Fragile Lies

by Elliot, Laura

  Her companion is already bent over the sprawled body. The young man lies to the right-hand side of the car. In the headlights, she sees blood trickling down the side of his mouth. Otherwise, his face seems unmarked. A woolly hat is low on his forehead. His head appears dwarfed by the width of a padded anorak and his hands, in fingerless gloves, are limply splayed across the concrete. Compact discs, stolen from the glove compartment, have fallen from his pockets – The Chieftains, U2, Bob Dylan, Billie Holiday – but there is no sign of the stereo.

  She pulls her coat collar over her cheeks. The wind sweeps in from the sea and lifts her hair, blowing it over her eyes, offering a blinkered protection from the sight in front of her. Darkness presses down, threatens to engulf her. Her companion shudders as he reaches out to touch the young man’s wrist. His breath escapes in a sob. He draws back on his heels, sways unsteadily to his feet. The horror of what has occurred makes words impossible. Fear and self-preservation overwhelm her. Already she is thinking like a different person. She ignores his protests and insists they leave now, before they are discovered. The car is a beacon, flaring a signal for anyone to witness. She takes his arm and pulls him towards its protection. Once again she moves into the driver’s seat. This time he does not protest.

  When they reach the roundabout he looks around, as if awakening from a nightmare.

  “We have to make a call.” He searches his jacket pockets for coins, fumbling loose change which spills across the seat.

  “Not here,” she says, pressing harder on the accelerator. “It’s too close … too close –”

  “Jesus Christ! We must call an ambulance. He could still be alive.”

  “He’s dead.” Her voice fills the car. “It doesn’t matter when the ambulance gets there.”

  For an instant she thinks he will wrench the steering-wheel from her. Instead, he stares through the window, defeated by her determination. She does not stop driving until they reach a road filled with small terraced houses and a phone kiosk. The houses are in darkness, the road empty. She parks the car and picks up the coins, unable to remember the last time she used a public phone. It will provide anonymity and, if their call is traced, they will be many miles away. She holds a scarf before her mouth and names the location of the accident, wondering how long it will take an ambulance to arrive. Not that it matters. The twisted angle of the tramp’s body, his utter stillness, can mean only one thing. Street lights illuminate the car. She notices a deep dent in the bonnet but the main damage was done during the robbery.

  Her companion is back in the driver’s seat. His injured hand is clenched painfully on the steering-wheel. His face remains expressionless as he drives towards the late-night car-park where they met earlier when their night held nothing but promise. They do not kiss each other goodbye.

  An ambulance should have arrived by now. The police will find shattered glass and a shattered life. Nothing else. She does not hover on the edge of this chasm but leaps it cleanly. The young man had been drinking. A vagrant, homeless. She knew by the smell underlying the alcohol, unclean, musty. Probably a junkie as well as a thief. A deliberate criminal act had been committed, not by them but by a vagrant who believed he had the right to violate their property before staggering drugged and drunk into their path. They will not be held responsible for the consequences. Too much is at stake: reputations, marriages, investments, friendships, their future.

  When she reaches her house the outside lantern is shining. She steps into the amber glow and glances at her watch. It is later than she thought. Stolen property, stolen hours; thievery has many faces. She opens her front door and closes it quietly behind her.

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  Dublin Echo, 10 January 2002

  POLICE SEEK INFORMATION ON HIT-AND-RUN ACCIDENT

  The parents of a young man critically injured in a hit-and-run accident which took place on 20 November 2001 between 11 p.m. and midnight on the approach to the Great South Wall have renewed their appeal for witnesses. Killian Devine-O’Malley (18) remains in a coma, having suffered serious head injuries, a cracked pelvis and severe bruising to his body.

  Shortly after midnight on the night of the accident a telephone call was received by the emergency services from an anonymous female caller. The Gardaí have appealed to this woman to come forward to help with their inquiries. They are also anxious to contact any persons who were in the vicinity at that time and may have noticed anything suspicious, especially the occupants of a silver car, make unknown, which was seen on the pier shortly before the accident occurred.

  The victim is the son of financial analyst Jean Devine-O’Malley and screen writer Michael Carmody, best known for his cult teen TV series Nowhere Lodge.

  * * *

  Brahms Ward, 9.30 p.m.

  Your name was in the papers again this morning, Killian. Eddie used the same photograph. Not one of your best, I’m afraid. The Gardaí have sent out another plea for information. No response, as yet, but we live in hope. I rang Eddie and thanked him for the coverage. He’s good at keeping your name to the forefront. Killian Devine-O’Malley. Your mother’s name, not mine. Eighteen years of age, hazel eyes, short auburn hair, freckles, of medium build, loved.

  Did it shock them, that headline, when they opened the paper this morning? I’ll bet it curdled their milk, snapped and crackled their crispies. They probably hoped you’d fallen into the great void the media leaves behind when the headline changes. But Eddie is a pal and he’ll stay on your watch until there is an ending to your story.

  I saw their car that night. I know it was the one. Only problem was that I was too preoccupied to notice anything that would later prove invaluable in tracing it, no toy dog nodding in the back window, no furry dice dangling from the rear view mirror. Nothing except a fleeting glimpse of silver, steamy windows and an arm raised protectively. No wonder my information is gathering dust in a police file.

  I’d been searching for you, Killian. High and low along the pier, the same hopeless search. I shouted your name until I was hoarse. You never answered. I left too soon … too soon. I was thinking about the deceived when I left them to their pleasure. You were the only thing on my mind that night but, just for an instant, I found myself wondering. A wife, a husband, who knows? There had to be the deceived, the trusting partner waiting at home, counting down the hours, believing lies, excuses, the false smiles of reassurance. Why else would they hide in furtive places? Why else would they drive away and leave you crushed like a wind-blown leaf under the wheels of their car? Hit and run. The crunch of metal on flesh, no competition.

  Can you hear me, Killian, wherever you are? Is my voice reaching beyond the black drift of your mind? Are you sleeping in the past, reaching into the present, dreaming of the future? Is your memory short term, long term, long forgotten? Are you listening to me, my lost boy? My foolish … foolish boy.

  * * *

  Black … black … black night … black hole … black eyes … eyes … drowning eyes …

  Chapter Two

  March 2002

  The removal men arrived on time, their truck almost filling the width of the small terrace. They were efficient, descending like a swarm of locusts to divide the bric-à-brac of sixteen years of marriage into two halves. They packed them neatly into separate crates and departed, leaving nothing but a skeletal frame behind.

  Lorraine Cheevers gazed around her house for the last time. Bare walls surrounded her, stripped of paintings, posters, calendars and the many photographs that charted the years of family life. Already, the walls were expanding away from her, the bare windows glinting coldly; even her footsteps on the wooden floorboards sent back an unfamiliar tread.

  “Running away never solved anything,” Donna Cheevers declared when she heard about her daughter’s decision to move to Trabawn. “It’s not easy breaking into a closed community. Trabawn was holiday time, nothing else. You’ll suffer on your own instead of allowing us to support you through this.”


  “I’ve a broken marriage, not a broken leg,” Lorraine retorted. “I don’t need a crutch.”

  “Yes you do,” Donna stoutly replied. “You need strong shoulders to cry on. Your life is here. And your work, what about that?”

  “I can work anywhere. Trabawn’s not exactly on the other side of the moon.”

  “Think carefully,” her mother warned. “And if you can’t think about yourself, think about Emily. Fifteen is the worse possible age to uproot anyone.”

  “Emily will be fine.” Lorraine brought the argument to a decisive close. “You have to allow me to be the judge of what’s best for my daughter.”

  Donna’s expression left her in no doubt that such judgement was way beyond her grasp and, when it came to parting, she had held Lorraine fiercely, dry-eyed, knowing the utter futility of uttering banal words of comfort.

  Even in her numbed state of mind, Lorraine had been impressed by the amount of money people were willing to pay to live so close to the city. Only ten minutes walk from the city centre, the terrace of red-brick houses where she and Adrian had lived throughout their marriage was as drowsy as a suburb at night. Their neighbours, mainly elderly, retired people, were a close-knit community, watching over the house when they were on holidays and always willing to look after her daughter if Lorraine was delayed at her studio. Their street mascot, they called Emily, remembering her birthdays, fussing over her with presents at Christmas and Easter.

  As the estate agent predicted, the house was sold within a few days of going on the market. The couple who bought it were young professional types. He mentioned something about the law library. She worked in the Financial Centre. A starter home, they said, their eyes dismissing the fixtures and fittings, assessing how soon it could be refurbished in their own image.

  With the ease of long practice, Lorraine reversed from the terrace. Goodbyes had already been said but her neighbours came to their gates to wave them off. An elderly man walked past and raised his cane in salute. The Liffey had a sullen gleam as it channelled through the quays. Seagulls swooped between dun-coloured walls, fanning their wings against the high-tide markings. Emily clasped her hands on her lap. She stared straight ahead when they passed Blaide House. Fine blue veins etched against her skin. The quays dwindled behind them and the car surged forward, racing westwards towards Trabawn.

  Chapter Three

  Brahms Ward, 9 p.m.

  The clinic is quiet tonight. There’s stubble on your chin and your nails are growing long again. Your fingers move, clutching the sheet, knuckles braced against imaginary foes. So much life still within you. Skin dying and being renewed, your heart beating steadily. Your hands are beginning to clench inwards. Do you feel us massaging you, straightening your fingers, trimming your nails? Those are the good days, Killian. A sense of purpose to our visits.

  They know me now, the staff. They’ve become my extended family. There’s the nurse whose heart has been broken three times since you came here and another who can speak of nothing but her forthcoming wedding. Camila, the little nurse from the Philippines, is my favourite. She’s sad and gentle, misses her family like crazy. I suspect you also love her quiet ways. I found her crying one night in the nurse’s station. She was sending an e-mail to her daughter who hopes to go to university on her mother’s earnings. Soon … soon, she said, she’ll be able to go home.

  Maggie is another stalwart. She handles that tea trolley like a runaway train approaching a tunnel. Your fingers twitch when you hear her coming. We’re tuned to the nuances of your movements, the flicker of your eyelids, the depth of your breath as it brushes the air around us.

  The word “coma” is derived from the Greek. Koma: a sleep-like state. How benign it sounds, resting peacefully, ready to awaken to a new day. Brahms Ward, that’s what I call this silent place where we wait out time with you. A place of lullabies and lost souls. Your medical team tell us you cannot be roused. They speak of vegetative states and the dim possibilities of an “awakening”. We refuse to believe those experts with their charts and stethoscopes dangling like chains of office from their necks. Our belief is that you have not yet been roused from this sleep-like state – have not yet – have not yet! Hold on to our belief in you, Killian. Hold on.

  * * *

  Hold on … hold hands … hands … join hands … clap hands … daddy home … cakes … pocket …

  Chapter Four

  In the mornings Lorraine awoke to the crowing of a rooster and the barking of a dog. Rooster and dog seemed determined to outdo each other in verbal energy, and even the birds created a shriller chorus than their city cousins, as if driven by a need to fill the vast empty spaces with their song. Apart from the two bedrooms where she and Emily slept, the long L-shaped kitchen with its stone-flagged floor and smoke-varnished ceiling beams was the only other room in use. Occasionally, driven by a desire to restore some order to her life, she opened crates and stared at the contents, shifted furniture, pushed armchairs under the window then moved them back again against the far wall. This busyness never lasted long, although there was much to occupy her time, and soon she would stop arranging things. She would sit on a chair or a window ledge and stare through the window at the distant hills. She watched the diminutive figure of Noeleen Donaldson strolling the fields with her dog and heard the growl of Frank Donaldson’s tractor as he drove past her gate.

  When necessary, she drove to the shopping centre that had been built on the old carnival site and stocked up on food and wine. Donna Cheevers was right when she reminded her daughter that Trabawn belonged to idyllic summer days. The years since those annual holidays had wrought much change and little remained of the one-time quaint seaside resort. A large housing estate and an apartment complex marked the approach to the main street and the road, recently widened and lined with go-slow warning signs, had acquired a roundabout with a floral arrangement spelling “Trabawn” in a mix of pink and white petunias. Bed and Breakfast signs beckoned from the front of split-level bungalows and O’Callaghan’s pub, with its half-door and low, smoky ceiling, was now a luxurious hotel and restaurant. The old fish-and-chip shop – from where salivating smells had once wafted through the evening air and a portion of chips was the reward for good behaviour – had been turned into a busy video rental shop. But when Lorraine drove beyond the village and its environs, when she indicated left and followed the narrow, sharply twisting road along the coast, everything was as she remembered. Another left-hand turn brought her to Stiles Lane. As rugged as she remembered, tunnelled with overreaching branches, it shook the foundations of her car if she drove too fast. Branches whipped the wing mirrors and pebbles slapped dangerously against the windscreen. Donaldson’s farmhouse created a cul-de-sac and, apart from her house, it was the only other building in the lane. On the opposite side of the farm an old-fashioned stile, almost obscured by high ferns, gave her access to the beach.

  A fortnight after her arrival, she received a letter with a New York postmark. She recognised Meg Ruane’s handwriting and laid it to one side until after Emily left for school. Her daughter’s determination to hate everything about her new home was unrelenting. Trabawn was depressing, dismal, disagreeable, desolate, deserted, dead. She had adjusted to her surroundings with a fondness for alliteration and a tendency to shriek with disgust whenever cattle swayed past the gate or the smell of silage drifted on the wind. She made gagging noises when Lorraine tried to explain the workings of the septic tank and had, on three occasions, declared her intentions of ringing Childline. The school bus – which she approached with the reluctance of a death row prisoner facing an electric chair – picked her up at the top of the lane in the mornings. In the evenings she entered the house and flung her school satchel into the farthest corner of the kitchen. Desperate, despairing, dull, diabolical days. Lorraine was the only buttress for her anger and Emily, being young and energetic, never lost an opportunity to butt.

  “Why was it necessary to bury me alive when, like, you know, there was the r
est of the world to choose from?” The question had become rhetorical by this stage and was uttered on the slightest whim. “Why am I being forced to endure this hellhole when I should be getting on with my real life?”

  “This is real life, Emily. It’s different, that’s all. I spent the happiest days of my childhood in Trabawn.” Lorraine tried without success to convince her daughter of the yet-to-be-discovered delights of the small Kerry village. “It’s a wonderful place when you get to know it. Just give it a chance and you’ll love it as much as I did.”