At 10.45 I start my toddle to the elevator. I should’ve refused to use it when I came to the hotel. The stairs are impossible but I don’t want to be demanding. Thankfully, it is spacious and gleams in mirror and chrome and moves quickly. My stomach heaves as I wait for the pins, pulleys and mechanism to take me closer to the inevitable.
The cupped red seats in the reception area are empty. Deciding how to get in and out of them must take a few minutes of agonising away as I am only scooped into the leather when I spy a red-faced Rhonda.
‘Joe will be down shortly,’ she says, holding out a hand to help me up. ‘We promised to take you to see Ella.’
‘Get me a taxi. I am going to be late.’ I sound bitter.
‘We don’t like Dublin traffic, that might be a good idea.’ She looks at me, and there is fear in that face. ‘Yes, I’ll ask reception to get you one.’ Going to the desk she points back at me and talks to the lady.
‘It will be five minutes,’ Rhonda says to the top of my head. ‘We should go with you.’
‘I’d rather go alone, please. If Ella allows it I can record some of the conversation.’
Rhonda’s expression brightens. The writer’s brain takes over from the human one. ‘I’ll get the recorder. Wait on me to go upstairs. That’s a good plan. Thank you.’
The taxi comes and Rhonda bundles me into it with another lie, ‘I hope it all goes well for you, Charlie.’
48
Charlie Quinn
The PR company’s offices are fancy. Leather, chrome and pinkish feminine shades of paint. I suppose it pays to help people present the best side of themselves. How are the nuns paying for such things? Why are they doing this for Ella? Randal Hamilton and Charlie Quinn could do with them. Ella has influential people protecting her now – I am glad of that. She deserves it all.
There’s a young chap with acne waiting to help me find the office I’m needed in. He holds my arm and smells of chewing gum.
‘No lifts! I don’t do small spaces.’ I stall near the shiny metal doors. ‘No stairs.’
He tuts a bit and drags me after him. It’s a long, painful march to a far-flung open-plan conference room. The place is teeming with people and noise. Some are wearing headsets and are pointing in various directions and some are moving chairs and lights.
All activity stops when we stumble into the room. Exhausted already, I must look like I might keel over as the chap gets a rollicking and I get an uncomfortable chair shoved under my backside. There’s a perfumed air to the room and I spy fresh doughnuts on a trolley a good distance away. My tummy growls and I’m offered coffee.
‘A doughnut,’ I whisper and point pathetically.
‘Your eyesight must be all right then,’ the chap jokes.
‘Your manners aren’t,’ I shout at him. People look over. I want to leave. I know from the activity that this is much more than a small gathering. Meeting my Ella was to be a private thing. This is circus-like. ‘Who’s in charge?’ I ask.
‘You must be Mr Charlie Quinn? I’ve been looking for you,’ a lady with the nicest dark eyes says and she holds out her hand to shake mine. ‘Ella will be right down. This is all for a press conference later. Don’t worry. You’ve been taken to the wrong place.’ Those beautiful orbs roll upwards in annoyance. ‘Interns never listen.’
‘He wouldn’t go upstairs, I didn’t know what to do. Did you say Charlie Quinn? I was just told Mr Quinn, I never dreamt that it would be you!’ the acne-laden chap says, giving me a coffee and a doughnut. ‘Like from the telly last night? You are the Charlie Quinn?’
‘The very one.’
‘Christ!’ He backs away.
The nice lady doesn’t move, smiles and rolls her eyes again. ‘Won’t be long now, Mr Quinn.’ She pats my shoulder and looks towards the door I came in from.
The coffee and doughnut are long gone. The people are almost set up as they are filtering away, like my patience. The door swings open and a wheelchair is pushed into the room. Sitting upon it, regal, like the Queen of England, is my Ella.
I rise as best I can to greet her. She nods and then helps the nice lady to settle the chair in as close to my chair as possible.
‘I cannot run away anymore,’ I joke at them both. It was wrong to be flippant, and it is said now. ‘I’m sorry. That wasn’t meant to be the first thing I said. It wasn’t even funny.’ I gulp. ‘Ella, I’m sorry.’
Those eyes are the bravest I’ve ever seen. ‘What are you sorry for?’ she asks.
‘I came back to put things right, and it’s been too long. I abandoned you when you needed me most. I’m sorry.’ This speech is not coming as well as I would like. The sobbing is uncontrollable and embarrassing. Thankfully, there are not many in the room now. I’m making a spectacle of myself. An old man crying is disgusting. I manage to breathe and say, ‘I’ve thought about this moment for sixty years. I’ve missed you. My life has been empty. I promised to make you happy and I let you down. I’ve had this conversation with you many times in my dreams and it was never like this.’
‘It’s good to see you, Charlie. Don’t blame yourself. You were young,’ Ella says. ‘I should never have involved you in my life. You were unstable.’
This stalls my breathing and thoughts.
‘That word is harsh I know,’ she says. ‘I’ve been studying over the years and I know now that you were suffering more than I was. The following me about, the neediness, the vulnerability. I was older and shouldn’t have taken advantage of you.’
I want to touch more than her hand but the distance between our knees is too great for an old man to stretch over. I’m tense and in despair.
‘You said last night that I was the love of your life?’ Tears fall onto my lap. ‘You said other cruel things – the one I remember most was that – you loved me?’
‘I said that and it was true.’
‘Was? I hoped that you might still love me. I love you still,’ I whisper, leaning in as much as I dare on this shit chair. ‘I have always loved you. It was only ever you.’
‘Dear Charlie.’ She holds her throat. ‘They tell me that you are not well.’
I touch my stomach. ‘Cancer. I’m being eaten away with guilt and loneliness.’
‘You always could manipulate me.’ Ella smiles. It is weak in its delivery.
‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ I urge. ‘I’m trying to say that I didn’t get off scot-free from all that I did.’
‘Tell me what exactly you did? I’ve imagined many scenarios over the years. Dreamt many variations. What kept you away? What kept you from me?’
‘I ended up in Canada. I got stuck there and couldn’t come home. I didn’t have it easy and I made some more bad decisions.’
‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’
‘I tried Ella. I did.’
‘And this is why I didn’t want to know why you left. It’s never your fault. Never.’
‘You didn’t want to know what happened to me?’
‘If you couldn’t come back, or let me know where you were, or what happened between us, then perhaps it was better that I didn’t know it all. Safer not knowing.’
‘Here we are – you agreed to see me?’ My stomach twists in pure agony and I grit my false teeth together.
‘They told me to meet with you. They said that you might help us get to the truth. They said that you might be here to put things right.’
‘I have always wanted to help you.’
‘Help me now, Charlie. Help me now.’
49
Charlie Quinn
With the tape recorder between us on a low coffee table, and me holding Ella’s hand, I go back to Tyrone and the day Maeve was born.
‘I’ve never told anyone this before. Not even Rhonda Irwin who I’ve been staying with and talking to. I’ve never said this before. I barely acknowledged it myself. I was frightened and I cowered outside your house. I now admit that I followed you to make sure you got back to someone who knew how to get babies out
. I was late for work and I listened for as long as I could. The things he said to you were vile. He shouted and you were in such pain. I was sure that I’d be seen there and I snuck inside. I wasn’t planning on confronting the doctor. Even with all my confidence, he was who he was, and I was just a butcher’s boy.
‘For a long time, I listened, shaking in the corner of some store cupboard. Then I couldn’t hear anything for ages. I peered out and thought I heard the cry of a baby. Our baby. There was no noise from you or him and I couldn’t stay where I was. As I got to the bottom of the stairs I sensed something wasn’t right and for once Charlie Quinn ran forward and did the right thing. You were there lying on the bed, all wet and bloodied, with a baby in your arms. He was between your legs and you looked sleepy and unfocused. I wasn’t sure if you could see me. Then you said, “Let’s call her Maeve”. I nodded, hoping he was too busy to notice me. You held the baby up and said, “Charlie, let’s call her Maeve”.
‘Frozen to the spot, I tried to peer over the blanket from a distance. By then he knew I was there. I waited seconds for him to attack. Instead, he finished whatever he was doing, and you closed your eyes. The baby wasn’t making a sound and the time was endless as I waited – for what, I didn’t know. Wiping his hands, he stood up and approached me.
‘“Coward – that’s what you are”, he said up close at my ear. “You foolish fucker! This baby is dead too. She killed it. Just like the rest. Run now, boy, before I say that you helped her do it”.’
With the past gone, I turn and search Ella’s face for belief; in me, for love, for forgiveness. There’s none there.
‘I ran, Ella. I turned on my heels and ran.’ I use my sleeve to wipe the wet from my cheeks. ‘I left you and our child. Say something?’ I plead.
‘Did you see her?’
‘Maeve? Not really. I thought she had no hair and maybe dark eyes. Don’t all babies look like that? In my dreams she was beautiful. I’m sorry. I ran away like a stupid boy. You believe me?’
‘You were young and afraid,’ Ella says, intently staring. ‘After all this time you would tell me the truth.’
‘Didn’t you always know that? Did you doubt me that much?’
‘I never thought you would hurt Maeve – but, you thought that I was the guilty one.’ She sits back to see my reaction fully. ‘Some part of you does. You must have wondered if it was true what he said about me? You didn’t come back to help me – you felt I did what my husband accused me of.’
‘No,’ I whisper. ‘You weren’t capable of anything like that. You were weak from the birth and there wasn’t enough time for you to do anything. I ran up the stairs after I thought I heard the baby cry. You were so weak but happy. There’s no way you had the wherewithal to smother our child… and he lied to me, Ella. He told me that you’d hurt her, but she must have been alive then. I should have known you couldn’t have done that. He threatened me and I was scared.’
Ella is crying now, dabbing her pain away with a cloth handkerchief from up her sleeve.
‘I’m sorry,’ I mumble, incapable of more.
‘I prayed that you would stay away. I knew that if you came back you’d make things worse,’ Ella admits with a sniff. ‘You were always one for telling tall tales and you’d drag up our affair and make it look like I had even more motive. Or worse still, you would have incriminated yourself. There was such hatred for me. An affair with a young boy would have made things a million times worse. I didn’t want you caught up in all of that even if you told them the truth – what difference would it have made? He was a “great man”, I was a mad harlot and you were a young boy. Maeve was gone and we were never going to be the same. It was good that you left.’
‘You wanted me to stay away? Jesus, don’t say that,’ I plead.
‘You did stay away and you didn’t come back.’
‘I’ve been telling the lady who owns this recorder all about my life. Our time together.’ I stop to check the machine is turning. ‘It’s a long tale, and it explains the awfulness that kept me from coming home to you. I said it all out so that you could listen and hear it. I wanted to explain what happened to prevent me from helping you. I need you to know what stopped me from remembering my past for all these years. You must listen to the recordings. Or maybe you could read what Rhonda is going to write. I want you to know it all. Want you to know me. There were circumstances beyond my control and mistakes I made which all kept me from you.’
Ella smiles sweetly. ‘I’ll hear what you have to say. I asked for people to do that for me. It is the least I can do for you.’
I click off the machine.
‘I didn’t tell the tapes everything though,’ I say to Ella. ‘I wasn’t sure what you might remember or what you’d say in your interview. If you want me to lie for you, I will. If you want me to say that I killed our baby, I will. If it makes things better, I can lie. I love you that much – I’ll say whatever you need me to. I’m dying, Ella and while I have the strength I’ll say whatever I can to make things better. I can take the blame. I’ll lie and tell them that I witnessed the doctor murdering our baby. He was there when I left you both. It was him. I know it was. I can do whatever you need me to. It’s not fair that he lived a blameless life, doctoring and travelling the world. Tell me what you need me to do. We can run the tape again and I can say whatever you like.’
Ella gazes at me and says with a long sigh, ‘You haven’t changed a bit, Charlie. You’re still the same.’
50
Charlie Quinn
They need to move the old couple in the corner. There is a press conference about the latest scandal. Thankfully, it isn’t about us.
Ella’s voice is firm. ‘We don’t need any more lies. We both know who killed our child. It wasn’t you or I. It could only have been him. We have no proof though. I never had any. I’m used to that. All that we can say is what you know for sure. You didn’t see him murder Maeve. I didn’t see him do it either. We cannot lie. You cannot lie, Charlie. All I ask is that you tell the truth. Goodbye,’ Ella says and leans on the arm of the wheelchair and sighs again. The nice lady comes to push Ella away as I clutch a piece of paper with an address and phone number she presses into my palm.
‘Goodbye,’ Ella whispers. ‘No more lies, Charlie, no more running.’
‘I love you,’ I mouth as Ella is wheeled away. She waves. I’m alone. If I had paid heed to how I was brought in I might have found my way out. My breathing is heavy. I manage to get lost in a set of narrow corridors and spy the metallic shine of a lift. Panicked, I vomit all over my new jacket. The floor sinks downwards.
There’s a commotion about the elderly gentleman who had a turn and needs an ambulance. I start to explain that I am claustrophobic and have been through a lot. Then I realised hospitals have beds and nurses. The hotel isn’t booked for another night and Rhonda and Joe aren’t hospitable anymore. I groan and lie back into the floor and bad Charlie Quinn or Hammy waits on an ambulance.
I was whisked to a ward and seen by a doctor before the day was out. Being in a ward with four other doddery men doesn’t bother the cowboy used to tents, bunks and snoring companions. The nurses are pretty. I’m comfortable, until there is a news bulletin on the national station.
‘Charlie Quinn, mentioned in the Ella O’Brien interview last night, is said to have returned to Ireland after many years abroad. Charlie Quinn was the young lover of the infamous Ella O’Brien at the time of her arrest. There have been reports that Mr Quinn met with Mrs O’Brien today at an undisclosed location. It is hoped that he will explain what he knows about this case. When asked why Mrs O’Brien did not disclose this meeting, her representatives said that it was a last minute get-together and Mr Quinn has no further bearing on the case. In further news…’
Rhonda and Joe are alerted about the ambulance because they arrive to the hospital upset and concerned that I’m about to die on their watch.
‘Please go home to Faye,’ I tell a distressed-looking Rhonda. ‘I don�
�t want to burden you both further. The only thing I would like is to keep the recorder for now and ask you to make copies of the tapes for Ella? I’ll let you know how I’m doing and what’s happening.’
‘Will you see her again?’ Joe asks. ‘How did it go?’
‘Not very well if he ended up in hospital,’ Rhonda says sharply.
‘What do people think of all of this?’ I ask. ‘I notice you didn’t tell the staff here. You let me be Randal Hamilton.’
They look at each other.
‘They are willing to look after me until my blood pressure is back to normal and someone has spoken to my consultant on the telephone.’
‘What did you tell Ella?’ Rhonda says. ‘During that interview, she felt that you knew something?’
‘I hope I gave her the answers she needed. I told her and the tape recorder all that I knew. I’ll send that tape and some more on to you soon. I want to speak with the police and with Ella again. We got rushed at our last meeting and I ended up in this spot of bother. Ella has given me contact details, I’d like to visit her again.’
‘Of course.’ Rhonda pats my arm awkwardly. ‘They want to keep you for a few days.’ She is relieved. ‘When is your flight home?’
‘I’m not even thinking that far ahead.’
‘Let us know how you are,’ Joe says. ‘We must go, though, the parking will cost us a fortune.’
Poor, practical Joe. I smile, shake his moist hand and thank him. Rhonda air-kisses my cheek and they pull back the garish curtain from around the bed and leave. The lid over the scrambled eggs is shiny and I look at the reflection in it. ‘Well, Charlie Quinn, you bad fucker, what is the next step?’
51
Rhonda Irwin
The Quiet Truth: a haunting domestic drama full of suspense Page 17