by Orna Ross
"Don't misunderstand me, sir. Myself, I'd be entirely happy to get in. But these are dangerous times we're living in."
"For Christ's sake, man. What is it you want?"
"It's not so much what I want." He gave a slow, stupid grin. "Sir," he added, belatedly.
"Is this a game?"
"I'm quite disposed to satisfy you. But in order to do so, I have to ask yez to make it look as if I'm being forced."
Forced? The devil. And he probably had nothing at all. But what if he had? So far, not one single lead...
He nodded at O'Dwyer to do it. The blackguard made a convincing — O'Dwyer would probably no doubt say too convincing — attempt at resistance, until the private's hat was knocked askew on his head and Brosnan said, "We've had enough of your nonsense. Get in now or we're going."
The fellow let himself be taken by the scruff of his collar and shoved into the back of the car. "Drive down to...the...back strand," he said, breathless.
O'Dwyer ignored that and took them out the Wexford road. Once outside the village, he pulled to a stop by the ditch.
"Right," Brosnan said, turning round. "Let's be having it, whatever it is."
A sly look. "I don't know how to put this, sir. Is it a Sergeant you are?"
Brosnan nodded, peremptorily.
"Well, Sergeant, I'm supposing that the army would be grateful for information about why Dan O'Donovan went walking The Causeway in the dark that night?"
The fellow still had his teeth, but every one of them was black-rotten in his head. The car was filling up with an unpleasant pong.
"And if so, how would such gratitude be demonstrated?"
So that was it. He should have known from the first. "That would depend."
"On?"
"On the quality of the information," Brosnan said, not looking at him.
"But there would be a...token of your appreciation?"
"Bear in mind, man, that it is your civic duty to help in a...in such an enquiry." He nearly said "murder enquiry", but that wouldn't be right. Despite what was being said abroad, they had no proof of foul play. And he wasn't going to promise this repulsive creature anything. Let's see what the fellow had first.
"I'd need to be sure, Sergeant."
Brosnan could see the future of this village written on this blackguard's face. From here on out, it would become ever more closed and insular. Fright at what they'd shown themselves capable of doing to each other had thinned their souls, souls that were already reduced from hundreds of years under the British yoke. None of them — maybe himself included? — was able to face the true shame of this dirty little war, the wicked whys and wherefores of it. Some would react by making too much of small differences, because otherwise they'd have to admit they'd been killing and dying for nothing. Others would try to pretend the horrors never happened at all. Least said, soonest mended. Whatever you say, say nothing.
Well, he might not think their cause worth killing or dying for, but he wasn't afraid of the truth. He said, "You won't be let down, man. Not if you have something worthwhile to pass on."
Satisfied, the creature reached inside his coat and made a great commotion of taking something from his inside pocket and presenting it with hands aloft. A gun. A Webley rifle. He held the booty under Brosnan's nose. "I found it this morning," he said.
Brosnan nodded. "Go on."
"There I was, after bringing out the cows, walking back up the road towards my house..."
"Which is where?"
"Down by the Tench, Sergeant."
Brosnan shook his head.
"Don't you know the Tench?" He made a show of surprise. "On the other side of the village, down towards what we call the Hole in the Wall." There was that knowingness again, that simple-minded delight at knowing something that Brosnan, an outsider, a stranger — a foreigner! — did not. "The strand exit nearest The Causeway, Sergeant. Which is the way out to Coolanagh, if you get my drift. There I was, strolling along behind the cattle, minding my own, when next thing I spied it, out of the side of my eye. Lying there, half in and half out of the ditch."
"And you think it significant?"
He looked at them with feigned surprise. "You don't? Don't you know what this is? Ser—geant?" He drawled the title with sneering affectation, as if Brosnan was the greatest dunce that ever walked.
"Just keep to the facts, please."
"There was only one rifle of this sort owned around here."
"Go on, man."
"It belonged to Parle." He flashed his sly, conniving grin again. "Yes, Sergeant. Barney Parle. I presume you've heard of him?"
1995
When the fight comes, it's about Mrs D. We're sitting over the remains of dinner, darkness bulked against the glass walls of Maeve's dining room. Donal has gone to the gym, Ria is in bed, Maeve is finishing a bottle of wine and, since the others left, we have been fixed on the topic of our mother.
"How much of her pain was in her situation," I ask, "and how much in her person? That's what I could never work out. If she didn't have Daddy and all-that-had-been-done-to-her to complain about, I still don't think she'd have been happy."
"She was happy after Daddy died. You didn't know her then."
"I did. Daddy was dead a year, I seem to recall, when she kicked me out of the house."
"She did not kick you out, you walked. And in that first year, she wasn't herself...Naturally. Afterwards, she was very happy. She loved her bowls and her golf and her bridge. She liked her life then."
"The merry widow, eh?"
She shakes her head at me. "You're so hard sometimes, Jo. You know how unhappy he made her."
"What about him? What about his unhappiness?" I appear to be shouting, though nothing in the conversation calls for it.
"Yes, he was unhappy too. And he, too, behaved badly. You never blamed him, though, did you?"
I look down at the debris on the dinner table.
"She was your mother, Jo. Does that count for nothing with you? Now that you're about to be a mother yourself?"
She begins to clear away the plates, scrape off the food. "And look what she gave you — all the family papers, the opportunity to put this book together," she says, in the voice of somebody trying hard to be patient. "Anyone can see what that means to you. Can't you be grateful to her for that?"
"She wanted me to do a glorious history of our glorious family. It was for her, not for me."
"Or maybe she knew exactly what you'd do..."
"Come on, Maeve. Mrs D. wouldn't have passed these papers on if she knew the full story. She said in her letter that she never read Norah's notebooks. And you have to read Norah's stuff, as well as Gran's, to get it. No, she thought the extent of the secret was that she was 'illegitimate'." I put two fingers around the word my mother would have used. "Not that Norah was her mother, rather than her aunt."
"My God, Jo, don't you realise what a big thing it was for Mammy to share that."
"I do. But she did it because she wanted a glorified —"
Maeve cuts me off. "She did it because she wanted to draw you back into the family. And, what's more, she succeeded."
"You know, you don't have to defend her every move, Maeve. She was shitty to you too."
She shakes her head.
"Maeve! Don't pretend she wasn't." I have to stop shouting. How can I break through her denial? "She was. I remember. And I remember the way you'd always go crawling back for more."
"She wasn't easy, Jo, I never claimed she was easy." Her moderate tones are a deliberate contrast to mine. "And yes, I had my difficulties with...Let's just say that since she died, I...Well, she wasn't easy. I can agree with that. But don't you see, Jo? Nothing that she did or failed to do can alter the plain fact that she was our mother. Denying that hurts you as much as it ever hurt her."
"No, sorry. Mothering is something you do, not just something you are. You do it, with Ria." She does. No matter how tired Maeve is from work and running the house and now all the stress of
Donal, she still does the mothering thing. Sometimes I feel jealous of Ria, and sometimes impatient at how she is so careless of that.
"I get it wrong, often," she says. "And I hate when I do. Mammy's failures hurt her. Just as yours hurt you, and mine hurt me."
I want to go on arguing, but I can't think of any words.
"Sometimes, now," Maeve says. "I wonder whether it was because you reminded her of Auntie Norah."
"What?"
"There is a physical resemblance, you know. Your hair: she was a redhead too. And around the eyes..."
"Gee, thanks."
"Come on, Jo, just in certain ways."
Could that be right? At least it gives her a reason. Can Maeve stretch herself to imagine how it might feel to be on the receiving end of that? Can I dare to ask her?
My knees are clenching each other, alarmed at what I am about to say. My voice slides down the decibels, so that this time when I speak it's only a whisper. But I speak: "She couldn't stand me, Maeve."
There: it's out. The shameful truth. The truth I have only ever told Richard before. My own mother didn't love me. She didn't even like me.
"Oh, come on..."
"Please, Maeve. Don't pretend. I know you knew it too."
At last I have silenced her. Will she admit it? She never has before, it makes her — the favourite — feel too guilty. For a long moment, we hover; it feels to me like forever. Then she stands up with the plates, looks down at me.
"Jesus, Jo, for once, just for once, could we drop the self-pity?"
I am on my feet, moving too fast, storming past the corners of the table, the kitchen units, my arms around my belly for protection. Mine or the baby's? I don't know. I can't see. My head is drowning in darkness and I am shouting again. "Fuck off, Maeve. Just fuck off. Just fuck off." Like a child, throwing the words back over my shoulder as I hurtle away, down the hall, up the stairs.
The fight has taken us over, the way it used to when we were children. It's quivering in my arms and legs and making her run after me, shouting: "If you'd come out of that self-obsessed haze of yours for five minutes, you'd know that it isn't even Mammy you're mad at, but Gran."
All those years — tiptoeing phone calls, awkward visits, careful conversations — are ripped away in an instant and here we are, hatred wrenching our faces out of shape, its breath panting in its eagerness to strike, to dive, hard and deep into each other's weakest places.
"Isn't that true, Jo? It was Gran not going to you, Gran 'choosing' Mammy instead of you" — now it's her turn to use two fingers to put quote marks round the word — "in some mad competition that existed only in your head. That's who you're sore at, really. That's what you can't bear to admit."
It's true, it's true, it's true. Why, Gran? Why did you never ring, or write? Why? Maeve had Mrs D. I had no-one but you. You knew that.
I hurry on, away from them all, into the spare room that has been mine while I stayed here, locking the door behind me. I expect Maeve to come bounding up the stairs after me, banging on the door, but she doesn't. I tear clothes from their hangers, stuff anything I can see into my bag, brush everything that's on the dressing table in with one sweep of my arm. I'll sort it out later, in the hotel. My hands are shaking so hard I can't get my toothpaste and toothbrush into the wash bag.
Never trust them, never. I knew, but still I came here, left myself open to this. Never again. Never. Never.
A last glance round the room to make sure that I haven't forgotten anything vital. Out in the hall, I see Ria's door ajar. What did she hear? "Goodbye, Ria," I say, but I get no reply.
Maeve is at the end of the stairs, waiting for me. "Oh, what a surprise," she says. "Jo's packed her bag, Jo's decided to leave. Where to this time, Jo? Aren't you running out of places to go?"
I have to take each stair carefully, my balance unsteady. One – step – at – a – time – then – the – next. There: I've reached the bottom. Maeve is standing off to my left. Ahead is the hall door, waiting for me to open it. All I have to do is cross the hallway.
Cross the hallway.
Open the door.
"Don't stop now, Jo. What are you waiting for?"
You.
You are what is stopping me. As I take the final step of the stair, you go whompf within me, and a stabbing pain shoots through my lower belly. Now I have crumpled.
Now I am folded into sitting on the step and I am crying, my face in my hands.
Now I am saying I am sorry, I don't know why, but that is what I am saying, over and over again: "I'm sorry, Maeve. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
I say it to her, but really I'm addressing everyone: Richard. Granny Peg and Auntie Norah. Maeve, Ria and Rory. Even Orla, Rory's wife. Oh God, yes, even Mrs D.
Now Maeve has her arms around me, telling me that it's all right, that she is sorry too. I burrow my face into her shoulder, trying to explain that's not what I mean, that I am drowning in a remorse so deep and sore that I think it's going to kill me. "I had to get rid of...It would have been..."
I want to tell her more, tell her properly, but I can't snatch enough breath. The skull of my forehead is grinding against her shoulder bones.
"I know," she says. She begins to stroke my head, my shoulder, my back. "I know."
"No, you don't."
"I do, Jo."
This time, the words reach me. I look up and see in her glistening eyes that she does.
She touches my face, nodding gently, gently.
"It's not that I think..." My sobs won't let me form the words right, my tears are wetting the skin of her neck. "If I had to do it again, I'd do the same...I had to...But..."
"I know, Jo," she says, her voice so soft, so soothing. A voice I've heard her use with Ria sometimes. "It's okay. You did what you had to do." She's stroking my hair. "It's okay now. Let it be. Let it go."
"It's just..."
"I know, I know."
Something about the way she keeps saying that... "How do you know?"
Her eyes pierce into mine. "I know because you weren't the only one."
Can she mean...? Surely, surely not? Not Maeve?
"Yes," she nods. "Different reasons, but yes."
I am without words.
"Why so shocked, Jo? Ten thousand of us take that trip to England, every year."
"But I can't...It's just...Did Mrs D. know?"
"Are you mad? Of course not."
She looks so indignant that I start to laugh. Then she joins in, and we find we can't seem to stop. We sit there, at the end of the stairs, waves of hysterical laughter breaking over us, while all the time I'm looking at her, at her head thrown back, and her wide open mouth, and her shoulders shaking and I'm telling myself, over and over in my head, as if somebody is listening in: this is Maeve. This is my sister, Maeve.
1923
DEAD MUCKNAMORE OFFICER'S INQUEST!
Gun Belonging to Dead Irregular Found!
* * *
Mother of Deceased Calls for Murder Trial!
* * *
An inquest into the death of Lieutenant Dan O'Donovan, National Army, was arranged by the military and held in the courthouse, Wexford, on Friday evening last. Lieutenant O'Donovan was found dead at Coolanagh, Mucknamore, on the morning of Wednesday December 10th. Brigade Police Officer Jas Brosnan conducted the enquiry.
Evidence of identification was given by Dan O'Donovan Snr, father of the deceased. It appears that Lieutenant O'Donovan was granted a few days' leave by the army and that it was on the first evening of this break that the tragedy occurred.
John Colfer, fisherman, deposed as to how he found the body and immediately notified the military authorities. Next witness, Doctor Matthew Morris, testified to having examined the body. There were no marks of violence, the doctor said, and he was of the opinion that death was due to asphyxia. At this point, the mother of the deceased interrupted proceedings, saying her son had been murdered whichever way you looked at it.
Police Officer Brosnan responded by
saying to the jury: "I understand the deceased man's father is here. It is open to him to cross-examine the witness if he wishes, but he has not done so." Mr O'Donovan, the father, rose to his feet and heatedly replied, "This inquest is nothing but a farce to my mind." The Chair informed Mr and Mrs O'Donovan that they would have to behave themselves. If they wanted to cross-examine a witness, they could do so in the ordinary way.
Miss Anne Comerford, employed at Ryan's public house, Rathmeelin, three miles from Mucknamore, testified that the deceased had called in there the night he died, between the hours of half-past five and six o'clock. He was wearing a National Army uniform, a cape and a civilian cap. He only remained in the shop long enough to drink one bottle of stout, saying he had an appointment in Mucknamore at seven.
PO Brosnan: Did he describe the nature of this appointment?
Miss Comerford: What he said to me was he had to see a man about a dog.
The night was dark and very foggy, according to witness, and the road was in a bad state, but he went off in good health, sober and cheerful.
Staff Captain Sean Kavanagh, National Army, stated that he was one of the party that proceeded to Mucknamore on the morning the body was discovered, on receipt of the report from Mr Colfer. With some difficulty, they had extracted the body from the sand with the aid of ropes and an army truck. It was he who identified it as that of Dan O'Donovan. There was nothing to indicate foul play. The hands had not been tied.
They took the body to the morgue. On his person, they found a typewritten letter rendered unreadable by the wet sands in which he had met his end. Also a tobacco pouch with tobacco, a pipe, a book and a photograph. There was a watch also, stopped at 7.14. "The time of the murder," cried Mrs O'Donovan, again interrupting proceedings.
Captain Kavanagh continued, testifying that when O'Donovan left the barracks that evening, that was the last any army personnel had seen of him until they received the emergency call the next morning. The army authorities had recently agreed to transfer O'Donovan to the new police force, the Civic Guards. He was a man with further promotion before him, most reliable, and his death a loss to the army and the country.