by Mark Roberts
Clay noted the steady motion of Louise’s mouth as she spoke and the voice that poured from her was full of the strength and energy of a woman half her age.
‘I left him in the darkness and left the darkness to do the rest of the work for me. When morning came, he hadn’t slept at all. But he was his usual self, cold, distant, silent but anxious now, very, very anxious.
‘In the morning, he told me that we were going to the Isle of Man. That we were going to reclaim the skeletons of the infants from the original English Experiment. That we were going to bring them back and bury them in the wild seclusion of the garden of 777 Croxteth Road.
‘My father was left in charge of the house and the boys and by lunchtime Noone and I were on our way to the Isle of Man. We walked for miles without a word and then he stopped. There was nothing, no one in sight. It didn’t look like a cave. It was more of a crack in the grassy rock with a large stone covering it.’
Louise took a deep, slow breath.
‘I found strength I never knew I had and I moved that stone enough so I could squeeze inside, into the darkness. He followed me in. They’re on a high ledge, he said. You’ll have to climb up to reach them. Those were his last words. I hit him with that same newfound strength. He dropped to the ground, unconscious, but he wasn’t dead. He was breathing and had a pulse. I left the cave, moved the stone back and packed the crack with smaller stones, completely concealing the entrance. It was as easy as drawing a curtain for me.’
There was a lightness about Louise, a dead weight rising from her shoulders.
‘When I came home, it was to a house in chaos. Cain had rebelled against my father, had attacked him, sending him fleeing from the house. But not before my father had managed to burn all the years of evidence. All that remained was a picture of the boys when they were perfectly healthy babies. And two teenage children, one of them damaged by design.
‘That night, we all went to bed, Cain and Abel and I, but not as normal. Cain insisted on sleeping with his brother in the big double bed that their father had no further use for, in the room next door to mine. I woke up in the early hours. I went next door and Cain was standing over Abel, who was lying perfectly still in the bed. Cain had a pillow in his hand. I cannot bear his suffering. He lay down next to his dead brother. I cannot bear my own suffering.
‘I took Cain’s hand. Leave your brother for now. And leave behind your thoughts of death. Come with me. He lay in my bed and we started talking. And talking. And talking. And I taught him what the world outside was like. And we talked. For hours and days and weeks and months until he finally said that he wanted to live. And that is exactly what happened. I explained what had happened. And I prepared him for the real world. I would follow him at a distance as he went into shops. I would travel on the bus in a different seat to him. I would watch him cross the road. For years. And years and year and years. I gave him the skills he needed to survive in the real world.
‘One day, shortly after Cain had turned twenty, I returned to the house and he was gone. The only thing he left was a piece of paper on which he’d written a handful of words. To my loving Shepherd. Do not come looking for your sheep, for your sheep is not lost but roaming. Do not leave your father. Guard the monster. I will return, I swear, and we will settle this score and silence that voice forever. The only things he took with him were his brother’s bones. After many, many years of waiting, I thought he has gone forever and would never return. But he did. Just over a year ago. The sheep returned to his Shepherd...’
Clay waited and saw light playing out in Louise’s eyes.
‘What happened?’ asked Clay. ‘In between Cain leaving and coming back?’
Louise fell silent. A shadow passed over her as memory possessed her. Se looked at Clay, took a deep breath.
‘He’s left you, hasn’t he? These were the first words that poured from my father’s mouth when he found me weeping in my room. He stood in the doorway of my bedroom with that horrible smile on his face. He saw I was broken. He saw I was weak. He saw the lost child in me returned and he seized on it like a wild beast on injured prey. He’s left you, hasn’t he? Cain, your beloved friend, the son you never had. In all the years I’d never seen him look as happy. He left you because he didn’t love you. He left you because he could never love you. He left you because you are beyond love. No one could love you. How absurd. You? To be loved? He walked towards me. I was sitting on my bed. I closed my eyes to try and block him out. Open your eyes, you miserable specimen. Nobody could ever love you. Not me. Not your mother. Not Cain. You’re worthless, Louise. A dried-up nonentity. Food, air and water are wasted on you. You’re a parasite. Cain could see that because he was educated to understand such things, educated by me to know what was the truth of human nature. And he understood you, your insignificance, your weak intellect, the ugliness that surrounds you. You are mourning a man who despised you from the roots of his hair to the tips of his toes. He opened my lips and pressed my tongue down hard to the base of my mouth with his fingers. He said, Silence! We’re going back to basics. We’re going back to the good old days. Silence! Speak when you’re spoken to. When I speak you listen. And when I tell you what to do, you do it with a glad heart because I am the only thing you have in this world and even though it’s my misfortune to be your father, I am going to tolerate you and keep you where you belong, in your place. Do you know where your place is? On your knees before me in gratitude for the life I gave you. You will stay in your room until I tell you to leave. You will clean the house from top to bottom and cook my food to my satisfaction when I tell you. And if you even think of leaving I will know immediately what is going on in your mind because you are an open book to me, a dull and tiresome open book. If you even think of leaving I will expose all our secrets and you will become that worst of all possible things in other people’s eyes. The woman capable of the most dreadful cruelty to innocent children. It was all your idea. You lulled me into The English Experiment. Didn’t you? Didn’t you? he screamed in my face.
‘Yes, Father, I am the worst of all imaginable daughters. I am the most cruel and unnatural woman of all kinds.
‘And don’t you deserve to be punished for that? He picked me up by the hair and marched me into his bedroom, made me sit on the bottom end of his bed and told me to look at the picture of the Tower of Babel. Look at it! Look at it! Look at it and think about Damien Noone. What did you do to make him go away from me?
‘For the hundred thousandth time I told him, One minute he was there, the next he was gone. As with all things, Father, here now, gone in the twinkling of an eye.
‘He stuck his hands either side of my face and shunted my head up. Look at the Tower of Babel in complete silence. Stay there, stay right there and do not move, do not close your eyes, look, look at the picture and stay right where you are. It was light when he closed the door on his way out. When he returned and opened the door it was dark, night. He didn’t switch on the light, he just commanded me, Go to your room. Go to bed. Do not leave the room until I tell you. I walked through the darkness to the door. He blocked me. Before you go to your room, tell me, what are you?
‘I replied, I am nothing.
‘Nothing? He was in between amusement and anger. Nothing? He slapped my face. Nothing?
‘My face was filled with fire and my eyes with tears. I am less than nothing.
‘Correct. You are less than nothing. Go!
‘Day in, day out. Week in, week out. Month in, month out, the same treatment, but I hung on to Cain’s words. I would not leave my father alone. I would guard the monster because one day Cain would return and we would settle the score and silence that hideous voice forever. And as the years went by, Father grew slowly weaker, older, subject to all manner of infections and the sickness at the core of his being. His epileptic fits. It was a rare joy to behold him frothing at the mouth and twitching wildly when he was subject to a fit. One day he fell into a fit at the top of the stairs and fell all the way down and h
ad to go to hospital. He was in for nearly two weeks. While he was in hospital, I went for a walk around the park, just like he did every day, just as he had forbidden me from doing. I walked and came to The Sanctuary and I saw the disabled men coming and going so I knew where they lived. And I carried on walking and I found a man wandering. Tom Thumb. He was distressed and I said, Do you want me to take you home? He slipped his hand into mine and I walked with him back to The Sanctuary. I rang on the bell and Danielle answered the door. I have brought him home to you. She was grateful to me. She thanked me, said I was an angel and asked me in for tea.’
Tears rolled down her face.
‘For the first time since Cain had left, I was valued, for the first time in years, I was shown kindness. It gave me a strength I hadn’t known since the days that I spent with Cain. Can I come and work here for a few days? I don’t want money. I just want to help. She accepted my offer immediately and the next few days, while Father was still in hospital, were so, so happy. I knew the day would come when he would return and I would have to stop seeing my friends – my friends – but I lived in those moments as if they were the last ones I would ever have.
‘He came home, was bedbound with his injuries. A broken leg. Broken ribs. A damaged hip. I took him his lunch. It was almost at the time of day when I left the house for The Sanctuary. I stood in the doorway of his room with the tray in my hands and the words just came out. I’ve got a job.
‘Don’t be absurd. Who’d employ a useless bitch like you?
‘I’m going there right now. I turned my back and walked away.
‘Bring me my food!
‘I turned. I work in The Sanctuary. It’s the home for...
‘I know what it is, it’s the asylum on the park, I walk past it several times a day, you idiot!
‘I’ve been going there while you’ve been in hospital. They’re expecting me. They know where I live. Wouldn’t it be awful if they came to the door and asked where I was and why I wasn’t in work and was I all right and I might just say, No I’m not all right, not at all. My father keeps me as a prisoner in his house.
‘Oh no, no, that is not right, that is against the law, they may say.
‘I have made friends, Father, and I have something to say to you. I am going to keep going to The Sanctuary every day for a few hours. I am going there now!
‘He was outraged but couldn’t get out of bed to violate or control me. If you want me to feed you tonight, Father, you will not tell me to not go there. I am going to go every day and you will not stop me. This is the only thing I ask. This is the only change I demand. When I am here, in your house, I will do exactly as you say when you say it, but I will go to The Sanctuary and you will not stop me. Do you want your lunch, Father? I placed the tray on his lap and stood at the bottom of his bed. I am too old to care if you expose me with your lies about that vile experiment. Do you want to eat tonight?
‘He couldn’t look at me. He nodded. I will beat you as soon as I am able.
‘You have beaten me enough and often for years. That is no longer a punishment. That is a bad habit of yours. You cannot hurt me any more.
‘Bit by bit, day by day, his spirit weakened, and instead of terrorising me, he ignored me. I did everything for him, cooking, cleaning, caring for him. But he stopped ordering me into my room, stopped making me look at those revolting paintings, stopped his violence. Slowly, he gave up his campaign against me. And we lived in virtual silence and complete contempt.’
She smiled.
‘And then Cain returned. And I was filled with the joy of a mother whose lost son had returned and the strength of a lion. Cain who loved me and was loved by me. Cain,’ she whispered.
Louise looked at Clay. There was a deep silence before Louise asked, ‘Did you find him, Cain Noone?’
‘No. He found me,’ replied Clay. ‘He found me.’
‘He’s gone to join Abel, hasn’t he? I was in the room with him when he was thirteen and I used words to stop him killing himself. What did you do, Eve?’
‘I listened and he told me everything.’
‘Did you let him go? Did you let him join his silent half, his other half?’ Louise smiled and Clay was filled with the sadness of many lifetimes. The old woman looked deeply into Clay’s eyes. ‘I can see. It’s marked you, Eve. You look different. The mark of Cain. He told you everything?’
‘Yes, Louise, everything.’
‘In which case, that is all.’ A look of pure relief swept over Louise and she spoke softly. ‘There is no more need for words.’
Epilogue
Friday, 21st December 2018
At the Nativity scene in the Catholic Cathedral, Eve Clay picked up her son Philip and watched his face closely as he looked at the plaster statues of Mary and Joseph with the infant Jesus. Blue light drifted down from the stained glass of the central tower.
‘Mummy? Can I take the Baby Jesus home with me?’ asked Philip.
Thomas laughed. ‘Why do you want to do that?’
‘I want a little brother.’
Thomas looked at Eve. ‘Good idea, Philip!’
‘We’ll see,’ replied Eve.
He wriggled in her arms. As she put him down, she looked across to the central altar under the glass tower. She reached inside her pocket and touched the edges of the photographs that had been sent to her care of Thomas’s medical practice.
Close to the altar, she saw a lone figure with his back turned to her.
‘Can we go to the café now? Mummy? Daddy?’
Eve felt the weight of Thomas’s gaze falling on her. She looked at him, then back at the solitary man.
‘We’ll walk round the cathedral first,’ said Thomas. ‘Come on, Philip.’
She listened to their footsteps as they headed off and felt a strange mixture of loss and apprehension as she watched the still figure at the altar. She quashed the desire to turn away and instead walked down the aisle towards him, her eyes pinned on his back.
His hair was short and white. When she was five pews away, she was pulled up by the sight of a hand-rolled cigarette behind his ear.
‘Hello, Eve.’ He didn’t turn, but she recognised his voice. ‘We meet again after so many years.’
‘Father Murphy?’
He looked back over his shoulder, a much older version of the tough priest she’d met more than three decades earlier in Mrs Tripp’s office. He smiled at her and shifted up the pew a little.
‘Mrs Tripp told me that she’d read an article in Reader’s Digest about childhood psychiatric disorders. That’s why she called me in to have a look at you.’
‘You stood up for me, Father Murphy. I thank you for that.’
He took the cigarette from behind his ear, examined it. ‘No matter.’ He placed it back and said, ‘I was impressed by you that day. You were quite a plucky girl. Who grew up to be a rather plucky woman. I confess, Eve, I’ve followed your progress with great interest.’ He paused. ‘You’ve seen a lot of it, so you must believe in it.’
‘Evil?’
He nodded, drank her in with smiling eyes.
‘Thank you for coming to see me today. I understand you’ve been rather busy.’
She showed him the photographs. ‘No. Thank you. I can’t tell you how much they mean to me.’
‘I want to give you something that I hope will give you comfort as you continue to fight the forces of evil. Do you remember asking me if I knew Sister Philomena? And I told you truthfully that I hadn’t met her. I was so sorry for the disappointment this caused you, so I took it upon myself in the 1980s to try and make amends. You remember Sister Veronica?’
‘Of course.’ A small young Irish nun with a huge smile; Sister Philomena’s deputy at St Claire’s, the home Eve had grown up in until she was six. ‘Within days of Sister Philomena’s funeral, she was sent to Uganda to take charge of an orphanage there. Which is why she was never able to fulfil her promise to Philomena at her deathbed.’
Father Murphy reached insid
e his coat pocket and produced an envelope with Sister Veronica’s handwriting across the front panel. Eve felt weightless as she recognised the writing, a direct physical link to her childhood, and saw the Ugandan stamp in the top right-hand corner.
‘It’s addressed to me, but the letter’s really for you, Eve.’
He handed her the envelope and, for a moment, she felt paralysed.
‘I wrote and asked Sister Veronica what happened, what was said at Sister Philomena’s deathbed about you.’
Eve took the letter from inside the envelope and turned over the folds, her fingertips prickling, her heart pounding.
The letter was dated 6th January 1986.
Dear Father Murphy...
Eve heard her own voice as she read the letter silently, tripping up and skipping back over the three words of greeting, over and over. Silence. Eve forced herself on into the body of the letter and as soon as she read, Sister Veronica’s voice took over. It was as if she was sitting next to her, whispering.
I was with Sister Philomena during the final hours of her life, praying with and for her. And though I rejoiced that my friend and mentor would soon be joining the saints in the joys of heaven, my heart was filled with sorrow as I knew these would be my last moments on earth with her and that we had a shared anxiety. What would happen to Evette Clay after Sister Philomena’s death when, surely, St Claire’s would be closed down for good.
Eve was thrown back into the chapel at St Claire’s, looking at Philomena in her coffin and quietly begging the statue of Christ on the cross above them to open her eyes and let her lips smile just one last time.
Right at the end, in the last few minutes, I can recall Sister Philomena’s words perfectly on the subject of her beloved Eve and what she wanted me to do for her. She drifted in and out of wakefulness, but as soon as she became conscious, Philomena talked of nothing but Evette. She said, ‘Wait until Eve is old enough to fully understand and, when she reaches this maturity, be sure to tell her this. Nothing in her life has been accidental. Her battles in this world are ones for which she has been chosen because of the strength of her spirit. The rewards she has come into on this earth, the love she has found and made, are her just deserts for the courage and selflessness that she displays as a matter of course.
