I Saw You

by Julie Parsons

  ‘I don’t know. We haven’t talked about it. Anyway, I don’t need to do anything like that. I can just come out here. You gave me the key already.’

  Helena didn’t reply. She got up and walked over to the horse who was grazing the rich grass that grew in the crevices between the rocks. She fumbled in one of the saddlebags and pulled out a small video-camera. ‘Here,’ she held it up, ‘I love making little movies. I like recording the truly important things that happen. When Dominic was little I had a cine-camera. I have all the old films. I must show them to you. Then I was sick for a long time and I couldn’t do anything like that. But when I got better and I came to live here Dominic got me this and it’s so easy and so much fun. Now,’ she held up the camera, ‘let’s find out what kind of person young Vanessa is. What do you have in your big bag? Show me the contents.’

  Vanessa rummaged through it. ‘Well, I’ve got my phone and my purse and an apple and a make-up bag. And my iPod. And a couple of books.’

  ‘What are the books? Show me.’ Helena changed the focus of the camera and zoomed in.

  ‘There’s this by Sylvia Plath, the poet. It’s her novel, The Bell Jar. Well, of course it’s hardly a novel, really, more of an autobiography.’ She held it up towards the camera. ‘It belonged to my sister. She loved Sylvia Plath’s poetry.’

  ‘And you do too?’

  ‘I never really bothered with it before. We did her in the Leaving Cert. But when Marina died I started to read her. It’s very sad stuff. Sad when you think what happened.’

  Helena put down the camera. ‘Well, that’s enough for now. Such a lovely day. I fancy a swim. Do you?’

  ‘I don’t have my togs.’ Vanessa closed her bag.

  ‘That doesn’t matter. There’s no one around for miles and miles. No one but me. And I won’t mind.’ She began to unbutton her shirt. ‘Go on, it’s fine.’

  Vanessa lay in the water. She floated on her back. She moved her arms and propelled herself slowly from the shore. She stared up at the sky. She kicked her feet up and down and the frothy wash floated past. The dog’s big head broke the surface. He moved quickly, his coat gleaming and shiny. And behind them both Helena stood, her large body white in the sunshine. Her breasts hung down, pendulous, heavy. She took a step deeper into the lake and her thighs quivered. She crouched down and let the water coat her body. Then she straightened and lifted her arms high. Drops of water streamed down her white skin. She waded further into the water.

  The girl floated on her back just out of reach. Her skin was sallow, pallid on her breasts and at her groin. Her hair streamed out behind her like the long tangles of lake weed. More lake weed curled over her pubic bone. Her nipples were tight and dark against the pallor of her small breasts. Helena wanted to take hold of her helpless white body. Wanted to suck the life out of her. Spit out the remains. In the same place that she had left the other interloper. The woman she had watched through the lens of her camera. On the ground with Mark Porter. Dominic had told her that she was the one who had let James drown. She had sat in the boat and watched him. She had done nothing.

  ‘You must make her suffer,’ Helena said to him, said to her son. ‘Imagine how your father felt as the water pulled him down. Imagine how time slowed for him. Every second like a year. I know that feeling,’ she said, ‘when time slows down. You feel as if you’re drowning in slime and mud. So you have to make her pay for that. You have to make her suffer too.’

  Helena felt the cold creep up her legs, over her knees, her thighs. The dog swam around the girl. He was a strong swimmer. He had swum with Helena that morning. That morning when they had come down here and they had found the dinghy, floating gently, bumping up against the walls of the little harbour. And inside it the woman was lying on her face, a pool of vomit on the slatted floor. And the dog scrambled up into the boat and began to sniff the vomit, then the woman’s face. She opened her eyes and stared into his. And said, ‘I’m thirsty, so thirsty. Help me.’

  Then fell back. Back into a deep, deep sleep. The dog jumped from the boat, and it rocked and rocked and water splashed into it. And Helena leaned on the boat and pushed it down and watched how the woman fell on to her side, her head banging against the rowlocks. Her eyes opened a little. They looked as a baby’s eyes look when it falls deeply asleep. Helena pulled herself up on the gunwales and the water poured in and the woman half fell into the lake. And Helena grabbed hold of her dress, pulled her out of the boat, gave her a push. And the woman floated, buoyed up by air filling her skirt, towards the little rapids. Then she went under as the weight of her clothes dragged her down. Down, down, down. And she struggled, coughing, choking. But not for long. Less than a minute. And a trail of big bubbles floated on the surface showing where she had gone.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  4 August 2005. The day after tomorrow would be the tenth anniversary of Mary’s disappearance. Ten years since Margaret had seen her daughter alive. Now she stood outside the front door of Jimmy Fitzsimons’s family home, high on the hillside above Killiney Bay. She rang the doorbell and waited. There was no reply. She rang again, then walked around to the back of the house and peered in through the kitchen window. The girl, his younger sister, was at the sink. She had a tea-towel in one hand and a plate in the other. She gesticulated, waved at her, then disappeared and reappeared a few minutes later, with a woman in tow.

  Mrs Fitzsimons recognized her immediately. She opened the back door a crack. ‘What do you want?’ Her voice was defensive.

  ‘I want to talk to you, that’s all. I just want to talk to you.’ Margaret put her hand on the doorknob. ‘Can I come in?’ She moved closer. The girl, no longer a girl, a woman now with a round body and a face that showed her age, even though the Down’s syndrome almost made her seem like a child, pulled her mother back.

  ‘Come in, then.’ Mrs Fitzsimons disappeared into the house.

  They sat at either side of the fireplace. The grate was stuffed with rubbish. Newspapers, milk cartons, egg boxes. The girl crouched on a footstool beside her mother. No one spoke.

  ‘It’s been a long time,’ Margaret said.

  ‘What do you want?’ Mrs Fitzsimons’s voice was plaintive now.

  The girl touched Margaret’s face. ‘I’m Molly,’ she said.

  ‘And I’m Margaret.’ Margaret took Molly’s hand and shook it. ‘How do you do, Molly?

  Molly giggled. ‘I’m very well.’ Her voice assumed a tone of politeness. ‘And how are you? Are you a good girl?’

  Margaret smiled. ‘I certainly hope so.’

  They sat in silence. Then Margaret spoke again. ‘I wanted to see you, Mrs Fitzsimons, to say how sorry I am for all that has happened over the last ten years. We have both suffered, you and I. We have both lost people we loved—’

  ‘Don’t,’ Mrs Fitzsimons cut across her. ‘Don’t say that. I didn’t love Jimmy. I’m not sorry he’s dead. He killed your daughter. I know he did. And when he disappeared I was glad. I thought maybe he’d gone to America or Australia. I didn’t care where it was. I just didn’t want to have to look at him, be reminded of what he was and what he had done.’ She put her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook. There was no sound. She took away her hands and her face was set with bitterness. ‘And when they found him and he was dead I was relieved. He was gone from this world to the next where God will be his judge. And He will judge him harshly.’

  ‘Judge him harshly,’ Molly repeated. ‘Judge him harshly.’

  They sat in silence again. Until Mrs Fitzsimons stirred and turned to her daughter. ‘The book,’ she said. ‘Get the book.’

  Molly left the room.

  ‘I want you to have this,’ Mrs Fitzsimons said quietly. ‘I found it in Molly’s room.’

  Molly stood before her. She held out a battered paperback.

  ‘You have it. Mammy says you have it.’ She put it on Margaret’s knee. Margaret opened it. The title page said Songs of Innocence and Experience. The author was William Blake. And scribbled in
black biro, in Mary’s hand, ‘This book belongs to Mary Mitchell, Torbay, Auckland, New Zealand, Southern Hemisphere, World, Universe.’

  She walked from Killiney down the hill towards Dun Laoghaire. She walked fast, sweat dripping between her breasts and shoulder-blades. She wanted to get home. To lie in the garden, to close her eyes, to sleep. To try to banish the pictures that came again. Mary’s body in the morgue. Jimmy Fitzsimons’s face as she wrapped the tape around it.

  She walked through the town, then down to the path by the railway line. The beach at Seapoint was crowded today. She took off her sandals, stepped on to the sand and ran towards the sea. She stood ankle deep in the lukewarm water. Small, benevolent waves rolled in from Dublin Bay and broke with ruffles of white along the beach. A little girl with tight curls stood beside her and kicked at the water.

  ‘Why it wet?’ she enquired, and glanced up at Margaret.

  ‘Because it is,’ Margaret replied. ‘Because it’s water and water’s wet.’

  ‘Why is it coming on the beach?’ she persisted, and put out her hand to steady herself, her plump feet planting themselves firmly in the sand.

  ‘Because the wind pushes it towards the land and when it meets the beach it waves its little hands, see?’ Margaret bent down to the child’s height. ‘See the way the water is waving at you? And that’s why it’s called a wave because when it sees a nice little girl like you with curly hair, it waves at you.’ She twined a curl around a finger. ‘You’ve got lovely curls. Where do they come from?’

  The child looked up at her with a stern expression. Her blue eyes were uncompromising. She’s heard that one before, Margaret thought.

  ‘I growed dem myself,’ she replied, and shook off Margaret’s hand, then turned away and stomped back across the wet sand, breaking into a trot as she approached a small woman, dark hair streaked with grey, who had begun to walk towards her. Margaret watched the greeting, the way the woman scooped her into her arms, nuzzling the child’s neck and holding her tightly against her body. The child pulled away from the embrace and turned back towards the breaking waves, the shallow water, the bay, the sea beyond, and the horizon.

  And Margaret felt again the pain of her loss. Of her continuing loss. Of her loss that would last for ever. She began to walk away. She sat down on a rock. It was encrusted with baby mussels, sharp ridges of black. She ran her fingertips over them. And thought of the pipis that grew on the rocks near the house in New Zealand where she and Mary had lived through the years of Mary’s childhood. She would never go back there. It would stay for ever locked into her memory. A perfect place to bring up a child. The long garden that sloped to the top of the cliff. The wooden gate and the steps cut into the rock. The huge Pohutakawas that hung out over the sea. The deep pool in the bend of the creek that flowed below the cliff into the sea. And the branch that hung out over it, the thick rope from which Mary and her friends would swing, backwards and forwards, then let go and drop like stones into the water. She had stood on the far bank, watched them and wanted to stop her daughter. Couldn’t quite believe that the small girl with the skinny arms and legs could survive the swing and the drop, that seconds later her head would push up from the frothy water and she would wave her arms and shout, ‘Mum! Did you see me, Mum? Did you see me do it?’

  All those tiny triumphs. All those accomplishments. All those achievements. Photographs of school sports days, reports decorated with As and Bs, splodgy paintings and lumpy pieces of pottery, lovingly kept. So much love, so much attention lavished. For what? she thought, as she eased herself off the rock to go home. For a cruel death and a lifetime of longing. A cloud crossed the sun and it was suddenly dark. She shivered, and moved towards the steps up to the concrete walkway. And saw a familiar figure hurrying towards her.

  ‘Margaret! Margaret, I’ve been looking for you.’ Sally’s face was white.

  ‘What’s wrong? What is it?’

  ‘It’s Vanessa. She didn’t come home last night. It’s not like her. And she always phones me. Here,’ Sally held out her mobile, ‘I’ve been ringing her and ringing her but her phone’s switched off. Listen.’

  ‘I’m sure she’s all right.’ Margaret put her arm around Sally’s shoulders. She took a deep breath. ‘Don’t worry, you know what kids are like at her age.’

  ‘But it’s her birthday tomorrow. We always spend the day before planning it. Always.’

  ‘It’s her eighteenth, Sally.’ Margaret’s tone was calm. ‘It’s a big one. She probably wants to spend it with her friends. Don’t worry. Look, it’s early yet, it’s only just after three. She’ll be home by dinnertime I’m sure.’ And felt the chill creep through her body.

  ‘No, it’s more than that – I don’t know what to do.’ Sally’s voice was breaking.

  Margaret tried to calm herself. ‘We’ll go home. We’ll have a glass of wine. We’ll sit in the garden. And if she hasn’t come back in two hours we’ll make a decision. Together.’

  ‘To do what? What will we decide?’ Sally’s voice was trembling.

  ‘We’ll call the police. We’ll report Vanessa missing. They’ll know what to do.’ And Margaret was back, that hot summer evening nearly ten years ago. Standing in the hall in the house in Brighton Vale. Trying to be polite. Listen to me, listen to me. My daughter’s been gone for more than twenty-four hours. I wouldn’t be on the phone to you if I didn’t have a reason. There’s something wrong, I know there is. And the sound of bored resignation in the policeman’s tone. How old did you say she was? And now she shouts, all politeness, all restraint gone, For the third time, she’s twenty. And he sighs and says, At her age she can, if she wants, leave home. She isn’t a minor. I’m sorry but people disappear all the time. And she wants to grab him and shake him. Listen to me, listen to me, take her description. Do something. Find her.

  ‘Don’t worry, Sally.’ She spoke slowly, carefully. ‘We’ll phone Michael McLoughlin.’

  ‘Will you speak to him? Will you explain? I can’t think straight. I don’t know.’ Tears spilled from her eyes. Margaret pulled her head down on to her shoulder. She guided her through the crowd. It will be all right, Margaret said to herself. It will be all right. But she put her hand into her bag and her fingers felt the cover of the book. She stroked it. And it was as if the years had dropped away. Dropped away and left a dark pit in front of her eyes.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Mail2Web.com. McLoughlin tapped the domain name into the Google subject line. He pressed return. He waited. The dialogue box asked him for his username and password. The username was easy. He wasn’t so sure about the password. He had so many, these days, and he could never remember which one belonged to which bank account, website, whatever. He typed in the letters MPJM, his initials, Michael Patrick John McLoughlin, and pressed return. The screen filled with his emails. A relief. It was bad enough that his own computer was banjaxed. Bad enough that he had nagged Johnny Harris to let him use his home PC. But if he’d had to fiddle around with passwords, well, that would have been the last straw.

  He began to scroll though his messages. They were all here, the emails Tony Heffernan had sent him when he had first asked him to look into Marina’s death. He had emailed him the statements that Dominic de Paor, Mark Porter, Gilly, Sophie and the others at the party had given. Helena’s was also there, with the forensics reports, Johnny Harris’s post-mortem report. And the photographs taken of the scene. He clicked on them to open them, drinking his coffee as they unfolded down the screen. He still wasn’t convinced that there was much mystery about how Marina died. So she had contributed somehow or other to the death of her stepfather. So someone was threatening her. So she had been humiliated at the party, drunk far too much, snorted too many lines of coke and drowned. It still looked like suicide or an accident. Not much more than that.

  One thing surprised him, though. The boat was riding low in the lake. It was barely floating. It was more than half full of water – it reached almost to the middle seat. He hadn’t thought m
uch of it before. He printed the picture and put it on the desk. Then he hunted through the other emails for a description of the boat’s condition. The forensics people had taken it out of the water for a detailed examination.

  The boat is an Enterprise sailing dinghy, probably twenty-five years old. It is constructed of marine ply, with a trim of varnished teak. Although it is old it has been well maintained and is seaworthy. Rubber bungs are fitted securely in the stern. Its rigging has been removed and it appears to have been used as a rowing-boat. The oars were still in the rowlocks, but they had been shipped. The name Bluebird is still visible, although considerably faded, on its stern.

  Bluebird, the dinghy James de Paor had given Marina that summer. She had sailed it. She and James had gone out in it to challenge the boys in the motorboat. She had left it at the Lake House after James’s death. But someone had taken care of it. Someone had painted it, varnished it, made sure that the wood did not rot, that it did not develop any leaks. So if it was, he checked the statement, ‘well maintained and seaworthy’, why had it taken so much water on board? How had the water got there? He ticked off the possible reasons. Number one; rain? He’d have to check the weather reports but he was certain there had been no rain for the couple of weeks before midsummer. Choppy water, wind? Again, as far as he could remember, high pressure had dominated. Virtually no wind, and the lake as smooth as glass. He tried to imagine it. Marina, drunk, stoned, sitting in the boat, rowing herself out into the middle of the lake. Shipping the oars in the way she had been taught, the kind of thing that would have been automatic to her. Sliding her legs over the gunwales, then slipping or falling into the water. The boat would have lurched as her weight shifted. But he didn’t think it would have dipped below the surface. There might have been splashes, maybe. But not much. What if she’d changed her mind? Turned back, grabbed the sides, tried to haul herself into the boat. It would have been hard. He tried to visualize it. But he still couldn’t see, even if she had succeeded in getting back into the boat, how so much water would have poured into it.