by John Brady
“Looking after her, after Bertie. Albertina. That was when I found out. How she’d had a stroke, and then another, and that she was paralyzed. I was completely…well I don’t know what I was. I think I must have just sat there. I couldn’t move.”
She paused and swallowed.
“You know when someone says that their whole life flashes before them? Well, it’s true. I thought, how is it that this man would know about Bertie before I would? The very man who had treated her like that? I was her friend, it was me who prayed every day beside her. We used to finish one another’s sentences, we were so in tune. And now, to sit here, and be told this news? By this man…?”
“You got through it, though.”
“Of course I did, but not under my own steam. True to His ways, it happened: I wasn’t angry, I didn’t tear into him for ripping her from us, for endangering her soul. I just sat there in that room with him. He cried. He said it was his confession. Imagine that, a nun hearing confession. But I said nothing, I just listened and I prayed.”
She was waiting for him to look over.
“You know what that was, don’t you? You’re Catholic, Christian at least?”
Minogue shook his head.
“That was grace,” she said. “The Holy Spirit on the job. No wonder I couldn’t open my mouth at the time. I accepted God’s work. So when he told me about why he had been sent out on the missions in the first place, I knew that he had suffered too. And I knew that I had to help carry that burden. God fits the back to the burden, doesn’t He?”
Slurs rose up suddenly in Minogue’s mind. He waited for several moments.
“He told you about Padraig that day too? What had gone on between them?” “He did,” she said. “Yes.”
“I suppose I was just paralyzed. I got a terrible feeling, so I did, that there was something there in that room besides us. It was only later on when I got my brain back working that I told him. Look, I had to say to him, telling me wasn’t going to get him absolution. I wasn’t a priest, was I? But by then, he was so, what would I call it, so exhausted maybe, I don’t think he was taking anything in. So that’s what I meant earlier, that by the end, I don’t think he was a priest really. I even feared for his soul – but I don’t want to think about that, even now.”
“A fortnight later…?”
“That’s right. He was gone. I suppose he must have had a premonition. I only hope – pray, actually – that he did what I told him, and made a proper confession.”
She looked away again. The turn was coming up. A couple of minutes, he figured.
“Left at the lights here,” he heard her say.
Chapter 35
Moss flourished at the margins of the driveway into Áras Bhríde: Brigid’s Home.
“I never knew about this place,” he said. Immaculata said nothing.
He looked over at her.
“Was this place always here?” he asked.
She turned from the side window. Her voice had none of its usual vigor.
“As far as I remember, it was.”
Minogue had a half-dozen freshly lined parking spots to pick from. He settled on one closest to the entrance, a glassed-in vestibule that had been added between columns by the doors. There were identical bumpers on two of the parked cars: Cut Hedge Funds, Not Hospital Funds!
“The grounds were bigger,” she murmured, as though aware now that she had been too quiet earlier. “They had to be sold off, I daresay.”
The overcast sky hadn’t lightened a bit. Beyond the lawns and the cherry trees in front of a high wall, he saw the roof tiles of the homes that he supposed had been built on the former grounds. He tried again to fix what direction he was facing now. He had no clue really.
He checked his attaché case and phone while he waited for Immaculata. She was slow to get out, and he thought he saw her lips moving for several moments. Once out, she seemed to gain energy, and she passed him without a word.
Scents of floor wax and polish hung in the warm air, mingled with the astringent smell of disinfectants. A tall statue of Mary in a striking blues and whites presided over the foyer, smiling at the Toddler by her feet. There were two kneelers, and some soft chairs too. Beyond them was a small waiting room with the television off, and rows of books along one wall.
Behind the desk, and facing his way were some of the monitors and paraphernalia he associated with a nursing station. The woman writing on a clipboard there wore a nurse’s uniform. Her head, a tightly managed mass of wiry hair, tilted up. Her name-tag was situated over her left breast, a location toward which that Minogue was not willing to let his eye drift. Her eye went to Immaculata.
“Well look,” she said and rose, and on her way around the counter, her face broke out into a warm, toothy smile. She gave Immaculata a long embrace. Immaculata quietly repeated the nurse’s words back to her, mixing it with English.
“Jambo, Eileen. Habari. How right you are. But we’ll see it through, won’t we.”
Immaculata turned and nodded in Minogue’s direction.
“This is the one I said,” she said.
The nurse’s thin smile quickly faded. Immaculata linked arms with her, and the pair set off toward a double-door.
On the far side of the doors, the flooring changed to polished cork. Minogue tried a few variations to quiet the squeak from his shoes. It was warmer here, and it felt airless. Care had been taken to mask smells here, but a stale rankness suffused the air.
Minogue followed them down a shorter hallway to the right. There were lots of pictures on the walls here, all of them watercolours. None were religious that he could see. Flame tree, Malawi 1962. Sister Mary Goretti—not the original, actual saint, it was clear—but wearer of a pair of those serious, and even severe glasses popular decades ago. Frangipani, Malawi, 1964. The same Sister Mary Goretti.
They passed a door half ajar. Minogue had no trouble keeping his eyes from wandering there when his turn came to pass the same doorway. The last thing he wanted to catch sight of was an aged nun in some state of disorder. A radio was on in another room. He caught a bit of what sounded like a free-for-all bickering. Something about rewarding greed…? Ah: the bank crisis thing.
Immaculata slowed a little and moved to the side of the corridor. The nurse turned in also, and murmured something close to her ear, all the while keeping her eye on Minogue. Immaculata began fumbling in her sleeve again.
He turned aside to examine a watercolour of a village. Benin: where was Benin on the map of Africa again? Whispers and murmurs from up the corridor died down. Immaculata whispered something, and when Minogue looked over, he saw that she was near tears. The nurse drew her by the arm, and after a few steps, pushed open a door to her left.
The door swung shut with a soft click.
Minogue opened his mobile, and thumbed quickly to Malone’s number.
“Where are you now?” he asked.
“I’m waiting here the over the far side of the car-park There’s a side door to the place I’m keeping open. You’re going in now?”
“In a minute,” Minogue replied. “So start making your way over.”
“Okay, on me way. He walked in, remember. No car. And that bag he’s carrying, you’re not forgetting that, are you?”
Minogue heard a door closing in the background at Malone’s end.
“A gym bag, you said.”
“Yeah, but what’s in it, is what I keep on wondering. I tell you, he looks to be in damned good shape for an ould lad. You’re sticking with your plan still?”
“It’s a nursing home” was all Minogue could think to say.
“But look, boss, I’m saying it again. I don’t like this. What’s he carrying a bag for? And where’s his car? Something weird’s going on.”
Another door was opening at Malone’s end.
“I’m just coming around by the kitchen place now. Where’s that Immaculata one, is she there beside you?”
“No. Immaculata’s upset. The nurse here is having a
few words with her I think.”
“Nurse? Red hair? Laser eyes?”
“That sounds close enough.”
“Your turn to remind her that this is a Garda operation. She gave me a going-over – fairly tore into me in actual fact. Wasn’t she told about this?”
Minogue turned at the sound of the door opening. The nurse had locked her eyes on him before she had even begun to draw the door closed behind her. He turned aside.
“We’re on,” he said to Malone. “I’m waiting for you here by the door.”
He closed the mobile, and steeling himself, turned. “The other Guard?” she asked. “From earlier? Your ‘sidekick’?”
There was a studied restraint in her stare, but it only made her seem more angry. The sound of a trolley filtered in from behind the doors at the end of the corridor.
“It’s a police operation here,” he said. “And he’s part of it.” For a moment he thought she would actually laugh. She looked up toward a corner of the ceiling where her answers might be kept. Then her stare fixed on him again.
“I’ve never had a problem with the Guards,” she said. “But this is something else.”
“We do appreciate your keeping this low-key,” he tried. “Nobody wants a commotion here.”
“Is it a commotion you’re planning?”
Minogue’s response was a blank look. Her tongue moved around behind her cheek before she spoke again. “Do you know how much this is taking out of her?” He gave her a quick glance, but her stare only seemed to harden.
“It can’t be easy,” he said. “I suppose.”
“Has she told you what to expect when you go in?”
“Not in so many words.”
“Do you know what a coma is, or looks like, then?”
He had to meet her glare for a few moments at least.
“I think I get it,” he said, evenly. “Thank you.”
“Do you? I wonder. Do you have any idea of the good that people like Immaculata have done? And what’s being said about them these days?”
Her eyes still bored into him, but he saw they had begun to moisten. She began to blink.
“I have no quarrel with that,” he said. “None in the wide world.”
Malone’s arrival drew her glance over. She didn’t return his perfunctory nod but turned her gaze back on Minogue instead. He saw something pass across her eyes then – frustration or anger, he couldn’t be sure – before she turned away and yanked down the handle of the door to the room where Immaculata had gone.
Minogue waited for it to close completely, before catching Malone’s eye and nodding toward the doorway to Albertina’s room.
Minogue took a breath, and let it out slowly while he watched Malone take up his spot by the door. Then he stepped to the door and pulled down the handle. Just beyond the threshold, he paused and then came to a stop, and he took in the figure rising slowly from the chair.
“I’m afraid you have the wrong room,” said Twomey. Minogue quickly took in details: the Garda tie tight to Twomey’s collar, an association badge pinned high on the lapel. The hair had faded to yellowy-white, but like in the snapshot, it had been brushed back with every strand in line. The eyes had taken on a more distant look of age.
He stepped into the room, and let the door hiss closed behind.
Sister Albertina did not look as frail or as wasted as he had expected. She looked like she was sleeping, or even napping. Her lightly furrowed forehead reminded Minogue for a moment of his own childrens’ faces when they murmured through some troubling dream. The bedspread was a riot of bright, primary colours, and it made her skin look sallow. Her arms were to her sides, and he was somehow sure that they had been arranged like that only recently, along with the evened-out collars on her nightdress. Her nails were indeed manicured. Around one arm was a belt with wires, and nearer her wrist, a hospital-style plastic band with a label. On her other arm was a wide strap with rows of beads in pattern.
“No, Sergeant,” he said. “This is the right room.” Twomey took Minogue’s card down from where he had tilted it toward the window to read it.
“I know that name from somewhere,” he said.
“So maybe you’ll know why I’m here then.” Twomey’s frown deepened.
“This is no place for you,” he said. “You’re intruding here.” There were flowers on the windowsill, and more on the bedside table. There had to be two dozen or more photos round the room. No television.
“What are you looking at? I said you have no business being in here.”
Minogue met his stare.
“I say that I have. And I say you know why too.” Twomey nodded toward the door. “Did she put you up to this?”
”Let’s talk.” Twomey shook his head.
“Some operator that woman. You haven’t a clue, so you haven’t. Not a clue.” “A clue about what?”
“You need to draw a line in the sand with that one. I learned that a long time ago. But I’d say it’s too late for you to do that. You’ll cop on eventually, I dare say. But for now, you need to get out of here. Right away.” Minogue cocked an eye at him.
“It’s your sister I came to talk with,” he said. “Or to listen to, I should say. Stay and listen if you like, though. I’ve heard you’re very close, the two of you.” Twomey’s eyes widened.
“You’re a Guard,” he said. ”So start behaving like one.”
“How would that be? You could give me advice in that regard maybe?”
“You’re breaking the law. You’re committing a trespass here. You’re causing a disturbance. And you’re going to be up on discreditable conduct before the day is out.” Minogue slid out his mobile and held it up.
“Go ahead,” he said. “Phone me in. Meanwhile I’ll get on with my work. I need Sister Albertina to verify those details for me here today.”
“Verify details? Are you completely mental?” Twomey brushed by him on his way to the door.
“Unless of course you’ll do the decent thing here yourself,” Minogue called out.
Twomey turned to face him, blinking as though shielding his eyes in a wind.
“Listen, whoever you are, whatever you are. This person here, my sister, is in a coma. Do you get that? A coma. Now get out.”
“I didn’t figure you for a runner, Sergeant.”
“Nobody’s running, and don’t ‘Sergeant’ me, you. You don’t even know me. Look at you, with your suit, and your business card rigamarole, and your little attaché case. You might have been a Garda once in your life, but by God you’re no Garda now.”
Minogue began to read the spines of the books arranged on the windowsill. To School Through the Fields had a bookmark halfway through.
“So your sister is in a coma,” he said. “But she can read.”
“I read to her,” Twomey snapped.
“And she understands you?”
“It doesn’t matter whether she does or not. You never give up.”
“You’re a wise man. It seems to have paid off.”
“What paid off?”
Minogue settled a rueful stare on him.
“I don’t actually believe in miracles myself. But things like this…?”
“Miracles? Wait – now I see it. Is she outside?”
“Is who outside?”
“You know who.”
Minogue waited, said nothing.
“So that’s the way with you,” Twomey said then. “That tells me she’s hereabouts somewhere. Tell me then, was she was raving on to you about some miracle too?
“You mean Sister Immaculata, I take it, your sister’s best friend.”
“Best friend? Never. She’s not in her right mind, that one. Never was, either.”
Minogue took out the three snapshots that he had chosen, and he arranged them carefully along the foot of the bed. Then he stood back and eyed Twomey.
“Was she in her right mind back then, would you say?” Twomey couldn’t help himself. He picked one up, turned it toward the wi
ndow.
“Where did you get these?”
“You remember that day, do you?”
Twomey put the photograph back down on the bed. “None of this is any of your goddamned business.” Minogue flinched.
