The Therapy House

by Julie Parsons

  ‘Her?’ McLoughlin sat up straight. ‘Her, the wife? When?’

  ‘Let me see, it must have been the day you went to see the Ryans. After we’d had that conversation.’ Dom shifted, then stood up and stretched. He began to walk slowly around the room.

  ‘Jesus, do you think?’ McLoughlin looked up at him.

  ‘Who knows? I saw her walk away from the terminus. She got into a car, a black SUV. I didn’t get a licence plate and I didn’t see anything after that.’ He picked up his glass and drained it. ‘Now. I’m wrecked, more wrecked than you can imagine. I’m away to bed, but you stay if you want.’ Dom stood, walked into the kitchen and turned on the tap. ‘Oh, and by the way, the arrest, the judge.’ He filled a glass with water. ‘Did you hear?’

  McLoughlin stood too. He shook his head. ‘Nothing. I phoned Min but she didn’t pick up.’

  ‘Well, I heard that it’s Stevie O’Leary, Brian’s baby brother.’ Dom drank. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘I hear it’s not going well. They got something off Brian’s phone, the one they confiscated in Portlaoise. Something which should have been incriminating. But they can’t stand it up.’ Dom rinsed the glass and put it on the draining board. ‘Anyway, I’ve had it for tonight. Stay if you want. That business about Reynolds’ wife. In the light of what happened to the Ryans, well, you should pass it on.’

  ‘Thanks. I will,’ McLoughlin pulled his phone from his pocket. ‘I’ll do it now.’

  ‘Text him, he’ll do nothing about it until the morning anyway.’ Dom lifted a hand as he turned towards his bedroom. McLoughlin shrugged. Dom was probably right. His fingers clicked the letters. Tom, something you need to know. James Reynolds’ wife has been seen in Dublin. Her name is Monica Di Spina Reynolds. She has terrorist connections. Call me first thing. He pressed send.

  He should go home really, but he couldn’t face it. He didn’t want to be on his own. He thought of Elizabeth. He’d hoped tonight would be the start of something, but Liam Hegarty’s intervention hadn’t helped. The woman with him, blonde hair swept up, short skirt, tight skimpy top, young enough to be his daughter. Her hand on his arm, the easy familiarity. It left a sour taste.

  He should go home, but he couldn’t face the empty house. He could imagine Elizabeth, sitting in her kitchen, warm and comfortable, the door to the garden open and the scent of the flowers hanging in the night air. She had her family to love and care for. Her work, her clients. She was admired and respected. She didn’t need him.

  ‘Stop,’ he said out loud. ‘Stop the self-pity.’ He sat down on the sofa and turned on the news channel. He watched the report over and over again. He shouldn’t have gone there. He should have left them alone. There was enough pain in their lives already. He had meddled. He had disturbed the equilibrium. And they had paid for it.

  The house behind the high evergreen hedge. But open at the back. He’d said to her, if I can get in so can anyone. And she’d said they didn’t frighten easily. He tried to think, to remember. He’d driven along the road from Waterford. Hardly any traffic. The clatter of a tractor in the distance. Houses, scattered, big gardens, farmland. We all knew her, the woman in the town had said. We knew her husband and her son. Her habits, her routines, her visitors. Who came to see her. All it took was a slight deviation from the norm. And he had been that deviation.

  He looked towards the plate glass windows. He had a sudden desire to break something. Smash something. Hurt someone. Destroy, that was it, he wanted to destroy something. He walked around the room, watching the news report. Then he picked up the remote and turned it off. He sat down and felt in his pocket for the envelope Jess had given him. He began to read. He reached for Dom’s laptop. His hands moved over the keyboard. So much information. All there if you knew how to find it. A couple of clicks and he was in.

  Once upon a time there was a square in a town. It wasn’t a very big town. It wasn’t a very big square. The town had a harbour and two piers and a ferry which crossed the Irish Sea. It had many churches. Three were Church of Ireland. One was Roman Catholic. There was a large Presbyterian church and a small Methodist one. The town had shops and schools and a beautiful park with a long herbaceous border, tea rooms, two circular fountains and a playground. The town had the seafront, saltwater swimming baths and the terraces for sunbathing. It was a happy place. Happy and secure. And everyone knew where they belonged.

  McLoughlin pored over the 1911 census which Jess had printed out for him. She had given him the entries for all the houses in the square. He flicked through them. It was immediately obvious. The majority of the occupants were Church of Ireland. And scattered through the houses, usually one for each, was a Roman Catholic. Except in one or maybe two cases, they were all servants. Described variously as domestic servant, general servant, cook, house parlour maid. And here and there were a few names he recognised. The Gibbon family, living where Gwen still lived.

  He leafed through the pages and found his own house. Recognised the names. Richard Edwin Lane, aged thirty, his occupation shop assistant, draper’s. His wife was Elsie Violet, aged twenty-four. They had a son, Henry, three, and a daughter, Marjorie, aged one.

  And what of the house next door, the judge’s house? Just one family living there. The Chamberlains. George Ashton, aged sixty-seven, was described as City Marshall, Dublin. His wife, Daisy, was thirty-eight. They had four children, Harry, fifteen, Elizabeth, thirteen, Jean, twelve, and Dorothy, six. And also living under the same roof was Mary Bridget Hegarty, aged twenty-seven, Roman Catholic, born in Castlebar, Co. Mayo, her occupation listed as cook, domestic servant. She could read and write. She was a widow. The last name on the list was one with which he was very familiar. Daniel Patrick, aged nine, Roman Catholic, student, could read and write.

  So. McLoughlin could imagine: May Hegarty and her son, Dan. Down in the basement. A large house, a large family above. Clothes and bed linen to be washed, ironed and mended. Food to be prepared and cooked. Floors to be scrubbed. Rugs and carpets to be swept and beaten. Silver and brass to be polished. Windows to be washed. Stairs to be climbed. Coal to be carried. Hearths to be cleaned, fires to be lit. Days which began at dawn and ended long after everyone else had gone to bed. And a son to be reared. To be sent to school. To be educated, instructed, taught. To be brought up to better himself. But to stay true to the faith, to the country, to the people.

  He got up and went into the kitchen. He stopped for a moment and listened. He could hear the sound of snoring. Poor Dom. He found a bottle of whiskey and brought it and a glass to the sofa. He sat down again, the computer on his knee. He logged onto the Irish Times archive. He began to search. Anything to do with the Lane family. A small piece about a prize-giving in the Mariners’ School in 1916. A grainy photograph of small children. And Harry Lane’s name. He won a medal for the 100 yards sprint. A news report of Richard’s death, his body found on Killiney Hill. McLoughlin found his death notice. He was described as a beloved father and husband. Five years later there was a death notice for Elsie Violet Lane. After a long illness, it said. Funeral to Dean’s Grange. Safe in the arms of Jesus.

  Another small photograph. A group of girls standing outside a tall forbidding building. He recognised it. The orphanage three streets away, the Haven. The date was 10th June 1930, the occasion, the annual garden fete. A visit from the Archbishop. A row of girls holding bunches of flowers. He read the caption and found among the names, Jean and Cecily Lane. It was hard to distinguish their features but Cecily had long plaits hanging down over her shoulders.

  In the sports section of the paper he found Harry’s name again. Playing football for Sligo Rovers in 1932. A small paragraph, a news report, the death of Marjorie Anne Lane, found drowned in the Grand Canal. Foul play not suspected. In 1940 a private, Robert ‘Bobby’ Lane, originally from Dun Laoghaire, died at the retreat from Dunkirk. And then in 1947 another death notice. Cecily Evangeline Lane. Aged
twenty-five. Sadly missed by the Monsell family, Donnybrook.

  He poured himself more whiskey. He picked up a pencil, found a piece of paper. He scribbled some notes. Richard had died. Elsie had died. Cecily and Jean had gone to the Home. Somehow Harry had spent some time playing football in Sligo and Robert, Bobby, had Gwen mentioned him? He must ask her again. Marjorie had drowned in the canal. And then poor Cecily. Died when she was twenty-five. The Monsell family from Donnybrook, whoever they were, had mourned her. Whoever they were. He typed in the name and up came the answers. Herbert Monsell, an obstetrician, Master of the Rotunda, his wife, Isabel, sons Guy and Andrew, daughters Emily and Harriet. A recent article, a review of a book, a history of the lying-in hospitals as they were called. Photographs. Herbert was tall and handsome. A reformer. Known for his compassion to the many young women who came to the hospital, unmarried, penniless. A photograph of the Monsells at home in Ailesbury Road. A formal portrait, posed. Mother and daughters, seated, in the front and behind them father and two sons. And a small figure to the side. Wearing a maid’s cap and apron. Something about her. A look he was sure he recognised.

  He got up and walked towards the sliding doors. He opened them and stepped outside. And felt rain. The sky dark, a sudden chill, the tiles wet. Rain on his face as he looked towards the sea. He was suddenly exhausted. The clock on the town hall chimed. One, two, three, four. Theresa Ryan and her son would have been moved. They’d be in the morgue, in the local hospital. The air would smell of disinfectant and bleach. No more scent of the sea and the soil. He’d phone Johnny Harris in the morning. He was sure he’d look after them properly. He would treat them with respect. Johnny was like that. A decent man.

  He drained his glass and walked inside. He stretched out on the sofa. Sleep would come quickly, he thought. But he lay for a while. Twisting, turning, seeing faces, in his mind’s eye. The pen and ink drawing on the wall in Elizabeth’s hall. The resemblance to Leah and to Jess. The look on Elizabeth’s face as she told him. What exactly had she told him? He tried to remember what she had said about Ben Bradish when they talked that afternoon in the garden.

  I admired him. I respected him. He taught me a lot. I still miss him.

  And before that when she told him about how Bradish had come to set up the Therapy House. He had a succession of women in his life. He never married. He’d had a number of children, each with different mothers.

  He rolled over, tucking his hands beneath his arm pits. So? She had baggage. So? He had baggage. They weren’t young. They weren’t new to this business. She hadn’t told him about her relationship with Ben Bradish. She’d never said who Jess’s father was. And why should she? What business was it of his? But he couldn’t stop seeing her face as he rolled from side to side. And the face of another woman. Theresa Ryan, sitting at the table in the conservatory. Surrounded by flowers. Her thin hands reaching for the tobacco, reaching for the vodka, reaching for her son.

  He sighed, stretched, then slept. And woke, the sun bright in his eyes, and a hangover which got him up. Looking at his watch. Gone nine o’clock and shit, he remembered, the dog, locked in the house since the evening before. He grabbed his jacket, grabbed his phone and wallet. Stuffed the pages from the census and The Irish Times in the envelope, scribbled a thank you note to Dom and left the apartment, pushing through the lift doors and out into a wet Sunday morning. Cool still, almost cold, the sky dove grey, layers of cloud like cotton wool. And as he walked quickly along the seafront his phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket.

  ‘Tom, hi, you got my text?’

  He sensed scepticism in Donnelly’s response. For a start, the murders of the Ryans were being investigated by the local guards. He wasn’t involved at all. As for the sighting of Reynold’s wife, well.

  ‘Look,’ Donnelly’s voice was cool, ‘in his day Dominic Hayes was the best, but you know, he’s been retired for a while. He’s very tied up with poor Joanne. I wouldn’t be too sure…’ His voice died away.

  ‘So,’ McLoughlin stopped, ‘who can I speak to?’

  ‘Well,’ Donnelly paused, ‘look I’ll check it out, I’ll get back to you.’ It sounded as if he was drinking something, a cup of tea or coffee maybe. ‘Look, I know what this means to you. Just when it seemed we might have something, this happens.’

  ‘Yes,’ McLoughlin felt as if he was shouting, ‘yes, just when we might have got somewhere this happens. And it’s not a fucking coincidence, I know that and you do too. And as far as Dom Hayes is concerned, his wife may have Alzheimer’s but his head is as clear as a fucking bell. If he says he saw Monica Reynolds, then he saw her. And I want something done about it. Do I make myself clear.’

  Silence, then a sigh. ‘OK. Leave it with me. I’ll get back to you.’

  The dog was waiting just inside the front door. He jumped up, barking loudly, his tail wagging. McLoughlin let him out into the garden. Put on the kettle, made coffee. Made toast. Took his mug and his plate out onto the deck. Then walked down the steps into the garden. Looked up at the height of his house and the houses on either side. Thought of May Hegarty. How she must have worked. Up and down the stairs. Morning to night. And all the other May Hegartys in all the other houses.

  He drained his mug, finished his toast. He needed some exercise.

  ‘Come on Ferdie, walkies.’ He clicked his fingers and the dog bounded ahead back up the steps, through the house to the front door, his tongue flopping, his tail wagging. He nudged the lead which was lying on the bottom step, then picked it up, holding it carefully in his mouth. Together they hurried out, across the grass towards the main road. And saw, just ahead, the thin, upright figure of Gwen Gibbon, wearing a grey skirt and a white blouse, a large black bag hanging from her forearm. The dog barked, a series of yaps and Gwen turned, a smile on her face. She bent down and patted Ferdie on his head, and he tried to jump up at her.

  ‘Get down, Ferdie, you stupid mutt,’ McLoughlin pulled him away. ‘Look at him, muck all over your nice skirt.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Gwen smiled at them both, ‘this is just an old thing.’

  ‘Well,’ McLoughlin handed her his handkerchief, relieved that it was clean, ‘old or new, it’s very nice. You look very nice today.’

  She wiped her skirt, brushing off a few stray blades of grass. ‘It’s my going to church outfit. Listen.’

  The bell tolling slowly, regularly.

  ‘Walk with me,’ she held out his handkerchief. ‘In fact, why don’t you come with me. Sunday morning service, it’s always a pleasure. Lots of nice hymns.’

  McLoughlin grimaced. ‘Not sure it’s my cup of tea and anyway there’s himself.’ He pointed to the dog. ‘Don’t think he’d be too welcome.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that. You’ve got his lead. You can tie him up to the railings outside. He’ll be fine. Look,’ she pointed towards the church across the road by the park, ‘give it a go,’ she took his arm, ‘so nice to have a handsome man to escort me.’ And she smiled up at him, a winsome smile which brought a shine to her eyes and colour to her cheeks.

  The church was half empty, or half full, McLoughlin thought, chiding himself for his immediate negativity. The congregation was spread throughout the oaken pews. They walked slowly up the central aisle. McLoughlin genuflected, sinking reverently down onto one knee. Hadn’t been to Mass apart from funerals for years, but it was a habit hard to break. Gwen didn’t seem to notice. She drew him into a row, three from the front. An organist was playing quietly.

  McLoughlin looked around and noticed what was missing from this church. There were no Stations of the Cross. There were no crucifixes. There were no statues of Christ, Our Lady or any of the saints. The altar was against the back wall under a large stained glass window. His eyes wandered around and he noticed. The memorial plaques on the walls. He recognised some of the names from the census. Grace, Morton, Chapman. And a large marble tablet d
edicated to the men of the parish who had died during the First and Second World Wars. A wreath of faded poppies was still hanging from it and he saw a name he recognised. Robert Lane.

  ‘Gwen,’ he whispered and pointed, ‘there, Robert Lane, is he one of the Lanes from my house?’

  Gwen looked up. ‘Yes,’ her voice was low so he inclined his head, ‘he died at Dunkirk, poor boy. Those children they didn’t have happy lives. Cecily in particular, same age as me. I remember seeing her here when we were both little ones. Then I didn’t see her for years.’

  ‘No? What happened.’

  ‘Well,’ she looked around, ‘I shouldn’t gossip really, but I know you’ll be discreet. She and her sister Jean went into the orphanage, the Haven. All the children there, they became domestic servants. They were sent to respectable Church of Ireland families, when they were fourteen or so.’

  The organist was playing more loudly now. McLoughlin recognised the melody. Bach, he thought it was. He put his head closer to Gwen’s. He could smell lavender. She continued. ‘Cecily went to a family in Donnybrook. Very wealthy. The father was a doctor, the Rotunda I think. Poor Cecily, one of the sons took advantage of her. Terrible thing to do. She became pregnant. She was sent away to England to have the baby. He was adopted.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ McLoughlin sat back in his seat as the organ music began to swell.

  ‘And then a few years ago Sam Dudgeon, you know my friend, who used to play backgammon with the judge?’