Eager to Please

by Julie Parsons

  ‘Come in,’ she said. ‘You’re late. I was expecting you an hour ago.’

  He stood in the middle of the room and looked around him, at the murals that decorated every square inch of wall. Trees grew from the skirting boards upwards, their crowns stretched out across the ceiling. Birds flew from branch to branch and from behind the mass of leaves small faces peeped. Children with large eyes and blonde hair, their hands outstretched. Even the floorboards were decorated, painted with detailed strokes, dense green grass so he could almost feel the softness beneath his feet as he walked towards her.

  She was seated on a high stool at the drawing board. She was wearing baggy white cotton trousers and a loose yellow shirt. The sleeves were rolled up to reveal long slender arms covered in small freckles, and as she moved silver bracelets slipped up and down from wrist to elbow, a constant tinkling that sounded like a musical soundtrack accompanying her every gesture. Her small feet were bare. They were also freckled and brown, with high arches and long straight toes. He remembered. He had seen those feet before. She looked like a child, this woman with her ragged fair pageboy and her lithe compact body, but in the brightness of the spotlight he could see the cross-hatch of lines around her eyes, her mouth and across her forehead.

  She offered him coffee and homemade scones with rich dark honey.

  ‘It’s good,’ he said, leaning back into the cushions of the low sofa.

  ‘It’s local,’ she replied. ‘My neighbours on the next farm keep bees.’

  There was silence as he munched. He licked his fingers then said, ‘You’ve lived here how long?’

  ‘I left Dublin fourteen years or so ago. I was lucky. I got this job very quickly. I like it here. It’s almost my home.’

  ‘Almost?’

  ‘Almost. As much a home as anywhere can be, apart from the place of one’s birth.’

  ‘So you think that, do you? That it’s not possible to replace one home with another?’

  ‘It’s the emigrant’s dilemma, isn’t it? The yearning for something that’s changing all the time. Never being able to be happy with what you have.’

  ‘So do you go back to Dublin often?’

  ‘Don’t be so disingenuous, Mr Donnelly. You must know that I don’t. You probably also know that when I went back for Judith’s funeral, it was my first time since I left.’

  ‘So you didn’t return when she got into trouble? When she went to prison.’

  ‘You know that. You know that I didn’t. In fact, I wasn’t even aware of it at first. Judith didn’t choose to tell me. And my husband doesn’t keep me up to date on the goings-on with my children. Not since all that nastiness, all those years ago. He’s never forgiven me, I’m afraid, for the way I betrayed him. Having an affair was bad enough, but having an affair with a woman was completely beyond the pale.’

  ‘Hold on a minute.’ He sat up straight and looked at her. ‘Having an affair with who?’

  She laughed out loud at the look of surprise on his face.

  ‘You’re shocked,’ she said. ‘You who’s seen everything. Did no one tell you? I’d have thought they’d all be dying to reveal the true extent of my disgrace.’

  And then it was his turn to laugh when he thought about it. How everyone had just said a relationship with a family friend, and he and the others had all made the automatic assumption.

  ‘You see, I’m not only an adulteress, but I’m a lesbian too. Doubly shocking. And my husband had to bear the knowledge that he had been cuckolded by a woman, and, worse still, by someone he knew and liked. Sweet Jenny Bradley. She was married. She and her husband were neighbours of ours. We ran away together. We both left our families, our men and our children. But she went back. She couldn’t bear it. She realized she loved them all more than she loved me. But that wasn’t the way it was as far as I was concerned. And Mark never, ever forgave me for the disgrace, the public humiliation. That was why our custody battle was so bitter and protracted. That was why I did what I know was a shameful thing and took the children and brought them here.’

  ‘A shameful thing? Was it? It was, I would think, a rather foolish thing. You must have known that the British police would find them and take them back.’

  She nodded. ‘I suppose I did. I don’t quite remember what I thought or knew then. But I did know after that dreadful day when they were, how shall I put it, “removed from my custody”, that I had to let go of them. That there was no future in this. And in spite of everything I knew that Mark was a good father. A better father than I was a mother. He truly loved them. And their home was with him. So I made a decision that I would stay away from them. I knew that if I tried to have access it would be bounded by conditions, rules, regulations and I couldn’t bear all that shit. So I rationalized it, I decided that when they were older they could choose. To see me or not to see me.’

  ‘But weren’t you worried that your husband’s opinion of you, his view of what happened, his influence would prevail? Surely he would make sure that they wouldn’t want you?’

  ‘That was a risk I was prepared to take. But I know him. I know him very well. I’d known him since I was a small girl. We were part of the same world. Both from Church of Ireland families. We lived in the same part of Dublin. Our families were friends. We were practically like brother and sister. I should never have married him. I knew from the word go it was a mistake. And I also know this.’ She stood up and took a cigarette from a carved wooden box on the mantelpiece. She lit it, then sat down once again on her high stool, the light shining on her face. ‘I know he would never, ever do something like that to Judith. You’re so wrong about him.’

  ‘So who would? Tell me that, because we have plenty of evidence, you know.’ And he told her then, about the studio, the blood, the tools, the photographs, and watched the colour drain from her face. She stood up and went to the tall cupboard in the corner. She opened it and took out a bottle and two small glasses. She poured. She drank. He hesitated.

  ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘It’s good stuff.’

  He sipped warily. It was apple-based, he could smell it in the spirit. She poured herself another glass. He shook his head.

  ‘It’s local too,’ she said. ‘Another neighbour who grows apples for cider makes it. You could call it own-brand Calvados. It’s very good for emergencies.’

  She turned away, her head bowed. The room was quiet. Somewhere outside he heard the revving of a tractor’s engine. Full throttle then dying down to a low rumble. He waited. He looked around him again. There was a desk against the far wall. A computer squatted on it. Ugly and plastic. Unlike anything else in the rest of the room. Above it were a number of photographs, framed. He stood up, glass in hand and walked over to look at them. He recognized them. Judith and Stephen as children. The same pictures that were on the wall in her studio in the house in Rathmines. And other pictures too. A woman with dark hair in a thick fringe. She looked familiar. He looked down at the desk. There was a pile of pages in a plastic-covered folder. And beside it a small print, a painting that he recognized immediately.

  ‘This Caravaggio here. It seems to be a bit of an obsession with all of you. This is the third time I’ve come across it since Judith died.’

  She lifted her head and wiped her hand across her eyes.

  ‘It’s grotesque isn’t it? I should get rid of it. I used to admire the way it was painted. That strange mixture of explicit realism with a kind of heightened dreamlike quality. But it’s the kind of picture you can only enjoy if violence has never touched you. But now, to me, it’s pornographic. It glorifies and glories in the act of murder. It celebrates it.’ She walked over to the desk. She pointed to the folder. ‘Judith’s essay. She sent it to me to read. I was impressed. It’s an excellent piece of work. But I can’t look at that painting any longer. It makes me feel sick.’ She picked up the print and tore it into pieces, flinging them into the grate of the fire. She poured herself another measure and drank half of it in one go. She stood beside him, looking at the
photographs. ‘That’s her,’ she said, touching the face of the young, dark woman. ‘That’s my Jenny. She was so beautiful then.’

  ‘And now?’

  She smiled. ‘Now she’s a middle-aged woman with a good haircut and a bad figure. I saw her when I was over. She came to the funeral. She barely acknowledged me. And afterwards, after the service, she had invited everyone back to her house. But it was very obvious that “everyone” didn’t include me.’

  Of course, now he could place her. The neighbour whose birthday it had been that weekend when Judith was killed. The neighbour to whom Judith had given the flowers.

  ‘Is there anything else you want to know, Mr Donnelly? If not, I’m afraid I’m behind with my work.’ She switched on the computer and pulled an upright chair to the desk.

  ‘I’m surprised,’ he said, picking up his briefcase and pointing at the screen. ‘I thought you were a pencil-and-paper kind of person.’

  ‘Needs must,’ she replied, her right hand fiddling with the mouse. ‘I use it all the time now. The graphics package is quick and simple. And in spite of myself I have become a fan of the Internet. I can read the Irish papers every day and keep up with what’s happening at home. So, Mr Donnelly, I’ll be watching what you do, have no fear.’

  She walked with him as far as the gate and waited until the taxi came. He thought of the way she had looked when he arrived that morning, almost like a child in her simple clothes and bare feet. Now she looked like an old woman. Her skin was grey and sagging. Her eyes dull. Her movements slow and awkward.

  ‘Please remember what I have said to you about Mark.’ She put her hand on his arm. ‘I’m asking you to take it seriously. I do not believe that he killed Judith. Please do not carry on with this line of investigation. Nothing good will come of it. He has suffered enough through the years. Please don’t add to his suffering.’

  He was exhausted by the time he got to the airport. He just wanted to get back to Dublin, find himself a quiet corner in a quiet pub, and get stuck into a couple of pints. But the plane was delayed. First of all for half an hour and then for a further forty minutes. He sat at the bar and nursed a drink. All around him he could hear Irish voices. Comforting, familiar sounds. You’re a dreadful wimp, he said to himself. A day away from home and you’re a mess. No sense of adventure at all. And then he heard his name being called. He turned around and recognized the small blonde woman behind him.

  She had been in London for two days for a conference on fostering, she said. It was very dull, no fun at all.

  ‘Here,’ he patted the stool beside him, ‘take a pew. What’re you drinking?’

  They had met a number of times before, he thought. Always with Andy Bowen. In fact he seemed to remember that once he had thought there might be something happening between them. But Andy had said no and laughed at the thought. Not Alison, he had said. She’s far too bloody upright and principled to have anything to do with a married man. And added, sourly, ‘More’s the pity.’

  He waited for the inevitable questions about the murder, about the arrest, about the investigation. But they didn’t come. Instead she talked about her garden.

  ‘It’s ridiculous,’ she said. ‘I’ve been away for three days and all I can think about is the greenfly on the roses and whether or not the loganberries will have ripened enough to eat. And I planted a couple of silver birches last week, and I hope the next-door neighbour’s kid will have watered them for me like I paid him to do.’ She laughed, her round face dimpling. ‘Since I moved into this house in Sandymount last year I’ve become a complete gardening bore. I’m like someone who’s just had a baby. I’ve only one topic of conversation.’

  ‘That’s what I need,’ he said, offering her peanuts. ‘A hobby. Something to take my mind off work.’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said, between crunches. ‘Yeah, I used to be obsessed with my job. Couldn’t stop thinking about it, talking about it too. All the kids, the ones whose fostering I supervise, they were like my kids. I was always on call for them. They used to ring me up night and day. Bothering me, badgering me. And then the parents. Christ, they were worse. And there was me, muggins, stuck right in the middle.’

  ‘And was Amy Beckett like that? She’s one of yours isn’t she?’

  ‘Ah, Andy’s been talking, I see.’ She shook another handful from the bag. ‘Actually, I’ve never had any bother from her or with her. She was dead lucky with her foster-family. They’re a very nice bunch and they all hit it off right from the start. Which was a good thing, because I can tell you, you wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of that kid. She’s tough. Single-minded. Focused. All that and more.’

  ‘Like her father, that’s what she sounds like.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Alison, looked at him. ‘Of course, you knew him, I suppose. I never had the pleasure.’

  Jack reached over and took the bag of peanuts from her, tipping it up and gesturing in mock horror that it was empty.

  ‘Sorry.’ She smiled. ‘Here, let’s have some more. I’m starving.’

  ‘And let’s do ourselves a favour,’ he said as he waved to the barman for another round. ‘Let’s not talk about anything remotely connected with work. I’m sick of it and I’m sorry for raising it. Give me some nuts and tell me again about your garden.’

  She kept him entertained until they were called for take-off. He was surprised by her. She didn’t seem to square somehow with the way Andy had described her. He watched her fair head during the flight and fell into step beside her as they moved through the arrivals area at Dublin airport.

  ‘No luggage,’ she said, pointing to her neat little bag on wheels. And when they emerged into the twilight outside it made sense for him to offer her a lift. And even more sense for her to ask him in for something to eat, and maybe something nice to drink.

  ‘You put me to shame,’ he said as he wandered around her large, beautiful sitting room. ‘How do you manage to make it all look so perfect?’

  ‘It’s love,’ she said. ‘I fell in love with the house two years ago. It was a mess, practically derelict. It’s taken me this long to get it even half right.’

  The rooms on the ground floor were painted with bright jewel-like colours. Mossy greens and deep blues. The kitchen was vivid yellow. He thought of his flat. White walls. No decoration. And of the house in which he had lived with Joan for all those years. She had nagged and pleaded, cursed and threatened. And he had never given in. He would do nothing to it. Now he sat and watched Alison as she prepared a meal. Making a tomato sauce for pasta. Slicing red peppers and breaking up pieces of feta cheese to go with a crisp lettuce for the salad. Her movements were neat and precise.

  ‘Here.’ She turned towards him, a bottle and a corkscrew in her hands. ‘Man’s work.’

  He sniffed the cork. ‘Mmm, that smells good.’

  She took the bottle from him and poured.

  ‘Not half as good as it tastes,’ she said, and lifted her glass. He looked at her neck as she swallowed. It was long and white. He suddenly wanted to catch hold of her skin with his teeth. He could feel himself blushing as he thought about it. He lifted his own glass and drank. The wine was rich and fruity, with a slightly acid aftertaste. She watched him.

  ‘Nice,’ he said. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Guelbenzu. One of those Spanish vineyards that have suddenly got really good.’

  ‘Oh, you know about wine, do you?’

  She smiled and refilled their glasses. ‘Only so I get to drink the good ones. That’s all. Like this.’

  ‘You like good things, don’t you? Good food, good wine.’

  She took a step towards him. She put her hand on his shoulder. He could see the shape of her breasts through her white shirt.

  ‘Yes, I do. I like to be satisfied. I like to enjoy myself.’

  He put his hand on her shoulder, then ran the tips of his fingers along her collarbone and rested them in the hollow at the base of her neck. She swallowed and he felt his fingers rise and fall with the
movement. When she spoke he could feel the vibration from her larynx.

  ‘I’ve often wondered about you, Jack. Andy would never say much. He’s too discreet. But I did hear that you’re separated now. Is that right?’

  ‘That’s right,’ he said. He took another swallow of wine. He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. She moved her face so her mouth was on his. He kissed her again and felt her lips open.

  She pulled away from him and reached out to turn off the gas burner. ‘We’ll eat later,’ she said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  HAD SHE EVER seen such a sunset before? She couldn’t remember that she had. She sat on the terrace outside the house and looked out to sea. The dark blue of the horizon lay before her, twelve miles out, and above it the pale blue of the sky streaked with clouds that were coloured improbable shades of pink and orange and gold. She sat and watched until the view before her was refracted and distorted by the tears that filled her eyes. So this was how it had been during all those years when she was locked away from the world. Evening after evening Daniel Beckett and his wife had sat here, on this bench, at this table, and looked out on the beauty that lay before her now. And she had not known.

  She lifted her drink and smelt it. The sweetness of the gin, the astringency of the tonic and the tart bitterness of the wedge of lemon. She swirled it around, watching bubbles rise in long beaded strings to the surface, hearing the musical tinkling of the ice, and then she drank. She was getting better about alcohol. Those first few weeks after she came out of prison she had found it terrifying. The way her body ceased to be her own. The way her voice thickened and slurred. The surge of emotion, elation, well-being, excitement that rushed over her, carrying her along like a wave pounding up the beach, then dumping her in a miserable heap at the tideline.

  But now she was more measured in her attitude. She drank and felt the coldness slither down her throat and a flush rise in her cheeks. Today had been near perfect. And tonight was going to be even better.