In the Rosary Garden

by Nicola White

  ‘Thanks, Gina.’

  Swan turned the key in the ignition and pulled out, unsure for a moment which direction to take. Ali pointed at the road over the bridge.

  ‘Is that the best way?’

  ‘I need to pick up something from Davy’s house.’

  He parked where she told him to, on the side of the road just past the farmhouse and out of sight of it. She wouldn’t come up to the house herself, but gave him very exact directions of where to find what she wanted.

  The guards had stretched perimeter tape around the bungalow, but there was no one about to see that the barrier was observed. Swan gazed at the unfinished house, the lump of concrete smeared with dried blood in front of it.

  The doll was where she said it would be, lying on a kitchen surface. This house was almost as depressing as the ruined cottage where they dug up the damn doll. Everything needed so much work and attention. A defeated kind of place. And the dirty old doll in the middle of it. He had a notion to just throw it away, to tell the girl it was gone.

  He lifted it into the crook of his arm and went over to the stainless steel sink that tilted from one wall. He took his handkerchief out of his trouser pocket and wet it, then wiped the doll clean of dirt as best he could. It was an ugly little thing, the pouchy eyes shut fast, but still he found himself talking to it.

  ‘What’s to become of us?’ Swan said, wiping its plastic brow, ‘What’s to become of us at all?’ He had rarely held a baby, didn’t know how he felt about holding one. It’s different when its your own, they always said. He couldn’t imagine the pleasure being more than the worry.

  There was a plastic carrier bag lying on the floor. Swan left his muddy handkerchief by the sink and quickly dunked the doll in the bag head first. You could think about things too much.

 

  Ali slouched down in the passenger seat and waited. There was a chance that Una had seen them pass, might come down to the road to talk to her. Ali dipped her head lower, fingered the edge of her bandage, wondered what was keeping Swan.

  If her aunt came down, so what? Una didn’t know what Davy had told her, about the child on the kitchen table and Una disposing of it. She didn’t know that Ali had seen her car outside the marquee, had heard a female voice call for Joan.

  No one would know.

  Last night, as they tried to get Davy’s body out, in the stink and panic, her aunt had taken her in her arms, folded her in to her body so that they were crying into the crook of each other’s neck, rocking there on their knees in the dark, like being at sea, like being washed in the storm and the salty sea. All of it flowing from her, jagged pain turned to water. And a thought had come clearly into her head. I won’t give her up.

  A sharp tap came on the glass by her temple and she jerked away from it, raising her hands to protect her head.

  Swan walked around the front of the car and got in.

  ‘Sorry, that was stupid. You didn’t see me coming.’

  He leaned over and placed a plastic bag in the footwell beside her legs. Two little feet stuck out of it. She picked up the bag, wrapped it more tightly around the doll and twisted round to put it on the back seat. She couldn’t bear to look at it.

  Swan drove back to the village and turned left, passing Melody’s pub and the pink church. Goodbye, Ali thought as she counted off the landmarks, Goodbye. Goodbye.

  The dotted field of the new graveyard was next. There was a large yellow digger in the middle of it, next to where Joan was buried. Swan slowed the car down to look.

  ‘You’ll be glad to know,’ he said, ‘we’re going to give Joan Dempsey a proper post-mortem. There’ll be an investigation, too, see if they can’t find out a bit more.’

  Ali didn’t dare meet his eye, just kept looking at the digger.

  ‘I thought you’d be glad.’

  ‘It’s just… my head’s sore,’ she said.

  ‘Of course.’ But he made no move to drive off. ‘I wonder how they’re getting on. Looks like they’ve made quick progress.’

  Ali hoped he wouldn’t get out, keep her waiting when they were so close to escape. She turned her head away, and there, on the other side of the street, stood Ivor, his wild hair flowing in the wind. He was looking at the digger too, showed no signs of noticing her.

  She remembered his fingers on her lips, the tang of tobacco in his hair. Their time in the van together that night seemed tawdry now, worse than tawdry. He should have been minding Joan. She should have stuck with Davy and Brendan.

  ‘Can we go?’

  Swan looked at her, but didn’t say anything, just pressed his foot on the accelerator and they moved off. Ivor saw her then, turned and took one step after the car. She watched him grow small in the side mirror.

  She didn’t know if the body of Joan would somehow lead them back to Una. She couldn’t be certain that Una had anything to do with it, anyway. She hadn’t lied to anyone. If she had sinned, her sin was one of omission. And by that omission she had chosen to save her aunt. She needed to save someone.

  ‘There’s a kind of wheel on the side of your chair there,’ Swan was saying, ‘if you turn it, the seat will tilt back and you can get a bit of a rest maybe, rest your head anyway. Three hours and we’ll be home. Your mother will be glad to see you.’

  Ali tipped back her seat, removing herself from Swan’s eyeline. She watched the reflection of overhead branches slide down the windscreen. She would be glad to see her mother but was dreading the house, knowing what Davy had done there. She would go to up to her room as soon as she could, lock the door and climb under the covers.

  And in the middle of the night, when everything was still, she would get up and go downstairs to the garden and dig a hole between the roots of their apple tree. The place where she and Davy drank and laughed and perhaps kissed in the warm July nights.

  She would bury the doll there, bury it all.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Much appreciation and thanks go to the astute Mark Buckland and all at Cargo for the enthusiasm and care they put into the editing and production of the book. Thanks also to my agent Sam Copeland and to the other early readers whose comments and suggestions have strengthened the text no end – especially Carol Rhodes, Jonathan White (relation), and Brendan Barrington. For invaluable support through the writing of this book, I want to thank the Scottish Book Trust and their New Writers Award scheme, especially Caitrin Armstrong, Philippa Cochrane and Maggie McKernan for her careful readings and edits. Alison Stirling of Artlink (Edinburgh) has propped me up on numerous occasions and the wonderful folk at Cromarty Arts Trust provided the ideal attic for the final furlong. But all would be for nothing without the home team of Ruth and Bridget (who may be a dog, but is no less of a presence for that).

  For more on the Dundee International Book Prize,

  visit www.dundeebookprize.com