by Oliver Sands
As Breeda climbed out of the car her phone began to ring. She rummaged it out of the bottom of her bag and squinted at the screen.
‘Hello?’
‘Breeda. It’s Doctor Chakraborty. I believe you’ve been trying to get hold of me.’
In the background Breeda could hear papers being shuffled, the doctor already contemplating her next call. ‘Apologies for the delay in getting back to you – just a lot going on. What were you after?’
Breeda leaned against the car, wishing she had a pen and paper so she could take notes. Instead she closed her eyes against the evening light and tried to focus.
‘Well, Doctor, obviously my Aunt Nora’s situation is quite serious, and I’m keen to understand how I should be caring for her.’ Breeda lowered her voice, ashamed at even having the next thought. ‘And I guess, to understand how long she has left?’
A pause on the other end of the line.
‘I’m sure you’re doing a fine job of looking after her, Breeda. Just the same meds as she’s always been on …’
‘OK …’
‘At the end of the day her condition is stable. It hasn’t gotten worse over the years, and – as I told her at the hospital – she just needs to keep doing what’s she’s doing. Meds and light exercise.’
Breeda opened her eyes now.
‘Doctor, I’m a bit confused. Surely a heart attack is pretty serious. Doesn’t she—’
‘A heart attack?’
Breeda turned to look at the house now.
‘I’m not sure where you got that idea. But it’s just a bit of heart arrhythmia and high blood pressure – stuff she’s lived with for years. Nothing new and I don’t expect any change if she stays on her meds. Apart from that she’s as fit as a fiddle.’ The doctor was chortling now, ‘She’s a tough old bird, is Nora Cullen. Nothing to worry about, Breeda. Nothing whatsoever.’
Breeda rubbed a hand roughly on her prickling scalp.
‘So, Doctor… are you telling me she didn’t have a heart—’
‘I’m sorry, Breeda, I do have to go. I have a patient to attend to.’ More shuffling of papers.
‘Of course … I … Thank you—’
The line went dead, but Breeda kept the phone pressed to her ear, expecting more words to materialize and make sense of it all. Yet as she looked at the house she felt it rise up, the truth of the matter rushing to the surface, barging its way past her naivety and gullibility. Breeda looked to her phone, now trembling in her hand. And she finally realised what an unheeded part of her had suspected all along: the old bitch had been playing Breeda for a fool.
Breeda stormed up Nora’s pathway. This was war.
Chapter 30
Breeda had already climbed the stairs by the time the front door bounced in its hinges and slammed itself shut. Nora’s bedroom stood empty. Breeda pulled back the quilt and felt the sheet with the back of her hand. It was cold.
She turned, her eyes blazing.
‘Nora!’
She bounded down the stairs and flung open the kitchen door. Nora stood spooning loose-leaf tea into the pot, the radio playing in the background. She didn’t turn to look.
‘For goodness sake, Breeda. I thought a heifer had escaped from McGinley’s farm. You’re making an awful din on the stairs.’
A half-eaten Jaffa Cake sat waiting on a side plate, and Nora popped it in her mouth.
‘Feeling better, Nora?’
Something in Breeda’s tone brought a quick glance from Nora now, the eyes narrowed, shrewd and calculating. The toaster popped, and Nora turned back, now focused on buttering her toast. She wore her poker face, but Breeda was convinced she could see a subtle rearranging of her features.
‘Well, while you were off gallivanting, I was parched upstairs.’ Nora arranged the tea and toast on the tray. ‘The tongue was hanging out of me. But I’m not one to complain …’ She reached into the fridge for the milk jug and a look of tight anguish played over her face. Breeda watched from the hallway as the pathetic charade unfolded for the audience of one. Nora set the jug down on the counter, and now raised a hand to her chest. She winced at some imaginary pain and steadied herself with a hand to the counter. It occurred to Breeda, at that moment, that this was just the end of a long line of guilt trips that Nora had taken her on over the years. The woman was pure shameless.
Nora turned from the tray and walked slowly towards the hall. She avoided Breeda’s eyes and just shuffled slowly past her.
‘Now bring that tray up, there’s a good girl. I really shouldn’t be moving around in my condition.’
Breeda remained in the doorway, facing the empty kitchen, the stage now clear. She let her aunt’s words hang in the air for a moment, while Nora continued her slow retreat down the hallway behind her. Breeda turned and watched the back of her head. She wanted to savour this.
‘Your condition, Nora? I was just talking to Doctor Chakraborty about your condition.’
The tiniest falter in Nora’s gait, and then she had her hand to the banister. She kept her face toward the front door.
‘Doctor Chakraborty? Yes, nice woman. A very nice woman.’ Nora put her foot on the bottom stair. ‘Now, bring up my tray before the tea goes cold. Good girl, Breeda.’
‘For Christ’s sake, Nora!’
Nora stopped. She took her foot off the stair and turned, contempt flashing in her eyes.
‘You do not blaspheme in my house, child!’
‘To hell with your house, Nora. You’re a bloody liar!’
The heat had returned to Breeda’s veins, and now a rage curled her fingers into fists. Nora stood tight-lipped and simmered at the foot of the stairs. She was working out her next move. But it was Breeda who spoke.
‘Well? Have you nothing to say for yourself? The other day I rushed back here to your supposed deathbed. But according to our good friend Doctor Chakraborty you’ve got a manageable heart condition. No heart attack. Just a conniving old bitch who likes to play her gullible niece for a fool!’
‘Now, just you wait a minute!’ Nora’s spittle caught the evening sunlight as it launched, then fizzled, on the hallway tiles.
‘No, Nora. You wait a minute!’
Breeda felt her shoulders rise and fall, and briefly worried that the blackness was waiting in the wings, about to descend on her with its full suffocating force. But this wasn’t a closing-in. This was a rising up – something primal and powerful forcing itself up and coaxing Breeda to sweetly submit to it. In front of her was the cause of so much pain. Nora’s deceit simply knew no bounds. For a borrowed instant Breeda could see beyond the pursed mouth, birdlike eyes and thunderous scowl and could sift away all the crud to find the faintest memory of the younger Nora. The Nora from the photograph, all linked arms and laughter on Old Compton Street with Breeda’s own mother. A happy carefree version from a distant time. Not this bitter old bitch standing in front of her. How hard she must have worked to sink this low.
Breeda opened her mouth to let her have it, but this was beyond words. There was simply no point in talking to Nora anymore. Instead she just shook her head, stunned at the havoc that could be wreaked by one person. Nora mistook the silence as the regret of a hothead.
‘Look at you, throwing a tantrum, after all I’ve done for you?’
Breeda couldn’t help but laugh. ‘You know what, Nora? I just don’t care anymore. To hell with you. Sell the house. Enjoy the money. With any luck you choke on it.’
She pushed past Nora and climbed the stairs. She would just pack her bag and get the hell out of here. ‘I’m getting on with my own life. And that includes making amends with my own father.’
Nora was following her briskly up the stairs, no evidence of a heart attack now. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘What do I mean? Well, I’m not exactly being cryptic, am I, Nora?’ Breeda turned quickly on the landing and Nora stopped abruptly at her heels. ‘I’m going to London to find my dad.’
Nora’s face tightened at this and she
put a hand to her chest. Breeda laughed in her face.
‘Oh drop the act, Nora. And don’t worry – I know all about the bastard son too. He’s actually a really nice guy. You see, it’s all out in the open now. Feels good, hmm?’
Breeda turned and grabbed her canvas tote bag from under the spare bed and started pulling her clothes roughly off the hangers in the heavy old armoire. She sensed Nora hover in the background, and then move quietly around her. She was fiddling at the framed sepia picture of Saint Brigid. But Breeda focused on the job at hand, balling and ramming her clothes into the bag, needing to get away from this house and its poison. She checked under the bed and then remembered her toiletry bag in the bathroom. She turned, but Nora had already moved quietly back behind her, and was now blocking the bedroom doorway. Breeda looked up. Something had changed in the old woman’s face, and she was clutching a handful of papers.
‘Now, Breeda. I wouldn’t act in haste, if I were you.’ There was a quiet triumph in Nora’s tone, and Breeda felt it pluck at her curiosity. She watched on silently from the foot of the bed as a smug smile broke over her aunt’s face. Nora tipped her index finger to her tongue, and then slowly leafed through the bunch of pages in her hand, enjoying the sense of regained control. Breeda noticed a faded logo on the top of each page, something familiar yet long forgotten.
‘Did you never wonder where the money came from?’
‘What are you talking about now, Nora?’
Breeda’s patience was up. She wasn’t going to be sucked in. She pushed past Nora, rounded into the bathroom, and swept her toiletries into her bathroom bag. In the mirror she could see Nora had a hand on the bathroom door frame, the other hand wafting the papers aloft, as she looked up at the walls and ceilings.
‘This house. Your house too. How do you think they were paid for?’ Nora’s voice had grown thick with condescension and she was slowing her words for the backward child in front of her.
Breeda pushed past her again and shoved her toiletry bag into her tote on the bed. Angled on the floor the framed picture of Saint Brigid regarded her coolly and Breeda looked up to where the picture usually hung. A concealed safe was gaping open in the wall. Inside were what looked like neatly stacked rolls of cash – Nora never did trust the banks after the near collapse – and lying flat on top of the cash rolls was a familiar ornate gold picture frame. It was the painting of the swimming man from her mother’s bedroom. Breeda’s picture. Breeda shook her head and looked back at her bag. She was officially beyond caring. She zipped her bag closed, surveyed the spare room for the last time, and turned to leave.
‘Nora, I really have no clue what you’re talking about. This is goodbye.’
Breeda went to push past her, but this time Nora held her ground.
‘Nora – move.’
‘Life insurance.’
Breeda’s eyes dropped to the clutch of papers in Nora’s bony hand. A crease of confusion etched her brow.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Life insurance, Breeda. A policy he took out a couple of years before he died. On my advice, might I add. The most sensible thing that man ever did.’
Breeda snatched the papers from Nora’s hand, and turned her back on her aunt. She riffled through the pages, noticed the logo again, a company long gone or re-branded or absorbed by another. Her eyes strained to scan the small, faded print. But then she saw it on the last page – his name, the date, his signature.
‘But Nora. He didn’t die.’
The words came out as a near-whisper. She looked once more at Mal’s signature, imagined the day he would have scrawled it, Nora no doubt hovering at his elbow, circling like a vulture and planning his demise. The logo drew her eyes once more. Hadn’t that been the insurance company Nora had worked for in London? Hadn’t there been a branch beside the opticians in Dunry too? The paper suddenly felt filthy against Breeda’s fingertips, and she forced the pages back into Nora’s arms. Breeda turned and stood silently for a moment. She just wanted to weep, to collapse in a heap on the hardwood floors beneath her, and to bow out for good.
‘Maybe he didn’t die,’ said Nora from behind her, ‘But he may as well have. He was dead to your mother after he got that Sneddon whore up the pole. He had to go. There was no way I was having him sniffing around after that. Besides, he wasn’t good for her … for her moods. The Sneddon incident was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.’
Breeda forced herself to turn and face her aunt.
‘But Nora, this is wrong.’
Now it was Nora’s turn to laugh.
‘Are you worried about the insurance companies? Don’t be! They’re a pack of shysters. I should know – I saw how they operated from the inside. No harm done if they make the odd mistake in a customer’s favour.’ The breeziness in Nora’s voice made Breeda want to retch. She continued with a sigh. ‘Look, it’s not my proudest moment, Breeda. But we needed that money. It was our only chance for a fresh start.’
‘But there was no body. How could—’
Nora folded her arms against her dressing gown, unable to hide the tiny glint of pride from her eyes.
‘Things were a wee bit different back then, Breeda. I knew people. The local Guards, the priest – Father Mitchell.’ Nora stood her ground but gazed out the window. ‘They liked me and your Mam. They never took to Malachy Looney and his gambling, his boozing, his womanizing. As far as they knew he actually did drown at the strand that day. He had vanished, and his car had been found there.’
Breeda raised her eyebrows and Nora nodded back her confirmation.
‘Yes, I may have helped. I drove his car down, then got the bus back. So with Malachy out of the picture it just took a little convincing to get a couple of reliable members of the community to act as witnesses – Mal had been seen drinking at the shore, later was seen wading into big water – that sort of thing. After that it was pretty easy. A bit of paperwork, the policy paid out, your mother had given me her power of attorney, end of story.’
Breeda walked to the window and looked out over the back garden. A butterfly had settled on the sweet-pea plant at the side wall. She stared at it, envying its innocence, its clutterless brain. She heard the exhaustion in her own voice.
‘Was he in on it?’
‘Who?’
‘My dad. Was Mal in on the whole scam?’
‘Oh, not at all! He was clueless. Why do you ask?’
Breeda turned. A hot little ember still glowed in her, and now she felt it spark into life.
‘Well, why would he have abandoned me? He wouldn’t have just left me!’
Nora shifted slightly and looked around the room.
‘Nora. Why did he leave?’
Nora looked back, her voice lowered. ‘I told you already. He got Mona Sneddon pregnant.’
‘That doesn’t explain why he left.’ A steadiness had returned to Breeda’s voice now.
Nora relented. ‘When we found out about the Sneddon woman, I told him he had to leave. He laughed at me – told me to mind my own business. But it was my business, Breeda. I’ve always put this family first.’ She challenged Breeda with an unblinking stare. ‘He left me no choice. I had a word … with a few of the local lads…’
‘What do you mean – local lads?’
Nora rolled her eyes. ‘You really are a bit slow sometimes. You know, the lads …’ Nora quietened her voice, ‘The IRA. Anyway, I may have told them a few things about him.’ Nora scattered her words more quickly now, ‘Might have said he belted your mother … did a bit of stuff to you … Anyway.’ She composed herself again. ‘He got a visit that same evening and was put on the ferry to Holyhead. If he’d stayed in Dunry, he’d have never walked again.’
Nora glanced over at Breeda, but quickly dropped her gaze.
‘Sweet Jesus, Nora. Is there no end—’
Nora slapped her hand off the wall. ‘Do not blaspheme in this house! I did it for you! I did it for your mother!’
Breeda felt ho
t tears trip down her cheeks. She wiped them roughly away with the back of her hand and gripped the handles of her bag.
‘And where are you going, you daft girl. Haven’t you heard a damn word I’ve said?’
Nora had squared off in the doorway again, zero intent of letting Breeda escape.
‘Get out of my way!’
Nora held out a hand.
‘If that bastard gets word of this he’ll want his share. That’s the sort of person he is. We’ll both be homeless. He’ll probably tell the insurance company, the cops!’
‘Nora, I don’t care. Now move!’
Breeda shouldered her way past Nora and heard a satisfying whack as her aunt’s elbow hit the door frame.
‘If I go down I’ll take you with me, girl!’
Breeda swung around. Nora was stood rubbing her arm, her face flushed with rage. But Breeda could see what looked like fear creeping into her eyes too. She moved towards Breeda now and gripped the bag straps over her shoulder.
‘Please. They might send me to prison, Breeda. Is that really what you want? For giving your mother and you a roof over your heads?’
Nora’s beady blue-grey eyes darted over Breeda’s face, scanning for some sign of comprehension. She pulled tighter on the bag strap and brought herself closer to Breeda’s face. A crumb of buttered toast was lodged in a little crevice on the side of her mouth, and her hot little breaths broke over Breeda’s face. Breeda needed away from this diseased house and this toxic woman. She yanked the bag, and Nora lost her grip, stumbling backwards a few paces along the landing.
Down below her, beyond the black and white tiled floor, Breeda could see the front door. She thought of the fresh air and freedom waiting outside. She turned from the top of the staircase to take one last look at this terrible woman, someone who now might as well be a stranger.
