In These Dark Places

by Stephen Duffy

  ‘How do you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, it’ll be either be fresh or salt water in her lungs. Sorry, I didn’t mean to be so blunt.’

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  ‘Go on, get out of here.’

  ‘Right, okay,’ I said as I took my jacket from the back of my chair.

  ‘And listen,’ Curran said as I stepped past him out into the hallway, ‘I’m sorry for your loss, I really am. Don’t take any of this to heart, don’t take it personally like. We have to check these things, we have to be sure.’

  ‘Yeah, whatever.’ I brushed by him and walked the narrow hallway towards the exit door.

  ‘And, Gabriel?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’d do well to give the Brandon’s a wide berth. We’ve been onto them already, told them that you had nothing to do with this. But, well, you know, they’re hurting. They won’t take kindly to the sight of you, especially young Joe. Best to stay out of his way for some time to come…’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘Don’t want another rock to the back of the head now, do I?’

  ‘No, I suppose you don’t. Do you, you know, want to press charges for that?’

  ‘No, leave it. Like you said, they’re hurting and I’m the obvious target for the focus of their anger.’

  ‘Go on, get out of here. There’s a car outside to take you home.’

  ‘Can he take me to Coyne’s? The bed and breakfast out by the lighthouse. I’m sure I’m going to be persona non gratia at home for some time to come. You saw what my grandfather did…’

  ‘Oh yeah, right. Sure, just tell the driver I said it was okay. And Gabriel, steer clear of the Brandon’s, alright? I don’t want to be pulling you dead from a ditch come a day or two.’

  ‘I will, thank you, Tom.’

  23

  ‘Jesus, Gabriel, are you serious? You can’t go. You’d be mad to go!’

  Saoirse was sitting on the end of my bed in my room out in Coyne’s. It was the Tuesday morning after they had found Ellie.

  ‘Why can’t I go? I should be there! She was my girlfriend! I loved her too, not just them. In fact, I probably loved her more than they did for Christ’s sake!’

  ‘I know that, Gabriel, we all do. But, no matter how the cops think it happened, accident, whatever, the Brandon’s blame you! They’re always going to blame you! And even if they didn’t, how do you think Chrissy Brandon took the news that you were sleeping with her daughter and that you were trying to get her to go away for a dirty weekend with you?’

  ‘Don’t say it like that! It wasn’t like that, not at all.’

  ‘I know, I’m sorry. But that’s how they’ll see it, Gabriel. Don’t you get it? You could have been the model boyfriend, a saint even. In fact, in Chrissy’s eyes I think that’s what you were. But they’re burying their daughter this morning and..’

  ‘And what?’

  ‘And the last thing they’d want is to see you there.’

  ‘But I have to be there, I need to be there! I can’t stay here while… I have to say goodbye. We, we… we were fighting the last time I saw her, just like that she’s gone and what? I have to be alright with the fact that I’m never going to get to say my goodbyes? I can’t do it, Saoirse. I can’t! I have to be there. If that means upsetting the Brandon’s, then so be it. Nothing is going to keep me away from that church this morning!’

  ‘Not even Jessop?’

  ‘What? What does that mean?’

  ‘Gabriel, he’s been on his high horse since this all blew up. He’s going around town bad-mouthing you. He’s saying the cops have it all wrong and that you had a hand in Ellie’s death. You show up there this morning and he’ll call you out. Right in front of the whole town he’ll do it and he’ll take pleasure in doing it. You know what he’s like. He’s had it in for you ever since Peter’s funeral. Remember that? When you said Peter did what he did because Jessop scolded him? He’s held that against you forever. You know it, I know it. He’d think all of his Christmases had come at once if you rock up to that church this morning. He’d incite a riot and you know well how persuasive he can be when he gets to preaching. You’d be lynched. It’s better that you stay here. I’ll stay with you…’

  There was no point in fighting her. Saoirse could always make me see reason even when I didn’t want to see it. And I knew that morning she was right. I couldn’t be there. It would play right into Jessop’s hands. Hadn’t he been the first down to the police station to stick his spoon in the pot and stir it. If the law couldn’t have me, the mob would. No, Saoirse was right, I had to sit tight and deal with it.

  ‘What’s the story at home? Does Granddad still…’

  ‘Yeah he does. Sorry, Gabriel. Jessop has him wound tighter than baling chord around his finger. You know what that pair are like. You can’t stay here forever, though. You’ll need to find somewhere else to stay. There’s no way Granddad’s ever going to have you back under his roof.’

  ‘Stay where? And pay for it with what? I’m out of a job now too. Tadgh Brandon’s never going to have me back in his bar again. Jesus, what a fucking mess!’

  ‘Calm down, alright. It’ll be okay. This will all blow over in time. Maybe you should leave town, you know, for a couple of months. Let everything calm down.’

  ‘Where would I go?’

  ‘I don’t know, we’ll figure something out, I promise.’

  Saoirse stayed with me all that morning. When I heard the church bells ring out the death knell, my heart broke. They were taking her from the church. Cold, cold and dead in a box. Gone forever. Had Saoirse not been with me I believe I would have strung myself up. Just like Peter did, right out there in The Dell I’d have done it. I swear that to you. Some days I wish I had done. It would have been far quicker and less painful than this scourge that’s riddling me now.

  An hour after we heard the church bells ring there was a knock on my door. Mother Coyne was stood in the hallway and try as she may she couldn’t hide the scorn she felt for me.

  ‘There’s a phone call downstairs, not for you. For her,’ she said as she nodded at Saoirse.

  ‘Stay here,’ Saoirse said as she followed Mother Coyne down the landing. ‘I’ll be right back.’

  Standing by the window, a cigarette in my hand, I stared out over the hills back towards town, to where Belford Grange Cemetery stood. She was there now. Under six feet of damp earth, as cold as the water that had taken her. I would have happily joined her. The thoughts of a life lived without her were too much to bear. A part of me wanted it all to end. End that very day. I could just walk into town and right up to the Brandon’s Home. The rest would just be a matter of gritted teeth and patience. It wouldn’t have taken long. Joe Brandon was a much larger man than I. He could have done the job in just a couple of minutes. And I was sure that he would do it if I were to present myself before him. Like I told you already, he’d never liked me. Even before mine and Ellie’s paths had crossed he’d never liked me. It would be over in no time, and maybe, if the priests were to be believed, I’d be with Ellie again before the day was out.

  ‘Gabriel.’

  Saoirse was standing by the open door. Her face was pale, her eyes red.

  ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Dad’s on his way. ‘

  ‘For what? Why?’

  ‘He says you have to go… The house…’

  ‘What? Tell me for God’s sake will you?’

  ‘When they got back from the church, after the funeral…’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘All of the windows were smashed. The ones in the sheds too, and…’

  ‘And what?’

  ‘They’d spray painted something on the front of the house.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Murderer.’

  ‘Jesus Christ. Brandon.’

  ‘It wasn’t him, Gabriel. He was in the church, he…’

  ‘Well then he had someone else do it for him…’

  ‘It doesn’t
matter who did it, Gabriel. That it was done at all is the thing. Dad said Granddad’s going spare, screaming for your head. Him and Dad have had a huge barney over it. Dad’s not angry with you, you understand that, right?’

  ‘He’s angry enough to want me gone isn’t he?’

  ‘It’s not like that at all and you know it. He’s worried what they’ll do to you if they get their hands on you. And they will, you know that. This very minute, Jessop is rounding them up, he has them baying for your blood. They’re going out in pairs searching for you. It’s only a matter of time before her downstairs rats you out, and what then? This is never going to go away, Gabriel. Dad doesn’t want you to go anywhere, but he has sense enough to know that you can’t stay here. He’s on his way, he’ll be here soon. Get your things together.’

  ‘Where am I going?’

  ‘I don’t know, he didn’t say. I’m sure he’ll tell you when he gets here. Now hurry, your things.’

  A short while afterwards the crunch of gravel out on the driveway announced my father’s arrival.

  ‘I’m sorry, Dad. For everything.’

  ‘You’ve nothing to be sorry for, Son. I know it, and there’s a good many people in town that know it too. But Jessops’ got the Brandon’s and a good few others riled up good and proper and they want your head on a platter. It’s best that you’re not around for a while.’

  ‘Where will I go?’

  ‘I’ll tell you on the way. Now hurry, get in.’

  ‘Da?’

  ‘What, son?’

  ‘Take me to her, will you? Just for a few minutes. I need to say goodbye.’

  ‘We’ll see. Now, get in will you?’

  Only the call of unseen crows accompanied us as we walked through the gates of Belford Grange. My father stayed by the car, the engine still running. I thought he was being overly dramatic, far too cautious than the situation warranted but I kept those thoughts to myself. I was certain that all of this was nothing more than an overreaction to a daub of paint and a broken window or two. It might not even have had anything to do with Joe Brandon or his ilk, it could just have been neighbourhood kids with nothing better to do than to stir up trouble for the man they’d heard bad things about through half whispered gossip.

  Saoirse was by my side, her head going from left to right as we walked as though she expected trouble at any second and wanted to keep a keen eye for it.

  ‘Where did he say it was?’ I asked her.

  ‘There, over by the walnut tree,’ she said as she pointed to a gnarled old tree by the cemetery’s crumbling granite wall.

  As we drew nearer, the fresh heaped earth left no doubt as to the exact spot where my sweetheart now lay. Festooned with flowers and gaudy garlands, a wooden cross with a shiny new brass plate crowned her grave.

  ‘Stay here, would you? I’ll only be a minute.’

  ‘But what if…’

  ‘Saoirse, it’ll be fine. Look around you, we’re the only ones here. I just want to say goodbye to her, alone. I won’t be long. Then we can get going, okay? Now wait here, I’ll be right back.’

  There was so much I wanted to say to Ellie. As I drew nearer to the mound of earth I knew that she would never hear those words. She was nothing now but an inanimate hulk of bone and muscle destined to dissolve into nothingness as time slid along its immutable track. Still, they were words which hung heavy on my heart. Words which had to be spoken, they had to be freed from the tormented cage of my mind and sent out into the universe, for my own sanity if for nothing else.

  ‘I’m sorry for all of this, Ellie. You could never know just how much.’ I was standing by the foot of her grave. Some of the earth rolled off of it in big chunks landing by my feet and breaking apart. Cold, wet earth. I could see the spade marks of the gravediggers on some of the pieces, the mineral smell of earth and rock filled my senses. I couldn’t smell the flowers despite the entire grave being covered with them. Just the smell of the earth came to me, the smell of the cold earth in which my darling would now lie for eternity. My heart was breaking. None of this should have happened. Stupid things, petty arguments.

  ‘Ellie, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I never meant for…’

  The silence was shattered by my father honking on the horn, frantic. I turned to see Saoirse rushing toward me. My father was shouting now.

  ‘Gabriel, come on, let’s go! Don’t you go near him, you hear me? Don’t you lay a finger on him!’

  ‘It’s Joe Brandon,’ Saoirse said as she reached me. ‘And Jessop too!’

  The two men were walking the path from the gate towards where we now stood. Brandon never took his eyes off of me as they approached. Jessop followed a few paces behind, his face contorted by a grin. Brandon quickened his pace, pushing his sleeves up to his elbows as he broke into a run.

  ‘Joseph!’ Jessop roared. Like a dog falling to heel by his master’s side, Brandon submitted to Jessop’s command. They couldn’t do anything to me, not with Saoirse and my father present.

  ‘Come on,’ I said to Saoirse. ‘I’m meeting this head on and getting it all out in the open! To hell with anyone’s feelings on the matter, they can deal with the truth themselves if that’s what they want to do!’

  ‘What? What’s the truth of it, Gabriel?’

  I was already walking towards them, intent on going down to the ground with Brandon if he wasn’t prepared to hear me out. My head up and my shoulders back I strode purposefully down the path. Brandon once more outpaced the priest and rushed toward me. Not even Jessop could control him now. He was in a fit of rage, his hatred for me glowing white in his eyes, even his own parents couldn’t have reigned him in that day. Joe Brandon was a bigger man than I, much bigger. I knew I had to land the first blow, I knew I couldn’t fight fair. As he bore down on me I switched back and forth, a punch to his throat or a kick to the groin? Either one would be enough to drop him to the ground long enough for me to say my piece and get on my way. I did neither.

  The sharp report of gunfire shattered the still morning air sending all of those unseen crows up into the bright blue of the sky. Brandon skidded to a halt. Jessop cowered in behind him. My father walked up the path from the gate, the barrel of his shotgun resting square on his shoulder.

  ‘I don’t know what you two are planning on doing,’ he said as he reached us. ‘But I’m here to tell you, whatever it is, it’s not happening today. You’re not going to lay a finger on my boy! Either of you. Not you Joe, nor you Jessop! Now, I know you’re hurting, Joe, and I know your parents are as well. I would be too if we were to switch places. Whatever you think happened last week, I’m here to tell you that he had no hand in it. I know my son. He’s no murderer. He loved that girl more than life itself, he was stupid in love and he’d no more have a raised a hand to her than he would his own sister.’

  ‘They say the culprit always returns to the scene of the crime,’ Jessop smirked. ‘And look here, there he is.’

  ‘He came to say goodbye, Father. There’s nothing wrong with that now, is there? He loved her. He couldn’t come to the funeral, he had enough sense to realise that and let the family grieve in peace. As to the scene of the crime, Ellie didn’t die here and well you know it. So, enough of your nonsense, Priest!’

  ‘Don’t you dare speak to me like that! You can’t talk to a member of the clergy like that…’

  ‘Oh, I believe I can, and this gives me every right to do it.’ My father rattled his gun in the air and Jessop shrunk further. ‘Now, you’ve been going around town calling my son out on all sorts of things that simply aren’t true and you’ve been filling this boy’s head with bile and I’m telling you now, it stops now, right here, right now!’

  ‘They were seen arguing,’ Jessop said. ‘And I had been counselling that beautiful young woman through a crisis of conscience, she was wracked with guilt and struggling with her faith and according to her, it was all down to him! He was a part of it and I’d swear on the altar of the Almighty that he murdered her to shut her up.
She had something important to tell me and he saw to it that she never would! He’s a murderer!’

  ‘That’s enough out of you!’ my father yelled as he pushed Jessop away from me with the barrel of the gun. ‘You know as well as I do that they were seen by different people at the same time and miles away from each other. My son no more murdered that girl than you did!’

  ‘The blindness of a father, too proud to see that his own spawn could be capable of something so terrible.’

  My father cocked his gun with a furious snap and aimed it square at Jessop’s face.

  ‘Priest or no, witness or not, you call my boy, ‘spawn’ once more and by God, Priest, I’ll kill you where you stand!’

  Keeping Jessop and Brandon under the gun he stepped backwards.

  ‘Gabriel, Saoirse, come on! We’re leaving. Now, as for you two, Gabriel is leaving town, right this minute and he’s not coming back. He’s not running, nor is he hiding. He is an innocent man who is going to do the Brandon family the courtesy of leaving so that they can grieve and move on without having to see the face of the man they wrongly believe to have killed Ellie about town. When he’s gone, this is over! There’ll be no more attacks on my home, no more…’

  ‘Attacks?’ said Jessop as a smile cracked his lips. ‘I’d hardly say a few broken windows and spray paint constitute an attack. There are far worse things can be done to a man and his family…’

  My father pressed the muzzle of the gun into Jessop’s chest.

  ‘And how would you know that, Priest? Well? I haven’t yet reported it to the police! How do you know what happened at my house?’

  Jessop’s face grew stone pale, his mouth narrowed to no more than a hairline crack in his mottled grey skin. His eyes glowered with anger. I could see his jaw ripple and pulse as he ground his teeth. He’d let slip his mask once more, just like he did so many years ago that day in the cinema. He’d spoken without thinking.

  ‘Gabriel. Saoirse, go on out to the car now. I’ll be along shortly.’

  ‘But, Dad…’

  ‘That’s enough, Saoirse. Go on now.’