Isabel looked up from the scone and considered me before turning to Conor. ‘It was a home birth,’ she said, breaking into a disorientating smile. ‘I’ll never forget it. How could I? Rain lashing down outside, my whole body exhausted, and I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy. Do you remember, Conor?’
‘I—’
But then his phone rang and we all stood, eager to get this over with.
FORTY-ONE
The courtroom was as high as it was wide, and while that was very high it wasn’t particularly wide. It was packed. The only group I distinguished before we took our seats was a row of about six men wearing identical T-shirts with bicycles and some text across the front. Conor’s lawyer colleague had saved us a red-cushioned pew at the front. The wedding theme prevailed. Marriage hadn’t felt so urgent until Henry died. Losing a boyfriend sounded like teenage carelessness; ‘husband’ would have focused people’s understanding much better.
An industrial-sized box of tissues sat at both ends of the bench. ‘1,000 Facial Tissues’ was printed along the side in a practical black font. There were identical boxes dotted all around the room. I imagined a storage closet, somewhere else in the building, heaving with these state-sanctioned tokens of sympathy.
A woman in legal regalia came over and shook our hands. She was telling Conor and Isabel that it wasn’t usually so crowded and Henry’s death had become ‘a bit of a cause’. I kept my focus straight ahead until the court clerk called for us to rise, and the whole room got to its feet.
The coroner walked out from a side door and climbed to an elevated throne-esque seat. Her hair was swept haphazardly to the side. ‘We are here to call an inquest into the death of Henry Walsh of 144A Thomas Street, Dublin 8,’ she said and I pictured the address as it had been written on the postcards and bills the shopkeeper downstairs used to drop up to our flat. ‘If I can just see the family are present?’
Conor’s lawyer friend raised a hand.
‘And I believe you have legal representation?’ He nodded and she launched into a description of how proceedings would go. We were here to establish the identity of the deceased, the date and place of his death and the circumstances in which it occurred. The jury would return a verdict of how he had died.
I observed the jury, sitting in two rows to the right of the coroner. A man and a woman at the end were holding hands. They must have been two of the people wrangled into taking part last minute. Would they leave the court with a greater appreciation for their own lives and for each other? I felt like Tiny Tim at Christmas Mass, making the other worshippers feel better about themselves because they were not the ones with gammy legs. Things might be bad, but I was the reminder that they could always be worse.
‘In the coroner’s court nobody can be blamed,’ she continued. ‘It’s only to clarify those circumstances I outlined.’ No criminal or civil liability could be established; the family could ask questions; the minutes would be recorded. The judge looked like she was behind on her sleep, a few strands of hair now sticking up. She could have been hung-over, or maybe she was just tired of repeating herself.
She checked that the doctor who’d carried out Henry’s autopsy was present and then she called the first witness, a guard, to the stand. He placed his right hand on a Bible presented by the clerk and agreed to the oath. The coroner asked painstakingly detailed questions even though this guard had not been at the scene of the incident but only called to the hospital afterwards. He wasn’t one of the ones who’d been standing outside the flat that evening, hat in hand, when I arrived home soaked to the bone.
The guard attested that ‘the deceased’s father, Conor Walsh’ had come to the mortuary at the hospital and made a formal identification. The whole thing seemed pointless. What did anything matter if it happened after Henry was dead?
‘Next we have Conor Walsh.’
I looked down the pew as Conor stood, tugging at his cuffs slightly. I didn’t know he’d be taking the stand. Had he offered or been asked? Could I have gotten up? Could I have told them all about the scarf that was too long and the East Wall house we didn’t need to visit? Conor swore on the Bible just as the guard had done. Then he produced an A4 page from his breast pocket and began to read.
‘My name is Conor Walsh. I am the father of the deceased. Henry Walsh was the only son of myself and my wife, Isabel Walsh. We loved him very much.’ Conor, who spoke with the formality of a man used to giving presentations, hesitated. He glanced from the page to Isabel, but she was staring hard at the ground.
‘I was at my office – McDermott and Walsh, 24 Pembroke Grove, Dublin 2 – on the evening of February nineteenth when I got a phone call from a member of An Garda Síochána whose name I didn’t remember but who I now understand to be Sergeant Montague,’ he said, going off script and nodding to the officer who had just abdicated the stand. ‘He told me that a man whom they believed to be my son, Henry Walsh, had been involved in a road traffic accident. He asked if I would be available to identify the body. They had contacted his girlfriend, Grace McDonnell, but did not believe she would be physically able to make the journey to the hospital.’
I looked up from my knees to Conor in horror. I did not remember this. I had next to no recollection of the time after the guards were at the doorstep except that somehow I had ended up at my parents’ house. Had they asked me to go to the hospital? To identify the body? Had I put his parents through that too? Conor smiled kindly at me, as if to say it was all right. I opened my mouth and closed it again.
‘I travelled to the Mater hospital immediately, deciding not to phone my wife until I had made the formal identification in case it was an error. I remember being surprised by how light the traffic was. The taxi driver told me it was mid-term break and that always made it easier to cross the city. I was met at reception and brought through to the mortuary. I was greeted by a guard, Sergeant Montague, and a doctor who explained what was about to happen and asked if I was ready to go in. The staff at the Mater were very considerate and professional. I wish to put that on record. Myself and my wife are very grateful for that. I followed the guard through to the room and could immediately see that it was Henry. He was covered with a white sheet and the doctor explained that the truck had done serious damage to his organs. But his head was visible. I identified him as our boy, Henry.
‘I appreciate that some people would prefer to remember their child as he was, but I’m glad I got to see Henry like that. Every time I think about the manner in which he died, and how terrified he must have been, I remember him as he was that very last time, all covered in white. He looked so peaceful. And I’m glad too because it has helped me to accept that he is dead. It is a difficult thing for any parent to accept.’ I looked down the row at Isabel who was still concentrating on the floor. ‘I do, however, regret that I didn’t say goodbye, out loud, to him. I was disorientated in the mortuary and I was outside again before I realised I hadn’t told him how much we loved him. It felt foolish to ask to go back in. That was the last time I saw my son.’
Conor looked up from the page first to Isabel, then to the coroner. I wondered if anyone had ever been sick in this room.
The coroner thanked Conor for his statement and offered her sympathies. Then she asked him a long series of questions about Henry’s cycling habits, whether he had also been a motorist, what he’d been wearing at the time of the accident, and so on and so forth. I didn’t see the purpose of most of it. I kept thinking about the exact moment Henry’s heart had stopped beating.
‘Boyzone.’
‘Yeah, but which one?’
‘All of them.’
‘All of them? Your first crush was five grown men?’
‘They all brought something different to the table, and they were being sold as a collective so I think it’s fair enough that my ten-year-old self and her burgeoning sexuality saw them as such.’
‘I have to say, Grace, I’m feeling a little inferior here. Five grown men. How will I ever keep you satis
fied?’
‘All right, so, who was your first crush?’
‘She-Ra.’
‘Who?’
‘He-Man’s sister.’
‘I’m sorry now, but your sexual awakening was a cartoon character?’
‘At least I had a bit of fidelity. Ten-year-old Grace, already plotting her way to polygamy.’
‘We’re not talking about me anymore, Henry. We’re talking about you. You and the little tent that a 2D animation used to build in your pants.’
‘You’re so crude, Grace.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. Did I insult your girlfriend?’
‘I used to get up every Sunday morning to watch He-Man. They were on mad early, but I was committed. I had this friend and every time I went to his house, I’d ask if we could watch the He-Man Christmas Special, ’cause She-Ra was dressed like Mrs Claus in that one.’
‘You kinky little weirdo!’
‘I didn’t know why I wanted to watch it so badly. But when he said “no”, I’d actually start crying. I’d beg his mam to put it on. Sometimes my friend would get pissed off and go out on the road to play and I’d just sit there on my own watching He-Man and She-Ra try to save Christmas.’
‘This is both incredibly pathetic and incredibly charming. Hang on while I look up this She-Ra woman, check out the competition . . . This one? How the feck was she supposed to save the world in that! Her boobs are one high-kick away from falling out. But she’s not bad-looking, Henry, I’ll give you that. For a cartoon.’
‘Well, you know, if you were thinking about what you might wear for my birthday . . .’
‘Except her boobs aren’t real.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘They’re not. Look.’
‘Of course they’re real.’
‘See how they’re holding up that top? They defy gravity.’
‘She-Ra lives on Eternia, Grace, not Earth.’
‘So?’
‘So gravity works differently there.’
‘I see. Well, my deepest apologies, Henry. That makes perfect sense, now that you say it.’
Proceedings dragged on with the coroner double checking every fact. There was a steady line of witnesses – firemen, doctor, forensic specialist – and photographs with markings from the scene of the accident were blown up on a massive television. The one that sat enlarged on the screen the longest was a close-up of the side of the footpath and the mangled bicycle. There was a space between them where Henry’s body had been and my imagination seamlessly reinserted it. In the spokes of the wheel which lay on its side, bent in two but still connected to the bike frame, you could clearly make out the red wool.
The coroner took a break but we all stayed where we were and the photo remained on the screen. Two weeks it took me to knit that scarf. If I’d spent five days less, maybe none of us would be sitting here.
When the judge re-emerged, she called a Candice Sweeny to the stand. I looked around the room to see a woman of about seventy making her way to the front. Candice, the judge informed us, had been approaching Custom House on foot, going west to east, on the evening in question. She was the one who called the guards. She was the last person to see Henry alive.
FORTY-TWO
My image of Henry’s death was so vivid and I had relived it so many times that I’d forgotten it wasn’t necessarily true. In that image Henry had been all alone. I peered down the row at Isabel and Conor but neither seemed taken aback by this woman’s existence.
Candice climbed carefully to the stand. She had grey-blonde hair and wore a navy blue skirt suit. Her statement was shaking in her right hand and she used the left one to keep it in place.
Candice had spent the day in town shopping for an outfit for her granddaughter’s First Holy Communion. She was on her way to get a bus home. She’d been walking slowly because she had several bags in her hands. It had started to rain and although she was wearing a gabardine her shoes were slippery. The road was in her peripheral vision. She had been approaching Custom House when a cyclist who had been there a moment ago suddenly disappeared. Her voice quivered through the statement and I squeezed my eyes shut, willing it to stop.
She told the court what time of evening it was and how far she’d been from the bus stop. She described the moment she realised the cyclist hadn’t disappeared but fallen. He was lying on the side of the road, immobile. I kept my eyes closed and swallowed a silent burp. She kept apologising to the family and I found myself getting annoyed at how illogical this was, as if witnessing it could somehow have made it happen.
Candice mentioned twice that his helmet had still been attached to his head. She noted how the truck had trundled on and left the scene by the time she got to the cyclist’s side. She never referred to him as ‘Henry’, only ever as ‘the cyclist’. Another man whose name she didn’t know had caught the name of the company written on the back of the vehicle and pulled Henry off the road and onto the footpath. Candice tried to speak to the cyclist but he didn’t respond. She repeated how it took her several seconds longer than it should have to phone 999 because her hands kept shaking, and when she got through she couldn’t fully hear the voice on the other end so she just kept shouting their whereabouts until the line went dead.
‘I am so sorry for the delay,’ she said, as the trembling page continued to knock against her hand. ‘I want to apologise to the family. My hearing is bad in my right ear and I was in a panic. The rain made the quays noisier than usual, but it’s not an excuse. I could have been faster. I am so sorry for that.’
Candice told the court how she’d taken off her raincoat and placed it over Henry’s body. She said again how sorry she was for our loss. We all had her deepest sympathies. She thought about him every day, she said. He had a kind face. She was glad he had been so loved. She was sorry for our loss.
I opened my eyes and blinked hard as the clerk helped her down from the witness box. She was pale and shook. I doubt she’d had much sleep either. My mother squeezed my hand and Dad tore a tissue from the industrial box. They were both in tears but I felt only frustration. I wanted to get up and go to Candice, tell her how she needed to stop saying sorry, that I was the one who should be apologising to her.
Then, when I thought maybe we were done, the coroner called the driver.
‘George Shopov!’
Several men stood and confirmed that they were European Hauliers’ legal representation, though the coroner had yet to ask. A thin man with sallow skin dressed in a short-sleeved shirt emerged from their fold and walked to the stand. He was entirely unremarkable. That was what struck me most. There was something deeply insulting about a man half Henry’s size being responsible for his death.
‘Is the translator present?’ asked the coroner.
A woman in large glasses and a pinstriped suit nodded.
George put his hand on the Bible, the translator read the words and he agreed. Then the translator read out a statement on behalf of George. I could feel Isabel shuffling further up the bench. She was being robbed of her apology in plain view and she didn’t know how to stop it.
George’s statement was the shortest, shorter even than the guard who had been at the hospital when the body was identified. The translator read his name and address, originally from Sofia, Bulgaria, now living at a rural home outside the town of Mullingar in the middle of Ireland. He’d been resident here for a year. She gave his employment record, all clean, and confirmed he had been driving a tanker in Dublin on the evening in question – a return trip to the UK after making a sugar delivery – and that he had felt nothing. The first he knew of the accident was when he was stopped at Dublin Port.
Isabel’s protests grew louder. Conor hushed her but she kept mumbling. Conor whispered something to the lawyer and then back to Isabel. The coroner asked George several questions but even she, a woman who seemed to thrive on minute details, grew tired of the three-way translation system. When she was wrapping it up, Conor’s lawyer stood and stated that the family would lik
e to ask a question.
‘Go ahead,’ said the coroner.
‘The family wish to know if the driver feels remorse for what happened.’
The woman in the pinstripes translated and George was about to respond to her – and I think what he was going to say was yes, yes he did feel remorse – when one of the haulier company’s lawyers stood. ‘We’d like to advise our client not to respond.’ The translator said something else. George replied to her and she told the judge: ‘No comment.’
Conor’s lawyer sat. Isabel started making noises but the coroner was talking again. There were closing comments and advice to the jury as to the ways they could rule. She advised us to stay where we were because she didn’t imagine it would take long and we had all had a very long day as it was. If she was hungover she looked like she was reaching the stage where the promise of multiple pizzas was the only thing sustaining her.
A few minutes later the jurors were back and they ruled as Conor had said they would: Death by misadventure.
The back rows were standing and moving towards the door before the coroner had returned to her chambers. It made me think of Mass, where nobody’s supposed to budge before the priest has left. There was an immediate bottleneck at the entrance but nobody in our bench moved. A young woman approached Isabel – a campaigner maybe, or a journalist – but whatever she wanted was declined and Isabel was the first of us to rise. My parents were red-eyed and forlorn. I felt sick to the pit of my stomach. But Isabel was livid. Conor got up to follow her and I, with one hand on my midriff, forced myself to do the same.
I twisted my frame to look behind. The bodies pushed towards the door and I found myself squashed against a guard. The woman directly behind me was carrying a bag of pear drops. The crowd pushed me forward and I was out through the heavy door before I registered what I thought I saw.
Henry, I thought as I stumbled through the door but immediately corrected myself: Andy. But he couldn’t be here. He didn’t know it was on. I looked behind again but it was no use; this was a one-way system. Up ahead Isabel was fighting with Conor. It had only taken a few hours of going back to a time of Henry and the people who knew him for Andy to start to evaporate. He was the ghost now, the one who existed only in the corner of my eye. I rebuked myself and followed Henry’s parents out onto the street.
Grace After Henry Page 20
