Set in Stone

by Catherine Dunne

  Danny, thought Lynda. He’s got to her. What has he done to her? Robert leaned forward. ‘Another man? A man who looked like me?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. She bit her lip. ‘He say he is your husband.’ She glanced at Lynda. Her eyes were cautious now, wary. She looked as if she might bolt from her chair at any moment.

  ‘My brother,’ said Robert. ‘I am sorry to say that that was my brother. He was lying to you.’

  Larissa looked at Lynda now, confused. ‘I do not understand.’

  ‘He is a bad man,’ said Lynda. ‘A man who has caused us a great deal of trouble.’ And you, she thought. He’s caused you more trouble than any of us.

  ‘Did he do anything to you – hurt you in any way?’ asked Robert. ‘You can trust us, Larissa. We want to help you.’

  Larissa looked from one to the other. Her eyes began to fill. ‘He frighten me,’ she said. She pushed the envelope towards Lynda. ‘I do not want this.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Money,’ said Larissa. ‘He give me money to tell police about your son.’

  Lynda shook her head. ‘Not our son, Larissa. The blond boy who attacked you was not our son.’

  Larissa looked startled. ‘Then—’

  ‘Our son,’ said Robert, ‘was the drunk and noisy one sitting downstairs.’

  ‘He is your son?’

  Robert nodded, tiredly. ‘Yes. And just to complete the circle, “Golden Boy”, the one who hurt you, is the son of the man who gave you that money. They are as bad as the other, father and son, and I am so sorry they’ve made you suffer.’

  Larissa blinked. Then her face sagged and she began to weep. Lynda put one arm around her shoulders. This time, Larissa did not move away.

  Robert stood up. ‘Let me get you something – water, tea, coffee?’

  She nodded, sobbing. ‘Water, please.’

  ‘Have you eaten anything recently?’ asked Lynda.

  The girl shook her head.

  ‘I’m sure I can find you something edible,’ Robert said and smiled at her.

  ‘Coffee for all of us as well,’ Lynda said. ‘I think we could do with it.’ She kept her arm around Larissa’s shoulders. The girl’s trembling had started to ease and she was crying more quietly. ‘Take your time,’ said Lynda. ‘Tell us when you’re ready.’

  She nodded, wiping her eyes. When Robert returned, she was calmer. ‘Thank you,’ she said as he placed coffee and water and a sandwich in front of her. ‘You are kind. Thank you.’ Her eyes filled again. ‘I do not know what to do. He say his son must be punished, or he would do this again. I was afraid not to do as he tell me. So I go to the police. I give a statement. Then I run away.’

  She began to cry again, hunched forward on the table.

  ‘Larissa,’ said Lynda, after a moment, ‘rape is a very serious crime. And we know who did it. We don’t know where Jon is, but we can describe him. We have a witness who saw him bring you upstairs and we both saw you running away on the night – this boy can be caught and punished.’

  Larissa shook her head vehemently. ‘No. I see police do not want to believe me. I see it.’ She shrugged. ‘All the time. They do not care. They do not believe and they do not care.’ She paused. ‘No hospital, no doctor, no police.’ She looked at Robert, suddenly frightened again. ‘Please, I want to finish it. Now.’

  Robert leaned towards her. ‘Nobody is going to force you to do anything, Larissa. If that is your choice, we will accept that. We’ll support you. But you must have help.’

  ‘What help?’ She looked guarded.

  ‘A doctor, first,’ said Lynda. ‘A private one – my doctor. Anything you discuss with her will be confidential. I can take you to see her.’

  ‘And no police?’

  ‘No police,’ agreed Lynda. ‘If you are sure that’s what you want. But perhaps a counsellor?’

  ‘What is this?’

  ‘Someone who can help you not to feel so afraid. Someone who will talk to you, and understand how you’re feeling.’

  ‘A psychiatrist?’ asked Larissa. She stumbled over the word. ‘I know what this is.’

  ‘Not quite,’ said Lynda. ‘But someone with special knowledge.’ She paused. ‘Are you sleeping?’

  Larissa shook her head.

  ‘Do you feel afraid to be on your own? To go out?’

  She nodded, biting her lip again.

  ‘Then let us help you,’ said Lynda. ‘Please. We feel partly responsible. It was in our home. And if our son hadn’t been so drunk, this might never have happened. We owe you, Larissa.’ Lynda waited, hoping the girl would say ‘yes’. She had a vision of Jon and Ciarán on that night, of Larissa, running screaming from her front door. She felt a surge of rage at Danny.

  ‘I will go to your doctor, yes,’ Larissa said at last. She pushed the envelope further away from her. ‘But I do not want his money. It is . . . dirty money.’ Her face filled with emotion. ‘I’m sorry to cause trouble.’

  ‘You didn’t,’ said Lynda at once. ‘All the trouble was caused by others. None of this is your fault. You just got caught in the net. Do you understand? We all got caught.’

  ‘Like fish, yes?’ asked Larissa.

  ‘Like fish,’ agreed Lynda. ‘But it’s over. I don’t think he’ll try again. He’s done his worst, this time.’

  ‘I go now.’ Larissa stood and put out her hand.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Lynda said. ‘We can go to the doctor now, if you like?’

  Larissa shook her head. ‘Now, I must work. But tomorrow, yes?’

  ‘I will call you tomorrow. Are you free in the morning?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘In the morning is good.’ She shook hands with Robert. ‘You are a good woman,’ she said suddenly to Lynda. ‘I trust you, when I see you last time.’

  Lynda smiled at her. ‘Call me any time,’ she said. ‘And we will see each other tomorrow.’ She and Robert watched as Larissa left the cafe. Lynda handed Robert the envelope. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what we’re going to do with this.’

  Robert put the envelope into his inside pocket. ‘We’ll find something clean to do with it.’ He reached across the table and took her hands. ‘And we’ll look after that girl, no matter what.’ He paused. ‘The awful thing is, I just keep wondering what’s next.’

  ‘Don’t,’ she shook her head. ‘I really don’t want to wonder.’

  He stroked the back of her hand. ‘Are we okay? I mean, despite . . .’ he spread his hands in a gesture of resignation. ‘All of it. Can’t even find the words.’

  She looked at him. ‘We are okay: and we will be okay. We’ll go home, clear up the wreckage, as Katie calls it, keep Ciarán on a very short leash, and start again.’ She stopped. ‘We’re going to need some help with Ciarán. And I suspect it’s going to be a long and rocky road. He was no angel before Jon – and I don’t think that either of us took that seriously enough.’ She looked at Robert. ‘Katie says we spoiled him.’

  Robert nodded. ‘Maybe we did. But that’s sure going to change.’ His voice was grim. ‘You do know that it may not be over? I mean, Danny may try again. And again. We might have to pay the price of eternal vigilance.’

  ‘I know that. He will try again – through Jon, or by himself, or some other way. The point is, he didn’t win, this time. And he won’t win the next time, either. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’

  Robert pushed back his chair. He held his hand out to Lynda. ‘I bless Charlie every day,’ he said.

  Lynda looked at him, puzzled. ‘Who?’

  ‘The Dramsoc whirlwind? The one who introduced us?’

  Lynda smiled at the memory. ‘Ah, yes, the night you cheated, running for the number ten bus.’

  ‘The night I won, fair and square,’ he said, indignant.

  ‘I think we both won, that night,’ said Lynda. ‘It just took some of us longer than others to figure that out.’

  Robert smiled. He took her arm. ‘Madam, your carriage awaits.’
/>   She walked with him across the car park. The sun was setting into a deep glow over the Wicklow mountains.

  ‘Would you look at the pair of us?’ Robert stopped so suddenly that Lynda ran into him.

  ‘What?’ She was curious to see the smile that began to flicker at the corners of his mouth.

  ‘As the kids would say: “What are you like?” ’ He waved his arm in the air, taking in the sky, the hills, the scene before them. ‘Walkin’ off into the sunset, at our age?’

  Lynda smiled. ‘Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.’

  Robert took her hand and squeezed it.

  ‘Let’s go home the long way,’ she said, suddenly. ‘So that we don’t pass Emma’s roundabout. Just for tonight.’

  Robert started the engine. ‘Home it is,’ he said. ‘The long way.’

  And they pulled out into the traffic.

  Jon is waiting for him.

  It has taken Danny an hour longer than expected to make his way through the tangle of Dublin traffic. But Jon is there and this pleases him. He is sitting in a corner of the bar, his back to the door. His baseball cap is back to front, the peak shadowing the slender lines of his neck. Danny walks over and flips the cap off his son’s head. Then he stands there in shock. It takes him a minute or so to understand.

  ‘Like it?’ Jon turns around and grins at his father.

  Danny stares at him. His hair is now dark and cropped close to his skull. Even his eyebrows are dark. Danny is caught off-balance. Jon’s build is different, of course, he is slender where Robert was always broad-shouldered and sturdy, but for a moment there, Danny caught an uncanny glimpse of Robert as a child. Something in the way Jon had cocked his head to one side reminded him too much of Pansy.

  Jon’s smile fades. His green eyes are suddenly anxious. ‘It was part of the plan, Danny. It had to be done. You know, the whole “Golden Boy” thing?’

  Danny starts to relax. ‘’Course,’ he agrees. ‘It was just a bit of a shocker. For a minute there, you looked a bit like your Uncle Robert. Anyway, how’s it goin’?’

  ‘Yeah, good,’ replies Jon. ‘Got away no problem. How about you? You find Larissa?’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ says Danny, smiling now. ‘Let’s have a pint and I’ll tell you all about it.’ He orders two pints at the bar and they carry their glasses upstairs. It’s a wet, chilly night, even for March. Despite the patio heaters, there’s nobody in the Smoking Area apart from the two of them.

  ‘Bloody waste of money,’ the barman downstairs had grumbled. ‘I told him that. A gazebo would have done the job just as well. There’s fuck-all customers these days, anyway.’

  Danny made some sympathetic noises. He’s still cautious, even this far from Dublin. Long arm of the law, and all that. Now, he and Jon walk to the far end of the Smoking Area, well out of earshot of any random passers-by. Danny looks down at the swollen waters of the River Suir. The inner arch of the bridge is illuminated and it’s reflected greenly in the hurrying currents beneath: all that water rushing against itself.

  ‘Cheers,’ Danny says, ironically. ‘Your very good health.’ He pulls the packet of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket. Jon takes one and flips his lighter, leaning over to Danny. They smoke in silence for a minute or so. ‘Right,’ says Danny. ‘You go first.’

  ‘It was easy,’ Jon shrugs. ‘Even apart from the Larissa thing, I’d say that “Golden Boy” might have a bit of a problem with coke. And ecstasy.’ He shakes his head. ‘He’s such a wuss. I even had to show him where to buy it.’ He laughs. ‘An’ he’s one very confused bloke. By the time I left him, he didn’t know his arse from his elbow.’

  Danny smiles. Shades of Pansy. Chip off the old block, and all that. Nevertheless, he, Danny, should probably show some paternal concern of his own: Jon would expect that. ‘You’re not in any trouble that way, yourself, are you?’ He allows just the right amount of anxiety to shade his question.

  Jon shakes his head. ‘Nah. The odd joint, the odd tab. Nothin’ much.’ He shrugs. ‘Never had the cash. Besides, it’s weak. Not my scene.’

  Danny nods. He feels oddly moved.

  Jon glances over at his father again. He sounds almost shy when he speaks. ‘You were really brilliant, helping me set all that up. I mean, the bit about the blood tests, the anaemia and all that – that really sowed the seed. Yummy Mummy was right off-balance that night. Got the worry wart goin’.’ He pauses. ‘Even feel a bit sorry for her. He was the apple of her eye, an’ all that.’

  Danny doesn’t want to talk about it any more. It wearies him, bores him, now that it’s all over. He’s finished what they started over twenty-five years ago. That’s enough. But he can see that the boy is yearning for a bit of praise. ‘You weren’t so bad yourself,’ he says. He makes sure his tone reeks of approval. He watches his son’s shoulders straighten, his smile broaden. ‘Looking after the sensor lights the way you did – now that was a masterstroke. Now you see it, now you don’t.’ And he grins at his son, delighted with him, with them both, with their cleverness.

  Jon glows. Danny can see him savour the moment. Then, out of the blue: ‘Will they arrest him?’ His question wavers a little.

  Danny looks at him, sharply. ‘Doesn’t matter. They might, they might not. I made it worth Larissa’s while, but who knows? She might not follow through.’ Larissa. She of the blonde hair and the blue eyes – and the absolutely terrified expression.

  ‘No, please,’ she’d said, when Danny had caught up with her in Superquinn. He’d waited until her shift was over, choosing his moment. ‘I tell your wife already,’ she’d pleaded. ‘No police! I want not the police.’

  That had surprised him, right enough. Lynda must have got there before him. She always was a sharp one – way sharper than Pansy. She’d tumbled to him three years back, as well.

  ‘Now, listen to me,’ he’d said, taking Larissa by the arm. He’d spoken to her in soothing tones, kept the eye contact going. ‘You don’t need to do anything you don’t want to. I have a little proposal for you, that’s all. You are quite free to say “yes” or “no”. It’s your choice.’ He’d watched her face relax. ‘Come and have a drink with me. I don’t want us standing out in the street while we discuss this. Someone might think I’m way too old and ugly for such a beautiful girl.’ And he’d smiled. One of his most winning ones.

  She’d looked even more nervous. But he stood in front of her, making it clear he wasn’t going to go away. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘One drink.’

  He’d bought her a Smirnoff Ice; pint of the black stuff for himself. As soon as they were sitting at a quiet table in the corner, he’d pulled an envelope from his inside pocket and placed it on the upholstered seat between them. ‘There’s five hundred euro in here. It’s yours.’ And he took a good slug of his pint.

  She’d looked at him. The blue eyes were terrified; she twisted the ring on her thumb round and round. He wished she’d stop. ‘What I must do?’ she asked. She was wary, now.

  ‘Make a statement to the Guards,’ he said. ‘The police.’ He watched as alarm washed her features. ‘No—’ she began, but he stopped her.

  ‘Listen carefully,’ he said. ‘You give a statement, a false address, and you go home. Nothing else. I’ll tell you what to write. And afterwards, you just disappear. Or get a friend to do it. I don’t care.’ He reached for his pint again, unconcerned.

  ‘But they will find me.’

  He shook his head. He stood up, putting the envelope back into his pocket. ‘I don’t have time for this. In this country, there is nothing the police can do.’ He waited, let that sink in. ‘If you don’t follow it up, there is nothing they can do to you.’ He watched, could see her weakening. One last roll of the dice. ‘You make your statement, just the once.’ He tapped his pocket. ‘I’ll tell you the words, you take them down. Nothing else. Do you understand?’

  She’d nodded, biting her lower lip.

  ‘Then, you go home. And that’s it. Five hundred euro for a few lines and your
signature. Trust me. They won’t come looking for you.’ He’d said enough.

  ‘Why?’ she’d asked, suddenly.

  ‘Why what?’ he’d said, kicking to touch.

  ‘Why you want so much to punish your son? I do not understand.’

  He’d sighed. ‘My son has been a very bad boy,’ he said. ‘He’s done this to other girls. He will do it again. As a father, I must stop him.’ He’d allowed his eyes to fill with tears, then. ‘Don’t you understand? Ciarán must be punished. “Golden Boy” or no “Golden Boy”. Do you want other girls to suffer, too?’

  She’d shaken her head at that. ‘Okay. I do what you ask.’

  Slowly, almost reluctantly, he’d pulled the envelope out of his pocket. ‘You’re sure? You do understand that it’s my duty?’

  ‘I understand.’

  But Danny was thinking that she understood nothing other than an envelope with five hundred euro. He handed her the notepaper and the pen he’d brought with him. Her writing was laborious, like a child’s. He kept the statement simple, stark in its retelling of the facts.

  ‘I go now,’ she’d said. ‘I study this and I go now. I finish this.’

  He’d nodded. ‘Yes. The sooner the better.’

  And she’d left the pub, the door closing softly behind her.

  ‘We’ve given them enough to worry about, though, haven’t we?’ Jon is smiling at his father. ‘Even if Larissa doesn’t do the business. And I have a few other things up my sleeve. For later, when things calm down a bit. Wouldn’t do to have them think it’s all over. We’ll let them know we’re still watching.’

  For the first time in his life, Danny likes the word ‘we’. It’s like being back in the fold again, his own fold. With his own son. ‘You did well,’ he says. ‘Couldn’t have done it without you.’

  Jon glances over at him. ‘They had it coming,’ he says. ‘Cheating you out of everything like that.’

  Danny lights another cigarette, and one for Jon. He passes it over to him. ‘Well,’ he says easily, ‘we don’t need to dwell on that now. We can put it behind us.’ He waits for what he feels is an appropriate amount of time. ‘So,’ he says, ‘you don’t regret coming looking for me, do you?’