‘You like it,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘The music. You’re humming.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.’
‘No, that’s all right. At least you can hum in tune.’
‘It’s one of my father’s favourites. He’s always playing it at home.’
‘I see.’
They didn’t speak again until he swung in through the gates to the house. His headlights played over rabbits nibbling the front lawn like the plaster bookends she’d had as a child.
‘How about one to take home for the pot?’ he asked, and turned the car onto the grass in pursuit.
‘Stop,’ she said, ‘they’re not doing you any harm.’
‘What?’ He looked at her, as if for the first time.
‘I mean it. Stop. I don’t think it’s funny.’
He pulled up abruptly, and she got out, slamming the door and tripping on the soft ground in her haste.
She didn’t see him again until much later. She had danced and drunk and picked at the food. She had fended off Joe, more than once, and now she was standing at the back of the ballroom leaning against the doors, which folded open into the conservatory, watching as the dancers shuffled in circles to the amplified beat of a local band. Her legs were tired, her high heels uncomfortable. Around her, lips sought lips, arms encircled bare shoulders, hips and thighs pressed against each other. She moved back into the dark of the old glasshouse, and lay down on a sagging chair, looking up at the stars, which hung as low as fairy lights swagged across the winter sky. She turned her cheek into the hardness of the splintered cane and closed her eyes. She slept. For how long she didn’t know, but when she woke, when her eyes accustomed themselves to the gloom, she saw that someone else was there, a bottle at his feet on the tiled floor. He leaned forward into the glow of a candle, and she saw clearly for the first time how beautiful he was. His face was long and pale, his eyes dark blue underneath thick eyelashes. They sat in silence. He offered her wine. She accepted. They drank together. Then some time later he stood and held out his hand. She took it, feeling the hardness of the muscles lying just under the surface of the smooth skin, and the long slender fingers which slipped through hers.
The band was playing waltzes. He swung her around the room.
‘You dance too,’ he said, their feet moving perfectly in time. ‘Your father again?’
One, two, three; two, two, three, three, two, three. Wet Sunday afternoons, the gramophone tittuping Victor Sylvester in strict tempo, her head reaching just above her father’s waist, her nose rubbing against the leather buttons on his fawn cardigan.
Her head rested against his shoulder. She could smell the spicy scent of his skin and feel the black grosgrain of his lapels under her cheek. He swung her out and around and he laughed. And, as he pulled her in close again, she felt him hard against her.
He drove her home in the dead of night, the back wheels of the car slewing on the frosty road. Above, the pole star and the Little Bear, the Plough and the Great Bear hung like giant eyes watching, matched by the eyes of night creatures lit up in hedgerows as they passed.
They sat side by side in the dark. Not speaking, not moving. She breathed in and out, conscious of his breath slipping through her nostrils and into her lungs, gliding into her bloodstream, changing her body into a reflection of his own. He took her hand as he said goodbye, and kissed it.
She stood by the sea wall, smelling the thick black mud that lay just beneath the sand. There was a spring tide that night, the sea in retreat. She heard a rustle under the weed, which draped the rocks with its ornamental bobbles and spread between them like strands of thick glossy hair. A rat ran out, moonlight silvering its dull grey back. It stopped and sat up on its haunches. It gazed calmly at Margaret, holding out its dainty little paws. And then it was joined by another, and another. As her eyes searched through the contours of rock, weed and sand she saw that it was a shifting mass of lithe grey bodies, long tails rippling, scrabbling claws and sharp little teeth. She turned away and looked at the row of houses, curtains pulled, shutters fastened, safe and secure, unknowing.
It was morning when she finally slept, the grey winter light falling across her bed. And when she woke much later she could barely remember what had happened. But it was there to see when she looked in the mirror. Don’t be ridiculous, she said to herself. Silly fairy-tale stuff. But he was in her eyes, her mouth, on her cheek, in the tilt of her head. And there was nothing she could do to get rid of him.
36
‘What a shame, boss. All set for a lovely long day in court. Best suit and tie, new haircut, shoes polished. Learned your evidence off by heart. And what happens? The stupid fucking accused starts to have some kind of a fit. He gets carted off to hospital. Judge adjourns till tomorrow, and where does that leave us?’
‘Having a bloody great time, Bertie. Now, shut up, drink your beer, and I’ll open you another.’
It was all very strange, McLoughlin thought. He’d just got back into Court Number Two, when Fitzsimons stood up in his seat, his face white, and began to scream and shout. None of it made any sense. Just a babble of sound and noise. And then he threw himself down on the floor and began to writhe and shake. Instantly there were guards all over him, calls for a doctor, then an ambulance and he was off to the Mater. So that was that. As Bertie said, no more court for the day.
They had wandered out onto the quays, then into the Legal Eagle for a pint. Lunchtime. No point in going all the way back to Swan’s Nest. He phoned in. Nothing doing there. He phoned home. The answering machine was on. He had thought he might offer to take Janey for lunch, but she’d obviously made other arrangements, and when he tried his mother’s nursing home they told him she was out at her musical appreciation class. So that just left the boat. It was a fifteen-minute drive down the quays to Poolbeg. He’d asked for volunteers, and he got three. The usual suspects. Always game for a bit of adventure. Finney, Conroy and Lynch. They hadn’t worked together since the Mitchell case. Conroy and Lynch were both in Store Street. They knew as much about drugs now as your average pharmacologist. Finney had been transferred to Community Relations, based in Harcourt Square. There was talk of him being sent to Cork to replace Tony Heffernan, who’d left the force after his marriage break-up. McLoughlin felt a shiver of apprehension whenever he heard people talk about Tony. The split had been a disaster. Breege had roused herself from her bed and her television and phoned everyone from the Commissioner down. She’d got the solicitor from hell, who immediately put an attachment on his salary and summoned the Protestant widow to the family court as a witness to his adultery. The two boys had taken Breege’s side and refused for months to see their father anywhere except in McDonald’s. Finally it had got too much for him, and he took early retirement. There were some who said he was lucky to get it. McLoughlin felt a sudden wave of guilt wash over him. He hadn’t been to see him, or even phoned him since he left the force. He realized he wasn’t even sure where he was living or what he was doing.
He pulled another six-pack of Heineken out of the tiny fridge in the boat’s cabin, and handed them around.
‘Anyone hear anything recently about Tony Heffernan?’ he asked.
‘Like what?’ said Finney, snapping open the ring-pull on the can.
‘Like what he’s doing for a crust?’
‘Yeah, I heard,’ said Lynch. ‘He’s working for a security company. Training their new recruits. Jesus, I don’t envy him.’
There was silence for a moment as they all thought about it.
‘Come on, lads.’ McLoughlin pulled a bundle of life-jackets out of a locker and handed one to each of them. ‘We’ll never get to Dun Laoghaire at this rate.’
The rain had eased by the time they cleared the mouth of the Liffey, and a weak and watery sun was beginning to raise a few wisps of steam from the boat’s sodden deck. The vibrations from the diesel engine tickled his feet as he stood at the wheel, plotting their course, firs
t east out into the bay, then south towards the twin encircling arms of Dun Laoghaire harbour. Usually he’d have raised the mainsail and the jib by now, but with this rookie crew it wasn’t really worth it. There’d be so much huffing and puffing and complaining, as their soft winter hands came into contact with the heavy halyards, that it would spoil the whole trip. Better to motor today. Enjoy the sea, the bit of sun, the anticipation of the summer’s sailing ahead. It was at times like this, when he was on the boat, that he felt he had everything that he had ever wanted, that he had ever needed. But those feelings were increasingly rare and elusive. Too often now the world followed him snapping at his heels, dragging at his coat, forcing him to pay attention.
‘So what did you make of it?’
‘What?’ He looked up. Finney was standing on the roof of the cabin, his back to the sun, his face in shadow. He jumped down beside him, and took hold of the wheel.
‘Can I have a go?’
‘Sure thing.’ McLoughlin stepped back and opened another can of lager.
‘You were saying?’
‘Yeah. Why did she go off like that, your Dr Mitchell?’
‘She’s not my Dr Mitchell.’
‘No?’ Finney looked at him and grinned. ‘Gone off her, have you?’
‘Shut up, for God’s sake, and watch your course.’
He picked up the binoculars and scanned the coast. Beautiful from the sea, the jumble of houses, the brown smear of sand across Sandymount and the smooth undulations of the mountains behind.
‘Here, listen to this.’ McLoughlin struck a pose, feet wide apart, one hand on his heart, the other open wide towards the city.
‘Part elegant and partly slum,
Skies cleaned by rain,
Plum-blue hills for a background.
Dublin, of course,
The only city that has lodged,
Sadly in my bones.’
Finney looked at him blankly.
‘“A Melancholy Love”, by Sheila Wingfield. Do you not know it?’
‘You’re a real romantic, aren’t you?’ Finney grinned, his dimples deepening. ‘I bet you’d like to bring her, your good lady doctor, out here for a spin.’
‘Don’t you ever give up?’
‘So where’s she been for the last few months? Did she go back to New Zealand?’
‘Yeah, she sure did. A long way away.’
‘And were you in touch with her at all?’
‘I had to phone her a couple of times, and I wrote to her every couple of months, just to keep her up to date with what was happening. Only fair, really, after what she went through.’
And I wrote her a lot of letters which I didn’t send, couldn’t send, he thought. Sitting up late at night at the kitchen table, pissed, thinking about her, wishing I’d done something about it while she was here. I even drove down to the house and parked outside and thought about her. And went to the yard to see what was happening to her father’s boat. She was right, she was telling the truth. She’d told them to dump her, unless I showed up to take her away. So what could I do? I hired a trailer and put her in the back garden. Janey was absolutely delighted.
‘How we doing, skipper?’ Finney yelled, as he turned the wheel and set course for Dun Laoghaire. The boat rolled and plunged, taking the wind on her side. McLoughlin adjusted the engine, listening to the change of sound, as the screw took on the heavier weather. Soon the Martello tower at Seapoint was in sight. McLoughlin put the binoculars to his eyes again, and focused on the row of houses that faced the sea. Margaret’s house looked deserted, neglected, the fac¸ade a dull, dirty grey, in comparison with the fresh creams, pinks and ochres of the houses on either side. An old woman walked along the footpath towards Margaret’s gate. McLoughlin found her with the glasses, and followed her, catching her as she wiped her nose with the back of her hand. She looked familiar. Then he realized. It was Nellie, the cleaning lady. She pushed in through the gate and walked up the steps, fishing in her basket for keys before letting herself into the house.
‘What you see, boss? Anything interesting?’
He took down the glasses, wrapping the straps around them and putting them away in their case.
‘Nothing at all. Not a creature stirring. Now, how we doing, lads? Better than a day in court, eh?’
Conroy turned towards him, his face pale green.
‘Don’t know about that. I feel like shite,’ he said, as he leaned out over the bulwark, retching into the sea.
McLoughlin made him tea and tucked him up on a bunk, wrapping him in a sleeping bag. ‘Don’t worry, Brian, we’ll go back by taxi. I can leave the boat in the Coal Harbour for a couple of days. No problem.’
It was just as well, really. Somehow they ended up visiting all of the six pubs between the Coal Harbour and York Road. McKenna’s behind St Michael’s Hospital for brandies. O’Loughlin’s in George’s Street for hot whiskeys, and Ryan’s, Smyth’s, the Cumberland Inn and Murphy’s for pints, pints and more pints. He did remember at some stage eating spring rolls and chips with curry sauce from a Chinese takeaway, and he remembered a bit more clearly Conroy finally getting sick out of the taxi. But mostly he remembered that he made the driver take the sea road through Monkstown, and he needed the last remnants of his self-control not to get out of the car as they approached her house, not to bang on her door, not to force his way in, not to fling himself at her, not to tell her that he wanted her more than anything else in the world. Not to make a total fool of himself.
37
She had thought at first, as she waited by the side gate outside the Four Courts in the late afternoon, that she would have to follow him by car. She assumed, why, she wasn’t sure, that he would go straight home when he finished for the day. Wherever home was now. Twenty years ago he had lived with his wife and son in a large house in Foxrock, set back from the road behind a high privet hedge. Mock Tudor, a mixture of red brick and dark beams. She had laughed at his choice. Teased him about its predictability. If I had a house of my own, she had said, I’d build a modern one, lots of glass and concrete, interior and exterior mixed together. Like Frank Lloyd Wright. And all the furniture would be simple and unadorned. Chrome, steel, leather. No family portraits and especially no family photographs. She had said to him. Then.
He had taken her to his house. During that last summer before she got pregnant. The family were away, staying with his wife’s parents in Connemara. A case had brought him back to Dublin. Preparation for a murder trial. Or so he had told them. She had met him at Heuston Station, a hot day, dust and litter lying in the gutters and a stink from the Liffey, dark green at low tide. She had borrowed her mother’s old Mini.
‘Where to?’ she had asked, her foot hovering over the accelerator. He had given her directions, precisely.
‘Turn here, turn there, right, left,’ and she had obeyed with mock servility.
‘Do you really mean here?’ she asked, as he pointed her in through the high gates.
‘Of course,’ he replied. ‘I have to get a few things. Come with me and I’ll show you around.’
They had ended up staying. She had played cook and maid and mistress of the house. They had used the child’s attic bedroom. The last night, when he had fallen asleep, his head buried in his son’s Womble pillow, she had got up and walked down to the floor below. She had opened the door to the big bedroom, the one with the bay window that faced the front garden. Moonlight laid squares of light across the pale pink carpet. She sat down on the big bed. She lay back against the pillows stacked neatly beneath the pink bedspread. On the bedside table nearest the door were a clock, a radio, a phone and a notepad and pencil. On the other side was a stack of books. She turned her head sideways to look at the authors. Margaret Drabble, Doris Lessing, Jacky Gillott, John McGahern, Dr Spock’s Babies and Child Care and Tolstoy, Anna Karenina. Her gaze moved beyond the books to a photograph. A couple dressed for their wedding. Kissing. Her face turned up to him. Their hands joined.
She would have
followed him to that house again, or wherever he lived now. She was prepared. The taxi driver who had brought her from the airport to the cemetery, who had given her his card, had parked where she could see the car park. They had sat and watched. Seen the Mercedes and the Volvos, the Saabs and the BMWs pull slowly out onto Chancery Place, and prowl down onto the quays. But he had left on foot, buttoning his charcoal grey overcoat against the wind, which was spinning down the river from the east. She had paid off the driver, Andy was his name, and he had looked at her through the thick lenses of his glasses and told her to take care. She had smiled and thanked him and set off quickly, following the tall, slightly stooped figure.
Her footsteps trod in his as surely as if they had been walking on sand. The route was familiar. Along the quays on the north side as far as the Halfpenny Bridge. Dodge between the cars without waiting for the lights to change. Onto the bridge, pausing to look at the way the wind plucked at the dirty river water. Remember the meeting, the second time, nearly a year after the party. Under the bracket where the gas lamp had once hung, casting its steady phosphorescent glow in the gloom of an Edwardian night. Midway between north and south. She had been rushing to a clinic in the Rotunda Hospital. He had been coming from court. It had been cold, threatening rain. They had shaken hands and he had said, ‘We must meet.’
‘Yes, why don’t we?’
‘How about tomorrow, early evening?’
Mary, Mary Page 22