by Liz Nugent
‘Any dependants?’ I asked.
He inhaled deeply and then said, ‘No. Two daughters, all grown up, Annie and Karen.’
As I talked to him, I felt his sense of shame at being unemployed for the first time in his life. I did everything I could to put him at ease. ‘It’s not your fault,’ I said with false confidence. ‘It’s just the way things are for the moment, but the economy will pick up again soon.’
He smiled at me. I got his P45, birth certificate, address, his tax ID number, his employment history. He needed help with the application form. He admitted he couldn’t read or write very well and had always done manual labour. Gerry had been apprenticed as a baker in Fallon’s in 1966 and had worked there ever since. Before that he’d been a road labourer for Dublin Corporation. Old Mr Fallon who owned the bakery had been losing money on the place for a long time, and with his failing health he could no longer work there himself. It couldn’t be sold as a going concern as there were no buyers. Mr Fallon had relinquished the lease on the building and shut up shop. Gerry’s wife had left him to live with her sister, and Gerry stayed on in the council-owned family home on Pearse Street, not far from our office. He had no savings. He had never earned a lot, and all of it had been spent on his home or his family. Since the separation, he had always given Pauline exactly half of his earnings. She had worked in a newsagent’s until her moods forced her into early retirement.
‘Her moods?’ I asked.
‘Yeah, she gets upset a lot.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ I was genuinely sorry, and I knew well the source of Pauline Doyle’s depression. I wanted to say something to him, to let him know that I understood something of his pain, but I said nothing.
When everything was done, he stood up and we shook hands. ‘Thanks,’ he said, ‘for making this so easy. I’ve been dreading this day for months, you know.’
‘I understand. Nobody wants to be here.’
As I left the pub that evening, instead of heading to the chip shop, I wandered down towards Pearse Street and stood for half an hour outside Gerry’s address. I had memorized it from the claim form. It was a 1960s redbrick corporation house. Two bedrooms. As he was a single man living in a family home, technically he should have been rehoused, but I felt a responsibility to him so I had ticked the one-bedroom box on the form. Gerry had had enough upheaval in his life.
All the windows were grimy. Rubbish had been wind-whipped into the corner of the doorway. Nobody came or went. I’m not even sure he was in, but it unsettled me, to watch his home and imagine him inside, staring at his television, perhaps trying not to think about his lost daughter.
I headed for the bus stop, but realized that I really didn’t want to go home. Not yet. I passed a phone box. Digging for change in my pocket, I took the beer mat out and dialled the number. It rang about nine times before it was answered. I quickly pushed Button A as the coins chinked their way into the machine.
‘Yeah?’ said a disembodied voice – older, female, but not Bridget.
‘Is Bridget there, please?’
A long sigh. ‘She’s in Flat 4 at the top of the house. You’ll have to wait.’ The phone clanked as it was dropped on to a hard surface, and I heard footsteps trudging slowly up the stairs. I deposited another five pence into the slot and waited.
‘Hello? Dad?’ She sounded worried.
‘Hi, Bridget. It’s me, Laurence.’
Silence. I couldn’t afford silences. Another coin into the slot.
‘I was just wondering if you’d like me to come over.’
‘Here? Now?’ I could hear an edge of hysteria in her voice.
I looked at my watch. It was 10.30 p.m.
‘Well, if it’s too late …’
‘No, of course not. Oh yes, do call over!’
‘Only if you’re sure?’ I wondered if I’d get the address out of her before I had to drop in another coin.
I was forced to ask.
By the time I reached her front door twenty minutes later, I was completely single-minded. When she opened it, I kissed her on the mouth and pushed her into the hallway. I’m not sure what I would have done if she had resisted, but she seemed as eager as I was. We climbed the four flights of stairs to a tiny flat. Photos covered the walls, strange photos of a vagrant begging on the street, a child’s hand, a signpost, the hubcap of a car. They made it all the more claustrophobic. There was a single bed in one corner, a fridge and hob in the other. I felt like a giant. As powerful as a giant. Seven minutes later, I came successfully inside her. Eyes squeezed tightly shut, trying not to think of Annie Doyle. And hating myself for it.
‘Thanks a million!’ she said.
I opened my eyes to the reality of naked Bridget. Her complexion was heightened by the exertion, but her body felt smooth, her breasts full and firm, her long limbs entwined around my own lumpen flanks. She had met my enthusiasm with her own and seemed grateful for the experience. She covered herself immediately with a blanket. I hid under the sheet.
‘I’m sorry I was so quick.’
‘I take that as a compliment,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t sure, you see, in the pub earlier – even after you asked for my number, I wasn’t sure. But now I know you were thinking about me too.’
I tried to feel guilty, but where was the harm? We had both got what we wanted. She was sitting in profile, so all I could see was her good eye. In the light of the thirty-watt bulb there was something appealing about her vitality, her innocence, but mostly her sudden confidence. She picked up her camera, took a photo of my shoe.
I emerged from my trance-like state. I needed to go home. I picked up the clothes I had frenziedly abandoned, and turned away to put them on, feeling again the shame of my size that I’d felt in Helen’s bedroom years earlier. Bridget walked up behind me and kissed my shoulder before reaching for her robe.
‘Do you have to go?’ she said, disappointed.
‘Yes, my mum … she doesn’t like …’
Bridget laughed. ‘You’re so funny!’ she said. ‘So sweet!’
I knew I wasn’t either of those things.
As I reached for the door handle, she said, ‘See you …?’ leaving the question hanging.
‘Monday,’ I said. ‘See you Monday.’
I didn’t look back, but when I walked down the stairs and out of the front door into the orange glow of lamplight, I could feel her uncertainty. I had no idea what had just happened. Was I sick in the head? What was going on between Bridget and me? Lust had led me to her door. Apart from that I wasn’t sure of anything either.
The next morning I informed my mother that I was going on a diet and that I was going to take up regular exercise. I asked her to exclude bread, crisps, sweets and potatoes from the shopping list.
‘Oh, Laurie, that is such a great idea,’ she said enthusiastically. ‘We can get some diet books from the library today and make a plan.’ Then she paused for a moment. ‘Are you trying to impress a girl?’
‘I might be,’ I said.
I was aware that Mum had some anxieties about my dating girls, but I wasn’t sure if it was about me getting hurt or about her being left alone.
‘Is it a girl from work?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
I dusted down the weighing scales that sat on top of the bathroom cabinet and stood on them as gingerly as an almost-sixteen-stone man could. I had work to do.
I walked five miles that weekend, having barely walked the length of myself since Granny had moved out three years earlier. I even tried some press-ups, but ended up straining a muscle in my shoulder.
The next Friday night after drinks in Mulligan’s, we had sex again in her dim and tidy bedsit, and though it was less fierce, less urgent, my eyes were still tightly shut as I refused to see Bridget smiling up at me. I used condoms that Arnold had given me. I would have to source them myself after this, from my sleazy barber probably. In the following weeks, I sat with Bridget at break times and we sometimes had lunch together and went out
at weekends. I didn’t exactly keep my word about taking things slowly, but it seemed that Bridget didn’t want me to either.
I also followed Gerry Doyle, waited outside his house, sussed out his watering hole, where he bought his daily groceries. The pub he went to, Scanlon’s, was pretty close to our office. Over the course of a few weeks, I managed to make Scanlon’s our new regular Friday-night spot. It was a traditional Dublin pub where the clientele were a mixed bunch of older locals who drank Guinness and smoked Major in packs of ten. They served toasted sandwiches, which was the latest fad, and that was quite a draw. Alcoholic Evelyn was the hardest to persuade. She was a creature of habit, and food would never be as big an attraction as a pub where she knew the owner, his father, his dog and when the wallpaper had last been replaced. She was resistant to change, and as she was our lead drinker it took a bit of work, but when she realized that she was about to turn into a solo drinker if she didn’t come with us, she changed her tune. I saw Gerry in there from time to time and we nodded acknowledgement at each other, but I wanted to know more about him, I wanted to be in his company. The nods turned to salutations on my part, which he graciously returned, and when it was his signing-on day, I always volunteered to run that desk so that we could exchange a few words. Always courteous, always friendly. I felt I should do more for him, though, so I amended his claim to make it appear as if he had two dependent children and sent it to the Children’s Allowance section. I used my forgery skills to make it look like Dominic’s writing.
When Gerry spotted me in Scanlon’s three weeks later, he asked for a quiet word. ‘Someone gave me a rise,’ he said.
I pretended not to know what he was talking about.
‘I got an extra thirty pounds in my dole last week.’
‘Did you? Well, our staff make mistakes all the time. If I was you, I’d keep that to myself.’
‘Really? Will I not get into trouble over it, like?’
‘Not at all, not if it was our fault. I’ll be turning a blind eye anyway.’ I winked at him and tapped my nose. He offered to buy me a pint, but I declined and rejoined Bridget and the others. I had done a small thing to make him happy. As he raised his glass to me from the corner of the bar, I felt good.
I stuck to my weight-loss programme, and gradually the chins began to disappear again and my feet came into view. At first, I had walked everywhere. Running was out of the question because I wasn’t able for it and people would laugh at me. I did exercises in my bedroom and then Mum bought the Jane Fonda Workout book for me for Christmas, which was pleasing in many ways. After a short time, very strangely and without too much effort, my appetite nearly disappeared. I was suddenly a bundle of energy with too much vitality for sleep. I got up earlier and went to bed later. I can’t explain what happened. It was as if a switch in my brain had flipped. I was eating a quarter of what I had been used to. Which was probably what a normal person should eat.
‘Is it my imagination, or are you thinner than you were when we got together?’ asked Bridget one Saturday morning, post-coital. I hadn’t told anyone in work of my weight-loss plans, though my reduced lunch portions had been noted. In the six months we had been dating, she had never once mentioned my weight. I appreciated that. It was as if she had never noticed. I was grateful.
I was delighted by her question. ‘Yes, I think I have,’ I said. ‘I’m trying to be healthier anyway.’
‘Well, I think you’re very handsome, no matter what you weigh.’
We weren’t the type of couple to be romantic with each other or to pay compliments like that, so I was a little taken aback. It dawned on me that I should then say something positive about her. ‘You’re pretty cute too.’
She beamed.
I had developed a sense of obligation to her and she could be good company sometimes, but I felt no genuine love for her, just a warmth and a fondness. I hoped it could become something more real.
Of course, one night we bumped into Helen when we came out of the cinema. She was on her way from the pub with a gang, quite drunk.
‘Well, for fuck’s sake, look who it is! Where’s the rest of you?’ she bellowed.
I introduced Bridget as my girlfriend.
‘Girlfriend?’ said Helen with an unnecessary degree of incredulity.
‘Yes,’ said Bridget confidently.
‘Riiight,’ she said, winking at me, ‘so you’re getting the ride, then? Sure, come on back to my flat, I’m having a party. I just graduated, I’m a fucking nurse! Can you believe it!’
I politely declined but she insisted on writing down her address and phone number in case we changed our minds, and then she ran off, roaring up the street after her friends.
‘Who was that awful girl?’ said Bridget.
‘Just an old neighbour. She is awful, isn’t she?’
We laughed and I kissed Bridget on the mouth, grateful that she was no Helen. Everything was going well between us. We were a solid couple.
Until I met Karen in August 1985.
12
Karen
I waited a few weeks after Yvonne told me what James had said about a murder suspect. I guess I was learning to accept the truth. It wasn’t entirely a surprise, but thinking it and knowing it were two different things. Annie was dead.
O’Toole was still in the same job. My letter of complaint had been ignored all those years ago, or maybe they were never going to take seriously a complaint from the sister of a junkie prostitute. He knew about my letter though. He smiled broadly in my face when I went to see him.
‘Well, there you are now. You just get prettier all the time.’
I smiled sweetly at him. I had gained confidence after a few months of modelling. I was prepared to use it.
‘Declan’ – I used his first name – ‘I just wanted to check if there were any further developments in my sister’s case.’
‘Do you now? As I recall, you weren’t too happy with us before. As I recall, you complained about how I made my enquiries.’
‘I know, I’m sorry, it was a difficult time. I was on edge.’
‘You sure were.’
‘I was sorry to hear that Detective Mooney died.’
That seemed to touch him, and he passed a hand over his eyes.
‘A very sad business. He was a good lad, young James.’
‘He was. I believe he had a suspect in mind for my sister’s murder?’
O’Toole leaned back in his chair. ‘I don’t know about that.’
‘Yes, someone that you and he questioned.’
‘And who told you that?’
I shook my head, not prepared to give away my source.
‘That was all in Mooney’s head. He had a big imagination.’
‘I’d like to know who the suspect was. I heard he was a high-powered guy.’
‘Ah, Karen, Karen, Karen, you’ll have to stop this now. It’s been what? Five years? There was never a suspect, just a few notions.’
‘What about the car?’
‘What about it?’
‘The Jaguar car that was seen outside Annie’s flat.’
‘Yes?’
‘Did you ever track it down?’
‘No.’
‘Will you tell me what type of Jaguar it was? What colour?’
He lifted his hands in the air, in a gesture that said he was not going to help me.
‘You should never bite the hand that feeds you. You threw a drink in my face.’
My fixed smile faded now. He was enjoying this as if it was some game.
‘Fuck you.’
He laughed. ‘There’s the little ginger alley cat now, hiding behind the perfect make-up and the hairdo. You don’t look as cheap as you did, but I reckon I could still have you for less than twenty quid. High-class hooking is still hooking.’
I could hear him laughing at me as I walked away.
‘He’s dead anyway,’ he shouted at me.
I turned back. ‘Who?’
‘The fella Mooney thought
had done it. Died six weeks later. So I guess you’re even.’
‘Who was it?’
He leaned back in the chair again with his hands behind his head and nodded towards his crotch. ‘That info will cost you.’
This time I kept walking until I was home and had shaken off the anger and fury I felt at our so-called justice system.
Even if he was dead, I still wanted to know the murderer’s name. At home, I went to the heap of newspaper cuttings I had kept from the time of Annie’s disappearance. Some of the reports mentioned the vintage car. I could start there. I rang the fella who serviced the vans for the dry-cleaner’s and, without giving any reasons, asked him what he knew about vintage top-end cars. Nothing, as it turned out. But he had a friend who restored them. He’d ring him and see what he could find out.
Dessie came home, wanting to know why I’d been ringing his mechanic. News travelled fast, it seemed. I told him all that had happened, though I played down O’Toole’s insults. Still, I thought Dessie would be angry too, to know that there was, or had been, a suspect. But he seemed to be pissed off by the news.
‘Sure, that’s only speculation, guesswork, like. Why can’t you just let it be? You’re not feckin’ Nancy Drew. If the cops couldn’t find him, then what makes you think you can?’
‘Because I want to know why, that’s the difference.’
‘Maybe the reason why is awful. Maybe you’re better off not knowing.’
‘I just need to find out who he was.’
‘And what are you going to do, dig him up?’
I could scarcely believe that Dessie was being so mean. How could he not understand?
‘I … I can’t just forget about Annie. There was a suspect, a possible murderer out there, who could have done it before, destroyed somebody else’s family!’
‘And he’s dead!’
‘We don’t even know that for sure. I don’t trust O’Toole. He’s an arsehole.’
