‘Haven’t you? Well,’ she raised her glass in mock salute, ‘you know me. Wonderful at crossword puzzles and Trivial Pursuit. A mine of useless information.’
She had stood at the window, the darkness pressing against the glass, her father’s arm around her, the smell of hair oil and tobacco clinging to his tweed waistcoat.
‘Now, Maggie, let’s go round the bay, starting with the Baily to the north.’ The gold chain hanging from his pocket watch dug into her ear as he bent forward to point out the lights. Leaning back against him she listened to the slow and steady beat of his heart.
‘Daddy?’
‘Yes, my pet?’
‘Who do you love the best in the world?’
‘You, my pet.’
‘For ever and ever?’
‘Forever and ever, amen.’
‘But that’s not useless. Imagine,’ Patrick sipped his whiskey, ‘imagine you’d been shipwrecked, spent days, weeks in a lifeboat, floating, out of sight of land, living on a seagull who happened to drop dead beside you and handfuls of rainwater you scooped up from the bilges of your little boat and then one night you suddenly saw all these different flashing lights, you’d know,’ and he pointed his glass at her, ‘exactly where you were, and you’d summon up all your strength and get out your paddle and row like mad. But I’d just think I’d gone crazy and I’d give up completely, probably decide to end it all. Throw myself head first into the cold sea.’
‘Hardly likely. Self-sacrifice was never a problem for you.’
‘Hold on a minute. Fair’s fair. I offered you help.’
Help. A phone call, a suggestion of a place to go, ‘where you can stay until it’s all over and you can have it adopted’.
‘And you rejected my offer. And you told me you were going to get rid of it. If you remember because I certainly do. You screamed down the phone at me. I offered you money, I offered you support. And you hung up.’
He picked up the bottle from the hearth and helped himself. She noticed his hands in the firelight, the scattering of brown marks across their backs. She held out her own hands in the faint light from the street. The same kind of discoloration, the same awkward clotting of melanin, the harbinger of old age, senility, death.
‘So. Why didn’t you?’
She shook her head, turning away.
‘Or perhaps you did. Flushed that baby down the sluice and then you got pregnant again, and now for some strange twisted vengeful reason you’re trying to get me to believe that she, that poor dead girl, is mine.’
‘What?’ She took a step towards him.
He leaned back in his chair and looked steadily at her. ‘This is rubbish, all of it.’
‘What?’ She took another step closer.
‘If this was true, this crazy story you’re telling me, you’d have told the guards. You’d have stood up in court this morning and told the judge. You’d have done something.’
‘What?’ Again the same word, said with the same disbelieving, rising tone. She looked down at him. He looked up at her, calmly. He raised his glass and drank, and as he did she knocked it from his mouth, the skin on her knuckles tearing as they banged against the heavy crystal. The smell of whiskey in the room. And a scream that came from somewhere as she hit him hard across the cheekbones, once, then twice, then three times. And pulled him from his chair, tearing open his shirt to drag her fingers through the soft skin of his chest, drawing blood in deep gashes with her fingernails. ‘Here,’ she shouted out her rage and sorrow, ‘before you sneer at me any more look at these. Look at what came from your body as surely as it came from mine.’
She pulled a pile of photographs from the desk and flung them at him. He closed his hands into two fists. She picked them from his knees and his lap, scrabbling in front of him on the dusty carpet, and grabbed hold of his hair.
‘Look at these, you bastard. Look.’ And she rubbed his face against the shiny prints, as the tears spilled down her cheeks, and her breath shuddered out in gasping sobs.
He sat, his head bowed, his eyes downcast. Then he bent and gathered up the pictures, smoothing out their creases, and straightening their crumpled edges. He piled them together like playing cards, and like playing cards he shuffled them, laying them out one by one on the floor in front of him. Over and over again. The dark blue eyes, the smiling face, the long and slender arms and legs, the black curls, the gestures, the expressions. Matched them up, assigned them, recognized them, compared and contrasted them. Stood and crossed to the window. Looked at his reflection in the dark glass. Looked again at the girl, whose image was everywhere. Knelt beside the woman who lay curled in a tight ball in front of the flames. And said, ‘What do you want from me?’
Waited for the whispered reply.
‘I want you to be her father. I want you to do the right thing.’
Sat again in the armchair until the only sounds in the room were the hiss and crackle of the fire and the rain against the window pane.
39
I want you to be her father. I want you to do the right thing.
He sat at his desk, the room dark. Around him the house breathed quietly. The faintest tinkle of water dribbling into the storage tank in the attic, the hum of the central heating boiler, the tick-tick-tick of the electricity meter in the cupboard under the stairs. Upstairs, above his head, his wife lay sleeping. He knew how she would be lying. On her right side, her arms around the pillow, her legs drawn up to her breasts. Her blonde hair would fall across her cheek, and when she moved, her body would give off the faintest scent. Joy, wasn’t it? Wasn’t that what it was called? He should know. He had given her bottles and bottles of the stuff over the years. Birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries. Bought at duty-free counters, as he rushed for a plane, snatched from Brown Thomas’s on Christmas Eve, already gift-wrapped. And now it clung to all the tiny cracks and crevices in her skin, replacing the natural smells that should have marked her.
He switched on the lamp on the desk. He put his hands down in the yellow light that spilled across the dark wood. He turned them over and looked at his palms, at the deep lines that scored the pink skin. He could still remember the feel of Margaret’s small hand in his when he had asked her to dance all those years ago. Soft, but strength and power in the grip. The same strength and power that radiated through her body as she twisted and turned in front of him, controlling every step and every movement. There had been a mark across her cheek. A deep indentation from the cane chair on which she had fallen asleep. He remembered he had wanted to smooth it out with his fingers, run his tongue along it, then pull her head back and kiss her throat. But he had done nothing. Except waltz with her, then drive her home, unable to speak for the longing that choked his vocal cords and made him aware of every single part of his body as it rubbed and chafed against his clothes.
Longing. What did the word mean? He had longed for her. To see her, to speak to her, to hear her name, to touch her. But he had done nothing. It frightened him, this feeling. It was new and unfamiliar. He had never before wanted something that could damage his life. Everything until then had been simple and straightforward. School, university, the Bar, marriage, fatherhood. A continuous, seamless progression that would lead, he knew, to success. But this? What was this?
He stood up and walked to the door. He opened it and stepped out into the dark hall. He walked across the polished floor to the dining room. His path was diagonal rather than straight. Avoiding the board that creaked loudly. A lesson learned early in his marriage. He felt his way to the sideboard and picked up a bottle of brandy and a glass. He carried them back with him, once again his feet taking the familiar well-trod path.
He unlocked the filing cabinet and pulled out three heavy bundles of papers. He sat down at the desk. He poured brandy into the glass and drank. He spread the papers in front of him and began to read.
She had said to him, earlier that night, ‘How can you defend someone like that? How can you help someone who has done what he has done?’
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And he had started to give the standard answer, the response that every barrister gives when they are asked the question.
‘Everyone is entitled to a defence. Everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty. I don’t make that judgement. Nor can you. Only the court can decide. And until that happens this man is innocent. And he has the same rights as you or I.’
But the words had failed to come. He knew. As much as she knew. But barristers weren’t supposed to know in that way. They were only supposed to know the facts of the case, and the law that they could apply to them. It was their business to know the law inside out. All its inconsistencies, all its failings. And to know how to apply the law to protect their clients. And guilt or innocence didn’t enter into it.
He had met Jimmy Fitzsimons how many times? On two, possibly three occasions. He had sat across the table from him, in a small and miserable room in the prison, close enough to smell the caul of cigarette smoke that wrapped itself around every inmate. He had asked him the details that he needed to know. He had listened to the story that he told. If he had wanted he could have read between the lines, filled in all the gaps, but that wasn’t his job. He had been more interested in the way the guards had behaved towards his client. He had read Jimmy’s statement, marking its weaknesses, its inconsistencies, noting times, planning the defence. But Jimmy had wanted to talk about the girl. He had begun to volunteer information that wasn’t necessary. He had wanted to describe her, to discuss her, to make her real. Until Patrick had stopped him. Had ended the discussion, left the room.
Now he went back over all the statements, read again the pathologist’s report, and finally opened the album of photographs that the guards had made ready for the trial.
He had looked at these pictures before, a number of times. Looked at parts of the girl’s body, assessed the extent of the bruising, the lacerations, the burns and bite marks. Looked at them as evidence. Of a crime or an intense and passionate sexual relationship? Now he spread them out again on the desk, looking this time at her face, her features, her colouring. He put his hand in his jacket pocket and laid two other photographs down beside them. In one she wore a pale pink leotard. Standing at the barre. A perfect arabesque. Her head held high. Her neck long and straight. Her hair caught up in a tight knot, all except for a couple of stray springing curls. In the other she sat cross-legged on a large cushion, her head resting on one hand, looking up into the lens of the camera, a fire flickering behind her, laughing.
How to compare her with the broken thing that lay across his desk? He read again the description of her injuries, and matched them with the close-ups. ‘Burns to the inside of her right thigh,’ he read, and he picked up the photograph. There were marks across the pale skin. Like a dotted line. A birthmark, perhaps. Three small red circles in a row, and between them, joining them into one red, raw mass were the burns.
‘It’s your Orion’s Belt, that’s what it is, isn’t it?’
‘My what?’
‘You know, the constellation. Orion the Hunter, with the three stars lined up to make his belt. In the winter sky. Really easy to see.’
Lying in his younger brother’s brass bed, in his flat in Mountjoy Square. The first time they slept together. The night they met for a drink. A year after the party. Waiting for her in Conway’s. Looking at his watch. They had agreed on six o’clock. He ordered a drink, and sat down in a corner facing the door. The television was on. The angelus bell rang. The picture was a Renaissance Madonna and child. Raphael, he thought. He drank and waited. He looked at his watch. Ten minutes passed. He should go. It would be better this way. Then she was there. In front of him. Wearing a long brown coat, silver buttons, military-style, and a black beret, which she pulled off her head, shaking out her hair, while all around men watched.
They stayed until closing time. ‘I don’t want to go home,’ she said, as they walked along Parnell Street, a bitter wind snatching at her long scarf. He opened his own coat and drew her inside, feeling her mouth open, sucking him into her.
He took her to Hugh’s. The attic floor of a restored Georgian house. Ivy green ceiling and walls. Faded Turkish carpets. An old record player open on the table. ‘Look,’ she said, pulling the black disc from its cover. ‘Listen.’ Kathleen Ferrier sang again. Again the story of Orpheus and his doomed love for Eurydice. He stood her in the middle of the room and took off her coat. He pulled the fine black sweater over her head. He unzipped her long pleated skirt and let it drop in concertinaed folds around her ankles. He knelt and pulled the suede boots from her feet. Then he stood again and slipped her breasts free of their white bra. And ran his hands down her waist, unscrolling the rest of her underwear so she stood, small and delicate, in front of him.
He remembered some time in the early morning. Light from the windows turned everything a dusky grey. She pushed back the bedclothes. ‘So I can look at you,’ she said. Then she began to kiss him. From his mouth, down the rest of his body until she got to the marks on his leg.
They stayed together for the weekend. Somehow he made an excuse. Phoned home. Lied. He couldn’t leave her. Until the Sunday evening. They said goodbye at the taxi rank opposite the Gresham Hotel. They had held hands as they walked down Parnell Street, but as they turned into O’Connell Street he had slipped his fingers from hers, moved away from her, walked just that bit faster. Looked away so he couldn’t see the expression on her face. He had stood in front of the bathroom mirror, here in this house, until the steam from the shower obscured his reflection. Looked at himself through eyes that were filled with her. And as he lifted the sponge to wash all he could smell was her body, and all he could feel as he wrapped the towel around him was her touch.
The girl was his child. There was no doubt. He poured more brandy and drank again. Then he angled the lamp so it shone on the row of framed photographs on the black marble mantelpiece. James, the elder. Conor, the baby. James was twenty-six. A barrister too. Just beginning. Conor was twenty-one. Born at the end of July 1975. Conceived, he knew, a couple of weeks after Mary. He stood up. He walked over to the mantelpiece and one by one he picked up and put down the row of pictures. From babyhood to adulthood, they were all there. Both boys had his black curls, blue eyes, pale skin, height. Both boys had the little gap between their two front teeth. His gap. The gap he had noticed in the photograph that showed the extent of the damage done to Mary’s jaw and teeth by the beating she had received.
He went back to the desk and looked at the picture closely. Then he crossed to the CD player on the shelf in the corner, hunted through the stack beside it, slotted one into the drawer and pressed Play.
The voice filled the room.
Che farò senza Euridice,
Dove andrò senza il mio ben,
Euridice! . . . Oh Dio! Rispondi!
Io son pure, il tuo fedel!
Nè dal mundo, nè dal ciel!
Che farò senza Euridice?
Dove andrò senza il mio ben?
What would I do without Eurydice,
Where would I go without my beloved,
What was it Margaret had said?
I want you to be her father. I want you to do what is right.
He would sit here, and listen to the music, and ask himself all the questions. And in the morning he would know the answers. He would know what to do.
40
I swear by Almighty God that I will well and truly try the issue, whether the accused is guilty or not guilty of the offence charged in the indictment preferred against him, and a true verdict give according to the evidence.
The members of the jury had sworn the oath. The jury-keeper had led them into the court. They had seated themselves in the raised box at right angles to the judge. From now until the end of the trial all that was important in the world would take place in the invisible triangle marked out between the jury, the judge and the accused.
David Douglas, the prosecuting counsel, stood. His plump right hand grasped the edge of his black gown. M
cLoughlin watched from his customary place standing by the door at the back. The prosecuting counsel faced the jury. He swayed slightly, from side to side. Behind him, at the end of the front row of benches that were at right angles to the rest of the court, sat Jimmy. His face was pale. He had been given a shot of Valium, and had slept around the clock. The prison doctor said he was as right as rain. No reason at all why the trial couldn’t continue. Better if his sister, ‘you know, the handicapped kid, is kept out of the way. She seems to upset him.’
Douglas began to speak. He explained to the jury what would happen, how evidence would be presented and examined. McLoughlin looked over the heads in front of him for Margaret. Her head was bowed, concentrating on the notebook on her knee. She had arrived early to take her place in the front row. He had noticed that she was very pale. There were shadows under her eyes and deep grooves on either side of her mouth, furrows ploughed, he thought, by loss and longing. But she had dressed with her usual care. She was wearing dark wool trousers, with a matching waistcoat and a white shirt underneath. McLoughlin looked at the row of journalists, whispering, giggling. He watched them watching her. He could imagine the headlines, ‘Anguished Mother in Trial Vigil’, and the like. Perhaps he should suggest that coming here every day might not be for the best. That it might cause her too much pain. But there again, if it had been his daughter he wouldn’t have been able to sit at home and read about it a day late in the newspapers or watch the potted reports on the nine o’clock news.
Douglas continued. ‘This,’ he said, ‘is a tragic case. You will hear evidence in the course of this trial which will upset you and cause you distress. You will be asked to share the last few painful days in the life of a young woman called Mary Mitchell. And you will be asked to decide the guilt or innocence of this young man, seated here, behind me, who is accused of murder. And I must remind you of something that you will hear over and over again in the course of this trial. The law presumes the innocence of the accused, until the prosecution has demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt, let me repeat that, beyond reasonable doubt, that the person is guilty. And it is up to you, the jury, and no one else to decide on the facts of the case.’
Mary, Mary Page 24
