it. I know he’s your grandpa and all …’

  ‘Yeah, though he’s never exactly been thrilled about that now, has he? I remember another time when I’d stopped eating meat. He cooked up liver and kidneys. He sat down to eat them right in front of me, red juice running all down his chin.’

  ‘As I said, he’s a prize arse. I plain never liked the man.’

  ‘It’s OK, Wendy. I don’t much like him either. I just try because he’s my grandpa.’

  ‘The man’s a buffoon,’ Luke chipped in.

  Nina turned around and set to tugging off her boots. She leaned back in the passenger seat and put her odd-socked feet on the dashboard. ‘Mm … buffoon.’ She rolled the word around her mouth, trying it out for size. ‘I like that. A prize arse and a buffoon.’

  For the next few miles they travelled along the country road in companionable silence. The gullies bubbled brown, running fast with water, but there’d been no more rain. All three looked out over the fields, reflecting on the strangeness of the day.

  All around them, neighbours, political cronies, ex-colleagues, charity workers and the hunting set had sniffed, cried and cleared their throats. Not once had Nina parted with a tear. Not today, not yesterday or once since Alison’s death. Luke didn’t wish any further trauma on his daughter, she’d suffered ordeal enough. But he couldn’t help but feel how unnatural it was that, in her lifetime, Alison could inspire such little affection in her only child.

  Watching over Nina the night they’d taken her from the water, Luke had tried to picture how events might play out. Not once in his wild imaginings did he anticipate what would follow.

  Terence had left the house the following morning. He and Luke had agreed that Terence would take no immediate action about what had happened, that they would discuss it later, and decide how to handle it then.

  Not long after Terence had left, the buzzer had sounded at the gate. Only then did Luke remember the alarm company, Sentry Systems, had been due to call. He pressed the button to open the gates. To his surprise, when he opened the door, he was met by two policemen.

  He’d assumed that Terence had changed his mind or that Sophie had alerted them. It had always been a possibility. He was prepared for full disclosure. ‘You’d better come in.’ He’d directed the police to the garden room. Nina was on a sofa buried in his dressing gown.

  When the police explained why they were there, and what had happened to Alison, Luke was speechless. He’d been bracing himself to tell them about the hit-and-run. He was not prepared for this. Nina stared blankly at the policemen. After they’d left, Luke rang to cancel the alarm company. He made two mugs of strong black tea with sugar.

  ‘This is unbelievable,’ he said. ‘I can’t get my head around it.’ He handed a mug to Nina. ‘I’m so very, very sorry.’

  ‘It’s not your fault, Dad.’ Her voice was dull and brittle.

  She sipped at the syrupy tea, then blew on it. They sat for a long time, side by side, staring out at the lough. They didn’t speak and there were no tears.

  ‘I’d love to say I’m going to miss her,’ Nina volunteered, eventually. ‘But I really don’t think that I will.’

  They were the saddest words Luke had ever heard. Nina had tried to love her mother. He thought back to the many times she’d sought her mother’s approval. She must have felt affection once, to even try. Sadly, Luke could remember few occasions when that approval had been forthcoming. Like a plant starved of sunlight, any love that Nina had for her mother had curled at the edges and withered away.

  ‘You know what I think, Dad?’ Nina was sanguine. ‘For years I was an unwanted accessory that Mum had tired of. She just didn’t know what to do with me.’

  Luke could not find any words for a rebuttal. Nina put her mug down with a shrug. She’d turned to the window. The incursion of the lough was slowly receding, leaving a murky residue on the
lawn.

  Arriving back at the Glasshouse, Wendy wanted to unpack and freshen up. Her suitcase sat in the hall where she’d left it earlier.

  ‘You remember where everything is?’ asked Luke.

  Wendy nodded.

  ‘I’ll put on one of the dinners that Fran left. We’ll eat in a bit.’

  Luke wasn’t hungry but it would make them feel human to sit around a table together. To salvage some normality. Nina went to fetch Duffy from the dog-run. The animal had played his part in Nina’s recovery that awful night.

  As soon as Luke had opened the basement door, the dog had burst out in a frenzy, bounding up the stairs. Sensing something was wrong, he’d snuggled in to Nina tightly, sharing his body heat with her. It provided the gradual warmth she’d needed. Every now and then, he’d looked up at her to check her progress. He’d wriggled closer and licked her face.

  Luke’s appreciation for Duffy was tempered by what had met him in the basement. He surveyed the damage with dismay. In the time he’d been locked up, Duffy had pulled the place apart. The den was destroyed. The animal had ripped the leather on the L-shaped sofa. He’d chewed through the table-tennis net. The table itself was scored with claw marks.

  The old videotapes Luke had set aside for secure disposal were scattered across the floor. RHD/Study 4521/ Tanzania/ Prevention Prog. read the scrawled handwriting on one spine. Balloon Valvuloplasty/Ho Chi Min/WHO RHD prog ref:a32 read another. Most of the cassettes were videos of workshops he’d delivered. Some were of procedures he’d performed in remote areas. They had formed the basis of a training programme he’d put together with Hugh and Johnny. They’d worked together on a joint venture between St Matthew’s University Hospital and Thai Region 3 Children’s Clinic. Thankfully, most were now committed to computer.

  With the upset of recent months, Luke hadn’t finished editing stuff from their earlier Thailand trips. He’d hoped to share it with the guys before things had spun out of control. There was material for a lecture on ‘Task Shifting in the Developing World’. Reallocating clinical tasks to health workers with fewer qualifications was controversial. Luke had been looking forward to sharing his experiences with the World Heart Congress in Osaka later in the year.