Darling Jim

by Christian Moerk

  I thought of another face from my recent memory, and saw a flash of brown skin and two quick eyes that wanted nobody too close to him. The devil’s handler. The man with the felt hat who pretended to be satisfied with spare change from children and their mothers after a good show.

  “Tomo,” I said. “Jim’s setup man.”

  “What about him?”

  “Tomo means companion in Japanese, right?” I continued. “Jim must have loved that fella enough to ink himself for him. Like they were twins or something.”

  “Yeah,” said Aoife, stubbing out the ciggie before even taking a drag. “Before he beat his face in.”

  “Dinner, lads!” yelled Fiona, trying to get Jonno’s hands off her while she opened the wine.

  As I sit here and write all this, I’m kicking myself for not putting two and two together before I went back inside with my twin. All I’d had to do was stop and think about what I already knew. But that kind of self-criticism gets me nowhere, Fiona keeps saying. And maybe she’s right.

  AOIFE WAS GONE before the first autumn leaves had turned yellow.

  It was on a Thursday, it must have been, because those were usually the days I’d go to town to pick up our mail at the post office on Main Street. I found the key, opened our mail slot, and withdrew a few crap adverts and one letter. I was about to put it in my bag when I took a second look. All sounds around me slowed down to murmurs, even the children’s screams as they fought over ice creams.

  I opened the letter. It started off with a jaunty

  Hey, girls.

  I biked back up to the cottage so fast my lungs felt like someone had poured battery acid in them. Without saying anything first, I grabbed Fiona by the scruff of the neck and made her look at it, too. I crawled up on the couch and held my ears. I couldn’t even look, because I’d seen Aoife’s eyes that night and knew what they were trying to say. They had telegraphed a long goodbye.

  Fiona read the letter inside the envelope. Then she smoothed it out with her palm and looked at me. I don’t know how long it took me to gather my courage, but in the end, I walked over there and began to read, too. Aoife had written:

  I had to go away. Don’t worry, especially you, Rosie, ya moan bag, it’s not forever. But I may not come back to town for a good long time. It’s nothing to do with either of you, and I’m not losing my mind because of what Jim did to me, either. Someday, I’ll explain everything. And when that day comes, I hope you can both forgive me for what I am about to do.

  Until then, may our parents in their heaven watch over you and keep you safe.

  I love you both more than you can know.

  Ever your sister,

  Aoife

  I must have read that letter hundreds of times, and it still didn’t make sense to me. As days turned to weeks and then to months, her message remained a love letter that sounded more like a permanent farewell each time I reached her final word.

  What I couldn’t know is that another letter would follow.

  And nowhere did it mention love.

  YOU KNOW HOW I told you I knew a thing or two about time? Forget that. Turns out I was a complete eejit. Time does whatever it likes, no matter who claims to know its mysteries. And Heraclitus and Einstein can both shut the hell up about trying to figure it out.

  Because the three years we spent without Aoife felt like twenty.

  Fiona and me shuttered her stone cottage. It seemed like the right thing to do. Photographers still combed the ground, especially during tourist season, when every kid with so much as a mobile phone had to come and bother us. And the leaks in the roof grew worse, forcing us up at all hours of the night, placing buckets everywhere. Finbar, bless his greedy little heart, even offered us a good price for it, but I think Fiona told him to stick it.

  So I moved into Fiona’s Egyptian temple and had to be careful to mind all the knickknacks every time I cleaned. She made money for the rent the same way she always did, which might strike you as being in poor taste. Morbid, even, to have a sure-as-shite murderer prancing around Sacred Heart after all this lark, corrupting impressionable young minds.

  True enough, there were those parents who tried to brand my sister as some kind of desperate killer. Donald Cremin, Mary Catherine’s father, was one to have a go, and there were others who did more than merely whisper in Mrs. Gately’s half-deaf ear about sexual depravity, witch covens, and all such nonsense.

  The only thing they hadn’t counted on was their own kids.

  Whenever some of Fiona’s snot-nosed monsters were pulled from her class under some vague pretext, others were just as eager to learn from Castletownbere’s very own female Jesse James. She had them lining up in the hallway. Some even had autograph books. In the end, before events took another sharp turn, she had randomers following her down the street from work.

  At home, I’d watch her thumb through countless travel brochures and maps, as if either one of us would really leave town as long as Aoife was still missing. It comforted her, I know, to keep looking at rock piles strewn in the desert sand. But she never said a word about it. She didn’t have to. I could hear her thinking from across the room. Between the three of us, she always had the loudest thoughts.

  Meanwhile, I grew into a real expert at gabbing on the radio, if I dare say so myself. Not like before, either, where I’d talk to any gobshite just to pass the time. I soon had shortwave spies from Clontarf to Killala on the lookout for a close-cropped blonde driving a dented brown Vauxhall Royale. There were even eager Welsh schoolgirls from Aberystwyth on the lookout, just as I had long broken-up conversations with harbormasters in both Liverpool and Cherbourg, in case she’d gone that way. I quit the ciggies during all this, imagine that? Gained weight like a shut-in, which Fiona said suited me, and I could have belted her one for that. With Evvie gone, who the hell did I have to look sexy for? I gave away most of my raccoon makeup to a couple of reed-thin girlies from Sacred Heart, and they nearly kissed me, they were so ecstatic. I left the house only to buy groceries and then headed home to my dials and my transceiver microphone, where I felt safe.

  Except none of it helped. Aoife was gone.

  And something else had happened that I didn’t notice until months afterward. Someone was missing from my invisible megahertz world.

  Gatekeeper, that self-satisfied voice who seemed to know everything about Jim before I did, had closed his doors. I dialed left and right, switched frequencies, and even asked other ham operators to key me a message if they found him on their band. But nobody did. I began to wonder if the smooth talker had been Jim himself, messing with our heads in case face-to-face wasn’t enough.

  “Heard someone the other day who sounded like him,” claimed one of my nerdiest shortwave admirers from across the sea in Brighton. “He just opened the channel and rambled on about the nature of evil for a bit. Quite pissed, he was. Then he began to play the piano. It went on forever. Boring, you ask me. Cole Porter, it sounded like. ‘Anything Goes.’ And I suppose it does. But he never said anything after that, so I switched off.”

  I might have believed a word of that if it had come from a reputable sort, not a mouth breather who wanted a peek at my gicker. Besides, Gatekeeper didn’t sound like a music lover. He was too mesmerized by his own voice to bother with other instruments.

  Bronagh stayed away for a while but eventually began speaking to us again. The case against Jim and Tomo, such as it was, was still circumstantial, but the sexual assaults and murders had stopped. Even if there was no proof, everybody knew those boys had done it. Each year, Jonno held a fund-raiser down in the town square, to benefit the victims’ families. Me and Fiona were reluctant guests of honor, but we did it for him. He always told me there was a pint waiting for me inside, and I declined every time. Mrs. Crimmins, who had taken all the guests Aunt Moira scared away, built a new wing to her place and always treated us with respect. “Never liked that fella either,” she’d always say.

  With things settled back as far into normal as po
ssible for a town like ours, you would’ve thought that was the end of it, right? Two kooky sisters scouring the world for their lost sibling and trying to forget about their loving aunt. Turn off the TV and go to bed. What a shitty movie that would have been.

  Time is a funny thing. Bobs and weaves around you in ways it takes too long to explain. Because it was nearly three years to the day from picking up Aoife’s letter that there was another one in our mailbox. The envelope was made from thick cotton paper and had been posted from a place called

  1 Strand Street, Malahide, County Dublin.

  It had been rerouted from Aoife’s old cottage, so I knew it wasn’t from her. The intended recipients weren’t listed, just the postal address. I ripped open the envelope myself this time, ignoring nosy stares from my neighbors. My dears, it read:

  I hope this letter finds you well. I will get right to the point, because I hate writing as it is and have no desire to waste your time. I have proof positive that all three of you murdered my Jim. I’m not interested in having you arrested. I’ve something else in mind. The cancer’s got me, and there’s not that much time left, the doctors say. A month, at most.

  Here’s the arrangement: I want you all to come to Dublin and care for me until the end. I have nobody anymore. Do me this last kindness, or the gardaí get all my information. In case you don’t believe me, I’ve enclosed a sample. And I have more. You girls didn’t clean up properly after yourselves. You’ll find the address on the back of this envelope. Come as soon as you’ve read this. If not, I’ll be visiting you up in Dochas Prison, won’t I, my dears?

  Big kisses to you all,

  Your aunt,

  Moira

  A sample? Of what? I wasn’t even thinking but just did as she said, a child’s reflex. I rattled the envelope, and something fell out into the palm of my hand. It was something I’d looked at each time I promised my lungs it would be the last time they’d choke.

  My own cigarette lighter, the one with the skull and crossbones that I’d won in a poker game once. That wretched woman had put it in a plastic bag. Small clumps of dirt still stuck to it. I couldn’t remember having dropped it anywhere, much less in front of a guy I’d just stabbed. When did I use it last? I tried to rewind the tape three years and failed. But I usually kept the lighter in my bag. And I’d brought the bag that day. What else did Moira have? I wondered, as I pedaled over to see my sister. I stopped on the way to throw up.

  As trees and curious stares blew by, I tried to imagine what would happen if I just ripped up the letter and didn’t tell Fiona. It was all a bluff, a scam from a woman who had truly lost the last bit of sense her plastic Jesus ever gave her to begin with. Right? But then I began to doubt myself. Had we left fingerprints on something else? Jim’s shirt buttons, perhaps? But surely the cops would have found those long ago. My head whirled like a hair dryer as I pushed open the door to Fiona’s place and barged inside, waving the letter about like a lunatic.

  Except my favorite big sister wasn’t alone.

  The figure sitting on the couch and wearing what looked like a ratty old fireman’s coat didn’t rise straightaway. I was about to ask Fiona if the local volunteer brigade had come to help us rebuild the stone cottage when I got near enough to see who was inside that getup. I dropped the letter on the floor and took a step forward and felt at the same time a soft caramel love around my heart and such cast-iron rage I could never even begin to describe it to you. Because the visitor raised her head and smiled shyly.

  “Now yer gonna tell me I’m in trouble, aren’t ya?” said Aoife.

  FOR THE LONGEST time, nothing happened. No cries of joy, no screams of anger. I just picked up the letter and sat down as far away from Aoife as I could. Nothing came to me to say. The wind outside made the door creak. Fiona poured me a cup of tea without my asking for it, and I took it without hesitating. It was something to do while my head reoriented itself.

  “I have lots to explain, I know I do,” said my twin, and nodded into her empty cup.

  “Fifty-five cents,” I finally said, attempting to sound calm.

  “Róisín—” said Fiona, sounding like our mother used to.

  “That’s all it would have cost ya,” I persisted. “A shagging fifty-five-cent stamp on a postcard to let us know you weren’t face down in some ditch. Too hard for ya, was it? Too complicated to lick a stamp? Why didn’t you wait for damp weather, then, and go outside until it was wet enough to stick on the envelope? That would have been fine.”

  “Rosie,” Aoife tried, only now becoming aware of the letter in my hand. “Can I just—”

  “Actually, no, you cannot,” I said, holding back the tears, but barely. “We’ve only had a lovely time, me and Fiona, dragging that stiletto sisters nonsense about our necks like a dead albatross. Didja go to the south of France with one of yer football players? Or with that Belgian fella who kept trying to teach us to whistle?”

  “I had to go take care of something” is all Aoife finally said, by way of explanation, and drew her coat tightly around her body, like a rookie hiding from the fire chief during inspection. Fiona put a hand on my shoulder, but I ignored it. I may know nothing about time, but I’m not so stupid I can’t feel what three years of trying to pretend being fine feels like when the cork finally pops out of the bottle. I folded the piece of paper in my hand several times, nearly forgetting it wasn’t a dinner invitation, but the devil’s origami.

  “Well, I can only hope you paid our aunt Moira a visit,” I said. “If that’s what you meant in your letter by all that ‘forgive me for what I’m about to do’ lark. So? Didja track her down, set fire to her house or something?”

  “That’s enough!” said Fiona, actually scandalized, I think, to hear me wishing such a thing aloud, despite everything. But she’d thought it herself, which is why her voice was now shrill and shocked like a grandmother’s.

  “No, I didn’t,” said Aoife, and reached out for my hand. After a few moments, I grabbed hold of it, but I still couldn’t look her in the face. I want nobody to see me cry, not even my sisters. Back when Evvie still came to visit, I always went to the bathroom if she’d upset me, and only came back out with dry eyes. I make no apologies, because that’s just how it is. But at that moment, I’ll admit to you, it felt like nothing on this earth to touch Aoife’s fingers again. Fiona knew better than to open her mouth and ruin it.

  “So what didja do?” I asked.

  “Give me a little time, and I’ll tell you both everything,” Aoife said, sniffling a bit herself there, around the end. I noticed her hands looked rough, like a dishwasher’s. “Don’t know where to begin. But I’ll stay for a while. So we don’t have to rush.”

  I unfolded Aunt Moira’s threat as slowly as I could, watching my sisters’ faces tighten in anticipation. The paper bird I’d tried to make out of our aunt’s letter was unfolding itself into a boat. “Yes, we do,” I said, feeling whatever remnants of safety or joy that still swirled around inside me harden and turn to stone. “Because we’re going to Malahide.”

  NONE OF US said much on the train.

  The nine-thirty from Cork City was packed to the gills that morning, and everyone’s wet clothes made the windows steam up like a Russian bathhouse. My sisters and I found a window seat as far from the dining car as possible. Because if anyone had heard our sparse conversation, they would have pulled the emergency brake straightaway and called for the nearest garda.

  Try to understand. We weren’t hardened criminals, just three girls who couldn’t act any differently than we did. If that’s how proper hard men and women excuse themselves in front of the judge, so be it. Put yourself in my shoes, and the arithmetic becomes simpler to grasp. Love him or kill him? Remember that old audience question? Problem is, if you’ve already killed once, it kinda takes the sting out. And then where does that end? See what I mean?

  “I didn’t bring a weapon,” I told the others, keeping my voice down and smiling at two elderly men sharing a bag of crisps on the o
ther side of the aisle.

  “Shut up, ya eejit!” whispered Fiona. She had made us sandwiches and tea for the trip, just like she did when our parents went out for the night, leaving big sis to “cook.”

  Aoife remained silent almost all the way into the terminus. Three years had left a film of sorrow on her skin, but those wrinkles didn’t tell the whole story. Kick me if this sounds corny, but there was also an air of serenity about her that endless hours in front of Father Malloy could not have produced. Even with Aunt Moira’s threat hanging over our heads, she didn’t give in to the pressure. Nor did she ever consider not coming with me and Fiona to Dublin, even if she must have had some brilliant hiding place somewhere. “All for one,” she said, as she rang the train station to book our tickets. Something had changed her innermost, deepest core, and it wasn’t the murder. It was something luminous that she kept to herself.

  “I have something to show you,” she finally said, after most of the train car emptied out in Newbridge just before we reached Dublin.

  Fiona and me leaned toward her and saw the object in her hand.

  It was a man’s wallet.

  “I took it out of Jim’s pocket,” she said, still breathless at the memory. “Don’t know why I kept it.”

  The caramel-colored thing was worn shiny, and I couldn’t wait to open it. But I let Aoife do the honors. Inside, I saw what I expected: receipts and a few banknotes. Then my twin thumbed Jim’s pink driver’s license out of its plastic holster. It was his picture, all right, shiny teeth and lowered sex-eyebrows. But the name belonged to a stranger, which didn’t surprise me at all.