The Godforsaken Daughter

by Christina McKenna

  They sat at the kitchen table in silence.

  Ruby had no stomach for the tea. She could hear him walking about in her bedroom. Could tell from the kitchen ceiling which portion he was in.

  She looked up. Could barely keep herself in the chair.

  “Why are you so worried? Is there something in that room you don’t want the priest to see?”

  “No, Mammy . . . it’s just that . . .”

  “It’s just what?”

  Thump.

  A loud bang overhead had her racing up the stairs. She found Father Kelly on the landing. He looked pale. The door to her bedroom stood open, but nothing seemed disturbed.

  “Are you all right, Father?”

  “Yes,” he said, but his grip on the banister was knuckle-white. “Now, where’s that tea you promised me?”

  Before leaving, he blessed her, making the sign of the cross on her forehead with holy water.

  “Heavenly Father, protect Ruby from all harm, and keep evil spirits from taking their revenge on her in any way. Amen.”

  Evil spirits? Revenge? Why was he talking about evil spirits? She wasn’t dabbling with evil. The Goddess Dana was good. But she could hardly tell him that.

  “Is there anything you’d like to confess to me Ruby, now?” he said, resting a hand on her shoulder. “Anything at all that’s troubling you?”

  “No . . . no, Father.”

  “You’d better take them blackberries out of that bag, then. You wouldn’t want them to stain it in this heat.”

  The bag! She’d left it on the draining board. Oh God, what if he asked to see inside it? The censer, the candles, the offering plate? Her three wishes. How would she explain those?

  “I will so, Father.”

  “Looks like you picked quite a lot.” He was looking through her, to the place where her secrets lay.

  “I did . . . I’ll just put them in the pantry. It’s cooler in there.”

  “Good . . . good,” he said, still studying her face. Ruby looked away. She was telling lies to a priest. A mortal sin. She wanted to weep.

  “Say that prayer to Michael the Archangel every night before you sleep, now . . . just to be on the safe side.” He pointed to the picture in the alcove. She saw that the glass had been replaced. She nodded.

  Martha Clare saw him to the door.

  They talked in hushed tones on the step. “Don’t worry, Martha,” Ruby heard him say. “The Devil is like a dog on a chain. He can only go so far as God permits.”

  Chapter twenty-one

  Finbar Flannagan aka John Lennon sat in the waiting room of Rosewood Clinic with eyes closed, humming the melody of “Instant Karma” and, by turns, trying to touch his shoulders with the tips of his ears. He was listening for that telltale sign of a muscle popping in his neck. For if a muscle did tear, it would mean that the intergalactic superbeings who organized and maintained the New World Order had gained access, albeit fleetingly, to his subconscious processes, and in seconds would be decoding his thoughts, encrypting the information and using it against him when, later, they martyred him on a cross, not unlike the one they’d used for Christ, except this time the cross wouldn’t be made of wood, but metal, and the tomb wouldn’t be of stone but a capsule-pod of see-through plastic with reinforced clips that spewed sparks when touched by The Chosen Few. The snakes would say he deserved to die because he’d said the Beatles were bigger than Jesus. And he’d just have to die because none of the divvies round about would have the courage to stand up and say the truth that he, Finbar, was indeed the true Messiah, and his songs the true gospel according to John . . . and Yoko.

  But so far, Finbar’s neck muscle hadn’t popped. If it did . . . if it did, then he’d have no option but to start screaming until his throat hurt, because that was the only way to disrupt their sensory input, dislodge them from his immediate force field, and to save himself from the agony of the cross.

  Being so preoccupied with his hero, John Lennon, and the pernicious influence of that all-pervading New World Order, meant that the real Finbar Flannagan paid scant attention to the more mundane aspects of everyday life on his own little patch of boring earth just north of Tailorstown.

  For example, at that point in time, he was under the impression he had an appointment to see Dr. Henry Shevlin. Miss King had already informed him in very clear and succinct language that he’d got his days mixed up. Had shown him Dr. Shevlin’s appointment diary and her own patient list, just to prove the point, but Finbar was having none of it. Miss King was “one of them,” in on the conspiracy of preventing him from living a normal life, by confusing him with dates and times totally out of step with his quest for peace and love and goodwill to all men, which was his life’s mission here on Earth and the path he must follow.

  Let’s go!

  All the world’s talkin’ ’bout movie stars,

  Racing cars, candy bars,

  And men from Mars, singers, wingers,

  Swingers, ringers, ring-ring, ding-ding,

  All we are singing is get down and dance,

  All we are singing is get down and dance.

  From behind the rampart that was her desk, Edith King observed him.

  She’d already asked him to leave, but Mr. Flannagan showed no sign of moving. She’d considered calling security, but since she was typing up an important report and wished to get it completed, she could not afford any unnecessary disruption.

  She saw that his head was swaying from side to side now, in the manner of a carnival puppet. But he seemed happy enough in his own little world, so best to simply let him be. The report was coming on well, and she might even have it completed before the doctor’s arrival.

  She withdrew another page from the typewriter and laid it aside. Glanced out the window and saw a blue Austin Maxi pull into the Reserved for Staff parking bay. She tut-tutted to herself, wishing that patients would take the trouble to read the signs, so clearly marked. She checked her watch, eyed her list. James McCloone, it would seem. Once again, he was far too early.

  She observed him bail out of the passenger side and hold the seat back to allow a lady to disembark from the rear.

  Interesting, she thought.

  So he’d come with backup on this occasion. His girlfriend? Hardly. She’d decided that Mr. McCloone was from that species of men who would remain resolutely unattached: generally unshaven, creased apparel, insouciant regard for protocol. His sister, perhaps? Well, maybe. Anyway—she inserted another page into the typewriter—she’d soon be finding out.

  “God, this is a terrible grand place!” Rose proclaimed, emerging from the backseat of the car, fanning herself with Jamie’s appointment letter, visibly awed at the sight of the modern glass-and-sandstone structure that was Rosewood Clinic. “This isn’t the mental hospital, is it?”

  “No, Rose, it’s a place you have to come tae first, afore you go tae St. Ita’s. But I’m not goin’ there.”

  Rose gripped Jamie’s arm. “No, Jamie, you’re not goin’ there, ’cos there’s nothing wrong with yer head, Jamie. That’s why I decided to come with you tae see this Dr. Shelfin, so I can explain things. ’Cos you know what they say, two heads is better than three.”

  Rose, husband Paddy, and Jamie McCloone went back a long way, the couple really coming into Jamie’s life when his beloved uncle died in 1973. At that time, they’d been a godsend, helping the grieving smallholder negotiate the rapids and whirlpools of the yawning chasm he’d been left to face. They were the shoulders that Jamie cried on. The people who broke his fall as he hurtled toward the abyss. Jamie knew his life would have little purpose without their friendship and good counsel. He trusted them completely, and Rose in particular. She was the only lady, apart from his beloved aunt Alice, whom he’d allowed himself to get close to in all the years of his troubled life.

  Rose, a well-rounded la
dy of fifty-five, was a triumph of culinary prowess and domestic endeavor, with a heart the size of Cork, and a mission to set the world aright with the many skeins of homespun knowledge she’d garnered during thirty-three years of married bliss to husband Paddy. She believed a man’s needs took precedence over her own, but at the same time, was shrewd enough to realize that men were no better than children when it came to the domestic side of things. God-blisses-an’-savus, if there were no women about, sure the world would be in a terrible state. For, from the minute they stumbled from the cradle on their tottery wee legs, sure wasn’t it a woman’s hand that reached out and stopped them before they fell a clatter?

  No, in Rose McFadden’s book, Eve hadn’t tempted Adam with that notorious red apple in the Garden of Eden . . . or was it Gethsemane now? Can never mind right. No, not a bit of it! When she plucked the apple, sure wasn’t she only using her head and getting the pair of them a bite to eat ’cos they were starving with the hunger? There’d maybe be none of us running about atall, atall, had she not had the sense to take a bit of action, ’cos men need a wee push from time to time to get things moving, so they do.

  Such insights had endowed Rose with a powerhouse of wisdom in Jamie’s eyes. She it was who’d encouraged him to answer an ad in the Lonely Hearts page of the Mid-Ulster Vindicator all those years ago. She it was who sat in the Royal Neptune Hotel with Paddy while he kept his date with one Lydia Devine. Rose had led Jamie into worlds he never thought possible. He trusted her advice completely. So, when she suggested accompanying him on his second visit to see Dr. Shevlin, he acquiesced without hesitation. After all, Rose could say things to the doctor that Jamie, maybe, couldn’t say himself, or might forget all about completely.

  “Now, Paddy, you go on to Biddy’s café,” Rose said. “To see about them talking teeth of yours. Me and Jamie might be an hour. Would that be right, Jamie?”

  Jamie McCloone pulled on his ear, embarrassed at the trouble he was causing. “About that, Rose . . . God, I’m puttin’ yins to a lot of bother.”

  “Not a bit of it,” Rose said kindly.

  “What are Paddy’s talking teeth anyway, Rose?”

  “Well, it’s like this, Jamie: Paddy’s got two sets of false teeth. A pair for talking with and a pair for eating with.”

  “And I took out the talking teeth when I was havin’ a cuppa tea,” Paddy explained.

  Rose saw Jamie’s confusion.

  “Yes, Jamie, we were having a flaky knob and a cuppa tea in Biddy’s. Have ye ever had one of Biddy’s flaky knobs, Jamie?”

  “Naw, just the fry, Rose.”

  “Well, next time you’re in you should try one, ’cos she’s very good at the flaky pastry, is Biddy. But that’s beside the point. Paddy here took out the talking teeth to eat the knob, and that’s when he lost them."

  “Aye,” Paddy said, picking up the complicated tale once more. “Had them in a hankie in me pocket and, begod, when I went tae pay Biddy, they must’a fell outta me pocket. Well, that’s what I’m hopin’ happened anyway, Jamie.”

  “That’s why he has tae go to the Cozy Corner tae see if Biddy Mulhern’s got the talking teeth,” Rose added, belaboring further an already heavily embellished point. “’Cos maybe she saw them and has them behind the counter.”

  “So don’t you worry about putting us out, Jamie,” said Paddy, revving up the engine once more. “Sure anything tae help you on yer way. And it’s a terrible thing you’ve come through in that police station. But sure this new doctor will see you right.”

  “Aw, now, it’s very good of the two of you. Don’t know what I’d do without ye.”

  Rose patted Jamie’s arm. “Me and my Paddy will always be here for you, Jamie. Always mind that. Now let’s see what this Dr. Shelfin has to say.”

  With that, they bade Paddy farewell and made their way across the car park, toward the space-age contraption that was the revolving door.

  Rose halted.

  “God, Jamie, what sorta thing’s that?”

  “I think she said it was an evolvin’ boy or something like that, Rose . . . it goes round when we get into her. But if you go first, I’ll push us, so I will.”

  Gingerly, Rose stepped into one of the glass chambers, Jamie into the one behind her, and off they went.

  Miss King was alerted to a thumping sound and a man’s voice loudly swearing. She looked up from the typewriter, to see a woman sprawled on all fours just inside the foyer and Jamie McCloone whirling round inside the door like a hamster on a wheel, unable to get himself stopped.

  “Not again,” she sighed, pushed back her chair, and went to assist the pair.

  “Are you all right?” she said, bending over Rose. “Stop pushing!” she shouted at Jamie McCloone, whilst sticking her foot in the door so he could extricate himself.

  “Jezsis, is there no other way in-tae this bloody place?” Jamie asked, retrieving his cap from the floor, comb-over undone. “But through that damned thing?”

  “Are you Dr. Shelfin?” said an exasperated Rose, grabbing hold of Miss King’s proffered arm. “Only I thought you were a man.”

  “What the feck are yins all doin’?!” Finbar Flannagan screamed. “I can’t hear if I’m poppin’ and they might be in me head already . . . so shut the feck up, ye pair’a culchies.”

  “I’ll not have that language in here!” Miss King threatened, throwing Finbar a killer look. “Or I’ll call security and have you removed.”

  She helped Rose into a chair.

  “No, I’m not a man, as you can see, but Dr. Shevlin is, I can assure you. I’m Miss King, his secretary . . . and you are?”

  “Oh God-blisses-an’-savus, Miss King, thank you very much. Rose McFadden’s me name.”

  “Rose is a good friend of mine,” Jamie explained, sitting down beside a much-winded Rose. “Are you all right, Rose?”

  “The best, Jamie, the best. Don’t you worry about me.”

  “You’re too early again, Mr. McCloone. Your appointment letter, please?”

  “Aye, I might be a wee bit early, Miss King, but I took a lift with Paddy and Rose—”

  “That’s the letter there, Miss King,” said Rose, relinquishing her fan. “Yes, we gave Jamie a lift, for my Paddy lost his talking teeth in the Cozy Corner Café, and Jamie wanted me to come with him, so we could see Dr. Shelfin together, like.”

  For one unkind second Miss King thought that this McFadden woman might indeed be in line for a therapy session or two with Henry herself, given her propensity for incoherent rambling, but being the professional that she was, the secretary stayed her tongue and gave a little smile of understanding, before moving back behind her desk.

  She ticked off Jamie’s name in her appointment book and said, “Dr. Shevlin will be along shortly,” before returning to her typing.

  “I’m gettin’ outta here!” Finbar Flannagan announced. He stood up and pointed at Rose. “’Cos you’re one of them.”

  “God-blisses-an’-savus, one’a them what? What’s he sayin’ anyway, Jamie?”

  “I don’t have the divil of a notion, Rose.”

  “What’s your name?” Rose asked kindly. “Doz your mammy know you’re here?”

  “Now what did I say? Go call it a day. Don’t give me that mammy, mammy, mammy shit no more. Get outta my head! You hear what I said? Don’t give me that mammy, mammy, mammy shit no more. ’Cos I found out. I found out, didn’t I? I found out, eh, eh, eh?”

  Having finished his spiel, Finbar spun on his heel and marched out the door, away from the intergalactic alien that was Rose McFadden.

  “God, it’s that old drink that makes a body talk like that. God help his mammy, Jamie, is all I can say.”

  “Aye, so,” Jamie said.

  Rose breathed a sigh of relief, reached for a Woman’s Realm on the coffee table to calm herself. “There’s maybe a couple of recipes
a body could use.”

  Jamie, disconsolate and not a little nervous, gazed about the waiting room. His eyes fell on a desk calendar. He read the date.

  He jumped up.

  Rose shut the magazine. “God, Jamie, what is it?”

  “Jezsis, the vet’s comin’ in ten minutes to vaccinate the cow. I forgot all about it.”

  “Are you sure, Jamie?”

  “Aye, I’m sure. We better go, quick.”

  Chapter twenty-two

  Belfast, 1983

  The white Mercedes SL280 was hard to miss at the best of times. It stood out in broad daylight, and was even conspicuous at night. His father had shaken his head in disapproval when Henry visited the parental home shortly after buying it. Sinclair Shevlin disliked ostentation of any kind, or “drawing undue attention to oneself,” as he phrased it.

  “You’re a psychiatrist, not a confounded nightclub owner,” he said, inspecting the car. “A man’s choice of vehicle should reflect his professional standing. An educated man impresses with his intelligence and not his wealth.”

  Henry thought about that as he sat behind the wheel of the stationary vehicle. He’d parked it close enough to 13 Mountview Terrace to observe the comings and goings, but far enough away so as not to draw “undue attention.” He hoped that the one remaining streetlight—the vandals had smashed the rest—on the other side of Mrs. O’Leary’s house was too far distant. The Mercedes was white, though, and its sporty lines caused it to stand out from the pack. But in poor light, the high headrest and low roof would, he believed, render him almost invisible to a casual passerby.

  He looked at his wristwatch. It was approaching 10:00 p.m. Darkness had closed in over Belfast. He heard a church bell tolling somewhere in the distance. Its notes seemed to intensify the solitude of the deserted street.

  And it was quiet. Much quieter than he’d expected for a Friday evening. Since he’d taken up his vigil two hours before, there’d been little traffic in either direction, and only a handful of pedestrians. Two small groups of teenagers: boys and girls alive with the lusts that summertime brings to the young, two elderly ladies walking small dogs, a drunk weaving slightly and steadying himself at each lamppost, and an RUC Land Rover, whose occupants gave the Mercedes no more than a cursory glance.