The Blue Pool

by Siobhan MacDonald

  “Ah Charlie, let the lad make his mistakes,” Richard said gently.

  Charlotte suddenly felt tense.

  “I think it’s out, Charlotte,” Richard said.

  “What?”

  Richard pointed to her foot. The cigarette stub had disappeared into a hole where she’d been grinding it into the ground.

  “Why now, Richard?” asked Charlotte. “It’s twenty-five years ago, this year. Why has this guy come forward now? Why after all this time?”

  “Sarah would have been forty-six,” Richard said it gently, lost in thought.

  “You haven’t answered me,” Charlotte said, more insistently. She wondered if he’d heard her. Her throat had tightened. She really needed to know. “Why now? Why has he come forward now?”

  Richard looked at Charlotte and shrugged. “His wife died this year, Charlie. I think that may be something to do with it.”

  “Oh? He was married?” Somehow, she hadn’t expected that.

  “Yeah, he was married.”

  “I see.”

  Charlotte cupped the tea trying to conjure up a picture of a husband hiding such a dark secret.

  “It seems his wife was an invalid,” said Richard. “He nursed the woman for years. She was in a wheelchair.”

  His wife an invalid… in a wheelchair… stuck to the bed. Charlotte’s mind was racing. She’d been mistaken. He wasn’t a violent man after all. Sexually starved perhaps – his wife too ill, too disabled to perform her wifely duty. Frustrated, he’d grasped opportunity wherever he found it. A kaleidoscope of new possibilities raced around her head.

  “Has he confessed?” she asked.

  “Not yet, Charlie. Give the police a chance. They’ve only had him a day. They can hold him for a while longer yet. But as I say, he does seem to know something.”

  Again, Charlotte’s stomach turned.

  “It’s something we’ll have to corroborate,” Richard added. “We may need to talk to Kathy and Ruth as well.”

  “What is it, Richard? Just tell me.”

  “It doesn’t make sense to me,” said Richard pausing. “It’s something to do with a St Christopher’s medal.”

  “A St Christopher’s medal?”

  “Yes, you know one of those talisman things that you wear to bring you good luck, to guide you through life or some such thing –”

  “The police in Limerick have had this guy for a whole day and that’s as much as they’ve found out? Some crap about a St Christopher’s medal? What has that to do with anything for fuck’s sake?”

  She was angry.

  “Hold on a minute there, Charlie,” said Richard. “There’s no point in you getting uptight. Maybe you’re right, maybe this guy is a crank, but he did say something about Sarah and a St Christopher’s medal –”

  “Sorry, hold it there,” interrupted Charlotte. “This guy – he mentioned her by name? He actually spoke about Sarah?”

  “Yes,” said Richard solemnly. “And he mentioned the St Christopher’s medal as well.”

  “How strange.”

  Charlotte swirled the dregs of the tea in the plastic cup before gulping the last of the tepid liquid. What she’d heard was unsettling, but assessing the facts, they didn’t amount to anything compelling. There were so many unanswered questions. Unless there was something that Richard was shielding her from. Something he wasn’t telling her.

  “So, Richard, what do we have? There isn’t really a whole lot, is there? An odd-job guy, recently bereaved, and some weird story about a medal? Yet your police pal Shaw thinks he’s on to something?”

  “Well, there is another matter,” said Richard as he dusted crumbs from his jeans.

  “Yes?”

  Charlotte was holding her breath.

  “It may or may not be relevant,” he said. “Remember, I said that new evidence had come to light? That this guy had been interviewed at the time and didn’t arouse any particular suspicion –”

  “For God’s sake, Richard! Spit it out.” Why could he never get to the point like everyone else?

  “Okay, okay. Well, it appears there may be a question mark over why he left the army.”

  “He was in the army? Why didn’t you say?”

  “I’m saying now, aren’t I?” Richard put a hand on her knee as if he were talking to a small child. “The police didn’t know that at the time. They thought this guy was just a tradesman. No one thought to check up on his background. Wouldn’t happen today, I admit. But he seemed innocent at the time. It now appears that this guy was an NCO in the army for twelve years sometime around the late Seventies and early Eighties. Did a number of overseas tours of duty. United Nations gigs, Lebanon and that sort of thing. Well, it seems on his last tour of duty he was sent home in disgrace. There was a court-martial and it appears that Private Nathan Queally was turfed out on his ear. That’s when he turned to odd-jobbing.”

  The anxiety that had ebbed, immediately reared its head again.

  “Do you know why was he was turfed out?” Charlotte asked, her chest feeling tight again. “What did he do?”

  “Shaw is looking into that now. Something to do with another NCO.”

  “Another NCO?”

  “Yes. Another Non Commissioned Officer,” said Richard. “It something to do with an assault on a woman.”

  Ruth

  University

  1991

  “Ruth, pet, if you’re in trouble, please tell me.”

  Leonard Kelly’s patience was sorely tested that summer of 1991. Ruth had really done it this time.

  “What were you doing in university?” he asked. “Is it drugs? Please… just tell me, Ruth.”

  “Jesus, Dad, of course it’s not drugs. What do you take me for?”

  Weed didn’t count.

  “Have you fallen in with a bad crowd?”

  He could be closer to the mark with that one.

  “No, Dad, I have the same friends I’ve had since first year.”

  “Mmm…” He sounded disapproving.

  The receiver felt hot against her ear and as she spoke, Ruth could picture her father on the other end, sitting in the office at the back of the shop, a bewildered look on his face. She’d winced as he read out her exam results over the phone. They’d arrived in the post earlier that day at home in Kerry. Ruth would have to go home from Chicago. She felt her father’s pain. And then she felt her own.

  “Ruth?”

  “Yes, Dad?”

  There was more hesitation and a clearing of the throat. “We weren’t prying Ruth, but your mother was in your room.”

  Bloody hell, what had her mother found?

  “It’s your post-office book, Ruth. You cleaned it out during the year. We’re just wondering because… just that…well, you told us you were saving to buy a car.”

  Ruth had been saving for a car. That post office book held all her baby-sitting money and all the money she’d saved from working in her father’s shop. But saving Kathy had been more important than a car.

  “I needed it, Dad. I can’t talk about it over the phone.” She’d make up some excuse before she saw him again. Why the hell had her mother been rooting around in her room? Were they really that worried about her?

  “It’s alright, Dad, I promise.”

  “You’re sure?” Leonard Kelly sounded uncertain. “Look, Ruth if there’s any problem, anything at all you can talk to me. Your mother doesn’t need to know. It can be between ourselves. I’m not as conservative as you might think. I’m not a judge or jury – just your dad.”

  Ruth’s heart melted. Poor old Dad. “It’s okay, honestly, Dad. No worries.”

  “Okay, pet, if you’re sure. I’ll see you at the airport.”

  Ruth had burst his bubble. Wounded his pride. The only one in the family to ever go to university and look at what she’d done. She’d messed it all up. Again. It was the second year in a row she’d failed her summer exams.

  Ruth still couldn’t believe it. She’d failed again after al
l the promises she’d made to herself. And to make matters worse her long-suffering father imagined she had fallen foul of something sinister.

  Failing second year Commerce was understandable. There was that tragic business of Lawrence’s suicide. There were all those druggie parties on Luke’s stinking trawler that Sarah had insisted they go to. There was moving house because of Mikey Fahy. Then there was Kathy’s phantom pregnancy.

  None of the men at the heart of each crisis had any connection with Ruth. She’d tried to study despite the mayhem but too much happened during the year – and none of it of her making. At least she’d passed the Autumn re-sits. She’d made it to Third Commerce. Like Ruth, Kathy passed the Autumn re-sits.

  Sarah hadn’t been so fortunate. To her mother’s ire, Sarah failed the re-sits and had to repeat the entire academic year. A career in pharmacy was looking further and further away.

  Finally there was Charlotte, who always seemed to pull through. However, for the first time ever, even Charlotte failed her exams that summer of 1991. It was a bad year for them all.

  As her aircraft made its lumbering descent into Shannon airport, she lamented how her working holiday had been cut short. What a waste of a J1 visa. She’d been having the time of her life at the Lake Michigan restaurant, making friends and hefty tips. There’d even been the beginnings of something with that cute Ivy League guy. But she had messed it all up. Staring miserably at the baggage carousel she resolved never to put herself in such a predicament again.

  * * *

  Her father was waiting for her at Arrivals with a rueful smile. “That’s my girl,” he said, patting Ruth on the back. He picked up her rucksack with an air of resignation. There was no recrimination, no opprobrium, none of the expected anger. But the lack of it made her feel worse. She’d have preferred it if he’d ranted and raved.

  “Good flight?” he asked.

  “A bit bumpy to start. Then I fell asleep.”

  “Hungry?”

  “Starving.”

  “Your mother will have a cooked breakfast waiting for you.”

  “I’m looking forward to it.”

  The pleasantries continued with little reference to the exams.

  “I’ll pass my exams in the autumn, Dad.” Ruth would broach the subject first.

  “Of course you will, pet.”

  “It won’t happen again. I’m doing my finals next year. And I’m going to get my finals. I promise you that.”

  “I know, Ruth. Just as long as you’re okay.”

  They passed the next half-hour of the car journey in companionable silence.

  “I got distracted this year but it won’t happen again.” Ruth opened up the subject again as they drove past a signpost heralding Listowel 60 miles.

  “Sure, we won’t say any more about it. There’s always a place in the shops for you, you know that, Ruth, if college doesn’t work out.”

  Christ. The very thought of it made her shudder. That’s what she was afraid of. She couldn’t possibly end up in one of the bloody shops. She’d absolutely hate it. At least she wasn’t being forced into the family business like Sarah. She sometimes wondered how Sarah could bear to be corralled like that.

  For Ruth, having spent a short-lived summer in the States she knew she wanted to get out of Ireland. She’d never stick its close confines, the inquisitive community that bordered on the suffocating, everyone watching everyone else. Ruth wanted the anonymity and possibilities of the world outside.

  It was up to her. She was as responsible of her future as she was for where she found herself now. In Ruth’s defence, there had been several mitigating factors, several extenuating circumstances. She stared out at the fields as the car sped by and thought back over the year.

  It would be easy to say that it had been Kathy’s fault. No one suggested that Ruth get involved. She had taken things upon herself. Was she a busybody, she wondered? A pain in the ass, poking her nose where it didn’t belong? Or was she being too harsh on herself?

  But Kathy could never have sorted things out for herself. The girl couldn’t manage her way out of a brown paper bag. What kind of idiot would go back out with a guy who’d dumped her when he feared she might be pregnant?

  However, shortly afterwards disaster struck for real. It was laughable. And it was tragic. It was so completely Kathy. However it came about – and Ruth had her suspicions – Kathy somehow fell pregnant for real to the same guy who couldn’t run far enough the first time he thought she was pregnant.

  The entire housing estate must have heard her screaming from the upstairs bathroom that Saturday morning.

  “No, no! I don’t believe it… shit, shit, shit – it must be wrong! It can’t be true, the bloody thing is faulty.”

  Like demented crows, Ruth, Charlotte, and Sarah squawked outside the bathroom door, knocking and banging and making frantic enquiries as to the cause of her anguished outburst. A commission of enquiry then took place on the upstairs landing.

  “What do you mean – you’re ‘pregnant’?” Sarah was in her fluffy bathrobe.

  “I’m pregnant, up the duff, bun in the oven,” screeched Kathy, hysterically waving the testing wand.

  “We went through all of this the last time,” said Sarah calmly. “I’m sure it’s another false alarm.” She was trying to help.

  “Look at that fucking window. Look at the fucking line!” Kathy was frantic.

  “Take it down a notch,” Ruth had said. She needed a clear head. “I don’t see how this can be. I thought you were on the pill?”

  Kathy stared at her. Blinking. Thinking.

  “I was. And then… then… well I didn’t have the money to go to the doctor for another prescription.”

  “So you went ahead and had unprotected sex?” Charlotte seemed bemused. Somehow Ruth couldn’t imagine Charlotte getting caught out quite so easily.

  “No.” Kathy flushed. “I didn’t just – that’s not the way it happened. I’m not stupid you know. It didn’t happen like that. I asked him to wear a… I said ‘no’… but he –” She stopped talking, looking even more uncomfortable.

  Everyone went still.

  “He forced you?” Ruth asked eventually.

  “No! God, no. Of course not,” Kathy protested. But there was a flash of something in her eyes. Something painful. Just for a split second. Something felt off.

  “You’re sure?”

  It had often struck Ruth that behind Josh White’s macho exterior lay a streak of menace. If indeed Kathy had been forced to have sex, if she’d been raped, she’d pretend it didn’t happen. She’d find a way of rationalising it, bearing it quietly, seeing it as something she brought on herself – her fault. It wasn’t anything she’d ever talk about. She’d cover for him alright.

  “For Christ’s sake just drop it. Of course I’m sure.”

  Ruth let it go. It was clear this line of questioning was going nowhere.

  But she wasn’t convinced. Josh White was exactly the kind of guy who’d feel entitled to take whatever he wanted. And Ruth knew how easy it would be to shut Kathy up, to manipulate her.

  “Okay then, when do you think this happened?” she asked instead knowing it was probably too late now for the morning-after-pill.

  Kathy was pacing up and down, biting her nails. “That party – the one in Tirellan Heights I think. You know the one where the cops were called?”

  “We didn’t go,” said Charlotte. “Remember, none of us wanted to go the whole way out there.”

  “I think I remember that night though,” said Sarah chewing the belt of her dressing gown. “That was the night you and Josh climbed in the window over the front door porch. You forgot your keys or he lost them…was it that night?”

  “Yeah, yeah I think so,” Kathy said. “He went for a piss in someone’s garden on the way home. The keys fell out of his pocket.”

  “Classy,” muttered Ruth.

  “Oh Jesus, this is mad,” said Kathy. “What am I going to do?”

  O
nce again Kathy became disconsolate, her presence casting a pall over the house. Josh White was adept at making himself scarce. There were no offers of help or support. Overnight, Josh White disappeared from the crazy collage of Kathy’s life. There followed two weeks of surreal late-night conversations and missed morning lectures.

  “If it’s a boy, I’ll call him Lawrence – after my brother,” she’d said staring into the dregs of a cold cup of coffee.

  “Your parents won’t mind? They’ll help out?”

  Ruth went along with the charade. She couldn’t help feeling sceptical. How would parents unable to accept a gay son cope with a single parent? It seemed unlikely.

  “I’m sure they’ll get used to the idea…” Kathy sounded unconvinced. “Might even pull Mam round a bit, she might start talking again.”

  “Talking again? What do you mean?” Sarah was making the fifth round of coffee that night.

  “Mam stopped talking after Lawrence died. All she does is smoke and look at old photo albums.”

  This was a revelation to them all. Kathy hadn’t spoken much about Lawrence or her parents since his death. And Ruth had never felt comfortable asking about anything in case the asking would bring more pain.

  “Is your mother on medication? You know anti-depressants or anything?” asked Sarah.

  “Don’t know,” Kathy said, shrugging. “I guess so. I mean she must be. Mustn’t she? Dad takes her to the doctor a lot. But he doesn’t say much either. My folks wouldn’t really talk about medication. They wouldn’t talk about that kind of thing.”

  It struck Ruth that Kathy’s folks didn’t talk about anything very much. The more serious something was, the less likely they were to talk about it.

  There was a hush in the sitting-room as they tried to picture Kathy’s grief-ridden mother raising a bawling child while Kathy continued at university. As if she could read their minds, Kathy ran her hands through her purple hair and mused, “Of course I could always park my course when the baby comes and take it up at a later date.”

  Nobody broke the silence that followed.

  For two whole weeks Sarah and Charlotte along with Ruth listened to the pendulum of decision-making swing to and fro.