Woman of State

by Simon Berthon

  ‘He always looks in once or twice a week and we haven’t seen him.’

  She doesn’t know how to reply. Ice enters her heart when she thinks of her changed brother, then begins to melt at the memory of his parting words. He is her blood, her family – she wishes she could do more for her father than offer hope. ‘I’m sure he’s fine, Da. You know Martin.’

  ‘Aye, I know. But your ma was asking round and it seems Joseph has disappeared too.’

  ‘Joseph?’

  ‘Aye, Joseph Kennedy. Don’t suppose you’d have seen him either, love?’

  ‘No, Da, I wouldn’t have reason any more to see Joseph.’

  ‘It just seems odd. Your ma’s worried.’ There’s a pause – she waits for him. ‘Jeez, Maire, I’m worried too.’

  Again, she doesn’t know what to say. ‘Look, I’m sure it’s nothing. You know how things come up.’

  ‘All right, love, just thought I’d phone to check.’

  ‘Is Ma OK?’

  ‘I’ll do my best with her. Anyways, how’s things with you?’

  Here, at least, she can try to inject some brightness. ‘Exams start next week, got my head down.’

  ‘You just stick to that, girl. No need to worry for us.’

  Two weeks later, her father calls again to say there’s still no sign of Martin. Or Joseph.

  May 1994

  She’s in the library, one exam to go, one last burst of revision. She steps out into a cloudless late May day, promising the warmth of summer, and heads for her customary sandwich bar. As she bites her melted-cheese sandwich with a hunger born of fierce concentration, she hears a male voice with an English accent over her shoulder.

  ‘Excuse me.’

  Startled, she jumps to her feet, remembering the last time an unknown Englishman approached her in this place. This one is older and wearing a suit – late forties, slim, fit, thin moustache, smoothed dark hair, a golden pin holding a striped tie in place. A figure from an alien world.

  ‘Who are you?’ Her tone is not friendly.

  ‘I’m sorry to trouble you but I’m looking for Maire McCartney.’ He pronounces it correctly. ‘I think you may be her.’ He projects a languid smile and easy charm.

  ‘You got the wrong person,’ she says sharply and heads out to the street.

  He follows. ‘Please allow me to introduce myself. We have a friend in common.’

  He’s now beside her and she won’t make a spectacle by running to shake him off. ‘What friend?’

  ‘David Vallely.’

  She stops. ‘I see.’ She scans him from top to bottom. Who is this man? What does he know?

  ‘My name is Jimmy,’ he continues as if she’d asked the question out loud. I’m David’s uncle.’

  ‘I don’t get it,’ she says quietly.

  ‘Shall we walk to the park and chat there?’ he asks.

  They walk, her legs buckling under the double weight of fear and anticipation. He offers to buy her a coffee from the stall by the pond – which she accepts. He returns with two polystyrene cups, whistling nonchalantly, and sits on the bench beside her.

  ‘Dublin can be delightful at this time of year, can’t it?’ he remarks. She stays silent, staring rigidly ahead. Once or twice she flicks a look at him. How can he seem so detached? Though, she realizes, she does not know what things he knows or does not know.

  ‘David never told me he had an uncle,’ she says.

  ‘No, he probably didn’t,’ he replies. ‘He’s rather a private person. Doesn’t like to talk about himself.’

  ‘You can say that again.’

  He smiles – a tiny piece of common ground. He sips his coffee and takes out a silver cigarette case. ‘Would you like one?’

  ‘I don’t smoke.’

  ‘Would you mind if I do?’

  ‘I’ve changed my mind, I’ll have one.’

  He takes out one cigarette and offers it to her, takes one himself, produces a gold Dunhill lighter, and lights hers and his. She splutters and feels a wave of giddiness as she inhales – it’s nearly three years since she smoked her last cigarette that night in the Europa hotel bar. He draws easily and fully – she notices how little smoke emerges when he exhales.

  ‘So,’ he says, ‘David—’

  ‘Do you have any ID?’ she interrupts. ‘I don’t wanna sound paranoid but how do I know you’re who you say you are?’

  He smiles. ‘Of course. David told me you had a real lawyer’s mind – so I’ve come prepared.’ He removes a wallet from his inside jacket packet and then a passport. She examines it. ‘James Bernard Vallely’. The issue date is August 1993 and the photograph a true likeness. He fishes around another pocket and produces two snapshots. One is recent – of him and David against some sort of sand or desert. The second shows a head and shoulders of him younger and David in his early teens, sea behind them.

  ‘Thanks,’ she says. ‘You said you’re his uncle.’

  ‘Yes, I think that’s right,’ he replies with a mannered uncertainty. ‘I’m the son of David’s grandfather’s brother, hence the shared name. Whether that makes me an uncle or a cousin once removed I’ve never bothered to work out – genealogy not the strong point I’m afraid. Suffice it to say I was always Uncle Jimmy.’

  She examines him. ‘Were you a soldier like his father?’

  He laughs uproariously. ‘Good heavens, no. Who’d want to live life on an army officer’s pittance?’

  She shrugs. ‘So whaddya do then?’

  ‘Put it this way, my dear, I’m a dabbler. Middle East oil fields, African diamonds are my sorts of milieu.’

  ‘Is that where the photo is?’

  ‘Yes, David visited me in Africa not so long ago.’ He takes another drag and looks straight ahead, avoiding her. ‘After his father died, we became close. I suppose I became a substitute. A rather poor one, I fear. But we communicated with clockwork regularity. David has always written to me or phoned at least once a fortnight, wherever he might be in the world.’ Now he turns to her. ‘I have not heard from him in over a month.’

  ‘Neither have I,’ she says.

  ‘So I thought I should come over,’ he continues, appearing to ignore her. ‘I visited his flat.’

  ‘So did I.’ She considers something. ‘How do you know about me?’

  ‘Oh, he’s written and spoken a great deal about you. He’s extremely fond of you.’

  ‘Yes.’ She’s aware of a missed answer. ‘How did you know where to find me?’

  ‘As I say, David delighted in telling me about your comings and goings. Even down to where you have your lunch break.’

  ‘Dunno why he’d want to do that.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s another indication of his care for you,’ he replies smoothly. ‘And I’m sure you care equally for him – which is why I’m hoping you may know where he could be.’

  ‘I don’t. One morning he upped and went. He’s done it before but always been back in two or three days.’ She tries another puff – this time it’s easier.

  ‘I don’t mean to interrogate you, my dear, but did you notice anything amiss with him?’

  She considers for a second how to answer him. ‘No. He was fine. Said he’d cracked his thesis. Solved its contradictions.’ She smiles briefly. ‘I never found out what they were.’

  ‘So it seems he has disappeared.’

  ‘Yes. Mind you, I always suspected he’d go off and leave me when he’d done his master’s. Look, I’m trying to get over it so all this isn’t too great.’

  He becomes serious. ‘I do not believe that was his wish, Miss McCartney.’

  ‘You can call me Maire.’

  ‘Indeed, I believe that he was struggling to envisage a future life with you. One thing he did say to me was that if anything ever happened to him – he’s done some hair-raising things on his travels – he wanted you to be looked after.’

  ‘I don’t need looking after,’ she says fiercely.

  ‘It may feel like that now but circum
stances change. Because he was away so often, David gave me power of attorney over his finances. He inherited a little money after his mother died and the house was sold.’

  ‘Yes, he never seemed to want.’

  ‘I know that he would want you to make use of that money.’

  ‘I don’t want it.’

  ‘Well, the offer’s there.’

  She’s mystified by this man with his suggestion of some sort of weird legacy. Her first instinct is to have nothing to do with him. He rises to his feet and produces a card. ‘This is my phone number in the UK. If you get the answer machine just say it’s Maire with a message for Jimmy. I shall take that as meaning you’d like to meet again and I will come straight over. The next day at noon, you will find me on this exact bench in this park, rain or shine.’ He takes a final drag and stubs his cigarette on the pavement. ‘I hope we’ll stay in touch.’

  She watches his back disappear behind the trees.

  Maire determines not to think about ‘Uncle Jimmy’ and his offer until finals are over and maintains that self-discipline. But, the afternoon after the last exam, her thoughts turn to him. There are things she knows and things she doesn’t know. Time spent in that territory of unknowns and unknowables is time wasted. She won’t go there. There is the night she is already obliterating from knowledge and memory. She will never speak of it.

  She remembers Martin’s words of three years ago: ‘. . . get the fuck out of this island and make something of your life.’ Though she’s still not sure exactly how, she feels she’s been used – there’s something about Jimmy that’s oblique and impenetrable. Yet what are her options? Martin, David – Joseph too, though she would never have turned to him – all gone. She can never return home. Even if she could, there’s nothing her ma and da can offer except affection. She’s become oddly fonder of Mrs Ryan, but there’s certainly no future there. She needs to become hard. Above all, after everything that’s happened over the past three years, she needs a new life. She can’t make it alone – and her tutors can’t help with what she really wants. Next morning, she phones the number he’s given her.

  ‘I’m glad you got in touch,’ Jimmy says, standing by the park bench the next day, umbrella over his head. ‘Our last meeting must have been the false dawn of summer. Perhaps we should find somewhere dry and quiet.’

  He leads her to a hotel bar opposite the park. ‘Coffee or something stronger?’ he asks.

  ‘Coffee,’ she answers. What is it about this man that stops her saying ‘please’? ‘Before we talk about what you said, I wanna ask you something.’ She needs a way to test him. Is he more than he seems? Why is he being so helpful?

  ‘Fire away.’ He places the cigarette case on the side table between their armchairs and offers her one. She declines and he takes one for himself. ‘My brother’s disappeared too.’

  ‘Your brother?’

  ‘Yeah, my brother Martin. Didn’t David tell you ’bout him? And what happened when we went to my home?’ He’s momentarily thrown. ‘You said he told you everything.’

  ‘Yes, but about you and him. He may well have mentioned something but no importance was attached to it.’

  ‘So you dunno anything ’bout what’s happened to my brother?’

  ‘My dear girl, how on earth do you think I’d know anything about that?’

  ‘Dunno. Just thought I’d ask.’

  ‘Well, you’ve certainly surprised me with that one.’

  ‘Never mind that.’ She wants now to be businesslike. Uncle Jimmy may be useful but she will never like him.

  ‘You said you could help me,’ she begins.

  ‘David’s money and the wishes he’s expressed can help you,’ he corrects her.

  ‘OK, I’m gonna believe you.’

  ‘Of course you should believe me.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter if I do or don’t,’ she says harshly. ‘I could do with cash for something right now.’

  ‘How much?’ She names a figure and he produces a wad of notes from his wallet. He doesn’t ask her what it’s for.

  ‘And then I want out of here. Out of this island. I don’t have friends here – there are reasons.’

  ‘Yes, David told me you led a rather isolated life.’

  ‘That’s why he suited me. An outsider. And I wanna get rid of any leftover connections.’

  ‘Are you saying you wish in some way to reinvent yourself?’ he asks gently.

  ‘Yeah.’ She pauses. ‘I hadn’t thought of it like that but that’s exactly what I want.’ She wonders whether to articulate something, then says it quietly. ‘It’s best not to be my brother’s sister.’

  ‘I see.’ He makes no comment and considers her. ‘Do you want to change your name?’

  ‘Maybe. Nothing illegal ’bout that, is there?’

  ‘Nothing whatsoever,’ he assures her. ‘I can help arrange it.’ He pauses. ‘And your appearance?’

  ‘Maybe that too. A bit, anyway.’

  ‘For you, it would be easy. May I suggest an idea?”

  ‘Carry on.’

  ‘David’s money will allow you to take a year out. You could perhaps travel. During that period, nothing more complicated than weight change – loss or gain, it hardly matters—’

  ‘I’ll lose it,’ she interrupts.

  ‘—expert dentistry to straighten your teeth and close the front gap, and finally change your long wavy hair to something shorter, straighter and either fairer or darker.’

  ‘I wanna straighten my nose too.’

  He smiles. ‘Of course, why not? When you return, only people who have been very, very close to you would recognize you. And how many of those are there?’ She notes his apparent expertise but says nothing. ‘What is your preference after that?’ he continues.

  ‘I wanna go to London. Start over. Pursue a legal career.’

  ‘I can help with that too.’

  ‘What can’t you help with, Uncle Jimmy?’

  He ignores her. ‘You can begin your training immediately after the year out – and as a new woman.’ He pauses. ‘There’s enough money for all of that.’

  She looks hard at him, searching for clues, wanting to unravel the continuing mystery of this man. She’s sure that, in some way or other, he’s not who or what he says he is. Yet his name, his identity, his knowledge of David all stack up. She makes one last try – it comes out cruder than she intends.

  ‘So, why the fuck are you doing all this for me, Uncle Jimmy?’ She enunciates the word Uncle with leaden irony.

  ‘Because, Maire,’ he replies with a pale smile, ‘you and I have one thing in common. It so happens that, like you, I loved him.’

  They agree a name change from Maire Anne McCartney to Anne-Marie Gallagher – which is more generally ‘Celtic’ – and for that to be recorded as the name under which her law degree is registered. Her good brain and hard work achieve a first-class honours degree. She spends August in London, during which her change of look is begun before she heads off on a year of travel.

  When she returns to London, she receives an invitation for an interview with Audax Chambers, which has been recently set up by a dynamic young QC called Kieron Carnegie. They offer to finance the completion of her solicitor’s qualifications with the promise of a career at Audax to follow. Jimmy leaves a new phone number, which he says will remain a permanent point of contact in the years ahead if she ever needs any help.

  The past fades, becoming a distant bad dream. But sometimes – and as her memory of him reverts to sweeter times of childhood – the voice of her brother still rings in her ears.

  And the more she reflects on David Vallely – the more she rationalizes the relationship – the more, like Joseph, she makes a deliberate choice to see it as an error. The second huge error of her life. She will not make a third.

  CHAPTER 17

  Post-election, Thursday, 11 May

  She wore jeans, trainers and beret, as anonymous as she could make herself. She had told Hinds that she would
visit her sick aunt on the way to the office and change into ministerial clothes once there. Jemima Sheffield had adjusted her diary for a later-than-usual arrival.

  Anne-Marie instructed Hinds to drive down Nine Elms, around the Vauxhall Cross roundabout and back along South Lambeth Road. He could wait in one of the cafés of ‘Little Portugal’ while she made her visit.

  She got out at the junction with Meadow Place. Despite the early-morning chill, smokers were sitting outside on the small triangle of pavement puffing cigarettes and sipping coffees. The road was a line of commuter traffic, buses emitting wisps of sulphurous smoke, helmeted cyclists on their drop-handled frames jostling for position on the narrow blue cycleway. A few suited men and black-skirted women marched along the pavement towards Stockwell to catch the Northern line to the City.

  Anne-Marie felt reassured by the bustle around her and increased her pace. After three hundred yards or so she turned left into a side road, stopped and pulled out the sheet of map she had printed. Joseph had simply texted her a date, a time, 8 a.m., and an address, 11a Ironmongers Mews.

  The narrow roads and buildings were now a silent, deserted muddle in stark contrast to the cacophony of the main road. A four-storey block of council flats stood ahead. She searched for a name and eventually found it. It was not Ironmongers Mews. She walked alongside the block trying to orient the map to the concrete and tarmac shapes around her. At the end of the block, past a row of overflowing dustbins and their nauseous smell of rotting food, she saw an alleyway to the right. It was unmarked. After forty yards or so it arrived at a row of garages. She could see no road sign but each lockup had a number. One of them was 11A. The roll-up door was ajar and a faint light from inside cast a shadow onto the pavement. Could this possibly be the place he meant? She reminded herself that she had not seen Joseph for over twenty years and could not know the sort of life he was leading.

  Even back then it seemed to her that he had come to inhabit a paranoid world of conspiracies and smoke and mirrors. Perhaps he had been unable to lose the habit. She knocked faintly on the garage door. There was no response. She knocked again, harder. Still no reaction. She looked around – she was alone. She bent down and slowly began to roll up the door. As she did, more and more of the garage’s concrete floor was revealed.