by Faith Hogan
In saying that, she wouldn’t swap coming here to visit Conn for all the world. Her first visit, far from being awkward, had left her with a sense that she had found a touchstone. It resounded within her even when she returned to the pub, late into the night. Now, when she lay awake, she was not listening for out of kilter noises, but rather, her memory filled with every word that passed between them. Conn Gibson was, perhaps because he’d never settled anywhere for long, one of those people who carried within him a sense that he was already home. Jane felt it, as they spent time together, that she was returning to some place within her that was home too. It was unspoken, but she suspected that Conn felt the very same.
‘I’m glad you convinced Luke to go to that wedding,’ he confided in her. ‘It gives us a chance to…’ he pulled his breath in and she was grateful for every time he managed to inhale. Luke, when he was here, spent his time flapping about his father, not wanting him to waste a precious breath of life.
‘To be honest, it didn’t take very much convincing on my part. I have a feeling that he and Carrie are more fond of each other than either of them realises.’
‘Still, it’s nice, isn’t it?’
‘It is,’ she agreed gently.
‘I’d love to think that he found somewhere to call home and people to call his own, before I…’ Conn said hoarsely and a flicker passed across his eyes. ‘I have no right, I know to look for anything more now…’ he shook his head smiling bravely. ‘A year ago, all I’d wanted was to find my brother or his family and now here I am hoping for…’
‘It’s only natural,’ Jane hushed him, ‘to want the best for your children, I suppose.’ She thought about Luke and Carrie. In an ideal world they’d fall in love and live happily ever after, but she wasn’t sure that either of them was ready to see what was best for them. ‘Well, you never know what’s around the corner. If you wait around long enough, you might get the chance to match-make a little more,’ she said smiling and they both laughed softly then.
*
In some ways, Jane felt that visiting Conn, was like being given a chance to spend a little extra time with Manus. He spoke with the same soft inflection. Although his accent was less local, there was no missing that same hint of diluted London, with a dash of everywhere but a body of Irish. It marked out not just his voice, but his words too, so Jane found herself picking out phrases that she hadn’t heard in years.
‘You’re smiling,’ he said when he’d finished telling her a story about his time spent in Northern France.
‘It’s just I’m so glad that we managed to find each other, it feels like a chance to make some more connection with Manus.’
‘Are we really that alike?’
‘More than I can put into words.’ Then she thought for a moment, ‘I think that’s what struck me about Luke, even though I couldn’t have explained it at first if I tried. I just saw him in the distance. Actually, when I think back, I could hardly make him out, but I felt as if he was rooting for me. I was being carried off on that stretcher and, in some funny way, it seemed as if we had connected and I wasn’t quite so alone as before.’
It was still early in the afternoon when the taxi collected her to bring her back to The Marchant Inn and Teddy. Were it not for the little dog, she might have stayed in the nursing home all evening. But she could see that Conn was tired, no matter how much he wanted her to stay, she had a feeling that the nurses were glad to see her to the door so they could get on with the business of readying him for the night. Teddy had a warm welcome for her at least, even if Finch Street felt even emptier now, with the restaurant opposite closed up while Carrie was down in Sligo.
Jane made her way through the bar, she hadn’t opened for business after dinnertime in a decade – her trade was afternoon, accidental customers who called more for a chat than anything else. Pamela Nolan promised to call in the following evening, but for tonight, Jane would have to make do with Teddy and the television for company.
Eighteen
Luke and Carrie were walking back through the woods, the light fading fast, making the trees appear velvety, as if they’d been drawn by shaky hands on a perfect stage set. Ben and Melissa had headed off an hour earlier, in a flurry of excitement for a honeymoon that would only last a week but cost a fortune. They were madly in love and Luke wondered if perhaps there was something catching in the air as he held Carrie’s eye when they waved them off.
‘It’s been the most amazing place to stay, hasn’t it?’ Carrie said, still drinking in the beauty of the snowy woods around them.
‘Thanks for bringing me along,’ Luke said, pocketing his hands deeper into his jacket. ‘We probably should have brought more clothes though,’ he laughed then and wrapped his arm about Carrie’s shoulder. It felt good to draw her near. Everything about being with her was good and Luke knew that this was influencing his future plans far more than he’d ever have expected. There had been women before Carrie, those who’d filled months at a time and one who’d taken up almost two years, but nothing had ever felt like this. Carrie was like coming home – it was that simple and yet, for Luke, it was that profound. The buzz of his mobile sounded tinny and unwelcome in his pocket. He looked at Carrie, it seemed a shame to break up this peacefulness by taking a call, but since only a handful of people had this mobile number, there really wasn’t much of a choice.
‘Hello, it’s Breege Daly here, I’m the matron at…’
‘Of course,’ Luke remembered the woman who had inadvertently broken the most terrible news to him only a short time ago. ‘How are you, Matron? Is everything all right with my Father?’
‘I’m sorry, but I think you should come, straight away, he’s had a turn…’ she faltered in that way that people do when there is bad news but they hope you’ll stitch together their silences, saving the work of putting your worst fears into words. ‘He was fine earlier, sitting up in bed, chatting away to his friend… Of course, it can happen like that… a real brightness and then…’
‘He’s dying?’ Luke said in an automatic way that didn’t really register with him.
‘I’m sorry, but yes, I think he might be. Can you come quickly?’
‘I’m in Sligo…’ he said, but, of course, he knew the business-like matron couldn’t postpone things at her end just because he found himself at the furthest corner of the country.
‘Well, can you make your way here as fast as possible?’ Urgency stretched out the silence between them cruelly.
‘Of course, we’ll set off straight away.’ Luke said and next to him, Carrie was already picking up their walking pace so they could pack up and get on the road without wasting any time.
*
Luke wasn’t really aware of the journey back to Dublin. It was a two-hour blur of green darkening into ephemeral navy and then, too soon, to dismal grey-black. He hardly noticed driving through the tall pillars of Ballyglen or up the long narrow drive that usually irritated him with its promise of expanse that most of the residents only saw as they made their way in to the place.
Carrie pulled her car into a parking spot reserved for staff and Luke had a feeling that no one was going to tackle either of them. The corridors, normally deeply burdened with a heavy scent of something that might masquerade as lavender or vanilla on the label, tonight just smelled of frigid dread. Luke had a feeling that this was always here, kept neatly at the edges, like turned-in sheets that dare not break their ironed configuration. His father’s room was at the end of one of those many endless corridors – whose attempt at homeliness stretched to gaudy watercolours but fell far short of anything beyond functional relief. Pushing the door open, Luke felt the kind of trepidation he remembered from somewhere in his childhood, although he couldn’t put a finger on what could have brought up such a mixture of love, fear and grief in him before.
‘Ah, you made it…’ the matron turned to look at him from taking his father’s pulse. She lay Conn’s hand gently over the bedcovers and needlessly tucked the blankets clos
e about him.
‘Dad…’ Luke whispered and he realised that if he didn’t know that this was his father, he would have questioned if it wasn’t some cruel joke and someone hadn’t replaced his Dad with a shell that might vaguely resemble the man he’d known all his life. ‘Dad, can you hear me?’ he asked softly.
‘He’s had a lot of medication, the pain, you see…’ the matron was whispering to Carrie, ‘he may hear you, but it’s unlikely he’ll be able to speak to you. Earlier, he raised a smile, so…’
‘He’s not in any pain now?’ Luke asked.
‘No. He’s just sleeping peacefully, but… without the medication, well, it would be unbearable, so…’ She nodded towards a drip that stood to attention over his father, like a drill sergeant. ‘If you weren’t here, I’d stay with him all night, but…’
‘We’ll stay…’ Carrie said softly, sitting on a chair in a darkened corner of the room where the light could not reach to pick out the shadows or the heavy overhanging grief that pushed in uninvited.
‘Can I get you something? Tea or maybe something light to eat, if you’ve driven all the way from Sligo…’ the matron was saying, but this was not a time for food or drink.
‘Maybe I could use a bathroom,’ Carrie asked and she followed the matron out of the room, as much, Luke figured, to give him time alone as for any other reason. In the hallway he heard the matron say, it would not be long, Mr Gibson had no more than hours, it was a miracle that he’d held on this long.
Luke dropped down beside his father, rested his head across that shrunken chest, he listened for that faintest heartbeat moving featherlike within; precious, brief and inadequate.
‘Oh, Dad,’ he whispered, there was so very much to say, but Luke had a feeling that he was drifting away, a diaphanous sheet upon a timeless plain. He imagined him wandering across the Phoenix Park, watching the herds of deer and then drifting out into the ether – content and happy that his life had somehow brought him back so he could repose with the family that he’d always felt he missed.
By the time Carrie arrived back, he was gone, it was one long contented sigh and then his quivering heart was at rest. She put her arms around Luke and rather than feeling overwhelmed with grief, the inevitable sadness that he felt was textured with something else, and when he looked down at his father’s face, he had a feeling that the old man was smiling at him. He had brought him here, to Dublin, to The Marchant Inn, to Jane, and maybe even to Carrie.
*
It was after eleven when Jane heard an almighty crash downstairs in the bar. There was no mistaking it, someone was moving about, grubbing, searching, emptying. Teddy, at her feet, began to growl, low and constant, as if he was content to lie in wait but wouldn’t leave her side, no matter what. Jane placed a hand on his head and shushed him, she was glad he was staying with her tonight, but, she thought, better to keep as still as possible. All the same, Jane thought her heart might explode in her chest from fear. It battered firm and fast as though it might break out if it got a chance. She placed her hand on it to feel it thunder beneath her clothes, then she realised her fingers wrapped around the cool chain on her alarm. She pressed it hard, kept her fingers on it, so she wondered if she mightn’t have broken it. She took a deep breath, she couldn’t think like that. They would send an ambulance, but it didn’t matter. She didn’t care who they sent, so long as someone knocked at the front door and broke it down if they had to, to get to her.
Now, it felt like the whole city had fallen into an incubated silence, as if Dublin was holding its breath with her, even the noises downstairs stopped. Jane could almost convince herself that it had been her imagination; that her mind, vivid and normally on edge once darkness fell, had finally fooled her into believing that they’d come back. That was silly, of course, the men who’d broken in here fifteen years earlier were well gone. The police told her at the time that they’d taken off to England and that was the last anyone would see of them. They had done the unspeakable and they would never come back here, even Jane knew that.
Mentally, Jane began to go through what the men might take from the bar, it seemed to her, the more they could take, the longer it would keep them downstairs and that gave her more time. There were a few unopened bottles of spirits, a pittance in the till and, of course, the old-fashioned cabinet where she kept tobacco and cigarettes. That was something that would take time to empty and its contents would be worth stealing. Even if they sold it all on for half price, there was a still a couple of thousand euro of stock there.
She wondered if she should hide, but apart from the fact that she wasn’t confident she had the courage to move, there was also the risk that if she made a noise, they might come bounding up the stairs all the sooner. The only thing she could do was to place the pendant underneath her, then at least if they did find her, they would not know that she had already called for help.
Then she heard it, an ominous, creaking noise that sounded too loud to be real. It was unmistakable though, the door that led from the bar to the bottom of the stairs. It opened with a ferocious creaking slowness, as if a child had pulled the handle back to reveal a fairyland beyond. The heavy steps that loped two or three at a time towards her told Jane these were no children. Teddy, at her feet, snarled more viciously with each tread on the stairs. Jane pulled his head closer to her; she couldn’t bear it if they hurt him just to keep him quiet. The sitting room door heaved open with a sigh of relief, as though it expected more. And then, Jane felt the blood drop from her head, right down to the soles of her feet. Two men, both obscenely big and brutish, it seemed to her at least, stood at the doorway. They filled it up, as though their very intentions were too malicious to be held within their frames. The first, stalking into the room, cast narrow eyes about, taking in what might be valuable to him. Of course, he didn’t count her or the years of memories that filled this room as having any real value in the terms he measured it. The second, it seemed to Jane, even bigger, thuggish, didn’t have such an assessing stare, but he had a rough blankness about him, so she had a feeling her life would not weigh heavily on his conscience.
‘You, old lady, where is the safe?’ the broader of the two was foreign, hard, and his black eyes were unforgiving. Even his tattoos made her scared, but then she thought about Luke and the men who called here one day while she was still in hospital – these two fitted everything Luke had told her about them.
‘There’s nothing here, but look…’ On any given day, the takings were small, but Jane hadn’t opened the bar in days, so there was nothing. She moved towards the old safe that stood beneath a fringed cloth and acted more as a side table than anything else. She kept it open, afraid now that if she locked it, there was always the chance that she’d forget where she’d left the old-fashioned key. ‘Here, this is where I used to keep any takings, but there is nothing here, the bar’s been closed since before Christmas,’ she said, but they weren’t listening to her, instead, the slighter of the two was reaching into the back of the safe, pulling out certificates and deeds that had been left there.
‘Pah, there is nothing here,’ he said, stretching over her.
‘My purse,’ Jane said, pointing towards her bag on the door hook behind them. One of them pulled it down while the other began to pull apart the contents of the old sideboard. Jane fell back in the chair. Teddy’s collar slipped from her hands, but he stood resolutely at her feet, a line of defence shielding her from harm. She should make her way towards the door, she knew that, she should try to get out of here, but she had a feeling there was no point. These men would not just let her walk away. In the distance, she thought she heard the wail of a siren, but the two men were far too busy to notice. She put it from her mind, she needed to stay calm.
‘There must be more here than just this,’ the stockier man said now. ‘Old lady, it would not be smart to hide or make the fools of us,’ the man laughed, but there was nothing funny about his eyes.
‘No. No, I haven’t anything more, really. Yo
u can pull the place apart all you want, but you won’t find anything more.’ She shook her head and hated that her voice sounded so frail.
‘Come on, Simo,’ the thinner man said, making his way towards the narrow stairs that led to the top floor and rooms that Jane never used anymore.
She heard them thunder upwards, knew that now was her chance to make her way towards the front door. She slipped silently from her chair, moved softly towards the door and pulled it gently behind her, turning over the lock with a whispery click. At her side, Teddy moved as silently too and, for a moment, they might have been in cahoots in some childish game, apart from the devouring fear tightening within her chest. She held on to the stair rail steadfastly and she made her way as quickly as she could down the stairs. As she crossed through the bar, she thought her heart pounding so hard in her chest felt as if it was loud enough to alert the whole city, never mind the two upstairs. Shattered glass lay beneath the door that had been their entry, she realised it had been easy, she had just left the key in the lock, an invitation sitting there all this time.
She pulled at the locks on the door, realising too late that they’d thrown them over and taken the keys with them. She was locked inside, part of her wanted to run to a corner and fall into a crying heap, cover over her eyes and wait until this was all over, but she knew that would do no good. She would have to go back upstairs again. The two men would quickly break through the locked door upstairs and then she had a feeling that they would be even nastier. Too late, she heard them push against the door; it was as though they were throwing their huge weights at it.
Outside, not so far off, she heard the wail of sirens in the distance; help was coming, if it would only get here before they made it down the stairs. She rattled the front doors once more, knew it was useless. Perhaps if she went around the back, but it was just a closed-in yard, there was no way out of there. Still, if she was out of their way, the men might just decide to head out into the night. She opened the back door to a blast of icy air, but it did not matter. Out here, it sounded like the silent Dublin she remembered as a child. Now, surely, all she had to do was wait…
