Mary, Mary

by Julie Parsons

  They came, the doctors and the nurses. They sedated her, laid her down on a bed where the day before a mother and her newborn had lain. And I went back to the pub, and finished my drink.)

  24

  And I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

  There was something very satisfying about the word ‘dwell’, Margaret thought. The sound of the hard ‘d’ followed by the soft ‘w’ gave it a strange contradictory ring that appealed to her. It was like biting through the crust of a crème brûlée and sinking your teeth into the exquisite sweetness of the egg custard underneath.

  She leaned back against the hard wood of the pew and put her feet on the low embroidered kneeling pad. The church was cool, almost cold in comparison to the hot sun outside. Like churches in Italy or Spain, man-made pools of relief against the torment of God’s great sun. Around her, along the side aisles and in the small chapels, figures emerged from the shadows to light candles, kneel, sit, bow their heads, occasionally speaking to each other in harsh stage whispers. An old man at the back opened his newspaper, the fresh newsprint crackling loudly. Did my father come here to read the paper in peace and quiet? she wondered. After he retired when he no longer had the comfort of his daily routine. She ran one finger along the tarnished brass plate in front of her.

  John Patrick McKenna 1910–1990

  R.I.P.

  His life had once been precise and ordered. He had liked it that way. She remembered the name-plate on his office in Merrion Street. Seán MacCionnaith, An Rúnaí, written in old Irish script, black gloss on a blue background. She had seen it for the first time on her tenth birthday. He had taken her to work with him that day, midsummer 21 June 1961. As a special treat, he said, because now you’ve reached double figures you’re almost grown-up. They had caught the marmalade-coloured train, the one that came all the way from Rosslare. It was crowded by the time it reached Monkstown with no spare seats. He wedged her between his legs so she wouldn’t fall as it shunted and lurched from station to station along the line to Westland Row. Other travellers, men with briefcases and newspapers under their arms, greeted him with varying degrees of familiarity. He introduced her to them, prefacing her name with ‘and this is my beautiful ten-year-old daughter’. She smiled but said nothing. When they got out of the train she slipped her hand into his pocket and matched his pace as he walked briskly along Westland Row, past Merrion Hall, with its huge billboard proclaiming, ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life’, and up Merrion Square to his office in Government Buildings. The porter saluted as they pushed through the glass doors and marched along the corridor, its brown linoleum giving back the sharp slap of the soles of their shoes. Outside his office they stopped. Margaret tugged his jacket, pointing at the sign, and giggled. He put his finger to his lips, miming ‘shh’. He opened the door. A large black typewriter faced them, and peering over the top was a small middle-aged woman with curly grey hair.

  ‘Miss O’Connor,’ he said, ‘may I have the pleasure of introducing my daughter Margaret. Today is her tenth birthday.’

  The woman stood up and held out a white hand. Margaret took it and squeezed the limp fingers. She looked around, at the piles of papers, the big black telephone with the row of switches on one side, and the shelves of books, bound in green, emblazoned with harps. They went through another door to her father’s office. His desk was much larger, with a white blotter in a leather cover, a silver paper-knife, and in a silver frame a photograph of Margaret and Catherine. A portrait of Éamon de Valera hung on one wall, and the other walls were covered with more books. He sat her down in a leather chair in the corner and gave her a pile of newspapers to look at while he busied himself with his phone calls and correspondence. At twelve-thirty precisely doors could be heard opening and shutting all over the building. Miss O’Connor stood at the door and coughed.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, without looking up from the page in front of him, ‘back at two as usual.’ He tidied his papers together and put his pens and pencils in a neat line.

  ‘Now, Margaret, it’s lunchtime,’ he said, and took her by the hand again. When he opened the door onto the corridor the smell of boiled cabbage surrounded them like a pale green mist. She remembered that she had suddenly felt sick but she had stood in the queue in the canteen, holding her tray and doing what he did. The meat was slabs of grey, cross-hatched with creamy gristle. She pushed it around on her plate until he gave her a disapproving look, then cut it up into tiny portions and forced it into her mouth.

  The bones of her buttocks pushed through the cotton of her skirt. She shifted awkwardly on the hard seat. She had lost weight. A standard response to grief, she knew. Inability to sleep, inability to eat. She couldn’t remember the last time she had cooked a proper meal. One with a profusion of tastes, a variety of elements, put together with care and attention to detail. Protein and carbohydrate. Vegetables and fruit. Colours and shapes and textures, instruments of pleasure and contentment. She existed now on cups of tea and coffee, scraps of bread, the occasional apple. And alcohol. The blessed balm of forgetfulness. She looked down at her hands clasped loosely in her lap. Her wrists were tiny and fragile. Her wedding ring slipped on her finger. She was pleased. She could understand the euphoria of the hunger striker, slipping in and out of hallucinations as the brain responded to a lack of glucose. She felt an extraordinary desire to deny the physical bounds of the body. Her daughter had moved beyond the confines of flesh and bone. Perhaps she could do the same. The books said that this was a phase she would go through. But she didn’t want to leave it behind. She didn’t want to be like everyone else who lets go of their pain, who moves from denial to anger and eventually to acceptance. She wanted to cleave her rage to her, feed on it, draw strength from it.

  She looked around at the saints in the stained-glass windows and the Stations of the Cross, simple marble bas-reliefs. There were times when she had felt a physical pain as sharp and piercing as the pain of nails through the palms of the hand, through the bones of the foot. There were times when she felt her heart would break, would divide like the leaden heart of the Happy Prince, cracked in the terrible frost. And sometimes it was as if her heart was frozen solid like the heart of the Snow Queen, waiting for the kiss that would melt it, that would release some emotion other than this terrible consuming rage.

  The bell of the angelus began to toll above her head. She put her hand in the pocket of her skirt and took out an envelope. Her name was printed on the outside. She knew it was from him. There was no stamp. It had been pushed through the letterbox some time during the night. She lifted up the unsealed flap. Inside were two photographs. She spread them out on the pew beside her and stared at them. One must have been taken on the day of the funeral. She was standing outside the church. Her face was blank with grief. The other was of a hand and a wrist stretched out against a neutral background. It was a right hand. A ring set with a small diamond was on the little finger. And there was a watch on the wrist. Cheeky, cheery Mickey Mouse. She turned the picture round to get a better look at it.

  They had been standing in duty-free in Singapore. Margaret had bought perfume for her mother, and a large bottle of Scotch. She was trying to decide whether to buy a rather beautiful pair of pearl earrings. She looked around for Mary to ask her opinion. Her daughter was on the other side of the aisle. She was handing over money and laughing. ‘Mary,’ Margaret had called out against the din of the cash registers and the ‘Blue Danube’ waltzing electronically through the loud speakers. ‘Over here. Come and look at these.’

  But Mary was only interested in the watch. ‘Isn’t it just di-vine?’ she had cooed, delighted with the way Mickey’s oversize hands pointed to the numbers. ‘And it ticks,’ she had said, holding it up against Margaret’s ear. ‘Listen.’

  Margaret pulled away. ‘It won’t last,’ she said, ‘it’s a piece of junk.’

  ‘Don’t be mean.’ Mary pouted melodramatically, rubbing the clear plastic face against her T-shirt before strapping it on. �
��She’s an old spoilsport, isn’t she, Mickey?’

  Did she ever buy the earrings? She couldn’t remember now. She looked again at the watch in the photograph. Mickey’s white gloves were raised high above his head, the long arm on top of the short arm, like one of the traffic policemen who stand on all the Singapore roundabouts. Officious little men, waving white sticks, demanding obedience from the cars, motorbikes, buses that swirl around them. The big hand and the little hand together at twelve o’clock. Showing the time. And the other photograph showing the place. A place and a time to meet? Did the watch say twelve noon, or twelve midnight? She wasn’t sure, but the picture of her was in daylight, sunshine. And it was a safe place, a public place. Secure and protected.

  The last note of the bell ebbed away. Margaret got up and walked to the back of the church. She stood just inside the porch by the rickety wooden table where the copies of the Sacred Heart Messenger were piled neatly. There was a constant stream of people in and out. She looked closely at all the faces as they went past. Who was he? Where was he? But there were no answering glances, no sudden recognition. Impatient now, she stepped outside into the sun. Cars moved slowly up and down from the main Monks-town Road, past the church and southwards to Mountown, Baker’s Corner and Dean’s Grange. Margaret twisted and turned in both directions, scanning the shoppers and the lunchtime wanderers. Monkstown as always was busy. A woman with two small children came out of the delicatessen holding a large plastic bag. The children had buckets and spades and a shrimping net on an awkwardly long pole. The woman grabbed them by their wrists, dodging cars as she dragged them across the busy road. One of the children fell, sprawling in a noisy, complaining heap. The woman dropped the bag. Oranges rolled in every direction, followed by a packet of sandwiches. The traffic backed up, hooting impatiently. The child got to her feet, sobbing. Hastily her mother tried to gather everything up, scooping child and lunch into her arms and lurching to the safety of the pavement. The traffic moved on, leaving an orange, burst open, pith, flesh and juice smeared on the tar-macadam.

  A seagull swooped low towards an overflowing rubbish bin, hanging, lopsided, from a lamp-post. It grabbed at a piece of bread, tearing it with its hooked beak. Crumbs and crust fell to the footpath. The bird dropped to the ground and picked at it. A dog ran up, barking. The bird hovered, reluctant to abandon its booty, then lifted again, beak open and a harsh cry bursting out. It flew up and up, beating its wings hard, and wheeled and banked away towards the sea, over the pepper-pot spire of the Protestant church across the street. The huge granite building, its twin towers like carved chessmen, the landmark that dominated the main road from the city centre.

  Margaret followed the bird’s flight with her eyes. Then she looked again at the photograph. Behind her, in the picture, was not this church, St Michael’s, where her family had worshipped, where Mary’s funeral mass had taken place, but the other one, its turrets looming dark in the bright sunshine.

  Of course he would be in that church, empty at midday. Built at a time when there was a huge Protestant population here in this affluent suburb by the sea. Now its congregation was decimated by emigration and indifference.

  She hurried down the steps, her heart banging irregularly under her left breast, chiding herself for not having realized before. She was in the wrong church. The traffic was backed up from the lights at the bottom of Monkstown Road. She darted out into the middle, weaving between cars, narrowly missing being hit by a motorist coming from the opposite direction. He blew his horn, waving his fist as he jammed on the brakes. She didn’t appear to notice. She ran on, in through the open gate, past the noticeboard listing the times for Sunday Service and Holy Communion, her feet scattering gravel in her haste. When she reached the wooden door, shield-shaped, its handle a ring of brass, she hesitated and caught her breath. She had been given the chance of a reprieve. She could end all this now, decide that she would play no further part. She could go home. Apologize to the guard whom she had eluded so successfully by jumping from the garden wall onto the DART line and sneaking along the embankment to Salthill. She could give up. Step back. Leave it all to McLoughlin to muddle his way through. But that was not what she wanted. She thought of all the times in her life when she had taken the easy way out. She would not add this to the list.

  The door creaked and banged back against the inside wall as she pushed it. She stood in the porch. Ahead were double doors, which led into the main body of the church. To the right, she knew, were the winding wooden stairs which would take her up to the gallery. She trembled. Cold, the hairs standing up all over her body to trap her warmth. Cold like Christmas. Darkness, candles, their golden flames wavering in the choir’s hands. A boy soprano’s squeaky voice.

  ‘Once in Royal Daa-vid’s city,

  Stood a lowly cattle shed,

  Where a mother laid her baby,

  In a manger for his bed.

  Mary was that mother mild,

  Jesus Christ her lii-ttle child.’

  And the choir picking it up, carrying on the story. The service of Nine Lessons and Carols. Every year since she could remember. An act of ecumenism, her father had called it. They sat in the gallery, down at the front so Margaret could giggle and wink at Gillian, the rector’s youngest, who slouched in the choir stalls, a reluctant angel, until she opened her mouth to pour forth all the passion of that doomed love. And Margaret had cried as the sweet voices told of prophecies and mystery, stars moving across the infinite blackness, of animals and men gathering to worship and praise. And the most exquisite sadness seized her, and the tears dripped down her cheeks and gathered in the corners of her mouth.

  She put one foot on the bottom step. It creaked loudly. She looked up. The stairs turned away from her to the right. The walls were painted a sickly pale pink. She grasped the banister and hauled herself up. She stopped and listened. A car went by playing loud music. The beat pumped out then faded to a low rumble. A bird was singing, repeating over and over again the same two notes. Light filtered through the small stained-glass window on the tiny landing, and spattered across her skirt. Amethyst and gold. Shifting and dancing. A cloud passed across the sun, and the colours vanished. She could smell her own sweat. Bitter, rancid, laden with fear. She felt dizzy and light-headed. She calmed herself with slow deep breaths. Then she continued up the narrow stairs, one foot following obediently the other. The sound of the organ, rich and brown like Christmas cake, filled her ears, and the musty smell her nostrils. Old ladies, her father had said, moth-eaten fur coats, damp, giving off steam in the warmth of the congregation. She reached the top and turned again to the right. The gallery was in front of her. Ten rows of dark oak pews sloping down. At the far end the huge stained-glass window, a mosaic of blues, reds and greens. In front of it the altar, a simple white cloth, a brass cross, a vase filled with white lilies. She walked forward slowly, holding on to the end of each row for support. She reached the front. She looked down, saliva filling her mouth. Below was the wooden pulpit, decorated with carvings of birds and animals. On the other side the lectern in the shape of an eagle, the ceremonial Bible open, in place. She raised her eyes and looked across to the wide gallery on the left. A figure, a man, sitting in the front pew, his legs lolling over the rail, both arms spread wide along the back of the seat. His blond head thrown back. A face she recognized, remembered. A smile that had called out to her. And she remembered her own face. That dreadful day. How her lips had widened, cracked open. And now as she looked across at him she saw his lips were pursed. And she heard that sound. Whistling.

  25

  McLoughlin opened the door to the interview room and walked in, Finney at his heels. It was a small room, no windows, walls that had recently been painted magnolia, and an off-white ceiling adorned with two long fluorescent tubes. Standard issue for all the new Garda stations, like this one in Blackrock.

  There was a small veneered table in the centre. Seated on one side at an oblique angle to the door was a woman detective. Chris Mur
ray was her name. Nice girl, good at her job. Didn’t get too excited about some of the shit she had to take. It was she who had phoned an hour earlier. Said she had something that might interest them. Something about the Mitchell case. And the phone call couldn’t have come at a more opportune moment. McLoughlin had just been in with his boss. Finucane had waved this morning’s Irish Times under his nose, and snarled about lack of results, bad press, ‘All those fucking feminist journalists ranting on about how the streets aren’t safe for women. And what have you been up to, Michael? How have you been spending your day? Between pints, that is? You’ve twenty men working on this case. Guards and sergeants. Detectives and uniforms. How many man-hours so far? And with what result, eh? Tell me that. You’d want to watch it. There’s a queue of people waiting to have your job.’