Faithful Place (28 page)

Nora shivered, suddenly and violently. I said, “Cold?”

She shook her head and ground out her cigarette on a stone. “I’m grand. Thanks.”

“Here, give me that,” I said, taking the butt off her and tucking it back into my packet. “No good rebel leaves behind evidence of her teenage kicks for her da to find.”

“It doesn’t matter. I don’t know what I was getting all worked up about. It’s not like he can ground me. I’m a grown woman; if I want to leave the house, I can.”

She wasn’t looking at me any more. I was losing her. Another minute and she would remember that she was in fact a respectable thirty-something, with a husband and a kid and a certain amount of good sense, and that none of the above were compatible with smoking in a back garden at midnight with a strange man. “It’s parent voodoo,” I said, putting a wry grin on it. “Two minutes with them and you’re straight back to being a kid. My ma still puts the fear of God into me—although, mind you, she actually would give me a clatter of the wooden spoon, grown man or no. Not a bother on her.”

After a second Nora laughed, a reluctant little breath. “I wouldn’t put it past my da to try grounding me.”

“And you’d yell at him to stop treating you like a child, same as you did when you were sixteen. Like I said, parent voodoo.”

This time the laugh was a proper one, and she relaxed back onto the bench. “And someday we’ll do the same to our own kids.”

I didn’t want her thinking about her kid. “Speaking of your father,” I said. “I wanted to apologize for the way my da acted, the other night.”

Nora shrugged. “There were the two of them in it.”

“Did you see what started them off ? I was chatting away with Jackie and missed all the good part. One second everything was grand, the next the two of them were setting up for the fight scene from
Rocky
.”

Nora adjusted her coat, tucking the heavy collar tighter around her throat. She said, “I didn’t see it either.”

“But you’ve an idea what it was about. Don’t you?”

“Men with a few drinks on them, you know yourself; and they were both after having a tough few days . . . Anything could have got them going.”

I said, with a harsh sore scrape to it, “Nora, it took me half an hour just to get my da calmed down. Sooner or later, if this keeps going, it’ll give him a heart attack. I don’t know if the bad blood between them is my fault, if it’s because I went out with Rosie and your da wasn’t happy about it; but if that’s the problem, I’d at least like to know, so I can do something about it before it kills my father.”

“God, Francis, don’t be saying that! No way is it your fault!” She was wide-eyed, fingers wrapped round my arm: I had hit the right mix of guilt-tripped and guilt-tripper. “Honest to God, it’s not. The two of them never got on. Even back when I was a little young one, way before you ever went out with Rosie, my da never . . .”

She dropped the sentence like a hot coal, and her hand came off my arm. I said, “He never had a good word to say about Jimmy Mackey. Is that what you were going to say?”

Nora said, “The other night, that wasn’t your fault. That’s all I was saying.”

“Then whose bloody fault was it? I’m lost here, Nora. I’m in the dark and I’m drowning and nobody will lift one finger to help me out. Rosie’s gone. Kevin’s gone. Half the Place thinks I’m a murderer. I feel like I’m losing my mind. I came to you because I thought you were the
one
person who would have some clue what I’m going through. I’m begging you, Nora. Tell me what the hell is going on.”

I can multitask; the fact that I was aiming to push her buttons didn’t stop me from meaning just about every word. Nora watched me; in the near dark her eyes were enormous and troubled. She said, “I didn’t see what started the two of them off, Francis. If I had to guess, but, I’d say it was that your da was talking to my ma.”

And there it was. Just that quickly, like gears interlocking and starting to move, dozens of little things going right back to my childhood spun and whirred and clicked neatly into place. I had thought up a hundred possible explanations, each one more involved and unlikely than the last—Matt Daly ratting out one of my da’s less legal activities, some hereditary feud going back to who stole whose last potato during the Famine—but I had never thought of the one thing that starts practically every fight between two men, specially the truly vicious ones: a woman. I said, “The two of them had a thing together.”

I saw her lashes flutter, quick and embarrassed. It was too dark to tell, but I would have bet she was blushing. “I think so, yeah. No one’s ever said it to me straight out, but . . . I’m almost sure.”

“When?”

“Ah, ages ago, before they were married—it wasn’t an
affair
, nothing like that. Just kid stuff.”

Which, as I knew better than most people, never stopped anything from mattering. “And then what happened?”

I waited for Nora to describe unspeakable acts of violence, probably involving strangulation, but she shook her head. “I don’t know, Francis. I don’t. Like I said, nobody ever talked to me about it; I just figured it out on my own, from bits and bobs.”

I leaned over and jammed out my smoke on the gravel, shoved it back in the packet. “Now this,” I said, “I didn’t see coming. Color me stupid.”

“Why . . . ? I wouldn’t’ve thought you’d care.”

“You mean, why do I care about anything that happened around here, when I couldn’t be arsed coming back for twenty-odd years?”

She was still gazing at me, worried and bewildered. The moon had come out; in the cold half-light the garden looked pristine and unreal, like some symmetrical suburban limbo. I said, “Nora, tell me something. Do you think I’m a murderer?”

It scared me shitless, how badly I wanted her to say no. That was when I knew I should get up and leave—I already had everything she could give me, every extra second was a bad idea. Nora said, simply and matter-offactly, “No. I never did.”

Something twisted inside me. I said, “Apparently a lot of people do.”

She shook her head. “Once, when I was just a wee little young one—five or six, maybe—I had one of Sallie Hearne’s cat’s kittens out in the street to play with, and a bunch of big fellas came along and took it away, to tease me. They were throwing it back and forth, and I was screaming . . . Then you came and made them stop: got the kitten for me, told me to take it back to Hearne’s. You wouldn’t remember.”

“I do, yeah,” I said. The wordless plea in her eyes: she needed the two of us to share that memory, and of all the things she needed that was the only tiny one I could give. “Of course I remember.”

“Someone who’d do that, I can’t see him hurting anyone; not on purpose. Maybe I’m just stupid.”

That twist again, more painful. “Not stupid,” I said. “Just sweet. The sweetest thing.”

In that light she looked like a girl, like a ghost, she looked like a breath-taking black-and-white Rosie escaped for one thin slice of time from a flickering old film or a dream. I knew if I touched her she would vanish, turn back into Nora in the blink of an eye and be gone for good. The smile on her lips could have pulled my heart out of my chest.

I touched her hair, only, with the tips of my fingers. Her breath was quick and warm against the inside of my wrist. “Where have you been?” I said softly, close to her mouth. “Where have you been all this time?”

We clutched at each other like wild lost kids, on fire and desperate. My hands knew the soft hot curves of her hips by heart, their shape rose up to meet me from some fathoms-deep place in my mind that I had thought was lost forever. I don’t know who she was looking for; she kissed me hard enough that I tasted blood. She smelled like vanilla. Rosie used to smell of lemon drops and sun and the airy solvent they used in the factory to clean stains off the cloth. I dug my fingers deep into Nora’s rich curls and felt her breasts heave against my chest, so that for a second I thought she was crying.

She was the one who broke away. She was crimson-cheeked and breathing hard, pulling down her jumper. She said, “I’ve to go in now.”

I said, “Stay,” and took hold of her again.

For a second I swear she thought about it. Then she shook her head and detached my hands from her waist. She said, “I’m glad you came tonight.”

Rosie would have stayed.
I almost said it; I would have, if I had thought there was a chance it would do me any good. Instead I leaned back on the bench, took a deep breath and felt my heart start to slow down. Then I turned Nora’s hand over and kissed her palm. “So am I,” I said. “Thank you for coming out to me. Now go inside, before you have me driven mad. Sweet dreams.”

Her hair was tumbled and her lips were full and tender from kissing. She said, “Safe home, Francis.” Then she stood up and walked back up the garden, pulling her coat around her.

She slipped into the house and closed the door behind her without once looking back. I sat there on the bench, watching her silhouette move in the lamplight behind her bedroom curtain, till my knees stopped shaking and I could climb over the walls and head for home.

17

T
he answering machine had a message from Jackie, asking me to give her a ring: “Nothing important, now. Just . . . ah, you know yourself. Bye.” She sounded drained and older than I had ever heard her. I was wrecked enough myself that a part of me was actually scared to leave it overnight, given what had happened when I ignored Kevin’s messages, but it was some ungodly hour of the morning; the phone would have given her and Gavin matching heart attacks. I went to bed. When I pulled off my jumper I could still smell Nora’s hair on the collar.

Wednesday morning I woke up late, around ten, feeling several notches more exhausted than I had the night before. It had been a few years since I’d been in top-level pain, mental or physical. I had forgotten just how much it takes out of you. I stripped off a layer or two of brain fluff with cold water and black coffee, and phoned Jackie.

“Ah, howya, Francis.”

Her voice still had that dulled note, even heavier. Even if I’d had the time or the energy to tackle her about Holly, I wouldn’t have had the heart. “Howya, honeybunch. I just got your message.”

“Oh . . . yeah. I thought afterwards, maybe I shouldn’t have . . . I didn’t want to give you a fright, like. Make you think anything else had happened. I just wanted . . . I don’t know. To see how you were getting on.”

I said, “I know I headed off early, Monday night. I should have stuck around.”

“Maybe, yeah. Sure, it’s done now. There was no more drama, anyway: everyone had more drink, everyone sang a while longer, everyone went home.”

There was a thick layer of background noise going on: chitchat, Girls Aloud and a hair dryer. I said, “Are you at work?”

“Ah, sure. Why not. Gav couldn’t take another day off, and I didn’t fancy hanging about the flat on my own . . . Anyway, if you and Shay are right about the state of the country, I’d better keep my regulars happy, wha’?” It was meant as a joke, but she didn’t have the energy to put a bounce on it.

“Don’t push yourself, sweetheart. If you’re wrecked, go home. I’d say your regulars wouldn’t leave you for love or money.”

“You never know, do you? Ah, no, I’m grand. Everyone’s being lovely; they’re bringing me cups of tea and letting me have a smoke break whenever I need one. I’m better off here. Where are you? Are you not in work?”

“Taking a few days off.”

“That’s good, Francis. You work too hard, sure. Do something nice for yourself. Bring Holly somewhere.”

I said, “Actually, while I’ve got the free time, I’d love a chance to have a chat with Ma. On our own, without Da around. Is there a good time of day for that? Like, does he go out to the shops, or to the pub?”

“Most days he does, yeah. But . . .” I could hear the effort she was putting into trying to focus. “He was having a terrible time with his back, yesterday. Today as well, I’d say. He could hardly get out of the bed. When his back does be at him, he mostly just has a sleep.” Translation: some doctor gave him the good pills, Da topped up with floorboard vodka, he was out for the foreseeable. “Mammy’ll be there all day, till Shay gets home anyway, in case he needs anything. Call over to her; she’ll be delighted to see you.”

I said, “I’ll do that. You tell that Gav to take good care of you, OK?”

“He’s been brilliant, so he has, I don’t know what I’d do without him . . . Come here, d’you want to call round to us this evening? Have a bit of dinner with us, maybe?”

Fish and chips with pity sauce: sounded tasty. “I’ve got plans,” I said. “But thanks, hon. Maybe some other time. You’d better get back to work before someone’s highlights turn green.”

Jackie tried obligingly to laugh, but it fell flat. “Yeah, I probably had. Mind yourself, Francis. Say howya to Mammy for me.” And she was gone, back into the fog of hair-dryer noise and chatter and cups of sweet tea.

Jackie was right: when I rang the buzzer, Ma came down to the hall door. She looked exhausted too, and she had lost weight since Saturday: at least one belly was missing. She eyed me for a moment, deciding which way to go. Then she snapped, “Your da’s asleep. Come on into the kitchen and don’t be making noise.” She turned around and stumped painfully back up the stairs. Her hair needed setting.

The flat stank of spilled booze, air freshener and silver polish. The Kevin shrine was even more depressing by daylight; the flowers were half dead, the Mass cards had fallen over and the electric candles were starting to fade and flicker. Faint, satisfied snores were trickling through the bedroom door.

Ma had every bit of silver she owned spread out on the kitchen table: cutlery, brooches, photo frames, mysterious pseudo-ornamental tat that had clearly spent a long time on the regift merry-go-round before falling off here. I thought of Holly, puffy with tears and rubbing furiously away at her dollhouse furniture. “Here,” I said, picking up the polishing cloth. “I’ll give you a hand.”

“You’ll only make a bags of it. The great clumsy hands on you.”

“Let me have a go. You can tell me where I’m going wrong.”

Ma shot me a suspicious look, but that offer was too good to pass up. “Might as well make yourself useful, I suppose. You’ll have a cup of tea.”

It wasn’t a question. I pulled up a chair and got started on the cutlery, while Ma bustled in cupboards. The conversation I wanted would have worked best as a confidential mother-and-daughter chat; since I didn’t have the equipment for that, a little joint housework would at least steer us towards the right vibe. If she hadn’t been doing the silver, I would have found something else to clean.

Ma said, by way of an opening salvo, “You went off very sudden, Monday night.”

“I had to go. How’ve you been getting on?”

“How d’you expect? If you wanted to know, you’d have been here.”

“I can’t imagine what this has been like for you,” I said, which may be part of the formula but was probably true. “Is there anything I can do?”

She threw tea bags into the pot. “We’re grand, thanks very much. The neighbors’ve been great: brought us enough dinners for a fortnight, and Marie Dwyer’s letting me keep them in her chest freezer. We’ve lived without your help this long, we’ll survive a bit longer.”

“I know, Mammy. If you think of anything, though, you just let me know. OK? Anything at all.”

Ma spun round and pointed the teapot at me. “I’ll tell you what you can do. You can get a hold of your friend, him, what’s-his-name with the jaw, and you can tell him to send your brother home. I can’t get onto the funeral home about the arrangements, I can’t go to Father Vincent about the Mass, I can’t tell anyone when I’ll be burying my own son, because some young fella with a face like Popeye on him won’t tell me when he’ll be
releasing the body
—that’s what he called it. The brass neck of him. Like our Kevin’s his property.”

“I know,” I said. “And I promise you I’ll do my best. But he’s not trying to make your life any more difficult. He’s just doing his job, as fast as he can.”

“His job’s his problem, not mine. If he keeps us waiting any longer it’ll have to be a closed casket. Did you think of that?”

I could have told her the casket would probably have to be closed anyway, but we had already taken this line of conversation about as far as I felt like going. I said, “I hear you’ve met Holly.”

A lesser woman would have looked guilty, even just a flicker, but not my ma. Her chins shot out. “And about time! That child would’ve been married and giving me great-grandchildren before you’d have lifted a finger to bring her here. Were you hoping if you waited long enough I’d die before you had to introduce us?”

The thought had crossed my mind. “She’s pretty fond of you,” I said. “What do you think of her?”

“The image of her mammy. Lovely girls, the pair of them. Better than you deserve.”

“You’ve met Olivia?” I tipped my hat to Liv, mentally. She had skated around that one very prettily.

“Twice, only. She dropped Holly and Jackie down to us. Was a Liberties girl not good enough for you?”

“You know me, Ma. Always getting above myself.”

“And look where that got you. Are the two of yous divorced now, or are yous only separated?”

“Divorced. A couple of years back.”

“Hmf.” Ma’s mouth pursed up tight. “I never divorced your da.”

Which was unanswerable on so many levels. “True enough,” I said.

“Now you can’t take Communion.”

I knew better than to rise to that, but no one can get to you quite like family. “Ma. Even if I wanted to take Communion, and I don’t, the divorce wouldn’t be a problem. I can divorce myself into a coma for all the Church cares, as long as I don’t shag anyone who’s not Olivia. The problem would be the lovely ladies I’ve ridden since the divorce.”

“Don’t be dirty,” Ma snapped. “I’m not a smart-arse like you, I don’t know all the ins and outs, but I know this much: Father Vincent wouldn’t give you Communion. In the church where you were baptized.” She jabbed a triumphant finger at me. Apparently this counted as a win.

I reminded myself that I needed a chat more than I needed the last word. I said meekly, “You’re probably right.”

“I am, of course.”

“At least I’m not raising Holly to be a heathen too. She goes to Mass.”

I thought the mention of Holly would smooth Ma down again, but this time it just put her back up further; you never can tell. “She might as well be a heathen, for all the good it’s done me. I missed her First Communion! My first granddaughter!”

“Ma, she’s your third granddaughter. Carmel’s got two girls older than her.”

“The first one with our
name
. And the last, by the looks of it. I don’t know what Shay’s playing at, at all—he could have a dozen girls on the go and we’d never know, he’s never brought one to meet us in his life, I swear to God I’m ready to give up on him altogether. Your da and meself thought Kevin would be the one who . . .”

She bit down on her lips and upped the volume on the tea-making clatter, bashing cups onto saucers and biscuits onto a plate. After a while she said, “And now I suppose that’s the last we’ll see of Holly.”

“Here,” I said, holding up a fork. “Is that clean enough?”

Ma threw it a half glance. “It is not. Get between the prongs.” She brought the tea things over to the table, poured me a cup and pushed milk and sugar towards me. She said, “I’m after buying Holly her Christmas presents. Lovely little velvet dress, I got her.”

“That’s a couple of weeks away,” I said. “Let’s see how we go.”

Ma gave me a sideways look that told me nothing, but she left it. She found another cloth, sat down opposite me and picked up something silver that could have been a bottle stopper. “Drink that tea,” she said.

The tea was strong enough to reach out of the pot and give you a punch. Everyone was out at work and the street was very quiet, just the soft even pattering of the rain and the far-off rush of traffic. Ma worked her way through various undefined silver widgets; I finished the cutlery and moved on to a photo frame—it was covered in fancy flowers that I would never get clean to Ma’s standards, but at least I knew what it was. When the room felt like it had settled enough, I said, “Tell me something. Is it true Da was doing a line with Theresa Daly, before you came on the scene?”

Ma’s head snapped up and she stared at me. Her face didn’t change, but an awful lot of things were zipping across her eyes. “Where’d you hear that?” she demanded.

“So he was with her.”

“Your da’s a fecking eejit. You knew that already, or you’re as bad.”

“I did, yeah. I just didn’t know that was one of the specific ways he was a fecking eejit.”

“She was always trouble, that one. Always drawing attention to herself, wiggling down the road, screaming and carrying on with her friends.”

“And Da fell for it.”

“They all fell for it! The fellas are stupid; they go mad for all that. Your da, and Matt Daly, and half the fellas in the Liberties, all hanging out of Tessie O’Byrne’s arse. She lapped it up: kept three or four of them dangling at once, broke it off with them every other week when they weren’t giving her enough attention. They just came crawling back for more.”

“We don’t know what’s good for us,” I said. “Specially when we’re young. Da would’ve been only a young fella back then, wouldn’t he?”

Ma sniffed. “Old enough to know better. I was three years younger, sure, and I could’ve told him it would end in tears.”

I said, “You’d already spotted him, yeah?”

“I had, yeah. God, yeah. You wouldn’t think . . .” Her fingers had slowed on the widget. “You wouldn’t think it now, but he was only gorgeous, your da was, back then. A load of curly hair on him, and those blue eyes, and the laugh; he’d a great laugh.”

We both glanced involuntarily out the kitchen door, towards the bedroom. Ma said, and you could still hear that the name used to taste like superfancy ice cream in her mouth, “Jimmy Mackey could’ve had his pick of any girl around.”

I gave her a little smile. “And he didn’t go straight for you?”

“I was a child, sure. I was fifteen when he started chasing after Tessie O’Byrne, and I wasn’t like these young ones nowadays that look twenty before they’re twelve; I’d no figure on me, no makeup, I hadn’t a clue . . . I used to try and catch his eye when I’d see him on my way to work in the morning, but he’d never look twice. He was mad on Tessie. And she liked him best of the lot.”