She didn’t know how much time passed as she huddled against the door frame, but eventually she realised she had to move, had to get out. Keeping her gaze on Damien, she struggled to her feet, fighting against the pain that coursed through her body, her back and shoulders, her knees. She crossed to him and used one hand to support herself on the island as she bent down, every bone in her body seeming to protest at the effort. Damien’s eyes darted around for a moment before focusing on her. He tried to say something, but it drowned in his throat.
Sara reached into the pocket of his jacket, found two phones, his and hers. She took them, set them aside, then dug her fingers into the pocket of his jeans, retrieved the keys for the house and his car before gathering everything together and bringing them to the worktop by the sink. There, she took the time to wash her hands and her face, then wiped down her clothes with a wet cloth. Then she took the phones and the keys, found her shoes by the door, slipped them on, and let herself out of the house. She locked the front door behind her, ignoring Damien’s attempts to shout something.
She had never driven Damien’s new BMW, so it took a moment to work out how to get it started, how the automatic gearbox worked. That done, she manoeuvred it along the driveway and onto the lane beyond. She had driven as far as the village before the adrenalin drained away and the tremors and tears came flooding in.
Sara sat in the parked car on Morganstown’s Main Street, the BMW’s engine idling, until the car’s display said it had gone eight in the morning. The people of Morganstown were already going about their business, heading to their jobs in Lurgan, Portadown and Lisburn, stopping for petrol and coffee at the filling station at the end of the village. In the rear-view mirror, at the corner behind her, she saw Mr. Buchanan laying his wares outside his shop.
Exhaustion chased the receding tremors, but she would not give in to it. She had things to do. The pair of phones lay on the passenger seat beside her. She lifted Damien’s first, but she didn’t know his passcode. Of course. Sara opened the driver’s window and tossed it onto the road. Her own phone had only a few per cent charge left. To her surprise, Damien hadn’t thought to erase her recent calls. There, Tony’s number. She hesitated for a moment, then touched it with her thumb. The display changed and a dial tone sounded. She brought the phone to her ear.
A click, then silence, save for a distorted quivering breath.
“Hello?” Sara said.
“Who is this?”
A woman’s voice, soaked in pain and sorrow.
“Mrs. Rossi? This is Sara Keane.”
A pause, then, “What do you want?”
“I wanted to know about Tony,” she said. “Is he all right?”
A shuddering exhalation. “Is he all right? Oh, dear God, is he all right?”
“I’m sorry, I—”
“Antonio’s in surgery,” Mrs. Rossi said. “He has three broken ribs and a punctured lung. He has swelling on his brain. They have to open up his head so they can drain it.”
Sara closed her eyes.
“My boy’s lying in the Royal Victoria Hospital with his head split open because of you. He might never be right again. You did this. You brought this to my door and I will never forgive you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t,” Mrs. Rossi said, spitting the word. “Don’t you bloody dare say sorry to me. And you listen. The people around here, they won’t say anything to the police, but I bloody will. I don’t care what Francie Keane threatens me with, I don’t care if he has me killed, I will see him in jail for what he done to my Antonio. Him and that bastard son of his. Don’t you come near my boy ever again.”
She hung up.
Sara cursed, and a fresh wave of tears came. When they’d passed, she lifted the phone once more and dialled 112. The operator asked her which service, and she said police. A man came on the line, his voice rough and weary.
“What’s your emergency?” he asked.
She gave him her name and the address of the house.
“There’s a man locked inside,” she said. “He’s injured. Broken jaw and hand, maybe his knee too. And he hit his head.”
“I’ll need to put you through to the ambulance service. Just hold—”
“No,” Sara said. “There are human remains in the floor. You’ll find them in the kitchen. But there are others, in the extension, and more that haven’t been found. You have to look for them.”
A pause, then, “Listen, where are you now?”
Sara hung up and tossed her phone onto the road. It landed next to Damien’s, glass fragments scattering. She put the car in gear and moved off.
She had one more thing to do.
41: Joy
Joy remained at the centre of the kitchen while Noreen and Mary were told to stand in opposite corners, faces to the walls, backs to the room. The table had been overturned, food and fragments of plates and cups scattered across the floor. One chair remained upright, and Ivan placed it in front of Joy before sitting himself down. He held the belt loose in his hands. Tam was nowhere to be seen, but George stood at the sink, his hair standing on end, his lip bloodied, his shirt tails pulled out. He did not look at Joy.
Ivan watched her for what seemed like eternity, his brow creasing over his small eyes. The room was silent save for Noreen’s breath cutting the air. Joy felt a queasy calm covering her own fear like a blanket. She knew how quickly, how easily, that calm could be stripped away, and she knew she had to hold onto it no matter what happened.
For Mary, she thought. You’ll get through this for Mary.
Ivan cleared his throat and, in a smooth and easy voice, he asked, “So, what’s been going on?”
Joy shook her head. “Nothing,” she said.
Ivan wrapped one end of the belt around his right fist and let the buckle fall to the floor. Joy couldn’t keep herself from wincing at the harsh jangle it made on the stone.
“Don’t lie to me,” he said. “You’ll only make it worse.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Joy said, feeling a fray at the edges of the calm.
“Don’t lie. What’s been going on?”
“Nothing, I swear to God.”
The corners of his mouth turned down. “Don’t you dare call on the Lord to help you in a lie. For the last time, what’s been going—”
“I had nothing to do with it,” Noreen said, turning from the corner. The words came tripping from her mouth, one stumbling over the next. “I promise, I tried to stop it, I told her not to do it, but she wouldn’t listen to me. I had no—”
“Shut up!” Ivan sprang to his feet and crossed the room to Noreen with a speed that belied his size and age. “Get back in that corner.”
He shoved her into the space where the walls met, put his free hand to the back of her head and pushed her face hard into the gap.
“Don’t you say another word till you’re spoken to.”
Ivan turned back to Joy, walked behind her, trailing the belt buckle across the floor. Joy realised her bladder needed release.
“Please, I want the toilet,” she said.
“You can hold it,” Ivan said. “Look at that boy there.”
George lifted his chin from his chest. He could not hold Joy’s gaze.
“You promised that boy you’d make a home with him, and he believed you. He’s a fool, but I’m not. Now tell him the truth.”
Joy swallowed, kept her eyes on George, and said, “That is the truth. I’m going to make a home with him and be his wife. We’re going to be a family. Him and me and wee Mary.”
A smile broke on George’s face, blood dripping down his chin. “See? I told you.”
“Shut your stupid mouth,” Ivan said.
The smile fell from George’s lips. Ivan stepped up close behind Joy, and she felt his breath on her ear.
“Tell him the trut
h. Tell him what was going to happen the minute he took you and the child out of here.”
Joy shook her head, felt the sharpening ache of her bladder. “He’s buying that farm in Waringstown. Mary and me are going to live there with him. We’re going to be a family. Please, can I go to the toilet?”
“Tell him the truth.”
“That is the truth. I promise. Can I go to the—”
“Tell him the truth. Tell him you’d leave him before you even set foot in that place, and you’d take the child with you.”
“No,” Joy said, “I wouldn’t, I promise.”
“Tell him!”
“No, I swear to—”
She heard the belt crack the air, felt it wrap around her buttocks, the buckle digging into her thigh. As her knees betrayed her, so did her bladder, and she fell to the floor as urine trickled down her legs.
“Tell him! Tell him!”
“No!” Her scream ripped at her throat.
He swiped the belt across her back once, twice, three times, and the pain flooded her mind like a red river.
“Tell him the truth!”
Joy turned her face up to look at him. “I swear to God I—”
She saw his fist swing down at her, the leather wrapped around it, and there was nothing in the world she could do to stop it. A thunderclap exploded in her head. Something tore in her neck and her vision was swamped with black constellations. She did not see the fist coming a second time, but she felt another blast of thunder and hard things on her tongue that might have been teeth. The universe narrowed and funnelled as something hot flowed into her eyes. She tried to say something, anything to stop it all, even the truth, because he was right, she could tell him that, yes, he was right, but her mouth was full of blood and teeth and she didn’t have the words to say it and—
He struck her a third time, his fist connecting with the rear of her skull and then her cheek hit the floor and something cracked there and the pain became everything in the whole wide world. She knew then that she would die, and she wanted that if it would mean an end to this, and she was ready, but then something miraculous happened.
From the floor, her one open eye saw George charge into his father like a train, screaming as he went. He pushed him into the wall, and the two of them wrestled there for a moment before spinning across the room to the far side and Ivan cried out as George backed him into the stove. George freed himself from Ivan’s grip, then swung his fist at his father, and again, and again, and over and over as Ivan wrapped his arms around his head to fend off the blows.
Joy lifted her head from the floor and she wanted to say kill him, kill him, but her tongue would not obey.
Ivan fell to the floor, curling himself up into a ball under the rain of clenched fists and booted feet. At last, George stopped, gasping for breath. Joy pushed herself up onto her knees and coughed out a mouthful of blood and teeth that splattered and spread on the floor.
“Don’t you touch her again,” George said between breaths. “You lay a finger on her again and I’ll kill you. She’s coming with me and she’s going to be my wife. You’re going to give me my money so I can buy that farm, and I’m going to be a real man with a real family and you can’t stop me. You hear me, you auld bastard? She’s going to be my wife.”
Joy heard a metallic snick-snick from the doorway to the hall, and she turned her head towards it. Through the blood and the black stars she saw Tam there, his rifle raised, and she stared down its black throat.
“Who, her?” he said.
She heard George scream, No! and she saw a fiery explosion and then she was falling, falling, falling down into the dark.
42: Mary
I felt the air move with the shot and then my ears was full of this whistling and rushing noise. Mummy Noreen screamed an awful scream, the sound of it rising up and out of her, and she screamed again and again, and she didn’t stop. I dropped down into the corner, my back agin the wall, my hands over my ears, making myself small. I thought if I made myself small enough, no one would see me there.
Daddy George let out a roar and I watched as it died in him, and it turned to this terrible cry, like a dog with a broken back.
Daddy Tam lowered the rifle. Ach, says he to Daddy George, quit your yapping.
Daddy George quit his crying all right, he near choked on it, but then he threw himself at Daddy Tam and Daddy Tam couldn’t get thon rifle back up quick enough. Daddy George slammed into him like a hammer and the two of them bounced off the wall and onto the floor. The rifle clattered away across the stone and I could have reached out and took it if the notion had entered my head. Daddy Ivan got up on his knees and guldered at them to stop, but there was no stopping them, the two of them rolling and punching and kicking the other. I mind seeing Daddy George bite Daddy Tam on the neck, growling like an animal, and Daddy Tam squealing, then Daddy George was on top of him and he made his fists into a ball and he pounded them into Daddy Tam’s jaw I don’t know how many times. Then he got a holt of Daddy Tam’s hair and he pulled his head up and drove it down into the floor over and over again until Daddy Tam went all loose. All the time, Mummy Noreen was still screaming, and Daddy Ivan was still shouting at them to stop.
Daddy George sat astride him for a lock of seconds, his chest heaving and blood dripping from his mouth, then he crawled off him and over to the rifle. He took a holt of it and pushed himself up onto his feet. He pulled the bolt back and a brass shell came out of it and jangled on the floor, then he pushed the bolt back again.
At the same time, Daddy Tam gathered himself and he got up onto his knees. He looked up, blinking at Daddy George like he didn’t understand what his eyes telt him. Then he let a laugh out of him that turned into a cough that I thought would rip him in two.
Says he, You haven’t got the nerve, boy.
He got himself up straight on his feet, and I saw his clothes was all covered in blood, and I knew it was Mummy Joy’s blood as much as his, and my mouth filled with sick and I swallowed it.
You were always a weakling, says he to Daddy George. A weakling and a fool. You see what that got you? A bloody idiot, that’s what you—
He took a step towards Daddy George, and I felt that air move again as Daddy George pulled the trigger, and that ringing in my ears, and it punched a hole in Daddy Tam’s belly. I mind the shock on his face when he looked down and saw the hole in him. Then he staggered back agin the wall, into the spattering of his own blood there.
Says Daddy Ivan, Oh, no, no. And he got himself up on his feet, but not quick enough to stop Daddy George pulling that bolt back and pushing it forward and pulling the trigger again. This time, it was Daddy Tam’s chest that opened and he let out this long sigh and then he fell to the floor and he didn’t move again until Daddy George put another bullet into him, and one more, and then there was no more bullets left.
Quiet now. Mummy Noreen’s screaming had died away to nothing and all I heard was that terrible ringing and whistling in my ears. Daddy George stood over Daddy Tam and the kitchen was filled with smoke and I could smell it, the blood, and the dirty stinking things that came away from Daddy Tam as he lay dying.
Says Daddy Ivan, What did you do? Oh, Jesus, son, what did you do?
Daddy George’s face went loose like his soul had left him. Then he lifted thon rifle by the thin end and swung the thick end at Daddy Ivan’s head. It sounded near as loud as the rifle shot, and Daddy Ivan’s head fell to the side like his neck had come loose. Daddy George swung the rifle again, and Daddy Ivan’s head swung the other way and he stood there for a moment before he fell into a heap on the floor.
I mind his eyes looking right at me as he lay there, blood pumping from the rip in his scalp, and I could see the yellowy white of his skull. I don’t know if he could see me or if his mind had left him already. Then Daddy George swung the rifle down on his head like he was hammering a nail into the f
loor and I had to close my eyes, but I heard it, that hard sound getting softer every time he swung the gun down, Daddy George grunting and crying as he did it over and over.
I opened my eyes when it stopped and Daddy Ivan was still looking straight at me, but his head was the wrong shape now, and I knew he could see nothing but the hell he was damned to.
Daddy George let go of the rifle and it clattered on the floor. He stood there for a moment with his arms hanging at his sides, then he went over to the sideboard where the good plates was kept and he reached up to the top of it and he lifted down the pistol that had belonged to the policeman. He pulled back the hammer with his thumb and put the pistol to his head. He squeezed his eyes shut and tears ran down through the blood on his cheeks.
I heard a cry from the corner, and I turned my head and saw Mummy Noreen push herself away from the wall, running for the door, and she slipped in the blood and came down hard. She got her feet under her again and she threw herself at the door.
I didn’t see Daddy George aim the gun at her, but I heard the crack it made, and I saw the hole blown in the middle of Mummy Noreen’s back, between her shoulder blades, and she made this moaning sound as she fell across the threshold.
I looked back to Daddy George, and him at me. He stood there crying like a hurt child, the pistol in his hand, the smoke pouring from its snout. Then he turned the gun to aim at me and I knew for sure I was going to die. And I didn’t mind at all.
But I didn’t die. He let a whine out of him and he put the pistol back to his own head. He stood there crying, shaking, his finger on the trigger. Then his hands dropped down to his sides and the pistol slipped from his hand and rattled on the floor. He looked at me, and I saw all the shame and the pain in him and I wanted to tell him it was all right, it was all over now. But I said nothing, and he turned and he walked to the door and stepped over Mummy Noreen’s body on the threshold. I heard his footsteps on the stairs, the steps creaking under the weight of him, then the floorboards of his bedroom above.
I stayed there, crouched in the corner, for what felt like a terrible long time, and it was so quiet. The smoke scratched at my throat and my eyes and the smell sickened my stomach, and I think it was that got me to move: the dirty stink of it all. I stood up and pushed myself away from the wall.
The House of Ashes Page 23
