‘You don’t like us much, do you?’ Selma grinned. A shiver took itself through to my bones. I was a grown man and I couldn’t take being near her. ‘Check the ditch. She might be out there.’ Selma pointed towards the shit-trench.
Reluctantly, I abandoned the mule and walked behind the sheds with a hand over my mouth. There was Bridget. She was squatting, dress scrunched up, over the trench. I sighed with relief until I saw that she was sucking at a peach.
‘Bridget!’ Selma roared from her position in the yard. Bridget’s shocked little eyes met mine and juice ran down her chin.
I placed a finger to my lips to tell her I’d be quiet and she should be too. With two more slow mouthfuls Bridget finished that peach and flung the stone into the muck. Quick as a flash, she swiped a sleeve across a wet mouth and fixed her dress.
Without a word, we walked back to Selma’s figure standing with her hands on boney hips.
‘Was she eating one of my peaches?’ Selma asked. Bridget kept on walking back towards the house seemingly indifferent to her theft or the question. ‘Was she eating a peach, answer me.’
‘She was taking a shit,’ I replied. My tone was defiant. I was utterly stupid to try to be brave.
‘Stand you there!’ Selma ordered, pointing at me to stay put. Considering her bad leg, she turned quickly to grab Bridget by the arm and yanked her back towards the house. The heat of the day was leaving and with it went all my confidence. The squeak of the front door opening again told me of Selma’s return. Brandishing a rifle in one hand and Bridget’s blonde hair in the other, she hobbled down the steps dragging the child after her. She had that fierce gleam in her eyes – it’s still before me now.
‘Peach. Was she eating it?’ came the question again and she let go of Bridget’s hair. Cocking the rifle onto her shoulder she pointed it towards me. ‘Answer! Or I’ll shoot you like a dog.’
I couldn’t look at those innocent blue eyes as I’d see the peach drool on the front of her dress. I closed my eyes. In those seconds I was sure Selma would gun me down. In a way I wanted her to do it.
I heard a scuffle of feet and sensed that Bridget had taken off running. When I peeked there was dust in Bridget’s wake and the sight of little legs fleeing. I must have clenched my eyes shut again as it was another few seconds before I heard the shot. It rang out. Bridget staggered on for quite a bit, and as I fell to my knees, she slunk forward and ended up head first in the dirt. Her lifeless little body crumpled just a short distance from the start of the filth-ditch.
I scuttled over. The blood poured through her blonde hair and she flopped like a rag doll when I picked her up.
‘That’ll teach that husband of mine to give away my peaches,’ Selma roared.
18
Rhona Irwin
Joe drives in and parks at the front door as per usual. He’ll slam the door closed behind him and dump all his stuff at the bottom of the stairs and make his way to the downstairs loo. He’ll fart loud enough to be heard in the living room. It is the same every day and sure enough today is no different. Everything has come to a halt in my brain.
Charlie never bats an eyelid at the tension between his hosts. He ignores the life around him. Credit where it is due, it could be said that Charlie keeps himself to himself and is a good guest.
My trembling hand pours whisky and soda for us all.
‘Upstairs,’ I order at Joe through gritted teeth. ‘Need to talk.’
I can tell from Joe’s expression that he doesn’t want any drama after accounting all day. He just wants to enjoy being home. I notice that he hasn’t missed Faye’s presence as he thumps up the stairs behind me.
‘What is it now?’ he says and sits on the bed. He has taken the crystal glass with him. Of course he has.
‘In case you’re wondering, your daughter is with my mother.’
Joe looks up. He is waiting on other news and knows that there is something more unusual coming.
I clench my jaw and fist. ‘That man downstairs has a fake passport. He went to Canada when he was eighteen to end up as a slave and witnessed the murder of a young girl.’
Joe stops drinking to breathe in sharply. ‘Murder?’
‘It’s awful.’
‘He witnessed that as a young fellow? That would damage anyone. Lord. Murder? Charlie left one mess for another…’
‘He’s not sugar-coating anything and he’s telling it all as it was; brutal, horrible things. He couldn’t inform anyone of the murder as he was far from home and virtually imprisoned… There’s a nagging doubt in my head because I’ve been doing some research at night and have asked my cousin, Margie, to look into things. She’s a history buff. It’s all a bit of a mess. I don’t know how to explain it all.’
‘I’ve had a hard day and what do you want me to do?’
Practical, pragmatic Joe sits on our bed looking tired.
‘He’s called a different name on his passport,’ I say. ‘Why have a fake identity if you’re an innocent man? He’s a criminal. He stole someone’s name.’
‘Many immigrants take new names and he only witnessed this murder. I take it that it wasn’t him killing people?’
‘No! He did nothing. It wasn’t his doing. No.’ I say that word slowly, picturing the scene on the Canadian ranch as Charlie described it just a short time ago. ‘You’ve been trying to get Ella to see him. Has there been any word about that? Any luck? Why won’t she see him? What does she know about that man downstairs? And why is she not talking about him in any of her revelations over all the years?’
‘She hasn’t defended herself very much at all. I think that’s why there’s been all of this interest. My contacts have only just heard from those dealing with her affairs. It’s all slow. She’s living in a convent. It’s a closed order and they wouldn’t pass on any messages. A PR company helped me and I doubt Ella even knows that Charlie is back.’
‘Possibly not.’
‘He’s not said what he knows about her case then?’
I shake my head, jealous that Joe has a whisky to sip.
‘He might have hurt their baby. He was a butcher…’ I start.
Joe rises to his feet, incredulous.
‘He took Faye off that day…’ I start to explain.
‘Stop that talk! That’s ridiculous. Don’t do this, Ronnie.’
‘Don’t do what, Joe?’
‘Make everything worse.’
‘Maybe he did more than witness bad things? Joe, look at me. It’s easy for us all to believe that a mother might hurt her own and it’s not easy for us to think that a man might?’
‘Charlie’s a good man. This is just typical! You were all about his eccentricities when he first arrived and about how wonderful he was. You were all on for him staying here with us. Now, you think he’s some kind of monster? You were the very one who argued that Ella O’Brien should never have been let out of prison – it was you yourself that said she was beyond evil. Then there’s a dying gentleman living here and he’s speaking to you because he trusts you and you’re doubting him. Why doesn’t this surprise me? All men in your world are at fault in some way. We are all bad guys! Charlie, me, your father, everyone. What do you say to people about me when I cannot hear it?’
‘This isn’t about you at all.’
‘For once I’m the good guy?’ Joe spits in a low whisper. He turns his shoulder to shield himself and says, ‘I cannot understand it. You look poor Charlie in the eye and pretend to like him – is that what you do to me?’
My mouth opens to tell Joe that I love and desperately need him – nothing comes out. Joe gets off the bed and goes back downstairs.
As usual, I am the bitch.
19
Charlie Quinn
Rhonda pours another whisky and soda. I’m glad of it. There’s been very little said over the dinner and the last few hours. We’ve checked on the news and with all the excitement of Ireland doing well in the World Cup, there’s been no mention of Ella. I’m glad of that
too. Things must be quietening. There’s a foreboding. It is the calm before the storm.
Rhonda has told her husband, Joe, some of what we discussed. I can tell by his sympathetic expressions.
‘We’ve had a hard day today,’ she tells us all at the table. ‘Thinking of the past is not all plain sailing.’
Perhaps she’s justifying the whisky, her tiredness and my lack of speech to her husband.
‘There’s a lot more to go,’ I tell them both. ‘I think you’re right, Rhonda – I should think about how I’ll get to see Ella.’
Rhonda nods and sips her drink.
‘Could I make arrangements to go to meet her? How do we find out?’ I ask.
‘Leave that to me,’ her husband, Joe, says and I thank him as he takes his leave of us.
Rhonda, without asking, clicks on the tape recorder. I wipe the sadness and potato from my chin and resume the painful unveiling of the truth.
I’d seen dead people before. Ireland’s wakes and open coffins ensured I was accustomed to the sight of death but nothing prepared me for Bridget’s lifeless corpse.
Selma screamed orders from her position in the yard. She didn’t stray far from where she was. ‘Leave her. Let them all see what happens to thieves.’
I placed Bridget back down gently beside the stench and saw the blood on my hands and shirt. Bridget’s beauty was covered in dust and blood and I knew the others would be back from the fields at any moment. If they’d heard the shot they’d be running back by now. Selma wanted them to witness this before chuck-time and I couldn’t leave Bridget like that for them all to see.
Selma continued to shout and the man in me rose up. I became determined and somehow got the strength to lift my rag doll. I walked towards the main gate. Where I was planning to go I don’t know. Bridget weighed hardly anything at all, and even though I was petrified I walked on. I suppose that was brave. The guilt I carried with her was huge. I had failed to protect another child. That’s all I felt – self-loathing and fear.
The gate was closed as usual and I waited as the dust was rising on the road. The truck with Fran and their own children was coming homewards. Selma stopped her shouting and never came towards the gate. I waited on a warning shot or even a bullet in my back. None came as I stood there crying.
That’s where the past muddles on me again. Fran must have come home and taken Bridget. I remember clinging to the little body, and I felt the wrench of her being gone. There must have been discussions and tirades. That would have been normal for them and this was a mess. That is all gone in a haze of uncertainty. Did the Daly children see the murdered remains? Possibly. Did it affect them? I hope not.
Bridget’s death killed another part of who I was.
‘I should’ve saved her,’ I cried at Fran as he made me unhitch the mule and see to my night-time chores. ‘I should have taken that rifle from your bitch.’
Fran stood back a pace or two and gawped. That shook him for a second. He scratched his scalp and stared off into the distance. In his own weird way, he was upset too.
‘Did you give her that peach?’ I asked.
He nodded.
‘Why? Didn’t you know Selma wouldn’t like it?’
‘There was no harm in giving the angel a treat,’ he said and sniffed. ‘No harm in it at all.’
‘There was plenty harm. Bridget died over a fucking peach.’
I’m not sure when Fran said what he wished me to do next. It cannot have been long after the incident. I can still see his rotten teeth and hear him say, ‘We need to get rid of the body. With a bullet in her skull we cannot say she ran off or hurt herself. There’s been too many things in the paper about deaths and runaways. This is all a real problem.’
There was a silence.
‘Like… Selma could get into bother.’
He wanted me to do something. Nothing would have prepared me for what he said next.
He leaned closer to me and whispered, ‘You’ll have to bury her or maybe you could cut her up?’
This will never, ever leave me. Never.
I need to say quickly that I never laid another hand on Bridget. I would never have done what he wanted. Nothing would have made me do that.
Charlie Quinn, though, has stood silent until this very day about what the Dalys did. The only consolation is that I refused to do their butchering.
I knew it was only a matter of time before the other children started asking after Bridget, or about the sound of the shot. Fran and Selma would also want rid of the only witness who refused to dispose of the delicate little corpse.
I had to leave before they had time to think or make plans. When all was still, cold and dark I changed my clothes, took my sack of tattered belongings, put on the overcoat and crawled into the back of the truck under the stinking tarpaulin.
When I watched them leave in the mornings, the back of the truck was never checked. I prayed all night that this would not change. Trembling, I waited until daylight shone through the tiny hole near my nose. Listening to Selma’s shouting, I started to shake uncontrollably and with each bang of the truck doors I wet myself a little. There, lying in my own piss, I heard the gate open.
My Ella’s fate swung before me then. My darling might be hunched in hiding and fearing for her life. I prayed that she still loved me and Charlie Quinn was escaping again. He was leaving all responsibility for what was happening far behind him. Again.
20
Charlie Quinn
I shouldn’t have left that day. I made many mistakes and the lack of options made it necessary for me to flee again. My bloodstained clothes were left behind. I was seen with the child’s dead body. Then I was missing. I should have known that the Dalys would use all of this to their advantage. Charlie Quinn was a runaway, a murdering coward.
When the truck finally stopped, I heard Fran and the children get out and walk away. I slipped out into the street and felt freedom. I almost jumped for joy. Without taking in my surroundings, I kept my head low and mingled into the crowds of people along the wide, busy street. I didn’t know the town or take stock of it. I was too afraid to believe I was fully free. I strode away as fast and as far as I could.
Talking to myself, I was convinced I was not a criminal. I was an eighteen-year-old and within my rights to leave Daly’s. I had promised nothing about working anywhere for anyone and I was not a child. I had come to Canada as a man to do a man’s paid work. Never mind the murder or abuse – I was a free person in the vast expanse of this new country.
In case I lost the run of myself, the smell of urine, sweat and the grime kept me grounded. I held on to the side of a tram and hoped I would not be noticed. I wasn’t and the tracks took me along a few streets until the conductor shook his head at me. I dropped off at the next stop.
Still moving, I heard a steam engine’s whistle. I instinctively sought out the train. Slipping past the guard was easy enough as the queues to the wooden platforms were heaving with people. They too were waiting on escape – or that’s how it looked. I had no Canadian money and only had a few Irish coins left in my shoe. It was a cold day as I was wearing Randal’s coat and the damp nature of my trousers gave a shameful chill. I didn’t care where the train was going, I just knew that I needed to be on it. I watched the crowds and saw a lady struggling with her trunk. She had no help for whatever reason and she was looking perplexed.
She wasn’t wealthy. I could tell that she was wearing her best attire even though it wasn’t colourful or flamboyant. A wedding ring shone on her finger. I made my way down the platform and stood beside her, hoping she couldn’t smell anything as I was upwind of her. That plain, middle-aged woman smiled as I tried to figure out how I might grab her purse in this mob of people.
‘Might you help me with this when the train comes?’ she asked, pointing at the leather trunk. ‘It’s very heavy and I need assistance.’
‘Yes, missus.’
‘Man of few words?’
‘Man of no means. I don’t
have enough to even get on this train.’ It had been a long time since I was an honest Charlie Quinn. My breath held and I looked up the track.
‘Where are you headed?’ she asked, not even flinching at my poverty.
I shrugged. She was taking in my appearance and possibly she got the smell then too.
‘If you help me with the trunk, I’ll buy you a ticket to Ottawa?’
‘Is that far?’
‘You are Irish?’ she asked. ‘Perhaps you should make your way to Manitoba. There’s plenty of Irish everywhere and they are heading out to the prairies.’
‘I’m not sure that I need more of the Irish.’ My eyes filled with tears and I sniffed. She was shaken by that as she touched my dirty shoulder.
‘Don’t you worry. If people are honest and hard-working, Canada is a wonderful place. You’ll find your feet and not look back from this day forward.’
She really believed it. The train was spotted when I was about to ask her where she was from. Everyone moved forward to get a good position for boarding.
The throngs got off and I didn’t look upwards. I waited on the instructions of how to lug on the trunk with this stranger. She sat across the aisle and true to her word she bought me a ticket to Ottawa. I thanked her. It was generous because she was going only a short distance. I rose to help her get off again. She shook her head. ‘No need. I’ve someone to help me now. Believe in the Lord and every blessing to you, Randal Hamilton.’
I hadn’t told her my name. She must’ve read the label on the coat as it lay across my lap.
‘Thank you, missus,’ I muttered as she got off.
21
Charlie Quinn
I sat in Ottawa’s station for a long while and was asked to move on a few times by the stewards. I couldn’t leave. I was in shock. Extreme tiredness took over and ravenous hunger. With nowhere to go and no motivation to live, I was in grave danger of throwing myself under one of the trains. As night fell I held out my hand and sat on a low step with my head hung low. I wouldn’t admit to begging. It felt more like praying.
The Quiet Truth: a haunting domestic drama full of suspense Page 8