by Menon, David
‘Thank you, Marjorie, I loved every minute of wearing that dress’ said Patricia, suddenly intent on rubbing it in. ‘It made me feel so feminine and gorgeous to be honest’.
‘Even if a little daring for someone of your tender years?’
‘Life is for living, Marjorie, and for having fun whilst you still can’ said Patricia who doubted whether Marjorie had ever allowed herself to have any fun in her whole damn life. ‘Well I must get on with things. Dennis and I are having a special dinner for my birthday tonight and there are a couple of things I need to get for it’.
‘Well take it easy on the wine or else you’ll be good for nothing again tomorrow’.
‘Goodbye, Marjorie’.
‘Goodbye, dear’.
Goodbye dear? Patricia could’ve slapped her. Marjorie was six years younger than her and yet the patronizing cow still called her dear. Urgh!
Patricia ran round the supermarket in a bit of a daze. Her encounter with Lady Marjorie had brought on a slight relapse of her hangover and she just wanted to get home, get a cup of tea, get in the bath and get ready for tonight.
Patricia luxuriated in a hot bath to which she’d added various scents and oils and by the time she got out and toweled herself dry she began to feel more human again. She slipped into a dress that she’d had for a while now and which was one of Dennis’s favourites. A grey one piece, still short but with a higher neckline and long sleeves. She put on black high heels and a thick black belt with it and had bought some black tights too. She sprayed herself with some of the Chanel perfume that her son Michael had brought her back from his holidays in Thailand and then she was ready.
‘Good heavens above’ said Dennis slowly as he watched his wife walk up to him. ‘First last night and now look at you. Anybody would think it was my birthday not yours’.
‘You know I always like to dress up for you’ said Patricia who wrapped her arms round Dennis’s neck and kissed him. He’d lit candles everywhere and it all looked so romantic.
‘You’ve done that alright’ said Dennis. ‘I am one very lucky man. You look a million dollars, freckles’.
Patricia felt lucky that Dennis had managed to stay tall and lean and still didn’t show any sign of the beer gut that so many men of his age do. He was still as handsome. Just an older version of that cute young guy she fell in love with all those years ago.
‘Some wine, madam?’
‘I would love some, sir’.
‘I thought so’ said Dennis, putting on a little flair. ‘I opened this little number from the Barossa valley a while ago to let it breathe. I think you’ll find it’s to your liking’.
The next morning Patricia woke up feeling heaps better than she had done this time yesterday. She and Dennis had gone much easier on the wine over dinner last night and when they got to bed they’d made love and then drifted off quietly to sleep in each other’s arms.
The sounds she could hear were the sounds of the country. They had one of the typically Australian style of suburban house that was all on one level and spread out to include three bedrooms with a separate lounge to the open plan kitchen and dining area. They’d moved into it just before their son Michael was born and they’d done a lot to it over the years including re-decorating three times. The area was well and truly part of Melbourne’s eastern conurbation and although the traffic on the highway into the city could be hellish it didn’t take long to get there by train. But they were also at the foot of the Dandenong Hills that headed east across the state of Victoria and that gave some magnificent distant views. When Dennis woke up they snuggled up together and lay there awake with their eyes closed.
‘Are you still thinking it might be a good idea to move away from here?’ asked Patricia.
‘I’d like to have a look at the possibilities, yes’ Dennis answered. ‘But I didn’t think you were keen?’
‘We’re still relatively fit for our age, Dennis’ said Patricia. ‘But if we did move I’d want it to be our last one’.
They both opened their eyes and turned to face each other.
‘So you’d really go for a move down to St. Kilda?’
‘It might be nice to be near the beach in our advancing years’ said Patricia. ‘You know, walks along the sand, the sea air and all that’.
‘It would be great for Peter and Lauren too’ said Dennis, warming to his wife’s new found enthusiasm. ‘And all the other grandkids that I hope are going to come along’.
‘Yes, I thought that too’ Patricia agreed. ‘And we’d be closer to all our kids than we are out here’.
‘So it’s a winner then?’
‘It’s worth looking into’.
Dennis kissed her. ‘Then I’m going to go downstairs and fix us some breakfast and then we can go online and look into what kind of properties are available at a price we can afford’.
‘Sounds like a plan’.
Patricia was clearing away their plates after they’d had their breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast and Dennis was already at the computer that they kept in a small room that went off the hallway between the kitchen and the bedrooms when there was a knock on the front door. They were both still in their bedclothes and bathrobes but Dennis was closest so he went to answer it. Two uniformed police officers came into the kitchen which rather unnerved Patricia. She hadn’t had any dealings with the police since her life had been in a very different place in every respect.
‘Patricia?’ said Dennis. ‘Love, these gentlemen say they need to speak to you’.
‘Me?’ Patricia questioned as the memories and fears of a lifetime ago began to hurtle back into her mind. ‘What do you need to speak to me about? You don’t need to speak to my husband too?’
‘Not directly, ma’am, no’ said one of the officers who introduced himself as Constable Haynes and his colleague as Constable Chung. ‘So you were formerly Patricia O’Connell who first came to Australia in February nineteen seventy-seven and were formerly of seventeen Donegal Street in Belfast, Northern Ireland?’
‘Yes?’ said Patricia, anxiously. She held hands with Dennis who’d joined her at her side. ‘Can you tell me what this is all about, please?’
Constable Haynes looked briefly at Constable Chung and then continued. ‘I’m very sorry to have to inform you, Mrs. Knight, that your brother Padraig has been found dead in his flat in Manchester, England’.
Patricia felt Dennis’s hand loosen slightly for a moment and then tighten again. She almost felt her heart actually breaking. ‘Do you know how?’
‘The police over there are looking into it, Mrs. Knight’ Constable Haynes revealed. ‘I can give you the number of the lead detective on the case who is detective superintendent Jeff Barton of the Greater Manchester police. They’re treating your brother’s death as suspicious’.
‘You mean murder?’
‘I can’t tell you anymore I’m afraid’ said Haynes who felt stupid denying the obvious when the man concerned had been found with thirty-seven stab wounds. Of course it was bloody murder but he had to keep to the official line. ‘But the rest of your family who also live in and around the Manchester area thought you should know’.
The rest of my family, thought Patricia. How the hell did they know how to find me?
‘Well thank you gentlemen’ said Dennis. ‘But if there’s nothing else? You can see my wife is in deep shock’.
‘Of course’ said Haynes. ‘We’re very sorry for your loss, Mrs. Knight’.
Dennis saw the two police officers out and then walked back into the kitchen where Patricia was standing with her arm folded and leaning with her back against the sink unit.
‘So?’ said Dennis who didn’t quite know what to make of it all. ‘We’ve only been married nearly forty years so when were you going to tell me you had a brother? When were you going to tell me about the rest of your family that those two police officers talked about? I know you’ve kept it all to yourself all these years and I’ve never questioned anything because I trusted you. Bu
t I think I deserve some kind of explanation now, don’t you?’
THROWN DOWN THREE
Carol Anderson was sobbing her heart out over the death of Padraig O’Connell.
‘I know I hadn’t been seeing him long but he’d come to mean the world to me’ she pleaded. Jeff Barton handed her a box of tissues that had been sitting on the table just out of her reach. ‘Thank you’.
‘How long had you been seeing him, Mrs. Anderson?’ asked DI Ollie Wright.
‘It’s Miss Anderson, my love, actually’ she corrected although not sharply. It was more like a friendly reproach.
‘I apologise’ said Ollie.
‘Oh that’s alright, love’ said Carol, trying to smile. ‘I’m used to it. I’ve never been married. I’ve never been engaged. I’ve never even been a bridesmaid. And now, just when I thought that I wouldn’t be lonely in my old age after all someone comes along and murders my Padraig. It’s not fair. It’s just not fair’.
Jeff glanced round at her immaculately kept flat and Carol almost read his thoughts when she went on with her explanation. ‘I’ve been with this same landlord for twenty odd years. I was born and brought up round here but my parents died years ago and I’ve got a brother who went to stay with a mate in Birmingham and never came back. I haven’t heard from him in years and I don’t even know exactly where he lives. Imagine that, I’ve no address for my own brother, my own flesh and blood. We never fell out or anything but I suppose it just happens that way in some families. Well in ours at least. We were never very close even when we were growing up’.
‘Why didn’t you think about moving yourself, Carol?’ asked Jeff.
‘Well I always thought that maybe tomorrow I might meet someone who I could journey through the rest of my life with. But it wasn’t to be. I know what you mean because when life doesn’t deliver the essentials you think that by moving somewhere new, somewhere different you might trigger something off that’ll prove to be really good. A change of scene and meeting new people might just be the answer to all the nights you spend listening only to the sound of your own breathing. But if you’re meant to be lonely then geography doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t matter where you go or what you do it’ll all remain the same. Life will come along and kick you in the teeth again even though you’re still struggling to stand up after the last time. A priest once told me I had to be thankful and count my blessings. What bloody blessings? Before Padraig came along I based all my days around work and what I wanted to watch on the television. Then he gave me something to live for. But that’s all gone again so I suppose its back to the Radio Times’.
‘What’s the landlord like at this place?’ Jeff asked.
‘Tom and Mandy? Well they’ve become more like friends really. At least, I like to think so but I’ve often had a problem matching what I think of my relationships with people with what they think. They’d probably say I was just the tenant who’d been here the longest. That tends to be what happens with me. I’ve never seemed to hit it off or fitted in anywhere’.
Jeff thought he’d become hardened to the amount of sheer loneliness he came across in his job but he didn’t think he had. This poor woman had gone through life probably trying too hard to be close to someone and it had never rewarded her with anything other than pain and misery. She looked so bloody tragic all dolled up like that. It made her look really needy. His own mother was about the same age and he wondered what she was looking like these days. He hadn’t seen her for so long although that wasn’t his doing.
‘Did the landlords know about Padraig’s past, Carol?’
‘Oh yes’ Carol confirmed.
‘And it didn’t bother them?’
‘Well they’re not like that’.
‘Like what?’
‘They don’t judge people like your question implies’ said Carol.
‘I wasn’t implying anything, Carol’.
‘Yes you were!’ she charged, her voice suddenly full of bitterness. ‘Look, he’d paid his price and that should be the end of it. I suppose you’ll end up trying to say he murdered himself!’
‘Carol, there could very well be a connection between what Padraig did in the past with what happened to him this afternoon’ said Jeff. ‘Surely you can see that?’
Carol had started sobbing again and used some of the paper tissues Jeff had handed her to wipe her eyes and cheeks. ‘Yes I can see that’ she conceded. ‘I’ve nothing against you lot. I went out with a copper once. We had a lovely time for a few months but in the end we loved each other so much that he just couldn’t cope and had to walk away. Well, he went back to his wife but he made it clear that it was only because he thought so much of me and had never thought as much about anyone as he did for me and he just couldn’t handle it’.
Jeff and Ollie looked at each other and had the same thought. Carol was one of life’s put upon good time girls. She’d believe anything if it meant she got some male attention. People were always telling women like Carol not to try so hard. But Carol was the type who got nothing if she tried or if she didn’t.
‘Carol, are you okay to answer a couple more questions?’
‘Yes, I’m alright. I’ve always had to be’.
‘Where is it you work, Carol?’ Ollie asked.
‘I work at Chapman’s the opticians just down the road’ said Carol. ‘I do reception’.
‘And so you weren’t here this afternoon when Padraig came home?’
‘No, love, I wasn’t’ Carol answered. She placed her hand over her mouth and looked like the tears were about to start flowing again. But then she took a deep breath and went on. ‘I wish to God I had been here. I wish I’d taken the afternoon off to be here to welcome him back because I knew that what he’d gone over to Ireland to do wouldn’t have been very pleasant. But instead, I was at work till half five and my boss can vouch for that’.
‘Carol, is there anything you can tell us about Padraig’s recent life that could help us with our enquiries?’ Jeff asked. ‘Was he being bothered by anyone? Had he fallen out with anyone or been in a fight of some kind?’
‘He was being bothered all the time by the people from that group’ said Carol. ‘I know they’ve been through it but to hassle an old man like they did wasn’t right, it just wasn’t right’.
‘Which group was that, Carol?’
‘The children of the disappeared’ said Carol. ‘They’re the children, all grown up now mind, of men and women who were taken by the IRA back in Ireland when they had the troubles and never seen again. They found out somehow that Padraig lived here and they’re based just up the road in Chorlton so they came down and pestered the life out of poor Padraig, bombarding him with letters, banging on the door at all hours until he agreed to go over and show them where this woman Deirdre Murphy was buried’.
‘Did Padraig ever feel threatened by them?’
‘Not at first’ said Carol. ‘But it did start to get to him in the end and it only stopped when he agreed to go to Ireland and try and locate the body’.
‘Was there anybody in particular from the group who led the campaign to persuade Padraig to tell them where Deirdre Murphy was buried?’
‘No’ said Carol. ‘Not as far as I know. I’d probably recognise faces if I saw them or if you showed me pictures but I don’t know any names off hand’.
‘Why do you think he resisted telling them at first?’
‘Loyalty to a cause he still believed in? I’m not altogether sure and I didn’t always understand what he was talking about when it came to the whole Irish question. I’ve never been political. I’ve never even voted in my entire life. But Padraig was my man and I sided with him of course even though I didn’t quite follow what he meant’.
‘Do you mean you sided with him publicly on the subject?’
‘Yes’ said Carol. ‘When we went down the pub he didn’t tell anybody of his past. But there was another regular who went in there who was from the other side of the issue as it were. He was one of wh
at they call the loyalists and moved over from Belfast some years ago. Sometimes he clashed with Padraig about the whole question of Ireland’.
‘Which pub are we talking about, Carol?’
‘The Farmers Arms down on the corner. We were in there three or four nights a week and most of the time it was all very close and social and we had a laugh and that’.
‘And what was the name of this other guy?’
‘Chris O’Neill’.
Jeff didn’t think there was anything more they could get out of Carol. He thought they’d gone far enough anyway considering the woman was in shock.
‘Carol, is there anybody you could be with tonight?’ asked Jeff.
‘No’ said Carol, looking down at her hands that were ripping a paper tissue to shreds. ‘There’s never been anyone’.
Jeff gave her his card and told her to ring him if there was anything else she could think of in relation to Padraig that might help them.
‘I’m really sorry, Carol, for your loss’ said Jeff.
‘I believe you, officer’ said Carol. ‘But you didn’t even ask my permission to use my first name when you got here. I don’t suppose you’d have been like that if I’d been some other kind of woman who you saw as respectable’.
‘Carol … Miss Anderson, there was no offence meant, believe me’ Jeff assured.
‘That’s as may be, love. But that’s always been my trouble. I’m too forgiving of other people’s lack of respect for me’.
Barry Murphy was proud of the way his business had developed. When people say they started off from scratch and built up their business empire from scratch they often omitted to tell you that they’d been given a helping hand by their parents or, in the case of an old friend of Barry’s from school, they’d won the national lottery which had finally allowed them to finance their long held dreams into coming true. But in Barry’s case he really had built it all up from scratch. He’d had nothing and had made something. His wife Tabitha said that should make him especially proud of the three second hand car dealerships he owned and the lifestyle they could afford from their detached home in Alderley Edge, the epicentre of the nouveau riche Cheshire set which included being able to send their seven year-old precious little princess Georgina to private school with the rest of the offspring of the nouveau riche Cheshire set who considered themselves entitled to only the very best of everything.
