I Confess

by Alex Barclay

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ said Johnny. ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, I won’t know ’til I take a look at it,’ said Terry. ‘There could have been a cable cut if a spade hit it or if a drill hit something in the chapel.’

  ‘And who would have done that?’ said Johnny, ‘seeing that you were in there this morning, and no one else was in after you.’

  ‘Did you have your eyes on it for the day?’ said Terry.

  ‘Well, I’m presuming you locked the thing after you,’ said Johnny, ‘but I don’t know why I’d do that.’

  Terry walked up to the top step, and waited for Johnny to move.

  ‘Would you mind going around the back?’ said Johnny, ‘and I’ll let you in.’

  ‘I’m getting soaked.’

  Johnny was already closing the door. He went downstairs and ducked into the wine cellar. He used the torch on his phone, pulled an envelope out from the back of a shelf, went over to the table, laid out four fat lines of coke, and snorted them. By the time he got to the back door, Terry was standing with his sour, wind-burned face up against the glass. Johnny let him in.

  ‘What kept you?’ said Terry. ‘It’s blowing a gale.’ He pushed past Johnny.

  ‘And while you’re at it,’ said Johnny, ‘could you have a look at one of the suites for me—’

  ‘The stables?’ said Terry. ‘Where the fine fillies go.’

  Johnny gave him a patient look. ‘Yes.’

  ‘What’s wrong there?’ said Terry.

  ‘There are a few roof tiles loose by the look of it, and if anything flies off and ends up going through my conservatory window, it won’t be me paying for the glass.’

  ‘Well, we know that,’ said Terry. ‘But I’d need someone with me for that.’

  ‘You’re always fucking missing something, aren’t you?’ said Johnny.

  ‘Eleven grand, last time I checked,’ said Terry.

  ‘I told you,’ said Johnny. ‘I’m happy to pay any man for the work he’s done. But if it’s half done? Not my fucking problem. And can you keep the head down? I’ve got people here, and I don’t want them—’

  ‘Knowing a thing,’ said Terry, winking. ‘Of course, of course.’ He turned away and rolled his eyes. Then he yanked open the back door and stepped out into the wild night.

  Johnny closed the door behind him. ‘Fucking prick,’ he said.

  ‘Fucking prick,’ said Terry, his words lost in the wind.

  Edie made her way slowly towards the dining-room table, her face glowing in the candlelight from Helen’s birthday cake – three-tiered, chocolate, with a thick red ribbon and bow. On top, a red-icing Helen was written in perfect cursive script.

  Murph stood up, and started to sing ‘Happy Birthday’. He stopped when Johnny appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Did you start without me?’ said Johnny.

  ‘Oh!’ said Edie, glancing back.

  ‘I assumed he was coming in behind you,’ said Helen. ‘Sorry, Johnny.’

  Edie set the cake down in front of Helen. Murph started singing ‘Happy Birthday’ again, and everyone joined in. Johnny stood by the table, poised with a bottle of champagne.

  ‘Champagne too!’ said Helen, her eyes bright.

  When they finished singing, she closed her eyes, and blew out her candles. Everyone cheered. Johnny popped the champagne, and filled everyone’s glasses.

  Murph looked at Helen. ‘Did you even make a wish?’

  ‘Don’t turn into Laura,’ said Murph. ‘That’s my wish for you.’

  Helen looked around the table. ‘Thank you so much, everyone. You are so good to have all come. Especially on a night like tonight. And thank you to Edie and Johnny—’

  ‘For plunging us into darkness,’ said Murph.

  ‘Terry’s here to sort it – relax,’ said Johnny.

  ‘Terry who?’ said Murph.

  ‘Terry Hyland,’ said Johnny.

  ‘What?’ said Murph. ‘What are you doing getting that prick in?’

  ‘I didn’t “get him in”,’ said Johnny. ‘He just showed up – he was driving by and he spotted the lights go. Plus – “that prick” is the likely source of whatever’s just gone wrong. He was out dicking around in the chapel earlier and he’s now saying the problem might be there.’

  ‘Well, don’t let me lay eyes on him,’ said Clare.

  ‘Why?’ said Johnny.

  ‘He did a job for Dad and overcharged him by about two grand, knowing the poor man has dementia. Dad was on his own in the house when he came and Mam didn’t find out for ages, and because it was cash, there was this big rigmarole.’

  Patrick stood up, ‘Excuse me,’ he said.

  ‘Are you going to the jacks?’ said Murph.

  Patrick paused.

  ‘Murph, for God’s sake – have some manners,’ said Clare.

  ‘What? I’ve loads of manners,’ said Murph.

  Patrick laughed. ‘Yes, Murph – I am going to the … men’s room.’

  ‘He can’t even say it,’ said Murph. ‘Well – enjoy.’

  Patrick walked out the door laughing.

  ‘Are you hammered or what?’ said Laura.

  ‘No,’ said Murph. ‘I don’t know where I was going with that. I think part of me was going to get him to grab me something from the bar … or maybe just hear my confession … and I chickened out then because he’s looking so snazzy. Like too snazzy to be serving me drinks.’

  ‘But me and Johnny can?’ said Edie. ‘Thanks.’ She was smiling at him.

  ‘He’s had the biggest makeover, maybe,’ said Murph. ‘Maybe he even has the tightest ass.’

  ‘You’re not well in the head,’ said Laura.

  ‘Can I tell my Terry Hyland story?’ said Helen.

  ‘You can,’ said Murph, ‘as long as you go along with the peer pressure thing. We’ve made our minds up he’s a bollocks. So … as long as your story fits in with that, fire away.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Helen, smiling. ‘Well, it’s as simple as this – when I was getting some modifications done to the house – he didn’t charge me a penny for labour.’

  ‘I knew it!’ said Murph. ‘He charged you millions, the bollocks.’

  Helen laughed. ‘I couldn’t believe it. And he’d given me a quote and everything. And at the end of it all, he says, “I won’t take a penny from you, now, Helen, after all you did for the mother when she wasn’t well.” She was in the hospital for a few weeks, not even anything serious, and I treated her no different to anyone else. It brought a tear to my eye. And then he says, “Sorry for your troubles”, which I love.’ She laughed. ‘Death, MS—’

  Murph sat back in his chair and stretched his hands behind his head. ‘Didn’t yer man Terry have a thing with Patrick’s mam, come to think of it? Maybe that’s why he fucked off.’

  ‘Terry and Mrs Lynch?’ said Laura. ‘Jesus.’

  ‘Mrs Lynch didn’t have things with anyone,’ said Clare.

  ‘Well, she obviously had a thing with at least one man,’ said Murph, ‘unless that fella I’ve been admiring all night is a hallucination.’

  ‘Where did you get that idea from – Mrs Lynch and Terry?’ said Helen.

  ‘I heard he’d be in and out of the house,’ said Murph, ‘and, sure, there was only so much she would have been getting done to it.’

  ‘And where was Patrick’s dad when this was going on?’ said Helen.

  ‘Long gone,’ said Murph. ‘Actually – dead at that stage. This was when we were in fifth or sixth year.’

  ‘Did Patrick ever say anything to you about it?’ said Laura.

  ‘Like what?’ said Murph. ‘You won’t believe who Mam’s—’

  ‘I meant about his dad,’ said Laura.

  ‘His dad died the same year as Mam,’ said Murph. ‘I remember Patrick coming up to me one day and asking me something or other about it. I don’t think his mother gave a fiddler’s the man had died.’

  13

  PATRICK

  Castletownbere


  12 January 1984

  Patrick was sitting at the kitchen table doing his maths homework. The sink was full, and the tap was dripping. He didn’t know why his mother always did that – fill the sink, leave the dirty dishes in it. It made his stomach tighten. He wondered if she was leaving it there, like a threat hanging over him, like he wasn’t too old to be put through it again.

  He heard a knock at the door. He paused, his pen hovering, then heard the flap of his mother’s slippers as she went down the stairs. She opened the door. ‘Sister Consolata. Come in.’

  Patrick could hear her shoe catch on the threshold as she crossed it, then the click of the latch. After a short silence, he heard his mother: ‘What is it, Sister?’

  Patrick’s heart started to pound. He wondered if he was in trouble. The voices outside dropped to a murmur and he stood up, glancing at the doorway, tempted to listen from there. Before he had a chance to move, they appeared in the kitchen.

  ‘Patrick,’ said Sister Consolata with her tight nod. She was holding a package that was wrapped in a plastic shopping bag.

  ‘Sit down, Sister,’ said Mrs Lynch. ‘Are you sure you won’t have a cup of tea?’

  A flash of irritation sparked in Sister Consolata’s eyes as she lowered herself on to the chair opposite Patrick. ‘No, thank you.’ She paused. ‘I’m afraid I’m here with some bad news.’ She patted the package on her lap.

  Patrick tried to figure out how bad news could have anything to do with what was in the shopping bag. His mother sat to his left, the three of them making a tight triangle. He could feel his mother’s head turned towards him as if she was expecting whatever this was to be his fault.

  Sister Consolata looked at Mrs Lynch. ‘It’s about … Patrick’s father.’

  A rush of panic swept over Patrick.

  ‘We don’t know the full circumstances of what happened,’ said Sister Consolata, ‘but your father’s body was found in Courtown harbour.’

  Patrick stared at her, his mouth open, then turned to his mother. Her shoulders had straightened and her chest was high. Her eyes met his and his stomach turned at what he saw in them.

  ‘He didn’t leave a note,’ said Sister Consolata, looking at his mother.

  Patrick frowned. ‘What do you mean? “Didn’t leave a note”?’

  ‘Your father killed himself,’ said Mrs Lynch, her voice flat.

  ‘What?’ said Patrick, ‘But—’

  ‘Your father lived a sinner, died a sinner,’ said his mother.

  Patrick frowned.

  ‘You know it’s a mortal sin to kill yourself,’ she said.

  ‘Daddy wasn’t a sinner,’ said Patrick. ‘He was—’

  ‘Is it not a sin to drink the food off a child’s plate?’ said his mother. ‘Or to hand over his school uniform to a stranger at the races and pray for a horse and the man up on his back? They were the prayers your father prayed! Not a single one for his own son, not a single one for his own soul. He prayed for the money for the stout he could drink while he cheered on whatever four-legged animal he hoped would pay for the next round.’

  Patrick looked at Sister Consolata. She had her head bowed. ‘Will there be a funeral, Sister?’ he said.

  She looked up at him. ‘I’m afraid that by the time the news came to me, he had already been laid to rest.’

  Patrick’s eyes widened.

  His mother hopped up and banged her fist on the kitchen table. ‘In a pauper’s grave! A sinner’s grave! That’s what you get when you kill yourself – a grave with not a mark on it! Do you not get it all? Lived a pauper, died a pauper. Lived a sinner, died a sinner! Did you want to go to the grave with him? Is that it? Are you sorry you’re here? And not cold in the grave beside him? Are you?’

  Patrick shook his head. ‘I’m not sorry, no.’ He looked over at Sister Consolata. ‘But … can I go to his grave? I want to. I want—’

  ‘You’ll go nowhere near it!’ said his mother.

  ‘But—’

  ‘Your mother’s right,’ said Sister Consolata.

  Tears welled in Patrick’s eyes.

  ‘He has a new woman, now,’ said Sister Consolata. ‘Down in Courtown. And he has a new son. And it wouldn’t be right.’

  Patrick felt like she had reached into his chest and ripped his heart from it. He turned to his mother.

  ‘That’s the first I heard of it,’ she said. ‘And good luck to them!’

  ‘How old is he?’ said Patrick, wiping tears from his face, turning to Sister Consolata.

  ‘Who?’ said Sister Consolata.

  ‘The son,’ said Patrick.

  Sister Consolata frowned. ‘Eight on his last birthday. I’m trying to picture the birthday cake. Your father sent me a photo.’

  ‘Eight?’ said Patrick. ‘But … Daddy only left … five years ago.’ He shook his head. ‘That can’t be right.’

  ‘Well, let’s just say, it wasn’t his first trip to Courtown,’ said his mother, a triumphant look on her face.

  Sister Consolata rose from the chair, and took the package with her. ‘I’m sorry for your troubles,’ she said to Patrick. Mrs Lynch followed her into the hallway.

  Patrick sat at the table, white-faced, staring down at his copybook and all the equations he could solve faster than anyone else in his class but he could not figure out how one minute you could be doing your maths homework and the next, someone could walk in, throw a grenade into your life and walk out and leave you behind and you have no father and half a brother and there’s nothing you can do about any of it. But it wasn’t even a grenade. It was too cold. It was like a handful of icicles.

  He could hear Sister Consolata muttering in the hallway. He got up and slipped his feet out of his school shoes, and walked in his thick white socks to the door to look out. Sister Consolata was handing his mother the package.

  ‘I washed them as best I could,’ she was saying. ‘They were in no fit state.’ She paused. ‘But you might want nothing to do with them.’

  ‘Well, I’ll take them off your hands, anyway, Sister,’ said his mother. ‘Did the new woman not want them?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Sister Consolata. ‘I can help you with anything you might need to do … get whatever certs … for the widow’s pension—’

  ‘Oh, I’ve done all my waiting around for money from that man,’ said his mother. ‘I gave that up long ago.’

  Patrick lay curled on top of his bed that night, still in his school uniform, sobbing into his pillow. Eventually, he drifted off to sleep, but woke in the middle of the night, his cheek hot and red against the damp pillow. He listened. There was no sound in the house. He got up and quietly made his way down the stairs. He pulled open the door to the cupboard underneath. Behind a stack of phone books was the package that Sister Consolata had left. He took it out and brought it to his bedroom. When he opened it, he smelled air tinged with laundry detergent and bleach. He slid out what was inside: his father’s black rain jacket, a pair of battered black lace-up boots, his father’s faded ID card, and a key with a metal keyring on it, shaped like a boat. He felt a stab of recognition. It was almost identical to the boat he had drawn for his perfect imaginary day with his perfect imaginary father.

  14

  Clare turned to Murph. ‘Were you serious about multiple women on the go? Are you ever going to marry a Whateverhernameis?’

  ‘Not a hope!’ said Laura. ‘It’s same old, same old. Remember – we’d be out in Cork, you’d arrive in with whatever Whateverhernameis—’

  ‘And the fact that’s what you called them,’ said Edie.

  ‘With love,’ said Murph. ‘Always with love. And behind their backs.’

  ‘You’d show up,’ said Laura, ‘drop her off with us, and we’d be the ones who ended up mad about her and devastated when it was all off. And you’d make sure every other woman in the place was taken care of – even if they were complete randomers.’

  ‘What is it with you?’ said Edie.

  ‘I
don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Murph, doing side-eyes.

  Helen’s back straightened, her chin tilted upwards. ‘As soon as someone falls for Murph,’ she said, ‘he loses all respect for them.’

  ‘It’s the Groucho Marx thing,’ said Clare.

  ‘It’s a sign of weakness,’ said Murph. ‘I can smell it off them!’

  ‘You’re such a gobshite,’ said Laura.

  ‘Murph,’ said Edie, ‘that’s terrible.’

  Murph spread his arms wide. ‘Ah, look at me, though. I’m hardly—’

  ‘“Poor me. Sure, who’d want me?”’ said Laura. ‘Get a grip. You’d make a lovely embarrassing husband and mortifying dad.’

  ‘And you’d make a shit therapist,’ said Murph.

  ‘Which is why I’m not a therapist,’ said Laura.

  ‘Which is why I’m not married,’ said Murph. He paused. ‘They’re not connected, but you get the gist.’

  Edie, Laura, Helen, and Clare were all looking at him. ‘Oh, God,’ he said, ‘are you going to make me go for counselling now?’

  ‘Jesus, we don’t give that much of a fuck,’ said Laura.

  Helen looked at him. ‘Some day, you might wake up and think, “what a waste of my heart”.’

  ‘Big heart,’ said Edie.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Murph, ‘that’s exactly the kind of shite I wake up thinking.’ He turned to Laura. ‘And are you happy? Signing up to one man for the rest of your life?’

  ‘Get lost,’ said Laura.

  ‘Imagine if there was Google Maps in the nineties,’ said Murph. ‘Every time they updated, there’d be a different guy on the path outside Laura’s place. In a blur, running in or out, depending on whether she was on the cider or not.’

  Laura rolled her eyes.

  Murph turned to Clare. ‘Yourself and Alan … you’re together how long?

  ‘Twenty-two years,’ said Clare.

  ‘Look at her – all starry-eyed,’ said Murph. ‘I do mention yourself and Alan the odd time to people.’ He looked at the others. ‘You know the way there’s always one couple that you go – now, they’re rock solid.’