The Therapy House

by Julie Parsons

  ‘And your brother?’ McLoughlin looked at him. ‘Was he ashamed?’

  ‘Ashamed? Yes. I know for a fact that for years he wasn’t, how would I put it, active. But I also know that after Miriam died and he moved out here, I think he wanted a last fling. He was getting old. He was ill. He knew it and I knew it too. I also knew there were things going on. I don’t know exactly what, where or with whom. But that’s what I want you to find out. And maybe, the photos, I have a feeling…’ Hegarty looked away. His face was pale and drawn. ‘I heard through an art dealer I know, my brother sold a painting recently. A Jack Yeats. He’d bought it years ago. He loved it. According to my friend, it was a cash sale. Untraceable. So,’ he looked up, his face pale and tense, ‘I know you’ve been doing some private work. I want you to find the photos. Find out what’s been going on.’

  McLoughlin walked across the grass and sat down on the Cassidy bench. Ferdie had given up playing with the little boy. He was lying on his side in the sun, deeply asleep, his ribs beneath his black curly coat, moving up and down.

  McLoughlin moved and the dog woke. He got up and came over, nuzzling McLoughlin’s knee with his head. Shame and its corrosive effects, McLoughlin knew all about it. He remembered his friend, Peter Dunne. They’d gone through Templemore together, then found themselves, a few years later, working together in Dublin. He remembered when they found Peter. Fished him out of the sea off Killiney. It had been all the talk in the station. Talk and jokes, snide innuendo. Peter hadn’t been well. He was very thin and pale, an unusual sore on his nose. He was the walking dead. Another funeral with a closed coffin. A quiet affair. No guard of honour. No ceremonial folding of the flag. Just the family and a couple of friends. Devastated. Shattered. Broken.

  Lunchtime, Ian and the lads appearing in the sunshine. They sprawled around him on the grass, eating, laughing, joking. Offered McLoughlin cheese sandwiches and a can of Coke. After a while McLoughlin got up. He and Ferdie walked back across the road. Hegarty had given him the keys to the house.

  ‘Stay here if you like,’ he had said. ‘All that mess in your place. Stay here.’

  He stood outside the gate and looked up at the windows. Hegarty had told him. His father, Dan Hegarty, had lived there as a boy. His mother was a widow. They had a room in the basement. She worked for the family who owned the house. She cleaned, too, for the neighbours, and others around the town. After independence and the Civil War was over, when there was peace, Dan bought it. He got it for a song. The landlord was leaving. He didn’t like the new Ireland. Dan gave it to his mother. She moved from the basement to the hall floor and became a landlady herself.

  ‘May was a tough old bird,’ Hegarty said. ‘She brought Dan up on her own. No one helped. She put her trust in God and her son. And they both stood by her.’

  ‘I didn’t realise,’ McLoughlin said. ‘ I didn’t know your father was from Victoria Square.’

  ‘Yes,’ Hegarty nodded. ‘There was a suggestion that the name be changed. Get rid of the old imperial reminder. But Da blocked it. We have to remember our past, he always said. Have to remember where we come from. Otherwise we won’t know where we’re heading.’

  ‘But your father, he didn’t go into politics. Did he not want power? To be at the heart of it all?’

  ‘No,’ Liam Hegarty shook his head, ‘no way. As far as he was concerned the real power was to be found in making money. No money in politics he always said.’

  McLoughlin let himself into the house. He walked from room to room. Hegarty was right. The forensic team had left the place in a mess. He stood in the hall, Ferdie beside him. He whined softly and scratched at the small door beneath the stairs.

  ‘What is it boy?’ McLoughlin pulled at the handle and it opened. He peered in as the dog moved quickly, his claws rattling on the wooden steps. McLoughlin fumbled for a light switch. A steep staircase led down into the gloom. He followed the dog, leaning against the wall for support. He was in a kitchen, unchanged for years. A solid-fuel range against one wall, a rectangular white sink with one tap against the other. An old-fashioned dresser, emptied of its china. The floor was stone flags. A large square table stood beneath a light bulb, hanging from the ceiling, without a shade. The barred window, looking out on the garden, was dirty. Cobwebs hung everywhere.

  ‘Ferdie,’ McLoughlin called. The dog appeared. He whined, then disappeared from sight.

  ‘Come on Ferdie,’ McLoughlin walked towards a half-open door. He pushed and it squeaked and groaned and stuck on the flags. McLoughlin pushed again. He reached for a switch. Again a single bulb, this time with a faded pink shade. The room was dominated by an iron bedstead. The guards had flung off the bedclothes, revealing a lumpy old mattress. There was another small bed pushed beneath the window. Against the inner wall was a small wooden dressing table. Its drawers were pulled open. McLoughlin moved closer. Women’s underwear trailed out. He looked more closely. The clothes were worn, faded, the elastic stretched and loose. Stitched into the back of a corset was a small piece of pale pink satin and embroidered on it was the name, Madame Nora.

  On the top of the dressing table was an assortment of makeup. An old-fashioned powder puff and a large box of loose powder. A selection of lipsticks. He picked one up. It was new and shiny. Maybelline was the brand name etched into the silver top.

  Suddenly Ferdie began to bark. Something shot from beneath the bed, a long narrow shape with a tail which slithered along the stone floor.

  McLoughlin’s heart raced and he could feel his toes in their sandals curling up in horror. He rushed out into the kitchen. He hated rats. A nightmare, recurring. Rats on his chest, rats on his face, rats eating him alive. He struggled towards the stairs, taking them two at a time, the dog at his heels. As he reached the top, he slammed the basement door behind him. He stood in the hall, his heart racing, his palms wet, waiting until his breathing slowed. The grandfather clock ticked, ticked, ticked. He turned to look at the painting on the wall beside him. A large abstract, hanging crookedly. Blocks of glowing colour. Red, yellow, orange, cream. The paint was thickly applied, rich and textured. He gazed at it, and felt calm return. He turned towards the door, the keys in his hand. He looked down at them.

  He had told Liam Hegarty he couldn’t help him. He wouldn’t help him.

  ‘You should be speaking to the guards, not me. Inspector Sweeney, she’ll deal with all this in a sensitive manner.’

  Hegarty shook his head. ‘I don’t want that. With respect I know what the gardaí are like. The word would be out. It’d be all over the papers.’ He paused. ‘Look, I know who you are. I know what happened to your family.’ Silence for a moment. ‘I know what happened outside the church the other day.’ Another pause. ‘I can understand your feelings. So…’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So. I want something from you and I can give you something that I know you want.’ Again the glasses, polished with the handkerchief. ‘My family has many connections. If you do what I’m asking I will put you in touch with someone who can help you.’

  ‘Help me?’

  Liam Hegarty nodded. ‘Help you get the evidence you need to convict the man who killed your father.’

  McLoughlin looked at him. Hegarty looked away.

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be saying it if I couldn’t.’ Hegarty moved towards the door. McLoughlin followed him.

  ‘And you’ve never thought to come forward before?’ McLoughlin could feel his voice rising. Hegarty turned and faced him.

  ‘I’ll leave it with you. It’s a good offer, the best you’re likely to get.’

  McLoughlin checked the lock on the front door. He moved from the hall, into the dining room. He opened the door to the garden. Ferdie trotted through. McLoughlin followed him, closing the door and locking it. He walked down the steps. He turned and looked back up the house. He moved toward
s the wooden gate in the wall and pushed it open.

  ‘Come on Ferdie,’ he called, ‘time to go home.’

  The Middle

  McLoughlin and the dog walked along the path by the railway line. He’d phoned Dom, said he’d buy a bottle and come for a drink. Said he had a problem he needed to share. Dom was waiting, hovering at the lift door, the TV remote in his hand.

  ‘Look, the six o’clock news, you’ll want to see this,’ he paused and looked down at the dog. ‘Who’s your four-legged friend?’

  ‘Meet Ferdie, belonged to Judge Hegarty. I seem to have acquired him. Here,’ he thrust a bottle wrapped in tissue paper into Dom’s hand, ‘is it OK if?’ he gestured to the dog.

  ‘Sure, quick, take a seat.’

  He sat on the sofa, Ferdie pressing against his leg. A TV reporter, a young woman, was standing on a stretch of bog. In the background a large yellow digger was at work. The reporter explained. During the years of the troubles a number of people, men and women, had been taken by the Provisional IRA. It was presumed they had been tortured and killed. Their bodies had never been found. They had come to be known as the Disappeared. Now pressure had been put on the leadership of Sinn Féin to return their remains to their families. McLoughlin settled back against the cushions. The man from the photographs in Bassano, and the same man from the judge’s funeral, was interviewed outside Dáil Éireann. His tone was calm, his manner conciliatory

  ‘Sinn Féin is ready to help in whatever way we can to find these people, so their loved ones can give them a proper funeral. We acknowledge that mistakes have been made in the past.’ He paused, looked away, looked down at the ground, then raised his eyes to meet those of the interviewer. ‘The situation was different then. Things were done on both sides which, with hindsight should not have been done. Many people suffered. But now is not the time to dwell on the past. Now is the time to look to the future.’

  The report cut back again to the digger and a group of men with long-handled shovels. The voiceover explained. The summer’s dry weather had caused the bog to shrink. A body had been found. It was not, as first thought, an ancient body. This man had died in the more recent past. Now a team headed by a forensic anthropologist had come to assist.

  McLoughlin could hear the sound of the cork being pulled from a bottle and wine being poured. The dog slumped to the floor and rolled over on his side. Dom approached the sofa, a large glass in each hand. He sniffed from one.

  ‘Mm, nice. Slightly spicy tang. Where did you get it?’

  ‘Do you know that fancy off-licence near the church? It was a favourite of the judge’s.’ McLoughlin reached out his hand for his glass as Dom sat down. ‘Ferdie practically dragged me through the door. He’s on speaking terms with all the shopkeepers from here to Dalkey.’ He took a sip. Dom settled back into the sofa’s leather cushions. ‘Cheers.’ He raised his glass. McLoughlin held out his and they clinked gently, a soft chiming sound.

  ‘It’s funny, you know, going out with a dog.’ McLoughlin looked over to where Ferdie was lying, head on his paws now, eyes closed. ‘People are friendly in a way they’re not when you’re on your own. There’s a whole community of doggie people, just dying to have a chat.’ He took another swallow. ‘And of course they all want to talk about the judge too. He was a popular man around here.’

  ‘Not universally popular though, someone didn’t like him.’ Dom picked up a bowl of peanuts and passed them over.

  ‘Well,’ McLoughlin paused, helping himself, ‘you’re right about that.’ He crunched loudly. He looked around the large bright room. ‘Where’s Joanne?’

  ‘Respite, a week on my own. They take her in to the nursing home a couple of times a year.’ Dom let out his breath in a long sigh, and settled back. ‘This is nice. A good bottle and a bit of peace and quiet.’ He lifted the glass and drank again.

  ‘So.’ McLoughlin shifted. His back was still sore. He needed more exercise. Swimming would be good. He’d been meaning to join the local gym since he moved to the town. It had a twenty-metre pool. He’d prefer it bigger but it was such a long time since he’d swum that twenty metres would be plenty.

  ‘So. The Disappeared. The poor fuckers.’ Dom opened his eyes. ‘Do you think,’ he paused, ‘they’d have brought in a priest before they got the bullet in the back of the head?’

  McLoughlin shrugged. ‘Good question.’

  They sat in silence. The sounds of the street drifted in through the open glass doors. McLoughlin got up. He walked out onto the balcony. The town below was busy. People rushing for the DART, rushing for the bus, rushing home after a day’s work. A fresh breeze from the sea. He could smell the salt.

  ‘Hey,’ Dom was sitting up straight, pointing at the screen. ‘It’s all go this evening.’

  McLoughlin joined him on the sofa. He saw the outside of his house, the crime scene tape fluttering next door, the cars coming and going, the forensic team in their white suits. Then Min Sweeney standing at the garda station, phone in one hand, notebook in the other, as the reporter shoved his microphone in front of her mouth. He heard her voice.

  ‘All I can say at this time,’ she paused. She looked tired and drawn. ‘All I can say is that we’ve made an arrest. We’re questioning a suspect. He can be held for twenty-four hours and if we feel it’s necessary we’ll apply to hold him for a further twenty-four hours. For operational reasons, that’s all I can say. Thank you.’

  There were more pictures then. A young man being taken from a house, bundled into a car, driven away, and the crime reporter, his face alight with excitement, his voice high pitched. McLoughlin recognised the street. The large corporation estate just a couple of miles away from the centre of the town. The camera swung towards a van parked outside. The logo read ‘Plumbers on Call’.

  ‘I heard something,’ Dom said, ‘there was a bit of talk locally. The guy I buy my paper from. A great man for the chat, ears and eyes open all the time.’

  ‘Yeah?’ McLoughlin sipped his wine.

  ‘There’ve been a load of robberies recently. Pensioners. Targeted, they reckon. Plumbers now, plenty of access.’ Dom stood. He picked up the bottle and refilled his glass. ‘Will you have a bite to eat?’ He moved towards the kitchen.

  McLoughlin hesitated. ‘Don’t want to put you to any bother.’

  ‘It’s no trouble at all.’ Dom opened his large stainless steel fridge. ‘I’ve a lovely piece of steak here. Fillet. Joanne doesn’t really eat much these days. And eating alone is no fun,’ he pulled some onions from a bag, ‘so please, join me.’

  The steak, when it was cooked, was worth waiting for. Dom had also made fried onions and chips, delicate little strips of potato, crisp and tasty. They sat at the table and ate in silence. Ferdie hovered.

  ‘Here.’ Dom threw him a piece of meat with an edging of fat.

  ‘Shouldn’t do that really.’ McLoughlin put down his knife and fork. ‘Give him bad habits.’

  ‘Ach, why not?’ Dom leaned down and patted the dog’s head. ‘He’s a nice lad, isn’t he? You’ve forgiven him the bite, I take it.’

  ‘We so don’t discuss it,’ McLoughlin laughed. He sat back and pushed his plate away. ‘That was really good. Thanks.’

  ‘No problem. Any time,’ Dom stood up, ‘and now I’ll open another bottle.’

  They sat, glasses in hand, as the sun left the sky. The TV flickered in the corner, but Dom had turned the sound down. The dog sprawled at McLoughlin’s feet, occasionally twitching in his sleep, his little tail thumping.

  ‘I had a dog once,’ Dom stirred. He’d been dozing for a while, his head slumped forward, but his hand still grasping the stem of his glass. ‘When I was a lad.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah, I was fostered. They moved me around from place to place. But one family, they lived just off the canal by Portobello. They were great.
They had a dog. His name was Alfie, a clever little thing. Didn’t look like much, but tricks, he could fetch and carry and find and hunt and sit and lie down. And swim too. You’ve no idea. All day he’d swim in the canal. I was mad about him.’ McLoughlin could see the smile on Dom’s face.

  ‘What happened to you? Why were you fostered?’

  Dom sat up straight.

  McLoughlin turned towards him. ‘You don’t have to.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ Dom’s voice had a slight slur, ‘sure it’s grand. No one ever asks me. But I’m fine talking about it.’

  And he told him. Mother not married. Sent to a mother and baby home. Baby put up for adoption. But the first family, some kind of problem, the mother got sick, they couldn’t cope, so the child, a toddler by now, was sent back.

  ‘I was in a kind of limbo. Too old to be adopted. People only want babies. I spent a lot of time in children’s homes, and every now and then I’d go off and stay with a family for a while. The ones with the dog, they were the best of them.’ Dom rubbed his face with the palm of his hand ‘They made sure I went to school. They really looked after me. They stood by me and gave me a future. Lovely people. And the dog, well he was the icing on the cake.’ He drank some more of his wine, then stood up. ‘My back, it’s at me now. Interesting, the Hegarty family, if you read any of the biographies, of which there’s quite a few, there’s a bit of a suggestion that Ma Hegarty might not have been married.’

  ‘Really?’ McLoughlin couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice. ‘Are you sure about that?’

  Dom walked stiffly over to the glass door and leaned against it. ‘Not sure, not for certain, but the books all skate over Da Hegarty. Suggestion he might have died working in England, or he might have been in the States. He’s what they call, a shadowy figure.’

  McLoughlin sipped some more. ‘Of course it would have been a terrible slur back then. Nobody’d give a fuck about it now.’