Dublin 4 (14 page)

Jo had often been told she had a vivid imagination. This was an occasion when she could have done without it. But it wouldn’t go away. She couldn’t pull a curtain over the worries, the pictures that kept coming up of Christy hitting Nessa and of Gerry strangling Pauline, and all through her mind went the refrain, ‘There must be something wrong, otherwise they would have left me a note.’

It was her fourth Saturday in Dublin. The first one she had spent unpacking her case and getting used to the hostel; the second one had been spent looking at flats which were too expensive and too far from work, and which had already been taken by other people; the third Saturday she had spent congratulating herself on having found Nessa and Pauline; and now on this, the fourth Saturday, Nessa and Pauline had most likely been brutally murdered and ravaged by two drunks that she had brought back to the flat. How could she explain it to anyone? ‘Well, you see, it was like this, Sergeant. I had two double vodkas in the pub bought by these men, and then when we came home – oh yes, Sergeant, I brought them home with me, why not? Well, when we came home they poured whiskey into our coffees and before I knew where I was I had passed out in a
stupor and when I woke up my flatmates were gone, and they never came back. They were never seen again.’

Jo cried and cried. They
must
have gone home for the weekend. People did. She had read a big article in the paper not long ago about these fellows making a fortune driving people home in a minibus; apparently lots of country girls missed the crack at home at weekends. They must have gone off in a minibus. Please, please St Jude, may they have gone in a minibus. If they went in a minibus, St Jude, I’ll never do anything bad for the rest of my life. More than that. More. If they’re definitely safe and they went off yesterday in a minibus, St Jude, I’ll tell everyone about you. I’ll put a notice in the two evening papers – and the three daily papers, too, if it wasn’t too dear. She would bring St Jude’s name into casual conversation with people and say that he was a great man in a crisis. She wouldn’t actually describe the whole crisis in detail, of course. Oh dear Lord, speak, speak, should she go to the guards? Should she report it or was she making the most ludicrous fuss over nothing? Would Pauline and Nessa be furious if the guards contacted their homes? God, suppose they’d gone off with fellows or something? Imagine, if the guards were calling on their families? She’d have the whole country alerted for nothing.

But if she didn’t get the guards, suppose something
had happened because of those drunk men she’d invited into the house, yes, she, Josephine Margaret Assumpta O’Brien had invited two drunk men into a house, not a week after that nun in the hostel had said that Dublin was a very wicked city, and now her two flatmates, innocent girls who had done nothing to entice these men in, were missing, with no trace of them whatsoever …

She had nothing to eat for the day. She walked around hugging herself, stopping when she heard the slightest sound in case it might be a key in the lock. When it was getting dark she remembered how they had written their names on bits of paper: they could have taken them away with them, but they might be in the rubbish bin. Yes, there they were, Christy and Gerry, scrawled on paper with bits of sellotape attached to it. Jo took them out with a fork in case they might still have fingerprints on them. She put them on the kitchen table and said a decade of the rosary beside them.

Outside people passed in the street going about the business of a Saturday night. Was it only last Saturday that she had gone to the pictures with Josie and Helen, those two nice girls in the hostel? Why hadn’t she stayed there? It had been awful since she left, it had been frightening and worrying and getting worse every day until … until This.

There was nobody she could talk to. Suppose she phoned her sister in the hotel, Dymphna would be
furious with her; the immediate reaction would be, come-home-at-once, what-are-you-doing-by-yourself-up-in-Dublin, everyone-knew-you-couldn’t-cope. And it was a temptation to run away. What time was the evening train to Limerick? Or tomorrow morning? But she didn’t want to go home, and she didn’t want to talk to Dymphna and she couldn’t explain the whole thing on the phone downstairs in the hall in case the people in the flat below heard – the people in the flat below!
That
was it!

She was half-way down the stairs when she paused. Suppose everything were all right, and suppose St Jude had got them on a minibus, wouldn’t Nessa and Pauline be furious if she had gone in and alarmed the three nurses downstairs? They had said that they kept themselves very much to themselves; the nurses were all right but it didn’t do to get too involved with them. Yes, well, going in and telling them that you suspected Nessa and Pauline had been abducted and maltreated was certainly getting involved.

She went back up the stairs. Was there anything that the nurses could do to help that she couldn’t do? Answer: No.

Just at that moment the big blonde nurse that she had spoken to came out. ‘Hey, I was just going to go up to you lot above.’

‘Oh, really, what’s wrong?’ Jo said.

‘Nothing’s wrong, nothing at all, we’re having a party tonight, though, and we just wanted to say if
any of you lot wanted to come, it starts at … well, when the pubs close.’

‘That’s very nice of you. I don’t think …’

‘Well, all we wanted to say is, there may be a bit of noise, but you’re very welcome. If you could bring a bottle it would be a help.’

‘A bottle?’ asked Jo.

‘Well, you don’t have to, but a drop of wine would be a help.’ The nurse was about to walk past her up the stairs.

‘Where are you going?’ Jo asked, alarmed.

‘I’ve just told you, to ask the others, the ones in the other flats, if they’d like to come …’

They’re not there, they’re not at home, they’re gone away.’

‘Oh well, all for the best, I suppose,’ the girl shrugged. ‘I’ve got my meat and my manners now, can’t say they weren’t asked.’

‘Listen,’ Jo said urgently, ‘what’s your name?’

‘Phyllis,’ she said.

‘Phyllis, listen to me, do the girls up here go away a lot?’

‘What?’

‘I mean, I’m new here, do they go home for the weekends or anything?’

‘Search me. I hardly know them at all. I think the punk one’s a bit odd, a half-wit, between ourselves.’

‘But do they go away at weekends or what? Please, it’s important.’

‘Honestly, I’d never notice, I’m on nights a lot of the time, I don’t know where I am or whether people are coming or going. Sorry.’

‘Would the others know, in your flat?’

‘I don’t think so, why? Is anything wrong?’

‘No, I expect not. It’s just, well, I wasn’t expecting them to go off and they, sort of, have. I was just wondering whether … you know, if everything’s all right.’

‘Why wouldn’t it be?’

‘It’s just that they were with some rather, well, unreliable people on Thursday, and …’

‘They’re lucky they were only with unreliable people on Thursday, I’m with unreliable people all the time! Maureen was meant to have hired the glasses and she didn’t, so we had to buy paper cups which cost a fortune.’

Jo started to go back upstairs.

‘See you later then. What’s your name?’

‘Jo O’Brien.’

‘OK, come on down when you hear the sounds.’

‘Thank you.’

*   *   *

At twelve o’clock she was wider awake than she had ever been in the middle of the day; she thought she might as well go down as stay where she was. The noise was almost in the room with her. There was no question of sleep. She put on her black dress and her
big earrings, then she took them off. Suppose her flatmates were in danger or dead? What was she doing dressing up and going to a party? It somehow wasn’t so bad going to a party without dressing up. She put on her grey skirt and her dark grey sweater, and went downstairs.

She arrived at the same time as four others who had been beating on the hall door. Jo opened it and let them in.

‘Which are you?’ said one of the men.

‘I’m from upstairs, really,’ Jo said.

‘Right,’ said the man, ‘let’s you and I go back upstairs, see you later,’ he laughed to the others.

‘No, no, you can’t do that, stop it,’ Jo shouted.

‘It was a joke, silly,’ he said.

‘She thought you meant it!’ The others fell about laughing. Then the door of the downstairs flat opened and a blast of heat and noise came out. There were about forty people crammed into the rooms. Jo took one look and was about to scamper upstairs again, but it was too late and the door had banged behind her. Someone handed her a glass of warm wine. She saw Phyllis in the middle of it all, her blonde hair tied in a top knot and wearing a very dazzling dress with bootlace straps. Jo felt foolish and shabby: she was jammed into a group of bright-faced, laughing people and she felt as grey as her jumper and skirt.

‘Are you a nurse too?’ a boy asked her.

‘No, I work in the post office.’

‘Well, can you do anything about the telephones, do you know there isn’t a telephone between here and …’

‘I don’t give a damn about telephones,’ she said and pushed away from him. Nessa and Pauline were dead, battered by drunks, and here she was talking about telephones to some fool.

‘I was only making conversation – piss off,’ he shouted at her, hurt.

Nobody heard him in the din.

‘Which are your flatmates?’ Jo asked Phyllis.

‘The one in the kitchen, Maureen, and the one dancing with the man in the aran sweater, that’s Mary.’

‘Thanks,’ said Jo. She went into the kitchen.

‘Maureen,’ she said. The girl at the cooker looked up with an agonised face. ‘I wanted to ask you …’

‘Burned to a crisp, both of them. Both of them burned to a bloody crisp.’

‘What?’ said Jo.

‘Two trays of sausages. Just put them in the oven, stop fussing, Mary says. I put them in the oven. And now look, burned black. Jesus, do you know how much sausages are a pound, and there were five pounds altogether. I told her we should have fried them. Stink the place out, frying them, she said. Well, what will this do, I ask you?’

‘Do you know the girls upstairs?’ Jo persisted.

‘No, but Phyllis said she asked them, they’re not making trouble are they? That’s all we need.’

‘No, I’m one of them, that’s not the problem.’

‘Thank God. What will I do with this?’

‘Throw it out dish and all, I’d say, you’ll never clean it.’

‘Yes, you’re right, God, what a fiasco. What a mess.’

‘Listen, do you know the girls, the other ones, Nessa and Pauline?’

‘Just to see. Why?’

‘Do you know where they are?’

‘What? Of course I don’t. If they’re here they’re in the other room, I suppose, waiting to be fed, thinking there’s some hot food. I’ll
kill
Mary, I’ll literally
kill
her, you know.’

‘Do they normally go away for the weekend?’

‘God, love, I don’t know whether they go up to the moon and back for the weekend. How would I know? There’s one of them with a head like a lighthouse and another who goes round with that dynatape thing putting names on anything that stands still … bells and doors and things. I think they’re all right. We never have many dealings with them. That’s the best way in a house of flats, I always say.’

Jo left it there. It seemed unlikely that Mary would know any more, and she decided to leave her happily with the man in the aran sweater until she was given the bad news about the sausages.

A hand caught her and suddenly she was dancing herself. The man was tall and had a nice smile.

‘Where are you from, Limerick?’

‘Not far out,’ she said laughing. Then dread seized her again. What was she doing dancing with this stranger and chatting him up like she might have done at a dance at home? ‘I’m sorry,’ she said to him, ‘I’m sorry, I have to go. I’ve got something awful on my mind, I can’t stay.’

At that moment the window in the kitchen was broken by a big stone, and glass shattered every-where. There were screams from the garden and shouts.

‘I’m getting the guards, this looks like a bad fight,’ said the tall boy and like a flash he was out in the hall. Jo heard him speaking on the phone. In the kitchen people were shouting to each other to move carefully. A huge lump of glass lay precariously on top of a cupboard: it could fall any moment.

‘Is anybody hurt, stop screaming, is anybody cut?’ Jo recognised Phyllis and felt a small amount of relief flood back into her. At least they were nurses; maybe a lot of them were. They’d be able to cope better than ordinary people. People had run out the front door and an almighty row was going on in the garden. Two men with cut heads were shouting that they only threw the stone in self-defence, people had started firing things at them from the window first;
one of them was bleeding over his eye. They only picked up the stone to stop the barrage coming at them.

The guards were there very quickly, four of them. Suddenly everything was different; what had looked like a party began to look like something shameful. The room that had been full of smoke and drink and music and people dancing and people talking about nothing was now a room full of broken glass and upturned chairs and people shouting trying to explain what had happened, and people trying to comfort others, or get their coats and leave. Neighbours had come to protest and to stare: it was all different.