by Nicola White
‘God no! Bobby Kinsella, you must be joking.’
‘I thought you said Ali didn’t have a boyfriend.’
‘She didn’t – that was just, y’know, a little bit of messing. Ali always had a soft spot for Ronan. He used to go out with Eleanor Glenn.’
She spoke as if Swan would have foreknowledge of her social scene, of the repulsiveness of Bobby and the cachet of Eleanor Glenn.
‘Was Ali a virgin, do you know?’
Carmen blushed as red as her jacket.
‘I don’t know!’
‘Don’t you talk about those kind of things?’
‘I don’t know. Honest.’
They let the girl rejoin her mother, but asked them to stay to have a statement taken.
Considine and Swan regrouped in the stairwell. Carmen’s hotly claimed ignorance of Ali’s sexual experience wasn’t particularly convincing. And the fact that they’d been in the grounds of St. Brigid’s around the time of the child’s death was unsettling, to say the least.
Swan told her the pathologist’s story about the girl whose boyfriend didn’t even notice she was pregnant. Wasn’t it possible that a best friend mightn’t notice either? The blouse pointed clearly to the Hogan girl. They couldn’t ignore it.
‘We’re going to have to move this forward, Gina, fast. I’ll get Barrett to track down the two boys this morning, but more importantly we need a to recruit an expert – a thingammie – gynaecologist – can you take care of that?’
TWENTY - TWO
Ali had slept badly. Despite the amount of drink she’d taken, her mind kept churning awake with thoughts of Ivor and what had happened in his van. The shame and the wonder of it. How different it felt compared to every fumbling misadventure she’d tried before. But on the way back to the marquee they found nothing to say to each other. Maybe they never would. It was just a one-night stand, she told herself, trying out the phrase she knew from magazines, flicking it away.
Ali swung her feet to the floor. This swoony feeling was exhaustion, not emotion. She had slept naked, and now peeled the sheets from her body, pulled on her pyjamas and an old jumper and went downstairs.
The house was strangely silent, the kitchen empty. Toast crumbs littered the oilcloth and the teapot felt warm. She checked the immersion was switched on for a bath, and went to the scullery to get milk for cornflakes from the big jug there. It was so fresh from the cows, it was still lukewarm and frothy. She changed her mind about eating.
As she filled the kettle she wondered if Davy was up and about in the bungalow. Maybe she could bring coffee up to him, try to get back in his good books after the coolness they parted with last night.
The lovebite. She tried to see it in the small rectangle of mirror that hung over the sink. It was hardly anything, just a purple smear. If she remembered not to push her hair back, it would stay hidden. She met her own eyes. She could go out for a walk later. Down through the village maybe. Joan said Ivor’s flat was above the garage.
There was a sudden movement in the background of her reflection, and she turned. Someone had passed by the window, and was opening the door in the scullery. She heard rustling among the jackets there.
‘Hello?’
Brendan appeared in the doorway. He looked shattered, and she smiled at him, thinking of a joke to make about hangovers. He didn’t smile back, just stared at her like he wasn’t sure what she was doing there, and hurried up the hall to the front door. Something wasn’t right.
She followed up the hall. By the time she got to the front door, Brendan was halfway down the drive, running. Two Garda cars were parked in the road, their blue lights flashing silently. There was a tractor in the field, and a couple of Gardaí were trying to connect a flatbed trailer to it. Down by the river were more people. Near them she could see the bright flash of sand where she and Joan had picnicked. You could see it so clearly from here.
Joe and Una were standing down by the gate, looking over at the Garda cars. When Brendan reached them he stopped briefly and pointed back up at her, at the house. Joe turned, started to make his way up the drive.
Brendan reached the tractor and pushed past the guards to quickly finish hooking the trailer to it, using something he had brought from the house. He got into the tractor cab and drove off to the river with both guards sitting on the back edge of the trailer, feet dangling like children. A car passing on the road slowed right down to have a look.
Her uncle stood below her on the path.
‘Something’s happened,’ he said, and her first instinct was to laugh, but nothing came out of her mouth. She had the strangest sensation that the inside of her body was completely hollow, that she was a thin shell holding on to nothing, brittle and light.
‘Kevin Lawlor, from next door. He was out walking his dog. He found someone in the river. Drowned. Dear God.’
The hollowness swirled in her chest.
‘Do you remember Joan, who used to work for us? I didn’t even know she was let out, but he recognised her straight away.’
‘Who? Recognised who?’
‘Kevin. He recognised Joan. She was caught on a branch in the shallows, lying on her back, you see. Not a mark on her.’
Ali put one hand out to catch at the door jamb, and the sharp corner of wood became the only solid thing in the whole world, an axis around which everything spun. Joe caught her by the waist and steadied her.
‘Joan was at the dance last night,’ she said. ‘We were talking.’
‘She shouldn’t have been out of that hospital, let alone at a dance. You go inside while they bring her up.’
‘Bring her up?’ Ali saw a vision of Joan rising through dark waters, a rope wrapped around her waist. None of it made any sense. The memory of Joan pushing past her in the dark outside the marquee, just hours ago, angry with her, telling her she knew nothing. What was it she didn’t know?
Down in the field the tractor was returning, heading for the road, the two Gardaí jogging along behind, hands on their batons. She couldn’t see what was on the trailer, it was hidden by the cab of the tractor. Joe had turned to look now too.
The tractor turned into the road and now they could see another man, hunkered down beside a long black bag on the trailer. The bag undulated in shallow mounds over its contents. Over Joan.
An ambulance had appeared from nowhere and waited on the roadside behind the police cars. Another car drew up to join the vehicles on the roadside. Father Philbin got out from one side, wearing his black raincoat. He took a rolled up length of green material out of his pocket and hung it over his shoulders, hurrying to the thing on the trailer. Doctor Nolan emerged from the other side of the car and Aunt Una turned quickly and started to walk back towards the house.
Joe had an arm round Ali’s shoulders, was turning her round, urging her into the house. The last thing she saw was Doctor Nolan unzipping the top of the bag, revealing a flash of Joan’s face, white and sharp-nosed, nesting in brown curls. Father Philbin was making the sign of the cross in the air above her. Joe gave her a final nudge into the hallway and pulled the door closed between them.
She wavered in the middle of the hall, air sucking around her. Maybe she would lie down here on the tiles, the diamonds of brick red and black that were so familiar. She tilted down to sit on them. The tiles were so cold.
Here was where the box had lain. Ma had taken it from her arms and bent down to put it right here. Ali moved her hand over the tiles as if they retained the print of it.
What have you got there love? Ma in a crouch, lifting the lid. Ma putting her hand to the grubby towel then falling back like she was bitten, falling right there, thumping her back against the stair post. Someone shouted from the kitchen passage, Aunt Una, bearing down on her like a storm. So fierce that Ali had covered her face against the blows she thought were coming. Feeling the spittle on the palms of her hands as Una shouted close to her h
ead. What in Christ’s name have you done? The shame and the fear of it. Everybody looking at her, Una grabbing her wrist in her hard fingers, pulling at her. Nobody stopping her doing it. Ma looking away. Ashamed, it seemed.
The shifting blackness that was always inside her. This was the place it had come from. The front door opened and Joe came to stand over her.
‘Get up now, we’ll go down and have a drop of tea.’
Brendan was already sitting at the table, still as a statue. Ali took a chair opposite. His eyes were red rimmed, but dry. Joe ran the tap, rinsed out the teapot and mugs, bustling and clattering.
‘Did you see her at the dance?’ Ali kept her voice low.
Brendan shook his head.
They heard the front door open, and Una came down to the kitchen. She looked as if she had somehow lost weight since the day before, a scrawny strained look to her face and neck. She went to the scullery to take her jacket off, still in Ali’s line of sight.
‘Father Philbin and Kevin are coming here for a cup of tea. Maybe some of the guards too.’
She wiped down the table, brought out good cups. Ali watched her move around and thought of the terrifying aunt of memory. Una was solemn and frail in the wake of this horror; hard to believe she ever spat curses or lifted a hand to anyone.
Father Philbin blessed the air as he entered the kitchen. Kevin Lawlor, the neighbour, was behind him, cap in hand, his expression caught between embarrassment and woe, but also, Ali could see, just the edge of excitement too. He was the man of the hour, the one with the story to tell. He met their eyes boldly, even as he received commiserations from Una.
The tea cooled while Father Philbin led them in a series of prayers – an Our Father, the Confiteor, and one she didn’t recognise that began Out of the depths we cry to thee, oh lord… Out of the depths, where Joan had been, the girl who couldn’t swim.
The others blessed themselves as he finished, and Una passed round a plate of biscuits.
‘Take some sugar in your tea, Kevin,’ she said, ‘for the shock.’
It was all the cue he needed.
‘I don’t know how I’ll ever get over it, missus. The dog was whinging to get out, and I couldn’t sleep on for her noise. So I took her out the back of the house and felt a bit brighter myself for the morning air, so we went on along to the river. It was a beautiful morning.’
He shook his head, took a sup from his cup.
‘It was a rag of pink I thought I saw, just near the bank. But when I got up close I could see it was a woman in a pink blouse lying stretched out by the side of the water. Her curls were blowing in the wind. The sun must’ve dried them.
‘When I was about ten yards away I recognised who it was, and, God forgive me, my first thought was that it was typical mad behaviour to be sunbathing half in, half out of the water. At that hour. But she didn’t wake when I shouted her, and when I got as close as we are now, there was no mistaking that the life had gone from her. Her shoulders had caught on a branch just under the surface. She didn’t look too bad though. Not bloated or anything…’
‘Jesus…’ said Brendan.
‘Sorry – but you know, I don’t think the sight of it will ever leave me. The Gardaí said she was probably carried down the river from the town, or even as far up as Ennisbridge.’
Ali clamped her jaw against the confession that rose in her throat, that wanted to surge out of her mouth, spilling her guilt across the cherries printed on the old oilcloth. Joan was her responsibility. She had signed the book at Damascus House for her. People would know that.
The back door slammed and Davy came in. His hair was tousled and the collar of his pyjamas stuck out of the neck of his jumper.
‘A Garda came to the bungalow and told me. Why didn’t you come and get me? It’s mad isn’t it?’ And he gave a little high laugh. ‘Unreal, man.’
‘Say hello to Father Philbin, Davy,’ said Una.
‘Father. Kevin. Unreal, eh?’
‘Twas me that found her,’ said Kevin. ‘She looked very peaceful – like your one – Ophelia.’ Kevin spread his hands wide on the table. Davy shook his head quickly, like he was trying to flick something out of it.
Father Philbin said he needed to go to Ennisbridge, to comfort Joan’s parents, and that Kevin should come with him. He turned in the doorway to give Brendan a hard look and said that perhaps the marquee dances had gotten out of hand. Brendan didn’t bother to answer.
‘Sit down and have some tea,’ Una said to Davy, but he ignored her and leant against the sink twisting a tea-towel between his hands.
Ali thought of Ivor. He was looking for Joan when they parted. Maybe he had never found her. Not only had Ali made Joan angry, she had taken away the person who protected her.
Joe and Brendan started to swap theories. Joan had been drunk. Joan had been suicidal. Joan had been unlucky, tripped and fell.
‘Do you remember,’ Joe said to her aunt, ‘when those two boys from Galway drowned in Lough Dreena. Went for a midnight swim. Both of them drunk as it turned out. Drink makes you think strange things of yourself, gives you the inclination for adventures, but takes away your judgement.’
‘Joan wouldn’t have gone for a swim,’ said Ali. ‘She didn’t know how.’
Everyone looked at her.
‘You hardly know her,’ said Una
‘I saw her at the dance. I don’t think she was drunk, either.’
‘Don’t say you met her at the dance,’ said Una, ‘or the police will want to talk you. You’ve had enough of that, surely.’
‘Una,’ said Davy, flicking his towel in her direction, ‘don’t work yourself up. She was a depressive – cracked you used to say. At least she won’t be bothering you anymore, eh?’
‘Steady on,’ said Joe.
‘You should have more respect,’ said Una, her colour rising with her voice.
‘Should I?’
The doorbell trilled, breaking the argument, and they fell silent while Joe went to answer it. Una got up to put the kettle on once more. It shook in her grip. They heard mumbled voices, and Joe returned.
‘There are a couple of Gardaí here.’
Una banged the kettle onto the range. ‘Show them down.’
‘They just want to talk to Ali.’
It was going to come out now. How she had brought Joan out of the home, stirred up the past and then abandoned her.
A tall Garda dipped his head as he entered the kitchen, removed his hat. Ali looked at him in astonishment. It was one of the guards from Rathmines. She had met him in the Rosary Garden. How could he be investigating Joan’s death?
‘We can give you a few minutes to pack a bag, but we have to hurry,’ he said. ‘We need to get back to Dublin before teatime.’
‘You can’t take her away,’ said Joe, ‘ Something happened here this morning, she’s very upset.’
‘Sorry, I’m afraid our thing trumps yours for the moment, Mr. Devane, we need her in Dublin.’ He turned to Ali. ‘You’re not under arrest, but DI Swan would be obliged if you’d come back with us to help with enquiries.’
‘Is it the baby?’
The guard’s expression changed, shifting from formality to a kind of regretful softness.
‘Yes, Ali,’ he said gently, ‘it’s the baby.’
As they drove away from Buleen, she asked the policeman whether they had somebody under arrest, but he said he couldn’t tell her anything. He suggested she take a nap meanwhile, and Ali obediently curled up on the back seat, her seething head cushioned on her rucksack.
‘This is where I was told to bring you.’
The late sun glinted off lines of parked cars and spread a mellow light across the old stone of St. Enda’s hospital. Ali had woken as the car stopped. Her tongue felt sticky and she had a headache.
‘But it’s
a hospital.’
She thought she would be brought back to the station at Rathmines, or maybe home.
‘This is where Detective Swan said. He’s probably inside.’
He helped her out of the car, and shoved the rucksack under his arm. A bunch of nurses smoking by the hospital entrance gawked. Inside the panelled entrance hall a young woman in a belted mac stood waiting. Beyond, through glass doors, Ali could see the over-lit glare of the hospital, trolleys and oxygen tanks parked against the walls of a long corridor.
The woman nodded at the Garda. She had short black hair and quick expressions. She smiled at Ali.
‘I’m Detective Garda Gina Considine. DI Swan asked me to meet you. Everything okay?’
Ali nodded back automatically, though nothing was okay.
The woman’s handshake was strong, not exactly a shake, but a steady, held grip as if she was trying to communicate trustworthiness through her skin.
‘I’m sorry about all this,’ she said. ‘There’s no other way to be sure.’
‘Be sure of what?’
Detective Considine glanced at the policeman who gave a brief shake of his head in response.
‘Thanks Liam,’ she said, ‘I’ll take it from here.’
She took Ali’s elbow in a firm hold and led her to a corner of the entrance hall.
‘I’m sorry nobody explained things. It’s a bit sensitive.’
Ali had an urge to tell her about Joan, to blurt out everything that had happened, to make this woman understand that she was not up to whatever it was she was asking.
‘We’ve got to a stage in our investigation where we need to clear certain people from our enquiries. The only way to do it is to ask them to give a blood sample and have a quick examination.’
‘Okay. But why do you need me?’
‘You’re someone we need to clear,’ said Considine, looking at her intently, something like a warning in her eyes.
A yelp shot out of Ali’s mouth, ‘It wasn’t my baby!’
The policewoman held her gaze, let a moment pass before speaking. ‘I’m sure that’s what the doctor will say.’