Mary, Mary

by Julie Parsons

  He had told Finney all about it as they drove through Tallaght. He was never sure how wise it was to confide in a subordinate. On reflection he knew it wasn’t wise at all, but he was so angry he had to get it off his chest.

  ‘Well, are you surprised?’ Finney asked him.

  ‘What do you mean, surprised?’

  ‘Aren’t he and Declan Hickey good mates? Don’t they play golf together, regularly every Saturday afternoon, come rain come shine?’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘The penny, is it dropping, slow?’

  No, it was falling in a cascade, like money from a slot-machine win. He winced. Sergeant Declan Hickey, husband of Aine, the beautiful, the desirable, the one who had nearly cost him his job.

  ‘You’re blushing,’ said Finney, smiling broadly.

  ‘Fuck off. Let’s change the subject.’

  They had just crested the hill at the top of Mount Anville Road. Ahead lay the bay, the horizon a narrow line of navy blue, and the sea striped light and dark green, like a block of Russian agate. Far out, beyond the South Wall, he fancied he could see the rust-coloured sails of a Galway hooker.

  ‘You’ll have to come sailing with me some day, Dave. When this is all over. I’m going to take a few days’ leave, and I’m thinking about taking a trip up north, Strangford Lough, Portaferry, around there. Would you come?’

  But really, would he want him? As a rule he didn’t mix work with pleasure. Kept his boat separate from everything else. Untouched, uncontaminated, a place of safety.

  Blackrock station had the look of a fortress. Red brick, solid. Riot-proofed, he thought. Not that they needed it out here. Far from the madding crowd of knackers, junkies, gougers that Swan’s Nest had to deal with. The desk sergeant greeted him warmly, stopped to reminisce about his father and the old days, then showed them to the room where the girl was waiting.

  She was sitting across the table from Murray. Sobbing. Murray pushed the box of Kleenex across to her, but she shook her head and took a handkerchief from the pocket of the denim jacket that was slung over the back of her chair.

  McLoughlin walked towards the table and held out his hand. He introduced himself and Finney. She took his hand for a moment, then dropped it. Her palm was cold and damp. He pulled up a chair and sat down.

  He cleared his throat. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘what have we here?’

  Murray gestured towards the woman. ‘This is Jenny Adamson. She is a photography teacher who runs classes in Temple Bar. She has come in to tell us about an attack that was made on her some months ago. She believes that the person involved may have had something to do with the Mitchell murder.’

  McLoughlin looked at the woman. Mid-thirties, he reckoned, although she seemed younger because of the way she was dressed. Her hair was brown and glossy. It was cut in what he recognized as a pageboy style, a short fringe and a graduated fall down both sides of her face. She was wearing small gold-rimmed glasses. Behind them her eyes were red and puffy. The pallor of her face was accentuated by the harshness of the room’s light. Her small mouth trembled uncontrollably. She was, McLoughlin could see, extremely frightened.

  ‘Could I—’ she began, then stopped, overtaken by another burst of sobbing. No one said anything. ‘Could I have a cigarette? I don’t smoke very often, and I don’t have any of my own.’

  ‘Of course.’ Murray reached into her bag, which was under the table. She took out a packet of Benson and Hedges and held them out. The woman fumbled with the box, unable to control her hand. Murray took out two. She put them both in her mouth and lit them. Then she gave one to her, putting it between her index and second fingers.

  The woman pulled hard on the cigarette. As she exhaled the smoke her shoulders slumped.

  ‘Where are you from?’ McLoughlin asked.

  ‘Chichester, in the south of England.’

  ‘Ah, yes, very nice. Good theatre, beautiful cathedral, lovely gardens behind the Bishop’s Palace.’

  ‘That’s right.’ She smiled.

  ‘And you’ve been in Dublin for how long?’

  She explained that she had come on holiday three years ago. She had read Synge’s book on the Aran Islands and wanted to see them for herself. And she had decided to stay to do a book of her own on the islands and the sea. Photographs, mainly, with some text. Teaching was just a way of making a living, ‘You know, keeping body and soul together,’ until the advance from the publishers was finalized.

  ‘So, perhaps, Ms Adamson, you wouldn’t mind telling myself and Sergeant Finney why you’re here.’

  She had been watching the evening news. A couple of weeks ago. There was something about the funeral of that poor girl. The one who was murdered. And she saw him.

  ‘Who did you see?’ McLoughlin asked. She lifted her cigarette again to her mouth. As it touched her lips she began to cry. They waited. Eventually she spoke. It was him. The man who had raped her. He was there outside the church. He was with all the other photographers.

  ‘And do you know his name?’

  She nodded. ‘His name is Jimmy Fitzsimons. He took one of my courses a few months ago.’ And she began to tell them. She was sorry she hadn’t before. She knew she should have gone to the police. That men like him will go on doing things to women like her as long as women don’t stand up for themselves.

  McLoughlin held up his hand. ‘Listen to me,’ he said. ‘You have done nothing that deserves reproach. What’s important is that you have been brave enough to come forward now. If you didn’t feel that you could come to us before that’s a sorry reflection on us, not on you. Do you understand?’

  She bent her head.

  ‘Now,’ he continued, ‘tell me what happened. From the beginning. When did you first meet him?’

  ‘It had been . . .’ She stopped for a moment to think. It must have been about the second week in January. That was when her post-Christmas course began. It ran for three nights a week for ten weeks. She usually had room for eight people. Jimmy arrived late for registration. She tried to tell him that she was full, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. She was about to insist that he would have to wait for the next course when he pulled out a bundle of photographs from a plastic bag.

  ‘Look,’ he had said. ‘Look at these.’ They were black and white portraits. All the subjects were women. They were very good. Technically they had faults but he knew how to pin down his subject, find the image he wanted. One was of a young girl with Down’s syndrome. She was eating an ice cream, a large white cone. Her tongue was out, licking. Her concentration was completely focused.

  ‘Who’s she?’ she asked.

  ‘My sister,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, I see,’ she replied.

  ‘Do you? Do you really?’ he had answered. She felt awkward, suddenly very self-conscious.

  ‘Did he tell you much about his family?’ McLoughlin leaned forward to look at her more closely.

  Not immediately. She felt that she had said the wrong thing about the girl, so she kept off the subject. Then one evening after the class he had stayed behind to help her clear up. She asked him to put away some of the large bottles of chemicals. He was very helpful, very obliging. But she still felt awkward with him. She found herself blushing when he spoke to her, talking too much. And then he took a parcel out of his bag. It was wrapped in shiny brown paper and tied with string. It was a photograph in a frame. It was of her. She was sitting in Stephen’s Green. It had been snowing and she was wrapped in an old fur coat with a matching hat. A duck was standing on the frozen pond looking at her. She had bread in her hand, and she was just about to throw it. There was a wonderful sense of anticipation in the photograph, but it made her feel uneasy. She tried to remember. Had she seen him that day? He was watching her face closely. She could see that he would be quick to take offence.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘It’s very good. You must have taken it last Sunday. Why didn’t you come over and say hello?’

  ‘I didn’t want to disturb you,’ he s
aid. ‘You looked so content there, on your own.’

  She ran her fingers over the pretty pattern of leaves and flowers on the frame. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said. ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘It was my mother’s,’ he replied.

  ‘Oh, I see. That was nice of her to give it you.’

  ‘She didn’t,’ he said, as he methodically washed down the benches.

  ‘So,’ McLoughlin said, ‘what happened after that?’

  She paused for a moment and hid her face in her hands. The soft brown hair fell forward. Then she sat up straight and stared at a point in the far wall. She had begun, she said, to find his presence disturbing. She noticed that she was thinking about him a lot, anticipating the classes. She was extremely disappointed when after giving her the photograph, he missed three sessions in a row. When he arrived again the following week she was surprised by her feelings of relief.

  ‘So this was more than just a friendship, the way you were feeling?’

  She nodded.

  ‘And describe this man to us. What does he look like?’

  Again she covered her face with her hands before she spoke. He was, he is, very beautiful. Not handsome the way men are, but beautiful. He’s about five foot nine or ten, very slim. He has hair the colour of butter and eyes the colour of the sea. His skin is quite brown and very clear. He has white teeth and a sweet smile.

  No wonder, thought McLoughlin, that she couldn’t come forward. It’s the old story. Hard to believe that someone good-looking is a villain. Much easier to imagine if they’re short, squat, acne-scarred and dirty. And so easy for a woman to feel that she’s to blame, that her desire was the trigger for his violence.

  ‘So, Ms Adamson, tell us what happened on the night in question.’

  For a moment McLoughlin thought she was going to faint. She began to breathe very quickly. Her face flushed then the colour ebbed away completely, leaving her skin the blue-white of skimmed milk.

  One problem, she said, was that she couldn’t remember everything that had happened. Afterwards it was as if the night was a painting, still wet, that someone had smeared with their hand. The colours were vivid, but the content, the details, were blurred and indistinct. It had begun, she knew, with celebration. The end of the course. She had bought some champagne, cheap stuff, and they had opened the bottles with much cheering and laughing and clowning around. He had joined in. Usually he didn’t really get involved with the other students. He was a bit aloof. But that night he had been laughing and joking too. There was a sense of excitement in the room, and everyone was affected by it. She had felt as high as a kite from the first drop of wine, but it wasn’t just the alcohol. She remembered that he had smiled at her, his teeth very white and his mouth the colour of crushed raspberries, and she had felt so happy and alive. Then someone, it wasn’t him, had suggested that they go and have a drink, somewhere local, like the Norseman.

  ‘Will you come, Jimmy?’ she had asked.

  ‘Would you like me to?’ he had replied. And she had giggled like a schoolgirl and linked her arm through his.

  In the bar she ordered tequila.

  ‘Look,’ she said, ‘this is how you drink it.’ And she swallowed the shot in one go, sucking hard on a fresh lime. He bought her another and another. Someone put money in the jukebox. Billie Holiday was singing. ‘Lover man, oh, where can you be?’

  ‘Listen. I can sing that,’ she said, and sat up on the bar, her voice deep and strong, playing with the tune, letting the words trickle from her mouth. They had danced together. It was wonderful. He was very affectionate, very loving. He held her right hand lightly against his heart. The fingers of his other hand slipped down inside her collar stroking the nape of her neck. She drank more. She didn’t remember how much.

  ‘And what about the other people you were with, what were they doing?’

  She didn’t remember. When the barman called time and turned on all the lights they were alone. He took her by the hand and they walked to an underground car park. She didn’t remember which one, or how long it had taken them to get there. He had been kissing her and touching her all the way. She remembered that his car was big with silvered windows. She remembered how her reflection had billowed in and out, making her feel dizzy and a bit sick. When she got into the passenger seat he had leaned over and locked the door, and he had said, ‘Snug as a bug in a rug,’ just the way her mother did when she tucked her in at night when she was a child.

  ‘And where did you go?’

  She hadn’t been sure at first. She had fallen asleep in the car. Then she vaguely remembered standing outside her house. It was very cold and he had taken her keys from her bag and was opening the door.

  ‘And then?’

  She got up from the table. Murray half rose too, but McLoughlin waved her back to her seat. She began to walk around the walls. Corner to corner to corner to corner. And as she walked, she talked.

  Darkness, pain, nausea, fear. The back of my head hit the floorboards in the hall. Jimmy’s face is above me. Why is he shouting? Saliva is dripping from his mouth onto my breasts. Where are my clothes? I’m holding up my hands to push him away. He’s hitting me. My mouth is full of blood.

  It’s dark again. I can taste and smell vomit. I’m lying on my stomach, my cheek is pressed into the stinking pool. I can’t move my arms. Pain, shooting through me, a piercing agony. I open my mouth to scream, but he’s pulled me over onto my back and he’s forced himself into my mouth. I’m going to be sick again, but he’s beating me. I give up. I close my eyes. Then. Look at me, look at me, he screams. But I can’t see. I’m going to be sick. He’s hurting me. I’ve never felt pain like this before. Why are you doing this, why? There’s a dreadful, dizzying whirl of lights, sounds all mixed together, screams and laughter and a pathetic sort of mewing. Is that me? It can’t be me, can it? Then more pain. The smell of burning skin. No, it can’t be. Stop, please, please, please. Then nothing.

  And when I wake I don’t know if he’s still there. So I lie where I am, face down on the floor. My arms are tied behind my back, my legs are spread apart. I listen. My breath is the loudest sound in the room. I stare at the dust between the floorboards. Is this what it’s like to be crippled, to be helpless? I struggle to go beyond the sound of my own body. A minute passes. An hour, half the day. I begin to move. Very slowly. Sweat drips into the dust. Gradually I sit up. I pull my hands free. He has used my apron, the yellow one with the white daisies, to tie me. I try to stand, but my legs give way like a broken balsawood model. There is dried blood and faeces caked all over my thighs. I stand in the shower. The water stings as it washes over the cuts, the bites, the burns. The water is pink as it swirls down the plughole. I swab myself with disinfectant. My eyes water from the pain but I won’t cry any more. I wrap myself in a blanket and lie on the sofa drinking brandy from a tumbler. When I can stand and walk again I get rid of everything that reminds me of that night. I throw out my clothes, the sheets from the bed, the white goatskin rug smeared with brown. I smash the pottery bowls in which he urinated and defecated. I break up the beeswax candles that he shoved into me. He has destroyed my home. I want to set fire to it. To melt my shame. I will never feel safe again. I feel as if my house is made of cellophane, transparent, flimsy. So I move. To an apartment building with video cameras, a spyhole in the door, a security guard with a dog. But I will never again feel sure that my body is my own. That I own it. I will never again take that for granted.

  She stopped talking and stood with her face to the wall. Murray stood up and went over to her. She turned her round and led her back to the chair. She whispered to Finney. He left the room.

  McLoughlin spoke. ‘Have you told anyone else about this?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘And have you seen him at all since that night?’

  Again the shake of the head.

  ‘And tell me, Jenny, if we can find him will you take a case against him?’

  Once more she shook her head
. Murray looked at him anxiously.

  ‘We can’t make you do anything, Jenny. It’s completely up to you, but—’

  The woman screamed the words. ‘No, no, no. Don’t you see? I couldn’t. How do you think it’s been for me here in this room with you? To turn myself inside out like a ripe fig, let you see all those bits which should be hidden. I couldn’t do that in a court. I couldn’t sit in the same room with him. I’d die.’

  ‘But—’ he tried again.

  ‘No buts, no maybes, no might-bes. No. Nothing. I can’t do it.’

  McLoughlin leaned forward in his chair and stared at the flecked lino on the floor. Rape was such a peculiar crime. It took one of the most wonderful and pleasurable things in the world and turned it into an abomination. He knew that she wasn’t telling them everything he had done, or made her do. He knew that the reason she wouldn’t go to court was because she felt involved, responsible. It didn’t matter that the law would be on her side. As he had forced himself into her body, embedded himself in her, so she would always feel that she was part of the crime. He’d seen it before so many times. They had thought things would be different when the law had changed. In the old days a barrister could rip a woman apart in the witness box. Now they did it more subtly but to similar effect. Tarred with the same brush. Victim and perpetrator for ever united.

  He looked up at her. ‘You’ve told us his name. Do you have an address?’

  Wordlessly she pulled a folded piece of paper from her pocket and handed it to him. He opened it. The completed application form for the photography course. His name and address were printed carefully. Jimmy Fitzsimons, 22 Canal Lane, Dublin 4. McLoughlin spoke again. ‘By the way, do you know what he does for a living?’

  ‘Yes, of course. He has his own chauffeur business. That’s why he has the big car. I think it’s a Mercedes. He takes wealthy tourists on special trips around the country, Hidden Ireland weekends, race meetings, that sort of thing.’