Authors: Julie Parsons
He remembered that he had felt – what was it? – guilt, somehow, that he had intruded into the quiet, calm world of the baby. And suddenly responsible for the racket that came up from
downstairs, for the crowd of stragglers drinking their heads off in the kitchen and living room, and for the stench of alcohol and cigarettes that wafted into the small, quiet nursery. He wondered
if he should leave. But Martin had grabbed him by the arm as he came down into the hall, shoving a pint glass and a plate of sausages into his hand, and that had been that.
It was a lovely house. Or it had been. He was one of the team who searched it, looking for secrets. There had been none. There had been nothing hidden. Just the lingering smell of gunpowder,
strongest in the sitting room, beside the stained carpet. He remembered too that he had taken the nightdress they had found in the skip and compared it with the others in the chest of drawers and
the clothes in the wardrobe. Same brand names, same size, same range of colours. And he had felt bad, guilty and awkward as he turned from the cupboard and looked at the bed. It was unmade. A cup
of tea had been spilt across the bedside table. Underwear was lying on the floor, and a pair of shoes were thrown awkwardly in a corner. The air was stale and rank.
Had she been back there since then, he wondered as he waited and counted to ten. Then he stood up and moved out on to the footpath, turning right to walk up the main street. He could see her up
ahead. Her grey hair stood out clearly among the crowds of lunch-time shoppers. And he remembered her father who had taught him when he was a student in Templemore. Old Gerry Jennings. A good guy,
one of the best. So proud of his daughter. The first one in the family to go to university. To become an architect of all things. Making things, building things. Making money, Gerry, someone had
said, and they all laughed. And he laughed with them. Yeah, making money to keep me in my old age, when I’m shot of all you lot.
She had stopped at the traffic lights and was waiting for them to change. He hung back, turning away from her, watching her in the reflection of the newsagent’s window. When the lights
changed she hesitated, then rushed across the road, barely missing bumping into a young woman with a baby in a buggy and a child by the hand. He turned and crossed too, quickening his pace to catch
up with her, just in time to see her disappear through the large bronze doors of the huge modern church which dominated the town centre.
Perhaps a fit of penitence, he thought as he paused, dipped the first two fingers of his right hand into the holy-water stoop and muttered, automatically, the words coming without thought,
‘In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, Amen,’ feeling as always his mother’s warm hand on his, hearing his mother’s low voice breathing in his ear. It was
much darker inside, apart from the light that streamed through the floor-to-ceiling stained-glass windows at the northern end of the nave. St Michael, the archangel, vanquished evil in yellow, blue
and red, with the Holy Ghost in the shape of a large white dove looking on from its vantage point in Heaven. Mass was being celebrated and he saw that Rachel had taken her seat midway between the
altar and the last pew. She had slipped on to her knees, bowed her head and buried her face in her hands. Her grey hair was not out of place here, among this congregation of the elderly faithful.
He sat down in the pew closest to the door and closed his eyes. She had looked very striking on the day of her husband’s funeral. She had worn black, of course, but he remembered that she had
carried a white rose. The photograph that had been on all the front pages the next morning was of the moment when she had thrown it into the open grave. A small white splash against the darkness
that surrounded.
He remembered the drive from the morgue at St Vincent’s Hospital to the huge Spanish-style church at the top of Kill Avenue. He had helped carry the coffin up the aisle. He shifted,
suddenly uncomfortable, remembering its weight, and the way it had cut into his shoulder. He had tried not to think what was inside it. But in spite of himself he had begun to imagine
Martin’s body, the way it would look if the polished oak of the coffin fell away. The thought had made him stumble, almost slip on the shiny marble floor, and to straighten himself he had
clutched at whoever was on the opposite side, feeling the warm roughness of the heavy dark blue uniform. A relief when they had reached the altar and their burden could be laid down on the waiting
trestles.
Such a public occasion. So high profile. The playing of the last post, the removing of the flag, the careful folding and handing over of it. The Garda Commissioner coming to shake her hand and
commiserate. Even the Minister for Justice and the President’s aide-de-camp and a gaggle of politicians. TV cameras, newspapers. The works. And all she probably wanted was to be on her own,
to grieve by herself, without the public scrutiny. But the public scrutiny of the funeral was as nothing compared to what had followed. A lot of lives had been ruined that night all those years
ago.
Silvery bells rang and he opened his eyes. Around him the devout were preparing themselves for communion. On the altar the priest raised the silver salver and jug.
‘Take this, all of you, and eat. For this is the body of my son which he has given up for thee. Take this, all of you, and drink. For this is the blood of my son which he has given up for
thee.’
The bells rang again. On cue the men and women in the seats around him began to shuffle into the aisle. He watched the silent column form and waited to see if she would join in. But she
didn’t move. He stood up and took his place in the queue. As he passed by her seat he glanced down. She was staring ahead. Tears were streaming down her face and she was mouthing silently to
herself. He stood before the priest. He held up his hands, one palm crossed over the other. He closed his eyes and heard the muttered intoning, ‘the body of Christ, the body of Christ, the
body of Christ’. He felt the wafer against his skin and raised his hands to his mouth. The saliva on his tongue received its dryness and it began to melt. He swallowed. A sense of peace
flooded through him as he turned and walked back to his seat. The miracle had happened as it always did. He believed again. All doubts washed away. Now he knelt to pray, the words tumbling one over
the other. ‘Holy Father, help me now and forever. Holy Mother, protect me and my children from sin and darkness.’ He leaned forward and pressed his forehead against his knuckles.
‘Thank you, Lord, for this gift of eternal life. Thank you, Lord. Thank you.’
Rachel had noticed the man at the back of the queue for communion. He was much younger than everyone else and he wasn’t usually here at this time, in this place. It had
become her habit to sit in the darkness of the church and listen to the sound of the Mass. There was comfort in the familiar words and no one ever noticed her. All eyes were on the priest and the
altar. And she liked that. But he had looked at her. She had felt rather than seen his glance in her direction as he walked past. She had watched him bow his head and hold up his hands to receive,
and she had expected him to look again at her as he walked back to his seat. But his eyes were lowered, his expression turned inward.
She got to her feet and edged out of the pew. It was time, she was sure, to go back to work. Today, Mickey, the nice man who worked alongside her in the dry-cleaner’s mending shoes and
cutting keys, had asked her to have lunch with him. But she had refused, found an excuse. His feelings had been hurt, she could see that. He had looked down at his hands – callused, hardened,
shoe polish ingrained around his fingernails and lodged in the lines of his palms, so they seemed, she thought, like an etching or a woodcut – and turned them over this way and that. Then he
had looked at her face again and said, ‘Some other time maybe,’ as he put on his coat and lifted the countertop and walked away. She had nodded at his back, the bile rising into her
mouth. How could she explain that it was nothing personal? That twelve years of eating on her own, in her cell, had made it impossible for her to imagine how it would be to eat in the company of
another. Biting, chewing, swallowing, all such actions must be done privately. She could no more eat in public now than she could walk naked down the street. It just wasn’t possible. That was
why she always went back to her room at lunchtime, or to the corner outside the shopping centre, behind the parked cars, where no one else ever came. But she would have never been able to tell him
or anyone else that. They wouldn’t understand.
And then as she passed the man seated at the back by the door to the street he looked up at her, looked straight into her face. And she saw who he was, and knew him, and cringed away from him as
she remembered. The searches and the interrogation. The parade of witnesses during the trial. The words that were spoken about her. Against her. She tried to think. Was there a name that went with
that face? Did it matter? He was one of them. The people who had spoken lies about her. Who had turned her into this pathetic creature. Whose memories were so confused that sometimes she thought
she would never be able to sort the chronology of her recollections into any kind of order. Before, after, then, now, it was all a muddled blur. And the only way to make it clear again was to
complete the task that she had planned for so many years. The time was nearly right to begin. Nearly, but not quite. Soon she would be ready, and then everything would be different.
A
NOTHER FACE THAT
might or might not be familiar. Plump cheeks, wide lipsticked mouth, long gold earrings that caught the light and twinkled, and a
charm bracelet snagging on the wool and tweed of the suits and coats that the woman piled on the counter in front of Rachel.
‘There’s no rush for these, dear. Just getting all the winter clothes sorted out. I do like to make sure that everything’s nice and tidy before the summer holidays. You know
that way.’
Rachel had never heard the woman’s voice before. In the days when she had sat in Court Number Four and watched and listened as the case against her was laid out for public scrutiny, she
had heard the voices of the barristers, prosecuting and defending, the judge, the witnesses, but never the voices of the twelve members of the jury. Apart from the man elected to be their foreman,
who would make known their decision. Freedom and vindication or prison and disgrace.
Eight men and four women were selected from the panel of jurors. She had watched the selection proceed. Her solicitor explained, prosecution and defence could object to four each. But the
objection could be based on nothing more than appearance and instinct. They would try to get as many women as they could for her. Stands to reason, her solicitor said. Women would be more
sympathetic to her situation. Precedent suggested that anyway. But they were unlucky.
Rachel had sat opposite them for the six days that the trial lasted, shifting uneasily on the hard wooden seat, trying not to slump or sag, straining to look alert and interested, to look like
the kind of person they would believe. Behind her sat her father. Always. Every day. Her mother stayed at home. Rachel waited to see who would support her and believe in her. Once she had friends.
Girls she had met at school and at university, who had stayed in touch through their years of work, marriage and motherhood. A few of them came, in twos, and stayed for an hour, sometimes less.
Mouthing excuses across the crowded courtroom.
Sorry, got to go. Got to collect the kids from school, crèche, football practice. Got to get back to work, got a deadline. Sorry, talk to you soon. Keep in touch. Don’t worry.
It’ll be fine.
While the jury sat and listened. All twelve of them. The eight men and the four women. Including the woman with the dangling earrings and the clinking charm bracelet, the powdered cheeks and the
red mouth who now was pushing the piled clothes across the counter. Whose face had crumpled with anguish, her plump shoulders shaking, tears spilling down the ridges on either side of her nose as
the foreman of the jury rose to pronounce the verdict.
She had cried silently then, and she had continued to cry while the judge pronounced sentence. And afterwards? Rachel did not know. Because afterwards there had been no time for anything or
anybody except to say goodbye to Amy, to hold her for one last moment, breathing in the musky sweetness which rose up from beneath her bright blue sweater as Rachel kissed her and kissed her. On
her cheeks and forehead, her mouth, her chin, the soft folds of skin around her neck, her hands and fingers, red with cold on that raw November day. Until the prison officer tapped her on the
shoulder and told her that she had to go. That it was time. That the van was waiting.
‘The van?’ Rachel had looked up at her and back down to Amy, who had begun to whimper.
‘The van, the prison van. Come on now, Rachel. Don’t keep us waiting.’ And she put her hand on her forearm and gestured to her to stand up. ‘This way, now. There’s
a good girl. Don’t make a fuss.’
Rachel stood in the Round Hall and looked from side to side. At her father, who had picked up the child and was cradling her in his arms, promising her sweeties and treats ‘if you’re
a good girl for Grandad’. So that was the way it was to be. Mother and daughter, their obedience demanded. One by threats, the other by bribes.
Her solicitor and barristers were walking briskly towards the front door. The crowd who had milled around her since the trial began, the journalists, the guards, the vicarious onlookers, were
leaving. Buttoning up their coats against the damp chill, picking up their bags and briefcases. Their conversations drifted past her.
‘Tonight? I fancy a film. What about you?’
‘Dinner would be nice, then a couple of pints.’
‘I’m for a night in. A hot bath and a bottle of wine. I’m wrecked. And I’ve another big case starting tomorrow.’
She stood beside the prison officer and watched as the Round Hall emptied, like the tide going out, leaving her behind. And somehow or other she realized that it was all over.