Mr. Flood's Last Resort

by Jess Kidd

  I leave out the part about the spiritualist church, the dead hand of Mary Flood, and sleeping with the enemy. I would leave out the theft of Gabriel Flood’s car, but what’s in the trunk is far too compelling.

  Frank gets to his feet and picks up our empty mugs. “Another drink?”

  I watch in silence as he fills the kettle, spoons out the instant, and finds the milk. I know better than to interrupt him; the man is obviously thinking. In the corner a puppy wriggles in its sleep; in the room next door Mrs. Gaunt has put the television on.

  He hands me my coffee and sits down. “I don’t know how to help you with this, Maud.”

  His hands are tied. He’s retired; he mows the lawn and breeds dogs. Gone are the days when he dealt with the criminal underbelly of Dorset.

  “I thought you might be able to shed light on Maggie’s disappearance, maybe something that was unreported in the media?”

  “There’s nothing I can add. We had very few leads at the time.” Frank scratches his beard. “And Maggie was a seasoned runaway.”

  “From the home?”

  Frank nods. “Sometimes she went back; sometimes we found her. We figured that this time she didn’t want to be found.”

  St. Dymphna throws me a knowing little half smile.

  I look out into the garden and watch Frank’s underpants and his wife’s slips dance on the rotary airer.

  “What about the Floods? Did you interview them at the time?”

  I take two photographs from my bag: Mary in her floral shirtdress and Gabriel and Stephen at the summer party. I put them on the table.

  Frank picks them up. He taps the photograph of Mary. “I remember her well.” He taps the other photograph. “And this guy.”

  “Gabriel.”

  “And him.” He points to Stephen’s fat head. “We traveled up to London, spoke to them at the house.”

  Frank’s voice is changing, growing gruffer. He is forgetting the dogs and the lawn and remembering his old life.

  The brindle bitch snores in her sleep, a wheezy high note.

  “How did you find them?”

  Frank thinks. “The mother was charming actually; the two boys were a little subdued.”

  “And Cathal Flood, the father, did you speak to him?”

  Frank shakes his head. “He was away.”

  I proceed slowly, trying to keep my voice in check. “Gabriel is a liar. He had me believe he was someone else entirely. What if he’s responsible for Maggie’s disappearance, him and his cousin here who’s still in league with him?”

  “Lying is one thing, Maud—”

  “It’s not like Gabriel didn’t have a motive; his sister had tried to drown him. Maybe he finally got his own back.”

  Frank frowns. “Even so.”

  “Can’t you reopen the case, bring them both in for questioning?”

  Frank speaks kindly, choosing his words carefully. “I would agree that this family appears to be a little complicated, but without good grounds, we can’t take this any further.”

  “What about the murder kit in the trunk?”

  Frank shakes his head. “The police can’t bring someone in for owning a few tools and a length of plastic sheeting.” He looks at me. “But if you feel threatened, call them, straight away.”

  One of the puppies, a pale fawn with one white foot, wakes and yawns. It rolls over and looks at me through the bars of its playpen.

  “They’re lovely.”

  “They’re our last litter; it doesn’t seem right to keep on when there’s so many dogs in the world needing homes.”

  I nod.

  “And my wife wants to go abroad, a cruise maybe. You can’t do that with the dogs.”

  “That would be nice.”

  The puppy gets up and has a stretch for itself.

  I put my coffee down and go over; it mouths my hands, licks it. “With a dog like this you’d need to spend a bit of time outside?”

  “At least twice a day.”

  “A dog is great for getting people out and about?”

  He laughs. “I can’t think of anything better. That one’s a little girl.”

  The puppy licks my hand again, wagging her tail hard enough to fall over.

  I straighten up. “Thanks for your time.”

  He smiles. “No problem, Maud. I’m just sorry that you’re leaving here empty-handed.”

  * * *

  SHE’S IN a crate next to me, strapped in the front seat of Gabriel’s stolen car. I push my finger through the wire and she licks it.

  “The best time to acquire a puppy,” I say to her, “is when you’re in the middle of a missing-persons investigation and the man you’ve been sleeping with is planning to dispatch you with a crowbar and wrap you in plastic sheeting.”

  St. Dymphna, relegated to the back seat, rolls her eyes.

  The puppy gives my finger an encouraging nip.

  CHAPTER 42

  The dog, still unnamed, has chewed up Renata’s feathered mules and had three accidents in the hallway. But Renata loves her already. I can see that from the way she lets the puppy lick the makeup off her face and hang by her tiny fangs from the hem of her kimono.

  And now the puppy is asleep, nestled in Renata’s lap. Renata looks like a new parent: exhausted and happy, shell-shocked and full of marvelous intentions.

  “So what now?” she whispers.

  “I don’t know.” I glance out of the front window at Gabriel’s car. “I’ll have to get rid of that, I suppose.”

  “Drive it somewhere and dump it. But for God’s sake be careful, Maud.”

  The phone rings. The puppy wakes and bites Renata lightly on the chin; she tucks her under her arm as if she’s been toting canines forever.

  Renata comes back into the room. “It was one of the girls from the agency. She thought you should know that Cathal is in hospital. It’s serious.”

  I PARK Gabriel’s car outside the hospital and go inside, past the chain-smoking patients strapped to drips and the bickering taxi drivers.

  I made Renata promise to check that all the doors and windows were locked and to call the police at the first sign of Gabriel or Stephen. I’ve left St. Dymphna with her, scowling at the puppy, although what can a saint do for someone who can’t see them? But as I walk through the corridors I feel an overwhelming sense of unpreparedness, like I’ve forgotten something important, like I’ve made a dreadful mistake.

  At the nurses’ station I say that I’m his daughter and ask if he’s had any other visitors.

  No, not yet.

  “How is he?”

  A doctor guides me to the relatives’ room.

  “Your father suffered a major stroke event brought on by an accident.”

  “An accident?”

  “We believe he fell down the stairs at his home. The carer found him.”

  For a moment I can’t speak. Then: “Is he in pain?”

  She shakes her head. “We’ve made him comfortable. He hasn’t woken today.”

  I look at her face, young, tired, at the end of a three-day shift, and I thank her.

  “How long?” I ask.

  “That’s up to him, really.”

  * * *

  HE’S IN a room of his own. The window is open and a breeze blows the vertical blinds.

  There he is on the bed.

  My heart falls apart.

  I’VE NEVER seen him without his teeth. He’s always insisted on cleaning them in private. But here he is with his cheeks sunken, his mouth a slack pocket. Suddenly a thousand years older. Then there’s his color, the waxy look of him. I’ve seen this before, this withdrawing, this escape. I move to his side, avoiding tubes, to stroke his hair and hold his hand. His big curved nails are blue, his fingertips cold to the touch.

  He’s sunk into a grave kind of anonymity. But for his still-dark eyebrows, lifted a little, perhaps in astonishment, I would not know him.

  Cathal Flood has moved beyond himself; he’s roaming in another dimension. Where
facts and histories, likes and dislikes, the stories we tell and are told mean nothing. Where he doesn’t need to hold a brush or a pencil or remember his own name.

  A nurse comes in towing a monitor behind her. She speaks loudly to me, to him. He didn’t touch his food and why ever not? Wasn’t he hungry?

  I look at the jelly on the tray and the beaker of orange juice.

  I wonder if I should tell her to feck off on his behalf.

  “Look at him,” I say. “The man is unconscious. How do you expect him to feed himself?”

  She eyes me with hostility while she takes his pulse.

  I’m sure his mouth twitches, a ghost of a smile.

  “You’re his daughter?” she asks.

  “And I’m a care worker. You need to bring me some mouth sponges.”

  She writes in his chart, then clatters out of the room, pulling her trolley behind her. I throw her a look and walk back to the bed, slip my hand into his big paw again, and kiss him on his forehead.

  “Come on, you old bastard,” I whisper. “Throw a shape on yourself.”

  The breeze blows the vertical blinds.

  * * *

  I MUST have fallen asleep, still holding his hand with my head on his arm. The room is darker. Someone switches a light on. There’s a voice next to me. A different nurse; she’s telling me he’s gone.

  I almost laugh. Where has he gone? He’s there in the bed.

  I don’t understand.

  Then I look up at him. His face is on one side. He must have turned towards me as I slept, maybe to say something. His eyes are open just a fraction, the still-dark eyebrows frowning just a little.

  The nurse from before comes in with a tray of mouth sponges and puts them on the table.

  And then I’m crying, swearing, shouting. Over the mouth sponges being too late and the jelly uneaten, over the draft from the window and the surly nurse. Over unfounded accusations and the breaking of an old man’s heart.

  * * *

  THERE IS some form filling that needs to be done. The doctor says she’s very sorry; I’m not sure whether for the forms or for the death.

  My brother will be along, I say. If you’ve notified him, Gabriel will be on his way.

  Would I like to take my father’s personal effects?

  I would.

  I wait in the relatives’ room, and a nurse returns with a white plastic bag marked “Patient’s Property.”

  I’m to sign a sheet, which lists:

  Shirts x 3

  Jumpers x 2

  Vest x 4

  Trousers x 2

  Woolen scarf x 3

  Socks x 3

  Tobacco

  Cigarette papers

  Engraved lighter

  Set of keys

  Hairpins x 2

  Half a packet of cough sweets

  Notebook.

  * * *

  I OPEN the notebook. It is filled with quick line drawings of the cats, or of Larkin, or of me. In one I’m bent over the hob with my hair falling over my face. In another I am holding a bowl up high and laughing while the felines prowl around my legs. The top of one of the pages is carefully folded down. I open the notebook at the page.

  It is a drawing of a girl sitting in a window seat; behind her, a tall arched window. I stare at it. Bridlemere has four stories and at the top there is a belvedere glazed with tall arched windows, from where, if I ever got there, I could see for miles.

  Maggie looks out from the page, a half smile playing on her lips.

  CHAPTER 43

  Four things were different on the day Deirdre disappeared: it was hot, Old Noel’s kiosk was closed, there were no birds in the sky, and Jimmy O’Donnell lost the plot.

  The same man only different.

  I knew Jimmy O’Donnell had lost the plot by the look in his eyes. Like Boland’s bastard collie looking at a bacon rind: an unblinking, unfaltering, locked-on stare.

  “Did you tell, Maud?”

  It was a simple enough question but my mouth was having difficulty forming words, so I shook my head. I didn’t even think of looking away.

  “Don’t lie to me, now; no one else knew.”

  Jimmy took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket without taking his eyes from me. He found his lighter without taking his eyes from me. He lit the cigarette without taking his eyes from me.

  “Now, why would you do something like that?”

  I put my book under my arm and stood up. To my right: sinking sand; to my left: horseflies; behind me: the sea; before me: Jimmy O’Donnell.

  Jimmy stared at me with his collie-dog gaze. I was a stray lamb about to make a bolt for it on wobbly legs. One false move and he would bring me to the ground and have my throat out.

  “Do you even know the trouble you’ve caused, Maud?”

  I stood very still.

  “I’ve lost my job.”

  I stood very still.

  “Your mammy called the guards on me.”

  I stood very still.

  “Everyone thinks I’m some kind of fucking monster.” He spoke through gritted teeth.

  Jimmy O’Donnell took a step forwards, and my body turned to stone and my mind spun like a top inside it.

  If I found the right word he would let me go. The right word would bring the real Jimmy O’Donnell back. His fists would unclench. His face would relax. There would be piggybacks and laughing and sweet money.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  And then I saw in his eyes that there was no Jimmy O’Donnell left at all.

  * * *

  DEIRDRE’S DIARY was purple with a little pretend lock. She kept it in her vanity case on top of the wardrobe in the bedroom we shared at Granny’s. Deirdre filled the diary daily, nightly, weekly, or never, with her big loopy writing. She liked pale-blue ink and dotted her i’s with love hearts. Sometimes she would fold things into the diary, like bubble gum wrappers and bus tickets.

  Mammy read the whole story there when I put the diary into her hands.

  Afterwards Mammy sat smoking cigarettes, looking out for Deirdre and Granny on the road that led to the bungalow. Then Granny washed lettuce for the dinner, I did some coloring, and Mammy knocked Deirdre into next week.

  * * *

  DEIRDRE APPEARED from nowhere. All of a sudden she was beside me.

  Deirdre in her halter-neck dress, with her angel’s wing-bud shoulder blades, bubble gum doing a slow revolve in her mouth.

  Deirdre. Her brown hair plaited to the side with wisps at the temples and her lip still swollen where Mammy’s ring had caught.

  She didn’t look at me.

  “Leave Maud out of this,” she said. “She didn’t say a word. I told Mammy.”

  Jimmy stared at her. “You silly little fucking bitch. I said I’d get you the money, didn’t I? You’ve ruined me.”

  “Wait in the dunes,” she said to me, without taking her eyes off Jimmy.

  * * *

  I WAITED in the dunes.

  She would be back. She knew the tides and could predict the weather. She knew where to tread and where not to.

  She would be back. Clothed in sand, crowned with shells, the scowling angel of Pearl Strand.

  She would be back and I would promise never to tell on her again.

  I waited in the dunes as the day lost its heat and the sky lost its light and the sea turned on its heel and went off to America.

  CHAPTER 44

  It is late by the time I get to Bridlemere. I park Gabriel’s car a few roads away, walk back to the house, and let myself in the kitchen door. I lock it behind me and pull the chain across. I grope for a torch under the sink and switch it on. It reflects eyeshine from the few cats loitering in the kitchen. They follow me hopefully as I move down the hall. Passing the door to Cathal’s workshop, I hear a thud. My heart stands still in my chest.

  I listen again.

  Nothing: just the pattering of cats up and down corridors and some far-off creak.

  The door to Cathal’s workroom is
open. I step into a strong smell of wood shavings and varnish. I flash the torch around the room. The curtains are drawn in Madame Sabine’s booth. The tools and the cogs have been tidied away and the workbench is clear now.

  Apart from the head of a singularly ugly creature mounted on a plaque.

  I hold the torch beam steady.

  “Cathal, you old bastard,” I whisper. “You didn’t bury the thing at all.”

  Manolete stares back at me with glassy marble eyes that were never his own, his mouth set in an eternal grimace.

  Before I turn to go I take a small sharp chisel with a sturdy handle from the rack above the workbench and slip it into my bag.

  * * *

  I CLOSE the workshop door behind me and pass through the gap in the Great Wall of National Geographics into the hallway beyond. It’s wider than it has ever been. I’m surprised that Bridlemere has not pulled up the drawbridge and lowered the portcullis in Cathal’s absence.

  But then the house knows me now.

  The curiosities have an off-duty, at-ease feel to them tonight. They make sudden cameos in my moving torchlight. The glass eyes are unfocused, peering off in random directions; the raven sleeps with its beak folded into its feathers. The stoats slump over their cards and the shrunken head dozes. Even the four-faced angel seems to be dreaming in the darkness, her wings limp and her muzzles drooping.

  I climb the stairs.

  Mary Flood, pale footed, icy fingered, hare-eyed stare, still scatters rose petals on the first-floor landing. I pass her and keep going.

  As I reach the top of the stairs I see the open door with a light on inside.

  * * *

  I CAN feel it. The room is filled with a breath-held waiting, as if it is crammed with surprise guests ready to jump out at me. I put my hand in my bag and with my fingers closed around the handle of the chisel I move forwards.

  * * *

  IN THE light thrown down by a row of chandeliers I see her.

  Life-sized and beautiful, Maggie Dunne, Marguerite Flood.

  Set on an easel in front of the window is the portrait Cathal sketched in his notebook, down to the half smile. But here also is the fiery richness of her hair as it once was. Just like the sun setting on autumn, just like her mother’s. I see for the first time that she has Cathal’s eyes.