The Godforsaken Daughter

by Christina McKenna

  “‘Well,’ I said. ‘They’re the strongest constipation pills we have, madam.’” She scoped the table. “Mr. Ross says we must all address customers as ‘madam’—even oul’ slappers like her—or ‘sir,’ to give a good impression. So I said: ‘In that case you’d best take him to the doctor. It could be serious. He might have a blockage.’ And d’you know what she said, right out in front of everybody? ’Cos there was quite a queue forming, with her keeping everybody back. She says, ‘Blockage, me arse, missus! Gimme me effin’ money back.’”

  “Not much breeding in that one. God, there are some very crude people in Belfast. Is it any wonder they’re all killing each other?”

  “Oh, Mummy, you don’t know the half of it. What I have to put up with!” She looked down at her plate. “This dinner’s cold.”

  “Ruby, put that in the microwave for your sister.”

  Any wonder it’s cold? You’ve been gabbing so much. But Ruby did as she was told.

  “You know, next Sunday is the blessing of the graves,” continued the mother. “Could you get another one of those angels for your father’s plinth?”

  Ruby replaced May’s plate and took her seat again. She saw the twins exchange furtive looks.

  “Oh, we’ll not be coming home next weekend, Mummy,” May said, avoiding her mother’s eye. “We’re going to—”

  “Manchester,” June blurted out, and winced at once. Ruby knew by May’s peeved face that she’d just kicked her sister under the table.

  Martha stared at the pair of them. “Manchester! And what’s in Manchester that could be more important than the blessing of your poor father’s grave?”

  Ruby saw May hesitate. “Well, it’s . . . Alistair in work. He’s . . . a—”

  “He’s a cousin of George Best’s,” said June, coming to the rescue. “And George will be playing at Old Trafford next Saturday, so he got us tickets for the match.”

  The mother set her cutlery down and glared at them. “So a hairy-faced, womanizing Protestant who kicks a ball about a field is more important to you pair than Cemetery Sunday. I must say I’m very disappointed in you, May.”

  “Och, Mummy, don’t be like that. The tickets were really expensive and it might be the only chance we’ll ever get to—”

  “I thought George Best retired last year,” Ruby cut in, risking May’s wrath again.

  May glared at her then busied herself with the food plate. “He did. But this is one of those . . . What’s it called, June?”

  “A friendly,” June said, but she was looking daggers at Ruby, too.

  “That’s the one: a friendly.”

  “Could you get me his autograph?” George was a heartthrob for the entire female population of Northern Ireland, and Ruby was immediately envious that her sisters were going to actually see him at such close quarters.

  May said nothing.

  “Well, we’ll see, Ruby,” June said, finally. “But we can’t promise.”

  “We’ll bring you home the angel the following weekend,” May added, covertly eyeing her sister. “Now, tell Mummy about that new nail polish you were telling me about.”

  Martha took up her cutlery again. She shook her head. “I don’t know what your poor father would say.”

  “Yes, Mummy, we launched a new color—Spice Romance—last Tuesday,” June began. She splayed a hand of perfectly painted nails. The twins were blessed with slim, tapered hands. Fingers made for rings, nails made for painting. “Isn’t it lovely? What do you think, Ruby?”

  Ruby put down her knife and fork, and dropped her hands into her lap, conscious of her bitten nails.

  May smirked. “What a daft question! How could she wear nail polish? She’s got no nails. They’re all chewed off her.”

  “They’re not chewed off me, May!” Ruby had had enough. The twin had been itching for a fight from the moment she’d stepped over the threshold. Well, now she was going to get one. “I can’t keep them long like youse two, ’cos I wash and cook and clean here every day. It’s easy for youse, standing behind counters, doin’ next to—”

  “How dare you speak to us like that!” May jumped up.

  Mrs. Clare whacked the table with the serving spoon, staining the white tablecloth Ruby had so painstakingly starched that morning.

  “Stop bickering this minute!” The room filled up with a stunned silence. But not for long. “Your sisters work hard all week. They need peace when they come home.”

  Ruby, close to tears, but using her anger to buttress herself, took aim at the mother. “Oh, and I don’t work hard all week, too. Why do you always take their side?”

  When her father was alive, he’d kept the peace at the dinner table, always supporting Ruby. Since his death, it was as if all three of them were taking their revenge. Pent-up vitriol held in check for years, erupting like a Yellowstone geyser.

  “Oh my good God! What have I reared at all?” Mrs. Clare’s beseeching whine heralded the onset of one of her “turns,” a devotional spectacle of theatrical proportions, guaranteed to make Lady Macbeth look like Bo Peep. She slid to her knees, clutching her heart, directing her entreaty to a picture of Dymphna, patron saint of the mentally afflicted, which hung above the kitchen door.

  May caught her wrist, trying to placate. “Mummy, Mummy, get up! Get up. Don’t listen to her. Don’t upset yourself.”

  But, too late, Mrs. Clare was already in character, gripping the table edge, face twisted in a show of agonized supplication. “Oh Holy Mother of God. And your poor father gone. Oh, my heart . . . my heart, my—”

  May turned on Ruby. “Now look what you’ve started! You couldn’t leave it alone, could you?”

  “I didn’t start anything. You did. You said I chewed me nails.”

  “And you do chew your bloody nails. I was only stating a fact!”

  “Oh God. Why can’t I have peace at this time of my life?” Mrs. Clare hung her head and beat her breast. She was working herself up to a grand finale, a set piece that would see her helped up the stairs like Jesus climbing Calvary, followed by the rosary, a cup of Horlicks, a Mogadon, and finally, mercifully: sleep.

  But no, this time the set piece was to have a very different ending.

  Suddenly, she shot to her feet and flew at Ruby, slapping her hard across the face. Ruby stumbled, shocked.

  “Get up them stairs to your room!” the mother wailed. “And if I see your face down here again I’ll—”

  “Do as she says, Ruby,” June frightened, pulling her mother back. “Go on, Ruby. Go on. If Mummy has a heart attack it’ll be your fault.”

  Ruby held her smarting cheek, staring down at the table. In a heartbeat she’d been returned to childhood: a childhood of beatings and insults at the hands of her mother. Why did she hate Ruby so much? Ruby the punching bag.

  Silently she turned away from them, straining to yell, to scream, to rend the air with all the injustice she felt. But she kept her mouth shut, kept the tears at bay until she reached the safety of her bedroom.

  Once inside, she collapsed on the bed and surrendered to the luxury of weeping, using her pillow to stifle the sobs.

  “Daddy, Daddy, why did you leave me? Why, oh why did you leave me with them?”

  Exhausted, she fell into a deep sleep, and dreamed.

  A lucid dream, full of mystery and foreboding.

  Ruby, a little girl again.

  It was her First Communion, and she was standing in front of the mirror in her parents’ bedroom in her white frock. Her mother was tying a ribbon in her hair, pulling the ribbon so tight it was hurting the sides of her head. But little Ruby didn’t complain. She felt so special in her “bride’s” frock, her stiff patent shoes and frilled socks.

  Task completed. The mother straightened. She was wearing a blue two-piece in shiny satin. A white pillbox with spotted net that came down to her eyebrows a
nd matching gloves up to her elbows.

  “That’s you,” she said, looking down at Ruby. “Now I’m Father Cardy.” She mimed, holding a chalice and extracting the host. “Body of Christ.”

  Ruby obediently shut her eyes and stuck out her tongue—only to be rewarded with her ear being twisted so tightly that she cried.

  “How many times do you have to be told? Say ‘Amen’ before you put out your tongue.”

  “A-A-Amen,” Ruby repeated, tearful.

  “Stop that this minute or I’ll pull the other one.”

  Ruby dried her eyes with the back of her hand.

  “Now, when you’re coming down from the altar, what must you remember?”

  “Not tae . . . Not tae chew.”

  “Why not?”

  “’Cos . . . ’Cos it’s . . . it’s the, the b-b-body of C-C-Christ, so it is.”

  Next she was being pushed into a candlelit room, still in her white frock. There were elderly people huddled on chairs around the walls, murmuring the rosary. The smell of candle wax, heavy on the air.

  At the back of the room sat a coffin on a bier.

  Her mother was behind her.

  “Go and say a prayer there, for your granny.”

  Ruby was terrified. She wanted to run away, but her mother was behind her. She didn’t want to look in the coffin. She wanted to scream.

  “Her first death, the wee critter,” she heard a woman say.

  “Aye, and the sooner she gets used to it, the better.”

  Seven-year-old Ruby shut her eyes tight. Her mother’s hand was on the nape of her neck, forcing her to look at the corpse.

  “Look, for heaven’s sake!” The mother’s grip grew tighter. “Look!”

  Ruby opened her eyes. But the corpse was no old lady. It was the present-day Ruby, lying there in her old gingham dress, arms stiff by her sides. A pendant gleamed on her chest. A flat circle of red flanked by two half-moons: one white, one black.

  “A NEW BEGINNING, RUBY. A NEW BEGINNING.”

  She woke with a start.

  The voice—a woman’s—low and soft, had been right there in the room.

  Ruby’s heart was pounding. She sat up, fearful, saw that the window, with drapes undrawn, was murky with night. The dressing table, the closet, the old armchair with her stuffed toys shouldering out of the gloom, all reassured her. The clock read 11:00 p.m. She’d slept a whole three hours.

  The house was silent.

  They must all be asleep.

  The events of the evening came back to her. She put her hand to her cheek. It still stung. No, she hadn’t dreamed that part. Her mother had slapped her. May and June had been nasty to her. But instead of feeling vengeful toward them, she felt unusually calm. Forgiving, almost.

  These charitable feelings, which in the past would have seemed so alien, seemed right somehow. She felt fortified by them. Was this the birth of that new beginning the voice in the dream had promised? Could it be so?

  She got up, and stood foursquare by the bed, as if testing the fact that she could stand up for herself.

  Her head felt light, but at the same time she felt strangely energized. She crossed to the door, aware for the first time that she was putting one foot down solidly after the other. She found herself counting the paces. Only four from the bed to the door. She’d lived for the best part of twenty years in that room and had never before been conscious of the distance.

  This detail surprised her, and it was accompanied by thoughts that were equally surprising. This was her territory. She, Ruby Clare, would take her place. No one would steal her peace away from her because she—Ruby—would not be giving it away. Not any longer.

  She left the room and tiptoed onto the landing.

  In the darkness of the corridor she saw a seam of light coming from under May and June’s bedroom door.

  Unusual, at that hour.

  Sometimes, however, they fell asleep reading. She’d just slip her hand around the door and switch the light off.

  As she drew nearer she heard their voices. They were still up. Her sisters were arguing.

  Intrigued, she put an ear to the door.

  June’s voice: “What else could I say? I . . . was . . . trying to save you from—”

  May: “. . . bloody Manchester. You eejit. Of all places. Dublin. Cork, maybe. But Manchester!”

  Ruby heard footsteps, a closet door opening.

  It was too risky to linger. She tiptoed down the stairs.

  The table was just as she’d left it. The discarded dishes scattered about, awaiting her attentions. The remainder of the pie left uncovered. The chairs in disorder.

  Ruby took in the scene. She would clear it up in the morning, as she always did. She would keep the peace for the remainder of the weekend.

  She went to the fridge and helped herself to a generous portion of sherry trifle. A reward of sorts.

  She carried the bowl back up the stairs. Saw that the light in the twins’ bedroom was now off.

  What was going on? Why had they been arguing over Manchester?

  They rarely fought about anything. There was something mysterious going on. And Ruby knew that, whatever it was, she’d be the last to know.

  Chapter six

  Belfast, 1983

  They’d come within forty-eight hours, as promised: two police officers. A female sergeant named Hanson, together with her assistant, Constable Lyle. Lyle did not inspire confidence: tall and lanky with the diffidence of a schoolboy. But Hanson, who could easily have passed for the young man’s mother, made up for the lack. Unprepossessing, with dark hair and plain features, she exuded a solemn air of grim professionalism. The only clue to a life beyond the uniform: a discreet wedding band.

  At their request, Henry led them up to the bedroom.

  “What exactly are you looking for?” he asked, standing in the doorway, peeved at their aloofness and the nonchalant way in which they were invading this most private of spaces. Hanson had opened Connie’s underwear drawer and was casually rummaging through it.

  “We’ll know when we find it,” Lyle said, hunkered down at one of the bedside lockers. “Like this, for example.” He was holding up Connie’s diary.

  “You can’t have that!” Henry said, annoyed that he hadn’t done a more thorough search of the locker himself. “It’s private.”

  “Yes, and for that very reason we’ll be needing it,” Hanson said, not bothering to look his way. She pushed home the lingerie drawer and turned. “Nothing is considered private when a person goes missing, sir. It’s the personal items that often hold the key.” He didn’t much care for the way she was sizing him up. “You do want us to find her, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do. It goes without saying.”

  “Then let us do our job. We’ll be finished shortly. A cup of tea would be welcome.”

  Henry did as he was bidden. He was not used to being on the receiving end of another’s orders, but was finding that, in the present political climate and when dealing with the Royal Ulster Constabulary, it was best to comply.

  A few minutes later, Sergeant Hanson joined him in the kitchen. Lyle was nowhere to be seen. “Constable Lyle will continue searching the other rooms,” she said, pulling out a chair at the table and settling herself. “You have no objection, Dr. Shevlin?”

  “No . . . no, of course not.” He set a mug of tea before her and took the chair opposite. At such proximity he could smell her scent: a light, flowery essence, not at all in keeping with her gruff personality. She removed her peaked cap—revealing an expertly cropped mop of glossy hair—and set it down on the table. Withdrew a notebook from her breast pocket. Every movement slowly executed. She’d performed this ritual many times.

  “I’ll be liaising with you from now on,” she said, opening the notebook and taking out a pen. “I’ve been put in cha
rge of your case. Now, tell me about Constance. I need to know as much as possible.”

  Henry shrugged. “Gosh, where do I start?”

  “The day before she left, did you notice anything unusual in her demeanor?”

  “No, not really.”

  “‘Not really’ would indicate to me that you did notice something.”

  She sounds like a trial lawyer at the bench, he thought. But giving evidence in court was, no doubt, part of her job.

  “Just a bit pensive at breakfast. She hadn’t slept too well, so I didn’t read too much into it. When one is tired one’s mood usually drops.”

  “She has sleep problems?”

  “No, on the contrary, she’s an excellent sleeper. Out like a light way before me, normally. Just on the odd occasion she’ll have a restless night.”

  “The last time you spoke to her was over breakfast on the morning of Wednesday, the twenty-fifth of May?”

  “That’s correct.” He noticed she was recording his answers in shorthand.

  “What did you talk about?”

  “Oh, this and that. She was working on some stage sets for . . . for Arms and the Man, I believe . . . in the studio in town. She was excited they were nearing completion.”

  “Which studio?”

  “Mondrian’s, on Kashmir Street. It’s an art gallery as well . . .”

  “How did you and Constance meet?”

  “In hospital.”

  “She was a colleague?”

  “No. A patient. She’d been admitted following the death of her mother . . . she’d taken an overdose.”

  Hanson stopped her shorthand and looked at him.

  “Her . . . her mother had died very suddenly. She—I mean Connie—had been very close to her. She just couldn’t cope with the loss. It was the first time she’d been confronted with death. Nothing had prepared her for it.”

  “How old was she?”

  “Twenty-one. She’d dropped out of college. Had started her first job—”

  “Which was . . . ?”