‘I know so.’ Auntie Caroline bustled down the hall. Through the reinforced glass of the front door, the silhouette of a dark uniform stood stark against the light outside. The police, she supposed, would be wanting to speak to Mary again and interview her about what exactly had happened. She fiddled with the lock before they knocked, finding it already open.
‘Oh, Father! I’m sorry to keep you waiting so long.’ She waved the young priest inside.
Father Malloy looked down at his broad, black shiny shoes, searching for a doormat to wipe the street off. Seeing none, he stepped daintily into the hall, a tab of white collar flashing and his outdoor cassock swishing behind him. ‘I’m sorry to bother you, but I came as soon as I heard about poor little Alison.’ His curly hair was sprung with rain and he sounded breathless. ‘Canon Martin wanted to come himself, but he’s just not up to it.’
‘That’s OK, Father, come in and get a nice cup of tea.’
The toilet flushed and the catch in the door clicked. John, sombre-faced, stepped away from the sour stench of the lavatory. The two men nodded politely at each other before going through to the living room. Auntie Caroline ambled into the kitchen to make everyone tea.
‘I’m a well-known spiritualist and medium, you know.’ Gloria took the initiative and jumped up from her chair. She gave Father Malloy a firm handshake, her eyes refusing to bend away from his face.
‘Well, we’re in the same bone trade.’ The priest’s deep voice sounded incongruous in the small room, as if it should inhabit cavernous churches and cathedrals. He tried to catch John’s eye, but he had settled in the chair near the window and was gazing at the blank telly screen, where the priest saw in dull outline a reflection of the blackness of his coat.
Gloria warmed her feet by the fire. ‘That’s funny,’ she said, a delayed reaction to the joke, and squeezed out a grin like toothpaste.
Auntie Caroline brought in a tray. A pot of tea was hidden under a knitted two-tone cosy, alongside sugar, milk, and a packet of ginger snaps. She settled the tray on the side table. ‘I’ll just get the cups and you can help yourself.’ Despite what she had said, she could not resist serving the priest his tea. John and Gloria made do with what was left.
‘So what exactly happened to Alison?’ Father Malloy stirred his tea and munched on a ginger snap.
Auntie Caroline sat beside him on the couch, a cup and saucer perched daintily on her mannish thighs, and answered him with whispery regret. ‘She went to school and she never returned. That’s all the police have been able to tell us. They interviewed everybody up and down the street. All her teachers. But nobody’s seen hide nor hair of her after she left here.’
‘But somebody must have seen something,’ the priest said. ‘Heard something.’
John spluttered, putting his mug down on the table.
‘It’s like all those other little girls.’ Gloria didn’t miss a beat, sipping her tea and dunking a snap. ‘All them that went to local schools. And all them that went missing in the same way. They say the schools are jinxed.’
‘Whit other little girls?’ John’s voice dangled in the air, stiletto-sharp.
‘You must have seen in all the papers? There was a big kerfuffle. How the police have been on the same cases for years and made a pig’s ear out of them.’
‘John’s been in hospital,’ Auntie Caroline pointed out.
‘That’s right. The hospital.’ Gloria flicked crumbs from the corner of her mouth. ‘That doesn’t matter a jot. That one’s got the second sight and he’s a dreamwalker. Our family’s had one in every second generation. He’s got the astral connection. I bet he’s better than a bloodhound when he gets a sniff.’
‘Guff,’ snorted John, cutting her short. ‘I’ve never heard so much guff in my life.’
Auntie Caroline leaned across to Father Malloy. ‘I’m sorry, Father. You shouldn’t really be hearing this. She just gets carried away sometimes.’
‘Actually,’ Father Malloy’s cup clinked against his saucer as he spoke, ‘I shouldn’t really be saying this, but it’s not entirely counter to the Church’s teachings. God is light and exists outside time. There is no past or future, there is only an eternal now. But the negation of light, an act of evil as a physical manifestation, must have a dark energy, leave a marker in time, and travel out from a fixed point. Think of the Crucifixion. Some people we call saints are attuned to this light, but they can also see the shadows of darkness in themselves and others.’ He looked from one face to the other and laughed. ‘Does anybody know what I’m talking about?’
Auntie Caroline’s shoulders dropped and she scrutinised the inside of her cup.
‘Haven’t a scooby,’ said John.
‘That’s just what I was saying,’ Gloria nodded vigorously. ‘When somebody dies in a ghastly manner and their body isn’t laid properly to rest, neither is their soul. They find gaps in others’ lives to become manifest.’
John spluttered into his tea, ‘For God sake. Ally isn’t dead.’ He looked up to find them staring at him.
Mary could have wept with tiredness; her brain on full-spin cycle. She wished she knew where Ally was, but she did know the police were hindering rather than helping. They had badgered her about John. If he had not been locked up in hospital, well, she did not like to think about what they would have done. There was no point in thinking about that either. She patted her stomach, although there was nothing to feel yet, the knowledge of his seed there, his life, was enough. Part of her envied Joey lying at rest in his coffin. Then she felt a terrible gut pain and sat up so suddenly she felt dizzy.
Mary drifted out from the bed to the hall and into the toilet, a fag wired to her bottom lip. She heard them chatting in the living room, and somebody chuckling, but when she nudged open the living room door conversation stopped. A pall of cigarette smoke hung under the discoloured white polystyrene tiles that crisscrossed the ceiling. But the priest, she forgot his name, surprised her. He was chain-smoking Capstan Full Strength, one ready to dot his conversation and another burning down in the ashtray at his feet. An educated man, she thought he would have smoked a more refined kind of cigarette, something like Regal, that her sister was smoking, or even those noxious Mayfair Menthol Superking things that Gloria favoured. John, his eyes watering, was the only non-smoker. They looked up at her as if they were playing a game of statues.
‘Has there been any word?’ Mary asked. She knew there had not been, or she would have heard the comings and goings, but had to ask.
‘Nothing.’ Auntie Caroline shook her head.
‘Is Jo alright?’
Auntie Caroline answered automatically. ‘She’s fine.’
‘How’d you know?’
Auntie Caroline pouted. She glanced across at Gloria and looked to Father Malloy for help, but neither took her on. ‘She’s with Teresa. She’s safe. She’d have phoned if anything had happened.’ Coughing, she banged on her chest.
‘Fat lot of good that would do. We havenae got a phone and even if we did—’
‘What Caroline is trying to say is she’s being well taken care of.’ Father Malloy’s well-modulated voice and his manner made it seem true.
Mary eyed him suspiciously, wafts of smoke drifting round a straggle of hair over her left eye. ‘You trying to say I didn’t take good care of my daughter Alison?’
‘Mum, she’s fine!’ John’s outburst softened her eyes and face.
‘She’s in God’s hands,’ added the priest.
That got her dander up again. ‘Well, if there is a God, He’s not making much of a job out of it either.’
Auntie Caroline covered her mouth as she cried out, ‘Mary!’
Father Malloy blew smoke through his nose. ‘I’m sure God understands. His love excludes no one.’ Acrylic swished as he crossed his legs.
‘I don’t want understanding. I just want my wee lassie back and to be left in peace.’ Mary’s voice rose an octave. ‘Is that too much to ask?’
‘No. No.’
The priest flapped his hand in a placatory gesture, then stabbed his fag out. ‘Perhaps this is the right time to say a little prayer and ask for God’s help.’
‘Perhaps it isnae.’ Mary turned and scuttled into the kitchen, closing the door behind her.
Auntie Caroline knelt at the side of the couch, her eyes closed and fingers clasped together, hands set in prayer.
‘O Heavenly Father,’ Father Malloy bowed his head and shut his eyes, hoping for inspiration. John loped after his mum. Gloria looked on with mild interest and glanced at the clock, hoping she would be home in time for Coronation Street. ‘Help this poor family in their time of need. Bring back to them, in body and soul, the daughter they have lost. And may their poor father find peace in your heavenly embrace.’ He opened his eyes and smiled shyly in a way that made him seem younger. ‘Amen.’
‘Amen.’ Auntie Caroline bowed her head and her eyes sprung open.
Father Malloy left a few minutes later, promising Auntie Caroline he would see her on Tuesday morning at Joseph’s funeral. He whispered, ‘Tell Mrs Connelly I’m away,’ as if it was a secret.
After he had gone, Gloria also stood up to leave. ‘My Simon is useless, he hasn’t had his dinner yet,’ she explained, smacking her lips together.
‘We’ll probably get something in,’ said Auntie Caroline, which meant chips from the chippy, but she thought that sounded vulgar. They stood stiffly on the rug facing each other. ‘I’ll get your coat.’ But before she went, she asked, ‘What did you mean by that thing about dreamwalking?’
Gloria’s head seemed to shrink into her shoulders, a slider turtle retreating into its shell. She was in defensive mode. ‘It just means that instead of dreams ruling him, he can rule his dream. He can go anywhere, anyplace, heaven or hell, enter the door of another’s dream and leave it just as easily. It’s a very ancient form of clairvoyance. Lucid dreaming has been with us since the dawn of time.’
Auntie Caroline interrupted her with a question. ‘Can you do it?’
Gloria’s head popped up a smidgen in response to the challenge. ‘Sometimes, if I’m not too tired.’
‘Well, how do you know John can?’
‘That’s an easy one,’ laughed Gloria, brushing past her, already halfway to the door. ‘Because I’m psychic.’
Auntie Caroline stood, temporarily discombobulated, and her voice acquired a wheedling tone. ‘But what about John? Is he psychic too?’
Gloria smirked and huffed through her nose at the suggestion. ‘This whole family’s like a psychic warehouse that’s been set on fire. And John, he’s the most psychic person I’ve ever met. He can make the dead walk and talk.’ She shook her head at Auntie Caroline’s naivety and finished her explanation with a flourish. ‘He’s more psychic than Houdini.’
Auntie Caroline screened her mouth with her hand to hide her grin and to stop her teeth from popping out if she laughed.
John went to bed early, leaving Mum and Auntie Caroline smoking, drinking tea and yakking in the kitchen. He remained restless, but after Star Trek there was nothing worth watching on the telly. Yawning, resting with his back hard against the headboard, he felt he should be suffering outside, scouring the streets, beating sticks against bushes and dragging streams for Ally. In his own fickle way, he had tried.
He had volunteered to go down to the chippy to get a couple of fish suppers, and two pickles for everyone, apart from Mum who disliked pickles and claimed she had lost her appetite. He took the usual route, made a break from the road to the shortcut, but first he dodged behind the huts at the phone box. The orange halo of street lighting extended little beyond the pitch of the roofs. The shape of bushes at the bottom of the steep hill appeared as flattened ink blobs. He took a step forward and almost slipped.
Back on track he slowed as he got to the junction of Shakespeare and Well Street. For a second his stomach shrank and his Adam’s apple bounced up and down like a tennis ball deucing the net at Wimbledon, because he saw a girl wearing a school uniform. But she was older, much taller than either Ally or Lily, and it was the wrong colour of garb. She walked arm in arm with an older woman wearing a turquoise headscarf, slogging up the hill, amidst a steady stream of supplicants leaving half-past-six Mass.
The Ready Friar chippy on Dumbarton Road had customers doubling up round the counter and out the door. The longer he stood, bathed in the bouquet of frying food and lashings of vinegar, the hungrier he got. Although his package was double-wrapped in newspaper, he found his fingers worming in and sneaking out a few chips.
Outside the chippy, he walked slap into a boy’s chest. The boy was about a head taller than John and, although they had been in the same class at school, twice as thick. It was proof positive that he had learned something in remedial maths: two negatives didn’t make a positive – they made Tam Scanlan.
‘Geez a chip,’ cried Scanlan, trying to snatch one from the poke.
John pushed him away. ‘Fuck off, Scanlan.’
‘I’d heard your da died and they’d flung you in the loony bin.’
‘You heard right.’
‘Whit did they let you oot for?’
‘They didnae.’
An older man in a checked jacket weaved in between them. Scanlan stepped to the edge of the pavement. ‘Whit dae yeh mean?’
John took a step closer to him, his eyes unblinking, rooted to his wan face. ‘Ah escaped.’ His left eye began to flutter and tremble and lips bent into a rictus tremor.
‘Good yin.’ Scanlan slapped him on the shoulder. ‘You always were a weirdo.’
The sound echoed in John’s ears as Scanlan’s steps receded. He hurried up the road and straight into the warmth of the kitchen. His mum ate a chip or two. Auntie Caroline gave it a decent try, but John ate until he would not have dreamed of eating another fry. Then he did. Vinegar soaked through the bunched up newspaper, the warm smell hanging in the air, and stained the varnished table.
‘You’ve not lost your appetite anyway.’ His mum lit one fag from another and blew smoke into the gap between them. Her feet shifted beneath the chair. ‘I didnae like the thought of you in there, but with so much happening here . . .’
‘It’s alright, Mum.’
‘At least you’d a wee friend.’ She turned her head towards Auntie Caroline seated in the corner chair behind the door. ‘He’d a girlfriend you know. A right wee madam.’ Her hand wafted in front of her face, to flick the thought, or the smoke away. ‘Janet or something. At least that’s all over and done with.’
‘Plenty more fish in the sea,’ Auntie Caroline offered.
‘It’s no’ like that.’ John leaned and picked up another crinkly chip, sniffing it before putting it in his gob.
‘I only want you to be happy, son.’ His mum crossed her legs, knocking fag ash into the ashtray on the table, then stubbed her cigarette out as the conversation drifted. She scrambled up to go to the toilet.
‘The girl give you the bullet?’ Auntie Caroline had on her serious you-can-talk-to-me face.
John laughed. ‘Aye, you could say that.’ He spun on his heels, ready to mosey into the living room, but Auntie Caroline’s voice dropped and she hunched forward in the chair.
‘You know my friend Gloria.’ It wasn’t a question. ‘She says you’re a very special boy.’
He narrowed his eyes, his interest revived. ‘Whit dae you mean?’
‘She says you can see ghosts.’
He tutted, feeling a bit stupid, but it was out before he could stop himself.
‘And she says you can go places in your dreams.’
‘Whit places?’
‘Anywhere.’
‘Like where?’
Auntie Caroline peered at him as if he was stupid. ‘For God sake, just try it. Where do you want to go?’
Mary came back flushed and reached for her fags. John and Auntie Caroline exchanged glances before he tacked off to his room.
Dreaming was not easy, especially when he could not fall asleep for thinki
ng about it. He gave up and conked out. He heard an incantation, Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques, over and over, that took hold of him. Then what felt like a gust of wind passed through him and he was outside. The stars were above him. In a twinkle he was above the stars and could hear the great rumbling as time turned into space. He could hear their celestial song to each other. Nothing in his life prepared him for such atonal beauty. Then he was back in the ward in Janine’s room. She stood at the window, her head angled sideways as she looked up and over the roofs at the stars. He was behind her and she turned, as if aware of his presence, but she remained blind to him. Attached to her chest was a thin cord made out of stardust. It travelled a short distance. In the corner of the room was a presence, in the guise of a man, hooked onto Janine. The colour and texture of uncooked liver – it leaped at him. He wouldn’t have recognised him, but for the cigar.
Day 53
Detective Close drove to the house in an unmarked police car, a lime-coloured Cortina. His shiny black shoes clicked on the path and he stood straight-backed composing a can-do expression on his face before he chapped the door. Brylcreemed hair, slick as a cat in the rain, sat on his shoulders, above regulation length and just the way he liked it. The collar on his mohair coat was up, double-breasted, lapels standing out like knives. The chunky Windsor knot in his drab blue tie slid down his neck and the top button of his white shirt was undone, hinting at a maverick streak.
Mary had barely slept, would have given bone-tired a bad name, and rolled out of bed mealy-mouthed at the disturbance. She recognised the cluster beats on the front-door chapper that followed a familiar rhythm: police, police, police. At the bend of the hall, Auntie Caroline stepped out of the girls’ room and got in her way as she went to answer the door. Her elder sister, without her falsers, covered her mouth as she spoke. ‘Who’s that at this time?’ She yanked tight the cord on her quilted nylon nightgown. Mary snorted, and continued down the hall, shaking her head at her sister’s wilful inability to fathom the calling-card thump of the constabulary. She turned the Yale and pulled the door open.
Lily Poole Page 21
