She unlatched the gate and turned around and looked at Violet one more time. Ferris stood next to her, feeding her a radish from the garden. Samuel had already made his way out to the street.
“You’re a good girl,” he said to Violet. “Aren’t you?”
Hettie felt something amorphous and sharp grow in her chest.
“You listen to Ferris, all right? Follow his direction,” she said, leaning against Violet’s front flank. “I’ll be back soon. I just need to go and see Mum.”
Violet nudged her forehead into Hettie’s arm.
“Thank you, Vi,” she said, lightly kissing her forehead. “Thank you for everything.”
“Don’t you worry, Hettie,” Ferris said, patting the elephant’s side. “She’ll be waiting for you at the zoo when you return.”
“Thanks, Ferris.”
Hettie pushed her bike along the gravel walkway that led to the road. Samuel kicked away the metal stand of his own bicycle. Mr. Brown still stood in front of his house, puffing on a pipe, as if he had never left the spot since the previous evening.
“Hettie Quin,” he said. “Where is your Violet?”
“My friend Ferris is returning her to the zoo,” Hettie said. “I need to go to St. George’s.”
“Of course you do,” Mr. Brown said, his gaze traveling to Samuel Greene, who held the handlebars of his bike and had one foot on the ground. “I hope to God you find her.”
“I pray to God that I do, too,” Hettie said.
“The Antrim Road is a mess, but it’s still the best route to St. George’s,” Samuel said.
“All right,” Hettie said, glancing back at her house.
Ferris hadn’t emerged from the courtyard with Violet. Samuel tucked his RUC cap underneath his arm, hopped onto his bike, and rode up the hill that led to the Antrim Road. Hettie followed him. As she pumped the pedals of her bike, she felt both a palpable strength and a crippling weakness. She kept her eyes focused on the dented rear fender of Samuel’s bike as he turned left onto the Antrim Road. Debris and scattered piles of rubble still covered a majority of the street. Pedestrians were still streaming northward along the Antrim Road. An urgent panic permeated the smoke-laden air. A young man pushed a wooden cart of tangled clothes, mismatched shoes, a portrait, and a wireless, its flex dangling over the edge. Women carried bundled blankets. The Phoenix Bar was still serving patrons despite missing its windows and doors.
Several dogs and cats roamed the street, sniffing and digging through the loose rubble. Farther down, not far from St. Anne’s Cathedral, Red Cross volunteers handed out mugs of tea and sandwiches. Down another side street, a group of men and women knelt together, reciting Hail Marys. The air hummed with their prayers. Hettie thought of Mrs. Keegan and what would happen when she learned the tragic news about Liam. And now Maeve would grow up with no parents. She wiped her runny nose with her sleeve and tried to keep her attention on the street in front of her.
Before long, she and Samuel were turning on to the crowded pavement of May Street. They leaned their bikes against the side of St. George’s.
“Ready?” Samuel asked.
Hettie nodded. Together they walked around the corner to the front entrance of the market. A pair of army officers stood near the double doors, holding their rifles diagonally across their chests. Samuel went ahead of Hettie. Ignoring the long queue snaking up May Street, he approached one of the doors and reached for its brass handle. One of the officers had spotted Samuel’s police uniform and had beckoned him to come forward. Samuel showed them his identity card.
The other officer took it from Samuel and inspected it. Then the man scrutinized Samuel’s face and looked over at Hettie. She wondered if he would question Samuel about the news of the constable’s death. Or perhaps the news about Constable Ward hadn’t circulated throughout the city, since it had just occurred that morning.
“How long have you been in the special branch?”
“Almost a year,” Samuel said.
“Is she with you?”
“She is,” Samuel said, taking his identity card back from the officer.
The officers stepped aside, and Samuel held the door open for Hettie. They were met by the fetid stench of the dead. The piles of corpses had been removed from the concrete floor of the market, but hundreds of coffins still lined the cavernous space. Some of the lids of the coffins were open; others were closed.
“Excuse me,” Hettie said to a Red Cross nurse who was walking by. “Could you help me?”
The nurse paused.
“I’m looking for my mum’s body,” Hettie said. “I was told that she was transported from the public baths at the Falls Road, that I could identify her here—”
“I’m sorry about your mother,” the nurse said, regarding Hettie with sympathy. “It’s a good thing you made it in this morning. There’s a funeral service being held here early tomorrow. Immediately after that, the bodies that can be identified through religious artifacts will be interred in mass graves—Catholics at Milltown Cemetery on the Falls Road and Protestants in the City Cemetery. A whole fleet of army vehicles has been requisitioned to transport the coffins. Anyway, it’s good you’re here. Walk around. Take your time.”
Samuel and Hettie began to wander among the makeshift rows of coffins. There were far fewer people searching amid the dead bodies than her last visit. Brief notes in white chalk were written on the lids of a few of the coffins: the street corner where the body was found, a general description of the person inside.
girl, brown hair, rag doll
young woman, crucifix necklace, duncairn gardens
elderly man, glasses, missing teeth
Inside one open coffin there was a young boy dressed in his striped pajamas with a worn teddy bear lying by his side. His freckled face was a peculiar shade of gray green. One of his legs was missing, the hem of his pajama pants deflated and empty. As tears welled up in her eyes, Hettie thought of Johnny Gibson and his family again. She wondered where his parents were going to bury him.
“Hettie,” Samuel said softly, waving a hand over his head.
She quickly walked to where Samuel was standing. There, next to him, was a coffin with middle-aged woman, Atlantic Avenue shelter, man’s watch written on its rectangular lid. Hettie felt as if her breath had been knocked right out of her. She crouched down and rocked on her heels. She didn’t want this to be true—that her mother was dead, too. Hettie bowed her head in her hands, praying to God for the strength, grace, and resilience to be present for her mother and her death, to provide her with a dignified resting place, just as she would have wanted.
“Hettie, would you like me to open it?” asked Samuel, his hand resting on her shoulder.
She nodded, and he slowly opened the coffin’s lid. Hettie stood up. The brass hinges of the coffin were loose, and the lid accidentally smacked against the hard floor.
“Sorry,” Samuel said. “I lost my grip.”
There was her mother. Her blue-veined eyelids were drawn closed, and her long, elegant fingers were folded over her chest. A laceration and a flowering bruise marked her left temple. Her complexion was pale and gray. She was still dressed in her nightgown and beige overcoat. For a moment, Hettie couldn’t stop herself from imagining another set of circumstances, an overlay of a different reality, one where her mother would reach for her hand and squeeze it and her eyes would flick open, and she would utter, like a song, Oh my sweet girl, I’m sorry about everything you’ve been through. And she would lift out of the coffin, and together they would wander through the field of dead bodies in St. George’s, out the double doors, and through the smoky, shattered streets of Belfast to their home, where Hettie would make them cups of tea, and mother and daughter would exchange stories about everything that had happened since the moment when they had left each other when the bombs started to fall.
A siren rang in the cavernous space. Someone made an announcement through a megaphone. Feet shuffled by. Hettie opened and closed her eyes�
�and refocused on her mother: Rose was dead. There was no song. There was no recognition. A shiver traveled across Hettie’s shoulders.
“God help me,” she whispered to herself. “Help me.”
Hettie touched Rose’s forehead. Her skin felt cold and clammy. She took her mother’s stiff hand into her own. She tried to slide strands of her mother’s hair out of her eyes, but they were caked onto her forehead with dried blood and dirt. Hettie knelt down, bowed her head, and prayed. She whispered murmurs of love and forgiveness. She asked that her mother never be alone again. She asked that her mother’s broken spirit finally be able to rest. She asked that her mother find the peace and contentment that she had always been looking for.
Grief hummed through her.
It sang.
An aria for the dead.
An aria for the human spirit.
An aria for what her mother used to be.
For her mother’s younger self.
Before Thomas. Before Anna and Hettie.
When a different kind of life was in front of her.
Hettie opened her eyes and noticed her father’s wristwatch lying across Rose’s chest. She took it to her ear. By some miracle, the watch was still ticking. Hettie buckled it around her wrist and listened to its ticking again. Then she carefully slid her mother’s wedding ring from the pocket of her trousers and studied it—a perfect circle of gold. For a moment, a shimmer danced along its thin circle in the stale light of St. George’s. Hettie kissed it and slipped it onto Rose’s ring finger, and then carefully returned her hands into a folded position.
“Let me find someone to help us,” Samuel said, standing behind Hettie.
“Thank you.”
She sat silently with her mother for what felt like a long time. A stillness and a commotion coexisted in the enormous space—the scuffling of feet around her, the whispering of voices, the clicking of rosary beads moving through strangers’ hands, the sloshing mop against the concrete floor.
“Thank you for all that you gave me,” Hettie said to her mother. “For teaching me how to love and forgive. I love you. I will always love you.”
A nurse with a clipboard returned with Samuel. Hettie stood up.
“Where would you like the body delivered to?” the nurse asked.
“Carnmoney Parish Church,” Hettie said. “I’ll call Reverend Mills and let him know about my mum.”
The nurse scribbled on the sheet attached to her clipboard. “Please sign here,” she said, handing the clipboard and pen to Hettie, who took it and signed next to the blank that read NEXT OF KIN. The nurse closed the lid of the coffin. With a rag, the nurse erased the description of Hettie’s mother and wrote Rose Quin, Carnmoney Parish Church, Reverend Mills on the lid.
“It might take a few days, but I’ll make sure that she gets there,” the nurse said.
“Thank you,” Hettie whispered.
She leaned forward and embraced the nurse. When Hettie stepped back, the nurse was smiling sadly, her eyes glistening. The nurse started down the aisle toward the next family waiting for her assistance. It was a young man, a mill worker, dressed in soot-streaked overalls. He held the hand of a young girl with a red ribbon tied at the end of her long braid. The girl sucked on her thumb as she stared up at the doves that were soaring amid the rafters, their low, mournful coos echoing through the market.
Hettie and Samuel stepped out onto the street. The officers still stood in front of the doors. Samuel gave them a formal salute, and they responded with the same gesture, then he turned to Hettie.
“They need me at RUC headquarters,” he said, taking her hands in his.
Hettie nodded.
“I’m not sure what you’re planning, but you might want to wait a few days before visiting Liam,” Samuel said. “I don’t want anyone to draw any strange conclusions about Violet’s well-being and Liam’s ambush of the constable.”
“Yes, whatever you think is best,” Hettie said, her words rushing together.
“The court case hasn’t been scheduled yet,” he said. “It probably won’t happen for another month. In the meantime, I think it’s all right if you leave Violet at the zoo. No one is going to be looking for her.”
Hettie hugged Samuel. He smiled at her and then hopped on his bike and made his way along May Street, weaving his way through the cars, military vehicles, ambulances, lorries, soldiers, and pedestrians that filled the streets and pavements. Hettie stood there watching Samuel ride away until she could no longer see him or his black bike on the crowded street.
Fourteen
THE NEXT DAY MR. CHRISTIE SENT A TELEGRAM, SAYING THAT he and Josephine would be paying an emergency visit to Bellevue by the end of the month to survey the loss and damage firsthand as well as to see how the meat of the executed animals was being distributed to feed the other animals. So far, according to Ferris, the bear meat was being fed to the sea lions and the storks and the herons. Rajan and Maggie were being fed to the foxes, the zebras, and the lemurs. The tiger to the monkeys and the baboons. Mr. Christie said they couldn’t afford to lose any more of their charges. This might mean the demise of the zoo, the closing of its doors for good. Mr. Christie also advised Mr. Wright to begin purchasing domestic animals from local farmers to populate the empty enclosures and paddocks until the city allowed him to procure more wild and exotic animals. It might be some time before those kinds of animals would be permitted to reside at Bellevue Zoo again. The government was concerned that yet another attack was imminent, and it might be several months—even years—before city life was restored to its former existence. Mr. Christie also ordered ticket admission prices to be cut in half to attract visitors despite the loss of the more popular animals. He ended his telegram by saying that he and Josephine would be arriving on the morning of April 28 and would spend two days at the zoo.
In the meantime, Hettie met with Reverend Mills and made arrangements for the funeral service and burial of her mother. The reverend mentioned how fortunate Hettie had been to find Rose’s body amid the dead of the Easter Tuesday attacks, as many of the deceased had been too disfigured or decayed for identification. At least Rose would be given a respectable memorial, where friends and family could celebrate her life and spirit. Hettie struggled to feel grateful, as Reverend Mills suggested, but she knew he was right. He also recommended that it would be wise to wait at least a couple of weeks with hopes that the city would by then be restored to some degree of normality so extended family members and friends in Belfast and outside the city would be able to attend her service.
Word of Rose’s death circulated throughout their neighborhood, and Uncle Edgar and Aunt Sylvia stopped by on separate evenings to express their condolences and see how Hettie was doing. Uncle Edgar reminded Hettie of the monthly revenue from the family farm and that she would be able to count on these funds in covering the expenses of maintaining the house. Now that the water and electricity were working again, she wouldn’t need to move. She could stay where she was.
On Wednesday, April 23, Hettie rode her bike down to the Crumlin Road Gaol after work. Given Samuel’s advice, it seemed as if enough time had passed for her to visit Liam without generating any sort of suspicion. The jail was situated at the southern end of the Crumlin Road, beside the Mater Hospital and not far from the city hall. The four-story Victorian prison was huge, covering a ten-acre site and able to accommodate five hundred prisoners. Four wings fanned out from a central area, colloquially known as “the circle,” and each of the wings had three landings. Its tall watchtower was like a beacon looking over the surrounding devastated neighborhood; much of it had been obliterated during the Easter Tuesday raid. At the prison, two bombs had struck its high walls, but the impact was barely noticeable. Opposite the prison stood the austere courthouse, where Liam’s hearing was scheduled for June 2.
When Hettie arrived at the prison’s entrance, a mustached, bespectacled security guard behind a metal grate asked if she had scheduled a visit. Given the gravity of his crime, Lia
m was being allowed only one visitor per week, and these visits had to be arranged ahead of time.
“I’m family,” Hettie argued. “Please, sir.”
“Are you his sister?” the man asked, studying her features.
“Sister-in-law,” she clarified, thinking it would be best to be honest. “He’s the widower of my sister.”
“Identification card,” he demanded.
The man disappeared from his post. Hettie tapped her foot against the polished floor and stared down the long, brightly lit corridor. The voices of men and heavy footsteps echoed throughout the enormous building. She glanced down at her father’s watch. It was half past ten.
“We will make an exception today. The next time you visit, you must make arrangements prior to your arrival,” the man said, sliding her identification card along the scarred countertop back to her. “A guard will escort you to the visitors’ room on the other side of the yard, first floor, to the right. Wait there.”
“Thank you, sir,” Hettie said, taking her card and returning it to her wallet.
Behind one of the closed doors, a guard, dressed in uniform with a gun and a pair of handcuffs attached to his belt, emerged and stared blankly in her direction.
“Visitor for Liam Patrick Keegan,” he said.
Hettie nodded, wiping her clammy palms on her frock.
“Follow me.”
They walked down a long hallway with a multitude of doors. Angled transom windows allowed narrow rectangles of natural light to fall onto the floor of the hallway. Hettie kept her eyes on the polished heels of the guard’s shoes. Loud clanks echoed in the corridor and she heard the jangling of keys, and then a man bellowed instructions from another floor. An alarm sounded.
The guard opened a door that led to the interior yard, a barren space the size of a football pitch, which was bordered by the wings of the prison, a neat row of warders’ houses, and the jail’s external walls. The gray bulk of the buildings and walls cast long shadows across the field. The endless circles of wire along the high walls looked like lethal teeth against the bluish sky. Along one section, Hettie noticed over a dozen graves marked by crude crosses; they held the mortal remains of prisoners who had been executed in the prison and buried in its unconsecrated ground. Hettie wondered how many other guards and prisoners were watching her and the guard as they walked silently across the yard, and if Liam could see her from his cellblock. She speculated on whether he would be delighted or disappointed or even indifferent upon seeing her for the first time since their last encounter at the convent on the Shore Road. She felt the heaviness of Rose’s death and the strange sensation of hoping that Liam might be pleased to see her. Hettie knew it was preposterous, and she tried to bat the naive thought away.
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