Mom spoke up in the rousing tone she used to use when telling us kids to get a move on. “Jim, come. Let’s get this over with.”
She got in the rear of our car, with Dad. I felt uncomfortable sitting up front, next to Toby. It felt backward, as if we were the parents, and Mom and Dad were the children. A wave of tenderness for them washed through me. They were struggling, enmeshed in death and divided in loyalties. Dad was mourning his brother; yet he was anxious for his wife, who unwittingly occasioned the death. Mom was determined to protect Emily from going to prison for killing Bert; yet she must have felt compassion for Dad, who was grieving over Bert’s death.
Mom was a cipher to me, as was often the case. Her love for Dad was always clear in her expression when she smiled at him; in her body, when she swayed toward his; and in her words, which always held respect. Otherwise, apart from her rare “witch tirades”—and, I admit, her verbal tangle with Bert at the Galway party qualified as one—Mom generally gave little sign of strong emotion. She was direct and decisive. In most matters she led the family, and Dad followed in full contentment. But she wasn’t much for hugging, heart-talk, or what she called “brooding.” In fact, I often saw her cut Dad short when he expressed disappointment or sadness. I certainly felt barred from emoting in front of her. Anyhow, at that moment, I had little idea how she was feeling.
In one way, Toby’s like Mom. He shows more empathy than she does, but like her he’s focused on what needs to be done. So when we got to the station, it didn’t surprise me that he strode purposefully to the reception counter, right along with Mom, while Dad and I looked on. The female officer on duty called Sergeant Flynn, who came out to the lobby to talk to us. I had a good feeling about Sergeant Flynn, maybe because he had been gentle when he and the inspector questioned Mom at the house. He was kind again now, reassuring us with the news of O’Hara’s arrest. My attacker had been found in the bogs between the Deserted Village and the shore, where Toby and I had hiked the other morning. He was in the cells right now, held for the murder of Frank Hickey. I shivered, surprising myself. I was afraid of his nearness a room or two away. I was more unsettled by his attack on me than I had realized.
Flynn kept going, saying O’Hara had confessed to Frank’s murder when they took his ring to be checked for Frank’s DNA. He knew he was well caught, and now he was claiming a crime of passion. His story was that he was driving by the Kildownet graveyard with a bag of groceries in his car when he saw Hickey poking around the graves of the victims of the 1894 drowning. He took offense, got out of his car, and they fought. He knocked Frank out with a punch to the face and dragged him into the church so that passersby wouldn’t see. Then he got the idea of forcing a loaf of brown bread, which he had in the car, into Hickey’s mouth. He meant to draw a comparison between Hickey and that landlord during the Famine who was dispatched by a loaf of bread, but not to kill him, or so O’Hara claimed. He said he stuck a wad of bread into Frank’s mouth, thinking that when Frank came to he would cough it up and get the message. But Frank choked on the loaf and died of asphyxiation. Flynn said that to have caused asphyxiation, O’Hara would have had to shove the bread deep into Frank’s throat. Now O’Hara was under lock and key. He could tell his tale to the judge.
Mom interrupted. “Did my niece Emily come by this morning?”
Flynn blinked. Maybe he realized he had been prattling on about a solved murder when an unsolved murder was still under investigation. “Em. I believe she’s in back with her mother, waiting for the inspector.” Flynn looked at the clock. “He’ll be here soon. He’s not an early riser.” He blushed, perhaps realizing how little his boss would have approved this remark or anything else he had divulged to us. He backed up (literally and figuratively) and said, “Will that be all, then?”
Mom stepped forward. “No, it isn’t. Please tell the inspector I have a statement to make, related to the Barnes case.” She stood tall, with the impassive dignity of a soldier on parade.
“You do? Right. Just a moment.” He swiveled and sought the door to the back offices, giving a quick eye to the guard at the reception desk. It seemed the young woman had been listening to this interchange with great interest. She leaned forward across the counter, the better to keep watch over us while the sergeant was gone.
Dad huddled with Mom. The lobby was such a small space that every word was audible, but he whispered anyhow. “I’ll be with you. Don’t be afraid.” He tried to bring Mom into a hug, but she resisted.
She said firmly, “I’m not afraid, Jim. And I don’t want you with me.” When she saw Dad’s reaction, she reworded her demand. “It’s my story, and I want to tell it.” Now Dad really looked hurt. “Just let me do this by myself,” Mom said. “I’ll be distracted if you’re there.”
When Flynn returned, that’s how it went. Mom disappeared and we were left in the cramped hall, with two folding chairs and a bulletin board.
“You two, sit,” said Toby. “She’s right, you know. She needs to concentrate.”
I added feebly, “They probably wouldn’t have let you be with her, Dad. They didn’t question Toby and me in the same room, even though we were talking about finding Frank’s body, together.”
He thought for a moment. “They should be talking to me too, then. It was my brother who died. And I can testify that Mom was with me at the time.”
I held my tongue, almost literally. My hand went to my mouth, to keep back what I shouldn’t say.
We stayed in Westport for an early lunch at the pub by the river, facing the train bridge that used to carry workers from Westport to Achill. Now it carried neither trains nor autos. From our table by the window, I could see a club of bicyclists in matching outfits whizzing across the bridge. If Bert had had his way, the Achill line would have been reactivated and the bicyclists would be on the streets, mourning the Great Western Greenway.
“Mourning.” That word brought me back to the present and my family’s grief. We were eating salmon patties, the daily special, and there wasn’t much talk among us. I was grateful for the noisy family at the next table. The father was “helping” his daughter finish her ice cream, and she was screeching in protest. Her older brothers were squabbling over possession of a mobile phone. The mother was feeding the baby spoonfuls of melted ice cream. That was a normal family on a normal day.
Mom sampled her fish cakes calmly, while Dad devoured his rapidly, as if there would be a reward when he finished. Toby and I picked at our food. We were all waiting for Mom to talk about her interview, but she wasn’t giving. She apparently thought she had said all that was needed, back at the station. That was: “Done. I signed a statement.”
As we rolled over the gravel in front of our cottages, Dad declared he was taking a siesta. We are both champion nappers. We share a hibernating instinct, pronounced in times of stress. Mom and Angie are the opposite; they’re most active when most troubled. Though I felt myself drooping, I was determined to get outside with Mom while Dad napped. Our distance from each other in the midst of this turmoil was becoming intolerable. I wanted to know what was happening inside her, and I hoped she might talk on a walk. So I waited till Dad went off to the bedroom, and I proposed that we take the walk I had done with Dad, down to the beach at Dugort.
She hesitated. I said, “Mom, please. I want to be friends again. I don’t want Uncle Bert’s death to tear us apart.” She looked away, her sober face set in marble. Nonetheless, I spoke again. “We can’t understand each other if we don’t communicate. Please. Come for a walk with me. We’ll see if we can talk.”
She looked toward the bedroom and said, “Give me a minute.” I was left to sit in the kitchen, while she . . . debated whether to come? talked to Dad? pulled herself together? I don’t know. But we did walk.
Days ago, Dad had walked with me in contemplative silence till he finally spoke when we reached the beach. This day, Mom strode aggressively, the better, it seemed to me, to forestall conversation. I had to jog to keep up with her. Halfway down
the mile-long decline to the shore, she stopped in front of the gate to a gray church hidden in the shade of a stand of trees, rare on the island. I caught up with her and read the faded plaque attached to the gate, thinking that maybe we would begin by discussing what the plaque said about Achill’s relationship to the Church of Ireland. That could get us started on a neutral topic, a hot topic in Irish history but not as fraught as the Barnes family troubles. But Mom countered my ploy with one of her own.
“You should try interval training. At your age, you shouldn’t be out of breath.” This wasn’t exactly girl talk, but Mom’s tone wasn’t critical, more informational. Maybe concerned, but I wasn’t sure about that. “You could run on that long beach you have. Angie told me about it. If you invited me, I’d come and show you my morning routine.”
“I’d love it if you’d come!” I nearly shouted. Then, puzzled, I added, “Do you actually do interval training?”
With a small smile and a nod, she resumed her swift pace toward Dugort. We didn’t speak till we reached the water, close to the spot where Dad had told me about his childhood with Bert.
“Let’s walk the beach,” Mom said. I felt as if the queen had invited me to tea.
Wind-dried sand slowed us down, and that improved the chance of talking. Mom started. “You always went where you didn’t belong. I’d find you in the attic, reading Grandma’s love letters to Grandpa or dressing up in my peasant skirts from the sixties.” We both smiled at the memories. “Remember when you climbed into the old furnace in the basement—nearly scared me to death.” I stayed quiet, while we skirted the smelly carcass of a beached seal pup.
“You won’t rest till you know, so I’d better just tell you. But you’ll have to promise you won’t speak of this to anyone but Dad. Can you promise?”
I have a rule against promising not to tell. That kind of promise ruins friendships and rots families. However, this was my mother, under duress. “Can there be an exception?” I asked. “Toby?”
“I trust Toby. Just tell him to keep mum.” She changed course, turning toward a log at the back of the beach. She sat down on the log and tilted her head to ask me to join her. When I was settled, she began. “The night Bert died, I was in a state. The things he said the day before at the party were intolerable. Awful things about Dad’s father. Granddad was a hardworking, capable man. He was not confused in his old age. And he damn well wasn’t a drunk. Bert only said that to justify taking over Granddad’s business, and the mortgage to his house, and finally all his money. It’s a terrible thing to have done, and an ugly thing to justify with slanders. Poor Grammy. If she knew what Bert said, she would be so hurt.”
“What did you do, Mom? The night he died?”
“Always to the point, aren’t you?” There wasn’t any sting in this. She was laughing, almost. “I drove to Bert’s house, and I was going to chew him out in front of Laura. At the Jubilee I was too furious to make my case clearly. I had time to think it through overnight, and I wanted to put it to both of them, the whole story, the way Dad told it to me.”
“Why didn’t Dad confront Bert himself?” I knew the answer, of course, and Mom knew I did. She ignored the question.
“I was at their door, working up the steam to knock, when I heard them yelling—Laura and Bert and Emily. I went closer to the window, to listen. There was a crash and a thump and then Bert came out the door. He marched down their lane to the road without even seeing me. I waited a while, hoping no one in there was injured, and then I heard Emily and Laura talking, so I figured they were all right. I decided to follow Bert and have it out with him, right in the road if necessary. He was well ahead of me, though. When I got down the lane and looked around I could see in the dying light that he was running toward the ruins, swerving about. He looked drunk to me—that or out of his senses. Both, as it turned out.” Mom’s jaw set.
When she continued, her voice was scratchy. “He saw me when he reached the Deserted Village. He leaned against a ruin and watched me climb toward him. When I got there, he lunged and pulled me down, and I rolled over the sill into the ruin. The rocks on the ground dug into my back. The bastard straddled me like a rapist, and I screamed, the way they told us to in school: if a man attacks you, scream as hard as you can. He shut me up, though. He took me by the neck and started choking me. I was fighting for my breath and trying to pull his hands apart, when all at once he let go and he fell on top of me, weighing me down. I think I passed out for a minute. When I woke up, Emily was tugging at Bert’s shoulders. She dragged him off me and let him fall to the ground. I sat up and saw the wound on the back of Bert’s head and the bloody stone at his side. That’s it. You know the rest.”
“Challenging him took guts. You were courageous, Mom.”
“Foolhardy is more like it. If Emily hadn’t come, I’d be dead. The poor girl, she came to help him back to the house. He was drunk and raging. She’d seen him like that before, and so had Laura. They were afraid he’d pass out and spend the night in the cold, on the road or in some field.”
“You mean she didn’t follow him to attack him, to get revenge?”
Mom’s lips pursed, and she looked at me disapprovingly. “You’re too old to not know about drunks and abuse. She’s the child of an alcoholic—well, the stepchild, the stepdaughter. It’s the old story. He abuses her mother, he abuses her, and she protects him. She loves him.” Mom’s voice cracked.
“Are you telling me that Bert abused Emily?”
Mom sighed with exasperation. “Not sexual abuse. Not that. He did what he did to Laura—treated her like she was stupid, undercut her, controlled her, got drunk and raged, and hit her sometimes too. Laura hid it all at home and with their friends; she played the pampered wife. Emily had the job of hiding it at work; she cleaned up after him and the mistakes he made when he was drinking. If she had bruises that she couldn’t conceal, she worked from home.”
“When did you find this out, Mom? Did you know for years?”
“No. I began to sense it at the Jubilee. And then after Emily hit and killed him, she broke down and let me know everything. I walked her home, and we told Laura what had happened. We left Bert in the Deserted Village. There was nothing anyone could do for him. We were horrified, but we decided together to leave him where he was. We made a plan that I would protect Emily. I’d start by denying I was there, but if necessary I’d admit it. I would never, ever, mention Emily.”
“How could you promise that? You could have spent your life in prison, all for the sake of . . .”
“A wounded girl. A victim. A victim of that man.” Mom looked at me with defiance.
I swallowed hard and said, “I’m proud of you, Mom.”
She put her hand on my cheek and said, “You’re lovely.” Her mother, my Portuguese grandma, says that. She means “I love you,” but she never says those words. Instead, she says, “You’re lovely.” Is it a mistranslation? Or is she afraid that if she declares her love she’ll lose it? Maybe that’s what’s behind Mom’s habitual terseness. Best not to name the most precious feelings. Best that the spirits not know whom we love.
Dad’s way is different. Most of the time he plays “the quiet man,” but when asked he speaks his truth, emotional or not. After lunch in the kitchen, I lured him out onto the patio for a seat in the sun. Like Dad (the only one in the family who’s as pale as me), I hid my eyes behind coal-black sunglasses and my face under a hiker’s broad-brimmed hat. That was good cover, in more ways than one.
“Dad,” I said, “I’m sorry about Uncle Bert.” His head cocked, but he kept looking at the long slope toward the beach.
“I’m sorry you lost him.” I was thinking how I would feel if I lost my brother, but Dad didn’t give me time to think that out.
“I didn’t lose him,” he said gruffly.
What did that mean? I made a hasty guess.
“No, of course you didn’t. He’ll always be with you, really.”
“Oh, come on. Cut the crap.” I jumped in my
seat.
“I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t mean to . . .”
“Stop saying you’re sorry. You didn’t kill him. Mom didn’t kill him either. Bert provoked and corrupted people who got close to him. He brought out their greed and their ruthlessness. Someone was going to lash out at him eventually. It was your cousin’s bad luck that she was the one. It could have been Laura. It could have been Mom.”
I stopped breathing.
Dad’s head turned, and he took off his sunglasses. He said, “Look at me, Nora.” I did, and I removed my glasses too.
“I know you thought it was Mom.”
My silence was my confession.
“It’s okay,” Dad said. “You get your view of human nature from me. Anyone is capable of murder. Even people you love. It takes civilizing and self-discipline and fortunate circumstances to keep us from doing our worst. I could have been like Bert, and you could have been like Emily.”
“No, I couldn’t. I didn’t have Bert for a father; I had you.”
He said wryly, “I call that a fortunate circumstance. But it’s a miracle that you have Mom. She’s the strongest woman I know.”
“And the most loyal.”
“You’re pretty much a carbon copy, you know.”
I smiled at the irony—me, as loyal as Mom. I just said, “People don’t say ‘carbon copy’ anymore, Dad. Nobody knows what that is.”
“What would they say then? You’re a Xerox copy of her?”
“That doesn’t work either. But I’m glad you think I’m like Mom. I’d like to be.”
“I’ll pray you’ll have ‘fortunate circumstances’ too.”
“I’ll consider that my father’s blessing.”
“You do that,” he said, rising to his feet. He kissed the rough canvas of my hatted head.
Epilogue
IT WAS DAD’S IDEA to take the family out to dinner the following night as a way of welcoming Sister Bridget, who had arrived from Galway early in the morning to offer what help she could. She certainly proved her worth. Bridget comforted Aunt Laura and prayed with her at the jail, where Emily was in custody. She “had a word” with Inspector O’Donnell, who decided afterward not to press charges against Mom for withholding information. (It seems that “little Kevin O’Donnell” had been a pupil of Sister Bridget’s when she taught parochial school on Achill years ago, and he was still in awe of her.) And Bridget supported Angie when she announced at lunch that she was moving in with her new boyfriend instead of going home.
The Dead of Achill Island Page 18